Irish and I cart water and serve breakfast and stock supplies and help the medical staff, and generally do what we are assigned to do. It is more or less like the work of the orderlies. I am now on the night shift and hope to finish this letter with no interruptions. I had a bath yesterday, the first in three weeks. I heard from one of our boys who returned from hospital in Étaples that they have a bathhouse there that can take 70 men at a time. He said that cigarettes arrive from Canada in unending supply. The boys in hospital are given oranges and chocolates and cigarettes to bring with them when they’re sent back up the line. Some of the wounded in hospital send word to their friends to open parcels that come while they’re away, and the eats are shared out among the men. The treats are appreciated far more in the trenches than in the hospitals, where everyone is well looked after.
I am being called this minute to heat some Oxo. I have to close. All my love, Chim
He did not tell Grania in the letter that when he first walked through the town, he met up with two men from Number 10 Field Ambulance and learned that one of the boys he had met during training in England had been killed by a shell. There had been nothing left of him to scoop into a sandbag, they said.
Jim remembered him as a red-haired intelligent boy named Egan, who looked no more than seventeen. He was so eager, he quickly became known as Eagern. He had left school to join up and had lied about his age. Some of the underage boys served in the line for months before they were found out and sent home. Some were sent back to England to fill in time until their next birthday. When they were deemed to be of fighting age, they returned to the line again, often to their old units. It was not easy to think of Egan not existing. According to the men from Number 10, he’d had no burial.
Several weeks back, at a time when things were quiet, Jim and Irish had been sent forward on a night working party to help reinforce a dugout that had been used as a dressing station and that would be used for the same purpose again. The sides and walls were eroded and had fallen in because of recent rains. The small party left after dark and arrived at the location a half hour later and the men started to dig. But the stench was impossible; the more they dug, the more terrible it became. It was all Jim could do to keep from running away from the job. He cleared a shovelful of earth and, through the dark, saw a pair of knees embedded in the dugout wall. And then, all around him, men were digging up body parts of French soldiers. Mud and slime were alive with skulls and arms and hands. They were told to give up and abandon the site, and they were glad to get out of there before daylight.
While he had been in the town near their new billets, Jim had passed a small church and he’d retraced his steps and entered the building. It was damp but peaceful, and there had been no one else inside. He sat in a pew and propped his feet on a low wooden rack that had been laid over the floor. He stayed there as long as he could, resting and thinking. Thinking how hopeless had been the life of the red-haired boy named Egan, whose flesh no longer existed.
I have begun to talk to myself at night. I try to be careful not to keep anyone awake, but Irish, never far off, has noticed. I should be exhausted; there is so much outside work to do. We have been put in charge of building latrines and incinerators. Stash is our best mason; he seemed to know something of the job when we were told to build a fireplace. Stash has always managed to attract stray dogs and cats; this time he adopted a white kitten and shoved it inside his shirt as he worked. Wherever the strays are, they will find him.
On Sunday, we attended Divine Service, and after that I had guard duty. Tonight I’ll be working the night shift. Stretcher bearers are a versatile lot behind the lines; we are used for many duties. I saw close up a severe shell shock case. Two friends from the 8th brought him in. The boy’s body was shaking; his head was twitching and his eyes rolling around without focus. His arms and hands and legs and feet were twitching, too. He was unable to stand and had to be propped between the boys before they could drag him to a bed. This is a terrible sight and affects everyone. It is like watching a convulsion that never ends. He was nineteen years old and the only word he could get out was Mother. He called out, again and again. A chaplain came in and told us not to worry, that the boy had only lost his nerve. But it was more than that; it was a serious and disturbing case.
We’ve heard that counterattacks by our Canadians near Hooge on the thirteenth have been successful in taking back trenches. This news revives everyone, after the terrible losses. Stories circulate, as always. One of the bearers I met from the 10th told me that a badly wounded man crawled all the way to the aid post in the dugout and when he got there, he tumbled down the steps, unconscious. They treated his wounds and got him back to the Clearing Station, and now he is happily on his way to Blighty.
I wrote about the bath but not the how and where of it. I did not mention the lice in our clothing. These are soundless, laying eggs in our seams and feeding on our blood. When we have a chance to sit around, we pick them out one by one and crush them. The boys call them crumbs. If there is a fire, or a stove, they burn them on top to hear each separate pop. Some of the boys scrub at their seams with toothbrushes drenched in creosote. But even if we rid ourselves of the creatures for a day or even an hour, as soon as we are back to work, looking after the boys, or in dugouts or barns or billets, we are lousy again ourselves.
We were marched to a bathhouse in town that had been set up by four Jocks who were assigned to build the apparatus. Four local women stood by—it was an open warehouse sort of room—while we were naked. Some of the boys joked and laughed about the women’s presence, but I did not. We were told to strip down and pass our dirty clothes to one woman, and then we were doused with cold water. We had two minutes to soap down and then out again, and a dip into the vat. It was only slightly warmer, but better than the cold-water dousing, and then we were out for good and another woman handed us a clean set of underwear and new socks.
Irish was in front of me in the line, Evan in front of him. Stripped down, a dirty-looking bunch we were. In the midst of all, Evan began to hop from one foot to the other, complaining in a tumble of oaths that came out in rapid succession. “For mercy sake,” Stash told him, “be still and quit jumping around.” But Evan shouted out that he was infested. Others shouted back, “Do you have something new to tell us?” His clothes had been collected so I didn’t know why he was carrying on, scratching and scraping. When I looked, I swear—Irish said later he couldn’t believe his eyes, nor could anyone else—fleas had taken over and covered Evan’s two legs from the knees down. He looked as if he had pulled up a pair of high socks knitted from black moving bodies. When the boys realized what was up, they scattered to all sides so the fleas couldn’t hop over onto them.
We still try to find food during every spare moment we have. Irish managed a trade for extra bread and milk and cakes tonight, so we had a good feed. There was meat for our supper but it was smelly and tasted rotten. Occasionally one of the boys will catch a rabbit and pass it on to someone who can make a stew. We are all thankful for the scroungers.
Chapter 12
A Palate Sound
K Kiss Kill
“Place the hand in front of the throat. As sound is uttered, push hand forward.
Explode the aspiration.
A good supply of breath is necessary for this sound.”
Illustrated Phonics
Stories continued to circle. The squad was to attend gas school, and weeping shells would be thrown at them; a man in the 49th committed suicide; the squad was going up to the old graveyard to fill sandbags all night; one of the self-inflicteds had held an empty bully beef tin and shot through the can and his own hand so that no powder burns would show; the major was to give a lecture on bandaging techniques and attendance would be mandatory; the road back of the main communication trench needed repairs to allow the use of wheeled stretchers. And there were persistent rumours that Number 9 Field Ambulance would be following 7th Brigade, about to leave for the Somme.
&nbs
p; When they had the chance, Jim and Irish, Evan and Stash managed to get some time off together and walked to a nearby village in the evening to look around for a place to eat. They had heard of a small estaminet that was said to be better than others, and after walking a mile to get to the village, they traced their way in and out of narrow streets, trying to find the establishment. Evan insisted that he knew the way; he’d been given instructions. After disputing, and giving up, and following Evan again, the four came upon it suddenly, near the end of a street that narrowed to a short alley and then a path.
It was, in fact, a small house, not a restaurant or tavern at all. The front room had been converted and there were square tables and chairs, so many squeezed into the one room that it was difficult to stand, once seated. From the entrance, Jim caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen that held not much more than a counter and a tile stove and two deep stone sinks—one filled with dirty dishes and jars, the other with unpeeled potatoes. Two long sausages hung from hooks beside a planked door on the far side of the airless room.
The main room, only twice the size of the kitchen, was dim and crowded and choked with smoke. Sound bounced from one wall to another. Candles of the type sent in packages from home were jammed into bottles and stood upright on saucers, stuck into melting wax. The flicker and glow of flames threw shadows around the room as men waved their arms about. Everyone was talking at once, and there was laughter. Several voices called out a greeting as the four friends entered and pushed their way through to the only empty table in the place.
Jim sat, and thought how good it was to hear laughter. He asked for the same as the others were eating—eggs and sausage and frites—and Madame Camillone, a thin-faced woman in her forties who ran the business with her plump sister Marie—disappeared into the hallway beside the entrance and returned seven or eight minutes later with the food. The red wine was homemade. A verre was served to each of the boys, a verre that was a small jar. There were no glasses to be had.
Off-key voices had begun to sing in a back corner while the four were eating, and right away Jim recognized the song. He had seen the outlines of a battered piano when he’d come in, but it was shoved against the end wall and chairs were pushed against it; there was no room for anyone to sit at the keyboard and play. The song the boys were singing was “The Aba Daba Honeymoon,” and many voices were sputtering hilariously over its speeded-up lyrics. Several tables provided different versions, one set of lyrics flying into another. The result was a staccato-like pelting of words colliding in mid-air over the boys’ heads.
Irish, first to finish his meal, shouted in Jim’s ear. “Why don’t you sing for us, Jimmy boy. Show them what you can do at the piano.”
Jim shook his head. Apart from Irish and the other two, he preferred to stick to his own company. Few of the boys in the 9th knew about his ability to play. In any case, for now he was content to sit on the hard chair in the warm and noisy room and feel the wine as it tilted over the rough rim of the jar and onto his tongue and into his gullet.
Madame Camillone and Marie were making signs to each other over the heads of the boys, and Jim saw Marie’s plump hands signal that she was going to the back to start cleaning up.
Irish was pointing at Jim now, and the other boys picked up the call and began to clap and hoot for him to go to the keys and sing.
There was no way out. He took the last gulp from the jar that had warmed in his palms and he stood, feeling hands on his back as he was pushed and propelled towards the wall. Chairs were scraped back to make room. The piano, he saw, was missing its top panel. An empty seat quickly appeared before the keyboard. The boys waited while Jim sat down, and he stared at his hands, now resting on the keys. He had the Lloyd hands. Everyone from his island family had been musical. After his grandmother had died he’d left the only home he’d known and travelled a thousand miles from the Atlantic coast to Ontario, and now he had a job as a stretcher bearer and that was good enough for him. He and Irish and Evan and Stash knew what to do and how to do it.
He thought of Grandfather Lloyd holding the fiddle with tenderness, as if it were a living thing, and he had the old feeling he’d once had when the older man had stood at his back. His fingers came down on grubby keys, the ivories more grey than white. The piano needed tuning, but he carried on as if Grandfather were right there behind him. He did not know who was responsible for keeping time; they’d always passed the rhythm back and forth. Loose piano wires did not bother the two of them; nor did a flat note here and there—though on this piano, many notes were flat.
To start, his fingers raced through “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and the boys in the room clapped wildly. He chorded in between, as if accompanying an island reel, and then he played “Our Boys in Brown.” After that he slowed the pace and sang “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” and the boys joined in. Madame Camillone and Marie had stopped their work and were squeezed together in the doorway, their aprons brown with dirt and splattered with spills of wine.
It was after Jim stood up, ready to return to his table, that he reconsidered and decided to play one more tune. He sank to the chair and, this time when he sang, the other voices fell away so that his was the only voice, and it filled the room. He had learned the song in Deseronto during the short time he’d lived in the tower with Grania. They’d been lying on the blue blanket, and he had sung the song for her, every verse, and she had shown him the spot between diaphragm and abdomen—the place that she said was the origin of song.
“On life’s fitful ocean ‘mid glamour and strife,
As I wander afar among men
O, my heart often sighs for fond tho’ts will arise
O a hame hid awa’ in the glen.”
He sang three stanzas in his strong clear voice, his eyes raised unseeing to the wall in front of him. When he finished, three Jocks in the room stood and held their jars high in praise. Except for Jim’s chair scraping away from the piano, there wasn’t another sound in the room as he returned to his table. His friends were looking up at him, and he paused to see their faces before he sat down. Evan was relaxed; for once the tic in his cheek could not be seen. Stash looked fierce but could not keep from smiling. He met Jim’s eyes and nodded. And Irish—a low appreciative whistle came from the gap between his teeth. And then, suddenly, hooting and laughter surrounded, and everyone in the room began to talk at once.
Irish slapped him on the shoulder with his big hand. “Good for you, Jimmy boy. It wasn’t an Irish song but it did just fine and was loved by all. But you’ll have to get that wife of yours to make an honest man of you. And next time, sing us an Irish tune.”
The four stood amid shouts and entreaties to return, and after paying the two sisters, they pushed and manoeuvred their way between crammed-in tables, and stepped outside onto the uneven cobbles of the darkened street.
All day Thursday, the four friends fumigated blankets. By nine in the evening they had handled and stacked an even eight hundred. After that, when the tents were taken down, they were advised to sleep in the local schoolhouse. Thursday night after dark, Stash left camp and walked back to the village they had visited, and deposited the white kitten in the care of Madame Camillone and Marie, at the estaminet. He returned with four precious eggs, which the boys—though they’d had their supper—cooked up immediately and ate with a loaf of bread scrounged by Evan. The sisters had sent fond wishes to “Jeem,” who had played the piano.
By Friday at two in the morning, September the eighth, after an eleven-hour march, they were sitting in the third-class car of a slow train. When they stopped, it was to eat canned beans and hardtack and drink lukewarm tea. Their fatigue was so great, not one of the Ambulance men had the energy to grumble.
Jim stared out the window at the dawn and wondered if sleep was a mythical part of his past. Everyone else had crashed out moments after boarding. Snores and odours filled the car. The train pulled past woods of dark and eerie shades of green. Travellers and woods seemed joined in a world tha
t was moody and undersea. At seven in the morning the train passed through Calais; later, Boulogne and Étaples, where Jim saw M.O.s and nursing sisters walking near the rails and between tents and buildings. It was said that in the graveyards close to the hospitals, there were separate sections for officers and men. He thought of the friend he’d met during training, who worked here now. Wullie had sent a letter in August telling him that the King had made an unannounced visit to Number 1 Canadian General Hospital. The following day there had been a service in the cemetery, the second anniversary of the Declaration of War. Every grave was decorated with flags and flowers, Wullie wrote. It was a mournful and dignified occasion, and there was a strange and solemn beauty to the affair.
Jim looked out to a grey sea and thought of Grania, how she wanted to be taken to the ocean, his ocean, on the east coast, directly across the water from where he now found himself. He had spent his childhood on rolling field and red soil that faced out over the north shore and the Gulf of St. Lawrence where it widened into the Atlantic. He tried to pull that scene inside himself now, and thought of the house and parlour where he had grown up. From the time he was a young child, after his parents died and he’d been taken in by his father’s parents, he had been aware of the world of music. His own ears had listened to Grandfather’s bow moving with grace over the strings of his instrument. The older man had the same long, slender fingers that Jim had inherited from generations of Lloyd men who had lived before them both. Jim had been present to see Grandfather Lloyd step-dance two weeks before his unexpected death, when his heart had stopped abruptly.
Jim remembered the old cookhouse on the cliff—once a part of a now-abandoned lobster cannery; the changing attitude of the dunes as sand heaped against the slopes or washed away in winter storms. He thought of waves crashing into shore and licking up the sides of those same dunes, every year displacing the red sand. He thought of the thick mush of the red roads and the mess while trying to get through them; the pack ice in the Gulf when red soil streaked through spring-dirty chunks that broke up beneath the cliffs. One of Grandmother’s hounds had disappeared over the cliff the same winter Grandfather died. The hound had been Grandfather’s favourite. Jim followed the tracks through the snow right to the edge of the cliff, and neither he nor his grandmother could account for the dog’s behaviour. Grandmother’s geese had not fared any better. In early summer, the dozen she’d raised and cared for were found dead by the pond one morning, close to the farmhouse.
Deafening Page 22
