Remembering the young soldiers, from an article published in Calgary’s newspaper, The Herald, Nov 10, 2018, to commemorate the official end of World War I on November 11, 1918.
Author Susan Calder remember an article in the Calgary Herald about the Vimy Memorial commemorating 100 years since the end of WWII.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial towers above the Douai Plains in northern France. The author of the original Calgary Herald article, shares her memories of a trip she made with her husband and grown-up son where she approached the ridge from the west, as the Canadian troops did over 100 years ago. Her description of that trip, served as my inspiration for my WWII novel, A Killer Whisky.
An Excerpt from A Killer Whisky by Susan Calder
Detective Bertram Tanner strode into Calgary Police Headquarters, his steps lighter than they’d been this morning.
“How was your walk?” Julia, the receptionist, asked.
“Reflective.”
“I often think while walking too.”
It was too soon to tell his colleagues he might be leaving the police force. “How was your lunch hour?”
“Busy,” she said. “I tracked down balloons for my son’s birthday celebration tonight.”
“Which son?”
“The oldest. He’s ten years old. We decided to limit the party to family due to the flu. He’s disappointed his friends can’t come, but it will be lively with all of us there.”
Julia, a war widow with three children, lived with her parents—the police chief and his wife.
“I phoned my mother after lunch,” Julia said. “She went to every confectionary in town and managed to find all the children’s favourite sweets despite the sugar shortage.”
The chief’s wife was a ball of energy. A leader in the local suffragette and Prohibition movements, she claimed personal credit for Alberta women gaining the vote and the province going dry in 1916.
Bertram went into his office, closed the door, and draped his coat and hat on the coat tree. What work could he do this afternoon? Reports of the Spanish flu’s arrival on a train from Eastern Canada were keeping people away from the pool rooms and dance halls. Calgary hadn’t had a brawl or knifing in a week. Even the criminals seemed to be staying home.
He took out an old file, a robbery scheduled for trial next week. A man broke into a house in the Sunalta neighbourhood and stole $2.75. Disturbed by a noise, he fled through a window but foolishly returned an hour later. Caught red-handed by three residents, the robber could be sentenced to up to a year of hard labour. Bertram tried to organize his trial notes, but his thoughts kept shifting to his plan to leave the police force when the war ended and soldiers came home to replace him on the job. After fifteen minutes, he set the robbery file aside and decided to take a methodical approach to his lunch hour reflections about leaving.
He took out a clean sheet of paper, drew a vertical line down the middle, and titled each side “pro” and “con.”
The first positive was that his parents would be thrilled when he phoned them to say that by spring, at the latest, he’d move back to Beiseker and fulfill his father’s dream of his only son taking over his grocery store. At thirty-eight, Bertram was no longer bewitched by city charms.
He wrote simpler, quiet life as positive number two. Number three was a question—safer from the flu in the countryside? Number four was look after parents.
While his father had fully recovered from his heart attack last winter, the experience had made Bertram aware that his parents were aging and would increasingly need help. It would be unfair to leave the entire burden to his three sisters, who had all stayed in the Beiseker area. Bertram foresaw hours spent hunting with his father and nephews, numerous birthday parties, daily dealings with people who weren’t criminals. Family connection and better people were reasons five and six.
Seven. The most important. Beiseker was a mere two-hour drive to Calgary and the graves of Nellie and their son. Bertram could still visit them on Sundays, as he did now. Yet he’d be farther geographically from them—farther from his lonely home with its constant painful reminders. That was reason number eight.
The negatives? A year ago, he’d have said his work. But since the death of his wife and son last November, he didn’t give a pat of cow manure about catching criminals and bringing them to justice. He shuffled by rote through cases like the home robbery. What was the point of this job without heart? He liked his colleagues, most of them at any rate, but his friends had all been couple friends. Now, he was the outsider, the third hand in their card games, Nellie the glaringly missing fourth– especially when the friends invited female players to fill her place. He hated their efforts to convince him to move on.
Bertram left the negatives column blank and dragged his attention back to the robbery file. Someone knocked on the door.
Julia poked her head in. “The chief wants to see you in his office.”
Bertram gladly set the file aside. He nodded at constables and clerks on his way to Chief Wilson’s office. The front was glass so the chief could survey the activity at headquarters. He’d been in his position ten years, and no one used his surname anymore. Even his daughter referred to him as “chief” in the context of police work.
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Great hook at the beginning of your mystery--the grieving Chief, whose life has lost its savor. The title catches the eye too.
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