Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  Brother Stoltz knew that once the Americans or British occupied his area, he could possibly get free to return to England. But if he did that, he would have to return without knowing anything more about Peter. German troops were being driven back toward Germany from the east, and he still wondered how he could locate his son. He had no plan, no real idea how he could go about that, but he prayed every day that the way would be opened for him. What he did believe was that Peter was alive, and that somehow the two would find each other.

  And so he continued to speak to Peter, to whisper words of strength and confidence to him, to reassure him that he was loved and missed. “We’ll all be together again,” Brother Stoltz would tell him. “Everything will be all right.”

  ***

  Anna and Sister Stoltz had gotten no further word from the OSS about Brother Stoltz. But at least they’d had that one communication that had relieved their minds a great deal. Of course, they wondered if he was still all right. Each day Anna went to work and continued to translate, and with the extra money the Dillinghams provided, the four of them got by all right. Food was not in great supply, and it was expensive, but they knew that many people in the world were suffering much more than they were.

  Anna went a long time without hearing from Alex, but eventually she got several letters at once, and she knew that he had survived the terrible time in Bastogne. But his letters seemed less hopeful than before. She had the feeling that he was trying to prepare her for the worst, as though he no longer believed he would survive the entire war. Every day she feared that the bad news would come. She prayed constantly, almost without stopping, it seemed, that he was warm, that he had enough food, that he would be protected in battle. But she already knew that he was receiving injuries daily, wounds to his spirit, and she only hoped that if she could get him back physically, she could help him return, in time, to the Alex she had met when he was the young, handsome missionary she remembered.

  So far, Alex had not mentioned the child she was expecting. He had apparently not received her letters for quite some time. She wondered how he would feel about the baby. She hoped it would give him joy–and one more reason to get home safe. But of course, what she harbored was the fear that he would never have the chance to see his own little child.

  ***

  LaRue no longer went to the USO club. She actually felt that she could handle it all right now and be a better friend to the servicemen who passed through. But she also knew it was a place that seemed to bring out the worst in her, and she didn’t want that. She was still dating Reed Porter, and she had gone out on dates with two other high school boys since Christmas. But she found these boys, even though they were older than she was, immature and rather silly. She missed Ned more than she ever imagined she would. She wrote to him two or three times a week, and she got back letters even more often than that. Ned was as committed as ever–or maybe just very lonely. She had no idea how she would feel about him when she was old enough to marry, but she did know that she liked him much better than any other boy she knew.

  No one at school knew that, of course. LaRue’s girlfriends all predicted she would marry Reed someday. LaRue, however, flirted with lots of boys, and she was addicted to the attention. When she took a hard look inside herself–something she ­didn’t actually do very often–she wondered whether she could ever marry at all. She wanted to do things in this world and not be overshadowed by a husband. She still suspected that Ned had been right about her, that she wasn’t a very good person, and sometimes she felt ashamed.

  Just when the demands for armaments had slacked off a little, the Battle of the Bulge had scared the government into believing that the war would last some time yet, and the orders for parts had picked up again. LaRue was more willing to work at the plant than she had been when she had been going to the USO so often. She liked having the money, whether she liked the work or not. And the truth was, there was still nothing LaRue liked better than spending money on herself, especially to buy nice clothes. Her dad still chided her about that, but she knew she turned heads when she walked down the hallway at East High, and that was a pleasure she couldn’t resist. She was well aware of the truth about herself. She had discovered who she was, and she hadn’t been very impressed. But it was quite another thing to change, and she wasn’t sure she was doing much of that.

  ***

  President Thomas was putting a lot of money away, and he was making more contacts around the city and state. Without running for office himself, he had become one of the powers in the Republican party. At the same time, lately he seemed a little less quick to assume that he had the whole truth on every issue. He admired much about President Roosevelt and had admitted a couple of times, rather grudgingly, that he might have been the right president for the time. What irritated him most, however, was that his wife was such an unabashed fan of Roosevelt, and especially of Eleanor Roosevelt. “If you run as a Republican,” she had begun to tell him lately, “maybe I’ll proclaim myself a Democrat and run against you. I hate to tell you, Al, but I think I can beat you.”

  He always joked with her about that, but in fact, he thought she probably could. She was a better speaker than he was, more exciting and interesting, less given to predictions of doom; and people knew by now that in many ways she was the one operating the plant that had brought so much money to the Thomases.

  In more serious moments, however, Bea admitted that she had no interest at all in politics. What she wanted was to have her family home. Maybe Bobbi had found a husband now, and maybe this was the year her boys would come home.

  ***

  A week went by, and Bobbi saw Richard often, but he was struggling. She knew how worried he was about his hand. But then one day he asked Bobbi whether she could take a walk with him at quitting time, the way she had before. She heard a change in his voice, some life, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. She was careful what she told herself all day.

  When the two walked outside late that afternoon, they sat down on the bench where they had sat before, and this time Bobbi waited, didn’t push the conversation. But Richard was quick to say, “Bobbi, the doc thinks I’ll be able to keep my hand. He still wants to send me on to Utah, but I think as much as anything that’s because he knows that’s home to me.”

  “Richard, that’s wonderful.”

  “Well . . . not so wonderful as all that. My hand may not end up all that useful. There’ll be a lot of things I won’t be able to do.”

  “Sure. And I know that’s hard. But I still think you’re blessed that you made it off the ship–and came back.” She didn’t dare say “came back to me” this time.

  “I doubt I’ll be able to pin diapers on a baby.” He smiled. It was the first time since his return that she had seen his full, endearing smile, and she suddenly felt as though she were dissolving into the bench. “I don’t see the problem,” she said. “You don’t have any babies.”

  “But I hope to have some someday.”

  “Really? My understanding is, having received some training–let’s say, book learning–in human reproduction, that a man can’t have babies all by himself.”

  Richard stopped smiling. “Bobbi, I’m going home, and you’re the one going to sea before long.”

  “I’ll be all right. And the war will end. Someday.”

  “I have to find a way to make a living. You’re used to having a lot of things, and–”

  “Don’t. Okay? Just ask me–before I ask you.”

  He nodded. “All right,” he said. “Will you marry me? In spite of–”

  But she didn’t let him finish. She took over. She kissed him, and then she told him, “You know I will, Richard. You know I will.”

  ***

  After the battle for Foy, Alex slept in a house for a few nights. The men built a fire in a coal stove, and they had to crowd into the kitchen, but the warmth provided a kind of comfort they hardly remembered. And yet Alex still wasn’t sleeping well. He was too accustomed to a menta
l vigilance, a half-awake mind that heard every sound, feared every move. He did feel more rested after some days and nights inside, but he needed months away from the battle, not days, and that was not about to happen.

  When word came one night that the battalion was moving out the next morning, no one was surprised. The men in the squad sat together in that one heated room of the house, ate

  K rations, and talked about what lay ahead.

  “This road to Noville, and then on to Germany, is going to be bad,” Duncan told the men. “We’re a long way from finished.”

  Alex looked at Duncan and Curtis. They seemed, now, his oldest friends. He had never exactly said it to himself before, but it occurred to him that he loved these guys–loved them as much as Elder Mecham, or any friend he’d ever had. He could hardly stand to think that they might yet be killed.

  Late that afternoon the mail finally caught up to the company. Alex had a whole handful of letters, and he almost cried at the sight of them, the smell of them. He put them in order and began to read, slowly and carefully, savoring the sound of Anna’s voice, which seemed so close when he read the letters.

  In the third letter he came to the important news:

  Your last letter was very dear to me, Alex. You told me how much you needed me and missed me. You said my letters were important to keep you going. I miss you so much, Liebling, and I like to know that you miss me the same way. Especially now, more than any time in my life, I want you close to me. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain, but I now know for sure. So I tell you in a letter, when I want to tell you, holding you in my arms. You are going to be a father. I hope that makes you happy. I hope this gives you more reason to be careful and come home to me and your little child.

  Alex stared at the words, read them again and again. And with each reading, their power built inside him. He knew that this changed everything. He had to return from battle whole, well in body and spirit. He wondered what chance there was of that. He shut his eyes and asked for help.

  But he felt nothing, no sense at all that the Lord was near him, and the disappointment was shattering. He leaned over the kitchen table and put his forehead on his arms. And then, without warning, he began to sob.

  He wanted to walk away this instant, return to Anna, where he belonged. He wanted to be himself again, find in himself the worthiness to be a father.

  A father. The word was overpowering to him. It felt sacred. But it also felt like an accusation.

  In a minute, Curtis was there, with his arm on Alex’s shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

  Alex looked up, his eyes still full of tears. “Anna’s going to have a baby,” he said.

  He looked around at the men–battered, dirty soldiers–and he saw them stare at him, begin to smile. But Duncan leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and ducked his head. Then his shoulders began to shake, and tears began to drip from his chin.

  Alex didn’t know exactly what Duncan was feeling. But there was something about the idea of a baby–the softness, the freshness–that seemed inconceivable here, as though such delicate things no longer existed. The thought of getting up in the morning and starting down another road toward another battle seemed not only incongruous but impossible.

  “I wish Howie had made it,” Duncan said. “And Campbell. All those guys.”

  Alex was startled by the connection. He felt a little spasm run through his body. He knew what Duncan meant. This moment was something all of them should have shared. They were buddies. Suddenly the loss of all those friends, and especially his “little brother” Howie, struck him with force, seemed finally to reach his core. He put his head down again, and he cried out loud. Howie shouldn’t be dead, he told himself. He was just a kid. A nice kid. What was wrong with a world where people gathered into armies and killed each other–killed young kids?

  Alex cried for a long time, and no one bothered him. Nor was he embarrassed. It was something he knew that he had to do, and even as he touched the depths of his sorrow, he sensed some gratefulness. After all, he was remembering what it was like to feel human, and ever so slightly, divine.

  The road to Noville and on to Germany would be waiting in the morning, but he needed this softness now, before he steeled himself again.

  “Father,” he whispered to himself again. “I’m going to be a father.”

  Author’s Note

  Virtually every day I hear the same questions about Children of the Promise: How many books will there be in the series? When will the next one be out? Maybe it’s time that I give some “official” answers.

  My outline calls for five books in the Children of the Promise series. Volume 4 will carry the story to the end of World War II. Volume 5 will be about the early postwar period when the soldiers returned and the healing began. If all goes as planned, number four will come out early in the fall of 1999, and number five at about the same time in 2000. I would write the volumes faster if I could, but trust me, it’s all I can do to produce one of these books in a year.

  What pleases me most is that so many people do ask. Thanks to all of you who write or call or tell me personally that you enjoy the books. The Thomases have become real in my mind–and dear friends. It’s gratifying to have readers tell me that they feel the same way.

  I want to say a word about the racial and national epithets that are used in this book. I have mentioned before my uneasiness about using the terms that soldiers and even civilians at the time used to name their enemies. I think readers understand that I’m trying to be accurate about the language that was used at the time–not approving. I would hope that all of us have come a long way in our racial attitudes over the past fifty years. But I also think we need to be reminded that racial prejudice was and is very real, and we shouldn’t pretend that it wasn’t part of American life in the 1940s.

  I mentioned in an author’s note in Since You Went Away some of the books I have found helpful. Let me add a few more to that list. Robert and Jane Easton published a collection of the letters they wrote to one another during the war. The book, Love and War: Pearl Harbor through V-J Day (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) is touching, fascinating, and realistic. It takes a reader back to the era as few books can. It helped me imagine the feelings Alex and Anna would experience.

  The most thorough history of the Battle of the Bulge is probably Trevor N. Dupuy’s Hitler’s Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge, December 1944—January 1945 (HarperCollins, 1994). Stephen E. Ambrose’s new book, Citizen Soldiers (Simon and Schuster, 1997), is a more compelling and down-to-earth account of the last European battles, including the Battle of the Bulge.

  To learn about the war between Germany and Russia, read David M. Glantz and Jonathan House’s When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas, 1995). To feel what the war on the eastern front was like, the most powerful portrayal I know is Guy Sajer’s autobiography, The Forgotten Soldier (Harper and Row, 1967; Brassey’s, 1990). Peter Stoltz’s fictional experiences are mostly based on accounts in Sajer’s book.

  One of the best books about the life of military nurses is G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II (University Press of Kentucky, 1996), by Barbara Brooks Tomblin.

  For an account of the Japanese American fighting units in World War II, I would recommend Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd (University of Hawaii Press, 1983).

  If you think of World War II as exciting and romantic, as it is often portrayed in the movies, I would invite you to read two books that will awaken you to the realities of combat: Eric Bergerud’s Touched by Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific (Penguin, 1996) and Gerald F. Linderman’s The World within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II (Free Press, 1997).

  One of my favorite research experiences is to sit in a library and read old newspapers on microfilm. History books are written from a perspective, but a newspaper attempts to make sense of its own time. I love
to read the ads, the editorials, the society pages, even the comics. This, as much as anything, helps me feel what the forties were like. Try it. I guarantee that it’s more fun than almost anything you’re likely to see on TV.

  I wish to thank those who have read Far from Home and given me responses: my wife, Kathy; my son Tom and his wife, Kristen; my daughter Amy and her husband, Brad Russell; my son Rob; my friends David and Shauna Weight and Richard and Sharon Jeppesen. Jack Lyon has been a painstaking editor, and Emily Watts has added her artistic guidance. Sheri Dew has continued not only to offer editorial advice but also to cheer me on with genuine enthusiasm, as has everyone at Deseret Book.

  Let me also thank the managers and employees of the many bookstores that handle my series. Their response has been overwhelming. Time and again people tell me that they bought my first two volumes because bookstore employees gave them such high recommendations. Without that enthusiasm, these books would not have reached such a wide audience.

  I have dedicated Far from Home to my son Tom; his wife, Kristen Shawgo Hughes; and their little son Steven. Tom has done a wonderful job, I feel–and many people tell me–of reading these volumes for the “book on tape” (and CD) versions. He and Kristen have also read the books in manuscript and given me their responses and suggestions. So far Steven hasn’t done anything but delight me, but he’s done that very well.

  When We Meet Again

  When We Meet Again

  Children of the Promise: Volume 4

  Visit us at DeseretBook.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-74788

  ISBN 1-57345-584-9 (hardbound)

  ISBN-10 1-59038-588-8 (paperbound)

  ISBN-13 978-1-59038-588-3 (paperbound)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Banta, Menasha, WI

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