Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

He grinned, then leaned into the little flame. “That’s where I was born.”

“I thought you were born in Toronto, like me. It must have been so nice growing up out here, in all this space.”

“We moved to Toronto when I was just the cutest little tyke you’ve ever seen. I think I was seven. From what I remember, Bowmanville’s a nice little town.” He rolled down his window and hung his elbow over the edge, and the wind played with his hair. “Too little for Mom, though. She hounded my father to get her to Toronto or else. That’s how I heard it, anyway.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror at our staff photographer, Freddy Morris, sitting in the back seat. Freddy hadn’t spoken a word the whole way. In fact, I had never heard him say a word at the office, either.

“How about you, Mo?” Ian asked. “You ever been out this way?”

“Nope,” Mo grunted, and that was it for the rest of the drive.

Mr. Hindmarsh had sent the three of us on assignment, saying there was a situation at a POW camp in Bowmanville that needed covering. He’d handed Ian the folder, but Ian had nodded toward me, suggesting I take the lead. Just last month I had been promoted to senior reporter, and Ian knew there was no one in the office who’d done as much research on POW camps as I had. This would be the first one I’d ever seen outside of photographs.

I’d been looking forward to today for a couple of reasons. First, the POW camp. After everything I’d read, I wanted to see the real thing. Second, I needed to get out of the house, if only for a while.

Last month, my baby brother Liam had come home, wounded inside and out from fighting at Dieppe. His face, once so handsome and eager, was masked by horrible pink scars from a fire, and the agony of what had happened still burned in his expression. Because of nerve damage, he could no longer use his right hand, and he was blind in that eye. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze and had steadfastly refused to see Louise, no matter how many times she called or left a note. He preferred to sit alone in his room, but when he came out to the living room, he wanted to be in darkness, the orange glow of his cigarette the only light in the room. He was constantly tapping one foot, like he was waiting for an opportunity to flee. We were gentle and patient, making sure he was fed and tended, but he’d rarely spoken.

After a few weeks, we received a letter from Liam’s sergeant, filling us in a little about what had happened. Liam’s ship had been torpedoed, we learned, when he’d been below deck. He’d been trapped in a compartment near the bow with two other sailors, completely surrounded by fire, but somehow he had managed, with the other two, to find an opening, and he’d shoved the other men through the flames to safety. But by then the ship had begun to sink, rotating on its way down, and a large pipe collapsed on top of Liam, exposing half his body to the flames as water rushed in on the other side. Realizing he hadn’t made it out, the two men he’d saved rushed back with help, and they’d managed to free Liam in time. But the fire had ravaged the right half of him, from his face to his knees, and his survival had been touch and go at the hospital. The sergeant said in his letter to us that Liam had been saved by the hand of God.

Mum and I were now looking after him as well as caring for Dad. Sometimes when I came home, Dad and Liam were sitting together in silence in the shadowy living room, and I knew to leave them alone. In a way, Liam’s suffering seemed to help Dad come out of his own shell. He was still weak, but he had to be strong for his son. But it was never enough, and Mum and I were exhausted.

“Read me what the notes say,” Ian said, flicking the ash from his cigarette out the window. “Why are we out here?”

I opened the folder, but I already knew the contents by heart. “They’re calling it the Battle of Bowmanville. Back in August, Hitler allegedly saw photos of four dead German POWs at Dieppe with their hands tied behind their backs. Binding prisoners is against the Geneva Convention, of course, so Hitler enforced his Commando Order. Since the Allies had broken the Convention at Dieppe, he ordered fifteen hundred British and Canadian POWs in Stalag VIIIB, one of the German camps, to be shackled.” I suppressed a shudder. “For twelve hours a day for an entire year.”

Ian stared straight ahead, at the highway, but I saw the muscles in his jaw flex. “Tit for tat. That’s mature. Twelve hours a day? How are they eating? Sleeping? Uh, going to the men’s room?”

I set the folder down. “These are just men, Ian. That’s what I can’t get past. These are men like my brothers. In war it’s one side against another, but it all boils down to human beings. What I can’t grasp is how men can treat other men like that.” I paused. “I’ve also been reading about the Japanese internment camps in British Columbia. They’re alarming too, but in a different way.”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were focusing on POW camps.”

“I am. Those camps are somewhat similar, except they’re full of regular citizens. Last year the BC government took more than twenty thousand Japanese men, women, and children from their homes. The men were sent to labour camps, where they were paid half of what regular labourers were paid. The women and children were housed in a livestock building, then moved to sprawling, filthy camps with no electricity or running water.”

“They were concerned about national