The Broken Sword Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The Broken Sword

  Published by Gatekeeper Press

  2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109

  Columbus, OH 43123-2989

  www.GatekeeperPress.com

  Copyright © 2019 by The St. Suibhne Trust

  All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  ISBN (hardcover): 9781642377668

  ISBN (paperback): 9781642377675

  eISBN: 9781642377682

  When a warrior is defeated he

  surrenders his sword.

  If he has been cheated, however,

  he breaks his sword.

  BOOK I

  THE PHONY WAR

  “But it isn’t playing the game,” he said,

  As he slammed his books away;

  “The Latin and Greek I’ve got in my head

  Will do for a duller day.”

  —Robert Service,

  “The Fool” (Rhymes of a Red Cross Man)

  1

  The road was gravel and hard walking. It was dusk, with an autumn chill in the air, and Signalman Patrick MacQueen hurried towards the distant guardhouse, praying that he wouldn’t be late. His pass expired at nine-thirty and he didn’t have a watch. He badly wanted to pee but did not dare risk the time. He broke into a trot, passing by the evergreens making pointed shadows against the sky. The leather band of his khaki cap was hot and his hands were cold. He wore an empty leather bandolier of cartridge cases over one shoulder and nickel spurs on his black boots. He also carried a riding crop with the crest of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals engraved on its hilt.

  Although MacQueen thought it archaic that in the autumn of 1939 Canadian soldiers were still outfitted for the 1914 war, he had joined the Royal Canadian Signal Corps in particular because he liked the uniform. In one week, he would be seventeen years old. He saw an officer standing at the gate beside the sentry, so he slowed to a march and straightened his cap. He swung his arms shoulder-high, then placed the riding crop under one arm and saluted the officer.

  “Halt! Who goes there?” shouted the sentry, levelling his rifle at MacQueen’s midriff. The officer, a youthful-looking second lieutenant, wore a long khaki greatcoat. He returned the salute as the duty sergeant emerged from the guardhouse.

  “Signalman MacQueen, Headquarters’ Company!” he answered.

  There was one light on a pole over the gate. The sergeant switched it on from the sentry box and marched over to MacQueen, who stood rigidly with his arms frozen to his sides and his thumbs aligned with the seams of his britches.

  “Let me see your pass,” said the sergeant. The young officer glanced at the sergeant, trying not to betray his unease.

  The sentry kept his rifle aimed, its long bayonet pointing at MacQueen’s stomach. MacQueen pulled the crumpled square of paper from his pocket and presented it. The sergeant leaned forward to eye it carefully under the light and then checked his wristwatch. “Just on time,” he said. “You cut things pretty close, m’lad. Carry on to the barracks.”

  Signalman MacQueen stepped-out with his left foot and arms swinging. He was tired to the bone.

  “As you were!” shouted the sergeant. MacQueen froze, then turned about, his heart sinking. “You are leaving the presence of an officer. What do they teach you in the Signals?”

  MacQueen saluted. With an almost apologetic smile the officer returned his salute once more.

  “Carry on,” the sergeant said again, more softly.

  It was another half mile to the canteen. MacQueen had twenty-five cents in his pocket, which was enough for two beers if they hadn’t run dry. A high barbed wire fence surrounded the entire camp area, which was patrolled by bored and nervous sentries. He passed the headquarters building, a one-storey H-shaped structure of frame and tar-paper with an empty flagpole stuck in front. The orderly room was in the middle of the two extensions. He noticed that a light was burning in the colonel’s office—he was working late. MacQueen, when on duty, was the colonel’s “runner”, the adjutant’s driver, and the British staff sergeant’s butt of humour or ill-temper, depending on the day or hour or situation.

  A teenage soldier’s main task was to keep his façade from falling apart. Questions regarding the rights and wrongs of constant harassment were beyond him, he just attempted to keep abreast of things. There was no alternative. His pay was $1.10 per day, liable to an infinite number of fines for infractions. Having lied about his age when he decided to join up, he was officially eighteen, as were they all. Clergymen in uniform, the Padres, would try to seek the young ones out but were usually rebuffed.

  The 6th District Signal Corps that Patrick MacQueen had so eagerly joined in Charlottetown was now scattered all over Nova Scotia. Their breakup had come as an unpleasant surprise—some were sent to Sydney, and others distributed in various coastal defence forts along the Eastern shore. The coast artillery were in the fort and anti-aircraft artillery in the redoubt structures just outside of the fort. It was Canada’s answer to the German High Seas Fleet. MacQueen, along with one sergeant and six other Signalmen, had been dumped into a small tar paper shack in the hills outside Halifax, between York Redoubt and Fort Sandwich. Their accommodations had been collapsible double-deck bunks and an old wood-burning potbellied stove. The Signalmen ate meals at the fort, which they reached by a winding path over the grubby hills. They carried and washed their own utensils each day.

  Halifax remained the operational centre of Canada at war. Everything had to be improvised. It all depended on the residual structures and experience left from the 1914–18 war, a mere twenty-one years previous, during which the city had been devastated by the Halifax Explosion. It was surrounded by forts, and mines were laid in its harbour approaches. Across the mouth of Halifax Harbour, just below the fort, stretched a vast anti-submarine net. In the centre, two gate-vessels opened and closed lines as the giant ships of the Royal Navy, the small Canadian destroyers, tankers, and troopships, entered and left the harbour regularly. The giant grey troopships were loaded with excited Canadians heading for another war.

  MacQueen finally reached the canteen, which was in the same building as the YMCA. It was a large room with tables and benches and tin ashtrays. The highest rank allowed in this canteen was corporal. The sergeants and the officers had their own messes.

  There was no décor here—only plain plank flooring and unpanelled walls, exposed beams and uncurtained windows. One just sat, drank, and smoked, or sometimes sang. The songs were mostly from the “other” war: “A Long Way to Tipperary”, or “A Long, Long Trail A-Winding”. The only new one was a polka named “Roll Out the Barrel”.

  Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun Roll out

  the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run

  Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer

  Now’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here!

  Having purchased two glasses of draft beer and five loose cigarettes, Signalman MacQueen was broke. He sat alone and loosened the rough high collar of his tunic before turning from the bar to quickly glance over the room. It was getting near payday so not too many were present. He recognized a couple of faces but avoided eye contact since they would want half his beer and smokes. He had forgotten to urinate but was not keen on leaving the
beer unprotected. The army had swept up a lot of odd characters in its first great recruiting drive and hadn’t begun to winnow them out. He downed one glass thirstily, then lit a cigarette and carried the other glass into the latrine. It was a long tin trough nailed to the wall, angled to pour its contents into the darkness. He hardly noticed the overpowering smell anymore as it was just a fact of life.

  The young soldier returned to the burn-scarred wooden bar and extravagantly decided to light another cigarette. “Tailor-made” cigarettes were unheard of three days after payday; then, everyone rolled their own. Without beer and cigarettes who could ever tolerate the bleakness? A dusty man approached his table. His nickname was “Wacky”, and he was always in trouble. He was the worst scrounger in the camp, and had also been a professional lightweight boxer, so his brains did not function too well.

  “Save me the butt, Pat?” he asked.

  MacQueen handed him the cigarette, only half-smoked. It was a gesture of great generosity.

  Wacky took one drag then butted it with his fingers and placed it behind his ear. “Thanks,” he said. “Save it for later.”

  MacQueen hitched his collar and stood up to finish his beer. The canteen was closing, and he would just have time to get to his hut, wash, and undress before the lights went out. He grabbed his riding crop and gave Wacky a pat on the shoulder as he left.

  There in Camp Aldershot, named after the more famous one in England, each of the long buildings housed thirty-odd men and a corporal. They were as embellished and well kempt as the canteen. The only heat came from three indispensable potbellied stoves that were kept coaled through the night by grimy soldiers carrying coal scuttles. The windows had been sealed against the winter, and they would all have asphyxiated except for the fact that green lumber had been used to construct the huts. Plenty of ventilation had been created as it had dried.

  That winter, Aldershot had been totally unequipped to receive the deluge of ill-trained soldiery that was dumped there for basic training. The adjutant of the camp used an overturned packing box for a desk. The daily orders were churned out on an old, ink-splattering, drumlike Gestetner copying machine, which was the job Signalman MacQueen hated most. The men did their own laundry, swept their quarters, were constantly polishing brass buttons and leather boots, and never saw a female except on the rare excursion to the small town of Kentville.

  The bugler was just untangling the tassels of his instrument to blow “Lights Out” as MacQueen entered the hut of Headquarters Company. That designation meant that they were assigned to every dirty job connected with the running of the barracks. They were a collection of cast-offs from every corps and unit that had been disbanded, and many of them wanted to spend the rest of the war right where they were. “Let us be where the good Lord flang us,” one Cape Bretoner had said. About a dozen of MacQueen’s original unit had ended up in the unpromising backwater camp of Aldershot. Some took root there for five more years.

  Everyone was scurrying to finish last-minute items before lights out. MacQueen quickly unbuttoned his tunic, took off his spurs, and unrolled the puttees from around his aching calves. He then unrolled the old brown mattress and threw his two dingy grey wool blankets onto it, which he arranged into an envelope formation to slip into from the top. Pyjamas were unheard of here—everyone slept in their winter underwear. He took off his boots and heavy wool socks last to avoid the cold floor and then climbed into the bunk, folding a sweater under his head for a pillow. His bunkmate above groaned and rolled over, causing the springs to squeak as the iron bunk swayed. The bugler, a tall fellow from the Lunenburg Regiment, opened the door and stepped out. The notes of his bugle floated over the camp and out into the uncaring night sky, and the lights twinkled out in all the identical huts, which were laid row-on-row like a prison camp.

  MacQueen cupped a wooden match in his hands and lit another of his cigarettes.

  “Jesus!” came a voice from the darkness. “Have you got any more of those, Pat? You owe me a butt.”

  “Come and get it in a minute,” said MacQueen. He put an arm behind his head and looked at the glow in the dark. The hut smelled of Blanco boot polish, brass polish, dirty socks, and putrid coal. He didn’t notice these things though, as he thought of Madeleine Carroll playing the role of the Princess Flavia in the movie he had just seen during his pass. Just like the hero, he would give his life for a woman like that. He was sure of it. The bugler returned and started to undress by a dim flashlight. MacQueen surrendered the cigarette butt to his creditor with reluctance and snuggled into his scratchy blankets. As an uncomfortable sleep took hold, he realized he had never seen someone smoke an entire cigarette at the camp.

  2

  As a young boy growing up in Bermuda, MacQueen wanted desperately to please his undemonstrative father, who had been an officer in the Medical Corps. His most treasured recollections of the man were of his impressive regalia. MacQueen’s younger sister had contracted tuberculosis and died before his eyes. She had been eight years old. After that, his devastated parents had shipped him off to live with his aunt in Truro, Nova Scotia. They had remained far past the horizon in Bermuda, soundly out of reach, leaving him with no guidance and causing his entire psychological locomotive to switch tracks. He was later told that his parents had separated, and his father had returned to Charlottetown. His only other sibling, an older brother, had also joined the Signal Corps and was shipped to a training course somewhere in Ontario.

  After these events, MacQueen’s view of the world became oblique, and the only worthy calling was one that demanded, or even promised, death. The boy did not analyze this, of course, but instead insisted on plunging straight into it. He took an oath to the king in a small office in the back of a brick garrison. It was administered by a rumpled captain wearing a tweed jacket who smelled of whisky. The Bible was stained and leaf-eared. To Patrick MacQueen, it was a solemn moment.

  Young Patrick MacQueen had not been a stranger to Aldershot camp when he arrived for his most recent assignment. He had spent two weeks there the previous year as a volunteer with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, in their Signals Platoon. They had been accepting boys of sixteen then. MacQueen had been fourteen, but the lie had stuck. His first night at Aldershot, the tent they had been given for accommodations blew down in a storm of hurricane force and drenching rain. MacQueen had ended up spending the sodden night on the floor of the YMCA building, while a young private from the Lunenburg Regiment puked and cried beside him.

  The North Nova Scotia Highlanders had then been devoted to the Vickers machine gun. They had four pipe-bands and a brass band, and the pipers, often drunk, consistently got entangled in the tent stays at night. They wore the Murray of Atholl tartan kilt. Immaculate staff officers rode horseback, and the cadets from Royal Military College looked like young gods.

  The Highlanders were all entrained and shipped to Halifax to guard the royal family. They had swept past MacQueen in an open touring car upholstered in violet. The king was tanned and looked dignified in his admiral of the fleet’s uniform; but MacQueen regretted that his name was not Edward VIII. MacQueen left his weekend volunteer service with the Highlanders in nearly the same breath that he graduated from high school at age sixteen. He immediately signed on with the Royal Canadian Corp of Signals, specifically the mounted division, although there were no horses. Without much military expertise, MacQueen’s first assignment was sure to be a lowly one. He began as a waiter in the sergeants’ mess in the 6th District Signal Corps, and that was pure hell. When his small band was diverted from Fort Sandwich to Aldershot, the commanding colonel happened to be the retired commanding officer of the Highlanders, whose son was an ex-classmate of MacQueen’s. A connection made, MacQueen became the colonel’s runner instead of emptying latrines or lugging coal. This distinction still did not really please young MacQueen—he wanted to be a soldier. But the chaotic and excited state of the camp (indeed, the whole army) at the time rendered his plight more bearable.

  T
here were many intermediaries between the commanding officer and humble Signalman MacQueen, of course, but he was occasionally summoned directly for some errand or other, or when a particularly urgent dispatch had to be delivered to the colonel. The young soldier knew that he would get what he wanted when the time came as long as he stayed out of trouble. Although that was more of a problem than it might seem.

  Not everyone admires youthful sangfroid. Some sergeants and all military policemen view it with undisguised suspicion. Having entrée to the colonel’s office just postpones the day of reckoning. Colonels change or are promoted. Sergeants and military policemen are always there, and their patience can be infinite. Jaunty young fellows on headquarters staff are always in their gunsights.

  Belief in one’s fellow man and their adherence to virtue dies hard in youthful hearts, and MacQueen’s was no exception. He felt that his ambitions were straightforward and that everyone would admire his achievements when he became an officer. Had he realized that the opposite was more likely to be true it might have dampened his ardour, but he naïvely tried to play the game straight. He credited misfortune to his own failings, not to the malice of others. In the army such an attitude is not encouraged.

  He polished his buttons and polished his boots. He shaved in cold water and ate hard-boiled eggs cooked by the hundreds in great vats. He saluted, posted the daily orders, drove the adjutant’s car on rare occasions, and tried to laugh at the staff sergeant’s incomprehensible wit. The barracks filled with untrained recruits who were later shipped out by train, and who were then replaced by another awkward crowd. More buildings sprouted, and local contractors got rich. The winter passed in slush and mud, and Kentville was overrun with soldiery. Spring was in the air when Signalman MacQueen decided it was time to make his move. He had heard a rumour that the colonel was to be sent overseas.

  What was happening in the camp was the advent of professionalism in the face of rising wartime tensions. The Canadian militia was called the NPAM, or Non-Permanent Active Militia. These were the part-time soldiers. In September of 1939, a horde of men had descended on the militia depots across Canada to volunteer for duty. A few had previous training; some were veterans of other wars, and many of these were retired British army officers, or NCOs. The youngsters, like MacQueen, may have had some cadet experience in school. The full-time professionals were called the Permanent Force. At the start of the war, the Permanent Force numbered only a few thousand. It was overwhelmed and inadequately equipped to handle the onslaught. The core militia units emerged as the rock around which everything was reconstructed and became home to thousands of men. These men would become the cogs in the Canadian war machine.