Megiddo's Shadow Read online

  Also by Arthur Slade

  DUST

  TRIBES

  This novel is dedicated to the memory of:

  Corporal Edmund Hercules Slade, 1867-1949

  Trooper Cecil Henry Edmund Slade, 1891-1949

  Lance Corporal Arthur Hercules Slade, 1893-1975

  Trooper Herbert George Slade, 1894-1962

  Private Percy james Slade, 1897-1918 (K1A)

  And to all those who fought in the Great War in all armies.

  Author's Note

  The names of locations used in this book are as they appear on British military maps from the time period. Many of the names have changed since that time.

  BOOK ONE

  Oh! we don't want to lose you

  But we think you ought to go,

  For your King and your Country

  Both need you so.

  We shall want you and miss you,

  But with all our might and main

  We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you

  When you come home again.

  “Your King and Country Want You”

  Lyrics by Paul Rubens

  1

  The letter was stained with mud from France, but there was a British army stamp in the corner, and the handwriting looked fancy and official. Maybe Hector had won a medal! He'd finally given the Huns a good, hard punch on the nose.

  I left the general store, nearly tripping on the sidewalk planks as I searched the envelope for clues about its contents. I wanted to rip it open, but it had been addressed to Dad. My breath turned to frost in the October air. Hector must've jumped out of the trenches and taken a machine-gun nest, or perhaps he'd captured a bunch of Germans. He'd joined up in 1916, so he'd been over there for more than a year; lots of time to do something heroic. I jogged the half mile to our farm, watching for our white and green house to appear on the other side of the hill, with the rolling prairie spread out beyond it.

  Maybe Hector would be getting a Victoria Cross pinned to his chest. He would make the papers all across Canada.

  I stopped in my tracks. I fingered the thin envelope, my mouth dry. What if it's not a medal. What if … I wouldn't let myself think the words.

  If he'd fallen in France I'd surely have felt something deep in my heart, even thousands of miles away here in Saskatchewan.

  Such dark thoughts had made my legs numb. I leaned against our sign that said BATHE FAMILY FARM. Father had carved it to put a name to the fields he'd cut out of the prairie. Land he intended to pass on to us boys.

  No Hun bullet would ever kill Hector, but perhaps he'd been so badly wounded that he couldn't even pick up a pen.

  My hand shook as I flicked open my pocketknife and slit the envelope. I'd tell Dad I just couldn't wait to read the good news.

  I scanned the first few lines.

  R.S. Major

  27/09/17

  ISth Canadian Batt

  B.E.F.

  Dear Mr. Wilfred Bathe,

  You will no doubt wonder who this is writing to you. I will try to explain as well as I can; I am the regimental sergeant major of the above battalion. I have a very painful duty to perform in—

  My heart stopped. It wasn't just a “painful duty,” but a “very painful duty,” and I knew what had to follow. I sucked in a rattling breath. And another. Oh, God. Oh, no.

  I forced myself to move toward the house. It was an eternity before I got there. I opened the door, the squeaking hinge unusually loud. I passed through the empty hall and up the worn stairs, glancing at the Union Jack that hung on the wall. I pulled myself up with the rail. I'd gone from sixteen to a hundred years old.

  At the top of the landing I stopped to wipe my icy, sweaty palms on my overalls. I glanced at the oval photograph of Dad in his dragoons uniform, medals from the South African war glittering on his chest. Hung next to him was the picture of Mother in her Sunday best, and the thought of her made my legs go weak. It was a blessing God had taken her; today would have broken Mom's heart. Beside her was a photograph of Hector and me, when he was fourteen and I was twelve. I looked away and tried to swallow the lump in my throat.

  Maybe he'd just been terribly wounded, his bright green eyes blinded by gas. That was why he couldn't write. Or perhaps his arm had been blown off. If so, when he got home he would still be able to fork hay with one hand. I'd help him. I would.

  I knocked and entered the master bedroom. The stink of pee and old sweat hung in the air, a sign of how weak Dad was now. He lay sleeping, sheets pulled up to his neck, cheekbones sticking out of his long, pale face as though he were starving. His once proud and bushy mustache was limp and stringy.

  I sat on the wooden chair and waited, my hands still trembling. Dad had been bedridden for seven months, leaving me to seed, harvest, and do the chores. In March, on the anniversary of Mom's death, he stayed in bed all day, as prickly as a cactus. He didn't get up the next day, or the next. In fact, he didn't get up at all. He gave up on everything. The man I'd seen flip and pin a calf in a heartbeat couldn't even pull himself out of bed.

  It wasn't the first time he'd been bedridden. Once or twice a year he'd go all dour and stay in bed. Mom would give him a day or two before she grabbed his work clothes and boots and goaded him to his feet. After her funeral he spent three days in bed. On the fourth day Hector set Dad's work clothes and boots on the end of the bed. Dad was out to the barn within an hour, not saying a word.

  This time, I'd tried the same trick after the first week, but no luck. When it came to Dad, Hector had the magic touch; it'd always been that way. All I could do was call Dr. Fusil, an old man with sharp eyes. This was, of course, against Father's wishes.

  “Wilfred's body is fine,” Dr. Fusil said out on the front porch after the visit. He slowly pulled on his coat. “His mind, though, is troubled. If his condition worsens and he refuses all food and water, there's a sanitarium in Regina I could recommend. That'd leave you with a heavy load, though.”

  I'm already doing all the work! I felt like shouting. But instead, I only shrugged, and the doctor putted away in his Model T.

  Now, I sat back in the chair, making it creak.

  “What's in your hand, Edward?” Father asked.

  His gray eyes searched mine. I could see every long day he'd worked.

  “It's a letter from Hector's major.”

  Father closed his eyes. Several moments passed before he rasped, “Read it, will you?”

  I unfolded the letter. The writing was perfect; not even a smear. I had to swallow several times to ensure my voice wouldn't crack.

  R.S. Major

  27/09/17

  ISth Canadian Batt

  B.E.F.

  Dear Mr. Wilfred Bathe,

  You will no doubt wonder who this is writing to you. I will try to explain as well as I can; I am the regimental sergeant major of the above battalion. I have a very painful duty to perform in telling you of the death of your son Hector. He was my batman, as no doubt he will have previously told you in his letters home. He spoke very highly of you and asked me to write should the worst come to pass.

  We went into the attack on the 26th day of this month, and Hector was killed by a rifle bullet that struck him right through the heart. Death was instantaneous. This happened just as we were approaching the German front lines. You have my most sincere and deep sympathy for the loss of your brave lad; no one knows better than I of his qualities as a soldier. Believe me, I feel the loss very much. I gave him instructions to stay behind and come up after the attack and his reply was “Major, wherever you go I am going too.” He was made of the right stuff. You will be officially notified as to the location of his grave and I am sure if there is any more information I can give you I shall only be too pleased if it is in my power.
r />   Yours sincerely,

  F. Gledhill

  My throat was dry and my body numb. I'd become hardened clay. No, not quite. My hand was still shaking.

  A tear slid down into the wrinkles on my father's face. I'd never seen him cry, not even when he'd split his hand open chopping wood. Not even at Mom's funeral.

  We should have had a telegram, but someone had forgotten us. Hector had died almost two weeks earlier. All this time I'd thought he was alive.

  I squeezed the arm of the chair and nearly ripped it off. It wasn't right! My father was broken and my brother dead. “I'll join up, the moment I'm eighteen,” I'd promised Hector. “I have to keep you out of trouble!” But now I wouldn't wait until I was eighteen; the Huns could be pissing on his grave as I sat here waiting for Dad to speak.

  What if we lost the war? Then Hector's sacrifice would be for nothing. “I have to enlist,” I whispered. Dad stared into space, not hearing me. “I have to enlist,” I repeated, louder.

  His eyes grew cold. “You're fifteen years old—that's far too young!”

  “I'm sixteen! All you have to do is sign the permission papers.”

  “I would never sign them. Don't even think of it.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Hector's gone. He's … gone. You're all I have left, Edward.”

  “It's my duty.”

  “No.” Though his voice and body were shaking, he managed to sit up. “Now, you listen to me, Edward! It's not your duty. Duty is what kills young men. I knew what he was getting into. I should have made him stay home.”

  “We're at war! He didn't have a choice, and neither do I.”

  “You'll stay here.”

  I wanted to shout No, I won't! but I bit my tongue and spoke as calmly as I could. “All the gram is in. Only our cows need to be fed, and the Somnerses will help with that. If I'm not back by spring we can rent our land to Mr. Sparrow.”

  “I don't rent my land.”

  “Well, why don't you get out of bed and do the work yourself, then? I've been doing it all on my own for seven months.”

  I thought he was going to leap up and strike me. I waited, shouting silently—Get up! Get up! Hit me! What do I care? But he slumped back.

  “Never speak to me that way again.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I am your father. You aren't going anywhere. I forbid it.”

  Then he closed his eyes.

  * * *

  I couldn't stay in the house. I stomped around the yard, not bothering with my overcoat because I wanted to freeze right to the bone. I stood in the stubble of the nearest field and stared across the rolling land at the sinking sun. In the spring our home quarter looked beautiful and green, but now it was dead and cold.

  I wiped my eyes and the sun blurred.

  “God made the sun,” Mom had told me when I was little, holding my hand. “God made the sky and the earth and the animals, all out of nothing. And then he made men the keepers of the earth.” It was such a simple revelation: all of the world made by one hand and entrusted to the care of mankind. And who was a better keeper of the earth than the British Empire? From Australia to India to South Africa to Canada, we were putting everything in order, taming all the savage lands.

  But now the dirty Huns were wrecking it all. They'd invaded Belgium and France, raping women, crucifying soldiers, even tossing babies onto bayonets.

  I clenched my jaw and looked skyward. Dear God, I prayed, why did you let the Germans kill him? No, that wasn't what I wanted to ask. They had done the deed. What I really wanted to know was when could I take an eye for an eye? When could I do my duty? I waited for an answer, but all that moved in the heavens were a few red-tinged clouds.

  There were still chores to do, so I trudged into the barn, the last rays of the sun shining through the far window. I stabbed the fork into the hay and first fed Abigail, Dad's horse.

  Caesar, Hector's horse, followed me to his trough, nudging my side. All along I'd been feeding and brushing him carefully, waiting for the day Hector would return and tell me I'd done a good job.

  “Hector's dead,” I whispered to Caesar. He turned back his ears. The words made no sense. “He used to ride you and now he's dead.”

  Caesar looked at me and I leaned against him and stroked his mane. “He's dead, dead, dead.” After a moment, I pushed myself away. Caesar would be mine now. The thought made me sick.

  Hector had taught me how to snare gophers. We'd swing them by the neck and hang them on the fence, pretending they were Boers. I'd do the same to the Germans.

  “Hector is your North,” Mom used to say. “Whichever way he goes, you go, too.” It was true; I followed him like a dog, chased cattle through creeks with him, went on long rides into the Cypress Hills looking for Red Indians or bears. He punched me when I got on his nerves, passed on words of encouragement when I learned to skate, and passed down his clothes to me when he'd outgrown them. I touched my chest. My overalls had once been his. I bit my lip. My body was shaking in the cold.

  I could hear his voice reading bits of the newspaper to me, articles describing how Canada had bravely declared war alongside England.

  “I'm gonna go,” he told me a few weeks before his eighteenth birthday. “I wanted to tell you first. I'll break it to Dad tonight. You'll have to pick up the slack around here, but you're plenty strong enough to do that.”

  He signed up in Moose Jaw and wrote a letter home nearly every week. I'd memorized them all.

  There'd be no more letters now. I grabbed the pitchfork and jabbed a seed sack, imagining it was a German. Hector was in the ground. Taken away from me. I stabbed the sack again and again, then slammed the fork against the wall.

  Hector was dead and the war was still going on. This wasn't a time to lie around reading about it in Boy's Own Paper. I knew what I had to do.

  2

  At two in the morning I crept past the dark rectory to the church, my rucksack slung over my shoulder. I slowly opened the front door. The full moon shone through the windows, casting shadows across empty pews. A stained-glass Mary watched as I walked down the aisle. And Jesus, too, dressed in white robes, hugging a lamb, his eyes full of forgiveness.

  I set my rucksack on the front pew and let out my breath. I reached into the bag, pulled out the letter I'd just composed, and walked toward the altar. Christ's eyes followed me. He'd been a good son, doing everything his father had asked. Jesus knew his duty. He had sacrificed his life to save mankind from sin. I would have to be just as brave as him.

  I set the letter on the altar where Reverend Ashford would find it in the morning.

  The polished-wood smell of the church was soothing and familiar. I stood where I'd been confirmed four years earlier, when I was twelve. Back then Mom had pressed the collar of my white shirt so stiff my neck had been rubbed raw. A year later I wore that same shirt to her funeral. She'd caught galloping consumption, and though I asked God to save her, she had suffered a horrible death, coughing up so much blood she drowned in it. Sometimes God has his own, mysterious plans.

  She was in heaven now, at least. With Hector by her side.

  I climbed the two steps into the choir loft, my favorite place in the church. People came from miles away to enjoy my voice: a gift passed down from my mother; from God. Pride is the Devil's work, but I really was good. Mother and I had sung together several times, bringing the congregation to tears.

  Singing was the one thing Hector couldn't do. I reminded him of that by waking him up with a loud song every harvest morning. He'd cover his head and shout, “Get the gun, Dad, there's a giant canary in the house!”

  But once, after Mom had left us, I'd sung solo at a wedding, and Hector had later told me, “You've got a glorious gift, Edward. Keep singing. It reminds me so much of Mom.”

  I leaned against the loft rail, closed my eyes, and quietly sang:

  “There is a happy land, far, far away,

  Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day.

  Oh, how they sweetly sin
g, worthy is our Savior King,

  Loud let his praises ring, praise, praise for aye.”

  It was my favorite hymn. When I sang it, I felt God reaching down from heaven to lift me up. Maybe Mom and Hector could hear me.

  “Practicing for Sunday, are you, Edward?”

  My eyes snapped open. Reverend Ashford stood at the end of the aisle, a bear-sized man with a priest's collar.

  I moved to the altar, snatched up the envelope, and held it at my side.

  He walked down the aisle, the hardwood floor creaking. “Can't sleep, eh? Me neither. Too many grumbling bones.” He stepped into the loft and looked down at me. In the moonlight, the ragged scar on his right cheek shone. “This time of night is when I do my heavy thinking, but it's kind of late for you—those morning chores have to be done regardless of how much shut-eye you get.”

  I felt a stab of guilt.

  “What's that in your hand?”

  “A letter,” I said.

  “I assume it's for me. May I have a look?”

  I handed it to him and he began to read. He glanced at me, then finished the letter. Sweat dripped from my underarms.

  “You sound as if you've made up your mind,” he finally said. “Have you?”

  I nodded.

  “You want to join up with Hector?”

  “He's dead. Killed.” I hesitated. “A bullet through the heart.”

  Reverend Ashford's shoulders slumped. “Dear Lord, terrible, terrible news! Our Hector? My boy, my boy, I can only imagine how you must feel right now.” He put his hand on my shoulder. I looked away. I wouldn't cry. “Hector,” he said softly, “he was so full of life. It's hard to believe. Dear God. Such a waste.”

  “He wasn't wasted! He did his duty.”

  “Yes, he did, Edward. But there was just so much more he'd have done here—farming, marriage, children. I know he served well, but … Hector.” His name echoed in the church. “How's your father?”