Shortly before, the older boy had seen Russ making a beeline across the road towards him. Russ had already started a fight with two of the older boy’s friends. Both older boys were left bruised and bloodied. The first had not remembered why Russ was angry with him. The second boy knew why, and though at first he’d held his own, Russ’s willingness to be hit if it meant he could hurt someone more proved too much. Now Russ was on to the third and last.
The older boy retreated into a nearby park, apologizing as Russ swiftly covered the last few feet. Russ swung without hesitating, hitting the older boy squarely on the face. It was too late to apologize.
The older boy lay on the ground as Russ walked to a nearby drinking fountain. He took a long drink then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He held his fist under the stream and washed blood from it. Taking a final look at the vanquished boy, he pushed his wavy brown hair out of his eyes and walked away without saying a word. Now they were even.
Three years earlier at this same drinking fountain, they’d caught Russ in the park. The three sixteen-year-olds thought it fun to push the thirteen-year-old around, laughing as he fought to get away. Dragging Russ to the fountain, they sprayed him with cold water, soaking his hair and clothes, and finally they spat on him, the yellow spittle stinking of chewing tobacco. They shouldn’t have laughed when Russ swore he would get even.
Major Clarence Campbell returned the salutes of his two lieutenants, joining them between the tanks. They reviewed where the missing tanks were last seen, what direction they were travelling in, and what areas had been searched.
The tanks had disappeared after escorting General Kitching to meet the Division’s senior officers at a small quarry near the village of Noney-en-Auge.[1] Even though the tank regiments had swept the area the evening before, Kitching had taken the Headquarter Squadron’s tanks for his protection. He was asked if the tanks could reconnoitre an area for a nearby British artillery unit. He let them go, one his command tank with its radio serving as a mobile command post. The cannon was a wooden replica, allowing room for the radio equipment the General needed to communicate across the battlefield. When the meeting ended, the tanks still had not returned. With no radio message from the command tank, Campbell, Colombo, and Derij knew the missing troopers were likely dead or had taken been prisoner.
A small group of men stood at the entrance to Kennedy’s foundry and stared at a handwritten sign on the door. It contained only two words in large block letters: “No Jobs.” It was there to stop the steady stream of men looking for work. What a change 1933 was compared to the boom years of the 1920s. Desperate men would do anything for a few hours of work and to get a foot in the door. “Need another man today?” they’d ask. “Sweep the floor for you? Can I run a letter across town?”
Since the start of the 1930s, orders had slowed to a crawl. The foundry was now surviving from month to month. Some of the men were showing signs of stress, the result of constant worry about their jobs. A few became reclusive and sullen, others were overly friendly and talkative. One imagined plots by coworkers to take his job or by management to lay him off. Charles knew his job was secure as long as orders trickled in.
The first incident happened so innocently, it passed Charles unnoticed. As the end of the workday approached, he prepared to run the gauntlet of those waiting outside. He stepped outside the foundry door at the end of his shift, lit his pipe, clamped it between his teeth, and began briskly walking home. This day, though, he found himself short of breath. He stopped walking but for just a moment felt he could not get enough air. He put the episode down to his age, though he was not yet fifty.
In coming weeks his shortness of breath grew worse. The idea emerged that his age was not the problem. When he could no longer ignore it, he visited his doctor, and when X-rays were taken and the diagnosis made, it wasn’t a complete surprise. Silicosis, the disease dreaded by miners, was not uncommon among men who worked in foundries. Charles had seen the effects in others. He even knew the cause was years of breathing silica dust. For decades, sand from the castings had settled in his lungs, silently inflaming the tender tissues. Its effects remained hidden until the damage became critical. It was so bad, his scarred lungs made it impossible to take in enough oxygen. The feeling was like being tortured by slow suffocation. His doctor described how the lack of oxygen was causing the blood vessels to constrict, and the resulting high blood pressure was straining his heart. The doctor was blunt — this would lead to a heart attack. The only question was when.
Charles grew thin, and soon his clothes hung on him like a scarecrow. His eyes sank into his gaunt face, and all but a few strands of his once wavy black hair disappeared. But a son can be the last person to see his father’s mortality, and Russ denied the reality of his father’s decline.
The scales finally fell from Russ’s eyes one day when he walked with his father to Kennedy’s. Charles halted at the corner, grasping Russ’s arm. “We have to stop.” As he stood there, waiting for the breathlessness to pass, it grew worse.
Putting his hand on his son’s shoulder for support, Charles said, “We have to go home. If I cross the road, I’m sure I’ll die.” The words were like a knife sliding between Russ’s ribs. After slowly making their way home, Russ helped his father onto the couch. He finally realized how ill his father was, seeing him gasp for air like a fish out of water, mouth agape and eyes silently pleading. Later, when he was alone, Russ cried quietly for his father and for himself.
Since his diagnosis, Charles planned for a future he knew he would not be part of. He brought Jack home from Niagara Falls, hiring him at Kennedy’s. Verdun had completed high school and was working. Charles told Russ he must quit high school and find a job. He was sixteen. Each paycheque the three boys earned was given to their father.
But in 1932, jobs were scarce and Russ was fortunate to find even manual labour, or pick and shovel work as he called it. One job was as a lumberjack, cutting trees for a local sawmill. The dense beech and maple wood was hard enough in summer, but in winter, the frozen wood turned hard as steel. Even on the coldest days, standing thigh deep in wet snow, Russ was soaked with sweat from pulling the bowsaw or chopping wood with his axe. His arms and shoulders grew, and inches of muscle were added to his lean six-foot frame.
Saturday morning of August 4, 1934, was cool, and Charles looked forward to a shift that lasted only until noon. Charles and Jack began work promptly at seven. Although foreman, Charles enjoyed working with the sand, clay, and water, bringing it to the proper consistency for the forms. As he mixed the sand and water, he felt the familiar shortness of breath, and a throbbing in his left arm. He ignored both, as he always did. But this time it grew worse. He fell to his knees and was unconscious before his head reached the foundry floor. He died there on the cold floor at Kennedy’s.
Charles died during the depths of the Depression. Soon after, Verdun departed for the United States. Jack kept his job at Kennedy’s, and Russ, then eighteen, worked at any job he could find, usually hard physical work. Although close to one in five in Owen Sound were on public relief, they earned enough to avoid it. Despite the Depression, the death of his father, and the departure of Verdun, Russ’s life slowly regained a sense of normalcy.
Russ directed his tank’s driver onto a narrow lane leading into a large patch of forest. The lane was well-hidden by a fold in the perimeter of the trees, which had gone unnoticed when they passed this way the day before. Only by chance did Russ notice the lane leading into the forest this day. The Sherman moved forward slowly. From his position in the turret, Russ was first to see the missing tanks. Ordering his driver to stop, he surveyed the scene. There was no movement or sound.
“I’m going to have a look,” Russ told his crew. He climbed out, taking his pistol from its holster. Walking towards the two tanks, he felt exposed. They were lined up on the narrow path, some forty yards from where Russ had stopped his own tank. Reaching the first of the tanks, he climbed up onto its deck. It was the General’s command tank, its wooden cannon easily identifiable. Peering through the open hatch, Russ saw the radio torn to pieces — and none of the crew.
Jumping down, he walked to the other tank. He saw a hole on the hull where a shell had exploded. He climbed up and peering inside smelled the sulphurous odour of the explosion. He imagined the panic