January Dawn (16 page)

“What are you
doing up this late?” she asked.

“I can’t sleep. I’ve been staring at the ceiling fan for the past two hours.”

She rolled over to take a look at the ceiling fan and giggled. She had a nice laugh. Reserved, but endearing.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s funny, I was doing the same thing, but I was staring at the tree branch outside my window. What’s on your mind?”

“Everything.”

“Like?”

“I’m scared of what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

“I remember something my grandfather said to me to get me to fall asleep one night, when I was little. He said: ‘if you keep worrying about what’s to come, you’ll forget about all that’s already happened. Think of a happy memory and focus on that.’”

Think of a happy memory…
“What if I don’t have one?”

Without blinking an eye, she said, “We’ll just have to make one. Come on, I have an idea.”

She grabbed me by the hand and I followed her as we tiptoed down the hall, down the stairs and out the back door. We were out of the house so quick I didn’t even have time to change. All I had on was an undershirt and pair of military-issue boxers.

The moon was beaming in full, casting its menacing shadows upon the earth.

When we passed the barn, I looked back at the house to make sure we didn’t wake anyone up.
No lights. Good
.

At the tree line I asked, “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. Come on, keep up.”

I couldn’t see a thing as we weaved are way through the woods. I didn’t know if we were on a trail or not, but I was getting bushwhacked by branches, bushes and palm fronds. We ran across an open meadow, jumped over a few small creeks and continued on into another batch of woods. Tess let go of my hand and jogged ahead of me.

“Hey, Tess, wait up.”

She was gone. Disappeared in the southern Georgia coastal jungle.

There was a lurid
whooshing
sound up ahead. I followed it.

There it was again. It was getting louder.

And again.

The forest retreated before me and I could feel under my bare feet the grass giving way to sand. As far as I could see, in both directions, were mounds of sand covered in patches of grass that stood six foot tall.

Tess stood atop the mound in front of me, her back turned, and her eyes focused on whatever was making that
whooshing
noise.

“Tess.”

“It’s about time. Come up here.”

At the top of the mushy sand hill, I froze. There in front of me was the ocean, its waves lazily lapping at the beach. It looked like one giant diamond, with the moonlight sending countless glittering sparkles dancing across the surface of the water. I had always wanted to see the ocean and there it was, stretching into the blackish blue horizon.

“You told me you always wanted to see the ocean. What do you think?”

There were no words to describe what I thought. I settled for, “It’s beautiful.”

We sat down on the crest of the sand dune and looked out across the water.

“I’ve always loved the sound of the waves. It’s so soothing,” she said.

I picked up a handful of sand and let it run through the cracks in my fingers. It was soft and sugary and cool.

“I come out here some nights to get away from everything. Especially since Alex left for Basic. I’ve felt so alone without him here,” she said. “He’s my best friend. I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.”

“Alex is my best friend, too. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.”

She rested her head upon my shoulder and we listened to the orchestra of bugs chirping behind us.

“Can you promise me something?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“Bring Alex home in one piece. For my family.”

I’d lay my life down for him if I had to, but that was a promise I didn’t know if I could make.

Before I could answer, “Promise me something else,” she said. “Bring yourself home. For me.”

I think that deep down inside she knew the enormity of the promise she was asking. It was hopeful wishing at most.

“You have my word,” I said anyway.

Tess stood, brushed the sand off her legs, and walked toward the water.

“Where’re you going?”

“You came all this way to see the ocean, you might as well swim in it.”

Tess pulled her shirt over her head, tossed it to the ground and stepped out of her shorts. I stood there wide-eyed, staring at her nakedness. Her body mesmerized me, glistening in the moonlight. Every inch of her looked engraved in angelic youthfulness, from her soft, petite arms, up to her bony shoulders, down the tight arch of her back, across the smooth curve of her butt and on down to her muscled legs. She was perfect.

She looked teasingly over her shoulder and said, “You’re not scared of a little water are you, army dog?”

She bent over, wiggled out of her panties and continued walking into the surf. Even with the bright moon, the evening darkness played foul with my imagination and hid her most intimate spots in a shadowy obscurity. I felt a strong, tingling urge in my groin.

The tug in my heart was pulling me toward the water, but the insecurity in my head was telling me no.

When she noticed I hadn’t moved, she yelled back at me, “You know what the best part about being out here is? There’s no one around for miles. We have the beach to ourselves. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s here to tell us what we can and can’t do. We’re free to be who we are and nobody can say anything about it.” She spread her arms out wide and spun in circles basking in the freedom of the night.

Free to be who we are? And nobody to judge me by my past or by my scars? Let loose for once, Colton. This is your last night with her.

I stripped my clothes off and ran to the water with only the dog tags around my neck and my zeal for love cloaking my body. The cool night air pleasantly licked at my body from head to toe.

I picked Tess up in my arms midstride, slogged my way deeper into the surf and launched us into an oncoming wave. She came up laughing and smiling. And we did it again and again, diving into the oncoming waves and letting the flow take us halfway back to shore. The water was cold and salty, but extremely refreshing.

I allowed my body to float on top of the surface, closing my eyes and letting my mind flow with the effortless sway of the waves. For once in my life, I wasn’t cowering in fright or hiding from sight or running in flight. I was completely relaxed without a care in the world. Nothing could touch me. What a great feeling it was to finally be living
.

Tess playfully splashed a handful of water at me as I drifted. I sunk myself down into the water until just my eyes were above the surface.

“Oh no, no, no. Don’t you do that,” she said, backing away from me. The water line toyed with me as it constantly rose and fell a mere inch or two above her breasts. I dove under the water, swam toward her in the murky water, grabbed her by the leg and pulled her under. I could hear her muffled screams underneath the surface and feel her hands beating my head.

We both came up and wiped our eyes clean of the salt. My feet could just barely touch the bottom, but Tess, I noticed, was still treading water. I stepped closer to her and placed my hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and looked up to the sky. I could feel her sweet breath on my face.

“Look at ‘em, Colt. Look at all the stars. Don’t you wish you could be up there and be away from everything? You could have the whole universe to yourself.”

“I have all I want right here,” I said, brushing back a stray strand of hair that was hanging over her eyes.

She kissed me and I kissed back. The kisses were slow, deliberate, and tantalizingly palpable.

I placed my hands on her hips, too scared to move them. She realized my timidity right away, grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on her breasts. They were small, but satisfyingly pleasurable.

I slowly trailed my kisses across her cheek, down her neck, and over to her shoulder. She moaned with delight. Her wandering hands worked their way down from my chest. I flinched in surprised pleasure as she grabbed me.

“A little excited, huh?” she asked.

I kissed her, nibbled on her bottom lip and nodded.

“I can take care of that.” She wrapped her legs around me and I waded ashore with her in my arms, collapsing at the edge of the surf. The tail end of a wave stretched for our feet but missed by only a few inches, before retreating back into the ocean.

We laid side by side staring at each other, relishing the attraction of each other’s touch. I walked my fingers down her body, delicately brushing them across her warm skin.

She combed her fingers through my hair, kissed me on the neck and slowly nibbled on my ear.

“Take me,” she whispered.

I wasn’t holding anything back, not on my last night with her.
No insecurity. No misguided doubt. No fear. Live this moment, Colton.

The rest of that evening was pure emotion and mutual lust. I’ll always remember it as the night I made sweet, passionate love for the first time. I had never loved anybody like I did Tess. In a world where everyone was trying to harness the power of hate, Tess gave me a reason to show the warmth of my heart.

When the action ended with a rapturous explosion of ecstasy, we laid in the cool sand wrapped in each other’s arms, staring up at the stars and longing for eternity.

My earpiece chirped to life. Lieutenant Elroy’s voice sounded in my ear as if he was standing right next to me. “Tennpenny, report in.”

I was still getting used to the whole unit communication system. They trained us with them in Basic, but only for half a day.

I held down the transmit button on the microphone collar and said, “All clear so far, Lieutenant.”

Elroy had me on point in front of the entire company as we moved through the woods east of Bluffton, South Carolina trying to make contact with the enemy. Two nights ago, I was laying on the beach with the girl of my dreams and now I was standing at the forefront of the entire Ninth Infantry Division.

Oddly enough, as Tess and I were swimming in the ocean that night, the United States Army was invading the beaches thirty miles north and south of us, effectively netting the city of Savannah in a Pincer maneuver. By landing two invasion forces, they knew we would have to split our paltry forces to ward off both of the attacks.

We didn’t know where they would try to land. The element of surprise they had on us caused us to keep our forces staged well inland, ready to deploy whichever direction we were needed. This was a major disadvantage we had to hurdle. It would take time to deploy all our forces and time wasn’t a luxury we had enough of.

Once the landing beaches had been determined, all forces were mobilized. We rode out to meet the enemy head on. Yankees struck in the dead of night hoping to rake substantial territorial gains before our forces could develop a stalwart defense.

What they didn’t count on was the quick response by the Coast Watchers of the Georgia and South Carolina State Infantry. These brave soldiers stalled the invasion long enough for reinforcements to move into assist. The Coast Watchers gave it their all and sacrificed everything they had. Command eventually lost contact with them. They lasted nineteen hours.

I stepped with care. The rest of the company was fifteen yards behind me tracing my steps in a single file line. My heart drummed inside my chest. Every second, I expected to round a tree and meet a Yankee face to face.

My eyes darted back and forth through the trees. Every shrub, every shadow took the shape of an armed soldier. Every jagged branch was a deadly serrated bayonet waiting to pierce my gut. Every snapping twig was a platoon of soldiers waiting to ambush me. The hair on my neck stood on end. I kept my finger on the safety of my rifle, ready to flip it on full auto in a moment’s notice.

A misty fog cooled the sweat on my face, but also limited my range of visibility and gave the woods a mystic aura.

What am I doing out here?
Why did he put me on point?

“Keep your head on a swivel. We should be coming up on them soon,” my earpiece chirped.

Whatever predawn moonlight that made it through the tall trees cast an eerie blue-gray glow in the fog.
This is nuts.

Alex and I said goodbye to his family the day before. With heavy hearts, the whole gang came out on the porch to say their farewells. Sarah, Sam, Ben, Lucas, Tess and Mr. and Mrs. Redman. I’d miss them all terribly in the days to come. They had all been exceptionally kind to me, treating me like one of their own and allowing me to live in high cotton for a week.

I wanted to leave something for them, a present or a thank you note or something to show my gratitude for their hospitality, but I could think of nothing that was equivalent to what they did for me. I felt indebted with something I could not repay.

Little Lucas cried as we were leaving. As did Tess. She fought to hold back her sobbing. Her eyes swelled up with tears as she threw her arms around both of us and gave us each a kiss on the cheek. She promised to write to us.

Mrs. Redman was almost hysterical saying her goodbyes to Alex. I could tell she was more than happy to be rid of me though. Even so, I can say fairly well that I will miss her too. She was a good mother to her children and I respected that.

Mr. Redman shook our hands proudly. ”Don’t try to be heroes,” he said. “Keep your heads down, watch over each other and come home safe to us.”

I gave Lucas a reassuring hug and ruffled his hair like he liked me to do. When the goodbye came he grabbed ahold of my leg and refused to let go. Only when coaxed by the warm embrace of his sister did he let go.

With him hanging around her neck, Tess calmed him and patted his back. I took one last glance into her eyes that I loved to stare at so much, brushed my hand along her arm and left.

It hadn’t been twenty-four hours and how I longed to be back in that house, curled up under the covers in my comfy bed with Tess by my side.

I slid over a fallen tree, froze. A noise. There, in the bushes. I leveled my rifle hurriedly, ready to let fly. False alarm. Just an opossum scampering back home to his hole before the sun rose.

I tried to reason with myself. Telling myself I was prepared for anything. I learned my training from the very best. I was one of the best shooters in the company, I had all the gear I could possibly need, and if I needed them, Alex and the others were only a few steps behind.

When Alex and I reported to Fort Hampton, the base was humming with activity. We asked an MP what was going on and he told us about the invasion. We rushed to find our unit.

We had been assigned to Echo Company, Combat Infantry Brigade, Ninth Infantry Division. However, nobody seemed to know where anybody was in the jumbled chaos. Luckily, we found an officer who seemed to have part of his wits about him and he half-assly pointed us in the right direction.

At the barracks, Drill Sergeant Elroy berated us for being late and told us to gear up. Except now he was Lieutenant Elroy. A couple of guys we recognized from Basic told us that Elroy had forwent his duty as a drill sergeant for a commission as a Lieutenant. He wanted to lead his recruits into battle.

We changed into our combat uniform and slipped on our Kevlar vests and ballistic helmet. Our company commander lined us up in formation outside for roll call. He assigned us into platoons and squads and sent us off to the armory to get equipped. I was in Second Squad, Second Platoon under Lt. Elroy.

We entered the armory and loaded our belts and vests with everything from canteens to ammunition. In the next room, they handed us a preloaded backpack with binoculars, a gas mask, a mess kit, a raincoat, MREs, chemical lights, a flashlight, a first aid field kit, a compass, flint, a wool blanket and a foam sleeping pad, among many other things.

We barely had our packs shouldered before they ushered us into the arsenal and forced weapons into our hands. The armorer passed out H&K G36 rifles and Colt 1911 pistols to every soldier, except the machine gunners, who got the M249 light machine gun, a belt fed monster. There was a long row of tables stacked high with pyramids of grenades. We were allowed three fragmentation and two smoke grenades. When it was all said and done I was carrying over eighty pounds of gear.

After loading us onto trucks, we drove north through Savannah and then turned east toward Hilton Head Island where the Yankees had invaded. They unloaded us from the trucks two miles west of Bluffton and sent us the rest of the way on foot. There was no telling how far the enemy had moved inland since last contact.

What scared me the most was not hearing any gunfire, or aircraft, or explosions.
This must surely be some sort of elaborate training exercise.

The sun began to peak its tired eye over the horizon, filling the sky with brilliant streaks of orange and blue. All morning I feared I would walk right up on the enemy, but with the sun rising I could see further ahead through the scrub.

“Hold,” I said. There was an odd looking object about forty yards in front of me. It looked out of place. I leveled my rifle and zeroed in on it through the scope to try to identify it.

Maybe it’s a rock
. It was lying on the ground, but the fog obscured the shape.

“What do you see?” asked the Lieutenant.

“I don’t know, sir.” It was eerily quiet. There were no morning birds or insects or barking dogs. An unfamiliar ghostly feeling shimmied down my spine. Somebody was watching me.

I squinted at the object. There was something else lying beside it. This one was clearer to see. It had the same dome shape. It looked kind of like a…
helmet
.

The first shot whizzed by my head and left my ears ringing as I dropped to the ground and rolled behind the cover of a pine tree. The air erupted with the boisterous chatter of rifle fire.

“Contact. Contact,” I yelled over the comms.

“First Squad, move up on the left. Second, straight up the middle, meet up with Tennpenny. Third Squad, move up on the right. Fan out. Don’t get caught squatting, move.”

I barely heard the commands as a torrent of bullets zipped by, mincing the branches around me and covering me in shredded leaves and bark. I tucked my arms and legs in tighter as the ground around me exploded in small plumes of smoke and dirt.

My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest.
This is it
,
I’m going to die
. I had never been so terrified in my entire life. The entire earth around me was ripping and tearing. It was only a matter of time before those bullets found what they were searching for.
What a waste. Eight weeks of training to die in the first five minutes of my first firefight with the enemy.

Second Squad crawled their way forward through the hail of gunfire. A soldier I had barely known for less than twenty-four hours took cover behind the tree next to me. I didn’t know his name, but I could tell by how calm he was that he had been in this kind of trouble before.

“Pick up your fucking rifle,” he said and fired at the enemy.

My rifle
?

It was laying out in the open. I must have dropped it when I rolled for cover.
Elroy is going to chew me out for this.
A soldier was to never be without his rifle.

I reached out to grab it, but quickly gave up. There were too many bullets. The noise of the exchanging gunfire was unlike anything I had ever heard or felt. The successive concussive waves of air that fanned out in all directions after each shot fired flowed over me like a bucket of water would.

“Grab your fucking rifle and shoot the bastards.”

Alright. You can do this. Just grab it….one…two…three.

I lurched out, grabbed my rifle and got back behind the tree with the quickness of a rabbit being chased by a hungry snake.

I looked over at the soldier. He was lying on the ground, his eyes blankly staring at me. A thin trail of blood streaked across his face from a hole in his forehead. My stomach twisted and I could feel the vomit churning inside of me.

I couldn’t comprehend how fast his soul was stamped out. There one minute and gone the next. His body was there, but the man wasn’t. I tried swallowing some spit to help tide the urge to vomit.
What do I do?

I looked left and right to see if I could see Alex or anyone I knew.
Nobody.
First and Third Squad moved up on the flanks and were in the process of forming our line. The Yankees were giving us hell. The jolting rattle of rifle fire unsettled me. I looked desperately for the familiar and comforting faces of my friends. A warm wetness spread through my crotch and down my leg.

“Colton!”

I saw Alex crawling up behind a rotten log a few yards behind me. “Alex!”

“Cover me.”

Alright Colton, man up. You can do this.

I flipped the safety off my rifle.

Remember the promise you made to Tess.
I popped out from my cover and fired wildly at the enemy. Alex sprinted for cover behind the tree next to me. He was panting and trying to loosen his vest so he could breathe. He looked at the dead body between us with sheer fright.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He nodded.

“Are you?” Yes.
I think so.

“MGs lay down covering fire. All squads move up. Push the bastards back.” Elroy sounded like he was teaching a class in Basic. He didn’t have any hint of strain in his voice.

Beauregard came up behind us, installed his bipod on the rotten log and laid down controlled bursts from his machine gun. Hayes was behind him, cussing up a storm. Carrigan moved up to a tree a couple of yards to my right. She was sweating profusely and murmuring to herself.

With my friends surrounding me, my confidence returned, albeit shaky. I pressed the release button on my rifle and loaded a full magazine. Orders were orders.
Time to go
.

Our platoon laid down a screen of machine gunfire and grenades as we moved forward in a skirmish line. Alex and I stayed in a half crouch as we moved. Returning fire lightened up.

A minute later our fire stopped and the woods were quiet again.

The air was thick with the smell of gun smoke.

“Why’d they stop firing?” I asked.

“Maybe their retreating,” Alex said, without taking his eyes off the sight of his gun.

“Or dead,” I said, as we came upon a body. The soldier was sprawled out on his back. His face had been erased by a bullet.
So this is what a Yankee looks like
.
He looks ordinary enough
, except for the different colored uniform and the U.S. flag patch on his shoulder. But his face…I felt lightheaded and the churning knots in my stomach twisted tight again. A foul taste crept up into my mouth.