The Broken Sword

The road was gravel and hard walking. It was dusk, with an autumn chill in the air, and Signalman Patrick MacQueen hurried towards the distant guardhouse, praying that he wouldn’t be late. His pass expired at nine-thirty and he didn’t have a watch. He badly wanted to pee but did not dare risk the time. He broke into a trot, passing by the evergreens making pointed shadows against the sky. The leather band of his khaki cap was hot and his hands were cold. He wore an empty leather bandolier of cartridge cases over one shoulder and nickel spurs on his black boots. He also carried a riding crop with the crest of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals engraved on its hilt.

Although MacQueen thought it archaic that in the autumn of 1939 Canadian soldiers were still outfitted for the 1914 war, he had joined the Royal Canadian Signal Corps in particular because he liked the uniform. In one week, he would be seventeen years old. He saw an officer standing at the gate beside the sentry, so he slowed to a march and straightened his cap. He swung his arms shoulder-high, then placed the riding crop under one arm and saluted the officer.

“Halt! Who goes there?” shouted the sentry, levelling his rifle at MacQueen’s midriff. The officer, a youthful-looking second lieutenant, wore a long khaki greatcoat. He returned the salute as the duty sergeant emerged from the guardhouse.

There was one light on a pole over the gate. The sergeant switched it on from the sentry box and marched over to MacQueen, who stood rigidly with his arms frozen to his sides and his thumbs aligned with the seams of his britches.

“Let me see your pass,” said the sergeant. The young officer glanced at the sergeant, trying not to betray his unease.

The sentry kept his rifle aimed, its long bayonet pointing at MacQueen’s stomach. MacQueen pulled the crumpled square of paper from his pocket and presented it. The sergeant leaned forward to eye it carefully under the light and then checked his wristwatch. “Just on time,” he said. “You cut things pretty close, m’lad. Carry on to the barracks.”

Signalman MacQueen stepped-out with his left foot and arms swinging. He was tired to the bone.

“As you were!” shouted the sergeant. MacQueen froze, then turned about, his heart sinking. “You are leaving the presence of an officer. What do they teach you in the Signals?”

MacQueen saluted. With an almost apologetic smile the officer returned his salute once more.

It was another half mile to the canteen. MacQueen had twenty-five cents in his pocket, which was enough for two beers if they hadn’t run dry. A high barbed wire fence surrounded the entire camp area, which was patrolled by bored and nervous sentries. He passed the headquarters building, a one-storey H-shaped structure of frame and tar-paper with an empty flagpole stuck in front. The orderly room was in the middle of the two extensions. He noticed that a light was burning in the colonel’s office—he was working late. MacQueen, when on duty, was the colonel’s “runner”, the adjutant’s driver, and the British staff sergeant’s butt of humour or ill-temper, depending on the day or hour or situation.

A teenage soldier’s main task was to keep his façade from falling apart. Questions regarding the rights and wrongs of constant harassment were beyond him, he just attempted to keep abreast of things. There was no alternative. His pay was $1.10 per day, liable to an infinite number of fines for infractions. Having lied about his age when he decided to join up, he was officially eighteen, as were they all. Clergymen in uniform, the Padres, would try to seek the young ones out but were usually rebuffed.

The 6th District Signal Corps that Patrick MacQueen had so eagerly joined in Charlottetown was now scattered all over Nova Scotia. Their breakup had come as an unpleasant surprise—some were sent to Sydney, and others distributed in various coastal defence forts along the Eastern shore. The coast artillery were in the fort and anti-aircraft artillery in the redoubt structures just outside of the fort. It was Canada’s answer to the German High Seas Fleet. MacQueen, along with one sergeant and six other Signalmen, had been dumped into a small tar paper shack in the hills outside Halifax, between York Redoubt and Fort Sandwich. Their accommodations had been collapsible double-deck bunks and an old wood-burning potbellied stove. The Signalmen ate meals at the fort, which they reached by a winding path over the grubby hills. They carried and washed their own utensils each day.

Halifax remained the operational centre of Canada at war. Everything had to be improvised. It all depended on the residual structures and experience left from the 1914–18 war, a mere twenty-one years previous, during which the city had been devastated by the Halifax Explosion. It was surrounded by forts, and mines were laid in its harbour approaches. Across the mouth of Halifax Harbour, just below the fort, stretched a vast anti-submarine net. In the centre, two gate-vessels opened and closed lines as the giant ships of the Royal Navy, the small Canadian destroyers, tankers, and troopships, entered and left the harbour regularly. The giant grey troopships were loaded with excited Canadians heading for another war.

MacQueen finally reached the canteen, which was in the same building as the YMCA. It was a large room with tables and benches and tin ashtrays. The highest rank allowed in this canteen was corporal. The sergeants and the officers had their own messes.

There was no décor here—only plain plank flooring and unpanelled walls, exposed beams and uncurtained windows. One just sat, drank, and smoked, or sometimes sang. The songs were mostly from the “other” war: “A Long Way to Tipperary”, or “A Long, Long Trail A-Winding”. The only new one was a polka named “Roll Out the Barrel”.

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun Roll out
the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer
Now’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here!

Having purchased two glasses of draft beer and five loose cigarettes, Signalman MacQueen was broke. He sat alone and loosened the rough high collar of his tunic before turning from the bar to quickly glance over the room. It was getting near payday so not too many were present. He recognized a couple of faces but avoided eye contact since they would want half his beer and smokes. He had forgotten to urinate but was not keen on leaving the beer unprotected. The army had swept up a lot of odd characters in its first great recruiting drive and hadn’t begun to winnow them out. He downed one glass thirstily, then lit a cigarette and carried the other glass into the latrine. It was a long tin trough nailed to the wall, angled to pour its contents into the darkness. He hardly noticed the overpowering smell anymore as it was just a fact of life.

The young soldier returned to the burn-scarred wooden bar and extravagantly decided to light another cigarette. “Tailor-made” cigarettes were unheard of three days after payday; then, everyone rolled their own. Without beer and cigarettes who could ever tolerate the bleakness? A dusty man approached his table. His nickname was “Wacky”, and he was always in trouble. He was the worst scrounger in the camp, and had also been a professional lightweight boxer, so his brains did not function too well.

MacQueen handed him the cigarette, only half-smoked. It was a gesture of great generosity.

Wacky took one drag then butted it with his fingers and placed it behind his ear. “Thanks,” he said. “Save it for later.”

MacQueen hitched his collar and stood up to finish his beer. The canteen was closing, and he would just have time to get to his hut, wash, and undress before the lights went out. He grabbed his riding crop and gave Wacky a pat on the shoulder as he left.

There in Camp Aldershot, named after the more famous one in England, each of the long buildings housed thirty-odd men and a corporal. They were as embellished and well kempt as the canteen. The only heat came from three indispensable potbellied stoves that were kept coaled through the night by grimy soldiers carrying coal scuttles. The windows had been sealed against the winter, and they would all have asphyxiated except for the fact that green lumber had been used to construct the huts. Plenty of ventilation had been created as it had dried.

That winter, Aldershot had been totally unequipped to receive the deluge of ill-trained soldiery that was dumped there for basic training. The adjutant of the camp used an overturned packing box for a desk. The daily orders were churned out on an old, ink-splattering, drumlike Gestetner copying machine, which was the job Signalman MacQueen hated most. The men did their own laundry, swept their quarters, were constantly polishing brass buttons and leather boots, and never saw a female except on the rare excursion to the small town of Kentville.

The bugler was just untangling the tassels of his instrument to blow “Lights Out” as MacQueen entered the hut of Headquarters Company. That designation meant that they were assigned to every dirty job connected with the running of the barracks. They were a collection of cast-offs from every corps and unit that had been disbanded, and many of them wanted to spend the rest of the war right where they were. “Let us be where the good Lord flang us,” one Cape Bretoner had said. About a dozen of MacQueen’s original unit had ended up in the unpromising backwater camp of Aldershot. Some took root there for five more years.

Everyone was scurrying to finish last-minute items before lights out. MacQueen quickly unbuttoned his tunic, took off his spurs, and unrolled the puttees from around his aching calves. He then unrolled the old brown mattress and threw his two dingy grey wool blankets onto it, which he arranged into an envelope formation to slip into from the top. Pyjamas were unheard of here—everyone slept in their winter underwear. He took off his boots and heavy wool socks last to avoid the cold floor and then climbed into the bunk, folding a sweater under his head for a pillow. His bunkmate above groaned and rolled over, causing the springs to squeak as the iron bunk swayed. The bugler, a tall fellow from the Lunenburg Regiment, opened the door and stepped out. The notes of his bugle floated over the camp and out into the uncaring night sky, and the lights twinkled out in all the identical huts, which were laid row-on-row like a prison camp.

“Jesus!” came a voice from the darkness. “Have you got any more of those, Pat? You owe me a butt.”

“Come and get it in a minute,” said MacQueen. He put an arm behind his head and looked at the glow in the dark. The hut smelled of Blanco boot polish, brass polish, dirty socks, and putrid coal. He didn’t notice these things though, as he thought of Madeleine Carroll playing the role of the Princess Flavia in the movie he had just seen during his pass. Just like the hero, he would give his life for a woman like that. He was sure of it. The bugler returned and started to undress by a dim flashlight. MacQueen surrendered the cigarette butt to his creditor with reluctance and snuggled into his scratchy blankets. As an uncomfortable sleep took hold, he realized he had never seen someone smoke an entire cigarette at the camp.