to order a general election. Winning a strong majority would prove that all across the country the people supported King and the Liberal policies during this time of war.
After a campaign visit to his constituency in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, King travelled to Toronto, the very seat of the provincial government, to attend a rally of Liberal supporters. Many important men and women gave speeches, including Sir William Mulock, King’s longtime friend, who was now aged ninety-six. Ernest Lapointe, the minister of justice and King’s strong ally, drew applause when he described King as a man “who has serenity in his soul; who is free of hatred and jealousy.” But it was Nixon’s declaration of loyalty that brought the house down.
King breathed a sigh of relief. It was an elegant bug-squashing.
On March 26, the Liberals took an overwhelming 184 out of 245 seats. The defeated leader of the federal Conservative Party, Robert Manion, thanked the Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. “Just a word of appreciation,” Manion wrote to Hepburn, “for all you tried to do in our behalf – or at least against the fat little jelly fish out at Kingsmere, but somehow he seems to come out on top.”
Kingsmere, Quebec
July 15, 1941
MacLeod, King’s personal valet, entered his employer’s bedroom. It was time to inject Pat with the stimulant the veterinarian had prescribed. The poor aged animal wasn’t going to live for much longer.
King sat on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas, clutching his best friend in his arms. Pat vomited, whined, and struggled to breathe. The prime minister stroked the rough fur of his “dear little chap” and prayed. As MacLeod retreated down the hall, he could hear Pat’s master singing:
“Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast,
There by his love o’er shaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.”1
The drama lasted all night. King was sure that Pat would pass on just after 5 a.m. He’d dropped his watch earlier, and the hands stopped at this time, which Willie felt predicted the time of death. But since dawn MacLeod had not been called. At nearly 8 a.m. he rapped on the door.
“Come in,” was the whispered reply.
King lay on his rumpled bed, his hair tousled, dark circles under his eyes. In his arms was the body of Pat. It appeared that he had been holding Pat this way for some time.
“Shall I summon Mrs. Patteson?” MacLeod asked nervously.
King nodded yes. Joan would know what to do. MacLeod withdrew quickly.
“My little best friend I have had – or man ever had – you’re gone now. You’ve bounded in one long leap across the chasm which men call death,” King whispered to the nearly cold form. “You’ve gone to be with your little dog brudder, Joan’s Deny and the other loved ones. You’ll give them messages of love, won’t you Pat? You’ll let Father, Mother, Bella, Max, Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier, Mr. and Mrs. Larkin, and the grandparents know. And we’ll all be together one day soon.”
When Patteson arrived, King was weeping. Who would sit with him as he read the war news, sharing biscuits over a cup of Ovaltine? No one else could offer such quiet camaraderie and love. Who would help him be prime minister in these nightmarish times?
Aldershot, Britain
August 23, 1941
Clutching his umbrella tightly, King strode to the microphone. A sea of thousands of Canadian soldiers of the First Division looked at him expectantly. As the rain poured down, King mumbled weakly into the microphone.
Some men applauded, some men booed. They couldn’t hear, they were wet, they hated politicians. King’s speech rambled on. “Speak up, speak up,” some men called. Others continued booing while still others clapped approvingly. Tory tactics, King thought of the booers and ignored them.
What did they want to hear from a politician, any politician? King sensed that they were tired of waiting around Britain. They’d rather be fighting on the Continent. Inspired, the prime minister shouted into the microphone “I gather from the applause that many of you are impatient and would rather be engaged in more active operations than you are today.”
The men cheered.
The press, however, made a front-page story of the “booing incident.”
Three days after this incident, when Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton, commander of the Canadian Corps, asked him without warning to address the troops, King was in agony. He sensed what felt like a dart pierce through his bowels, and he felt quite sick and faint.
What could he tell these fine, vigorous, homesick young men? “Offering their lives,” he would tell his diary, “is infinitely greater than anything I myself am called upon to do, except to suffer perpetually from a Tory mob.”
Overall, King felt that, as the spirits of Lord Grey, Gladstone, Theodore Roosevelt, and the family had predicted, the trip was a success. It had begun with the wonderful flight over the ocean on a Liberator bomber. When he was a boy Willie had daydreamed while looking at the sky through the branches of the trees at Woodside. At nearly seventy years of age it was a tremendous feeling for him to be near those clouds, knowing his dreams of being prime minister were fulfilled. As night fell, he lay on a comfortable cot covered with the Mackenzie tartan and awaited sleep. He was flying – quite a feat!
When King arrived in Britain, Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, had updated him on war happenings. He spoke about his recent communications with Roosevelt off the shores of the British colony of Newfoundland. Then Churchill had assured his colleague that, although he was glad to have Canadian troops guarding the shores of Britain, overseas conscription hardly seemed necessary. Canada was doing her part as a British dominion.
King knew that in Canada, a mood of conflict threatened to split the nation open. The issue – not one he addressed in his speeches to the Canadian soldiers – was conscription.
The Farm, Kingsmere, Quebec
April 17, 1942
King found solace in one regular ritual. At least once a month during the war he consulted the spirits with Joan. They told him what his dreams meant. They let him know how the war would go. They confirmed he was on the right path with his policies and let him know that they would help.
Father: Good evening. Love to all.
As usual Father was the first to greet them. The rest of the King family, Sir Wilfrid, Gladstone, and others were also regular speakers. And there were new guardians in Heaven.
Pat is leaping wildly with delight, Mother told him, whenever he hears your name.
Other voices, recently added, had been familiar ones to King as political colleagues before they had been called to the Other Side. Norman Rogers, the minister of defence, had been killed in a plane crash while en route to a speaking engagement in Toronto
