Canadian Faces: Machine Gunner in the Charlottetown Garrison
![[Image: norman1.jpg]](http://goodfellow164018.co.uk/images/norman1.jpg)
Your dreams are of music, the deep rough voice of your father singing hymns loud while he hammered in the shop. It leaves you homesick when the sergeant's below wakes your squad. It's early, but inspections are respecters of no decent clock. Still, you hum the old tunes to yourself as you lace your boots and shave.
![[Image: World-War-I-machine-gunners.jpg?885f03]](http://www.ammoland.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/World-War-I-machine-gunners.jpg?885f03)
Oiled and gleaming in the dim fall sun, your machine gun Bitchin' Bess is smartly turned out, earning a nod from the captain and merciful silence from the sergeant. Other guns and their crews have been less fortunate, as the bored soldiers of the 342nd Guards tend to be sloppy at the best of times.
Not you, though. Your father was proud to have his third son join the Guards. A Master Carpenter makes less now that in your great-grandfather's time, and your father could barely afford you until your sixteenth birthday. Father's rich clients could never keep a sneer off their faces when you told them of your dreams, but father is a Canadian with pride.
![[Image: POC_Aerial_LG.jpg]](http://www.hbra.ca/_img/POC_Aerial_LG.jpg)
For a hundred years, the 342nd have watched over the city of Charlottetown, protecting against invasion that has never come. For all that, who else fights fires along the docks, when drunken sailors quarrel and curse? Who else ensures smugglers never venture along the tundra shoreline, spreading Ottoman drugs or worse? Who else provides the ceremonial guards for the bishop or the mayor on their speech days? You serve the city with pride even if you never fire a shot in anger.
Some others in your unit mutter, from time to time, wishing to try the might of their guns against German or Ottoman invaders swarming from the seas. But not you. You have no such dreams of glory, and sometimes when you dream you feel fear at the thought of fire, smoke, and blood. You do not want to see the Maple Flag tattered, or hear the screams of wounded and the wails of terrified civilians.
So fortunate, you are, indeed to be in the 342nd under the banners of Canada. Three warm meals, a comfortable bed, and an elk-head dollar a day are all you can ever expect to see out of your service to the Peaceful Nation. And so you are content.
Your dreams are of music, the deep rough voice of your father singing hymns loud while he hammered in the shop. It leaves you homesick when the sergeant's below wakes your squad. It's early, but inspections are respecters of no decent clock. Still, you hum the old tunes to yourself as you lace your boots and shave.
Oiled and gleaming in the dim fall sun, your machine gun Bitchin' Bess is smartly turned out, earning a nod from the captain and merciful silence from the sergeant. Other guns and their crews have been less fortunate, as the bored soldiers of the 342nd Guards tend to be sloppy at the best of times.
Not you, though. Your father was proud to have his third son join the Guards. A Master Carpenter makes less now that in your great-grandfather's time, and your father could barely afford you until your sixteenth birthday. Father's rich clients could never keep a sneer off their faces when you told them of your dreams, but father is a Canadian with pride.
For a hundred years, the 342nd have watched over the city of Charlottetown, protecting against invasion that has never come. For all that, who else fights fires along the docks, when drunken sailors quarrel and curse? Who else ensures smugglers never venture along the tundra shoreline, spreading Ottoman drugs or worse? Who else provides the ceremonial guards for the bishop or the mayor on their speech days? You serve the city with pride even if you never fire a shot in anger.
Some others in your unit mutter, from time to time, wishing to try the might of their guns against German or Ottoman invaders swarming from the seas. But not you. You have no such dreams of glory, and sometimes when you dream you feel fear at the thought of fire, smoke, and blood. You do not want to see the Maple Flag tattered, or hear the screams of wounded and the wails of terrified civilians.
So fortunate, you are, indeed to be in the 342nd under the banners of Canada. Three warm meals, a comfortable bed, and an elk-head dollar a day are all you can ever expect to see out of your service to the Peaceful Nation. And so you are content.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
