Lovely War(90)

At the piano, Hazel rebuilt her strength and dexterity. She tried to focus, but one persistent thought derailed her: what could have happened that James won’t see me at all?

Eventually the recruiting office found something useful for James to do. Sorting through draftee files and updating them with details from casualty lists. It was excruciating. Many of the casualties were lads he’d grown up with, or their older brothers, and in some cases, their fathers. Grief and sorrow everywhere.

Sometimes, walking home, he heard strains of piano music wafting from the vicarage. It reminded him painfully of Hazel.

On Saturday, June 8, 1918, the Germans launched Operation Gneisenau at Noyon-Montdidier, France, the fourth of their five great pushes in their Spring Offensive.

On Sunday, June 9, 1918, James agreed to attend church with his family, but Hazel, stationed in the children’s Sunday school, never saw him, nor he, her.

The gentle, elderly vicar prayed that the war would soon come to an end.





HADES


     Let It Be Me—June 14, 1918





JAMES SAT AT dinner with the family now. He smiled sometimes and talked about the day’s work.

His sister thought, I know something nobody else knows.

On Friday of that week, he went out for a walk in the evening with Bobby. They walked out of town a ways, to a woodsy ramble near a stream that James had always liked when he was young and which Bobby, ardent Boy Scouter, was crazy about. Evenings were long now, and Bobby brought his field glasses. He showed James various birds, and pointed out the names of trees and plants, and which were edible. James was impressed. This juvenile hobby had its uses. In war, if Bobby were separated from his squadron, he’d survive better than most.

The thought of Bobby having to go to war socked James in the gut. He stopped walking. Bobby went on, watching a chipmunk through his glasses. Such a beautiful kid.

James had held Bobby as a baby. Rolled balls to him, read him stories, taught him to walk, steadied the handlebars of his tiny bike. Bobby showed signs of young manhood on the near horizon, but he was still James’s baby brother.

He saw Bobby’s burnt and blood-soaked body lying in the mud at the bottom of a trench.

Let it be me, he told the sky. I’m damaged, but he’s free. Make me better, and send me back, so I can die instead of Bobby. He has a future. Send me back where I belong.





APHRODITE


     Mangled Up—June 14, 1918





BOBBY WANDERED OFF after the chipmunk. James waited, listening to birds whoop and chatter, then, knowing Bobby would find his way home, James headed back. He knew what he needed to do, and that would give his days purpose until he returned to the Front. He had one other item of business that he must attend to, and soon there would be an end.

He turned toward Vicarage Road, nearly colliding with a young woman.

“I’m sorry . . .” he began.

“Hello, James,” said she.

Four startled eyes, two pounding hearts.

He swept off his hat and gazed down into her anxious, pleading eyes. He could barely see for the swirling riot inside his head.

“Why are you here?”

The words bruised. They came out like an attack. James immediately regretted them. He hadn’t meant them that way, not the combative tone, but it was too late. She stepped back and looked away. Then she raised her head proudly.

“I came to see if you were alive,” she said, “and to be with you, if I could, to help you with your recovery, if you weren’t well.”

The sight of him frightened her. He looked pale and thinner than in Paris. And he was changed. The sound of a distant automobile made him twitch and look over his shoulder.

But he was still her beautiful James.

She had never looked more glorious. He’d never seen her in a summer dress, with bare arms below the elbow, and bare ankles tapering into lightweight shoes. Her cheeks were pink from walking. Strands of hair had fallen loose from her coiffure and swayed in the evening breeze. The lavender sky was just her color. It wanted to wrap itself around her too.

“What if I’d been mangled up?” he blurted out. “Lost an arm or something?”

It stung to know what he was really asking was, What if you don’t love me enough?

“Have you been mangled up?” she asked him.

He covered his mouth with his hand. It was almost funny. Had he been mangled? In brain, but what of it? His hadn’t been a legendary brain to begin with. He’d seen true mangling. Laughter, as it so often did these days, flipped quickly into tears. He forced them back.

He could see that he was hurting her, and it frightened him.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

For surviving.

The answer would be pathetic, would sound like a desperate cry, and he had some dignity left, somewhere, so he didn’t say it. He replaced his hat, bowed, and walked away, trailing broken bits of himself, like bread crumbs, or blood droplets, in his wake.





APHRODITE


     Ride to Lowestoft—June 15, 1918





THE NEXT MORNING, early, Hazel arrived at the Chelmsford railway station. The Puxleys’ neighbor had brought her and her suitcase in his wagon. She purchased a ticket for a London train.