No sooner had he spoken when a loudspeaker blared out, “Take cover! Take cover! Enemy aircraft approaching!”
Instantly, everything seemed to go to pieces. The marines, more accustomed to this sort of thing, dispersed at once, running for the slit trenches. Alex and the others stood watching in dismay, not knowing what to do. Alex saw Wendy standing in front of the microphone and heard the sound of the airplane getting closer. He at once went to her and said, “We’d better get down from here, Wendy.” He pulled her arm and they descended and started walking across the open field. They had not gotten far when the roar of the airplane broke as a dark shape suddenly rose over the horizon, cresting the top of the trees. It did not seem more than a few feet over the treetops, and Alex and Wendy could do nothing but stare at it. From the aircraft, winks of light began to appear, and Alex thought, They’re shooting at us!
He had no time to do more than think that one thought when suddenly something crashed into him. He grabbed at Wendy and the two of them hit the ground. “Keep down!” a voice shouted.
Wendy got one glimpse of Bobby Carr’s face, who had thrown himself on top of them. She had uttered one frightened cry, and then the shatter of the guns drowned her out. She felt Carr’s body stiffen and saw dust kick up over to her left. There was a crash as a bomb exploded and it seemed to deafen her.
The noise of the airplane diminished, and hands were pulling Wendy to her feet. Will had come over shouting, “Get up; he’ll be coming back for another pass.”
Wendy looked at the small form of Bobby Carr, and she cried out, “What about Bobby?”
Will leaned over and put his hand on the back of the young man. He drew it back bloody. He whispered, “Bobby—” and then he turned a tragic face to Wendy. “He’s dead,” he said grimly. “Come on; that plane will come back.”
Alex Grenville had gotten to his feet. His hands were trembling, and he had difficulty thinking for a moment. He looked down at the bloody form of the marine, and it came to him suddenly. He thought with astonishment, He died for me and for Wendy!
Grenville had no time to think any more, for rough hands were pulling him away. He only saw Will Stuart lean over, pick his friend up in his arms, and run to cover.
The plane did not return as they expected, and Wendy knelt beside Will, who was holding the bloody form of his friend in his arms, staring at him with a terrible intensity.
“I’m so sorry, Will,” she whispered. “He put himself in danger for us.”
Will could not speak. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he held the dead body of the young marine tightly as sobs racked his body.
A NEW MAN
He’s going to marry me, Wendy!”
Wendy Stuart had been washing out her underthings in a steel basin furnished by the quartermaster. Looking up from the pale soapy water with a start of surprise, she saw that Mona’s eyes were wide and her entire face was animated with happiness. Wendy did not speak at first, but she gently wrung out the nylon slip she had been soaking and then looked at the young woman who had come into the tent like a small whirlwind. “But he’s already married, Mona.”
Impatiently Mona shook her head. Her hair was tied back by a ribbon, and as usual, even though it was not time for the performance, she had spent a great deal of time on her makeup. Holding her hands out in an impatient gesture she said, “Well, of course, he’s married—you knew that, Wendy! But he’s going to get a divorce.” She hesitated for one moment, then added quickly, almost defensively, “You don’t have any idea what that woman’s done to him! He’s had a miserable life!”
Wendy wanted to ask, “Well, she’s his third wife; did the other two give him a miserable life also?” However, she was too wise to put such a direct challenge before Mona. As she hung the slip on a cord that she had stretched out as a temporary wash line, she tried desperately to think of some way to reason with Mona. Ever since Rob and Mona had begun their steamy romance, Bradley had made it very obvious that he considered Mona legitimate property. It was impossible to keep the affair a secret, and Wendy had been heartbroken over Mona’s total infatuation with the actor. Turning quickly, she said quietly, “You know this is wrong, what you’re doing, Mona. I don’t want to preach to you, but you’ve been brought up better.”
A flush suffused Mona’s smooth cheeks. The words touched a nerve, for she did indeed know better. Ever since she had become involved with Rob, she had stubbornly pushed all thoughts of speaking to her parents about her love for the movie star out of her mind. There was a wild streak in Mona Stuart—but at the same time, sound principles had been part of her life. She knew right from wrong. She had seen the steady, strong love and the steadfast commitment of her parents in their marriage. It would, perhaps, have been better if she had not been such a beautiful young woman, but ever since adolescence she had been subjected to a steady flood of admiration from boys—then later on from young men. It had given her a sense of false security, for she thought she knew how to handle all affairs of the heart. The attention of Rob Bradley, however, had been of a different nature, and now she had no other defense but to say angrily, “You just don’t understand, Wendy! It’s not easy being in show business. A handsome, successful star like Rob draws all kinds of women to him. He’s made mistakes, but he’s learned from them!”
“So, you’re different, is that it?”
“Yes, that is it!” Stung by Wendy’s simple statement, Mona added quickly, “I’m different because I really, really love him, and he knows it!” Mona was standing in front of Wendy, her back straight, and there was a tenseness in her features as she added, “I couldn’t expect you to understand! You’ve always been so—” Mona could not finish the sentence. She had almost said “so good and straight,” but if she said that, the words would condemn her own actions. Shaking her hair in an impetuous gesture, she snapped, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I thought you would be more understanding, Wendy!” Turning, she walked out of the tent, her head held high, leaving Wendy staring after her.
Slowly Wendy turned back, washed out a few more things, then hung them up. She put on a simple outfit of khaki slacks and a light green blouse, looked into the small mirror that was hanging from the tent pole, and gave her hair a little attention. And as she did so, a voice outside called, “Wendy?”
Quickly she turned and moved to the tent flap. “Alex,” she said. “Come on in. You’ll have to excuse the place. I’ve made a Chinese laundry out of it.”
Alex Grenville entered the tent, blinked at the lingerie that hung from the string, and said, “It’s kind of a nylon jungle in here.”
“I know. What do you do about your laundry?”
“The same as you do,” he said with a grin. He had a Bible in his hand and remarked, “I’ve been reading some of the selections you gave me, and I have to say I’ve gotten in over my head.”
“Here, sit down, Alex,” Wendy said quickly. She took one of the two folding canvas chairs and motioned Alex to the other one. Ever since the attack, Alex had been a different man. She thought as she watched him sit down and open the Bible, He’s different from what he was when we began the tour—and even before that.
He had come to her two days after their brush with death saying, “Wendy, this thing has—has shaken me up. Would you mind talking with me?” They had talked long about why they had been spared and why a fine young man had been killed, and finally Wendy had suggested almost offhandedly that Alex might like to have a Bible. He had accepted at once, and for the past week, in their off times he had come to her with passages as he had done now.
“What is it, Alex?” she asked quietly.
“Well, I never read the Bible before,” he said slowly. “And there’re so many things I don’t know. Why, I hardly know how to begin!” He looked up at her, grinning crookedly. “I guess I’ll have to take off a few years and go to seminary to find out about God.”
“I don’t think that would do at all,” Wendy said, answering his smile. “You don’t le
arn about God like you learn about engineering. It’s two different kinds of learning.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if you wanted to become an engineer, you would go to college and take courses in scientific things such as stresses and mechanical drawing. You’d learn how to do that with your mind. As a matter of fact, I think some people do go to seminary to try to find God that way.” Wendy had thought of this a great deal and now took out her own Bible and opened it, saying, “That won’t work.” She began to read, “‘But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them.’ God is not like one of the sciences. He’s a spirit. When he speaks to us, he doesn’t speak through the mind but through the spirit.”
“Well, I’ve been reading in the Gospels as you advised, and the Gospel of John especially. And I must admit, whatever else happens, I’ve learned to admire Jesus Christ. There’s nobody like him, is there?”
“No, there isn’t. He’s absolutely different from everyone else.”
“I’ve been reading about his death.” Alex grew sober and shook his head. He turned to a marked page and said, “The strangest thing about it is when they killed him, he didn’t hate the ones who were doing it.” Shaking his head in wonder, he said quietly, “I couldn’t do that, Wendy.”
Wendy hesitated. “But that’s exactly what Christians are commanded to do. Jesus said to forgive your enemies and to pray for those who despitefully use you.”
With a futile gesture, Alex ran his hand through his hair and then looked her in the eye, saying, “Could you do that?”
“I couldn’t do it in the natural, because, as you say, it’s the natural thing when someone strikes us to strike back. But the Lord Jesus did it. He forgave those who crucified him, while he was on the cross. The big secret of the Christian life isn’t very well known. You see, when you become a Christian, Alex, you won’t be alone anymore. Christ will be in you.”
“How can that be?” Alex asked.
“It’s difficult to understand, and I don’t think anyone can ever explain it, but I know that when I called upon God when I was fourteen and asked Jesus to forgive me, he did, and he did come to live in me. I can’t explain it, but I know he’s there. He’s never left me, and he wants to make me like himself. The apostle Paul said that Christ is formed in us. Somehow through Jesus’ power, he makes us to be what God wants us to be.”
The two talked on, Wendy going through the Scriptures, glad for the hours and years that she had spent reading them and memorizing verses, and finally she said, “Alex, there are two kinds of people for whom it’s very hard to find God.”
“You mean murderers and people like that?”
Wendy smiled and shook her head. “Those people usually get saved very easily once they make up their minds. They don’t have to be convinced that they need forgiveness—they know it. And once you know you need God and need his forgiveness, that makes things much easier.”
“Well—I know I need something. I can’t go on like I’ve been going, Wendy.” Alex shook his head and looked down at the Bible. “I haven’t been sleeping well at night. I think about Bobby dying to protect us. I can’t get him out of my mind. Somewhere,” he said quietly, “he had a life before him and now he’s gone, in a moment.”
“He was one of the casualties of this terrible war. There are thousands of people dying all over the world, going out to meet God. We live in a wrecked, ruined world. Because we’re wrecked and ruined, that’s what Paul meant when he said, ‘all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’ And in Romans 6:23 he said, ‘the wages of sin is death.’ That’s the world we’re living in, Alex; it’s flawed with death. But the last part of that verse says, ‘but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’”
Alex quietly listened as Wendy spoke of her faith in Jesus. He had been afraid that she would try to cram religion down his throat, but she had not. Quietly, and with obvious concern in her eyes and in her voice, she spoke of the love of God and how he could find it, too.
They were interrupted when the voice of Danny Brothers, the emcee for the troupe, rose stridently outside the tent: “All right, rehearsal time! Get out of those tents; let’s get at it!”
“I guess we’ll have to wait until later to talk about this—but I want to hear more,” Alex said. He rose and suddenly put out his hand toward Wendy, and she automatically extended her own. He held it for a time and said nothing. There was a confusion in him, and yet when he looked at this woman, he recognized that the steadiness he saw in her was what he had always yearned for himself. “You said it’s hard for two kinds of people to find God. What kinds are they?”
“People who try to find God with their minds, intellectuals who won’t have faith in anything except what can be proven,” Wendy said. “That’s one kind.”
“I don’t think I’m like that.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the other kind. You have an artistic, emotional approach to things, and sometimes people with that mind-set demand that their conversion be emotional.”
Alex looked at her with surprise. “But I thought it was emotional!”
“Coming to Jesus is a decision of the will. You decide to do it, and then you obey his commandments. Some people have a great emotional experience, but some don’t. My own experience was very quiet. But I knew that I had done what God said. I just went on, and as time passed God began to fill me with joy.”
“I guess,” Alex said slowly, “you’re telling me that I’ve got to have faith.”
“That’s his only way of saving people—by their faith. It’s his gift to people through faith, I suppose you might put it.” She hesitated then said, “There’s going to be a service for the men tomorrow morning. Why don’t we go?”
“All right, I’d like that.” As Alex left the tent, hope burned in Wendy as it never had before. She knew that she loved this man, but it had looked so hopeless. Now, in the midst of war and death, God was doing a miracle of grace in the heart of Alex Grenville, and Wendy breathed a prayer of thanksgiving and a petition that the gospel would find lodging in Alex’s heart.
That night she lay awake waiting for Mona. Her cousin came in, but it was very late. Wendy did not know where Mona had been, but her heart was heavy because she recognized that, wherever it was, she had been with Rob Bradley. Wendy did not speak, for Mona would not be spoken to, but all through the night she slept fitfully, praying alternately for her cousin and for Alex to find God.
She rose the next morning, dressed quickly, and met Alex coming out of the tent he shared with some of the band members. “Good morning, Alex,” she said. “Are you ready for breakfast?”
“I could eat a horse.”
Wendy laughed. “That’s what some of the marines say we’re eating around here. They don’t have very complimentary remarks about the food, do they?”
“You should hear what they call it when there are no ladies present.” Alex made a grimace and took her arm. “Come on; I’ll buy you the best breakfast on the whole island.”
As they ate, they talked about the tour, but Wendy could tell that Alex was not thinking primarily of music or performing. He was preoccupied, and she hoped it was with the matter of his soul.
After breakfast, they gathered in a large, open space with several hundred marines dressed in fatigues and listened as the chaplain preached. The sun shone down brilliantly, and soon they were all soaked with perspiration. Looking around at the weary fighting men, Wendy whispered, “They all look so tired—but they must be hungry for God to come out in this heat and listen to a sermon.”
Alex had been looking around, too, and said quietly, “I know a little about how they feel. Of course, I’m not facing death like they are, but I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I’ve got to do something, Wendy! I’ll lose my mind if I don’t.”
There was desperation in Alex Grenville’s voice, and as the chaplain continued, Wendy was very happy t
o hear him preaching a simple gospel sermon. He spoke for a while on Romans 3:23, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” There was no condemnation in the chaplain, a tall, wiry man with very light blue eyes, who spoke in a pronounced southern accent. He simply pointed out that everyone everywhere had sinned. “We haven’t all sinned alike—but we’ve all alike sinned,” he insisted. He proved by the Scripture that sin was not always in its most horrible form, but it was unacceptable to God. Then he moved on to the sixth chapter of Romans and dwelt on the verse Wendy had quoted to Alex: “The wages of sin is death.” Wendy was glad that he did not preach a loud, raving, hellfire-and-damnation sermon. Instead, the chaplain pointed out that death was separation from God. “It wouldn’t make any difference if you were not in fire but in the most pleasant circumstances you can imagine. Even an eternity of that would be hell without God, for you were made for God to dwell in you. It is Jesus Christ in you that makes men and women what they ought to be.”
“He seems to be echoing what you said yesterday,” Alex whispered.
Wendy saw that his hands were trembling, and without thinking she reached over and put her hand over his. “The gospel’s always the same,” she said quietly.
The chaplain said, “Though we’ve all sinned, and although the wages of that sin is separation from God, yet, the Scripture says, ‘The gift of God is eternal life.’ Jesus Christ is his eternal gift, and he wants you to take that gift. You’ve all received gifts at Christmas. What did you do to earn them? Nothing! You just took them.” The chaplain stressed that salvation is not a wage to be earned. He showed, through the Scripture, that by faith one is saved, not by works. A great quiet fell over the congregation. Birds were crying in a weird, unearthly voice somewhere out in the jungle, and that gave an exotic flavor to the service. The pale sun was rising overhead, pouring out its white-hot heat, but the minister ignored this. “It is time for you to make a decision,” he said quietly. “Will you have Jesus Christ as your Lord, or will you refuse him?”
Winds of Change Page 24