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Jack almost killed the oldest brother, Arthur. He was taking some forty-five-gallon oil drums down to the shop of Mr. Grey, the island’s Marconi operator. As Arthur hopped off Old Jack to drop off the barrels, the horse got spooked and bolted. Arthur’sfoot caught in his saddle and he was dragged for a half-mile. Two barrels fell on him, and he was struck once by Old Jack’s hoof. Four hours later, Mr. Grey brought him home through the back patio door. Ralph did not recognize his own brother. His skin was as white as paper.
    Old Jack’s barn was adjacent to the family’s milk-cow corral. In honour of the epic journey this cow had travelled to get there, it was named Lovat, after the boat that was the only way on or off the island. In the winter of 1930, Susan MacLean had secretly sent a telegram to her brother, who lived on Prince Edward Island, asking that he find it in his heart to offer Stanley a milk cow. The family needed milk and it was just getting too expensive to buy. Stanley was too proud to ask for help. Plus, the rumrunners’ boats had been docked off the coast for the better part of the last month, which always had a dramatic impact on the family finances.
    Money had been drawn from the family’s bank account. Ralph remembers his mother crying in the kitchen one day. “The money—where has it gone?” They could see the white sails of the rum boat from the living room bay window. Seven hungry children sat at the kitchen table, not a leg among them long enough to touch the wooden floor, and they all knew exactly where the money had gone.
    Thank God for the potatoes. Behind the corral and the barn lay an acre of potato patch. All nine souls in the house depended on that acre. The sea provided folks on the island with money, but potatoes kept them alive.
    In May 1939, when Ralph was seventeen, his sister Mabel gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was named Alayne. It was the first baby for the MacLean siblings, a real reason to celebrate. Ralph’s mother opened three jars of peaches that had been shipped in from Nova Scotia. The pop of the peach jar was like a champagne cork going off. The family had never seen three jars open at the same time. Everyone around the kitchen table tried their best to concentrateon the sweet nectar of the peaches, but an elephant in the room was suffocating the celebration. They were worried for this baby’s father. Doug Stevens was in the thick of the war by then.
    When the Germans launched the Blitzkrieg attack in 1939, Mabel’s husband could not wait for his government to join the fight. He was one of the first Canadians to join Britain’s Royal Air Force. Since Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth, the Brits were happy to take as many of her men as they could. Churchill knew how admirably Canadians had served during the First World War and hoped they’d do so again.
    Doug Stevens saw Germany’s Blitzkrieg into Poland as the first move by a harsh regime waging a brutal war inside and outside its country’s borders. Doug rallied to the call. He joined the Royal Air Force in the winter of 1939 and was off to England soon thereafter. Mabel was four months pregnant. Doug hid the fact that he was married because the Brits would only take single men. They knew the odds that airmen faced. Doug trained in England and became a pilot of a mighty Lancaster bomber. He sent back a picture of himself in uniform standing at the side of his plane. Mabel set that picture up against the lamp on her nightstand. How she worried about her husband flying the skies above occupied France!
    Mabel was left on her own. Her long-time friend Kay Vincent came back to the island to stay with her for most of that spring and summer. Kay had moved to Halifax a few years earlier to work in a grocery store owned by an uncle. Kay was a great help to Mabel, and to repay the favour, Mabel decided to accompany her back to Halifax in November of 1939.
    At that point, Ralph didn’t have much