The Wars Page 6

  22 The 19th of December, 1915 was a Sunday. This was the day after Robert—(and, indeed, a whole Canadian contingent)—sailed for England. The Ross family went to church that morning, walking through the snow. Miss Davenport went with them. She was more and more a constant companion to Mrs Ross—who was less and less a companion to her husband and her children. The walk through the snow wound them down Park Road and up through the gulley of wild ravine to the other side past Collier Street to Bloor. They emerged about a block from their destination—(St Paul’s)—where a piper was standing on the steps piping the worshippers in to the service. His presence meant that some regiment or other was on church parade that morning and the pews would be crowded with soldiers. Mrs Ross was sorry for this. It meant the tone of the sermon would be militant and more than likely blood-thirsty.

  Mr Baldwin Mull—a neighbour somewhat dreaded for his temper and his habit of accumulating houses—preceded them along the sidewalk in his flowing beard and a tall black hat. Stuart made a snowball, taking off his mitts to warm it in his palm just long enough to let it form an outer coating of ice. As they neared the church, Mrs Ross became increasingly irritated by the number of acquaintances gathered on the sidewalks and the steps. Miss Davenport wanted to take her arm, but Mrs Ross refused. ‘If I fall down—I fall down,’ she said. Mister Ross heard this, but kept on walking. He and Peggy were busy nodding and smiling. Mister Ross kept raising his hat. Peggy always wore white gloves to church and she rested a white-gloved hand on her father’s sleeve. The Rosses were dressed, quite naturally, in black and Mrs Ross wore a veil that hid her expression but not her features. The Bennetts and the Lawsons, the Lymans and the Bradshaws, the Aylesworths and the Wylies were all there. And the Raymonds. (The Raymonds were Mrs Ross’s cousins and sisters.) She hated them all. She hadn’t before—when she was growing up. But now she did. The only decent person she knew was Davenport. Davenport gave away chocolate bars to soldiers leaning out of trains. When Mrs Ross accompanied her and stood on the station platform it gave her the feeling she was mitigating bullets.

  Standing on the steps, but not quite with her husband, Mrs Ross eyed the congregation of men and women with whom she had been a child. They had all—she kept thinking—been children together. Why were they standing here in this snow, in these black, black clothes and blowing veils, listening to the wailing pipes and nodding at one another—shaking one another’s hands as if to congratulate themselves that all their sons had gone away to die? Half the people here—or more—had sons like hers who were on those ships that had left St John the day before.

  Stuart’s snowball was melting in his mitts. Mrs Ross wanted to ask him why he didn’t throw it. There were half a dozen people she would like him to throw it at—but of course that was madness. Slowly, they all went in. A company of Toronto Scottish arrived and filed into their seats, taking up one whole section of the church. The choir came next and everyone stood. Something was sung. They litanized. They sat down—they stood up—they sang—they sat down—they knelt. God this and God that and Amen.

  Mrs Ross sat back.

  Today, they would be spoken at by the Bishop. He spoke about those in peril at sea. He spoke about landfall. He spoke about flags and holy wars and Empire. He even had the gall to speak about Christmas. This was too much for Mrs Ross. She stood up. Standing, she leaned down over Davenport’s magenta hat and said: ‘I need you. Come.’ She pressed past Dorothy Aylesworth’s knees and old Mrs Aylesworth’s shins and Mr Aylesworth’s gold-headed cane and made it to the aisle without falling down. Davenport followed and they made their way to the doors—Mrs Ross walking on her heels to be sure that everyone heard her and knew that she was passing. The Bishop paused, but did not give up the struggle…

  Out on the street again, Mrs Ross sagged to the steps and sat in the snow.

  ‘But—we can’t sit here,’ said Miss Davenport.

  ‘I can,’ said Mrs Ross and did.

  She even lighted a cigarette. Why should it matter? The only people passing were children—and they were all running after motorcars, slipping and sliding on the ice.

  Mister Ross, Peggy and Stuart remained inside. Peggy had almost followed, but her father had restrained her. He was afraid for his wife but he knew it was neither himself nor her children that she needed. What she needed was an empty cathedral in which to rail at God.

  Davenport sat on her squirrel stole. Her hands were already cold. Mrs Ross reached inside her sable muff and drew out a silver flask. She drank and offered it to Davenport—but Davenport was afraid of censure, sitting so near the street, and she refused.

  Mrs Ross adjusted her veil but did not put the flask away. ‘I was afraid I was going to scream,’ she said. She gestured back at the church with its sermon in progress. ‘I do not understand. I don’t. I won’t. I can’t. Why is this happening to us, Davenport? What does it mean—to kill your children? Kill them and then…go in there and sing about it! What does that mean?’ She wept—but angrily. A child in a bright red tam-o’-shanter stood at the bottom step and stared. Mrs Ross looked away. ‘All those soldiers, sitting in there and smiling at their parents. Thank God and Jesus Robert didn’t smile at me before he left—I couldn’t have borne it.’ She put her hand on her forehead. The child was watching her intently and Mrs Ross, in spite of the haze of brandy and the keen lightheadedness of her passion realized that the child was frightened to see her there—a grown-up lady, sitting on the steps in the snow with her furs thrown aside as if they were dead flowers. She realized she had to stand or else the child would think that she was mad—and the world had quite enough adults gone crazy as it was. She put her hand out for Davenport. Davenport took it.

  Mrs Ross stood.

  The child seemed pleased. In standing, reason was restored. She smiled.

  Mrs Ross looked down—throwing her furs across her shoulder—masking the flask and putting it back inside the muff. She treated the cigarette like something she’d found and looked at it much as to say: whatever made me think that this was mine?—and threw it away. ‘Where are your parents?’ she said to the child.

  ‘At home.’

  ‘But—should you be on the street alone?’ said Mrs Ross.

  ‘We only live down there,’ said the child. ‘And I’m allowed to come and watch the people going in and out on Sundays.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Ross. ‘Well—we’re going in. Will you come with us?’

  The child gave a look at Miss Davenport. The magenta hat was a little bit frightening since it had wings on either side—but the lady who’d been sitting in the snow had a veil and the little girl liked veils. They blew around your face like smoke. She nodded. Mrs Ross put out her hand.

  The three of them went in and stood at the back and just as they did, the whole congregation stood up and began to sing.

  All people that on earth do dwell,

  Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

  Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell.

  Come ye before him and rejoice.

  The band that had come with the soldiers played. The organ roared and bellowed. All the people sang.

  Know that the Lord is God indeed;

  Without our aid he did us make…

  Mrs Ross tightened her grip on the child’s hand to keep herself from singing; but in spite of that, the hymn rolled on.

  We are his flock, he doth us feed,

  And for his sheep he doth us take.

  Somewhere during the last verse, a trumpet began to play. The silver notes wound upward in a high and desperately beautiful descant—gilding the vaulted ceilings—raising everyone’s eyes, and even Mrs Ross looked up to see where they had gone.

  For why? The Lord our God is good.

  His mercy is forever sure;

  His truth at all times firmly stood,

  And shall from age to age endure.

  There was a long and echoing amen.

  The child let go of Mrs Ross’s hand.

  Mrs Ross look
ed at the whole congregation and the Bishop far away in a haze of candlelight and the high, gold cross beyond. And all she could think was: I was married here.

  Down on the floor, the snow from everyone’s feet had melted. Mrs Ross was forced to smile. Snowballs can’t be made from water.

  23 Robert had always loved the sea. Calmer waters on earlier voyages had given him a false impression: the sea was deep—but temperate. It rolled you to your destination on the long green sweep of glassy swells. Any storms that troubled it got there by way of Joseph Conrad and the Boys’ Own Annual.

  Now, it was different. The storm that raged was real and it wreaked havoc in every quarter of the ship. The men—whose discipline was tenuous to begin with—were cramped into spaces meant to hold a quarter of their number. They fought and argued from one side of the ocean to the other. The food was always stew—and very often stew with curry in it to mask its true flavour. It was served in deep white bowls that showed off its garish yellow colour. The sittings were arranged by companies. Two hundred and forty men sat down together, feeding from planktop tables that had foolishly been set on trestles. Once a day, the trestles would collapse—either kicked by someone’s boots or sabotaged by the lurching of the S.S. Massanabie as she rose and fell and often seemed to careen through the storm. At nearly every meal the bowls and the cutlery—the pots of steaming tea and coffee and the great tin jugs of milk and water crashed and spun across the decks. Most of the jaundiced stew—one way and another—ended up on the floor.

  Few of the men had ever been to sea and although they were tolerably used to the crowding of their barracks, nothing had prepared them for the airless jamming of their quarters underdecks. The makeshift latrines and showers were virtually open forums where privacy was unheard of. Men unable to find a space at the trough-like urinals simply turned aside and aimed at the bulkheads. Portholes were closed and locked against the cold. The air was blue with smoke and this plus the tremendous heat from the boilers drew off the oxygen. Everyone suffered from headaches and men who’d lived outdoors all their lives passed out because they couldn’t breathe.

  Bunks, perforce, had been constructed in tiers of four and six and even eight. Sleep—as opposed to loss of consciousness—was almost an impossibility. If you wanted to lie on your other side, you had to slither onto the floor—turn around—and climb back into your bunk facing in the opposite direction. Everything was in motion and the giant arms of the pistons drove the ship to a grinding tune that never ceased. Other than during boat drill, there was no escape unless you were one of those who were put on picket duty with the horses. Nothing had been thought of to entertain the men and so there was a good deal of fighting, most of it having to do with cheating at cards and sexual bullying.

  Up in the first class accommodations, the officers were somewhat better off. There was crowding here, too, but it could hardly be called discomfiting. Staterooms for single passengers now contained four—staterooms designed for two had eight, etc. Only the senior officers were allowed to maintain the privilege of having their batmen to wait on them. Bathrooms were shared by all excepting the battalion commander. Privacy was desperately won but not an impossibility as down below. At least the cabinet doors could be closed on the W.C.’s and the showers had partitions. In the ballroom there was a grand piano fixed to the floor and on one of the earlier evenings four blond men stood up and sang and thumped the entire score from Pinafore. This was not a popular thing to have chosen and by the time they reached the end, they were singing to themselves. For the rest of the voyage, the piano remained closed. For those who could tolerate food, there were formal sittings in the dining salons. The officers ate from tables that were covered with long white cloths. These, the messmen dampened with glasses of water and as a consequence the dishes stayed more or less in place. The food was a glorified version of the stew below. On occasion, it was dolloped with wine and came to the table as a bourgignon. But the taste of regurgitated wine is no better than the taste of regurgitated curry, so in the end the effect of the food was fairly democratic. Most of an officer’s time was spent lying down or else being sent below to see what could be done to keep the men from mutiny. To this end, Robert was glad he’d kept the revolver.

  Wearing a holster gave you the ritual edge in authority. Even in spite of their training and the weeks spent establishing their rank through punishing drills and endless parades, the officers were very young and most of them were slimly built compared to the veterans of lumber camps and railroad gangs. In the end, it was only their mutual obedience to some intrinsic tyranny that held the men and the officers in check—apart. Perhaps it was the airless limitations of the ship. Perhaps it was the storm. Whatever it was, the confrontations always came to the same conclusion. Someone would laugh.

  Of Robert’s cabinmates, the only inactive one was Captain Ord. The second day out, he put on a pair of blue pyjamas with white stitched anchors on the pockets and retired to his bunk. He claimed the privilege of having lost his voice and spent the voyage sitting propped against his pillows drinking brandy from a silver cup and reading the works of G.A. Henty. ‘What on earth are you reading that stuff for?’ Clifford asked him; ‘God—I haven’t seen those books since I was twelve,’ he added. Ord said hoarsely that since he was going to do a boy’s work he must read the ‘stuff of which boys are made’ and smiled. Clifford didn’t appreciate the humour. To him, the war was a deadly serious and heaven-sent chance to become a man. Every night before he went to sleep he stood at the bridge with Horatio—brought the news from Aix to Ghent and smiling, fell dead. He said: ‘you’re damned right!’ a lot and spent a good deal of his time in the bathroom, secretly tilting his hat and his grin at the mirror. He also sang his songs and made up many verses of his own. He would sit on his bunk and polish his boots and buttons, nattering at Ord—completely unaware that Ord had fallen asleep up above or that With Clive in India was about to fall on his head.

  Harris, the young lad from Sydney, Nova Scotia, was pale and always wore his collar up and his lapels spread inward across his chest. He had a pair of leather gloves that Robert admired. They were soft and lined with hand-woven wool. But they were ruined. Harris had bitten holes in the tops of the index fingers. He was an only child who’d never been away from home. His mother died when he was three and he’d lived estranged from his father, a silent man who owned a shipping yard where fishing boats were made. Harris stood for long hours gazing out of the porthole wishing that he’d see a whale. ‘You haven’t much chance of seeing a whale in weather like this,’ someone said; ‘they’re all off down in the South Atlantic anyway.’ ‘Oh, I know all that,’ said Harris. ‘But you never can tell…’ In the mornings when they woke up, Harris would already be standing there, fully dressed and sometimes wearing a scarf. The scarf was a wistful shade of blue.

  The only fresh air you got was during boat drill but this was hardly worth breathing since the temperature had dropped to twenty below. In the wind it was minus forty. The only thing they were told about the boats was not to fall out. There was no survival in the water. You died as soon as it reached your skin. Officers and men lined up by platoons. The officers faced the boats—but the men stood in rows facing inward—staring at the funnels. If they’d been allowed to turn around they might have started counting and discovered there were not even boats for half of them. The wind was a blessing. Most men closed their eyes against it.

  Robert and Clifford tried taking walks around the decks for the first few days but they always ended up crouching behind a box of deck chairs or an air vent. On the fourth day out, Harris went with them and promptly came down with a cold. Almost at once the cold became bronchitis and the bronchitis led to pneumonia. His temperature soared and after a day-and-a-half he was taken down to the infirmary where he shared the attention of the medical officers with two of the men who had beaten one another senseless with the heels of their boots. One of them had stolen the other’s chocolate bar. It was because of Harris’s illness tha
t Robert became involved with the horses.

  Harris had been in charge of the section detail whose job it was to care for the horses in the hold. It so happened that Captain Ord was Harris’s company commander. He just looked down from his bunk where, by now, he was With Wolfe at Quebec—and appointed Robert as Harris’s successor. When Robert protested that his own company commander might have something to say about it, Ord gave one of his charming smiles and whispered that ‘all that’ had been arranged. ‘But don’t be alarmed,’ he added. ‘You’ll have the help of Battery Sergeant-Major Joyce and I dare say he’s the ablest man we’ve got on board this ship—of any rank.’ ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘Not at all, Mister Ross. Not at all,’ said Ord. ‘I hope you enjoy yourself.’

  24 It was hardly an enjoyable task. Robert’s first reaction when he saw the hold was one of horror. Then of anger. Before you saw the hold, you heard it. The place was alive with flies. Robert wondered how Harris could have failed to do anything about them—until he tried to do something about them himself. Very quickly he discovered that no one on the ship would cooperate. This included the ship’s officers and crew as well as those with the C.E.F.

  There was hardly any light and the scuppers were awash with sea bilge and urine. Manure was left where it fell for days on end. This is where the flies bred. Thousands of them. Here, there were rats as well and the men on duty were forced to sit on the steps or high on the bales of hay. They all wore handkerchiefs across their noses and stayed, it seemed, as far away from the horses as they could get. Many of these men were sick and should not have been on duty in the first place. Robert’s first order was to replace their section with another and to put the B.S.M. in charge of creating proper manure piles. He also organized a bucket brigade for sluicing down the decks. He thought of killing the flies with cold but was refused permission to open the hatches. He also requested another section of men to act as alternates, meaning to change the shifts every two instead of every four hours, but the Battalion C.O. wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Those damn beasts shouldn’t even be on this ship!’ he wheezed. He was a red-faced malcontent with pudgy hands and a bottle of gin. ‘And when we get to England—I mean to have my say about that. Transporting men and animals in the same vessel! Barbarous! Barbarous!’ So saying, he signalled that another hand of bridge should be dealt. ‘And in the meantime, Mister Ross, the fewer men involved with those damned horses the better. I don’t want my soldiers coming down with any barnyard diseases…’ And that was all the satisfaction Robert got.