‘Unless I slip and fall overboard, they’re going to be waiting an awfully long time.’
‘Showing off some muscle could be good for business.’ With a chuckle he shoved me over the railing into the water.
When I surfaced and pushed my hair back from my face, both my father and Massey doubled over in laughter. The group of girls were also thoroughly amused. I pulled myself back onto the boat, but I wasn’t interested in showing off for anyone other than Chidori, so I left my soaking wet shirt on out of principle. And defiance. Massey’s big palm slapped my shoulder again to josh me. I ignored the goading and got to work.
The hull was filled and overflowing onto the deck with crushed ice and hundreds of salmon. I rolled my sleeves and hooked the thick and slick fish with a pike pole, then threw them to Massey one at a time. In a perfectly timed rhythm, he turned and chucked them at my father, who laid them out on a long, ice-covered wood sales plank on the dockside of the boat. Eventually the load in the hull lowered enough that I had to drop down the hatch into the marine cold storage to toss up the rest.
Even without seeing me working shirtless, customers enthusiastically scooped up the fish and passed over their fists-full of money until the hull was completely empty two hours later. About a dozen folks at the end of the line had to go home empty-handed and disappointed.
I reached up over my head and pulled myself out of the hull, smelling like salt and seaweed. And shivering from working on the ice in wet clothes. Massey removed his gloves and tossed my father a cola bottle as I stepped into the warm sunshine. He was about to toss me one too, but I waved him off. ‘I can’t stay.’
‘You got a date?’ Massey teased.
‘I’m working on it,’ I said.
The humour faded from his expression as he nodded and took a sip of the cola. Then he glanced at me with some sort of knowingness or cautionary tale.
‘What?’ I asked as my gaze shifted back and forth between him and my father.
Massey shrugged but didn’t say anything. He was like that – wise with both life experience and book smarts, but he never lectured or imposed his opinions. In fact, he was unintrusive to an annoying degree. One time, when I was about fourteen years old, I had loaded up a skiff with engine parts for his boat and the whole damn thing sank. Massey knew it was too much weight but didn’t stop me. He just sat there and watched the ordeal happen without saying a word. I was so hot under the collar. Partly because I’d have to buy him another engine pump. Partly because I didn’t know how I was going to get the skiff and the other parts off the bottom of the ocean. But mostly I was mad because – if he had just said something – he could have saved me all the trouble. He claimed that telling me the answers didn’t help me learn, making mistakes did. Then he chuckled at how fuming angry I was, which sent me into a rage. I had to walk away and didn’t go back to salvage the skiff for a week. They were both thoroughly entertained that day too, but at least they helped me winch everything out of the water.
Massey’s hands-off teaching philosophy didn’t sit well with me then, and I still didn’t agree with his methods. Probably because I was too hot-tempered for his learn-the-hard-way lessons. But admittedly I never overloaded a skiff again.
Despite obviously having an opinion about my dating endeavours with his niece, he wasn’t going to tell me what he thought. I studied his expression for another few seconds to see if it would reveal any clues about what lesson he thought I should be aware of. All he did was flick his eyebrows and hand me my cash earnings for the day, so I hopped over the railing to head over to Chidori’s house. ‘It’s been a blast. See you all later.’
In the morning, the kind German nurse brought a tray with a bun and a small piece of cheese to my cot. The name written on her badge was I. Gottschalk. I didn’t know what the I stood for, but I called her Inga and she responded. She smiled warmly, then took trays to the other fellows in the hospital dormitory. The Canadian pilot on the cot next to me was awake.
‘Bonjour,’ he said and bit into his bun.
‘Hi.’
‘Est-ce que tu parles français?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Is okay. Is easier for me with the French. But I speak English. Un peu. You have a terror in the night I think.’
It was mildly embarrassing that everyone likely heard my nightmare startle me awake, but there was nothing I could do about that. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you.’
‘Is okay. We all have had the terrors.’ He pointed at my feet. ‘You are burned?’
‘Yes. How about you?’ I asked before I took a sip of water.
He pulled down the shoulder of his hospital gown and revealed a chest injury covered in dressing. ‘Impaled when …’ he whistled and used his hand to pantomime jumping out of an airplane.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Michel. From Montreal. And you?’ He leaned over to shake my hand.
‘Hayden. I’m from Mayne Island in British Columbia. How long have you been here?’
‘Three weeks.’ He glanced at the door where a guard stood, then lowered his voice, ‘I will be trying for staying a long time because is no good to be in the camp for prisoners I think.’
‘Have you heard what to expect?’
‘No, but the head nurse tries to be keeping us here for a long time. She has compassion. She must be knowing it is no good.’
I nodded and took an inventory of the other patients in the dormitory. Mostly British airmen, three American flyboys and at least fifteen other Canadians besides Michel and me. One fellow was in a coma and probably wasn’t going to make it. One fellow had a broken leg and one was burned like me. His burns were worse – his eyes and nose were melted into a disfigured blob. The dormitory reeked rancid like rotting flesh. The nurses had tried to cover up the putridness with bleach, but it lingered.
‘You are not eating the petit dejeuner?’ Michel asked.
‘No. You can have it.’
He wiggled his eyebrows eagerly and reached over to grab the bun and cheese off my tray.
Conversation with Michel was welcomed but I missed Gordie already. It was strange to be in a dormitory full of soldiers and not have the big man right next to me. Gordie Calhoon, Frank Owens and I had all met on the first day of our eight weeks of Elementary Flying Training with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Regina, Saskatchewan. We called our flight training The Plan for short, and it instructed us in basic aviation. Gordie was a grizzly bear of a fellow you would like to have on your side in a street fight. Frank was a hornet, who would likely get you messed up in the street fight in the first place. The three of us became instant pals and sat next to each other during classroom lessons and at meals in the mess hall.
The first week we were at The Plan, their wives sent baked goods that made me miss home something fierce.
‘You want one?’ Frank had asked.
‘Sure,’ I said, and reached to take a shortbread biscuit.
‘His wife can’t bake worth stink. You should probably stick to my wife’s ginger snaps,’ Gordie teased Frank and held out the tin to share with me.
‘I’ll try them both and decide which is better for myself.’ I bit into each cookie and grinned. ‘I think I’ll need to try some more before I can make my final decision.’
‘No way. One’s all you’re getting unless you cough up something in exchange.’ Gordie leaned back on his bunk and ate another