Brothers Far from Home

by Jean Little

  I am going to paste in what was in today’s newspaper.

  The battalion is the baby battalion of its corps, but it has reason to be proud of its record. It put on one of the finest raids that has ever been made in France, and owing to the gas attack having been launched when the battalion was getting into the assembly position, it would have been quite justifiable to have called off the raid, but by courage and determination they made it one of the most successful raids that has ever been made.

  Monday, September 17

  The War drags on and on. But Jack and Rufus are still all right and Jack has not written me another letter like that shocking one.

  I like my English teacher. I memorized two poems for Memory Work, “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there” by Robert Browning, and “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. All the other girls liked the love poem best and I liked it too, but I did like that “wise thrush” who “sang his song twice over lest you should think he never can recapture that first fine careless rapture.”

  The Twins are in disgrace because we had a missionary come to preach and, after dinner, when he was napping on the sofa right under the window, they tied a wet rag onto a stick and put it through the window and dropped it right into his open mouth. “He was snoring prodigiously,” Belle said in their defense. He went red as a beet and left on the early train.

  Father sat the Twins down for a lecture about what is due to a guest, but I could hear a quiver in his voice, so of course the Twins could too. Then Susannah burst out with, “He kicked Isaac. We all saw him.”

  “And he called him a misbegotten cur,” Charlie said.

  Father tried to go on with the lecture but he was angry at Mr. Buller himself. He said we must remember our manners in future even if a guest forgets his.

  “And Father will never, ever invite him here again, will you, Father?” Belle chirped.

  I wish Jack had been here to see Father’s face. He could not decide whether to laugh or look like Moses scolding the Hebrew people.

  October 1917

  Monday, October 8

  Verity came home for a flying visit from Sick Kids. She was lucky to get the weekend off. She says she is gaunt with hunger and worn to skin and bone with working like a slavey. She is thinner, but she has a sparkle in her eyes. She tried to talk True Webb into training with her. But the minute the subject of bedpans came up True said no thank you.

  Some nurses have gone over to the Front and come back with harrowing tales. Verity hears all about them even though she is working with children. She’s always going on about famous nurses like Edith Cavell and Florence Nightingale.

  She also tells us that she and the student nurses work such long hours to pay for their training and then they have to attend lectures and study. She has fallen asleep with her head on her book three times, and once she was so tired she did not wake up until morning. She had a stiff back all day and the matron told her to step along. “You’d think you were ninety,” she snapped.

  Verity laughs when she tells these stories. I’ve never seen her so happy. She made us more thankful, dear Reader. Listening to Father trying to tell us all to be thankful this morning, when so many people in the congregation were worried sick about their sons or husbands at the Front, was hard for everyone. But we all sang, O God, Our Help in Ages Past, with a will and it made me feel stronger somehow.

  When Mother and Father had callers, Verity told the Twins and me the craziest story. She went into her room in the nurses’ residence and put her hand into her dresser drawer looking for her camera. Instead of finding it, she found a whole nest filled with baby mice. Her friends had followed her in so she picked up one of these tiny mice and dangled it in front of them.

  “Look what I’ve got,” she said. The other girls shrieked and ran out. They took refuge in the room next door. She could tell they were all holding the door shut against her and her mouse. So Verity went to the window, climbed out on a ledge, side-stepped along it, got to the next room and put her foot through the open window. Then the girls shrieked even louder. I think Verity was three floors up. We laughed until our stomachs ached, but when Father came to see what was so funny, we didn’t tell him. He would have had an apoplectic stroke. I think he would have had a hard time believing his Sainted Verity would pull such a lunatic stunt. I had a hard time myself. I have had to change some of my thoughts about my big sister. When I think of her edging along that ledge with no handholds, clutching a baby mouse, I get queasy. The worst part, according to her, was that if she had been seen, she would have been expelled. Imagine risking your nursing career, which really mattered to you, for the sake of a silly prank! It is the sort of thing boys are forgiven but not girls. Girls are supposed to be proper, like Florence Nightingale, who was strict about how nurses behaved. Secretly, though, I envy Verity and I am proud of her too.

  Bedtime. Verity will be up to sleep with me tonight although she will have to leave very early. It is so nice to know she will be coming up any second.

  Wednesday, October 10

  Jack has been given the job of training young pilots. Well, he is being trained to teach them. Rufus is hoping to do the same thing. They flew so many missions in such a short time. Maybe the officers could tell they were growing tired. I cannot imagine Rufus being tired. But Jack says it is a terrible strain sometimes, especially on foggy nights.

  School is keeping me busy. We are putting on another concert at the church to raise money to send comforts to our troops. I am going to recite “In Flanders Fields.” It is a poem written by Dr. John McCrae. His family and Grandmother are friends from long ago. I saw his house when we were in Guelph. It is not a mansion, just an ordinary house. It is such a stirring poem. But I will do it without Verity’s hand gestures.

  I still want to know about Rufus’s wedding, but will be glad when I don’t have so many secrets to keep. I am afraid of letting something slip out accidentally. I suppose Jack would forgive me and Rufus’s commanding officers would never know.

  We are so far away. If only the War would end. It has lasted over three years now. At the beginning everyone said it would be over in a few weeks. It must seem to the younger children that there never was a world without the War.

  I am sure Belle cannot remember that we used to have desserts so often, before sugar was scarce — roll jelly cake, custard pie, angel food cake, apple dumplings and pound cake. How I love pound cake! And it has been months since I had a slice. I forgot to mention Devil’s Food cake and English Trifle. Mmmmmm!

  But whenever Moppy makes a pan of Russian toffee to send to Jack and Rufus, she gives one piece each to Charlie, Susannah and Belle. I got one too until my twelfth birthday. You never saw such interest in packages for the troops as those children show, dear Reader. I heard Belle just last night telling Moppy that poor Jack has not had a box from home for ages! “I’ll send off some socks tomorrow, Emily Belle,” Moppy said solemnly. “Just socks!” wailed Belle.

  Saturday, October 13

  Dear Reader, do you go to school? You must. If you do, you will understand why I keep skipping whole days. The teachers seem to pile on the work, and we have to help with the war effort too. At least we are through growing vegetables until next spring, and the War will surely be over by then.

  Matthew (the boy who delivers telegrams) helped me with my Algebra today. He happened to notice I was floundering. I just do not see the sense in it. He is so nice.

  I had written Jack awhile ago that I was thinking of getting my hair bobbed, even though I know Father does not like the idea. Verity’s looks magnificent. Jack wrote back by return mail that he did not like the idea either. Really!

  “I don’t want my little sister to be all grown up when I come home,” he wrote. Do they think we can keep the world exactly as they left it? Wait until he sees Aunt Martha at the wheel of her Tin Lizzie.

  Yet, dear Reader, he sounded so shaken. I don’t care that much about short hair. It is such a
shock to find that such a detail can bother him. He must be … exhausted maybe, and hurt by what he faces whenever he visits the hospital.

  And it can’t be easy watching Rosemary with Rufus.

  I’ll send him a copy of Belle’s poem. That will make him smile:

  I would like going to church all right

  If my hat elastic weren’t so tight.

  Grandmother is not as well as she was. Aunt M. seems worried, but she does not seem frantic.

  Sunday, October 14

  The newspaper reports are not so good lately. Our Canadian troops are involved in that battle at Passchendaele now. Soldiers have talked about how horses died in that mud. It was as high as the men’s thighs. They were plastered with it and had nowhere they could go to get clean. It must have been nearly impossible to walk. They dared not sit down to rest in case they drowned in the muck.

  Monday, October 15

  I have learned “In Flanders Fields” off by heart. I am ready to recite it at the concert in support of the troops.

  Wednesday, October 17

  A telegram came today. Jack is wounded. A letter will follow. What does it mean, Wounded? It said he was in hospital. I wonder if it is the one where Rosemary works. I hope Rufus is all right. They are always together.

  I can’t write any more, dear Reader. I can’t. It is like Hugo all over again. A nightmare.

  Only, Jack is alive!

  Friday, October 19

  No news.

  Whoever said “No news is good news” was not waiting for word from a hospital on the other side of an ocean.

  Tuesday, October 23

  Dear Reader, you seem completely unreal. But you are all I have so I will write to you, unreal or not.

  We are still waiting for news. All we have heard is that Jack has been burned. Father is trying to get some word from Rufus’s family. Prince Rupert is so far away. Most people do not have telephones and West is a common name. There are several listed. Father also asked Dr. Webb for help in finding out more about Jack. Dr. Webb said he would do what he could, but with burn cases there might not be anything to say for a week or so until they see how he fares. Father told Mother that he had a feeling Dr. Webb was avoiding telling him something. Mother could not speak.

  Same night

  Dr. Webb sent several cables and now we know much more. I wish we did not know. Not knowing was hard but knowing is dreadful.

  Rufus is dead.

  Jack’s plane crashed and he and another man were trapped inside. Rufus pulled Jack out and went back for the other man. The plane exploded before he could get him out and they were both killed. Jack was badly burned, but if it were not for Rufus he would have died.

  But he is not blind and he still has his hands and feet. Mrs. Webb said we must be thankful. I suppose we must.

  Dr. Webb says Rufus may be given a decoration posthumously. He said everyone agrees he deserves it.

  What use is that if you are dead? Rufus’s family have still not written or cabled. Father says they need time. We all need time.

  November 1917

  Monday, November 5

  Two weeks have passed with no proper letter from Jack or the hospital. Dear Reader, things keep happening and I know I ought to write them down but I feel as though I have turned to stone.

  Hallowe’en came and went and the younger children hardly even noticed. You would think Jack had died. But

  I just realized this is Guy Fawkes Day, but I won’t remind them. Nobody cares. We don’t really do anything about it anyway. It is too close to Hallowe’en.

  If only Jack himself would write. He can write because a card came penned by him. It just said, Dear Father and Mother, I am alive. They say I will recover. Do not worry. Save your tears for Rufus. It did not say Love, Jack and it did not look like his usual writing. It was printed by a shaking hand. But someone else wrote his name and included a note to say she had guided his hand for him while he wrote, and he had been too weak to write more.

  The writer added that the patient was as well as could be expected and will no doubt write himself when he has recovered his strength. He says he will not see anybody.

  Maybe that was why she did not say where the hospital was. It is all so strange. I know Father and Mother are alarmed but do not know what to do.

  Charlie is sure Jack will be proud of his scars. It is true that the boys have always shown off any scars they got, even when they were practically invisible. I hope Charlie is right.

  I know Father longs to go to England like Dr. Webb did, but we cannot afford to pay for his passage. And nobody has asked for him, not even Jack.

  We can write to Jack though. If a proper letter does not come soon I will write and tell him how badly Father needs one.

  Tuesday, November 6

  A nurse wrote to say Jack was unable to write himself. She said he had stopped talking to everyone but she was sure he would pull out of it soon. She said this did happen to the boys who suffered his sort of injury. But she did not describe what his sort of injury was.

  It ended up: I wish I could write more but he is grieving for his friend and has shut himself away from everyone at present, poor lad.

  That poor lad brought tears to all our eyes. Before this war began, I had only seen Father cry when he was laughing very hard, which he hardly ever does. Men don’t cry, or they aren’t supposed to. But I have seen him cry many times now, especially since Hugo was killed.

  Friday, November 9

  Dear Reader, I feel so old and I feel as though I am being scarred like Jack by all that is happening. Oh, I so wish you were real and I could tell you face to face what is on my mind. I got a letter from Rosemary. It is very short. I will copy it here. Then I can throw it away. Here it is.

  Dear Eliza,

  Perhaps I should not write to you but I know Jack told you about me and I need to tell someone in your family what is going on here. I don’t know your parents. I went over to the hospital where Jack is and tried to see him but they say he will not see anyone. His face has been badly burned and I know from experience that such injuries affect people strangely. But it sounds as though he is walling himself off from everyone. I think it is more than Rufus’s death although I can’t explain why I think so. But I can’t get to him. Would you write, Eliza? I do need to see him. Surely he has written to you. He is so fond of his little sister. Please, ask if I can come even for five minutes.

  Sincerely,

  Rosemary Trent

  What does it mean? What should I do?

  Dear Reader, I am so worried. I wrote to Jack. I heard Mother crying and I got so mad. I am anxious about Rosemary too. So I poured out my worries about both of them in letters to them both. I told him he could not turn his back on us. I reminded him that he had promised to look after Rosemary if anything happened to Rufus. He told me so himself. Her letter sounded so lonely and worried.

  I told her to go to wherever he was and just bash in no matter what bosh anyone else said. I maybe should not have said any such thing.

  I got an envelope and found the address for the hospital on Father’s desk, and mailed Jack’s letter. Was it a terrible thing to do? Oh, I am beside myself! I can’t concentrate on school or the younger children.

  I keep thinking about Rosemary and wondering if I should tell Father and Mother about her. But so far I have not known what to say and the right moment to speak about it all has not come.

  I wrote another page to her and told her exactly what I had written to Jack and ordered her again to just bust through to him no matter what. We used to play a game where we had a secret password. I told her to send it in to him if nothing else worked. It means: Comrade, I need you. It is Open Sesame, spelled backwards. We had four or five secret words. I am sure he will remember. Emases Nepo sounds a bit silly now but it was useful when we were little.

  I am afraid Mother and Father will be very angry with me for letting this secret go on for so long without saying a word. They have always said you should o
nly keep a promise where no one would really be hurt if you broke it. It won’t make them forgive me if I say I could not tell because I had promised Jack to keep his secret.

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave

  When first we practise to deceive.

  Monday, November 26

  Important goings-on in town. Prime Minister Borden spoke at the Uxbridge Music Hall today, and it seems like half the town turned out to hear him. Father went, but Mother didn’t. All we can think about is Jack.

  Thursday, November 29

  No letters from England. I am sorry, dear Reader, not to have written. I am beside myself, as Aunt Martha says. That is a strange expression. How can a person be beside herself? But it is how I feel. Divided. Cut in two.

  I am not being a faithful journal keeper, but once I start, I get into hurtful things and sometimes I start and make a muddle and tear out the page and start again.

  December 1917

  Saturday, December 1

  Still no word but my letter may have just arrived.

  I suppose I should tell you of some normal happenings in our lives. Once you stop writing every day, it is hard to start up again. You, dear Reader, grow far off and faint in my mind.

  But I did recite “In Flanders Fields” at the concert. It was terribly hard to do. I hated the bit, “We are the Dead. Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset’s glow …” It was written up in the paper and the reporter said: Young Eliza Bates brought tears to our eyes with her recitation.

  I don’t know how I managed not to cry but I told myself it was about nobody I knew and just kept going. On the way home, nobody said a word but Mother squeezed my hand so tight it almost hurt.

  We are beginning to start preparing Christmas gifts. It is not easy when you don’t have much pocket money.

  Tuesday, December 4

  I finally heard from Rosemary again. It was mysterious, to put it mildly. I will copy it as I did with the other. She does not prattle on for pages.