Chapter ­12

Jack needed time to think about the day’s events, the energy that had been let loose like a miniature volcano in the church and in his house. He’d never seen his mother so ­excited.

He took a deep breath and shook himself like a damp dog. Then he rode over to the doctor’s house. The doctor was out in the country delivering a baby but his wife said she’d tell him about Jack’s dad’s accident. “Sounds like something Bill would do.” She ­smiled.

A village was like a big family. The good, the bad, the strange and the ­run-­of-­the-­mill – they all lived in Cairn. Until the aerodrome came, it had been Jack’s whole, private world. Now it seemed his village had shrunk to a dot on a prairie that stretched for thousands of miles, all the way to a hospital in England and, he hoped, somewhere safe in the French ­countryside.

The streets of Cairn lay quiet in the Sunday afternoon sun. Pine siskins serenaded from the elms. Most of the adult males of the town were snoozing on old couches in kitchens, or, if they were lucky, on a porch swing or hammock. Mothers and older sisters tidied dishes and gossiped. Children played quietly in yards. All the stores were closed and shuttered. Even the Chinese restaurant closed on Sundays until ­suppertime.

Jack hoped Buddy would be all right. There was only a week more of school and then Jack would be working five days a week at the air base, able to see Buddy every day. This next week would be pretty easy. There were a couple of exams left and the field day with the kids from ­Mortlach.

Jack pulled up behind his house and parked his bike. He went in, letting the screen door bang behind him. He’d have to fix that. His dad was always trying to get around to it. Jack could hear his voice coming from the ­parlour.

“Maybe that’s the doctor.”

“What are we going to do if you’re laid up, Bill?” His mother’s voice sounded ­anxious.

“We’ll have to wait and see what Doctor Kowalski says. Right now it just hurts like heck and my left leg feels numb.”

“The doctor’s out on call.” Jack poured himself a glass of cold water from the pitcher in the icebox and joined his parents. “He’ll come when he gets back. How are you?”

“Oh, I’ll live.”

“If you had fixed that stool when I asked you to…” Jack’s mom knitted furiously on a khaki scarf for a soldier. “And we had such a great afternoon too.”

“Do you need anything, Dad?” Jack was itching to wander over to Wes’s house and tell him about Trevor and Basil’s plans. “Something to read?”

“I’m too sore. It’s a sorry Sunday when I can’t read the Reader’s Digest and get my supply of jokes for the week. Who wants stale jokes? That’s worse than stale bread.”

“This is serious, Bill,” Ivy chided. “Why do you have to make everything into a joke?”

“I thought you married me because I made you laugh.”

Bill Waters winked at Jack. He tried to shift on the pillows and grimaced. “Did you hear the one about the man with the wooden leg named Charlie?”

“What was the name of his good leg?” asked Jack. It was an old joke. One he and his dad used every once in a while. “I’m going over to Wes’s to tell him about the big Labour Day concert. Is there anything you need before I go?”

“Find out when Catherine Anne is coming home. I need her in the choir, especially now that we’ve got big plans.” His mother sounded downright ­happy.

“You need Cathy to keep those young flyboys happy,” laughed Bill. “Who’s going to warn the poor girl she’s being used as bait?”

“Bill!”

Jack hurried out before anything more could be ­said.

>>>

The McLeods were sitting in the side yard. Lemonade, tea and cookies sat on the wooden table. Wes was reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth to bone up for the exam. He’d ace it anyway. English was his best ­subject.

His mother and father were chatting. Jack ­interrupted.

“I’ve got news. Some good and some bad. Dad fell and hurt his back – and Trevor and Basil are going to sing in the choir and help us put on a concert for Labour Day.”

“Is Bill all right?” asked Dr. McLeod. “Should I go over to your house?”

“It’s his bones that need fixing, not his soul, Ian.” The minister’s wife laughed. “You just want to go talk to Bill, admit it.”

Jack grabbed a couple of cookies, threw himself into a folding chair, and described the afternoon’s adventures. Then he remembered Ivy’s request. “Mom wants to know when Cathy’s coming home. She needs another strong alto.”

“Oho, do I sense a little conspiracy?” asked Mrs. McLeod. “Just how old are Trevor and Basil?”

“Well, they’ve got to be over eighteen to be in the raf,” said ­Jack.

“Cathy’s been so busy at Normal School learning how to be a teacher that I don’t think she’s had time for a boyfriend,” said ­Wes.

“She’ll have plenty of time for that nonsense when she’s older,” said Dr. McLeod. “She’s taking the summer off and then she’s been hired to teach elementary school right here in Cairn.”

“When’s she coming home?” asked ­Jack.

“She’ll be on the train tonight.” Mrs. McLeod gathered up the tea things and carried them ­inside.

“I’ll pop over and see how Bill is,” said Dr. ­McLeod.

“We’ll go for a walk and check out the poison ivy crop,” said ­Wes.

“Don’t you go sneaking any baseball mitts with you,” his father said. “Think what the church elders would say.”

As the boys strolled down the street Jack said, “If it weren’t for the church elders, I bet he’d let you play games on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Dad doesn’t think God is as fussy as old farmers. Neither do I. Jesus wasn’t much for following the rules and regulations of his day.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jack said. “I let Trevor and Basil take Buddy to the base.”

“As a mascot? That sounds like a good idea.”

“I didn’t have a chance to talk it over with you. Do you think I did the right thing?”

“Tell me more about Trevor and Basil.”

“They are great!” Jack said. “As I said they’re going to join the choir and they want to write a musical revue for Labour Day weekend.”

“Then chances are Buddy’s in good hands, Jackie.”

The boys strolled through town, hands in their pockets, kicking pebbles ahead of them. Jimmy Boyle, home from Moose Jaw, drove past them in his dad’s ­beat-­up pickup truck. He shook his fist at Jack, raced his motor and sped out of ­town.

“What a jerk!”

“Dad says the Boyles step dance. Who would have guessed?”

Wes shook his head. “I, for one, can’t see them doing it. Jimmy doesn’t look like a dancer. More like a boxer. What’s he mad at you for?”

“His dad probably got after him,” replied Jack. “I think he’s mad because I rescued Buddy and because I got a ‘cushy’ job at the airfield.”

“You work hard, Jack.”

“Jimmy doesn’t know that.”

The two friends walked to the tiny park at the end of the block. Jack flopped down on an old ­swing.

“Trevor looks awfully young to be a pilot.” Wes hung upside down from the frame of a baby swing that was long gone, then somersaulted to the ­ground.

“Dad said a lot of the English boys lie about their age to get in the air force. Maybe Trevor did. He doesn’t need to shave yet. I could tell looking at him.”

Wes laughed. “If he did, he’s not the only one around here that hasn’t told the whole truth. You’ve got a few secrets of your own.”

“If you ever tell, I’ll –”

“I know. It’s a secret I have to take to the grave with me. How Jack Waters learned to fly.”

“Don’t push me, Wes.”

“I cross my heart and hope to die. Okay?”

“Wes,” his mother called from the McLeods’ front porch. “Time to go. Dad is taking us to the Ambassador Café in Moose Jaw before we fetch Cathy.”

Wes hurried away, leaving Jack swinging lazily. He thought about Basil and Trevor. They were starting training and had no idea that he was ahead of them in flying skills. He jumped off the swing and headed out of the sleepy village, instead of home to check on his dad. Sometimes his secret clamoured to get out like a drowning gopher out of a ­hole.

>>>

Jack wandered out the gravel road that led to the Hobbs’ farm with its wonderful swimming hole. Melvin and Arnie had dammed the creek, decades ago, before they went to the Great War. He couldn’t walk that far today. He just wanted to put some distance between himself and his life in ­Cairn.

In the last few years so many people had passed through his life, like the trains rolling across the prairies or the ducks and geese that spent summers on the sloughs and ponds around Thunder Creek. Everyone was bound for somewhere else – off to the war in Europe or the Far East, or moving to Calgary, Edmonton, Regina or Saskatoon, where they would work in munitions factories or manufacturing ­plants.

Now these two young guys had walked into his life and stirred things up. He wanted to join in and get involved but he worried about investing too much in people who were just going to up and leave in a couple of ­months.

Jack shaded his eyes from the setting sun and scanned the sky. A flock of geese flying in formation headed west to the wetlands near Thunder Creek. He whistled a crazy song his mom had taught him to play: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

His mother hadn’t played funny songs since Sandy went missing. She’d had days when she hardly talked because she was so sad. Every couple of weeks she’d pack a box of tinned goods and treats to send to Flo. The last time she had put in a bag of liquorice allsorts, Flo’s favourites. “It’s the only sweet things she’s likely to get,” she’d ­said.

She’d taped the box carefully, trying to guarantee its safe delivery to somewhere in England. “All we can do is hope she doesn’t get sent to a field hospital near the front lines. That’s really dangerous.”

Jack figured if Flo had the chance to go to the front, she would. She couldn’t tell them straight out. The censors wouldn’t let her. Besides if she told, Mom would worry all the ­more.

Mom once said that if Jack had been through the First World War, the Depression, the dirty thirties with the dust and drought, and now Hitler, he’d know why she was a ­worrywart.

After Flo left for England, Ivy had confided in Jack, “You’re all I’ve got left, Jackie. Whatever you do, don’t get hurt.”

He’d promised not to. But if someone needed help, what would he ­do?