by Sandra Hill
Suffice it to say, Louise prayed a lot during those days, especially when she read newspaper accounts referring to the “elite combat divers,” or “frogmen” and she just knew Phillipe was involved, somehow. For example, there was Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa in which some of these brave swimmers had cut the enemy’s underwater cables so that American ships could move safely into those waters and insert their soldiers. All of the men in Phillipe’s unit had received some kind of medals for their work there.
Louise didn’t know much about military commendations, but when she’d told her father about Phillipe’s particular medal, something involving a Navy cross, his eyes had gone wide with a mixture of admiration and horror. Before he’d had a chance to bite his tongue, he said, “I thought they only gave those things to dead sailors.”
Then, too, there were horrendous newspaper accounts of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, that relied heavily on these special forces to make way for the ground troops. Among the fatalities in Sicily had been Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mitchell from Boston, a close friend of Phillipe’s. Mitch had considered it hilarious that she was “Louise from Louisiana.” When she tried to talk about Mitch, Phillipe’s face closed over, and he refused to discuss the circumstances of his death. In fact, Louise wasn’t even sure if Phillipe had participated in that mission.
Not to mention the increasing news coming out of Germany of atrocities being meted out to the Jewish people. Hard to believe that so many were being killed or kept in filthy camps just because of their religion. Jimmy John Doucet, a distant cousin who’d gotten a medical discharge from the Army after some battle in France, said he’d met a Jewish rabbi who’d escaped from one of those work camps, and he looked like a walking skeleton.
And there was no dodging the horrors of war even when going to an occasional movie. The news reels shown before the films depicted such gruesome fatalities of the various battles that a person could scarcely sit and laugh afterward at Charlie Chaplin or Abbott and Costello.
She and Phillipe saw each other on occasional visits when he came back to Louisiana on short liberties, but as the war wore on, Phillipe’s face was more and more stiff, and his eyes deadened. The same was true of many military men she saw at the USO, where she still volunteered. Leastways, that’s how Phillipe always looked when he first came home. By the end of a liberty, he was more his old self again. Until the next time.
Louise had made one bus trip up to Virginia early on, which she’d hated. Not the bus itself, or being with Phillipe, which was of course wonderful, but the strange territory where there was a vast ocean but no bayous, where everyone seemed in a hurry all the time, where people spoke differently and looked at her strangely when she asked for a beignet or gumbo on a restaurant menu. She was the proverbial fish out of water outside Louisiana, and this wasn’t even north north, she was told repeatedly. Always, she tried to be positive with Phillipe. And besides, he was stationed in Florida now, which was almost as warm as Louisiana. They even had bayous there, she was told.
So, Louise had started to avoid both newspapers and movie theaters. Instead, she spent more time at her parents’ home on Bayou Black where they had their own kinds of problems.
First off, her father had suffered a stroke, which left him partially paralyzed, unable to continue working on the shrimp boats, and requiring her mother’s constant home care. Even before that, he’d been bent over with a shrimper’s hump, old before his time, from years of back-breaking work. When shrimping, the catch was dumped onto the foredeck, and the men had to either bend over or squat to “pick” the shrimp, which meant rooting out the by-catch, like squid, or baby crabs, or junk fish. Not to mention the strain of hauling up heavy nets or lifting hundred-pound bait boxes.
Louise would have moved back home to help, but her salary as a typist was needed more than ever to help her parents get by. Cajuns were proud people, and signing up for public relief was abhorrent to them. Instead, Louise took on more overtime work at Higgins. Besides, she needed something to keep her busy while Phillipe was away.
Then another crisis occurred. Louise’s brother Frank, an Army corporal serving in the Pacific, was declared missing in action, possibly a prisoner of war.
In the meantime, this Sunday afternoon in September, Louise and her mother were out in the swamps gathering herbs for her mother’s folk healing business.
“How is yer traiteur business doin’, Mama? I mean, people are so poor these days with the war and all. They don’t hardly have money fer anything.”
“I’m doin’ fine, ’specially with yer help, sweet one. My customers doan allus have money, but they pay me somehow. Eggs, milk, and wild mushrooms. Apples, peaches, plums, and cherries, by the bushel, which I can allus use or cook up inta preserves. If we had more traffic out thisaway, I could set up a produce stand out front.”
Every time Louise returned to the city, she carried with her a poke full of jellies or canned applesauce, some of which she donated to the USO.
“And fish…Lawdy, I get so much fish I gotta smoke ’em fer later eatin’. I doan even miss all the shrimps yer daddy usta bring home. Once in a while, I get a turtle which makes a fine soup.” Her mother laughed. “I doan suppose you and yer friends would want a possum or two. I’ve eaten so much possum stew I’m about ta gag.”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Mama,” she declined graciously as she continued to row. Actually, possum wasn’t so bad when cooked properly. “We don’t have time fer much cookin’ after work.”
“Or the rations to buy readymade food all the time,” her mother guessed.
She was right there. They were always running out of ration stamps for food, gas, coal, nylons, practically everything. Even so, single women didn’t want to spend hours stewing game of any kind when they could be out hunting their own game of another kind. Men.
“So, any particular plants we’re lookin’ for t’day?” Louise asked. They were already deep in the bayou, a half mile from home.
Her mother nodded. “Somethin’ what’ll aid in yer father’s paralysis and speakin’ problems. Snake Tears is an old remedy fer stroke that MawMaw tol’ me about. The plant is hard ta find, but I checked her ol’ book, and there was a drawin’. The leaves look lak the buttons on a rattlesnake’s tail, but tear-shaped.”
MawMaw Doucet, her mother’s grandmother, had kept a clothbound book of “receipts” with pencil drawings of swamp plants for every ailment under the bayou sun. The book had been added to by every generation of women with the “gift” since then—everything from “Women’s Complaint” to “Man Trouble.” Louise knew now that they referred to menstrual pains and male impotence, but when she’d been a child and asked what they meant, her mother had said, “Men are women’s biggest complaint, and women are men’s biggest trouble.”
The “receipts” included remedies for all the usual illnesses: fever, rheumatiz, headaches, Arthur-itis, swollen glands, rashes, the fits, and open wounds, with a special section for “gator bites.” Her favorite had been dried dog dung mixed with honey for sore throats. Her papa had called that one “Sweet Shit,” which always prompted a swat with a dishtowel from her mama. Of course, that was before he lost his voice.
“Shouldn’t you be followin’ the doctor’s orders fer Daddy?” Louise asked.
“I am, but sometimes the old remedies work better.”
Louise couldn’t argue with that, though she couldn’t imagine ever prescribing “Sweet Shit” to anyone. A sure case of the cure being worse than the ailment.
Her mother was wearing an old pair of fishermen’s hip boots hiked up with suspenders to her chest, and a long-sleeved shirt that must have been Frank’s during his teenage years. Louise wore waders, too, but hers were thigh-high over her slacks, which were tucked into the boots. She wore a long-sleeved shirt, too, one of Daddy’s old Long John uppers that had been washed to paper thinness.
It was so blistering hot today that she would have much preferred a bathing
suit, but the mosquitoes and no-see-ums would eat her alive. As it was, she and her mother had slathered themselves with a homemade bug-repellant salve, and they wore lavender herb ribbons around their necks.
The boots were a necessity because some of the grounds they traipsed through looked and felt more like chocolate pudding than packed bayou dirt. Besides, you never knew when a snake might strike, without warning. The perils of swamp living!
“So, where do we find this Snake Tears plant?”
“Yer great-grandmother drew a map to a small island where it used to flourish, but you know what the bayou streams and islands are like. Here t’day, gone t’morrow.”
“Phillipe has a pilot friend who told him that the Loo-zee-anna bayous from up above look like a crocheted doily. All those twists and turns.”
“And every time there’s a big storm, the bayous disappear or go in a different direction,” her mother added. “Even so, I think I kin follow the general direction of MawMaw’s map. I did find it once a few years back when Cousin Joe had his stroke. You remember him, they called him Smokey ’cause he allus had a cigarette danglin’ from his mouth.”
“Did Snake Tears help him?”
“Not a bit. He had too much smoke in his system fer anythin’ ta work, at that point. When he passed, the doctor cut him open and said his lungs were black as coal.”
They found the Snake Tears plant, along with some other roots and leaves that her mother would store in her herbal pantry. Some of them were edible, like the cattails whose various versatile parts could be used to make poultices, or as a downy buffer for a baby’s bottom to prevent chafing, or added to salads for a yummy crunch.
“Y’know, Mama, I’m far from an expert on folk medicine, but it amazes me how much I’ve gleaned just by being around you and MawMaw.”
Her mother shrugged and said, “Mais oui! You have the gift.”
Louise smiled. “Lot of good that gift will do me if I’m livin’ in some far-off land with Phillipe.”
“Whass this? Am I the las’ one ta know that yer engaged?” She glanced at Louise’s ringless left hand and arched her brows.
“No, no! Nothing official. Phillipe is afraid to make any promises for fear of jinxing us. The war and everything.”
Her mother nodded. “Jist like some couples expecting a baby don’t wanna set up a nursery too soon, jist in case somethin’ happens.”
“If he doesn’t ask me soon, I’ll probably ask him.”
“Louise!”
“What difference does it make? We’re in love, and we’re going to be together after the war.”
“And it won’t be here on the bayou when you’re …together?”
“It can’t be. Not at first. Phillipe has years of military obligations, even after he finishes his medical schooling.”
“Where will that be?”
“I don’t know. Possibly Virginia to finish his schooling. Then, wherever the Navy sends him as a military doctor. All the Navy bases have married housing.”
“What will you do when he’s in school, or off bein’ a sailor doctor?”
“Work.”
“As what?”
“Anything. Typist, like I am now. Or something else. I could even train to be a nurse.”
“But not a traiteur?”
Louise shook her head slowly. “Maybe someday, if…when…we return to the bayou.”
“I’ll be long gone by then.” Her mother sighed.
“You will not! You’re young yet. Only fifty. You have lots of years left, Mama.”
“Mebbe so, mebbe not.” Her mother sighed again. “I had dreams of you workin’ by my side and eventually takin’ over.”
“That could still happen,” Louise said, but even she didn’t see the likelihood of that happening, not anytime in the near future, not with Phillipe’s commitments to the Navy.
“When do you expect to see Phillipe again?”
“Probably not till Christmas.”
“He’ll have a leave then?”
Louise nodded. “His team has been promised a one-week liberty at the end of December.” She couldn’t speak for a moment over the lump in her throat, but then she revealed, “After that, they’re heading overseas fer further training.”
They both understood what that meant. The newspapers and radio had been predicting for weeks that something big was going to happen in Europe to put an end to this bloody war. Bloody being the key word.
Her mother squeezed her hand and said, “Well, then, you’ll have to make this the best possible Christmas ever for Phillipe.”
She would.And she already knew what she was going to give Phillipe for a Christmas gift.
Chapter 6
I’ll be home for Christmas (if good ol’ Bing, and Uncle Sam, have their way)…
Phillipe Prudhomme, sporting new second-lieutenant stripes on his dress blue travel uniform, stood in the terminal of the Fort Pierce airfield with a bunch of his buddies, waiting to hitch rides on various troop supply planes heading in various directions. He would be going to Fort Polk, then on to Bayou Black, in Louisiana for a much-anticipated ten-day liberty. Others, carrying topcoats and pea jackets, were heading north to New England and beyond.
Piped-in music played traditional Christmas songs…Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como, Dinah Shore, and the like. And a half-assed attempt had been made to decorate the gloomy corrugated steel building with fake holly and poinsettias. A palm tree outside blinked with strings of multi-colored lights in the pre-dawn blackness.
The mood was forced cheerfulness because each and every one of his NCDU teammates knew with a certainty that this would be their last chance to connect with family before leaving for Europe and what was rumored to be the big bang ending of the war. Some of them would not be returning.
Phillipe had started out with S & Rs in Little Creek, Virginia almost a year and a half ago where they’d trained till they dropped and then trained some more in a crash course to become proficient in demolitions, commando tactics, cable-cutting, and rubber boat maneuvers. Only a few months later, they’d participated in Operation Torch in North Africa, where they’d succeeded in cutting cable and net barriers across the Wadi Sebou River, allowing the USS Dallas to traverse the river and insert U.S. Rangers who captured the airdome. Every one of his teammates, himself included, received a Navy Cross for their efforts in that hair-raising venture.
Then, only a few months after that, the S & R unit moved to Fort Pierce where Phillipe was asked to move over to the NCDU unit, where he and his fellow webfoot warriors prepared and continued to prepare for Operation Overlord, the amphibious landings for D-Day in France, which would occur sometime during the upcoming year. In fact, he and thirty-three of his NCDUs would be reporting to London after this liberty for final training and instructions.
Maybe then, this damn war would end.
And he could get back to living.
And Louise.
He smiled to himself, knowing that in just a few hours, he would be holding his sweet Cajun girl again. Would she like the surprise he was bringing for her?
“Oh, crap! The loo-ie is grinning again,” one of the swabbies in his unit remarked. Seaman Jason Saunders, at eighteen, was the comedian of the teams, but serious as all get out when it came to the Navy, having come from a long line of sailors, many of them lifers who started out at the bottom of the enlisted pole, just like Jason had.
“Y’all got it wrong. He’s jist happy ’cause he’s been a good boy this year, and Santa’s gonna fill his stocking with Christmas goodies. Pralines and Mardi Gras beads and a crawfish beer bottle opener, fer example.” This from Petty Officer Mike Landry, a fellow Southerner, from Baton Rouge.
Another Petty Officer, Frank Phillips, the oldest of the group at thirty-two, piped in, “Hah! The only goodies I’m interested in are wrapped in a garter belt and see-through brassiere.”
“After the Hell Week the shavetail put us through last week, Santa might give him a lump of coal, instea
d,” Saunders said, grinning to show his teasing was just in fun.
Ever since he’d gotten his promotion last week, Phillipe’s men had been teasing him. Their remarks were inappropriate and certainly against military protocol, but he wasn’t about to pull rank on them now, not in this situation, and not as they were just about to go on liberty.
Still, he had to speak up on one point. “Hey, Hell Week wasn’t my idea. Commander Kauffman was responsible for that exercise in torture. And look at it this way…we’re all a lot more buff for enduring it.”
“And bruised,” Saunders pointed out.
“Who ever heard of running five miles before breakfast?” Phillips complained. “I’ve been in the Navy for seven years, and the only running we ever did, after boot camp, was to the chow hall.”
“I usta love swimming, but not so much anymore,” Landry put in. “I think I swallowed more salt water last week than my entire life.”
“It was the drownproofing exercise that did it for me. Whoo-boy! I thought I was a goner, for sure.”
Phillipe let them go on and on. He knew they were in the NCDU unit by choice, and were proud to be called webfoot warriors. Besides, Phillipe was on liberty time now, and he was determined to enjoy every minute of it.
On the plane, his seatmate was a white-knuckled young Marine from Lafayette. He was clutching the armrests like they were ballasts in a bayou wind storm.
“Fear of flying?” Phillipe asked.
“Nah. Fear of wedlock, with the emphasis on lock,” he replied. At Phillipe’s arched brows, he explained, “My girl, Jillie, has a bun in the oven, and her daddy has a shotgun that he plans to aim at my private parts.”
“And you don’t want to get married?”
“Oh, Jillie and me were gonna get hitched, eventually. Jist not this soon.”
Phillipe nodded his understanding. In some ways, he envied the young fellow, having the decision taken out of his hands. Which was ridiculous, of course. He had good reasons for wanting to wait until after the war to start a future with Louise.