C H A P T E R   E I G H T

10:15 PM Thursday night: June 24, 1927. Windsor station. The great CPR train, the Imperial, left Montreal with nary a jolt on its journey across the Dominion of Canada. The passengers had been allowed aboard half an hour early and Eric was already in the wide washroom, cleaning up; two passengers also occupied the other basins, one shaving, the other brushing his hair and trying, rather unsuccessfully, Eric noticed, to conceal a nasty scar on one side of his head. Even this long after the war, veterans seemed everywhere in evidence, making Eric feel not so alone. Two of them exchanged comments about their journey’s beginning, but the third seemed disinclined to talk.

In no time Eric climbed into his lower berth. The night before on the Ocean Limited he had sat up all night, not wanting to pay extra for sleeping accommodation, so his rest had been uneasy and interrupted. Tonight, with the gentle rocking of the train, he soon fell blissfully asleep.

9:45 AM Friday morning. North Bay. Few got on, and the train chuffed off through endless woods. Charlie, the uniformed porter, made up Eric’s berth while he was at breakfast, and when he came back, he sat watching heavy, dark forests flow by. So few towns and so little to see, so Eric turned to his haversack. He had brought along The Life and Letters of Paul, the Apostle, by Lyman Abbott, which he’d found on one of the many shelves in the Old Homestead — his sisters read a lot, as did Earle, who doted on Zane Grey. Then yesterday poking about the downtown bookstore, he’d looked for a book on Greek dancing, but nothing came up save for The Eye of Greece, a small guide published the previous year by The Acropolis Travel Bureau. Better than nothing. Were he ever to see Rene again, he wanted to be up on such things. He’d also found Kangaroo, by DH Lawrence, published recently, about the author’s visit to Australia.

12:15 PM Sudbury. More woods. As the train roared on, the comfortable sound of its whistle penetrated the thick glass, reminding him every so often of the Regular back home, blowing for Kruse’s Crossing.

With not much to look at in this northern Ontario, he let his thoughts wander. Luckily he’d been frugal with his army pay. He had asked sister Jean to deposit it for him in the Bank of Montreal, as brother Jack had advised. Add his officer’s pay of $120 a month to his war service gratuity of $550, and also, beginning with his hospitalization, a small disability pension, and he’d accumulated a moderate nest egg. He’d also kept most of his modest salary from surveying. At home, he had tried to contribute to the farm, but his mother would hear none of it. He wondered if he would ever see her again. Lately, she had become so frail.

Having saved so assiduously for “a rainy day,” that rainy day had come. He had bought a coach-class ticket, double the sixty dollars of colonist class, where passengers had to provide their own bedding and sit on hard seats; a first-class ticket would have been too extravagant. Coach bestowed the benefits of restful nights in a berth before he struck that exciting but unknown West Coast.

8:35 AM Saturday. Port Arthur. Eric was finishing breakfast when they neared the head of the Great Lakes; he had studied them in school. And soon, the woods gave way to farmland, slightly more interesting. But then, Eric began to ponder the wisdom of his journey.

Why was he going? Wanderlust? Or had something deeper driven him to venture west, so far from all he held dear? He pushed these disturbing thoughts away — perhaps he didn’t want to acknowledge the romantic vision of Rene driving him ever onwards. Get on with some reading, he decided. Saint Paul, having travelled all over the Mediterranean himself, might have advice for this lonely figure on a train, heading he knew not where...

8:15 PM that evening: Central Station, Winnipeg. The Imperial pulled in before dark; Eric got out onto the platform to stretch his legs. He saw lots of passengers boarding here, so the berths in his carriage would be filled. And when he returned, he found, sitting opposite, a well-dressed young man: two prominent ears beneath neatly brushed short brown hair.

This upper-berth passenger introduced himself as Adam Hadley, eager to talk and full of energy. He began asking Eric questions, where he was going, and so forth. Although his eyes went straight to Eric’s veteran pin, he did not venture there. Eric admitted that he had just graduated from Bishop’s University.

“You’re so lucky! No hope of a higher education in our family. And being the oldest, I had to support us. I only made it to Grade 10.” Adam grinned, and went on proudly, “Got my first job in 1921 delivering groceries for $5 a week. From that, I moved up to delivering engravings for seven bucks, and then landed a job as an office boy in the Grain Exchange at ten a week!”

Eric gave the expected look of approval, and Adam went on, “Yep, I was convinced I was on the road to success. You know about the Grain Exchange?” Eric shook his head. “Ten storeys — it’ll be the biggest office building in the British Empire! The status place to work in post-war Winnipeg, I’ll tell ya. I delivered morning papers to the big houses of wealthy Grain Exchangers. Those fellas had come west to Winnipeg with nothing and made their fortunes. If they could do it, so could I.” Adam paused, and went on, “Only thing we thought about was money. See, I grew up in poverty. Our family knew nothing else, like a lotta folk in Winnipeg during the war.

“My first big job was running messages back and forth between our office and the telegraphers on the trading floor of the Grain Exchange.” Adam loved going on at the mouth, Eric saw, but he enjoyed listening to the eager young man. “Soon I was helping with the books and learning how to run an adding machine, and how to make out insurance policies. The office opened at nine and closed whenever the day’s work was done, usually towards midnight. I sure got tired, but by Christmas I had won a hundred buck bonus!” He nodded, thinking. “Ran all the way home with an envelope of five dollar bills.”

Eric smiled. Adam was enjoying telling of his own history, so representative of many Winnipegers.

“When navigation ended on the Great Lakes in December, the vessel-brokerage business came to a dead stop. I picked up some extra money as a part-time bookkeeper and by the time I was nineteen, I was making $150 a month, and my Christmas bonus reached $500.”

That certainly impressed Eric. “Quite a story!”

“Oh yes. Bank accountants made less. You know, those banks refused to let employees marry until they were earning $1,000 a year! That took maybe ten years...” Adam looked concerned. “Am I talking too much?”

“Not at all, Adam. Fascinating, this life of yours out on the prairie.”

“Well, sir, I bought a half-interest in a couple of race-horses, but I’ve been falling for one swindle after another. I even sent good money after bad to promoters of oil wells in Louisiana, gold mines in Colorado, and silver mines in Ontario. In between times, I took flyers in the grain market and lost. But you know, last year I had a nearly-new Ford sedan and smoked two-for-a-quarter cigars.” Adam paused, remembering. “Now I’m on my way to Calgary because of something that could make even more money. Well, why not? Everyone’s getting rich. Might as well keep at it.”

Later that night in his lower berth, Eric reflected how out in the big world, all the talk seemed to be about money, people making it, and how bright the whole future looked. He wondered why he’d never been touched by that. You certainly needed money to survive. But not a subject to dwell on, so he drifted off.

After an early breakfast, Eric waited in an adjacent seat until Adam finally slid down from his upper berth and went off to eat. The black porter, Charlie, made up their berths: he took the sheets from below and above, threw them in a big laundry bag, folded the blankets neatly and placed them on the upper bunk, along with the brown wooden partitions he had slid from their slots. Then he pushed hard and folded the curved upper bunk into place in the rounded ceiling of the car. He grinned good-naturedly at Eric and they exchanged a few words, as they had been doing every so often. Eric liked the old fellow — well, not so old, but in his fifties at least — grey frizzled hair beginning to adorn the good-natured but slightly weathered brown face.

Eric opened his new Greek Travel Guide, hoping to unearth at least something on classical Greek dancing, but no luck. Adam, on his return, saw that Eric was engrossed and lazily watched the featureless fields roll by.

On the train went: 9:40 AM Sunday, Regina, Saskatchewan; 11.05 Moose Jaw, and soon —

4:10 PM Swift Current The train was sailing past great broad acres reaching toward infinity, it seemed, light green with spring shoots. Imagine farming out here, thought Eric — none of the rolling land at home that their horses had to deal with, hauling the mower or reaper tilted sideways, slipping, always slipping, so hard to keep going in a straight line.

Eric gestured out the window. “That prairie, it sure stretches far and wide. You know, I used to wonder what gave those cowboys such a free, fearless, sweeping look. It’s this boundless land with its mighty distances. I worked near here, you know.” He proceeded to light his pipe.

“And how did you like that?” Adam prompted.

“All right. But one special morning, well, she started off fine: meadow larks on every pole sending up bursts of song. Adam, that melody caught my soul and tore it right up into the clouds. But when the music stopped, back came your thoughts with a thump.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard them larks — not often, mind. Spent most of my time, as I told you in the city.”

“Well sir, towards noon the wind started.” Adam nodded; he’d seen it. “We hurried to our tents — just impossible to hold a precise level instrument in that gale.”

“Sure can blow on the Prairies.”

“By and by the gale increased to a darn prairie cyclone. That sand pelted us like a harsh cloud of furious, drifting snow. The lights in Swift Current blew off their posts.” Eric drew on his pipe. “No man could stand upright. Our tents were laid flat and we buried our heads in the sand like ostriches, praying for mercy.”

“I’ve heard of them cyclones.”

Eric sat back. “Well sir, she finally stopped and, all of a sudden, there was this great peace. Some farmer’s wheat crop, young sprouts all about three inches high, had blown over onto the railway tracks, poor fella. Glad I’m not back there now — give me the forest any time.”

At the dinner service that night, Adam told him, “You know, I’m getting off in Calgary. Four in the morning. I hope that black fella, he remembers to wake me. You just never know with them Negroes.”

“Charlie? I find him reliable. I’ve seen a few of these black fellows over in Europe, too, all fine. A shame the way they’re treated — some awful stuff going on south of the border.”

“They can stay down there, as far as I’m concerned.”

Eric shrugged this off. He remembered that sort of intolerance during the war, specially where other nations’ troops mingled in the odd estaminet. Never could understand it, even though no coloured fellas on the Gaspe Coast. He hoped on these travels he’d get to meet up with some and get to know them.

At last they piled into bed and said their goodbyes.

7:55 AM. Monday morning. Banff. Before arriving, Eric woke up and went into the dining car. Eating his breakfast, he saw out the window great snow-covered peaks and still lakes that heralded another good day of sight-seeing. He drank it all in, happy to be a real traveller, and at last they crossed into British Columbia. Eric soon fell asleep, but with a rest broken by dreams and worries — so much lay ahead: his arrival in Vancouver, and then... just so long as his shell shock stayed quiet, he prayed, more adventures.