Copyright © 2017 by Sigmund Brouwer
Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959–, author
Innocent heroes / Sigmund Brouwer.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-10191-846-3 (hardback).—ISBN 978-1-10191-847-0 (epub)
1. Animals—War use—Juvenile fiction. 2. Animals—War use—Anecdotes—Juvenile literature. 3. World War, 1914–1918—Canada—Juvenile fiction. 4. World War, 1914–1918—Canada—Juvenile literature. 5. Human-animal relationships—Juvenile fiction. 6. Human-animal relationships—Anecdotes—Juvenile literature. I. Title.
PS8553.R68467I66 2017 jC813’.54 C2016-900967-X
C2016-900968-8
Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Tundra Books of Northern New York, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933014
Edited by Samantha Swenson
Designed by Leah Springate
Cover and chapter opener images (poster) Your Chums Are Fighting—Why Aren’t You?
Source: Library and Archives Canada/National Archives of Canada fonds/c029484k; (barbed wire) © Kelpfish | Dreamstime.com; (dog silhouette) © Art-Y / Getty Images; (vintage card) © Davor Ratkovic | Dreamstime.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
v4.1
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DEDICATION
Much gratitude to the Horizon School Division in Saskatchewan for support of this project—and especially to Kevin Garinger, Director of Education, and Katherine Oviatt, Supervisor of Literacy and Learning Services, who made it possible to spend so much time with the 2015–2016 ELA Grade 9 students at Punnichy High School for ongoing advice, discussions, questions and comments about Thomas Northstar’s role in the platoon’s fictional narrative. To teacher Kelly Schermann and the students at Punnichy High School, I share your dream that some day it will truly be one blood and one nation.
This book is dedicated to:
Kathy Oviatt
Kelly Schermann
Joe Bear
Raven Bigsky
Mercedes Bigsky-McKay
Jayden Bitternose
Kendall Bitternose
Dennis Bruce
Ty Bull
April Desjarlais
Sydney Desjarlais
Hyson Dubois
Wyatt Dubois
Brian Fisher
Maddy Gordon
Cassidy Grey
Tia Hunter
Lennae Kinequon
Demetrius McNab
Elias McNab
Angel Morin
Garret Pelletier
Tianna Pelletier
Tiara Pelletier
Tiara Pratt-McNabb
Chad Runns
Spencer Taypotat
Aaliyah Thomas-Pratt
Shanna Yahyahkeekoot
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
LITTLE ABIGAIL
BOOMER
COAL DUST
TOMATO
LEO
CHARLIE
BISCOTTE
LOUISE
EPILOGUE
When the Guns Fell Silent
Acknowledgments
Sources
Photos
INTRODUCTION
THE CAUSES OF WORLD WAR ONE
World War One was called the Great War because of how many countries were involved and because 17 million people were killed in the conflict that began on July 28, 1914, and ended on November 11, 1918. The causes are so complicated that historians are unable to come to full agreement, but they do agree that the trigger for the war was the assassination of the archduke of Austria in June of 1914. He was killed by a Serbian student who was part of a revolutionary group that wanted to end Austria–Hungary rule and create a new state of greater Serbia.
Roughly a month later, Austria and Hungary declared war on Serbia. Austria was backed by Germany, and Serbia was backed by Russia. As a result, Germany declared war on Russia.
Russia was part of a defense alliance called the Triple Entente: France, Russia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had all agreed that if one of the countries was attacked, the others would join the fight and would be commonly known as the Allied forces. By declaring war on Russia, Germany was involving these other countries in the war.
In early August, German troops marched on France, taking a route through Belgium, which was a neutral country. The United Kingdom also had an agreement to defend Belgium, so at this point Britain declared war on Germany. And since Canada in 1914 was part of the British Empire, Canada was now at war with Germany too.
Once the German march on France was stopped, the battle on the Western Front of France and Belgium—the Eastern Front was along the border of the Russian Empire—became a stalemate, largely as a result of something new to warfare: the machine gun.
Traditionally, a mass of soldiers could advance on another mass of soldiers, and eventually one side would overcome the other. A machine gun in the hands of a few soldiers, however, proved to be an overwhelming advantage no matter how large the group of advancing soldiers.
As a result, neither side could find a way to get past the other. Both sides dug trenches deep enough to shelter soldiers from bullets, and sometimes only wide enough for two soldiers to walk side by side. These trenches were sometimes barely more than the length of a football field away from the enemy, close enough that they could communicate by yelling.
With each side dug in and unable to advance on the other, France became the battleground of the Western Front of the Great War.
Credit 1
EARLY JULY, 1916
COURCELETTE, FRANCE
Bullets whizzed over Jake York. The scouting mission had gone wrong. With the other nineteen soldiers of his platoon, he was crouched behind a small hill, trapped by enemy machine gun fire from the other side.
Worse, from miles away, monstrous artillery guns now fired explosive shells at their location. Their own Canadian guns! Nobody at headquarters knew the platoon had been ambushed at that location, and it was only a matter of time before a shell hit them.
At the dreaded whistling sound of another approaching shell, Jake tried to hug the ground. The shell exploded a couple hundred yards behind, throwing up huge gobs of mud that splashed on his helmet.
On his left side, Jake felt an elbow hit his ribs. He looked over at Charlie Austin, a new soldier to the platoon, tall and skinny.
“Look at him blubber,” Charlie said, pointing at another soldier named Mark Lipton. “No wonder you guys call him Princess.”
Mark was close enough to hear Charlie. He was the biggest soldier in the platoon, well over six feet tall and as wide as a barrel. He was barely older than a boy and so shy that he blushed if you gave him a direct look. Tears streamed down his face as he curled his huge body around a small cage, as if that could protect the bird inside from two hundred pounds of explosives.
“Charlie,” Jake said, “I barely know you, but already I’m done with you.”
Jake knew tha
t Mark had been given his nickname back in Canada, at the training camp on a morning that he’d slept late. A sergeant had dumped a bucket of water on Mark and called him Princess in a bellowing voice that had been heard hundreds of yards away, causing laughter among all the soldiers.
But this was not training camp.
It was war. In France. Jake’s platoon, called the Storming Normans, was part of one of the four companies that made up the 36th Battalion. They were on the battle line of trenches with tens of thousands of German soldiers on the other side. No one was laughing anymore.
“He’s a crybaby,” Charlie repeated. “You should be done with him instead.”
“Ignore him,” Jake told Mark. “Everyone else around here knows how much we need your pigeon.”
“Little Abigail,” Mark said. “That’s what I call her. Little Abigail.”
“Something to eat,” Charlie said. “That’s what I’d call it. Tasty little pigeon.”
Mark blinked away fresh tears.
Jake’s young face was gray with lack of sleep and smeared with the inescapable mud. He leaned down to pull at the shoelaces of his boots, but his fingers were greasy with mud and he made little progress.
Jake noticed the soldier on the other side of him was watching with a question on his face. All Jake knew so far was the man’s name, Thomas Northstar, and that he was Cree from Saskatchewan. Thomas had not spoken once since taking a spot beside Jake. Rumor was that—except to say “yes, sir” to Lieutenant Norman—Thomas hadn’t spoken once since joining the platoon.
“Hey,” Jake said to Thomas, “you wearing socks with those moccasins?”
Like many Cree in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Thomas wore moccasins instead of boots. Moccasins were more comfortable and easier for running. Jake was wishing that he had his own pair.
Thomas nodded.
“My boots are too muddy to untie my laces,” Jake explained to Thomas. “Any chance you’d give me those socks for important military reasons?”
Thomas shook his head from side to side. Jake had been joking with his question. No soldier gave up socks.
The dreaded whistling sound came again. Jake ducked his head and held his breath. Whoomp! This one landed a few yards closer than the previous one.
“I’d heard so much about this platoon of Storming Normans,” Charlie said, pulling his head back up. “But if Lieutenant Norman was that good, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”
“That’s why I need my socks,” Jake told Thomas. “If he doesn’t shut up, I’m going to stuff them in his mouth to stop the complaining.”
Thomas broke the silence he’d held since joining the platoon and said to Charlie, “I have not taken off these socks for two weeks. I suggest you listen to Jake or you will not like the taste when I help him feed them to you.”
—
There was another reason that Mark Lipton was called Princess by his friends. When it came to animals, he had the gentlest touch. He fought tears at the sight of any animal in pain. Any other man might have been teased for it, but Lipton’s pain was so visible that to the other soldiers it seemed to express all of the sorrows they had to keep bottled up in these horrible times.
Because of that gentleness, Mark had been given the job of caring for the pigeons. The cage he protected was strung with shoulder straps and held only one pigeon.
There had been four in the cage a day earlier. One at a time, a couple of hours apart, each of the other three had been released. Each had failed to make it past patrolling falcons and German gunners. Little Abigail was Mark’s favorite and the only one that remained.
Others said that a pigeon did not recognize men the way that a dog might, and the huge man never disagreed because he was always too shy to argue with anyone. But Mark knew better. He knew that Little Abigail loved eating seed directly from his hand when he reached into the cage, and he knew that Little Abigail loved it when he stroked her feathers at night to calm her before putting a blanket over the cage.
—
Lieutenant Norman crawled toward them through a haze of smoke from the explosions, nodding with a grim tightness of his mouth. He was a man of medium build, but something in the intensity of his dark eyes made him seem a lot larger.
“It’s time,” Lieutenant Norman told Mark. “Last chance.”
Mark understood. He’d already watched three not make it, and his tears were for the danger that this one faced. Little Abigail.
Mark fumbled with the clasps to the small door of the wire cage. Mark reached inside to wrap his fingers around the bird, and Little Abigail did not flinch. He felt the softness of the bird’s downy breast feathers and the rapid firing of the bird’s heart against her ribs.
Mark pulled Little Abigail out of the cage. They both waited for their orders. Because a good soldier—no matter what size—would do what was needed.
—
Little Abigail was a beautiful white bird with slate gray markings on her breast and wings. She was born and bred with an ability to find her way home, no matter where she was released.
Outside the cage, to Little Abigail, the hands that held her were huge. But she did not feel fear, because the gentleness of those giant hands was always a comfort to her, giving her a sense of protection. She did not struggle, then, as the large hands cradled her body, and she did not pull her left leg away from the fingers of the other man who carefully tied the tiny tube to the delicate bone.
She waited, because she knew that soon she would be flung into the freedom of flight.
A pigeon cannot understand human words, but it does understand sound and emotion.
“Fly fast and brave,” said the man that others called Princess. He brushed his face against the top of her head and opened his hands.
Little Abigail tucked her legs into her belly and burst upward with a flash of wings.
Ahead were falcons that could dive at more than a hundred miles an hour faster than Little Abigail’s fastest speed.
But the real danger was in her first moments of flight.
Little Abigail needed to gain height and circle a few times to find her way. When she was oriented, she adjusted her wing tips to make a diving turn and, by nothing more than sheer good fortune, ducked beneath the first bullet fired at her. The shot was so close that a slight puff of feathers blew away in the air currents.
Unfortunately, the next bullet hit more than outer feathers, and Little Abigail tumbled from the sky.
Jake saw her disappear in a small clump of land between the enemy soldiers and the trapped platoon.
—
That’s it then, Lieutenant John Norman thought. We are finished.
Without realizing he had done it, the lieutenant reached inside his uniform and felt the edges of the photograph of his young son. He didn’t need to pull it out to see his son’s face. Lieutenant Norman had every feature memorized. With his fingers on the photograph, he allowed himself to imagine that he was stepping off a train back home, and that his son was running toward him, arms outstretched.
Lieutenant Norman told himself he would keep this image in his mind for as long as possible. He would fight to the end, but without a message reaching the commanding officers, he would not be stepping off a train in Canada to hold his son.
“Sir,” Mark said. “Look.”
Mark had not stopped watching the small clump of land where his favorite pigeon had fallen. He’d believed in Little Abigail and refused to give up on her.
Somehow Little Abigail had managed to fight gravity and pull herself into the gray air. Like an erratic butterfly, she fluttered a few feet from the ground, then ten feet.
It tore at Princess to see the awkwardness of Little Abigail’s movements. She was no longer sleek and fast; she was clumsy and heavy. But she had managed to fall out of range of German bullets and was safe from more gunfire.
She climbed. And climbed. Little Abigail was determined to conquer the gravity that wanted to pull her down.
Then, regaining stren
gth and resolution, Little Abigail found her direction and pushed hard toward her home.
—
“Sir! Sir!”
An hour later and dozens of miles away, a woman in a Canadian nurse’s uniform called for the nearest officer. The bell had just clanged, alerting her to the arrival of a pigeon in the roost.
Her name was Elizabeth Reed, and she had come from Toronto to join the war effort. She was tall with reddish hair, and she loved reading at nights, even though too often it was by candlelight because the electricity was out.
She served at a nearby hospital, but she was visiting the pigeon loft because she volunteered in her spare time to feed the birds and clean the cages. She had been standing near the cage where Little Abigail had been born five months earlier, when, with no warning, Little Abigail had come crashing into the loft with a feeble flapping of wings.
Elizabeth had watched in disbelief as Little Abigail tried to find a perch, then toppled onto the wires of the cage floor. The bird was no longer beautiful white, but red with blood from a torn breast, exhausted to the point of death.
Little Abigail’s will to return home was all that had kept her alive, and now that she’d arrived, she was on the verge of succumbing to her wounds.
Unconscious, she was barely alive.
Elizabeth lifted Little Abigail as softly as possible. Her first duty was the message in the tube. Little Abigail had given every ounce of her effort to deliver the message and those efforts would not be wasted.
Elizabeth scanned the message. “It’s the location of a platoon from the 36th Battalion. Trapped in the German sector. Under enemy fire and facing our own shells. They need help!”
The officer nodded, then examined the bird. One bullet had torn the bird’s breast, another bullet had grazed her eye socket, and a third had smashed and broken a leg.
It was incredible that Little Abigail had managed to fly the distance.
“A shame,” the officer said. “It looks like she won’t make it.”
He tapped the message and spoke again. “But thanks to her, the soldiers might.”
—
Innocent Heroes Page 1
