“Not much to look at,” Jim said.

“Nothing but fields of wheat since we left northern Ontario, except for Winnipeg … I wish we could have gotten out to look around.”

“I wish we could have just gotten off the train for good. Two days is too long to be riding the rails.”

“It’s been a long time,” I agreed.

The motion of the train had made Jim sick—not the best thing for somebody who wanted to be a pilot—but I’d actually enjoyed the ride. I’d never been west of Toronto before, and I would have stayed awake the whole time if I could have.

“Not much longer, at least,” Jim said.

I looked at my watch. “Less than ten minutes.”

The sergeant had come through twenty minutes ago to tell us to get all our gear packed and be ready to disembark in thirty minutes.

“It’s so empty out here,” Jim said. “Hardly any people at all, just a few scattered houses in the distance.”

“I think that’s why the training school is out here, so it can be away from everybody.”

“Makes sense,” he agreed.

Over the two days, I’d gotten to know a lot of the other guys. There were over three hundred men, and they could be divided into two groups: older guys, some even in their thirties, who were married, with kids, and younger, single guys, some not much older than me or Jim. Jim was only nineteen, but big enough to easily pass for a year or two older. Once the train had gotten underway, the two groups quickly separated, with people even shifting their sleeping berths so they would be on different cars of the train.

Both groups had done a lot of loud talking, card playing, shooting craps, and drinking. Especially drinking. Jim wasn’t the only one with a flask. Bottles seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and I got the feeling that some people had brought along more booze than they had clothing. I’d even heard that a couple of guys had almost been left behind in Winnipeg when they’d dashed off the train to run to the liquor store to replenish their supplies.

I’d had a couple of sips from Jim’s flask, but nothing more. Neither of my parents were drinkers, and there wasn’t any alcohol in our house. It had never really appealed much to me, and now, after spending two days on a train with some guys who couldn’t hold their liquor or their tempers, I was even less tempted to take up the habit.

There’d been more than a few arguments, and at least twice, when push came to shove, a couple of guys were ready to have a set-to. The nearby presence of the sergeants and the calmer heads of others kept things from heating up any further.

The other thing that seemed to occupy time for a lot of the guys was gambling. I’d seen them trying to play craps—dice—but the movement of the train kept interfering with the rolling of the dice, but they still played, trying to compensate for the train’s movement tipping the dice one way or another. Instead, there were lots of card games going on. I’d never played cards before—at least not for money—and a lot of bills were on the table.

My money—my parents’ money to pay for my year in boarding school—was safe, squirrelled away in a sock at the bottom of my bag. I felt bad about even having it, but I had to take it with me. It would have been pretty hard to explain to my mother why she didn’t need to pay tuition for my schooling that year. When this was all over, I’d just give them back the money. Besides, it wasn’t bad to have a little extra cash, just in case.

When I wasn’t looking out the window at the scenery, I just stood off to one side and watched the games being played. I’d found that was the safest place, because some of the guys got antsy when you stood behind them, as if they thought you were giving signals and helping somebody cheat them.

I’d already been asked about my age. It wasn’t just that I was younger, I really looked younger. A couple of the older guys had been giving me a hassle about being so young when Jim walked by. He just told them that guys like me and him were brave enough to “enlist as soon as we could,” not like some “lily-livered zombies” who had to be drafted. Calling somebody a zombie was about the worst insult you could give, and for a few seconds it looked as if Jim had only helped me get into a fight. But then they’d smiled and laughed and offered us both a drink from their flasks.

I knew I had to start doing things that would at least make me seem older. The moustache thing wasn’t going to work. Other guys had had to shave a couple of times during the trip, but I could practically have used a face cloth to wipe away the peach fuzz that was starting to form on my upper lip.

I thought about taking up smoking, but trying that for the first time might even make the situation worse. What if I started to cough when I lit up or, worse, turned green and threw up, the way I’d seen some guys do? The thick haze of smoke that hung in the air was almost enough to make me feel sick, and a couple of times I’d had to go outside between cars to catch some fresh air.

I felt the train start to slow down, and I could see a few small houses out the window. We were obviously on the outskirts of Brandon. As we continued to slow down, more and more houses and even stores appeared, until we finally pulled up to the station. There was no elevated platform here, but there were trucks—RCAF trucks—waiting beside the tracks.

The train shuddered to a final stop. It would be good to get my feet back on solid—

“Move it, move it, move it!” screamed one of the sergeants. “Do you men think this is the start of your vacation? Get your butts off this train and onto those trucks, double time!”

There was a mad scramble as men jumped to their feet, grabbed their bags from the luggage compartments, and pushed forward to get off the train. I wedged myself in behind Jim and joined a stream of men flooding down the aisle and out the door, leaping to the ground.

The tailgates of the trucks were down, and we tossed our bags in one truck and climbed up. There were benches on both sides, and we plopped down on the hard wooden seats. It filled up quickly, and then a couple of airmen lifted the tailgate and slammed it closed with a loud thud that shook the whole vehicle. They then pulled the canvas flaps closed, blocking most of the view. I felt a little claustrophobic, stuffed in with twenty other men, sitting shoulder to shoulder, my knees almost touching the person facing me. Quickly it started to get hot and stuffy in there.

“What are they waiting for?” somebody asked. There was a hint of both annoyance and anxiety in his voice. Maybe I wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable.

Almost on cue, the engine started and the whole truck began rumbling. The little bit of fresh air that had managed to get through the opening in the back was replaced by exhaust fumes. The truck started forward and we rocked from side to side. The ride wasn’t smooth, but at least we were leaving behind the smell of the exhaust.

“Anybody have any idea how far away the camp is?” somebody asked.

There were mumbled responses that varied from “Wouldn’t think too far” to “An hour or two,” so really nobody had any idea. It didn’t matter. We were going wherever they were taking us, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it short of jumping out of the back—and judging from the increasing speed of the truck, that wasn’t much of an option either. I just knew that the faster we drove, the faster we’d get there, and that was fine by me.

I caught little glimpses of the world as it passed, of houses and stores. Paved roads gave way to hard-packed gravel. Behind us was another military truck, and when we hit a curve, I could see a second and third and fourth before the turn blocked my view. Since there had been three hundred of us on the train and each truck held around twenty men, there had to be about fifteen vehicles in this convoy.

The truck’s brakes squealed, slowing it down dramatically before a sharp turn, and a cloud of dust was kicked up—by us and whatever vehicles were in front of us. I was suddenly glad the flap was almost completely closed. The road—the dirt road—was much rougher, and we rocked and bumped our way along slowly. I gripped the bench with both hands to stop myself from bouncing off. Finally we came to a stop.

Almost instantly I could hear doors opening and men yelling. Our flap was pulled back and then the tailgate opened up.

“All of you out, out, out!” screamed an airman.

Again we jumped to our feet and we scrambled out of the trucks, moving awkwardly, bumping bodies and bags as we leaped to the ground.

“Form up in two, I repeat, two rows!” screamed a sergeant. “Tallest in the back and shortest in the front!” He looked at Jim.“You’re in the back, Stretch.”Then at me.“And you, son, are definitely in the very front row … We might even want to start a special row just for you!”

A few people started to laugh.

“The rest of you button it up. I’m not here to amuse you!” he screamed. “Is there anybody here who thinks I’m amusing?”

Everybody shut up quickly, put their heads down, and tried to assemble into rows. It wasn’t that easy a task as two rows of about a hundred and fifty men each kept shifting and squirming, trying to fit everybody in. Men bumped into each other and exchanged a few unpleasantries.

I settled into the middle of the front row—almost directly in front of three sergeants standing there glowering at us—and Jim was directly behind me. I would have liked to have been behind him so I could be completely hidden.

“Come on, double time!” yelled the sergeant—the one who had insulted me.“Come on, ladies, how are we to expect any of you to learn to fly if you don’t even know how to stand in two rows?”

Finally, after what seemed like forever but was only a few minutes, we were all standing in our rows.

“Attention!” came the order.

Immediately all bags were dropped to the ground and we stood at attention.

“At ease,” came the next order, and we relaxed—at least slightly.

“Good morning, gentlemen! My name is Flight Warrant Officer Crowly.” He started pacing in front of us. “I have been asked by our commanding officer to welcome you to Manning Depot Number Two, situated in beautiful Brandon, Manitoba. He would have welcomed you himself, but he is far too busy and far too important to waste his time on a bunch of raw recruits. And if I do say so myself, you are one of, if not the most pathetic group I have ever had the misfortune to greet!”

I knew that some of them—after two days of drinking, gambling, and not sleeping or shaving—did look pretty rough.

“I knew that as the war went on, we’d find ourselves scraping the bottom of the barrel, but in this group I see men who might actually be the barrel itself!” he yelled. “Or in some cases, if not the bottom of the barrel, only recently out of the crib!”

He suddenly stopped and spun around right in front of me. “Just how old are you, son?”

“I’m eighteen, sir … I mean Flight Officer!” I yelled back.

“I see that you already know I’m not a ‘sir,’ but you’d better get it right. It is Flight Warrant Officer! Do you understand that, son?” he demanded.

“Yes, Flight Warrant Officer!” I answered.

“Do you all understand?” he screamed.

“Yes, Flight Warrant Officer!” came back a chorus of replies.

“Only officers are to be addressed as ‘sir,’ although you will salute anybody who outranks you, and gentlemen, everybody outranks you! You are the lowest of the low, aircraftman two, an acey-deucey.”

So that’s what that meant.

“While there may be a lower form of life on this planet, it has not yet been found by science. You will salute everything. If you pass a cow or a pig, you should salute it because at this point it is making a larger contribution to the war effort than you are! Am I understood?”

“Yes, Flight Warrant Officer!” people yelled.

“Manning Depot is your first stop, one of over two hundred schools scattered throughout the world that make up the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. In total our schools graduate over three thousand airmen each month. Hopefully more than a few of you men will surprise me and actually graduate. By a show of hands, how many of you want to become pilots?”

My hand went up, as did almost every hand around me.

“What a shock that the acey-deucies all want to become pilots. Well, gentlemen, and I use that term very loosely, you are probably not aware of this, but most of you will not become pilots. And do you know why?”

I didn’t think he was looking for an answer, but I was sure he was going to tell us.

“Because while it may seem that flying is magical, airplanes do not fly on magic. You there, boy,” he said, pointing at me once again.“Do you still believe in the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus?”

“No, Flight Warrant Officer!”

“How about pixies and fairies? Do you believe in them?”

“No, Flight Warrant Officer!” I bellowed, trying desperately to make my voice sound louder and deeper.

“Even this little baby, not long from the crib, who not long ago couldn’t sleep Christmas Eve waiting for Santa to bring him a shiny new bicycle—even he knows there’s no magic. We can’t all just become pilots and sprinkle pixie dust on the wings to make the plane fly. For a plane to fly, it needs ground crew that can fix the engines and fuel the aircraft. It does no good to fly a plane if you don’t know where it’s going—it needs navigators. There’s no point in knowing where you’re going if you don’t have gunners to protect the plane along the route. There is no point in being protected and knowing where to go if you can’t do something when you get there—that’s why we need bomb aimers. All of these jobs are equally important, and over the next four weeks we will determine just which of those jobs is right for you!”

He could say what he wanted—I knew what I was going to be, and there was nothing he could say that would convince me differently.

“I know what’s going on in your heads,” he said.“You figure I don’t know what I’m saying, that you’re going to become a pilot.”

I had the strangest feeling that he was reading my mind.

“And that’s what all of you are thinking. But I’m right and you’re wrong. You’d better get that straight right now, because you’re going to soon find out that I’m always right and you’re always wrong.”

The other two sergeants nodded in agreement.

“When you are dismissed, you are to go inside the barracks, find an empty bunk, drop off your bags, and report back out here for an initial orientation meeting. You have ten minutes to do that. I repeat, ten minutes. Not eleven, not twelve, ten. Dismissed!” he yelled.