Light Over Water (2 page)

          Mary waited while the
older children settled into their seats before she held up the paper.  The
headline was a gaudy slash of black against the whitewashed walls of the
classroom: “AT WAR!  Congress Makes Declaration”.  The teacher could not resist
the joyful whoops that spilled out of the boys and grinned as they began
chattering, full of questions.  Hushing them, she pulled down the map behind
her and began the geography lesson, using the newspaper to supplement the
lesson.

          Alison Granger,
Owen’s older sister, as dark and single-minded as he, watched her teacher as
she pointed out all the countries involved in the war in France and Europe. 
Mrs. Reid appeared feverish, with spots of color high on her cheeks, but the
rest of her skin was pale, especially around her mouth.  Her green eyes were
shining and she spoke loudly.  Her Irish accent, usually so melodic and
appealing, sounded almost indecipherable and harsh.  Her sturdy upright figure
took on a military stance as she outlined the past weeks’ movements overseas. 
Then she read for them the summary of the president’s speech before Congress
made four days earlier.

          Alison only
half-listened as phrases like “plea of retaliation” and “lives of peaceful and
innocent people” slid by her ears.  Her brother Remick, gone now these ten
months, was already over there.  He left abruptly, after another futile
argument with their father about his future.  They’d expected him back on the
weekend, but instead they had received a letter saying, “I shall not be home Sat
or Sun because I am in Canada.  I came to Montreal Wednesday and got a job
driving a big army auto transport.  I took the job and enlisted.”  He went on
to describe the trip there, and ended with his address with Battalion D Company
in Quebec.  Her younger brothers had studied the paper it was written on – the
heading, which said “YMCA, with His Majesty’s Canadian Forces on Active
Service”, and the scroll that declared “For God, For King and For Country.” 
They were especially thrilled with the picture of three men in uniform carrying
rifles in one corner.  It chilled Alison, and Aunt Pearl, who lived with them
and cared for their household, cried surreptitiously.  They both liked better
the letters he had written since, on plain lined paper.  He sounded contented
and excited to be training as a signaler.  His letters now came from a base in
West Sandling, in England.  In his latest he wrote of recovering from
diphtheria, ironically contracted while in quarantine after his arrival there. 
Doctor Granger worried regularly and loudly about the state of his health, and
they all wrote him often.  At this point, as far as they knew, he had not seen
battle.  He wrote matter-of-factly about trips to London and about pretty
nurses.  Esther Eliot, Alison’s best friend, was especially hopeful that Remick
would return unscathed.  But he seemed oblivious to anyone’s feelings but his
own, and made it his determination to prove himself a man in his father’s eyes
without becoming a doctor.

          Alison felt a tug on
one of her long braids, and she shrugged her shoulders twice.  It was her and
Esther’s signal that they needed to talk.  When the long day in the classroom
finally ended, the children rushed out of the schoolhouse, released at last to
share their excitement over the day’s news.  Alison and Esther linked arms, one
figure dark, short and energetic, the other lanky, blonde and laconic.  They
spoke soberly on their trek to the Eliot’s huge old home that stood at the top
of the hill on the south side of Little Cove harbor.  “What does it mean,
Allie?” Esther questioned.  “Will all the boys have to go now?  What about our
fathers?” 

“I don’t know,”
Alison replied.  “Mrs. Reid said there’s going to be a draft, but all the boys
talk as if anyone could go.  Owen’s only fifteen and all we hear at home is how
he wants to join up like Remick did.”

Esther’s lips
tightened and her brown eyes shimmered with tears.  But then she smiled
brightly.  “I got a letter from him, thanking me for the socks I made for
him.” 

Alison nodded, thankful that
she had reminded Remick in a recent letter to write to Esther.  As they
approached the hill, they saw Olivia Eliot, Esther’s mother, standing at the
end of their dock, watching her husband, son and hired hand row in from their
mooring.  She held her youngest child Caroline, who slept on her shoulder. 
Alison could hear her humming quietly as they approached.

          “You want me to take
the baby, Mum?” Esther asked.

          Olivia shook her head
and smiled thinly.  “Thanks, sweeting.” She had picked up the term of
endearment from Mary Reid, her best friend in the village and had always used
it to address her children.  “I’m fine.  Hello, girls, and my William.  How was
school?”

          Steps sounded quickly
behind them, and Will’s friend Darren ran the length of the wharf with a
newspaper in his hand.  “Hey, Will,” he said, panting in his haste, “have you
told your father yet?  Does Sam know?  He’ll prob’ly get to go, won’t he?”

          William looked
solemnly at his mother, whose arms tightened around the sleeping baby, and whose
careful smile faded.  He shrugged, but jostled with his friend to get the most
advantageous spot on the dock.

          Alison clutched
Esther’s arm, her heart thumping in her chest suddenly with a strange, fearful
rhythm.

Sam Eliot was
weary, wind-burned and frustrated after his day on the water.  He had argued
with his father about the war off and on today and Sam rehearsed it over again
as they went home after the long work was done. 

“It’s not our
business,” Reg Eliot stated emphatically, then went on to wonder again at all
the Little Cove boys’ eagerness to get themselves killed. “It’s not a game,” he
declared.  “You go and you’re in it until they let you out, or you die.” 

“I know,” Sam
replied.  “I know Uncle Alpheus died in a war we had no business fighting.  But
what about the U-boats?  What about Ian Reid and all the others who died on the
Lusitania?” 

Aubrey Newell, the
third man, listened to them while he carried on filling pots with bait,
attaching the buoys, lowering them in the water and letting out the line.  He
looked bemused but not particularly moved by either argument. 

Reg nodded
regretfully and said, “Ayuh.  That was real bad.”  He stopped long enough to
heave another trap over the side and straightened up, his hand on his back. 
Then he asked the question he asked each time they had this argument. “How
would your mother feel if it was you never coming back?”  And Sam had nothing
to say to that.

Now Sam wondered
idly how Aubrey could row with such vigor from the mooring to the dock, his energy
unabated even after a hard day of work.  His face, a broad tanned cheerful
face, was alive with interest as they approached the dock where a crowd had
gathered to meet them.  Esther and Cleo, Sam’s sisters, were there with Alison
Granger, his brother Will and Will’s friend Darren.  His mother was standing
near them, clutching baby Caroline over her swelling belly.

“There’s a nice
flock of birds come to meet us,” Aubrey murmured to Sam, with his eyebrows
raised and a confident smile settled on his generous mouth.

Sam looked from
Aubrey back to the wharf.  His mother looked pale and anxious, the boys were
wriggling with excitement and Sam saw Alison gripping Esther’s arm tightly. 
When Darren cupped his mouth and yelled, “We’re at war!” Willie punched him in
the arm so hard that a small tussle ensued and Olivia Eliot spoke an
uncharacteristic sharp word to William.

“Hush up now and
hold still before someone falls in!”  The anxiety in her voice sounded across
the water.

Aubrey picked up
the pace and they were carried forward until they nudged the edge of the dock
lightly.  Anxious faces peered down at them as they lifted their gear and
climbed out of the dory.

Across the small
inlet at the public wharf there was a bustle of activity.  Sam felt a frisson
of alarm mixed with anticipation at the heightened air of excitement affecting
everyone in the village.

Reg ascended
quickly and took the baby from his wife as he encircled her shoulder with his
arm.  “It’s true, Reg,” Sam heard her say at the same time Willie thrust a
paper in his hands.

“The president
declared war, Sam.  We’re in the war now.”

Sam grasped the
paper, taking in its terse headline and scanning the front page.  His gaze
traveled from Aubrey, who was scowling as he secured the dory, to Willie who was
grinning impishly.  His mother looked white, her mouth trembling and her arms
supporting her belly, stroking it absently.  She looked at Sam as if her heart
was broken and he was already gone.

“You boys stop your
racket!” Reg barked, his lips compressed and the lines around it like two
parentheses.  “Come on, love,” he said as he drew his wife up the hill toward
their house.  The young boys ran off, racing toward the public wharf, where
they would, no doubt, soak up more enthusiasm.  Sam noticed that Cleo stayed
with them, her eyes rarely leaving Aubrey Newell’s face.

Sam sank to a
sitting position, his back against one of the pilings that supported the dock. 
He smiled to himself before meeting the eyes of his sisters, and Alison.  They
settled themselves on the dock, but no one spoke.  The girls all watched him
expectantly.  He wondered what they were waiting for.  He shook his head and
laughed.  “Finally! It’s really happening, Aubrey!”  He thought of his father’s
words on this very day and knew that now there’d be no question about whose war
it was.  Aubrey smiled half-heartedly, standing uncomfortably as if an
outsider.  Sam gestured to him, “Come on, sit down.  Let’s see what it says.” 
Aubrey awkwardly sat near him but didn’t look at the paper.

“Does it say
there’ll be a draft, Sam?” Esther questioned.

          Sam shrugged as he
scanned the newspaper, not really reading but trying to absorb the news.  His
smile dissipated like the watery afternoon sunlight.  His dark sympathetic eyes
lifted to his mother’s form as she slowly climbed the slope to their house.  He
had watched her grow thinner, older and more depleted with each successive
child.  She never complained.  She loved her family wholeheartedly and just
seemed to take the changes as part of life.  But today she looked so frail and
terribly vulnerable.

          Sam sighed deeply
then and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the piling.  When they
were younger, the six of them; Sam, Esther and Cleo, along with Alison and her
brothers Remick and Owen, would sit along this wharf, foot to foot along the
rows of pilings.  They worked it, if possible, so that two could sit exactly
between the logs, arranging and rearranging as they grew.   For a long time Sam
and Alison fit best.  Then Sam shot ahead, his legs wedged tighter and tighter,
while Alison stopped growing at just over five feet.  They had to switch so
Alison sat with Esther and eventually none of the boys fit together with
anyone.  Alison sat against the piling across from him; both her long braids draped
over one shoulder, playing with the ends as she glanced at him.   Sam could
tell that she was near tears, but had no idea why she would be so upset at this
exciting news nor yet how to calm her.  But then he himself felt both elation
and concern for his mother.

          The Eliot’s dog,
Brute, a brindled old mutt who belied his name, came and eased himself down
beside Sam, who began to stroke his head and smooth his  fur.

          “Are you going to
enlist?” Cleo asked him.  Her eyes flickered over his way as he nodded, then
back to Aubrey.  “What about you, Aubrey?” she continued.

          Aubrey Newell
shrugged uncomfortably.  “I dunno,” was his terse reply.  “I want to,” he
added, looking at Esther and Alison when he noted their reaction.  “I’ll have
to lie about my age.  Lots do.  I can’t wait to see some action, can you,
Sam?”  His words were wary, with an obviously pretended confidence and Sam
realized suddenly how little Aubrey had ever said about the war.

          “You seem a lot older
than seventeen,” Cleo told Aubrey, her heart-shaped face as readable as the
sky.

          Esther said, “Surely
with our involvement in the war it can’t last much longer.  Don’t you think it
will be over quickly now?”  Sam and Aubrey both nodded, with Aubrey adding, “I
hope not before we get there.”

          Alison bit her lip, a
habit she’d had for years when she was actually trying to keep herself from
blurting out something.  

          Sam saw this and
said,” What?”

          Alison shook her
head, unwilling to say anything.  Her eyes narrowed and she seemed to study Sam
for a moment.  She nudged Esther and said, “Let’s go back to my house.”  They
got up to leave and Cleo rose to join them.  Esther turned to her and said,
“Where do you think you’re going?”  Her words sounded as strangely sharp as her
mother’s had.

          “I want to come with
you,” Cleo answered.  Her little pointed chin jutted out and her cheeks flushed
suddenly.  But she controlled her usual whiny manner in front of Aubrey,
causing Sam to chuckle.  Cleo heard and whipped around, demanding, “What are
you laughing at?”

          Sam just looked away
as Esther answered her sister.  “Mum needs help with supper and it’s your
turn.”