Love is a Wounded Soldier (20 page)

 As if gauging the hesitation I showed as
weakness, she struck like a cobra. She pulled my head toward her and rooted her
lips in mine. Oh, how I wanted her! My resolve was a castle of sand, and I
allowed her hand to guide mine over the heaving swell of her chest and the flat
of her belly. Her other hand played with the chain around my neck as each of
her kisses dragged me recklessly closer and closer to the point of no return.

Clink
. She
probably didn’t even hear it. But I did.

Clink clink
.
As she toyed with my chain, my dog tags clinked against my wedding band, which
I also kept on the chain. Even as I continued kissing her, my thoughts were now
not on her kiss, but on a promise I’d made to Ellen, a promise to be faithful
that I’d almost forgotten.

Clink!
It
wasn’t a clink to me anymore. It was a clang. A thunderous peal from a gong. A
clashing of cymbals! What was I doing?! I wrenched my lips from hers with the
strength it would have taken to pull them from a vise.

“No!” I almost shouted. She looked startled
and dismayed.

“But I want you, darling!” she said
forlornly. “Don’t you want me?” she looked at me with pleading puppy dog eyes.

“No,” I lied firmly, still trying to sell
myself on the notion.

“Well, you sure seemed to a minute ago,”
she pointed out, looking down where my khaki pants appeared ready to split the
seams.

“The tail is wagging, but the dog is
barking, and I’m not sure which end to believe,” she jested, a little
mockingly.

“I’m married. You’re married,” I stated the
obvious. “You know it’s not right.”

She laughed, as though I’d just mentioned
some trifling obstacle.

“Bobby, honey, do you know how far it is to
North Africa?” she quizzed me with a patient smile.

“Not precisely,” I admitted.

“About the same distance it is to America.
And that was a long ride, wasn’t it, sweetheart?” she smiled patronizingly, and
waited as though it would take me time to grasp the import of what she’d just
said. I just shrugged.

“No one will ever know!” she said in an
intense whisper, grabbing my leg and shaking it. “It will be our little secret.
Our very scrumptious secret, you handsome young devil!” she smiled and drenched
me with a come-hither look.

“Now come to bed,” she said with authority.
I tried to avoid looking at her as I stood to leave.

“I’m going to bed, but not with you. I’m
sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I was apologizing.

She switched from demanding back to
pleading, salaciously moaning the words she spoke as though she were being
tormented. “Please, darling! I love you!” she entreated to my back.

Mounting the stairs, I hurried to my room,
like Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife. I shut the door behind me and held my
breath as I listened to see if she was pursuing me further. It was quiet, so I
let out my breath and breathed fast and deep.

I lay on the bed. My head rushed. My body
was a torn battleground, exhausted from the clash of chemicals and character, a
struggle of want and will. The taste of her kiss lingered on my lips, but I
didn’t have the willpower to wipe it off. I liked it! I wanted it! The lust in
me was enraged that I had rejected her. The frustration in me built, and I felt
like driving my fist into the wall. I hated myself for wanting her, and I hated
myself for not having her. There was no decisive feeling of victory or defeat.
All I felt was the inferno of desire I’d allowed her to fan up in me. And I
hadn’t let her put it out! I ripped open the front of my pants so hastily the
button popped off and milked my vexation into a puddle in my hand.

Claudia wore a sad face the next day. I
wondered if she was trying guilt me into reconsidering having a fling.

After that, as soon as supper was done, I
made a habit of retreating to my room.

It was hell the first few days. The taste
of her breath and the feel of her firm body pressed to mine seemed to be all my
mind wanted to think about. She’d started a wildfire in me I just couldn’t put
out. It didn’t help that she was pining for me, and I’d left her rejected and
burning. Or so I thought.

Several days later, Harvey never made it up
to his room for night. He might have been coaxed into playing a late night game
of checkers with Claudia, but if that was the case, it was a rousing game
indeed. The walls were simply too thin for me to give him the benefit of the
doubt. He moved into her room the next day. I felt foolish. The proverbs that
I’d practically memorized as a boy stood up in my mind and shouted, one by one,
“Fool, fool, fool!” I’d been that simpleton the proverbs talked about
ceaselessly. I should have seen Claudia coming a county away, and just fled.
Like an ox to the slaughter, I’d turned back just before the hammer fell. I
felt terrible to think that I could have destroyed my marriage, or at least had
to live with a dark secret.

By the time we left the promiscuous Mrs.
Harrison’s place, her failed seduction was a dot in my rearview mirror. Her
affair with Harvey seemed to have mellowed out any hard feelings toward me, and
in the end, we were quite civil again, almost cordial.

It took a while, but in time I had a
genuine feeling of triumph. I was still glad to leave.

Table of Contents

SEVEN

WAR!

The summer of 1943
passed like a fence beside a train. Each day was a post, a marker that blurred
by, indistinct from the one before it or the one that followed.

Our training seemed to be endless. We were
kept on the move, training on the Cornish coast, then in Scotland again. We
were pushed further than we thought we were able one day, and the next, we were
pushed even further. Our legs were lean and muscular, our sinews strings of
leather, and our chests full and stout like oak casks. We proudly wore the
rainbow-shaped, red and blue patch that boasted “29th Rangers” on the shoulder
of our “Ike” jackets. It was a mark of distinction. We were faster, stronger,
smarter, better. We were an elite fighting force that could stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone in the world. We were the 29th Rangers.

~~~

It was a huge disappointment for me when we
were told the 29th Ranger Battalion was to be disbanded in October of 1943.
While we knew the unit had been formed with the intention of eventually sending
all men back to their original companies, most of us felt we would lose
effectiveness outside of the Rangers. It seemed to me I could be much more
useful serving alongside men that shared my rigorous training.

The boys in our old company were happy to
see Johnny and me return. We got plenty of ribbing about having come back down
to dwell among “mere mortals” like them, and we would pretend the training we
did with them was child’s play, feigning boredom and yawning when we took our
long hikes through the godforsaken moors of Devonshire.

Shortly after rejoining my company, I was
promoted to Staff Sergeant. It was a daunting advancement. I was flattered, but
questioned whether I had the necessary experience my new rank usually required.
Johnny Snarr became a Corporal about the same time, so it seemed our training as
Rangers had something to do with our newly elevated status.

As Staff Sergeant, I assisted First
Lieutenant Floyd Stavely in leading our platoon. The phony confidence I forced
myself to exude became genuine self-assuredness as I became comfortable in my
new role and position of authority. The doggedness I demonstrated in training
to my men was less a reflection of my own fortitude than a determination not to
fail in front of the platoon. Most men can comfortably fail in solitude. Few
can fail before their comrades without shame. I was to learn that most medals
would not be won by valorous men, but rather, by men who were so shit-scared of
looking weak, they went to dramatic lengths not to let down their comrades.

By spring of 1944, we knew the invasion of
France must be imminent. The amphibious assault training we’d been doing all
winter intensified. We crawled under barbed wire while live tracer rounds from
machine guns skimmed over our heads. Explosives were set off around us,
simulating real battle sounds. Our training was reaching its crescendo, just
when the Allied high command wanted it to. War was in the air.

~~~

“Go with God!” a teary-eyed grandmother
called out. Her hair was mussed and her eyes sleepy. She hugged her thin gray
sweater around her as she huddled against the damp chill of the morning.

“Thank you ma’am,” I replied, heaving my
bags up onto the truck as we prepared to leave Ivybridge.

It was early morning in April of 1944, and
we were set to leave our temporary home for the invasion assembly area in
Dorset. Townsfolk woke up to see us off. Diesel exhaust hung in the air as
thick as the ghostly fog that floated among us. The fumes bit the back of my
throat.

“Give ’em hell, mate!” another man barked
sharply at me amid the throaty growl of idling diesel engines.

“I sure will, once in this life and once in
the next,” I assured him. The villagers were certain the invasion would happen
anytime.

Over the months, the dislike the villagers
had felt toward us turned into tolerance, and now, a genuine affection. The
town claimed us as their lads, and the many indiscretions of our boys seemed to
have been forgotten. Most of the romances the GIs had were markedly ephemeral,
but a few were of the lasting kind, and several new brides saw us off with eyes
as misty as the morning.

Once we were loaded, the motor convoy
revved up and off for Blandford. George London looked back at his new bride
until the murkiness swallowed her up. The man with the cutting tongue stared
ahead, stone-faced. Tears flowed unchecked down his round, ruddy face. The jolt
of the truck jarred them off his chin and onto his lap. Everyone managed to
resist the temptation of serving George one of his own scathing sarcasms. Some
things are sacred, and a man leaving his sweetheart to hold a stare-down with
death is one of those things.

When we reached the tent camps of Blandford
several hours later, it seemed obvious the villagers had been right. Every
square inch of every available field was packed with tanks, personnel carriers,
weapons carriers, and every other conceivable vehicle of warfare. The piles of
materiel seemed to go on forever. Long toms, howitzers, gasoline, food, and
drums and crates of anything it seemed we could possibly need was being stored
there. The enormity of this mission, Operation Overlord, now began to really
sink in to us. We’d wondered what was taking so long to plan, and now the
evidence of several years of planning lay before us in great heaps. The wrath
of the free world was being stockpiled in southern England, waiting for the
word that would unleash relentless destruction across the channel.

Hitler knew we would strike. He just didn’t
know when. While he waited, he had Field Marshal Erwin Rommel fortify the
northern coast of France. He did everything imaginable to stop an invasion. He
dammed rivers to flood large tracts of land, and removed homes to make shooting
lanes. The Norman countryside was rearranged to suit the needs of the German
Wehrmacht. He was ready to play the game of war. But it was a game he was designing,
a game only he knew the rules to. Any Normandy beach remotely suited for an
amphibious landing was fortified with obstacles and mines in the water, and
tons of concrete and steel on shore. The cliffs of Normandy fairly bristled
with guns; 75 mm, 88 mm, 105 mm cannons stared down the beach with mouths
agape, waiting to breathe fire down on any unfortunate invader. We would not be
welcome guests.

As Hitler’s henchmen squinted over the
English Channel for signs of the impending invasion, we waited. Plans for
Operation Overlord were finalized, and we were restless as we waited in the
marshalling area at camps around Dorchester. We blew through thousands of
rounds of ammunition on the firing range, ensuring the new weapons we’d been
given were sighted in.

Everyone was on a razor’s edge, and seemed
bound to tip either way. Some men became kinder, almost gentle, as though they
had a heightened appreciation for the brevity of life. Others were explosive
and hot-tempered, resulting in some fistfights. We played football to blow off
steam, until too many fellows got injured, and we were forced to stick with
softball. For many men, it would the last time they had the necessary limbs to
throw a ball.

They showed us movies to distract us;
Going
My Way
with Barry Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby, and
Mrs. Miniver
with
Greer Garson were two popular ones that come to mind.

Many men found solace in reflection,
prayer, and Bible reading. Honky-tonk Borkowski, who had managed to break most
of the commandments several times since we’d arrived in England, took to
reading the Bible for hours at a time. And he wasn’t alone. Many other men
searched for something to cling to from beyond the grave, as no one knew the
number of their days. Jedidiah Hankins, who had been scorned by many as a
religious fanatic until then, was doing brisk business, selling his gospel of
fire and forgiveness. The backwoods preacher was more fired up than if he’d
seen the Spirit move at a tent meeting. When he wasn’t surrounded by inquiring
sinners, this physician of the soul made house calls.