By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 3, 1943.
“We’ve made a great mistake,” declared Jimmie Frise, “coming on this week-end.”
“It’s been one of the happiest I’ve ever had,” I countered.
“What I mean is,” said Jim, “we should have saved it until the end of July or the middle of July or the middle of August. We took it too early.”
“We couldn’t have had a lovelier time,” I insisted. “The weather has been sublime. The lake fairly glowed. The woods seemed literally to speak to us. It was as if the whole place welcomed us and beamed upon us.”
“That, explained Jimmie, “is because we know in our hearts that we aren’t going to see many week-ends this year or maybe for a long time to come. We Canadians are just about to realize we have been a privileged people.”
“We sure have,” I sighed. “There is hardly a city in the whole Dominion that hasn’t got lakes, rocks and forests within a couple of hours’ drive. There certainly isn’t another big country in the world that has even a fraction of the holiday land Canada has, at every back door.”
“And we use it,” pursued Jim. “Mighty few city families in Canada with an ordinary living that haven’t got either a summer cottage or a favorite little summer hotel or a farm where they spend at least a couple of weeks of summer. Thousands of families with very modest incomes spend the whole summer at their cottages. We are a country-house nation, and it isn’t only the earls and dukes and gentry who own the country houses. All the professional and management classes, most of the business and most of the mechanic groups have some sort of a country house, even if it is only a little beloved shack.”
“One of the things to be credited to the war,” I agreed, “is that it is going to show us how privileged we Canadians have been. Now that we can only have two or three week-ends, now that we can’t run up to our cottage every Friday night, we are going to appreciate how blest we have been.”
“And took it for granted,” said Jim.
“Most people take their blessings for granted,” I submitted.
“I still think,” stated Jimmie, “that we pulled a boner coming up this week-end. Later in the summer, we are going to wish we had saved those four gasoline coupons1.”
Kind of Wheezy
“Maybe something will turn up,” I suggested, “that would have prevented us coming later. Maybe I’ll have to go overseas again as a war correspondent.”
“Aw, you’re too old and feeble for that any more,” laughed Jim. “This is a young man’s war. You’d make a fine war correspondent, coming limping along about two days behind the battle.”
“It takes us old fellows to tell about war,” I protested. “It is we who appreciate it. The young fellows take war so for granted that they won’t even talk about it. One of my nephews is in the Navy and came home after what I knew to be some pretty furious action. I asked him all about it, very eager. And all he said was that they had quite a bit of fun, popped off quite a number of cans, and had a lively time altogether.”
“The silent service,” reminded Jimmie.
“The army and air force,” I insisted, “are the same. I talked to two young officers who had completed, between them, over five years of operational flying as fighter pilots. They both had shot down several Huns and both had bailed out of their own ruined Spitfires and Hurricanes. I spent a whole evening with them. They said it was very dull, something like a speed-skating contest. Now and again, you saw another speed skater through your sights, and if he was the right shape, you squeezed the trigger. And now and again you hit him. But mostly you went right on skating.”
“What a line!” snorted Jim.
“Well, they didn’t want to be bothered talking about it,” I explained. “It is to them like a master musician talking about Bach to a bevy of old ladies.”
“Well, whatever happens,” mumbled Jim, as we drove southward over almost deserted highways towards the city, “I still think we’ll bewail the waste of these gas coupons before the summer’s over.”
“On the other hand, Jim,” I opined, “I rather think we are wise guys to come this week-end. I don’t know how much longer the tires are going to last. And by the sound of the engine, maybe the old schooner won’t even be running by August.”
“She is kind of wheezy,” admitted Jim, listening.
“Wheezy?” I scoffed. “She fairly clanks. Hear that clank?”
“Sounds like a bust connecting rod to me,” said Jim. “It will tear the bejeepers out of your crank shaft.”
Remembering Happy Days
“Listen to that whistle,” I said, slackening speed. “Just like a canary.”
“That’s your fan belt,” said Jim, “probably the bearing, burning itself out.”
“I think it’s a generator whistle,” I suggested, “that has got past the whistle stage to the warbling stage.”
“She smells hot, too,” said Jim. “Isn’t it a caution how we are neglecting our cars these days? Even when we know we should be taking care of them, nursing them, petting them, for the first time in 20 years of driving experience, we are letting our cars go to blazes.”
“Well, for one thing,” I pointed out, “we aren’t driving them much, and we lose the sense of time that we used to have in the days when we changed oil every thousand miles and had things looked over every couple of months.”
“Besides,” said Jim, “we aren’t driving enough to notice the deterioration. We are so busy watching the fuel gauge, we can’t notice anything else. Something amiss, that would have been sensed by us instantly in the old days, now goes by unnoticed. Say, doesn’t she smell awfully hot to you?”
“It’s the day, Jim,” I said. “It’s a warm day.”
“Hmmmm,” muttered Jim. “The way she is wheezing and clanking and whistling. I’d say that smell was worth investigating.”
“Even if we investigated,” I reminded him, “we wouldn’t know what to do if we found anything. And with all the gas stations closed on Sunday, there is nobody around to tinker with it.”
We wheezed along a little way in silence, and as we passed an abandoned service station, all weed-grown, along the highway, Jimmy heaved a big sigh and said:
“Ah, the good old days.”
So, for about 20 miles, we remembered the good old days. The carefree driving, with supplies, attention, service at every bend of the road. The freedom to come and go, and all of us living like gentry. The food, the fun, the happy days before and behind, with no dream, no hint, of the dark storm that was coming to engulf us.
As we approached a main crossroad, we saw, hiking down ahead of us, three khaki figures, each laden with full equipment, bulging haversacks, and one or two small dunnage bags hoisted on their shoulders.
“Tankers,” I said, noting their black berets2.
“In battledress, for Pete’s sake,” remark- ed Jim, “on a day like this!”
“That means they are probably going overseas,” I informed him, “for they can’t wear summer drill in Britain. I bet they’re kids going on their last leave. We’ll pick them up.”
I ran slowly past them and we gave them the grins that mean a lift. They ran when we stopped and heaved their bags and haversacks in on the floor behind.
“Take off your junk,” I commanded, “and, be comfortable. Are you on your last leave?”
They favored me with cool, pleasant stares.
“Changing camps, sir,” they said.
“Battledress,” I remarked. “I thought -“
“Changing camps,” they said quietly, with steady look.
You can find fault with some of the young ones. But when a boy is ready, for overseas, he is a pretty good soldier.
We got them comfortably stowed and cigarettes lighted, and started off. Jim leaned over the back and chatted with them and I threw sundry contributions into the conversation.
After a couple of miles, I felt one of the young fellows’ heads beside mine and he was leaning forward to listen.
“Timing pretty bad, eh?” he smiled.
“I can’t figure what that clank is,” I admitted. “Maybe a connecting rod?”
“Timing, I think,” said the boy. “Hey, Jerry, what do you make of that ping?”
The three sat forward.
“Timing,” said they all. “Pull off to the side, mister, and we’ll take a gander at it.”
“Now, now, boys,” cried Jim. “You’re heading on leave.”
“We’re 2,000 miles from home, sir,” smiled the one who had leaned forward first. “There’s a lot of rocks and prairie and a few mountains between us and any leave that matters. We’re in no hurry to get any place. Pull over to the side, sir.”
I drew up to the shoulder and the boys bailed out. Up came the lid and the three of them leaned down.
Off came the coats, and one of the three swung back into the car.
“Tools in the back, sir?”
“Not many tools, I’m afraid,” I mumbled.
They got out my shabby old oil cloth tool kit and examined it. One of them undid his own haversack and brought out an exquisite little tool kit of his own, all brightly glittering wrenches and spanners.
“Turn her off, sir.”
And while Jimmie and I watched, they worked with smooth, rapid movements, undoing nuts, removing things, tightening, adjusting. It was like a three-piano team, all at one piano.
Five minutes they worked, and then stood back.
“Start her up, sir.”
Almost Like Home
I stepped on it. And the old schooner purred with a new, sweet voice. I looked at Jim. Jim winked at me.
“Okay, sir, on our horse!”
And they piled in, drawing on their blouses.
So we went another 10 miles, with the three of them enjoying the breeze and leaning back and waving at the girls in the villages.
Then the same boy as before leaned his head near mine again and said:
“How about letting me at the wheel a little way, sir, she’s not quite right yet.”
I changed places with him, glad of the extra breeze of the back pew of the old stone hooker, and after a mile of smooth and skilful driving, the lad turned and sang back to the boys:
“Clutch, do you think?”
“Clutch it is,” they chorussed, already unbuttoning their blouses.
And off to the side, under a spreading maple, we pulled again, while the boys opened up the lid. Two of them got underneath to a place I never knew existed, where you can get at the clutch. I have always paid $20 just for people to look at the clutch, which seemed to be a matter of lifting the whole top off the car.
They went into committee on the clutch, on the transmission, and on a general tightening up job. They banged and hammered and grunted.
“Boys, boys,” I pleaded, “you’ll never get home at this rate. You are very kind, but…”
“Sir,” said one, “we haven’t had our hands on a little old baby like this for two years. We’ve been working on brand new, big tough army stuff. This is the nearest we’ve been to home since we left British Columbia…”
So old Jim and I got out and sat and crouched and watched and tried to get in on it and share with these youngsters the queer, strange joy they were feeling, as they tinkered with our battered old grand banker.
A Swell Country
Forty minutes, like gremlins, they climbed over and under and all around, with my old rusty tools and their bright glittering ones. They started the engine and listened. They turned it off and clinked and gritted. They drove it 50 feet and backed it 50 feet furiously back. They put my wobbly jack under the rear end and hoisted her up to get at the transmission and rear end.
Like a centre and two forwards passing the puck from one to the other, they made power plays all over the old mousetrap Jimmie and I could scarcely hear the engine when they started it, and when at last the boys stood back and started pulling on their battle-dress blouses, I took my place at the wheel and stepped on the starter. I let in the gears as they cried all aboard, and, like a rabbit, she leaped under my toe.
“Holy smoke,” said Jim.
Even the gears shifted in a strange and beautifully clicking style. She hummed softly. I gave her the business. She climbed like a cat into high.
“Boys,” said Jim, turning to face them, “you’ve given us a new car.”
“If we hear anything else…” they warned, leaning back, with their big feet resting on the floor load of their baggage.
But we did not hear anything else. And like a young bird, she floated us southward along the beautiful highway, with all the trees leaning tenderly over us, and all the wide country, the hills and fields and woods, shining at us in the afternoon.
And when we came to the city and let the boys out at the place they insisted, declining our urgent invitation to eat with us at least, we got out and shook hands ceremonially with them, and the best thanks I could think to give them was to say:
“Canada is a swell country.”
I think they understood what I meant.
Editor’s Notes: Buckshee is slang for “free of charge”.
- Gasoline was the first thing rationed in Canada during the war. Initially, the government relied on voluntary restraint by motorists and the closure of service stations on Sundays. Coupon rationing for gasoline began on April 1, 1942. ↩︎
- In the Canadian Army in World War 2, black berets were worn by the Canadian Army and Reserve Army Tank units. ↩︎
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