That Forgetful Shore (19 page)

When Aunt Hepsy gets that far, even Elder Hubley tries to discourage her. He's more than willing to preach that the oncoming war is a sign of the end and Jesus is coming soon, but he shies away from setting dates for the Lord's return. Their church got its start when a preacher named William Miller attempted to do just that, and all his followers suffered the Great Disappointment. Adventist preachers now are more cautious, reminding their more enthusiastic believers, like Aunt Hepsy, that no man knows the day nor the hour of His coming. The Adventists already have one prophetess and Elder Hubley has no desire to encourage Aunt Hepsy Snow to set herself up as another.

Trif isn't sure what to make of it all, herself, now that the war has actually started. She can see the word of prophecy laid out in Scripture and knows they're living in the end times: what more likely sign to usher in the final days than a great war? But she dislikes the pleasure some of her fellow believers take in predicting doom and disaster. Of course there must be suffering before the Lord comes, but she shudders at the thought of what war in faraway places like France and Belgium might mean to boys from Missing Point and Bareneed and Clarke's Beach.

Everywhere she goes she hears talk of war, but there's a remoteness to it, even now that boys from the Point have joined the Reserves. It's important, everyone agrees – important enough to bring people to the Adventist Church on Sunday night to learn about the prophecies of Revelation, important enough to start branches of the NPA and WPA to raise money for soldiers and for relief of the suffering Belgians. But not as important as the price of fish, which is finally on the rise. It's not even as important as the inquiries into the seal hunt after this year's disaster, for the men want to know what changes will be made in next year's hunt, whether they will be safer and have the better working conditions that Mr. Coaker fought for. Things that affect their everyday lives have a vibrant immediacy that black and white headlines about war in Europe can never have.

It must seem real to Kit, Trif thinks as she walks back from the Mercantile where she has gone to put Kit's letter in the mailbag along with the rest of her week's correspondence, and to get another sack of sugar. She's in the middle of trying to get the winter's blueberry and partridgeberry jam made before the potatoes are ready to harvest. It's hot and tiring work; she needs both sugar and a little break.

On the way home, pushing Katie and the sugar in the pram along the North Side Road, Triffie meets Joe Bishop. They stop and chat as they usually do when they meet – Triffie asking about the school, Mr. Bishop admiring Katie and asking what news Triffie has of Kit.

“You heard she's married, of course?” Triffie says.

“Her mother told me, yes,” Mr. Bishop says. “Has her husband shipped out yet?”

“Yes, he went with the First Five Hundred.”

“Some folk are saying our boys will never see action, that the war will be all done before they're ready to go to France.”

Triffie shakes her head. “I 'low the Mercer boys'll be some poisoned if that happens. To hear them talk you'd think fighting a war was the best fun they were ever likely to have. But what do you think, sir? Do you think 'twill be over quickly, like some folk are saying?”

“I think they're a long ways off the truth, Trif. This is going to be a long war – and a costly one. Not that there are any easy wars – but it's not going to be like the Boer War, trained British soldiers fighting farmers. Germany is a great military power, even if some people don't recognize it. As for our boys, and the Canadians – well, none of them lack for bravery, that's certain. But what experience do they have with the kind of fighting they're going to see in Europe? You mark my words, Triffie, we're in for a long war.”

A long war. Triffie thinks of the young boys, Will and his mates, who are hoping they'll have time to go overseas.
Two more years of war – is it possible? Surely Joe didn't mean it could go on that long. Surely the boys are safe – as safe as fishermen ever are
, she corrects herself. But isn't it better for a boy to face death on a schooner bound for the Labrador, than to risk his life on a battlefield far from home?

She whispers a prayer under her breath as she continues up the Neck Road towards home. A prayer for the safety of all the Newfoundland boys and men now in England, the boys from the Point and Kit's husband Ben most of all.

But to pray for a quick end to the war is to pray against the will of the Almighty, if war is truly a sign of the end times. Hard to think that she should welcome hardship and war and even persecution. It goes against the grain, to pray for things to get worse instead of better. Yet if that's what it takes to bring an end to this hard old world of work and worry, then won't it be worthwhile?

Cresting the top of the lane that branches off the Neck Road and curves down towards the South Side Road, Trif pauses to look out at the waters of the bay, at fishing boats and stages, houses and gardens. She imagines a little cloud the size of a man's hand in the eastern sky growing nearer and nearer, revealing itself to be a cloud of angels hovering off the end of the Point, putting an end to toil and hardship.

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” she prays, offering up her doubt and fear and confusion. Katie, who is used to seeing her mother praying at all hours of the day – while walking, cooking, cleaning house, digging potatoes – stares up, incurious, from her pram, her wide blue eyes hinting at a world far removed from war and turmoil.

Kit

St. John's
October, 1914

My Dearest Husband,

How sweet to write those words – how horrific to have to write them in a letter, put on a ten-cent stamp, and send them far across the sea, not knowing
When
or
Whether
they will reach you!!!

How sweet those short hours we spent together before we had to part! I will tell you something in greatest confidence, sworn to the secrecy that binds Husband and Wife, else I would never commit such things to paper: I am Glad – Glad, rather than Contrite as I ought to be – that we did not allow considerations of Morality and Virtue to keep us from one another's arms in the months before our marriage. I have never found it in my heart to truly Repent of that so-called Sin, and am glad I am no Roman Catholic, forced to make Confession to a Priest. I would have to commit the sin of Perjury, either to claim I never sinned (by the Dictates of Convention), or else to claim I was sorry for it. For the truth – that we transgressed, and I am
glad
 
of
 
it
– is more than any Priest could bear to hear!

And yet, that truth being committed to paper, I must tell you the other half, that indeed, the embraces of the Marriage Bed ARE sweeter than those that came before. The two nights we spent in the Atlantic Hotel were such nights of bliss as I have never experienced nor dreamed of – to be Surpassed only by those I shall experience when you are safely home
in
 
my
 
arms
again. Oh, what a joyful Reunion that will be!

When will it be, I wonder? We have read the news here of the fierce fighting at Ypres, and all hearts in St. John's are heavy with the thought that this war may drag on longer than we thought, and our boys be overseas longer. Yet we swell with pride at the thought of young Newfoundland men in uniform, fighting for England, for Empire, for freedom, and against tyranny!

So I alternate daily, between hope, fear, pride and sorrow at your absence. I try to compose myself with philosophy, and busy myself with work, but neither truly takes away the pain I feel when I think of the distance that separates us, and the months that may pass before we are Together Again!

Ever your own,
Katherine (Mrs. Benjamin Porter)

Kit wasn't prepared to miss Ben as much as she does. She had, after all, barely had time to get accustomed to being married. Ben came home from law school in June with his brand-new law degree and an offer of a position articling in a St. John's firm. He came to Trinity to escort her home to Missing Point, where he formally asked her father for her hand in marriage and put a ring on her finger.

Kit applied for teaching jobs in St. John's, including one at Spencer, though she knew her
alma mater
would be unlikely to give a place to a teacher who was engaged to be married in June and thus only able to teach for a year. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that a Miss Halliday, a teacher from England, was returning to her home country for a few months in the fall. Kit was offered the opportunity to replace her until Christmas. Her old mentor Miss Shaw is now Headmistress, and anxious to have Kit on her faculty if only in a temporary capacity. Half a year's teaching at Spencer seemed better than a guaranteed year anywhere else, so Kit accepted the offer, moved back into Cousin Ethel's house, and received her fiancé like a gentleman caller in the parlour, sitting stiffly side by side on the horsehair settee.

The declaration of war unraveled everyone's plans. Suddenly, instead of a promising young lawyer with a career ahead of him, Ben was an officer in training with the Newfoundland Regiment. In the first week of September, no-one knew how long it would take for this ragged assortment of men to be trained and equipped for service overseas. Many of the St. John's recruits and most of the officers were members of the Church Lads' Brigade or one of the other cadet groups – the Methodist Guard, the Presbyterian Highlanders, the Catholic Cadets. They had some experience of drilling and marching, but it was a huge leap to go from marching about a parade ground to practising bayonet drill, preparing for combat with an actual enemy. Yet everyone seemed to feel that it was of utmost importance to send men overseas as swiftly as possible in response to the Mother Country's call.

“It won't be long – weeks, not months,” Ben told her.

“But how can you possibly be ready by then?” Ben, like every outport young man, had handled a shotgun in the woods when he was growing up, but what kind of preparation was that for going into battle in a real war, in a foreign country? They were training every day down there on the parade ground at Pleasantville, but how could they be ready in a matter of weeks for war?

“We won't be,” Ben said bluntly. “But they'd rather send us over poorly trained – even without proper uniforms – than have it be said Newfoundland didn't do her part. It'll be no later than the end of September, and it could be sooner, if they get the rifles from Canada. That's what I've heard, anyway.”

The recruits were signed up for a year, if the war lasted that long. Ben wanted to put the wedding off till he returned. “We would have waited a year anyway,” he pointed out, “and God willing I'll be back by June. And if it should take longer, well – it doesn't seem fair to you, us being married and me overseas for so long, does it? I know you don't want to think about it, but if I didn't come back –”

“No.” She wouldn't think of it, or talk about it either. The whole thing – Ben in a makeshift uniform, learning to bark commands and put boys through drill exercises while sleeping in a tent at Pleasantville – seemed like a game, a strange diversion from the lives they were supposed to be living. It would be an interruption; she would be a war bride, and then he would come home, and take up his practice, and life would continue as it was supposed to do. “I refuse to think that way. You will come home, and we'll already be married, because we'll be married before you go.”

Finally they agreed. A very quiet, private wedding on the third Saturday in September. They debated writing their families, inviting their parents (“and Triffie,” Kit put in, unable to imagine getting married without her, though she had not been there for Trif's wedding). It was possible their families could get there just in time.

“But then,” Ben said, “we'd have to have some kind of a wedding supper, and find a decent-sized place to have it, and no matter how small we tried to keep it, it would get bigger.”

“And my mother would insist on us being married in church, and then she'd want to know why I couldn't come home and be married in our church at the Point and invite half the harbour to the wedding supper,” Kit pointed out, laughing.

So they were married by the regimental chaplain, and Ben was given two days' leave which they spent at the Atlantic Hotel, barely leaving their room. Then Ben returned to the base to continue his training, and Kit returned to her boarding house and waited.

On the fourth of October the
Florizel
sailed out of St. John's Harbour with the First Five Hundred, the Blue Puttees, on board. Kit was part of the crowd lining the streets as the men marched from Pleasantville down to the harbour, then she joined the crush of people on Water Street, hundreds of other wives, sweethearts, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and crowds of cheering citizens. The band played “It's a Long Way to Tipperary.” Kit tried not to think about what Ben had told her – how poorly prepared the men were, how little training they'd had, how the Ross rifles they were meant to shoot still had not arrived from Canada. The news from France and Belgium frightened her. On the day the First Five Hundred sailed, a headline in the paper under “War News” read: “Struggle Yet to Come Will be Long and Terrible.”

After the ship sails that night, Kit goes back to Cousin Ethel's house and waits, not sure what she is waiting for. A letter from Ben? News of the Regiment arriving in England? Or something else?

She remembers reading that in olden times, when a king died suddenly, his widow would be watched closely for two or three months afterwards, in case she might turn out to be pregnant with a royal heir whose existence would have to be taken into account in any future political machinations. The son and heir of Ben Porter, newly graduated lawyer, of Elliston, Newfoundland, would hardly have a great impact on world affairs, yet Kit hugs the possibility close during those weeks after the
Florizel
sails. She is unsure how she would feel if she really were pregnant. Does she even want to be a mother? Marriage itself holds enough ambivalence for her, though she was quick enough to hurry to the altar under pressure of being a war bride. Could she raise a child alone, if Ben doesn't return? Is it that most trite of all wishes – that she will have “something left of him” to remember him by if he is killed over there?