“A war’s no place for a seventeen year old boy,” Dad said when I brought the subject up again. I was as wary of what I said, as much as I was of how I said it. But I told myself I had to face it; I had to face him. There’d been talk of conscription lately — they had one during The Great War — and people were saying how you could register for it now, instead of volunteering. I didn’t know if it was true, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was called up, either way. It wasn’t that I thought it would be over before I was called up, it was more than that, more than just my chance to get away and not look back, like Jack had — because I had a plan.
We were in the backyard preparing to butcher four of the chickens, for pies, soups, and tonight’s dinner. I could see Mom in the kitchen looking out of the window, watching us. Freddie and Jenny were playing off to the side somewhere — I could hear their voices on the other side of the house. Mom had sent them out earlier to pick vegetables for the chicken pot pie she planned to make. They’d let themselves get distracted. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she came out to see what they were up to.
Winnie was pretending to read her anatomy book, raising an eyebrow up at me occasionally whenever she managed to get my attention. More than once I’d caught her looking off to the side where Dad’s cane stood propped up against the tree. It was an obvious warning on her part that I chose to ignore.
It was a warm spring day, with large cumulus clouds pressed up against the mountains like a hand making shadow puppets in front of a lamp. The wind, more than just a gentle breeze, came rushing across acres of long grass as though it was a broom sweeping the seasons aside; making way for the coming spring, I thought, or maybe brushing away the last remnants of a cold, harsh winter.
We had an old machete that I used to lop off the heads of the chickens. I let them bleed out one at a time by holding them down with my foot, rather than letting them run through the yard and chasing them. Winnie was still pretending to read her book, waiting to dip the bird carcasses into a vat of boiling water so she could pluck the feathers; Dad sat beside her, sitting silent, brooding for whatever reason he had. It was always Dad who had to gut the chickens. He’d hold them between his knees pressing down on them firmly with his stump, cutting them open after Winnie finished plucking them.
In between the chickens, we’d have to wait for the water to come to a boil; I took the time to swing the machete in a bloody arc through the air, imagining myself a young d’Artagnan fighting the Cardinal’s Guards. Dad sat with his left leg out to the side, resting it on the chopping block, poking at the fire with a long stick. He was smoking his Cuban cigar and staring off into the fields, watching the rippling grass and looking up at the distant mountains, the last of the winter snows hanging on like the shroud of a distant memory.
We lived on five acres of what could only be called a subsistence farm. We had three cows for milking, several dozen ducks and chickens for eggs, a sow we bred every other year, and two horses for riding. Long-suffering alder trees formed a windbreak along the eastern edge of the property, where they swayed in the breeze; willows skirted the property line to the north. Beyond the trees, was the blue haze of the distant Coastal Mountains — Grouse, Seymour, and the Three Lions — while to the west, the newly built Patullo Bridge spanned the waters of the Fraser River.
Patullo Bridge, looking West, into New Westminster
Jack worked on the bridge after he turned fifteen, as well as the new four-lane highway winding its way up Petersen Hill to Whalley’s Corner. From there, it was a short trip up the old Yale Road and into the Fraser valley.
“We’re ready,” Dad said, and sat up straight.
“Did you get those vegetables for me, young man?” Mom called out the window to Freddy.
“No Ma’am, not yet. Jenny found a snake and we watched it eat a slug. It puked it out again. It was disgusting.”
“Never mind the snake and get your mother her vegetables, or we won’t be eating dinner tonight,” Dad called out.
“Yes sir.”
“I can’t believe Jenny likes that sort of thing,” Winnie said, shaking her head in disgust as she closed her book. She was talking to Dad, smiling as she said it, and he just grunted. She put her book down and stood up. I gave her a bird and waited as she slid the dead chicken onto a stick through its bound feet. She dipped the chicken into the boiling water — letting the stick rest on the rim of the vat — until some of the feathers began roiling up to the surface. That’s when she pulled the bird out of the water and I held the bag open at her feet while she began plucking.
Dad was looking up at the mountains again.
“You shoulda left it in a little longer. Get the skin nice an’ soft,” Dad said.
“Won’t that be too long?”
“There’s no set time for doin’ it,” he said. “Just don’t do it so long as to cook ‘em.”
When she finished with the bird, she laid it down on the chopping block. Dad told me to give him the machete and I dropped the bag. Winnie shook her head because I let go of the bag and some of the feathers drifted away as she waited for me to give Dad the machete. Dad cut off the wings, the legs, the feet, and then stuck a small knife in the chicken’s ass and sliced up. He reached down beside his chair and picked up a pair of heavy tin snips, cutting straight up through meat and bone, finally breaking the carcass in half so he could scoop out the insides. Winnie leaned over to watch as she waited for the water to boil for the next bird.
“You wanna be careful not to break open the bile,” Dad said. “You do that, you’ll spoil the meat. Might as well throw it out then.”
“Why won’t you let me sign up?” I asked. I looked at his cane, the memory of the beating he gave me three weeks earlier still fresh in my mind.
Winnie glared at me and I could see the anger growing in her eyes. Dad took a quick look at me crouched down in front of him, then began chewing at his Cuban, spitting around it. That’s when he said it, that a war is no place for a seventeen year old boy, I mean.
“Do you know what it looks like when a man gets blown up in front of you?” he said. “Of course you don’t,” he added, and turned his attention to gutting the second bird Winnie placed on the chopping block in front of him.
He paused long enough to look at me again. I could see him sigh, his shoulders sagging — it made me think maybe I was wearing him down. Winnie shook her head and fixed a hard stare at me as I handed her the third chicken.
Dad was still cutting into the second chicken and stuck his hand inside carefully so Winnie could get a better look at the egg sac. He dropped everything into a bucket for Mom to go through later.
“I was there,” he said after a moment. “An’ if I could’ve stayed away from it, you can be goddamned for sure, I would’ve. D’ya think it’s some kind of a game?” He pointed the knife at me as though it were a stick. “You see these guts? Can you smell them? Go on, stick your head in there and get a good whiff. That’s what death smells like.”
“Everyone in my class is signing up so they can go as soon as they’re of age —”
“Well, you’re not goin’, an’ that’s final,” he said. “None of you have the first idea of what it’s like — what it’s really like. It’s not like goin’ out into the field an’ huntin’ rabbits, like you did with your brother. For one thing, they shoot back. Then there’s the noise. I don’t know how I’m not deaf with all those guns going off day in, an’ day out. Big guns — bigger than anything you could ever imagine — and pounding into us just like we were pounding into them, non-stop, for weeks an’ weeks at a time. We slept through it because we were simply too exhausted to go on. We passed out from fatigue. Digging trenches; slogging through the mud; burying the same dead from the week before because the guns shook the ground loose.
“When it stops...when the guns stop…there’s an eerie silence...that’s when you feel like you’re gonna piss yourself. And why, you ask? Because you know you’re going over the top — and there’s nothing more frightening than that.
“After I got wounded and shipped back to England, I could still hear the guns in the distance.”
“But,” I said. “I want to learn to fly.”
“And do you think it’s any different up there dropping bombs at forty thousand feet? Do you think it’s any different in a plane than it is standing face to face with a man on the ground? This is what you look like after you hit the ground!” And with that, he stuffed his hand into the bucket of guts and held it in front of me.
“This! Now shut up! I won’t! Understand? I won’t sign any papers for you; I won’t ever give you my permission, an’ that’s final!” He dropped the chicken guts back into the bucket and stuck his knife into the chopping block as he stood up, looking at me as he did. He reached for his cane and limped away, the empty left sleeve of his shirt so soaked with chicken blood I could almost imagine it being a fresh wound.
I looked at Winnie. She stopped plucking feathers long enough to pick up the chicken Dad threw on the ground, placing it beside the other two, then went back to plucking. Winnie looked at me, but said nothing. We both watched Dad standing near the fence. The horses — Napoleon and Marshall Ney — came to him without him calling them, and he let them nuzzle against him as he stroked their manes one at a time.
“What?” I asked, picking up the machete.
“Now I’m gonna have to gut the last one myself.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re mad at me for that?”
“How can you?” she said a moment later, looking across the field. “After what he did to you the last time? You’re just like Jack — always pushing, pushing, pushing — you know how he feels about it…and still. You know damned well he lost three brothers there. And then there’s Mom’s side.”
“I know, I know,” I said, and swung the machete down onto the chopping block. I picked up the bag of feathers beside her and held it open.
“You know? Then why do you still think he’s going to let you go? Is that because everyone else is going?”
“That’s not why I want to go,” I said.
“It isn’t?” She stopped plucking.
“You heard me. I want to learn to fly. I want to be a pilot. But he won’t even let me get a word in edgewise without flying off the handle and walking away.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re stupid,” she said. She started plucking the chicken again.
“What?”
“I said you’re stupid.”
“Just because he lost his arm and his eye, and got all shot up, doesn’t mean I will.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” she said. “But you might.”
“At least say it like you mean it,” I said, and sat down on the empty stool.
There were chicken feathers all around and I began picking them up and stuffing them back into the bag. The wind was a steady breeze that stirred up the dust around us, but I couldn’t be bothered chasing feathers across the yard. I’d tell Freddy and Jenny to get them later. I looked out at Dad standing in the open field with the wind swirling about him.
“Say it like I believe it? Why?” Winnie laughed.
“You think I’ll go over there and get myself killed? Is that it? Thanks.”
“As long as he thinks that, he’ll never let you go,” she said.
“He won’t have a choice once conscription goes through. So how do I convince him to let me go on my terms?”
“You don’t.”
“Oh, you’re a great help,” I said, throwing the bag down.
“You gotta do what Jack did,” she said after a moment.
“What d’ya mean?”
“Leave.”
“And break mom’s heart, too?”
“If you want to fly. You can always lie about your age, or else wait until you’re out of school. If you want to fly, they’ll probably want you to know how to read, and all that other stuff.”
“I know how to read.”
“I mean all that other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Jesus, Bobby,” she said, irritation creeping into her voice; or maybe it was frustration. You could never tell with her. “You can’t just get into a plane and fly — you have to know things — mathematics; algebra; trigonometry. The physics of flight. It’s like me wanting to be a nurse. I can’t just go to a hospital and hope they’ll let me work there. I have to go to school; I have to study. I’d like to go to university, but we can’t afford it. So I’ll bide my time. I know I’ll get a chance to sign up for the Nurses’ Corps once I turn twenty-one. Then I’ll go.”
“You mean you want to sign up and go to the front as a nurse?”
“It’s not what I want to do, but it’s what I’m willing to do. When you can’t afford to go to nursing school, it’s the next best thing.”
“And you think the same thing’ll work for flying?”
She nodded. “It’s either that, or wait until conscription.”
“Conscription? I’m not waiting around to see if they’re going to pass the conscription bill.”
“No. But you’re willing to register for it in case they do. Nobody’s said anything about passing the bill yet, but I keep telling you, you have to learn to read between the lines.”
THE DAWN PATROL