Boys
of Aurora by
John Ellison
Prologue
AURORA
Heron Spit it was called at first. Later, as the world
turned and others came to view the barren, wind and
salt-spray swept bit of land other names were used.
But it was always Aurora. It had always been there,
or so it seemed to the green-eyed boy leaning against
his bicycle, staring at the lights of the long jetty
that thrust into the dark waters of Comox Harbour.
AURORA
A Royal Navy haven where the tall ships that flew the
White Ensign could refit and clean their copper-plated
hulls. The boy could almost see the third and fourth
rates, their black hulls slashed with white, turning
slowly at their anchorage, rising and falling as the
tide ebbed and flowed.
AURORA
A Royal Canadian Navy establishment from 1914, all but
barren and used as a 1000-yard firing range where the
young sailors of Canada's fledgling Navy banged away
at stationary targets made of paper. The boy could almost
hear the ragged volleys and smell the gunpowder drifting
on the wind, and see the White Ensign that flew from
the Mast.
AURORA
Another war, and now called Naden IV, an outpost
of the Royal Canadian Navy still. Flimsy, tarpaper barracks
and classroom buildings now lined the Spit and on the
dusty parade square stood another generation of young
Canadians training to fight another war. They were all
young men, boys from Alberta, from Ontario, boys from
every province in the Dominion, boys who would, when
their training in Combined Operations was completed,
be shipped out, to be replaced by more boys, from Nova
Scotia, from New Brunswick, from Quebec. The boy could
almost see them, tall, proud, the cap tallies on their
distinctive round caps tied with a tiddly butterfly
bow, their bell-bottomed trousers creased seven times
for the Seven Seas, saluting the White Ensign that flew
from the Mast.
AURORA
The war progressed and Canada needed every man. A new
element appeared on the parade square: Sea Cadets. On
the dusty square mustered young sailors in training,
Sea Cadets from British Columbia for the most part.
Young, frightened boys away from home for the first
time but determined to make their newfound brothers
proud of them. They were all brothers. Nelson had called
them brothers, A Band of Brothers, Brothers of the Sea.
The boy could hear the whispered promises and pledges.
The boy cadets would keep the Faith. They would guard
the White Ensign that flew from the Mast.
AURORA
The Royal Canadian Navy was gone. The buildings, wood
and tarpaper temporary wartime structures, remained.
Ragged, leaking, with sagging roofs and cracked windows,
but sufficient for housing another generation of boys.
The Navy was gone, but the Sea Cadets remained. Heron
Spit and the ramshackle buildings were now a Sea Cadet
Training Establishment. The boy could hear the loud
groans and plaints of disgust as the newest generation
viewed with jaundiced eye the crumbling barracks and
windblown parade square, and the words of quiet pride
as their eyes looked upward and saw the White Ensign
flying from the mast.
AURORA
1976 and Her Majesty's Canadian Ship AURORA, which had
been a summer training adjunct to the main training
camp in Victoria, a satellite to the Esquimalt Sea Cadet
Camp was now, with the closure of Esquimalt, the main
training base for Sea Cadets in Western Canada. The
jerry-built wartime structures were gone, replaced with
more substantial H- shaped wooden barracks, a rebuilt
Drill Shed, a new Stores Building and a refurbished
jetty and Boat House. A causeway now joined the once
isolated spit to the mainland. The Duty Boats from Comox
were gone. The Mast remained, now flying a lesser flag.
The boy, now a man,
stared from the open window of the Land Rover, the twinkling
lights in the distance growing brighter as the car approached
the long, winding causeway leading to HMCS Aurora. As
he watched, The Phantom saw light after light fade into
the darkness and disappear. He now realized that the
first steps of his journey to manhood had been taken,
and that the road ahead, while long and winding, would
never be walked alone, that he would walk with many
others toward the light of a bright, golden sun.
In the far distance
he could hear the growling of buses. The Boys of AURORA
were returning and The Phantom wondered how many of
them would walk down his road, how many twinkling lights
would be bright in the tomorrows to come, and how many
would be extinguished forever.