Mary Cote-Walkden
Mary Cote-Walkden
So Many Stories, So Little Time!
Ayne
Ayne
"Incoming!" The scream of the air raid siren sliced through what had been a lovely spring night, laid it wide open, allowing the fires of hell to rain down. Earsplitting, it also drowned out the rhythmic drone of an approaching flock of Messerschmitts, leaving you feeling like a mechanical duck in a shooting gallery; disoriented and trapped, ineffective against the barrage of bullets and bombs.
The siren was a nightly occurrence, or so we had been told. It was our welcoming party, one hell of an effective way to let us know that ‘hell, yes, Dorothy, we weren’t in Kansas anymore’. We were boys in men’s boots, tossed rifles to defend against incendiary bombs, and christened with Hitler’s hellfire and brimstone. Welcome to Greenoch; like Clydebank, it would be another of the war’s dirty little secrets, the pain, the devastation hidden away for years under the guise of national security.
I stood on this bluff that night, my first night in Scotland and, for the most part, became an audience for the half-scripted tragedy. The simple truth that none of us wanted to acknowledge then, and still don’t now, is that when the siren starts to scream, when you hear that drone of a hundred German mosquitoes coming in close to the deck to deliver their special man-made mechanical parasites, it’s already too late. Men and guns against aircraft and bombs for as far as the eye can see makes about as much sense as taking a turtle for protection into a bullfight ring. I was a tank commander. My weapon of choice, while effective as hell on the ground, was nothing more than a target to steel birds with swastika tattoos on their sides and bellies filled with IBs.
Am I sorry I was here? Hell no. I knew what I was doing when I signed on the dotted line, and I know we did, overall make a difference. We were in Scotland to train; our battles were yet to come. The events of May 6th and 7th, 1941, and the fallout from the Greenock Blitz would never leave me, and the memories would have much less to do with the bombing, but everything to do with the bombed.
#
Blake Calder stood on the bluff, looked down on Greenoch and the Atlantic below then drew a bracing breath. "What the hell am I doing here?"
He leaned one shoulder against an old, familiar oak tree. The lush green hillside was as he remembered it from almost twenty years earlier – sans bomb craters, war ships and planes screaming overhead. He looked at his shoes, no longer spit-shined boots; leather oxfords were the order of the day in civilian life. His toe kicked at the base of the tree, his hand caressed the gnarled bark, a fit enough greeting for an old arboreal friend.
A smile tickled the corners of Blake’s thin lips. Below, azure blue ribbons crept in towards the land. The dark, cold, unforgiving waters of the Atlantic Ocean wandered inwards, like arthritic fingers seeking to grasp hold of terra firma, never wanting to let it go again. Sun danced on the waves, reflecting like tinsel on a Christmas tree. With a deep breath, he drank in the smells of spring, the peat, the new grass, and the salt from the water below. Behind him sat factories and shipyards, the signs of progress that at one time had been branded by the enemy as prime targets for destruction. Many of those old buildings still wore their war wounds, showing they had a limitless ability to rise above adversity.
Pressing his spine to the trunk, he bent his knees as he slid down to sit on a moss-covered rock, the same one he thought twenty years earlier had been specifically designed to suit his backside. Boats bobbed on the water, deceptive dinky toys in a massive bathtub. Blake feasted on the view, the smells, the sounds of his beloved Scotland.
"Why did I wait so long to return?" He knew the answer; it was fear that held him back. It was fear that made him linger now, dangling remember-when’s in front of his own nose, hooked red wigglers in front of a trout. He touched the trunk once again, ran his hand along the deep furrows in the bark of the oak tree, caressing each crevice with calloused fingertips. "Gods to gods, was that a lifetime ago, or perhaps only a few days?" He ran his leathery hand over his head. Thinning hair and deep scar fissures offered confirmation: It was not 1941.
With a deep sigh, he allowed his head to drop back to rest against the trunk. Blake looked past the baby green leaves, considering the clouds high overhead. They were large and billowing, but the flat tops signaled something more ominous. "The anvils of the gods," he quoted his father. "Soon Thor will be in full voice, swinging his hammer while Zeus hurls lightening spears across the sky. I’ve watched it many times from right here on this damned bluff."
The tree and its surroundings became a conduit, whisking him many miles, many years, away from the cliff overlooking Greenoch. As he watched it, the blue of the ocean, that dark and unyielding water, faded from sight. It still waved, undulating, exotic, under the building storm clouds. In his memory it was now golden fields of wheat rising and falling in the wind for as far as the eye could see.
#
1928 was a memorable year for Blake Calder, and in fact, for the whole Calder family. It was the last wonderful year Blake could remember. There had been trials for them before 1928, but nothing that could hold a candle to the events that followed his eleventh birthday.
The scene unfolded before him as if he was sitting in a theatre in the city but without the grand marquee and popcorn. He, his father and his Uncle Stephen were walking through the wheat field. A stem of the grain hung from the corner of a very young Blake’s bow lips in perfect imitation of his father. He could remember Uncle Stephen looking down at him and chuckling. It was something Uncle did often. Blake however was never trying to be funny or amusing.
Mother Nature had been kind to Alberta farmers that year. The rain had come at just the right time, in just the right amount, to produce long stalks and very full heads of grain. The gardens were lush, green, and guaranteed no one would go hungry over the winter. The cattle and hogs were round and happy; the turkeys had filled out.
Blake was awestruck at the power wielded by the prairie soil. It had the ability to produce life that was able to sustain even more life. It provided almost everything they needed, and there was so much of it. The soil here sported fields of yellow grain that stretched all the way to the horizon. Far off to the west, he could see the outline of the Rocky Mountains, a sight he could only imagine up close, but one that intrigued him. To the east, the north and the south, there was nothing but fertile soil.
"Pa, how far away are the mountains from us?" Blake asked as he chewed on his stem.
Regen Calder looked down at his oldest boy before following his gaze westward. "Well, they’re about a hundred miles away, Son."
Blake’s smooth brow furrowed as he considered the answer. "My teacher said they grow wheat like this all across Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba. How far do you think that would be?"
Regen laughed. "It’s a very long way, and a whole lot of wheat."
The little boy nodded. "That’s what I thought. Guess we never need to worry about Ma not being able to make bread for us."
"No, son," Regen agreed. "I can’t imagine anything that could cause her that problem. There might be fires or floods to take out small pieces here and there, but only for a little while, and those would all recover in a year or two. The fires and floods, in the long run, help out the crops, but it takes time; we just don’t see that right away." He rested his fists on his hips. "This is what God intended when he made this land, and we would be well advised to not mess with his plan. It seems to be working fine. We’re all happy and fit; no one in our family will go hungry. That makes us a whole lot better off than many other people in the world."
Blake stuck his hands in the back pockets of his overalls, a miniature version of those worn by the two older men, and sauntered further along in the field. He stopped, looked up at both adults after several minutes of silence. "You think I’ll ever get to see just how far this wheat stretches? You think I’ll ever have the chance to see the mountains, or even Saskatchewan?"
Regen lifted Blake’s hat off his head and tussled the full crop of dark hair before slapping the cap back down, backwards. "Son, I think you’ll be able to go anywhere you want to in a few years. I think you could even get to see the whole world if you want."
Over the years, the words repeated in Blake’s mind. They had never been a superstitious family. In fact, any talk of good luck charms or curses or anything of the kind was forbidden within hearing of a Calder. The only influence outside of hard work with their calloused hands or the normal human frailties and strengths was the Divine intervention that came from above, and that had nothing to do with luck or charms. Those words, though, spoken in awe in the middle of a field, would be all the proof Blake Dalton Calder would need to later reverse his thinking. Karma didn’t exist back then, and he had never heard of tempting the Fates. Regardless of the catechism from the Catholic Church being drilled into his brain from the moment he was born, soon after that conversation, he knew something was wrong. If it was all God’s doing, then Blake wasn’t so sure he needed or wanted that God.
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