The Wars Read online

  TIMOTHY FINDLEY (1930–2002) was one of Canada’s most compelling and best-loved writers. He is the author of The Wars, which won the Governor General’s Award and established him as one of Canada’s leading writers, as well Pilgrim and The Piano Man’s Daughter, both finalists for the Giller Prize. His other novels, Headhunter, The Telling of Lies, The Last of the Crazy People, The Butterfly Plague, Famous Last Words, Not Wanted on the Voyage, and Spadework; his novella, You Went Away; and his short fiction, Dinner Along the Amazon, Stones, and Dust to Dust, have won numerous awards and are well loved both in Canada and internationally.

  Elizabeth Rex won the Governor General’s Award for Drama, and The Stillborn Lover won a Chalmers Award. His works of non-fiction include Inside Memory and From Stone Orchard.

  Timothy Findley was made an officer of the Order of Canada and a chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

  Also by Timothy Findley

  NOVELS

  The Last of the Crazy People

  The Butterfly Plague

  Famous Last Words

  Not Wanted on the Voyage

  The Telling of Lies

  Headhunter

  The Piano Man’s Daughter

  Pilgrim

  Spadework

  NOVELLA

  You Went Away

  SHORT FICTION

  Dinner Along the Amazon

  Stones

  Dust to Dust

  PLAYS

  Can You See Me Yet?

  John A.—Himself

  The Stillborn Lover

  The Trials of Ezra Pound

  Elizabeth Rex

  NON-FICTION

  Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer’s Workbook

  From Stone Orchard: A Collection of Memories

  PENGUIN

  an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited

  Canada • USA • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  First published in Canada by Clarke Irwin & Company of Canada Limited, 1977. Published by Penguin Canada Books Inc., 1978, 1996, 2002, 2005. Published in this edition, 2014.

  Copyright © 1977 by Timothy Findley

  Copyright © 1986 by Pebble Productions

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  www.​penguinrandomhouse.​ca

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 9780735233881

  Cover image: Roy Bishop/Arcangel Images

  v4.1

  a

  For

  My Father and Mother and P. M. Findley and in memory of T.I.F

  Never that which is shall die

  Euripides

  Acknowledgements

  Novels rarely contain acknowledgements, but this one could not have been written without the encouragement, consideration and help of the following: Graham Brogan, Nancy Colbert, Stanley Colbert, Nora Joyce, Alma Lee, Buffalo Brad Nicholson, Beverley Roberts and William Whitehead. I must also thank Alan Walker for his expertise in the matter of firearms, Ellen Powers for typing the manuscript and Juliet Mannock for reading it with an eye to English and historical detail. Lastly, I want to thank M. for the midnight ’phone calls and the letters from which the photographs fell.

  T.F.

  In such dangerous things as war the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.

  von Clausewitz

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Timothy Findley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Part: One

  Part: Two

  Part: Three

  Part: Four

  Part: Five

  Epilogue

  One

  Prologue

  She was standing in the middle of the railroad tracks. Her head was bowed and her right front hoof was raised as if she rested. Her reins hung down to the ground and her saddle had slipped to one side. Behind her, a warehouse filled with medical supplies had just caught fire. Lying beside her there was a dog with its head between its paws and its ears erect and listening.

  Twenty feet away, Robert sat on his haunches watching them. His pistol hung down from his fingers between his knees. He still wore his uniform with its torn lapels and burned sleeves. In the firelight, his eyes were very bright. His lips were slightly parted. He could not breathe through his nose. It was broken. His face and the backs of his hands were streaked with clay and sweat. His hair hung down across his forehead. He was absolutely still. He had wandered now for over a week.

  Behind him, the railroad track stretched back towards the town. In front of him, it reached out through the fire towards the open countryside and the road to Magdalene Wood. On one of the sidings was a train. Its engineer and crew had either abandoned it, or else they had been killed. It could not be told. Robert appeared to be the sole survivor.

  He stood up. The engine hissed and rumbled. The train was about a dozen cars—no more. They appeared to be cattle cars. Robert walked to the horse.

  He had feared she might be lame, but as soon as he approached she put her hoof back down on the cinders and raised her head. Robert petted her, slipping his arm around her neck and drawing the reins back over her ears. She greeted him with a snuffling noise and looked around to watch him as he adjusted her saddle and tightened her cinch. The dog, in the meantime, had got to his feet and was wagging his tail. It was as if both dog and horse had been waiting for Robert to come for them.

  The horse was a fine black mare, standing about sixteen hands. She had been well cared for up till now and someone had obviously ridden her every day. She was in superb condition. The dog apparently was used to her company and she to his. They moved in tandem. The dog was also black. One of his ears fell forward in an odd way, giving the appearance of a jaunty cap. Robert did not know what sort of dog he was, but he was about the size of a Labrador retriever. Before mounting, Robert reached down and rubbed his hand across the dog’s back. Then he said: ‘let’s go’ and swung up into the saddle.

  —

  THEY RODE DOWN THE TRACK towards the road to Magdalene Wood passing, as they went, the engine on the siding. When they got to the first of the cars—the horse stopped. She threw her head up and whinnied. Other horses answered from inside the car. ‘All right,’ Robert said. ‘Then we shall all go together.’

  Half an hour later, the twelve cars stood quite empty and Robert was riding along the tracks behind a hundred and thirty horses with the dog trotting beside him. They were on the road to Magdalene Wood by 1 a.m. This was when the moon rose—red.

  1 All of this happened a long time ago. But not so long ago that everyone who played a part in it is dead. Some can still be met in dark old rooms with nurses in attendance. They look at you and rearrange their thoughts. They say: ‘I don’t remember.’ The occupants of memory have to be protected from strangers. Ask what happened, they say: ‘I don’t know.’ Mention Robert Ross—they look away. ‘He’s dead,’ they tell you. This is not news. ‘Tell me about the horses,’ you ask. Sometimes, they weep at this. Other times they say: ‘that bastard!’ Then the nurses nod at you, much as to say—y
ou see? It’s best to go away and find your information somewhere else. In the end, the only facts you have are public. Out of these you make what you can, knowing that one thing leads to another. Sometime, someone will forget himself and say too much or else the corner of a picture will reveal the whole. What you have to accept at the outset is this: many men have died like Robert Ross, obscured by violence. Lawrence was hurled against a wall—Scott entombed in ice and wind—Mallory blasted on the face of Everest. Lost. We’re told Euripides was killed by dogs—and this is all we know. The flesh was torn and scattered—eaten. Ross was consumed by fire. These are like statements: ‘pay attention!’ People can only be found in what they do.

  2 You begin at the archives with photographs. Robert and Rowena—rabbits and wheelchairs—children, dogs and horses. Barbara d’Orsey—the S.S. Massanabie—Magdalene Wood. Boxes and boxes of snapshots and portraits; maps and letters; cablegrams and clippings from the papers. All you have to do is sign them out and carry them across the room. Spread over table tops, a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamps. The war to end all wars. All you can hear is the wristwatch on your arm. Outside, it snows. The dark comes early. The archivist is gazing from her desk. She coughs. The boxes smell of yellow dust. You hold your breath. As the past moves under your fingertips, part of it crumbles. Other parts, you know you’ll never find. This is what you have.

  3 1915.

  The year itself looks sepia and soiled—muddied like its pictures. In the snapshots everyone at first seems timid—lost—irresolute. Boys and men stand squinting at the camera. Women turn away suspicious. They still maintain a public reticence.

  Part of what you see you recognize. Here for the first time, the old Edwardian elegance falters. Style is neither this nor that—unless you could say it was ‘apologetic.’ The men wear caps and shapeless overcoats to work, jamming their hands deep into pockets. Imitation uniforms spring up everywhere: girls wear ‘middy’s’—boys are dressed in sailor suits. Women wear a sort of great coat and flat brimmed hats with rosette badges. Ladies no longer wear their furs; they drape them from their arms with all the foxtail trophies hanging down like scalps. No one smiles. Life is dangerous. Summer induces the parasol—winter the galosh. Some of the photographs are blurred. Even though the figures freeze—the dark machines that fill the roads move on.

  Here is the Boys’ Brigade with band. Backyard minstrels, got up in cork, bang their tambourines and strut across a lawn on Admiral Road. Every parlour has its piano: here are soldiers, arm in arm and singing: ‘Keep Your Head Down, Fritzie Boy!’ Tea-Dance partners do the Castlewalk to orchestras of brass cornets and silver saxophones. Violins have been retired.

  This is the age of motorized portation. Over one thousand makes of motorcar can be had. Backyard blacksmiths build them to custom. ASK THE MAN WHO OWNS ONE! Here are families, sitting overdressed in Packards—posed aloof in the backs of Chevrolets and Russell Knights. Everyone, it seems, is journeying around the block. Children vie to blow the horns.

  Then something happens. April. Ypres. Six thousand dead and wounded. The war that was meant to end by Christmas might not end till summer. Maybe even fall. This is where the pictures alter—fill up with soldiers—horses—wagons. Everyone is waving either at the soldiers or the cameras. More and more people want to be seen. More and more people want to be remembered. Hundreds—thousands crowd into frame.

  Here come the troops down Yonge Street! Women abandon all their former reticence and rush out into the roadway, throwing flowers and waving flags. Here come the 48th Highlanders!! Kilts and drums and leopard skins. Boys race after them on bikes. Little girls, whose mouths hang open, hardly dare to follow. Older men remove their hats. There is Sir Sam Hughes standing on the dais, taking the farewell salute. ‘GOD SAVE THE KING!!!’ (a banner). Everywhere you look, trains are pulling out of stations, ships are sailing out of ports. Music drowns the long hurrah. Everyone is focused, now, shading their eyes against the sun. Everyone is watching with an outstretched arm—silenced at the edge of wharves and time.

  Robert Ross comes riding straight towards the camera. His hat has fallen off. His hands are knotted to the reins. They bleed. The horse is black and wet and falling. Robert’s lips are parted. He leans along the horse’s neck. His eyes are blank. There is mud on his cheeks and forehead and his uniform is burning—long, bright tails of flame are streaming out behind him. He leaps through memory without a sound. The archivist sighs. Her eyes are lowered above some book. There is a strand of hair in her mouth. She brushes it aside and turns the page. You lay the fiery image back in your mind and let it rest. You know it will obtrude again and again until you find its meaning—here.

  A Band is assembled on the Band Shell—red coats and white gloves. They serenade the crowd with ‘Soldiers of the Queen.’ You turn them over—wondering if they’ll spill—and you read on the back in the faintest ink in a feminine hand: ‘Robert.’ But where? You look again and all you see is the crowd. And the Band is still playing—quite undisturbed—and far from spilled. Then you see him: Robert Ross. Standing on the sidelines with pocketed hands—feet apart and narrowed eyes. His hair falls sideways across his forehead. He wears a checkered cap and dark blue suit. He watches with a dubious expression; half admiring—half reluctant to admire. He’s old enough to go to war. He hasn’t gone. He doubts the validity in all this martialling of men but the doubt is inarticulate. It stammers in his brain. He puts his hand out sideways: turns. He reaches for the wicker back of a wheelchair. ‘Come on, Rowena. There’s still the rest of the park to sit in.’

  —

  THOMAS ROSS AND FAMILY stand beside a new Ford Truck. The new Ford Truck is parked before the gates of RAYMOND/ROSS INDUSTRIES, where farm machinery is made. This picture will appear in the Toronto Mail and Empire with a banner headline, stating that the truck is being turned over to the RAYMOND/ROSS Field Surgery Hospital behind the lines in France. Large red crosses adorn its sides. The ‘family’ consists of Mister and Mrs Ross and three of their children: Robert, Peggy and Stuart. Rowena, the eldest, is not shown. She is never in photographs that are apt to be seen by the public. In fact, she is not much admitted into the presence of a camera. Robert has her picture on his bureau.

  Rowena is seated in her scalloped wicker chair with the high, double wheels. She wears a white dress. Her hair is curly and short. Her shoulders are perpetually hunched. Her head is large and adult but her body is that of a ten-year-old child. She is twenty-five years old. She is what is called hydrocephalic—which in plain language means she was born with water on the brain. Her expression is lovely and pensive. She wears a wide and colourful sash. In her lap she holds a large white rabbit. Robert told her once, she was the first human being he remembered seeing. He was lying in his crib and, waking from a nap through half-closed eyes, he saw his sister gliding in her chair across the room and coming to rest beside him. She stared at him for a long, long time and he stared back. When she smiled, he thought she was his mother. Later, when he came to realize she couldn’t walk and never left the chair, he became her guardian. It was for her he learned to run.

  Mother and Miss Davenport, wearing their canteen aprons, stand on the platform at Sunnyside Station handing out chocolate bars to the soldiers who are leaning out of trains. They do this every Thursday afternoon. Robert wishes his mother wouldn’t do such things because he’s shy and thinks she appears too much in public. But Mrs Ross is adamant. Such things have to be done…someone has to do them. The leaders of society are dutybound—and what would people say…? Etc. Etc. All the while, Miss Davenport is nodding and smiling: agreeing with every word. But not one word of it is true. Mrs Ross performs her duties Thursday afternoons because of dreams.

  Here is Meg—a Patriotic Pony, draped in bunting, standing in a garden. Her ears lie flat. She is either angry or frightened. Meg is very old. Just at the edge of the picture. Stuart can be seen squinting at the sun. He wears an Indian headdress and he holds a baseball bat.

 
This is Peggy Ross with Clinton Brown from Harvard!!! Nothing in Clinton Brown from Harvard’s appearance warrants three exclamation points. He was only one of Peggy’s many beaux. Robert is in this picture too, seated on the steps of the South Drive house along with a girl called Heather Lawson. Robert was supposed to be ‘interested’ in Heather Lawson but the fact was it was she who was interested in him. Not that Robert didn’t like her—only that he wasn’t interested. ‘Interested’ led to marriage and this is what Heather Lawson wanted. So did her parents. Robert was a fine catch for any girl. He was a scholar and an athlete. Besides—he had money.

  One summer the Rosses crossed to England on the S.S. Minnetonka in order to spend a holiday with the RAYMOND/ROSS British representative, whose name was Mister Hawkins. All through the month of June they languished on the beaches of the Isle of Wight. In late July they came home on the Minnetonka’s sister-ship the S.S. Minnewanka. From the decks of this ship, early one morning, one of the Rosses (it was not clear which)—took a photograph of the ocean. Whoever it was, later drew an arrow—pointing to a small white dot on the far horizon. The small white dot can barely be seen. Nothing else is visible but sea and sky. Just above the arrow, written in bold black ink is the question: ‘WHAT IS THIS?’ All too clearly, the small white dot is an iceberg. Why whoever took the picture failed to verify this fact remains a mystery. The thing is dated August 4th but no year is given.

  Shuffle these cards and lay them out: this is the hand that Robert Ross was born with. Mister and Mrs Ross—Peggy and Stuart—rabbits and Rowena. Also a dog named Bimbo and a clipping from the paper, reading: ‘LONGBOAT WINS THE MARATHON!’ Meg and Miss Davenport—Heather Lawson and the iceberg. And Clinton Brown from Harvard, who died a hero’s death at the battle for Belleau Wood in June of 1918—worthy of an exclamation point at last.