by P. S. Duffy
“What’s he saying?” Conlon demanded.
“Uh. Wife, baby. He has a wife and baby, a new baby,” Burwell said. He turned to the soldier. His whispers took on a coaxing intimacy. He pointed up at Publicover and shook his head. The prisoner nodded vigorously and stuttered out answers. Six in the barn, manning the gun, but the gun was broken. They were trying to fix it.
“And the howitzer?”
“He doesn’t know anything about a howitzer.”
“Artillery of any kind?”
The prisoner shook his head wildly. Conlon came face-to-face with him. “Tell him he’s never going to see that wife and baby again if he doesn’t talk,” he said with quiet determination. “Tell him we’re going to leave him here with a guard. If he isn’t telling us the truth now, it’ll be over for him. He saw what happened to his pal. He’ll go down with us if he’s lying.”
Burwell pleaded with the soldier and sat back. “No sir. He says there isn’t any howitzer or anything else this part of the line. He says there are Prussian Guards about a mile off to the north and east, he thinks, but here, just the MG. In the loft. And it’s dead, broken.”
“He’s lying,” Publicover said.
“Yeah?” Conlon looked over at Publicover.
“Yeah. First off, why would they put a machine gun in the loft? It’s forty feet aboveground. They’d want it waist-high for the shots to be effective, not flying out over the men’s heads.”
“Maybe it’s aimed at this slope we’re on,” Angus said.
“Good point,” Conlon said.
The prisoner began speaking rapidly. Burwell translated. “He says he’s only a private. He doesn’t have more intelligence. No more information. The gun is broken.”
The prisoner’s eyes were bulging. Conlon yanked his head up by the hair. “Six, eh? Six soldiers? Broken gun?”
“We’ll see,” Publicover said.
“We’ll risk one man going in there,” Conlon said. They stripped the German of his coat. Ebbin immediately volunteered. Just as quickly Angus countered that he’d go. Conlon told him they needed him to guide them back. Keegan already had the German helmet on, a tight fit. When he put on the coat, it came nearly to his ankles. He looked like a dwarf in a sorcerer’s robe. “Take off the damn coat,” Conlon said. He nodded at Ebbin, who pulled it on. A perfect fit. The Gothic helmet nearly hid his face. Lawrence Havers, German private.
Angus and Conlon scanned the farm again with glasses. Voles stuck a piece of chewing gum in his mouth and lay flat, rifle ready, squinting through the scope. Out of the blue, a musical note floated over the field. And another and another, plaintive and slow, from a harmonica, and “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding” wafted out over the ravine. Tendrils of remembered lyrics unfurled silently in the night.
“There’s a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And a white moon beams.
There’s a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I’ll be going down
That long, long trail with you.”
Voles looked back at Conlon. Burwell was looking up at the stars. Havers was staring straight ahead. No one spoke.
“What the . . . ?” Keegan said. “That’s ours. They can’t do that. They can’t take our song!”
“Can and have. The question is why?” Conlon said.
“Toying with us. They know we’re out here.” Angus narrowed his eyes at the barn.
“Maybe,” Conlon said, sitting up. “What I do know is that they’re going to miss that patrol. I’m not going to risk going in ’til we know what we’re up against. And I don’t trust our Fritz here anymore than Publicover does. You ready, Havers?”
“Yes sir,” he said smartly. “Should I lob a grenade into the loft if there aren’t too many of them? I can take cover behind that stone wall.”
“We’re not here to take them down. We’re here to bring back intelligence. There won’t be any if we don’t make it out alive. Just go down there and get a look—in the barn, if you can. We’ll cover you, and Voles here will have his scope. If you see the howitzer, shift your rifle to the other shoulder. If you think we can take them with our little band, shift it back. Then get to that stone wall and roll into the woods. Even if that MG is working, there’s no way it can get you from the loft at that angle, once you’re down there. Of course, there could be more in the woods. If we have to go in, we will, but our mission is intelligence. Got that? No heroics. Just scout things out.”
Ebbin nodded vigorously but didn’t move. “Havers?” Angus whispered. He found Angus’s eyes and slowly rose. In another minute he was down to the dead Canadians and up the crest of the gully—a silhouette in a German greatcoat and heavy helmet. Then, without faltering, he went all the way in.
He sidled around the barn and a moment later reappeared and shifted his rifle to his other shoulder before turning smartly and walking swiftly back along the side of the barn. He’d seen the howitzer. He shifted his rifle back again. He thought they could take them out.
WHAT ANGUS WOULD remember with utmost clarity was Havers at the front of the barn, firing a grenade up into the loft. Except Havers wouldn’t have stood there frozen when it failed to explode. He’d have tossed up another or run for cover. And so it was perhaps Ebbin, after all, who dropped from a single bullet from a single rifle.
It wasn’t clear at first if he was dead or alive because the fully functioning machine gun in the loft was strafing the slope, churning up the ground in front of the hedge, splintering the trees to sawdust. Burwell’s mustache drooped over his open mouth as he repeated the prisoner’s cry that they must have fixed it, fixed the gun! “He didn’t know!” But Publicover had dropped the soldier with a quick thrust of his knife and was running down the slope. It was Angus, charging down after him, dodging bullets, who raced up to the barn and tossed in the Mills bomb that blew out the loft.
It was a blur of smoke after that and flying timber and roof tiles and bodies, the oak tree a crackling inferno, and bullets snapping as he and Publicover, Conlon and the rest ran toward what was left of the barn and took cover behind the stone wall. Angus remembered firing and reloading Publicover’s Lee Enfield, remembered shouts and screams of agony and choking black smoke and men’s legs running. And Voles picking off Germans one by one. Then it was quiet.
He remembered Conlon’s silhouette bending over someone on the ground—Burwell, he thought. He remembered leaping over bodies to get to Ebbin, hoping against hope that he was still alive. Remembered ripping the German helmet off. He remembered the arch of Ebbin’s throat as he lifted his head. Remembered the blood-soaked tunic. Remembered how Ebbin reached in for the cross and tags and pleaded with Angus to take them, wear them. Remembered refusing, telling Ebbin that Havers was on the books now, that no one could do Havers better, nor make Havers more proud. “Don’t let him die, Angus,” Ebbin begged through shuddering breaths. Said his name. Called him Angus. “I won’t. He’ll live on, through you. Stay alive. Ebbin!” he remembered saying. Remembered Ebbin’s body jerking violently, hearing him choke. And then the fixed, unblinking eyes, and the unbearable realization that remembering was all he’d have left.
Then footsteps as a German, still alive, was coming at him. He remembered throwing himself over Ebbin and being wrenched back as the German started kicking Ebbin’s body, swearing at him as Angus lunged forward. Then the shock of the bayonet slicing into his shoulder and snapping off as the German wrested the rifle away. The German’s open mouth and then the blows from the rifle butt slamming Angus’s shoulder, and a heavy thud as the German dropped from a gunshot. He remembered Publicover rounding the barn in an easy, loose run, his flash of a smile, gun in one hand, the Bowie in the other. And then the German rising up and a struggle that left Publicover curled up, clutching his stomach next to the unmoving German. Remembered scraping over to Publicover
with his good arm, the bloody Bowie on the ground, and his own hand, smeared with Ebbin’s blood, on Publicover’s face. Remembered picking up the Bowie and stabbing the German who was maybe dead and maybe not, but was surely dead when he was done. Remembered cradling Publicover then sitting back on his heels as Keegan walked the huge barn door open to reveal the thick, hollow death tube of a massive Krupp howitzer, its long snout black and charred, the carriage off its wheels. There was more. There was more after that and before, but he could not remember.
Conlon or Keegan, one of them, pulled the bayonet out of his shoulder and staunched the wound in his useless arm. But it was Keegan who’d lifted him up each time he began to pass out as they dragged back toward camp, saying, “Which way? This way? Please, sir, remember.” He remembered. He remembered looking up at the stars. He remembered begging God to help him. He remembered the sharp bite of the smelling salts, the dizzy constellations coming to order, the landmarks he’d picked out along the way materializing as if in a dream. And he remembered cursing God and all of heaven for granting him the sense of direction that brought them to the camp at last, alive, without Voles and Burwell. Without Publicover. Without Havers, and without Ebbin.
SEVENTEEN
April 15th, 1917
Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia
After some consideration of placement, Simon spread glue on the back of the headline from the April 10 Halifax Morning Chronicle and pressed it into his Great War scrapbook.
BRITISH SMASH ENEMY WITH THUNDERBOLT ATTACK
AND THE CANADIANS ACHIEVE A GLORIOUS VICTORY
Satisfying.
On the next pages he pressed in the other three headings from the front pages:
CANADIANS SWEPT GERMANS FROM FAMOUS RIDGE
SIX THOUSAND GERMANS CAPTURED
TITANIC BATTLE OPENS WITH FURY OF THE INFERNO
THE WHOLE WORLD SEEMED RED AS HUNDREDS OF
BRITISH GUNS FLASHED OUT WITH VOLCANIC ROAR
Excellent. The printed stories could go on the following pages. It was the headlines that he wanted future readers to see first, so they’d get the full impact. He imagined his father on the top of the ridge—ragged, worn, his men around him. Maybe cheering or planting the Union Jack. No, no, Simon decided after a moment. That wasn’t right. He wouldn’t be cheering with dead and wounded all around. He’d be thoughtful. Quiet like always, his eyes shadowed and dark. “Well done,” he’d say to his men.
“You can be right proud of your father,” Philip had told Simon. “Right proud. Down the tavern, talk’s all about Vimy. Put Canada on the map.”
Exactly. And exactly what he did not hear from his grandfather. What he heard from him was what a sad comment it was that Canada had entered the world stage as a warrior nation. Equally sad, for his grandfather, Simon thought, was that he didn’t understand that the victory would have the Germans on the run and his father home soon.
After school Simon and Zenus pored over the details in the papers with Zeb and Alvin Hennigar and a few others around the potbelly stove at Hennigar’s—how hell had opened up, “tragic and frightful,” an “infernal splendor” when the guns “Belched Forth Their Roar of Death.” How snow and rain kept airmen from covering the ground troops who swept forward, undaunted; and best of all, how one Canadian soldier, out of bullets, had ripped the spiked helmet off a German soldier and killed him with it.
“Victory when none was coming,” Zenus’s father said with satisfaction. He stood up in his black fisherman’s boots and doffed his cap before crossing the street to the tavern with Wallace and Philip. Simon imagined arms linked, glasses raised. “I’m not even going to try to stop him,” Zenus said. Lady Bromley rounded the corner, and Zenus’s father doffed his cap to her as well.
“This is one day when I wish women were allowed in there!” Lady Bromley said, opening the door to Hennigar’s and turning to stare through the glass at the tavern. “Children, too! Oh, don’t look so surprised. We need a communal celebration. What would you two ruffians say to a Vimy Victory Social? A fund-raiser for the Blue Cross to help the horses. Good afternoon,” she nodded at Alvin on his stool behind the counter. “I just need a pound of sugar and a few cans of peas.” Alvin started weighing out the sugar. She turned to Simon. “You must be thrilled with your father in it. I’m sure I can count on you to help with the social.” When Simon didn’t respond, she wagged her chin and frowned at him. “What’s the matter with you? Where’s your patriotic spirit?”
Simon had not forgotten her cane-stamping treatment of George. “How’s money going to help the horses when they’re being worked to death?” he asked.
“Worked to death? Who told you such a thing? Mr. Heist? Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“Who then? Your grandfather? Of course. That man can’t see an up without a down.” She pursed her lips, then her expression inexplicably softened. “Can’t be easy on you. Your father over there in it. Ebbin giving up his life for it. Your grandfather dead set against it. His high-flung ideals don’t do a thing for the boys over there. It must be very hard on you indeed.”
“No,” Simon said. “It isn’t.” But of course it was, and this unexpected sympathy had thrown him.
“Well, don’t you believe it about the horses,” Lady Bromley said briskly, taking the sack of groceries from Alvin. “He must have heard a rumor and taken it as fact. That’s what people do when they let their emotions blind them.”
Simon snapped to his grandfather’s defense. “That’s what he says about rumors. And it wasn’t him. It was George Mather, and he was there.”
“George of all people! I don’t know why you’d be talking with him nor trusting a single thing he says.” Behind her Alvin nodded in agreement. She paid for her purchases and left.
“Don’t you know George is nuts?” Zenus asked when the door banged shut.
A WEEK LATER the last vestiges of dirty snow melted away, and the air turned gentle with a hint of spring. Simon asked if Charlotte might be able to go for a short sail. Putnam Pugsley and Davy Hume were headed to Big Tancook to pick up a couple of rowboats. Lady Bromley wasn’t home, thankfully. Lord Bromley raised his glass of beer. “Take the girl out!” he wheezed. “She’s hardly seen the sun!” He leaned on the newel post. “Charlotte! Charlotte Plante! The MacGrath boy is here to carry you off to an island! Be home before supper and you’ll get away with it!”
It was a wet ride over. Charlotte plunked down on the floorboards of the cockpit, clutching her hat and pulling her unwieldy cloak around her. Simon tried to get her to sit up with him on the windward rail, but she shook her head.
“Afraid, girl? H’ain’t you never been onto a boat?” Putnam’s pale blue eyes shifted from her to the sails and back. “Didn’t bring the right clothes for it, did you?” He handed Davy the tiller and went forward to haul out a stiff old foresail, which he bundled around her. He was old and so thin that his cinched-up trousers ballooned around his hips. He looked frail enough to blow away, but his arms were sinewy and strong.
The Glory B, their Tancook knockabout schooner, heeled over in the wind, pounding through the waves with a steady spray off her bow. A comforting, rhythmic sound. Charlotte ducked down, head on her knees, and asked if a storm was coming. Said she didn’t know how to swim.
This set Putnam and Davy to laughing. “Oooo hee, look out now, I see a blue-wind storm comin’, eh Putnam!” Davy said.
Putnam squinted out off the port quarter. “You’d be sorely right, there, now Davy. Drop the main! Batten the hatches! She’s a-goin’ over!”
Charlotte looked wildly about, bracing herself against the thwart. Putnam and Davy laughed some more. Simon told them to quit it, and they did. “We’re having our bit of fun, m’dear. Not a storm in sight,” Putnam said. “And not a one of us knows how to swim, except Simon here. Why would we? T’wouldn’t take long to freeze to death in this water. Only reason Simon knows how is, like his father before him, he was dragged to some pond or other by h
is grandfather and made to learn. Eh, Simon?”
“May not be a storm coming, but let’s just hope we don’t run into one of the Kaiser’s subs,” Davy said ominously. “Simon, you keep a look-see for that signal tower the schoolteacher’s building on the other side of the Point.”
“It isn’t a signal tower,” Simon said. “It’s a lookout tower. Mr. Heist wants to get up above the trees at the edge of his place to see the bay.”
“That what he told you?” Davy asked.
“Yep.” Simon looked Davy in the eyes.
“Why’nt he cut them trees down, now, eh? Who builds a tower to see a view?”
“Just talk, Davy,” Putnam put in. “Don’t even know as he’d know how to pound a nail, let alone build a tower.”
“I hear he got some boys over to Blandford to come out and build it.”
Simon could hardly stand it. “Well, it isn’t true. I know for a fact, he isn’t trying to signal anyone.”
“Never know who’s who in this world. Them you think is one thing turn out to be another,” Davy said.
“A dark view of the world, there, Davy, m’boy,” Putnam noted.
“Talk is he won’t be rehired. Heard it from some as has boys in his class.”
“On grounds their boys won’t make it out of sixth grade?” Putnam answered.
“You can make fun all you want, Putnam. Herr Heist, is what some calls him. Wouldn’t that be right now, eh, Miss Plante?” But Charlotte didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m not saying I call him that, I’m just saying he’s sure to have folks over there on the other team.”
“What do you mean, not rehired? He’s as loyal as anyone. My grandfather said!” Simon shouted over the wind at the two of them.
