The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (24 page)

“And you—you became Havers? Like in some fairy tale?”

“I’ve just told you a story,” Ebbin said steadily, his back still to Angus. “Hoping that somehow you’d understand it. Whether you do is up to you. Like I said, we’re all going to die over here. The only thing that matters is how.”

“You really believe we’re all going to die. How do you keep going, if that’s what you believe?”

“Havers, that’s how. Havers is in
here
,” he turned around and put his fist against his chest, “a saving grace. Doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, there’s nothing you can do can change it. Ask around, you’ll find out what Havers has done.”

“Do you have any idea who I am? I’m Ebbin Hant’s brother-in-law, his friend.”

“Ah. Sorry about that, brother.” He put a hand on Angus’s shoulder and then picked up his uniform.

They were silent as Ebbin got dressed. It was Angus’s turn to go to the window, to look out at the stars. But the only story he had to tell was one of loss, a severing of self from self. A lifetime of memories and all the ways he’d defined himself in relation to Ebbin had been a long, winding trail that took him finally to this place where he was utterly alone. And alone he would remain.
And I wonder why I do not care for the things that are like the things that were . . .

Ebbin was buttoning up his jacket, adjusting his puttees. Their time was short. There was no point turning him in. Hiller had come back with a diagnosis of “nervous but fit enough”—a good
imitation
of shellshock, it was said, but the line had to be drawn. As for Ebbin, they’d break him and he’d be sent to prison, not a hospital, for impersonating an officer. Rational or not, Angus kept seeing him marched to a stump, a bag on his head. And who knew who Havers really was or what had happened to him? Or what any of the facts really were. Ebbin could have been AWOL for all those months and then—rejoined? Anything was possible. What was certain was that Ebbin was broken, but
believed
he was whole and had survived as Havers.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
Alright, then. So be it.

Ebbin was fully dressed now. He straightened his shoulders, whipped out a comb and smoothed his hair in the reflection in the window.

Havers had as good a chance of making it as Ebbin Hant. Maybe better.

N
OT LONG AFTERWARDS,
they stood to the side of the road as a stream of general service wagons passed by. A lorry rumbled up, then stalled, the whine of its engine piercing the air, mud flying, tires whirring. Angus stood there dumbly, clots of mud splattering his legs.

He heard someone say, “Havers! Hi ya! Where ya been? Better check in with the Sarge toot sweet.”

Then Ebbin was gone.

A
HALF HOUR
later, drained and exhausted, Angus leaned against a stone wall, watching a lone cow meandering in the distance. Paul materialized, mug of hot milk coffee in hand. He offered it up to Angus and said that two years before, the Germans had killed all the cows in that field when they left in retreat. He swiped his hand across his neck to demonstrate. Then, like Angus, he leaned back against the wall and crossed his legs. They kept their eyes on the cow, plodding uselessly on.

“How old are you, Paul?
Quel âge?
” Angus asked as he handed the mug back.

“
Onze ans
,” Paul replied immediately.

“Eleven. So, you’ve spent nearly a third of your life in this war.” Cottony wisps of his own life before the war drifted by. He could not grasp them and he did not try. He was trying to overcome a strange lifting feeling, as if the top of his head might come off and his body float up after it. Paul started speaking again. Angus heard the words before they took hold. Paul told him how he’d been at his great-uncle’s farm when the Germans began to slaughter the cows. He’d hidden in the cellar. They’d burned the barn and killed the cows and run a knife through his great-uncle for trying to stop them. And when Paul came out of the cellar, his hair . . . He rubbed his hand over the white patch.

The words fell into place.

Paul narrowed his eyes. “One day I will be a soldier. A Canadian soldier. They found me. In the cellar. But first, a German soldier, a private. He see me. ‘Shhh . . . ’ he say.”

“A German? Saved you?”

“
Oui
. He was my pal. You are also?”

Angus nodded. “I am that. And you’re as brave as any soldier I know.”

Paul gave a faint smile and blew on the milky coffee. “What happened to your . . . ?” He rephrased. “How is . . . Lance Corporal Havers?”

Angus shrugged. “Fine, I’d guess. Back with his unit now. Here, give me another swig of that.”

Paul handed him the cup. “He is . . . Lance Corporal Havers?”

“Yup,” Angus sighed, “he is.”

“It is okay?”

“I think so. Havers is . . . his pal. Someone he made up. Havers makes him feel strong. Brave like you. Can you understand that? Pretending, no,
believing
he’s Lance Corporal Havers helps him stay alive.”

Paul nodded gravely.

“But it has to be our secret. Understand? We can’t tell anyone. If we do, it will be very bad for him. And he won’t be brave.”

“Shhhh. It is done.” Paul crossed his arms, one after the other, over
his chest, and cocked his head up at Angus. “You are okay? You are .
. . you are thinking?”

“Yes. I am thinking,” Angus said, folding his arms, eyes on the horizon. “I’m thinking how things are not black and white, only gray. Like your pal, the German private, and my pal, Havers, and this whole bloody war.”

Paul whistled a long falling note. He took a big swallow of coffee and said, “You are thinking many things. You will draw them? With your only chalks—
noir et blanc? Gris?
”

“That’s right.” Was there nothing this boy did not understand? “The only ones left—black and white. Mix them together and you’ve got gray. Where the heck did you come from, anyway?”

Paul smiled shyly into the mug. “Finish?” he said, lifting the cup.

“You have the rest.”

“Smoke?”

Angus shook his head again. “Later. You’ve got chores to do and God knows what scavenging, and I have a class to teach.” Paul took a last swallow and tossed the rest away. A meadowlark swooped past a stand of splintered trees and landed on a rusted wire sticking up out of an old fence post where she broke into song, varied and lyrical. Paul, who had turned to go, stopped. “
Là!
She makes herself happy. You, too?”

“Me, too—she makes me happy. So do you,” Angus answered. As if in response, the lark puffed her chest out, tipped her head back and trilled out a varied flutter of rippling notes. Across the field, the cow stopped and lifted her head.

T
HE NAMELESS AND
the named, Angus thought as he and Paul walked back. He wasn’t about to tell Hettie about Ebbin nor about Havers. That much he’d already decided. It was impossible to explain and far too risky. Even if he could find some coded way to share the news, how could she in the remotest stretch of imagination, reading a letter over a cup of tea, understand Havers? Besides, to tell her was to expose Ebbin, and open himself up as well, to her renewed hopes, her insistence that something be done when the only thing to do was to do nothing. She’d lost Ebbin once. Could she bear it again? Could he?

But he did tell Juliette. Not surprisingly, Paul had kept his vow of silence. And, not surprisingly, she, like Paul, accepted the story. She understood escape. She understood survival. He told her he was going to stay out of Ebbin’s way. She agreed it was best. She understood love.

E
LEVEN

March 27
^th
, 1917

Arras Sector, France

T
he month of March had broken without a hint of spring in the air nor a blade of grass pushing through the iron-clad earth. Angus didn’t search for Ebbin again, though there were times he thought he saw him—elusive sightings—loading ground sheets onto a truck, horsing around with his mates at the YMCA canteen, and once riding bareback in the ring by the stables.

The spring offensive was drawing near, and throughout the camps and villages of Pas-de-Calais and Picardy, everything and everyone was gearing up for the Battle of Arras, and what would be, for the CEF, the battle for Vimy Ridge—all four Canadian divisions,
100
,
000
men, with an additional allocation from the British
1
st Army on either flank, not to mention mules and
50
,
000
horses. Rural roads were clogged with streams of lorries, automobiles, mule trains, general service wagons, motorcycles, bicycles, Red Cross carts, anything with wheels. The home-front factories had finally produced enough shells to bomb the world to kingdom come, which Publicover said was fine with him as long as Jerry went first. Heavy artillery was moving up to assigned destinations, cannons pulled by teams of sixteen draught horses, heads down, eyes bulging. Angus had seen their knees buckle.

Below ground, engineers dug through the old French and German trenches, shoving corpses aside as they laid their cable. Medical corps dugouts were under construction, some said to be sixty feet deep, able to accommodate up to three hundred men, with a windlass to raise and lower the wounded. Tottenham, Cavalier, International and Vincent tunnels were nearing completion, extending beyond the forward trenches and butting right up to the German line. Preparations worthy of Caesar’s army, it was said by everyone. Conlon preferred allusions to Troy—victory a long time coming, but coming nonetheless. Patience, diligence, duty, he reminded them.

Diligence, duty. These were the watchwords by which Angus carried out his daily rounds. He was up the line with his men three times. Back of the line, he and Publicover were housed with their men. Paul was such a ubiquitous presence in the camp, running errands, making trades, that Angus was surprised he wasn’t in uniform. Whenever he could, which wasn’t often, Angus went back with him to visit Juliette.

Angus immersed himself in teaching soldiers who could barely write, let alone draw, how to duplicate the physical world in distance, depth, line and perspective. Terrain mapping, “an invaluable asset,” Stokes called it when, to the astonishment of that day’s class, he’d poked his head inside one afternoon. Hands clasped behind his back, eyeing the drawings, he circled the room and reminded Angus of Mr. Heist. Finally, he came to a stop, faced the men, and cleared his throat. “Listen here,” he said. “Once we’re over that ridge, we’ll be in uncharted ground, and it’ll be days before we’ll be able to bring our heavy guns to firing range, during which time Jerry will reorganize, build new defenses. Our observation balloons are just slow-moving targets, and Jerry’s crackerjack at shooting down our planes. So we’re going to need sketches of those defenses just like the ones you’re making—quickly drawn, copied and handed back to command. So pay attention and keep up the good work.”