The Longest Road

by Jeanne Williams

  Colonel James Doolittle raided Tokyo on April 18 with a squadron of B-52 bombers. These were launched from carriers but couldn’t land on them so the returning squadron flew to a Chinese airfield. Tokyo wasn’t much damaged but the raid lifted Allied spirits—which fell again as Corregidor surrendered on May 6 and survivors followed the captives of Bataan on the Death March to POW camps. Out of 76,000 prisoners, thousands were bayoneted, shot, or beheaded. Thousands more died of exhaustion, hunger, or dysentery. Oh God, if that happened to Johnny—

  Laurie was glad to line up at the school May 14 to get her ration book. Getting by on a pound of sugar every two weeks wasn’t much of a sacrifice but it made her feel she was helping a little. Since Way hauled supplies for the oil field, he was allotted enough gas for that vital work but apart from that, the family walked. The big Victory garden in back already had lettuce, radishes, and green onions with peas, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, summer squash, yams, and collards coming on. They’d be able to can a cellar-full for winter besides supplying several neighbors who were too decrepit to garden.

  Nylon, and of course, silk stockings were a thing of the past as were new trucks and cars. Laurie and Marilys turned in then nylons to hold gunpowder or be recycled into parachutes. Laurie went bare-legged that summer but Marilys used leg paint and grew expert at using eyebrow pencil to make a straight dark seam down the back.

  “I detested cotton stockings when I was the only girl in school who wore them,” Laurie told Marilys with a rueful chuckle. “This winter, though, they’ll be in fashion for everybody.”

  To save fabric, skirts were shorter and narrower, and dresses had no ruffles or big collars. Men’s trousers were cuffless and suits had no vests. High school kids, who were starting to be called teenagers, developed uniforms; outsized men’s shirts dangled over girls’ blue jeans rolled to the knee with football socks; boys wore shirttails out, jeans, and combat boots. With the manpower shortage, most of them had part-time jobs and spent their money on records, at soda fountains, or skating rinks. Though she was still nineteen, Laurie felt a generation removed from them.

  The whole family put their galoshes in a nationwide rubber drive that began in June. Since rubber mostly came from countries occupied by the Japanese, there was a critical shortage of this essential material and no good substitute had been found. Kitchen fat was saved and turned in to make explosives. Boy Scouts collected saved newspapers. For a metal-scrap drive, the family contributed the handsome old wrought-iron fence that surrounded the yard, the gazebo with its benches, and the handrails of the steps, as well as all the tin they could scavenge.

  Meanwhile, in early June, the radio and papers reported that an awesome Japanese fleet—8 carriers, 11 battleships, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers, and 21 submarines—was approaching Midway Island where the Americans had only 3 carriers with 233 planes. All American battleships in the Pacific had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor or severely disabled. As Japanese bombers attacked the island, the Americans struck at the fleet. They lost the first assault. Thirty-five of forty-one torpedo bombers were shot down. But minutes later, thirty-seven dive bombers swooped down and sank three carriers within the hour.

  Before the armada retreated it lost 1 cruiser, 4 carriers, and 330 aircraft. The Americans pursued, though they had lost 1 carrier and 150 airplanes. Lack of fuel forced them to give up the chase and the chance to deal a smashing blow.

  “Glory be!” whooped Way as the news came in. “Maybe this means the Japs won’t have it all their way in the Pacific anymore!”

  Johnny was out there somewhere. Laurie hadn’t heard from him in weeks but she sent a letter by V-mail nearly every day. Her sugar ration went to make candy and baked treats that could endure shipping and Pacific humidity. In these boxes, she sent cartoons, clippings, and little gifts she hoped would be useful or funny.

  I suppose you’ve read in the Stars and Stripes that General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s taken command of our forces in Europe. What do you think about the WAACS and WAVES? Isn’t it something that after the way Japanese-Americans have been sent to camps, 10,000 Hawaiian Nisei volunteered for the all-Nisei combat unit that’s being formed on the mainland? Maybe now the government will let up on trying to get the governor of Hawaii to deport Japanese citizens. I wish the president would close those awful camps but I guess people on both coasts are scared of someone’s showing a light to guide in enemy aircraft. They have air raid warnings, shelters, blackouts, and all that kind of thing. Even here, the school kids have air raid drills. Buddy came home from school yesterday and said the principal’s telling them to put big books like encyclopedias on their heads to protect them from falling debris and to put erasers in their mouths to lessen an explosion. I hope you have a lot of erasers, Johnny!

  Her first real letter from Johnny smelled of mildew and cigarette smoke. “I’m writing this in the tent while the other guys shoot craps,” ran the penciled scrawl. “I got five letters from you all at once—it was sure like Christmas, especially when I opened up those boxes of brownies and pralines. Don’t use up all your rations on me, though, honey chile. We get candy bars and gum and I’ve sure eaten a lot worse chow than C rations. Our corporal, Tom Shelton, a cowboy from Texas, has a harmonica, too, and we get plenty of applause on account of we’re the only show in camp.” Some lines were marked out by the censor, sharply reminding Laurie that Johnny couldn’t tell her where he was or anything about what was really going on. At least she knew that he’d had some of her letters and packages, that he was alive and well on the fifth day of June.

  She sat down to begin her answer before she went to work. She never had told him about Crystal, or Dub, either. He’d have to know sometime, of course, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him that his wife had deserted him and his partner-father-friend had robbed him and tried to put him out of business completely.

  When Jim wasn’t on a job for Soup MacNeal, he worked with Vance and Peavine Mitchell, the old roughneck who was helping on Johnny’s land. Jim said the bailings were showing a little oil.

  “They’ve got their hopes up,” Laurie told Marilys. “But if they don’t get a well this time, they’re moving to another old farm of Johnny’s.”

  “Well, I guess we can always mortgage the mortgage,” Marilys joked, but it wasn’t really funny. Drilling was costly. The last thing in the world Johnny would want would be for them to lose their home in the effort to have some producing wells going for him when he came home.

  Laurie refused to even think about if he came, though she suspected he was in the Solomon Islands in the fierce fighting centering on Guadalcanal. Late in August of 1942, the papers and radio hailed a decisive naval victory over the Japanese, but the land battle raged on over a volcanic tropical island that neither side wanted but couldn’t allow the other to hold.

  The news trumpeted names most Americans had never heard of before. German troops met ferocious resistance at Stalingrad on the Volga River and General Rommel’s famed Afrika Corps invaded Egypt.

  On her twentieth birthday, Laurie ooh-ed and aah-ed over the cake that she knew must have taken all of the family’s sugar ration for the week, but she hadn’t heard from Johnny in weeks and had little heart for celebration. Everett had shipped out the first of October. That added to everybody’s anxiety and Buddy’s grumblings about staying in school while there was a war on.

  Vance Morrow abandoned another dry hole, the one that had looked so promising. When the family promised to back him, he moved the spudder to Johnny’s other farm and started making hole.

  After the long stretch without hearing from Johnny, several letters came at once, all full of worry. His letters to Crystal were being returned, stamped with MOVED, NO FORWARDING ADDRESS.

  I hate to think it but she must have left me. And you’d hate to say so, wouldn’t you, kid? Tell me the truth, I can stand it better than not knowing. I can’t blame her much if she did take off. I wasn’t the kind of husband Crystal needed. She liked fun and excitem
ent, dancing and parties. Looking back, I can’t imagine why she married me. When I volunteered, I guess she figured I’d really let her down—and I must have, for this to happen. Dub never writes. Do you know if he’s sick or something? Probably he’s just out wheeling and dealing.

  In her answer, compelled to it at last, Laurie said that Crystal had left town and Johnny’s things were stored in the attic. Unable to bring herself to explain Redwine’s treachery—after all, what could Johnny do about it except worry?—she wrote only that she hadn’t seen W.S. since Johnny left. Crystal’s desertion was more than enough for Johnny to handle now. The truth about Dub might make him as reckless as those kamikaze Japanese fighters on Guadalcanal who made suicidal attacks on the Americans, losing ten men for every one they killed.

  Early in February, after seven months of hard-fought battle, the United States won its first big offensive victory as Japanese transports managed to evacuate their last starving troops from the island. The tide had finally turned in the Pacific.

  The radio was turned up in the restaurant loud enough for everyone to hear the news. If Johnny’s still all right and if that’s where he is, Laurie thought, maybe he won’t be in any more bad fighting. Maybe the Japanese will surrender. And Ev’rett, if he was at Guadalcanal—

  She scarcely heard the phone ringing at the reception counter. Mrs. Marriott came to the door. “Laurie,” she called softly. “It’s Ev’rett’s mama.”

  Laurie’s heart sank. Her feet were so heavy she seemed to drag them. Mrs. Marriott pulled out a chair. “Sit down, honey. It’s not good.”

  Sobbing, Rosalie read the telegram she’d just received. Ev’rett had been killed in action. “He—he was only eighteen. He never even had a girlfriend, far as I know. He was my first baby—seems like just yesterday I looked at him for the first time. I held my wrist next to his skin and he was the same color, not red like all the other kids. I—I was so glad he had your Grandpa’s eyes.”

  “Oh, Rosalie—”

  “And a letter here from his chaplain says they can’t recover his body. What does that mean? Was he blown up? If he was, how do they know it was him? But I don’t want it to be any other boy, either!” Her voice broke.

  “Rosalie, darling—”

  “Why does any boy have to be shot and die? Why did I make him in my belly and carry him and birth him, love and rock and feed him, take care of him when he was sick, make him go to school—why did I do all that if this is what happens?”

  “I don’t know.” Laurie moved back and forth with grief. “I don’t know.” She tried desperately to think of something to help, but it was Rosalie who knew. “The only thing that helps right now is to see and kiss and hug my kids—know they’re alive and well.”

  “If I can get off work, I’ll come for a few days,” Laurie said.

  “Can you, honey? I’d sure like that.”

  Ten days after Laurie got back to town, she got a letter from a San Francisco APO that was not in Johnny’s writing. She read the name that wavered before her eyes: Lance Corporal Tom Shelton. Wasn’t that Johnny’s harmonica-playing cowboy friend from Texas?

  She ripped it open, shook out the thin paper. An animal wail sounded. It tore from her throat again before she knew she was keening that primal, wounded cry. Marilys rushed out of the kitchen.

  “What is it, honey?”

  Laurie held out the letter.

  I know Johnny thought the world of you, Miss Laurie. I wanted to let you know personal. Johnny didn’t come back from our last fight. We hunted for him but with these jungles and swamps, we couldn’t find him. He’s listed as Missing in Action. To be honest with you, he’s likely dead, but there’s a chance he’s wounded and may turn up alive. I sure hope so.

  He was the best buddy a guy could have. Saved my bacon a couple of times, volunteered for the toughest jobs. He always had a joke or a song except for a while there after he heard about his wife. I’ll make sure his harmonica and stuff gets sent to you. If I get home, I’d like to come and see you—just to talk about him, you know. I can’t believe he’s gone.

  “They—they haven’t found his body,” Laurie choked, clinging to Marilys, who walked her to the couch. “He may still be alive—”

  “We’ll pray that, sweetheart.” Both of them knew that a wounded man wouldn’t have much chance of surviving the jungle if he wasn’t rescued and treated, but any hope was better than none.

  Marilys gathered Laurie close and they wept in each other’s arms.

  Like a sleepwalker, Laurie got numbly through the days, working as usual, and when she was home, rolling bandages what time she wasn’t doing house chores. It was only in playing Johnny’s songs that she found solace.

  Life went on, of course, a surface stretched above the dark gulf of her sorrowing. The USSR won back Stalingrad and began to push back the Germans. Rommel’s seemingly invincible Afrika Corps had been stopped in Tunisia with a terrible loss of American soldiers under General George Patton.

  As Way scanned the paper and photos of light American tanks failing to dent the heavier German tanks, he squinted at Laurie and said, “Remember that television thing CBS got started just before the war? They had to drop it till the war’s over, but I’ll bet in the next one—well, sure, honey, God forbid there is a next war—there’ll be television photographers right along with the troops. Don’t know whether that’ll be good or bad.”

  “Newsreels are enough,” said Laurie. It didn’t seem right, from the comfort and safety of home, to watch men die or be wounded. Television might have to wait but Americans had built 150,000 planes in 1942, and were turning out a new ship every four days, enough to keep ahead of heavy losses to submarines. The country expected to make 800,000 tons of synthetic rubber next year and a new type of easily produced penicillin proved a boon to wounded soldiers. There might even be enough for civilians.

  The Marriotts sponsored a weekly ration–stamp swap at the hotel where people gathered at pulled-together tables to trade stamps for butter, shortening, coffee, cheese, meat, and flour. Anyone willing to part with one of their ration of three pairs of leather shoes per year could reap a bounty in other stamps or take cash. There was a black market but no one Laurie knew used it. Most people gladly accepted rationing, just as they followed the motto: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” It made them feel they were doing something to help even though it was so little compared to the hardships of the country’s fighting men. With a gas ration of three gallons per week and a speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour, cars stayed in their garages most of the time.

  Early in April, Jim hurried into the restaurant, skimming his crippled leg like he was skating, took Laurie’s tray away from her, set it down, and gave her a hug and resounding kiss. “We made a well! A nice little forty-barrel-a-day one! Vance has it capped till the buyer hooks it up to the pipeline.” Jim laughed with a joy she hadn’t heard from him since his leg was maimed. “Ole Vance is already spudding in another hole that ought to hit the same formation. Is he tickled!”

  “That—that’s wonderful!” Laurie hugged Jim back though her happiness died as she remembered Johnny couldn’t exult or share in the good luck. Still, there was a chance he was alive, that he’d come home. And even if he didn’t, it was a triumph over Dub to have Johnny’s little poorboy outfit hit oil.

  “Let’s celebrate!” Jim twirled her in a wide circle that made the nearest diners look up and grin. “Wish I could take you to that new Broadway show Oklahoma! that’s such a hit, but there’s two good shows on here.”

  “Oh, I can’t—”

  “Yes, you will!” Marilys, flanked by Mrs. Marriott, advanced upon her. “We can get along fine without you for one night. Go have some fun.”

  “But—”

  “Take your pick,” Jim commanded. “Casablanca with Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart or Road to Morocco with Bing Crosby and Porothy Lamour,”

  Yielding, Laurie said, “Well—if we can go to Woman of the Year i
nstead. I think Katharine Hepburn’s just wonderful and I look up to Spencer Tracy because he’s volunteered for the armed forces.” Quite a few Hollywood stars had done that—Jimmy Stewart, Robert Stack, Cesar Romero, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. In spite of being forty-one, so had Clark Gable. His wife, Carole Lombard, had been killed in a January plane crash while on a war-bond drive. As far as Laurie was concerned, she didn’t intend to ever go to the films of able-bodied actors like Crosby, Bogart, and Ronald Reagan who’d stayed home making money while others died.

  It was fun to go out at night for something besides work, to be swept up in Hepburn and Tracy’s sparring romance. It was the first time since that awful letter that Laurie had truly laughed and enjoyed herself, so much that she felt guilty as the lights came on and reality flooded back.

  How could she laugh when Johnny was dead or gravely wounded? How could she forget that, even for a second? Gazing down at her, Jim took both her hands. “Laurie. Johnny’s tough. He may crawl out of that jungle any day. And even if he can’t, what would he tell you if he could? It sure wouldn’t be to mourn and moan.”

  “I’m not moaning!”

  “Not out loud.” Jim caressed her cheek. “Johnny more than anybody knew that whatever happens folks need to laugh all they can, be happy as they can, and get on with whatever they have to do.” He set his finger on her nose. “Make up your mind to this, Laurie. Every week or two, we’re going to a show or out to dinner.”

  “Jim—”

  He read the worry in her eyes and smoothed her brow with the ball of his thumb. “Listen good. I don’t want to explain this every time I ask you out. I’ll always have a special kind of love for you—and that’s without considering what your father did for us. I wouldn’t even try, though, to fill Johnny’s place with you. If anybody can, he’ll be a sight wiser and stronger and better than I am.”

  She started to protest. He grinned and drew her to her feet. “Don’t feel bad about me, honey. I’ve got a bunch of girlfriends and I sure intend to have more.” He moved Laurie toward the exit. “Meanwhile, lady, we’re stepping out!”