A Foreign Field

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Gillian Chan has written a most moving account of two young people
brought together by World War II. In the fall of 1942, London,
England’s Stephen Dearborn finds himself on a foreign field, an RCAF
base adjacent to Hagersville, Ontario. There, while taking pilot
training, Stephen encounters Ellen Logan, 14, and her family. Ellen’s
parents “adopt” this young Englishman because one of their sons is
also on a foreign field, having gone missing following the Dieppe Raid.
Teased by her uniform-mad female school friends, Ellen honestly denies
any romantic interest in Stephen. However, the pair’s shared interest
in reading leads to friendship and ultimately love. Along that emotional
path, Stephen shares with Ellen that not only did he defy his father’s
wishes by enlisting, but he is underage and has nightmares about
crashing. His fears intensify when his best friend is killed in a
training accident.

When Stephen completes his pilot training in 1943 and is posted to
England, he proposes, but Ellen refuses because “we don’t know
what’s going to happen.” As a means of providing background
information and for sharing characters’ emotional states, Chan makes
very good use of numerous dated letters. Initially, this correspondence
is between Stephen and his family members overseas, but following
Stephen’s joining his bomber squadron, the letters are principally
those of Ellen and Stephen. Although the book lacks the happy-ever-after
ending that will be desired by readers who have come to like the young
couple, Chan’s epilogue, set some 50 years later, may slow the tears.
Highly recommended.