Bert wasn’t looking forward to being a soldier, but, surprisingly, he found the doctor’s words depressing. He hadn’t any desire to shoot anyone, but he knew he could if he had to. He felt no hatred toward the German people, but he also knew that might change as the war progressed. What really bothered him the most was being told he was unfit for duty. He had never considered fainting spells any more serious than having a bout of hay fever, but according to the army it was an illness, and the idea hurt Bert’s pride.
Once he had picked up his belongings and was on the road again, his depression soon left. He looked forward to seeing more of Canada. Wanting to have a little money when he arrived in Calgary, Bert didn’t want to use it all on train fare, so he decided to hitch-hike. Motorized vehicles were becoming popular, but there weren’t many on the road. Most people used horse drawn carriages and wagons and these were the ones who stopped for him the most. Bert appreciated their kindness, but it took them so long to get from one town to another that he was afraid he’d be an old man before he arrived at Calgary.
The few cars he was fortunate enough to get a ride in, convinced him that he should stop in a town and earn enough money to buy one. He really enjoyed himself one day when he was riding in a car and the driver inquired if he knew how to drive. When he said he did, the man allowed him to take the wheel while he rested and smoked his pipe. Bert knew that any car he could afford would have to be in very poor shape and that meant he would have to find a job in a garage so he could have tools to repair it. The only thing wrong with that idea was that it would probably take a year or two to accomplish.
As luck would have it, on the fifth day, he discovered an easier and quicker method of travel. A farmer, who gave him a lift in his wagon, was going into a little town to pick up a hired hand at the station. When they found the man, the farmer said he had to do a few things in town and would return a little later, so Bert and the hired hand went for a drink at a little café right beside the station. The man ordered a piece of apple pie, but Bert just had tea. While they were talking, Bert mentioned he was going to Calgary but didn’t want to spend his money on train fare.
“Hell, you don’t need money to travel by train,” the man said. “You can jump a freight. That’s how I got here.” Bert had never heard of such a thing and admitted it, so as soon as the fellow finished his pie, he took Bert outside and pointed down the track about a quarter of a mile. “See those guys sitting down by that clump of bushes?” Bert could hardly make them out. “Well, you go and tell them Ginger said to show you how to jump a freight. I’m sure one of them will be going west.”
Bert sat down and nodded at all the men. Now that he had a better look at them, there were only two who looked mean enough to attempt robbery. The rest appeared to be ordinary men who could use a good wash. “My brother and I came here three years ago,” he explained. “We worked in Montreal for a time and then on a ranch. When I heard about the war, I mailed all my earnings home to England and joined the army in Regina. Unfortunately, I was discharged for medical reasons a week later. Now I’m on my way to Calgary to see my brother but I haven’t enough money left to pay the fare.”
“Do you play that thing?” one of the men asked, pointing to Bert’s violin case. Bert admitted that he did. “Well, there are a couple of bars in town where you could probably make enough money to buy a ticket—that’s if you’re good enough.”
One of the others joined in, “Yeah, an’ anyways, you’re gonna have a hell of a time runnin’ and jumpin’ into a movin’ freight with that, and your suitcase. It’s bloody well hard enough to do with just a pack on your back!”
Then the fellow, who had talked to him first, explained how they waited until a freight train was going by and then they would run and grab hold of the ladder rungs on the side of one of the empty freight cars. And if they were lucky, they would pull themselves inside without a brakeman seeing them. He agreed that it would be impossible to do that with both his hands full. Bert was disappointed. He got up, thanked them and said he had better go into town and look for work, but the stranger, who had said he was going west, stopped him.
“Tell you what—what’s your name?” Bert told him. “Well, Bert, I’m Tom. I don’t have any baggage, so I could take your violin. Jimmy can manage your suitcase, can’t you, Jimmy?” At first, the man that Tom indicated, acted as though he didn’t know who Tom was talking to, but then he grinned and nodded. “That way you should be able to make it. Ok?”
Bert was so anxious to try jumping a freight—an adventure sure to be worth telling, that he ignored the warning signs and agreed. The train going west didn’t come until the sun was just going down, and they heard it before they saw it.
“That’ll be her.” Tom said. “She’ll slow down as she comes through town and goes around this corner. That’s when we make a run for it. Now, just in case there’s a brakeman ready to bust our skulls open with his club, you wait for us to get on before you come a running. Ok?”
Bert agreed, but as soon as the train was going by and the two men ran to catch it, one of the other men hollered to Bert, “They’re crooks, Bert, run like hell!”
Bert didn’t need to be told twice and he took off. Tom and the man called Jimmy each managed to grab hold of a rung and they swung into the boxcar, rolling over on the floor. They had planned on never seeing Bert again, so could hardly believe their eyes when he joined them a few seconds later. For a minute, they stared at him in disbelief. Then Tom said, “You should have waited.”
“I suppose I should have. But I am here now, so is that a problem?”
“Not for us. But I’m afraid things don’t look good for you, Bert my boy.”
“And if I were to make you a gift of my suitcase and violin would that help?”
“As they say in your country, sorry old chap! You can identify us and that means you have to go. Now you can jump, or we can throw you out. You can choose which way, but we get to choose the place.”
Bert knew they would probably throw him out of the boxcar in a place where he would have little chance to survive. He looked from one to the other, sizing them up before he gave them his answer, “I think I shall choose to fight. I don’t suppose you shall be sporting enough to fight one at a time?”
“That would change the odds and we wouldn’t want to do that. Sorry, but it’s got to be two against one.”
“From where I’m standin’, it’s two against two!”
The deep, loud voice came from somewhere behind Bert and startled them all. As Bert turned around, a huge man came out of a dark corner of the car. Evidently, he had been observing the three of them before getting up and approaching them. Not only did he appear like a giant, but he was armed with a good sized club. As he approached Bert, he held out his free hand—a hand Burt would have gladly kissed as well as shake.
The intruder looked even more fearsome up close. He was wearing a buffalo robe and had an unkempt head of coal black hair and beard. His eyebrows were of the same colour and texture and there was no parting between them. For some inappropriate reason, Bert was reminded of a silly song he used to sing about a minister, who in a rage had torn his hair and now his head resembled heaven because there was no parting there. The song and the man’s appearance gave Bert a ridiculous giddy feeling and another inapt thought to run through his head—I could always offer to cut his hair if we win!
When the stranger lowered his head, his heavy eyebrows almost hid his eyes and he glared at Tom and his buddy long enough to make them shake with fear. Then, in a low and threatening voice, he said, “Looks like we got us a couple of weasels to get rid of, partner. Can’t stand bein’ in the same bloody car with stinkin’ weasels!” Then, giving Bert a nudge, he added, “What say we get at it?”
Bert grinned, nodded, then started to take off his jacket, but Tom, whose complexion had changed to a ghostly grey, held up his hands and begged, “Please, there’s no need for that. Here, here’s your violin, Bert.” Then he motioned to the man he had called Jimmy. “Give him his suitcase.”
The fellow handed it to Bert while pleadingly addressing the big man, “We was just kidding him. We wouldn’t a hurt him, honest.”
“Horseshit! You’d a beaten the piss out of ‘im and thrown ‘im out for the buzzards to peck at. Now it’s you bastards that deserves the same thing. Ain’t that right, Bert?”
Bert scratched his head and thought for a second before he replied, “I think I shall give them the same option they gave me. If they want to fight us, we shall be happy to oblige, but if they want to jump, that suits me too.” He turned to the stranger, “Do you agree?”
“As long as we keep ‘em here til it’s hell and gone from anywheres. Then, if the jump don’t kill em, the walk back should.”
The two crooks looked at the intruder. He appeared to be closer to seven foot than six and built like the buffalo who had previously owned the coat he was wearing. Then there was that solid piece of wood he held in his hand. Without consulting each other, they agreed to jump.
For an hour and a half, they sat by the opening, hoping the train would slow down before they were made to leap. Finally, it happened. The train slowed down to take a corner before crossing a trestle and the stranger lifted his stick and nodded at the men.
“You buggers better jump now, cause in a second we’re goin’ ta be over a canyon and then either you jump or we’ll bloody well chuck you off.”
Tom was first to jump. He must have done it before because he managed to land on his feet and run a little before he fell. This encouraged the other fellow and he jumped. Bert and the stranger watched him land, but he wasn’t as lucky; his feet buckled under him and he went rolling down a bank. They saw Tom get up, but they couldn’t see if the other man survived. Bert felt a little sick and said a silent prayer for him.
His new friend could tell he was upset, so he looked out the door and lied, “I’ll be damned, the bugger’s up on his feet.” Bert put his head out to look back, but he said he couldn’t see anyone, so the fellow said, “He must have sat down again.” Then he told Bert another lie, “The sons of a bitches won’t have far to walk. There’s a road just across the bridge.”
Bert couldn’t suppress his delight, “Thank God!” he said.
Now that they were alone, the stranger took off his buffalo coat. Bert had all he could do not to laugh. Even with the two heavy sweaters the man was wearing underneath the coat, he was the scrawniest man Bert had ever seen and he thought Thank God he didn’t take off the coat when those crooks were here. When Bert said he didn’t know how he could ever thank him enough for saving his life, the man asked him if he could play the violin, and when Bert said he could, the man said that would be payment enough.
During the next two days, Bert learned that his travelling companion’s name was Gunter, and for the last two years, he had been living a hermit’s life in Northern Quebec; trapping in the winter and woodcarving in the summer. He wasn’t making a very good living trapping, so he decided to go to Vancouver and join his brother who was a high rigger for a logging company. He had enough money to ride inside the train, but Gunter preferred the freight cars. “It’s a hell of lot more peaceful,” he declared.
For the rest of the trip, he helped Bert on and off the freight cars with his two cases and when they were forced to stay overnight in a town, they shared a hotel room. When Bert thought he knew Gunter well enough, he offered to trim his hair and beard.
“I’ve never cut hair before, but I have a pair of scissors, so I think I can do a good job,” he confessed. Gunter had taken a liking to Bert and trusted him, so he agreed to be the Englishman’s first customer, or victim. Luckily, Bert proved to have a knack for the trade and Gunter looked far more respectable minus seventy-five percent of his hair. Besides cutting Gunter’s hair, Bert talked his friend into exchanging his old mangy buffalo robe for a warm woollen jacket they found in a Salvation Army shop.
Bert was determined his new-found friend arrive in Vancouver looking respectable, if not stylish. The two had some good times, and before long, Bert became used to Gunter’s profanity and seldom frowned when he heard it, although some of Gunter’s stories still shocked him. Gunter got a big kick out this and tried to embellish his stories with as many shocking details as he could invent.
One time he was talking about a girl he almost married and said, “She wasn’t no sissy pants that gal. She could keep up to any trapper, an’ her an’ her pappy caught more fur animals than all the rest of those ass-holes—me included. She wasn’t only a good trapper but a sweet gal besides. In fact, that gal was so damned sweet that when she farted, it smelled like roses!” Gunter looked at Bert for a reaction and when he saw Bert’s open mouth, he put his head back and laughed. Bert was so naïve that he could never tell if Gunter was telling the truth or not.
When they arrived in Calgary the train only stopped for a few minutes to change lines and Bert had to hurry off. He tried to persuade Gunter to come with him to meet Ernie and Ada, but not knowing how they would feel about Gunter’s colourful vocabulary, he felt a sense of relief when his friend refused. Gunter was in a hurry to get to the coast because his brother had a job waiting for him in the same logging camp he worked in. After giving Bert an address in Vancouver where he could get in touch, if and when he decided to come west, they said goodbye.
Once Bert had become adept at hopping freights and dodging brakemen, he had found it quite thrilling, but he looked forward to seeing Ernie and Ada and having his morning tea out of a cup instead of a soup tin. When he arrived in Calgary, he could see that it was a lot bigger than he had imagined and there were some very impressive looking buildings, such as the city hall. Then, when he saw the hills in the background and the greenery in the city, he realized that as much as he loved Canada, he had missed England too.