The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (18 page)

“Pencil people,” came a voice from under the table. “Not sticks.”

Simon hesitated. “Go on. It’s fine.” His mother dismissed him with a vague wave. Glad for the release, he followed his grandfather and slumped down in his father’s chair staring at the hearth. Horses flickered through the dancing flames. His grandfather zipped the letter opener through a stack of mail he’d brought with him—letters from Ottawa, from England, from the States. People he was in touch with about the war. “Profiteering,” he growled. “Makes my blood boil.”

“Privateering?” Simon asked without real interest.

“
Profit
eering. War profiteering. I’ve told you about that—weapons, food, clothing and all the rest of it—making a fast buck off the suffering of others. Not all that different from privateering, come to think of it. Sending men off to war with shoddy equipment. The greed of man knows no bounds, Simon. And what’s got you so sullen? You look sick.” His grandfather peered at him over his glasses as he sliced through the next envelope. “Understand you were at Hennigar’s so-called recruitment office again. Don’t look so surprised. Got my ear to the ground, boy.”

Again, the enlistment card. “I was just hanging around with Zenus. Talking with Zeb.”

“Um-hmm. Have you thought about what Mr. Heist would say about that ape?”

“Mr. Heist would know it wasn’t him.”

“Oh? How’s that, now?”

“Because he’s
here
. He’s one of us. Besides, it’s the Prussians who are to blame. And he’s not Prussian. He said so.”

Duncan removed his glasses. “I ask myself how a boy as bright as you can be so dull-witted. Why do you suppose Mr. Heist is so keen to make that distinction? The longer this war goes on, the more dangerous it is for him.” He picked up his letters again.

“What do you mean? Everyone knows him.”

“You have a few more boys coming back like George Mather, and I wouldn’t be surprised at anything that happens.”

Simon sat up. “George—he’s crazy, right?”

“He’s broken. That’s what war does. Breaks people. He may be dangerous. Probably best to stay clear of him until he gets set right again.” His grandfather shook a letter out and stared at the fire.

“He says crazy things.” Simon went to the window and looked for his little friend, the fox, but darkness engulfed the field and the fox was nowhere to be seen. Just before supper it had raced halfway across the snowy yard. Third day in a row. It had lifted one black paw and jerked its head toward Simon—the white of its chest against the red fur shoulders, its pointed snout, the black eyes looking right at him.

But there
was
something. A black shape coming up the road, almost to the house. Even in the dark, Simon could make out his labored walk. “Zeb Morash!” he said. “Coming up the hill!”

“What? This time of night?” Duncan strode to the window. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly.

Zeb stared at the house, shook his head, and then continued, slow as molasses, as if the snow were knee-deep and the path wasn’t clear.

“Zeb? Zebulon!” Duncan called out, opening the door to a cold rush of air.

“It’s me,” came the response.

And then Simon knew. The telegraph office at the back of Hennigar’s. Never had a man walked so slow.

“Come on, come on. Come in!” Duncan dragged him over the doorstep and slammed the door hard. Zeb coughed and wheezed and stamped like an old horse. He pulled off his gloves and clapped them together. Then he reached in the inside pocket of his jacket and said, “Duncan. Glad you’re here, boy. Right glad of that.” He withdrew a thin envelope.

Duncan looked at it, but did not take it. Color drained from his face, but he stood ramrod straight. Stood like iron.

“Telegram from Angus. For Hettie.”

Hettie stood at the kitchen entryway. Young Fred ducked around her and raced up to Zeb.

“
From
Angus, you say?
From
Angus?” Duncan laid a hand on Zeb’s shoulder.

“That’s right. From him. Sent by him.”

“Thank God.” Duncan took the envelope and ushered Hettie into the parlor, saying, “We don’t know, now. We don’t know anything.” But Simon knew. One look at Zeb’s face and anyone would. His mother knew. His grandfather, too.

“Here, Hettie. Sit down. Shall I open this?” Duncan said gently. She did not sit. She stared unblinking at the envelope. Simon’s mouth went dry. Zeb pulled off his hat and clutched it as if in prayer, his face red with the cold, as sad a face as Simon had ever seen.

Duncan turned the envelope over and withdrew the telegram. He fumbled with his spectacles, dropped them, picked them up.

Zeb coughed and looked panicked. “Best be getting on. Wanted to bring it up myself. I’m right sorry.
Right
sorry.” He pulled on his cap and nodded at them.

“Not a bit of it, Zeb,” Duncan said without looking up. “You get a mug up before you trek back to town. Some rum. I’d take you back myself, but . . .” He almost tucked the telegram in his pocket.

“Maybe it’s good news! He, he found him! Right?” Simon said. The words, once out, rang with lunacy, but it didn’t matter because now his grandfather had finished reading and was holding the slip of paper to his chest and looking just like Zeb.

“Ebbin,” his mother whispered. “Not . . . ?”

The log Simon had laid fell in and set off a flurry of sparks. No one spoke.

“Read it,” she said.

His grandfather again hooked the gold frames of his spectacles over his ears, looked at her for confirmation and read:

“EBBIN’S IDENTIFICATION TAGS FOUND AT COURCELETTE

WITH REMAINS OF HIS PLATOON.

APPARENTLY SHELLED. ALL DEAD. EBBIN’S BODY NOT FOUND.

SORROW REIGNS.

I LONG TO BE WITH YOU. ANGUS”

His mother slowly began to shake her head no, holding her hand out and backing away. Simon grabbed the telegram. Under the lamplight the typed words gathered into phrases.
All dead. Apparently shelled. Body not found
. “Grandpa? What does it mean? Grandpa?”

“Sorrow reigns,” his grandfather whispered hoarsely. “That’s what it means.”

E
IGHT

February 24
^th
, 1917

Arras Sector, France

I
t was late. The
estaminet
was quiet. Most of the men were at a YMCA production aptly titled, “In Harm’s Way.” Behind Conlon, the thin-haired proprietor slowly pushed a mop back and forth across the floor. Angus folded the telegram from Duncan and considered what it must have taken for him to write it.

Conlon placed an order and sat down. “News?” he asked.

“Telegram from my father. Said Ebbin’s family got the official word and my wife is with her parents. Memorial service next week.” He imagined Hettie, ashen-faced, in his father’s arms. It was the only picture of the scene he could conjure up. He should have been the one holding her. “First time I’ve heard from him since I left. He wasn’t too happy about my joining up.”

“Tell me it wasn’t just to find Ebbin Hant.” When Angus gave no reply, Conlon added, “Men join up for all kinds of reasons—to be with their pals, find adventure, avoid prison, run from something. Not to find someone.”

“Must have been mad.”

“Must have been some kind of pal.”

“More like a brother. Met him when I was a boy, not long after my mother died. He brought me out of it, you might say.”

“And so you married his sister. She the one talked you into coming over?”

Angus almost tried to explain before he realized Conlon was joking. What wife would want her husband to join up? And yet. He remembered her flannel nightgown, folded on the bed, a single sleeve askew, the night he told her he was joining up to be a cartographer, behind the lines where he could search for Ebbin. When he finished, her silhouette against the window had straightened, like a plucked string. She’d pulled the curtain back ever so slightly. And in that silent gesture, agreement. For all her protestations afterwards and all his reassurances that he’d be out of harm’s way, the truth lay in that moment. And he’d understood.

How utterly unhinged it seemed now.

“Neither of us had any idea what this war was like. Never thought I’d be in combat. And there were her parents, her father. He was good to me as a boy. Guess I wanted . . . well, doesn’t much matter now, does it?” He slipped the telegram into his pocket.

Conlon gave him a long hard look. “Maybe it does. Your old man—he against war in general or just this war, or just you in it? A pacifist or—”

“Yeah. He is. Maybe not with a capital
P
.” Angus shifted uncomfortably. “He’s not your idea of a pacifist anyway. He’s a tough son of a bitch. He was captain of a Banks fishing schooner for years, and he’s never gotten over it. One of his stronger opinions is that the British Empire can fuck itself. He has a way of making his points.”

“So you were running after all.”

Angus downed the last of his drink, irritated at Conlon for so handily making him see things in a way he hadn’t before. “Maybe so,” he said to Conlon. “But still, I loved him. Ebbin, that is. Never knew how much until he went missing.” Angus leaned forward and cupped his glass with both hands. “When someone’s gone, gone for good, a piece of yourself goes missing—who you were with that person and maybe who you thought you once might be.” His throat tightened. He sat back and looked away.

Conlon sighed. “The lost dreams of youth. Find him and you might get them back, eh?”

Angus turned back with a sardonic smile. “I think those were well shut down by the time he enlisted.” But had resurfaced, he didn’t add.

“Life isn’t much without dreams.”

“Ebbin used to say it wasn’t much without risk.”

“Same thing really.”

“I suppose. So how about you? Why did you join up? Searching for youth? Avoiding prison?”

Conlon raised his brows and lit a cigarette. “Might say that. I was going to be a journalist. Run a paper someday. And did. Ran a small paper in Wolfville until it nearly folded. Might have ended up in prison for murder if I hadn’t left.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Turns out, I don’t have much of a head for the business end of things. And . . .” He hesitated briefly. “Had a run-in with the owner. Over a woman. He didn’t love her, but I did. A standard story, but when it’s your own, it seems original.”

“Did you marry her?”

“Would have, but there was a problem.”

“She was his wife?”

“Exactly. The other problem is I never stop thinking about her. Or him. I’ve killed him many times over for having her, for the way he treats her. I thought she loved me. But I guess not enough to leave him. You, on the other hand, married the girl of your dreams. You’re a lucky man.”

“A good man” is what Hettie had told him he was on their wedding day. But whether Hettie meant Angus was a good man for marrying her or despite having let his passion get the better of him, or whether she meant he simply was a good man, he’d been afraid to ask. As trammeled with guilt as he’d been over the indiscretion that led to their marriage, Angus never forgot the elation and expansion that moment had held.

He thought of the thousands of times he’d imagined finding Ebbin. Throwing their arms around each other. Good Christ, what took you so long? Ebbin would say. “Doesn’t seem real, to tell the truth—Ebbin’s death,” he said. “Something about not finding the body, I guess.”

“Sure. Like I said before, hold on to that dream if you need it. Just don’t forget you’ve got real flesh-and-blood men under your command. You’re going to lose some of them. Don’t let them lose you first.”

“Yes sir,” Angus said.

“I’m speaking as a friend.”

“I know,” Angus said. He did know, but there was rank between them still and things he couldn’t express like the image that had just come to him of Ebbin hiding out in a pair of baggy trousers and a red bandana somewhere south of the Front. Desertion had maybe crossed Conlon’s mind as well. But no, not Ebbin. It would be counter to all Angus knew of him. Angus crushed out his cigarette. There were voices outside. A rowdy crowd was gathering. “Think I’ll push off,” Angus said. “That performance is over. Not sure I’m up to the aftermath.”

As if summoned, a bunch of privates and junior officers burst in, the music and laughter of the performance clinging to them. Played to perfection, they shouted. Stuck it to the brass! Hilarious!

There was a great deal of scraping of chairs and pulling tables together. Talk about how good Hitch looked in a dress (nice legs!) quickly shifted to the relative merits of the five known whores in town.

“Five?! Bugger! There’s twenty if there’s two, and I’ve known them all!” Roddy Gordon roared out. He flipped a chair around and took a long swallow of someone’s beer. “They said to me, ‘What’s under those skirts of yours?’ ‘Come see,’ I said. ‘If you dare!’ ” He clapped a huge hand on Angus’s shoulder and reared back, cheeks flushed, eyes to the heavens. “They dared, alright! Oh, they dared! And nearly fainted away! Angus MacGrath, as I live and breathe! How the hell are you?”

“Roddy Gordon! How’s it possible?” Angus hadn’t seen him since they’d trained together in England.