Multitudes

June 26-30, 1940

He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must trace alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

-William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), "To a Waterfowl"

It was still morning when Carl tied the Sweet Flag securely to the little wooden float in the shadow of the looming cliffs of Rocher aux Oiseaux. The Bird Rock was still breathtaking, even after dozens of visits: sheer, red cliffs rising suddenly from the sea, teeming with tens of thousands of nesting birds. They swooped and screamed, calling to their mates and warding off threats both real and imagined. The red-roofed lighthouse-keeper's cottage on the top must be the loudest lonely place in the world.

The first time Shirley had flown him past the Bird Rock in the Curtiss, Carl had vowed that any return trips would feature generous gifts for the keeper and his family. He had made good on that promise, bearing offerings for the Jubinvilles every summer: quart jars of fresh strawberries, crocks of new butter, a burlap sack of spinach redolent of deep, rich soil. And, of course, a bottle of cognac. No matter how carefully he packed them with newspaper padding, Carl's rucksack still clanked and rattled as he climbed the steep wooden gangway that rose a hundred feet straight up from the float.

Emerging over the top of the cliffs, Carl was buffeted by the sea winds that could — and had — blown men over the edge to their doom. The Rock was slick with excrement and crowded with milling throngs of kittiwakes and murres and gannets. The acrid, throat-searing stink was incredible. You got used to it, though.

At the cottage door, Mrs. Jubinville folded Carl into her warm bosom, exclaiming over him as loudly as any nesting razor-bill. The children tumbled in from the sitting room, clambering for greetings and the licorice they knew Carl had in his pockets. What a strange life it must be, born in the middle of the vast ocean, your whole world a few hundred yards square, and not even that, when you considered how unpleasant it was to step outside. Carl liked birds, but really, there were limits.

He spent an hour trading news with Mr. Jubinville over strong coffee that masked the taste of the island's tainted water. Mrs. Jubinville puttered in the background, praising les fraises, slapping last week's crumpled newspapers onto the stack on the table as she unwrapped each jar.

NAZIS SURROUNDING PARIS

FRANCE ASKS ENEMY TO NAME PEACE TERMS

BRITISH TO FIGHT ALONE

BRITAIN UNDER HEAVY RAID

PREMIER KING URGES HASTE IN HOME DEFENSE MOVES*

"It is very bad, no?" Mr. Jubinville asked, tapping a blunt finger on the column describing how Hitler had arranged to accept the French surrender in the very same spot in the Compiègne Forest where the 1918 Armistice had been signed. Carl's eye slid ineluctably to the next column: The names of eight Canadians appeared tonight on the Royal Air Force casualty list containing 284 names . . .

"Yes," he said. "Very bad."

"When the Nazis come, I will turn off my light," Mr. Jubinville shrugged. "Maybe I will sink a battleship."

Carl gave the joke a wan smile. "We'll all have to do our bit, I suppose."

"I wish them luck with les oiseaux. I think they will not like Canada very much."

Carl promised that he would come back topside for a late supper when the sun went down. These were the longest days of the year, and the best for counting nests. Three or four days at anchor should be sufficient to collect the data he needed — three days out of the human world, rocking to sleep in his bunk, watching the timeless sun rise over one watery horizon and set over another. The Bird Rock did have its compensations.

He would start with the herring gulls, whose speckled chicks were already bullying their siblings and squawking for parental attention. After strapping on cleated boots, life preserver, and tool belt — pickaxe, monocular, whistle, rubber-cased notebook — Carl secured one end of his lifeline to his chest harness and the other to the bow of the Sweet Flag. He'd lost his footing many times over the years, but only gone into the drink once. It was an experience he did not care to repeat.

Climbing over the spray-slick rocks, Carl made little effort to be quiet. For one thing, the constant screeching of wheeling birds and the chatter of their chicks would absorb any sound he could make. For another, the inhabitants of Rocher aux Oiseaux had no fear of humans. In the days before the 1919 Act that protected them, hunters could just tie up to the Rock and wring the necks of as many birds as they could carry. That was what had happened to the Great Auk, hunted to extinction for its heavenly down a century ago. Now the Rock was supposed to be a sanctuary, though Carl could hardly blame the Jubinvilles if they had the occasional fresh gull egg for their breakfast.

A gust of wind knocked him back a step, but Carl hunkered down and paid out another loop of rope, moving with careful deliberation toward the herring gull colony. Small, shaggy nests peeped from cracks and crevices safely above the water line. Carl couldn't climb to every one, but he could count them well enough, and survey a sample of nests to see whether the breeding pairs were having good success this year.

They were. Most of the nests Carl examined were home to two or three black-and-tan spotted chicks, some of them playing tug-of-war with seaweed or crying for food. A few were solitary, but the Bird Rock was a safe place, far from most predators' reach, and the herring gulls thrived here. Carl tallied them in his notebook, rows of little ticks and abbreviations that would become data when he entered them into his ledgers at home.

Carl was nearly ready to pack it in and return to the Sweet Flag when he spotted one: a superclutch — six unhatched eggs in a nest meant for three.

"Oh, where are you?" he murmured, looking to right and left for the parents.

Carl had first seen superclutches in Nova Scotia while working on his roseate tern thesis. They were rare, but not very rare, these nests with too many eggs that usually didn't hatch. He had developed a theory about them, but had never dared mention it to Professor Michelson. It was difficult to prove, especially in monomorphic birds like roseate terns and herring gulls, where the only way to tell male from female was to catch the individuals and examine them closely. Even physical examination was not always definitive, but if you could get a good look and reliable measurements, you could usually tell.

"Come on," Carl muttered to the absent gulls. "Show yourselves."

The first bird arrived home within five minutes. She settled herself over her eggs, still hopeful that one might produce a chick, even as the neighboring nests showed plainly that hatching season was done.

Carl approached the nest slowly and lifted the bewildered gull off her clutch for examination. He sized her head, body, and bill with the calipers in his tool belt: small, small, small. He would swear on a stack of Bibles that she was female.

Normally, Carl would return a bird to her nest as soon as possible, but he wanted to meet her mate. Reaching into a pouch on his tool belt, Carl drew out a small aluminum ring stamped with an identification number. He clamped it securely around the gull's leg, then tucked the soft, trembling creature under his arm and whispered promises that he'd let her get back to her eggs as soon as . . .

"There you are," Carl grinned as another gull settled onto the same nest. It wasn't impossible for it to be male — both herring gull parents incubated their eggs, though the females did by far the greater share of the work. Carl set the first bird down on the rock beside him. She flapped her wings in confusion, but did not alarm her partner. It was the work of a moment for Carl to pluck the sitting bird from the nest and measure her. Definitely her.

"Well, hello, ladies," he clucked as he banded the second bird. "Sorry about the jewelry. It's quite light, though."

Carl set the gull back on her nest. She ruffled her feathers and cawed, calling her mate to join her.

"There's not much of a chance we'll ever meet again," Carl said, penciling their tag numbers onto a page at the back of his notebook. "But if we do, I'd like take note of your future domestic arrangements."

The birds merely looked at him, yellow eyes bright and curious.

"Don't worry," Carl assured them. "I'll keep all this out of my official report. Wouldn't want anyone asking too many questions."

Carl returned the notebook to his belt and stood for a minute, regarding the nesting pair. They weren't the first and probably wouldn't be the last. In addition to the roseate terns and herring gulls, Carl had seen female-female pairs of kittiwakes, black-headed gulls, and Canada geese. Lots of Canada geese, in fact. He'd watched male murres mount other males — razor-bills, too — and there was a pair of Great Cormorants on Rocher aux Margaulx that he'd never been able to tag, owing to rough seas, but he'd watched them build an empty nest together year after year. It wasn't the sort of thing he could risk writing an article about. But it was still true.

That night, after breaking bread with the Jubinvilles, Carl sat in the cabin of the Sweet Flag with his lantern, hunting for letter paper and a pencil. There weren't many people with whom he could discuss his observations, and fewer still who might help him find answers. But there was one.

26 June 1940

Rocher aux Oiseaux, Québec

Dear Nellie . . .

On the morning after Ursula Anderson's funeral, Una found Father Daniel in the rectory vegetable garden, filling yet another wooden crate with glossy green summer squashes. This looked to be the fourth . . . no, the fifth.

"Miss Meredith!" the priest called, sitting back on his haunches amid the broad leaves and wiping his brow with a muddy sleeve. "Just the person I was hoping to see!"

"You have quite a crop of squash," Una observed, a gentle smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I do not have a crop of squash," Father Daniel objected. "I have an excess of squash! A superfluity of squash! An invasion of squash!"

Una chuckled behind her hand. "I'm afraid you're right. How many hills did you plant?"

"Twelve."

"Twelve?!"

Father Daniel rose to his feet, brushing dirt from the knees of his coveralls. "Yes, well, I didn't quite realize just how productive they would be. I've never grown them before."

"Oh dear," Una sympathized. "One or two would have been perfectly sufficient. They'll go on growing new squashes, too, from now until September."

Father Daniel grimaced. "I would say I have quite a lot of ratatouille in my future, but I've already managed to kill all the tomato vines, so I suppose not."

Una reached into the nearest crate, fishing out one plump vegetable for inspection. "You did a fine job with these, at least," she commented. "And you've picked them at just the right point. They'll go on growing and growing if you let them."

"Really?" Father Daniel asked, interested. "How big will they get?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Una admitted. "The larger ones are tough and bland, so we always harvest them when they're small like this."

The priest grinned like a little boy, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. "In that case, I propose an experiment. I'll go on harvesting eleven of the plants, but I'll leave this one to its own devices and see what happens."

His delight was infectious and Una could not help but mirror it back to him. "Have you never had a garden before, Father?"

Father Daniel's expression quivered ever so slightly, then settled into a more gentle register of pleasure. "I have, but only for one summer."

The wistful tone of this admission hinted at a story, but Una did not press for details. However, Daniel Caldwell was not a man to keep his peace when he had a willing audience.

"I grew up in Toronto," he explained, "and never ate anything that didn't come from a market. Then college and seminary, all in the city. I never had a garden at all until I married Louisa."

Everyone knew that Father Daniel wore a wedding ring, but no more than that. At least, that was as much as Una knew, and she had no notion of prying. But if Father Daniel wished to tell . . .

"We were married at Easter in 1914," he explained. "I was serving as a minor canon at the Cathedral of St. James, but after we were married, we moved to a little house with a tiny garden plot. I didn't know the first thing about it, but Louisa made it bloom. Then the war came and I went off to England . . ."

He trailed off into fraught silence, fidgeting with his ring.

"Many things changed," Una said, trying to sound both casual and neutral, and succeeding at neither.

"It's no secret, really," Father Daniel said quietly. "She died of the flu before I came home."

Una's "I'm sorry" was meant to cover both his bereavement and whatever winding path had brought them from the summer squash harvest to this delicate pass.

"Hardly your fault, Miss Meredith," the priest said, mustering a little smile. Turning back to the blooming hills, the expression broadened until he gave a little chuckle. "She would have had a laugh at this, I can tell you that much. Enough squash to feed the multitude twice over, Daniel!"

"What do you mean to do with them all?" Una asked, grateful to return to the vegetables at hand.

"Ah," he said, a bit of relish returning to his gaze. "That's why I was so glad to see you. Who better to help me disperse such a bounty?"

"That smells awfully good," Carl called as he pulled off muddy boots in the front hall. "What are you making?"

"Summer squash," came the faint reply from the kitchen, though it hardly explained the smells emanating therefrom.

Carl lingered a moment to greet an ecstatic Muggins with scratchings and nose-kisses, then made for the bathroom. He deposited bird-stained trousers and reeking shirt in the hamper and washed up as best he could before going to the kitchen in undershirt and blue-striped drawers, Muggins at his heels.

Inside, a row of brown loaf-cakes cooling on the sill seemed to be the sort that Una made from squash left too long on the vine. Aunt Martha's largest casserole pan held baked scalloped squash bubbling with cheese, as did several of the cheap pie plates Una used for food she meant to give away. The big enamel basin on the table was brimful of squash slices marinating in vinegar and dill, waiting to be canned.

"I've heard of the loaves and fishes," Carl said, grinning at sight of the abundance on display, "but it would seem we have a miraculous marrow plant on our hands."

"Twelve, actually," Una said, pausing just long enough to kiss his cheek in greeting.

"Twelve?!" Carl exclaimed. "We never planted twelve, did we?"

"There was a mixup at the rectory," Una explained, stirring a pot of what was certainly more squash. "We gave away as much as people would take and now I'm trying to make the rest more appetizing."

"Can I help?" Carl asked, taking up a knife to slice the end off one dense, moist cake.

"You could take a bath," Una said mildly.

"Are you saying I stink?"

"You do."

"Ah, well, you get used to it," Carl said through a mouthful of crumbs.

Una put her hands on her hips and turned a wrinkled nose toward him. "Perhaps you get used to it, but I do not."

Carl laughed. "Well I suppose you'll never get to visit the Jubinvilles then."

"Definitely not," Una agreed.

"Too bad I left before this visitation of squashes," Carl smiled, cutting another slice. "They're wild for anything green out there — I could have taken some off your hands."

"There will be plenty more where this came from. You can take a whole sackful on your next trip."

Mention of travel diverted Carl's attention from the edible. "Do I have mail?" he asked.

Una gestured toward the sitting room, where a spray of unopened letters adorned the telephone table. Two from Kingsport — one from Di and another from the Rev. Anthony Marckworth — but those could wait. Carl found the one he wanted — precise, upright letters spelling out C. Meredith under Camp Borden's postmark — and slit the envelope. There would be time to read carefully later. For now, there should be news here somewhere . . .

. . . permission to take two weeks of leave in August. Do you still think you'd like to rent a cabin on Lake Huron? It's beautiful country . . .

The prickle of wiry fur against his bare shins alerted Carl to Muggins, apparently protesting the truncation of their ordinary letter-reading rituals. Carl crouched, letting her sniff the letter as he scratched her ears.

"What d'ya say, girl? Are you up for a very long train ride?"

Notes:

*Front-page headlines from the Charlottetown Guardian, June 14-21, 1940. With the fall of France, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King declared that Canada might be the next Nazi objective after Britain, and began home defense mobilization, including compulsory service in home-defense forces for able-bodied men under 45 and tax increases.

It is a bit too early for the "Gay Purge" in Canada, the systematic campaign to investigate, punish, and/or fire federal employees who were suspected of being gay. However, Carl would certainly be vulnerable if he were to keep his civil service job after the war. Even though same-sex sex was decriminalized in Canada in 1969, thousands of LGBTQ Canadians were fired from civil service on the basis of sexual orientation as late as 1996 (members of the military were also discharged). Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an official apology on November 28, 2017, and the Canadian government settled a class action lawsuit in April 2018. Recommended viewing: "The Fruit Machine" (2018) documentary by Sarah Fodey.