This Game of War
This Game of War
“You mean I’m blind!” Teddy wailed.
Dr. McCrae simply said, “Yes.” He took Teddy’s hand in his and squeezed it.
Teddy pulled his hand away and cried, “NO! No, no, no! This isn’t right. I shouldn’t even be here! I’m not a solider, I’m just a kid. I want out of this dream. I want to go home!”
Teddy tried to push himself up from the bed. Dr. McCrae held him down and called out, “Nurse Bidwell! Your assistance, please.”
She was there within moments. Teddy felt her hand take his as she said, “Oh, the poor lad.”
There was no more struggle in Teddy. Drained of strength and wrapped in darkness, he sagged back onto the bed and lay there unmoving.
Dr. McCrae said, “Teddy? Private Nugent?”
Teddy didn’t respond. He was fully conscious, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He heard Nurse Bidwell say, “I think he’s drifted off again, the poor dear. It’s an evil war that does this to young men, Doctor.”
Doctor McCrae said, “Yes, it is. But in desperate times, we have to fight. It’s our duty, Nurse Bidwell.”
Desperate! Once again, Teddy recalled what the old veteran had said. Dr. McCrae had just told him that he was permanently blind. Never in his life had he felt such fear, such desperation. In a loud voice, he said, “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow between the crosses…”
Startled, Dr. McCrae said, “Teddy! You mustn’t—”
“row on row that mark our place, and in the sky the larks…”
“Your poem, Dr. McRae (sic). He’s delirious again,” Nurse Bidwell said, “Teddy, love, please—”
Teddy Nugent, 12, plans to skip his town’s Remembrance Day celebrations to participate in a War Games competition at a local comic book store, but a war veteran gives him a “special poppy” that transports Teddy to various actions in both world wars where he meets his own ancestors and is thrust into dangerous and frightening situations, escaping only by reciting parts of the poem “In Flanders Fields”. From the trenches in France to a World War II navy ship and air force bombing crew, Teddy experiences first-hand the horrors and the valor, as well as the moral ambiguities and imperatives, of the wars. When he finally wakes up in his own bed, he changes his mind and abandons his plans to escape the ceremony.
A solid addition to the canon of well-researched and vivid war testimonials by Canadian authors, This Game of War does its best to appeal to youth for whom the wars seem irrelevant, and to remind them of the sacrifices of soldiers from the past. The dream sequences are vividly recounted, playing Teddy’s ignorance off the world-weary explanations of the fighters and officers he encounters, and drawing meaningful depictions of both sympathetic and more complex characters, Canadians and British alike, in particular Morgan, the combative navy seaman who gives Teddy his safety vest and inadvertently saves his life. From the daily deprivations to the lighthearted camaraderie to the constant danger, no detail is spared in the hard-hitting war drama sequences.
The present-day backdrop is not so convincingly portrayed. Teddy is not as sullen or combative as one might expect, and his friends, Paul and Valerie, seem no more than empty foils for his determination to worm his way out of the ceremony; in particular, Valerie seems no more than a stereotypical nagging female. The fact that the November 11 commemoration falls on a Saturday, and yet is a mandatory school outing, seems out of place, as is the arena-sized ceremony in what appears to be a small town (unidentified; the only clue is that Teddy tells a British soldier he’s not from Toronto). And nowhere is the fictional War Games even clearly identified as either a video, role-playing, or even board game, and, if a video game, it seems odd that a comic book store would host it in person.
The war sequences contain a few oddities as well, in particular an officer who interrupts some slightly threatening mockery between seamen saying, “We don’t tolerate the harassment of any member of this ship’s company”- a use of the concept of harassment that sounds a bit too modern. The appearance of John McCrae (the author of “In Flanders Fields”) seems a little too perfect as is Teddy’s discovery in his continued family research that the battles he participated in were real. That said, the discovery of a website of recorded oral histories, one of which is read by a British airman Teddy had encountered, is poignant, if only for the man’s Cockney accent Teddy immediately recognizes. This Game of War is a valuable resource for education and enlightenment but, overall, not the most compelling story.
Todd Kyle is the CEO of the Brampton Library.