Virgin With Butterflies

by Tom Powers

  I guess I’ve got to tell about it, as near how it happened as I can. But I can’t remember except little bits. We were flying in a fog and I was writing the English words that I wanted to remember in my book. Suddenly somebody yelled, and there was a roar right on us nearly, and something going pop, pop, pop, pop.

  I looked and there was a flash of flame like a burning house falling through the sky and nearly going to hit us, and something out of it spitting more fire. And Boggs yelled. “That’s it, mates, I got it.”

  And before I could say, “What?” Cecil lay flat on the floor, facedown like a train had run over him. All the time that streak of burning fire kept coming at us a mile a minute and shooting past the windows as we bumped and started going over sideways.

  By then I seemed to know that the thing burning and falling out there was another plane on fire, but it was shooting the hell out of us as it went down. We heard it hit the water, and boom, one big flash of light.

  About that time we hit, and everything got all mixed up together. I remember Roddy climbing back to me as I searched through my bag to save something, and I was so relieved when I found it. And then I don’t remember anything till I was in the water just coming to myself and Roddy pulling the last of me into that little rubber boat.

  He told me afterwards that the bigger boat got sunk with the plane. Just the tip of the wing was above the water now, and it was just before this that Boggs had done like I said, and was in the water, and Roddy yelling, “You bloody, bloody fool, come back here.” And he sure was right, I never saw so much blood as was on Boggs. But Boggs wouldn’t come back, because it was just the little boat, instead of the big one.

  The wing tip disappeared and I saw Roddy’s arm, all bloody and hanging wrong. It was just us in that little rubber boat with some stuff floating around us. I used the piece of propeller and tried to reach that little leather folder with Cecil’s Australian kids floating away in it.

  Then I tore strips off my skirt until I was nearly naked to twist a tourniquet around Roddy’s arm. It made Roddy faint with how it hurt him, but it sure stopped the spurts of blood just like that Scout master told Willie it would.

  So there I sat, sort of laid down with Roddy in my lap pretty near, and before I knew it, it was dark, and was I ever seasick. And days of two people together like what we were, delirious and sun-blistered and talking, gets you to be good friends or bad enemies or first one and then the other till you get rescued or die of exposure or anyway of embarrassment.

  It wasn’t till we had nearly got to Australia that we were picked up by the destroyer. The commander told me what had happened so I could tell Roddy when he came in to see me in the cabin that was turned into a hospital just for me. I had a sailor to look after me, though I could hardly understand him at all because he spoke nothing but Scotch. But all of the officers and most of the men came in to do anything they could.

  I’m Swedish, see? All pale, like a white pidgeon as Millie use to say. And people that are Swedish are all pale like that. And people as pale as me learn early not to get sunburned, because it’s just burn, blister, peal and heal, and then burn again worse the next day.

  With no clothes on that Swedish skin and salt water spraying on top of it as it cracks, my skin turned white and dropped off leaving what looked like raw lamb underneath. That tan just about ruined me.

  That’s why when we got rescued I had to remember to try to think I saw somebody else entirely while the poor Scotch sailor that had a red cross on him greased me and bandaged me like a newborn baby. And the only reason I didn’t blush was that I was worse than that color pretty near all over, not having had anything on worth mentioning all that time in that boiling sun.

  So, while he was fixing me, the only thing that saved me from dying of thinking what was being done to me and by who, was that I pretended I was unconscious. Now here I was wrapped in clean white bandages all over me, except the very middle and the brassiere part.

  What the commander told me was that the Tigers got in a dog fight, high up. They came out of China, those Tigers, just to get in dog fights, and that meant not what it sounded like, but shooting Japanese planes when they could find ’em.

  Well, they’d found one that day and they’d chased him out over the water high in the air. So finally they shot him up bad and he slid off sideways with puffs of fire shooting out of him, here and there, into the fog that was below them. So the Tigers went home.

  Well, when the Tigers got back they heard about what happened to us. It was news, I guess, because it seems that we weren’t supposed to be shot at much, being just to carry stuff. And because of the fog the commander and the Tigers just had to guess what really did happen.

  Well, they guessed that this Japanese plane, coming down through the fog with his tail burning, pretty near hit us, and the commander said he guessed the pilot must have decided to pop a few into us as he went down.

  I had saved my book, because I had been writing in it when it happened. And even if it hurt my arm to write now, and even if the book looked funny after being dried out by Scottie, I didn’t want to forget anything, since most of the girls I have met don’t ever get to have things happen to them like what happened to me. But my grandfather used to tell me about the Civil War, and I sure thought he was lying, but if he’d have had a book that he had wrote it all down in, I might have believed a lot more than what I did believe.

  And, “Who knows,” I thought, “I might get to be a grandmother someday, if all of me don’t come off with these bandages, and I want to have something to tell my grandchildren and prove it ain’t a lie.”

  The reason I thought about getting to be a grandmother was that one thing I had saved was Mr. Bosco’s Christmas present, that little green bug that helps you get grandchildren. I had it around my neck on the chain the old prince gave me, but the diamond was in my bag with the other stuff.

  That stuff about the grandchildren got me thinking about Jeff. I knew that if it was a movie, it would have been Jeff on his way to the war that first spotted our little rubber boat after all of those blistering days, and Jeff would have been the one to bandage and take care of me. Only I was sure glad it wasn’t him, because if it had been Jeff instead of that Scottie, I wouldn’t have just pretended I was dead, I would have been really dead, or anyway hoped I was.

  But it wasn’t a movie, so it wasn’t Jeff that spotted me, or bandaged me, either.

  Well, like Pop said, I sure get bunged up easy, but I sure get better in a hurry, too. I use to wish I could get tanned like Martine McCullough and the Gianini girls on Fredrica Street use to in the summer at the camp that I always wished I could go to that they went to. And if they called me Paleface when they got back, they sure should have seen me when I got to Australia, in a white English sailor suit and me as brown as an Indian.

  Well, like I said, the commander thought I had better not turn his destroyer into a young ladies seminary. So I tucked my hair up inside one of the English navy caps. They’re not flat on the top of your head, like ours are, but have a nice space for a girl’s hair.

  Well, there I stood on the bridge, as they called it. It was like the upper front porch of the boat, though they didn’t like me calling it a boat, I was supposed to call it a ship. And there I stood with Roddy with his arm in a sling and the officers with us to see us come in to Australia, and I guess from the shore—even through opera glasses—I looked like any other sunburned sailor, but taller than the English ones.

  Well, Australia sure looked good to me. The sailor that was on duty up on the bridge kept laughing and blinking a light slow and fast. Roddy said he was telling the shore man about us, and especially about me. He must have made it quite a story, for when we finally got in, there was a lot of fuss, with people and pictures.

  The commander agreed with me that I had better not try to go through the town in that sailor suit, so somebody—a very nice girl named Rosalie—came to find out the sizes of everything, and when I was dressed I came out
on the deck to say goodbye to all the boys. The commander had ’em all drawn up at attention but it looked too much like they had looked that day when they said a burial service for Boggs and Cecil and our other boys that didn’t get saved. So I told the commander to go ahead and loosen ’em up so I could tell ’em goodbye. He looked a little shocked, but he did like I asked him. So then it was easier.

  So, to my surprise, I talked a long time, about how brave an Englishman could be when he came up to scratch. And they thought I meant something about an old joke they’ve got about throwing a sailor in the ocean because he’s got fleas, so they died laughing at me saying a sailor come up to scratch. So I acted like that was what I meant, but I got ’em to listen when I talked about how I wished I could tell their folks how good they had been to me.

  How can you thank a lot of men like that for treating you like they done me? You can’t, so I didn’t try. But my eye lighted on that bowlegged Scotch angel that had taken care of me, and I just walked over and kissed him. You never saw a man turn so red, and you never heard such a yell from the others.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THAT NIGHT THE OFFICERS and Roddy all came to the American government’s place for a big dinner, and they all brought newspapers about me and the rescue at sea of me and Roddy. And was it wonderful to meet some people that spoke American.

  Of course, I didn’t have any money, or my passport or just about anything at all, only my dried-out little writing book and what I had saved out of my bag when I dived into it just as we hit the water.

  I guess something takes care of you times like that. I saved the paper flowers from Bill and Coo. They were soon melted and torn and just disappeared and I used the wire stems to twist around my hair to keep it out of my eyes. Then I had my little green bug that Mr. Bosco had given me, still on its chain around my neck. I’d also saved that little box I got in India. Something sure helped me and I saved that box. So when the time came I could open it—and I did, but that was a lot later, of course.

  Well, after dinner, Roddy and me were standing on a balcony, like Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy, and he was pretty, sweet and not smartalecky. He wasn’t even very British, just sweet.

  He said to make it all just like an adventure yarn, we ought to get married.

  And I joked, too, and I says, “Yes, Roddy, can’t you just see me going back to England as Lady Carmichael?”

  And Roddy says, “Yes, I can.” And I saw, for the first time, that he meant it. And was I surprised.

  But it was sure a compliment, because I had learned a lot about Roddy on the destroyer—not from him, you bet, but from other officers. Those straight little stripes on his sleeve wasn’t like he told me—to prove he use to be a sergeant—but they were wound stripes that Roddy got in other parts of the war. And his family was real stuff, and I sure felt obliged to him, even in the craziness of a war, to ask me that, and I told him so.

  I tried to make him understand why it sure would be asking for trouble. Then I told him goodbye, and he was going to go very formal on me for not being fool enough to marry a gent like him.

  But I says, “Listen, big boy,” I says, “any two people that have been together for as long as us and has got things to remember like us—I mean about Boggs and Cecil and those other poor boys—that puts us pretty close together, for now and for always. So you snap to attention, Roddy, and march yourself over here and kiss me goodbye, or I’ll tell whoever does get to be Lady Carmichael what a heller you are with a fever.”

  Roddy was a nice boy and he did as he was told. So we went back in and they all said they could see us plain on the balcony, like those black cutouts against the sky, and the upshot of it was I had to do a lot of kissing goodbye before they all left. But they sure had been nice to me, and I felt like they wasn’t foreigners at all.

  At the party were two American United States officers named Herb Furse and Jimmy Talbott. They were the ones that would fly me back with my new passport. And nice as the English was, was I glad I was going from here on home with American boys.

  Mr. Warburton, one of the members of the American council, asked if he do anything for me before I left. I said yes, if there was any way to find Cecil Dillon’s wife I wanted to see her. I said his mother must be a Mrs. Dillon, and she must live somewhere close and the wife and kids were with her waiting for him to take ’em home. Anyway, I told him they were in Australia, and from what little I ever saw of my geography, Australia was just an island, and so even if Mrs. Dillon was on the other side of Australia, maybe I could just run over and see ’em for a minute before I left.

  He looked funny, but he called up two or three places, and after we waited awhile, it turned out Mrs. Dillon, Cecil’s mother, lived right there where we was at, in this town named Melbourne.

  He sent me in his car. He said he’d go with me, but I said I’d rather be by myself. So a soldier drove me, named Captain Breckenridge from the state of Virginia.

  We got to a little house, and there were the kids outside. Little Cecil playing with a homemade airplane, and little Nell sitting on the steps watching.

  They saw me and I got out and asked Breckenridge to wait for me.

  Mrs. Dillon, the mother, came to the door and I asked her if Nell was home. She was in the dining room laying the table for some American soldiers they had invited to Sunday dinner—it was the first time in awhile I knew what day it was. She asked if I could stay, too, with the American boys that would be coming soon, but I said I was sure sorry, but I had an engagement with two other Americans that afternoon to fly across the Pacific Ocean.

  They laughed and were very polite about it. And they invited me to please step in and rest my hat. I couldn’t wait any longer, knowing what a shock it was going to be, so I told ’em who I was and why I had come.

  They said, yes, they knew who I was the first minute I drove up. They had recognized me from the paper. They said they had had word from the Air Ministry. Preachers, I guess, for the flyers. They were kind and sweet, and showed me pictures of Cecil as a sheep herder when he was growing up.

  So I told ’em about our trip together and how he loved ’em all, and that nearly the last thing he talked about was them, and for the first time since it happened I cried, and they comforted me like I had come to comfort them. And they never cried a tear.

  I couldn’t help saying, “Did you know all this, when you invited these Americans to come to this Sunday dinner?”

  They said they had a few Americans every Sunday and they didn’t like to disappoint boys so far from home, so they decided not to change.

  Soon I had to go, so I told ’em goodbye and got in the car. Nell stood in the door and smiled at me. I waved and she waved, and we drove away, and Breckenridge agreed with me that they sure have got what it takes.

  Being all Americans, Jimmy and Herbie and I had a lot of fun. I told ’em quick about Jeff, and I sure was surprised to hear myself say Jeff was my fiancé, and besides that, that we was engaged, which we certainly was not. But saying it like that made me feel good.

  By the time we got to Hawaii I felt we were nearly home, and it made me think of going back to Mattoon that time. First, I got the telegram that Uncle Ulrich was dead when he hadn’t been sick or anything. I got Millie to come back and squeeze into Butch’s white satin formal so I could go, on account of Aunt Helga always being nice to me.

  So I went, not knowing there was going to be any inquest, but there was. I was just going because I was so sorry for Aunt Helga, and I never thought anything strange had happened for a single minute. Until that city doctor asked again just exactly what they had for dinner. I still wasn’t sure what was going on because Pop wasn’t saying anything, but I had a strange feeling.

  Then the inquest was over and we went home, and all Aunt Helga talked about was how Spot died of old age on Saint Patrick’s Day and other current events.

  I sat up all night, which is customary for me when I get to worrying. And I kept telling myself I was just imagini
ng things. But I remembered watching Aunt Helga making coffee when we got home, quiet and gentle, with that little tight look around her mouth not so tight anymore. And me on through the night thinking even if she did, why would she do it now, after all this time?

  The next day was the funeral, and the Lodge Brothers with their little aprons and badges had crossed spears to walk under. And there were speeches at Mr. Hawthorne’s Undertaking Parlors and Chapel, and then more speeches at the grave.

  We came home after that, inviting the aldermen and the mayor in for a drink of Rhine wine or beer.

  The mayor took me aside and wouldn’t let go of my hand while he was sympathizing with me. He said, “You’re working in Chicago, I hear. Well, I get up to the city once in a while, we ought to get together sometime. How about it, little lady?”

  Then it was just Pop and Aunt Helga and me having supper. The parlor was still open from the company, so we sat in there, though we never use to. Pop didn’t smoke his corncob, because Uncle Ulrich never had liked it, but after awhile Pop, not thinking what he was doing, filled his pipe and tamped it down. Just as he was about to put the stem in his mouth, he saw what he was about to do and eased his old corncob back in his pocket.

  Aunt Helga got up and walked out of the room, then we heard her coming back. She walked in and put a handful of big birdseye kitchen matches right on top of the velvet album that was on the table right alongside of Pop.

  She took one, struck it on her shoe and held it out to Pop. He took out his pipe and she lit it for him and he puffed away.