“That’s shit,” I say, then ask, “Will they separate the two of us?”
Elijah stays silent for a while. “Most probably. You must prepare yourself for that, for being on your own, Xavier. Your English is getting better, and that is good, but the army cares nothing for friendships.”
For the first time since arriving in this place the panic begins to come back to me. “Surely they’ll keep the two of us together if we ask,” I say.
“They don’t give a damn about us, Xavier.”We sit without talking for a while. “It might be better that they separate us,” Elijah says in the dark. “It will teach you a little about independence. It will give you a chance to make a name for yourself, to grow a little.”
The words anger me. I wonder why Elijah says all of this.
The next day, two full battalions stand at attention in the great field where the men shoot their rifles. The 48th Highlanders stand across from us, the Southern Ontario Rifles. We all stand tall as we can, the Rifles especially, taller now than we were a few months ago.
I can see slight looks of disgust on the faces of the Highlanders facing me. Not one of those men across from me thinks in the slightest that the 48th will lose. They are professionals who have seen many battles. Our battalion is a bunch of farmers and labourers with a couple of bush Indians thrown in. Me, I want to change those looks on their faces.
The British officer sent here to train us, the one with the weeping eyes, marches out into the middle of the field and another officer shouts for the men to come to attention. There is a flurry of movement as they do, and then the British officer clears his throat, preparing to speak. I have to listen carefully to understand as the officer holds his rifle out in front of him and begins shouting.
“The soldier’s Ross is the soldier’s best friend,” he says. “If you care for her working parts what you will hear is the bolt pushed smartly and the clickety-click and one up the spout and there you ’ave ’er, one dead Boche!”
He pauses and stares out at the men on either side of him. His face is red from the effort of shouting and his eyes cry salt water. I wonder if he is mad. I hear a snort beside me and carefully look over to Elijah, who has begun to giggle and seems to have trouble controlling it. The officer begins shouting again.
“You men must really cultivate the ’abit of treating this weapon with the very greatest care, and there should be a healthy rivalry among you growing!” He shakes with the effort of his shouting. It is a strange sight to see the tears rolling down his cheeks and wetting his collar. He pauses and his eyes wander up and down the lines of troops until I am not sure if he is finished his little speech or not. Just when I think the officer must be done, he begins to shout again. “It should be a matter of very proper pride. Marry it, man! Marry it! Cherish your rifle for she’s your very own!” He looks a little confused now, like he has forgotten what else to say, and that is when Elijah erupts into laughter, great gasping laughter so that everyone
around him turns at the same time and stares in horror wondering what Sergeant McCaan and Lieutenant Breech will do.
I look to McCaan ahead of me and he has turned toward Elijah now, a look of pure red anger on his face just as a cheer goes up from the 48th across from us. The Rifles join in the cheer. It’s the first time the 48th save Elijah, and I don’t think it will be the last.
When the cheering dies, the best shooters from each company are asked to step forward. McCaan could not choose between Elijah and me so he tells both of us to step up, and this makes me unsure. I can feel a heaviness in my stomach as so many eyes fall on me and the others in the group of marksmen. We stand at attention with rifles at our sides, facing down the field to where green balloons bob on strings fifty yards away. They look small from where I stand, easy to miss as they shift and bounce in the cool wind.
The crying officer shouts out the rules. We are to shoot in groups of ten, and will be eliminated immediately on the first miss. I see that Elijah has been placed in the first group. I have been placed in the last. The wind picks up as the first group takes their position. The balloons jump around like they have a life of their own and know what’s to come. The shooters hold rifles loosely at the ready. When the officer shouts, they raise them and sight in, then fire. After the noise, only Elijah’s and one other’s balloons have disappeared. A cheer goes up from the 48th. The other is their man, small with sand-coloured hair.
The second, third and fourth groups do better. Most make their shot as the wind dies down. As I line up with my group the wind kicks up again. We are ordered to the ready, then to fire, and I raise my rifle, imagining the balloon is a goose floating on wind currents. The wind whips the balloon and I hesitate so as to sight in better. I squeeze the trigger and my balloon disappears. When I lower my rifle I see that mine is the only one gone. My company cheers. The officer warns me not to hesitate again or I will be disqualified.
Less than half of the original group is left and once again we are divided, this time into four. Elijah and I are put in the same group. We smile to one another. It’s like the old days when we’d shoot against each other till we ran out of bullets. The British officer orders us all back many yards so that the balloons look the size of coins from where we stand except for their moving in the wind. The first group falls into line, and when the order is given they try and draw a bead on the balloons. With the roar of the guns, only one disappears. The little marksman from the 48th smiles broadly as his battalion hurrahs.
My group is second and my luck is good. The wind slows just enough as we are commanded to fire, and Elijah and I hit our balloons. Our ones, the Rifles, answer the cheer. I smile and settle back on my haunches to watch the rest of the shooters. Two men from each of the two groups are able to hit their balloons in the calmer wind. Only seven are left after two rounds.
I watch carefully as soldiers prepare the next competition. Seven bully beef tins are set along a ridge of earth 150 yards downfield. The seven of us soldiers circle around the officer and pull straws from his closed fist. Once again the little sandy-haired soldier from the 48th goes first. The officer barks out for him to start and pushes the button on a stopwatch. The soldier drops down from attention, unslinging his rifle from his back smoothly, and as he lands on his stomach the breech is already open and a round slammed in by the time he is lining his sights up on the first tin. He is fast and smooth. The rifle fires, followed by the distant metal rip of the bullet tearing apart the tin, followed by the slide and click of his bolt opening. I watch his hand reach for another round, followed by another slide and click as he pushes the bolt closed and
crack,
another tin is torn apart. When he is done he has hit all seven in a very short time, and not just his own battalion but everyone cheers.
The next four shooters are not nearly as good as the first, two of them hitting four tins, two of them five. But when my name is called,
I talk to myself, tell myself to go to that place. I stand at attention and go through my movements in my head. When the officer barks out to begin, I fall to the ground, my knee striking a stone sharply. Wincing, I open the action of my rifle and grab a round from the ground beside me, slipping it in and slamming the bolt shut, both eyes open and staring down the field, searching out the first bully beef tin. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, half out, and the sights line on the first tin, the sharp
bang
and kick of the rifle and the tin ripping apart. I work steady, sliding open the breech and letting the spent cartridge fly out before I replace it with the cool casing of a second shell. I do the same thing over and over, in my own quiet place now, ears ringing with the noise of the rifle. By the fifth tin I know my time is good, but I fumble and drop a round because I have let myself think instead of just doing. I force myself to slow down. Seven hits will guarantee my advance. I drop the last three tins and stand to the cheers of the battalions, muffled by the ringing in my ears.
Elijah is the last to shoot, and he is very good. There’s no pressure for him, I see. I think Elijah is like a wind across a field he is so smooth and sure. When all seven of the shiny little tins are punched through, Elijah stands and waves to the cheering crowd. He has always been the one who is not afraid of others. But there was a time when he knew nothing of the bush or of hunting. I was the one to teach him.
The officer huddles with some of the others. I hear talk of more balloons, of more bully beef tins, of paper targets. Carefully so that it won’t be noticed, I take a sidelong glance at the little Highlander. He is short and thin with bright eyes that don’t miss much. He leans with one hand on the barrel of his rifle, the butt of it firmly on the ground. With his free hand he plays with a piece of string, tying it into sure knots with his fingers. I see the power in his confidence and look away. I look toward my battalion and make out Sean Patrick and Gilberto and Fat in the crowd. Sean Patrick gives me a wave. I smile at them all.
The sound of Elijah clearing his voice causes me to turn to him. Elijah has approached the officers and begins speaking. There’s trouble in that. Everyone knows.
“Sirs,” he begins. “Place matches in the ground twenty paces from us and the man who can light the match with a bullet wins.”
Breech turns to him angrily but is prevented from acting by the British officer’s voice. “What’s this?” he asks.
“It’s simple,” Elijah says. “You place matches in the ground and each man takes a turn. Whoever can light the match by touching the tip with a bullet wins.”
It is a game Elijah and I played when we were young. A game impossible to win. The officer rubs his chin and nods, smiling. I watch word ripple through the troops who are sitting or standing at ease. Immediately men begin to talk and reach in pockets for money. I look over to Elijah and he smiles at me. It is the same trickster grin he’s flashed since he was a boy. I am the only one who knows, though, that Elijah has not always gotten by in the world so easily. As the officers continue to debate and the soldiers near us continue to exchange money, I think back to the winter shortly after Elijah left the residential school and came to live with me in the bush.
We snared rabbits and used their fur and ate their meat and their stomachs full of greens. I showed Elijah how to find their runs, taught him that rabbits, like people, are creatures of habit. One morning as we checked our snares we noticed that a fox followed our lines. The fox had eaten a rabbit that had been snared. Its tracks were fresh, and so we followed them. I could tell by the impression that it was a large one.
I walked along its trail, Elijah following noisily, snapping twigs and breathing heavily. “That school taught you nothing useful,” I whispered back to him. Elijah didn’t like that, but I knew the fox was close. We climbed a rise, and through some thick tamarack I caught a flash of red. The fox sensed us too, and stopped. I removed my mitten and
raised my rifle, levelled my sight on its centre. An easy shot.
“What do you see?” Elijah asked, and as soon as his voice left his mouth, the fox darted away.
I didn’t speak to Elijah the rest of that day. When we returned to our winter camp he went out in the bush, dragging back dried spruce branches. I thought he was trying to make up for his mistake by collecting enough wood to guarantee us a night of warmth. As he spread dry branches around our
askihkan,
I wanted to ask him why, but I was still too angry to talk to him. The fox’s fur would have looked nice, felt even better, as a collar for my parka.
Late that night the cold woke me, and as I built back the fire I noticed that Elijah wasn’t in the
askihkan
. I was still not happy with him and so fell back asleep. Near dawn the sharp snap of a twig outside woke me. I crawled from my blanket and peered outside. As my eyes focused in the early light, I saw the tracks going round and round our sleeping place. They were unmistakable. Elijah’s prints. He rounded the
askihkan
carefully, stepping one foot at a time, watching intently where his foot would go, trying not to disturb the twigs he’d sprinkled. He noticed me and smiled, looking exhausted. “I have been walking around you all night and didn’t wake you until now,” he said. “I will try not to make any more mistakes, Xavier.”
When matches are placed in the ground, Elijah and the Highlander and I line up beside one another. Twenty paces away the matches stick up from the ground. The tips are tiny, almost impossible to see clearly. Elijah shoots first, and his match disappears. Men whoop but then go quiet when they realize that he hasn’t done it. I shoot second, but can feel the eyes of so many on me. I can’t find that place, jerking the trigger so that my bullet thuds uselessly into the earth a half-foot in front of the match. The Highlander takes his time, and when he fires he too makes his match disappear completely.
On Elijah’s second turn, his bullet goes just over the top of the match tip. I can see that it was very close by where the bullet pierces
the ground behind it. I lift my rifle and take my turn. I am steadier this time and actually hit the match so that it too disappears. I’m beginning to think that, even as adults, we will find this impossible. The Highlander fires and he misses, grumbling.
The officer announces that the third shot will be the final one. There will be no winner today if the match remains unlit. Elijah takes a long time sighting, makes a show of it for the spectators, gently squeezes the trigger, and misses. The Rifles groan loudly. I breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and lift my rifle to my shoulder. If I can do this I will no longer be so much the outsider. I will gain respect. I let half my breath out and place the very tip of the sight on what must be the tip of the match. The world has grown silent. My body feels as steady as it ever has. I squeeze the trigger and as if by some magic the match flares and then lights, the flame wavering in the wind. The men roar. I feel a little dizzy and lower the rifle.