2

As a young boy growing up in Bermuda, MacQueen wanted desperately to please his undemonstrative father, who had been an officer in the Medical Corps. His most treasured recollections of the man were of his impressive regalia. MacQueen’s younger sister had contracted tuberculosis and died before his eyes. She had been eight years old. After that, his devastated parents had shipped him off to live with his aunt in Truro, Nova Scotia. They had remained far past the horizon in Bermuda, soundly out of reach, leaving him with no guidance and causing his entire psychological locomotive to switch tracks. He was later told that his parents had separated, and his father had returned to Charlottetown. His only other sibling, an older brother, had also joined the Signal Corps and was shipped to a training course somewhere in Ontario.

After these events, MacQueen’s view of the world became oblique, and the only worthy calling was one that demanded, or even promised, death. The boy did not analyze this, of course, but instead insisted on plunging straight into it. He took an oath to the king in a small office in the back of a brick garrison. It was administered by a rumpled captain wearing a tweed jacket who smelled of whisky. The Bible was stained and leaf-eared. To Patrick MacQueen, it was a solemn moment.

Young Patrick MacQueen had not been a stranger to Aldershot camp when he arrived for his most recent assignment. He had spent two weeks there the previous year as a volunteer with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, in their Signals Platoon. They had been accepting boys of sixteen then. MacQueen had been fourteen, but the lie had stuck. His first night at Aldershot, the tent they had been given for accommodations blew down in a storm of hurricane force and drenching rain. MacQueen had ended up spending the sodden night on the floor of the YMCA building, while a young private from the Lunenburg Regiment puked and cried beside him.

The North Nova Scotia Highlanders had then been devoted to the Vickers machine gun. They had four pipe-bands and a brass band, and the pipers, often drunk, consistently got entangled in the tent stays at night. They wore the Murray of Atholl tartan kilt. Immaculate staff officers rode horseback, and the cadets from Royal Military College looked like young gods.

The Highlanders were all entrained and shipped to Halifax to guard the royal family. They had swept past MacQueen in an open touring car upholstered in violet. The king was tanned and looked dignified in his admiral of the fleet’s uniform; but MacQueen regretted that his name was not Edward VIII. MacQueen left his weekend volunteer service with the Highlanders in nearly the same breath that he graduated from high school at age sixteen. He immediately signed on with the Royal Canadian Corp of Signals, specifically the mounted division, although there were no horses. Without much military expertise, MacQueen’s first assignment was sure to be a lowly one. He began as a waiter in the sergeants’ mess in the 6th District Signal Corps, and that was pure hell. When his small band was diverted from Fort Sandwich to Aldershot, the commanding colonel happened to be the retired commanding officer of the Highlanders, whose son was an ex-classmate of MacQueen’s. A connection made, MacQueen became the colonel’s runner instead of emptying latrines or lugging coal. This distinction still did not really please young MacQueen—he wanted to be a soldier. But the chaotic and excited state of the camp (indeed, the whole army) at the time rendered his plight more bearable.

There were many intermediaries between the commanding officer and humble Signalman MacQueen, of course, but he was occasionally summoned directly for some errand or other, or when a particularly urgent dispatch had to be delivered to the colonel. The young soldier knew that he would get what he wanted when the time came as long as he stayed out of trouble. Although that was more of a problem than it might seem.

Not everyone admires youthful sangfroid. Some sergeants and all military policemen view it with undisguised suspicion. Having entrée to the colonel’s office just postpones the day of reckoning. Colonels change or are promoted. Sergeants and military policemen are always there, and their patience can be infinite. Jaunty young fellows on headquarters staff are always in their gunsights.

Belief in one’s fellow man and their adherence to virtue dies hard in youthful hearts, and MacQueen’s was no exception. He felt that his ambitions were straightforward and that everyone would admire his achievements when he became an officer. Had he realized that the opposite was more likely to be true it might have dampened his ardour, but he naïvely tried to play the game straight. He credited misfortune to his own failings, not to the malice of others. In the army such an attitude is not encouraged.

He polished his buttons and polished his boots. He shaved in cold water and ate hard-boiled eggs cooked by the hundreds in great vats. He saluted, posted the daily orders, drove the adjutant’s car on rare occasions, and tried to laugh at the staff sergeant’s incomprehensible wit. The barracks filled with untrained recruits who were later shipped out by train, and who were then replaced by another awkward crowd. More buildings sprouted, and local contractors got rich. The winter passed in slush and mud, and Kentville was overrun with soldiery. Spring was in the air when Signalman MacQueen decided it was time to make his move. He had heard a rumour that the colonel was to be sent overseas.

What was happening in the camp was the advent of professionalism in the face of rising wartime tensions. The Canadian militia was called the NPAM, or Non-Permanent Active Militia. These were the part-time soldiers. In September of 1939, a horde of men had descended on the militia depots across Canada to volunteer for duty. A few had previous training; some were veterans of other wars, and many of these were retired British army officers, or NCOs. The youngsters, like MacQueen, may have had some cadet experience in school. The full-time professionals were called the Permanent Force. At the start of the war, the Permanent Force numbered only a few thousand. It was overwhelmed and inadequately equipped to handle the onslaught. The core militia units emerged as the rock around which everything was reconstructed and became home to thousands of men. These men would become the cogs in the Canadian war machine.

Volunteers were activated from the NPAM into full-time service for the war, and into active service. Ex-NPAM officers and veterans from the first war shuffled through the prospects at a thousand camps and barracks throughout the country. The solution, and the best anyone could do, was to assemble them in one place and ship them out of the country. They herded and shipped the 1st Division to Britain, where they had to be completely re-uniformed and re-equipped. Other units were hurried to Newfoundland and Bermuda then scattered along the coast. Germany was the ally of the Soviet Union—and the latter, after digesting the Baltic States and half of Poland, was attacking Finland. No one knew which way the Axis powers would strike despite the Royal Navy sitting vulnerable in Scapa Flow in Scotland.

When the two company sergeant majors of the Permanent Force Royal Canadian Regiment arrived in camp, standards rose almost immediately. These men had awe-inspiring self-confidence and impeccable carriage that ran through the ranks like an electric charge. The core hutments became the preserve of the West Nova Scotia Regiment, which had absorbed the Lunenburgers and many Acadians. Training sergeants appeared from their courses armed with new knowledge and expertise. Transports started to arrive under the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps; guns and ammunition under the Ordinance Corps; the Dental Corps erected a building, and the Medical Corps a hospital. The cooking improved, if marginally, as did the sanitary arrangements—the previous winter, hazards had included the outdoor ten holers usually rimmed in ice.

The old British staff sergeant sat at his piled and cluttered desk, trying to keep abreast of all the new forms and paperwork. A cigarette butt hung continually from the centre of his mouth, staining his upper lip and even his nose. His hands shook, and the roots of his hair were white. MacQueen spent many evenings under his direction, posting amendments into the battered copy of the King’s Regulations and Orders for the Army. Merely keeping track of the files of every man who moved in and out of the gates was a massive job. The Canadian Army Pay Corps sent new corporals and sergeants—and even officers—who knew little of soldiering but were bureaucrats to their fingertips.

A new detention barracks was built on a hill in the woods. This was commanded by an ex-Imperial Regiment sergeant major with great zeal. Rumours of the punishments drifted through the barracks and caused considerable apprehension. There were some desertions.

Bren guns were introduced for training, then quickly whisked to Britain to outfit the Expeditionary Force for Finland, which never materialized.

To Patrick MacQueen, the most significant change was the issue of the new battle dress that looked like khaki overalls, and a ridiculous field service cap that sat on one side of the head, always in danger of falling off. Progress means always changing the rules of the game, which might be welcomed by futurists but is abhorred by such young traditionalists as MacQueen. He was happy, however, to keep his spurs—he felt naked without them and felt they were a touch of King Arthur. The infantry also wore large boots that had leather soles and steel heels. The very weight of these guaranteed a healthy pair of legs; when swung in cadence they almost marched by themselves. The infantryman’s most important possession was a good pair of feet, without which he would get nowhere. MacQueen was just six-foot, brown haired, slim, and hazel eyed—a suitable enough target for anyone, including the infantry.

Headquarters Company was always the last to react to innovation, but eventually MacQueen was summoned to the quartermaster stores to be issued his new uniform. He regarded it with extreme displeasure. However, there was one bright moment when he saw the quartermaster sergeant dressed in a dark blue uniform with two white stripes running down the trousers. He had three golden stripes and a golden crown on his sleeves and a black-peaked forage cap on his head.

“What is that?” asked MacQueen in admiration.

“These are the undress blues,” answered the RCASC corporal. “You can buy ‘em for leave or on pass. The sigs have a wide red stripe down the leg.”

With one of those on even Princess Flavia would look at me, thought young MacQueen as he lugged his new uniform and equipment to the headquarters hut. The hut was a drab, twenty-five-year-old “temporary structure” that stood on poles in the ground instead of a foundation; it had latticework around the bottom that did nothing to keep the snow out. He resolved to solicit a loan from his father, a man not renowned for generosity to his family. He calculated that ten dollars might be raised from him, which would cover half the cost of the entire outfit, including the cap and special Signal Corps buttons featuring a figure of Mercury.

Thus, the young soldier innocently raised his profile another notch. Very few could follow suit at those prices, or even cared to do so. A scattering of Permanent Force soldiers wore them, but very few others. MacQueen regarded this as a simple career move—he did not consider the raise in conspicuity. He went to a tailor in the town, was measured…and the uniform was eventually ready. It coincided with the change into battle dress and compensated somewhat for such a drab outfit. In the meantime, he had been composing a letter in which he asked for admission to officer’s training, and that he planned to smuggle to the colonel. He naïvely assumed it could remain secret.