Love is a Wounded Soldier (15 page)

“Please don’t cry,” I said, trying not to
sound emotional. “I’ll come back.”

“But what if you don’t?” she said, her
voice quavering. I didn’t want to answer that, so I just let the question hang
about us like a smoke that makes for watery eyes.

“Supper time,” she said finally, clearing
the air with her words and wiping her cheeks with the corner of her apron. I
followed her in and washed up.

“Looks like you killed the fatted calf for
me,” I joked, seeing the spread she had laid out on the table, but morbidly
thinking I might have been more accurate in calling it a meal for a man
condemned to the gallows. I looked at the ham, potatoes, biscuits, and
vegetables that patiently steamed on the table, and wondered if this wouldn’t
be the best meal I’d have in a long, long while.

We sat down and bowed our heads to give
thanks for the food. I prayed for my protection, I prayed Ellen would be safely
taken care of while I was away, and when I finally said “amen” after an
unusually lengthy prayer, Ellen smiled at me with tearful eyes and said, “You
forgot to bless the food!”

We ate leisurely, talking about trivial
things in between the lengthy pauses where we both thought about what the other
was thinking. I avoided looking her in the eye, because all I saw was sadness
there.

I had two pieces of apple pie for dessert,
and helped Ellen clean things up, which I didn’t usually do, but I just felt
like we should be together as much as possible. We both talked tenderly to each
other, in subdued tones, as though someone had just died or we were trying not
to wake a baby. She had all my clothes washed and folded, and helped me pack my
bags, since I would have to leave for Gatlinburg early the next morning.

We made love that night. It was an
intercourse of souls, a copulation of emotion, a meshing of flesh and spirit
unlike anything we’d ever experienced before. We cried unabashedly, laughed
heedlessly, both seemingly determined to leave the other more ravished than
ourselves. And then, when the fires had burned low, and rapture gave way to
contented sighs, we talked. We talked about the past. We talked of silly things
that lovers talk about. We talked about our future in words carefully chosen to
eradicate any doubt that there would be a future together. And when words no
longer sufficed, we clasped hands and spoke through tightly clenched fingers.

“Robbie?” she said, as I lay soberly,
piercing the darkness with unblinking eyes.

“Yes, my love,” I acknowledged her with a
squeeze.

“Well, there are a lot of girls out there,”
she began. She halted, as though she needed a little time to gather up the
appropriate words.

“Yes, dear, that you have rightly judged,”
I inserted a teasing reply as she blew open the dam on her stream of thought.

“You’re gonna stay faithful to me, won’t
you?” she blurted out. It was something I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to discuss.
I myself had spent the past 10 minutes pondering how I’d survive without her
love. “Who knows how long you’ll be gone,” she continued softly. “There will be
so many temptations out there,” she ended tearfully, and sniffled.

“I’ll be back before you hardly know I’m
gone,” I assured her with what I hoped to be a confident tone, “and I’m all
yours until then.” I felt her prop up her head on one hand, and could feel her
sweet, warm breath on my face.

“Tell me you promise,” she whispered over
me, her voice uncertain.

“I promise,” I vowed.

“Say, ‘I promise I will be faithful to
you,’” she instructed firmly.

“Didn’t I promise that on our wedding day?”
I laughed nervously.

“Say it!” she ordered forcefully.

“I promise I’ll be faithful to you,” I
repeated. She let out a long breath and her lips gently felt for mine in the
darkness. She left me alone to contemplate, with the taste of her salty
sweetness on my lips. I prayed I’d left her a son.

~~~

“I’m not hungry,” I pushed my plateful of
food forward during breakfast the next morning. I looked over the peak of the
mountain of food Ellen had prepared, and saw her picking uninterestedly at her
own plate.

“Me neither,” she said quietly.

My insides flipped and jumped in an effort
that would have won them favor with the Ringling Brothers.

We got ready to catch the train in silence.
We communicated through sad eyes and thin smiles all the way to Gatlinburg.

I had hoped to leave her words. Words to
cling to, words to tuck away and fortify her heart with on lonely nights.
Perfect words. Words I could write down and mail off to Hollywood. Words they
could stuff into the mouth of some movie star to complete a tear-jerking
parting scene, where a perfect man whispers the perfect words into the perfect
ear of a perfect woman. But life is unscripted, and there is no take two, and
so we stood on the station platform, silently swaying in each other’s arms. An
irreverent sun beamed down brightly on our somber farewell. I drank deeply from
her lips, as a man drinks from the last oasis for a thousand miles. Her touch
and taste weakened my will to leave. But my resolve to return alive took life
from her every breath.

“Don’t cry,” she told me, wiping a wayward
tear from my cheek. Her reservoir of tears had quietly drained on our way to
the station, and so she comforted me, dry-eyed and staid. She took my head in
her hands and kissed my forehead.

“Don’t forget to come back to me,” she
jested softly.

“I promise,” I smiled weakly.

“I love you,” we spoke in unison.

The locomotive belched impatiently. I
wrenched my grip from Ellen’s arms and picked up my bags off the weathered,
wooden platform. She held her hat in both hands as I boarded the train. I
turned, smiled, and winked from the top step. She had a blue ribbon in her
hair.

The black and white clouds of smoke from
the train’s engine drifted over top of the cars as we huffed and puffed toward
Fort George G. Meade, a basic training post near Odenton, Maryland, to join the
116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division.

I made acquaintance with a few of the men
around me. Most of the fellows I traveled with were farmers, coal miners,
loggers, and the like. Tough men with rough hands and stout hearts. Most of
them would be assigned to other companies, but one of them, Johnny Snarr, would
end up in mine.

Johnny was quiet, morose, even, with dull
blue eyes that smoldered like the ever-present, continually lit cigarette that
stuck to his bottom lip. He sat hunched forward, squinting distantly through
lazy rings of smoke, hands clasped, as though oblivious to our conversations or
the fact that the ash on the end of his cigarette grew and fell off without
benefit of being flicked by a finger.

“Where ya from?” a talkative chap I
remember only as Rollins finally attempted to include Johnny in the
conversation. Johnny stared into the swirl of blue smoke as though he had to
think about it.

“Jacksboro way,” he finally answered, not
looking up.

“Ya married?” Rollins ventured another
question. Johnny allowed another silence, something I’d later learn he almost
always did.

“Yup,” he replied slowly, as though he had
to chew his words before spitting them out. His habit of delayed response
seemed to be a tactic in discouraging conversation. It worked. Rollins got the
hint and turned his attention to other topics. Johnny leaned back and closed
his eyes, interrupting his nap only to butt out his stubby cigarette and light
another.

I looked out the window. The sun shone
through the wispy lace of locomotive smoke that scuttled along behind the
stack, making shadows on the ground. I missed Ellen.

It was dark when we pulled into Odenton.
Some of us had dozed off, but most everyone was groggy. We looked curiously out
the windows. Many of us had scarcely been out of our hometowns, never mind out
of state, so there was a good deal of curiosity and anticipation at seeing what
lay out in the darkness.

We detrained, and were marched to the
nearby barracks. The poor lighting afforded us little opportunity to get a good
look at the place, but what we did see wasn’t particularly impressive;
everything looked like a work in progress. Instead of grass, sand surrounded
our unpainted, pine-clad barracks. This was our new home.

It took me some time to fall asleep that
night. I just lay there, staring up into the blackness and thinking a thousand
scattered thoughts. Thoughts about home and Ellen, thoughts about what the next
day would bring, but mostly, thoughts about the chap two cots over who sounded
like he had a buzz saw lodged in his nostril. I stifled the urge to smother him
with his pillow, and instead, covered my own head with mine.

The next day started with a jolt. We met
our commanding officer, Captain Jefferson Ross, a tall Yankee that was almost
skinny looking, but made of rawhide. He appeared to be angry at nothing in
particular and everything in general. He quickly earned the nickname “Old Lizard
Gizzard” from us, although no one would have dared say it to his face.

“You will march when I say march, you will
stand when I say stand, you will shit when I tell you to shit, and you won’t
wipe your ass until I say!” he barked at us that first morning, neatly summing
up the scope of choice-making we were afforded. It seemed his motto was “Never
talk if you can shout, never shout if you can scream.” His harsh, brusque style
was not so much his personality, but a tool he’d used so long to crush the will
of his recruits; I wondered if he ever got out of character, even in his
personal life. Any opportunity to get in your face and humiliate you in front
of your entire company was seized with relish. His obscenity-ridden tirades
served to squelch any thoughts we might have that we knew better than he did.
It was one hell of a baptism of fire. It sure made it easy for a fellow to get
homesick. The longing for home was reflected in the first letter I wrote to
Ellen.

~~~

May 27th, 1941,
Fort George G. Meade, Maryland

Dear Darling,

I hope this
letter finds you well. I’m doing as reasonably well as I can be, being away
from you.

We’ve settled into something of a
routine here at Odenton. The place is run with the military structure I
expected. There are few surprises in our regimen, and when there are, they’re
seldom pleasant.

We sleep on steel cots, 20 men to a
room. Needless to say, I’m still not used to sleeping in an open space with 19
other snoring men. Last night, one of the fellows woke me with his sleep talking.
In my sleep-muddled state, I reached for the warmth of your body. It made me
sad when you weren’t there. I miss the smell of your hair.

They feed us fairly well. The hard
training makes us hungry, so we wolf down whatever they put in front of us without
tasting it, which is for the best, since your cooking has me somewhat spoiled,
I suspect. One fellow said the food here beats the pants off the stuff his wife
makes. I pity the poor chap if that is really the case!

It’s been interesting meeting fellows
from different states. Most of the lads are first rate; I could see myself
becoming good chums with some of them. For most of the officers, however, there
is little love lost. I suspect many times the men would as soon go to war
against the officers as the Nazis.

Other than that, there is little else
new to share. Please write me diligently, whether you have news or not. I want
to hear of every thought you think and every emotion you feel. I don’t want to
worry about you, but I do. I feel so powerless to be of any help to you, being
so far away, but hope you sense my love over the miles, and draw strength and
fortitude from it to meet the challenges of the day.

Please don’t be lonely. My spirit never
left you. I left it behind to dry your tears of sadness, keep you company on
the garden swing, hold your hand when you watch the sunset, and warm you on
cold nights. I hope you feel my nearness.

I don’t know what else to say, except I
miss you. The tie that binds my heart to yours, that lasso with which you snared
my affections, is pulled ever tighter the further I am dragged from you, and
the pain sharpens. Every day I face is just another obstacle in my path back to
you. Something to be gotten out of the way. Each moment is another step toward
your arms. Another step toward caressing your body with kisses, sharing a meal
together in contented silence, or enjoying the simple pleasure of each other’s
company in the mundane drudgery of everyday tasks. I miss walking barefoot on
the grass with you in the coolness of the night, feeling the thick green carpet
tickle my feet. Lying down together and gazing at the stars. Finding our own
constellations and telling our own silly stories about them. I miss feeling
your hot breath drive away the cool night air around my face. The air nipping
at us until we finally succumb to shivering and walk back to the house, hand in
hand. I miss reaching for the warmth of your hand. Even when all around,
everything was cold to the touch, I could always reach out with certainty. Your
hand was always there, radiating heat and love. And I reach for it still. It is
an absolute, like the stars, something I believe to be there, even when time or
space or circumstances don’t allow me to see it. I love you, Ellen.