Maclean Read Online Free PDF

of whom he had met. Carman was a distant relative, and Mr. Raymond promised that when next he saw Carman, he would try to persuade him to come and read to them.
    Past the lighthouse, past the nunbuoy,
Past the crimson, rising sun,
There are dreams go down the harbour
With the tall ships of Saint John.
    Mr. Raymond was sitting behind the desk in his classroom. He too had probably guessed what had happened.
    â€œThey need me at home,” Maclean said, offhand, swaggering, trying to make as if he were saying, “I’m a man now, and I haven’t time for all this.”
    â€œThat’s too bad,” Mr. Raymond said. “You were doing well. Perhaps you’ll be able to come back next year. You could work at some of the books.”
    â€œI’ll see,” Maclean said.
    He got his things out of the desk, not looking up, and stuffed them roughly into the bookbag. He was determined never to look at them again.
    â€œI’m sorry to see you go,” Mr. Raymond said. “And I want to wish you good luck whatever you do.”
    As it turned out, he was the one who was going to need the luck, more of it than he had anyway. Three years later he was dead. Like almost all the young men from those old families with their worship of England, he joined up and became an officer, and one day a great German shell came down on the arm of their trench and blew him and everyone else to pieces so small that one of the boys told him later there was hardly anything left to bury. After the war, somebody published a little book of poems he had written, all about birds and flowers. Crazy.
    Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale
    The town clock on the top of the post office was striking twelve as he hustled back, straight down Main Street and to hell with it. God damn them. The miserable, little fuckers. Is this your ration book? Yes, it’s my book, it’s got my name in it. Yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re the person that’s got the name that’s in the book. We have orders to be sure. Jesus Christ, you’ve seen me a thousand times. You know god-damned well who I am. What the hell are you talking about?
    Now he was going to be late for his god-damned dinner.
    â€œPinky,” someone shouted from behind him.
    He looked back over his shoulder without stopping. It was Junior Tedley, one of the boys he had seen hanging around the end of Diamond Street. A bum. A leech. A useless, splay-footed, chicken-brained, sponging son of a whore.
    â€œFuck off,” Maclean said.
    Drusilla was a little behind with dinner, and she was still dishing up the Saturday beef stew when Maclean slipped into his place. The boarders sat down the sides of the table, and there was an empty space at the end where Mr. Elmer Ellsworthy sometimes ate his dinner when something interesting was being talked about.
    What was interesting today was that the MacDonald boys had stopped at the post office on the way home, and Alex, the older one, had found his call-up notice waiting.
    â€œYou gonna volunteer for overseas?” Walter Haynes asked.
    â€œI dunno,” Alex said. “I ain’t thought about it yet.”
    â€œYou know all about that, Mr. Maclean,” Miss Audrey said.
    â€œAbout what would that be?” Maclean asked.
    â€œYes, sir,” Henry said. “You been through it all. Vimy Ridge and all.”
    â€œI wasn’t at Vimy Ridge,” Maclean said.
    â€œA lot of them guys,” Walter said, “talk about the war that never got near no trenches. They just set around England not doin’ nothin’.”
    â€œWell, you never seen no trenches anyway,” Maclean said and immediately regretted it. Walter was a mean, under-handed son of a bitch, and it made no sense to get on the bad side of him over nothing.
    He looked across at Maclean as if wondering which part of him he was going to hit first. Walter was bald with a fat, pink face and very small eyes set too close