All We Left Behind

‘You promise you’ll find me later?’

‘Yes, but if I don’t sell out before you have to leave for the dock, you and I could maybe go for a walk. Together. This afternoon, after the fair.’ She checked my reaction to the invitation briefly, but then, as if she worried she had been too forward, her cheeks blushed and she stepped around me to make another trip to the truck. Her red skirt brushed around her knees and distracted me for a few seconds before I followed after her.

‘Hayden!’ Ma hollered from a window in the Agricultural Hall that overlooked the farmers’ market field. ‘We’re running short on time. I really do need your help with the jars, darling.’

Waving to let her know I was on my way, I trotted after Chidori. The air was fragrant from bushels of lavender, sun-warmed strawberries, and fresh honey that other families displayed at their stands. I dodged a carpenter who carried a chair made of woven cedar branches. I side-stepped between a booth with cinnamon-and-brown-sugar-drizzled baked goods, and a booth with wool-knit baby blankets, then snuck up behind Chidori. She surrendered a smile when I rested my left hand on her waist and leaned over her shoulder to whisper, ‘I accept your invitation for a walk this afternoon, but I’m also really hoping you can find time for at least one dance.’

Her lips pressed together as she pondered. After a worry-rousing hesitation, she said, ‘Maybe. Now, go on and help your mother.’

Satisfied with a maybe, I turned towards the Agricultural Hall with my hands in my pockets and whistled a tune as I swaggered with the confidence of hope and promise.

Rory Bauer and his cousin Fitz stood on the porch, arms crossed in confrontation, to block my way to the door. ‘You didn’t go and get sweet on that Jap girl now, did you?’ Fitz jeered.

Rory chuckled as he lit a cigarette and sat down on a wood-plank bench. They both directed hostile glares at me, waiting for an answer. Not interested in an altercation, I tried to inch past them on the narrow porch. Rory stretched his legs out straight and rested his scuffed boot on the rail.

‘Excuse me, Rory.’

‘Excuse you for what?’ Fitz laughed. ‘Being sweet on a Jap?’

My composure teetered precariously. Chidori didn’t approve of me getting messed up in quarrels, so I checked if she was watching – she was. Instead of confronting the Bauers, I said, ‘Move your ratty feet, Rory, I need to get by.’

Rory stood and blew stale breath and cigarette smoke in my face.

Barely able to contain my temper, I used all of my self-restraint to utter through a tight jaw, ‘Move. My ma’s waiting on me to help her with the displays.’

‘Is your ma a Jap-lover too?’ Fitz asked.

My frame tensed and I inhaled to supress my irritation but fired back, ‘I think you should be more concerned about who your ma’s been loving, Fitz. I heard she’s awful friendly with all the fellas down at the Springwater Lodge.’

‘Shut your filthy mouth,’ Fitz growled.

Rory shoved me in the chest, which launched me against the wood siding. My body made a loud thud and a few people, including my sister, poked their heads out the door to check what the ruckus was about. The only RCMP officer for all the Gulf Islands, Constable Stuart, stepped up onto the porch in his full Red Serge uniform that made him appear seven feet tall. ‘What seems to be the problem, boys?’

‘No problem,’ we all said.

Rory mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear, took another drag from his cigarette, and avoided making eye contact with Constable Stuart. Fitz ran a comb through his overly Brylcreemed hair and shot a greasy wink at Rosalyn, which didn’t impress her in the slightest. Constable Stuart, who must have been stifling in his wool serge, used a hankie to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck and eyeballed us until Rory eventually walked away. Fitz followed. Constable Stuart directed his attention to me. I swallowed hard and focused on his bushy moustache as I waited for him to speak. ‘What was that skirmish all about, Hayden?’

‘Nothing I can’t handle, sir.’

He frowned for a good while before nodding in a cautionary way. ‘Let’s hope so.’ With the tip of his brown felt hat he stepped off the porch and crossed the street to give heck to a boy who wasn’t paying attention to his tethered goat as it chewed up the siding on the two-cell jailhouse.

I glanced across the fairgrounds at Chidori long enough to see the apprehension in her eyes about Rory and Fitz. Then I ducked inside to help my mother.

Chapter 3

The sortie went exactly as planned. The Typhoon bombers we escorted hit all the railway targets and headed back to the airfield to rearm. Gordie and I flew another pass over the Italian foothills and farmers’ fields to conduct reconnaissance. We were always on the lookout for aerodromes that had a large collection of enemy flying machines. Sending bombers in to wipe them all out on the ground was easier than fighting them in the air. Nothing much was going on, though, so we turned to head back to base.

Fifteen minutes out from our landing strip a solo Junkers flew low beneath me – a common decoy of the German Luftwaffe air force. They often sent in a solo airplane to draw us down while hiding their fighter pilots up higher. I didn’t take the bait. Instead, I scanned the airspace above me. Six enemy aircraft were indeed flying above in loose formation. I called Gordie on the RT, but he didn’t confirm receipt so must have had the receiver flipped to transmit. Fortunately, he noticed me tip my wings as a signal and he spotted them too. We split up and I headed for cloud cover. My Spitfire was faster than the Messerschmitts the German fighters flew, so I was confident I could outrun them. But my sureness that we could escape without a battle waned when I emerged from the cloud cover.

Gordie’s airplane was being attacked by two Italian Macchi aircraft. Normally, flying machines from the Italian Regia Aeronautical would be poorly matched against us, but if the squadron of Luftwaffe above backed the Italians up, we were dangerously outnumbered. I feverishly tapped the thumb lever to flash my lights in a Morse code, hoping some friendlies were close enough to see it, then I banked and doubled back to chase behind a machine that was firing on Gordie.

My pulse pounded in my temples with all-out fear and zeal as I wound her up well over four hundred kilometres per hour and gained on them. Breathing deeply didn’t help steady my hands, but there was no time to wait for them to stabilize. I increased the oxygen flow to my mask and then squeezed the ammunition trigger to fire. The tracer bullets sparked out of my wing-mounted machine guns and hit the belly of the enemy Macchi with a satisfying direct blow. My cannon shell caused black smoke to pour out of his fuselage. He went into an uncontrolled dive and I lost visual contact. Gordie rolled as the Luftwaffe enemy machines descended on us to join the fight. Overly wired from my survival instincts kicking in, I yanked and banked at the last possible second, and the burst of turbulence from the passing Messerschmitts jolted my airplane violently as I followed Gordie.

Sucking back oxygen to tame the jitters, we looped around in a tighter radius than their machines were capable of and Gordie fired a cannon, hitting the wing of one of the machines after it flew past us. It lost vertical speed rapidly, then disappeared into the clouds. Gordie gave me a triumphant thumbs up until three machines flew right up on us and opened fire.

Metal dings reverberated through the cockpit as incendiary bullets hit and sparked off my armour and wings, nearly nicking my leg and threatening to ignite my fuel. Every muscle in my body restricted, like iron cables cinching my chest to the point that my lungs couldn’t expand. Gordie peeled off. It was an escape or die situation, so with the control column jammed to the dashboard, I sent my airplane into a dive. Dropping full throttle from thirty thousand feet to one thousand in seconds caused painfully intense compression in my ears, but it was my best option to shake them. I waited until the last possible moment to increase altitude and prayed not to black out from the abrupt change in air pressure as I climbed. A violent shudder and buffeting indicated a wing stall, so I thrust the control column forward again to avoid a spin. Dizzy from the exertion, I levelled the horizon and fired another cannon. It hit one Messerschmitt in the tail, which broke off. His airplane plummeted and the pilot ditched.

Frantically scanning the air space, I searched for Gordie. When I finally spotted him, I sped to saddle up next to his left wing. Before we had a chance to fly out of range, a shell hit the armour plate behind my head. The detonation blast concussed me. After a delayed reaction to recover my wits, I stomped full left rudder and sharply tipped my wings, which regretfully caused Gordie’s airplane to be hit by the next round.

‘Damn it.’

Smoke billowed out of Gordie’s fuselage. Rapid calculations for the best way to help him, while also keeping the enemy off my tail, charged through my brain. The only option was to take down the rest of the airplanes and give Gordie a chance to limp back to the airstrip. Statistically achieving that by myself was highly improbable. But what choice did I have? I refused to abandon him. I climbed higher and looped around. Two more Macchis flew through broken cloud cover below, likely looking for me. With blind determination to save Gordie, I dropped altitude, fired my machine guns, and hit one Italian in the wing. The other one climbed. Before he disappeared into the clouds, he turned so he would be able to sneak up behind me. I slowed down and waited for him to unwittingly fly by. Once he was in front of me, I fired a direct cannon hit. Flames burst out and a projectile of shrapnel from his tail cracked the acrylic of my cockpit canopy.

Gordie glided dangerously low, just above the treetops. Smoke spewed out of every seam and rivet of his damaged rig as the last two Luftwaffe machines positioned on each of his wings. The pilots would definitely report to ground troops to pick Gordie up as a prisoner of war, so with zero sympathy, I used up the last of my ammunition to take down both airplanes. They each hit the ground with a shuddering explosion and ball of flames, which would have felt like a victory if Gordie wasn’t still going down.

‘Come on, Gordie. Keep her off the ground,’ I pleaded under my breath. He glided on no power and slowly lost more altitude. He was going to hit terrain. ‘Come on, Gordie, get out. Get out. Slide the canopy, pal.’ He was too close to the ground to deploy the parachute properly, even if he did eject, but I circled and waited on edge for a glimpse of the ballooning fabric. He didn’t bail. His airplane skidded on its belly across a farmer’s field and erupted into flames.

‘God damn it. No!’ Fraught with remorse, my throat choked for air as I climbed in altitude to race back to base.

Before I could gain top speed, a cannon blew through my left wing and jolted me nearly out of the restraint, then my cockpit filled with gritty black smoke. Blinded by the toxic fumes, my fingers searched and pulled the release lever to slide the cockpit hood. The air cleared enough to see my instruments – temperature hot, oil low, petrol extremely low. My engine sputtered from the hit and then failed, so I yanked the hand pump to inject fuel, then viciously kicked the rudder bar in an attempt to keep speed. It didn’t work. I was dead stick, no control of the airplane. The Sperry horizon indicator tilted sideways and the propellers spun ineffectively in the wind. Only two scenarios remained – go down with the fatally wounded machine or bail out. I didn’t have much choice.

I closed my eyes, said, ‘God forgive me. Have mercy on my soul,’ and crawled out of the cockpit onto the slipstream. At ten thousand feet above the ground, it required complete defiance over every natural human survival instinct to balance on the edge of the wing, but I forced myself to manoeuvre into a crouch, and then jumped.

The drone of my Spitfire engine was replaced with the intense shuddering of the air against my ears as I free-fell. The parachute released from my seat pack but, to my dismay, it suspended above me pitifully like a crumpled wad of wet paper. A strange amalgamation of utter abandonment and sheer terror waged a battle over my emotions as I plummeted through the sky towards the earth. Then, as if it had been playing a cruel joke but knew the gig needed to be up or I’d pancake, the fabric of the parachute snapped like a schooner sail catching the ocean wind. The jarring of the upward deployment nearly dislocated my shoulder joints, but the fact that my body was no longer plunging towards death was a welcome relief. The reprieve was short lived, though, as the harness straps cut across my chest and throat with crushing power. My fingers clutched desperately to fight the opposing forces of flight and gravity that strangled me as I drifted. Gasping for air was futile since I was only sucking in the suffocating black smoke of aviation carnage below. Ten metres from the ground, flames from a downed airplane ignited my parachute. It disintegrated, causing me to fall the rest of the way. I slammed into a cow pasture in the Italian countryside, hard enough to blow the seams of both my boots apart from the impact.

Sprawled out on my back, my smoke-irritated eyes blinked open. Maybe I’d been unconscious for a spell. As my head slowly cleared, I was thrilled to discover my fingers and toes responded to my mental commands to wiggle. Good news, I wasn’t paralysed or shattered. Bad news, I was surrounded by flames. I sat up to remove the parachute harness, then with extreme effort rolled to my knees and stood. Stumbling blindly in socked feet, I assumed the gagging stench of burning flesh was the enemy pilots burning up, but then realized it was my own exposed skin, scorched and already peeling away. My attempt to avoid blistering-hot scraps of metal didn’t go well and the pain became excruciating as my socks melted. I needed to make a run for it but didn’t know which way to go, until a cross wind blew the smoke all in one direction and made my decision for me. I ran through the roaring and crackling flames to where the air was clearer. Eventually, I emerged from the wreckage scene and tumbled to the tufty grass – a meadow that was reminiscent of my acreage back home on Mayne Island, or at least I imagined it was before I passed out.

A child played in the knee-high grass of the Italian field, chasing a white butterfly. His face was Japanese like Chidori’s, but his hair was blond like mine. The butterfly fluttered towards the airplane wreckage and the boy followed with his little hands raised in the air, trying to catch it. He wore a blue sweater and matching blue shoes. I yelled to warn him to stay away from the flames. He didn’t hear me, though. I wanted to get up to save him, but my body couldn’t move. I called to him one more time from where I lay before he disappeared into the wall of fire.

When I looked down at my body to determine why it wouldn’t function, my torso wasn’t actually there. Black, crusty flakes of ash were scattered where my limbs should have been. I cried out for help and a woman emerged from the flames. Her long black hair blew like raven feathers in the breeze. She was dressed all in white. Pure white. There wasn’t even a smudge of soot on her. She held the boy on her hip and the butterfly rested on his finger. She smiled with sympathy, set the boy down on the grass, and whispered something into his ear. He looked over at me and said, ‘Papa.’

Holding the boy’s hand, Chidori walked towards me – only she wasn’t really walking. More like floating.

‘Am I in Heaven?’ My voice was raspy and barely worked.

Chidori knelt next to me, then leaned forward to kiss my forehead.

A four-and-a-half-foot tall, grey-haired, leather-skinned Italian soldier with dirty fingernails rammed the end of his Gewehr rifle against my forehead on the same spot Chidori had kissed. I clenched my eyes shut, swallowed back the whimper that wanted to escape, and waited for the click of the trigger.

A second rifle barrel poked my ribs, prodding me to open my eyes. Rather than black, crusty flakes, I had arms. To my relief, I had legs too. They were burned, but at least I wasn’t a pile of soot like in the dream. I attempted to sit up and the old soldier yelled at me in Italian. I didn’t understand, so I raised my arms in surrender.

The younger soldier, whose narrow face and large eyes were proportioned like a grasshopper’s, searched through what was left of my uniform, looking for my revolver. He pulled it out of my leg pocket, then yelped from the scalding metal and dropped it on the ground.

They nudged me to kneel and link my hands behind my head. Then they discussed my torn-up, bloody, and charred bare feet. The old soldier made impatient hand gestures to get me to stand. I tried, but resting weight on my feet was more agonizing than pouring vinegar on an open wound. I involuntarily moaned from the excruciating pain and fell to the ground. One of them pushed the end of his gun into my back to make me try again. I got up, but only took half a step before I stumbled to my knees. After a rest to wheeze air into my lungs, I hoisted myself up enough to crawl and hoped that wherever they planned to take me to surrender me to the Nazis was not far.

They didn’t follow. They both lit cigarettes and watched me inch slowly. I travelled as far as I could, collapsed, and rolled over to stare up at the sky. High clouds, pleasant spring temperatures – a perfect day to die.

I imagined looking up at the same sky in Canada, half a world away. Maybe a bald eagle soared above, or a tree frog sang to its mate. Surrounded by the peacefulness of the island, nobody back home would have any idea I was about to be shot in the Italian countryside by fascists. I didn’t want to die, and I especially dreaded facing God’s ruling on people like me who took the lives of others in a war. A lot of my squadron mates celebrated every enemy they bagged, foaming at the bit to get back out and kill more. I neither celebrated nor lamented. The truth was, deep down, we all knew the other side was just a bunch of young fellows exactly like us who believed we were the evil ones. Who was to say which side was right? The only thing I knew for certain was there were a lot of us who were going to need to be granted mercy on our souls on judgement day.

Trying to accept my fate with grace, I searched the sky, looking for Heaven. All I saw were more Luftwaffe fighters, flying over in formation.

23 August 1941

Dear Diary,

Hayden gave me quite a startling and melancholy reminder that today’s fall fair might be the last for many years if the war in Europe continues. I wonder if changing traditions is what Obaasan meant about parting. It would be such a shame if the fair and other lovely pastimes were to be cancelled, but there is no denying it is a possibility as we are all asked to tighten our use of nonessentials. Circumstances and attitudes have certainly changed ever since Japan signed on to join forces with Germany and Italy to fight against Great Britain and Canada. Thankfully, hostility is not yet noticeable here on Mayne Island, but I have read in the newspaper that in Vancouver and Victoria the sentiment towards Japanese Canadians has gotten increasingly prejudiced. I pray the war doesn’t ruin everything festive. Or innocent. Or beautiful. But in the regrettable event that it does, I have been making an effort to observe all of the encounters occurring around me.

Speaking of one such observation: I witnessed Hayden in his undershirt this morning. Good golly that was a lovely encounter, but for the sake of propriety this is all I should write about it. Some encounters have been not so lovely, like whatever caused Hayden to get in a shoving match with Rory earlier. I have my suspicions about what caused it, but it’s probably best not to speculate. I really wish he wouldn’t fight, especially if it has anything to do with me.

Chi

Chapter 4

After the altercation with the Bauer boys, I vented my frustration by hauling crates of jarred plums and apricots. Ma was head of the craft fair committee and judge for the pie-baking contest, so after I finished helping her army of volunteers set up the tables, she let my sister and me both taste a few pie samples. Mrs Campbell’s blueberry was by far the tastiest because she made it tart the way I liked it. But there was a tangy lemon flan that was going to give her a run for her money.

Rosalyn’s mandated-by-our-mother volunteer-job had been to display the entries for the quilting category on rods suspended with wire from the rafters, but she was also entered as a contestant in the art category. One of her landscape oil paintings was on display on an easel near the stage, and she appeared nervous as I wandered around the hall to view her competition – two other oil paintings, several watercolours, an intricate wood carving of a whale, a blown-glass vase, and something that could only be described literally – a broken doll dipped in ceramic and then adorned in barnacles and gold enamelled butterflies. Oddly interesting in a circus-sideshow type of way.

‘What do you think?’ Rose asked me as she tugged at her lip and leaned in close to study one of the other oil paintings. ‘I don’t think my chances are good. This woman’s brush strokes are more skilful than mine.’

I squinted, not convinced. ‘Does it really matter what her brush stroke is like if her apples resemble pumpkins and her grapes are the size of watermelons?’

Rose chuckled and swatted my arm. ‘Shh. Don’t be cruel. Someone might hear you and I’ll be disqualified for poor sportsmanship.’

‘The prize for the winner is one of Ma’s zucchini loaves. You can just eat one when you get home.’

Rose rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at me like when we were little kids. ‘It’s for bragging rights, not the prizes.’

‘Well, you definitely have the best oil painting, but you’re going to come second to that ghoulish doll thingamajig.’

‘It is a curiously striking aberration, isn’t it?’ She laughed, then wrinkled her nose. ‘Second place wins a jar of Mrs Auld’s pickled beets.’

‘Mmm. My favourite. Save me some.’ I poked her arm playfully, stole another sample from Ma’s pie-judging table, and then headed back out to the fairgrounds.

Chidori was seated on a stool at their booth, writing in one of her journals, but she put it down to assist two women who approached the counter to purchase carrots. My best mate Joey lounged on the hill beside the Agricultural Hall with his steady gal, Donna Mae. I wandered over and sat down on the prickly dry grass next to them to listen to the church musicians struggle to play a jitterbug song for the crowd.

‘Hi Hayden,’ Donna Mae said. ‘The gang’s all meeting down at the point for a bonfire tonight. Do you want to tag along with us?’

‘I’ll meet you down there.’

‘Ooh.’ She clutched the crook of my arm and shook it excitedly. ‘Do you have a date?’

Not sure if I could swing it, I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Chidori?’

A smile crept across my face as I said, ‘I hope so.’

‘That’s swell. It’s about time the two of you finally took the plunge. You’re perfect for each other.’ Donna Mae sipped ginger-beer soda from a bottle and snapped her fingers along with the beat of the song. Her reddish-brown curls bounced on her shoulders as she bobbed her head from side to side.

Joey glanced over at me with concern and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ‘If Chidori agrees to be your date, maybe you two should catch a ride with us. In case there’s any trouble with the Bauers.’

‘Thanks, but they don’t concern me. And Chidori won’t feel comfortable when you two spend the entire night carrying on in the back seat.’