GI Brides (88 page)

“And now,” said Mr. Bonniwell, “wouldn’t it be nice, Mother, if Charlie should walk in someday?”

“Indeed it would!” said the mother in a fervent sincere tone. “Someday
very soon.
”

“Oh Daddy! Mother!” said Blythe, and suddenly sat down on a low stool between her father and her mother, and broke into happy tears. Then lifting a rainbow smile she said, “That’s the sweetest, dearest thing you could have said.”

T
he men were very tenderly lifting Charlie, though most of them believed he was already beyond help. But there was something about Walter’s almost reverent handling of him, the way he looked at him, that caused them to walk cautiously. And when they learned who he was, that he was the guy who had given his life to make sure they would have the right information about the enemy; when they knew he had been living for weeks, hustling from one treetop to another and back down to his marvelous contrivance underground; that he had brought the right intelligence and made possible the several victories, one after another, through which they had been working; the guy that hadn’t stopped for sleep, nor had much to eat, and had just gone on making it possible for them to win as they had done, there was no man there but would have done much for Charlie. They knew there were heroes among them, they had seen some of them, dying for the cause for which they were fighting, but this one in endurance and terrible persistence of self-sacrifice had outdone them all. His name, they knew, would go down in history as a great one. He had all but accomplished the impossible.

They came solemnly and brought Charlie to their captain, and he gave one look.

“Is he still living?”

One nodded.

Then the doctor:

“This man might have a chance if we could get him to the hospital, but here, there isn’t a chance.”

“Would he live to get there?”

“I doubt it. He
might.
”

The captain’s glance rested on Walter, and his eyes kindled.

“Get him there!” said the captain quickly. “Where’s Graham?”

“Took his truck down to the base with a load of wounded men.”

“
I’ll
get him there, Captain, if I have to carry him myself.” said Walter, looking at the captain eagerly, determinedly.

A tender smile played over the captain’s face.

“
You couldn’t,
son.”

“Yes sir, I could, if there wasn’t any other way. He’s
got
to be saved! There’s a girl, Captain, and she
cares.
”

“I understand,” said the captain. “
We all
care. He must be saved, but it will be easier for him another way. Call Michelli. You couldn’t stand carrying anyone that far.”

“I
could
—” said Walter with deep earnestness.

“Do you know, Captain,” spoke up one of the guards who had been with them when Walter brought the wounded man to the top of the ridge, “I believe he
could.
If it hadn’t been for Walt, he wouldn’t be here now. He carried him all the way up the ridge on his shoulder.”

“Yes,” nodded the others. “He was
swell.
Just as careful!”

The captain’s eyes glowed warmly.

“He
would
,” he said in a soft voice. And then as Michelli came up and saluted, he turned and gave quick orders then turned back to Walter.

“You go with him,” he said. “Stay by him as long as he needs you. And Michelli, see that the doctor looks Blake over, too. He has blood on his sleeve. Has he been hurt?”

“Just a sniper’s bullet grazed me. It’s nothing,” said Walter.

“Have it attended to at once. We can’t take chances with our best men!” The captain’s voice was warm as he said it. “Now, go!”

The little interlude in the day’s battle was over, the brief time when the captain had time to show his own human heart. The men talked out of his presence thoughtfully, saluting the man as well as the officer. A moment more and Charlie was on his way to any hope there might be for recovery, his head and shoulders resting in Walter’s arms. Walter felt that the privilege of a lifetime was his now, and tenderly he performed any little service that was to be done. His heart was swelling with thankfulness that the captain had let him go.

Oh, God,
he kept praying in his heart,
it’s up to You now. Please remember Your promises!
And then he looked down at the white face and the closed eyes of Charlie, his hero. It certainly looked hopeless, but there was God. God could do
any
thing.

The days that followed were solemn days. The fighting was still going on in the distance. The enemy had returned with reinforcements and renewed the battle, and wounded men were being brought in constantly. They gave an account of what had happened. They said the man who had taken Charlie’s place was not as good, not as thorough, did not always get his information across in time to save the situation. They spoke in high terms of Charlie’s exceptional work in the intelligence line, told what the captain had said about him. But Charlie was still lying unconscious in the curtained alcove that was as near to privacy as the primitive hospital afforded, and did not hear, nor care. Charlie was still hovering on the border, and there was sharp doubt as to whether he would not yet slip away from them. The wound had been a deep one, and complicated, and the hospital supplies were scant. There were so many things against his recovery. It was pitiful.

Walter listened to all the veiled talk about it and sharply understood. It meant so much to him that Charlie should get well. It would mean so much to the girl—that is, it ought to. Oh, was she good enough for him? Charlie was so wonderful!

Although Walter’s own less serious wound proved an unpleasant experience, he was not interested in himself. He desired to make little of his part in this affair. Yet the doctor persisted in dressing the wound carefully and asking questions.

“You know, you may still be wanted for something important, boy,” he said, “and you don’t want this thing to get infected.”

So Walter submitted, though he felt that he would rather the doctor would tell him more about the possibilities in Charlie’s case than to waste time on him.

But there came a day at last when the frown on the doctor’s brow smoothed out as he came to look at Charlie, and Charlie’s “valet,” as the soldiers now called Walter, felt hope springing very faintly in his heart.

“This wound is in better shape than I ever hoped it could be,” said the doctor. “Now we can really begin to work on other things.”

And Walter smiled, a broad beam, just like sunshine.

But it was a slow process, that recovery. For Charlie was really very, very weary. He had gone without food so often, either because he hadn’t time to replenish his pellets or he felt what did it matter whether he ate when there was urgent work to do that might make all the difference in the world which way the battle went. You see, Charlie was fighting his part of the war as if he were the
only
soldier, and he
had
to make it to victory. He simply had to, whether he died or not, just so he lasted as long as he should be needed.

That idea had been so thoroughly ingrained into his mind that Charlie hadn’t looked forward to anything after he was once in action, except to die when the time came. And he knew he was ready to die, so there was nothing to worry about. But as good a soldier as that setup made him, it did not conduce to build up a fine physique, though Charlie really used to have a very fine physique. The only trouble was he thought it could last forever, at least as long as it was needed.

Intensive feeding was the order of the day now, and little by little this was having its effect on the weary man who lay there with closed eyes and no apparent interest in what went on about him. So there did come a morning when Charlie opened his eyes and looked up at the young soldier who was feeding him, and smiled. Vaguely at first. Then, as he looked still harder and began to get the lines of the face and figure of the soldier standing beside him, he smiled again. More definitely. Then he spoke, in the old quizzical tone:

“That’s you, Walt, old pal! How’d you get here?”

Walter grinned and winked.

“Same way you did, Charlie. Eat your breakfast and don’t talk. Them’s orders, see?”

Charlie swallowed another mouthful, studied his young friend, and then spoke again:

“You in my outfit?”

“Something like that, buddy.”

“I see. Well, how’d
I
get here? What happened?”

“Nothing to fret about. Captain just gave you a new location for a time.”

Charlie looked thoughtful.

“Yes, I’m beginning to remember. They got me while I was taking a drink of water. Right?”

“Right.”

“Had to climb the ridge. Couldn’t make it without a drink. But how did I get up? Did I make it after getting hit?”

“Yep. You made it.”

Charlie studied his face a minute.

“But I didn’t make it alone, you old rascal. How did I get up?”

“Oh, I happened along, and we made it together. You see, I’d been hit, too. Some sniper got me. Now, finish this soup and don’t talk anymore or the doc will put me off duty.”

That was the beginning of sanity again for Charlie, and the doctor was greatly pleased at the way the patient was responding to the treatment. But there was still a long way ahead, and Walter, to his delight, found himself detailed especially to look after Lieutenant Montgomery, and keep him quiet enough to really recover.

Of course the first question Charlie wanted to ask as soon as he began to get his bearings was, “How was the battle going when you left?” And Walter had his instructions on that subject, too.

“You are not to discuss the war. Tell Charlie,
when
he
asks
—no sooner—that
he
saved the day for us, and left the enemy in full retreat. Tell him Wheatly took over his work, what there was to do. Say it just that way, and you don’t know any other details, see?”

That was really very well at first, but Charlie had too bright a mind, and was himself too vitally concerned, to be satisfied with no further details, and soon he was asking on every hand. It had, however, been made a rule of the hospital that the details of war were not to be discussed among the patients, so that helped. The patients were told that it would help in their recovery to keep their minds entirely off the harrowing details of what they had been through. So Walter was able to keep a pleasant countenance and be as indefinite as the doctor wanted him to be. In due time Charlie began to relax and to think of something else besides climbing trees and discovering enemy’s secrets and crawling into holes in the ground to broadcast them to his officers who were waiting to know what they ought to do next.

And then one day Walter got a letter from his mother that greatly cheered the way. How it had found him he didn’t know, for of course he hadn’t been allowed to tell in his own letters where he was at the time, but it was wonderful to have a letter come wandering across the world and find him, even when he wasn’t with his own unit. It was as if God had sent it—God, the only One who really knew where he was, and how he needed it.

“They can call it the army if they like,” he said as he sidled up to the chair near Charlie’s bed, “or they can name it the government if they want, but
I
say it’s God that saw to it that I got this letter. Would you like to hear a little of it?”

“Swell, buddy! Anything from the hometown would be good to me.”

“Okay. Mom’s letters are always interesting I think. And I know she wouldn’t mind you hearing them. She knows you, you know, so you can call it part your letter. Okay, here it is.