Carly

by Lyn Cote

  “I have my faith, and you have yours. You just haven’t relied on it in a while. But war is one of those situations that’s too much for us humans. It’s too big, too horrible.”

  “Yes,” Leigh agreed. “Yes, it is too big.” She stood up. “Let’s get that coffee. We have to get off early. I want to be there when Mom wakes from the anesthesia.”

  Nate followed her out. When they entered the dining room, he breathed in the heartening aroma of fresh brewing coffee. “I think you were right to let Dan take her to the hospital this morning.”

  “I had to. I didn’t want to be away from Grandma Chloe the night before Mom’s surgery. I knew she’d be worried.”

  “The war’s started.” Grandma Chloe walked briskly into the dining room behind them. “My clock radio came on with the news.”

  Leigh turned back and hugged her grandmother. “Carly will be fine.”

  “She’s in God’s hands, and I trust him with her. Bette has me more worried.” Grandma Chloe stroked Leigh’s uncombed hair. “Does that make any sense?”

  Nate watched silently. Leigh’s golden hair caught the anemic morning sunlight. “Maybe it’s because Bette’s just closer. Today will be a rough day for a lot of people,” he said. “Chloe, we’ll call you often from the hospital—”

  “I’m coming with you two. Michael told me he doesn’t mind staying with Rose, and he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.” Chloe went on into the kitchen toward the cabinet of cups and saucers. “Rose will be here soon.”

  “Grandma, are you sure you’re well enough to sit around the hospital most of the day?” Leigh asked, a plea in her tone.

  “Bette’s my daughter. If I can walk, I’m going. Period.”

  Nate patted Leigh’s arm. Of course Chloe was coming with them. Rose walked in the back door and slammed it.

  Nate felt the whoosh of cold wind swoop into the kitchen. He hurried forward to help Rose out of her coat.

  “What a day, what a day,” Rose said, walking into the kitchen and grabbing her apron from the hook. “I’m glad someone had the sense to put the coffee on. I called our pastor, Miss Chloe, and he’s got the whole church praying for our soldiers, Carly, and Bette. So don’t you be worried.”

  Nate leaned over and kissed Rose’s full cheek. “You’re a godsend.”

  “I always heard Irishmen knew how to charm the birds from the trees.” Rose chuckled. “Who wants bacon and eggs?”

  Later that day, Bette was moved from post-op to her room. The nurses lowered the sides of the gurney and moved her into her bed, and then Dan’s face loomed above her—and her mother’s, her daughter’s, and Nate’s. She smiled and tears welled up. They all looked so worried; she must be brave.

  “Don’t cry,” Dan said. “The surgeon said you came through fine.”

  “I know,” she mumbled. “Everything seems fuzzy.”

  Chloe stroked her hair. “The anesthetic is still in your system, and I’m sure they’ll have you on painkillers for the next few days. But you’ll feel more like yourself soon.”

  Bette blinked back tears. Feel more like herself? She’d not let herself think about the fact that her left breast had been taken from her today. When would she ever feel like herself again? “How’s Carly? Has the ground war started?”

  Nate came up behind Chloe and looked down at Bette. “No ground troops yet. Just bombing missions. We were watching it on the TV in the surgical waiting area.”

  “Yes,” Dan added, “it must be the first live televised war—I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.” He reached down and took Bette’s hand in his, warming it.

  Leigh stood just behind her husband, watching everything with her large, cornflower-blue eyes. Does Leigh know how lovely she still is? Does she know how much I love her? I will have to let her know, make her believe me. I’m still alive and there’s still time to heal the rift. God, help me. And please keep Carly safe.

  Saudi Arabia, February 23, 1991

  In the smoggy winter twilight, Carly, Bowie, Joe, Sam, and the rest of the company stood uneasily around their trucks, waiting for those who were loading them to finish. After five weeks of the air war, their orders had come down today. Tonight, under cover of darkness, they would secretly cross the border into Iraq. Her company wouldn’t be fighting but they were going da> to set up the supplies, most especially gasoline and water, that the ground troops would need as they advanced toward Baghdad.

  The general had decided to mislead Hussein into thinking that the Americans would attack from their battleships in the Gulf. Actually he would outflank the Iraq army on the north and west and head straight for Baghdad. It was crucial to the battle plan that the ground troops have the supplies they needed on their way to Baghdad. This was what Carly and her battalion had trained and prepared for.

  There was one big catch. They were part of a support company. Yet Carly and her platoon now faced advancing da> of the combat troops. Glacial fear like nothing Carly had ever felt before wrapped her body in a tight, icy web. Her face was stiff and frosted. She was very careful of whom she looked at and how.

  According to what they’d been told, the Iraqi army was now blind and deaf since precision air strikes had taken out their communication centers and destroyed their reconnaissance planes. The invasion of Iraqi territory should be undetected. But what if her company ran into a stray Iraqi force? They had once before, hadn’t they? Evidently this thought had occurred not just to her. For once, the guys in her platoon didn’t stand around grinning. Everyone looked very focused, very serious, and quiet. This was the real thing.

  The last of the supplies was loaded; the trucks were closed and secured. Bowie got the signal, and he and Carly climbed into the lead truck. Once again, Carly had been given the map. Bowie started the engine growling and leading the company, they headed for the highway out of camp. On the seat beside Carly sat the pair of night-vision goggles she’d been issued. Their NBC warfare suits sat in two sacks on the floor between them. She tried to whisper a prayer, but her lips seemed frozen shut. Instead, she stared through the windshield, her hands fisted on top of the map.

  Night came and the headlights ate up the black miles da> of them. The shammal buffeted them as usual. Around midnight, they left Saudi soil and headed into the desert of Iraq. With intense concentration, Carly used her compass, binoculars, and goggles, trying to keep the platoon true to course. The supplies they carried must arrive at the right location on schedule. Ground troops couldn’t waste precious time looking for them. Carly had no margin of error. None.

  As they drove on, all she could hear were the powerful windstorm and their motors sounding so loud in the desert night. The smell of the burning oil wells, carried by the wind, became stronger and stronger. Was that thunder in the distance?

  Her thoughts strayed to the most recent letter from home. Her grandmother Bette was taking chemotherapy, and Chloe had gone to Florida with her friend Minnie to spend some time in the warm tropical sun to recover from pneumonia. Now, at least, she knew what they had been keeping from her: her grandmother’s cancer. And that all explained why her mother hadn’t turned up.

  Being far from home when her family, her mother, needed her was hard. Carly wished she were closer so she could visit her grandmother. For a moment, Carly tried to imagine what life would have been like if she hadn’t enlisted last May. Now she’d be in her second semester of college somewhere. She would have been watching the war in front of a TV set, not on this black chilly desert. What would that have felt like?

  The wind picked up. Thunder rolled. The sand gusted against the truck, swishing away the finish, nearly shutting off their view. Suddenly, lightning struck the earth right in front of the truck. Thunder detonated around them. Carly screamed. What if one of the fuel trucks was hit by lightning? Hussein would see that fireball all the way to Baghdad and figure out the battle plan. Lightning struck again—just a breath away. More thunder jackhammered them.

  Wind hit the truck’s sides like
boxer’s punches. Blazing, brilliant lightning crackled and arced all around them. Carly held her breath and pressed her hands over her ears against the pounding, echoing thunder. Rain lashed their windshield, blinding them. Bowie stomped the brakes repeatedly as a signal to the truck behind him, then stopped the HEMTT. “We’ll just have to ride it out!”

  For the next uncounted minutes, gales of rain deluged. Lightning and thunder battered the supply train. Then the storm moved on, the thunder still exploding like bomb blasts on into the distance.

  Both Carly and Bowie leaped out of the cab into the pouring rain and looked back over the supply train. Nothing was afire. Carly’s knees weakened with relief. She caught hold of the truck and steadied herself, then swung back up into the cab. She was drenched and her heart pounded, but she sat back against the seat feeling grateful to be alive.

  Bowie started up the motor and moved forward. “What was that?” he asked.

  She looked over at him. “Don’t you remember them warning us that this was the season for haboob?”

  “What?”

  “Bedouin word for the worst of all possible combinations. Vicious, fast-moving sandstorms with thunderstorms in them.”

  “Just what we needed for a little more excitement.”

  Her heart still racing, she tried to grin. “Hey,” she said in a shaky voice and with a snap of her fingers, “piece of cake.”

  Bowie shook his head and wiped rain from his face with his sleeve. “Check the map, lady.”

  Holding her compass close to the dash light, she nodded. “You’re fine. Just keep heading due east-northeast.”

  Sometime before dawn, they reached the point they’d been headed for. By the first few rays of sunrise, Carly gazed at the vast empty desert around them. She checked their location by the map, compass, and shadow-tip method, and she nodded to the drivers gathered around. Bowie stood beside her double-checking. Finally she confirmed, “This is it.”

  They all looked back at Bowie, at her. Carly took a deep breath. “Now we just wait for the army to catch up with us.” Wait for the war to catch up with us.

  One tense, interminable day passed and then another dawn. They slept in shifts. Leaning against and squatting near their vehicles, they ate their packaged MREs, drank bottled, lukewarm water, and swatted flies. Little happened to break the tedium except the flights of the airplanes and helicopters overhead. Periodically, some private who didn’t know Carly would ask her to recheck their position, but finally Bowie put a stop to that, saying firmly, “We’re where we’re supposed to be. Chill.”

  The Iraqi army was blind and deaf, but so were the Americans. They weren’t supposed to signal anyone unless they were unexpectedly attacked. The soldiers kept their weapons and NBC gear within reach and scanned the open skies and the vast, uncluttered horizon. They had no cover. Carly drew new significance from the saying “like a sitting duck.”

  If Iraqis came upon them, Carly’s company was completely on its own—a terrifying thought that no one voiced. Carly realized that war forced them to act in opposition to their natural desire to hide from danger. They must follow orders, do their duty, stand firm no matter what. Those weeks in boot camp had taught them all unquestioning obedience, and now she saw why. She could depend on the men and women around her to carry out their orders without fail. In this daunting situation, that was their strength.

  Then came the faint, echoing, unnerving sounds of distant battle and the earth actually vibrated beneath her feet. “What is it, Bowie?”

  “Must be artillery.”

  “Theirs or ours?”

  He shrugged but took up his weapon. He scanned the horizon to the east and then the west.

  After another sleepless, chilly night, at dawn on the third day Carly heard motors. At first she doubted her ears, but then the U.S. ground forces came over the west horizon and surrounded the supply train. Her relief drenched her in a cold sweat. Quickly and efficiently, Carly’s company performed the duties it had been trained to do, filling gas and water tanks, unloading new ammunition. As she and the others worked without a wasted motion, the combat troops told them the little bit of the war they knew about. Then the resupplying job was done.

  As the combat troops rolled forward in tanks and Jeeps, part of the supply train followed them at a distance. But Carly’s platoon had empty trucks to drive back to base. They all watched until the rest of their company vanished over the eastern horizon. Then they climbed into their trucks and turned west. Carly took her first easy breath in three days. Bowie said, “Whoo-ee.” And Carly burst out laughing. Thank you, Father. We made it.

  They reached the base in late afternoon and returned their trucks to the garage. The next day they’d be busy cleaning out all the sand the haboob had gouged and packed into the HEMTTs. With light hearts, Joe, Sam, Bowie, and Carly—arm in arm—headed to the mess hall for their first hot meal in three days.

  With her meal tray full of hot, fragrant beef and noodles, Carly sat down and took a long drink of cold milk. She felt effervescent, as if she could float to the ceiling of the tent and bob there like a stray balloon. She grinned across the table at Bowie. He grinned back at her. He mouthed, “I love you.”

  She beamed, she felt as if she were radiating light and warmth. She mouthed back, “I love you, too.”

  A siren sounded. Everyone froze. Disgusted, Carly reached for her NBC gear pouch at her feet. Can’t we have one meal in peace?

  “Another Scud warning,” announced a soldier at the end of the table who had risen to suit up too. “Hey, where have you guys been? You look like you’ve been through about ten sandstorms.”

  Tugging on his mask, Bowie paused to grin. “You ever hear of a haboob?”

  And then a shrill whistling, then screaming—an explosion devoured them alive.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Carly opened her eyes to glittering, blinding sunlight, but she couldn’t seem to focus. She heard lots of loud voices. Footsteps shook, pounded through her. She was lying on her back on the sand. She tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come. I must be hurt. She felt crumpled, but without pain. Her chest felt heavy and it was hard to breathe. What had happened . . . what was going on?

  Then a face she knew hovered inches above her own. She tried to say, “Lorelle,” but only garbled syllables came out of her gritty throat.

  “Carly, you’re going to be all right.” Lorelle repeated the words twice more.

  Carly swallowed the sand in her mouth and throat, then forced out a question, “What?”

  “Scud attack,” Lorelle said. “You’ve been injured—”

  The voice of a stranger cut in, “We have to move her now. Triage deems her critical.”

  Critical? What does that . . . ? Carly felt herself being lifted. She tried to reach for Lorelle, but there was something wrong with her arm. It was tied down. “No,” she whimpered. “Lorelle.”

  “I can’t go with you, Carly.” Lorelle’s voice followed her. “I’m praying! You’ll be fine.”

  Carly stared at the grim soldier carrying the foot of her stretcher. Her carriers weren’t walking—they were running with her, rattling her, waking the pain. The sound of helicopter blades whooped nearer and nearer and then she felt their wind beating against her face. She moaned. Agony began filtering in.

  “Are you in pain?” the stretcher-bearer asked.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Please. . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We’ll get you on a morphine drip onboard.”

  She felt herself lifted and the swirling wind from the helicopter was like hands slapping, flogging her. Sand whirled up into her face. Choking, she moaned and closed her eyes. Her body tensed. Torture throbbed through her nerve endings. She moaned again. The noise and the pressure around the helicopter overwhelmed her. Tears trickled from her eyes. Helpless as a child, Carly silently said, Mama, make it stop hurting.

  The helicopter lifted, and Carly couldn’t bear the motion and stress on her limp body.
She moaned louder. Someone was beside her, inserting a needle in her arm. Carly tried to focus on this, but the pain was eating her alive. Her head pounded, her stomach lurched, and then the noise and motion ebbed. She felt the arms of darkness claiming her. “Jesus,” she whispered, “Jesus.”

  His tense hands gripping the steering wheel, Frank, with Cherise beside him, drove through the late winter Maryland countryside. Ivy Manor’s many chimneys could be seen da> over the tall oaks and barren maples. He’d called Nate at work and found that Leigh was staying with her grandmother and mother while Bette took chemo at the nearby hospital. He cursed silently. They had enough to contend with. Why did this have to happen?

  “I didn’t know her mother had cancer,” Cherise said in a tight voice. “I’ve been so busy I haven’t called in two months—”

  “Don’t start the guilt.” Frank controlled his tone. This wasn’t Cherise’s fault or his. But it was hard to shake that feeling that he was responsible. “I’m the one who told Leigh to go da> and let Carly enlist.” How did I know a war was going to start up?

  “Frank, I feel guilty for being glad that Lorelle wasn’t with Carly.”

  “Bad things happen in wars. Lorelle isn’t immune either. She’s still in a combat zone.”

  “I wish you hadn’t said that,” his wife murmured.

  “I just hope we get there before Leigh gets the news in an official telephone call.” He turned up the lane to Ivy Manor. For a split second, it was August 1963 again and he was seeing—for the first time—his family’s ancestral home, the one his family had shared with the Carlyles for centuries. He recalled how young and innocent Leigh had been that day. Oh, Leigh, if only I could have spared you this.

  He parked by the back door. Hand in hand, he and Cherise ran to it and knocked. He took a deep breath and waited, his heart still thudding.

  His cousin, Rose, opened the door. “Frank? Cherise? What are you doin’ here?”

  “Is Leigh home?” Cherise asked.