The Memoir of Johnny Devine (26 page)

After his gut-wrenching confession about
Jeanette Lovell’s tragic death, anyone could understand why he
wanted to put the memoir behind him. He had to be weary of reliving
his past and facing the full emotional brunt of his troubling
memories.

Yes, she understood his urgency. It was just
that the thought of their time together ending tore at her insides
and stole her appetite. But once the job was finished, she would
find a way to move on.

She had to.

Thursday morning, Eliza hurried to John’s
house, spurred on by a gusty breeze that matched her own swirling
emotions.

Millie didn’t meet Eliza at the door as
usual.

She let herself in, removed her coat and
scarf, laid them on a chair in the sitting room, then went to her
desk in the library.

John was also nowhere in sight.

A notebook lay on his table, as she had
expected, since he had told her he would spend Wednesday
writing.

She glanced around again. A tingle of
apprehension nudged up her spine. Where was everyone? She went to
the kitchen.

Millie was seated at the table in the
corner, her head resting on folded arms across a Bible.

Eliza was about to call out to her but
decided against it.

If Millie was asleep, she probably needed
rest. And if she was praying, she probably needed to do that as
well.

Back in the library, Eliza took John’s
notepad to her desk and looked at his latest pages with an
editorial eye. He had continued on from where they had left off. As
good as his writing had become, she would have no trouble typing
these pages and adding them to his manuscript.

The manuscript that would very soon be
complete.

Eliza gave herself a stern reminder of
Betty’s prediction that Eliza was flirting with heartache, then
pulled herself together and typed what he’d written.

When the war began, I registered but I
somehow missed the first draft and was glad of it. Yet from that
moment on, every time I saw the newsreels and heard war broadcasts
on the radio, I felt like a coward for not serving when other men
were willing to fight and die. The deaths of my father and brother
had cast a permanent shadow over my life, a constant reminder of
the hero I would never be.

I joined the army of my own accord in
February 1943. Fans went nuts over that, naturally. A real
true-blue hero, they said. You see, everyone in Hollywood was doing
their part for the war effort. If not joining up, then selling war
bonds or traveling with the USO and entertaining troops. When I
joined up, the studio (the one that fired me, as it happens) milked
it for every drop of publicity they could.

You might think I joined as a way of
following in my father’s and brother’s bootsteps, a way to be like
them, a way to gain some measure of honor. And I may have
entertained a thought like that. But the truth is, I carried a
deeper, darker hope. I could think of nothing I wanted more than to
meet a German bullet and end it all. Die in battle. Put an end to
what my life had become.

But when I left Sicily and returned to
England unharmed, it seemed God had other plans for me.

One of the guys in my division—Red
Cahill—was religious, and though the guys in the unit gave him
grief for it, he took it without complaint. He carried a tiny,
pocket-sized Bible that he would often read with a penlight at
night. One day, I did a bunk check and noticed Red had left that
Bible on his pillow. I knew he’d be stuck with latrine duty if the
lieutenant saw it, so I decided to do Red a favor and put it away.
I took it to his footlocker, but then I stopped. What was so
special about the Bible that would make a guy risk being caught
with it on his bunk? I hunkered down and started reading, just to
see what the big deal was. I leafed through and saw the Gospel of
John—seemed as good a place to start as any. I didn’t find anything
mind-boggling, but I kept reading anyway. I’d read ten chapters and
was just about to toss the thing, but decided to read one more
chapter.

It was the chapter in which Christ raised a
dead man back to life. Ironic, because I was as good as dead. I
deserved to die, and I had come prepared to do just that. But
seeing how Jesus brought that man back to life did something to me.
Gave me a flicker of hope, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
What if God could give me new life too? What would it hurt to ask?
I had nothing left to lose.

I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know
how to pray. I had just read the part about the need to repent of
my sins—that part was easy. The problem was that I couldn’t
possibly list them all. But I figured God knew more of my sins than
I did and could fill in the blanks. Alone in an airless barracks
tent, I gave my life, whatever it was worth, to Christ. And I was
pretty sure it wasn’t worth the boots on my feet, but I’d let God
sort that out.

I soon became friends with Red Cahill, and I
also talked to the chaplain whenever I could. I don’t know how or
when it happened—some of it was instant, some gradual—but God began
to change me. Change my heart, give me hope through His promises.
And hope, something I’d long forgotten, tasted sweeter than
anything I’d ever known.

Until June 1944. In His kindness and mercy,
God had helped rid me of a lot of things, and without all the booze
and late nights, and in spite of a raging war, I was getting
healthier, stronger. I’d begun to hope, to believe life was worth
living. But when final orders came for us to storm that beach in
Normandy, I had a feeling that the punishment I deserved had only
been delayed, my past couldn’t be made right by simply turning my
life over to God. That just seemed too easy. Omaha Beach would be
my payment, the squaring of things between me and God, once and for
all. It made sense that he would take me out at that point. After
all, that was the reason I’d joined up.

The only problem was, I’d changed my mind
about wanting to die—I wanted to live. I had found grace and mercy,
and I didn’t want it to end, not yet. “My Father,” I said,
borrowing a prayer from Christ, “if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You
will.”

As part of the 1st Infantry Division, Red
and I were in the first wave to hit Omaha Beach, just before
daybreak on June 6. As we neared the beach, gunfire peppered the
water all around us.

We waded toward the beach,
but machine-
gun fire
rained on us from every direction and pinned us down. Red was
hit and couldn’t go any farther, sinking in two feet of murky
water. I tried to fire back, but my gun jammed. One of our tanks
lobbed a shell in the direction of the assault. A sniper shot from
somewhere above the beach and hit my helmet. I dropped down into
the water next to Red, who
had
passed
out. I screamed for a medic. Shells
were exploding all around us. I hunkered down and covered him, kept
his face above water, and prayed hard.

About that time, a shell from a German 88
exploded near us and knocked the wind out of me. It should have
killed me, but instead, the shrapnel only hit my right hip and
knee. I yelled for the medic again, not sure if Red had taken
shrapnel too. The water around us turned bright red. All I could
think about was how the blood from one man’s body—God’s Son—was
somehow enough to save every man on that beach and then some.

Red was still unconscious, and I didn’t know
what else to do but pray. The Germans kept pinning us down, and
things looked bad for our guys on the beach. Someone dragged Red
and me out of the water. That’s when I blacked out.

When I woke, I was lying on a stretcher at
an aid station. I asked about Red, but no one knew where he was. I
passed out again for several days. Later, while recovering in an
army hospital, I got a letter from Red. He was going to be okay and
was headed back home. His letter came wrapped around a small,
pocket-sized Bible.

I still have that Bible.

And I still have the wounds I received on
D-Day. The scars have mostly faded, but the pain lingers. I walk
with the help of a cane now, a blessing in disguise. It reminds me
of how I tried to throw my life away and how God, in His mercy,
took hold of me. Like Jacob, who dared to wrestle with God, I was
only touched at the hip and sent back, left with a limp and a
reminder that God is sovereign. I should have died that day. In
fact, everyone who saw that 88 shell explode said I should have
been dead. Maybe in a way, I did die that day. I know I’ve never
been the same.

Though I lived most of my life not believing
in Him, God never stopped believing in me, and because of that,
I’ve never wanted to live more than I do now.

With a deep sigh, Eliza took out the last
typed page and added it to the stack. She should proofread the last
few pages before moving on, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were blurred
with tears. John had done an incredibly heroic thing by shielding
his friend with his own body—offering his own life, in fact. Why
was it easy for him to point out how terrible his mistakes were,
but dismiss his noble acts?

The sound of John’s cane approaching filled
her with a mingled rush of emotion.

He came into the library,
but when he saw her, he stopped. “What’s wrong?” His brows gathered
into a
V
.

“
Nothing. I was just going
over these latest pages of yours.”

“
But something has upset
you.”

Eliza shook her head. “Not at all.” She
wiped her cheek and tried to smile, but after what she’d just read,
a smile felt so inadequate.

John still didn’t look convinced.

She tried her best for a lighthearted tone.
“Don’t you know a teary-eyed reader is a good sign?”

He swallowed, forcing his Adam’s apple to
bob, but still didn’t say a word.

“
Your story is deeply
moving. And nearing the end, it would seem.”

John examined the floor. “Yes, it’s almost
finished. I only hope someone will find it useful.”

Useful
? John’s story had changed her in ways she never would have
believed possible.
Eliza simply nodded,
unable to trust her voice.

The sky had
grown quite dark by the time she boarded the bus.
December always seemed so impatient, the daylight hours so short,
as if to remind her that time was quickly slipping away. Without a
single peep of protest from her.

And what did she have to
protest? That she had fallen in love with John? What possible good
would that do? He had no such feelings for her. And why would he?
She was a typist for hire. A nobody.
Eccentric
, as Betty had so kindly
noted. If there was room in John’s heart for love, that place was
probably being filled by the one woman he still wasn’t talking
about in his book. And if his silence about Deborah Marlow was
because there had been no off-camera relationship—which Eliza found
hard to believe—then why did he receive letters from
her?

She closed her eyes to avoid seeing her
fool-hearted reflection in the dark bus window.

God, it’s not wrong to keep quiet about how
I feel, is it? Sometimes it’s best to keep the truth to ourselves.
If John knew how I felt, he would have to replace me.

No, she definitely needed to keep her
feelings to herself. Not only that, but she needed to find a way to
thoroughly scrub them from her heart.

God, is this something You can help me
do?

As the bus pulled away from a corner stop,
new passengers made their way down the aisle. An elbow jostled her
as someone took the seat beside her.

“
Nice evening for a tour
of the rich neighborhoods, isn’t it?”

She knew that voice. Eliza rubbed the knot
forming at the base of her neck and turned to him.

The glee in Agent Robinson’s eyes matched
his broad smile.

“
I have nothing more to
tell you.”

“
That’s odd.” Delight
dripped from his voice. “I should think you would find working with
John David Vincent, a.k.a. Johnny Devine, to be as fascinating a
topic as I do.”

Was there nothing this
man
didn’t
know
about her?

“
Time to cut the innocent
act.” He made a sweeping glance at the other passengers. “I know
about your father’s service in the Red Army and all the lies about
your parents’ identity. We have reason to believe your parents were
selling information to the Soviets. And I think you and that sister
of yours know who the contacts are.”