Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  “Your son? The soldier? Will he stop?”

  Sonbu looked at Wally, obviously mystified. Wally thought he hadn’t understood. But when Wally repeated the words, Sonbu said, “Soldier no stop. Die.”

  Wally knew what he was saying, that the boy was destined to die, just as his two older brothers had done. Sonbu had no hope for anything else.

  “All soldiers die,” Sonbu said, softly. “All people.”

  Wally had no idea whether that was true, whether most Japanese would be wiped out in this war. It only made sense that at some point they would surrender. And yet, he knew what Japanese soldiers thought of those who gave themselves up. For three years the guards had told the men that they were cowards, that honorable soldiers fought to the death. Many times, when the guards were being most brutal, they—or their interpreters—would tell the prisoners that such cruelty was owed to men who had no more courage than to surrender.

  But that was the attitude of soldiers. Would all the Japanese people feel that way? Would the entire Japanese nation fight to the death? That was beyond anything Wally could understand.

  That evening Wally told the other men in his room what Sonbu Son had said. It was after dinner, and some of the men were sitting in their room while others took their turn digging. They were excavating a cellar beneath the barracks—a bomb shelter. The Japanese had already built concrete bomb shelters for the guards and camp officials, but now they were forcing the prisoners to dig their own refuge. These were damp, dark holes in the ground, and they required extra work that the men didn’t want to do. Most of the prisoners believed the Americans knew where they were now and were avoiding the camp on purpose. They liked to point out that after that first strike, the camp had never been hit again.

  “I believe it’s true,” Art Halvorson told the others. “Sonbu isn’t the sort of man who would say something like that unless he knew.”

  “He’s always been honest with me,” Wally said. Wally was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, as were Chuck Adair and Don Cluff. Art and Eddy Nash were facing them, sitting cross-legged.

  “So what do you think it means?” Don asked. “How much longer can Japan last?”

  “Sonbu told me the Japanese won’t ever quit, that they’ll die fighting.”

  “That could be true, too,” Chuck said. “Some of the guards say things like that.”

  “Sonbu said he would quit,” Wally said. “He can’t be the only one who feels that way. He’s lost two sons and expects to lose another one. He’s had enough.”

  “I’ll tell you something Okuda told me,” Eddy said. “I didn’t take it too seriously at the time, because he’s such a big talker, but it fits in with what Sonbu told you. He said Japanese pilots were being trained to fly death missions. He said they’d fly their airplanes into the decks of American ships.”

  “That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Chuck said. “How long are you going to have airplanes—and pilots—if you do that?”

  “He said that lots of young guys were being trained to make these flights, and that there was no stopping them. They would eventually destroy the American fleet and turn the tide of the war.”

  “Most of them would get shot down on the way in, wouldn’t they?” Art asked. “You’d have to give up a whole lot of planes to destroy a fleet of ships.”

  “Probably so. But something like that might work, at least to knock out our biggest ships.”

  Wally didn’t know. Years ago, before he had been taken prisoner, he had heard that almost all the American fleet had been sunk at Pearl Harbor. Obviously, a lot of production must have taken place since then. But he had to wonder—maybe suicide missions of that kind would work. Maybe Japan was far from being defeated. The men had all convinced themselves since the first bombing in Omuta that the war was in its last days, but maybe that was only wishful thinking. What if the war kept going for another year—or more? Wally wondered how many of the prisoners would last that long. The men didn’t suffer as much from disease as they had back in the Philippines, but they were wearing out. Wally had always told himself that he was one of the stronger ones, but he had been weakened by the illness he had gone through, and by the brutal beating he had taken from Commander Hisitake. How much longer could he hold up?

  ***

  The tabernacle was packed. LaRue kept turning to watch as the pews filled, and then as the standing-room areas around the edges of the building became jammed with people. President Thomas had been invited to join the funeral procession, and arrangements had been made for his family to sit toward the front of the building. Sister Thomas, with LaRue and Beverly, hadn’t had to stand in line, but they’d had to arrive early, and that meant a long wait on hard benches. Before that, they had filed slowly through the Church Office Building, where President Heber J. Grant’s body had been lying in state.

  It was now just after noon, and the funeral procession was finally entering the tabernacle. George Albert Smith, president of the Council of the Twelve, led the way. He was followed by all the other General Authorities, who walked behind him, in pairs. LaRue recognized the apostles, but she might not have realized who the others were had Sister Thomas not leaned over and whispered, “That’s Joseph F. Smith, the patriarch of the Church, and then the Assistants to the Twelve after him.”

  “I thought Joseph F. Smith died a long time ago.”

  “This is a different one. This is Joseph Fielding Smith’s nephew.” She smiled. “I know. It does get a little confusing.” She waited for more of the men to move by, and then she said, “That’s the First Council of Seventy and then the Presiding Bishopric.” LaRue didn’t have to be told that the last two men in front of the casket were President Clark and President McKay, of the First Presidency.

  LaRue knew virtually all the General Authorities’ faces even when she couldn’t remember their names. Many of them—most of them, in fact—had been in her home. Mom had served them Sunday dinner between sessions of stake conference. LaRue had also seen the Brethren about town, at East High football and basketball games, at restaurants—lots of places. Always, they made a point of greeting President Thomas and his family, and it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to pull Dad aside and discuss some Church matter with him.

  The truth was, LaRue didn’t understand why some people made such a fuss about them. They were just people. Some of them were funny and outgoing, others less so, and all were pleasant enough at the dinner table, but at conference sessions they usually gave long talks, which more often than not bored LaRue. In fact, if it were up to her, she wouldn’t be at the funeral today. She rather liked the idea of missing school, but she wondered how long the service would drag on.

  “All of the pallbearers are President Grant’s grandsons,” Sister Thomas whispered.

  The men looked dignified and rather old to LaRue—to be grandsons. They walked to the center of the building in front of the elevated seats the General Authorities always occupied, and they placed the metal casket on a special stand. Flowers were on display all across the front of the building, especially at the base of the grand pipes of the organ and along the sides of the seats where the Tabernacle Choir sat.

  Following the casket were the stake presidents of the Church—all who could get there. They entered the building and then filed into seats at the front. LaRue saw her father sit down, and she almost laughed at how solemn he looked. President Grant had been eighty-eight, and he had been sick off and on for the past few years. His death could hardly be a surprise; LaRue couldn’t imagine why her father had to look so down in the mouth about it.

  “Do you realize that President Grant was born in 1856?” Mom whispered to LaRue. “Think about that. He knew Brigham Young. He lived in this valley when it was mostly just a desert.”

  LaRue nodded. It was sort of amazing to think that his life spanned almost back to the beginning of the first settlement here in the valley. And even more, it was strange to think that anyone else could be president of the Church. That was
the one uneasy feeling LaRue had had since Monday evening when word had come over the radio that the prophet had died. It was Friday now, May 18, and Salt Lake had pretty much come to a halt during this funeral. Those who couldn’t get into the Tabernacle were in the Assembly Hall or outside on Temple Square, where loudspeakers would broadcast the meeting. Others had stayed home to listen on KSL radio.

  The week before, on Tuesday, Salt Lake had celebrated

  V-E day, but very little had happened. Government workers had had the day off, but the schools hadn’t let out, and there were no parades, no special occasions. In a few places, like Times Square in New York, people had gathered and celebrated, but even President Truman, when he had officially announced the end of the war in Europe—on his sixty-first birthday—had talked about the battle being only half won. The nation couldn’t let down in its commitment but had to work all the harder to defeat Japan.

  First President Roosevelt had died, then Hitler had committed suicide, and Mussolini had been killed by his own people. Those deaths, all in the last month or so, had received great attention, but the death of the president of the Church had even greater impact on the Saints. Heber J. Grant had served as president for twenty-seven years, longer than anyone except Brigham Young.

  J. Reuben Clark, whom LaRue knew well and considered a sort of friend, welcomed the people, and then the Tabernacle Choir sang the opening hymn, “Though Deepening Trials.” LaRue was looking about, hardly paying attention, when the words of the hymn began to reach her: “Though tribulations rage abroad, Christ says, ‘In me ye shall have peace,’ Christ says, ‘In me ye shall have peace.’”

  The plaintive tone of the music made LaRue feel a little more serious than she had been all morning. She was struck with the sadness that President Grant had not lived quite long enough to see peace come—the peace that he and everyone else had been waiting for so long. She remembered something her father had said when he first heard of the death. “He almost died five years ago,” he had told LaRue. “I think the Lord preserved him to get us through this war. He was the right man to do that. He’s one of the few men I’ve ever known who actually loved his enemies.”

  LaRue had paid little attention to her father at the time, but now she was surprisingly moved by the thought. She remembered a time a few years back when she and her family had met President Grant. He had been in the stake to dedicate a new church building, and he had taken time to shake hands with the members there. When he had grasped LaRue’s hand, he had held it and waited until she looked up into his eyes. Then he had looked at her through his little circular glasses, and she had finally focused on his eyes, not his white beard that had always fascinated her as a little girl. “You have such a pretty face,” he had said. “I think your heart is just as pretty.”

  The words meant more now than they had then, but LaRue saw them more as a reflection of him, and the way he saw things, than as the truth about her. What she wished was that he might have lived just a little longer, to see the soldiers all come home. He would have loved that peace, that end of tribulations.

  George Albert Smith was the first speaker. He would soon become the new president of the Church; everyone knew that. He was a slender man with a little white chin beard and mustache. LaRue had never felt much attachment to him, but there was a gentleness in his voice that drew her attention now. “I have never before been so subdued in my soul as I am today,” he said. And the words touched LaRue. She could see in his face, hear in his voice, that he was feeling the sense of his new responsibility.

  President Smith told the story of President Grant’s life. His father, Jedediah M. Grant, had died a few days after Heber’s birth, and his mother had survived by sewing, taking in boarders, doing whatever she could to put food on the table. Heber had inherited his mother’s determination, President Smith said. He had been a devoted baseball player, a hard-working young businessman. At twenty-three he had served as stake president in Tooele County. Then he had been called as an apostle at age twenty-five, and he had served the Church ever since—most of his life.

  LaRue had heard a lot of these things before—especially this week. She had also read that President Grant was one of the last Church leaders who had lived in plural marriage. He had had three wives at one time, although two had died by the time he had become president.

  All the facts didn’t matter much to LaRue, but she found herself responding to President Smith’s kindly manner, his obvious love for President Grant. And then, after the choir sang again, President David O. McKay spoke. LaRue remembered President McKay’s touching little speech at Gene’s funeral. She liked this good man. She felt his gentle power.

  President McKay said that he admired President Grant as a man of great character, a man who “spoke what he thought, lived up to what he professed, kept his promises, and truly believed what he taught.” But that description stung LaRue just a little. She knew that she couldn’t say those things about herself.

  Finally, President Clark spoke. He described President Grant’s great leadership as the Church had grown from a small group to almost a million members. “He was a rare spirit,” President Clark said, and then, with tears in his eyes, he told how much he loved the man.

  The service was not long, and the time actually passed quickly for LaRue. At the end the Choir sang “Thou Dost Not Weep Alone,” and Elder LeGrand Richards, the Presiding Bishop, said the closing prayer. Then the procession left the building as it had come, with the Brethren following the coffin. LaRue was surprised to discover that she was struggling not to cry. She kept thinking what good men these were, and strangely—almost as though her dad were speaking—how fortunate she was to know them personally.

  In the car, on the way home, Dad talked about all the great historical events that had happened in the past few weeks, and he told LaRue and Beverly that they should go home and write all the things down that they had experienced, so they would remember them when they were older.

  That wasn’t a bad idea, but LaRue might have been more likely to do it had her dad not told her to. There was always something irritating about the way Dad would tell her what she should think about an experience—as though he thought he had to interpret it for her. What she wanted was to remember how she had felt there for a few minutes as the funeral service was concluding, when that delicate, almost tender feeling had come over her. Already the feeling was gone, and she felt her usual impatience with her father, her annoyance with Beverly, who was so quick to say how “wonderful” the meeting had been. She wondered why she could never hang on to her better self for very long at all.

  “I think your heart is just as pretty,” President Grant had told her. She missed him already.

  Chapter 21

  The war in Europe was over, but Peter Stoltz’s life hadn’t changed. He didn’t know how to start searching for his family. He could go to Berlin, perhaps, and try to locate members of the Church, but these days a steady stream of refugees was passing through northern Germany—mostly ethnic Germans who had lived in Poland or other eastern European countries—and they had nothing but horror stories to tell about Berlin. The Russians were terrorizing the people who were trying to survive among the ruins of the city. They were rounding up German soldiers, shipping them out on trains, probably to Russia. Peter knew he had to stay away from Russian troops. He thought, too, of making his way south to Frankfurt, but civilians weren’t supposed to cross occupation zone boundaries. He wasn’t actually afraid to try it, but for now he had a place to live, and food, and more than anything, he knew that the Schallers needed him. That was not something he could simply walk away from.

  British soldiers were occupying the zone where the Schallers lived. The Tommys were taking prisoners, but from what Peter had heard, they were taking only those who surrendered. They weren’t actively looking for deserters. It was possible that being arrested by the Brits wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe his family had made it to England and English soldiers could help him make contact with t
hem. For now, however, he saw no advantage in embracing the chaos, of having to live in one of the barbed-wire POW camps he had heard about.

  Peter’s immediate concern was to harvest the early garden crop. Katrina’s job in town had disappeared with the fall of the government. The family had no source of income, and German currency was almost worthless anyway. Only the garden—and the meager crops Peter might harvest later—stood between the family and starvation.

  After dinner one night Peter walked outside. It was a nice evening, mild and fragrant. At first he had felt only escape here on the farm, but now, as the weather warmed, he felt something restorative working its way into his spirit. It was true that his memories tended to make him wary of confidence, of hope, but tonight, as the sun set, he felt a kind of benevolence in the soft light.

  Peter needed his family, but for now he was pleased to have what he had, and to be here with these good people. He hadn’t ventured out to see what had happened to Bremen or Hamburg—or any of the other cities—but he knew that Germany was a wasteland. He had seen Berlin, and that was enough. Everywhere, here in the country, urban families had migrated to the homes of relatives, or they had taken refuge in barns and chicken coops, and food was scarce. The weather had been wet for spring planting, and the chaos of the war had kept most farmers out of the fields. No fertilizer was available either, and usually no seed. Peter knew the summer would be bad and the next winter infinitely worse.

  Peter was sitting on a rock fence, facing south, but he was looking to his right, at the sunset, when he heard someone approaching from his left. He was sure it was Katrina, but he pretended not to notice. She was close to him when she finally said, “It’s a pretty evening, isn’t it?”

  Peter couldn’t help laughing. Katrina was trying to sound grown up—not as playful as usual—but it was hard for him to respond to her seriously. He smiled and said, “It is a nice evening.”

  Katrina was not the sort of girl a young man would stop to look at if she were walking by, but she had pretty eyes—huge and dark brown, with flecks of bronze, rich against her creamy skin. Someday she probably would be pretty. Peter actually liked her, but he wished that she weren’t quite so crazy about him. When he left this farm he would probably never see her again, and it would only be cruel to let her think otherwise.