Maisie is now two weeks into her six weeks of WTC training as a lumberjill at Sandford Lodge under the direction of Miss Cradditch. The training isn't easy: Maisie has blistered and bloody palms from wielding four-and-a-half-pound axes, six pound axes, crosscut saws, hauling chains and cant hooks. Her feet are blistered and her shoulders ache. Maisie's friend Dorothy (Dot) Thompson, shorter and slighter, is struggling to master the forestry skills Mr. McRobbie is teaching them.
That evening, Maisie, Dot and the other WTC recruits attend a dance at the Brechin Town Hall. The evening becomes more interesting with the arrival of a group of men, whom the women believe are American service men. Maisie receives an awkward invitation to dance from a handsome, dark-haired man named John Lindsay. John notices Maisie's wounded hands and tells her to use pig fat to heal the blisters, showing her his own scars. Their attempt to dance is disastrous, with John stumbling and stepping on Maisie and eventually rushing out the door, leaving Maisie embarrassed and the center of jokes by the lumberjills.
During their final chopping lesson with Mr. McRobbie, Maisie finally finds her rhythim, but her friend Dot struggles on. Even learning to drive seems beyond Dot, who scares their instructor, Mr. Taylor. To finish out their training, Maisie and Dot and the other recruits visit Mitchell's Sawmill in Tannadice to learn how to feed large tree trunks into the table and routing saws. Their day is marred however when one of the women, Lillian is badly cut by a saw. Dot discovers her calling when she calmly administers first aid to Lillian, who is taken to hospital.
When their training is complete, the new lumberjills receive their assignments. Helen and Phyllis are posted in Perthshire, Mary, Mairi and Cynthia are sent to Ad camp near Grantown-on-Spey, while Dot and Maisie are sent to the WTC camp at Auchterblair, Carrbridge, Inverness-Shire. Before she leaves for the camp, Maisie decides to send a postcard to her family, letting them know about her posting. Maisie's parents were not happy that she'd signed up for the WTC. Her mother was upset that she'd chosen not to finish her schooling and her father was very angry, viewing Maisie as abandoning them. Only Maisie's younger sister Beth, almost sixteen, had been supportive, wanting to walk her to the bus stop.
At Auchterblair, while out on a walk to calm herself after a mean-spirited letter from her father, Maisie has a surprise encounter with John Lindsay. Maisie discovers John sitting by an abandoned croft, smoking a cigarette. He reveals to her that he is not American but a Canadian with the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit at Cambridge. It turns out that John McCrae, author of the poem In Flanders Field is John's uncle and who he is named after. Like his famous uncle, John writes poetry, some of which he shares with Maisie, lending her his uncle's book of poems.
Maisie and the other lumberjills along with the NOFU's travel to Inverness for a dance, stopping at the La Scala Cinema to view a newsreel of the Women's Timber Corps that was filmed by Pathe News. The dance at the Caledonian Hotel Ballroom turns into a disaster when Violet gets drunk. She confronts John Lindsay mocking him for not dancing. Horrified at what has happened, Maisie confronts John outside the dance hall. He reveals to her that he is missing part of his right leg and that he was reluctant to tell her earlier because he felt she would view him differently and treat him as though he only cares for himself.
Maisie tells John that this does not change how she feels about him, but when she intervenes in a fight between John and a drunken sailor, he becomes enraged, telling her he doesn't need a woman to protect him. As the days pass, Maisie struggles to work through her own conflicted feelings over John. Does she really think differently about John, does she treat him as though he can't do anything for himself? When John and his friend Elliott are injured in a terrible forestry accident, Maisie and John are forced to confront these issues and either resolve them or forever lose each other.
Discussion
In Another Time is a historical fiction novel set in the Inverness area of northern Scotland during World War II. The main character in the novel is Maisie McCall, a young Scottish woman who joins the Women's Timber Corps against her family's wishes. Maisie falls in love with John Lindsay, a young Canadian man who is a member of the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit working in Scotland. Although the two are definitely attracted to one another and there are tender moments, their relationship is often fraught with misunderstanding and difficulties. Maisie comes to learn this is because John is recovering from devastating physical and psychological wounds acquired during the evacuation of Dunkirk and because he blames himself for the death of his two best friends, Walter Clarkson and Lofty McGinnis who saved his life. The tension between the two of them and how they manage to come to an understanding, forms the main story line.
A subplot involves Maisie's strained relationship with her mother and father, leading her to leave home prematurely to join the lumberjills. The climax of the story, which sees John and another lumberjack seriously injured in a forestry accident, sets Maisie on the path to resolving this conflict when her mother travels to the hospital, demonstrating that she really does care for Maisie. At this point her mother explains how events in the past led to the current problems in their family and the two women come to an understanding.
With John however, the process takes longer. He gradually opens up to Maisie after the accident, explaining how he lost his leg, but also revealing the guilt he has over what he believes is the certain fate of his two friends. It is only when he seeks help in dealing with his war trauma, that he is able to move forward, forgive himself and be able to open his heart to Maisie.
The setting of the novel, within the Women's Timber Corps, offers readers a chance to learn about a little known and only recently recognized contribution to the British/Canadian war effort. The Women's Timber Corps was formed to replace the foresters who had enlisted in the British army. Almost five thousand women joined the WTC doing tasks such as felling trees, snedding, driving tractors and trucks, working sawmills and living in very basic accommodations. Their war contribution was not fully recognized until recently: they never marched in parades nor were there separate wreaths acknowledging their effort. But in 2007 that changed with the installation of the Women's Timber Corps Memorial at the Lodge Forest Visitor Centre near Aberfoyle in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park.
Leech's Author's Note at the back of the novel is detailed, offering some supplementary information on several historical aspects of her story including the Women's Timber Corps, the NOFU, Pathe News, some information about the Halifax 100 - a group of Canadian soldiers who were at Dunkirk, and the evacuation of Dunkirk. Leech notes that "As a historical novelist, I place my fictional characters in a world of historical fact. My stories are not so much what did happen but what could have happened in a particular time and place." This does seem to be the author's intent in including a lesbian relationship in the novel. While it's obvious that same sex relationships have existed throughout history, they were not openly tolerated and for centuries were outlawed. In 1940's Scotland, such relationships were illegal and attitudes like Maisie's were likely not the norm. In this regard, In Another Time presents a perspective that is revisionist and influenced by our post-modern world.
Maisie is a solid lead character, showing determination, grit, and courage. She stands up to her parents who want her to remain at home, to Violet Dunlavy who bullies the other lumberjills and to John Lindsay whose self-pity and inner struggles to overcome his guilt threaten to overwhelm Maisie. John Lindsay is a character filled with conflict: he has guilt over surviving Dunkirk, and struggles to live up to his uncle, John McCrae - the legendary poet and physician-surgeon's reputation. He must deal with both being an amputee and suffering from post-traumatic stress, all the while working as a lumberjack - a feat that would seem very difficult indeed given the state of prosthetics in the 1940's. In true romantic novel fashion, John, who finds he can't live without Maisie, ends up getting himself well enough to propose to Maisie and they return to Canada to live happily ever after. Given all of John's deep-rooted problems, it seems not very realistic, but many battle weary soldiers managed to live a good life in the post-war years. In the this way, In Another Time ends on a hopeful note.
In Another Time is a story about friendship, loss, redemption and first love. Author Caroline Leech is the author of another historical fiction novel, Wait For Me.
Book Details:
In Another Time by Caroline Leech
New York: HarperTeen 2018
361 pp.
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