The Last Lady from Hell (5 page)

Matthews spat out the broken reed onto the floor with disgust. McDill was stunned. His mouth dropped open, and I thought for moment he was going to tear up and sob.

Matthews then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a new reed seating it firmly into the chanter. He handed the chanter back to McDill and said, “Blow up, strike in, and give me an E.”

To his credit, Patrick quickly recovered and did as he was instructed. He struck in his drones, they came in cleanly with no chanter squeak. So far, so good. He blew harder and gave a squeeze to bring in the chanter reed and...nothing. A puzzled look came over his face, he blew harder and squeezed harder. Still nothing. Then he
blew with all his might, growing visibly red in the face, his neck and cheeks puffing up like a bullfrog.

The chanter chirped momentarily, but his efforts were pointless. The reed was as hard as Victor Matthews’ gaze.

The room was quiet and tense. The seasoned pipers avoided Matthews’ gaze and were looking down at the ground. I sensed that they had seen this performance before and they knew what was coming next.

Matthews marched over to the door and hollered down the hall, “Sheila, Sheila Lougheed, please!”

Several moments later a young, attractive woman came in the door. I had seen her on campus several times before. She worked for the band as a scheduling secretary and a requisition officer while attending Queens for nursing. Sheila was about five-foot-five, with brown hair and large soft brown eyes that twinkled more often than not. She had a bold toothy smile and laugh that would erupt like a volcano, very loud with no inhibition. I was instantly attracted to her.

“Yes, Mr. Matthews” she pleasantly responded.

“Sheila,” Matthews said, “this young man is having some difficulty with his bag pipes. Take them from him and play ‘The Biddy from Slio’ for us.”

Her warm smile went flat as she looked at Victor Matthews with disappointment.

Matthews’ hard voice softened with the request. “Please,” he said.

Sheila gently took the handsome pipes from McDill, looking into his eyes briefly with an apologetic glance. Up to her shoulder went the pipes, and she blew up quickly and looked straight ahead, almost in a trance.

Three quick breaths and the bag was full of air and ready. She struck in the drones, and without any obvious effort began to play this snappy jig clearly and strongly. Aside from my amazement and appreciation for this talented piper, I felt badly for McDill and his obvious embarrassment.

Sheila finished the tune, clearly stopping and handed the pipes back to McDill. “Nice pipes,” she said with a weak smile.

As she turned and exited the room, she gave Matthews a stern glare. She had obviously been used by Matthews before to humiliate cocky new pipers and did not appreciate the awkward position it put her in.

Matthews walked over to the dejected McDill. ”Weak reeds make for weak pipers, and pretty pipes a good piper do not make,” he said, for the benefit of the whole room. “McDill, work on your lip and wind and do not shave that reed!”

As he turned and walked out of the room, he said loudly, “There is only one real musician in this room and he’s leaving.”

And with that parting slap he was gone.

McDill was visibly rattled, but to his credit, kept a semblance of composure. Terry Manning broke the uncomfortable silence. “Don’t take it personally McDill, he did the same thing to me. Just become a stronger piper.”

I wondered whether Terry was just trying to sooth Patrick or if it was true that he, too, had been on the receiving end of Matthews’ hard lesson. But before I could think about it too much, Terry addressed the room.

“You new pipers will do just fine,” he said. “You all know how to play so I’ll suggest this to you now–don’t settle for good enough. Learn the band tunes, and come prepared to our next practice.”

Then he called, “Pipes down.” With three quick drum rolls, all of us lowered the pipes from our shoulders and tucked them neatly under our arms.

“Dismissed,” Terry said, and the band began to scatter.

Sean Lyons, who had been standing beside me the whole time, leaned toward me and said, grinning, “That went well. I think Victor likes you, eh? Your reed is almost as soft as McDill’s.”

Whatever the reason, I had somehow avoided the public humiliation that had been doled out to McDill and received the message from Matthews loud and clear.

“I don’t suppose the band has any stiffer reeds on hand, eh?” I sheepishly asked.

“I’ll fix you up,” Sean laughed. He went to his case and returned with a medium strength reed which he handed to me.

“Several of the fellows are going for a beer at
The Portsmouth Inn
. Why don’t you join us?”
The Portsmouth
was a pub located on the edge of campus that was a popular hangout for Queen’s students. It was known to be smoky, crowded, and boisterous. I happily accepted the offer. It was a quick walk over to this establishment where the atmosphere was loud and inviting as we opened the door.

Dan McKee, Terry Manning, and Drum Sergeant Bill Lewis were already at the bar with a beer in their hands, so we wasted no time joining them. Sheila’s laugh rang out above the barroom buzz and I felt glad that she had joined us.

The conversation drifted from politics and war, to professors and band business. The latter included some brief laughs at the expense of Pat McDill. I quietly realized that dumb luck alone had spared me from McDill’s fate and felt thankful for that.

I complimented Sheila on her piping and innocently asked why someone with such obvious talent wasn’t playing for the pipe band? The conversations of most of the group stopped and they all stared at me waiting for the response from Sheila that they all know too well.

“Girls aren’t allowed in the pipe band,” she said simply. “It isn’t considered proper or lady like.”

“It’s a bunch of crap.” Dan said quietly turning back to his beer.

“It is what it is,” Sheila said with a shrug of her shoulders, and turned the conversation to a new topic.

I felt bad that I had broached the subject, but she seemed to be okay with it and I didn’t mention it again. As I nursed my beer and watched this group, it occurred to me that somehow and by some stroke of luck I had fallen in with this elite group of talented band members. I knew that I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to remain in the inner circle.

KINGSTON, ONTARIO, 1916

M
y family hadn’t heard from Alan in eight months and we feared the worst. Although we scanned the newspapers daily for any word on the fighting, he seemed to have vanished. That cold emptiness in our lives only made the onset of winter that much more harsh.

The winters in Kingston are normally bitter cold and, because of its location on the east end of Lake Ontario, the city has frequent snow and constant wind. Kingston rests on the western banks of the St. Lawrence River near the head, and is separated from the United States by a large island called Wolfe Island. There is a ferry service provided by the municipality of Marysville on Wolfe Island at the cost of 5 cents. The ferryboat is a sturdy old tub called “The Wolfe Islander”. She can carry about six cars and fifty people and operates most of the year. However, in the winter the river freezes over and ferry service becomes impossible.

Because Wolfe Island is a large farm island, six miles wide and twenty-one miles long, it provides goods and services to Kingston and vice versa, so it is essential that there is movement between the two.

The three miles of water between the island and Kingston freeze to a thickness of several feet at times and provides an adequate, though nerve-wracking, ice highway for commerce. The danger of crossing the ice is offset by the need for trade, so the risk is equal to the reward.

Even though most people cross without incident, occasionally a truck or wagon falls through the ice which heightens the reality of the danger. But it is a risk accepted by those who chose to participate in this perilous practice.

I was one of those cavalier people who crossed the ice without reservations. Instead of a wagon or truck as my choice of vehicle, I had something much faster and safer. As a young man, I had constructed an iceboat. The boat was capable of carrying three people and some stores or one person and three to five hundred pounds of supplies.

The boat was well-suited for the St. Lawrence with deep skates for ease of passage over frequently snow covered ice. The skates were also longer than most and angled up high in the front to accommodate the uneven surface of the river ice. It wasn’t uncommon to be whisked along by the brisk wind at as much as fifty miles per hour. On weekends, I would make runs across in my iceboat to visit friends, run supplies, or simply to entertain myself and clear my mind. You can’t appreciate the bone-jarring, pounding exhilaration of racing across the ice at high speed until you experience it. The cold wind bites your face and your eyes water uncontrollably in protest. This makes it almost impossible to see where you’re going while you’re going far too fast to get there.

I made it a point to invite my close band friends out for a crossing. This was cheap thrilling entertainment. Bill Lewis, our drum sergeant, was the only one who seemingly couldn’t get enough of ice boating. Bill, a wonderful fellow, seemed to be comfortable with a high degree of recklessness. The faster, the better for Bill. He was fearless and impervious to the cold. We would be clattering along at a good clip, thirty or better and a gust would catch us lifting the up
wind skate off the ice and accelerating us immediately to well over fifty. This burst of speed would prompt Bill into letting loose with an uncontrollable series of whoops and howls. This behavior was well out of character for this normally reserved man and gave me some insight into what lay beneath the surface of my friend.

I grew to really appreciate this man as a friend and a person. One day we were getting ready to ice boat over to Wolfe Island. We were at the boat ramp at the bottom of Princess Street where there was always a crowd. Skaters, ice boaters and observers would gather at this launch site. The problem with rivers and ice is that the water is moving under the ice and can cause the ice to be deceptively thin in spots while remarkably thick in others.