My eyes saw terrible sights: a woman hanging lifeless over a windowsill; a man crushed beneath the collapsed wall of a house; a girl leading her little brother, his face a bloody pulp; a dray horse dead under the wagon it had recently pulled. My eyes saw all this horror, but my brain did not register it as I calmly picked my way over the rubble. I did, though, have the presence of mind to pull Winnie close to me and bury her face in my coat. I couldn’t be sure whether she shared my nightmare or not. She shivered uncontrollably now, her skin a pale shade of blue that worried me desperately. I would take Catherine home first, I decided, as she was closest, and I would be rid of her. Then I’d find Mam and Da so they could help Winnie. Martha, I’d worry about later.
We stumbled along, me with Winnie in my arms, Catherine gripping my skirt and Martha behind. The silence was unnerving, the only sound a bell tolling in a church spire. One Christmas I had been given a set of wooden Pick-Up Sticks as a gift. You threw them down willy-nilly and then tried to carefully pick each up without moving another. I felt like I’d walked right into the middle of a giant’s game of Pick-Up Sticks: trees uprooted, telephone and electric poles snapped off, all tossed together haphazardly. Few buildings stood, and the ones that remained had windows that stared at us emptily and rooms that were sheared off with a bed or an enamel bathtub exposed. Wires spit sparks and I made a wide circle around them, though I didn’t slow my speed. I followed a map in my mind. Black smoke billowed from where the sugar refinery had once stood. I used it as my landmark in this unfamiliar world. I squinted up at the sky to see a yellow ball through a thick grey haze—the moon, I thought at first, then realized it was the sun. A million hours seemed to have passed since I got up that morning, though it had been only a few.
A man ran up to us, chest and arms bare. His hair and face were drenched in a black oil, through which his eyes shone brilliant blue, and wild. Martha and Catherine immediately stepped behind me. I tightened my grip on Winnie.
“Where am I?” he panted. His eyes roved frenetically. “What street is this?”
I stared at his chest, pumping in and out like a bellows.
“The Germans. They bombed us from their airships. The war’s come to us.” He cringed and looked into the sky. “Look! There they are. The airships.”
I followed his pointing finger but didn’t see anything. “Where am I?” he repeated. He reached for me, but I stepped back, terrified.
“Run,” I yelled. I grabbed Winnie’s hand and pulled her past the man. Frantic minutes later, I stopped to get my bearings. Our mindless flight had disoriented me. I closed my eyes for a moment to bring up the picture of our neighbourhood.
“Germans. That man said the Germans did this,” Catherine spat at Martha. “Look what you’ve done to us!”
“It wasn’t the Germans,” Martha said. “At least, it wasn’t us. We’re Canadians. My family are Canadians.”
“You’re all spies. If my father was here, he’d get rid of you all,” Catherine told her.
“Shut up,” I yelled. I didn’t care how rude I sounded, I needed to concentrate. It suddenly came to me where we were.
“Your grandmother’s house is right here,” I said.
“But there’s no house.” Catherine’s voice trembled. “And where’s my grandmother?”
I picked up a few pieces of broken, white fence, then threw them down again. This was definitely the right spot. Beams, plaster, shattered glass, a chair with a broken leg and shingles were all that remained. A small curl of white smoke rose from the wreckage that had been Catherine’s home. A moment later, a lick of yellow flame shot up and took hold, no doubt fed by the coal in the overturned kitchen stove. What flitted into my mind was that Catherine’s grandmother might be beneath that pile, but I didn’t pay that thought much heed. I couldn’t.
“Grandmother! Grandmother!” Catherine circled the yard. She gave a cry and plunged her hand into an opening in the rubble. “Look what I found.” She held up a doll, china head miraculously intact. She cradled it in her arms, crooning over it, and seemed to forget her grandmother.
I stared at the growing flames, felt their heat on my face, and my feet wanted to fly home.
“Maybe your grandmother is away,” I told Catherine. “I think you should go back to the school and wait for her. Maybe she’ll come looking for you there.”
“No,” Catherine said stubbornly. “I’m going with you.”
I sighed, but I’d already wasted enough time. I had to get home. “You can come with me,” I told Catherine, “but you can’t hold my skirt. I can’t walk properly.” At least I’d solved one problem.
People streamed by us, some silent, others sobbing quietly, all dazed and shocked. Women in house clothes, no coats or boots, carried injured children in their arms. I tried not to look, but my eyes were drawn to the broken bodies. Men in nightshirts, recently abed from the late shift at the docks, tore at their destroyed homes with bare hands, shouting their wives’ and children’s names. We passed a man stripped of every article of clothing, except for his cap. Fear rose in my throat at this strange new world. A nightmare, I reminded myself. When I found Mam, she would wake me.
“Patrick,” Winnie whispered, the first words she’d spoken.
How she recognized him, I don’t know. He, too, was covered in the black, oily slick. I noticed then that he only had one shoe, his other foot bare.
“Where’s your stocking and boot, Patrick?”
It was the only thing I could think to say.
He looked down at his foot, surprised. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What’s all over you?” Catherine demanded.
“It rained black,” Patrick replied.
Suddenly, I remembered Patrick barrelling into our kitchen with news of the ships’ collision. I remembered red and yellow flames and dense smoke in the early morning sky. Patrick and Ernest had gone to look at the fire, and only Patrick stood in front of me now.
“Where’s Ernest?” I asked him.
“What?”
“Ernest—where’s Ernest?”
“He’s run home to get his binoculars so he can see the ships better. He should be back any minute now,” Patrick said.
“What happened at the harbour?” I asked.
He shook his head but didn’t reply. I wanted to cuff his ears in hopes it might make his brain work.
Finally, he gathered himself together. “We went to see the ships. The fire. We started down the street, but Ernest said he needed his binoculars and went back home and then—” Patrick stopped and ran a pink tongue around his black lips. “I flew through the air. My ears hurt badly. Something hit my head, hard.” He rubbed the side of his head and his hand came away red mixed with black. “Next thing, I found myself up here, though I don’t know how I got here because I was down close to the docks.” His lips quivered as he relived his fear. “There was no one around. I thought everyone was dead except me.” Tears trickled over his oil-slick cheeks. “But Ernest should be here soon.”
“Flee!” The voice yelled so close to me that I jumped.
A soldier roughly shoved my back, and I staggered into Winnie.
“Run!” he cried. “The magazine in Wellington Barracks might go up at any moment. Get to high, open ground!”
People screamed and swarmed frantically by us on all sides. Children yelled for their parents. Patrick was thrown to the ground and trampled underfoot. I crouched over Winnie to protect her. A nightmare, I assured myself. I will wake up. In horror, I watched a woman crawl by, one leg dragged behind, useless.
All of a sudden Martha gave a cry and threw herself into the arms of a man. “Papa, Papa.”
Mr. Schultz scooped her up and continued to run up the steep hill with her in his arms. I stood to get their attention, but Martha didn’t look back once.
“Well, I, for one, am glad that German is gone,” Catherine announced.
“Shut up. Just shut up.” I lashed out at Catherine, though I wasn’t really mad at her. I was mad at Martha. Once again, she had deserted me. Mr. Schultz was the only familiar adult I’d seen today, and Martha hadn’t even bothered to tell him about us.
Patrick scrambled over the ground on all fours. “My cap,” he said. “Where’s my cap?”
“Never mind,” I said. “We have to go.”
“But my mother told me I should wear my hat at all times. She’ll be mad if I lose it.”
I hauled him to his feet. We stumbled along with the hysterical crowd, away from home. Suddenly, I grabbed Patrick’s arm and pulled him and Winnie to squat behind a tumbled-down wall. Catherine followed. Did I know whose home this was?
“I’m going back to find Mam and Da,” I said. “If we don’t go now, they’ll keep us away forever. No one would notice us, not in all this confusion.”
“But what if there’s another explosion?” Patrick protested.
“We’ll just have to chance it. Don’t you want to go home?” I asked him.
Patrick looked doubtful but didn’t object further.
“The soldier said we were to go to open ground,” Catherine reminded me primly.
“So, go,” I urged her. “Maybe your grandmother is there.”
Catherine hugged her doll. “I want to stay with you,” she muttered.
From beneath a shattered bureau, I pulled out a man’s boot. “Would this fit you, Patrick?” I asked. He needed something to protect him. There was so much glass on the ground, his foot would soon be cut to shreds.
He slipped the boot on. “It’s a bit big, but it’ll do grand,” he said.
“We’ll have to stay hidden as much as possible and avoid the soldiers,” I said.
“How?” Patrick asked. “Everything’s flattened. There’s nothing to hide behind.”
“Just do your best, but follow me. I know where I’m going.”
“How do you know—” Patrick began.
“You can follow me and find your house, or go your own way and wander around,” I said angrily. It was my bad dream, after all. I could do what I wanted. “I don’t care, but I remember the way home.” I glared at him and Catherine.
Neither made any move to head out on their own.
I pulled on Winnie’s hand, but she wouldn’t get up. “Come on, Winnie.” I tugged harder. “We’ll be home soon.” She merely whimpered. Her eyes rolled back in her head.
“We’ll have to carry her,” I said to Patrick. “And wrap your coat around her. She’s shivering.”
“I’ll get cold,” he whined.
“If you want to come with me, you’ll give Winnie your coat.”
Reluctantly, Patrick stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around Winnie.
“Your arm’s bleeding,” Patrick said.
“I know,” I replied impatiently. Blood from the cut made my hand slippery, but I still didn’t feel any pain.
Patrick and I locked our hands together and awkwardly carried Winnie between us. We stumbled over the littered ground. It was hard walking forward with my body bent sideways and I was soon out of breath. Sweat ran down Patrick’s face. He wasn’t cold anymore, I thought. Or perhaps it was from the searing heat of the numerous fires that raged on each side of us. I tried to speed up my feet and almost went down.
“What are you doing? You nearly dropped Winnie,” Patrick yelled.
“The fires,” I gasped. “The stoves have overturned in the houses. We have to hurry. Everything will be on fire soon.”
Patrick glanced around and increased his speed. He whispered beneath his breath.
“What?” I asked him.
He didn’t reply, but continued to whisper. I caught the words.
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” he repeated over and over.
I tried hard, but no prayers would come to my lips.
“Not much farther,” I gasped. And it wasn’t. I knew where I was. Patrick’s house was one way; ours, the other. Selfishly, I didn’t tell him. I needed his help with Winnie. Another block and I saw the remains of a second white picket fence, blackened now and broken, only the gate intact, flat on the ground. Behind sat what remained of our house—a heap of wood and plaster. Patrick and I stared open-mouthed. I had seen other houses destroyed, but somehow had thought ours would be standing. If you owned your house, wouldn’t it still stand? I gulped back a sob. A nightmare, not real, I told myself, but I struggled to believe.
I set Winnie down on the flattened front gate, then ran to the pile of wood. Smoke and fire poured from the kitchen area. “Mam!” I screamed. “Mam!”
“Rose.” A thin moan sounded above the crackle of flames.
“Ernest?” I called.
“Rose.”
The voice came from beneath my feet. I began to throw aside boards, and wrestled a twisted bed frame—one I recognized as my own—away from the pile. I came to a thick beam and tugged on it, but it wouldn’t move.
“Patrick. Help me,” I yelled.
He hung back. “It’s on fire.” His eyes were wide with terror.
“I can’t lift this and Ernest is underneath.”
Patrick didn’t move.
“Help me!” I screamed at him. “Ernest is your friend.”
Slowly, he climbed over the shattered house. Together we strained to lift the beam. Flames licked around my boots as the fire took firm hold.
“It’s no good,” Patrick gasped. “It’s too heavy.”
“We have to get him out. Try again.”
Suddenly a hand pushed me aside and a rope snaked around the beam. “Back up! Back, you old nag!”
The rope stretched from the beam to the back of Duncan’s wagon. “Rose,” he said, “grab the reins and pull her forward.”
I ran to the horse’s head. Its eyes rolled wildly. Digging in my heels, I leaned all my weight on the horse’s head—and it took a step forward.
“Again,” Duncan yelled.
“Move!” I screamed. The horse took a second step, then a third.
“That’s it! No further or the floor will collapse.”
I watched as he stretched full-length and reached into a hole. A moment later, he hauled Ernest up by the back of his shirt.
I ran over to him. “Ernest. Where’s Mam and Bertie?”
“I can’t see!” Ernest screamed. “I can’t see.”
“Get him away from here before this all falls in,” Duncan ordered. He leaned back over the hole and called down. There was no answer.
Patrick dragged Ernest to lay next to Winnie on the gate.
“I can’t see. My face hurts so much.” Ernest’s hands clawed at his eyes.
Duncan took a rag from the wagon and carefully wiped dirt from Ernest’s face. “He’s got glass in his eyes. That’s why he can’t see,” Duncan said softly. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around Ernest’s head, covering his eyes. “He needs a doctor immediately.”
“Ernest, do you know where Mam is? And Bertie?”
“She went out back to see if she could hang the wash. She didn’t want to get ash from the fire on it,” Ernest said. His chest heaved for air.
I noticed that he held his binoculars in one hand.
“Bertie was in the kitchen beside the stove.”
“We have to find them.” I got to my feet, but Duncan held me back.
“It’s no use, Rose. No one could survive those flames,” he said gently.
I jerked away from him. Mam had been outside, Ernest said, not in the house. I ran to the backyard. Mam lay on the ground by the kitchen garden. One arm was flung outward, fingers open, beckoning me. I knelt down beside her.
“Mam.” I took her hand. It was cold. I’d have to warm her. A cup of tea, perhaps. Mam always said a cup of tea was just the thing.
“Mam. Wake up. I’m having a bad dream, Mam.” Why did she lie so still?
“Rose.” Duncan’s hand came down on my shoulder. He knelt and held Mam’s wrist for a moment, then let it drop. “She’s gone, Rose.”
“No, Duncan,” I insisted. “This is all a bad dream. Mam will wake up and make it go away. You’ll see.”
I shook Mam’s arm.
Duncan swung me around to face him and placed both his hands on my shoulders, giving me a little shake.
“It’s not a bad dream, Rose. It’s real.” Tears filled his eyes. “It’s horrible, but it’s real. It’s real.”
Of course it was real. Even before he’d told me, I’d known it was real, but hadn’t wanted to believe it. Now that the words had been spoken, I could no longer pretend it was a bad dream. I kicked his shin, then pummeled him with my fists.
“You shouldn’t have told me,” I screamed at him. Suddenly, my body went limp and I slumped to the ground. “My arm hurts, Mam,” I sobbed.