There Are Victories

by Charles Yale Harrison

  The door banged open behind her. It was Edgar who filled the darkness with his noisy presence followed by Ruth’s maid, Marie, who carried a silver tray laden with tea things.

  “Here, oh, princess,” he said barging into the mellowness of her mood, “here are treasures of tea from India.”

  He switched on the electric light, blotting out the stars above and the heavy, tangible blackness which lay over the tumultuous sea.

  XXVII

  When Ruth and Edgar returned to the sweltering city towards the end of July the newspapers carried sensational scare-heads telling of the consequences of the assassination of an Austrian archduke in the Balkans. As Balkans were always killing each other and as Anglo-Saxons considered political murder in extreme bad taste, the matter was expected to blow over as such things do with the non-Nordic peoples. Then followed days of diplomatic notes, ultimatums, mobilizations. King George reviewed the British Fleet, Earl Grey spoke of peace and in Europe the chancellories and general staffs worked late into the night with nervous haste. Ruth, too, had her problems: there was the business of selecting hangings, purchasing decorations and pictures. Servants were engaged, household routine was established. Unmindful of the impending catastrophe, the couple spent an entire day at an auction sale and returned home elated with the purchase of a set of Sèvres china. The news of England’s declaration of war swept over the city, stopping business for the day. Excited groups gathered on street corners, before the news bulletin of the Star on St. James Street. Flags fluttered from all flag-poles through the city; there was an excited, tense air about everything and everybody as though a decaying and sluggish humanity had suddenly found the way to ultimate happiness. Young men marched through the streets on the way to work with military erectness, gray old codgers braced their shoulders and swung their arms to the rhythm of imaginary drums. Girls smiled and struck up quick, new friendships with perfect strangers. The old and familiar hatreds suddenly seemed unimportant. The Empire had found a common enemy.

  The question of furnishings and Sèvres china was relegated to its proper place. Then stories of the “Old Contemptibles” at Mons reached Canada; the heroic rearguard action, the little dogged band at the modern Thermopylae in Belgium. The only Canadian cruiser in the Atlantic, the “Niobe,” dashed up and down the eastern coast ready to engage von Tirpitz’ fleet should it dare to venture near Halifax. Everything was disorganized. Edgar and the Major kept coming and going.

  There was a great deal of amateur military tactics discussed at dinner, much marking of damask table linen with pencils. If only Kitchener would listen to Major Throop! But the Belgian forts continued to fall with astonishing regularity and finally Antwerp fell. There was talk of a regiment being recruited at once and sent overseas. Patriotic wealthy Montrealers volunteered to equip the new forces. There were parades, blaring bands, men in uniform were embraced, kissed, adored. Aristocratic young ladies reared in luxury and refinement, prostrated themselves in patriotic self-abasement before lumberjacks and day laborers in uniform. Loyalty was no longer a political necessity or a duty, it was now a heady, wild delight.

  One Saturday afternoon the 17th Lancers with Major Throop astride his spirited dun mount cantered along Sherbrooke Street. There were cheers from the sidewalks and Mrs. Throop and Ruth waved from the dining-room balcony. Horses’ hoofs clattered in the stately, tree-lined street below, colored pennants fluttered at the heads of the steel-tipped lances. It was all so exciting, it seemed as if everyone were not living ordinary, routine lives but rather taking part in a series of dramatic amateur tableaux. In the streets, in restaurants, and clubs there was much talk of cold steel and how the British preferred to use the bayonet.

  —Wait until our lads give ‘em a taste of British cold steel!

  XXVIII

  In the Fall, the Duke of Connaught’s younger daughter, Princess Patricia, graciously consented to become the patroness of the newly formed regiment. Only the cream of Canadian manhood was to be enlisted in this crack unit. The men were to be at least six feet tall and young men came from all over the country to join up. There were rigorous medical and endurance tests.

  The question of shipping was of great importance and Edgar and his father made hurried and secret trips to Ottawa to discuss matters relating to the mercantile marine with the official at the Department of Militia and Defence. On the return from one of these trips Edgar seemed flushed and important. It was at dinner and he toyed with his coffee and spoke with high boyish enthusiasm about the war.

  “General Martinson says it will all be over by Christmas,” he said. “The Germans were perfect idiots about the business at the Marne. Couldn’t bring up their heavy artillery fast enough.”

  “Do you really think it will be over so soon?” Ruth asked.

  “Wait until the Russian steam roller gets into action properly. All this retreating is really a trap. Leave it to old Kitchener. It’ll all be over by Christmas but the cheering. Watch and see!”

  He sat looking at his Queen Anne silver spoon, lost in thought. Then, blurting it out like a school boy, he said: “I say, Ruth, old General Martinson has fixed it up for me.”

  “Fixed it up?” Ruth asked. “Fixed what up, dear?”

  “Well, you see, it was this way. I felt that I simply couldn’t hang about in pater’s office doing easy, safe work while the men are doing such splendid work—I mean at Mons. Martinson has arranged for me to have a commission in the Princess Pats. Do you think they actually saw angels defending them during the retreat?—the Germans called it a rout, but it was very orderly, falling back that way, fighting for every inch.”

  For some time Ruth felt too stunned to speak. Married only a few short months and now he was leaving her. She felt choked, the pain in her throat grew more acute (she felt all of her powerful emotions in the throat), and for a few minutes speech was impossible.

  “I say,” Edgar said, “you don’t look any too pleased. It’ll all be over by Christmas. Martinson said that they have plans that will startle—.”

  Ruth’s lower lips trembled, tears welled up into her eyes, blurring the beautiful Sèvres china, making the silver shaky and indefinite in outline.

  “You really oughtn’t to take it so badly. After all, it’s the thing to do, you know.”

  Ruth brought herself under control with an effort. “I suppose so,” she said, “but you see, I had different plans. But I suppose one shouldn’t have plans in times like these.”

  After dinner they went to the Princess Theatre and saw some vaudeville acts. There was much playing of “God Save the King” and “Oh, Canada.” The audience was boisterous and rowdy, a few drunken soldiers kept getting up during the acts and walking up and down the aisles, but nobody seemed to mind. One of the acts closed with a British version of an American patriotic song. The words were hastily altered to meet the needs of the moment. At the end, the orchestra blared and the drums thumped and pounded and a little fellow in a derby hat pulled out a Union Jack and waved it at the audience. The audience became insanely wild, standing and cheering. When, at the end of the program, the orchestra played the national anthem Edgar stood very erect in the corner of the box.

  When they returned, the red sandstone house seemed very remote and alien. After they went to bed Edgar fell into a happy, untroubled sleep but Ruth lay awake long. She was pregnant.

  “It is better not to have told him,” she thought, “he might think that I am deterring him. It will be hard for him to understand that I need him so much now.

  XXIX

  The crowd on Fletcher’s Field was unbearable the day on which the princess inspected the regiment. Hawkers sold flags, peanuts, and celluloid pins with the portrait of the princess smiling out of a circle of Allied flags. People rushed and shoved, shouted, cheered. Ruth stood in a special section roped off and reserved for distinguished visitors together with her mother, officials and gold-braided military authorities. Bishop Villeneuve was there in h
is ecclesiastical robes; solemn and frowning as though he, for one, was opposed to the hostile French-Canadian attitude towards the war. A creased old habitant coming down from the backwoods a few days before and hearing of the war had remarked: “C’est bon! Englishmen being killed? Fine!” This business belonged exclusively to Les mad anglais.

  But La Presse, the French-Canadian members of parliament, and the Bishop took the correct stand on the question. The Catholic ranks of the Princess Pats had marched to Notre Dame Cathedral the day before and the Bishop himself had blessed their standards, calling upon the gentle Christ to assist them to victory. The Bishop, being a loyal Canadian, conveniently forgot that Bach was a German and called upon the faithful to boycott German goods; the following year Mr. Steiner, that splendid tenor, did not return to Montreal. Instead, a less gifted but more Latin singer was found.

  The field was packed with shoving, shouting humanity. A regiment was going to the front! Suddenly there were cheers, shouts. The shouting grew in volume. A fleet of cars drew up to the field and Her Highness, Princess Patricia, alighted from her limousine. The battalion presented arms, a thousand bayonets coming from the slope to the salute flashed in the sunlight. The band blared the opening bars of the national anthem. The princess, accompanied by staff officers in red and gold walked quickly down between the ranks. Order arms! Attention! Slope arms! Companies: by the right—quick march! The band broke into the quick marchpast, “The British Grenadiers,” and the regiment marching past the reviewing point headed down Park Avenue towards St. Catherine Street. The crowd broke and followed the soldiers downtown.

  There was great running and scurrying and in the confusion Ruth lost Mrs. Throop. She saw the masses of people following the retreating battalion, she heard the shouts, the hysterical girls: Oh, boy-ees! Good-by-ee! Soon the music receded in the distance, the rising and falling bayonets disappeared somewhere beyond Pine Avenue and in a few moments the field was cleared. The grass of Fletcher’s Field, usually so green and well-kept was now littered with refuse, leavings of sandwiches, peanut shells, orange peel trampled by many heels into the turf. The press of the crowd, the odors of many bodies and now the sight of the droppings of the herd filled Ruth with disgust.

  Looking up at the summit of the mountain she walked towards the cable-car and was soon whirled upwards toward the top. As the frail-looking car went flying up, the Field below became clean, the street cars dwindled in size, and soon the roofs of the houses and the gilt steeples of the church in the East End became visible. The noises of the city could no longer be heard. Here there were no cheering crowds sending fine young men to their death, separating newly married husbands and wives. The summit was deserted, there were more exciting things for people to do today. St. Catherine and Windsor Streets were packed with the cheering throng but up on the mountain it was lonely and quiet. Only a bent, aged gardener swept dead autumn leaves together in brittle brown piles at the side of the road leading to the look-out. Once she fancied she heard the strains of a band.

  It was dark when she started the long walk down towards home.

  XXX

  A few months passed and the casualty lists began to appear. Long, closely printed lists: Adams, Ahern, Burns, Cohen, Daniels … Bitter reality in contrast to the glowing stories of victories of the western front: Ferguson, Finklestien, Garrison, Henley … Alphabetical heartbreak. The news of the gallant stand of the Canadians at Ypres filled the news columns and the editorials with elation and the homes of thousands of Montrealers with overwhelming sorrow: Jones, Albert, Pte., killed in action; Kelly, Patrick, Pte., died of wounds; Kennedy, Francis, Pte., missing; Leary, George, Capt., killed in action. “ … When the cloud of yellow smoke appeared over the German lines it was thought at first that the trenches had caught fire. But soon the cries of ‘Gas, gas!’ went up. On the right and left of the Canadian units the French and Belgians fell back, terrified, leaving the flanks exposed. One officer suspected that urine would counteract the effects of the gas and passed the word down the line. At first there was some confusion but soon officers and men were tying handkerchiefs about their faces and manning the parapets. Soon the Germans, following the screen of gas, attacked. They expected that the lines were completely evacuated. Surprise turned into dismay as the Canadians poured a deadly stream of fire from their trenches, repulsing the first attack and holding back the invasion until reinforcements filled up the gaps. On all sides, the screams of gassed men could be heard distinctly … ”

  Monnison, Charles, Pte., gassed; McCarthy, F.X. Lieut., gassed; O’Brian, Joseph, Sgt., missing; Pascal, François, Pte., killed in …

  XXXI

  To the cacophony of guns, the cries of the wounded, the chorus of patriotic shouting, there was at first, almost inaudible, but growing in volume, an obligato of wailing and sorrowful prayer. At night when the marching bands were asleep in the barracks, when the hob-nailed boots stood unlaced beneath the bunks in the Peel Street dormitories, when the presses had ceased whirring, when the statesmen slumbered, over the city, in the dead of night there arose a moaning and weeping. In hovels near the waterfront, in living quarters behind little shops, in Pine Avenue mansions, in brothels, in bedrooms, women cried aloud or bit their lips. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand women with sons, lovers and husbands on the battlefields, eaten by rats and vermin, lay thinking at night. In other cities other tens of thousands of women and in other countries more countless thousands; a threnody of millions of voices. Millions of prayers uttered in the silence of the night! The prayer gathered in volume, united, took on a physical force and rushed madly about and finally exhausted itself like a spent bullet and fell to earth. Eyes were red and ugly with much weeping and in the morning there were tired heads and smarting eyes and the day seemed long and endless. There were greetings to be uttered, duties to be performed, food to be cooked, dishes to be washed, dances to be attended, home fires to be kept burning, troubles to be packed up with aching hearts and fingers in old kit bags, smiles to be smiled. And at four o’clock in the afternoon there was tea.

  Like strange and macabre flowers which bloom and thrive on the blood of the dead, widows’ weeds appeared throughout the city, in the streets, in restaurants, entering the gaping doors of churches. For there was no hope anywhere, everywhere strident bands, cheering insane crowds—Oh, boy-ees! Good-by-ee!—the endless casualty lists—Adams, Ahern, Burns … There was nowhere to turn except to the vaulted silence of the church and even here on Sundays the shouts of war entered the sermons and tore the sorrowing mood to shreds. Here in the cathedral on week-days, when the pews were deserted, Ruth came to find consolation. In the darkened nave she could see a bereft woman, black and gaunt in mourning, kneeling long in prayer. It was soothing to fall on one’s knees and find peace and sanctuary from the howling of the mob within the comforting shadow of the altar and the Holy Mother of God.

  One afternoon she rode to the cathedral and spent an hour in meditation and prayer. But the old mood was gone. She remembered the old chapel at the convent; its serene stillness, the surcease of worldly pain which followed soon after one genuflected and lifted up one’s voice in prayer. And now, it seemed, one’s words echoed back as though the arched ceiling shut out the supplications of the faithful. In this selfsame pew she had heard the B minor Mass with Edgar, it seemed then that there were something beyond the building of stone, mortar and glass. A veil had been torn away that Easter morning and she saw something beyond. But now a new mood had come upon the world. Despite all her efforts, the thoughts crowded in upon her, refused to be dispelled. There was a horror abroad that threatened to destroy all the old values; coarseness and brutality had seized everyone. Vulgarity, bestiality, and callousness were everywhere; in the newspapers, in the theaters, in the shops, in the streets. As she drove past Fletcher’s Field that morning she had seen recruits at bayonet practice, plunging the glinting, steely blades into the straw entrails of effigies dressed in German uniforms. She still heard the simul
ated shrieks of fury (soon they would become real) as the soldiers lunged at the swinging dummies. Speech, too, was coarsened, colored by the barrack-room, stained by tobacco juice. The world in which simple happiness had once been possible was demolished by a blast of artillery. Flowers, a Spring morning, a Bach prelude: these were no more. The hot lava of war had stiffened them and rendered them unrecognizable.

  XXXII

  Every Thursday afternoon Ruth came to her mother’s home to roll bandages for the wounded. Sitting at the table talking of military politics, the Allied successes or reverses, were many ladies whose husbands and sons were distinguished in the Army, the Church or politics. Mademoiselle, the taut, emaciated spinster sister of the Bishop, usually sat next to Ruth and wound strips of gauze into neat, tightly pulled rolls. Ruth rolled her bandages, thinking of the grisly use to which they would later be put. The conversation was colored by the barrack-room jargon which was now so popular in the drawing-room. Ruth looked up suddenly and spoke:

  “It seems to me that the Holy Father could end the whole ghastly business overnight. If he were to excommunicate every Catholic who enlisted or continued to fight, the war would end tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Throop looked up startled, horrified. The other women went on knitting, heedless of Ruth’s treasonable heresy. Mademoiselle, the Bishop’s sister, raised her eyebrows and condescendingly remarked: “Mon Dieu, Madame Kennedy! It is very obvious that you are ignorant of the responsibilities of the Holy Father. The war is not of the Pope’s making and he cannot stop it. The world is paying for its sinfulness and the Pope cannot interfere with God’s will. Let us rather roll these bandages and help succour the afflicted and wounded.”