GI Brides (10 page)

A cunning look came over the fat face of the man.

“Yes? And what became of that money? Did your sister get her share of it? Did she get her education?”

“No, she got married instead of going to college. But Mother gave her her half of the money as a wedding gift. I saw her do it. And then when she got her divorce and was in terrible straits, she gave her my share, too. I suggested it, and was glad to give it to help her out. But Mother got evening work in addition to her day job, and started in to try and save money for my college course. That was what killed her. She only lived another year, and when her funeral expenses were paid, I had fifty dollars in the bank because mother earned it for me. But if Elaine wants that, she can have it. It’s all I have. And that’s all I have to tell you. Now, I’ll be excused, if you please. I have a train to catch and a lot to do before I go.”

Lexie rose quickly and flashed out of the room before the two astonished listeners could stop her, but before she had closed the door behind her she heard the lawyer say: “Well, that’s a very unlikely story! We’ll have to put the screws on that girl and tighten them till she opens up and gives us the truth. You could see she knows where all your money is all righty, or she never would have offered to give up that fifty. You better get at her in earnest and find out just what she knows. Of course I can’t do a thing without evidence. And when she finds she has to produce
evidence
for all that pretty story she told, she may come across.”

Lexie hurried upstairs to her own room and locked her door. She would not be haled into another questioning.

With swift fingers she put the room to rights, packed her few belongings that she had used during the night, and then came softly out and went upstairs to the one attic room, where Lucinda would have to sleep, for Lucinda would soon be here and there must be a place to receive her or she would vanish into thin air.

Lexie worked rapidly, pulling out bedding, making up the single bed that had stood sheathed in an old bedspread, unused, for four long years. A bright tear or two fell on the sheets as she smoothed them over the old mattress, thinking of her dear mother, who was gone away from her forever. What would her mother do if she were here and knew all that she was going through?

But she must not cry like this. Lucinda would be coming, and if she saw her crying it would in all probability bring on a tirade that would wreck all her plans for hoping to keep Lucinda with Elaine, even for a short time.

With firm resolve she wiped her eyes and hurried through the bed making, brought a pitcher of water to the little oak washstand, found fresh towels, a piece of soap. She remembered the tears with which she had laid away these things after her dear mother was gone, thinking that perhaps she would never unpack them again, not wanting to recall the precious days of which they reminded her.

She wiped the dust from a little old rocker, plumped up its patchwork cushion, straightened the small mirror, set the window shade straight, and then turned away. The room was as ready as she could make it.

As she went softly down the stairs she had a fleeting wish that she had dared to give Lucinda a room on the second floor. It was surely her due if she was willing to undertake the job of nursing this strange household while she was away. But she knew if she did, it would bring on a torrent of abuse and scorn from Elaine, and probably break up the whole affair even before it was begun. And perhaps Lucinda herself would have chosen the attic room, as a refuge from all that she would surely have to bear even for a little while under Elaine’s domination.

So she went quietly down to the kitchen and began to get some lunch on the table. As she did so she heard the children trooping back to the house. They had been across the street playing with some children when she returned, probably sent by their mother to get rid of them while she transacted her business with her lawyer. Well, she would give the children some lunch. That would keep them still for a few minutes, and occupy her troubled, trembling hands.

But suddenly she had a feeling that she was not alone, and looking up she saw Bettinger Thomas standing in the open doorway with a fiendish grin on his face.

“Oh, so you thought you’d get by with a tale like that, did you? Well, you’ve got another guess coming. You can walk right in here, young lady, and come clean. Walk! Your sister wants you.”

T
he way had been long and hard, day after day under fire, night after night creeping furtively from bush to bush, from shadow to shadow, sometimes alone, and now and again in contact with others of the same group. It seemed endless, and Benedict Barron felt that he was scarcely human anymore. When there was food, coarse and poor for the most part, he wolfed it, and when there was no food he drew in his belt tighter and crept forward. He had to go on! It was an order! Just why he who had never been prepared for an existence of this sort had been selected for this special service, he couldn’t tell. It was all a part of the bewildering medley of war; he was only a cog in a wheel that turned on and on relentlessly. He was nothing but an automaton whose business it was to move on and through, no matter how the fires burned, no matter how hot the ground was where he crawled, thankful only that he still had ammunition for a few more shots at the spitfires that peppered him so constantly, thankful that there was still enough blood left in his body to keep going.

And from time to time there would come a lull in the starlit nights when the fires for the moment had ceased to fall, and a cool breeze would blow. Not for long, but always it would remind him of that cool mountain town back in his homeland, and the little girl in blue swinging on the gate. Then he would remember his intention to write someday and tell her about how the thought of her had helped him through the horror of these days and nights. Someday he would surely write to her, if he lived to find quiet and a pen and paper, or even just a pencil and an old envelope.

Now there was a river in the way, a deep, wide river, and he was so tired. If he could only rest before trying to swim. Would he ever get across?

Then as he plunged into the dark, cold waters, his senses sharpened, and he seemed to be hearing words from long ago. His mother’s voice, or was that his grandmother’s, reading from the Bible? Ah! It was his grandfather, reading at family worship, a favorite chapter. The words seemed graven in his heart. He had heard them so many times when he was a little boy—strange that after so many years they should come back to him just now when he was going through this experience!

“
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.
” Was He here? “
When thou walkest through the fire,
” ah, there was fire ahead, on the other side of that river, great walls of fire that he was expected to pass through—Was that God’s voice speaking these old familiar words, or just his old grandfather? He couldn’t stop to reason now. It took all his energy to get across this wide dark water and keep his ammunition dry. But maybe God had let his grandfather ring out those words from heaven where he went long years ago, words that he knew God Himself uttered centuries ago. Could they perhaps have been meant for him down in this present modern-century stress, and his great need? These deep, dark waters were a terrible barrier. He could not get on, yet if God was here perhaps he would get through to his duty, and the fire on the opposite shore. The words went ringing on in his heart, in that strangely familiar voice:
“When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”

Were these words really being spoken to him, or was this just a trick of his imagination? His
sick
imagination?

And then the shore, and the fire raging close at hand! Ah! Now the
fire
again!

All through that awful night, the fiercest of them all, those words kept ringing when each man of them felt that the final test had come, the end had arrived. It was a fight to the death, and they expected death—in fact, almost welcomed the relief it would bring to have it over, just the end and the peace that death could bring. But as they fought through that night and the day that followed, and then as another night came down, grim determination, and courage that seemed to be born from above, had kept them going. Dropping down with pain and exhaustion, then rousing and in that vital energy that does not die in desperate need, going on—even when it had seemed to the enemy that they were conquered. “We must not lose,” each said in his heart, “we must win! We’re dying, yes, all right, but our death must win this war!”

So it was when the fire came over Ben Barron again, and that burning flame fell and went through his very being in one great, overwhelming stab. He dropped to the blackened hot sand in the deep night, as the fire burned itself out. There he lay through the darkness and pain and sickness that seemed but a lingering death.

But before his senses went out and left him in the blank darkness, he saw those mountains of home rise about him, felt the cooling breezes blow over this throbbing temples, and saw again the little girl in a blue dress swinging on the white gate, with a song on his lips and a light in her eyes. He found himself wondering in his pain: Was this heaven, and was he going in without any more preparation than this? Just a transfer from a battlefield to the Presence of God? Strange that he had never thought of that possibility before. Death? Yes. He had counted
that
cost, had been willing to go, but the thought of what would come after, going into God’s presence, hadn’t been presented to his mind, either by himself or by any sermon he had heard. And he didn’t somehow feel ready for the Presence of God.

In his delirium he looked around—the little white gate—it was there yet, and the little girl in the blue dress. Could she perhaps be an angel? Would she remember him? The little girl on the gate, and the jaunty schoolboy? Would she perhaps remember him? She had helped him once as he passed on through these fires, could she help him again, now, in case this happened to be heaven he had reached? He hadn’t written that letter to thank her for the help she had given in that wild, hot fire, by sending cool mountain breezes. He had surely meant to write that letter. Where was he now?
Was
this heaven? And how had he dared drift in here, if it was?

Dozing off into delirium, it came to him to wonder about the Presence of God, into which he was probably going. How would he be received there? Had he done a creditable job of fighting? Could he pass on his merits as a soldier or not?

But God didn’t care about his courage as a soldier, did He? He was too big and too powerful Himself to care about a little thing a soldier could do, all in the way of his job, wasn’t He? It wasn’t as if he had done something outstanding, like bringing down his plane in the midst of a lot of Japanese soldiers and getting away with it. He was only a plain soldier, a fighter, going through fire. Was the fire all done, or would it come again and devour him before he was ushered into the Presence of God? Would God listen if he tried to tell Him how hot those fires had been? How hard it was to keep on with that bullet in his shoulder and the blood seeping away all the time making him weaker? Or did God know already? Perhaps He did. Those words from the Bible that his grandfather used to read seemed to ring that way. His mother used to think God knew and cared about everything and everybody. “His own,” she used to say. “God cares for His own.” But that meant people who had done something about it, “accepted Him” they used to call it in Sunday school many years ago. And he had never really done anything about it, not even joined the church when the other kids did. He didn’t see standing up before the world and nodding assent to things he wasn’t sure of, and then likely going out and acting just the same. The world wouldn’t seem any difference in him, and would wonder why he did it anyway. But now, perhaps about to approach into the Presence of God, he wished he had. If he could say, “I’m a member of the old First Presbyterian Church in Nassau in good little old New York state where my grandmother lived, and where Grandfather was an elder and respected,” would that make any difference when he was introduced to the Presence? But somehow he didn’t seem to feel that even that would make him acceptable. He would be just one of many dead men, and what would God want of a dead church member anyway, since he had never thought about God, nor had Him in mind at all when alive?

If he only knew somebody who knew God well, perhaps that would make a difference. Of course his mother, and his grandmother, but they were already gone. He couldn’t likely find them “up there” before he had to make his entrance into the Presence. That little girl in the blue dress? She was here somewhere. He had seen her in his vision. Child or angel? Would she help him? She had brought a memory of dew and cool mountain air down there on the hot battlefield. She had cooled his forehead—little Lexie. Had that been her cool little child-sized hand on his fevered brow? Would she introduce him to God? He was almost certain she knew God. If he could just see her again, he would ask her. Where had she gone?

In his delirium he tried to rise, but the pain in his shoulder made him faint and fall back. And then the world went out and he was a long time in the darkness. But it couldn’t have been heaven, could it? Dark like that? He seemed to remember a verse he had learned in Sunday school,
“And there shall be no night there.”
What would a place be like with no night? No falling fires? No bombs?

It was sometime during that night that the Lord came and stood beside him, looking deep into his eyes, speaking gently:
“Ben Barron, I came with you, as I promised, through the water, and through the fire. I am the Lord your God… your Savior. If you want me I will go with you all the rest of the way. For I have loved you. You need not be afraid when I am with you.”

The wonder and the awe of it made him forget his pain. Could this be heaven, here on this scorched battlefield? If not, how was it that he was already in the Presence of God? Perhaps heaven was anywhere where God was? Or was he already dead of his wounds, and this was the heaven above?