Light Over Water (16 page)

          Alison simply backed
away from the door without opening it any further.  She sat down in front of a
small writing desk that looked to be covered with letters.  The bed also was
littered with them.

          Mary took in the
sight; Alison with her tear-ravaged face and listless behavior, the mess in the
room, the letters.

          “What on earth goes
on here?” she asked, her voice rising in confusion.  “I thought you were sick.”

          Alison picked up
another letter from the desk, seemed to read bits of it, and then tossed it
onto the bed.

          Mary drew closer to
the bed and picked up one of the letters, turning it over to see its author. 
She figured they must be from Sam and she was right.

          Alison drew her hand
to her mouth and began gnawing on her thumbnail.  Mary recognized it as one of
Alison’s nervous habits.  She rushed to kneel beside the girl, gently drawing
her hand away and asking again, “Alison, what is wrong?”

          “I’m reading Sam’s
letters one last time.  Then I must be done with them…with him.”  And she
moaned softly, as though she couldn’t cry anymore but her heart was breaking.

          “I…I don’t
understand, my sweeting.  Why must you be done with Sam?  Have you heard from
him?  Has he another girlfriend?”  Suddenly Mary turned to Alison, put both
hands on her head and drew her reluctant gaze up to meet hers.  She didn’t
question again but steadily looked in Alison’s eyes.

          The girl’s vibrant
blue eyes held a sheen of unshed tears, which slowly spilled over onto her
cheeks.  “You remember what happened to me?” she whispered slowly.  “What I
told you at your house that night?”

          Mary nodded, pained
at the remembrance and at her promise to the girl not to tell anyone,
especially her father.

          Even more quietly
Alison breathed out, “I’m going to have a baby.”

          Mary reeled back,
letting her hands fall and shaking her head slowly.  Rising to her feet, she
covered her mouth with her hand.  She then moved to the window.  Laying her
head on its cold surface she stared into the darkness, astonished at the surge
of rage she could scarcely contain.  And not far behind it came a solution, for
both herself and Alison.

          Whipping around, she
rushed back over to the crying girl before her.  “My dear, I have an idea.  I…I
must think for a bit, but you, you carry on as usual.  Do you hear me, Alison?”

          Alison was wiping her
eyes, stunned out of her misery by her teacher’s smile and optimism.  “I hear
you but I don’t understand.”

          “You don’t need to
yet.  Just, just…oh, I don’t know.  Act normal.  Come to school.  And write to
your dear boy, because everything will be all right.  Write to him tonight,
now!”  She slipped out the door with a girlish wave and grin.

          Alison slowly turned
to her desk.  She was confused but heartened.  She picked up a pen, dipped it
in her inkwell, and began writing.

All Considerations of Humanity

          Sam was going to
die.  He didn’t know if he was injured at all because everything had gone numb
shortly after the horse fell on him.  He didn’t feel pain anywhere, just
pressure, enormous pressure.  He didn’t think he was mortally wounded, but he
knew he would die.

          It was beginning to
rain, an icy downpour that felt like needles landing on his forehead.  No one
knew he was there in the mud, under a dead horse, with the sludge slowly
sinking beneath him and oozing higher around his head.

          The shallow hole
where he lay would soon fill with rain, if he didn’t suffocate first.  He tried
not to panic but it was so hard to get a breath.  Earlier he had yelled, to no
effect with the roar of the battle eclipsing any small sound he could make.  Now
it was an effort just to breath, let alone to make any noise.

          They were in the
midst of an intense battle while enduring the heaviest rains in thirty years. 
They were working on pulling a fresh shipment of field guns to the front, but
the mud had mired down everyone and everything.  The battle continued
unrelentingly even while they strained with all they had to move the guns.  The
afternoon brought a chill wind pressing around them and a barrage of mortars
began in their sector.  Sam had tried to shut out any thought but moving that
gun one more foot.  Even a few inches would have been nice.  He was just moving
from behind a wheel to try to coax the horse that was mired up to its knees, to
lift its leg once again.  The poor animal was trembling with weariness and
rolling its eyes in fright with each explosion.  Sam had his hand on its flank
and was learning towards its ear when the air seemed to tremble around him and
there was an intensely bright explosion.  In slow motion Sam saw men thrown
into the air, the heavy gun they’d been struggling over blew to the side as if
it were a toy and the horse beside him slumped sideways, on top of him.

          If it weren’t for the
mud, he’d have been crushed right away.  If it weren’t for the horse he’d have
been killed by the blast.  He could discern no movement around him although the
noise continued.

          He had been working
on pulling his arm free.  Somehow he had fallen on his back; the neck of the
horse was across his chest and face.  His head was pinned sideways.  He had a
quickly diminishing view of the edge of the hole and the mane of the horse. 
One arm was behind his back, the other across his stomach.  This arm he thought
he might free.  If he could pull it out before it was too dark, he might
attract the attention of the stretcher-bearers, or someone.

         
Concentrate
,
he told himself. 
Don’t think about Alison, or home, about the ocean or
fishing or this poor dead horse.   Feel your arm.  Move your muscles.
 
Everything was so numb.  He pushed all the air out of his lungs, tried to pull
his stomach in tight, but nothing budged.

          Sam realized how cold
he was; at least his back was cold.  The horse was still warm.  It had stopped
breathing long ago.  Sam was glad that it hadn’t suffered long.  They wouldn’t
have to shoot it.  They shot them after they took care of the wounded men,
getting them off the field as quickly as possible. 
Maybe they’ll find me
. 
Then…
Probably they won’t
.

          He ceased struggling
for a moment.  He let his mind go, for a time, back home.  He saw his little
village, clustered around the small port, each house and building familiar and
dear.  He thought of the crisp blue sky; of green trees whole and strong.  His
mouth watered at the thought of his mother’s bread, hot out of the oven on a
snowy winter morning.  He imagined himself outside at the woodshed, in the
simple act of splitting a piece of wood for the fire.  He conjured up the briny
smell of the water on the shore. He saw the waves that were a backdrop to his
every waking moment and heard their crashing on the rocks below his house.  He
remembered the lighthouse and relived the comfort it was to see that light over
the water, shining through a thick fog or a dark night.  He saw the faces of
his mother and father, his brothers and sisters.  He lingered over the thought
of Alison, remembering her, strangely enough, when she was little; long black
braids flying out behind her as she ran with her chin thrust forward wherever
she went.  A deep sadness overtook him.   He imagined her sorrow and it filled
him with pity.  He felt his warm tears join the icy rain on his head and
seeping around his shoulders.

          Suddenly a rage
filled him.  Chaplain Hudson’s words came back to him, that he wouldn’t die
until it was his time.  “It’s not my time,” he gasped.  He wasn’t even hurt! 
“God, help me,” he pleaded, thinking still of his chaplain.  “Can you hear me? 
I need help.”  He lifted his knees with all his strength, wriggled violently
and felt a small movement of the ground move beneath him.  He twisted his arm
and eased it out, flailing it in the mud and spreading his fingers in relief.

          Suddenly he felt a
hand clasp on his.  A face came into view and in the dimming light he
recognized Aubrey Newell grinning at him.  “I’m not God, but I’m here to help!”
he laughed.

          “Hurry up, mate,”
came the sound of another voice.  Sam heard them moving around him. 

          “Please hurry,” he
managed to gasp out.  He felt himself sinking in the mud deeper as they
struggled with the horse on top of him.  Suddenly the weight shifted and the pressure
was relieved.  He took a deep breath and felt a tingling all through his body. 
Hands pulled him from the mud and he was quickly lifted onto a stretcher. 
Abruptly he was aware again of the noise of battle all around him.  He felt
strangely vulnerable out in the open.  He was glad as Aubrey and his partners
trotted as quickly as they could through the mud back towards the trench.

          “Your chaplain told
me where to look for you,” Aubrey explained cheerfully as he puffed along. 
“I’d have gone right by if it wasn’t for your hand sticking out there all of a
sudden like.”

          It was a long way to
where the lone ambulance waited on firmer ground.  They eased the stretcher
into the back.  One man sat in back with him while Aubrey and the other two
rode in the cab.

          “Am I the only one?”
Sam questioned, lifting his head to peer around him.

          “Yeah, mate!  We’re
not even supposed to be here.  We’re with another unit.  But your friend
finished three days on and then insisted on coming here to look for you.  Dead
on his feet, he is.  He sure must think a lot of you.”

          Sam recognized the
unusual accent of a person from Australia and he tried to see the man in the
murky light of the ambulance. The Australian hung grimly onto the leather arm
strap as they lurched through the desiccated ground.  His face was streaked
with mud and blood, his eyes were bloodshot and his shoulders slumped in his
weariness.  “You hurt?” he asked now, kneeling closer and tucking a blanket
around Sam.

          “I…I don’t know.” 
His shoulder was throbbing now that he had feeling back, and his feet hurt. 
Mostly he realized a strong thirst and an equally strong exhaustion.  He had no
idea how long he was trapped, but it was dusk now.  His company had moved on
and the stretcher-bearers that came behind them never saw him.  “I think
there’s something wrong with my arm,” he said.  Then he slept.

The Progress of the Cruel,
Unmanly Business

          Robbie Bell was
grievously wounded.  Sam managed to reach him and stumbled back through the
shell holes and mud, carrying him on his shoulders through the maze of
trenches, to the first aid station.  But the ambulances were all gone and their
medics in the trenches were dead.  Everyone was sick and dying, not from the
fighting but from an illness that was proving more fatal than the German
bullets. 

          After his injury, a
dislocated shoulder, had healed, Sam rejoined his unit and they pushed through
the front to end up now at Verdun.  Sam, having survived what he called his
baptism, had lost his fear of death.  In some way, when he, in his desperation
called out to God, he knew without any doubt that God was there.  He felt a
great peace in knowing his life was in the hands of a mighty God.  He
understood at least in part, the faith that Chaplain Hudson lived out.

          But Robbie was
afraid.  Sam eased Robbie to the patch of fairly dry ground and knelt beside
him.  His face was gray and contorted.  His breath came in shallow gasps, and
blood was trickling from the edges of his mouth.  Sam scrambled in his pack for
his field kit, throwing aside tins of pills and salves.  He tore open a thick
bandage and lifted Robbie’s shirt up off the wound.  His whole abdomen was a
pool of blood in which the bandage was lost.  Robbie grabbed Sam’s hand, his
breath now bubbling as he grunted, “Sammy, Sammy.  Help me!”  His eyes were
wide, with tears trickling back through his hair.  “Sammy, I feel so bad!”

          “Shhh, Robbie.”  Sam
lowered the tatters of Robbie’s shirt and pulled one of his extras out of his
pack.  He put it over the wound and looked at his friend’s face.  “Hey, you’ll
be going home now.  Think of that, Robbie.” 

          Sam wiped away the
tears and laid his hand on Robbie’s forehead.  Then, amidst the noise and
clatter of the battle, Sam talked about the distant shores of Maine; the cool
jolt of the Atlantic ocean after a hot day of work, the peace of a snowfall on
the green pines in winter, the smell of the air after haying, and taste of a
clambake on a summer night.  He spoke of Rena, Robbie’s sweetheart, who would
be so happy to have him back home.  As he said it he couldn’t help thinking of
her real sorrow when she learned that Robbie had died.  But now Robbie stopped
trembling, the fear left his eyes and he seemed to smile, listening to Sam. 
His breathing slowed until it stopped, then Sam stopped talking.  He wept a
little for his friend, but couldn’t linger.  He rejoined his unit in the fight.

          Two days later, Sam
slept in the injury ward of the field hospital with a bandage on his forehead. 
Chap Hudson sat on one side of him and Aubrey Newell on the other.