Beckoning War Page 7

  He put a record on the gramophone, a Louis Armstrong jazz album, something altogether different from the gloomy, though undeniably exciting, atmosphere of foreign war that could be found in the sober radio reports of sinkings, bombings, air battles and invasions, and now epitomized through the songs of Vera Lynn. The pops and beats and joyous trumpet and ancient bullfrog bass voice of Louis Armstrong filled the room, fogged somewhat by the static and the tinny nature of the recording:

  … Oh when the saints

  Go marching in

  Oh when the saints go marching in …

  Dusty record, dull needle, minds tuned into other things. They each sat on different ends of the chesterfield. Jim turned his eyes to Marianne and asked, “Now how is that?” as he began snapping his fingers and tapping his toes in an attempt to lighten the mood. Her eyes met his.

  “You’re awfully good at changing the subject, aren’t you?” She smiled a little and her eyes softened. “But I’m not so easily fooled, Jim McFarlane, not so easily fooled by a boy like you.” She moved closer to him and poked him in the chest with her index finger. The effect was one of playfulness concealing admonishment.

  “You were when we met on the train,” he said with a warm, languid smile.

  She ruffled his hair and spoke softly over him, to him, critiquing him and loving him, “You’re such a boy, Jim McFarlane. It’s part of why I married you. It’s one thing I love about you. But I don’t want your boyish whims to make you leave here.” She stroked his temple and he purred gently in a natural reaction. “Or to get you killed. You should have thought of this before we were married. It is a bit irresponsible for a married man to run away from his wife and his responsibilities, is it not? You know, some of the men my father served with joined because they were fleeing their wives. Leaving your wife to put yourself in horrendous danger and discomfort seems a little insulting to me, when there are others who can and should do this.”

  He tilted his head back upward, his eyes meeting her face. “Baby, I’m not running away. I could never leave you. I could never truly leave you. Even if I go, I am still coming back, back to you. I mean, I know the risks, and they are real, but—” he searched for the right words, “But, I mean, there is a real threat here to the world, much greater I think than last time. I think as a strong and healthy young man of reasonable intelligence that it is my duty to do something about it. Also,” he continued, turning his head to her, “there is the very real chance that it will end long before I am sent to any theatre of action.” He did not believe these words as he said them, and he doubted she did either. The song ended, and with it, the record. They were silent a while, languid, dreaming about the future, each other, themselves, she stroking his temples and he nesting his head in her lap.

  As the sun set, Marianne asked in an entranced near whisper, “Shall we go upstairs?” He opened his eyes.

  “I think we shall.” They hooked hands, and without thinking got up from the chesterfield and made their way upstairs as the evening softened the edges of the furniture and rendered them into shadow. And amid the shadows of their bedroom, they kissed, they caressed, they made love, they knew they were parting. He kissed the hot flush of her face and the heartbeat marble of her palms, she ran her fingers up and down his back, the dark ivy tresses of her hair hanging in curls over him as they lay down, redolent of shampoo, he tented within the strands of her waving tresses. They rolled over, and he entered her with the full might of his being, the full love of his wife. She, convulsive with ecstasy, moaned and whimpered and kissed. He shivered at his climax and rolled to the side, staring into her eyes as he did so, hands in her slicked hair, remembering their wedding night, the consummation, the first time they were able to make love … The wedding photograph, on the steps of Christ the King Church in Sudbury, he in his pale blue wool suit, she in her burgundy dress, beautiful, the photograph touched up with colour tints, making them feel slightly unreal, touched up in the Technicolor manner of film stars. Yes, film stars, the flash bulbs, the glamour, the drama, the taking on of new roles, those of husband and wife.

  He looked over at her in silence. She had a thoughtful expression, a mirror of her own mother when she was uncertain, the corner of her mouth twisted downward, her jaw moving, biting her lower lip. The silence was thick, heavy, scented with perfume and with the musky sharpness of their own bodies. The room was still with musing, their own thoughts drifting about the room like radio transmissions on different wavelengths, floating in an ether of unease.

  “Honey?” Her voice was mixed with wisps of whisper, vulnerable.

  “Yes?” Her eyes met his as he answered.

  “When you join up, don’t forget me, don’t just disappear into your duties. I mean that. Join up and try to work here in Ottawa, please, for as long as you can before they send you somewhere else. Write to me and call me. Please do that for me.” There was a plaintive waver in her voice. Her hand squeezed his. Her eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes glistened, wet. “And remember my father. Remember what happened to him during the last war.” Jim remembered, remembered being jealous of such a robust life experience, despite the consequences.

  He nodded thoughtfully, exhaling through his nose, running his fingers over hers. “I will do that. I’ll do that. For you, for sure, I’ll do that.”

  8

  About an hour before dawn the German shelling ceases, but the Allied shelling continues unabated. Canadian and British shells scream, sizzle and whirr over the brightening sky into and beyond the front lines of the Germans. Men crawl out from corners and from under or on pews and stretch their legs in the dusty air. It’s about time for goddamn leave, Jim thinks as he pulls himself out like an insect emerging from under a log, and he lies down on the dusty wood of the pew itself. He blinks, naps ten more minutes, ten minutes of blissful dreamless limbo, and awakens to the grumble of an arriving Bren carrier and the strong smell of coffee and the lighter aroma of brewing tea. Runners have arrived under the cover of darkness from behind with thermoses full of thick, strong, bitter coffee and tea, and tins of bacon, beans and tomato soup. He knows this instantly as the aroma meets his mind through the drawing of his breath. The essence of coffee and bacon brings a warm familiarity of hearth and home that for an instant is interwoven with a feeling of loss and longing and regret.

  “Been a helluva run gettin’ this chow to you boys!” one of the runners complains with a hint of good cheer upon entering the church.

  “Too bad we don’t tip!” answers Witchewski to a collective snicker. Soldiers surface from their shadowy corners and from under pews like insects from under rocks and help themselves to the food. Staff Sergeant Nichols, Company Quartermaster Sergeant, enters the church, the last of the three runners, a tall, muscular and older man with an intense gaze, who, like Witchewski, is a longstanding member of the regiment whose service predates the war. Slung over his shoulder is a burlap sack. His usually hard, intense, critical eyes twinkle with satisfaction as he surveys the scene in front of him.

  “What a shambles,” he grumbles with exaggerated anger, “This place most certainly does not pass inspection. With all due respect, Captain.”

  “Good morning, Nichols,” greets Jim, dusting himself off and stretching. “What’s in the bag?”

  “A morning rum tot. A little extra I managed to wrangle from Riordan and Gibbs.” Soldiers perk up at the mention of rum. As they approach with their cups eagerly held out, Nichols bellows, “For Christ’s sake boys, back off! You know the order—by descending order of rank! You’ll get your portions, trust me. That or it’s a shot in the back for me when I least expect it. And now for you, Captain.” He pours a generous splash into Jim’s cup which Jim downs immediately without ceremony, the sweet syrupy sugar burn of the rum working its way down his gullet like a sizzling fuse. Next up is Doyle, and then so on as tot by tot all soldiers get their eagerly awaited share.

  “Have you brought any other
treats and treasures for us?” asks Jim, still savouring the waning burn of the rum tot as Nichols continues to portion out rum to thirsty soldiers. “We ate our way through what looks like the last of our compos last night for dinner.”

  “We have a ton of rations on hand, so don’t worry about eating the rest of your compos. We’ve also brought back some spare PIAT and Bren ammo, as requested,” Nichols answers as he pours the last ration into the last soldier’s cup. “If we get marching orders, we have plenty of fireworks for the parade.” As he says this his two assistants deposit boxes of spare ammunition and field rations on the floor of the church.

  “Any mail?” Jim is aware of a faint desperation, a trembly weakness in the timbre of his voice as he asks this last question.

  “No, not lately. I woulda brought it for you boys if I had received any.”

  “Understood. Good work, Nichols.”

  “Thank you. Sounds like you boys had a rough night here,” Nichols observes.

  “Yes, very heavy shelling. As you can still hear.”

  “And as we can no longer,” says Witchewski, joining the conversation as he helps himself to breakfast beside them. “Those bastards have been pretty much emptying their arsenal on us.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Well, I’ve got rum to distribute,” says Nichols, pausing to take a slug of water from his canteen before heading out to deliver rum to those outside.

  Jim grabs his mess tin from his pack on the floor and fills it with soup. He eats it ravenously and quickly, hunched on a pew. All the men eat ravenously, as if they haven’t in days. The atmosphere is slick with the sounds of slurping. The iron tension and pure exhaustion in their bodies burn up their food as fast as they can eat it.

  “Mmmm mmmmm,” someone hums with approval. “Buonissimo!”

  “Sounds like chow mein time at a Chinese restaurant,” some wag observes, likely Witchewski. He is answered with a few nasally snorts of laughter from men whose mouths are filled with food. Jim is unable to fully distinguish the voice on account of the pealing ring resounding in his ears from the enormous shell that landed when he was sending Blake out the door.

  Nichols reenters the church and announces that he is returning to the rear. Before he and the others depart, various soldiers, Jim included, saddle them with letters to be mailed. About ten minutes later, the phone rings.

  “Captain!” shouts Private Thibeault, looking about the church for Jim amid the commotion of the soldiers eating their breakfast.

  “Here!”

  “Colonel Hobson’s on the line.”

  “Right,” he says, and he makes his way to Thibeault and takes from him the awaiting receiver. “McFarlane here.”

  “Good morning Jim: here are your orders. We’re holding until we know when we are to advance. It could be days.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hold on tight and expect to catch a lot more hell from the enemy artillery. If we do get the order to advance, I’ll summon you and the others to TAC for an ‘O’ Group. Otherwise, sit tight. Got it?”

  “Yes sir, got it. Thank you.” He hangs up the phone and reflects. Overall, easy orders. Though, he steels himself against the prospect that he, along with the rest of the battalion, could suddenly be ordered to advance. To this end, he decides to survey what he might be up against. He makes his way toward the bottom of the bell tower, stepping around the fallen, broken bell, and he ascends the steep and winding stairs.

  From the ragged yawn at the top of the broken steeple, he can see over the village down the slope of his small ridge and into the valley beyond where the first rosy fingers of the dawn have yet to reach. He sweeps the view in front of him with his field glasses. In the distance, beyond the patchwork maze of farms and orchards, zig-zagged with dirt tracks and roads, impose the verdant slopes of Coriano Ridge, the latest obstacle to continued advance. Treed with the grey-green barrels of guns unseen among the tree stands and farmhouses, guns canopied in the leafy mesh of camouflaged netting, which along with the metallic stumps of mortars form an ironic approximation of pastoralism. Guns unseen over the lip of the horizon on top of the ridge, visible only in vibration. Guns that have been hammering his positions all night and will likely be doing so until he moves. And cresting the ridge at its steepest slope, about two thousand yards from his command post, the town of Coriano itself, a cluster of white and pastel houses and churches wreathed and nestled in trees and bushes and hedges. Were it not for the fact that this ridge has just failed to fall in a British assault, the battalion would be surging ahead on its northward course today, making for the low-lying flatlands of the Po Valley. He scans to the left. Aquarelled in a soft and milky blue upon the horizon in the morning haze are the rocky bluffs of more distant mountains inland. A misty merger of earth and sky, as if the waking world is still creating itself beyond the visible horizon. Hearing a cataclysm of fire to the southwest, where the British are assaulting Croce and Gemmano Ridge, Jim is delighted that he is not part of that. Not a pang of guilt courses through him. Sooner or later, we will get our turn, he muses. Sooner rather than later, I hope—the suspense is killing me.

  This is a risk, he thinks. I chastised those two guys last night and here I am in the area they wanted to camp out in. Get moving. He steps back down the tight dollhouse stairs of the steeple, into the main body of the church. As the bombardment has ebbed somewhat for a time, Jim decides to step out for a moment. He exits the church and turns sharply to the right. He looks down a long road of ruin to the horizon, shakes his head and steps back inside into the sweat and cigarette gloom of the church’s interior.

  The dawning sunshine is short-lived, replaced by a dark conspiracy of clouds billowing from seaward, and by midmorning it is raining, and raining hard. It rains on and off all day, from drizzle to deluge to back again, rain pattering through holes in the roof of the church, plopping down onto and from beams and onto the cold stone floor and piles of broken masonry, streaking down the dusty pew backs and pooling on the benches, making mud of dust, pattering and dripping on helmets and shoulders in great dollops and splatters from beam and cornice; rain, rain, rain, at times torrential, beating down and building to a snare-drum crescendo and then subsiding to a soft hissing drizzle, residual water drip-dropping hollowly through the shellholes and cracks during the lulls. Outside, the view is obscured at times by ghostly veils of fog. Entrenched soldiers find themselves shivering in the rain and bailing out their holes with cans and pots and helmets, digging into the sides of their narrow slit trenches for shelter, covered in the protection of their gas capes and rain sheets. Those in the church and in houses fare better, but not by much.

  And still the shells fall, one here, one there, beating the drums of misery. For much of the day, they endure the rain and the shelling as best they can, with humour, with stoicism, with silent prayer. The hours bleed into one another, ticked and tolled by the bombardments that come and go like the desultory roll of thunder, the forming and raging and subsiding of storms.

  Early that evening during a break in the rain Jim decides to do his rounds, to inspect his men about the hilltop ruins after they have crept forward into their night positions in the gathering dusk. He walks in a half crouch, stepping over the shattered stones of a ruined house, through a shattered lane lined by the façades and shells of houses resembling collapsing molars. The air is bitter with the smell of wet charring. Shards of glass chime feebly in the night breeze, a desultory melody of loss. He makes his way under awning and eave through this jagged forest of ruin to Therrien’s position. He finds Therrien in the sandbagged basement of a house on the very edge of the ridge, just ahead of which is the downward slope into the valley. Manned slit trenches are dug around the house, helmets glinting in the flare of a nearby explosion. Therrien’s stout farmer’s face is a study of exhaustion, stubbly, scar running down his cheek, eyes set in rugose sacks of sagging purple.

  “Good evening,” is J
im’s greeting.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  He can’t figure out what to say, can’t quite get to know people anymore. “One helluva night, eh?”

  “Yessir.”

  “How’ve you been managing?”

  “Okay, I guess, considering everything dropped on us. We’ve dug in deep, good and proper, and saved ourselves a lot of additional casualties.”

  “Your positions look good.” More awkward silence. “The church is a shambles. That’s what happens when you take the biggest building in town.” He laughs to himself at this. “Well, onward like the Christian soldier I am,” he says as he salutes, turns around and leaves, whistling the melody to “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Field glasses dangling about his neck and bumping against his chest, Jim goes up to the blasted attic. Cole and Blake are perched under the sandbagged window there, their binocular telescope scanning the dusky horizon for what little detail can still be discerned. A volley of shells erupts beyond the perimeter of the village, in ‘B’ Company’s zone. The desultory shelling is like the waxing and waning of the breeze, the changeable properties of weather.

  “I wish those bastards would quit,” Jim says wearily, as if it might persuade the Germans to stop firing. I never did like thunderstorms, he adds to himself.

  “Don’t worry sir, we’re here to give them a headache of their own,” says Blake, as he peers through his scope. Cole relays orders into the receiver of his field telephone, orders that will direct gunners to hit targets even they cannot see in this modern game of numbers, this Industrial Age duel of machinery.

  Jim, surveying the view from the window, takes an evening swig of whiskey, a nip of liquid sanity, as he and Witchewski like to say. The whiskey courses down his throat like liquid sandpaper, an agreeable abrasion. With analgesic properties, Leprenniere might’ve added. Ah, Leprenniere ... “To my favourite anaesthetic,” he toasted to the clink of glasses. An anaesthetic for the soul. We certainly killed that bottle that night yes we did, Christmas ‘43. “Bottoms up!”