With Love, Wherever You Are

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  According to the Stars and Stripes, we bombed Bordeaux with over 100 planes, which is a good start. All the French armies there are attached to the 6th Army Group, which joined my former 11th General.

  Though I can’t tell you where I am, I can say that we (I, Major Bradford, and one medic) performed 80 operations in the last 24 hours. We are well equipped with German supplies and equipment left behind. I can barely hold my pen to write you. Tried to sleep. Woke because it was cold and I was too lazy to get under a blanket after having just flopped onto the cot. I lay there for a while thinking of my wife and how wonderful it would be if you were to walk in with a “Don’t you have a clever wife, Frankie” look on your face.

  The evenings are long. We are the prisoners after we leave our makeshift hospital. There is a strict curfew, and our orders are not to go out again. An order has been issued that we should not say hello, not even to well-intentioned civilians. Will, Major Bradford, believes we must work at peace after this war . . . or we shall simply find ourselves in another.

  I’ve received 12 more patients since I began this letter. Some poor GI scalded his face and hands, thanks to the enemy’s grenade. On the other hand, a German prisoner burned his feet severely in a similar manner, though he insists he is a civilian and stepped in lye.

  I miss you. Be happy, Tiny.

  With love, wherever you are,

  Frankie

  1 May 1945

  My dear Frankie,

  How I miss you! I wonder if you ever get tired of me saying the same things in my letters: Naomi is sweet. Victoria is nasty. Peggy O is crafty. Bill is funny. And so on.

  Patients confirm Mussolini is dead, and hopefully Hitler too. I have also heard that the Seventh Army is in Munich, the birthplace of my mother.

  Mom wrote that the cost of marriage licenses in Illinois is going up from $1 to $3, and aren’t we lucky we cashed in on that one. Her letter said nothing about Eugene or the letters I’ve written him.

  And now for the best news: Danny, my amputee patient in Battle Creek, is getting married! His fiancée, Betty Lou, is a nurse’s aide at Percy Jones, but I never met her. Hudy will be best man. Jimmy sulked at that, but now he’s proud to be a groomsman. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s as if a normal life is still going on back home.

  With love forever and always, wherever you are,

  Tiny

  Capt. F. R. Daley, MD

  Dearest Helen,

  I had to stop this letter when barely started so that I could dive for cover like a real soldier. As it happens, your husband may be awarded two more combat stars, making a total of three unearned—like a baseball game with no hits, three runs all unearned and three errors. I always thought I’d be proud and overjoyed if I received a medal, like Dotty and, no doubt, Jack have accumulated. Turns out I’d much rather receive a letter from my lovely wife. Today, in spite of gunfire and tragedy, I experienced true joy from receiving the greatest gift—12 letters from the best and most beautiful wife in the world.

  I have a lot of medical equipment here (almost as much as for the entire 11th General before), much of it purloined from the Germans. I should have good use for it. I expect patients to arrive in great numbers. We do have mosquitoes here, but they are supposed to be the non-malaria-bearing type. I hope they know that.

  With love, wherever you are,

  Your Frankie

  GERMANY

  Planes buzzed overhead. Frank could identify most of them, and they weren’t friendly. His stomach growled, and he couldn’t blame it—nothing but C-rations for dinner, K-rations for lunch. And no breakfast.

  Frank and Bradford had relocated six times in nine days, searching for the perfect location for their new medical mobile unit, consisting of ninety enlisted men. So far, they’d found a dozen perfect spots . . . for mosquitoes. Frank wanted to get them closer to the airfield. Besides patching up soldiers who could be sent back to their units, he and Bradford would be responsible for the more severely injured. They would treat then evacuate them to safer hospitals. Orders were to form a pup tent city with cots for five hundred patients, and they were told that five hundred liberated American POWs would pass through daily. Each soldier would need to be deloused, reclothed, and rated whether or not he was “physically whole and able,” which would put him at risk for being returned to battle duty.

  That afternoon, Frank and Bradford needed to make a foray through enemy territory to secure a better, more permanent location. They set out on bikes they’d rebuilt from parts found in a junkyard. All around them, shades of green peeked from tree limbs and clearings. Birds called from the woods, where the sweet scent of pine permeated the air.

  “Right this minute, it’s hard to believe there’s a war going on,” Bradford said.

  “I know what you mean.” Frank followed him out of the woods and onto barren ground marred with unnatural holes, craters left by bombs. Abandoned campfires, debris, and detritus showed signs of Germans who’d retreated to the woods when their homes were destroyed.

  Bradford pulled away on his bike as they climbed a steep hill. Exhausted, Frank lagged behind, amazed at the ease of Bradford’s uphill ride.

  Suddenly a boy darted from behind a broken tree trunk. He raced swift as a hawk, or a vulture, then stopped in the road. Bradford slammed his brakes and skidded to a halt. The barefoot boy, dressed in oversized shorts and no shirt, stared at them in defiance, his scabbed rib cage puffed out, his dark eyes cold. Frank couldn’t tell if he was five or fifteen. He held something in his fist, which he shook at them as he screamed, “Ich habe keine Angst vor dir!” The boy spit out the words, which Frank thought meant, “I’m not afraid of you.”

  Without warning, he raised a skinny arm, and Frank saw what looked like a small pineapple. The boy pulled something from the pineapple and threw it at Bradford.

  “No!” Bradford dropped his bicycle and turned away.

  Frank heard a sound like gunshots and felt a sweep of air lift him from his bike and drop him, hard, to the ground. His ears filled with the sound of rushing water and muffled drums. He lay on his back. His eyes burned. Smoke floated above him. But the sky had never looked so blue. And the clouds . . .

  “Hey, buddy.”

  Frank opened his eyes. His head felt like a tank was sitting on it. He tried to remember where he was, what had happened. It was like being trapped inside a nightmare and not knowing the source of fear.

  Somebody was talking to him, but the words were rustling paper, blowing sand. He squinted up at the smudged face of a soldier, a Yank. The soldier’s lips moved, but Frank couldn’t make out what he was saying. He struggled to sit up. Pain knifed the back of his head. He fell back down. Something was wrong with his leg. He looked down and saw a belt tourniquet tied around his calf.

  The Yank tried to lift him, but Frank pulled away. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t remember.

  And then he did. The bikes. The boy. “Will.” Frank tried to shout, but his throat was raw. “Will! Bradford?”

  The bike lay beside the trail, a tangle of metal in a pool of blood. An ambulance was parked on the trail, its motor running.

  Frank looked to the soldier, who hovered above him.

  The guy shook his head and mouthed the word sorry.

  Two soldiers lifted Frank, while the Yank kept talking to him. Frank couldn’t understand them over the roaring in his ears. But he didn’t need their words. He knew.

  Major Will Bradford was dead.

  In the following days, Frank went over and over those last few minutes. If he’d been in better shape, he might have been the one in front. Or he and Bradford could have ridden side by side, and the boy wouldn’t have . . .

  Physically, he recovered fast. He went through the motions of life, but his mind was numb. All he’d suffered was a slight concussion and a wound on his calf where he’d caught a piece of shrapnel. But his friend was gone. He wrote Helen about Bradford, playing down his own injuries.

  Routine gradually turned into duty, a
nd Frank threw himself into his work in a way he’d never done before, as if everything he did served to end the war. As he worked on each patient, he prayed for them as he’d suspected Bradford of doing, silently, fervently.

  What remained of the new unit—about sixty enlisted men, three medics, and one doctor—formed a pup tent village so close to the airfield that Frank could hear and feel the rush of planes coming and going at all hours. Most were American, piloted by Frenchmen. Stretchers continued to arrive with wounded of all nationalities. He worked under blackout conditions, and even the ambulance vans drove with lights off, the cause of no small number of accidents. Medics hauled battlefield wounded in buses captured from the Germans.

  And everyone waited for Germany to surrender.

  May 7, 1945, 10 p.m.

  V-E Day!

  My dearest darling,

  This is it, Frankie! Hard to believe, but it’s really here.

  While I administered meds on the general ward, everyone kept running in with more news, confirming what we’ve been hearing. It is official! The war in Europe is over. I wish you could call me, darling. You can tell me where you are now, don’t you think so?

  I think it is wonderful, for besides meaning so much to everyone, V-E Day means you and I can be together. It won’t really feel like a victory until Japan gives up, until Dotty has Boots, until we are done with the Army occupation, and until I am with you forever. But it does feel like a beginning.

  I don’t mean to be selfish by only thinking of us. I realize what V-E Day must mean to soldiers and civilians over here. I assure you that in France, there is great joy tonight. The French are yelling and screaming outside, and the world sounds boisterous and rather glorious. People are singing, “Let the Rest of the World Go By” in French. I know the words in English, and they are my feelings as well.

  I think everyone should go to church tomorrow to express our thankfulness. This peace is almost unbelievable. I wish you were here to talk with me. Our orders are to march in full dress behind the infantry in some sort of parade all over town. I shall have blisters as my souvenirs if I don’t find a way out of it.

  But for now, I will sit back, thank our God in Heaven, and try to grasp how much all this means to us and to everyone.

  I don’t see how Japan can last with the world against her.

  With love always and forever, wherever we are,

  Your Tiny Wife who adores you

  Later—

  Oh, my darling. Naomi just delivered your letter containing such sad news. I know how you felt about Major Bradford. He must have been a remarkable man to have earned your respect and your friendship. I hardly know what to say, my love. I wish I could be with you to comfort you. You didn’t say that you were injured seriously, but I would like to know for certain that you are all right. Once again it seems I can do nothing to help. So I will ask God to help you through this.

  ENTZHEIM, FRANCE

  Frank was working alone in the OR tent, removing shrapnel from the leg of an eighteen-year-old kid from Kansas who had played football in high school and baled hay in summers, and would never walk again. His sergeant had taken seven recovering soldiers to the airfield for transport to the US, leaving a couple dozen patients for another flight. He wanted to keep busy. Otherwise, his thoughts turned to Bradford, and he relived those tragic moments over and over.

  Behind him, Frank sensed somebody entering the tent, but he couldn’t turn around to see because he was tying off stitches. “Hello?”

  “Why, if it isn’t the famous Captain Daley!”

  “Lartz?” Frank pulled off his rubber gloves and bloody coat, then turned around. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the States?”

  “On my way. I heard about Major Bradford, and I thought I’d stop and see how you’re holding up. I’m sorry, Frank. He was a good man.”

  “Thanks, Lartz.” Frank hugged his friend. “You look good.” It wasn’t a total lie. Though still bone-thin, he had a bit of his spark back.

  Lartz held up his hands, showing simple bandages, with fingers free. “I can use these again. I’d like to help out while I’m here. I was in the supply plane when we heard the news.”

  “What news?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Frank’s patient groaned, and Frank ran over and checked to make sure the morphine drip hadn’t clogged.

  “You don’t have a radio in here, do you?” Lartz asked.

  “Have one. It doesn’t work.”

  Gunfire exploded in the distance, and Frank suspected the news involved a new offensive, a last-ditch attack of some kind.

  “The war’s over in Europe,” Lartz said. When Frank didn’t respond, he added, “Not in Japan. Not yet. But it’s V-E Day, Frank.”

  Frank looked up from the mangled leg that probably couldn’t be saved, then to the comatose boy brought in that morning on a stretcher after a UXB exploded. From where he stood, Frank could see down the rows of beds, lines of patients converging like train tracks in the distance.

  Was this what the end of war looked like? Was this victory?

  Lartz moved to the nearest patient. “Let me give you a hand.”

  More relief arrived in the form of two young medics who had traveled from Strasbourg with Lartz. “We can handle things here for a few hours,” Lartz said. “Why don’t you take a break, Frank?”

  Against standing orders, Frank walked to town in darkness to the sounds of sporadic gunfire, soldiers celebrating their victory. He needed to think. He ambled past buildings that were still devastated. Rubble was everywhere, lying in his path, ready to trip him. Just because the war was declared over by a few men behind closed doors, these buildings wouldn’t suddenly go back to being churches and homes. The land wouldn’t un-scorch. Will Bradford would not come back to life.

  And no one who had survived this war would ever be the same.

  Inside, Frank felt a tug so hard he couldn’t ignore it. And he’d tried. He longed to return to the States and build a new life with Helen. He wanted a family.

  But what about a peace like Bradford had talked about? Most likely, Frank would be sent to wherever he was needed in the CBI for two years. Volunteering to stay with his unit, perhaps to lead a unit to China, would mean committing to more than simply occupying territories for a couple of years.

  Frank walked purposefully back toward the hospital tents, praying for Helen, for Lartz, for Dotty and Boots, for Bradford’s family, for every soldier, every civilian who had suffered loss in this war . . . no matter which side they were on. He watched the sun rise over the tents, outlining the big red crosses on their sides. And as the new day dawned with pink and purple promise, he thanked God, prayed for peace, asked for guidance.

  And got it. Frank knew what he had to do.

  Only how on earth was he going to explain it to Helen?

  Captain F. R. Daley

  Entzheim, France

  Dearest Tiny,

  It is such a beautiful morning. The war is over in Europe, though it’s hard to believe. Around here last night, it was pretty dangerous. The exuberant French were shooting into the air and sending up flares everywhere, as if the flames could do no harm. More than a few shots kicked up dust on the path behind my tent.

  Lartz came to see me on his way to the coast, where he will catch a ship to the US. He seems much improved and was a great help with my patients. I shall miss him.

  How I wish you were here with me to process what all of it means! People continue to be sick and wounded, despite the declaration of the war’s end. We are expecting a flood of ex-prisoners from both sides. Most soldiers who come into camp—though not the truly abused patients, you understand—are so happy to be free, they’re like little kids, and some of their elation is contagious. You should see how happy they are to get a shower, even though it’s icy cold.

  Helen, I am working on getting us together. I have been planning a V-E Day rendezvous for months, in fact. You have no doubt heard that most doctors in the Eu
ropean theater will be shipped to the CBI as soon as transport is available. You and I have big things to discuss. I have made certain plans—perhaps they have been made for me—and I need to talk with you face-to-face.

  It’s more urgent than ever that I see you. I believe I have secured the where. Now we must determine the when and how. Once you are here, we can get around on my new old motorcycle, which one of the men in my outfit rescued from the junkyard and helped me restore. What a wonderful time we will have, my darling! All will be well.

  With all my love, wherever you are,

  Your loving husband,

  Frankie

  P.S. I have figured the Army’s point system, and the only points counted are as follows:

  1 point for each month of service

  1 additional point for each month overseas service

  5 points for each combat star or decoration

  12 points for each child under 18 years

  The critical point is 85, the number a soldier needs for a furlough stateside. I figure to be around 30. All I lack are 5 children. What do you think?

  RENNES, FRANCE

  Helen didn’t even like watching parades, much less participating, even though this one was mandatory for the off-duty hospital personnel. She marched exactly one block before ducking behind a bombed-out building, then making her way back to the hospital, where she was needed.

  She was changing sheets on the ward when Naomi ran in. “I knew you’d be here! You better hustle. Colonel Pugh wants all married nurses in his office. Now! I think it may be assignments.”

  Helen’s heart did the skip as she followed Naomi. Everybody, including Frank, seemed sure that doctors would be sent to China, Burma, India, or even Japan. But nurses had no idea what the Army had planned for them. Helen had been hoping against hope that she and Frank could talk things through before she got her assignment.

  Pugh’s office was standing room only as he rose from his desk. “I apologize for the lateness of the hour, but I have a deadline. And so do you, nurses. Before sending in your assignments, I want to know if you wish to stay with the unit here or opt out of the unit and eventually return to the States when transport is available. If you stay in the unit, you will be choosing to go to the CBI.”