The Silent Harp

by Gilbert, Morris

  “This is a big decision, Sharon. Maybe the biggest you’ll ever have to make, but you’re the one who has to make it. I know how your parents will feel, and in this case they might be right. Talk to them first and then make your decision.”

  ****

  She went to her parents as soon as Robert left and told them what had happened. Both of them expressed shock and sadness, and her mother said gently, “I’m so sorry, Sharon. I know how hard this is for you and for Robert, but this means, of course, that the wedding will have to be postponed.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “I know this isn’t what you want,” Leland said. He came over and put his arm around her. “It’s just the right thing to do. I’m sure Robert has talked to you about how imprudent it would be to marry now.”

  “He said the decision would be up to me.”

  “I think that’s very proper and kind of him, but you must not marry now.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to either of you,” Lucille said. “The first six months of a marriage is such an important period. A man and a woman get to know each other, and that wouldn’t be possible under these circumstances. You’d have only a few days, and then Robert could be gone for years. People change, and when he comes back, you can’t know how either of you will have changed.”

  “I’ll never change. I’ll always love Robert.”

  Sharon put up the best argument she could for going on with the wedding, and finally she decided to consult with their minister. Franklin drove her to the church, and Reverend Smith pretty much echoed the words of Robert and her parents. After Franklin drove her back home, Sharon went to her room, where she stayed the rest of the day. She knew that the decision had to be made quickly. If the wedding were to be postponed, everyone invited or involved would have to be informed without delay.

  She found herself praying for an answer from God, but God had not played a large part in her life, and she wasn’t sure how to be certain that God was speaking to her. She had been a faithful church attendant, but she had no certainty of a relationship with her Creator. She considered her life to be as morally upright as any young woman’s might be, but that did not bring her any peace.

  She slept little that night, and the next morning she felt she had to talk to Robert. Franklin drove her to his apartment, and he let her in at once, not at all surprised to see her. He shut the door and held her in his arms.

  “I know this is so hard on you, dear.”

  “Robert, this is so terrible. I wish—”

  “I know. We all wish it hadn’t happened. What have you decided about the wedding?”

  Sharon hesitated. She could not bear to let him go, but she had reached her decision. “I . . . I think, perhaps, we ought to wait until after you come home.”

  Robert saw the tears in her eyes and took out his handkerchief. “Don’t cry, dear. Maybe it won’t be very long.”

  “I’ll wait for you no matter how long the war lasts. You know that, don’t you?”

  “That means a great deal to me. This is painful for both of us, but perhaps this is best.”

  In the last year and a half, Sharon had come to know Robert very well, and although there was nothing in his voice or in his expression that told her so, she sensed his disappointment. The impulse came to reverse her decision, to cry, Yes, we will get married even if we only have a few days. But she knew she had made the right decision, and she let the moment pass. “We’ll have to spend every spare moment together until you leave,” she said instead.

  “Yes, of course we will. We’ll make it a two-week celebration.”

  ****

  The hubbub in New York’s Grand Central Station was deafening as young men and women gathered to say their tearful good-byes. Sharon had accompanied Robert to the platform where the train would take him to his training camp, and now he put his bag down and turned to her. “I hate good-byes,” he said.

  “So do I. Oh, Robert, I don’t know how I’m going to bear it!” Suddenly she blurted out the words that had been on her heart for the past two weeks. “I wish I had been stronger. We should have married. At least we would have had these days.”

  He put his arms around her and held her tightly. He whispered in her ear, “We’ll pray that I will come back and that you will still be here for me.”

  “I will be! Oh, I will!”

  He kissed her, and she clung to him as the conductors cried out, “All aboard!” When he lifted his head, he said, “I want to say one thing before I leave.”

  “What is it, Robert?”

  “If I . . . don’t come back, go on with your life, Sharon. Find a companion and have a family.”

  Sharon began to weep. He kissed her one last time, then turned and picked up his suitcase and left. She stood watching him through her tears until he joined the line of men boarding the train and started up the steps. He turned and waved, and she saw his lips form the words, I love you.

  She stood there as a shrill whistle rent the air, and the train inched away from the platform. After watching until the last car had disappeared, she turned away with a grief in her heart she could hardly bear. “I should have married him! I was a coward,” she whispered as she pushed her way through the crowd.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Bit of Metal

  The gray sky was dotted with sullen white clouds as the long line of American troops and supply vehicles moved forward. They were advancing into St. Mihiel in northeastern France, and the troops stirred with anticipation as they moved toward the front. The late summer of 1918 had proved to be good for the Allies. Winston Churchill said, “Before the war it seemed incredible that such terrors and slaughters could last more than a few months. After the first two years it was difficult to believe they would ever end.”

  But now the end was in sight. General Ludendorf’s German army continued to fight, but the German cause had deteriorated. Starvation and the threat of revolution back home had plagued them and created a manpower shortage on the front lines. By contrast the Allies had gained strength and pushed steadily forward in separate battles that were merging even now into the victory drive.

  Robert and his comrades stopped as dark fell, and the units gathered around to draw their cold rations. They had reached the trenches and knew that morning would bring a new offense.

  The night passed, and as dawn came, Lieutenant Robert Tyson walked among his men, gauging their strength and finding it sufficient. He spoke to his men individually by name, and they responded. He was a popular officer, never holding back out of concern for his own safety, but always in the front when it was time to go out to meet the enemy fire. He moved back to one of the sheltered areas, sat down on a box, and began to write on a single sheet of paper. He had written Sharon a week earlier, but now before heading into the furnace of battle, he felt the need to write again. He wrote slowly, pausing to think, for he had only a single sheet and one stub of pencil.

  He was almost through when his captain, Jesse Stanton, came busting by. “All right, men, get ready!” Stanton stopped and gave Robert a friendly slap on the shoulder. “You writing a novel to that girl of yours?”

  Robert grinned as he folded the letter and put it in his inside pocket. “Do me a favor, Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  “If I go down, see that this letter gets to Sharon, will you?”

  “You’re not going down. This thing is almost over. We’ll be home in a month.”

  “Sure. But just in case.”

  “All right. Now see what you can do about your habit of running forward ahead of your men.”

  “You can’t lead from behind,” Robert said with a shrug.

  Stanton had a firm affection for this young man. He was a career officer himself and had had little confidence in some of the recruits, but Robert had proved to be a gem. It was Stanton whose recommendation had led to the medal Robert had won.

  “There’s the air cover,” Stanton said.

  Both men rose and went to their positi
ons. Robert watched as the fragile-looking biplanes flew over the German lines, their machine guns flickering and making a deadly rattle as they strafed the German trenches.

  Robert turned to the person behind him, a small man named Willie Greer, who came from Georgia. “All right, Greer, let’s get at it. You all right?”

  “Sure, Lieutenant.” Greer displayed his gap-toothed grin that showed no sign of fear. “We’ll get ’em all this time.” Then the captain’s voice sounded, and gripping his forty-five, Robert Tyson yelled at the top of his lungs, “All right, lads, over the top! Let’s show ’em what the Yanks can do. . . .”

  ****

  “No, Clayton, you can’t eat dirt.”

  Sharon stooped down to remove the fistful of dirt that her three-and-a-half-year-old brother held firmly.

  “I like dirt!” Clayton cried, resisting Sharon’s efforts.

  His face was smeared with dirt, and his cornflower blue eyes were flashing as he struggled to get away.

  “No, dirt is not good to eat. Come on, now. We’ll go see the horses.”

  “Yes, see the horses!”

  The two were in the rear of the house on a warm and sunny late September day. Ever since Robert had left for Europe, Sharon had devoted much time to her little brother. Now as she walked along, adjusting her pace to Clayton, who forged ahead steadily on his sturdy legs toward the stable, she thought about how slowly time had crawled by.

  As she often did, she relived the moment of Robert’s departure when he had told her she mustn’t mourn for him forever if he were lost in battle. The memory of his smile as he stood on the train steps lifting his hand, his lips forming the words I love you, came to her often. She usually could not keep back the tears, and even now she struggled against them.

  The year and a half Robert had been gone seemed like an eternity. She knew from his letters that he had been rushed through his training in the States and was soon put aboard a troop ship bound for France to join the Eighty-fourth Infantry Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur.

  The months had been grim, and nothing seemed normal anymore. America’s efforts to liberate France from the German invaders had resulted in a million of her own young men dying in the trenches, yet the war only grew more terrible. Sharon followed the war news carefully, and anxiously searched through the mail each day for a letter from Robert. The German armies had fought the Russians to a standstill. After the Russian Revolution of October 1917, there was no longer an eastern front. The Russians eventually signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers and occupied themselves with their own civil war.

  In April 1918 Manfred von Richthofen, the famous Red Baron, who had become the idol of Germany, was killed in battle after having destroyed eighty Allied aircraft in less than two years of fighting. In May the American troops won their first battle at Cantigny, where the First Division took a heavily fortified town and captured two hundred German soldiers. A small victory, to be sure, but the first American offense of the war.

  In June the Americans joined in a huge battle at Belleau Wood. The American marines proved to be tough soldiers, convincing the European Allies that they were to be counted on.

  Sharon had tried to keep her faith during the long, dreary months, but it had proven difficult. She suffered a deep sense of guilt and regret over her decision not to marry Robert before he left. Even though everyone agreed she had done the right thing, her spirit kept uttering, I should have married him.

  When Sharon and Clayton entered the stable, the two sleek bays the family kept for rides in Central Park stuck their heads over the stall for their expected treat. Reaching into her pants pocket, Sharon pulled out some apple pieces and said to Clayton, “Here, you hold a piece in your palm and let the horse eat it.”

  Clayton held his hand out flat, as Sharon had taught him, and giggled with delight when Lucky Lady leaned over and lipped the apple off of the little boy’s hand.

  “Well, what’s going on here?”

  Sharon turned to see her father coming from the house. He was smiling, and when he reached them, he stooped over and picked up Clayton. “What are you doing, young man?”

  “Feeding the horses!” Clayton cried. “Throw me, Daddy!”

  In response to the request, Leland tossed the boy high into the air and caught him as he came down. Clayton squealed with pleasure and begged for more.

  “That’s so dangerous, Dad,” Sharon admonished. “You’re going to drop him.”

  “Not a chance. I wouldn’t drop you, would I, son?”

  “More!” Clayton demanded, and after a few more tosses, Leland turned to Sharon, holding the boy tightly. “He’s getting bigger every day.”

  “Yes, he is, and his sentences are getting longer too.”

  Leland studied his daughter as the two spoke of Clayton’s accomplishments. She did not look unwell, yet something had gone out of her during the past anxious months. There was a shadow in her eyes, and a curtain of reserve seemed drawn across her features, hiding her deepest emotions. “Are you going to the ball tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so, Dad.”

  “Oh, come on. Your mother and I are going. Come along with us. It’ll be fun.”

  Sharon paused, then shrugged. “All right. If you wish.”

  She had no desire for balls or parties, knowing that Robert was shivering alone in some muddy foxhole in France. Parties seemed so frivolous with men dying by the millions.

  Knowing her thoughts, Leland said quietly, “It can’t last much longer. The Germans are collapsing on every front. He’ll be home soon.”

  She tried to smile. “I hope so, Dad. It seems to have gone on forever.”

  “I know it has, but we can’t let the war rule our lives. What say we all go to the ball and take our minds off the war for a little while.”

  ****

  Sharon turned on the light in her bedroom and removed a box from the top drawer of her dresser. Putting it on her dressing table, she lifted the lid and picked up the letter that lay on the top. She had kept all of Robert’s letters, reading them over and over again until they were memorized. Now she picked up the one that had arrived only a week ago. It was stained and crumpled as if he had carried it in his pocket, but the writing was clear and firm. It was a cheerful letter in which he spoke of his fellow soldiers and the weather. He never described the horrors of war. Sharon had to learn that from other sources. She knew he deliberately kept these things from her, and she loved him all the more for trying to protect her in that way. She read through the letter slowly and then reread the last section:

  I’ve received a citation. Just a bit of metal, but I’ll bring it with me when I come home. Maybe our children will be proud of their dad when they see it. We’ve got a spot of action coming up soon. We’re going to give those Huns a push. Things are winding down over here. I think it’ll be over soon.

  Robert had never been this optimistic before. He had always written as though his stay in France would be endless. “‘I think it’ll be over soon,’“ she read aloud as she gripped the paper tightly. He ended the letter by saying:

  I wish we could go to that little Italian café we went to so often while we were doing Pinafore. Do you remember those days? I think of them over and over. It is what has kept me going—the times we had together and my love for you. That never changes. I love you, and I always will. I still wear your ring, and I treasure it more each day. God has been very good to me, and the best gift of all, aside from giving me a Savior, was to give you to me. Your loving Robert.

  Sharon sat for a long time perusing the letter. Then she put it carefully back in the box, closed the lid, and took out some blank paper. She began to write, feeling a swell of pride when she addressed it to Lieutenant Robert Tyson. He had risen through the ranks from private to lieutenant as a result of his courage under fire. She knew it had to be that.

  She wrote several pages, filling the sheets with her activities, stories about Clayton, and her visits to the opera
(and how he could have sung the lead better).

  Her fingers began to ache, and she closed the letter by saying, I love you with all my heart, and I live for the day when you will be home again and I will be your wife. With all my love, Sharon.

  Several times she had almost included the thought she lived with daily, that she should have married him, but she knew it could serve no purpose now. She would tell him when he got home.

  She sealed the letter and leaned back, looking up at the picture on the wall of Robert in his new officer’s uniform. He’d had the photo taken while he was on leave in Paris, and he looked so handsome and brave smiling at her. She stared at the picture for a long time, then whispered, “It can’t be long now. You’ll be home soon.”

  She jumped at a knock on the door. “Yes, what is it?”

  Her maid, Lorraine, opened the door and announced, “A gentleman to see you, Miss Sharon.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His name is Tyson.”

  For one wild moment Sharon experienced a blinding hope. It’s Robert! He’s come home! But then she knew that could not be true. “Thank you, Lorraine.” She moved past the maid and ran down to the foyer, where she found Maurice Tyson standing there.

  “Mr. Tyson!” she said breathlessly. She moved toward him, but the look on his face stopped her. She could not take another step, and she stood paralyzed.

  Tyson moved forward and said, “I’m afraid I have very bad news.”

  There was a roaring in Sharon’s ears, and she felt as if she were falling. “It’s Robert? He’s wounded?”

  Maurice Tyson’s face was marred with sorrow, and when he shook his head, she knew everything.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid so, my dear. We got the telegram just yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you the news over the phone, so I took the first train available.”

  Sharon could not move. Her mind refused to function, and she could not accept the truth. He can’t be dead—he can’t be dead! The thought went through her head over and over, and she tried to speak but found she could not.