Tides of Honour (7 page)

After one meeting adjourned, Jean handed her two more letters, both bearing Danny's uneven printing. Audrey clutched them to her chest and closed her eyes, with him in that moment. Or as close as she could get.

“Well? What do they say?”

“Jean! Mind your own business. They're from her sweetheart. I don't think you'd be sharing letters from Simon with us, would you?”

“I might,” Jean said, brow raised. “He does write saucy letters,
though. They might shock your sense of propriety, my darling Marjory.”

Her friends giggled then turned away when Audrey stuck one finger into the envelopes and slit open the first of the letters. Short missives containing nothing of any consequence, just a reaching out, a sharing of words, meant to help them both feel as if this were a perfectly normal courtship. This idea of his surviving in a muddy trench and her slaving in a greasy black hole, miles and miles apart from each other, would have to suffice for now. But someday . . . someday there would be no need for pen and ink. Someday there would be no need for words at all. They could just be together and be whole.

July 10, 1916

Dear Audrey,

Your parcel arrived yesterday, and boy oh boy, were we happy to dig into that! After we're done our weekly rations, a fellow can get awfully hungry. Do you make those ginger snaps yourself? Because they sure are delicious. Maybe someday you could bake some and we could eat them together, hot out of our own oven. Doesn't that sound sweet as candy to you? It does to me.

Sometimes we get moved out for a few days to the wagon lines, near where they keep the horses. That's where they have canteens where we can spend some of our money. We get 60 cents a day, which my friend Mick says is about 2 shillings. Last time I was back there I had ham and eggs nearly every evening. The meal cost my whole day's pay, but why worry? I haven't got anyplace else to spend it. Eggs are 13 cents each, which I suppose isn't too dear, but at home we have our own chickens, so I'm not used to having to buy eggs.

The weather has been uncommonly beautiful lately, which sure makes things easier. The mud gets a chance to dry a bit, and the boys like to take off their shirts or socks just to feel the sun on their skin. When the sky is clear like this, the air is fairly alive with planes.

I hope the weather near you is just as pretty as you are, if that's possible. I remain

Yours affectionately,

Danny

The second envelope was made of a stiffer, whiter paper, different from every other envelope she'd received from him. It made her curious. Was he somewhere new? His writing looked tired, even messier than usual, and she hoped that wherever he was, he was getting some well-deserved sleep.

August 12, 1916

My dearest Audrey,

This letter is the hardest thing I've ever had to write. I am in a hospital. I'm alive, but I have lost part of my right leg. Shell blew it clean off last week. Never even heard it coming.

I can't say what I'll be able to do for work when I get home, and I'll be getting home soon, because they called me a “Canada.” If a fellow gets wounded but not too bad, he's called a “Blighty case.” That means he can go back to the line after he's well. But I'm a “Canada case.” In a way I'm happy about that, because I never want to see another explosion for as long as I live. But I'm leaving my leg behind, and that's what hurts the most.

No, that's not true. What hurts the most is that I'm letting
you go, Audrey. Meeting you was the best part of my life, and I have loved getting your beautiful letters and packages. But you deserve a man who can take care of you. With only one good leg, I can't. I'm not much good for nothing anymore. So this letter is goodbye.

I've known I loved you from the first time I set eyes on you. I still do, and I wish you a wonderful life. I don't want you to feel bad for me. I want you to have a good life, with a good husband and a house full of kids.

With all my affection,

Danny

Danny Baker

August 1916

ELEVEN

She had held both his
hands before he left, squeezed his thick, strong fingers inside her little ones.
I like you, Danny, I really do. Do be careful, won't you?

Something had changed in Danny in that moment. Something warm had stirred in his chest. Of course he knew to be careful, sure. At least as careful as a man could be when bombs exploded randomly around him. But there was something about the way she looked at him, with hope in her eyes and . . . a guarded, unspoken promise. As if it really
did
matter if he made it back or not.

“I will, Audrey.”

He watched her expression as he lifted those fingers to his lips and gently kissed them. Her eyes, so intense and earnest, melted into a kind of liquid joy, and in that moment he felt more like a man than he'd ever felt during any filthy, cussing, fighting, killing, hunting time in his life. From then on, all he wanted was to see those eyes do that for him again.

It seemed like so long ago. He'd fallen back into line after that, and Fred was staring pointedly at him, one bright red eyebrow lifted. Jimmy shot him a dirty look. “Lucky bastard.”

Danny, Jimmy, and Fred trudged into the Somme along with the rest of the regiment. The Germans were wearing down the French in Verdun, so the British and Canadian troops were there to back them up. Talk was the Battle of the Somme was the biggest battle they'd ever face, and though the men were painfully aware of the dangers ahead, they couldn't help but step a little quicker as they came toward the action. The Fighting Twenty-fifth came in with a chip on their shoulders. Earlier that summer, the First Newfoundland had gone in, fronting the attack. Out of the eight hundred soldiers, fewer than seventy men had come back. Maritime boys stuck together. That kind of carnage was personal to Danny and the other Nova Scotians.

Once he was there, Danny thought the fighting at the Somme might never end. He couldn't look away from Parker, whose whispers never stopped leaking out of his mouth, nor the tears from his eyes. Then there was Johanson, whose attempt to blow off his own hand and get sent home had failed. Instead, the man had been left undoctored, the stumps of his fingers had gangrened, and he had died shaking with fever.

The artillery was a constant, booming across the maze of trenches in No Man's Land so the earth vibrated beneath their feet, shaking the mud from the walls. It seemed the Canadians were always the first to go over the top. They'd zigzag between the barbed wire blockades, shooting and being shot, there one moment and gone the next, swallowed up by an incoming shell and the resultant geyser of dirt vomited by the earth.

Danny watched the men fall, one after another. And every time he returned to the trenches at the end of his shift, he sat with Fred and Jimmy, holding Audrey's picture and thanking God for letting him see one more sunset.

“Ye'll be wearin' that portrait down to nothin',” Fred ribbed him.

“Poor lass. She's obviously got a touch o' the fever, thinkin' ye so high an' mighty.”

“Shut your mouth,” Danny shot back, though he loved their banter. “You're just jealous.”

“Damn right I am,” Jimmy muttered, and lit another cigarette.

After a while, the three of them decided Audrey's portrait was a lucky charm. Before they lined up to start fighting, Danny took it out and each of them touched her face lightly. She was their guardian angel, her gentle smile soothing and promising all at once. Danny liked the idea of that, of her looking out for the three of them. Her being an angel of sorts seemed to bring her even closer to Danny.

But there was only so much her image could do.

Danny worked hard, shovelling in the trench, filling sandbags, carrying ammo and other supplies where they needed to go, cleaning and oiling his Ross, hoping it wouldn't self-destruct in his hands as it had with some of the other guys. Rain had set in a couple of days before, and his section of the trench pooled with putrid, muddy water so his boots made sucking noises when he walked. Each man had to do two hours of guard duty every night. Sometimes those nights went well into the next day, because often the dead of night was the best time to surprise the enemy. Sometimes nothing happened, and on those nights all the men battled were the lids falling closed over their bloodshot eyes.

On one of those endless nights, Jimmy, Fred, and Danny were on patrol while the others slept. Nothing was going on. Not a breeze, not a whisper. The three friends sat a few feet apart from each other, fighting to stay awake, and Danny gazed up into the stars, trying to focus on something. If he could just keep his mind occupied, he'd be okay.

They'd learned about shellings long before that night. A
fellow could hear a shell coming and sometimes duck in time. But maybe Danny'd been nodding off. Maybe his thoughts had been on the gentle blue of Audrey's eyes or the soft coolness of her fingers curled around his, because he didn't hear anything that night. By the time the murderous whistle pierced his consciousness and he'd flopped onto his stomach as he'd been taught, it was almost too late.

Instantly that focus he'd sought arrived, shocking him with the same suddenness as the shell that struck the earth moments later. It was followed by another, this time accompanied by the rapid onslaught of gunfire. Danny clutched his rifle and shot back without thinking, firing blindly, seeking out his friends when the next blast lit the night. Jimmy was twenty feet ahead of him, doing the same thing, and their eyes met.

“Where's Freddie?” Danny screamed.

Jimmy put one hand to the side of his helmet; he couldn't hear Danny over the noise. Danny ran toward him, shooting and ducking.

“I said,” he yelled as he got closer, “where's—”

The falling shell stole his voice and, blessedly, most of the sounds around him. His ears rang from the impact, and dizziness swelled as he fell into the mud. An odd, warm sensation wrapped around his leg, as if a blanket had landed on it, and when he tried to get up, a fire roared through him, searing and burning invisible flames up his pant leg, igniting his gorge. He screamed and retched, unable to comprehend what was happening, not knowing what to do next. The reek of smoke, of cooking meat was inside his skin; the roaring pain was white, pure white. Ice shocked against the wound when a breeze came, bringing a new agony. He couldn't hear his own screams over the booming of the guns. Then the fire was back, and Danny didn't think he could take any more.

“Danny!” Jimmy dropped to his knees beside him, vivid rivers of red lining the faded whites of his eyes. “Jaysus, Danny! Your leg!”

After a stunned moment, Jimmy whipped off his belt and cinched it around Danny's leg. “Ye'll be fine,” he informed him. “We'll just get ye back.”

Danny reached for something to say, but he was lost. His lips moved without direction. How could this be happening?

He and his best friend were staring at each other, Jimmy's eyes wet with unfamiliar tears, when Jimmy was struck. He flew back with the impact so his toes pointed skyward right around Danny's ear.

“Jimmy?”

His big friend was wheezing bad, but Danny figured that was good. It meant he was still breathing. Clenching his teeth against the exquisite pain shooting up his leg, he rolled to his belly and dragged himself up to Jimmy's body. His friend's arms and legs had flung apart when he'd fallen. Like a huge starfish from one of the lobster traps they'd hauled in together so many, many times. Now Jimmy moved one of those arms, slowly reaching toward his chest. Or maybe it wasn't slow. Maybe it only felt slow because Danny had a feeling he knew what was coming. Jimmy fumbled with the side of his jacket, then folded back one edge to reveal the hole that was killing him.

“Jesus Christ, Jimmy,” Danny murmured. He put his hand on his friend's chest, unable to look away. The iron tang of fresh, pulsing blood filled his sinuses and gagged him at the back of his throat. “You look like one of them trout we used to gut in the harbour.”

And Jimmy laughed. Danny felt the movement under his hand, the familiar bumping motion Jimmy made when he laughed. Like a bike with a twisted wheel.

“Screw you,” Jimmy said, then he spat, his broad grin red with blood. “Ye look like a lobster done lost a claw.” His body shook, and the bumping laughter turned to shudders that rattled up through his clenched teeth. A tear squeezed from the corner of Jimmy's eye, avoided a blob of mud, meandered toward the ground. Danny grabbed Jimmy's hands, gripping them hard for reassurance. Reassurance for himself or Jimmy, he didn't know.

“Jaysus, Danny. Jaysus,” Jimmy said, squinting a little. “I'm so goddamn cold.”

Strange. Jimmy's blood didn't scare Danny nearly as much as the shivering. Jimmy had never been cold on the boat, no matter the season or the wind. He was always the one to razz Danny for being such a baby.

“Freddie's gone,” Jimmy whispered, closing his eyes, “and I'm goin' with him. Can't trust the lad on 'is own, never could.” His face contorted, hit by a wave of agony, and a foreign kind of wheeze whistled from his cracked lips. When he opened his eyes again, they were deep and dark as the ocean, and they were terrified. “You watch yerself, Danny.”

The pain eased from Jimmy's face after his next breath, and Danny screamed, grabbing Jimmy's arm, then throwing himself over top of the still-warm body, shielding his old friend, clinging to him, feeling so afraid, so terribly afraid.

The boys in the trench were up and awake by then and returning fire. Machine guns swept the lines, dropping men where they stood, but the Fighting Twenty-fifth kept coming, rolling out of the trench like the furious, bayonet-wielding inhabitants of an anthill.

Boom. Boom. Boom.
The guns pounded, roaring over the earth, pelting him with mud, jarring his leg.

“Beat it, Danny! Get out of the way!” he heard Mick holler, but there was nothing Danny could do. The fire in his leg and the
inconceivable grief were melting him, loosing him from himself, tearing at his guts. It was like nothing he could ever have imagined. He lay across Jimmy's body, too shocked to cry, barely able to breathe.

Sounds and images took on the shape of the guns' echo, and the air in his head thickened. Everything in the world slowed. The booming and rat-a-tat and screaming faded and he felt cushioned,
soft, Audrey, safe, home . . .

Another shell hit fifty yards away and he was back, jolted into the pain.
Gonna die here.

I'm so sorry, Jimmy.

Danny fought the fire, rolled onto one side to see the damage.

There it was, the mutilated body of a man like many he'd seen before, but now it was his own. An explosion lit up the night and he stared at his muddy boot, six feet away. The leg above it had been neatly severed, still bleeding despite Jimmy's tight leather belt. A clean slice, he thought. Need a good, sharp blade to make a cut that clean.
Maybe they can just sew it back on
. Sure. Sure they can. He laid his cheek back in the muck and forgot all about the war.

Rough hands, fingers digging under his arms and ribs . . .
No no no leave me here. Please please leave me here . . . I'll be fine here . . .

The stretcher carriers were as gentle as they could be, but Danny had to be moved. Shelling had stopped temporarily, and a brief period of time existed during which the wounded could be collected and possibly saved. They ignored the sounds Danny made, the pleading, begging prayers. They'd heard it thousands of times before. Those who could fight again, the men with cuts, bruises, lesser injuries like missing fingers or toes—had been taken
off the field first and readied to fight another day. They'd come back after that for Danny and others who were closer to death. They would return later, if the shelling didn't start again, for those who had lost the fight.
Don't forget Jimmy and Freddie!

The stretcher dipped and bumped under the grip of the bearers, and Danny's jaw set so tight he thought his teeth might splinter. Didn't matter. He was going to die anyway. They stopped at the regimental aid post, where Danny was lifted from the stretcher and laid on a table. The stretcher disappeared from view, and the carriers went back for more.

A doctor bent over Danny, his blood-smeared hands flitting around the mangled leg, bending down to get a better view.

“Uh-huh,” the doctor muttered.

“Tell me,” Danny managed to say.

“You'll live, soldier,” the doctor said. “But you'll live with half a leg, I'm afraid. I'm going to bind you up and give you some morphine. You'll go from here to the CCS. They'll be able to take better care of you there.” He turned. “Bart!”

A smaller man jogged over, unfolded Danny's arm and jabbed a needle into his vein. Danny flinched, then blinked up at the doctor, trying not to cry.

“This'll make it stop?”

Of course not. It'll never stop. Not until I'm dead.