Remembrance Day

by Leah Fleming

  There were a sharp crack of a volley and it were all over with. Some of the firing squad threw up in disgust. He was carted off to be buried. We took some flowers to his grave later—piled high they were.

  That RSM came past and kicked them over with contempt. ‘That sort are best forgotten,’ he said.

  Don’t worry, his card’s marked, I promise you. We’ll get our revenge. That’s all I’m saying.

  Your son, my pal, was no coward, and as long as I’ve got breath in my body he will be remembered. He were a brave lad and a credit to you all.

  Yours sincerely,

  Private Herbert Shackleton

  PS. This letter has come via a friend. I didn’t want anyone censoring these words. It wasn’t right, what happened. It needs seeing to when this lot is over.

  The skies darken, the wind whips round my wheelchair as I recall each sentence of that letter by heart. My limbs may be weak but the shock of that discovery still feels like a lead weight tied to them.

  My brother was murdered by his own regiment. My brother was executed like a criminal and my parents took this secret to the grave. He waited for Guy to come to his aid and he never did, and I had just spent three weeks under his roof knowing none of this.

  It all made sense now. Why I was exiled to Bradford in such a hurry, why dog shit was smeared onto our donkey white front step each morning. Why the window was broken. Everybody had known except me.

  How do you live with such knowledge? How do you make it right? What was done to my brother and to others like him was barbaric.

  ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’

  No, I cried as the icy splinters froze my heart, it will be mine. It was a good job I thought there were no Cantrell twins left in this world or they would have been first on my murderous list.

  That was when the icicles pierced my heart with hatred, chilling my respect for my village and country. I’d gone home with love and hope and returned broken, bitter and suspicious. I’m not proud of who I became then.

  Buried somewhere in military archives, Frank’s case lay forgotten. How could I forgive or forget what the Army did to him? I never wanted to see the Union Jack again.

  It still pains me to think of that discovery and the moment when I knew the heavy baton of family responsibility had been passed to me. It was a race I didn’t know how to run but knew one day I must finish somehow.

  4

  THE RETURN

  1941…

  Over there, over there,

  Send the word, send the word over there,

  That the Yanks are coming

  The Yanks are coming

  The drum’s rum-tumming evr’ywhere.

  So prepare, say a pray’r

  Send the word, send the word to beware…

  George Cohan, 1917

  22

  December 1941

  Charleson West hung over the wireless, grim-faced, not believing this news bulletin. On Sunday morning Pearl Harbor had been bombed. The Japanese attack had destroyed most of the fleet in the harbour and America was now at war. It happened just before the Christmas vacation and he was due home for the festivities, but his heart was heavy at the implications of this attack.

  The war in Europe had been going on for two years; cities bombed, armies destroyed. A few of his college friends with British families had rushed to join the RAF squadrons; one of them had been killed already in a training accident. But somehow, it was their war, not his, because he belonged to a Church that believed in non-resistance and pacifism. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was the order. But this was different, surely?

  His own countrymen were mown down in their beds without warning, his country could be attacked, and his family harmed. Charlie couldn’t sit by and do nothing and yet he knew it was not their way of doing things. He realised going home was not going to be easy.

  Who was there to see his quandary? Not his mother. She was still following the old order in her prayer cape and black bonnet and strict ways. He wished they’d go with the times like many Mennonites who were more progressive in their dealings with the outside world. Even Pa had the use of a pickup car for essential purposes. Many in the congregation wore ordinary everyday clothes, especially the young ones. His sisters made their own pretty dresses and decorated them. He’d been allowed to go to high school and college. His father wanted him to train as a doctor of medicine, but he knew he wasn’t cut out for all that blood and gore, but now…

  There was always tension in college when it came to compulsory military training. He was excused for being a sincere pacifist and given a choice of extra physical jerks or community work to fill that time, but there was something inside him that was more attracted to the military parades, marching to the band and the discipline. He knew it wasn’t their way and yet…

  Christmas at Springville was always a jolly affair. Lots of singing and fellowships, a Christmas tree with handmade decorations, a feast at the table, a chance to catch up with the congregation. But how could they celebrate when their country was in danger? Charleson wondered if any of the other boys were feeling as he did. But as he was one of only a few allowed to go on to further education outside his own community, he reckoned he might be alone in this anxiety. His education had caused tension in the family, and they would be watching for any slackening of his obedience to their way of life. Sometimes he wished he’d not gone away. What you didn’t know you didn’t miss, but now he had experienced another way of life, some of their oldfashioned ways troubled him.

  Guy heard the news at the store in town. He tried to put it to the back of his mind. It was of no consequence to him now since his fighting days were a distant memory but he recalled the Halifax explosion in 1917, and the devastation. He could smell Pearl Harbor, with its burning oil, charred bodies, smoke, chaos and confusion. That vision of hell on earth all those years ago never went away. Some poor mothers’ sons lay at the bottom of the sea or trapped in the hold. He kept trying to push it to the back of his mind alongside other matters troubling him.

  Rose had never forgiven him for ruling that Charlie would go to college, and the girls too if they wished. He was drawn to the more liberal members of the congregation who were edging closer to the worldly community: sharing with other Churches in community service, in soup kitchens during those terrible years of depression. It made sense to pool resources together.

  Rose kept tightly to the old ways. There was a cooling between them, their lovemaking infrequent and unsatisfactory. It was as if joy had flown out of their marriage, and with it laughter and teasing and companionship. Guy kept himself busy with meetings, committees, keeping their farm buildings in repair. Rose kept to the kitchen with Miriam, her aged mother. Isaak had died five years earlier. It was a house of women these days. Charlie was coming home for Christmas and Guy looked forward to those walks around the field with him, a chance to catch up on all his college life, while they sat on Gus’s bench.

  Gus’s bench was close to the little grave of Charlie’s twin. There were two other little mites buried there, who never reached full term and then no more babies came. Guy would sit and survey their land with pride. He’d taken to farming. With Isaak’s help he’d learned the best way to make the crops yield well, to choose the best cattle and horses, to follow the rhythm of the seasons. Sometimes he felt so blessed to have found refuge in this community and love after so much despair.

  But another war? How could it have happened? Hadn’t he fought the war to end all wars? It was rumoured that Germany had found a way to harness labour in the depression, to build fast roads and armament factories, to train up young people to devotion to their country and now Hitler wanted to take over the world. Lust for power, greed for land, hatred of other people’s religion…It was a sick, sick world and he wanted none of it. How could he turn his back on the sufferings to come?

  When he saw his son striding up the lane his heart leaped with pride. Charlie had grown so tall and long-limbed, his fair hair flopping over his for
ehead as his had done in youth. At least he didn’t have to worry about his son being sent off to war. There were whoops of delight as Kitty, Lorrie and Joan ran out to greet him, and Rose walked with outstretched arms to gather him in. Guy looked down from the hillside and grinned to himself. You’ve got some things right in this life, old man.

  He never thought of his own family without wincing at how distanced he had felt from his own father, who was hardly ever there in his childhood, how fussy his mother had been to compensate for that absence. He recalled sharing everything with Angus, until that terrible afternoon at the Foss. There was a dreamlike vagueness about England and all of his past now. It hardly existed. He didn’t talk about it much. It was a foreign country to his children.

  All that mattered to him now was sitting in the kitchen together now his backside was freezing on the stone bench. There wasn’t a day went by that he didn’t thank the Lord for his mercy in giving him a second chance at life.

  Sharland Barr rushed out of the college campus, shaking from the terrible news that had flashed on the radio. She’d been late waking up that Sunday morning, as her mother was out on a shoot somewhere. They were at war! No false alarms this time, and all those poor boys in the Pacific Islands. She couldn’t believe it. She must do something, sign up as a Red Cross volunteer. How could she sit idly by and do nothing? There had to be a job for her somewhere as a nurse in the army? She’d find something to do. Her college studies could wait. This was too important. But what would Mom say? Difficult to predict since Granny died, she’d not been her cheery self. She came back from England and never mentioned it again. It was like trying to get blood out of a stone. She’d divorced Pa for desertion and concentrated on her own film career.

  For someone who hated England she did some mean roles playing British housemaids, serving wenches and anything that required a British accent. She made a living for them both out of bit parts and she’d taken elocution lessons to improve her own accent so she got to play ladies at balls and minor aristocrats. There was nothing in the way of serious acting, just small character parts in some big blockbuster films. She played a widow in black who looked in horror at Scarlett O’Hara’s famous widow dancing scene in Gone with the Wind and she played a servant in a film about the Brontës. Yet Zelma Barr was best known for her pioneer roles, with a face tough enough to have opened up the West to respectable women.

  There’d been just the two of them for so long, and of course Lisa Greenwood, who was a professor in college now and who had a fiancé called Patrick Hamilton the Third, who was already in the navy.

  Sometimes, when she was hard up, Shari also did extra work but her auburn hair stood out in colour films and so she toned it down with dye to blend into the background. Acting was not for her at all; not even seeing all those famous stars, jockeying for position on the red carpet, mincing starlets on the arms of old film producers. It was dog eat dog in that business. She’d seen what it’d done to her own pa. He’d been dropped once talkies were established, reduced to bit parts and extras, and he’d drunk his way off too many sets, labelled unreliable, so no agent would then put him on their books. She last heard of him in Las Vegas. She had tried to keep in touch with him but he had drifted out of her life and sometimes it was hard to imagine she’d ever been his golden girl.

  Shari sensed everything was changed on that December Sunday morning. The Lockheed aircraft factories would be geared for war machinery. The film board would want patriotic, cheering films to fill the cinemas. Women would have to replace the menfolk in the factories. It was a whole new ball game and she would be part of it too. Wait until Mom found out what was happening—would she want to support the war effort or would she just want to carry on as usual?

  Only once, when Shari asked about her uncle and their war, had Mom blown up in anger. ‘You were robbed of cousins and family by a wicked war—don’t talk to me about that business. The army is fit only for animals. It’s a cruel institution. You have no idea what was done under its banner…’ For a while she’d even wanted her to change her name from Sharland to Esther, for some reason. But Shari was having none of it. Whatever grouse Mom had about her old life in the village in Yorkshire was nothing to do with her so she refused to oblige and it was soon forgotten. Now how would Mom react when she told her that she wanted to join up as a volunteer? Much as she loved her mother it wouldn’t matter either way: Shari had made up her mind. She was going to war.

  ‘I’ve decided to enlist,’ Charlie announced calmly after they sat down to supper.

  There was silence. His mother rose up from the table and left the room with the girls, unable to control her feelings.

  ‘I know it’s not what you preach, Pa, but I can’t sit back and do nothing. It just ain’t right.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t some exercise, marching up and down. War is a filthy, nasty business. People get hurt. Have you ever seen a man with his head blown off or trying to hold his guts from spilling on the dirt? It isn’t the answer. It wasn’t last time. Men died, children died, and for what, I ask myself.’

  ‘So?’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing stops it happening all over again. London bombed out, France overrun—do we just sit there until Hitler marches through Springville Township?’

  ‘We have our way of doing things, giving support to disasters and famine. You don’t have to put on a battledress to be a hero.’

  ‘You did, you went to war once. You must have believed in the cause.’

  ‘I don’t now. You’ve no idea what it does to a man.’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t want to be a hero, I just want to enlist.’

  ‘You know what’ll happen if you do?’ Guy bowed his head.

  ‘I’ll be shunned, I know. No one will eat with me or invite me to gatherings. I’ll have no place in the church service, I’ll be disciplined…so? I have to do what I think is right,’ he argued.

  ‘Why do you have to shame us? Your mother will be heartbroken.’

  ‘My mother has been heartbroken ever since the day Miss Heckler shoved me into the big class. You wanted me to see another way. Much as I love our community, I find their minds so closed and their rules so strict at times. Why can’t they move with the times?’

  ‘When I sent you to college, I took a risk. You know how Ma feels. But when it comes to our beliefs—the fundamentals, Charlie—you can’t cherry-pick; embracing bits here and dropping bits there…It is all or nothing. That is how it is. You’ll be brought before the elders and disciplined, as I have been many times for being too worldly—for buying a tractor and then the Ford, for listening to the wireless—but this is a serious decision for all of your family.’

  ‘If the storm troopers beat at your door would you not want to defend us?’ Charlie threw up one of the old arguments.

  ‘I would do what was best for your safety, give civil answers…render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, as we are taught.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. If they stole your cattle and insulted your daughters would you stand there and watch? Or does non-resistance mean we surrender everything without a murmur?’

  ‘It won’t happen, son.’

  ‘But it’s happening all over Europe, to some of Ma’s far-flung relatives. What happens to them happens to me. Don’t we preach about being each other’s keepers? We have to defend the poor, the weak and afflicted wherever they are.’ Charlie could feel his cheeks flushing with indignation.

  ‘But not with guns and bombs and bayonets, but with food and medicines and first aid. No one begrudges a pacifist who does such work. There are Quaker noncombatant units who’re stretcher bearers and nurses. You could join them.’

  Charlie could see the pleading in his father’s eyes, the anxious twitch on his cheekbone when he was angry or tense.

  ‘I have to find my own path even if it means leaving here for good,’ he said, knowing what a blow he was dealing to his father.

  ‘You will shame us before our brothers, give yo
ur mother no peace, and discipline will require us to shut this door in your face. How can I do that to my own son? Don’t rush into what you don’t know. Think about this.’

  ‘You went to war and killed men, took up arms, why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I knew no better. I was groomed by my family’s tradition for it. It was the only life I knew but, believe me, we suffered for it. That was my life before Christ entered my heart and changed me. All I feel is shame and regret. War brings out the animal in us not always the human being. You were not brought up to fight—’

  ‘I was brought up to know right from wrong. What has happened is wrong, and if good men do nothing then evil will take over and destroy this way of life. They will destroy and punish until everyone must live under their rules and under their sword. Do you think for a moment our brothers would be allowed to stay as they are? My mind’s made up, I’m not going back to college…I’ll write and let you know where I am,’ Charlie said, close to tears.

  ‘You know we’ll not be allowed to read them. Oh, Charlie, don’t throw your life away! Don’t destroy our family. How am I going to explain this to the girls?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll love you all, no matter what happens. I know what I’m doing. I feel in my bones it is what I was meant to do…’

  Charlie bowed his head as his father patted his shoulder with trembling hand.

  Rose sobbed until she was exhausted when Charlie left for war. The girls clung to each other. Guy felt such an ache in his side, he thought he’d collapse.

  True to the end, the boy stood before the disciplinary committee and argued his case like a lawyer, refusing to back down, and was dismissed.

  Everyone looked on the Wests with pity and concern and not a little disappointment.

  At the foot-washing service that followed, Guy was humbled as the preacher kneeled before him and washed his feet in the bowl as a sign of compassion and acceptance.