Chapter Text
Saturday, April 9th. 1912
Allright, fine. If getting enlisted is what is necessary for my father to finally leave me alone, so be it. But I'm not gonna go through this and not have any stories to tell my friends when I get out, so I'm starting this diary.
My name is Henry Arnaud. I'm 25 years old. Today is my first day in the army, and I'm currently stationed in Quebec.
I would have preferred joining the navy, but my father says that our navy is just a sham kept up by the British government so they can sell outdated ships, and that what I really want is just a way to do military service without putting in too much work. He's right, of course, but the army is already underfunded to begin with, so to me it only really comes down to whether I waste time working on a boat, or on land.
For my first day in the army, it was a pretty uneventful one. I was expecting a lot more shouting and work for the new recruits, but I suppose they are saving it for the coming days. Good thing they are in need of telegram operators, because then I get to put my years on McGill to use and hopefully skip some of the work they save for the other cadets.
Tuesday, 15th June. 1912
Things are still dull here for the most part, I don't really know what I was expecting. We still go through routine exercises and take turns deciding who gets to do what. It was supposed to be my turn to clean the restrooms this Friday, but Greg drew the short straw, so instead I'm on rifle polishing duty with Allard. Tedious as it may be, it's better than nothing.
Wednesday, 16th June. 1912
I should probably talk a bit about Allard.
He's not Canadian, as far as I know. He says he comes from the state of Kent, in Ohio, which is pretty funny considering his name is Kent Allard. Guess that's just how Americans name their kids.
Allard is weird. I didn't see him on the first day I arrived, but he is in my unit and nobody got transferred in recently, so he's gotta have enlisted at the same time as me. I don't often see him in group gatherings either, but he's gotta be there. He is a young-looking guy, probably about 3 to 5 years younger than me, but he definitely passes for older. He keeps to himself, but he isn't really shy. He always seems embroiled in one conversation or another, even to liutenants and majors way above his station.
Every now and then someone brings up an "Allard story" at poker night on Sunday. Something he did on training that impressed the instructors, some favor he did for someone, one time a lieutenant tried to hit a junior personnel who showed up late for target practice, and Allard snapped the man's finger before he could lay a hand on the poor bastard, and somehow didn't get in trouble with the higher ups over it.
Or maybe he did. He definitely would have, you don't get to do that to your superiors, but you never know what's real and what's fiction when they start passing around Allard stories on Sunday. He never shows up for cards himself, although one time Jim tried doing a card trick he claimed Allard showed him, and ended up spilling his deck all over the table, which was great for me since I ended up winning that night.
I've never really talked to the man myself, but I heard a couple of conversations about him. One time, me and three other guys were talking at lunch over the universities we attended, and one of the guys, I forget his name, think it was Denny, he said Allard told him he had majored his B.A at Princeton. But then the other day, I was teaching Otto how to use the telegram, and we got talking about our schools, and Otto said he graduated at Stanford, just like Kent Allard.
Well, what is it? Either everyone is getting their stories mixed up, or Allard is a dirty liar, or both. Probably both. Either way, I'm gonna find out more.
Friday, 18th June. 1912
Well, today I got stuck on cleaning duty with Allard. It was supposed to just be rifle cleaning, but Major Weston figured that they could have us clean a whole lot of other tools they had gathering dust. Frankly I'd be surprised if any of these besides the rifles we use daily were still functional. Still, Allard was there.
I imagined this whole scenario yesterday where I would confront Allard with the contradictions of his stories regarding where he used to study. Don't know why, I got nothing against the man, but I just figured he had to be up to something. But that didn't happen.
It was pretty quiet for the most part, just me sitting there wiping the rifles while I watched Allard work on the other weapons. I tried getting through it fast at first, and he said that if I did so, the rifles wouldn't pass inspection and that I had to do it slowly. The nerve of this guy, telling me how to work like he's my senior! But I didn't say anything. Because he was right, damn him. So I took my time, as he took his.
We sat there for about 2 hours just cleaning, until he chuckled.
It was weird, and I asked him what it was. Allard was currently cleaning a mortar that probably hadn't been fired since the Civil War, and was definitely not something we were supposed to be touching, let alone using. He showed me a grenade he'd found stashed inside the mortar, and pointed to the lack of dust and dirt on it as proof that someone had placed it in there recently.
He seemed almost cavalier about a situation that could have killed the two of us had that grenade gone off, but I'd heard before about how he laughed often at odd moments. I figured he enjoyed morbid humor, so I cracked a joke about how we should pull the pin to get out of work faster, since there'd be no more guns to clean and they'd have to send someone else to clean us off the walls. I don't think he found it that funny, but he laughed, and we talked a bit more, mostly about my job as telegram operator.
I never got to confirm my story on where he graduated.
Sunday, 20th June. 1912
I should have just gone on poker night.
But I didn't, because of Allard. Late at night, he asked me to follow him on something he was going to do, and I did. I hadn't seen him since Friday, not even at training, and here he was, telling me to follow him. He didn't even ask, although he probably knew I would not have turned it down.
We made our way through the camp at night, quietly not to alert anybody. I had a bit of a hard time following Allard through the darkness, but then again I wasn't supposed to be sneaking anywhere at night, not when I still needed to change my prescription. Still, eventually we reached a barrack that belonged to Major Quinton.
Allard led me to a window, exposing a room where Major Quinton was sleeping, and he pointed to the side of his pillow. There was a piece of paper with words on it I couldn't read, and on top of it, there was a grenade, just like the one Allard pulled out of the mortar. Allard shushed me, and with far too much playfulness for this situation, he held up the pin of the grenade between his fingers.
If I had common sense, I would have immediately tackled Allard into the ground to stop whatever it is that he was doing, whatever it is he had planned. I would have screamed for my superiors to detain Allard, to get the major out of there before the grenade exploded. But I didn't, doing so could risk the Major waking up and knocking the grenade over. I didn't understand what was Allard intending to accomplish, until he knocked on the window, gripped my shoulders to stop me (how can a guy that skinny be so strong?) and said to me: "Be ready to run."
The Major woke up, and when he looked to his side, and saw the grenade, immediately jumped away from it in panic, knocking it, and the paper below it, off the bed. Allard stopped me from running, with his grip on my shoulder, and for a split second I saw the grenade exploding and blowing us all up. But that didn't happen.
Instead, the grenade bounced harmlessly off the floor. It was a dud, only used to scare the Major. And briefly, I could read what was written in the message Allard had laid the grenade onto: "Looking for this?".
The Major slammed his hand on top of his mouth, trying to muffle his screams desperately, and then gradually made his way to the fallen grenade as he realized it didn't explode. Just then, Allard released my shoulders, and pushed me away, signaling for me to run.
I dashed back to my barrack as if gunfire was following me, not intending to be caught in the fallout of Allard's stupid prank. As I ran, I heard him laugh, loudly, as if specifically for Major Quinton to notice.
I'm currently writing this on my bed, afraid that any moment now, someone is gonna barge in and start looking for me specifically. I can't sleep, I don't know if Allard escaped, and I cannot will myself to get out of bed and find out. Why did I trust that madman? What could he possibly be trying to achieve?
I just want to get out of here.
Monday, 21st June. 1912.
A couple of hours after I dashed into the covers, our superiors started barging into all the rooms and waking up all the cadets. I imagined this would be the part where I would be interrogated, likely shot, but that isn't what happened.
They weren't interrogating the cadets at first, instead they had the entire staff searching on every corner of every barrack, and every personal belonging, for any additional hidden weapons.
Turns out that Major Quinton had some explaining to do himself. He had used the facility we were in to stash hidden weapons of his that weren't supposed to be there.
Our station was not supposed to have any grenades in it whatsoever, as they were too dangerous to be handled by rookies and useless for the daily drills we had to go through. They were only supposed to arrive in October, by insistence of our higher ups at the British Army, when the proper clearance was provided. I was interrogated eventually, but that was because I had the orders for October's supply on standby to be sent via telegram on August, and I needed to confirm the dates.
It was suspected that the reason Quinton had hidden grenades around the facility was for the purpose of staging an accident, and then framing a junior officer for it. His target may have been Weston, as they were heated rivals. And since everyone hated Weston, it would be easy to pin the blame on anyone.
It explains why he tried to not scream for help at the sight of the grenade, because he knew it wasn't supposed to be there. The commotion caused by the Major's awakening, and the bizarre laughing that woke up others nearby, was enough for it to be discovered.
Did Allard know about this? Was this what he meant by "Looking for this"? Is this why he went missing? None of the cadets but me and Otto were supposed to be aware of the schedule regarding the arrival of the new supply.
Did he just know?
Tuesday, 22nd June, 1912
The commotion didn't last long. They managed to find all of the leftover grenades and other weapons hidden by Major Quinton, and he was transferred to another facility. We expected him to go to prison, but I suppose they wanted to avoid the story growing in proportion.
Allard is getting transferred today. They did eventually figure out he was involved in exposing Quinton's scheme, and although he saved Weston's life, as well as the lives of several others that may have been caught in an errant blast, he was still expected to be charged with insubordination. He was either going to be transferred, or expelled from the army and sent back to the United States, but instead what happened is that, apparently, one of our higher ups from the British Army caught rumors of Allard's prowess, and once the story of how he single-handedly engineered the downfall of a treacherous Major got passed, an official arranged with General Gunner to have Allard transferred into the British Secret Service, which means Allard is getting stationed outside the US. Apparently they have big plans for him.
I only know of this because he told me tonight, prior to his departure. I hesitate to say we were friends, I suspect he might have even used me to gather information, but Allard definitely made these days more interesting, which is really all I could ask for, and he did save our lives. I don't know if I'll ever see him again, but whatever God's got planned for him can't be boring. Even if he isn't a fraud, he damn well knows how to be a showman.
The last thing he told me before he left was "I did graduate from Princeton. I just didn't go by Kent Allard back then."