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At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, I joined almost every soul in Touchwood at the cenotaph, observing two minutes of silence while I shivered in my thin stockings. I envied the butcher’s wife, who had the nerve to show up in trousers.
The silence seemed to go on forever. I thought about my Uncle Jack, killed at the Somme before I was born, but oddly enough I didn’t cry. Usually I cried at the drop of a dead leaf. This year I remained dry-eyed, counting on my gloved fingers the number of able-bodied men who were still at home. I felt annoyed that nobody was taking the war very seriously. Farmers and townsfolk alike were so ecstatic about the recent bumper crop that war seemed no more threatening than a black cat running across a distant future.
Nothing much was happening overseas, either. The enemy had advanced as far as the French border before setting up camp. Two rows of steel pins faced each other on our map: the British Expeditionary Force and the German Army in a standoff. No wonder they call it the “Bore War,” I thought. I stamped my feet to keep them from freezing.
At least the women were doing their part. MacTavish still refused to allow me to cover anything except the powder-puff beat, as he called it, but this was a moot point. Women’s work now jammed the home print pages as the good ladies of Touchwood sprang into the war effort with a will.
The Order of the Eastern Star launched a knitting crusade, and my mother taught me how to knit. It was harder than it looked. Either my stitches were so loose they fell off my needles, or so tight that I had to pry them off. I almost gave up, but then I imagined some soldier marching through the snow with purple, swollen feet inside his leather boots, and redoubled my efforts.
The Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire began to collect used clothing and blankets for bombed-out civilians. “Bundles for Britain” read posters on every store window. I ransacked my meagre wardrobe, then climbed into the attic. “I was saving these for my grandchildren,” Mother said when I asked to donate a box of baby clothes. She stroked a tiny crocheted blanket. “I guess I can always make more.”
The Red Cross held regular blood donor clinics. I went down to the Legion hall and gave blood so often that Mother warned me I would become anemic. But I loved lying in the chair with my eyes closed, imagining my life’s blood pouring into the veins of an injured soldier.
Now the silence was broken by the mournful sound of the bugler playing “The Last Post.” My father sniffed and I wondered if he were crying. I slipped my hand into his coat pocket, where he gave it a squeeze.
My jovial father rarely spoke of his years in the trenches or of his only brother. Instead he dealt with his memories of war by making a joke of them. When Jack and I were small, we would pull aside the tank top of his black woollen bathing suit and admire his jagged purple scar. “But how did you get shot in the back?” Jack asked, every time.
“Well, son, when I left home my dear old dad said to me: ‘He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.’ But one day I was high-tailing it back to my trench when a hunk of shrapnel nailed me right where your finger is.”
“I don’t know why you tell them such bunkum,” Mother always interjected at this point. “Your father was running toward the enemy when he was hit. He was so far ahead of the other men that a German shell fell behind him.”
“That’s what she thinks,” Dad always whispered and rolled his eyes, putting a finger to his lips. We would laugh delightedly.
Now the town policeman Fergus Lumby launched into his annual ritual, singing “In Flanders Fields” in his deep baritone. I caught sight of my brother standing at the other side of the cenotaph with his friends, a look of intense concentration in his bright blue eyes. I knew he was praying the war would last long enough for him to get into it.
Back home the kitchen was warm and welcoming, the kettle hissing gently on the wood stove. I set the table for dinner while Mother mixed up a batch of baking powder biscuits. When I went to fetch a jar of pickled beets from the pantry, she joined me in the doorway and for a few minutes we admired our handiwork. Over the summer we had picked hundreds of pounds of berries and vegetables, boiling and bottling far into the night. The pantry dazzled like a jewellery store: pickled onions, dills, and carrots; raspberry and strawberry and chokecherry jam; rosehip and Saskatoon jelly.
“You don’t think we’ll get rationing here, do you, Mother?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances.” She sighed and I knew she was thinking of England. I wished we could go on rations. I was itching to endure some hardship, make some sacrifice to show solidarity with the English, even if it meant starving myself.
From the living room came the sound of a plummy British accent: “This is the BBC World Service.” I ran into the room and fiddled with the dial on the cabinet radio, trying to get better reception. “Listen, Mother!” I called. “It’s Queen Elizabeth!”
The high-pitched feminine voice, speaking in the cultured accent I admired so much, came crackling through the airwaves.
“I know that you would wish me to voice, in the name of the women of the British Empire, our deep and abiding sympathy with those on whom the first cruel and shattering blows have fallen: the women of Poland. Nor do we forget the gallant womanhood of France, who are called on to share with us again the hardships and sorrows of war.”
I dropped to my knees on the worn carpet.
“War has at all times called for the fortitude of women, even in other days when it was an affair of the fighting forces only. Wives and mothers at home suffered constant anxiety for their dear ones, and, too often, the misery of bereavement.
“Now all this has changed. For we, no less than men, have real and vital work to do. To us also is given the proud privilege of serving our country in her hour of need. The call has come, and from my heart, I thank you, the women of our great Empire, for the way in which you have answered it. We have all a part to play, and I know you will not fail in yours.”
We have all a part to play. Across the ocean, thousands of girls even younger than me were marching shoulder to shoulder with their fathers and brothers in the fight for freedom.
Tears of frustration sprang into my eyes while the orchestra played “God Save the King.” What is my part?
4
“Victory, my royal keester!” MacTavish shouted. “The Brits have been chased home with their tails between their legs and now we’re supposed to call it a miracle!”
I studied the map on our office wall and trembled for England, the size of a pink thumbprint. The Germans had driven the Allies into frantic retreat and conquered the entire continent. The enemy was now only twenty-five miles away from Britain’s shores: spitting distance, by our standards. The barbarians were indeed at the gates.
“It was a miracle that all those men escaped with their lives, Mr. MacTavish!” I was deeply moved by the way hundreds of civilians had used their sailboats, yachts, and lifeboats to help the British Navy evacuate three hundred and forty thousand troops from Dunkirk.
“Yeah, a bloody miracle that the Huns didn’t massacre them when they had the chance!” MacTavish chewed his snuff so vigorously that he gagged. “They left behind their weapons, for the love of God! And don’t
