The Wars

Robert Ross sits on his haunches near a railroad track and watches a horse and dog, dressed in a tattered military uniform. He has a pistol in his hand and has “wandered now for over a week” (13). Surrounded by burning wreckage, he is the sole survivor of a train crash. Robert approaches the horse and checks the saddle, noting the two animals’ familiarity with one another. He rides the horse along the track towards Magdalene Wood, and when the horse whinnies, he stops and opens the stalled carts of the train, unleashing the trapped horses. They ride off together under a red moon.

The narrator states that “all of this happened a long time ago. But not so long that everyone who played a part in it is dead” (14). People say that Robert Ross is dead and look away. He was allegedly “consumed by fire” but “people can only be found in what they do” (14). In the library, there are “boxes and boxes” (14) of old documents and photographs, so much so that “a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamps” (14).

In 1915, old photographs show a society preparing for war. After Ypres— with its “six thousand dead and wounded” (15) —something changes: “the war that was meant to end by Christmas might not end till summer. Maybe even fall” (15). More troops march to war and the photographs show thousands of people waving them off. Robert Ross appears in the photographs, his bloody hands “knotted to the reins” (16) of his horse. In another picture, he stands with his wheelchair-bound sister Rowena, watching the militaristic parade with suspicion.

Thomas Ross and his family are pictured beside a brand-new Ford truck, standing in front of their business. They will donate the truck to the military’s medical endeavors. Rowena, in a separate picture, has a “lovely and pensive” (17) expression and she holds a large white rabbit. She is confined to a wheelchair, born with “water on the brain” (17). Pictures show the rest of the family, snapshots of their lives in the run-up to war.

Miss Marian Turner was a nurse during the Great World War and she “remembers Robert vividly” (18). She treated him after he’d been arrested and brought to the hospital at Bois de Madeleine. Aged eighty, she recalls meeting Robert. Lady Barbara d’Orsey was in love with Robert, she remembers. Robert seemed to have taken care of his body, but she cannot recall his face due to “what took place” (19). What happened to Robert, she believes, was “tragic” (19) and he was a “as good a definition of ‘hero’ as you’ll get” (19). She concludes by saying that “Robert Ross was no Hitler. That was his problem” (20).

Moving back in time again, Robert steps off the train in Ontario in April 1915, wearing a trench coat in the snow. He watches the train as his body aches, waiting for the other passengers to leave before he does. At the end of the platform, he spots three girls and turns away. Robert is shy. Heather Lawson had been in love with him, but the feeling was not mutual. Heather “wailed out loud” (21). Robert has come to Ontario to join the Field Artillery. The snow turns to rain as Robert walks away. Rowena had been buried the previous day. She had fallen in her chair while “Stuart was meant to be watching her” (23), though Robert blamed himself. The family mourns, though they acknowledge that it had been a miracle “that she had lived so long as she had” (23). Rowena had been tending to her rabbits. Now that she is gone, “the rabbits had to be killed” (24). Robert’s mother orders him to kill them, but he refuses. His mother drinks in her bedroom “but no one would mention it” (26). A man named Teddy Budge is called to kill the rabbits. Robert tries to stop him, but Teddy beats him up. As Robert lays soaking his wounds in the bath, his mother enters. He seethes while she recounts a story from his childhood which makes her laugh. Then, she chastises Robert for believing that “Rowena belonged” (29) to him. She knows that he is planning to leave to become a soldier and she washes her hands of him before leaving the room in silence. The next day, he is “gone before she woke” (30).

Robert joins the Army the next day and goes to Alberta for training. He maintains a distance from his fellow recruits as he wants “no attachments yet” (30), though he wants to find someone who can teach him how to kill. Training reminds Robert of school. He takes long runs through the surrounding countryside as a means of escapism. One evening he follows a coyote until it vanishes. He runs hard, searching for the coyote, until he arrives at a valley. Sunset is still two hours away. He sees the coyote drinking at the water and sits down to watch it. The dog drinks and then exits the valley, turning to bark at Robert three times. Robert considers this to be the coyote telling him that “the valley was vacant: safe” (33). He is late back to the barracks and confined to the premises for two weeks. He watches the prairie, “wishing that someone would howl” (33).

Robert meets Eugene Taffler on the prairie. Robert must bring in wild horses. When two go missing, Robert and Clifford Purchas go searching in the evening. They see a figure in the distance “throwing stones at a row of bottles lined up on a board” (34). He hits everyone. Clifford recognizes Taffler as “a hero” (34). Robert is intimidated by Taffler, but they approach him anyway. Taffler was a varsity athlete, and his aim is excellent; he offers to help, but the two men decline. They capture the mustangs as the sun sets. Robert begins to consider Taffler a potential mentor; Clifford sings as they take the horses back to base.

The rain begins after a dry summer in North America and Europe. Robert’s parents send him supplies. Socks and food, he gives away; field equipment, he keeps. He even requests an automatic pistol, as “this was a ‘people’s army’—not an army of professionals” (37). Twelve miles from the barracks is a hamlet named Lousetown. It is seven houses “sitting in the middle of nowhere” (37). There is a store and a brothel; Robert is “coerced into going against his better judgement” (38). He gets drunk for the first time. The inside of the brothel, run by a German Jew names Marie Dreyfuss, is not as he expects and is “really quite sedate” (39). Marie leads Robert and his companions into a room with seven girls. A red-haired girl named Ella approaches Robert and asks him to dance. Everyone dances. Clifford collapses and is carried upstairs. Then, the men begin to exit the room with the women. Ella leads Robert upstairs. He sits quietly and awkwardly on the bed as Ella offers her services. When she places her hand down Robert’s pants, she discovers that he “had ejaculated coming up the stairs” (42). Ella offers to clean him up. Robert is mortified as Ella tries to make conversation. If they don’t have sex, Ella reveals, she will not be paid. After hearing a thump on the wall from the next room, Ella shows Robert a peep hole. He sees Taffler having sadomasochistic sex with the large male bouncer. Robert sits quietly on the bed and throws his boots at the water jug and a mirror, his mind struggling to come to terms with “something it could not accept” (45).

The war worsens and “Robert and his brother officers were not in Kingston long” (46). As countries fall, the Allies re-organize their command structure while “thousands were dying in battles over yards of mud” (46). Robert is promoted to Second Lieutenant. He and his fellow soldiers set out from Canada on 18 December 1915, three days after Robert celebrates his 19th birthday.

Robert remembers his hero, Longboat. Longboat was “an Indian” (47) who ran the marathon and won. After he won, he was silent. As a child, Robert tried to run long distances. He fainted on the 25th lap around his house as the neighbors cheered him on. Robert contracted jaundice and his father helped nurse him through the illness by telling him stories.

Horses are brought aboard the ship, each one “lifted in a harness by a gigantic crane and lowered into the hold like cargo” (49). There are 140, in all. Robert writes again to his father and remembers the last time he had seen him, an unexpected recent meeting in Montreal. He laments that the gun his father had given him is the wrong model; it is a six shooter, not an automatic. Clifford is “on the outs” (50) with Robert as he borrowed money and did not return it.

The day after Robert and his fellow soldiers sail for England, the Ross family attend church. Baldwin Mull, a disliked neighbor, is ahead of them on the sidewalk. There are many families in attendance and Mrs. Ross “hated them all […] half the people” (51) have sons that have departed for the war. Robert’s brother Stuart holds a snowball in his hand as it melts. Mrs. Ross hardly listens to the service, which speaks of “flags and holy wars and Empire” (52). She exits loudly halfway through the service and sits outside in the snow, smoking a cigarette. She weeps angrily, furious about the doomed children. A little girl interrupts her anger. Together, they go back inside the church.

Storms rage on the voyage to England. The ship is cramped, and stew is the only food served. The men squabble and barely sleep. For officers, the conditions are slightly better. They spend most of their time “lying down or else being sent below to see what could be done to keep the men from mutiny” (56). Robert is happy he has his revolver. As well as Robert, there are other officers: Captain Ord spends his days in bed reading; Clifford examines himself in the mirror; and Harris is struck by intense homesickness. Harris catches pneumonia and almost dies. Robert takes over his command caring for the horses. He tries to improve their horrible conditions and becomes “intrigued with this world of horses, rats and bilge” (58).

A storm prevents them entering Plymouth harbor on 27 December. As they wait out the weather, a horse breaks its leg and an exhausted Robert is summoned to help. As an officer, he will have to euthanize it. The thought worries Robert as he has never killed anything before. A Sergeant-Major leads Robert to the stables. The only person there to help them is “a pale and frightened boy named Regis from Regina” (60). The boat rocks violently. They find the injured horse laying stricken on the floor. The other horses are removed from the vicinity on the Sergeant-Major’s recommendation. Robert draws his six-shooter, a Colt .45. He aims at the horse’s head, just behind the ear. He fires with his eyes closed. When he opens his eyes, the horse is not dead. The horse writhes and the other horses panic. Robert fires again, hitting the animal “on the withers” (62). Robert thrusts the gun toward the horse’s head and pulls the trigger again and again until the Sergeant-Major has to pull him away. The horses panic.

By dawn, the storm has cleared enough to try and reach the harbor. Robert slips and falls, though tells Regis that he is fine. Two hours later, the men begin to disembark for Ypres. Robert is covered in bruises; Captain Ord sends him to the infirmary. Robert is taken off the boat with Harris and the two bond. Laying on the dock on his stretcher, Robert sees all the horses in the water, “swimming desperately towards the land” (64). The townsfolk watch the soldiers on the beach corral the horses exiting the water. He and Harris board a waiting train.

Mrs. Ross’s only brother had been killed years earlier while walking home. He had been a popular young man until a wayward trolley struck him down. Mrs. Ross thinks of him every time she hears the increasingly common trolleys. She has begun to wear dark glasses. She does little more than sit in the corner and watch the door for Robert’s return. She had ridden with her husband to meet Robert near his training barracks, but when it was time to see him, she fell down drunk and could not stand. Mr. Ross went alone. All of the letters Robert sends home are collected in a box beside his official photograph.