Chapter 8

There was six inches of fresh snow on Jeremiah Jones' head as Lizzie pulled her red plastic toboggan past the wood carving. School had been cancelled and the plows were creeping along the roads trying to clear up the mess. It was the third major storm in a week and everyone was beginning to wonder where they were going to put all the snow.

 Lizzie stopped at the base of the carving to see if anything extraordinary would happen. She looked at the eyes; no movement. She took a deep breath: no smell of peppermint.

How silly of me, she thought. She resumed her march to the best toboggan hill in town, but after a few steps stopped and ran back in her own footprints to the base of the statue. She pulled off her mitten and rubbed the left boot.

"You can't win if you don't play," she mumbled out loud.

 A block down the street she waved at Mr. Livingstone as he sent a ribbon of the powdery white stuff into the air with his snow blower. The senior waved back and shouted a greeting of some kind she couldn't hear over the roar of the machine's engine.

 Lizzie wasn't alone in her trek to the toboggan hill. As she crossed a set of railway tracks near where the town's old railway station had once stood, she could see dozens of kids converging on Legion Hill. With each step, the laughing of the children already there got louder, and the bragging by the boys about who how fast they could go over a jump, got clearer.

 Lizzie had asked her sister Rejean to come with her, but she'd said she was too old to toboggan. It seemed to Lizzie her sister had become too old to do anything except lie in her bedroom and listen to music on her l-pod.

Legion Hill was not big, but it was wide, almost horseshoe-shaped, and fairly steep. Several people could start at the top at the same time, but you had to be careful as the hill narrowed at the bottom. Lizzie had seen more than one slider leave the hill in tears following a smash-up. As soon as she arrived, Lizzie joined in the sledding, shivering with delight as she hurled herself face first down the hill.

She stayed on the well-worn trails most of the morning, but was not unhappy the few times she drifted on into the deeper snow and came out the other end looking like a snowman.

 On some runs she left her toboggan at the top and doubled or tripled up with friends on their much larger sleds, but most of the time she was content to ride alone.

She was getting ready for her 15th or 16th run when she heard Dennis Borden's voice cut through the general rabble. She looked toward the annoying sound and saw him coming onto the hill from a dead end street just to the left of the top of the hill.

Crap. There goes a pleasant afternoon, she thought. Maybe if I get out of fast enough, he won't see me and I won't have to murder him.

She jumped on her toboggan and headed down the hill. Unfortunately when she looked back to see if she'd made a clean escape, Dennis wasn't at the top of the hill anymore. He had jumped onto his plastic sheet on the opposite side of the hill and was gathering speed. If she didn't change course in the next ten seconds, they would collide near the bottom of the hill.

 "Double crap," she whispered and stuck out her left foot. The red toboggan veered wildly to the right, sending her careening across the hill. She went so far right that while she avoided the collision with Dennis, she nearly collided with silver Volkswagen Bug in the Legion parking lot.

Looking back over her shoulder, she saw Dennis' toboggan flip near the bottom, sending him face first into a snow bank. She didn't try to hide her smile, especially when he got up, picked up the plastic sheet, and headed back to the top. He'd never seen her.

Excellent, she thought.

 She grabbed her toboggan and started for home, but the wind picked up and she was suddenly cold. So cold, her teeth started chattering.

 I wonder if the people at the Legion would mind if I went inside to warm up for a minute?  Why not? It will only be long enough to regain some of the feeling in my fingers.

She pulled her sled along the front of the red brick building, past its three flagpoles and the black marble monument honouring soldiers killed in battle. She left the toboggan leaning against a railing on the stairs at the main entrance and went inside.

The warm air washed over her like a wave on a sandy beach. She took offer her hat, unzipped her jacket and stomped the snow from her boots.

 The building was quiet. From where she was standing, there was a set of stairs running up to a hall and a set of stairs that ran down into a hallway that led to...she didn't know where. It smelled like furniture polish.

 Looking up the stairs, she saw that the hall door was open. If she squinted, she could see the corner of a huge mural on the far wall.  Intrigued, she looked around, and then bolted up the stairs. She stuck her head into the hall, found it empty, and wandered in.

As it turned out there were four murals on the walls, each depicting a different facet of Canada's war service. In one, a navy ship was passing under the MacKay Bridge in Halifax. In a second, airplanes of varying ages flew through the sky. In the third, Lizzie's favourite, a tank and a jeep were making their way through the charred ruins of a town at sunset. There were lots of golds and yellows that gave the horrifying scene a certain beauty. Lizzie also appreciated that in one corner, there was a woman soldier carrying a backpack.

The fourth painting was a bit confusing for Lizzie. There was a ship and man in an odd uniform that she was pretty certain wasn't military. More curiously, the man in the uniform was surrounded by several black men who looked exhausted.

She shrugged her shoulders and walked out of the gym and back to the front door. Thoroughly warm now, she put on her gloves and was heading out the door when she heard a crash from downstairs. She crouched to see what had happened, and spotted a frail grandmotherly woman bending down to pick up dozens of forks that spilled from a Tupperware container she was holding.

Lizzie rushed down the stairs and started to help retrieving the forks. It was truly amazing how far down the hall they had spilled.

The grateful senior looked up at Lizzie and smiled. "I was taking them upstairs to set up for a banquet. I guess they'll have to get washed all over again."

"We have 10 second rule at our house. If it falls on the floor, it doesn't have to go back in the sink unless it's got dog hair on it or it's been on the floor for more than 10 seconds."  She dropped two handfuls of forks back into the bucket. "This floor doesn't look that dirty. I won't tell if you won't."

The lady's smiled widened.

"Thank you for that, but it's back into the dishwasher for them. I don't want any health officer to come in and give me a hard time. Thank you, again."

"No problem," said Lizzie. She put the last of the forks into the container. She turned and headed back up the stairs, but stopped in her tracks on the third stair.  There on the wall to the left was a long, skinny black and white photograph of 250 men in uniform standing in some kind of field. It wasn't the soldiers that caught her eye though. It was the label written in pen. It read: 85th Battalion at Debert.

 That was Jones' unit.

"Excuse me," Lizzie asked, turning back to the fork lady. "Do you know anything about this photo?"

The woman glanced at it, and shook her head.

"I'm sorry dear, I don't. But go down to the end of the hall and ask for John at the bar. He'll be the one with a cup of tea. He knows everything about the pictures. He's in charge of our heritage room."

Lizzie thanked her and turned her attention back to the photograph. She searched hard for a black face, but she couldn't see one. Jones could have been in the back or blocked by the guys holding tubas or bagpipes. After a while she felt like she was doing a Where's Waldo? puzzle.

Unable to find Jones, she turned first toward the end of the hall and then to the exit leading outside. Without some time to prepare herself, she just didn't have the courage to walk down the hall and ask to see a complete stranger. She didn't really know what she'd ask him if she found him.

She put on her mittens.

"Great photo, eh?" came the question from behind her.

Lizzie nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned and saw an older gentleman with thin gray moustache and embarrassingly bad comb-over looking at the photo.

"It was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Like that has happened. We still can't seem to find enough good in one another to put down our guns for very long."

There was silence as the man continued to study the picture and Lizzie tried to figure out how this dude appeared behind her without her seeing him.

"Did you know the soldiers serving today in Afghanistan are using the exact same kind of shovel the lads used at Vimy?"

He tapped on the glass covering the photo.

"The guns have changed, the uniforms have changed, even the tactics have changed I suppose, but for the guys at the front it's still the same. It's hell." He tapped the picture again. "For these guys, Vimy, it was a nightmare. The Ridge was 50 stories high and four kilometres wide, but it was so honeycombed with craters, there were only a few paths to the top. German machine gunners in heavily protected positions were located at the top, just waiting to take a shot."

"Do you know about Vimy?" asked Lizzie. Her surprise at the man's sudden appearance was forgotten. "I'm learning about it for a class project. Were you in the war? Were you at Vimy?"

The old man smiled.

"I was in France alright, but during World War II. My grandfather was at the battle of Somme, Vimy and Passendale. Grandpa was with the 85th Battalion out of Truro. He's in this picture someplace, but even when my eyesight was good, I could never pick him out. He's probably behind a tuba or something."

"Did he serve with Jeremiah Jones?" Lizzie blurted out, barely able to contain her excitement.

The man's kind smile disappeared. It was replaced by a puzzled expression.

"I'm not sure. I don't know a lot about what he did or who he met. He didn't make it back. He was shot by a German sniper one morning on his way to the latrine. One minute he had to take a leak and the next minute he was lying in the mud, his life draining away into the earth."

Lizzie didn't know what to say, so there was silence as the man struggled to regain his composure.

"I'm sorry," she said after a few seconds. She touched his shoulder gently.

"It's okay, but thank you. It was a long time ago, but the older I get, it seems death, anyone's death, gets harder to take. There is so much needless death. I've already lost so many friends."

"I know what you mean," thought Lizzie as an image of her mother in a fancy church hat flashed across her mind. As quickly as it appeared, Lizzie pushed it away. She knew from experience that if she allowed the image to linger, she would be in tears.

By the time Lizzie recovered from her own thoughts, the smile had returned to the man's face.

"Sorry," he said." You didn't come here to listen to the ramblings of an old man. You asked me about Vimy didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," said Lizzie.

"I could tell you a little bit about it, but if you've got a couple of seconds, I think I know something that would be more useful. Do you have a couple of more minutes?"

Her father's repeated warning about talking to strangers galloped through her head.

What did this guy want to show her?

Killing time while trying deciding, she glanced at her watch without seeing the hands, and then peeked out the window to see the wind was still blowing the snow around.

"Sure, I've got a few minutes," she heard herself say. "My name is Elizabeth Paris, but all my friends call me Lizzie."

She held out her hand.

"It's nice to meet you Miss Paris," he said taking her hand. I'm John, John Saunders, but my friends call me Teabag, because I am obsessive about tea."

He saw the odd look on Lizzie's face.

"You can call me Mr. Saunders if it feels more comfortable."

The senior reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He sorted through them until he came to a large silver one.

"What I wanted to show you is right in here." He unlocked a door on the left side of the hallway that Lizzie hadn't noticed.

"We call it the Heritage Room, but it's like a museum really. It's artifacts, pictures and memorabilia donated by vets from both World Wars so that people won't forget what happened."

Lizzie didn't know where to look first. There were maps on the wall, big books overflowing with news clippings, and shelves filled with medals, guns and gear. There were plaques and awards, gas masks and uniforms, song books from various military units and pay sheets.

"Holy crap," she said without thinking.

She removes her jacket, stuffed her mitts down one arm and placed it on a cabinet top.

"Is this the uniform they would have worn during World War I?"

Lizzie was looking at a khaki-coloured jacket with a short collar and brass buttons running down the front. The buttons each had raised images of maple leaves. She ran her hand along the sleeve and quickly figured it would have been itchy to wear.

Mr. Saunders checked the tag attached to a pocket of the uniform.

"Yep, typical WWI uniform," he confirmed. "It's what they would have worn rain or shine, and at Vimy there was more rain than shine. Some snow too."

"It also says here the typical gear for a soldier in those days consisted of two days rations, a mess kit that hung outside their haversack, 120 rounds of ammunition, a respirator in the event of a gas attack, a pick, a shovel, two sandbags, a flare and a box of matches."

"That would weigh a lot wouldn't it? asked Lizzie.

"I imagine,” said Saunders. His eyes scanned the room. "Ah here's what I was looking for."   He opened a glass door and pulled out an ancient looking rifle that was as tall as Lizzie. He passed it to her.

"This is the kind of rifle they used. It's called a Ross rifle. It fired .303 calibre ammunition. It was okay for the snipers, but the men in the trenches didn't like it very much."

Lizzie reluctantly took the rifle and immediately didn't like it much either. It was heavy and cold to the touch. The pungent smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils.   A shiver ran along her spine and her feet suddenly got cold.

"Why didn't they like it?” She returned the gun to Saunders quickly.

"It just didn't work very well. If you oiled it too much it wouldn't fire. With a cool wind blowing the wrong way it would freeze up. In the mud it would block up. If you took it apart to clean it, if you weren't careful, you could reassemble it in a way so that the bolt didn't lock. The next time you shot it, the bolt came back and hit you in the face.

"And see here," he said pointing to some clips on the end. "This is where you attached the bayonet. But in the mud and the cramped conditions, the inexperienced   lads were just as likely to gash a friend as they were to stick the enemy.

"It was great for opening a can of beef soup or cutting a loaf of bread, but as an offensive weapon, it was useless. In many cases the bayonet would actually fall off when the gun was fired. Sad as it is, many of the lads at Ypres abandoned their guns altogether and used British guns they retrieved from British casualties."

Lizzie felt a little sick at the thought of men having to take a weapons from the hands of dead guys just to protect themselves.

'Now I have to go down the hall for a second to get another cup of tea. You feel free to look around. I'll be right back. Would you like a tea?"

Lizzie smiled and shook her head. No one at home ever asked her if she'd like a tea. Just by asking, Mr. Saunders had made her feel more grown up.

When he returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug in hand, Lizzie was looking at a leather flyer's cap and goggles positioned on a mannequin's head. She only knew what they were because her Dad had once worn something like them to a Halloween party.

"Not too many people realize this, but the air force played a huge role in World War I," explained Teabag, catching her interest in the cap. "They may still have been using horses to drag the big guns on the ground, but the sky was full of planes. More than 25,000 Canadians served with the Royal Flying Corps.   The planes were rickety, they had few instruments and no parachutes, but the pilots earned more than 800 decorations and awards. It may only have been 16 years since the Wright Brothers first flight, but by 1916 planes were already a vital tool of war. Sad isn't it?”

Saunders tried to lighten the mood. "Have you ever heard of Billy Bishop or the Red Baron?" he asked.

One of the names sounded familiar to her.

"Isn't Snoopy always fighting the Red Baron in the Charlie Brown comics?" She thought the answer might sound stupid, but she carried on anyway. "Yeah, he wears a flyer's cap like that when he calls himself a World War I flying ace, whatever that means."

"An ace is a really good pilot, one who has shot down at least five enemy planes," said Teabag with a laugh. "You could say Billy Bishop was Canada's Snoopy.”

“He actually started the war with a horse-mounted rifle unit, but he quickly got sick of the mud and the lack of action, so he switched over to the air side. He got action all right, he shot down 70 planes and survived a dogfight with Germany's best pilot, The Red Baron. Not bad given that the average lifespan for a new pilot at the time was 11 days."

"Dogfight?" interrupted Lizzie, lifting an eyebrow and crinkling up her nose.

"Sorry, it means fight, tangle, a shooting match in the sky."

"Did the planes drop bombs at Vimy?" asked Lizzie.

"No,” said Teabag. "Pilots were used largely to observe enemy troop movements and spot artillery. In fact, Bishop's first real assignment was in the days leading up to Vimy. He shot down a German spy balloon flying over the Ridge. It would have been a risky bit of business since the balloons were usually heavily protected by enemy fighters and anti-aircraft guns. I've heard that because of the information pilots like Bishop were able to relay to the men on the ground, 80 per cent of the Germans machine gun nests on the hill were destroyed before the battle began. If those guns hadn't been knocked out, Vimy may have turned out very differently."

 Lizzie couldn't say anything in response. She thought her head might explode as she tried to make sense of everything she was learning. She was looking in showcases at flasks, mess kits and medals of all kinds, but she was no longer really seeing them.

 While Lizzie wandered, Teabag put his cup aside, and began searching through a filing cabinet.

 "What was the name of the soldier you inquired about? Jones, wasn't it? Was he from Truro?"

 “Yes," replied Lizzie, suddenly attentive. "There's a wood carving of him down on Willow Street, across from the Home Hardware store."

 "Oh him. He was black like you right? Not too many blacks in the First World War."

Black like me, as opposed to black like.. ?"

"Yes, here it is," said Mr. Saunders pulling a beige folder from the cabinet. I knew we'd have to have something. Jones, Jeremiah, Private, Canadian Over-Seas Expedition, Service number 716 221."

"Really, you've got something?" Lizzie bounded over to the cabinet to take a better look.

"There's not much here, but there is a photocopy of his attestation certificate."

"His what?" said Lizzie doing her raised eyebrow, crinkled nose face.

“The form he filed out to enlist," he said. "Here take a look."

He passed her the form.