“You know, you may still be wanted for something important, boy,” he said, “and you don’t want this thing to get infected.”
So Walter submitted, though he felt that he would rather the doctor would tell him more about the possibilities in Charlie’s case than to waste time on him.
But there came a day at last when the frown on the doctor’s brow smoothed out as he came to look at Charlie, and Charlie’s “valet,” as the soldiers now called Walter, felt hope springing very faintly in his heart.
“This wound is in better shape than I ever hoped it could be,” said the doctor. “Now we can really begin to work on other things.”
And Walter smiled, a broad beam, just like sunshine.
But it was a slow process, that recovery. For Charlie was really very, very weary. He had gone without food so often, either because he hadn’t time to replenish his pellets or he felt what did it matter whether he ate when there was urgent work to do that might make all the difference in the world which way the battle went. You see, Charlie was fighting his part of the war as if he were the only soldier, and he had to make it to victory. He simply had to, whether he died or not, just so he lasted as long as he should be needed.
That idea had been so thoroughly ingrained into his mind that Charlie hadn’t looked forward to anything after he was once in action, except to die when the time came. And he knew he was ready to die, so there was nothing to worry about. But as good a soldier as that setup made him, it did not conduce to build up a fine physique, though Charlie really used to have a very fine physique. The only trouble was he thought it could last forever, at least as long as it was needed.
Intensive feeding was the order of the day now, and little by little this was having its effect on the weary man who lay there with closed eyes and no apparent interest in what went on about him. So there did come a morning when Charlie opened his eyes and looked up at the young soldier who was feeding him, and smiled. Vaguely at first. Then, as he looked still harder and began to get the lines of the face and figure of the soldier standing beside him, he smiled again. More definitely. Then he spoke, in the old quizzical tone:
“That’s you, Walt, old pal! How’d you get here?”
Walter grinned and winked.
“Same way you did, Charlie. Eat your breakfast and don’t talk. Them’s orders, see?”
Charlie swallowed another mouthful, studied his young friend, and then spoke again:
“You in my outfit?”
“Something like that, buddy.”
“I see. Well, how’d I get here? What happened?”
“Nothing to fret about. Captain just gave you a new location for a time.”
Charlie looked thoughtful.
“Yes, I’m beginning to remember. They got me while I was taking a drink of water. Right?”
“Right.”
“Had to climb the ridge. Couldn’t make it without a drink. But how did I get up? Did I make it after getting hit?”
“Yep. You made it.”
Charlie studied his face a minute.
“But I didn’t make it alone, you old rascal. How did I get up?”
“Oh, I happened along, and we made it together. You see, I’d been hit, too. Some sniper got me. Now, finish this soup and don’t talk anymore or the doc will put me off duty.”
That was the beginning of sanity again for Charlie, and the doctor was greatly pleased at the way the patient was responding to the treatment. But there was still a long way ahead, and Walter, to his delight, found himself detailed especially to look after Lieutenant Montgomery, and keep him quiet enough to really recover.
Of course the first question Charlie wanted to ask as soon as he began to get his bearings was, “How was the battle going when you left?” And Walter had his instructions on that subject, too.
“You are not to discuss the war. Tell Charlie, when he asks—no sooner—that he saved the day for us, and left the enemy in full retreat. Tell him Wheatly took over his work, what there was to do. Say it just that way, and you don’t know any other details, see?”
That was really very well at first, but Charlie had too bright a mind, and was himself too vitally concerned, to be satisfied with no further details, and soon he was asking on every hand. It had, however, been made a rule of the hospital that the details of war were not to be discussed among the patients, so that helped. The patients were told that it would help in their recovery to keep their minds entirely off the harrowing details of what they had been through. So Walter was able to keep a pleasant countenance and be as indefinite as the doctor wanted him to be. In due time Charlie began to relax and to think of something else besides climbing trees and discovering enemy’s secrets and crawling into holes in the ground to broadcast them to his officers who were waiting to know what they ought to do next.
And then one day Walter got a letter from his mother that greatly cheered the way. How it had found him he didn’t know, for of course he hadn’t been allowed to tell in his own letters where he was at the time, but it was wonderful to have a letter come wandering across the world and find him, even when he wasn’t with his own unit. It was as if God had sent it—God, the only One who really knew where he was, and how he needed it.
“They can call it the army if they like,” he said as he sidled up to the chair near Charlie’s bed, “or they can name it the government if they want, but I say it’s God that saw to it that I got this letter. Would you like to hear a little of it?”
“Swell, buddy! Anything from the hometown would be good to me.”
“Okay. Mom’s letters are always interesting I think. And I know she wouldn’t mind you hearing them. She knows you, you know, so you can call it part your letter. Okay, here it is.
“Dear Son:
It seems a long time since your last letter, but I suppose you are far away somewhere and maybe not allowed to write at present. Your last letter spoke as if you were going into action soon. I suppose that word ‘action’ means battle, but I try not to think about it. Just leave it with God to take care of you. You can’t ever know what a comfort it is to me, now that I know you know God, too, and are trusting yourself to Him.
I suppose you’d like to hear some news from the hometown, but there doesn’t seem to be so much anymore. Nearly all the boys you used to know are either in camp or overseas, except Ray Donohue and Orville Casey. Ray has a bad eye, and Orville’s limp is against him, so they are both working in defense plants. The girls you knew are working, too, some taking hospital training, some WACs and WAVES, and some of those other letters they have. Nellie Casey is a secretary in the Warner Company, the three Brown sisters are working in the big grocery, have good positions. It’s hard to get anybody to work anywhere now. Annie Holmes’s kid brother Tom is delivering mail.
Dan Seavers was married a short time ago. I guess you knew him, his father is one of the rich men. Dan married a Miss Anne Houghton, a girl who used to be sewing in the Red Cross class. I guess you didn’t know her. They had a big wedding in the church, and a fashionable reception, for all the world just as if there wasn’t any war going on. Dan is an officer now and has an office somewhere out west, I think. They went off in style.
You remember the Bonniwells? Blythe Bonniwell’s mother has been very sick. They didn’t think she would live for a while, but she is better now. Blythe had to give up her nurse’s training course at the hospital and come home to care for her mother. Nurses are almost impossible to get anymore.
You’ll be surprised that I’m getting to be a frequent visitor at the Bonniwell house. First I went to take some buttonhole work to Blythe from the Red Cross, and then I found out I could help out a little giving Mrs. Bonniwell a massage now and then. But now we seem to be real good friends. She likes me to come in and see her, and I like to go. She’s almost as sweet as her daughter. And they are Christian people, real Christians I mean, the mother and father as well as the daughter.
My, I wish you could have seen Blythe’s face the day I gave
her that message from Charlie Montgomery! It shone like sunshine, and her eyes were so bright and happy. I just hope that boy Charlie is half as good as you say. He’d have to be wonderful to be good enough for her.
I suppose you don’t know where he is anymore. She told me the other day that it was long time since she had heard from him. If you hear anything let me know, for I know she has her heart on him with all there is in it. And she’s so gentle and sweet, waiting on her mother, sewing for the Red Cross, never seeming to care to go out anymore the way the other young folks do. Just stays with her mother, and yet she seems content to have it that way. She has the happiest face I know, and yet it is a kind of still happiness, as if the source of it was far away. Almost perhaps not till heaven.
There is very little other news to tell you. Your sister is doing well in school. She has joined the Junior Red Cross and is interested in all their war activities, and very proud of her three wonderful brothers.
And your mother is praying for you, Walter, yes, and for your wonderful Charlie-friend, and hoping you will both, if it be God’s will, come back to bring us joy and to work for your Lord.
Your loving mother”
There were tears in Charlie’s eyes when the reading of that letter was completed, and he said in a husky voice, “You have a wonderful mother, buddy. I wish mine could have known her. But they will someday know each other in heaven. And mine will be glad that your mother is praying for me. But I cannot thank her enough that she has given me news of my lovely girl. Somehow that makes me almost sure she has not forgotten me. That she still loves me.”
It was more as if Charlie were talking to himself, but Walter answered him, his voice half indignant.
“Of course she loves you, you poor simp! Could anybody forget you, Charlie?”
Charlie grinned.
“Not everybody is as foolish as you, kid,” he said in the old teasing way.
“Well, I’ll be willing to wager your girl is, anyway, if I’m foolish.”
But Charlie’s definite interest in getting well dated from the reading of that letter.
Before that, Charlie had talked only of the time he would be able to go back into service, always with that solemn keen look of going into death once more. Not that he seemed to mind the death part. It was the job he had undertaken. But when he had spoken of it there was always that weary look around his eyes, as if he were too tired yet to be eager for it, though more because of being too tired to do the job right, rather than with the dread of making death his daily companion once more. Charlie wasn’t really afraid of death anymore. His intrepid spirit had taken firm hold of the One who had conquered death. But his wearied body wasn’t yet up to the alertness he needed to go back.
And one day he asked the doctor, “Doc, when do I go back and help get this enemy licked? Seems to me I’m getting pretty lazy lying around here admiring myself.”
The doctor gave him a keen, admiring, amused look.
“Not for a while yet, Lieutenant. You see, you have to give the other fellow a chance to get some of the stars and hearts and medals of honor. You can’t just think you alone can do the whole job of conquering the world. No, fella, your duty is to stay here awhile yet. And when I’m through with you, and can give you a clean bill of health, I think you’re due for a furlough. You ought to go home and rest up awhile, get built up, before you talk about going back and trying any more of your special kind of treetop antics.”
That talk came just the day before Mrs. Blake’s letter. And that letter brought Blythe so clearly before him, made him think that Blythe just might still be loving him, and made him sick with longing to see her again. From that time forth he began to ponder on what it would be like to go home again.
Somehow it had been as if he had closed the door definitely on the thought of any life for them together on this earth when he came away expecting to die. But now, was there still such a possibility for them?
With the thought of going back home, questions came crowding that he had never permitted himself to think of before. As long as his future was held by death, he had a definite feeling that Blythe was his. But if he went back, alive and fairly well, everything would be changed. Or would it? There would be the question of what attitude her parents would take. Even of what attitude she herself would take when she saw him again. There would, of course, be the question of marriage, the natural, normal outcome of loving; the usual, honorable matter of asking a girl to marry when you had told her of your love. It was one thing to admit love for a poor fellow who was going out to die, but it might be quite another thing to marry him if he came back. Was her love great enough for that? What had he to offer her? A broken, weakened body, and a life that was all disorganized. Could he take care of her like such a girl ought to be cared for? He hadn’t contemplated his own possible return to normal life again, although she had said she was praying for it, and his mind had been so thoroughly filled with the idea that he must die that he had kept the thought of such joy for himself out of his mind. He knew if he dwelt on such a possibility it would unnerve him for the work he had to do, and he had vowed to be a conqueror. He must not let anything stand in the way of putting his very best into his job of helping to make the world free from tyranny.
For a couple of days after Walter read him his mother’s letter, Charlie was very quiet and thoughtful, and at last one day Walter, who had an uncanny way of reading his idol’s mind, asked a question right out of the blue. He asked it quite casually, as if it were not very important, but he waited breathlessly for the answer.
“You two going to get married when you go back home?”
Charlie gave him a startled look, and then in a minute answered quietly:
“We hadn’t talked about marriage,” he said. “I was going out to die, not to come back. All that has passed between us was on that basis.”
“Sure,” said Walter, as if he thoroughly understood. “But that doesn’t count now. God’s letting you go back. And my mom always told me that the right kind of a guy asked a girl to marry him when he told her he thought a lot of her. It sort of implies that, doesn’t it, when you tell a girl you love her?”
Charlie was still for a long time. Then he said, “But I’ve got to be sure she still cares. The situation is changed, you know.”
“Oh sure,” said Walter like a connoisseur in marriage, “but you know she does. You’ve got to take all that for granted. You’ve got to trust she’s got the same kind of love you have for her. Why wouldn’t she care, I’d like to know? You’re the same guy that went away, only you’re ten times grander. You’ve got citations and things, and you’re a lot wiser, I suppose. ‘Course, she cares just the same, only more perhaps.”
Walter was embarrassed, but he felt it was something that ought to be said. But the silence this time was longer still as Charlie considered his future.
At last Walter burst forth with another question.
“Aren’t you going to write to her? You can, now, you know. They send mail out from here every day. I think you ought to think of her and how she must long to hear from you. Mom seems to think she cares an awful lot. You could at least let her know you’re still alive.”
At last Charlie said thoughtfully, “I suppose I could. I hadn’t realized. I’ve looked on myself as dead so long. Well, bring on your implements. Got a pencil and paper? I don’t know what kind of a stab I’ll make at writing, with this arm still bandaged, but I can try.”
So Walter brought the writing materials, and noted a lighting of Charlie’s eyes as he set about writing.
It wasn’t a long letter, for the right hand was pretty well hampered yet by bandages to help support the wounded shoulder, but he finished it, and lay back with his eyes shut while Walter hastened to mail it. Charlie lay there thinking over what he had written, wondering if it was the right thing. He still had a feeling that perhaps he was presuming to come back from the dead this way. They had planned on meeting in heaven, yes, but what of this earth? Would that
change the situation for her? He still was greatly conscious of her wealthy parents, for whom he had much reverence of her social position, and delicate rearing. Somehow those things had seemed to fade away when he held her in his arms, when he wrote her those letters, but now, after his long-enforced silence, they had returned. And so he had written briefly, out of his own heart-hunger, yet still protecting her from even his love.
My darling:
It seems that I am getting well of my wounds and am being invalided home in the near future. Do you still want me back, or would it be a relief if I didn’t come?
Forgive the question, but I have to know. When you gave me your love it was with the knowledge that I would not likely return. My love is still the same. The greatest joy that earth could give me would be if you would marry me and we might spend the rest of our lives together. I could not ask you this before, because I did not expect to return. With this in mind, do you still want me to come?
I shall be letting you know later of my orders, and I am sending you all my love.
May the peace of God abide with you, my love.
Yours,
Charlie
After the letter was gone, Charlie got to worrying about it. Just the act of writing it had given him the touch with Blythe that he needed to bring him back to normal again. Perhaps his letter had been unworthy of a real trust in the love she had given him. And yet he had to give her the chance to speak plainly. Perhaps he ought to have waited until he could ask her face-to-face. It had been a weakness in himself to write that letter. He should have waited till he got back, but somehow he shrank from bearing the uncertainty all that time on the way home. Well, he had evidently grown soft. It hadn’t been fair to the great love she had promised him that he should have written, so he would write her again at once, taking it for granted that she loved him as he loved her.
And so he wrote another letter and filled it with his great love and told her of the joy that the thought of her was bringing him, and that he might hope to see her at some time not too far off.