Inga was the only nurse who treated us with more than the basics of clinical care. The few times she wasn’t that friendly were when German commanding officers came in to check on us. As soon as the officers left, she went back to being pleasant. She always removed my dressings slowly, somehow managed to act as if the wounds didn’t smell worse than rotted halibut entrails, then applied the colloidal silver with gentle care. Maybe I reminded her of a brother or her sweetheart. Or she was a particularly compassionate human being. Whatever the reason, I appreciated that she always snuck me an extra roll with my dinner. And she sat on the edge of my cot until I fell back asleep after I’d had a nightmare, which was becoming a nightly occurrence.
Being confined to a hospital bed might have been good for healing the body. The boredom, however, was torturous for the mind. I had become accustomed to all types of physical hardship after I first enlisted, but none of my training had quite prepared me for mandatory bed rest.
Basic training, which I had completed at a battle drill camp in Vernon, British Columbia, was my first exposure to military combat skills like survival tips, map reading, target location and camouflage. The other recruits and I received a crash course on artillery and mortar shells, all of which we practised in the pouring rain and muck. Most fellas grumbled about the five-o’clock-in-the-morning fitness drills, but I was used to early mornings. The part I initially despised most about being in the service was being told what to do every minute of the day. I had never realized how much freedom I truly had until it was taken away by the Armed Forces. As we graduated to advanced training, fear of failure and eventually fear of dying because of a failure were also constant hardships with which we all dealt.
After I was transferred to Regina, before they let us anywhere near an airplane, Gordie, Frank and I were thrown into a mock ground cockpit, without even being told how to use the controls. I struggled to monitor the instruments at first, but I eventually got the hang of it.
A couple of recruits did wash out of Elementary Training in Regina, but Gordie, Frank and I all moved on to sixteen weeks of advanced Service Flying Training School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Gordie never said anything else about me being sweet on someone who was Japanese-Canadian. In fact, because he was still sore about me socking him in the jaw at the dance, we didn’t talk to each other at all unless directly related to training. The commanding officer must have sensed tension between us because he always paired us together.
Flying was a thrill, especially combat and night flying at different altitudes. I flew my first solo cross-country flight in poor weather. I couldn’t see and had to nerve-rackingly rely on my instruments the entire time. After that flight, I wrote to Chidori and described the exhilarating experience of piloting an airplane. I didn’t have anywhere to send the letter to, but I wanted to tell her all about the adventure anyway.
We all hated the lectures, which were dry navigational problems diagrammed on a blackboard like algebra. But we suffered through the tedium because we loved flying. Gordie’s favourite part of training was formation flying. I preferred flying solo because when we practised with all twelve machines together in formation, I was always worried I was going to clip the wing of one of my buddies. Frank’s favourite part of training was blowing stuff up. He was destructive in general and one time he wrecked an airplane when he overshot the landing on a short field landing exercise. He thought he was going to wash out for sure, but he just got hollered at. Practising spins was my favourite thing to do. It made my heart pound like mad, but there was nothing better than the recovery. Harvards required specific care to fly and I did occasionally pull the stick too abruptly towards my stomach and cause a flick roll, but honestly that was a blast. Those types of mishaps helped remind me to be grateful to be alive.
Gordie was a natural with Morse code and aircraft and ship identification, so he helped Frank and me study the manual. That’s what we were doing on the day of the accident.
We were seated on the grass, waiting for our training flight time, when Gordie read aloud, ‘It is inadvisable to bail out above the area you just bombed.’
Frank and I burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Gordie asked.
‘Well, no shit,’ Frank said. ‘That’s a stupid lesson.’
The siren rang out so Gordie closed the manual, which I was glad for because talking about bailing out right before we were scheduled to practise flying in formation seemed a grim omen.
We all climbed into our yellow Harvard trainers and took off one at a time from the flare path. Once we were in formation we ran through a series of exercises, which we were getting fairly proficient at, but on the last manoeuvre I had to bank left to miss a flock of geese. My abrupt movement forced Frank out of formation. The fellow beside Frank, his name was Jed, clipped his wing. Airplane parts flew in every direction. I was ahead of the collision, but Gordie was behind them and had to pull up to avoid debris. Both Frank and Jed’s damaged Harvards spewed smoke as they fell into nosedives. Jed’s canopy slid back, he climbed out of the cockpit and jumped. His parachute deployed, but Frank’s canopy didn’t open. To my horror, he was still in his airplane as it crashed nose first into the ground and exploded into a ball of fire in a wheat field.
It happened so fast that for a moment I wondered if it hadn’t happened at all and my anxieties had imagined it, but then I saw the tower of smoke swirling up. The remaining airplanes circled around and headed back to the airstrip. My entire body trembled. ‘Jesus. Jesus. Jesus,’ I repeated to myself as I dropped the undercarriage and pancaked a hard landing. My hands, slick with sweat, slipped off the controls and I almost sent her into a ditch.
As soon as the airplane rolled to a stop, I slid the canopy and tumbled out of the cockpit. My legs shook so badly I slipped from the wing, then fell to my knees on the ground. My collar strangled me and I had to tear at my necktie to free up my throat enough to breathe. Gordie climbed out of his airplane right beside me. His face was as pale as if he’d powdered it with baking flour.
‘Jesus,’ I mumbled again and threw up.
Gordie leaned against his wing, too stunned to speak. We still hadn’t moved from our shocked stupor when the prairie sky turned dusky grey and our instructor walked across the tarmac towards us. ‘They want to see you boys upstairs,’ he said grimly, and turned as if he expected us to follow him. I couldn’t get up from my knees. My legs were blades of grass that weren’t strong enough to hold my weight. Eventually, Gordie hoisted me up and made me lean on his shoulder to follow the rest of the crew from the flight to the operations office.
The room was stuffy and it started to spin as we filed in and stood in front of all the officers. Their huddled conversation was a dull drone, like insects on a warm evening, which ended in sudden synchronicity with our presence. I blinked repeatedly, but each time my eyelids closed, an image of Frank’s airplane exploding into a fireball flashed through my mind like a photograph. I didn’t want to relive it, so I stared up at the ceiling fan as it turned in a lazy way.
‘Gentlemen, it …’ Our commanding officer spoke. His mouth moved, but my heartbeat pounding in my ears drowned out his words. The others nodded as if they could hear him. They all eventually saluted the row of officers and filed out of the room. I quickly saluted and spun around to follow them.
‘Pierce.’
As I turned back, sweat ran down the side of my face and drenched my collar. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, son. It was an accident.’
I glanced at him for a second, not reassured, and then left to return to the barracks.
Hours after the accident, I still sat rigid on my bunk, dazed. Gordie flipped through the pages of a pin-up magazine, without actually pausing long enough to enjoy any of the photos. ‘What did they say at the meeting earlier?’ I asked him.
‘What do you mean? You were standing right next to me. You heard the same thing I heard.’
‘I didn’t hear squat.’
Gordie’s
forehead creased with deep wrinkles before he sat up to face me with his elbows rested on his knees.
‘Jed parachuted out, right?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, but he hit the ground hard because we were at low altitude. He couldn’t deploy the chute fully in time. He broke both his legs and probably a couple of vertebras in his back.’
‘When can we see him?’
‘We can’t. He was transferred to the hospital in Regina.’
‘And Frank?’
Gordie rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Frank was killed. They said he tried to ditch, but something was wrong with the canopy. It didn’t release. He couldn’t get out.’
‘Are you sure that’s what they said?’
‘Yeah. Positive.’
Frank’s hat was on his cot, right where he had tossed it when we had hurried to change after breakfast. And I was agonizingly aware that inside his footlocker was a half-eaten tin of homemade cookies next to the photo of his wife and kid.
I leaned back on my pillow and stared up at the ceiling. ‘It was my fault.’
‘It was an accident,’ Gordie said. ‘They cleared you of responsibility.’
I ran my hands over my hair and would have pulled at chunks of it if it wasn’t cut so damn short. ‘That doesn’t change my conscience. His kid is going to grow up not knowing his dad.’
‘It was an accident, pal. Don’t beat yourself up over it.’
Our flight instructor stepped into the barracks and gave us orders to suit up for a night flight. Gordie stood and waited for me.
‘I can’t fly any more,’ I said, nauseous with guilt.
‘You have to get back in the saddle.’
I shook my head and rolled over onto my side. Gordie ran off to follow orders. A minute later, footsteps approached my bunk. ‘On your feet, Pierce!’ our flight instructor barked in my ear. ‘Get your ass in your aircraft before I beat it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Suit up or you’ll be thrown in lockup.’
‘No thank you, sir.’
‘Get up! That’s an order!’
I pulled my pillow over my ears and pressed my hands tightly against it to block out his hollering. It became quiet, as if he had left, so I opened my eyes. He was still standing over me but didn’t seem as if he was going to yell. He motioned for me to take the pillow away from my ears.
‘Mistakes happen, Pierce. And people die. It’s a Goddamn war out there. If you let it, the war will beat you down. If you want to beat the war down, you need to get back in that airplane right now.’
Regretting all of the decisions that had brought me to that moment, I rolled over and mumbled, ‘Put me in lockup. I can’t fly.’
He grabbed the fabric of my shirt and jolted me to my feet. ‘I know why you’re really here, kid.’
I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze, wondering how he could have known.
‘You think I don’t notice you staring at that photo of your girl every spare chance you have? What happened to her is wrong, and you’re right to fight. But if you quit now the war wins. Do you want the war to beat you?’
‘No.’
‘No, what?’
‘No, sir. I don’t want this war to beat me.’
His nose literally touched mine as he screamed, ‘I can’t hear you! Do you want this war to beat you?’
‘No, sir!’
‘I still can’t hear you! Do. You. Want. This. War. To. Beat. You?’
‘Sir! No, sir!’
‘This war beats quitters. Are you a quitter?’
‘No, sir!’
‘I said, are you a Goddamn quitter?’
‘Sir! No, sir! I’m not a Goddamn quitter!’
‘Good.’ He released the stranglehold he had on my collar and shoved my shoulder to make me walk. ‘Get in your machine.’
24 August 1941
Dear Diary,
I am an utter fool. What have I done? I made a tragic mistake. Truly. I cried myself to sleep last night, dreadfully ill with guilt and remorse. I have been wishing to go steady with Hayden since I was old enough to experience romantic feelings. I waited patiently through all the years where the only things Hayden loved were baseball and his dog. Then, finally, he matured and to my luck began to see me as more than only a pal to chum around with and debate with. Then the day I had been eagerly waiting for finally arrived. And what idiocy did I commit in response to him declaring his affections? I turned him down! Actually, it’s much worse than that. I giddily accepted at first and then with ridiculous fickleness I immediately changed my mind. Who does such a horridly selfish thing to another person’s genuine and vulnerable heart? Oh, apparently I do.
What in the world was I thinking? Hayden must have felt as if that big old fir tree had landed on his chest and crushed his pride. The first impetuous thing I have ever done and it not surprisingly resulted in a terrible calamity. I had no idea I was capable of such a reckless betrayal, especially towards Hayden. I can’t believe how poorly I overreacted to Rory and his cousins. Their opinion should not hold more weight than my own or Hayden’s. How did I go from blissfully floating down the road at his side to frightfully declaring we shouldn’t see each other any more? Why am I worried about something that hasn’t even happened? The war hasn’t reached our shores. Hayden hasn’t been called to service. Our lives might never be impacted directly.
Hayden was right. I should have stayed calm and carried on. Instead, I panicked and forfeited straight away like a coward. I desperately regret that I’ve let anything come between Hayden and me. I need to figure out how to make amends. If I can. I don’t even know where to begin to fix my rashness. If it can even be fixed. The damage to his trust might be irreparable.
But what if our worst fears do come true?
No, there is no point fretting about things that haven’t happened. Stay positive. Be brave.
If Hayden is not in church today I will promptly go by his house to apologize.
Chi
Chapter 10
Sunday morning after Chidori informed me that she didn’t think we should see each other any more, I was too miserable to get out of bed. Ma called me three times, but my body protested the idea of moving. My heart was broken into a hundred shards, like a stepped-on seashell.
Chidori was going to be at church. And it would be a torturous demoralization to sit through the entire service staring at her, knowing she didn’t want to even give us a chance. Inconsolably dejected, I moaned and rolled over onto my side.
‘Are you not well?’ my mother asked from my bedroom door. She let my Border collie Patch in so he would lick my face.
I could barely muster the motivation to pull the sheet over my head. Patch jumped up on the mattress, which normally Ma wouldn’t have allowed, but she knew his wiggling would force me to get up.
Ma sat on the edge of my bed and rubbed my back in the comforting way she used to when I was a young boy. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ The truth was too painful to admit.
‘Hayden, darling, I’m your mother.’ She stood and pushed the drapes open to let the sunshine flood in through the window. ‘I can tell something is bothering you.’
It became obvious she wasn’t going to leave me be unless I told her, so I sat up with my back against the headboard. Patch rested his head on my lap and gazed up at me sympathetically with his one blue and one brown eye as I patted behind his ear. ‘Chidori doesn’t think we should spend time together any more.’
Mother’s eyebrow twitched subtly. ‘Well, surely that’s for the best.’
Tension crept across my chest and up my neck as she picked my Sunday clothes out of the wardrobe. She banished Patch from my room and then laid my suit out on the foot of my bed. The idea that she was not only not bothered by the development, but in fact seemed pleased was insulting. Her insensitivity rubbed me the wrong way. ‘There is nothing in the world I cherish more than my relationship with Chidori. How can not seeing each other be for the best?’
‘You think I shouldn’t be friends with Chidori because she’s Japanese-Canadian, but you don’t mind that Pa works for Massey and her father. That’s hypocritical, don’t you think?’
She paused at the doorway, unfazed by my growing annoyance. ‘You’ll understand the difference when you get older.’
‘I’m old enough. I know who I want to spend my time with.’
With an air of indifference, she pinned her cloche hat to her hair and said, ‘You are at an age now where you should spend time with young women you could potentially have a future with. Marrying Chidori is certainly not an option.’
I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress to place my feet on the floor, then stood. ‘Why not?’
‘Don’t play naive, Hayden. War is serious and Japan is our enemy now.’
‘Only Japan? What about Germany and Italy? Joey’s Italian-Canadian. Do you think it’s for the best if I stop being friends with him too?’
‘You’re missing the point.’
‘Am I? Or is everyone else missing the point?’
Ma held up her white-gloved palms to indicate she wasn’t going to argue with me. ‘All I’m saying is there are plenty of suitable woman for you to marry and have children with who are not Japanese.’
‘Really? What makes them more suitable? Have they known me their entire lives and been right beside me for every important event that has ever happened? Will they laugh at my stupid sense of humour the way Chidori does? Did they earn awards for both music and academics like Chidori? Can they do everything from drive a tractor to bake an award-winning pie half as well as Chidori can? Are they beautiful enough to make everyone halt what they are doing when they walk into a room? Chidori is all those things and more. How could someone else possibly be more suitable simply because they aren’t of Japanese heritage?’
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