LITMIR.BIZ

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his name?”

      “He told me his name was Don Munday. And he is a mountaineer! Just like you!”

      “Don Munday – wow! He’s almost a legend at the club. He’s climbed all over Garibaldi and on Baker, and everywhere.”

      “Well, he was wounded at Passchendaele. It’s a nasty one. A shell went clear through his left wrist and arm to the elbow. He won’t be climbing any mountains for a while yet. He’s got several more months of therapy – building up his strength. He’s a brave man. Did I tell you also that he was given the Military Medal for valour during the Battle of the Triangle at Vimy Ridge? Say, shall I introduce you sometime?”

      “Yes. I’d like to meet him, I’ve heard so much about him. I hear he’s a little odd though – very intense. The way people speak, I’ve wondered if they are not just a little frightened.”

      One morning as Phyl worked at typing letters for the officer in command and patient reports for the matron from her shorthand notes, she heard a shuffling across the room and there, looking in the glass partition door, were Nina and a patient. The patient, a small man with closely cropped brown hair, hung a little behind her.

      “Come on in,” she gestured, signalling that it was all right to open the door and enter the office.

      “Phyl, I’ve brought someone to meet you. It’s his first really big excursion since surgery, but as he claims to be a great walker – what better therapy could there be than having to walk the length of the annex to the Orderly Room?”

      Unconsciously Phyl’s hand reached up to smooth back errant hair strands from her cheek. She smiled and rose to greet them. She pushed back the wooden office chair, then stretched across her desk and extended a hand.

      “Hello, I’m Phyllis James. Nina mentioned that you were a new patient here. Pleased to meet you.”

      “Yes, Don Munday is my name.”

      “Although if you believe his charts, his name is Walter,” interjected Nina.

      “Oh, that is easily explainable,” Don replied. “My complete name is Walter Alfred Don Munday, but when I registered for service, somehow they never got past my first name. Don will do. Pleased to meet you Miss James.”

      As they briefly shook hands, Phyl thought it was a shame he was so pale. His lower left arm and hand was swathed in bandages and immobilized by his side. He had obviously lost a lot of weight. His cheekbones protruded sharply. In contrast, his eyes sunk beneath his brow. His blue eyes looked straight at her. Phyl saw the same look she saw in all the vets: a guardedness and avoidance.

      He is still a long way from recovery, she thought. Physical wounds aside, he has the look of a lost man.

      “I’ve heard about you at the BCMC,” she blurted out. “You’ll have to tell me some time about climbing on Garibaldi. I haven’t been yet – it’s hard to get the extra days off work.”

      Phyl was extremely uncomfortable. Part of her was intensely curious to ask Don about the war and his wounds. She wondered if he would ever be able to climb again. The other part of her knew it was none of her business. There were so many men recuperating and each had his own horrible war memories. She was a little taken aback too. This small man didn’t look strong enough to have done everything she had heard of him.

      “Well, it seems I’ll be here for a while yet, so maybe we’ll meet up and you can fill me in on all the club news. How is Tommy Fyles?”

      “As busy as ever. He is still organizing all the trips, and leading most of them as well. We have a system. Are you familiar with Dunne and Rundle’s camera shop on Granville near Dunsmuir? Well, one of our members works there and they keep a special drawer in the shop just for the club. The weekend trips are all posted there. If you want to go on the weekend trip you go in and put your name down. Then they divide the names into messes, and you go back to find which mess you are in. It works out rather well. The list says what food you are responsible for bringing – enough for the four or five people in the mess. We all camp together and it’s wonderful fun. But I expect you know that already.”

      “Well, I did most of my climbing with a few pals. We didn’t go in for the big crowds. Sounds like hiking is pretty popular now.”

      During the summer of 1918 Munday continued his recuperation, which involved extensive massage and physiotherapy for his left arm and hand to repair the nerve and soft tissue damage. The ligaments and muscles required constant work, first re-establishing the gross motor movements and then the fine ones. As his arm healed, his general physical condition improved, and soon the two began to go for walks in the evening. Later he was well enough to walk with Phyl to the BCMC meetings in town.

      Don talked, haltingly at first, of his war experiences. He had not wanted to go to war; in fact, he struggled with his conscience for some while, but the responsibility proved too great. On 27 June 1915 he climbed alone. This day was the day of decision. “As I stood on the snowy summit of Cathedral Mountain I found it very hard to renew my resolve to enlist until a strange coldness crept down over the mountains, as though their aspect declared, ‘Unless you are worthy to make this sacrifice you are unworthy to frequent our shrines.’”

      Two days later, Munday enlisted as a private with the Scout Division of the 47th Infantry Battalion. Scouting was a job that suited him well. His mountaineering background, his map reading and use of compass, and his other orienteering skills held him in good stead. A scout’s business was to see that the men got to the places they were supposed to when they were at the Front and to get them back again. This meant Munday had to “take their position” so he could find it again upon return. He had to know exactly where they were physically on the ordnance map and then “scout out” the area into which they had been ordered to advance, noting all the hazards, such as enemy gun emplacements and trenches. Then he had to guide the men forward to their destination, whether it be a visible geographic site such as a ridge or hill, or more likely than not, just another muddy indefinable spot in a sea of blasted land devoid of landmarks. Coming back from one of these ventures on 24 October 1917 at Passchendaele in Belgium, he was hit with a shell and wounded. Passchendaele, the last major offensive of the war, was also one of the most horrendous. In this battle alone, 15,654 Canadian soldiers were killed or injured. Munday, like so many others, was patched up on the battlefield and eventually shipped home,

      Although repeated surgeries repaired much of the damage, he couldn’t use his hand for all functions. He could not grip or pull his fingers together. In the early days of recuperation, what would be a lifetime disability was especially challenging for this man who was passionate about strenuous outdoors activities.

      In August 1918 Munday was granted weekend leaves from Royal Columbian Hospital, and unbeknownst to the officer in command (O.C.) at the hospital he immediately commenced weekend hikes. He was still a patient at the hospital and not yet discharged from the army. Some of the nurses (and Phyl) knew his plans but chose not to distress the O.C., for it would certainly have meant trouble for all. As a matter of fact, Don’s first major transgression on weekend leave was at the invitation of Phyl and Peggy Worsley. These two had earlier made an attempt to explore an area accessible from Alouette Lake but ran into logistical problems that they had not anticipated. Access to the area was dependent upon the good wishes of a power company gauge-reader stationed at the lake. He controlled the canoe and was reluctant to permit two unescorted young women into the area. Evidently he relented, but only late in the day. Phyl and her friend were unable to do more than reach the base of Mount Blanshard that weekend.

      Well, they thought: Why not invite someone we know, who happens to be male, as an escort? Thus, Don Munday found himself tramping the shadowy trail along Alouette River, autumn leaves swirling and fluttering in the breeze. The three slept on the lakeshore in front of the gauge-reader’s cabin, having successfully negotiated with him to carry them the next day by canoe across the lake. The hike took them westward to a ridge paralleling the lake, through heather and stunted alpine trees. On they went, and the afternoon was half spent before they began the ascent of Mount Blanshard (elevation 1706 metres). They believed that they

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