I awoke with my back to him, his arms wrapped around me. He’d nudged my legs apart and was gently pushing his hardness against me. He whispered in my ear and I let myself relax so that suddenly I was full of him. I gasped. So much. He cupped my breasts in his hands and went deeper so that I thought I might scream. He whispered again, and although I did not know his tongue, I understood. I arched my back and pushed against him so that he filled me again. I clamped myself to him and rocked slightly so that he wouldn’t leave. His breathing shortened and quickened. He called out, and I felt him flood me, the pleasure mixing with the sudden fear, the immensity of what I’d just let happen. Again I fell asleep.
When I awoke a short time later he was gone.
MOOSASINIWI PASKISIKAN
Rifle
AUNTIE CRAWLS INTO HER TEEPEE. I open my eyes and stare at the fire a while longer, and in its flame I remember Sergeant McCaan. I remember how McCaan liked to boss Elijah because he’d seen how Elijah didn’t like being told what to do. He wasn’t a bastard about it, not like Lieutenant Breech who bossed us with a sneer. McCaan ordered Elijah with a slight smile on his lips, enjoying that he could madden Elijah easier than lice could.
I remember the evening of the day I killed the sniper. Everyone around us speaks about it excitedly.
McCaan tells Elijah that he must take Corporal Thompson out into no man’s land with us tonight to frisk the dead man.
This bit of news angers Elijah, but he doesn’t let it show. “Yes, Sergeant,” he says. “Yes, Sergeant.”
I can see that he’d rather go out alone. He’d rather leave Thompson in the trench, and me too, for that matter. Elijah likes to go out of the trench at night and do his own patrols. Just him and the mud. He’d get court-martialled if Breech knew. But he must take me out with him tonight. The kill was mine after all, wasn’t it? My first as a sniper. Elijah can’t believe he didn’t get the shot. He told me himself he was more surprised than anyone.
“The lads down on the line are happy about this new bit of news, though,” Elijah says. “Bloody fine shot, that sniper used to be. No longer!”
Elijah complains that his sight’s a little blurry from the dirt spray of the bullet so close to his head, but it’s dark out anyway, and he likes to rely on the other senses at night. Elijah claims that he can smell Fritz from a long way off, swears that Fritz smells differently than an Englishman or a Frenchman or a Canadian. Elijah says he picks up a vinegar smell when one’s close. He always knows.
Thompson comes by our little dugout near two a.m. and whispers through our blanket door that it’s time to go. Elijah picks up the wooden war club from beside our door. He made it himself. Thompson has one and he showed Elijah how to make it. Heavy hardwood driven through with hobnails. He’s dying to try it out on a Boche skull. Bash a Boche.
“Bloody good,” Elijah says, exiting our blanket door and pulling his black wool cap low over his eyes. His good-luck sniping cap. McCaan gave one to me and one to Elijah when we first started our specialty work. “Can’t very well be wearing those shiny tin pots,” Elijah says. The army issued us helmets a few months earlier. They are terrible, uncomfortable things. “A soldier might as well wear a beacon on his head!”
Thompson, Elijah and I sit together, away from the others, and charcoal our faces. It’s our ritual. It’s what I call a wemistikoshiw smudging ceremony. Elijah laughs at me. No Indian religion for him. The only Indian Elijah wants to be is the Indian that knows to hide and hunt.
“Jolly good night for a little snooping, eh, Thompson?” Elijah says.
Thompson shakes his head at the words, and his teeth are white almost to a glow. “You do a better British accent than a Brit,” he says.
“Right-o,” Elijah answers. He began talking this way to get the others to laugh, but he likes it now. Makes him feel respectable. He told me there’s a magic in it that protects him. Elijah told me the accent came to him while deep in a slumber. “Woke up speaking like a lord,” he said.
I’ve got my animal manitous. Elijah’s got his voices. He says he couldn’t speak in his old voice even if he wanted to now. It’s gone somewhere far away.
Word moves down the line that a patrol’s going out. We don’t need our own firing upon us. We go over the top at the designated place where a rise in the field keeps us hidden from the other line. Thompson signals for me to take the lead. It was my kill. I know best where to find it. I know that this must sting Elijah a little.
According to the others, he is the resident expert, although I am a fine shot too. As fine as Elijah. But I don’t have the killing instinct for men. I believe that Elijah sensed my hesitancy to shoot the sniper, even when our lives were threatened.
We keep our rifles loose in our hands and run, bent at the waist. A good shell crater looms twenty yards out. The big guns of the Somme pound in the distance. The sound that has been with me so long now that I rarely notice it any more. It has become, for me, the sound of Belgium and France.
Flares go up from Fritz’s side, and we hit the mud, lie flat as bright light hovers overhead. It’s too early to tell if Fritz knows we’re out here or if it’s coincidence. Elijah knows as well as I do that the three of us work well together. We press ourselves to the ground at the same time and rise at the same time and know which direction the lead man is going to head before he does it. When the white flare light dies away, I rise and in a crouch run to the next crater. The bottom of this one is filled with stinking water, and so we lie along the side of it. The smell suggests bodies rotting in the bottom, a smell I cannot grow accustomed to. We move out when it is safe and make our way like this—leapfrogging, Thompson calls it—until Elijah and I can make out the hump of the horse he shot earlier. Elijah signals to us. The smell of vinegar must have risen to his nose. He tugs at our tunics to let us know we should stay put in this crater for a little while. We trust Elijah.
Sure enough, three shadows catch my eye. This is just on the Fritz side of no man’s land here. I’ve never known a sniper to work so far out from his line. That explains this one’s excellent record. And Elijah tells me later that this sniper’s boldness gives him some ideas.
The three shadows crawl into a crater and are obviously scanning the area best they can. Fritz must have really cared for their dead sniper to send a party out to investigate his bad luck. The urge to shoot them all and be done with it is hard to wrestle down. We’d be giving up our position then, though, and all that would do is get us blown to bits and pieces. The Germans crawl out and head in the wrong direction. Thompson lets them pass. They have no idea where their dead man lies.
We can smell the horse from here. The rotten meat smell of it is different than the smell of dead human, much gamier. Elijah whispers, says to me again that the unlucky Fritz was a special one, that he must have been a lover of the dead. He could lie with them for long periods. Stay as still as them.
While Thompson and Elijah offer cover, I go out to where the dead man lies. I know my slight form is swallowed up by the darkness.
Elijah told me later that when I was gone, he closed his eyes to rest their soreness, his nostrils flaring for any warning scent. He said I was gone for too long and that he wanted to go out and look for me and to see the dead sniper up close. He hoped that I would get a good souvenir from him.
And I do. When I find the sniper, I see in the darkness that his face is a black smear. I had hit him dead on the nose. I go through his pockets. Except for cigarettes and a nice brass lighter, they are empty. I cut his stripes from his uniform and take his rifle and bayonet.
I slip back into our crater, smiling. Elijah says later that he sees why. I am cradling the Mauser. Elijah can see even in this darkness that the gun is a very good one with a scope. Wrapped in cloth like we keep ours when we are working. He can smell the gun oil on the cloth, and just below it the stink of dead animals. The rifle is one Elijah’s wanted for a long time. He’s angry with himself that he didn’t grab one back in the big crater. All he took ba
ck was the old helmet. I can see that he begins to think of things he might trade for it.
Thompson tenses and pats my side, points toward the Hun line. He sees or hears something. He has noticed even before Elijah. Under the sound of the big 5.9’s in the distance we pick it up. The sound of shovelling, dull yet steady. How did Elijah miss it? Me, my ears have troubled me more and more in this place of noise, but I know Elijah will be hard on himself for relaxing. Obviously a Fritz work party. Thompson makes the gesture for Elijah to investigate while he and I offer cover.
He lays his rifle down and picks up his war club. McCaan was especially impressed with its wicked design. He calls it a knobkerrie. Elijah checks his Mills bombs in their sack attached to his belt and listens for the direction of the sound. While two or three of them work they will no doubt have the keenest eye on sentry duty. Elijah will approach them dead-on and get an idea of what they are up to.
Slithering out of the trench, he makes his way toward the sound of the shovelling. I watch him stop and lie still every few yards. I imagine I can see what he sees.
He is close to their barbed wire, stops and re-gauges his direction and progress. It is unerring. He feels invincible, makes a note to keep track of how far he’s gone. Perfect. Steady breath. Focus of an osprey. They have no idea how close he is. They are just on the other side of their wire. Elijah closes his eyes and lets himself drift to them. He sees three workers and one sentry. The sentry looks out into the darkness but cannot see a thing. He whispers back to the others. Elijah doesn’t understand what he says. They are digging a machine-gun placement. It will be a good one once finished, will cut the Canadians down like thin bulrushes, brown-haired heads toppling heavily to the earth. Elijah must swallow a giggle that rises up from his throat. The temptation to sneak in on them comes to him, to club them like one would club martens caught in snares. Elijah memorizes where the weakest point of their wire is and turns around. Not much night is left.
We make our way back carefully to our own line, no longer focused like we should be. We are coming down from the rush of adrenaline, and the fatigue crawls in.
In the officers’ dugout, I show off the sniper rifle and the shoulder patch of the dead sergeant. We smoke his German cigarettes and Elijah reports his findings to Lieutenant Breech. My head pounds now with the approaching day. There will be stand-to far too soon and I must sleep before that. Breech dismisses us finally after giving us double rum rations for a job well done.
Elijah and I walk to our dugout. It has begun to rain. A warm, steady drizzle. We will sleep well to the sound of it puddling in the trench.
Later as I fall asleep wrapped in my damp wool blanket, the lice make their way from the seams of my uniform and crawl over my warming skin. My filthy clothing must be why I dream what I do, of that day we first arrived in the wemistikoshiw town after making our way through the fire. Elijah had sold our canoe to a trapper for enough for train tickets with plenty left over. It was his idea to take us for new clothes.
I remember the store owner watching us carefully. “Hurry,” he says. “I need to close shop.” I wonder if he is afraid of the fire moving this way.
Elijah smiles when I come out of the little room wearing a red long-sleeved shirt and black pants. I look good, my shiny hair dark against the shirt. The dirty moccasins on my feet are the only problem with my outfit, Elijah says. But I won’t part with those.
When Elijah strolls out, I laugh. He has chosen a black suit and stiff, high white collar. In the mirror he looks like a preacher. This appeals to Elijah.
“That is what you will wear to join the army?” I ask.
Elijah ignores me, pulls out the money and hands it to the store owner. The owner looks surprised. Elijah counts the money when it is handed back. We have ten dollars left, but Elijah doesn’t tell me that we are short a dollar for the train passage. Wemistikoshiw money is a funny thing. There’s always more of it somewhere.
The two of us walk down the street, staring into the store windows. Most of the shops are deserted. When a car passes on the dusty road, we stop and stare at it, argue over how it moves itself. “The driver does something with his feet,” I say. “He must be pedalling it.”
“No,” Elijah answers. “They pour lamp oil into the engine and then light it on fire. You’ve poured lamp oil on a fire.” Elijah spreads his arms in a whoosh. “Little explosions inside make them go. Old Man Ferguson explained it to me.” I only stare as the car passes, coating everything in dust. “Let’s go to that tavern we saw beside the hotel,” he says. “My throat is dry.” Mine is too. “There might be women there.”
“What about the train?” I ask. “It must be leaving soon.”
“The train doesn’t leave till tomorrow,” Elijah says.
“And what of the fire?” I say. “What if it does come this way and burns down the town while we sit and drink?”
“Can you imagine anything more glorious?” Elijah says.
LIEUTENANT BREECH SELECTS SIX OF US for a raiding party tonight. Far too many. There will be Thompson leading, Elijah and me, Grey Eyes, Gilberto and some other new one that I do not know. None of this is good. He might as well have invited Fat out with us. At least then if we came under fire the whole raiding party could take cover behind him.
Lieutenant Breech orders Thompson to lead us behind the lines and practise our raid all day. Cold and wet and miserable, my heart isn’t in it. I can tell Elijah’s isn’t either. Gilberto is clumsy and nervous. Grey Eyes is glassy-eyed and far away. Thompson marks out our line and Fritz’s machine-gun nest with white strings. We crawl through the mud in the drizzle for hours, leapfrogging one another and figuring out who will be where in the darkness of tonight, while Breech watches from a distance with an odd smile on his face. Thompson and Elijah and I would much rather just the three of us go out again tonight, but Breech has gotten reports of increased activity by Fritz and wants to claim a little glory for himself. He wants to show his superiors that he is a warrior of the highest order. Elijah says that Breech should be coming out with us tonight. That way he can guarantee that Breech won’t be coming back.
We’re restless as night crawls across the front. The rain hasn’t stopped and is the kind that will drizzle steady for a long, long time. I am with Elijah and Grey Eyes in our little dugout. Our door is a blanket strung across the entrance to our cave, and it doesn’t allow the stink of the kerosene lamp to exit. Elijah bounces his legs up and down, up and down, until finally Grey Eyes says, “Quit your shaking. You’re making me nervous.” Elijah takes out his trench knife and sharpens it with a stone.
The big guns keep up their drumbeat far south of us on the Somme. We hear word that we will be moved out of this quiet place in Saint-Eloi and marched down there as reinforcement. Words. The rumours fall like rain here.
When will we go? Many dead down there in the Somme, though. Many, many dead. British coal miners tunnelled their way from under their line to under Fritz’s and then filled the tunnels with high explosives. The idea was to collapse the Huns’ world from under them, send them to their white man’s hell. It didn’t work as well as planned, but the blast was so tremendous that miles away the ground shook and trembled under our feet in sickening waves so that I swore I was on board that troopship again. Grey Eyes was shaken badly by it, swore it was the gates of hell opening up below us. He hasn’t been the same since and is taking more morphine than is wise. Elijah tells me he will talk with Grey Eyes very soon about it.
I know Elijah can’t keep anything from me, has never been able to. To tell me what he thinks and does releases a sort of pressure from inside him. Tonight, though, he thinks I’m not awake before our raid. I lie with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep. We’ve already begun shelling Fritz in preparation for our raid. We are lobbing mortars at their wire. I hear Elijah say to Grey Eyes that Breech is attempting to weaken Fritz’s wire near the machine-gun nest.
“I told him that there is a place weak enough already for us to get through
unnoticed,” he says. “All Breech is doing with this shelling is letting Fritz know that we plan on coming over.”
Even with my eyes closed, I can tell Elijah’s mood blackens more.
“Dear Henry,” Elijah says, using their code, “would you be a kind chap and make me a cup of tea?”
“I’m afraid I’m out of tea, Elijah,” he answers. The tea they talk about is a tobacco they sometimes smoke together when it is available. It calms Elijah and makes him smile.
“But you had plenty only yesterday,” Elijah says.
I can tell he’s holding the anger inside him as best he can.
“It really wasn’t that much,” Grey Eyes nearly whines. He is a weak man. “Why don’t you find the medic and tell him that you’ve sprained your ankle. Maybe he will give you an extra rum ration or even a tablet.”
I open my eyes a tiny bit and look over to Elijah. Through my eyelashes he looks blurry. I see that Elijah contemplates what Grey Eyes has suggested. I can also see that Elijah’s tempted to take his knife to Grey Eyes’ throat. I can almost feel the black anger rising from his gut and filling his head so that his eyesight dims. Me, I don’t pretend to sleep any more. I open my eyes. It’s as if a silent explosion has gone off in the room and emptied the air from it. Elijah gets up and walks outside into the rain in search of something for his pounding head. I know Elijah so well that it is just a matter of me closing my eyes so that I can follow him.
The rain is cold and relentless as Elijah splashes along the duck-boards, peering in dugouts for the medic. No doubt Breech will order a box barrage when we head over, try to cut the machine-gun nest off from the rest of their line so that we can get in and destroy it properly. So noisy! Such a waste, like fishing with Mills bombs! McCaan wouldn’t listen when Elijah told him earlier in the day that Thompson, he and I could sneak over and do the job in silence, mine it once we killed the work party so that we might destroy not only the nest but as many of the enemy as possible. The problem is that McCaan would have to suggest a better plan to Breech than Breech’s own, and there’s never any of that.