Hannah looked at me and then looked far away. “You know, Rory, I have a brother in the Tenth Battalion. Jack’s in the artillery and I’ve a cousin who’s just joined up in Vancouver. None of us could really tell you what Canada hopes to achieve from all of this.”
“No, I don’t suppose any one can. Who’s Jack?” I said innocently.
“He’s my fiancé,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face and staring out over the shrubbery.
I didn’t hear anything Hannah said after that. It was foolish really, but it showed how I’d changed. I never for an instant thought Hannah had a fiancé. I assumed she was interested in me. I was quite hurt. It wasn’t until later I realized she merely wanted to be friends. I should have known that from the start, but I was so starved for feminine companionship any pretty girl would have appeared to me to be a possible lover. I had so many readjustments to make in the world and at the time I didn’t even realize it. In the months I’d been in the trenches, both the rules and I started to change. Women were already more forthcoming with men without being romantically interested. I missed almost all this in my short time at the front. I didn’t realize it then, but Hannah was on the knife-edge of that kind of thinking.
Hannah looked at me rather startled. “Are you alright, Rory?”
“Oh, I’m fine, really, Hannah.” I was struggling not to appear a complete fool and resorted to self-pity to escape. “I was just thinking that they’re going to take out my left eye tomorrow. It can’t be saved.”
“You poor dear.” She grabbed my good hand. “Rory, I’m very sorry.” She looked away and then said. “I read your file this morning. I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it. It’s really the best thing. Your doctor’s very good, but you must be concerned.”
In truth, I wasn’t as concerned as I should have been about my eye. Losing an eye was trivial compared to the isolation I felt. I’d already come to grips with the loss of an eye. The deeper pains I felt were psychological. But like the rest of my feelings, I couldn’t exactly describe them. I was terribly lonely and dispirited. I suppose doctors today would say I was clinically depressed. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. God knows, looking back at it now, I had every reason to feel dejected. I knew instinctively that an eye and half of one hand was a cheaper price than so many others had already paid. All the while I’d been in hospital in England I was angry with myself but I didn’t know why. Now I felt even more foolish falling so head-over-heels in love with Hannah, a woman I scarcely knew. Even then, I didn’t have the wits to see I wasn’t in any kind of emotional state to become attached to anybody. Even to myself I was a stranger. The other thing I hadn’t come to grips with, and I suppose I still haven’t to this day, was why I survived and so many others didn’t. I knew it was a problem with no answer, but the fact that this difficulty gnawed away at me played a big part in sending me to Germany.
I was wheeled into a green-painted operating room. Once again a rubber face-piece was pressed down on my face, and my eye was removed without incident. The anaesthetic made me violently ill for two days and my eye socket gave me searing pain for long afterwards. Hannah looked in on me every day that week. Each time I saw her I wasn’t much company. I was too groggy from morphine, or in too much pain when they switched me to codeine to wean me from the morphine. The last time she looked in on me she seemed sad. “Rory, you’re going to be moved to a convalescent hospital tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be able to see you again for who knows how long.” She held my good hand and spoke some more. I don’t remember what she said, but it was soothing and achingly feminine. She then kissed me hurriedly on the cheek and left.
The hospital orderly who came to pack me off in the morning was an elderly Englishman. He walked with a pronounced limp and had a ragged moustache and an equally ragged haircut. He gave me fresh pyjamas, a heavily starched regulation blue dressing gown, and new paper slippers. The old gentleman waited patiently, leaning on my wheelchair, and when I had changed myself, he very deliberately said to me in a thick North Country accent, “Aye now, sir, there’ll be a delegation of politicians and what not from Canada. They’ll be in the lobby in a half an hour. Want to see some of the lads, all junior officers like yourself who are soon to be discharged to convalescent hospitals. We’ll get that bit of unpleasantness over with, and then you’re off to a country house to rest and mend for a few weeks.”
In the lobby I was wheeled into a small assembly of bandaged and broken men all dressed in blue-issue pyjamas and seated in a semicircle to greet our visitors. Behind them stood a small knot of grim-faced doctors and nurses. “Who’s all this in aid of?” I asked a man seated beside me with a heavy bandage over the stump of his wrist.
“Sir Sam Hughes, the goddamn minister of militia,” he said bitterly. “Last time I saw him was just before we shipped overseas. He kept us waiting on parade in Borden in the heat and dust for three hours to say goodbye. He’s come to gloat and get his picture taken with ‘his boys’ as he likes to call us.”
Close to an hour later, a cluster of portly and greying lieutenant colonels and majors arrived. To a man, they were dressed in magnificently tailored uniforms. I was quick to notice that although they were all wearing regimental badges of famous Canadian militia units, there wasn’t a field service medal or a wound stripe amongst the lot. One of them cleared his throat and addressed us. “Gentlemen, the honourable Sir Sam Hughes, the minister of militia and member of Parliament for Haliburton County will be here momentarily. Sir Sam will address you collectively and then he will sit with you for a group photograph and perhaps a few individual photos for any of you who might care to have a photograph sent home to your families to let them see how you’re getting on. Now, Sir Sam is sorely pressed in his schedule; so, I’m afraid there’ll be no time for questions.”
This announcement generated a hostile buzz. Before it died down, one of the ranking attendants drew himself to his full height and crashed his foot to the floor, calling the room to attention. “Room! Our minister of militia, Major General Sir Sam Hughes.”
At this point, a fit-looking man in a major general’s uniform burst into the room. I’d seen pictures of Sam Hughes before and I instinctively distrusted him. His jaw was extended aggressively and he slapped his riding crop against his trouser leg. He strode purposefully across the hospital lobby. Hughes was fleshy faced; nonetheless, he was a tanned, physically powerful-looking man. Despite the fact that Hughes exuded energy and vigour, his bright blue eyes had a glassy, over-focused look. My immediate impression was that he was slightly insane. He glared down at his audience; not one of us sat to attention in accordance with the standard courtesy demanded by military discipline. Some men pointedly slouched and lolled casually. Poor Ernie Gillespie, who was missing a foot and was plainly shell-shocked, sat slack-jawed and vacant-eyed near the middle of the group. He was shivering and weaving his head from side to side.
The minister stood before us, looked down distastefully at Ernie, rocked on his heels, and licked his lips. “Gentleman, I want to say to you how proud all Canada is of your sacrifice. You’ve displayed the kind of leadership and commitment that we have come to expect from our troops.” At this juncture the minister paused, clearly irritated by two men to my right who were talking loudly. “If I may go on please, gentlemen!”
“Oh don’t let us stop you, Sir Sam, we’ve been waiting for a long time to hear what you have to say,” the culprit closest to me said loudly. The audience tittered and some men clapped.
Someone called out, “Go ahead, General, we’re honoured by your gracious visit. We’ve been waiting a very long time indeed.” There was more laughter.
On the other side of the room, a