The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (34 page)

“Maybe it’s aimed at this slope we’re on,” Angus said.

“Good point,” Conlon said.

The prisoner began speaking rapidly. Burwell translated. “He says he’s only a private. He doesn’t have more intelligence. No more information. The gun is broken.”

The prisoner’s eyes were bulging. Conlon yanked his head up by the hair. “Six, eh? Six soldiers? Broken gun?”

“We’ll see,” Publicover said.

“We’ll risk one man going in there,” Conlon said. They stripped the German of his coat. Ebbin immediately volunteered. Just as quickly Angus countered that he’d go. Conlon told him they needed him to guide them back. Keegan already had the German helmet on, a tight fit. When he put on the coat, it came nearly to his ankles. He looked like a dwarf in a sorcerer’s robe. “Take off the damn coat,” Conlon said. He nodded at Ebbin, who pulled it on. A perfect fit. The Gothic helmet nearly hid his face. Lawrence Havers, German private.

Angus and Conlon scanned the farm again with glasses. Voles stuck a piece of chewing gum in his mouth and lay flat, rifle ready, squinting through the scope. Out of the blue, a musical note floated over the field. And another and another, plaintive and slow, from a harmonica, and “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding” wafted out over the ravine. Tendrils of remembered lyrics unfurled silently in the night.

“
There’s a long, long trail a-winding

Into the land of my dreams,

Where the nightingales are singing

And a white moon beams.

There’s a long, long night of waiting

Until my dreams all come true;

Till the day when I’ll be going down

That long, long trail with you
.”

Voles looked back at Conlon. Burwell was looking up at the stars. Havers was staring straight ahead. No one spoke.

“What the . . . ?” Keegan said. “That’s ours. They can’t do that. They can’t take our song!”

“Can and have. The question is why?” Conlon said.

“Toying with us. They know we’re out here.” Angus narrowed his eyes at the barn.

“Maybe,” Conlon said, sitting up. “What I do know is that they’re going to miss that patrol. I’m not going to risk going in ’til we know what we’re up against. And I don’t trust our Fritz here anymore than Publicover does. You ready, Havers?”

“Yes sir,” he said smartly. “Should I lob a grenade into the loft if there aren’t too many of them? I can take cover behind that stone wall.”

“We’re not here to take them down. We’re here to bring back intelligence. There won’t be any if we don’t make it out alive. Just go down there and get a look—
in
the barn, if you can. We’ll cover you, and Voles here will have his scope. If you see the howitzer, shift your rifle to the other shoulder. If you think we can take them with our little band, shift it back. Then get to that stone wall and roll into the woods. Even if that MG is working, there’s no way it can get you from the loft at that angle, once you’re down there. Of course, there could be more in the woods. If we have to go in, we will, but our mission is intelligence. Got that? No heroics. Just scout things out.”

Ebbin nodded vigorously but didn’t move. “Havers?” Angus whispered. He found Angus’s eyes and slowly rose. In another minute he was down to the dead Canadians and up the crest of the gully—a silhouette in a German greatcoat and heavy helmet. Then, without faltering, he went all the way in.

He sidled around the barn and a moment later reappeared and shifted his rifle to his other shoulder before turning smartly and walking swiftly back along the side of the barn. He’d seen the howitzer. He shifted his rifle back again. He thought they could take them out.

W
HAT ANGUS WOULD
remember with utmost clarity was Havers at the front of the barn, firing a grenade up into the loft. Except Havers wouldn’t have stood there frozen when it failed to explode. He’d have tossed up another or run for cover. And so it was perhaps Ebbin, after all, who dropped from a single bullet from a single rifle.

It wasn’t clear at first if he was dead or alive because the fully functioning machine gun in the loft was strafing the slope, churning up the ground in front of the hedge, splintering the trees to sawdust. Burwell’s mustache drooped over his open mouth as he repeated the prisoner’s cry that they must have fixed it, fixed the gun! “He didn’t know!” But Publicover had dropped the soldier with a quick thrust of his knife and was running down the slope. It was Angus, charging down after him, dodging bullets, who raced up to the barn and tossed in the Mills bomb that blew out the loft.

It was a blur of smoke after that and flying timber and roof tiles and bodies, the oak tree a crackling inferno, and bullets snapping as he and Publicover, Conlon and the rest ran toward what was left of the barn and took cover behind the stone wall. Angus remembered firing and reloading Publicover’s Lee Enfield, remembered shouts and screams of agony and choking black smoke and men’s legs running. And Voles picking off Germans one by one. Then it was quiet.

He remembered Conlon’s silhouette bending over someone on the ground—Burwell, he thought. He remembered leaping over bodies to get to Ebbin, hoping against hope that he was still alive. Remembered ripping the German helmet off. He remembered the arch of Ebbin’s throat as he lifted his head. Remembered the blood-soaked tunic. Remembered how Ebbin reached in for the cross and tags and pleaded with Angus to take them,
wear
them. Remembered refusing, telling Ebbin that Havers was on the books now, that no one could do Havers better, nor make Havers more proud. “Don’t let him die, Angus,” Ebbin begged through shuddering breaths. Said his name. Called him
Angus
. “I won’t. He’ll live on, through you. Stay alive. Ebbin!” he remembered saying. Remembered Ebbin’s body jerking violently, hearing him choke. And then the fixed, unblinking eyes, and the unbearable realization that remembering was all he’d have left.

Then footsteps as a German, still alive, was coming at him. He remembered throwing himself over Ebbin and being wrenched back as the German started kicking Ebbin’s body, swearing at him as Angus lunged forward. Then the shock of the bayonet slicing into his shoulder and snapping off as the German wrested the rifle away. The German’s open mouth and then the blows from the rifle butt slamming Angus’s shoulder, and a heavy thud as the German dropped from a gunshot. He remembered Publicover rounding the barn in an easy, loose run, his flash of a smile, gun in one hand, the Bowie in the other. And then the German rising up and a struggle that left Publicover curled up, clutching his stomach next to the unmoving German. Remembered scraping over to Publicover with his good arm, the bloody Bowie on the ground, and his own hand, smeared with Ebbin’s blood, on Publicover’s face. Remembered picking up the Bowie and stabbing the German who was maybe dead and maybe not, but was surely dead when he was done. Remembered cradling Publicover then sitting back on his heels as Keegan walked the huge barn door open to reveal the thick, hollow death tube of a massive Krupp howitzer, its long snout black and charred, the carriage off its wheels. There was more. There was more after that and before, but he could not remember.

Conlon or Keegan, one of them, pulled the bayonet out of his shoulder and staunched the wound in his useless arm. But it was Keegan who’d lifted him up each time he began to pass out as they dragged back toward camp, saying, “Which way? This way? Please, sir, remember.” He remembered. He remembered looking up at the stars. He remembered begging God to help him. He remembered the sharp bite of the smelling salts, the dizzy constellations coming to order, the landmarks he’d picked out along the way materializing as if in a dream. And he remembered cursing God and all of heaven for granting him the sense of direction that brought them to the camp at last, alive, without Voles and Burwell. Without Publicover. Without Havers, and without Ebbin.

S
EVENTEEN

April 15
^th
, 1917

Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia

A
fter some consideration of placement, Simon spread glue on the back of the headline from the April
10
Halifax Morning Chronicle
and pressed it into his Great War scrapbook.

BRITISH SMASH ENEMY WITH THUNDERBOLT ATTACK

AND THE CANADIANS ACHIEVE A GLORIOUS VICTORY

Satisfying.

On the next pages he pressed in the other three headings from the front pages:

CANADIANS SWEPT GERMANS FROM FAMOUS RIDGE

SIX THOUSAND GERMANS CAPTURED

TITANIC BATTLE OPENS WITH FURY OF THE INFERNO

THE WHOLE WORLD SEEMED RED AS HUNDREDS OF

BRITISH GUNS FLASHED OUT WITH VOLCANIC ROAR

Excellent. The printed stories could go on the following pages. It was the headlines that he wanted future readers to see first, so they’d get the full impact. He imagined his father on the top of the ridge—ragged, worn, his men around him. Maybe cheering or planting the Union Jack. No, no, Simon decided after a moment. That wasn’t right. He wouldn’t be cheering with dead and wounded all around. He’d be thoughtful. Quiet like always, his eyes shadowed and dark. “Well done,” he’d say to his men.

“You can be right proud of your father,” Philip had told Simon. “
Right
proud. Down the tavern, talk’s all about Vimy. Put Canada on the map.”

Exactly. And exactly what he did not hear from his grandfather. What he heard from him was what a sad comment it was that Canada had entered the world stage as a warrior nation. Equally sad, for his grandfather, Simon thought, was that he didn’t understand that the victory would have the Germans on the run and his father home soon.

After school Simon and Zenus pored over the details in the papers with Zeb and Alvin Hennigar and a few others around the potbelly stove at Hennigar’s—how hell had opened up, “tragic and frightful,” an “infernal splendor” when the guns “Belched Forth Their Roar of Death.” How snow and rain kept airmen from covering the ground troops who swept forward, undaunted; and best of all, how one Canadian soldier, out of bullets, had ripped the spiked helmet off a German soldier and killed him with it.

“Victory when none was coming,” Zenus’s father said with satisfaction. He stood up in his black fisherman’s boots and doffed his cap before crossing the street to the tavern with Wallace and Philip. Simon imagined arms linked, glasses raised. “I’m not even going to
try
to stop him,” Zenus said. Lady Bromley rounded the corner, and Zenus’s father doffed his cap to her as well.

“This is one day when I wish
women
were allowed in there!” Lady Bromley said, opening the door to Hennigar’s and turning to stare through the glass at the tavern. “Children, too! Oh, don’t look so surprised. We need a communal celebration. What would you two ruffians say to a Vimy Victory Social? A fund-raiser for the Blue Cross to help the horses. Good afternoon,” she nodded at Alvin on his stool behind the counter. “I just need a pound of sugar and a few cans of peas.” Alvin started weighing out the sugar. She turned to Simon. “You must be thrilled with your father in it. I’m sure I can count on you to help with the social.” When Simon didn’t respond, she wagged her chin and frowned at him. “What’s the matter with you? Where’s your patriotic spirit?”

Simon had not forgotten her cane-stamping treatment of George. “How’s money going to help the horses when they’re being worked to death?” he asked.

“Worked to death? Who told you such a thing? Mr. Heist? Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“It wasn’t him.”

“Who then? Your grandfather? Of course. That man can’t see an up without a down.” She pursed her lips, then her expression inexplicably softened. “Can’t be easy on you. Your father over there in it. Ebbin giving up his life for it. Your grandfather dead set against it. His high-flung ideals don’t do a thing for the boys over there. It must be very hard on you indeed.”

“No,” Simon said. “It isn’t.” But of course it was, and this unexpected sympathy had thrown him.