GI Brides (89 page)

There were tears in Charlie’s eyes when the reading of that letter was completed, and he said in a husky voice, “You have a wonderful mother, buddy. I wish mine could have known her. But they will someday know each other in heaven. And mine will be glad that your mother is praying for me. But I cannot thank her enough that she has given me news of my lovely girl. Somehow that makes me almost sure she has not forgotten me. That she still loves me.”

It was more as if Charlie were talking to himself, but Walter answered him, his voice half indignant.

“Of course she loves you, you poor simp! Could anybody forget you, Charlie?”

Charlie grinned.

“Not everybody is as foolish as you, kid,” he said in the old teasing way.

“Well, I’ll be willing to wager your girl is, anyway, if I’m foolish.”

But Charlie’s definite interest in getting well dated from the reading of that letter.

Before that, Charlie had talked only of the time he would be able to go back into service, always with that solemn keen look of going into death once more. Not that he seemed to mind the death part. It was the job he had undertaken. But when he had spoken of it there was always that weary look around his eyes, as if he were too tired yet to be eager for it, though more because of being too tired to do the job right, rather than with the dread of making death his daily companion once more. Charlie wasn’t really afraid of death anymore. His intrepid spirit had taken firm hold of the One who had conquered death. But his wearied body wasn’t yet up to the alertness he needed to go back.

And one day he asked the doctor, “Doc, when do I go back and help get this enemy licked? Seems to me I’m getting pretty lazy lying around here admiring myself.”

The doctor gave him a keen, admiring, amused look.

“Not for a while yet, Lieutenant. You see, you have to give the other fellow a chance to get some of the stars and hearts and medals of honor. You can’t just think you alone can do the whole job of conquering the world. No, fella, your duty is to stay here awhile yet. And when I’m through with you, and can give you a clean bill of health, I think you’re due for a furlough. You ought to go home and rest up awhile, get built up, before you talk about going back and trying any more of your special kind of treetop antics.”

That talk came just the day before Mrs. Blake’s letter. And that letter brought Blythe so clearly before him, made him think that Blythe just
might
still be loving him, and made him sick with longing to see her again. From that time forth he began to ponder on what it would be like to go home again.

Somehow it had been as if he had closed the door definitely on the thought of any life for them together on this earth when he came away expecting to die. But now, was there still such a possibility for them?

With the thought of going back home, questions came crowding that he had never permitted himself to think of before. As long as his future was held by death, he had a definite feeling that Blythe was his. But if he went back, alive and fairly well, everything would be changed. Or would it? There would be the question of what attitude her parents would take. Even of what attitude she herself would take when she saw him again. There would, of course, be the question of marriage, the natural, normal outcome of loving; the usual, honorable matter of asking a girl to marry when you had told her of your love. It was one thing to admit love for a poor fellow who was going out to die, but it might be quite another thing to marry him if he came back. Was her love great enough for that? What had he to offer her? A broken, weakened body, and a life that was all disorganized. Could he take care of her like such a girl ought to be cared for? He hadn’t contemplated his own possible return to normal life again, although she had said she was praying for it, and his mind had been so thoroughly filled with the idea that he must die that he had kept the thought of such joy for himself out of his mind. He knew if he dwelt on such a possibility it would unnerve him for the work he had to do, and he had vowed to be a conqueror. He must not let anything stand in the way of putting his very best into his job of helping to make the world free from tyranny.

For a couple of days after Walter read him his mother’s letter, Charlie was very quiet and thoughtful, and at last one day Walter, who had an uncanny way of reading his idol’s mind, asked a question right out of the blue. He asked it quite casually, as if it were not very important, but he waited breathlessly for the answer.

“You two going to get married when you go back home?”

Charlie gave him a startled look, and then in a minute answered quietly:

“We hadn’t talked about marriage,” he said. “I was going out to die, not to come back. All that has passed between us was on that basis.”

“Sure,” said Walter, as if he thoroughly understood. “But that doesn’t count now. God’s letting you go back. And my mom always told me that the right kind of a guy asked a girl to marry him when he told her he thought a lot of her. It sort of implies that, doesn’t it, when you tell a girl you love her?”

Charlie was still for a long time. Then he said, “But I’ve got to be sure she still cares. The situation is changed, you know.”

“Oh sure,” said Walter like a connoisseur in marriage, “but you know she does. You’ve got to take all that for granted. You’ve got to trust she’s got the same kind of love you have for her. Why wouldn’t she care, I’d like to know? You’re the same guy that went away, only you’re ten times grander. You’ve got citations and things, and you’re a lot wiser, I suppose. ‘Course, she cares just the same, only more perhaps.”

Walter was embarrassed, but he felt it was something that ought to be said. But the silence this time was longer still as Charlie considered his future.

At last Walter burst forth with another question.

“Aren’t you going to write to her? You can, now, you know. They send mail out from here every day. I think you ought to think of her and how she must long to hear from you. Mom seems to think she cares an awful lot. You could at least let her know you’re still alive.”

At last Charlie said thoughtfully, “I suppose I could. I hadn’t realized. I’ve looked on myself as dead so long. Well, bring on your implements. Got a pencil and paper? I don’t know what kind of a stab I’ll make at writing, with this arm still bandaged, but I can try.”

So Walter brought the writing materials, and noted a lighting of Charlie’s eyes as he set about writing.

It wasn’t a long letter, for the right hand was pretty well hampered yet by bandages to help support the wounded shoulder, but he finished it, and lay back with his eyes shut while Walter hastened to mail it. Charlie lay there thinking over what he had written, wondering if it was the right thing. He still had a feeling that perhaps he was presuming to come back from the dead this way. They had planned on meeting in heaven, yes, but what of this earth? Would that change the situation for her? He still was greatly conscious of her wealthy parents, for whom he had much reverence of her social position, and delicate rearing. Somehow those things had seemed to fade away when he held her in his arms, when he wrote her those letters, but now, after his long-enforced silence, they had returned. And so he had written briefly, out of his own heart-hunger, yet still protecting her from even his love.

After the letter was gone, Charlie got to worrying about it. Just the act of writing it had given him the touch with Blythe that he needed to bring him back to normal again. Perhaps his letter had been unworthy of a real trust in the love she had given him. And yet he had to give her the chance to speak plainly. Perhaps he ought to have waited until he could ask her face-to-face. It had been a weakness in himself to write that letter. He should have waited till he got back, but somehow he shrank from bearing the uncertainty all that time on the way home. Well, he had evidently grown soft. It hadn’t been fair to the great love she had promised him that he should have written, so he would write her again at once, taking it for granted that she loved him as he loved her.

And so he wrote another letter and filled it with his great love and told her of the joy that the thought of her was bringing him, and that he might hope to see her at some time not too far off.

When Walter came back from mailing the other letter he had the second one ready, and Walter rushed out to see if it could still be gotten into that day’s mail. When he returned he found Charlie with his face wreathed in smiles.

“God is good, isn’t He, Walt?” he asked in his old cheery way. “I hadn’t thought there was anything yet ahead on this earth for me, but now I see God is handing it out to me, and I’ve been too self-centered to hold up my hands and take it. Thank you for your part in showing me what I was doing. Bless you!”

And so the joy light came back into Charlie’s eyes, and his recovery became more marked day by day.

“Boy!” You really are going some!” said the doctor when he came in to see him one afternoon. “I think I can soon give you a clean bill of health. I’m writing your captain today, and I’ll tell him. Maybe your orders will be coming along soon. Do you still want to get back to your job?”

A sudden blank look came over Charlie’s face for a minute, but then the brightness surged back.

“Why, yes, if I can go back, I want to go. I want to be a conqueror. Of course, you had got me all steamed up to get home for a while first, but if I’m needed back in action I’m ready to go.”

“Good boy!” said the doctor happily. “I knew you were a conqueror. You certainly have the victory over yourself more than anybody I know. Ready to go back, even when you were all set to get home. Well, don’t worry, we’re not sending you back at present. You’re to go home. I got the orders this morning, and you can begin to get ready. Your plane reservations are all secured. You start day after tomorrow, and your buddy goes with you. So there you are. And I understand your citation for a purple heart is on the way. Now, are you satisfied?”

“Me? A purple heart?” said Charlie, grinning. “What have I done? I came out here to conquer the enemy, and I haven’t done that yet.”

“Well, you did a good deal toward it, I understand, and your time has come to rest a bit now, so get ready to go. We’ll all miss you here. You’ve kept the place cheery, both of you, and by the way, Walter gets a silver star.” And the doctor’s smile included Walter.

So then, as soon as Walter knew definitely, he went out and sent a cable to his mother. And his mother, dear soul, hurried over to tell Blythe.

The cable reached the hometown even before the two letters, and the entire Bonniwell household was filled with a great joy. Blythe beamed like a ray of sunshine, her mother seemed happy and content, and her father made quaint jokes and looked up ships and times of plane landings. They would telephone when they reached New York, Walter had said.

So Father Bonniwell arranged to take the family and Mrs. Blake to New York to meet the conquering heroes and take them home. There hadn’t been so much joy in the Bonniwell home for years, for all of them were looking forward to knowing and loving the new son whom they had never seen.

And Mrs. Blake was overjoyed at the pleasure of going with them to meet Walter. It was greater happiness than she had ever counted on having on this earth.

As the great ship of the air started on its final lap toward home, Charlie grew very silent. All his “inferiority complex” as Walter called it, returned upon him, and he began to think what a terrible thing it would be if Blythe had lost her love for him during the long absence. How was he going to bear it? His solemnity grew with each hour they flew across the great, wide sky.

At last Walter came over to him as he sat staring out at the sky, and said, “Hey, Lieutenant! Seems to me you’ve lost your faith!”

“Lost my faith? What do you mean, Walt? I still have my faith, thank the Lord.”

“Oh no,” said the younger soldier. “You haven’t! You don’t think God is able to carry this thing through to the winning. You think God would take all this trouble to get you well and bring you back, and then let you lose in the final inning? That isn’t like you, Lieutenant.”

Charlie looked at him, astonished. Then he smiled.

“I guess you’re right, kid. I didn’t trust, did I? I’m not much of a conqueror, after all. I set out to win, but I lost faith. Well, from now on, there’s to be no more of that. I’m trusting to the end. I’m putting myself into God’s hands to do with as He wills. I guess He who began it is able to carry it through, and I’m ready to leave it with Him.”

A smile of satisfaction rested on the younger soldier’s lips as he repeated, smiling, “More than conqueror, through Him that loved us.”

A little while later they got out at the airport, and there were the dear ones waiting for them, and Charlie hadn’t any more doubt about whether he was wanted.

There stood Blythe, watching for him to come, and she went straight to his arms like a homing bird, and was folded close, regardless of interested watchers. In fact, the whole family had a beautiful glimpse of the lovelight on those two faces, and all their hearts were rejoicing that it was so.

Walter was folded in his happy mother’s arms, too, and presently Charlie and Blythe came out of their spell long enough to introduce the new son to his new father and mother, and the Bonniwells felt that their cup was full. This young soldier was as good, if not better-looking than the pictures of him they had seen, and his whole attitude was just what they had been led from his letters to expect.