“I am here to sign up,” I said emphatically as I sat down in the heat of the sun, my words apparently taking him by surprise. “I’m from Khartum. Originally from Britain.”

  “Nice to know you. Now speak up, and do not slouch.”

  He scrutinized my face, observing my scars.

  “When you were here before,” he said, “you mumbled something about your wife and family.”

  “That was quite some time ago. Didn’t think you heard, or that you’d remember. I was muttering about my wife and our child Daniel who, as the saying goes, was born yesterday. I don’t mumble much, so you caught me on a rare day.”

  I straightened my back and sat up in the chair, as the grocer, glaring back at me with black hair and dark eyes, came over and grabbed the can out of my hand.

  “My uncle told me countless times not to volunteer,” I said, resolutely now. “My father once told me, too, that he didn’t want me to experience what he had. That a man supporting his family cannot be drafted.”

  “If that were true,” he said, “there wouldn’t be enough men to fight, now would there?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “Well, your father and your uncle, they should go overseas and see what’s doing.”

  “My pa died in the mines in England, but he served in the trenches of France in the Great War.”

  “Ah, a soldier then. And your uncle, what of him?”

  “The coward? I don’t know much about his military record. He was absent without leave in the last war and was worried about meeting a firing squad. And I’ve been listening to what he wants for far too long.”

  “I knew men like your uncle. Spent time staring at prison walls instead of fighting for their country… what now, will he go overseas?”

  “Maybe, if he’s drafted.”

  “Well, let’s hope that happens then,” he continued. “So, you are a soldier’s son. You might perchance be drafted if you don’t volunteer. The benefit of volunteering is you can decide between the Army and the Navy. For you, I suggest General Infantry.”

  “General Infantry?”

  “Like your father. Army foot soldiers. Or Artillery. 50-millimetre guns, that sort of thing. So, what’ll it be?”

  “General Infantry for me, then.”

  “You’ll need to pass the doctor’s examination. You look fine except for those scars on the left side of your face. And you seem to have a limp.”

  “I think about the accident that claimed my pa’s life, every time I look in the mirror or try to run fast. It was back in the coal mines of South Leeds in England. I was there at the time of the explosion.”

  The grocer raised the volume on his wireless at the onset of a news report discussing Commando raids on Guernsey, one of the British Isles, now apparently occupied by the Germans.

  “What of the Commandos?” I asked.

  “What of them?”

  “Winston Churchill has ordered they execute raids on German-occupied territories. I can do that, lunge at German throats.”

  “You have spunk. Those Commandos are British Army, so you would be eligible… but the training is quite difficult. Takes a special sort of person. When did you come here from overseas?”

  “Just under a year ago, I suppose.”

  “Ah, when the going was tough over there many chose to escape. Some ships were sunk on the way over.”

  “A German U-boat torpedoed and sank a British civilian liner only three days ahead of us. My uncle’s idea to traverse those waters. Anything for escape. No one told us to leave the country but him.”

  “I should have guessed. Cowards die as cowards are. Good for you, son, that you have chosen the better path. When your newborn son grows up, he will know from your example what it is to be a man. He, too, will not listen to deserters. You will be sent immediately to Ottawa, then to Quebec City, then on a transport to Britain for training. You can sign up for the Commandos once you get there. Carve your own way.”

  With that, the Sergeant licked the end of his pencil, and began by taking down my name and address.

  A short time later, with the wireless still broadcasting war news, I started through the forest, the one phrase resounding in my thoughts from all the recruiter had said: you will be sent immediately.

  21

  Mum hosted a dinner at our home to formally thank the town and to celebrate the beginning of Jane, me, and our new baby Daniel as Khartum’s newest family. Most of the town’s twelve families were represented, a whopping twenty people in all.

  Jane and baby Daniel leaned against the wall. Stared at by those around the room, I walked over, putting my arm around her. She smiled as we looked into our child’s iridescent, chocolate eyes. I glanced over to the oversized fireplace mantel housing various family photographs, including the picture of my father in uniform retrieved from the British Museum.

  The grey-pebbled photograph of Wilfrid pomaded, showered, and shaved glistened with the light of the fire. His army uniform was an inky, nine-buttoned jacket with sagging trousers, his cockeyed, flat-topped hat adorned with a gleaming star. A fine image of a man ready to fight for his country. Shoes were laced with wrapping to the knees and resembled boots. A sombre expression was sculpted onto his face, confounded by what he was about to do in France, a country he had never visited. A cigarette dangled from his right hand and a ring reflected light from his wedding finger which must have made him appear to other enlisted men as married, experienced, older. Nothing doing. To me, despite the uniform and the cigarette and the fake ring and the nonchalance, his picture didn’t hoodwink me. He was certainly nothing but apprehensiveness.

  Mum announced that dinner was ready, and everyone was seated at the long dining room table in front of the crackling fireplace. After meat pie, asparagus, and mashed potatoes served with a healthy debate on how many children Jane and I would have, wondering as I tried to interject if we had any say in the matter, there was a knock on the door.

  Coffee was being served along with rhubarb pie, raspberry pie, and stewed strawberries.

  “We aren’t expecting any more guests,” Mum said, setting one of the pies on the table.

  She opened the door to reveal a bulky man with a white moustache, a grey suit, and thinning hair. He introduced himself as the postmaster from the nearby town of Wireton.

  Mum invited him in for coffee and dessert, and he sat down at the table and grabbed a fork. As he was handed a slice of raspberry pie, he handed her an envelope in return.

  “I’m here to deliver that,” he said, the moist pie reddening his lips. “It’s for Nicholas Dixon.”

  “What is this?” Mum asked, passing me the envelope across the table. “From the government?”

  I didn’t answer but tore the paper open as Mum, accompanied by Devon in his normal rags, and Mr. Frances in a posh suit, moved in to circle around me. They all read over my shoulder.

  The letter told me to report for military duty in Ottawa in two weeks. I would then be sent to Hull, Yorkshire, England. Reading through the page again, in awe of the finality of this decision made firm by those words, then looking up, I saw that everyone around the table was staring back at me. I quickly folded the paper. Silence reigned.

  “I will report to the army in two weeks,” I said. No one could stand in my way now.

  “Two weeks?” Mum asked. She grabbed the folded note before I could stuff the page into my pocket.

  Jane took Daniel from the room, walking swiftly into the kitchen, pulling me along by my arm.

  Jane gazed into my face as we stood together in the kitchen. Her eyes were always extraordinary in this light. I looked down at Daniel, who was also staring back at me.

  “You can fight this,” she said as I glanced back up at her. “You don’t need to go.”

  “Men are fighting for our freedom over there—”

  “And dying. We’re at war, but we have freedom here. England’s different, I know. You have to think of your commitments to your wife and child. The war’s almost over, and you want to risk everything? For what?”

  “That I haven’t done so earlier is shameful.”

  “I will never forgive you if you leave.”

  “It’s honourable. Thinking otherwise is shameful.”

  “You sound as though you want to go.”

  “I do.”

  “Think of a time recently when you said that, and what that meant.”

  “Our wedding?”

  She walked quickly into the other room, and I followed close behind.

  “I want to sign up, too,” Ian said.

  There was some stifled conversation before Mum spoke.

  “You won’t go,” she said, shaking her head as she read through the note. “Either of you.”

  “Your Mum’s right, you’re not going anywhere,” Devon said, addressing me.

  “The war will soon be over,” Jane said.

  Mum looked up.

  “They say, on the newscasts, by Christmas this year,” Mum said. “The Maginot Line in France should have stopped everything. The perfect defense, they called it. But if that couldn’t stop them… anyway, there’s no reason for you to go. Not now.”

  “But the Germans entered through Belgium,” Mr. Frances replied, scars casting shadows on his face. “They bypassed the Maginot defenses, which only went along the French-German border… but, I suppose, that’s a discussion for another time…”

  “Now, there’s no choice,” I said, turning to face Mum, Devon, and Mr. Frances, all of whom backed away.

  “Nicholas, you’re right,” Mr. Frances said, flipping his pocket watch chain. “There’s no argument. Although I didn’t know they were drafting, till now. And I also understood you were too young.”

  Mr. Frances’s words and the thought of Jane and Daniel gave me the impetus to speak.

  “I’ll be off soon,” I said. “Although I don’t want to leave Jane and Daniel, and all of you. And I’m old enough.”

  “You won’t be off anywhere,” Devon said, moving closer, the scent of whisky on his breath.

  “Not when your wife and son need you,” Jane said.

  “But when there’s no choice, that’s different,” I replied.

  “News reports say they are not drafting,” Mum said, holding the paper high in the air. Turning to me, incredulous, she added: “Did you volunteer?”

  Devon moved away and grabbed the page, examining the contents before gazing over at me expectantly.

  “You’ve betrayed us,” Jane said. “Me, your son, and everyone around you.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Devon asked.

  “That I haven’t done so earlier is shameful,” I said to him. “My pa signed up at the beginning of the First World War. I’m resolved to fight as you refused to do in the last war. I’ll take bombing courses, not to follow my pa’s choice of becoming a Bomb Thrower, but to protect myself as he did. I ran away at the start of this war, but I’m not cowering in this corner of the world anymore, not when the rest of the world is fighting.”

  “You didn’t run away,” Mum said, her green eyes gleaming with tears in the light of the fireplace. “We came here together.”

  In the crowd behind me, I overheard Doctor Mitchell saying that mothers are sad and sore with the system and the government, but for these women, letting their sons go was a duty they had to their country.

  “What did you do in the First World War?” I asked Devon. “Why did you fight for such a short time?”

  “Who told you that?” Devon asked.

  “My father. And I read about it in his journal too. But he never gave me details.”

  Devon turned, rubbing his forehead, addressing the group now staring at him.

  “You may have heard the term before,” he said. “French leave, an unauthorized holiday. Nicholas’s father Wilfrid and I didn’t receive the passes we were expecting, so we went to London for six days. Wilfrid went back without me. That’s all.”

  “My pa had to see the Captain,” I said. “Loss of six day’s pay, along with twelve days of Second Class Field Punishment—parading around the grounds with all his equipment on his back. That was the first time he had ever been on the carpet in the army, and he got soaked as hard as lots of fellows who have been on the carpet before.”

  Then, turning back to face me, Devon added: “I met loads of men who were wounded and nearly killed at the front, stories of bullets and shrapnel and explosions, starvation and rats and disease, all of that kept me away. The more gruesome stories I heard, the stronger my resolve became. I told the men I met that I was a city resident of London with no stomach for war. I was pinched by my Sergeant who was at a London pub while on leave, and I went to court and was subsequently sent to prison.”

  “Your career in the army polished to a fine hue,” I said.

  Devon paused momentarily, eyeing me before turning toward the crowd again.

  “The army,” he continued, sweating from drink, “is Hobson’s Choice: stay or go, take it or leave it, either option objectionable. Catching a stray bullet, being assaulted by steaming shrapnel, starving to death in the trenches was so meaningless that I chose to leave it.”

  “I wanted to enlist since before you made us leave England, when the Germans were bombing London,” I said. “You were a coward in the last war, still are in this one. Our family’s presence here is proof.”

  “We came here for your Great Granny,” Devon said, shaking his head.

  “I hear troops now are waiting for the end of the war,” Mr. Frances interjected, speaking quickly. “Could be there’s not much danger now.”

  “I relived the wartime story of my pa over and over,” I said, addressing Devon, “a man nineteen years old who, at the start of the Great War, decided along with his friends to volunteer. One of the first Canadians over to the battlefields and among the last to return, marching all the way to the Rhine at the conclusion of the entire mess. Then I hear now about you whitewashing your own decision to abandon the army, Hobson’s hogwash, which has given me one last thing to remember you by. So, thank you for that. You held me back from enlisting for a long time, refusing to listen to any news of the war, paying too much attention to Mum. She didn’t resist you, or your hatred for news about the battles, hardships, and death that enveloped the rest of the world outside our home.”

  “Hogwash?” Devon said. “Your mother and I are to be married, you know. She has yet to tell you, but I assure you it is so. And you don’t want to be here to see that?”

  Now the whole tangled disaster had unravelled: Mum and Devon’s frequent close proximity; their seemingly inadvertent touches conveyed across the dinner table or while conversing languidly by the fireplace; the subtle laughter; the innocent gesturing; all seemingly innocuous and made without ostensible thought or purpose. That made me ill then and now, as did Mum’s shamelessness.

  My mother’s disappointment was evident in her silent stare; a request for immediate reconciliation with Devon. But I had a better idea.

  I lunged at Devon, knocking him to the ground.

  Glasses shattered. Women gasped. General commotion ensued. Mum moved away before the whisky glass Devon was holding smashed violently, splintering everywhere.

  Pushing me off him with the weight of his lean frame, Devon then rose to face me, rubbing his nose with his sleeve. He was ready to lay a haymaker on me.

  Mr. Frances jumped in, separating us with his arms, muttering about peace and amity. Mum was sobbing, pleading with us to stop.

  I stumbled backward.

  Devon’s fist came at me. Contact. My scars were his focal point. Another hit. I regained my balance for a moment before falling backwards onto the table, dishes flying in all directions.

  Rising from the table, covered in pie and potatoes and soiled with fluids, I popped Devon in his eye.

  His hands covered his face. Mum went to him. His eye would be puffed and blackened by morning, and thankfully, I would soon beat it out of this town.

  Mum escorted the guests from our home as I grabbed the photograph of Pa from the mantel, walked into the next room, and opened my suitcase. I placed my father’s wartime journal and photograph inside, knowing I would no longer experience shame and disgrace upon reading its pages. I heard mumbling voices outside spreading the word that Devon Dixon, unlike his brother Wilfrid and me, was a coward.

  Despite the thought of leaving Jane and baby Daniel and our new home, and Mum’s impending marriage, all of which droned powerfully in my head, I knew definitively that I would be leaving Khartum to fight overseas; to do what the bravest souls in the world were doing, and what they all knew had to be done.

  Soon, I would show everyone what I was made of.

  22

  On my open suitcase, beside my father’s war journal and a pile of wartime letters written to his mother, lay the photograph of Pa in uniform.

  Wilfrid Lionel Dixon’s enlistment papers listed his age of nineteen years and one month, a fabrication through the addition of exactly two years of age. His height was more difficult to falsify and listed as five feet four and one-half inches, his girth 35 inches (a tummy tuck before the physician’s measurement to be sure, I could see him sucking in his gut) with a two-inch range of expansion noted, medium complexion, brown eyes, brown hair. Nothing extraordinary recorded physically, not even his bum leg, which was hard to see how they missed. Maybe he had waddled into the physician’s office on one of his better days.

  I don’t think I will pass the doctor’s examination because of my leg, Pa wrote to his mother later, so I will likely be back home in a month’s time, and everyone says the war will be over by Christmas anyway.

  The enlistment papers showed that Pa belonged to the Church of England. The paperwork indicated that Wilfrid Lionel Dixon was somehow fit for the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force.

  Similar papers were signed for Uncle Devon, and Pa’s friends Tommy Leitch and a boy named Carson Thompson; all of whom lived in Highgate, Ontario where they grew up together. The “Highgate Boys,” they called themselves. The only other of the Highgate Boys that had no such enlistment papers was Art Maunders, who couldn’t pass the physical without the fingers he had lost in his father’s carpentry shop.

 

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