Eric frowned as he folded the paper and placed it next to the now-tepid cup of tea beside him. “Let’s see what the next few days bring, shall we? Before we make any decisions of our own.”
MERE DAYS AFTER the Liddells arrived in Toronto, in September 1939, war escalated from a possibility to a reality. After the SS Athenia sank, Germany invaded Poland. France and Britain declared war days later.
World War II was in active theater.
Eric and Florence planned to stay in Toronto for a month and then take the girls to Scotland. As much as they had looked forward to showing Patricia and Heather to Florence’s family in Canada, they were equally eager for Eric’s family to meet their daughters. But if Eric had learned nothing else in his time as a missionary, it was that best-laid plans are rarely realized. Since it was no longer considered safe for civilians to travel across the Atlantic, Eric and Florence were forced to make quick decisions. Eric had never been one to shirk his duties, but he had also—as best he could—kept his wife and daughters out of the line of fire. He certainly had not come halfway around the world to put them in danger.
Eric wrote to LMS Foreign Secretary Cocker-Brown and explained that he did not want to risk traveling with his family through the ominous ocean waters and suggested he could take their furlough in Toronto for the year. This would ensure their safety while they rested up. Considering the situation, it seemed like a more than reasonable request.
Cocker-Brown wrote back on behalf of the LMS stating they had strongly hoped and planned for Eric to be in Britain for the year. They needed him for deputation speaking engagements in order to raise support for the ongoing mission work. The war, they reminded him, greatly inhibited the potential availability of money people might be able to give in support.
Eric was displeased but understood the London Missionary Society’s response. His obedience to and respect for authority kicked in. Certainly, he reasoned, if he had been brave enough to work in the midst of war in northern China, he could do the same in the present situation, crossing the perilous Atlantic to furlough in Britain. Surely any other man would not acquiesce so obligingly, given the circumstances. But Eric once again demonstrated loyalty to his God, his family, and his employers by sacrificially making a difficult decision. He put everyone else first and in the best position possible while placing himself—and his own personal interests—last.
Eric ultimately decided to traverse to Britain alone, a decision that would keep his family protected in Toronto.
After so much intermittent time on the mission field, Florence had looked forward to spending the year with Eric and their young children together. Spending much of the furlough separated had not been a part of her careful plans nor was it in her interests. But after tense negotiating between husband and wife—both missionaries to China—his reasoning won out. They rented a house in Toronto, where Florence and the girls could live for the remainder of their furlough.
Again, Eric wrote to the LMS. He stated that he would come to England alone, but it would be at great personal financial cost. He hoped the LMS could help alleviate the burden of having to essentially double their cost of living during the yearlong furlough.
Letters crisscrossed, the final two missing each other. As Eric sailed the Atlantic unscathed and without incident, a letter from Cocker-Brown arrived at the Toronto address ultimately allowing Eric to decide his own path forward.
Britain had somewhat forgotten one of her favorite sons. Even still, one of its November newspapers boldly commented on Eric’s return, saying,
Mr. Eric Liddell, has arrived after a second period of seven years missionary labours. A son of the late Rev. J. D. Liddell, Edinburgh, he became science master in the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin 14 years ago, and since 1937 he has been carrying on evangelistic work in that area under the direction of the Chinese mobile unit. He and his wife are both in excellent health. Mrs. Liddell, who is the daughter of the Rev. Hugh MacKenzie of the Church of Canada Mission, is meanwhile remaining in Canada.[65]
The famed runner-turned-missionary’s return did not garnish quite the fanfare as his first furlough seven years prior, which was fine by Eric. But the LMS had hoped for a more favorable splash what with World War II suffocating all the remaining oxygen out of Britain’s discussions.
Mary Liddell’s home had been lonely and quiet since James’s death, and she rejoiced to welcome Eric in for the year. Rob’s family had been back for a while by then, Jenny stayed busy with her family at their estate in Carcant, and Ernest now trained as a lieutenant of the Royal Artillery.
The threatening nearness of war loomed over the British Isles. Eric, swept up in patriotism and seemingly on a whim, applied with the Royal Air Force, offering his services as a pilot. Not that he knew anything about flying, but the thought of doing all he could to defend Britain, his home, his culture, and his family was certainly enough for him. Moreover, he had served alongside his elder brother, Rob, in the mission field. The possibility of serving his country with his younger brother, Ernest, felt right.
Eric becoming an aviator in his own Spitfire, warding off the German Luftwaffe, would have been enough to get any British journalist’s blood pumping, and the cartoonists would have had plenty of fodder for conjuring the most dominant image yet of the Flying Scotsman. But the vision of Eric Liddell—British icon and Olympic champion—joining aerial formation with the winged squadrons of the skies was not to be.
Eric had been regarded as a national treasure. The thought of frivolously losing him on the front lines of battle possibly played a role in the RAF’s decision making.
