Saturday, August 8, 1914

From the Journal of Matthew Campbell

I've hidden most of the day, reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. There is a flat rock hidden behind a tree around the second point of Stanley Park's western edge. I don't know if anyone else has found it, but it was empty when I arrived before lunch and no one disturbed me until I was leaving to find dinner. The trees shelter it from any wind, and the surface is flat enough that it only takes a single blanket to make it a comfortable seat. I like the view across the straight to Vancouver Island. Everything smells of pine and salt.

Friday, August 7, 1914

From the logbook of Peter S.

8:02 left bed three minutes late

9:00 entered workplace and punched timecard before boarding streetcar

9:00 - 11:15 served 324 customers with 4 repeats

11:21 - 11:35 ate lunch in the corner of Byward Market

11:45 - 16:00 served 118 customers, 48 repeats from morning

16:04 rode streetcar for two stops after passing control to L. Updike

16:43 returned home

18:20 ate dinner (baked potatoes and brown beans)

18:55 - 21:10 read 6 chapters of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

21:25 retired to bedroom to complete logbook before sleep

Thursday, August 6, 1914

From the Journal of Matthew Campbell

I closed the store myself and walked my bike down Granville. Mr. Markusy has been leaving early the past few days. I don't know why, but I don't mind watching the store myself. I heard some of the larger merkets have been selling out as everyone is stocking up, which seems so unnecessary when the war is halfway around the world. It doesn't need to affect us, does it?

The night air was warm, even an hour past sunset. Drunken revelers fill the bars and spill out onto the streets. They are toasting the start of the war, celebrating the Empire, giving their friends a send off before they leave for their training; there are many reasons to drink. I wonder if this war will give us more.

Wednesday, August 5, 1914

Diary of Victoria Tanner (Charlottetown, P.E.I.)

My son will not listen to reason. He thinks I am an hysterical woman, that I am only worrying because if he leaves there will be no one to help with the laundry on Sundays, no one to clean the barn on Mondays, and no one tall enough to reach the jars on the top pantry shelf; he will just move them to a lower shelf before he leaves, he says, and that will solve everything.

I have two months and a few days to convince him. October 14 is his 18th birthday and the day - he says - he is signing up for service. I ask him, "Service for what?" And he laughs like it is a joke. Something funny said by his funny old mother.

I have 70 days. 70 days until my intervention - me standing between the recruitment officer and John with John's birth certificate in hand - will do nothing to stop him. 70 days until my son goes away to die. Because that is what will happen. I tell him, "Wars are where boys go to die." But then he says to me, "But, Mom, I'm a man."

Tuesday, August 4, 1914

From the Journal of Matthew Campbell (Vancouver, BC)

Father came home early today. The stock exchange is shut because of the war.

It was strange, hearing the word that war is finally declared, that Britain's ultimatum has not been met and the Empire has now declared itself against the Kaiser and his kabal. I've heard a lot of big political words lately, like ultimatum, assassination, sanctions and alliances. It seems like we've been at war for weeks. Everyone's been talking like that, or at least all the loyal subjects. Mr. Markusy is an American, and when I mentioned the war to him today he only grunted and turned away to inventory the storeroom.

It's the other side of the world. How can news from so far away matter to my life? Or anyone around here? But when I saw Oliver and Paul they spoke about the Empire like they'd been told by the King himself to protect the realm, and they talked about the Kaiser like he was one of the Komagata Maru Indians.

They say a lot of things when they're drunk, but never follow through. They said they would sign up tomorrow. But this time I believe them. Something about the words "a man's duty" brought out their sobriety. I only just turned eighteen. They aren't more than a few months older than me, and I don't feel like a man yet, so how can they? Have they seen something that I have not? Do they know something about being a man that I missed? Will I be left behind?