And No Birds Sang (25 page)

Dawn came at last, and it was Christmas Day.

And at 0700 hours Kennedy ordered Able Company to attack and destroy a force of paratroopers that had infiltrated during the night between Able and Baker. Kennedy himself went forward to give Alex his instructions... and this time he did not take me with him.

I tried to follow the course of the action through the earphones of the radio set connecting us with Able Company, but Able’s set went off the air and I knew little of what was happening until half an hour later the walking wounded began to straggle into our cellar.

One of the first was a sergeant who was suffering from a deep gash in one thigh. Shakily he accepted a cigarette, then told me what he had seen.

Alex had sent what was left of Seven Platoon to launch the initial attack, and Seven had almost immediately been caught by enfilading fire from three machine guns, with the loss of several killed and wounded. The logical course would then have been for Alex to send one of the other platoons to outflank these guns (something that was successfully done later in the day) but he did not choose to do this. Instead he did the unexpected and the inexplicable.

Seizing a Tommy gun he levered his great bulk to its full height, gave an inarticulate bellow, and charged straight at the enemy.

He could have gone no more than three or four paces before he was riddled by scores of bullets. Crashing into the mud like a falling colossus, he lay there, his body jerking spasmodically until the dead flesh at last lay still. During that timeless interval, both his own men and the Germans were so stunned by his action that not a further shot was fired by either side.

“It was the bravest goddamn thing I ever saw... and the craziest!” The sergeant ground out his cigarette and looked into my face with puzzled eyes. “Crazy as hell! But Jesus, what a man!”

THE BLANKET THAT screened the shattered cellar door was thrust aside and a party of stretcher-bearers pushed in amongst us. Al Park lay on one of the stretchers. He was alive, though barely so... unconscious, with a bullet in his head.

As I looked down at his faded, empty face under its crown of crimson bandages, I began to weep.

I wonder now... were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go?

Or was I weeping for myself... and those who would remain?

“THIRD YPRES” BY EDMUND BLUNDEN
reprinted from
Undertones of War
by Edmund Blunden, London: Collins, 1965; “Fragment” by Rupert Brooke reprinted from
Collected Poems,
New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1941, and Toronto: McClelland & Stewart; “Recalling War” by Robert Graves reprinted from
Collected Poems,
London: Cassell & Company, 1959. The verse on page 230 is from “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats.

FARLEY MOWAT was born in
Belleville, Ontario, in 1921. He began writing upon his return from serving in World War II and has since written 44 books, which have sold nearly 25 mil-lion copies in more than 60 countries. He spent much of his youth in Saskatoon and has lived in Ontario, Cape Breton and Newfoundland, while travelling frequently to Canada’s far north. Throughout, Mowat has remained a determined environmentalist, despairing at the ceaseless work of human cruelty. His ability to capture the tragic comedy of life on earth has made him a national treasure in Canada and a beloved storyteller to readers around the world. He lives in Port Hope, Ontario.

Copyright © 2012 by Farley Mowat Limited
Originally published in 1975

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Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-77100-030-7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-77100-031-4 (ebook)

Cover design by Jessica Sullivan
Cover illustration by Brian Tong

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.