GI Brides (53 page)

David Kenyon had not expected this change to the new duties to which he had been transferred. He was ready to be an unimportant cog in the machinery of this war he had already given many weary months and much bravery to for the cause of righteousness. But to be put into a position of trust in place of a notable man whose health had failed in a crucial time had not been within the possibilities of his thought. Yet here he was, ordered to have charge, for the time, of a convoy transport, which there was every reason to suppose would be followed and bombed by the enemy from both under and on and over the sea. He had not known definitely just what his orders were to be when he wrote that note to Dale, yet now as he thought about it with the full responsibility of the new duties upon him, he was glad he had written as he had. It was his farewell to her for the time, and together they would be praying and trusting their all.

He watched the dim lights of the harbor disappear into blackness and wondered if he would ever see them again. It seemed a solemn time to him, almost like standing at his own deathbed, watching himself die. It was going to be his duty, presently, to watch for the enemy. Would he be equal to the task? He thought of the lives that would be dependent upon him, of the responsibility that would be his, and then as he went below to the bunk room to prepare for the night’s duties, it came to him that it was not only his own deathbed that he might be set to watch but that of all the others, who were his comrades. He did not know them all very well yet, for he had been with most of them for only a few hours on the train across the country, but those other fellows were his responsibility, too. It might be their deathbeds also, as well as his own. And were they ready to die? With him it was right either way, for his heart was fixed on the eternal.

He cast his eyes around on the fellows in the bunk room. It was comparatively quiet. Only an occasional attempt at a joke, for all seemed thoughtful, suddenly brought to realize what might be before them that night. They were all getting dressed for their coming duty, a night on deck.

Some of their young faces looked hard and bitter, some careless, trying to whistle and laugh off the solemn thoughts that must come at a time of stepping into a night of peril.

There was one, a young lad, younger than any of them, who had recently come among them, and he looked exceedingly blue. The others had been kidding him, trying to find out what made him look like that, but the boy’s face grew only more desperate. Somehow it reminded David of the way he used to feel when he had his first taste of danger. The other fellows had all had experience, too, though he could see that some of them were grave with apprehension even yet, whenever they were still long enough to let their thoughts take over. But this young lad touched David’s heart deeply.

“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked pleasantly. “Scared?”

He spoke with a heartening grin, but the boy lifted that desperate face to him and did not smile.

“Sure.” he said solemnly. “Aren’t you?”

“No,” said David firmly, “not scared. Feeling a little solemn, perhaps, because this thing we’re in is real, not just a game that doesn’t matter, and of course death is stalking these waters, underneath and overhead as well. But we knew that would come sooner or later when we joined up with the outfit, and I don’t feel that God is dead. I know He’s looking after me.”

“How’ll that help you when the bombs begin to fall?” asked the boy. “I guess they’re all good and scared, if they’d just own it, aren’t you, fellows?”

Several of the men lowered their glances and gave a shamed assent.

“What I’d like to know,” said the boy, looking straight at David, “is why you’re not scared? Is it just because you’ve been in battles before? Have you got used to it and don’t mind it anymore, or what?”

David shook his head. “No, Phil,” he said gently. “It’s because I have a Savior in whom I trust. I know He’ll do the best for me, whatever comes. He’s wise and powerful, and He’s watching over me continually.”

“Aw, that’s all bunk,” sneered an older man. “Nobody that was a God would be bothered watching over a lot of tough fellows that didn’t give a hang about Him or never had paid any attention to Him. You just got brought up that way, Dave, and swallowed a lot of old traditions, that’s all. But you can’t tell me when you see bombs coming your way that you ever think about God or that your beliefs ever help you get by without being scared stiff.”

“But it isn’t like that, fellows,” said David earnestly. “You’ve got it all wrong. In the first place, it isn’t a lot of traditions. It’s a Person whom I know and love and whose love has been with me through a good many years, in a lot of other troubles, so I know He’ll not forget me now, and whatever He does for me will be the best that
could
come to me.”

“Yes, but you see, I haven’t got any such friend as that,” said Phil, in a sort of contemptuous quiver. “I wasn’t brought up with traditions. My folks never even went to church. And you can’t just rest down and trust somebody you don’t know and you’re sure don’t care a hang about you.”

“Oh, but He does. He cares very much about you, Phil.”

“What gives you that idea?” sneered the boy.

“Because He’s said so, and all you have to do is believe it. He loved you so much that He gave His life for you, so that you might know you could be saved forever.”

“I don’t know how you could possibly know that.”

“Because He has said so in the Bible, and I believe it. ‘For God so loved the world… that
whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Then, there’s another: ‘He that heareth my word, and
believeth
on him that sent me,
hath
everlasting life, and
shall not
come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.’ There are a lot of other proofs. I can show them to you if you care to read them, but aren’t those enough for a start?”

“I suppose so, if I was sure He said it. If I was sure He was God and able to carry out His promise,” said the kid miserably.

“Yes—well,” said David thoughtfully, “if you were driving through an unknown country and lost your way and you came to a road that had a sign on it directing you to the place of your destination, would you stand there and debate and say, ‘How do I know this is the right way? How do I know that somebody hasn’t put this sign up just to fool me? Just to lead me into trouble? Or how do I know that it isn’t a joke somebody is trying to play on me?’ Would you go around looking for another road? Or would you turn down the road and try it out and see if it led to your city?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe I’d looked for another road first.”

“So?” said David. “Well, have you looked for another road yet? Is there any other way in a time like this when danger is on the way? Do you know any other way to meet God and not be afraid?”

“I suppose you can just trust to luck,” said another young fellow dismally. “I suppose if you’re going to get through you will, and if you aren’t there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That doesn’t sound very hopeful, Sam. Do you think it does? Just swing out into the blackness and trust to
luck
?”

The boys sat earnestly, thoughtful, their heads bent. One caught his breath in something that sounded like a suppressed sob.

“Luck’s no good. It’s nothing to trust to,” said another gloomily.

“Well, at home I used to go to Sunday school every Sunday for years, and just before I left home I joined the church to please my mother,” said another tall boy with a tentative question in his voice.

They were all looking at David, so after a minute he answered, “Are you satisfied to offer that as your entrance ticket into eternity, Jim?”

The tall fellow sank down on his bunk and collapsed, burying his face in his crossed arms. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t feel sure about anything.”

“Isn’t it safer to take the condition Christ offers? He says, ‘He that
believeth
.’ If you’re going to trust something, better get the conditions straight. Couldn’t you just accept that offer of His and swing off and trust
Him,
and let Him prove it to you? That’s what trust or belief really is. Letting God have the chance to prove it to you. I took it that way ever since He’s given me peace. He’ll give it to you, too, if you’ll take it and try Him out.”

There was a great silence for a long moment broken by the distant sound of an explosion. They had been hearing those at intervals all day, but somehow this one seemed to deepen the silence.

“We may not have much time ahead to accept that offer,” suggested David.

The lad called Phil suddenly looked up, his eyes wild with fright. “
I’ll
do it,” he said with sudden conviction. “What do you have to do?”

“Just tell Him so,” said David, coming close to the boy and drawing him down on his knees beside the bunk, kneeling with his arm around the lad, and so he began to pray for him: “Oh God, our Creator, who loved us all and sent Your own Son to take our sin upon Himself and die the penalty for it, as if He had been Himself the sinner, we are coming to You, because You have said You love us and want to save us, and we do not know any other way to be saved except to believe what You have said. We know that we are going out in a few minutes into what may be sudden death for us all, and we know no power on earth can help us. So we are casting ourselves on You knowing that You will do the best for us that can be, because You love us and have died for us. So take us, and make us, whether in life or in death, Yours to all eternity, because You have promised and we have believed that promise and are trusting ourselves to it.”

There was a brief pause, and David sat quietly. “Now, Phil, will you tell Him you accept Him as your personal Savior?”

Another pause, and then Phil’s low, solemn voice, scarcely heard above the sounds of engine and waves: “Lord, I’m believing You and I’m taking You for my Savior now and forever. I’ve done a lot of sinning, but You said You’d take care of that. Thank You. And now, whatever comes, I’m Yours, Lord. Amen.”

It had been very still there in the dim narrow bunk room. But one by one the other five fellows that were there had knelt down, and in a kind of group, with their faces buried in their folded arms. And as the two remained kneeling after their prayers, there came other voices.

“Lord, save me, too. I want my sins forgiven!”

“Lord, I’m afraid to die. Stay with me. Help me!”

“Oh God, I haven’t been very good. I haven’t pleased You, but won’t You forgive me, too?”

“Lord, I’m scared stiff! Get me ready to die, too, please.”

The man called Jim who had said he had no friend in God was the last to kneel down, and when he tried to speak his voice was broken with sobs: “Lord, I’ve been an awful sinner, and I’ve never believed or thought anything about You before, but here I am, and if You can do anything with me, Lord, save me!”

Then David’s clear voice took up the prayer: “Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief and save us in the midst of all this terror. To live, or die, Lord, we commit ourselves to You.”

Then from above them came a signal. It was time to go on duty. They all sprang up, a new look on their solemn faces, almost a smile on the face of the lad Phil as he brushed away a tear and gripped David’s hand, saying fervently, “Thank you!” and dashed away to take his place in the line of duty.

And the others, with frank tears still on their faces, came by David Kenyon and gripped his hand. “Thanks, Dave,” said one, “I’m all right now.” And they all felt, as they moved out to meet what the night had in store for them, that there was a bond between them that nothing would ever break, in time or in eternity.

And suddenly a great joy came to David, such as he had not dreamed there could be on a night of peril like this one. He felt as if the blessing of the Lord had been bestowed upon him. For there had never been a joy like this one, to know the wonder of leading those needy souls to know Him, to know what it was to have the Lord with them. They joy that came to his own soul to have all fear of death removed, and then to know that, living or dying, all was well with those other fellows, too. Was that what was meant by “the joy of the L
ORD
” in the Bible? Was it that He allowed His children to share in His own joy in saved souls who had accepted His wonderful salvation? His heart thrilled and thrilled again as he made his way out to the place where duty called him, praying as he went,
Oh Lord, help me to give the right orders at the right time. Show me how to do my whole duty tonight. And please order the outcome according to Your will.

A
ll that night the boys were out on duty under the sky, looking for enemy lights, and thinking. Now and again they looked up into the sky and sent their thoughts out to find God, to wonder at Him for making a way for them to be safe forever.

They walked the deck as if it were a sanctuary. For some of them, it was the first realization of a personal God that had ever come to their consciousness. As they met one another on duty, there was a grave, shy smile in their eyes, as if they belonged to some secret order. And later, before they took their rest toward dawn, they knelt in the dimness of the bunk room and then lay down to sleep, over the enemy-infested sea, with a quietness in their hearts that they had not known before.

Late in the next day, the enemy was sighted more than once, and when night came there were distant flashes and sounds of planes, vanishing and coming again.

The night was very dark. As the hours dragged by, not even a single star could be seen in the blackness above. David Kenyon, alone for the moment looking down at the deck, saw his comrades pacing back and forth and his heart rejoiced to think of them as they had knelt to His Christ. And they had all meant it, he was sure. Now, whatever came, he felt sure of seeing them all in the Father’s house above. His thoughts paused tenderly when he remembered that someday he might tell this all in a letter to Dale. Or perhaps tell her face-to-face if it pleased God to let him go home. Just now, of course, there was no opportunity to even send letters. His duty was imperative and all-absorbing. But how he would enjoy telling of those buddies of his and their surrender to his Savior!