No Safe Harbour

by Julie Lawson

  Who sang while eating her cereal

  But alas she choked

  On a very high note

  And that was the end of poor Muriel.

  Eva thought up most of it. We gave up on her own name because we couldn’t think of anything that rhymes with Eva.

  Almost forgot. Last night I had a terrible dream about No Man’s Land. The “Over the top!” cry went out and I leapt out of a trench and charged across the muddy ground trying not to get hit. Then I saw that I hadn’t put on my boots or my helmet and I’d forgotten my rifle and bayonet. I turned to go back, but I couldn’t move. The mud was sucking me down. I was thinking, Mum will be furious when she sees my clean dress covered in mud. I’d only put it on that morning and where was my uniform? I was some relieved to wake up. Girls can’t be soldiers and I’ve never even seen a No Man’s Land or a trench, so why would I have such a horrible dream? Worrying about Luke, I suppose.

  There were birds in the dream. I wonder where they go during a battle. Where do they build their nests when all the trees have been blasted away? What happens to the little animals like squirrels and rabbits?

  Friday, October 5

  Mr. Barker yelled at me because I lost my place in reading. My own fault. I was trying to find a word that rhymes with Eva. Came up with “fever.”

  Told the girls in Special Projects and they all said, “That doesn’t rhyme.”

  But ha ha on them, because it rhymes when you pronounce it the British way. So we said it like Mr. Barker (but quietly) and made up this limerick:

  There once was a girl called Eva

  Who came down with a terrible fevah

  She turned a bright red

  From her toes to her head

  But got cured by a bath full of vinegah.

  Muriel wanted us to change her limerick so she could be cured at the end like Eva. Gosh, it’s only a silly rhyme, but we told her we’d try.

  We were going to make up some more after school but I had to go to my piano lesson. Miss Tebo rapped my knuckles with her ruler because I kept making the same mistakes on my scales. I must have been scowling when I went outside because the student who goes after me said, “Cheer up, Charlotte. It’ll be better next week.”

  I’m too shy to ask her name because she’s much older than I am, around Edith’s age. She’s awfully nice. Especially the way she brings a treat for Kirsty every week. No wonder Kirsty likes going to piano lessons!

  Saturday, October 6

  Went to the matinee at the Casino Theatre and saw a spectacular motion picture called Joan the Woman. It was a birthday treat from Edith. I love being twelve. I never thought we’d be so spoiled.

  The picture’s about Joan of Arc, and it’s told in the form of a dream. There’s a French soldier in the trenches who’s been asked to give his life for the good of the army. He’s trying to decide what to do when suddenly he uncovers an ancient sword. The moment he takes hold of the sword he has a vision of Joan of Arc and the ancient battle in France and he sees how she died for her country. So he follows her example and does the same. It’s heroic but sad.

  Duncan’s favourite part was the Battle of the Towers, when the British were besieged by the French. Soldiers were falling off the walls of the fortress into a moat and their bodies were bristling with arrows.

  I liked everything, except for the part when Joan was burned at the stake. I had to close my eyes.

  Edith’s favourite part was the romance between Joan and her British beau. We teased her on the way home and asked if the romance made her think of the Winnipeg soldiers we met last week. Her face turned so red I’m sure the answer was yes!

  I wonder what makes things change. Hundreds of years ago the British and French were mortal enemies. Now they’re fighting on the same side and Germany’s their mortal enemy.

  Of course it’s all the Kaiser’s fault, but it’s hard to understand. Especially since our King George and the Kaiser are related. Cousins, I think.

  Sunday, October 7

  Thanksgiving Sunday and St. Mark’s was beautiful. Cornucopias and baskets spilling out with squashes, gourds, apples and pumpkins, cornstalks and sheaves of wheat and flowers, and everything red and yellow and orange.

  We sang my favourite hymn and it’s still singing inside my head:

  Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home

  All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin …

  I love those two lines, even though I don’t understand the “harvest home” part. Dad says you don’t have to understand every last bit of a song or a poem. The important thing is how it makes you feel. Well today all the hymns made me feel thankful. Especially that one.

  Roast goose for dinner, and this time it was Dad urging me to have some more. “Let’s fatten you up!” he says.

  I obliged by having two big helpings of Mum’s pumpkin pie.

  Monday, October 8

  Thanksgiving Day and a holiday. Dad and Duncan went hunting.

  Wrote a letter to Luke. Ran up Fort Needham with Kirsty, raced around the top of the hill, then over to Haggarty’s farm. No puppies yet. Tea and gossip with Mrs. Haggarty.

  Practised the piano and played duets with Edith. She asked if I’d like to be a stenographer one day, since I had such “nimble” fingers. I told her I might, but only if I worked in the same office as her. Then we could play duets on our typewriters.

  Weather clear and cool.

  Tuesday, October 9

  Deirdre was away today. Last month her brother was wounded and lost an arm. He was going to be shipped home to recover, but Deirdre’s family found out yesterday that he died in a hospital in England. He was eighteen.

  Every weekend when the newpaper prints a Casualty List we always recognize some of the names. Especially Mum and Dad — they may not know the boy himself, but they usually know his parents or a brother or sister or some other relative, from work or church or the neighbourhood.

  The Casualty List is long and there are lots of categories. Infantry, Artillery, Wounded Severe, Wounded Slightly, Died of Wounds, Reported Wounded, Gas Poisoning, Gas Poison Severe, Gassed and Wounded, Killed, Missing, Killed in Action.

  Duncan never looks at the Casualty List. He says I shouldn’t either because it only makes me worry. But now that I’ve written down the words I feel as if I’m trapping bad luck on the page and keeping it away from Luke. That’s because sometimes, when you imagine the worst, it doesn’t happen.

  I’m right sad for Deirdre.

  Wednesday, October 10

  Three weeks till Hallowe’en. Duncan and I are dressing up as each other. We look enough alike and we’re about the same height. Duncan’s not as scrawny as me, but I’ll tuck extra newspapers under my coat and no one will know the difference.

  I’m going to wear Duncan’s brown pants, long black stockings and brown tweed coat and he’s going to wear my plaid coat and the blue serge skirt that’s still too big for me. Ruth’s daring him to wear her pink corset. Duncan, in a girl’s corset? Never!

  Edith says she’ll pin up my hair and tuck it under Duncan’s cap.

  Thursday, October 11

  Princess had five puppies on Tuesday night. Haggarty says they’re the spitting image of Kirsty when she was a pup. Can’t wait to see them. I’ll take Kirsty so she can see her mother and her new brothers and sisters.

  School uneventful, except that Brian got the strap for fidgeting. Again.

  Came home and practised my scales over and over until everyone begged me to stop. If my knuckles get rapped tomorrow it won’t be my fault.

  Friday, October 12

  Special Projects today and I took my knitting as usual. Everything was fine until I felt a tug and couldn’t pull any more wool. I thought there was a tangle or something, but when I reached into my basket, the ball of wool wasn’t there. So I turned around and wouldn’t you know it, there’s Carl with a big guilty grin. He’d taken the wool from my basket and tied it to his desk.

&nb
sp; I gave him a right good scowl, I was that mad. I’d almost caught up to Muriel for first place in our balaclava contest, and if it wasn’t for Carl I might have outknitted her today.

  At supper, Edith said that Carl must be sweet on me to go to all that trouble to get my attention.

  I pulled a face and groaned, but secretly I was pleased, until Ruth went and spoiled things. “Carl, sweet on Charlotte?” she says. “He must be a blind fool, or stupid as a bag of hammers.”

  Luke, when you’re reading this, here’s a secret you can read — I hate Ruth. I’d never say it out loud, but it’s true, even though she is my sister.

  Mum knows we don’t get along. She says we’ll grow out of it and one day we’ll be the best of friends. Ruth and me, friends? Never! Because as much as I hate her, she hates me more.

  Here’s the proof. When I was little, Ruth told me that Mum didn’t want me. “She was right thrilled when Duncan was born,” Ruth said to me. “But when you came along, Mum cried, ‘Oh, no! Not another one!’”

  Duncan says Ruth is only making it up, but when I see how Mum favours her, I think it must be true.

  Then there’s the story that Mum loves to tell. Remember, Luke? That when Ruth saw Duncan and me for the first time, she pointed at Duncan and said, “Can we keep this one, and send the other one back?”

  Everyone laughs when Mum tells this story, but I don’t think it’s funny. Even though Mum says she wouldn’t send me back for all the world.

  Where is back? Where was I before I was born? Is it a place like heaven, where you go back to after you die?

  Luke, if you’re still reading this, remember when Ruth almost drowned me? She said it was an accident, that I slid underwater in the bath when she was supposed to be watching me. If you hadn’t come in at just the right moment, who knows?

  Now, what got me thinking about that? Oh, what Ruth said about Carl. Well here’s another secret. I am sweet on Carl. What can I do to get his attention?

  I love writing in my diary. Maybe feelings are stronger and more honest when you put them on a page. It’s better than having them run around loose in your head.

  One more thing about today. I played my scales perfectly. Miss Tebo was pleased, and when I played my pieces she said I was “following in Edith’s footsteps.” A rare compliment!

  The same friendly girl was there today and I told her that she was right. My lesson was better this week. Even for Kirsty, because today she got two treats.

  Saturday, October 13

  Chores this morning. Thought of Luke digging latrines, so didn’t complain about dusting.

  Went down to the harbour after lunch so Duncan could sketch the Highflyer. He’d only just started when who should we see but Ruth and her friend Hilda. They didn’t see us, so we played Spy and followed them around. Had to pinch ourselves to keep from laughing, the way they were giggling and making eyes at the sailors and the sailors weren’t even noticing. Those sailors must have been blind — or right smart!

  After a while it got boring, spying on Ruth, so Duncan picked out a soldier and we tailed him all the way to the Empire Theatre. We couldn’t get in to see the picture because we didn’t have any money, so we spied on three sailors instead.

  They weren’t that interesting. They smoked cigarettes and whistled at girls and walked as if they were still on a rolling deck. They were speaking a foreign language so we couldn’t eavesdrop, but we had fun imitating them (except for the whistling at girls), until an old lady stopped us, right on the sidewalk, and told us to show some respect.

  Duncan apologized in his usual charming way, said we’d meant no harm, and told her about our brother in the trenches. Next thing you know she’s patting his shoulder and talking about her grandson who was wounded in France.

  I didn’t say anything, just stood there feeling guilty and ashamed. The sailors will be leaving Halifax before long, and they might not even make it across the Atlantic. Their ship could be hit by a German submarine and they could all be lost at sea. I’ll never make fun of sailors again.

  It was a year ago that Luke and the boys from the 85th “Red Feather” Battalion marched off to war, their kilts swirling and the bagpipes playing. Down Pier 2, onto the Olympic and at dusk they sailed away.

  We talked about it at supper tonight. How there wasn’t a dry eye on the pier, watching them go, and how handsome Luke looked, how proud and brave. And how worried we’d been about the Olympic, because, being a sister ship of the Titanic, she might be bad luck.

  Well, by the time supper was finished, there wasn’t a dry eye at the table.

  I hope I don’t dream about trenches or No Man’s Land.

  Sunday, October 14

  Sunday School in the morning. I got a bookmark for naming all the books in the Old Testament. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and so on. The bookmark has a picture of Jesus talking to a group of children. It says, Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. I should know what it means, but I don’t. Why do little children have to suffer? Why is there suffering in heaven?

  Clear and cool today.

  Monday, October 15

  Today we had to write a composition called “The Symphony of Autumn.” Mine started like this: The leaves look crisp and spirited and happy dressed up in their new fall clothes while they wait for their conductor, Mr. Wind, to scatter them over the town.

  I used lots of colourful words like blazing scarlet, fiery orange, majestic bronze and gleaming gold. I hope I get an A.

  Muriel came over after school — she brought Ethel along too — and we took our knitting into the playhouse. Ethel gurgled happily in her pram while we chatted and clicked away. After the war, when there’s no more knitting for soldiers, we’re going to hook a rug for the playhouse.

  Almost forgot. Suffer is on this week’s spelling list. For our sentence exercise I wrote the quotation from my bookmark. I hope Mr. Barker is impressed.

  Tuesday, October 16

  Mr. Barker, impressed? What was I thinking? He didn’t like the Biblical quotation in my spelling exercise and made me do it over. “Use the word in a sentence of your own, Miss Blackburn, showing that you understand the meaning. There’ll be no copying from books.”

  I suffered in silence and did what I was told. And this is what I wrote: I suffered in silence and did what I was told. He said that was more like it.

  Junior Red Cross after school. Muriel, Eva and I went and rolled bandages. We must have rolled thousands by now and they’re always asking for more. What will happen when there’s no more cloth for bandages? Will they end the war? What if there’s no more ammunition or rifles or bayonets or mines or bombs or food? What if there are no more soldiers? Then they’ll have to end the war. But how would they decide who’d won? Rolling bandages always makes me wonder about things like that. The other girls chat away happily, but not gloomy Charlotte.

  Edith was too excited to eat supper tonight because she’s walking out with Charlie, the handsome soldier from Winnipeg. He’s taking her to the Empire to see a Charlie Chaplin film. Ruth’s got a face like a dry mackerel, she’s that envious. Duncan and I could give her some advice about catching a boy, based on our observations, but then she’d know we’ve been spying. She’s not allowed to go walking out anyway.

  I wonder if Jane lost her appetite, the way Edith has, when she started walking out with Luke. We haven’t seen her in a while, but she must be missing him something terrible.

  Muriel told me that envy is one of the seven deadly sins. I wonder if Ruth knows that. I won’t tell her, because I’m as guilty as she is. I’m right envious of Muriel. Why? Because she has so many relatives. Twenty-one Chisholms in Richmond alone! Grandparents, cousins, second cousins, aunts and uncles, three little brothers and one baby sister. Whenever she turns around she sees a relative. If her brothers and sisters are driving her to distraction, she can go off to her grandparents’ house and stay as long as she likes.

  I wish we
had dozens of relatives. I said that to Mum tonight, when we were doing the dishes, and she gave me one of her confusing looks, her eyes hurt and angry at the same time, and her mouth a thin tight line. The look that says, “The subject is closed.”

  One more thing. Dad must have overheard what I was saying about relatives, because just before I came upstairs he said, “Remember, Charlotte. What we lack in quantity, we make up in quality.”

  A nice thought to take to sleep.

  Wednesday, October 17

  Deirdre came back today. At recess Eva and I told her we were sorry about her brother. She thanked me, but then she looked Eva straight in the eye and said, “Why would you be sorry?”

  Poor Eva. It’s not the first time someone’s said something mean because her father’s a German.

  Got a C on my “Symphony of Autumn” and a new collection of Mr. Barker’s red-pencil comments. Incomplete sentence! Run-on sentence! No topic sentence! No concluding sentence! Sentence structure needs improvement! And to cap it all off? Too Wordy!

  Too Wordy!? What else would a written composition be but wordy? When we’re doing our sums does Mr. Barker write Too Numbery!?

  Duncan got a B on his composition. His sentences are perfect: The leaves turn red. The wind blows them off the trees. I rake them into piles and jump in them. Autumn is fun!

  Well where’s the symphony in that?

  I read my composition after supper and everyone but Ruth said I deserved an A.

  I know my sentences need improvement. It’s because my mind moves faster than my hand and I’m in such a rush to keep up with my thoughts I forget all the little things like rambling sentences. But I hate the way Mr. Barker attacks my compositions with his bayonet pencil, so I’m determined to improve.

  Mum says I should use my diary for practice and write each sentence as if Mr. Barker were going to read it.

  Mr. Barker read my diary? Never! Not even in my imagination! It would destroy the pleasure of writing altogether.

  “Just do what Mr. Barker wants,” Duncan said. “He obviously doesn’t appreciate fine literature.”