Three Day Road (10 page)

When our time in the front trench is done, we are sent back to the support trench. I soon learn that the biggest worry here is not enemy rifle fire but shells that occasionally scream in and explode close by. Harassing fire, Thompson calls it. Our days are spent filling sandbags and repairing sections of trench, working up and down the communication trenches that lead to the front line, fortifying them. The work would be monotonous if not for the constant worry of a German shell taking us by surprise.

Rumours are more rampant than truth, I discover. Now that the spring fighting along and around Saint-Eloi has died down, the men talk of being shipped to another place where a great summer battle is building. The other talk is of the Hun’s newest weapon, shells filled with poison gas that fall like a plague from the heavens. There must be some truth in it. We are all issued strange-looking hoods with goggles for eyeholes and a tube that sticks out for breathing.

We are told that if the scream of “Gas!” ever reaches our ears, we are to place these hoods immediately over our heads and tuck them into our tunics. McCaan makes us practise this, Lieutenant Breech nearby and watching with a smirk on his face. The hoods are hot, and difficult to breathe in. I feel like I might smother in mine, but Breech demands that we keep them over our heads for hours, that we go about our work wearing the hoods so that we may become used to them. The chemical that coats them and neutralizes the gas gives me bad headaches. They are ill-fitting as well, slipping about so that I can’t see through the eyeholes. I can hear my own breath echo in my
ears, and feel like I am suffocating. It’s easy to hate Bastard Breech even more on these days.

Finally we are sent back to reserve where we can rest without too much worry or work. My first round in the line seems to have faded to a distant memory already. Corporal Thompson says that the last few weeks since he’s met me and the others are the quietest that he can remember in a year. Only seven casualties in the company, four to shrapnel wounds and three killed, including the private blown up by the trench raider’s potato masher. I wonder if young Gerald is counted among the casualties, but I keep the question to myself.

Back of the lines we fill up on hot food and clean ourselves as best we can. We keep occupied by playing soccer in a fallow field near the farmhouse where we’ve been billeted. I don’t like the game. It’s pointless and tiring. Instead I spend my time watching. Grey Eyes, the one who is a liar, he is a prisoner of the medicine they call morphine. I’ve seen him take it with a needle, and the way he goes slack and calm after. The idea of it scares me. So much easier, too, to find medicine here than I ever imagined. The medics carry plenty and are not always careful keeping an eye on their kits. Many men even carry it in their packs in case they are wounded and there is no help close by.

Elijah is fascinated by Grey Eyes’ use of it. He even goes so far as to watch Grey Eyes when he is in that other place. I tell Elijah to let Grey Eyes get caught by an officer and taken away. He’s a bad one and his actions will lead us all into trouble. But Elijah says no. This is all like a game to him. Elijah can out-talk even the officers with his nun’s English and his quick thinking. The others in our section are drawn to him and his endless stories. I am forced by my poor English to sit back and watch it all happen, to see how he wins them over, while I become more invisible. A brown ghost.

When it is time to go back to the front trenches, the men are sombre once more. Instead of heading back to where we first were,
we march a couple of miles south, and those in the know mutter that we are marching directly to Saint-Eloi craters, the ugliest place on the earth. Corporal Thompson explains to us that seven huge craters and countless smaller ones dot this area. On any given night they might be in different hands. We come up to the craters through what once was the town of Saint-Eloi, now just laneways of rubble and burnt timbers. We file along the communication trenches when night falls, going still when flares go up as we near the front lines. Only a few shells whistle by on their way to somewhere else.

Elijah and I are given sentry duty that first night, and are amazed at the condition of these trenches. They aren’t really trenches at all but shallow ditches where even Thompson must keep bent at the waist. All attempts at drainage have failed, and water up to our knees soaks through our boots, making them too heavy. It would be better and more comfortable to wear the moccasins that I made for Elijah and myself, but I don’t want to ruin them. As we pass by the troops we listen to the low mutters of discomfort. There is nowhere dry to sit and sleep, never mind lie down.

When dawn finally comes, little more than a greying of the black, I get my first glimpse of the craters. It’s like the tundra I’d once travelled to, but devastated and pocked, so empty of any vegetation that it’s impossible to imagine anything once grew here. The area in front of me is pitted with craters of different sizes, some too small for a man to take cover in, others so large they might be small valleys. This is the place where each side took turns tunnelling underneath the other and placing huge amounts of explosives, then setting their fuses just before offensives.

One night, late, Thompson appears in front of Elijah and me and says, “Let’s go.”

He leads us to where Sean Patrick sleeps and wakes him up. “Let’s go,” he repeats. I watch Sean Patrick climb tired like a tall, thin child from his blanket.

We make our way to Thompson’s house, as he calls it, and there he tells us to take off anything that might make unnecessary noise. McCaan and Graves have joined us there too. I wonder why Graves is coming along. He is old, probably too old for this war. He has been in a war already in a place called Africa. Maybe that is why Thompson and McCaan have included him.

Thompson pulls out a chunk of charcoal and blacks his face and arms and hands and any other exposed skin. He doesn’t say anything, just expects us to watch and to learn, and I think to myself that Thompson is very much an Indian this way. He hands the charcoal to me and I do the same, then hand it to Sean Patrick. When his face is blacked, the whites of Sean Patrick’s eyes glint in the night and it makes me think he is afraid. Sean Patrick’s hand shakes a little when he passes the charcoal to Elijah. Thompson hands each of us a black woollen cap and shows us where he straps his knife to his chest for quick grasping. Like all of us, he has ground off the wicked and sharp teeth along the blade’s spine that are meant to do maximum damage in the thrust and removal. The Germans would kill the Canadians on the spot if they were to capture us and find those teeth on our knives. The Canadians do not blame them. We would do the same.

It is only then that I notice how closely McCaan watches us. I nod to him and he smiles, his swollen eye that was hurt from the periscope still evident even in the darkness.

We have all heard about the party that was sent out last night that did not return.

Thompson and McCaan have revolvers strapped around their waists. Graves is in charge of a Lewis gun, and Elijah and I are told to carry the extra drums of ammunition for him. Elijah, Sean Patrick and I carry our Ross rifles and as many extra rounds as we can. McCaan hands everyone a small sack of Mills bombs, the ones that remind me of heavy pinecones. “Useful in close quarters,” he says.

“We’ll travel in teams of two,” McCaan goes on. “Keep in mind where the others are. Observation balloons spotted Fritz in some of the big craters the last few days.” He rubs at the charcoal on his forehead. “Frankly, we don’t know which ones are ours and which are theirs at this point. Our job tonight is to get some idea of what’s going on.”

Elijah nudges me and says in Cree, “We’re going over the top. We’re going Fritz-hunting in the craters.”

“Take care of any business now,” McCaan says. “We go over the top in five minutes.”

Above the trenches the world feels opened up again. Elijah and I are teamed, following Thompson and Graves. McCaan and Sean Patrick take the rear. Although activity in the area has been quiet, Fritz continues to keep this part of the line reinforced. They battled too hard to lose any ground. Tonight our group is responsible for scouting out one of the bigger craters.

They call what we do crater hopping, moving from crater to crater, peering over the sides first before slithering into them like snakes. The bottoms of each are filled with water. Some of the holes are almost full.

Thompson makes the sign that the next one is the objective. Elijah and I spread out to his left, McCaan and Sean Patrick to the right. At the same time we all peer over the side to see what’s below. This crater is the biggest I’ve seen, twenty or thirty feet of deep wall before the water starts. Something down below moves along the water’s edge. As a flare goes up, I see three figures. There is enough eerie green light that I make out the cut of their Canadian uniforms. Elijah slides in before the others and is down beside the three men before they even know he’s there. I make it down to him. Two soldiers lie still and one is awake but weak-headed. Elijah takes a canteen lying beside him to give the soldier some water, but it’s empty.

McCaan slides in beside us. “Next time, you wait for my direction, Private Whiskeyjack.” He pulls his canteen from his belt, unscrews it and pours a little water into the soldier’s mouth. “We’ve got to get this one back,” he says.

The others join us at the crater bottom. I can tell that Elijah is about to ask what we should do about the two unconscious soldiers, when we see at the same time that their faces are hardened with death.

“Whiskeyjack, Bird, Graves, crawl to the lip and keep watch,” McCaan says. “I’m going to help the private here in carrying this one back to our line.” He points to Sean Patrick. “We’re still close enough that it won’t take long. When I come back we’ll get an idea of who’s in what crater.”

We have no choice but to nod.

“Let’s go,” McCaan says.

All of us pick up the wounded soldier and help to carry him to the lip, where McCaan and Sean Patrick take him under the arms and begin dragging him into the darkness. Elijah, Graves and I lie with our weapons pointing at the black, and I am wondering what I should do next when the familiar whistle comes to my ears, faster than I can react to. An explosion close and to my right lights up no man’s land for a moment, and when the brightness from it dies, flashes of light remain behind my eyelids.

I slip down for protection as another shell crashes in. From its sound I know that it is not big, not something terrible like a seventy-seven. I realize with a bit of satisfaction that I’m beginning to recognize enemy artillery.

But Fritz has spotted us out here. The bombing intensifies until we are forced down to the bottom of the crater. I lie curled in a ball, my face buried in mud and arms covering my head, my legs in the water, wondering if a mortar is going to land in the bottom of this hole and kill us all in one shot.

“They’ve got us just about pinned,” Thompson says in a brief moment of quiet. “Got to get out of here.” He scrambles up the side and we follow. It is not until we are at the top that I realize I’ve left the machine-gun ammunition down below. Too late for that now.

We dash for another smaller crater and roll into it, wait a moment, and then make a dash for another one that we hope will be deeper. The whiz-bangs come in then, going off with pops, their splinters chasing me like great angry insects. This crater is deeper, but the bottom too is filled with water. The stench is horrible. Another explosion lights the darkness. Arms stick up from the pool of water, some with fingers curled like they are grasping something I cannot see. A few bare feet stick straight out of the water as well. I wonder what has become of the boots.

The sky flickers as if full of lightning, and when I look I see that the water is more a stew. Besides the limbs, rotted faces peek over at us. I see the eye sockets are empty and their lips have pulled back from their open mouths so that they look like they’re screaming.

“Xavier, see those faces there,” Elijah says to me in Cree, pointing with his rifle barrel. “They look alive.”

He is right. When shellfire flickers, the water shivers with explosions and the faces come alive. I feel like I’m going to be sick. The stink is worse than animal rot. I look away at the others. Graves, too, seems like he is about to become ill, but Thompson’s face remains passive as he listens carefully for the bombardment to recede. It doesn’t.

I slip into a strange half-sleep lying there below the earth’s surface with the dead. I know that I’m safe here, know that my time to join them is not going to be today. When I open my eyes again, the sky is noticeably lighter, and I realize just before Thompson mutters it that we won’t be getting back to our side until after another nightfall.

“The good news, as you can tell, gentlemen,” he says, “is that the bombardment is done, but there will be enough light behind Fritz in
the next short while that we’ll stand out like silhouettes if we try to get back to our side.” He points his rifle at the terrible mess below us. “I vote that we find more agreeable accommodations before it’s too late, and hole up for the day.”

One by one, we slip out. I’m surprised that Thompson leads us closer to the Germans rather than toward our own side. I trust Thompson, though. He must have his reasons. We crater hop, but none of the holes offer enough shelter.

In one hole the four of us lie still beside one another. I can feel the morning chill up my back. I realize I’ve been clenching my teeth so that they ache. I have lost my sense of direction, but then realize that the lightening sky to the east is obviously where Fritz is. I’m exhausted.

What appears to be a tall parapet is clearly visible ahead of us. I’m not sure if it is Fritz’s front line or one of the great craters that Thompson talked about. The landscape is stranger than anything I’ve ever seen. Pocked and pitted, little valleys of mud filled with water and corpses. Thompson goes first toward the parapet, Graves follows with his machine gun, then goes Elijah, with me pulling up the rear. This had better be the place that we will stay today. With the sun on the verge of rising, we will be spotted and killed.