Authors: John Cooper
“Why did you come back?” Danny asked.
“There was no ‘back’ to come to, really.” Jack sat down in a swivel chair and rested his elbow on the desk. “I was going there to get away from a tough situation at home. I worked hard and saved money, and even though there are temptations to spend it everywhere, I scraped my money together then moved north, went to college, and studied advertising. It was looking at these people,
good people
they were too, but seeing a bit of me in them, and knowing that at some point the race is finished, and where do you go from there? After a while, I knew it was time for me to leave.”
His father paused. “You seem edgy, Danny. Everything ok?”
“I just don’t know what I have to feel proud of. I just scuffle along every day and it seems like there’s nothing … nothing to hold onto. Sometimes it feels like there’s something but…nope, just emptiness. What can I accomplish? What have I done that’s so great?”
“Every day we have to try to find things that will make us better people. There’s nothing heroic about it. Little things. Sometimes we do things that we don’t know will help others, but they do, and in doing those things, we become better people. I can tell you from my own experience: failure is a great teacher, but sometimes a painful one too.”
Danny looked at his father’s desk, which was covered with papers and nicknacks. It looked like his father’s whole life was laid out on the desk; one long, tough lesson about messing up.
Jack paused, and said, “Danny, there are people, in our family even, who have done things that defined them as brave, but at the time, they didn’t think they were doing anything special.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a file folder, rifled through some papers, and handed Danny a photocopy of a letter.
“This letter’s really old, that’s why I have a copy of it. The original is with a cousin of yours. Your great-grandfather, Martin, who fought in the First World War, wrote it.” Danny liked hearing stories about him. He was learning about the war in school. “Martin came to Canada from England, though his own father was originally from Belgium, and his father before him from Spain. Martin brought his wife Alice and one child with him. He worked as a labourer. By the time the war broke out, he was already close to middle age. He didn’t have to go to war, but he did because he thought it was the right thing to do. He served as a private for a year in some of the worst battles in the war, in a place called Ypres, Belgium.”
Danny looked at the letter. At the top was the YMCA logo, and under it was written “Canadian War Contingent Association.” His father opened another drawer, and pulled out a small cotton bag. “Have a look at these. I was hoping to pass these on to you sometime and this seems like the right time to do it.” Out came a military dog tag that was designed to fit around a person’s wrist; it was made of aluminum or stainless steel, and was shiny and silver. On the front of it was engraved his grandfather’s name and underneath “2nd Battalion Can.” Martin’s number was in the middle: 454020. Also in the bag was a round gold-coloured medal with the words: “The Great War for Civilisation” carved on it. There was also a heavy brass medal shaped like a cross, with a purple ribbon. He held it up. The letters
G
and
R
were embossed in the centre of the corss in fancy lettering, and the cross’ arms had maple leaves on them.
He opened the letter. It was written in neat script, carefully penned but looking like it might have been done in a hurry.
1st Division
Convalescent Hospital In the Field
June 15, 1916
My Dear Wife:
Just a note to you and children hoping that it finds you well as I am feeling a bit better myself. This is the first time I have written to you in a green envelope.
Danny looked at his dad, who told him that the green envelopes were reserved for longer letters home and were a privilege. Usually soldiers didn’t have a chance to send anything more than a postcard.
Well, Alice, I was mad to get out but I wish it was over. I got out lucky on the 26th of April when in the front line the Germans exploded a mine under us. It was awful to see my mates go up. I was to go on sentry duty at 6:30, the mine went up at 6:20, and I was about fifty yards away filling my water bottle or I would have been up in bits.
As you see I was very lucky that trip. Fifteen of us held a piece of the crater and a good supply of men feeding us with bombs. We fought the Germans out in No Man’s Land throwing bombs till the dead piled up one on another. I though the bombardment that time was bad but this time June 2 was twenty times worse.
Alice I shall never forget it. We was supposed to have a rest away back but the order came to stand to. Our Battalion marched about five miles as we thought to relieve the 15th Battalion or 48th Highlanders. Right in an open field the Germans spotted us. Right in among us they sent big shells, what we call coal boxes, at the rate of fifty-eight a minute. We had orders to scatter and dig ourselves in which did not take us long. Shells were bursting all around us. We lost a lot of men in a short time.
After the bombardment was over we went to a hedge and made a big ditch six feet deep. Up to our waist (in muddy water) we stayed there three days. The third day at 4:30 myself and a chum got a direct hit on our dugout burying us right up alive. Six fellows beat it to a safe place and said leave them, they’re dead. But for an officer passing by on his hands and knees we would have been left for dead.
“What happened?” Danny asked. “How did they survive?”
“The officer heard them yelling for help, and ordered the other men to dig them out.”
We was took to a dressing station at night and then sent here. We got 500 German prisoners, that cheered us up some, but things are going fine on our front now. On the night of June 3 we got our dead lads and buried them but next day the shells churned them up again. One of our lads, we buried him four times.
At one time I was lying in a big shell hole and was talking to a 48th Highlander for ten minutes before I knew he was dead. It was awful but still only for this the war would not be won. I feel that pain under my heart bad now.
Danny reread that line. “Was he sick? Did he have a heart attack?”
“No, he was experiencing what was called shellshock, which we now call post-traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers suffer it from the awful things they see and experience in the war. He was feeling pain both emotionally and physically.”
I got a bag hit in the knee, sent me sprawling, lost my best chum, my rifle, but picked one up. I am beginning to feel better now.
Today is Charlie’s birthday. I think of him on the battlefield. If I get another green envelope I will let you know more of how we are getting on. Remember me to Richard and Norton and Dan.
I must close now for the present I remain your loving husband,
Martin.
Danny looked at Jack. “Who are Richard and Norton and Dan? And what’s a bag hit?”
“Those guys were some friends of his from the neighbourhood. I don’t know what a bag hit is. I’ve tried looking it up. Maybe it’s something you can look up.”
“It’s funny how he can go from writing about war and then saying something that sounds so normal, like he’s able to pull himself away from the war and think about his friends like they’re just around the corner.”
“True. That’s what life is like, isn’t it. We can go through some very difficult things, some personal battles, experience awful things, and yet we try to find something normal, something
ordinary
, that we can attach our lives to.”
“What happened to him after the war?”
“He was discharged not long after that letter was written. He’d spent almost a year overseas, and eight months in actual battle. He received an honourable discharge; his medical report said he was being discharged for something called neurasthenia, which is what doctors used back then to explain a lot of symptoms that they didn’t really understand, but which came from the stress of warfare. Now they call it shellshock and post-traumatic stress disorder. He came home and tried to get back to his life, but he wouldn’t talk about the war. The horror of it was too much for him to describe again. Interesting, though, that he was able to write it down,
while it was happening
, eh? After the war was over, he shut it inside himself and locked it up tight.”
THE DIARY
Diary entry for June 3:
So I went with Ben to Tim Hortons. I wanted to get a coffee. To hell with Mom and Dad saying I can’t have coffee. I can’t take a lot of it anyway and I have to put a lot of cream and sugar into it, so it’s not like it’s an espresso or anything like that. Ben can drink espresso. They have a new doughnut there, too. But that’s not why Ben and I go there.
The girl behind the counter is hot, maybe hotter than the shrink’s daughter. Her name is Nicole. She’s in my history, civics, and English classes. She smiled at me the other day. If anybody reads this —
and I mean you Susan
— I’ll kill them. I want to ask her out. I don’t know what she would say. But she smiled at me at Tim Hortons so I talked to her. Nothin’ much, just about history class. And what happened in the cafeteria. “Did you see that fight in the cafeteria?” I asked. She acted sort of interested but I think she did that to indulge me. I’m going to go back again and see if maybe I can talk to her about something halfway intelligent. Like, “did you finish reading
Hanna’s Suitcase
? What did you think about it?” But then maybe she’ll think I’m a freak or something.
Ben’s cool. He doesn’t talk to anybody, or say much, but then he’s still nervous cuz his English is still not okay. But he smiles at a couple of the girls — but then that’s cuz they smile at him first.
ANOTHER VISIT WITH DR. FEINMAN
“Are you still keeping a diary?” Feinman’s question poked its way into Danny’s head, like a finger going into the jelly that he felt his brain had turned into.
“Yeah, I’m keeping it. I don’t know why though.”
“Why? Because it’s important for you to get your feelings into a form that you can control. You can control the printed word — you create the text and you can alter it. It’s all yours!”
“Yeah, so what should I write about?”
“Things that you’re worried about, or things that have happened that you need to think about.”
“Like, the fact that I beat someone up at my old school? That I’m angry with my parents? Angry at my dad’s behaviour?”
“Sure, why not? But don’t just write it down,
think it down
— and think about ways that you can take that anger and make it into something good.”
Danny thought for a minute. He thought about hearing some jerk at school saying something about his dad, something like, “How’s that burnt-out old goddamn freak of an old man of yours,
D-minus
?” Danny wouldn’t normally have reacted — for some reason it was cool to dump on parents, at least with some of the kids. But he couldn’t take it. This kid had been bugging him for weeks. Some off-handed remark that Danny had made in science class, or history class, or somewhere (
I just can’t remember where
) to this kid had gotten him primed for action, and his stupid scratchy voice haunted Danny in the school hallways.
It was just such a nothing comment
, Danny thought.
What was he so upset about? I can’t even remember what it was that I said to him
. Anyway, whatever it was had set this kid off, and every time they passed each other, he would make a dumb, loud, dopey, stupid comment to Danny. Finally, it had taken a comment about his Dad to really get Danny angry. The comment sliced like a burning-hot knife into Danny’s conscience, a blade thrust plunged deep into him, and Danny just couldn’t — he
just wouldn’t
— take it. He turned and hammered his fist into the kid’s nose.
Blood gushed and Danny’s knuckles were crimson and wet, but the kid came back for more. Though he was a good three inches taller than Danny, he was no match for his strength. Danny slammed him against the lockers, and then brought in a left cross that sent his nose in an unnatural direction, breaking it. The kid tried a weak jab at Danny’s face, and a heavy ring on his right hand had grazed Danny’s cheek, but he’d run out of energy by then. Danny gave him a quick shot to the ribs — it surprised him that they were springy, like they were made of some kind of plastic — and the kid slumped to the floor. Suddenly Danny was on the floor, too: he’d been tackled and pinned by Mr. Carson, the gym teacher. Nobody messed with Carson — he was a figure to be feared and was held in awe by most of the kids, all 230 pounds of former Olympic wrestling skill and wisecracking bravado. Danny was hauled before the principal, and his parents called in. He was lucky to get away with a suspension, and he knew it. He was told he was even luckier that the kid’s parents didn’t press charges, that they didn’t sue.
Feinman’s voice invaded his head again. “You just need to keep focused.”
“I’m not a bad kid,” Danny said.
“No, you’re not. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but in a way your dad should be proud of you. You stood up for your old man, even if it meant doing something wrong.”
Danny started to think about the fun times he’d had when they lived at the old house. He could do nothing wrong in those days, it seemed. Maybe it was just his age and the fact that as he got older, being young felt like a freer time, when he wasn’t bothered by what other people thought of him. He just didn’t care back then. Now it felt like all he worried about was other people’s opinions.