Megiddo's Shadow (4 page)

From a clump of trees near the road a girl watched us, her brown hair tied in a ponytail, both hands clinging to a feed pail. She looked my age. My heart sped up as we marched toward her. I stuck out my chest and stared straight ahead until the last possible moment, then glanced at her.

She smiled, her doe eyes full of wonder. She winked and I stumbled.

“Eyes front!” the sergeant commanded.

I found my place, dared to turn and steal one last glance. The girl was covering her mouth, laughing, cheeks red. The
column marched half a mile down the road, did an about-face and passed the farm again, but by then she was gone. My heart sank.

After another hour we finally stumbled into the armory grounds. The moment the sergeant commanded, “Company D! At ease!” everyone exhaled, and our heads drooped. “Don't lean on your guns!”

We gobbled our lunch and spent the afternoon on an assault course next to the armory, poking straw dummies with bayonets. I was sure I'd have nightmares about the sergeant shouting, “Put on your killing face and kill the baby-killing Huns!”

After dinner I was too tired to move. We plunked ourselves down on straw-filled palliases and watched the sun set outside the windows. Some men lit their first cigarette of the day.

“It's gonna be over before we get there,” said one.

“My brother fought at Vimy Ridge. He said the Huns had bathtubs in their bunkers. Bathtubs!”

“You can't smoke on the front because the snipers'll get you.”

I listened quietly, trying to gather tidbits that might help me understand what was happening in France—or anything that would make me a better soldier.

Paul was stumbling around, doing his impression of the Kaiser, when he sat on something large covered with a tarp. It made a musical
choing
.

“I'll be damned!” Paul ripped off the tarp, revealing an old piano. He pulled up a chair and pretended to adjust invisible coattails, then began playing slowly with one finger.
He jumped from scales to a jaunty song that had us singing along and stamping our feet hard enough to shake the armory. He winked at me once when I hit a high note bang on, then turned and played with his back to the piano. I whistled encouragement. His song hit a crescendo and he planted his hand on the keyboard, flipped upward, and did a handstand, managing to bang out the final chords. I gasped. Paul waved with one hand, his face tomato red, then teetered and collapsed. I jumped to help him, but he shot to his feet, brushed himself off, and bowed.

“More! We want more!” we shouted.

Paul played several songs, including “Motherland” and “River Shannon.” We sang along, a brave, deep bass choir. Some of the men were almost in tune. Paul plunged into “Mademoiselle from Armentiéres,” which I'd heard before, but not with the lyrics he sang; I was shocked that a married man would sing so many dirty words out loud.

Paul stopped and put his hand to his ear. “Does anyone hear a songbird out there?”

He crept around as though stalking an animal, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, it's right here!” He yanked me to my feet, whispering, “You're a born singer.”

I faced a hundred and some pairs of staring eyes.

“What's the lady gonna sing?” someone shouted from the back.

“Don't be afraid,” Paul said quietly. “Show em your God-given talent.”

I blinked.

“Sing, you bastard!” yelled a recruit who was sitting right in front of me.

I hummed a note to find my pitch, then thought of a song Mother had taught me:

The men fell still. By the next verse several voices harmonized with me.

I finished, pouring everything I had into the last note. A long silence followed, then a roar of clapping. I smiled, but my eyes were wet. That song had been Hector's favorite.

Later, I picked a bed and climbed under the sheets, my skin turning to gooseflesh in the cold. Other men near me had chests matted with hair. What I wouldn't give to have half that amount.

By the time I'd whispered the Lord's Prayer, several recruits were already snoring. I breathed deeply and tried counting sheep. Instead, all I thought of was the farm girl. Her face had been burned into my memory: her big eyes and ruddy cheeks, the way her white hand was lifted to cover her giggling mouth. I was perplexed by the fluttery feeling in my gut. I wondered if she were sleeping now, looking like one of those ceramic Christmas angels. Was she thinking of me? I lay back on my pillow, smiling.

The smile left my face when it dawned on me that Hector might have lam in this very spot. I imagined, clearly, the bullet shooting through his heart, the blood spattering his uniform. He'd been so handsome and so sure of himself; to think that one measly bullet had been enough to kill him. I clutched the pillow and felt tears coming down. A sob got stuck in my throat. I bit my cheek.

“Edward,” Paul whispered. “Are you feeling all right?”

I slowly let out my breath. Oh, God, I didn't want to cry, not in a room full of men. I hoped it was dark enough to hide my shame.

“Edward? Pal?”

“I'm fine,” I said, working to keep my voice steady. “Just a tickle in my throat.”

I clenched my teeth and held completely still, not daring to move in case I sobbed again. Sleep eventually, mercifully, snuck up on me.

T
hree weeks later we marched out of the armory to a band playing “The Maple Leaf Forever.” We formed a tight column of 125 Bull Moose Boys, following Sergeant Billings down North Hill in perfect step, cutting a line through a skiff of snow. We'd chosen to pack our greatcoats and brave the chill in our uniforms.

Streetcars rolled by, faces pressed to the windows. A few people lined the sidewalks of Mam Street and waved Union Jacks from balconies, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as Hector's send-off had been.

We stopped at the tram platform and held ourselves rigid as rods. Flashbulbs went off. We'd make the front page of the
Moose }aw Times
, that was for sure. I hoped Dad would see it and take at least a little pride in what I was doing.

Sergeant Billings marched across the platform and faced
us. “Company D!
Attenshunl”
The musicians fell silent. His face was stern, but his eyes showed a hint of sadness. “I am completely confident that you will perform your duty and bring honor to your regiment and your country. You are brave. You are strong. You are the Bull Moose Boys. I have only one final order ….” He paused. “Give em hell, gentle-men!

“Yes, Sergeant!” we shouted in perfect unison.

I stood alone while other soldiers fanned out into the crowd. It seemed everyone had someone to see him off. I wished Father were here. It had been nearly a month; he could have pulled himself together enough to get out of bed. I searched the crowd for his face, but I was being harebrained. There was no way he could have known about this send-off.

“Hey, Edward!” Paul shouted. “Come meet my wife.”

I made my way over, jostled at every step. Paul was holding his daughter. His wife, a small brunette with an elegant face, stood as if she were bracing against a stiff wind. “This is Andrea.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, nodding to her. A boy clung to her dress and stared up at Paul as though he were looking at a hero. I smiled down.

“We don't have much time.” Still holding his daughter, Paul put one arm around his wife and pulled her close. “Every day I'll think about you, my love. You're everything to me. Absolutely everything.” This was meant to be private, but the crowd kept pushing me closer into them. The children hugged Paul and cried.

I shouldered my way toward the station. Girls stared and
I smiled. Mother had always said I cleaned up well. I turned and drew in a deep breath. The girl from the farm was right in front of me. She was even more beautiful up close—hair braided, skin white as milk, her dark deer eyes freezing me in place. She was wrapped in an oversized fur coat.

She came to me, stood on tip-toe, and kissed my cheek. I almost fell over. I breathed in: she smelled of freshly turned soil. She pressed a ribbon into my cold hand. “Go kill those bastards,” she whispered harshly, revealing large, molasses black teeth. “Kill every last stinkin' one.” She stepped back, turned, and vanished into the crowd.

I stared, shocked by her kiss, her words, and her rotting teeth. I clutched the red ribbon tightly in my fist. What did it mean? Was she my girl? Had she lost someone in the war?

A trumpet called us to the tram, releasing me from her spell.

“You look older,” a man said.

Reverend Ashford's buffalo skin coat made him look like a bear in the center of the crowd. I grinned from ear to ear.

“I feel older.” I laughed and stuffed the ribbon into the pocket of my trousers. “I didn't expect to see you here.”

“Someone had to see you off. It wasn't hard to figure out where you'd be training. How did it go?”

“Great! We learned a lot, and we're in top fighting form.”

He nodded. “They do look fit.”

“We'll get the rest of our training in England. I can't wait! I want to see the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace and maybe Lincolnshire, too. That's where my ancestors came from. Anyway … uh … how's Dad?”

“The truth? He's a stubborn, bitter man. He forbade me to talk about you. He feels betrayed.”

My stomach sank. “I hoped he'd change. Maybe if he saw me now with all these men, he'd understand that I belong here. It's what I have to do.”

“You two will have to sort that out between you. I've done what I can. The Somnerses have moved your livestock to their pasture and promised it'll all be in perfect shape when you get back. And the Daughters of the Empire are bringing meals to Wilfred. They assume he has pneumonia. All their clucking might just scare him out of bed.”

Dad had never been a good patient.

“I brought you something.” Ashford handed me a folded handkerchief. My mother's tartan was stitched in a corner. This was one of her favorite keepsakes: it had belonged to her father. I held it gently.

“I stole it,” Reverend Ashford said. “Not a very good man of the cloth, am I? But you'll need a lucky charm, something that'll bring you home.”

“Thank you … thank you. I'll carry it with me everywhere.” The trumpet crowed again. “I'd better go.”

We shook hands. “Take care. Remember to pray And remember where you come from. We'll all be praying for you, Edward. God bless you.”

I nodded and followed my fellow soldiers into the tram. They leaned out the windows to shake hands and get one last kiss. I found a seat next to Paul and waved to the crowd. There was no sign of the Reverend. The departure bell sounded, the doors closed, and the tram chugged away. Soon
Moose Jaw had disappeared, and the flat prairie stretched to the horizon.

Paul stared out the window. “It better be worth it,” he whispered.

It would be. All the training and the exercises, the skill with a rifle, it would all come in handy. The Germans were tough, but I imagined thousands of us coming from every corner of the British Empire—Canadians, Australians, Indians—even the Americans were joining in. The Huns were hanging on by their fingernails.

I tried to picture the girl's face again, but all I could see were her brown teeth. If she hadn't spoken I would have had the perfect memory of her. I searched my pockets for her ribbon, but it was gone. Bad luck to lose something like that!

At least I had Mom's handkerchief. I took it out and smoothed it across my knee, all the time wondering if it really would bring me home.

I
lost count of the number of times I got seasick on the voyage over. The moment I saw the port of Liverpool from the front deck of the
Olympia
, I thanked God a thousand times. I never wanted to sail again.

Within hours we were on a tram chugging toward our camp. England was like a painting by an artist who only had several shades of green. I'd never seen so much green in December. Paul and I gawked from our tram car window at the hills dotted with tiny cottages. I was in the motherland of the Empire, the land of my father, and the country where I was born. I kept looking for something familiar.

We detrained in Mil ford and marched four miles through misty ram. I still didn't have my land legs back. The sky leaned on me; this was nothing like home, where you could see far into the distance. We dragged ourselves to the gates of Camp Witley and stood there, sweaty and dog tired,
our puttees caked with mud. No one had told the brass that we were coming, so there was a wagonload of paperwork that had to be done. We could only stare at the warm huts, smoke puffing from their chimneys.

“Makes me wonder if some deranged, dotty idiot is in charge,” Paul said.

His words made me think of Dad.

“Are you Hector Bathe?” a man asked.

Hector?
I spun around. Lord Kitchener glared down at me, his medals glittering. He had no need for a greatcoat; the biting cold didn't dare bite him. As I snapped a salute it occurred to me that Kitchener was dead. But the officer was so familiar. A few feet away, his orderly waited like a guard dog.

“Well, are you Hector Bathe or not?”

“N-no, sir, I'm not.”

“Well, I'll be—you're the spittm' image of Hector, lad. He's a Canadian, too.”

“He's my brother, sir.” Again, I'd spoken as though Hector were still alive.

“You're Wilfred Bathe's son?”

“Yes! Yes, I am. Edward Bathe.”

“Edward! How you've grown. It's your old uncle.”