Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  Wally looked out across the hold of the ship, in the dim light. He saw the dark lumps out there, the broken men, trying somehow to hold on to life one more time. Every one of them was clinging to memories and to fantasies, but the truth was, nothing was going to be the same when they got back. What he also knew was that he could—and would—settle for much less. He would never again need to indulge himself. He just wanted to have three meals a day and a nice bed to sleep in. All his talk about getting rich meant nothing to him now. He had no illusions about having Lorraine, but what he did want was to find a really nice girl, and he wanted to get married and have a family. He wanted to be a good dad, not all that different from his own father, however strict Wally had found him before.

  In the third week, men began to die. Wally hated to think how many wouldn’t make it if things continued this way. But he told himself he had to survive one more time.

  The guards seemed to be as tired of the situation as the men were. They were gradually becoming more disagreeable, even abusive. They communicated most of their demands through an army general who was on board, and this had become increasingly annoying to the prisoners. The general seemed entirely too willing to please the guards, and the prisoners questioned what he was getting out of it. One morning the general stood before the men and began his announcement, as usual, by saying, “Men, the Imperial Japanese Forces have directed me to instruct you that—”

  Someone shouted a foul curse at the general and then called him “your Imperial Majesty.” The general surely knew he was without power in this group, but he might have kept his dignity. Instead, he cursed the man in the same language, and suddenly shouts broke out all across the hold, most of the cursing directed at the general.

  Wally was sitting with his friends, and they were close to some men they knew from Cabanatuaan. Some of those men joined in the shouting. “Hey, come on, you guys,” Wally told them. “Don’t start that.”

  A guy named Eddy Nash turned and said, “I’m sick of that guy.”

  “I know. We all are,” Wally said. “But what are we turning into? We’re supposed to be soldiers—all on the same side. The Japs must love hearing us turn on each other down here.”

  The guards shouted for the men to be quiet, threatened them again with no ration of rice that day, and the prisoners quieted. The general’s announcement turned out to be a warning that men would no longer be able to go out on the deck for smoking breaks unless they showed more respect for the guards. The soldiers listened, grumbled a little, but didn’t dare complain so loudly that they would jeopardize their food ration.

  After the general sat down, Don said, “Wally’s right. We’ve got to watch out or this place could get out of control. Everyone is on the edge—and it wouldn’t take much for people to start killing each other over a few grains of rice.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Eddy said, and that seemed the end of it.

  But Ray Vernon, a lieutenant like Don, turned to Wally and said, “I don’t know how you do it, Wally. You have more self-control than anyone else I’ve come across.”

  Wally was taken by surprise. He knew he had changed in some ways, but all his life he had thought of himself as the weak one in his family. It was hard to imagine that anyone would think of him as self-controlled.

  “Chuck and Art are the same way. They’re all Mormons,” Don said, as though that were explanation enough.

  Wally, of course, remembered the prayer he and Don had shared long ago, but Don had also known Wally in the days when he was drinking beer with the men and showing little evidence of his Mormon background. It seemed strange that Don could dismiss all that.

  Ray looked at Chuck. “Is that it? Is that what keeps you guys going?”

  “We all keep going,” Chuck said. “Everyone who’s still alive has found strength from somewhere.”

  “I know. But the guys who were on that work detail in Tayabas all say Wally was the one who got them through.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Wally said. “A lot of guys—”

  “So what do you guys believe?”

  It was a startling question. In all his years in the military, no one had ever asked Wally something like that. Some had said, “So what do Mormons believe?” but Ray was asking, “What do you believe that makes you what you are?”

  “We’re Christians, the same as most of you guys,” Art said. “But we believe a lot of doctrines got lost from the early church—from back at the time of Christ—and a prophet had to bring back the full truth.”

  That was a nice little summary, but Wally knew that wasn’t exactly what Ray was asking. “Our people were hated,” Wally said. “Back a hundred years ago, we got driven out of Ohio and Missouri and Illinois before we ended up in Utah. My dad always said that the weak people fell by the wayside, but the ones who stuck with the Church got stronger. My whole life I’ve listened to him tell me that I have this great heritage to live up to. The truth is, I haven’t been very good at doing that. I’m just trying to do better now.”

  “Your old man would be proud of you now,” Ray said.

  “Not really. A real Christian doesn’t carry around as much hatred as I’ve got inside me. I try to think the best of these Jap guards, but I have a hard time. Art does a lot better at that than I do.”

  “If a guy has to give up hating Japs to be a Mormon, I could never get in,” Ray said, and he laughed.

  But Wally looked away. He had become rather satisfied with his progress at times lately, but Ray had a point. Maybe Wally didn’t deserve to be “in” either. Here was a chance to teach some men the gospel, but Wally knew he still couldn’t hold himself up as a great example.

  Two nights later the ship sailed out of the port in a terrific storm, and this time it didn’t turn around. Maybe the storm had provided the cover to sail away without being stopped by American ships. The men all wondered if their ship were spotted at sea, would the Americans sink it? Was there any way for them to know who was on board?

  As it turned out, the storm raged for eight days, during the entire crossing to Formosa. The men in the hold were tossed about and were almost constantly seasick. Vomiting was the worst thing for already malnourished men—and many of them died. At least the prisoners were allowed to crowd onto deck where they could breathe the air, even if they were often out there in driving rainstorms. On deck, Wally watched the daily burials at sea. It seemed so tragic to have lasted more than two years, passed through all this misery, only to die so needlessly.

  Wally watched the men eat their rice, one kernel at a time, just to savor it and make it last longer, and he watched them catch rainwater any way they could so they would have enough to drink. He knew of several times when men had kept bodies hidden for a day or two just so others could draw the extra ration of rice. That was ghoulish, in a way, but Wally understood how desperately everyone was trying to stay alive.

  Eddy Nash could not stop vomiting, and Wally saw that he was sinking fast, so he stuck with him. He and the other men helped him get out to the air every day, and they shared some of their ration of rice with him. When the ship reached Formosa, the tarp was put back in place, and Eddy almost died that evening, but Wally kept finding water for him and got him through the night. The next day the men were allowed to get off the ship and wash themselves with fresh water. Wally and Chuck helped Eddy down off the ship. They undressed and washed themselves, and then they helped Eddy do the same. Formosans gathered around to see the naked Americans, but Wally didn’t care. When he signaled to one of the Formosans that he needed food and pointed to Eddy, the man slipped away quickly and came back with a piece of bread and a bit of fish. Wally took a big chance, but he reached out and took the food, and then he fed it to his friend. By that night, Eddy was already showing some increased strength.

  Later, back on the ship, Wally could smell the fish on his hands. He licked at it and tasted the oil. He longed to have had some of it himself, but that night as he listened to Eddy breathe, less labored than
the night before, he felt good about what he had done.

  For two weeks the ship sat at the dock in Formosa. The hold of the ship was being loaded with coarse salt, so the men were allowed to spend their time out on the deck, but the sun baked them, and the humid heat was overpowering.

  Finally the ship steamed from the harbor, and the men began their last leg to Japan. Wally had no idea what he would do there, how long he might have to stay, or whether he could keep surviving. The men spent most of their time on deck now, and the weather wasn’t so severe. Wally spent long hours talking to his friends. Time and again the talk turned to religion, and Wally, along with Chuck and Art, continued to explain the teachings of the Church.

  During the tedious hours when Wally was left to his own thoughts, he always tried to imagine what was happening at home. When the year had begun, he had thought the war might end before the next Christmas, but that seemed unlikely now. He wished, somehow, he could get a letter from his family. At least that would tell him what everyone was doing. Alex and Gene were probably fighting somewhere. If only he could know where they were and that they were all right—or if he could just know that the day would come when all of them would be together—then he thought he could stand anything.

  Chapter 33

  Alex had been “in hospital,” as the British called it, for six weeks, and for the past two Anna had come to see him every day. Her branch president in London had known a member of the Church in the area, a widow, who had been willing to let Anna stay with her. Anna spent as much of the day with Alex as she could, and the two spent their time catching up on all that had happened to them since they had last seen each other. In many ways, they were getting to know each other for the first time. They talked about their childhood experiences, their opinions, their likes and dislikes, everything. Nothing was more delicious to Alex than to share his thoughts and explore Anna’s—unless, of course, it was to look at her while they talked.

  They spoke German much of the time, but Anna was trying to improve her English. During the time she had spent in the cellar, she had worked to increase what she already knew, and now, since coming to England, she had devoted herself to the project. She was expanding her vocabulary and doing fairly well, but she understood the language much better than she spoke it. What she couldn’t do yet was carry out a long and intense conversation of the kind she and Alex were constantly engaged in.

  Alex promised to show Anna all the letters he had written her over the years. That would help him remember what he was thinking at the time. But what he finally admitted to her one day was that he wasn’t the same man who had written those letters. “Anna,” he said, “I have some things going on in me. I’m not quite sure who I am now—after what happened to me in France. I need to get some things under control. I’m still having bad dreams—and thoughts that scare me.”

  He expected her to ask for more details, but Anna said softly, “We both have things to forget, or to overcome.” She took hold of his hand, and then she told him about her experience with Kellerman—about the attempted rape and the way she had cut his face.

  Alex couldn’t help thinking that he had set off a chain of events in Germany that had brought terrible grief to Anna and her family. What was even worse was that a suspicion lurked in his brain that he was more like Kellerman than like Anna—not the victim but the attacker. He didn’t tell her that, didn’t even fully admit it to himself, but sometimes, in subtle ways, he felt he was hiding some of himself from her. And yet she seemed to know that, and she kept reassuring him. It was the best help he could have received, the constant knowledge that she loved him.

  The other men in the ward had shown some hesitancy when they had found out she was German, but when the word spread that she had fought the Nazis, and that she had barely escaped with her life, they began to think of her as a heroine. Or maybe they were only too happy to accept her. Anyone that pretty, who walked through the ward each day—greeting them all by name—was awfully easy to like.

  Margaret made certain Anna got lunch if she were there in the middle of the day. It was breaking all sorts of rules to have a visitor in the hospital so long—especially a nonrelative—but Margaret also took care of that. Clearly, she loved Anna too.

  But gradually reality was setting in. The fact was, Alex would soon be returning to his battalion. Early in July the 101st Division had been pulled out of the fight in Normandy, and the 506th Regiment had returned to Aldbourne, arriving on July 13. Alex found out that the men all received two new uniforms, back pay for the time they had been gone, and seven-day passes. Most of the men from E Company headed straight for London, where they got drunk and stayed that way. Curtis had been released from the hospital by then and was back in camp. He spent a few days in London, sober of course, and then returned to camp. A couple of days later he decided to visit Alex.

  When Curtis walked into Alex’s ward, limping a little, he glanced at Alex, but then he looked at Anna and walked straight to her. “Aren’t you Anna?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. “How did you know?”

  “From your picture. How did you get here?”

  Alex rehearsed the story, or at least a short version of it, and all the while Curtis hardly looked at Alex. His eyes were on Anna. “I’m so happy for you,” he told her.

  “Are you all right?” Alex asked him.

  “Sure. But let’s not say too much about the whereabouts of my wound.”

  “Hey, I won’t bring it up,” Alex said, grinning. “But I’ll bet you’re the butt of a lot of jokes.”

  Curtis rolled his eyes and smiled. Anna had missed the play on words, and neither man said anything to explain.

  “What happened to the guys after I left?” Alex asked.

  Curtis was still standing near the foot of the bed. He glanced at the floor, and his smile faded. “From what everyone says, you saw some of the worst of it, Alex. But they got into a few more nasty situations, mostly during the next couple of days after you were shipped out.”

  “Did we lose any more of our men?”

  “Yeah. Quite a few. The 506th took about fifty percent casualties. Fourteen E Company men were killed. Morehead’s airplane crashed, and he was killed without ever seeing action. You know about Cox. But McCoy didn’t make it either. Or Huff.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “They were together, from what the men heard, and everyone thinks Huff was trying to help McCoy with his wound. I guess a German patrol found them; no one knows exactly.”

  Alex was having a hard time with this. “So Huff and McCoy are dead,” he whispered. “What about Rizzardi?”

  “He lived, but he’s in bad shape. His gut was all torn up. He’ll be going home when he can, but he’ll never be the same.”

  “How many wounded, besides you and me and Rizzardi?”

  “Well . . . Duncan took that minor wound you know about, but he kept going, and something sort of strange happened to him. Our platoon had to fight through those hedgerows, and the Krauts were . . .” He stopped and looked at Anna. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  Curtis looked back at Alex. “You know how the Germans had tanks set up behind the hedges?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Well, our men had to get past each hedge, one at a time. Our platoon got in a bad fight, up there by Carentan, after you got shot. The guys in our squad came out all right, but then, for a couple of weeks, they were dug in, in a defensive position. It was supposed to be easy—just hang on to what they had. But artillery was coming in all the time, night and day, and our big guns were going all the time. It was real bad, from what everyone says. One of those days, when they were getting incoming stuff all day long, Huish got hit with some shrapnel. It wasn’t too serious, but he went sort of crazy. Duncan ran over to help him, and Huish jumped up and stabbed Duncan with his bayonet, thinking he was a German soldier, I guess.”

  “How bad is Duncan?”

  “
Not too bad. Huish caught him in the chest, but Duncan grabbed his arm in time. The bayonet didn’t go in deep—and it didn’t hit anything vital. Right now, Duncan’s in London, and I’m sure he’s got plenty of painkiller running through his veins. No one knows where Huish is. Some think he’s in a psychiatric ward somewhere.”

  Alex was still stunned. So many of the men were gone already. How could anyone expect to make it through the rest of the war if that many had gone down in the first action?

  “The first couple of days after the men got back, they talked about everything that happened over there,” Curtis said. “They hardly talked about anything else. But now they’ve all shut up about it.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked Campbell about that. He said that after a few days on the front, he got so death didn’t mean a thing to him. He saw too much of it. He figured he would probably get hit, and he didn’t worry about it. When he heard about McCoy and Huff, he said he didn’t even feel anything. But now, after getting out of all that, he can’t stand the idea of going back. I guess you get away from the battle and you start to think like a civilian again—and you get scared.”

  “So what’s going to happen next?”

  “We’re picking up replacements already. A lot of guys think we’ll be back in the action right away.” Curtis smiled. “If I were you, I wouldn’t heal too fast.”

  “Are you okay, Curtis?”

  “Yeah. I was pretty lucky. I got hit in a good spot.” He smiled again.

  “I know. But how are you feeling about everything?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know. I think I was lucky that I got wounded early and got out of there. I saw just enough to understand what it’s all about.” Curtis glanced at Anna and then back at Alex. “The men who were over there the whole time seem different to me. They were only in the fight for about a month, but they just don’t seem like the same guys. Duncan’s not bragging and talking about whipping the Germans. He talks about Rizzardi all the time. Seeing his buddy get messed up like that was awfully tough on him. But no one is making any big claims anymore. The only guys who can’t wait to get to the battle are these new gung-ho replacements we’re getting in.”