In the Days of Langemarck Again*

May-June 1940

Did we plan as boys?
You saw your clumsy toy planes
With swift sure power,
And you, laughing recklessly.
I watched and loved the cold sea.

Did we have bright hopes?
They're lost in one great passion.
Our lives are offered,
Yours on the swift wings of war,
And mine to the daily chore.

- Rev. Gordon Philpotts (1914-1971), "Kid Brother"**
composed for the occasion of his brother, Laurie E. Philpotts of St. John, New Brunswick, earning his RCAF wings at Camp Borden (January 14, 1941)

On May 23, 1940, twenty-nine cadets received their wings in a ceremony at Camp Borden. McMullen had wanted thirty and had pushed hard for it, but Shirley refused to adjust his standards, in spite the news.

It was shocking, really. All spring the papers had been full of dire dispatches from Finland and Norway — ominous, of course, but spread out over a period of months. Then, on the 10th of May — God, not even two weeks ago? — the Globe and Mail headline had landed like a war hammer:

HOLLAND, BELGIUM INVADED AT DAWN; BRUSSELS, ANTWERP BOMBED BY NAZIS

Every day since, the radio brought news of another staggering Nazi victory as the Wehrmacht rolled through Belgium and Northern France like an axe through butter. The stalemates and salients of the Great War, where vast armies had stalled and bludgeoned one another bloody for years in the last war, crumbled in mere days in this one.

Each evening, the Camp Borden flight instructors gathered in the officers' mess to hear BBC newscasters reel off the names they had learned to pronounce in their youth: Ypres, Poperinghe, Lens, Saint-Omer, Lille, Cambrai, Bapaume, Saint-Quentin, Arras, Douai, Bethune, Amiens. Insignificant little places like Vimy and Courcellette barely rated a mention when they were lost. The coastal cities, places with names that conjured visions of permanent hospitals and hot food and a bit of rest — Étaples, Boulogne, Calais — were falling right now, this very minute. The British Expeditionary Force, battered and cowering, was falling back and back and back to Nieuport and Dunkirk, and the next step backward would be into the sea.

The BBC was coy with numbers, but it didn't take a military genius to know that the Allies had lost hundreds of thousands of men, astounding numbers of aircraft, bewildering sums of equipment and munitions. Unfathomable.

Twenty-nine Borden cadets were ready to face the Luftwaffe, and Shirley passed twenty-nine.

The wings parade was held in a field near Camp Borden's control tower. Cadets — pilots now — stood to attention in formal service dress while McMullen pinned their glinting golden wings, cheered on by the intermediate classes, the ground crews, and over 1,000 visiting family, friends, and dignitaries.

At previous graduations, McMullen had given a short speech, but the unfolding disaster in France called for something rather more special to hearten the newest Allied pilots before they shipped out to meet their destiny. Accordingly, the RCAF had sent Air Marshal Billy Bishop, whose 72 aerial victories in the Great War — the most of any ace in the British Empire — had earned him a chestful of medals, including the Victoria Cross, and made him a bona fide Canadian hero. Even Shirley was slightly starstruck by the doughy, round-faced man who pumped his hand, grinning, "So you're Shirley Blythe, are you?"

Bishop addressed the crowd with firm resolution, assuring them that the current catastrophe was merely a setback and no reason to be in any way dismayed.

"In 1918 over the same ground the same enemy smashed with all his might, and was turned back," he assured them. "Then came the glorious 100 days when, with Canada always in the air, we drove him to his knees in surrender."***

One hundred days. It had begun at Amiens, where Carl had lost his eye. From August til November, Canada was always in the air, or sometimes tumbling down through it, screaming toward a fiery death . . .

"I can remember those black days, how we used to worry about the outcome, and our leaders then bade us stand firm and give two blows for one. 'Keep your tails up,' we were told."

Had Billy Bishop even been in France during the Hundred Days? Hadn't they sent him back to Canada to do morale-boosting tours? Oh, he had come back to France for a while. Shirley remembered the rumors — unbelievable tales of scoring five victories in fifteen minutes in the summer of '18. Maybe they oughtn't have believed. Bishop was a legend, and maybe a bit of a myth as well. But he was here now, with twenty-nine fledgling pilots hanging on his every word. That was real enough.

"The message is the same to you today. The Allies will win this war and win it in the air. But only after a desperate struggle which will call for a marshaling of all that is true and steadfast within us."

There was applause and saluting. The column formed up with the twenty-nine at its head and paraded past Air Marshal Bishop, their blue uniforms and his blue eyes and all those shiny golden wings dazzling in the afternoon light. Then the new-minted fliers of the RCAF scurried off to the hangars and strapped into their sun-yellow Harvards for a grand flyover, saluting their hero in formation.

Shirley didn't stay to watch. Instead, he went to the barracks to make sure that everything was ready to welcome the incoming class tomorrow.

On the fourth of June, Carl rattled up the road from the harbour in Shirley's old black Ford TT pickup. The Sweet Flag's rigging needed replacing, which felt like something comprehensible in a world gone mad. That meant a trip to Lowbridge and lots of heavy ropes, so Carl had biked over to the hangar this morning with Shirley's keys in his pocket.

He had been lax in checking in on the desolate place, where everything was stowed and shrouded and silent. Shirley had asked him to drive the truck every once in a while just to keep the engine happy, but Carl would just as soon have left it to the mice. He'd brought Mugsy over once, only to have her tear up the stairs to the apartment and then reproach him with large, sad eyes. Maybe he could figure out some way to take her with him to Ontario the next time he went. There had been some talk of renting a remote cottage on Lake Huron for a week at the end of the summer. No one could work all day every day forever without a proper break.

The truck had started on the third attempt, startling a murmuration of iridescent starlings from the hangar roof and sending them winging in a great black cloud above the overgrown runway. They were everywhere these days.

An uneventful trip to the marine supply store in Lowbridge, then back to Four Winds harbour under skies that threatened thundershowers. Carl had gotten the new rigging stowed in the cabin, but the installation would have to wait. He sprinted up the dock to the turn-out by the harbourmaster's shed, dodging the first fat drops and sliding into the driver's seat just as the skies opened.

Now Carl was jolting over the rutted road, peering through the deluge and looking forward to a hot cup of tea. He hoped Una hadn't been caught out in this, but no, she had more sense than that. Unlike the poor wretch on the roadside ahead, limping along toward Glen St. Mary looking like a drowned rat.

Carl had resolved to offer the man a ride even before he registered his height and the span of his shoulders and the small black bag he carried. Pulling up alongside the miserable figure, Carl flung the passenger-side door open and shouted, "Get in, Doc!"

Jem obeyed, tossing his bag into the cab and hoisting himself in after.

"Thanks a million," he said, pushing off his sodden cap and shaking out his damp curls. "You gave me quite a turn, though, driving up in this old thing."

Carl rounded his shoulders and shifted back into gear. "I'm just borrowing it."

Jem coughed into his fist. "Course. Sorry. I just meant . . . I did a double-take is all."

"Where's your car anyway?" Carl said setting a course for Ingleside.

"I like to walk sometimes."

"In this?"

"Yeah, well, I guess I didn't exactly check the weather this morning."

That was understandable, at least. The Charlottetown Guardian printed the day's weather in tiny letters in the bottom corner of the first page. It was awfully hard to focus on it, though, what with the screaming headlines: MASS AIR RAID ON PARIS; NAZI BOMBERS RAIN DEATH ON FRENCH CAPITAL.

There were so many things that didn't really bear discussion. Not with Jem, anyway. Ever since Rainbow Valley days, Carl had held Jem in a bit of awe. He had been the undisputed chieftain of their little clan, bold and brash and game for anything, whereas Carl had been smaller even than Una, off on his own observing his ants, at least in the days before fishing. There had been a few times when Carl's creatures and Jem's own woodsy wanderings had intersected pleasantly — Carl had one vivid memory of hunting salamanders together among the rotten logs in a jungle of dew-damp ferns — but in general, Jem belonged to Jerry and Faith.

Though there had been that one time in Kingsport, when Carl had collapsed at the market, and Jem had hinted that he might know a bit about how it felt. Carl hadn't really believed him; Jem was invincible. But now he was soggy and rumpled and uncharacteristically quiet, dripping rainwater onto the seat of Shirley's truck.

"I saw in the paper that Lowbridge High graduation is on Saturday," Carl said, hoping to jump-start the conversation. "Is Wally excited?"

Jem did not answer right away. Carl could not see the face on his blind side, but he felt the shift of Jem's weight and heard the exhaustion in his exhalation.

"He was eighteen a month ago. Our agreement was that he had to finish high school before he joined the Navy. Come Saturday . . ."

Jem let the future hang, dangling unspoken, simultaneously unknowable and all too clear. Carl remembered his own eighteenth birthday, how he had been waiting when the recruiting office opened, clamoring for khaki. He'd left home on a pale-yellow windy evening in October, headed for manhood by way of Charlottetown and one last visit to Mrs. MacDougal's. He had been proud and stupid and so heartbreakingly young.

"I'm sorry," Carl said.

"It's not your fault. Nothing I said could dissuade him."

"Well, I guess I know how that is."

The rain hammered insistently on the roof of the truck, echoing in the silence between them. Maybe he shouldn't have said that.

"How is Shirley anyway?" Jem asked, carefully casual.

Carl hit a pothole disguised as a puddle and jostled against the steering wheel.

"Easy there," Jem said, bracing himself against the glass. "We don't hear from him very often, is all. And I figured . . ."

Just what, exactly, Jem Blythe figured remained a mystery, as his confidence in this new policy of acknowledgment did not extend to the completion of that particular sentence. Still, there had been no malice in the question.

"Uhhh . . . he's alright," Carl said, groping for some neutral tidbit. "He met Billy Bishop."

"Really? Victoria Cross Billy Bishop?"

"The very same. He gave an address to the cadets at the last graduation ceremony."

"You'll have to tell Wally that," Jem said, evidently smiling. "He and Sam used to cut pictures out of Flying Aces and tack them up in their room; I'm fairly certain old Billy's still up there. They were always wild for those stories."

They lapsed back into silence, Carl wondering how many of Jem's own stories he had told to his boys. There were a handful of favorites that got a good airing anytime Jem and Jerry or Emile were in the same place — the white shirt prank and a recitation of Robert Burns in the buff and the time Emile saved Jerry's hide from an irate French laundress when Jerry had mistaken the verbs baisser and baiser. There were certainly others, though Carl had never lingered long in any room where they might be told.

"Rain always brings me back," Carl said mildly. "It's funny — it can't actually have rained every single day for years and years over there, but whenever I remember anything, it's always raining or just stopped raining or just about to rain."

Jem snorted. "And you weren't even on Salisbury Plain in '14. God, who knew it was possible for mud to be so deep? That's one good thing about the Navy, at least. Less mud."

"True," Carl agreed, though the thought of being confined in the strict, airless quarters of a naval vessel made him shiver. "And Sam?"

"Shipping out any day," Jem said tightly. "No details, of course. We had hoped he might be able to come home once more, but you know how it is."

Carl turned the truck into the deserted Glen street. There were lights and movement in the Douglas's store, the usual knot of radio-listeners having sought refuge inside for once. By the time they reached the Glen Pond, a freshet was surging down the slope from Ingleside, forcing Carl to drive down the middle of the road or be swept away.

"I saw your neighbor Archie again," Jem said as they chugged up the hill. "I haven't been able to convince him to apply for a pension yet, but I think he could get a partial one. I don't know how he's been farming all these years with that shoulder wound healed so badly and his back the way it is."

"They barely get by," Carl conceded. "I don't think they would at all if Una didn't take such an interest in them."

"How is Una? Faith was just saying the other day that she seems to be awfully busy lately."

Carl shrugged. "You know how she runs around trying trying to put everything right. And now that she has her deaconess courses, she's always studying or meeting with the priest."

Jem breathed a little laugh. "Oh, I heard about the priest, alright. Daniel, is it? Rosemary can't praise him enough. You met him, didn't you?"

Carl grimaced. "He seemed nice enough. I don't think I made a very good first impression, though."

He eased the truck to a stop in front of the house, leaving the engine running.

"Come in," Jem said. "Have some tea."

"No, that's alright."

"Carl. Come in. You're always welcome. And Faith will be glad to see you."

Indeed, she was. Wrapped in the solid warmth of his sister's embrace, Carl wished he could offer her better solace than a damp hug and silent sympathy. Well, he'd brought her husband home in one piece at least.

Wally was out — tucked up somewhere cozy with Zoe, no doubt — but the girls were home and put together an admirable spread for tea. Cecilia beamed with shy pleasure when Carl declared her eclairs better than Grandma Rosemary's, and Jemmy was bursting with news of the impending graduation festivities.

"I get to play the fanfare for the ceremony," she announced. "All of the first trumpets are graduating and half the seconds as well, so I get to be first chair even if I'm only a sophomore. Angus Perry said that he should be first because I mightn't have the lung strength for the solo, so we went out onto the football field together and played the fanfare over and over and over until he gave it up as a bad job."

Carl laughed appreciatively and congratulated his niece, promising that he would applaud her from the stands.

At the top of the hour, Jem excused himself to the sitting room. Carl started to help clear the table, but cocked his head when the radio crackled to life.

". . . the evacuation from Dunkirk . . ."

"Leave the plates," Faith said, already stepping toward the door. "They'll keep."

They found Jem in the armchair closest to the radio, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Cecilia went and sat on the floor beside him, golden-brown head against his armrest, while Jemmy hovered behind his seat.

". . . three hundred and thirty-five thousand troops, British and French, brought back from Dunkirk. British losses exceed thirty thousand killed, wounded and missing . . ."****

Faith sank to the sofa, jaw set in a grim line, fists clenched in her lap. Carl remained in the doorway, frozen. The evacuation was no surprise — it had been going on for the last few days. But to hear it all summed up like this . . .

". . . young fliers, greater than Knights of the Round Table or Crusaders of old . . ."

The eclairs, so delectable half an hour ago, began to make protest at having been eaten, writhing like eels as the broadcaster went on and on with his catalogue of despair. The British Expeditionary Force had been driven from France by the relentless Nazi tide. There would be no Verdun this time, no Miracle at the Marne. Paris would fall. Soon. And then what was to stop the Nazis from turning their sights across the Channel? Across the Atlantic?

". . . Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons . . ."

Jem leaned forward to turn up the volume as the broadcaster began to read the Prime Minister's remarks. What could any man say at such an hour?

Carl missed the beginning of the speech, transfixed by the inconsequential details of the moment, storing them away in memory. The way the rain pounded against the windows, the bright fire of Jemmy's hair in the gloom of the too-dark afternoon, the grim avidity of Jem's attention.

There were moments when things changed, when a bright line divided everything into before and after. Sometimes you knew them right away: a deathbed goodbye to Mother, an impulsive kiss, a sudden blinding punch to the side of the head. Other times, they were discernible only in retrospect, when you realized that an ordinary farewell had really been forever, or that a chance-made friend was really the love of your life. Was this the end of everything? Or only a chapter somewhere near the beginning?

". . . defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone . . ."

Years? Could they even last weeks?

". . . we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air . . ."

Were they listening at Camp Borden? Were they crowded around a radio in the officers' mess at this moment, wishing themselves in Spitfires and Hurricanes? Or were they aloft, their ears full of the roar of engines, not pausing in their mission long enough to listen to the news?

". . . we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."

It was impossible not to be swept up in the rhythm of the words. And yet, the images they conjured, of an England besieged and invaded, were so horrific that Carl could barely breathe. He had seen what British generals were willing to spend in blood and treasure for a yard of ground at Ypres and Courcelette. How much more for Dover and Canterbury?

". . . and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle . . ."

Carl dared a glance at Faith, who had made no sound, but had gone perfectly still. She, who was always in motion, might have been a painting of herself, captured eternally in a posture of heart-stricken fear. Jem, too, grey and drawn and old, met the stirring words with stone. Sam was already on his way, with Wally on his heels; would the war be over before they even arrived? Would they be needed to defend Canadian shores?

". . . until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Notes:

*Rilla of Ingleside, chapter 12: "In the Days of Langemarck." Langemarck/Langemark is a Belgian town near Ypres/Ieper, about 30 miles inland from Dunkirk.

**I don't think this poem has been published anywhere except in the self-published Memoirs of World War II: The True Story of a Canadian Fighter Pilot by Laurie E. Philpotts. But it is a lovely little poem and I sort of wanted to say thanks to the Philpotts family since I read all about Laurie's time at Camp Borden and all his flight instructors and friends (and what his wings test was like!), so I thought I'd include it here. Gordon Philpotts became an Anglican priest and was rector of St. Paul's in Halifax - really my one regret here is that he did not write a memoir as well because I definitely would have read that, too.

***Air Marshal Billy Bishop's remarks at Camp Borden graduation as reported by John Bassett, Jr., "'We'll Win Again in Air,' Bishop Tells New Pilots," Toronto Globe and Mail, May 24, 1940.

****Quotations from the BBC broadcast of June 4, 1940 and from Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech to the House of Commons. Available via BBC archives at bbc dot co dot uk slash archives.