The Gunner

by Paul Almond

  And indeed what a surprise! My brother Jack.

  I grabbed his hand and we both looked into each other’s eyes, happy to see each other. “So what are you doing here?” I asked. It was more of a thrill than ever, seeing him here, under fire.

  “I came to see you, of course.” He beamed. “And find out how our 8th Brigade is getting on. Since I got back, I’ve been on a tour of the firing line. I was given three weeks in England, supposedly on ‘leave’, but I spent most of the time on chaplaincy matters, of course.”

  Well well, he’d been on leave. And of course my next question followed. “Did you see Rene?”

  I saw his face become a mask as he reached in his pocket and handed me a letter from her. “Not only did I see her, but she wrote you a note. Read it later.”

  Yes, later, especially with this rare visit from my brother. “All well at the Old Homestead?”

  “Big news there is that Jean is getting married to Bert Finnie, he’s in my congregation at Trinity. Fine young man, got a bit of money, it seems. Going to be married in December. On the winter solstice, I believe.”

  Good news indeed, and I said so. More explosions made us flinch, so Jack volunteered: “I hear we’ve been giving them even worse. The BSM here told me of our new creeping bombardments. I got an earlier lowdown from General Currie, and it sounds interesting.”

  “The creeping barrage?” I knew we had fired on different coordinates every few minutes in the recent barrages, but we “Other Ranks” were the last to know the real details. I was sure pleased to hear my brother talked to our great Canadian General, from Vancouver so I’d heard. Made me proud, for sure. I was taking quite a liking to Jack, which may sound odd, but war was erasing the years that separated us.

  “Currie worked out,” Jones amplified, “that we should lay down an 18-pounder barrage just ahead of our Infantry’s advance using tighter lifts, meaning we shell closer to their line of attack.”

  “Don’t we hit our own men?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” the BSM admitted. “But better a few men than great numbers mown down with those deadly machine guns.”

  “So you mean our tighter bombardments don’t give the enemy much time to get out of his dugouts and man his guns?”

  Jones nodded. “It’s like a steel rake, our 18-pounder shrapnel shells, dragging through No Man’s Land. First the enemy outposts, then the front lines, and finally we strike with HE at the rear areas to stop reserve troops from rushing up to fill the gap.”

  “General Currie put it this way,” Jack said, “the Infantry should follow the Artillery barrage as closely as a horse follows a nosebag filled with corn.” They both smiled.

  Our conversation was interrupted by a terrific explosion about a hundred yards away, followed by another, and another. Oh no! What a time to be targeted. “Come on!” I yelled. Jack followed me as we tore for the shelter of our deep pits, while the BSM went to the next gun.

  We dived down the rough steps with explosions going off behind. Harry and skinny Jim were already there, wrangling about military matters so I introduced my brother.

  Seeing his Colonel’s insignia, they gave a salute, though the low dugout prevented Jim’s awkward frame from standing straight.

  “At ease, men.” Jack nodded. “I always feel uncomfortable when men salute me. Never got used to it.” He grinned cheerfully. “But of course, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, I suppose.”

  He wasn’t in Rome, so I didn’t know what on earth he was talking about.

  “And how are you getting on here in the 8th?” he asked brightly.

  “Very well, sir,” replied Jim, still with his twitch.

  “Your chaplains taking good care of you?”

  “Well, sir,” interjected Harry “yesterday was Sunday — no hint of a church service.” Oh boy, not another altercation! Trust Oakes.

  “I am sorry. I suppose our Brigade chaplain was up at the Front with the Infantry lads, who face death every minute. Their needs are often seen to be greater. I’ll see what I can do to get him back here every so often.”

  “My brother is assistant to the head of the Chaplaincy Corps at our Canadian Headquarters,” I said proudly.

  “If they’re not conducting church services, I don’t see what use your chaplains are anyway,” said Harry, forever the cheeky bugger.

  “You told me you never go to church, Harry,” broke in Jim, his stick-like arms folded across his chest, “so what’s the odds?”

  A bloody great explosion shook the ground nearby, and some of the earthen covering fell on us. “Maybe there’s got to be chaplains,” Jim went on as he brushed it off, “but what good do they do apart from Sunday preaching?” Rather too much of a challenge, I thought.

  “Well, Gunner, you may think it wasteful. I first served in the Boer War, and we had the same criticisms then, too. But since I’ve been accorded some influence here, I have managed to institute a few practices which, I am told, do make the soldiers’ lives better.”

  “Such as?” Harry interrupted insolently.

  “Well, the British forbade chaplains at the front line, but I got that changed for Canadians. We go out into No Man’s Land and help medical officers and stretcher bearers. We hold services in dressing station dugouts and ruined cellars.” Jack looked up anxiously as another shell exploded quite close by.

  “Holding services...” Harry said. “What about those who don’t care about services?”

  “Well, as I said, they help get the wounded out. Already two of my chaplains have been wounded while doing so.” I saw Jack could give as good as he got. “Another couple have won Military Crosses risking their lives in this manner. I would call that helping soldiers, wouldn’t you, Gunner?”

  “I didn’t know any of that,” mumbled Harry. “Yes Sir, that certainly is helping soldiers.” First time I’d seen him bested. Good for you, Jack, I thought, and ducked as the loud whine of a shell came to land behind us.

  “And then,” pressed Jack, “I set up a department to serve coffee. The Aussies gave us one of their old coffee machines at Suicide Corner. Night and day, our chaplains dole out coffee in cups made of cigarette tins. Wherever trench routes meet the roads, and also at Casualty Clearing Stations, we serve coffee, tea, biscuits, and even distribute cigarettes. Canon Scott was instrumental in advising me, you know. You should be seeing him one of these days.”

  Well, that certainly opened my eyes, and impressed Harry and Jim huddling there. The conversation made me almost forget the awful battering our emplacements were getting. No good worrying about a direct hit; I had long since decided that if I were going to go, it would probably be instantaneous, like those two fellows blown apart over in the 31st with not a second to feel what happened.

  And then, bless my soul, didn’t it all stop at dinner time? Jack seemed relieved.

  “You see, Heinie enjoys his snack, like us.” I grinned. “When we eat breakfast, too, both of us lay off the other fellow.”

  Jack sighed. “I see. Well, this barrage is one of the heaviest I’ve been in. Last week, I toured the front lines several times, encouraging our men. Something,” he muttered, “our worthy DCS doesn’t often do.”

  “DCS?” Jim asked.

  “Director of Chaplaincy Services.”

  Jim nodded. “Mmm. I hear you have problems...”

  “And how would you know about that?” asked Harry, hoping for another argument.

  Jim twisted his scrawny body to look at him. “A little birdie.” I led the way as we scrambled up and crossed the blasted earth to the cook’s area.

  “You should be eating with our officers, Jack.”

  “No, after witnessing what happened in that last war, my place is with the men. I’ll be eating with you, Eric — if there’s enough.”

  After we collected our mess tins, I led Jack over to one side of the gun-pit where we sat on a couple of boxes.

  “So you’ve got problems with your boss?” I asked, tucking in. As always, I was starving.<
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  Jack shrugged. He didn’t want to go on, so I pressed. “Jack, if you can’t talk to your brother, who else is there? Me, a lowly Corporal, I talk to no one. It won’t go any further.”

  “Well,” he heaved a sigh, “for starters, the DCS tried to get some of my best men — his friends of course — reassigned back to England out of harm’s way, in spite of our being understaffed here.” He sighed and shook his head. “Made me furious. He’s back there now, preoccupied with trivialities when he should be up here at the Front.” He paused, then went on, “You see, Eric, the Catholics are in a state, they want more chaplains, and the DCS being from Ontario, he doesn’t care about them. The Methodists and the Presbyterians, they all want chaplains of their own, so there’s all this infighting.” He shook his head. “Like trying to keep peace in a cellar of feral tomcats.”

  I could see he had his work cut out for him, though I had no idea what a feral cat was. “And he won’t listen to you?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ve given up trying. I get things done on my own, and possibly he’ll be replaced. That’s all I can hope for. Getting some good fellow to head us up.” He paused to eat. “And how are you doing, Eric? The family is worried.”

  “Tell them not to; I feel just fine. I wish we got bigger meals and more sleep, but we’re pounding away at Fritz, as I’m sure you’ve heard from BSM Jones.”

  He nodded and scooped up the last of his bedraggled corned beef.

  “I should write more letters, Jack, but there just isn’t time. We’ve been building the best howitzer team in the Battery, maybe in the Brigade. We’ve got a great Lieutenant, too. He got wounded the other day, and he’s still with us.”

  “And I hear you had a man killed last night in the 40th. I’m going to stay and conduct the burial tonight.”

  “You do that a lot, Jack? Burials?”

  “Usually at night, poor fellows. You wouldn’t believe the numbers I have committed to the arms of the Almighty in the last year. So many. As Dante says, I had not thought death had undone so many.”

  Well, this Dante fellow sure spoke the truth. So many dead.

  “Now look, Eric,” Jack motioned to the letter in my breast pocket, “don’t get any ideas about Rene. You may not have much of a chance with her.”

  “Then why did she write to me?” I wasn’t going to take this lying down, though I now understood why he’d avoided any emotion when he gave it to me.

  “Oh, I agree, she might be a bit smitten. She did talk about you a lot when she and Leo drove me around these last three weeks. She asked me about our farm, and I confirmed what I gather you had told her. But Eric, this is England. She’s wealthy, well connected, and you, well, you’re like me, from a farm...”

  “Yeah, and look what a poor farm boy turned cleric has achieved! You get to talk to generals and almost run a whole huge Chaplaincy service!”

  “True. I was only saying what I did to save you disappointment.”

  “Maybe so. But Jack, I’m going to University when I go back.” He looked sad. I knew what he was thinking: IF you go back.

  “That’s a laudable aim,” he said. “I know Old Momma and Old Poppa would be pleased. And of course, if you get a degree, that would give you more chances in life...”

  “What’s so wrong with having hope?”

  “Nothing.” He paused. “How many lads have I buried with letters still in their pockets to loved ones? I end up sending them on. Must be just as hard on those at home as for their fellows who’ve gone marching into heaven, even with all the honours they’ve accumulated. I pity those young wives and sweethearts almost more than I do our boys at the Front. This time when I was in England, I made a point of visiting several families who’d lost loved ones.”

  I shook my head. “Amazing. A padre’s work never ends?”

  Later that night, in the mist and freezing cold, Jack stood in his cassock and surplice and read the service beside a muddy hole filled with water into which they carefully laid the body of our Gunner from the 40th Battery. They shovelled clay over him while the bugler blew that mournful Last Post. His buddies had scrounged a white cross to erect.

  I was reminded of the cross Old Poppa and me had stuck up on my grandfather’s grave in New Carlisle. There, under green lawns shaded by trees, my grandparents slept. But here, this Gunner would lie in bare, blasted earth under deafening bombardments while, as in the poem we all sort of knew by heart: “During the day the larks are still bravely singing, when they fly.”

  Back sipping an extra cup of coffee, Jack had managed to get from the Cook, he corrected me: “And in the sky, the larks still bravely singing, fly, yes. Major John McCrae is a fine doctor and a fine soldier. You know, he served with me in the Boer War? This time, we came over on the boat together.”

  “Did you now? You mean this summer?”

  “When I enlisted in the autumn of 1914. He and I both joined up right away, and we’ve been in touch ever since. A good godly man, no doubt about it.” Jack shook his head. “He’s out there in the thick of it, at a field hospital. I just hope he survives.

  “Oh, I see. Anyway, I think he’s one terble poet,” I said, our way of agreeing he was mighty fine.

  Well, as soon as I was alone, I did read Rene’s letter.

  Dear Eric,

  We have been driving Father John around and he suggested I write now so that he could bring the letter when he saw you, which he intends as soon as possible when he gets back to France.

  Leo and I think of you often, Leo of course teasing me dreadfully.

  Father John has told me all about your beautiful farm in Gaspe. I fancy it is rather like the great estates up in Scotland that we read about. He described the valley that you own, called The Hollow. Father John told me of the house he built that looks down into it, and your brother-in-law Joe’s sawmill. It must be very beautiful.

  I don’t think any of us can imagine how hard it must be for you over there on the firing line. One day, when you get back home, you must tell me all about it. I think it is just as well that I don’t know now, because I would worry far too much.

  The news in The Times seems good, but we do get the other side of it from some of the more indiscreet officers whom we drive, the best way to get news of the Front. What you are going through must be dreadful for even the bravest, which I know you are.

  I don’t expect you to write back, because I know you will be occupied every minute of the day, fighting that dreadful Hun. Thank heaven you are ridding our civilised world of this menace. I’m so proud of you, doing your bit for the Empire.

  Affectionately yours,

  Rene

  I wanted to grab a pen right away. But I remembered Jack’s warning; he’s older and smarter in things like this. As he said, what hope would there be? To really think about it, had I not better let things lie? He’d tell her I was okay when next he saw her. I shouldn’t let myself get involved in dreams, false hopes, wild yearnings. And anyway, stay focussed on this everlasting fight, I decided. But not for much longer. Finally Haig called a halt to the offensive and on November the 24th, at long last, we marched away from the Somme, its scars now covered with the first snows.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vimy Ridge

  Berthonval Farm, March 25/26, 1917: Sections of the Batteries moved into their new positions behind the Third Canadian Division. The group now consists of the 30th, 31st, 35th, 40th Batteries, all of which have been made six- gun batteries.

  April 1st: Batteries of the group continued heavy fire on enemy front and support line. There was considerable hostile fire in the neighbourhood of our Battery positions.

  War Diaries: 8th Brigade CFA

  “There’s a big attack coming. I just know it.”

  We were sure preparing for a big assault, no question about that. Vimy Ridge. We could see it ahead just north of Arras, a long, low slope up, stretching across five miles on a northwest southeast axis. Like a whale some said, not much of an escarpment compared to o
ur Canadian mountains, but high enough, about two hundred feet above the surrounding plains, making it tough for our Infantry. Pretty impregnable. Harry argued with Jim last week that the French here had lost 150,000 men by March 1916 when the British took over. But Harry countered that the British had also tried to take it themselves, and failed. “Not too optimistic,” I mumbled.

  Edward glanced at me. “For sure. But I wish they’d tell us when!”

  “Why are you guys so jumpy?” Now that dusk had settled, Sergeant McKillop was leaning against our dugout ladder, watching Edward and me going over the seams in our shirts, picking out lice. Earlier, Edward had received a great bundle of goodies from home that he had shared with his gun, as usual. McKillop, hoping to find some left-overs, had dropped in and was indeed finishing the only apple Edward had saved for himself.

  I felt my temper rise. “I’m not jumpy! Like Edward, I just want to know when it’s going to happen.”

  “Actually, who cares when?” Edward grumbled. “ Just more of the same.” We all three glanced up as another explosion shook the ground. The Sergeant was going back to the Wagon Lines tonight, having passed command of the gun over to me. I think everyone was relieved.

  This big salient-wide barrage had begun almost two weeks ago and it just drove us crazy, firing shell after shell without stopping, such a head-splitting thunder with the five other howitzers now in line, and all the 18-pounders, three batteries of six guns in each. And that was just our 8th Brigade. Almost two weeks we’d gone at it. Yesterday was Palm Sunday and no one even noticed. No clergyman, just me remembering how we used to decorate our St. Paul’s Church with spruce boughs down the aisle, because of course, no palms in Shigawake. Mind you, I said to myself, as a team we were pretty darned good, all awkwardness smoothed out. Same with the others. So I should feel satisfied.

  “Seems like they got some of their bigger guns aimed at us.” Edward was nervous, too. There is always an air of apprehension when you know something big is on the way.

  “You’ve both been back at the Wagon Lines. That should put you in shape,” McKillop said.