Three Day Road (20 page)

He lays his rifle down and picks up his war club. McCaan was especially impressed with its wicked design. He calls it a knobkerrie. Elijah checks his Mills bombs in their sack attached to his belt and listens for the direction of the sound. While two or three of them work they will no doubt have the keenest eye on sentry duty. Elijah will approach them dead-on and get an idea of what they are up to.

Slithering out of the trench, he makes his way toward the sound of the shovelling. I watch him stop and lie still every few yards. I imagine I can see what he sees.

He is close to their barbed wire, stops and re-gauges his direction and progress. It is unerring. He feels invincible, makes a note to keep track of how far he’s gone. Perfect. Steady breath. Focus of an osprey. They have no idea how close he is. They are just on the other side of their wire. Elijah closes his eyes and lets himself drift to them. He sees three workers and one sentry. The sentry looks out into the darkness but cannot see a thing. He whispers back to the others. Elijah doesn’t understand what he says. They are digging a machine-gun placement. It will be a good one once finished, will cut the
Canadians down like thin bulrushes, brown-haired heads toppling heavily to the earth. Elijah must swallow a giggle that rises up from his throat. The temptation to sneak in on them comes to him, to club them like one would club martens caught in snares. Elijah memorizes where the weakest point of their wire is and turns around. Not much night is left.

We make our way back carefully to our own line, no longer focused like we should be. We are coming down from the rush of adrenaline, and the fatigue crawls in.

In the officers’ dugout, I show off the sniper rifle and the shoulder patch of the dead sergeant. We smoke his German cigarettes and Elijah reports his findings to Lieutenant Breech. My head pounds now with the approaching day. There will be stand-to far too soon and I must sleep before that. Breech dismisses us finally after giving us double rum rations for a job well done.

Elijah and I walk to our dugout. It has begun to rain. A warm, steady drizzle. We will sleep well to the sound of it puddling in the trench.

Later as I fall asleep wrapped in my damp wool blanket, the lice make their way from the seams of my uniform and crawl over my warming skin. My filthy clothing must be why I dream what I do, of that day we first arrived in the
wemistikoshiw
town after making our way through the fire. Elijah had sold our canoe to a trapper for enough for train tickets with plenty left over. It was his idea to take us for new clothes.

I remember the store owner watching us carefully. “Hurry,” he says. “I need to close shop.” I wonder if he is afraid of the fire moving this way.

Elijah smiles when I come out of the little room wearing a red long-sleeved shirt and black pants. I look good, my shiny hair dark against the shirt. The dirty moccasins on my feet are the only problem with my outfit, Elijah says. But I won’t part with those.

When Elijah strolls out, I laugh. He has chosen a black suit and stiff, high white collar. In the mirror he looks like a preacher. This appeals to Elijah.

“That is what you will wear to join the army?” I ask.

Elijah ignores me, pulls out the money and hands it to the store owner. The owner looks surprised. Elijah counts the money when it is handed back. We have ten dollars left, but Elijah doesn’t tell me that we are short a dollar for the train passage.
Wemistikoshiw
money is a funny thing. There’s always more of it somewhere.

The two of us walk down the street, staring into the store windows. Most of the shops are deserted. When a car passes on the dusty road, we stop and stare at it, argue over how it moves itself. “The driver does something with his feet,” I say. “He must be pedalling it.”

“No,” Elijah answers. “They pour lamp oil into the engine and then light it on fire. You’ve poured lamp oil on a fire.” Elijah spreads his arms in a whoosh. “Little explosions inside make them go. Old Man Ferguson explained it to me.” I only stare as the car passes, coating everything in dust. “Let’s go to that tavern we saw beside the hotel,” he says. “My throat is dry.” Mine is too. “There might be women there.”

“What about the train?” I ask. “It must be leaving soon.”

“The train doesn’t leave till tomorrow,” Elijah says.

“And what of the fire?” I say. “What if it does come this way and burns down the town while we sit and drink?”

“Can you imagine anything more glorious?” Elijah says.

L
IEUTENANT BREECH SELECTS SIX OF US
for a raiding party tonight. Far too many. There will be Thompson leading, Elijah and me, Grey Eyes, Gilberto and some other new one that I do not know. None of this is good. He might as well have invited Fat out with us. At least then if we came under fire the whole raiding party could take cover behind him.

Lieutenant Breech orders Thompson to lead us behind the lines and practise our raid all day. Cold and wet and miserable, my heart isn’t in it. I can tell Elijah’s isn’t either. Gilberto is clumsy and nervous. Grey Eyes is glassy-eyed and far away. Thompson marks out our line and Fritz’s machine-gun nest with white strings. We crawl through the mud in the drizzle for hours, leapfrogging one another and figuring out who will be where in the darkness of tonight, while Breech watches from a distance with an odd smile on his face. Thompson and Elijah and I would much rather just the three of us go out again tonight, but Breech has gotten reports of increased activity by Fritz and wants to claim a little glory for himself. He wants to show his superiors that he is a warrior of the highest order. Elijah says that Breech should be coming out with us tonight. That way he can guarantee that Breech won’t be coming back.

We’re restless as night crawls across the front. The rain hasn’t stopped and is the kind that will drizzle steady for a long, long time. I am with Elijah and Grey Eyes in our little dugout. Our door is a blanket strung across the entrance to our cave, and it doesn’t allow the stink of the kerosene lamp to exit. Elijah bounces his legs up and down, up and down, until finally Grey Eyes says, “Quit your shaking. You’re making me nervous.” Elijah takes out his trench knife and sharpens it with a stone.

The big guns keep up their drumbeat far south of us on the Somme. We hear word that we will be moved out of this quiet place in Saint-Eloi and marched down there as reinforcement. Words. The rumours fall like rain here.

When will we go? Many dead down there in the Somme, though. Many, many dead. British coal miners tunnelled their way from under their line to under Fritz’s and then filled the tunnels with high explosives. The idea was to collapse the Huns’ world from under them, send them to their white man’s hell. It didn’t work as well as planned, but the blast was so tremendous that miles away the ground
shook and trembled under our feet in sickening waves so that I swore I was on board that troopship again. Grey Eyes was shaken badly by it, swore it was the gates of hell opening up below us. He hasn’t been the same since and is taking more morphine than is wise. Elijah tells me he will talk with Grey Eyes very soon about it.

I know Elijah can’t keep anything from me, has never been able to. To tell me what he thinks and does releases a sort of pressure from inside him. Tonight, though, he thinks I’m not awake before our raid. I lie with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep. We’ve already begun shelling Fritz in preparation for our raid. We are lobbing mortars at their wire. I hear Elijah say to Grey Eyes that Breech is attempting to weaken Fritz’s wire near the machine-gun nest.

“I told him that there is a place weak enough already for us to get through unnoticed,” he says. “All Breech is doing with this shelling is letting Fritz know that we plan on coming over.”

Even with my eyes closed, I can tell Elijah’s mood blackens more.

“Dear Henry,” Elijah says, using their code, “would you be a kind chap and make me a cup of tea?”

“I’m afraid I’m out of tea, Elijah,” he answers. The tea they talk about is a tobacco they sometimes smoke together when it is available. It calms Elijah and makes him smile.

“But you had plenty only yesterday,” Elijah says.

I can tell he’s holding the anger inside him as best he can.

“It really wasn’t that much,” Grey Eyes nearly whines. He is a weak man. “Why don’t you find the medic and tell him that you’ve sprained your ankle. Maybe he will give you an extra rum ration or even a tablet.”

I open my eyes a tiny bit and look over to Elijah. Through my eyelashes he looks blurry. I see that Elijah contemplates what Grey Eyes has suggested. I can also see that Elijah’s tempted to take his knife to Grey Eyes’ throat. I can almost feel the black anger rising from his gut and filling his head so that his eyesight dims. Me, I don’t
pretend to sleep any more. I open my eyes. It’s as if a silent explosion has gone off in the room and emptied the air from it. Elijah gets up and walks outside into the rain in search of something for his pounding head. I know Elijah so well that it is just a matter of me closing my eyes so that I can follow him.

The rain is cold and relentless as Elijah splashes along the duck-boards, peering in dugouts for the medic. No doubt Breech will order a box barrage when we head over, try to cut the machine-gun nest off from the rest of their line so that we can get in and destroy it properly. So noisy! Such a waste, like fishing with Mills bombs! McCaan wouldn’t listen when Elijah told him earlier in the day that Thompson, he and I could sneak over and do the job in silence, mine it once we killed the work party so that we might destroy not only the nest but as many of the enemy as possible. The problem is that McCaan would have to suggest a better plan to Breech than Breech’s own, and there’s never any of that.

Nothing feels right about the raid tonight. A good hunter knows to rely on his feeling. Elijah should just tell them that he is too sick to go out. But surely some of them would take this as cowardice, and he cannot bear to have them think this of him.

Finally he finds the medic huddling in a dugout, trying to keep out of the rain. The water has formed little rivulets that pour in, running down the mud walls, gradually collapsing them. His name is Driscoll, and he is short and chubby with small round-rimmed glasses. He is generous with the medicine, Grey Eyes says. Driscoll’s way is to make a little joke and smile as he digs in his kit for an ampoule, his eyes remaining serious as they look for signs of the addict. Driscoll’s tried to give it to Grey Eyes in pill form but the effects are not the same, and Grey Eyes says he finds it much harder to achieve the place he desires.

Elijah truly considers trying the morphine again tonight. He tells himself it is because of the bad feeling he’s got about this raid. What
he cannot yet face is that he wants the morphine to wash away a fear that he feels for the first time in this place.

Elijah crouches by Driscoll and offers a cigarette. “Bloody awful weather,” Elijah says. “Not fit for man nor rat.” Driscoll smiles, takes the offered cigarette. Elijah lights Driscoll’s, then his own. “That toe I was telling you about, the one I broke when I dropped the eighteen-pounder on it, it’s really acting up in this weather.” Elijah smiles at him. “Can you spare just the tiniest bit of M? I’ve got a big job to do tonight and I’m afraid I won’t perform too well for the pain.”

“I’m sorry, Private Whiskeyjack,” he says, offering his own smile. “Supplies are very short. The shipment that was to come in yesterday was destroyed in a barrage half a mile from our lines. I can’t do it. Orders.”

“Just a little bit? A push to get me through this difficult evening?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d report to McCaan that you’re displaying symptoms,” Driscoll says, smiling. “But I know better, don’t I, Private?”

Elijah smiles as he stands up. “Yes, Corporal, you do.” He walks back to the dugout, his anger watered down by fear.

KIMOCIWINIKEWIN
Raid

T
HE RAIN HAS NOT LET UP
, but Thompson has decided that it will offer good cover. Our attack party slips out of the trench in teams of two. That time in the night has come once again when the world is at its blackest. Elijah tells me his stomach is sick so that he would throw up if it held any food. His head pounds along with the big guns. He’s with me in the crater closest to the weak part of the wire now. We are in advance position and the others flank us in their craters on either side. The plan is simple.

Elijah and I will approach as soon as the box barrage begins that will cut off the machine-gun nest. When the barrage ends we will drop Mills bombs into it and kill the work party. Then we’re to place cotton charges into the nest, set the fuses, and retreat back to our line.

Thompson sends up a signal flare, and this immediately draws Fritz’s fire upon him. The Canadian guns begin to drop shells behind Fritz’s wire, but Elijah and I can tell the shells land too far behind to be effective. Fritz has a good idea where the attackers are. Elijah and I have to advance now and complete the job so that we can all get back to our line as soon as possible.

Elijah crawls out of the crater and cuts through strands of barbed wire while I keep a careful eye out for movement in front of him. The nest is behind the wire about twenty yards, just to the left. When he
is through the wire, he crawls on his belly to a trough of mud thrown up by a mortar and takes position behind it, tensing as he goes, listening for the crack of the rifle and the bullet that will explode his skull. He checks carefully to see if the nest builders have spotted him, but the rain obscures them. He motions for me to come through the wire and join him. My stomach is knotted and I have to piss so bad that I try to right here, lying in the mud. I try and can’t and feel small and ridiculous that I’m unable to do even this.

Fritz has concentrated a lot of fire on Thompson’s and Grey Eyes’ positions. I’ll be amazed if they are still in one piece. So far, no one seems to have noticed Elijah and me. We leapfrog closer and Elijah reaches for a Mills bomb from his belt. He pulls the pin so that it is ready. We edge up closer to the nest. We can see it through the rain now, well hidden in the mud. We notice no movement. Elijah says his head feels ready to explode. He can’t take it any longer.