It seems that this leaning virgin has become a symbol for the troops that surround her. Talk circulates that she’s a miracle come to life, that as long as she stands the Allies will not lose this town. Some go further and say that as long as she stands the Allies will not fall, either. But if she does tumble so will they, at the hands of the Germans. There must be something magical to her, Elijah says. Fritz has played a game for months, sending artillery in her direction, but thus far has not been able to send her to the ground.
“Her crown would make a perfect sniping position,” Elijah jokes to me, and the joke suddenly becomes an idea he can’t shake. If only we were within sniping range of any Hun!
Our company moves out of Albert and up the Albert–Bapaume Road under cover of darkness. Everyone is tense. We are entering the place that has devastated the British all summer, the place of the thundering artillery that echoed in our ears for months. But tonight
is eerily calm. Near the place called Courcelette we take cover by the road and await morning anxiously. Courcelette is held by Fritz. The Canadians are to try and take it.
While the others close their eyes and pretend to sleep, I watch Elijah sit and jiggle his knees, wishing for the light to come so that he can see the layout of this place. Breech has ordered that Elijah and I are to move out in an advance position and do what damage we can when the Canadians go over the top and attack Candy Trench, one of the trenches guarding Courcelette. We have been told that a candy factory once stood nearby, but I do not know if this is true.
McCaan has already warned us not to go out directly in front of the Canadian line. The Canadians have thought up a new strategy, something called a creeping barrage. Our own artillery will walk through no man’s land, and the infantry will follow. “You and X don’t want to be caught in front of it when it happens,” McCaan says. He shows Elijah on a map the approximate width of the creeping barrage. Elijah has already figured a plan. He and I will head as far to the right of the platoon as we can, which will put us directly south of Courcelette. We can enter no man’s land that way, find a place of good cover and snipe as many Fritz as possible when the Canadians go over the top.
Elijah and I sneak about on higher ground behind our own lines the next day, peering through our scopes for hiding places in the field. There seem to be plenty. Destroyed barns, tumbled houses. Sunken roads and old sap lines crisscross the area. Now we must find a good place from which to shoot at Boche and still not get smashed by our own artillery.
I spot the site first. A slight ridge crests up from a wrecked farmhouse halfway across no man’s land, maybe five hundred yards in. This means a five-hundred- or six-hundred-yard shot into the town itself at any Hun support troops and no more than a two-hundred-or three-hundred-yard shot at the front trenches. The distance is
perfect, the cover seems like it will be perfect, and there’s a natural escape route out behind the ridge if we are spotted. It seems almost too good to be true.
We spend the rest of the daylight hours peering through our scopes at this place, Elijah working out in his head all the possible scenarios. Good cover from artillery and machine-gun fire. A wide view of the German lines, although this might leave Elijah and me open to snipers from the other side. The Hun trenches curve gently around the farmhouse so that they are exposed on a wide angle, which is good for us but also makes us more open to fire. And then there’s always the possibility that the farmhouse is being held by Fritz. Neither Elijah nor I have seen any movement around it all day, but that means nothing.
When dusk settles, we lie on our backs beside one another and stare up at the evening sky. Purple-streaked, fading into black, the sky is pinpointed with the light of stars rising in the east.
“What do you think of that place?” I ask in Cree.
“I’ve a good feeling about it,” Elijah says.
“Me too,” I answer.
“Then that settles it.”
We make our way carefully back to our own line and report to Breech. McCaan has made sure to join us so that he knows where we will be. Elijah and I see how little McCaan trusts Breech. Elijah tells them of the wrecked farmhouse and the ridge, the good line of fire that he and I will have, the escape route if necessary. Breech holds his chin, doesn’t answer for a long time. Is he going to say no, I wonder, with us forced to stand here like children awaiting a parent’s decision? Apparently Breech is reconsidering sending us out. Elijah tells me later that he had decided already that he would go anyway if Breech ordered us to go over the top with the others tomorrow.
“All right, gentlemen,” he finally says. “But I want results.”
Elijah and I salute and turn to leave. McCaan follows. We walk along the trench together, McCaan instructing. “Bring enough food and water to last you at least a couple of days. Bring plenty of ammunition. Don’t forget anything. You won’t have a chance to make it back safely until tomorrow night at the soonest.”
“He’s like a worried father,” I say in Cree.
Elijah smiles.
We take off our boots and pull on our moccasins before we make our way down the trench and slip over the top while no flares brighten the sky. We carry more gear than we normally would out here, Elijah’s and my ammunition and rations tied into sacks that we wear strapped tightly to our backs so that they don’t slip or let the contents rattle. Elijah cradles his Ross, the scope carefully wrapped in rags. I carry a rifle in each hand—my treasured Mauser and another Ross. We do not have enough rounds for the Mauser alone, and when I run out I will have to resort to the other. I have even sighted it in.
We go slow, taking cover and waiting behind whatever we come across. We plotted our route out carefully earlier in the day, finding the way that offered the most protection. We blackened each other’s faces with charcoal. We checked each other’s gear. Elijah checked his moosehide bag. I didn’t know at the time what it was that he was checking inside.
Now we are only a couple of hundred yards from the collapsed farmhouse. The desire to crouch and run to the ruins is very strong, but I know to ignore it.
We slither closer like snakes until we are a stone’s throw away, lie still and listen, watching for a glint of movement. Nothing much is left of the barn’s structure but the cellar and beams collapsed across it. We stare at the outline in the low light and see the best place to enter, the place by the ridge. Elijah signals to me that he’s going and for me to follow and take a position to cover him.
The cellar is black, and if anyone is in there, he is very good at hiding.
It is easy for me to see him, imagine Elijah closing his eyes and asking the medicine to help him. A low glow behind his eyelids. He can’t smell the vinegar stink of the Hun. He slips in, trying not to make noise, but kicks a stone that rattles on the floor. Something on the other side scurries then settles. A rat, maybe. Elijah crouches and removes his pack, lays his rifle beside it, slips his knife from its sheath and his revolver from its holster. He looks up above him, senses more than sees me above, rifle ready, as I lie with most of my body out of the cellar. I will cover Elijah.
Elijah makes his way along the littered floor. Beams and bricks make most of it unmanageable, but a small path weaves through to the other side. He takes a few steps in his moccasins, stops and listens. A few more. Slight moonlight through the beams by the place from which Elijah wants to shoot at the German lines. Something on the floor below it? A body, maybe, wrapped in a blanket. He looks around carefully but he senses nothing else here. He sneaks up to the form on the ground and prepares to stab the knife deep, but the bundle is just a sheet of rolled-up canvas. The blood pumps through Elijah so that he can feel its heat on his skin.
One more long look about the place to quell his nerves, and Elijah gives a low whistle for me. I come up soundlessly with all of the gear. We break it open and prepare ourselves for the coming morning.
A round of howitzers down the line and behind us shakes the broken beams near where I sit. I would sleep if my nerves allowed it. Elijah is fidgety, stands up from beside me once in a while to peer over to the German line. Rifle fire crackles out in bursts, but other than this it is a relatively quiet night.
Elijah sits back down. “Tell me a story, X,” he says. We still have a number of hours before daybreak.
For a moment I have no words, then ask, “What do you want me to tell you?”
“If I knew that then I would tell
you
a story,” he says. “Tell me something that will take my mind away from this night. You never talk much, and it might be good for you.” I see his teeth flash in the darkness.
A long time passes before a memory comes to me from somewhere in the night. It is not a happy memory, or a welcome one, but Elijah asks again for me to speak and so I give in. It’s a memory he already knows, but one that I know he likes. And so I tell it to him as we wait for morning.
Elijah remembers the ship we rode on to England. I’d never have believed a ship could be so big if I had not ridden in one myself. And I did not know waves could be so large as those out on that winter ocean.
Early in the voyage and at dawn the seas are twenty and thirty feet high. Men hold onto whatever they can. All of us violently sick. The ship does not give to the waves like a canoe but rams them, fights each one, metal groaning. I’ve taken the horses as my own responsibility. But down here is far worse, the boom of waves bouncing, horses panicked and kicking stalls. Elijah visits me and sees that I am so sick I can barely stand, but still I stay with the wretched animals, trying to calm them. He knows me. I feel comfort with animals. They make me feel closer to land.
Elijah tells me about up top where he stands in the blasting wind, the salt spray freezing to the deck so that it’s impossible to walk on. He tries to stay out of the wind best he can, squeezes against a wall behind a post, staring out at the mountains of water and angry white-caps all around him, imagining himself slipping as the ship climbs a wave, sliding down and off the icy deck to the freezing water below. This much water frightens him. He is so drained that nothing is left to come out of him. They’ve not served a meal because it’s too rough, but Elijah cannot imagine eating anyways.
Below decks, men talk of German U-boats patrolling like great iron fish all around the North Atlantic. They find a ship like this one and fire torpedoes until the ship is ripped apart, then surface to watch the men struggle in the freezing water before drowning. They take no prisoners. Elijah talks about this with me down below when he has the stomach to do it. The waves have not receded. They’ve gotten worse. The animals look frightened, but they’re gaining their sea legs, bracing themselves at the right moment, learning to relax when they can.
Elijah and I lean against a stall. Being this deep in the ship is confusing to our senses. It is harder to gauge when we are climbing a wave or when we are falling, and the boom of steel smacking water echoes like the deep bellows of a wounded moose. The ship groans down here horribly. The smell of the horses’ shit, of their fear, is overwhelming.
“How do you stay down here?” Elijah asks me in Cree. “Why don’t you come up above with me?”
“I like it with the horses,” I say. “I’m worried I’d be flung off the ship into the sea up there.”
“You know about the U-boats?” Elijah asks.
I look at him, wanting a story.
“They are boats that can travel underwater like fish and fire great bombs at ships and sink them.”
“Boats can’t travel underwater.”
“Where we stand,” Elijah says, “we’re underwater now. Their U-boats operate according to the same thinking.”
“They can’t do anything to us in this weather,” I say smartly.
“Under the water you don’t know if it’s stormy above. It’s the perfect time to hunt us. Our attention is focused on surviving the storm.”
“I can’t worry, me, about what I can’t control.”
Making it to the troops’ sleeping area is difficult. I only bother to go once. Some men lie in hammocks that swing wildly. Sean Patrick
seems to be having fun, his long legs dangling over the side, him calling out like a child when we pass the crest of a bigger wave. Graves and Gilberto sit on the floor lodged against footlockers. They attempt a game of Crowns, cards slipping around on the crate between them.
Graves looks up at me and says, “You look like death warmed over, X. I warned you about these winter gales.”
Elijah is beside me. He translates. My English is still quite poor. Elijah looks over to a groaning Fat who lies on the floor like a stranded whale. “That’s no way for a soldier to act,” Elijah says, but not loud enough for Fat to hear. The others chuckle.
Elijah steps toward Fat and bends. He asks if he can help in any way.
“Make the waves stop,” he pleads, and Elijah realizes that he means this. Fat is delirious. “Can you shoot them with a rifle?” Fat asks. “Deflate them before they hit us?”
All forms of routine have been stopped by this gale, exactly what the officers don’t want to happen. Even their regular lectures have been postponed. For them to pass up a chance to hear themselves speak surely means this is a serious storm.
I go back to the horses, calm one with wild eyes. I see a large bloody spot of skin on the horse’s flank where it’s been rubbed violently against the stall. I try to apply a salve, but the animal is too frightened. I squeeze myself between the horse and the stall’s side and begin rubbing in the ointment. The other animals grunt and whinny. A wave hits, sending them all to one side, pinning me hard between the heavy beast and the wall. I groan and slip out, slick with the salve, my face and clothing smeared.
I have heard Elijah tell this next part of the story to others in our battalion. He tells them how he remembers the shaking and slapping that woke him. His eyes are glued shut, and when he manages to open them, he sees me slapping him, my face ashen. I did not know then that he had tried the morphine only the evening before.
“Two horses. Broken legs,” I say.