Deafening (21 page)

He buttoned the photo—protected in a tiny cardboard frame—into the lower pocket of his tunic, and patted the outside of the pocket with his hand.

“We were married last October,” Jim said. “The party afterwards was at her grandfather’s farm up on the Ninth, in Tyendinaga Township. Her family is all Irish. Her grandmother on her mother’s side, her Mamo, lives with the family. We had two weeks, Grania and I, before I had to leave, and we spent those in Deseronto, where she was born.”

“I’ve been to Deseronto,” Irish said. “I’ve taken the steamer there.”

“Grania’s father owns a hotel on Main Street, right across from the wharf and the station.”

“I know the one,” said Irish. “I’ve stopped in there for a meal or two. The place is known for its good food.”

The line was moving quickly and they loaded fried eggs and bread and potatoes into their mess tins and headed for a long table where they squeezed in at the end and sat side by side.

By one in the afternoon they were paired off because they were the same height, five foot nine. They had worked all morning with
two other men Irish already knew, Evan and Stash. Stash had black hair and thick eyebrows and a fierce look about him, but Jim could tell from his voice that he was a gentle man. Evan was Stash’s opposite, with fine features and thin, light-coloured hair. He seemed nervous, never staying still. He spoke rapidly.

“It’s just his way,” Irish told Jim. “But you can rely on him. We’ve all learned that.”

This man Irish is going to be my friend, Jim told himself that night as he lay on his cot in the dark. His legs were aching and his arms were stiff. There had been ten-minute rest periods, more training, a lecture on First Aid, another lecture, more grub, early supper, and Irish had introduced him around. “This is Jimmy boy,” he said. “Look at the arms on him. If they don’t come loose, they’ll be exactly the right length to carry a stretcher.” And the others laughed, and made him welcome.

Jim had hoped to walk into town in the evening—the money changers had followed on the heels of the new arrivals when they’d marched into camp—but he was too tired. He had English money, but the only thing he wanted was more food. He was hungry all the time. The hunger had started weeks ago, when he’d boarded the train in Belleville. The box lunch Grania had prepared for him had been devoured shortly after the train pulled out. He’d been hungry as the train headed east, and hungry when it stopped at one small station after another. In some towns, while the bands were playing and the boys were boarding, women, complete strangers, handed up sandwiches and containers of tea through the open windows. Each time this happened, he had been surprised and grateful. He’d been hungry on the ship while crossing the Atlantic and during the train journey through English countryside. He had looked out at passing hedge and winter pasture and when he’d arrived at the camp, he had still been hungry.

Hungry or not, he had kept his eyes open. It was cold and damp outside but he was utterly amazed to be here, to be present. He had solid English soil under his feet—the mother country.
Mother England.
He’d heard the words often enough at home. He vowed to start a letter to Grania in the early morning so he could tell her where he was, and what was happening, and all that he had seen.

“My love,” he said silently, as if he planned to start a letter that minute, believing that she would somehow receive his thoughts through the dark. But what came out was, “I am so tired.” His arms reached out and he fell asleep on the narrow pallet. Words in his dreams were not addressed to Grania at all but were mixed with images from the day’s hard training and with stories told and passed around after supper. And it was the voice of Irish that surfaced.

“They were terrible seas, Jimmy. Terrible seas in the crossing. We hit a storm third day out and had to stay below. The boys threw up, vomited right out the side of their hammocks onto the tables, the very tables we ate off in the morning. I’ve never breathed such foul odour, and I hope I never will again. I had one glimpse outside during the storm and I looked up and all I could see was a solid green wall rising over the ship. I was so terrified I tore back down though I didn’t think it mattered much where I was. We were hit so hard I was sure I was done for. One of the boys washed overboard, Jimmy. We were told that some of the boys tried to swing a boat clear to go after him, but there wasn’t a hope. He disappeared, swirled away in the dark, and after that the boys were nothing but gloom. There wasn’t a soul who wasn’t sick at heart, but we were kept busy, and then we stopped thinking about him—as if he hadn’t existed. He was taken in an instant. He didn’t even get his fair chance at Fritz.”

War, Jim thought, wide awake again. So far, it’s all words and dreams. We know nothing, really, except that the man overboard could have been me on my ship, or Irish, or any one of us.

He shifted onto his back and stared into the dark and stretched his arms at his sides. His own crossing had consisted of endless physical drill, brisk air, sometimes sunshine, sometimes rain. Lifeboat drills were sprung at irregular times to keep the boys on their toes. Conditions had been crowded and he’d found it hard to sleep. And then, by chance, halfway across, he discovered an empty crate in an alcove
at the end of a corridor, and after that he was able to sneak away most nights and be by himself. It was cold in the crate, but being cold was better than breathing the smothering air of a thousand bodies below.

Some evenings, before turning in, he had joined the singsongs. The boys, wearing lifebelts over their uniforms, pressed around one of the four pianos on board. A few times, Jim had been at the keyboard. They started out with lively songs, “Casey Jones” and “Tipperary,” and moved on to “Silvery Moon,” and ended up downright sentimental with “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” Jim knew every word to every song. Occasionally, he sang alone.

Later, in the submarine zone, when lifeboats were swung outboard, the men had no trouble keeping up their spirits. They were more worried about not getting to France in time to see action than they were about going down at sea. Their biggest fear was that the war would be over before they could get there in time to take part in the show.

For days and weeks in the camp near Hindhead the men of the Ambulance drilled until all arms were reaching out in sleep. Reaching for patients, reaching for stretchers. Booting the hinge, flipping the stretcher, booting the other end, hoisting it over the shoulder. Jim was learning methods of carry: four-handed, two- and three-handed seat, fireman’s lift, fore and aft lift. Crossing a ditch, crossing a wall, loading a wagon, unloading a wagon, horse ambulance, motor ambulance. And continuous, never-quite-satisfactory number drill. Two-bearer, three-bearer, four-bearer. Repetition, repetition, bearers falling in and numbering off—march, stoop, lay hold, position, turn about, rejoin squad. They ran around one another, formed up in parallel rows, took turns being the patient, collected the kit of comrades who were the acting wounded, and competed with other squads while the rote sank in. Jim could snap open and kick shut a heavy stretcher with his eyes closed, and did.

When not doing route marches or drill, the men dug drainage ditches, laid pipes, took turns at sanitary fatigues, cleaned equipment, polished buttons, looked after their uniforms and nursed their bruised and blistered feet. They attended lectures addressed to several units merged for training. Many of the lectures were given by medical officers. It was this part of the training that held the most fascination for Jim, because the assembled boys were called upon to do various tasks of first aid. Some of the boys in the larger group were to be attached to hospitals on the French coast. One man, a Prince Edward Islander like himself, but from Charlotte-town, had left for Étaples as a replacement, to work in Number 1 Canadian General Hospital. Most were staying with the Ambulance. Jim and Irish, by now a skilled and reliable team, remained with Number 9.

They applied pressure dressings and mummified limbs; they wrapped gauze over puttees, around each other’s legs. Jim found his tongue slipping into a new language of tourniquets and anchoring and figure eights. He bandaged heads and strapped pretend fractures of the upper arm.
Nature has provided a splint that is always available, the side of the chest.
He positioned slings on a grinning, gap-toothed Irish, who prompted him when the knot rested too heavily over a bone. He used the reef knot, never the granny knot.
A reef knot will not slip and yet is easily undone.
And he helped Irish, whose fingers were so large he was awkward tying the knot in the first place.

They learned to handle fractures of the femur.
Machine-gun fire will be directed between hip and knee; most fractures will therefore be in that area and will be compound or open. It may be necessary to treat shock and haemorrhage before transporting.
They were instructed in the use of the “greelie tube” and the administration of morphine.
After morphine is given, the patient’s forehead is to be clearly marked with an M.

They used whatever was at hand to splint and immobilize a limb. When ordered to improvise arm splints, they ran for sticks or rollups
of old papers, or they twisted items of each other’s clothing. As the boys they’d be carrying—if only they could get to them across the Channel—as the boys would have rifles, they were taught to improvise with bayonets, too, if there was time to create a fast splint.

One day they were taught to give an injection of water to an orange.
The orange represents the muscle.
They plunged their first needle into the battered fruit and held their breath.
Every wounded man will receive the anti-tetanic serum.

Jim took special courses and became aware of what was clean and what was not. If assigned to a field hospital, he would hold his hands in front of him after touching a dirty dressing, and he would consider himself contaminated. He would hold his hands that way until he could get to water and scrub with soap. A new awareness opened in his mind—an awareness of the invisible world. He had never before given any thought to the invisible world, but now he understood it to be swarming with multiplying bacteria. He took pride in his training, and each time he learned one new thing he added it to the count of what he already knew. His store of information was growing. He watched, and listened well.

At night he fell onto his bed, sometimes fully clothed. He and Irish walked into town a couple of times and looked around and walked back. The town people were friendly; everyone wanted to talk. But he had to rise early, there was no thought of staying up late. He lay on his mattress in a fatigue that was absolute, shoulder sockets numb, hands and wrists aching. Sometimes his mind was startled by what he imagined to be the heavy rumble of distant guns.
Over there.
Maybe it was thunder. Terrifying things were happening without him. He was afraid, but he wanted to be in the midst of those terrifying things. The disturbing echo to the south and across the Channel kept him from needed sleep, pried a wide inner eye, an unprotected chamber that refused to shut down.

He wrote a letter to Grania from the camp one evening, after the
rumbling had started up again. He knew the rules. No place name could be mentioned, no movement of troops, no brooding thoughts that could harm the war effort.

My Love

I am still training, as before. It is all we do from early morning until we fall into bed at night. It seems as if we will never be ready.

Sometimes, I hear a sound like thunder. How can I describe this sound? An invasion in the dark, a pulse that grows in the head. It starts as a level throb and, after that, it weaves its way like a thread through every nerve in my body.

Irish and I are anxious to contribute. We all are—all the boys in the Ambulance. As soon as we have word of departure, I’ll try to let you know.

All my love
,

Chim

On a Wednesday at eight-thirty in the morning he and the boys received their leather identification discs. By ten they were wearing stiff new boots and were part of a muster parade. Jim looked around him in wonder. He was one of ten thousand soldiers from many places anticipating the approval of the bushy-browed, small-eyed Sir Sam Hughes. Some of the boys said that Sir Sam was a powerful and eccentric man. A man, Jim saw, who enjoyed conducting the inspection. After the formalities were over, all pomp and ceremony, Jim was back at stretcher drill. This time, excitement jumped from one man to another. They knew they were leaving soon, but when? The Australians and New Zealanders were beginning to arrive in France from other theatres and from fresh training, and the Canadian boys wanted to get there, too. Any place they would be sent would be better than endless drill on this side of the Channel. So far,
the higher authorities had conspired to keep them away from the war, even though their fellow Canadians had been in France and Belgium for over a year.

On Friday they were paraded again and their kits inspected by officers from Headquarters. After that there was Bank Parade and then, free time. Jim had begun to smoke the first day he’d arrived at the camp, and he stopped now to buy a pack at the canteen. He took out a cigarette and stuck the pack in his pocket. He had a few hours off and wanted to be alone. He wanted to get away from the constant noise and activity of the camp.
It might be my last day in England
, he said, beginning a silent letter in his head.
This might be it.

He listened to the wheeling gulls as he started out. The air was cold. He walked towards the south, imagining coastal sky, the kind of sky he knew and loved. He tried not to think of his childhood on the island. He tried not to think of Grania and what she might be doing at this moment of a Deseronto morning. He could see wisps of grey cloud to the east, and larger, flatter clouds to the south. The road followed a series of low hills for several miles, and after that there was nothing but stubbled field. He came to a wall of low stone and followed it along the edge of an enclosed field. He sat quietly until his hands and feet began to numb.