The Last Jump: A Novel of World War II

by John E. Nevola

Johnny looked at Sky. He had a big grin on his face. “I keep telling him we’re better off. Robert E. Lee lost the war for the South. If Lee kept his army intact like George Washington did, instead of pissing it away at Antietam and Gettysburg, the South might have outlasted the North.”

  Harley rolled his eyes while Danny gave a dismissive wave at the criticism of one of Virginia’s most fondly held legends. Jake shook his head and smiled. “For a smart guy, sometimes you are so full of shit, Yank.”

  Johnny was laughing. He took a long pull on his beer, shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at Sky. They were all laughing and having a good time.

  Sky looked at Jake. “The Oh-five got a new CO last month too. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Ekman. Gavin was promoted to assistant division commander.”

  “No shit,” Johnny exclaimed.

  “No shit. Gavin’s a freakin’ general and he’s still in his thirties.”

  After a few moments, Jake noticed the Ranger tab on Harley’s right sleeve. The Ranger tab was diamond shaped. The gold border and gold letters were arrayed on a blue field. The letters spelled RANGERS. Harley had his Blue and Gray “S-patch” for the 29th Infantry Division on the regulation left sleeve.

  Jake touched the Ranger patch. “I’m really sorry about that, Harley.”

  “Thanks Jake. The guys and me were really pissed off at the time. It was a raw deal but we got over it. What else you gonna do?” Harley didn’t wait for an answer. “They don’t like us wearing the patch but fuck ‘em, we earned it. Besides, we’re too busy now gearing up for the invasion. We’ve been practicing amphibious landings for months at a place called Slapton Sands. The word is we’re in the first wave.”

  “No shit, Harley.”

  Just then there was a commotion a few feet away. The five men at the table turned to see. A group of about a dozen soldiers were walking slowly toward the two colored service troops seated at a table. Most of them were paratroopers. They were chanting, “Nott-ing-ham, Nott-ing-ham, Nott-ing-ham!” The air crewmen at the next table got up quickly, slid their chairs back and hastily scrambled from the area.

  “Oh, shit,” whispered Sky. “This is not good.”

  “What’s going on?” Johnny asked.

  “There’s been friction between the colored troops and the paratroopers in the Leicester-Nottingham area. A paratrooper was knifed in a brawl and rumored to be killed. This looks like payback.”

  “Jeez, guys, it’s not our fight!” Jake concluded and turned around.

  “Problem is the rumor’s not true. The paratrooper didn’t die,” Sky explained.

  “They don’t seem to know that.” Johnny noticed some of the paratroopers with their switchblade knives down by their sides. The two black soldiers stood up and backed against the wall. They were wide-eyed with faces painted in pure terror.

  “It’s not our fight!” Jake repeated.

  The apparent leader of the paratroopers was a brawny, bald young man with close-set eyes and a scar on his forehead. He led the chanting group deliberately and purposefully, closing the distance between them.

  Suddenly, Johnny jumped up. He positioned himself between the paratroopers and the service soldiers. The distance between Johnny and the group was only about six feet. Surprised by this lone paratrooper, the group stopped.

  Jake took a deep breath. “Shit!” He jumped up to stand with his friend.

  “That’s enough, boys. This isn’t happening. Turn around and walk out the door.” Johnny was holding up his hand like a traffic cop. Despite the odds, he seemed calm and confident.

  One of the young airborne troopers noticed the Screaming Eagles patch and yelled out, “Hey guys, what do Eagles scream?” A few others yelled out with a high pitch, “Help!” It was a rehearsed ditty that members of the 82nd Airborne sang loudly to antagonize members of the 101st Airborne.

  Sky rose to stand beside Johnny and Jake. “I’m Eighty-second. Five-oh-five. If you want them, you got me too! What unit are you?”

  “Five-oh-seven,” someone said from the back. “Five-oh-eight, Red Devils,” said another voice. Danny got up and flexed his fists.

  “Shit, look at the combat stars,” someone else whispered loudly. The group appeared to lose some of its enthusiasm at the sight of four resolute paratroopers with six combat jumps and an Army Ranger ready to join them.

  The bald sergeant wasn’t intimidated. He looked directly at Johnny. “This is none of your goddamn business. These niggers knifed a fellow paratrooper. You’re a paratrooper. Why the hell are you defending them?”

  “Because you don’t know these are the guys who cut your friend.” Johnny stood defiantly in front of the sergeant.

  “Killed him!”

  “He didn’t die.”

  “You don’t know shit, get out of the way!” Sergeant Scar ordered.

  “I know for a fact he didn’t die,” Sky bellowed back.

  “No matter, we’re gonna kill these niggers and set an example. Nobody fucks with the airborne.”

  Harley got up and stood beside Danny. “Any Twenty-niners in this group had better leave right now. If you don’t, I’ll find out who you are and make your life a living hell, especially if you’re a Stonewaller.”

  A few soldiers slipped out the back door. Harley wasn’t surprised some of them had joined the group. There had been some racial trouble in the small town of Ivybridge, where the 29th Infantry Division was based. There were a number of fights between the black service troops and the white infantrymen. While it was not that common, it was not altogether unexpected in a segregated army.

  Sky continued. “They’ll be enough fighting and dying to go around in a few weeks. Save your attitude for the Krauts.” A few more left but the seven or eight paratroopers remaining seemed determined.

  “Out of the way,” Sergeant Scar repeated. “You’re not going to stop us.”

  Johnny turned to look at the black soldiers. They were backed against the wall. One was a huge man, well over six feet tall and about 250 pounds. His eyes were wide with desperation but he looked willing to fight. The other soldier was wiry and rangy, a lot smaller by comparison and had the look of a cornered wild animal.

  “Have it your way, Sarge,” Johnny turned back to Scar. “Put those blades away. If you get by us, then you can have them.”

  Scar smiled at the challenge. He looked down and began folding his safety knife. That’s when Johnny hit him with a roundhouse right that splattered his nose. Blood gushed everywhere and a stunned Sergeant Scar staggered back and fell to the floor. Everyone jumped in and the mêlée began. While the rest of Johnny’s friends kept Scar’s group at bay, Johnny grabbed the smaller black soldier by the arm.

  “Follow me.” He pulled the soldier through the kitchen door. His friend followed. Johnny pointed toward the back of the kitchen. “Out that door.”

  “I want to fight them,” the smaller man answered.

  “For Chrissake, stupid! They’re not here to fight you. They’re here to kill you! Now get the hell out of here.”

  The smaller soldier became indignant. “Now I owe a white man something. I don’t like to owe a white man nothing!”

  Johnny shook his head in disgust. “Now that’s thanks for you.” He pushed the smaller soldier toward his friend. “You don’t owe me shit.” Then he spoke directly at the bigger soldier. “Get him out of here!”

  “Yassuh,” the larger soldier grabbed his friend’s arm in his mammoth fist. He pulled him toward the back door.

  Johnny already regretted his decision to stand up for the two black soldiers. The raucous sounds of the brawl he started beckoned to him. In a few short moments he would join his buddies but his curiosity got the best of him and he yelled at the backs of the fleeing soldiers. “Hey, who the hell are you guys, anyway?”

  The small one, still in the clutches of his larger friend, stopped and turned. He still had a defiant look on his face. “He’s Chauncy Gibbons and my name is Lincoln Abraham!”

  Chapter For
ty-Four

  East Lake, Upper Peninsula, Michigan – January 15, 1997

  “I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”

  Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915)

  Lincoln Abraham tightened his blanket against the cold as he snuggled in his rocking chair on the porch of his Michigan lakeside cabin. He loved this place and was happy to be back as he gazed out over East Lake. The other lakeside cabins were hundreds of yards away and tucked into the woods. Even with the leaves off the trees, he could barely see them. He reveled in the isolation and came to the Upper Peninsula every chance he could. The strong north wind had blown the loose snow off of the frozen lake, which glimmered in the sunlight like a mirror. He was comfortably bundled up, the blanket just another layer against the chill.

  He bought this refuge immediately after returning from the War. It was relatively cheap because the Upper Peninsula was difficult to reach before the Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957. The cabin was perfect for a hunter and fisherman like Lincoln. Whenever he could get away, he would drive the 300 miles from Flint, where he worked in an auto plant. The log cabin was easy to maintain. The pristine drinking water came from an artesian well. A huge fireplace supplied the heat and a gasoline generator provided electricity when required. No telephone, no television. After the horrors of war, he appreciated the peacefulness and cherished the solitude. He hoped he would die right here marveling at a luminescent sunset or a spectacular sunrise.

  The events of the past few days were still spinning in his mind. The Medal of Honor, the ceremony and lunch with the President were all so overwhelming. He was delighted to see some of his old friends and wished he could have spent more time with them. He was immensely gratified someone made the effort to correct mistakes made so long ago. His only regret was that some “so-called” civil rights leaders had tried to score political points with the African-American community over his experience. He wanted no part of that. Lincoln remained humble and God-fearing and refused to be a puppet in their manipulative hands. He could not have gotten out of Washington D.C. any faster and left them with mouths wide open and nothing to say.

  Had they gotten him to speak he would have likely said some things that were not particularly popular. Instead of playing the race victim, he would have told his own black community to take responsibility for their own lives and take advantage of the immense opportunities available to them. Stay married. Keep the family unit together. Reject the culture of violence that is popularized by gangster rap and treat your black sisters with dignity and respect. Stop children from having children. Turn in the murderers and drug dealers who are killing your babies. Show the world you can stand proudly on your own merits, with high self-esteem, righteous lives and love for each other, and what’s left of racism will crumble before your eyes. Trust in God. You are great in His eyes. Live up to your promise!

  He smiled to himself. That wouldn’t have gone over very well with those black leaders whose only method of keeping power was to convince the black community they were perpetual victims and to keep them cynical and suspicious of the society around them. It was a good business for black demagogues, from preachers of Black Liberation Theology to ambitious politicians, to keep the tensions high. It assured they remained in power. What ever happened to the content of character instead of the color of the skin?

  It was different in his day. Racism and segregation were rampant, especially in the Jim Crow South. It wasn’t easy for him. He had to overcome the scary stories his father told him about his ancestors hiding in cellars to escape lynch mobs of Klansmen. He was taught the only way a black man could ever attain respect was to fight for it. And even that didn’t guarantee he would get any. It was certainly wrong that he was denied equality in the land of the free. But Lincoln would not surrender to the stereotype or accept being a victim. World War II became an opportunity for him to prove himself and fight the prejudice. It was his way of challenging the status quo and representing his race with action, not just with hollow words. Surely, there were enough men of good will who would change things if they saw how dedicated and competent American Negro soldiers were and how valuable they were to the war effort. But it certainly didn’t start off well, having been assigned to the Service of Supply as a truck driver. That immediately caused him to develop a huge chip on his shoulder. He was an angry young man but one of great determination and faith and could not be long denied. He bided his time.

  Lincoln worked tirelessly and drove relentlessly as part of the historic “Red Ball Express”. For the first time in the army he saw the appreciation and felt the gratitude of white soldiers. He worked even harder, matured and awaited the next opportunity to prove himself. Then, finally, there were those thirty minutes on the fog-filled road between Noville and Foy in Belgium, with his newfound companion. Thirty minutes of sheer terror on that cold December day outside Bastogne in which he not only found himself, but also found what he was looking for in another human being. Thirty minutes that he should have been doing something else, someplace else, had events unfolded in the usual, normal way. Thirty minutes he believed were eradicated from the memory of mankind by racist officers who observed the action but refused to bear witness. Thirty minutes that changed his entire life and ultimately justified his faith and steadfast belief in God and in the innate goodness of his country.

  “Hot tea, Grandfather?” His granddaughter Keisha intruded into his thoughts as she walked out on the back porch holding two steaming cups. She was beautiful with short black hair and large brown animated eyes.

  “Thank you, dear,” he smiled broadly at her. She was the light of his life and he was so happy she was between semesters at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine so she could attend the Medal ceremony and spend a few days with him.

  She handed him the cup and he cradled it in both gloved hands and drew the warmth from it. He motioned to the chair beside him and she sat down. “Only for a few minutes,” she warned. “It’s cold out here.”

  He reached out and held her hand. “I’m happy you came.”

  “I know, Grandfather. I’m happy to spend my break with you but you should be back in Baltimore with us so we can take care of you. This is not a place for someone in your condition.”

  “We’ve been over that ground, Keisha. This is my home now. This is my sanctuary. Out here I’m most comfortable with nature and with God. I can still chop wood, drive to town, do what I have to. When I die, it will be right here.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Grandfather,” she admonished. “I will call you every day.” She held up the cell phone she planned to leave with him. The new cell tower near Interstate 75 covered the cabin and made up for the lack of landlines. “All the same, I would rather have you where I can take care of you, but I know I won’t change your mind,” she conceded. “Anyway, we could have stayed in D.C. a few more days.”

  “No, we could not,” he disagreed. “Those charlatans were hell bent on making political points from my Medal. Instead of celebrating with me, there would have been endless damnations of the military for overlooking my deeds and more recriminations for my country. They would have cursed the darkness after a candle had been lit.” He looked at the dubious expression on her face. “I know you don’t agree,” he confessed, “but these guys are in it for themselves. Have no illusion about that. When racism disappears, they lose power.”

  She sipped her tea carefully. It was still hot. She could not bring herself to believe racism would ever disappear in America. She could not imagine how difficult it had been in the forties. “How did you possibly handle all of that discrimination back then? And still love your country? It must have been awful.”

  He reflected for a moment. “Segregation was lawful back then in many states. It was also lawful in the military. Equality should have been ours, but it simply wasn’t.” He spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “The white enlisted men in the army just followed orders and obeyed policy but I knew that many of them resented us for not
being allowed to fight.” He sipped his tea, which was cooling off a bit. “Their resentment towards us, as well as ours towards them, was misplaced because the senior leaders in the military and the government made the policy. Everyone else in between was just doing what they were told to do. In spite of that, I could see it in their eyes; most of the guys knew that we blacks were getting a dirty deal. We were being denied the freedom that America was fighting for, it was wrong and everybody knew it. Many white people I knew were embarrassed by it but could do nothing about it.”

  “It must have been so hard,” she surmised. “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of bigotry.”

  Lincoln disregarded the comment. “It would have been harder if there was never any hope, but I witnessed many isolated acts of acceptance and inclusion. I saw with my own eyes the dead bodies of black men and white men, side by side, their red blood flowing together, fighting for the same thing. Nazi bullets didn’t discriminate. In spite of the segregation in the military, well meaning men and women of both races fought to change the status quo while at the same time fighting a national war of survival. Where else but in America could that have happened?”

  Keisha didn’t answer, the words left drifting in the cold gray air. She stood up and fixed the blanket wrapped around her grandfather.

  Lincoln continued. “We heard about Mrs. Roosevelt championing the Tuskegee Airmen and General George C. Marshall’s order to form the Triple Nickels.” He was referring to all-Negro combat units that were formed during the War. “It wasn’t exactly integration, but it was a huge step in the right direction. People in high places were defying the racial stereotypes and giving us a chance to prove ourselves. And in life, the most precious things are a level playing field and freedom of opportunity. And opportunities should never be squandered.”

  She looked at him wondering if there was a message in there for her. “Don’t worry, Grandfather. I plan to complete Med School.”

  He loosened the blanket around his shoulders, the hot tea warming his insides sufficiently. “I know you will young lady. You are the pride of my life and I believe in you so much.” He turned in his chair to face her. “I know I dance to the beat of a different drummer than most black men. I’m proud of that. I’m very proud that I’m defined by my actions and my beliefs and not by the color of my skin. I’m proud that in some small way I helped to advance opportunities for black people and seeing you in Med School is the culmination of my life’s accomplishments.”