Remembrance Read online

  Hazlitt Originals

  A new series of original, commissioned e-books of varying length and subject matter, featuring both established and emerging authors from around the world. From investigative journalism and fiction, to travelogues, polemics, and interactive tablet creations, Hazlitt Originals aspire to push the boundaries of story form.

  Titles in the series

  Remembrance: A Short Story, by Alistair MacLeod

  Braking Bad: Chasing Lance Armstrong and the Cancer of Corruption, by Richard Poplak

  The Gift of Ford: How Toronto’s Unlikeliest Man Became its Most Notorious Mayor, by Ivor Tossell

  You Aren’t What You Eat: Fed Up with Gastroculture, by Steven Poole

  The Man Who Went to War: A Reporter’s Memoir from Libya and the Arab Uprising, by Patrick Graham

  Copyright © 2012, 2013 by Alistair MacLeod

  This e-book edition published in 2013 by McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication is available upon request.

  Library of Congress Control number is available upon request.

  Image credits: (gun) © Michael Freeman/Corbis, (map) based on image accessed on FlamesofWar.com

  McClelland & Stewart,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited,

  a Penguin Random House Company

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  eISBN: 978-0-7710-5578-2

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Author

  Notes and Acknowledgements

  Other Books by This Author

  – 1 –

  WHEN DAVID MacDONALD went out to stand by his woodpile, the sky was still dark, although the grey light of the approaching morning was beginning to make itself known. It would not be the kind of morning associated with the earlier summer when, if one waited long enough, the sun would gradually appear over the mountaintops to the east. Then the night’s dew would slowly evaporate, the petals of the flowers would begin to open, and the sounds of the approaching day would replace those of the departing night.

  The raucous crows that nested in the trees above his house would begin their squabbling conversations, even as the yelping of the coyote pack, farther to the north, would gradually subside. The squirrels would begin to chatter, and the wasps would begin to tentatively appear from under the eaves of his shed. The deer that grazed in the field above his house would gradually fade into the surrounding forest; he could sense their quiet movements almost more than he could see them.

  Because of his deteriorating eyesight, he sometimes mistook the standing spruce trees for deer, straining his eyes to see if the shapes would move. He knew he should visit an eye doctor to test his failing vision but feared that unwelcome results might lead to the cancellation of his driver’s licence. Now he rarely drove at night, and when he did, each light encountered seemed like a starburst or an elaborate Christmas decoration. Sometimes they reminded him of the artillery shells that had exploded over his head during World War II. He and his comrades had watched the bursting shells from what they hoped was the comparative safety of their filthy, water-soaked foxholes. Recently, he had been told that such starburst lights were common to those who could not see very well, but when he received such information he only nodded thoughtfully. As if such facts might apply to other distant people, but certainly not to him.

  Now in the autumn coldness of November, the world was different. The sun would be slow in coming, if it came at all. Sometimes the grey light brought only freezing rain, or stinging sleet. On colder days, the windshield of his truck would be covered with frost and the troublesome muddy ruts of his driveway would be frozen into what seemed like imprecise permanence. Sometimes the tracks of his rubber-soled boots, made in mud and frozen in frost, became almost like works of art, or something akin to the initials that small boys might imprint on still-setting concrete. Created in softness and then stiffened into forms of rigidity.

  The deer, when he saw them, had by now exchanged their golden coats of summer sheen for those of autumn grey. Sometimes he saw them at the base of the leafless wild apple trees, nuzzling for the windfalls that had dropped from the bare branches. After heavy winds there would be an abundance of apples on the ground, and the deer would become more selective, taking explorative bites from some and then moving on to others. In later weeks they would eat those they had originally spurned, even those that had rotted or were permanently frozen in the glittering frost.

  The rabbits’ coats were changing from brown to white, and they were presently in danger from the cruising white-tailed hawks and bald eagles that sometimes ventured inland from the now sullen grey-flecked sea. Field mice were trying to get into his house, where they hoped they might find warmth.

  His grey cat purred and curled herself around his ankles. The buzzing of insects now was stilled, and only the hardy purple asters represented the flowers that had once been so prolific. It seemed like a fitting setting for the remembrance of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

  Thinking of the asters, he adjusted the plastic poppy pinned to the collar of his blazer. He moved some of the sticks of his woodpile with his toe, looking without urgency for some that might fit into the firebox of his kitchen stove. He knew there was no immediate need for these sticks, as he had a supply of well-measured dry ones neatly stacked behind his stove.

  He could smell the smoke from his already lit fire as it wafted forth from his chimney. The smoke comforted him in a way he could not fully understand, as if it had been part of him for as long as he could remember. He recalled that when he was still a small boy he would look at the smoke to make sure of the direction of the wind. If the smoke drifted toward the ocean, the wind would be from the east, and if it slanted a certain way, from the southeast, he knew that this was the direction of the most serious storms. If the smoke was directed inland, the wind would be off the ocean and the waves would be higher, and perhaps more dangerous.

  He had heard that, in the suburbs of Montreal, there was a ban against the burning of wood because the odour of woodsmoke annoyed some of the residents. But Montreal was another, mysterious world.

  He saw the headlights of the car, piercing the darkness and coming through the trees. He straightened himself into an almost military posture and remained standing, resolutely, near his woodpile.

  When the car door opened, the dome light illuminated for a brief instant the elongated form of his grey-haired son who lived on a farm nearby. The man got out of the car with some difficulty. Instead of using his left foot to “set” himself and bear the weight of his body, he first shifted to the edge of the car seat and then stood up. His left foot was encased in an oversized boot, and when he stepped forward to shake his father’s hand he did so with a pronounced limp.

  “How is your foot?” said his father, his question weighted with concern.

  “Not bad,” came the answer. “I took some pills. I see you’re already dressed. You have your poppy on and everything.
Where are your medals?”

  “I laid them out on the table for the last time,” said his father. “We will wait for a while in the yard.”

  “Yes,” said the younger man. “We’ll wait for a while. He’ll be along soon. We’ll see his headlights coming through the trees. All three of us are early. The ceremony is not until this afternoon.”

  The grey cat moved toward him.

  For some years, David MacDonald had been ambivalent about Remembrance Day. He had been attending the ceremonies for more than fifty years and had outlived all of his comrades. He had visited the schools and marched in the parades. He had ridden on the backs of trucks to the various cenotaphs and participated in the laying of wreaths. In the earlier years there had been some survivors from World War I and they had always been given the place of honour in the parades. But now they were all gone. Sometimes, he was told, their medals were for sale on eBay. Now there were sometimes younger men, veterans of Korea, or Vietnam, and even, recently, Afghanistan. David MacDonald felt that this would be his last appearance. He smiled at his son in appreciation of his company.

  – 2 –

  WHEN DAVID MacDONALD went to war, it was in 1942 and he was twenty-one years old. He had been married for a year and a half to a girl from a farm two miles away who was sexually precocious. He himself was reserved in that part of life. On their third date, she said, “I’d like to marry a man with a big one, let’s see what you’ve got.” He had not expected anything like this to happen at such an early stage in their relationship and was bothered by the fact that he had not changed into clean underwear.

  She was the oldest in a family of six girls and it seemed that all of them spoke constantly of the opposite sex. As the oldest, she seemed to feel that it was her duty to marry first and more or less lead the way for her younger sisters. She spoke of “being married” as if it were a job or, perhaps, a place. Sometimes she mentioned Montreal, which was a city she had never visited but where two of her aunts resided. She seemed on a much faster track than he was. He was not opposed to marriage, but questions such as “Where will we live?” “Where will I get a job?” occupied a section of his mind.

  After their wedding, they moved in with his austere, widowed father, which they all knew, from the start, was not a good idea. His father was one of those men who were constantly adding up the grocery bills aloud and, in the days before electricity, blowing out the lamps early to save money on kerosene. She thought of his father as a cheap old miser, and his father, in turn, disliked her coming down to breakfast without being fully clothed and revealing, what was, in his opinion, “too much of herself.” The couple retreated as often as possible to their bedroom at the head of the stairs.

  After the birth of their daughter, the economics of the situation became more and more pronounced. He worked with his father on their small farm and in the woods and in their fishing boat. His father had always allowed him a few dollars when he was a single man but seemed more reluctant to do so now that he was married and a father himself. His wife began to spend more and more time at her parents’ loud and jovial house, taking their daughter with her.

  It was amid such uncertainty that he enlisted in 1942. He was aware that there were exemptions for married men but also aware that the dependents of married men received cheques from the government. His wife was pregnant again, and although she said she would miss him, she pointed out the advantages of having her own money. They both assumed that the war would not last much longer. It had been going on, after all, for more than three years, and the Dieppe disaster had already taken place.

  Still, there was a great deal of patriotic fervour in the air, and the arguments for and against conscription raged continuously. Ration books were coming. He was told that an individual could have either one cup of coffee or one cup of tea in a restaurant but no more. As he seldom went to restaurants, this bit of information did not particularly bother him.

  He was also aware that going back as far as the old days in the Scottish Highlands, young men like himself had always gone to war because of their history and their geography but most of all because they were poor.

  He went to New Glasgow for basic training, where some made fun of his Gaelic accent. He learned to march in formation, and how to break down and assemble a Bren gun in sixty seconds.

  He signed over his pay packet to his wife. They had decided it would be best if she went back to live with her parents. Although it would be overcrowded, she would be more at ease there and her sisters would help with her motherly duties.

  Then he went to Halifax, where he had never been before. After that he embarked on an eleven-day crossing to England, landing near Liverpool and being stationed at a basic camp, at Aldershot, in the south. He and his fellow soldiers made one journey to see London, which had been badly bombed, but for the most part they worked within their own parade grounds, rehearsing formations and practising bayonet thrusts into sandbags. The younger soldiers cowered under the barked orders of those in charge. They were told they were being saved for an important mission. This important mission proved to be the front lines of Ortona, Italy, where the Germans had been established for some time.

  In remembrance, all of his senses still seemed rawly open to those scenes of mud and desolation from that time of more than fifty years ago; the month-long campaign in the cold, rain-darkened days of December; the earth-shaking artillery explosions and the hurtling shards of shrapnel; the mounting losses of men around him from wounds or illness, so bad that young soldiers who barely knew how to fire a gun were thrown into action; some of the young boys weeping and soiling themselves; officers, or the sergeants who replaced them, urging their men on toward the next German-occupied ruined house; the houses with terrified Italian men, women, and children hiding in the cellars; the tiny allocations of rum.

  He remembered that sometimes during the lulls they were sent to retrieve the bodies of those who had fallen in previous forays. If the bodies had been exposed for some time they were blackened and bloated and seemed ready to explode. When they were rolled over to be placed on the blanket stretchers, the odour was overpowering.

  He remembered that what had bothered him most was not being able to offer any help to those who were still alive but doomed to certain death: the young man with his fingers linked across his stomach, desperately trying to hold in his intestines, even as the light faded from his eyes; the young man without legs, rolling sideways as bloody spittle bubbled from his lips.

  He remembered that it was there that a screaming wounded man, left at night between the lines, was put out of his misery when a Canadian crawled out to end it with a knife to the throat, not knowing in the dark if he was dealing with friend or foe.

  He remembered, too, that when it was all over, the small town of shattered stone houses had been taken after one week at the price of two thousand Canadians dead.

  Later, when they were shipped to northeastern Holland, it was April. In the little port of Delfzijl, across from the German city of Emden, shells rained down from entrenchments on the dikes. Still, it was said the Germans were in disarray, although it did not seem much like it until their defensive ring was finally broken on the first of May. Rumours swirled about the war’s end, and then on May 5 it was official. The Germans had surrendered, Holland was liberated, the war in Europe was over.

  The Canadians began to push southbound toward the city of Groningen, taking prisoners on their way. He remembered three distinct groups of people from those days: the Germans who had surrendered, some, it seemed, in relief, while others were sullen and snarled at their captors. Many of them were young and willingly accepted offerings of cigarettes and chocolate.

  The second group consisted of the freed prisoners. When the prisons were opened, the emaciated figures spilled forth shouting, “Tommy, Tommy,” because the helmets the Canadians wore were modelled on those of the British. They clutched the sleeves of their liberators with skeletal fingers. Many of them were no more than skin and bones, he
remembered.

  And then there were the Dutch themselves. Many of the men were old, as the younger men had been forced into labour camps and some sent to Germany itself. The women and children wept and kissed the Canadian soldiers. Little girls offered tin cans containing flowers. Orange banners flapped in the wind and “Thank you, Canada” was painted on the roofs of the barns. The church bells had been silenced during all the years of war, but on May 5 the first music that rang out from the Groningen cathedral was “O Canada!”

  Still, the country was a disaster. The people had come through “The Hungry Winter,” many of them subsisting on only sugar beets and flower bulbs. Their country, which had hoped to remain neutral, had been occupied for five long years and was now reduced to soggy ruins. Dead cattle lay rotting by the roadsides. He remembered the smell as he and the soldiers pushed south.

  Although the war was officially over, the machinery for getting the men home to Canada moved slowly. American soldiers were given first preference in terms of transatlantic crossing and then those Canadians who had enlisted first. It was a lengthy process. During the summer of 1945, there were 170,000 Canadian soldiers in Holland, and by the end of November there were still 70,000 there. Many of them were billeted in private homes.

  While he was away, from 1942 through 1945, the letters from his wife had become increasingly infrequent. They were written, he realized, by someone else, probably one of her younger sisters. He had never considered whether his wife was literate. They had been so consumed with each other physically that there had not seemed much time for anything else. In retrospect, he realized he had never seen her reading the Family Herald (which was the only newspaper to which his father subscribed) before the lamp was blown out. The letters that he did receive contained little information, mostly descriptions of the weather in far-off Nova Scotia.

  When his troop ship finally landed in Halifax, it was snowing. He and most of the others were still in full uniform. On the dock a fellow soldier offered to sell him an army rifle that he had smuggled across the ocean in his duffle bag. He had sawed off part of the barrel so it would fit into the bag and then reattached the front sights to the shortened barrel. He also had a few shells, which he threw in as part of the bargain. The price of the transaction was a dollar.