“Lean against this wall here. I’m going to put something on your face.”
Glenn waited, expecting a sting. Instead, a cool balm soothed the burning. Fergus also rubbed some on his hands and legs. Glenn’s lower trousers had been burned off, and the skin along his legs was singed as was his entire face.
“Come on,” Fergus encouraged. “I know ye’re tired, but we’ve got to go on.”
They ran on through the night, finally climbing out of the trench into the shelter of a deserted barn. Fergus told him it was dawn. Glenn could see nothing. Finally allowed to rest, Glenn lay on the hard barnyard floor and began to cry. They were desperate, emotional tears—the kind no soldier ever wanted to cry. Fergus compassionately held his shoulders.
“I cannot see. I’m blind.”
“Once the burn recedes your eyes will open again.”
Glenn moaned incoherent words. He doubted his eyes would ever open again. They felt like they had been completely scorched off.
“But ye’re alive!” said Fergus. “And ye’re a hero.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he cried. “No one will know of our heroics. We’re going to die. All of us. We’re going to die!” A new wave of tears stung the burn through which they spilled.
“I will not let ye die, Glenn. God sent me to your aid twice now. It’s not just to let ye die.”
The image of Elsa came again into Glenn’s mind’s eye, giving him renewed strength. Oh, to see her one last time. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his life before he had a chance to fulfill his love.
What a fool he had been.
How could he not have realized how much he loved Elsa? All the conventions and expectations of society that had blinded him now seemed like pure vanity. He wanted to give her his whole heart, even if his family disowned him for it. Nothing but his love mattered now. But the chance already seemed gone.
“Let me save ye for her,” said Fergus. ”Don’t give up now. If we die, we die, but if we give up, we’re cheating ourselves, and God. Ye’d be cheating that girl, too, who’s loving ye and waiting for ye. Just live one more day. Then another day. That’s how we’ll get through this.”
Glenn leaned his head back on the dirty floor of the barn. He tried to ignore the burning, and worse, the dawning knowledge of his blindness. Even if Elsa loved him before, how could she love him now, blinded, broken and half-dead? He waved his hand frantically in the air until he caught Fergus’s hand.
“We’re safe here,” Fergus said. ”So we’re going to wait. And pray. We’re in God’s hands now.”
Without sight, Glenn couldn’t know how many days or even weeks he followed Fergus away against the German retreat. It seemed to be coming at them from all sides. Sometimes he knew they’d been spotted, but the panicked Germans didn’t seem to care. Glenn found it difficult to care anymore too.
Glenn understood what was happening. Germany had thrown the last of their men and resources into their spring offensive, only to be pushed back in the summer by a million fresh American soldiers. Germany had exhausted the reserves and morale of both their soldiers and their citizens. They wanted to rest. All of Europe wanted to rest.
“The war’s ending, Glenn,” Fergus said to Glenn. “I can see it in their eyes. The Germans no longer believe they can win.”
Delirium clouded Glenn’s thoughts, jumbling his memory of those weeks. Without sight he had no way to distinguish the events in his mind. He only remembered the fear, the pain and the despair. The realization of love had convinced him to care about his life. Now that he wanted to live, the fear of their plight made each day a sightless nightmare.
Early on, Fergus offered continuous encouragement, describing the retreat of the Germans and the hope of victory. But as the days wore on, even Fergus struggled to maintain his spirit.
They were very hungry. Foraging was practically impossible. Thousands of retreating men were desperate for each scrap of food on the desolate land. Both Glenn and Fergus were sick, dehydrated, and infected.
Glenn was delirious when at last he heard Fergus’s voice shouting, following weeks of whispers. There were more arms and words spoken in French. At first he thought it was a dream. Then came water, food, medicine and a cot. Glenn knew that his war was finally over.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Homecoming
Elsa remained in an emotional agony all summer. She was glad for the steady work that provided just enough distraction to keep her mind and body busy during the day.
Every night she read the newspapers’ account of the war. But how could the movements of hundreds of thousands give her any clue to the fate of the only one she cared about?
By then, Glenn could have been dead for months. She had no way to know.
How she wanted to contact his family. She’d had good rapport with his sister Jeanette, from back in the days when she and Dafne were friends. But she didn’t dare write to Jeanette. How could she explain why she was so worried—that she had been receiving letters that had suddenly stopped? What if he was fine and had forgotten her? Then Jeanette would know Elsa’s feelings for her brother, in all their impropriety and foolishness.
By September, the loneliness of her new life had begun to wear on Elsa. It had been three months since she’d left Dafne’s service. There was little consistency in her work. Occasionally she cleaned the same house repeatedly, but she seldom saw the tenants, and when she did, few words were exchanged. Although she had forged some friendships with the girls who lived with her at the dormitory, they weren’t deep or sustainable relationships. She had little in common with the others.
She had one full day off per week. Most Sundays she attended church early, then took a train to visit either her mother or her sister’s family in Manhattan. One time she took the train farther east in Queens to visit her old friend Josephine. She considered visiting Dafne, but as of yet she had not. She was afraid it would be awkward. Perhaps one of these Sundays she would.
These trips were good for her. She needed to stay connected with the people she cared about. Getting away once per week reduced the monotony of this new life.
She took satisfaction in knowing she was good at her work. Clients would ask for her specifically because they liked the care she took when cleaning their homes and offices.
Although she enjoyed working as a maid and was treated well by her employers, this life seemed only a small step up from her life working in the shirtwaist factory. She was grateful for the opportunity, but this wasn’t the life she had dreamed of and worked for. The joy she had experienced working for the Grahams showed her what was possible. Only until the end of the war, she told herself. If it ended without word from Glenn, she would look for a more fulfilling position.
According to the newspapers, the war was ending. How long would it be before the men started coming home? And then how long before she faced reality—that her dream of a life with Glenn was a fantasy that she should have never even dared to think about.
The season was beginning to change; it had been a hot summer. Finally, a pleasant breeze cooled the brick and concrete of these streets that had become her home. She walked home from the day’s job, smelling only urbanity on the early autumn breeze. How different from the fresh breezes in Lindenhurst, or even on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, when the wafts of air from the park had brought freshness through the open windows of their apartment. Even the neighborhood she grew up in on the Lower East Side had more interesting smells that filled the season’s winds. They were not always pleasant, but they contained a complexity born of the life of many diverse cultures. Her new neighborhood had the industry without the complexity.
The city was changing rapidly. This afternoon she walked past three new construction sites . . . being dug down first so the buildings could rise higher. Even before the treaties were signed to end the Great War, New York City—the pulse of America—was readying itself for a new surge of industry and economic boom.
She climbed the stairs to her
bedroom and opened the door.
A yellowed envelope with blue markings sat on her counter. Her heart leaped! She had come to know that yellowing—the color of an envelope that had traveled by sea. She dropped her bag and rushed over. It was indeed sent from France, but it wasn’t his handwriting on the envelope. Her momentary joy turned to terror. She ripped it open. The letter was in his hand, though sloppy. The date on top was from two weeks back—the normal time for it to arrive.
She clutched it to her breast, filled with relief. He was alive.
Now that the worst fear of these months was gone, she took her time to read the letter. She kicked off her shoes, sat up on her bed, and read the two pages.
My dear Elsa,
I hope you have not worried too much for me . . . [Ah . . . how little he knew her heart!]
I have been through hell, but I am safe at last. For me the war is over. It is only a matter of time now before the war is completely over. The Germans are defeated. But the war has been won at a terrible cost.
How can I describe what I have endured and what has become of me? I wandered for weeks behind enemy lines, faced each day with the threat of death. I will not go into what I have lost in terms of sanity, dignity and belief in man. Most significantly I have lost my sight. I was blinded by an explosion that I set myself. I wonder if it is God’s punishment for me. I have killed and sinned enough this year to deserve the hell I have been through, along with this crippling that is mine to bear for the rest of my life.
I hope this letter is legible. I cannot see the page. Thankfully, all your letters reached my division. They were forwarded to me here at Calais where I slowly recover. My friend and companion through this misery read them all to me. As soon as my body is able, I will sail home.
The love I feel from your letters has been the best medicine for my recovery. It means so much to me that you continued to write to me despite nothing but silence in return. You must have assumed I was dead. My love for you has sustained me through all the dark days of this war.
I am blind now but feel I finally see what I was blind to all those years. I love you, Elsa, and have loved you for so long. But I let myself be blinded by so many things. I let myself be told I was supposed to marry a woman such as Dafne, even though we had nothing in common, and my heart was elsewhere. But now it is too late. I am a broken man, both in body and in spirit.
I am rambling, my dear. I hardly know what I want to say to you. I want to give you so much. But now that I realize it, I have nothing left to give. It would comfort me to hear your voice once more, even if my eyes cannot see you.
Yours, Glenn
Elsa read it again, and then a third time as tears poured from her eyes. What sorrow, yet what joy! He said he loved her! What did she care if he were blind and broken? The love she had carried through this year—and longer—was reciprocated. She hadn’t been able to believe it until now. “I love you, Elsa, and have loved you for so long.” Even by saying he had nothing left to give, he told her that he wanted to give her something.
She lay back on her bed, feeling giddy. She didn’t care if he could give her nothing. She had everything to give to him.
She needed to tell someone about this joy of love that bubbled up in her heart. Her first thought was to tell her mother, but she had spent so many years preparing her daughter to live as a spinster. She would have warned her to beware of a broken “swell” returning from war and wanting a warm bosom to embrace. So that Sunday she took a train east and showed the letter to Josephine, who was still, after all her hardships and loss, one of the most positive people Elsa knew.
She had already told Josephine about Glenn and her own feelings, so she didn’t need any new explanations. Elsa simply handed her the letter and let her read.
“Oh, the poor man,” said the older woman, quickly reading the pages.
“What should I do?” asked Elsa after a moment.
“Go to him. He needs you. You can be for him what Miss Graham never could be. You have a servant’s heart. This is what God has called you to do. What more could you want from life than to serve the man you love in his disability?”
“I’m scared,” said Elsa. “My position. What will his family think?”
Josephine nodded. “But if you do not go to him now, when he most needs you, it will become the biggest regret of your entire life.”
Elsa nodded, frightened but eager.
“You can help him to recover his peace,” said Josephine. “His loss of peace is far worse than his loss of sight. But fortunately, peace can be recovered—with prayers, and with love.”
Josephine smiled, with a wise twinkle in her eyes.
“Who knows? You may help him recover more than peace. God has a way of giving miracles to those whose love is strongest.”
“This is it, my friend,” said Fergus on the dock in Calais.
“My year in France seems like an eternity,” Glenn said. “I can’t believe you’ve been here four years. Somehow I still get to leave first.”
“Ye’ve given more in one year than I gave in four. Allow yourself to be proud of what ye’ve done.”
Glenn sighed. Since his blinding, his hearing had become incredibly sharp. He would always remember Fergus’s Scottish brogue fondly, even though he could barely remember what the man looked like.
“It’s hard for me to be proud of this war,” said Glenn. “There were no winners. Only destruction and sorrow.”
“How long will it take for it to simply end?”
“I hope and pray it is soon. But most of my countrymen just got here. I fear what they’re doing now in Germany. It’s not the way to start an era of peace.”
“How do ye mean?”
“I heard in the hospital that Kaiser Wilhelm has offered surrender, but President Wilson won’t accept it yet, so the American army is pressing forward into Germany. Wilson has demanded a complete dismantling of the German imperial government and democratic elections. Now they say revolution swirls in Berlin.”
“But that’s good. The Kaiser must be punished for what he’s done.”
“I suppose you’re right. But it worries me, how this war’s ending. New seeds of bitterness are being sown throughout Europe. Nations are often rebuilt on bitterness. Even in conquering, I fear we are creating a monster in Germany.”
“I hope ye’re wrong, Glenn. After this, Europe deserves many years of peace.”
“I hope so, too. Time will tell.”
Fergus lifted Glenn’s bag and guided him toward the ship. After one week at an inland military hospital, they had been sent together to the port city of Calais to complete their recovery. Both had been closer to dying of infection and malnutrition than they’d realized. They had now been here three weeks. Glenn was headed home, while technically, Fergus awaited reassignment. His division had been practically annihilated at Chemin des Dames. With the army pressing toward Berlin, he didn’t expect to be reassigned before the war ended.
After repeated inquiries, they had finally learned the fate of their companions behind the German line at Reims. Hal, Captain Billings, and several others were reported to have survived, while Sergeant Fulwider was dead. Whether he’d died the night they attacked the supply trucks or later, Glenn would never know.
“Promise me one thing,” said Fergus, stopping with Glenn at the gangplank. “Promise ye will give yourself a chance with that girl.”
Glenn said nothing.
“All the things that made you worry before . . . none of that matters after what ye’ve gone through. She loves ye. I read her letters to ye, remember. I know it. Ye need love now more than anything. I’m sure she’ll make ye happy.”
“Look at me, though. I’m a shell of the man she once knew.”
“I don’t believe that. Ye say ye’re not worthy of her because ye don’t want to face the objections ye’ll hear if ye marry her. I told ye that night to stay alive for her. Ye did. Nothing else mattered that night. Nothing else should matter when ye get home.”<
br />
The ship moaned its final invitation. Fergus reached out and embraced him.
“Good luck to ye, Glenn. I’d hope to meet again, but I doubt I’ll leave the highlands after this. I don’t expect ye’ll be traveling much, either.”
“I’d be happy never to leave my home town of Lindenhurst again. But we will write. God bless you, Fergus. When you see your mother, thank her for sending you to my aid.”
The Scot laughed. “Ye’re a good man, Glenn.”
Glenn took the arm of another American and followed onto the ship.
On the homeward voyage, he thought back through all the time since his enlistment. He remembered how worthwhile he had felt in his early days as a soldier. In retrospect, the reality of war had been so far from his mind. Going through training, none of them ever thought of watching one another be ripped apart, as he would watch his friend Sam Cummings die beside him that day at Chemin des Dames. He remembered how fervently he had believed in this war up until he had killed men. He remembered the voice of the German baritone on Christmas morning. That man was probably dead now. If he was still alive, he was likely living in destitution and bitterness.
What had Glenn’s sacrifice been for? He would never again be free to move without a guiding hand. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t dance. . . would he even be able to work?
He had lost more than his sight. He had lost his innocence and his peace. He would always be guilty for what happened in this wicked and pointless war. He himself was a finger on the hand of death that cursed Europe. He feared he would carry that guilt for as long as he lived.
Would Elsa forgive him for what he had partaken in? Would she want to see him, even though he couldn’t see her? He wondered how badly his face was deformed. Fergus had told him it wasn’t bad, but how could he trust his friend? It would be in kindness that he tried to spare Glenn knowledge of deformity.
What future could he and Elsa possibly have together? He didn’t deserve to ask her to spend her life with him. He hadn’t known he wanted to until it was too late. How could he ask her such a thing, when he had nothing to offer her? Elsa was smart, educated and determined. Why would she want to take on the challenge—for half a man? Better to let her carve out her own life free of the dependence he would create for her.
Love of Finished Years Page 26