The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (14 page)

Rushford and Stokes exchanged places. Rushford cleared his throat and closed his eyes as if searching for the right words. The right words turned out to be, “Preparation. Preparation. Preparation,” delivered in a reed-like voice. He consulted a card in his hand and coughed.

“Jesus. Put that man behind a desk,” Publicover whispered.

“What does this mean?” Rushford asked the far wall. “Precise timing between the artillery barrage and its attendant smokescreen and forward movement of the men on the ground. The barrage will be down to the split second so we blow up the enemy, not our own—not to imply that we’ve ever blown up our own men. Not often, that is.” He sniffed several times and smoothed his mustache. His voice had a sort of trumpeting effect as it gained and lost volume, so it was difficult to follow his explanation of how they’d train the men to proper pacing on practice ground and how colored tapes would mark each division’s objective—red lines, black lines, blue and brown.

When Rushford finally finished, Stokes strode to the center of the stage. “And here’s another change. We all know frontal assaults are our only recourse in trench warfare. And what stands in the way? That’s right—the wire.”

Barbed wire. Every man and officer carried wire cutters. Wave upon wave of forward-rushing soldiers at the Somme had been mowed down by machine-gun fire as they waited for the belts of barbed wire to be cut. Heavy artillery had failed to destroy it. When those cutting the wire fell, the next ones tried and toppled over them so that those eventually funneling through were forced to crawl over stacks of corpses that clogged the narrow opening. Rarely had the term “shooting fish in a barrel” been so appropriate. Fifty-seven thousand Allied casualties that first day alone.

“Up to now we’ve had to rely on ordnance that explodes only on impact. Of course, the wire’s too insubstantial to set it off. Well, gentlemen, we now have the
106
fuse—so finely sprung it doesn’t need impact to explode. It’ll go off when it so much as brushes the wire. The
106
, our new wire cutter!”

Murmured disbelief rippled through the room.

“That’s right. Now, something else. We Canadians may be an unruly lot, as our British friends like to say. And, thank God for it, because the high command of
this
army has figured out something that has eluded our good allies. We’re going to trust the intelligence of our men. Think of that. Going to make sure if the officer’s dead, a sergeant can take over. If he’s out of the action, a corporal can lead on, right on down to private. Maps and objectives will be in the hands of every single section leader.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“That’s right,” Stokes nodded. “We won’t have men stranded with their officers dead around them. We’re going to trust the lowest of the ranks because we’re smart enough to know that we depend on them as much as they depend on us. We’re bound together, ranks and officers, and not one of you matters more than one of them. That’s the army you’re in.

“Never forget, not for a moment, that you are part of the best fighting force ever assembled on God’s green earth. The CEF. The force that’s going to take that ridge.
This
is the watershed moment for our young country, by God! Have no doubt that when you fight, you fight for king and country. You fight for the Empire. For God’s great purpose. But you also fight for
Canada
!
What do you say?”

Cheers pounded out through the room. With a surge of adrenaline Angus cheered almost as loudly as Publicover, then sat back, amazed. He was part of it. And proud of it. He wondered how long the feeling would last. Maybe until he blew the whistle to send his men over the top.

“Dis-missed!” the colonel shouted.

“W
HO DESIGNED IT?
The fuse. Us? Did he say? Us, I bet. Was it?” Publicover asked eagerly as they filed out with the others.

“The Frogs is what I’ve heard,” a captain said.

“The
Frogs
?” Publicover said. “That’s ridiculous.”

Conlon patted Publicover’s shoulder. “Not every innovation is Canadian, Sam. Let the French have their due, eh?”

“Think it’ll work?” Angus asked.

Conlon shrugged.

“This idea of men knowing the battle plan,” a lieutenant named Crick said with mock surprise, “awfully generous. Have the generals lost their minds?”

“No. Just their officers,” Conlon replied. Everyone laughed.

“Publicover!” someone behind them shouted. “I’ll be damned!” It was Andy Loftus, a second lieutenant. “Publicover of the twenty kills!” he said, shaking his head. “And MacGrath, right? We met just before you headed up. Good to see you boys. May I suggest a reunion?”

Angus shook hands, but was anxious to get to his men. He turned to Publicover as he left. “Twenty kills?”

Publicover just shrugged.

H
IS MEN WERE
still in the barn. “Thank God you made it,” he said. “Yes sir,” they responded formally, though he thought he saw relief in a few faces. He looked for Hiller. Wertz pointed with his pipe to the far end of the barn. Katz explained Hiller had refused food and water, just huddled there all night. And there he was, hunched in the shadows, bits of straw clinging to his hair. One side of his mouth was clamped in a grimace that loosened only when Angus told him he was taking him to the field hospital. Angus saw that his tunic was rippling as if alive. Because the man seemed incapable, Angus avoided giving him a direct order and began to unbutton the jacket himself. Hiller sank to his knees. Three yellow chicks fell out of his tunic. Angus pulled him to his feet as Boudrey tried to scoop up the chicks. A hen darted about in wing-flapping fury.

Hiller said nothing all the way to the field hospital, and Angus left him there with a report on his behavior. Let the doctor figure out if it was a charade. Angus prayed it was not. Hiller’s trembling and facial grimacing set the men’s teeth on edge. Publicover was right. Faking it or not, he’d be a liability on the line.

On the road back to the town, Angus checked his trench watch. Nearly noon. A few minutes later, passing a low rise, the sharp report of massed rifle fire cut the air. And then it was quiet. Target practice? At the top of the slope, he saw what looked like sails. It was a chaplain, surplice billowing. Angus angled up to him. Below them, soldiers with rifles were being marched away toward a brick building. By a tree, a man on a block, hands tied behind him, a hood over his head, fell forward. Two others steadied the body and pulled off the hood.

Angus whipped around. The chaplain was crawling off. His knee caught on his surplice, and he fell forward and retched. Angus picked up a silver box from the ground and walked over to him. Blocking the sun, Angus lowered his canteen. The chaplain took it, rinsed his mouth and rolled to a sitting position. “So sorry,” he whispered. He wiped his mouth on the edge of his surplice, streaked with vomit.

Angus tried to hand him a cigarette, but the chaplain just stared out beyond the road. Angus sat down next to him. They were silent for a long time. Finally, the chaplain told Angus he’d been called in the night before, right after evening service, to visit with the prisoner. He’d never met the man, but spent the long hours of the long night with him. “He’d been in a lot of rough patches before he joined up. That much I got from him. He had regrets. Asked to be baptized. I tried to get the sentence commuted this morning. Asked if I could see the general, but the colonel would have none of it.”

“Stokes?”

The chaplain nodded.

“Was he innocent? The prisoner?”

“Who is innocent in war?” the chaplain sighed. “His name is Ewan Ellsworth, a private. They found him in uniform a month ago, living with a family a good twenty miles back. A deserter. I thought maybe there were commutable circumstances. Why still in uniform living with that family? Why not try to blend in?”

“Did he say?”

“No. Never did, though I asked him. It was part of some elaborate plan, I suppose. Or maybe spur-of-the-moment. Who knows? I was told that my job was to see to his soul, get him to die bravely. The matter had been reviewed by every proper channel.”

“What made you think he might be innocent?”

“Not a single thing,” the chaplain shook his head. “Still, brought into it like that, I saw the man—saw remorse, the terror in his eyes. I wasn’t trying to free him, just save him from . . .”

The firing squad had formed up again and were marching past on the road below. “I had his life in my hands,” the chaplain said, his hands limp in his lap. “I didn’t, of course, and yet by our very communion, I did. I was one with him all of last night. And am still.”

Angus passed him the silver box. The chaplain opened it. A breeze lifted communion wafers from it, and they chased away down the slope like a stream of confetti.

S
IX

February 20
^th
, 1917

Arras Sector, France

T
he woman, who had a brittle aspect to her, pierced Publicover’s kilt and tunic with a forked stick. “No!” He lunged after them. She swung the stick away. He stumbled, and the boy laughed. All of about ten, with one milky eye and a stiff shock of white through his hair, the boy stirred a steaming cauldron on a grate over an open fire.

“No!
Non!
” Publicover shouted. “Would you get over here?” he said to Angus. “This witch and her apprentice are about to ruin our uniforms.”

Angus threw his underwear over the sheet on the line where she’d had him undress and, wrapped in the threadbare quilt she’d provided, hobbled out, bare feet burning with the cold. Publicover, in a similar quilt, grabbed up what clothing he could from the ground. She scowled at him. “Wool,” he said, shaking his kilt at her. His quilt slipped. He held a corner of it with his teeth to cover himself, clutching the uniforms to his chest. “Ull. Ull no good in ’oilin ’ater,” he said.

She forked his tunic on her stick and swept it over the pot. “Lice!” she hissed. In English.

“We know.
Je comprends
, but—” Angus sighed.

Publicover dispensed with his quilt and waved his arms in an exaggerated X. “Wait!” he said loudly. “I have the so-lu-tion!” He ran back to his pack, stark naked except for his boots, shouting, “Tell her to wait!”

“
Attendez, attendez, s’il vous plaît
,” Angus said, and touched her arm. She squinted at Publicover, who rifled through his pack and held up a jar. “Bertie’s Cream! Kills lice!” he shouted with the enthusiasm of a traveling salesman. He leapt back across the yard, and recovered his quilt. The woman scowled, then took the jar and held it at arm’s length. “Better than boiling!” he said to her. “French?” he said to Angus. “Have the words?”

“For ‘better than boiling’?”

“My sister Lizzie just sent it over. It’s a hair tonic, see? But seems it’s great for killing lice. This fellow Lizzie knows swears by it. We just rub it in our hair, and all over ourselves. Why not? And our uniforms. Seam squirrels march out—in formation! Guaranteed.”

The woman looked at them, shrugged and dipped her hand in the cream and threw a blob of it into the water.