“The ribs,” Jonathan said, “give it strength and make it seaworthy.”
Prebent and wedged tightly against the birch bark, they formed the hull of the canoe.
Two weeks from the day I arrived we stood back and looked at a lithe and capable boat.
Without saying anything my father took me to the edge of the river. It was as though he felt I had earned a vacation, and this was it. We stood looking at bright pebbles which the water magnified. The current was slow, but in the shallows a runnel had formed, quick moving, rushing on.
Jonathan picked up a small piece of bark. He tossed it into the fast-flowing channel. Our eyes followed its course as it breasted ripples and was carried along. “That was you when you came here,” my father said.
“But where will I wind up?” I was concerned for the small piece of bark. I hadn’t been concerned about the world at war or the protesters Anne joined—but I was worried about the fate of that tiny piece of bark.
“It doesn’t matter where you wind up,” my father said, “as long as you are in control. Do not let yourself be carried like that bit of wood, who has no say in the matter, and gives no direction, but allows itself to be swept along, it doesn’t know where or how.”
“But what can it do?”
“Why, dip a paddle in the water, steer a good course.”
“And what is a good course?”
“It is different for each of us.” And with that he returned to the canoe. I thought it was finished. But it seemed there was more caulking, and ornamenting and invocations. I made myself comfortable on a tree stump, pulled my sweater more closely about me, and watched. With the completion of the canoe my visit was at an end. I wanted to leave him something, so I picked a bouquet of wildflowers. Vines and vivid poppies and the season’s last white columbine.
When several hours had gone by, he took a rest and sat down beside me. I handed him the flowers. “I don’t know what this coarse yellow one is, I’m afraid it’s a weed.”
“There’s nothing wrong with weeds. Weeds are generally tougher and stronger than flowers. Take you, you are tough and you are strong.”
“Then I am still Oh-Be-Joyful’s Daughter?”
“I call you that. And someday you will grow into that name.”
“Because I am a weed?”
“Yes. Because you are a free-growing, strong weed.”
He had a parting gift for me as well, a couple of the miniature canoes. “Give them to your friends.”
“You don’t want me to keep them?”
“No.” He handed me a scroll of birch bark, plain and unmarked. “This is for you. Make it into anything you like.”
Eleven
I RETURNED TO Montreal and the Sisters of Charity a whole person. I missed Crazy Dancer. I missed loving him and being loved by him. I missed the life we never had. But the wasteland inside my heart was gone.
I PUT IN for overseas duty and went through a three-week equivalent of boot camp, during which I got my knuckles rapped by a forceps for being slow to hand the operating doctor a scissors and practiced battlefront hospital sterile precautions, including Lane’s technique of two gowns, two caps, and two pairs of gloves. When the site was prepared, you stripped off the outer layer of clothing to immediately begin the delicate work in a sterile environment.
There was also strenuous physical training: chin-ups, push-ups, hiking with twenty-pound backpacks, map reading, revolver practice, setting up and dismantling tents, how to wriggle under barbed wire and set fuses. Other hardening activities included firing .303s, with a ferocious recoil that banged you on the shoulder. A brief course in prevention and treatment of malaria and other tropical diseases, and we were posted.
The weather that a month ago still held traces of summer had become a Montreal winter. But my life, which had teetered at the world’s rim, was given back. Like Oh-Be-Joyful in punishment row, I would try to snatch other lives from the brink if I could. For this I needed to be in the thick of things, although with the German conquest stretching from the west coast of France to the east coast of Greece, it was difficult to judge just where that might be. Presumably, however, the Royal Canadian Army would know, and I left it to them.
When I said goodbye to Sister Egg, I had no idea where I was headed. She took the crucifix from her neck and with a mumbled blessing placed it lingeringly in my hands. “If you get the chance, Kathy, ask His Holiness the Pope to bless it.”
That was her way of telling me she thought it was Italy. This seemed a good judgment call. Our new class of Liberator fighters had given us air superiority in the Mediterranean and the 4th and 16th German Panzers along with an Italian division had withdrawn from Sicily, while Palermo was taken by Pat-ton’s forces. This amount of activity made it more than likely that I would be handing Sister Egg’s crucifix to the Holy Father.
An old World War I tramp steamer had slipped into harbor under cover of dark. It listed crazily to port and rode low in the water. I sent up a small prayer, “Not that one.”
But it was that one, and at 0300 hours, still in the dark, with a light snow falling, embarkation began. Reinforcements were marched aboard, supplies loaded, heavy equipment stowed, and last, as my cold teeth testified, nine nurses, recruited from several hospitals in several cities.
“I’m going to the war you never got to, Crazy Dancer.”
The companionways were narrow, and the ship listed so badly we could hardly keep our footing. The steep metal ladderlike stairs which we climbed down resembled the entrance to hell, as the further into the bowels of the ship, the hotter it became. Three stories down we reached our quarters, bunks crammed in so tight you couldn’t sit up without banging your head.
The ten-day crossing was not to be a picnic. We had started to unpack our few belongings when an explosion rocketed through our quarters, throwing us against our bunks. Were we under attack before we’d left the harbor?
Whistles blew, restraining a general rush to reach the deck. Order was restored, and much to my relief we were taken topside and marched off, our sailing deferred for three days.
“What happened?” I kept asking. I was billeted back at the hospital and heard on the radio that the ship next to us, a fishing boat out of Halifax, blew up. Her boiler had exploded.
We embarked in broad daylight on another ship, which looked to be a good deal more seaworthy. The same nurses were there and another three had been added. Far from being confined to quarters, we were pressed into instant service dispensing tablets to seasick recruits. We were not immune either; one of our number, Carol Smyth from Nova Scotia, was stricken. I shepherded her up the sequence of ladders to the deck and fresh air. Manuevering her to the rail, I told her to hold on. With people retching, throwing up, and moaning to all sides of us, I felt a bit on the queasy side myself and took my own advice. I held the rail, breathing in gales of good, brisk salt air.
One of the nurses told me that a friend of hers had made the crossing on the Queen Elizabeth. “Imagine. They flew her to New York, and it was luxury all the way. You sank into carpets inches thick, there was scrollwork and gilt and mirrors everywhere. And a grand staircase and ballroom. The staterooms were fabulous, each with private bath. And the you-know-what looked like all the other chairs. They were cane with red velvet cushions, and she went around trying to lift the seats of three or four matching chairs before she found the right one.”
This was decidedly not the Queen Elizabeth, or even the Queen Mary. Typical of a winter passage, the seas were rough. But the rolling water under us and the spume that lashed us were invigorating. And the sight of the twin smokestacks of our corvette convoy, reassuring.
Meals were hearty affairs with no concern shown for civilian rationing or delicate stomachs. We joined the officers’ mess, and it was a cheery company. A rufous-haired young doctor speculated on two things throughout our voyage, my virginity and our destination. The latter, I think, was rather generally known, as a chorus of “O Solo Mio” went along with dessert. W
hy the time expended on tropical medicine I don’t know. When I asked this question I was told, “There’s your way, my way, the right way, and the army way.” Which was all the answer I ever got.
In the morning there was a briefing. We were to be put ashore at Naples, which was completely under Allied control. A map was pulled down which featured a red line labeled GUSTAV drawn across the waist of Italy. These were the German entrenchments, anchored at Monte Cassino. With a pointer the briefing officer indicated a CCS, Casualty Clearing Station, set up on grounds that the Fiat Company had used as R&R for its employees. There was, we were told, heavy fighting at Mignano, just south of Cassino, and we would in all probability be asked to establish an Advanced Dressing Station in the vicinity.
I would be in the midst of it, right enough, and what-ifs crowded my mind, including what if I died. For some reason I had not considered this a serious possibility. But by the time we pulled into harbor, tension had mounted. The constant din of Dakota flying ambulances taking the critically wounded to hospital ships for evacuation to England, and the sight of the destroyed docks brought home the reality of war. The Bay of Naples was a rusting junkyard. The piers had been targeted at various times by both armies, until they were nothing more than enormous chunks of masonry, broken, upended, leaning crazily into partially submerged ships, toppled trucks, and an airplane wing sticking half out of the water.
In order to disembark we jumped onto a platform of planks laid across the hull of a wrecked cruiser, then scrambled into tenders and were brought ashore, where we were taken by jeep to the clearing station.
Impressions revolved with the speed of the jeep. Mt. Vesuvius, stark, rising from distant plains; houses crumpled in disorderly piles in the street, making it necessary to swing onto the sidewalks or cross the middle of a piazza; disabled staff cars, a stripped-down tank, wrecked vehicles of all kinds; the cry of gulls mixed with the sound of scratched gramophone records blaring a dozen songs into a cacophony of noise.
Our driver seemed to make no effort to avoid mowing down groups of drunken soldiers, part of the army of liberation, I supposed. By some miracle no one was hit. There were Off Limits signs everywhere, but, as far as I could see, they were ignored.
We pulled up in an area cluttered by tents arranged in rectangular groupings. Hand-lettered signs hung at the entrances: O.R., RESUSCITATION, X RAY. And several larger tents marked WARD A, WARD B, and so on. A kitchen, an officers’ mess, a patients’ mess, two QM tents, a dispensary, and a linen tent. Aside from the fact that it was all under canvas, I was going to feel at home.
We were issued rain slickers and hard hats, assigned a tent, and turned in. Throughout the night, planes took off and landed, sirens wailed, and at 0400 hours we came under bombardment. I grabbed my hard hat and jammed it on my head. I slept in it the entire time I was in Italy. A deadly whistle pierced the air, the ground shook, and we got under our cots, calling to each other periodically that it was okay, we’d make it through, and other inane remarks to prove we were alive. This was important to prove, especially to ourselves. Nearby an explosion ripped the air, there was sharp pain in my ears, and for the next few hours I was stone deaf.
From among the veteran nurses here since Sicily, two groups of Field Surgical Units were assembled and moved out as we “slept.”
A series of small, sharp flicks in various sections of my body started me scratching. I had never experienced bedbugs. It was worse than the bombing raid. I tried my insect repellent against them, but they were impervious.
In the morning we were broken into teams and stood out front waiting for transport. This was particularly uncomfortable, as a light snow was falling. Where was the Mediterranean sun? I guess it doesn’t come out in January.
The jeeps didn’t arrive. There was a snafu of some kind. We never did know what it was. However, an officer appeared to tell us we were dismissed till 0200 hours. Three hours to explore Naples. What unbelievable luck.
I set out in the direction of town, but the first vehicle that came along stopped for me. I thought for an instant that the driver was Indian like me. He was Indian, but not like me at all. “I’m Gurkha,” he explained, and then, curiously, “What are you?”
“They call us Indians too. I’m a First Nation person from Canada.”
“How amazing that we meet here in Italy.”
“Yes,” I added, “in the middle of a war.”
“That part is not surprising. We Gurkhas are the best mountain fighters in the British Empire. We come from the Himalayas,” and he laughed deeply into a thick curly beard. He assured me this was the famous Route 6, the Via Casalina, one of the two major highways leading eventually to Rome. Hannibal, if I remembered correctly, traversed it a few millennia ago with elephants. Now it was clogged with transport of all kinds—tanks, trucks, staff cars, road-clearing equipment, and long rows of wounded being passed in stretchers down the grade. Civilians waved, threw flowers and kisses. It was hard to believe they had been implacable enemies just a few short weeks ago.
The atmosphere was almost one of carnival, American servicemen distributing chocolate to ragged little street urchins, and dwarf women vendors shrieking, “Hello, Joe!”
My Gurkha friend refused to drop me off. “These are mean streets,” he said, “no place for a woman alone.” He turned into cobbled alleys so narrow pedestrians had to flatten against the sides of buildings to let traffic pass. This was my first European city, and I was amazed at how primitive it was, how different. The buildings built into each other, the wash strung across the street and over the traffic, kids everywhere, ragged, ragged little waifs, some with shoeshine boxes.
My driver told me he had been shod. “Like a horse,” he said, “in one of these streets by one of those rascals. I ask for a shine, but he tells me the left shoe needs resoling. Before I know what’s what, he takes out these nails half an inch long, I swear. He rips off the old sole, slaps on a new one, trims it to fit with a wicked-looking blade—right on my foot. Then come the nails, bang, bang, bang, into the bottom of my shoe. I thought he was going to crucify me, starting with my feet.”
He pointed out a pair of ten-year-olds eyeing us from an alley. “You have to watch out for these little beggars, they’re multitalented. They also steal anything that isn’t fastened down.”
I suggested we stop for a bite at one of the small curbside restaurants that didn’t look as though it would be too expensive. “You can park the jeep right there and keep an eye on it.”
He agreed readily enough, but refused to leave the jeep. “Not fastened down,” he pointed out. He warned me against expecting too much of the restaurant. “There’s not much food in Naples. If we’re lucky there’ll be a little pasta, cheese, and some of those sweet rolls, taralli, they call them.”
I brought some out to him.
The proprietess, a handsome woman with a flour sack tied about her, discussed the entire menu with me, although she knew I didn’t understand a word. With many smiles, she explained why each item listed was not to be had. I also wound up with the delicious taralli tarts.
For dessert she disappeared to emerge fifteen minutes later with an enormous bouquet of flowers. In the rush of Italian that went with them I caught the word liberatore. That’s how the people here saw us, as liberators.
I kept checking my watch. There was time to look into the bookstore across the street, if my Gurkha friend was not in a hurry. I saw he was taking a siesta, so I went across to the shop. Bookstore was hardly what it was. They sold guitar strings, maps, tourist guides, and rather pretty jewelry, locally made.
I bought the map, and a bracelet for Connie, not trying to figure out lire, just dumping all my Canadian change on the counter and hoping to get something back. I didn’t. My Gurkha friend deposited me at base camp by 0200 hours, where I was assigned to the 7th British Army Brigade, Royal Sussex battalion.
Things moved expeditiously from then on. We were loaded into a truck and I found myself back on Route 6. We passed th
e little alley we’d discovered this morning, and the ristorante. We ourselves must have resembled a rather gray line dusted with snow that followed alongside the Rapido Valley. The ground here resounded with the deep menacing sound of distant mortars. It was borne in on me that we were here to take from the Germans the barrier where they had dug in, variously referred to as the Gustav Line and the Hitler Line. The core of this natural mountain barrier was Monte Cassino. The Fifth Army had taken the Mignano Gap and Monte Trocchio. Morale was high. It was thought we’d win Cassino by the end of the week.
But I had studied the map I’d bought at the little bookstore. “Why do we need Cassino?” I asked aloud.
A dozen voices explained it was the gateway to Rome.
The final sacrilege: “Why do we need Rome?”
It turned out that Rome wasn’t actually strategic, and the Americans had wanted to bypass it. But Churchill was determined on Rome, principally for its symbolism. At least, that was the word that filtered through to us nurses. So, as part of the Royal Sussex, it was Cassino.
Our vehicle, which had been slowed almost to a standstill, now lurched to a complete stop. With a muttered curse, the driver jumped down to see what was going on up ahead. He walked along the side of the road. The explosion wasn’t that loud. But mixed with a human cry it was inhuman. The man was splattered with white chalklike dust and blood. A mine had taken his foot off. People came running up. They seemed to know all about this kind of thing. “It’s a Schuh mine. Nasty little buggers.”
Our driver was lifted into the truck. We put on a tourniquet and gave him morphine, and he was passed back down the line for return to Naples.
An MP approached, asking if anyone present had an army vehicle driver’s license. No one spoke up.
“Can any of you drive a goddamn truck?”