For Your Tomorrow (15 page)

It was their last waltz—or embrace—for many, many months. Van’s lyrics were like an oracular summation of Jeff’s restless spirit, and the detour it would take him on over the next two years.

That fall, he severed communication with Sylvie. He didn’t answer her calls or e-mails. “It’s over for now,” is the only response he gave to his parents’ questions. And all that Sylvie could fathom is that they “weren’t on the same page.” Now that Jeff’s career was underway, she had a vision of them living together—finally, after ten years of long distance. In her early thirties, she heard her biological clock ticking, loudly, and wanted to start a family. But Jeff didn’t share her domestic dream. He was still polishing his sword, trying to see himself clearly in its sheen. Unable to handle the pressure of her expectations, he withdrew.

Sylvie left Halifax, and moved to Toronto. She put a down payment on a condo under development on King Street West, a trendy new area of coffee shops and restaurants near the lakeshore. She had a busy cosmopolitan life—flying around the world with Air Canada, attending film festivals, holidaying in the tropics with her girlfriends. But she never gave up hope that she and Jeff would reunite; nor did Marion and Russ, with whom she still kept in touch by phone and e-mail. Sylvie intuited that something wasn’t finished between them. Even though her friends told her she was crazy, she waited, weaving and reweaving her tapestry’s vision. She warded off the suitors and waited for her Odysseus to find his way home.

The Hero’s journey is a lonely one
, Joseph Campbell writes.
Privation and suffering alone open the mind to all that is hidden to others
.

T
HE FALL OF
2002, Jeff comes full circle, back to the New Brunswick town nestled between the two rivers where he was born thirty-two years earlier. At CFB Gagetown’s Combat Training Centre, he marches on the same parade squares, traverses the same open fields; tromps through the same jungle-like woods and swamps, hikes up the same hills as his father and his grandfathers before him. The British officer instructing in the infantry school is harsh and demeaning, so Jeff—along with eight of the eleven other soldiers in the course—transfer into the artillery school.

Phase three of officers’ training is technical: artillery instruction, involving trigonometry, angles, graphs.… So he finally has to confront his fear of mathematics. “You’re a bit resistant at times,” says his instructor, Captain Shawn Fortin, “because you’re too smart for your own good and can see through the crap.” Jeff fails the course, and has to weigh his options. Go back into infantry? Quit? He heeds his father’s advice and repeats the course. He buckles down, studies hard and passes. Phase four, the final stage, focuses on the dynamics of leadership. He excels, and at graduation he’s awarded a silver watch for top candidate—Lieutenant Jeff Francis.

His first posting in September 2004 brings him back to the big skies of southern Manitoba, to the sand dunes and rolling hills of CFB Shilo. He joins the First Regiment of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, the oldest unit of the Canadian Forces. On a crisp fall morning, hoarfrost whitening the lawns in front of headquarters, he enters a theatre-style room, a smaller version of a lecture hall at
Carleton—blue upholstered seats in rising tiers, a podium and a whiteboard at the front. The chattering and chuckling subside as thirty soldiers in green relish-pattern uniforms straighten in their chairs. Jeff nods. His sweaty hands open his black hardcover notebook to the list of tasks and reminders; written in military acronyms and shorthand, they’re now an indecipherable blur. Sixty eyes size him up—their new leader, fresh out of officers’ school—green horns to match his uniform. Many are seasoned soldiers—like the tall blond sergeant smiling in the front row, a senior NCO with seventeen years’ experience and deployments to Cyprus and Bosnia.

He clears his throat, and wishes to god he could control the blood rushing to his face: “I’m Lieutenant Francis. I’ve just arrived from Gagetown where I’ve been training for the past two years. I studied sociology at Carleton University before enlisting. I’m originally from … everywhere, man … Oromocto, Halifax, Winnipeg, Ottawa …,” he says in a mock singing voice. A few grins and twitters of laughter loosen the tension in the air. “I’m brand new to the regiment, so I’ll be relying on the sergeant major and master bombardier for guidance and advice.” He acknowledges two soldiers seated side by side in the front row. “My intent today is to give you an overview of where C Battery will be headed in the next year. I’ll keep it brief and try not to bore you to death.

“The next year is filled with uncertainty. But we know that Operation Athena, the Afghanistan Mission, is our main priority up to January 2005. The army wants two brigade groups ready to deploy sometime in 2006. C Battery will
probably get another FOO party, and we’ll have to be ready to provide fire support to 2 Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and brigade operations.

“On a more personal note,” he says, meeting their eyes as he scans the rows, “I have to stress the importance of not getting in shit on the weekends.” Feet shuffle, glances and smirks dart sideways. “Whenever you are drinking, remember you are not a civilian. They can get away with fucking up. We can’t! We will be held accountable for what we do outside of work. I don’t want to see any of your careers affected by something stupid like ‘misuse of alcohol.’ We are professional soldiers, proud of who we are and what we do.

“Now I’d like to open up the floor to you, and answer any questions.” He closes his notebook and folds his hands on the podium.

“Sir, what are we in for as far as physical training goes?” a voice from the back row calls out in a lilting Newfie accent. “Rumour has it that you’ve been seen at the gym every day since you arrived.” Laughter peals around the room.

“Let’s just say, you’ll get fit, if you’re not already.” Jeff grins. “I subscribe to the ‘train hard, fight early’ philosophy. Let’s face it; that’s what we’re here for. And I truly believe in the ancient Chinese proverb
The more we sweat in training, the less we bleed in battle
.”

After the last soldier has left the room, he turns out the lights and exhales in relief. He steps into the corridor and halts, clicks his heels together. “Sir,” he says with a brisk salute. The C Battery captain looks over his shoulder as if to check for a senior officer behind him.

“It’s okay, Jeff,” the dark-haired man says, and smiles. “Relax. I’m not ‘sir,’ or ‘Captain Etherlston’ but ‘Craig.’ ”

“Yes sir,” Jeff blushes. “I mean Craig, sir.” And they both erupt into laughter.

“How about joining us for happy hour tonight?” Craig asks. “A bunch of us are driving into Brandon around five, meeting at the usual watering hole.”

“Thanks,” Jeff says. “I have a match at six—at the Brandon Boxing Club. So I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Such dedication,” Craig shakes his head, “… even on a Friday night!”

Accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight
.

On November 11, 2004, Jeff is falling thousands of metres through the herringbone sky above Trenton, Ontario—developing his wings. He requested the posting to C Battery, the “Light Battery” that performs airborne operations, so he could take the military parachutist course and earn his parachute wings. He’s in the hangar of the Canadian Forces Advanced Land Warfare School, still in his parachute harness, when the instructor enters to tell him there’s a phone call.

“ ‘Happy birthday to you,’ ” his parents sing over the line. “How does it feel to be thirty-four?”

“Awesome!” He describes tumbling head over heels out of the back of an airplane. “Remember that feeling, Dad?”
His father also took the parachutist course, decades ago. “What a rush!” They can practically hear the big grin lighting up his face, and remember him soaring through the air on his BMX. He doesn’t tell them about his hard landing last week—the bloody gash to his head, the ambulance ride to the hospital—only about the weightless thrill of free-falling through pillows of clouds.

It’s a crystal-clear starry night in Eastern Passage, the day after Christmas 2004. Jeff is helping his parents load up the dishwasher when the phone rings. “Hi, Sylvie,” Marion says, glancing over at Jeff. “Good to hear from you. How’s the weather in Toronto? Oh—you’re in Halifax overnight on a layover?”

Jeff takes the receiver and they talk for a few minutes. Then he gets into his parents’ Mazda van and makes the half-hour trip across the harbour to pick up the woman he forsook, but could never forget. She’s standing alone under the indigo canopy of the Lord Nelson, shivering in the cold light of the entrance, her chin tucked into the collar of her black coat. Her eyes brighten as he pulls up to the curb.
“Secours,”
he whispers into her hair, wrapping her in his arms.

“Hey baby,” she sighs. “It’s been a long time.” Two years. It seems like twenty.

“It had nothing to do with you,” he tells her, as they drive across the lighted arch of the Murray Mackay Bridge. “I couldn’t see where I was going. I missed you—thought I’d probably lost you forever.”

“ ‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’ ” she quotes, clasping his hand. “It fluttered, flew away some stormy nights; but was always perched there again, singing, in the morning.”

They sit on the rose-flowered sofa in the dim light, only the glow of the Christmas tree and a white pillar candle on the coffee table. Through the black picture window, twinkling galaxies pulse down over the ocean. The incoming tide swashes the shore. “How’s the life of a soldier?” she asks, warming her hands around a mug of hot chocolate.

“I guess it doesn’t really feel like a job. I love what I’m doing; learning, teaching, feeling challenged. It’s my job to stay fit!” he chuckles. “Next month, I’ll get my captain’s stripe. And start training for the Army Mountain Man Competition.” He turns to face her, rests his arm on the back of the sofa behind her head. “The fog has lifted; the way seems so much clearer. And I’d like you to be there with me,” he says, stroking her hair. “I’m ready now for the white picket fence … and the pattering of little feet. Would you move to Shilo?”

“Whoa,” she says, setting her cup on the table. “I just bought a condo. It won’t be finished for another year. I’m enjoying my job too.… independence. We’ll have to see how it goes … 
que sera, sera.”

“C’est vrai,” he grins and gazes out into the darkness. “It’s all written in those stars winking up there. Right now, it’s like they’re all laughing.”

They talk through the night, as the stars fade out and a ridge of red rises over the eastern sea.

February 2005. Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier submits his defence policy: overhaul the Canadian military; deploy Canadian troops into southern Afghanistan; bring them home by early 2007
.

Prime Minister Paul Martin objects to the cost
.

The military will find a way to carry out the mission within its budget, the general assures him
.

No one utters the word war
.

The fat wet snowflakes falling in Edmonton on August 31, 2005, the day of the annual Army Mountain Man Competition, only reinforce the mood of the toughest physical challenge in the military. At the starting line, Jeff is lined up with 340 competitors shouldering sixteen-kilogram backpacks. At the crack of the gun, he takes off with the pack, jockeying for space and finding his pace for this first stage of the marathon—a run of thirty kilometres. He hits his stride, and feels he could run forever. He reaches a checkpoint piled up with fifteen-kilogram sandbags, and tucks one under each arm to begin the second leg of the marathon—the simulation of a canoe portage. He runs for three kilometres carrying almost fifty kilos, suffering the strain and the pain with every footfall. At the North Saskatchewan River, he trades his sandbags for an aluminum canoe and paddles solo for ten kilometres, battling the icy wind all the way. He lands his canoe, straps on his heavy rucksack again and runs again for the final six kilometres—his purple T-shirt and navy shorts damp against his skin, his face wrought with exhaustion and grim determination; his
eyes focused ahead on a distant goal:
to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
.