AWOL in North Africa

by Steve Watkins

  So we definitely knew plenty about the war in the Pacific. What we didn’t know a lot about — or enough about, anyway — was the war in Europe.

  “The Germans took over Austria in 1938 and invaded Poland in 1939, you do know that, right?” Greg asked. “Those are countries right next to Germany.”

  “Yeah, that part I know. We learned it in history class last year. Is this in your notes from your dad?” I asked.

  “Yes. That’s where he started from,” he said. “Okay, so then the Germans picked off just about all the other countries in Europe, one by one, including Belgium and Denmark and the Netherlands and Greece and France and you name it. Except Italy and Spain. They were both fascist countries, and Italy even became a German ally in 1940. You know about fascism, right?”

  “A little bit,” I said. “It’s the name for the type of government. And it meant they also had dictators like Adolf Hitler, and nobody was allowed to question anything. They would arrest or, like, assassinate anybody who went against them.”

  “Right,” Greg said. “And they believed that their countries were superior to everybody else’s. Germany was the absolute worst. Hitler said the German people were, like, this master race, and because of that they had a right to take over any country they wanted, and if they needed their oil or natural resources or anything, they just took it. And if there was anybody they thought was lesser than them, they might make them work as basically just slaves, or they might kill them, in death camps, like they did to the Jewish people. Millions of people …” His voice trailed off.

  I shook my head and said, “That’s terrible,” but that didn’t seem nearly strong enough. No words I could think of were.

  “I know,” Greg said. “My dad got so worked up talking about Hitler and the Nazis. But the crazy thing is that for two years the U.S. just sat on the sidelines and didn’t send our army to help, not even in England when the Nazis were bombing them for, like, months and months. Out of all those countries in Europe, England was the only one that refused to surrender, and Hitler couldn’t defeat them without his ground troops and his tanks, which he couldn’t get across the English Channel.”

  “So we just sat there and didn’t do anything?” I said, incredulous.

  “My dad said it was complicated,” Greg said. “Because the American people didn’t want another war. World War I was supposed to have been the war to end all wars, and that was obviously turning out to be a big lie. But we did do some things to help. Some important things, like sending guns and tanks and bombs and anything we could to help England.”

  “And then in 1941 the Japanese attacked us,” I said. “Which basically meant we had to go to war. So we declared war on Japan. And then Germany declared war on us because Japan was their ally. Which meant that we had to declare war on Germany.”

  “Right,” Greg said. “And since Germany declared war on the U.S., Italy did, too.”

  Just thinking about everyone declaring war on everyone else made my head spin. Like Greg’s dad said, complicated.

  Greg kept talking. “Did you know that the French also made a deal with the Germans — my dad called it a deal with the devil — that if Germany didn’t move their army into all of France, just, like, stayed mostly in Paris and on the French coast to guard the English Channel, that France would cooperate with them and wouldn’t fight them? France got to still mostly govern themselves and their colonies in North Africa. As long as they did what the Germans told them to do. They called it the Vichy government, because that was the town where the French had to relocate their capital after the Germans conquered Paris.”

  “And those colonies in Africa? What was that all about?” I was really impressed by how much Greg had learned from his dad already since I’d called. Maybe our brains grow as we get older, and maybe Greg’s brain was going through a growth spurt. Or maybe he’d just managed to take really good notes.

  “I didn’t know anything about the colonies in Africa,” Greg said. “I mean, I didn’t even know anyone had colonies in Africa. But it turns out that most of the countries in Europe conquered the different countries in Africa and Asia back in, like, the 1800s. They set up their own governments there.”

  “Sort of like when the British came to America,” I said.

  “Yeah. So the French were in control over most of the countries in North Africa — the ones on the Mediterranean Sea. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. And the Vichy government was in charge of those at the start of World War II. Putting them on the side of Germany and Italy.”

  I was pretty sure there were other countries in North Africa on the Mediterranean, but I wasn’t too great at geography and couldn’t name them right off the top of my head.

  But Greg knew. “Well, there’s Libya,” he said. “That’s next to Tunisia, to the east, and it was under Italian rule. Next to that was Egypt, which didn’t belong to anyone, exactly, but the British did have an army there and kind of oversaw things.”

  Thinking about how upset American colonists were under British rule, I said, “That wasn’t very nice to the people who already lived there,” I said. “All those Tunisians and Libyans and Egyptians.”

  “Yeah,” Greg said. “I don’t think people thought much about that back then, though — whether it was right or wrong to have colonies in Africa or wherever. Kind of like how European settlers didn’t think too much about the Native Americans when they came over to America and took all their land and everything.”

  We both thought about that for a minute, before going back to the conversation about why the U.S. war against Germany started in North Africa.

  “Well, here’s what my dad told me,” Greg said. “President Franklin Roosevelt and the U.S. generals decided they couldn’t just invade Europe straight on to fight Nazi Germany because that meant crossing the English Channel and attacking the Germans in France. The French coast was too heavily fortified by the Germans, making it easy for them to take out our ships, especially with their submarines. The Allies figured they needed to get control of the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic. If they controlled those, then they could send supplies and weapons and men over without German interference. So the Americans decided to conquer North Africa first to get control of the Mediterranean. Then they could fight their way up through Italy and defeat the Italians. And then, with the Italians out of the way, they could attack the Germans from the south and at the same time from the west, across the English Channel. My dad called it the underbelly of Europe, or something like that.”

  “So that’s what the war in North Africa was all about!” I said. “Sort of a second staging area with England, for attacking the Germans and the Italians in Europe. Who knew?”

  “Apparently a lot of people knew,” Greg said. “Like my dad. And maybe everybody but us.”

  “The ghost knew,” I said. “But that was about all he could remember.”

  “Did you at least tell him his name?” Greg asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “He disappeared too fast, just like he did before. It made me so dizzy I fell off the bed.”

  “Really?” Greg said. “Wow.”

  “Not really,” I added. “But it was fast — the way he disappeared.”

  “Guess we better be ready, then,” Greg said. “For when he reappears, in case it’s that fast again, too.”

  There was more history, of course. There’s always more history. But there was also remembering we had to get up for school in the morning, plus Greg ran out of notes because his dad hadn’t gotten to finish the story about how the U.S. went to war in North Africa.

  So Greg and I got off the phone. He was yawning so much that I could hardly understand what he was saying anyway. I was so tired I was sure I’d fall asleep as soon as my head touched my pillow, but instead I lay awake for what felt like half the night, my head spinning over everything that had happened that day. A new ghost suddenly shows up in your life and you don’t exactly get used to that sort of thing, even if it has happened to you twice be
fore.

  John Wollman. Army medic. Corporal. Philadelphia. The war in North Africa. Hitler. Tunisia. Egypt. A deal with the devil. Death camps. Vichy France. Rubber chickens.

  It all swam together — all those things we’d been talking about, and that I knew I was going to have to learn a lot more about if we were going to help the new ghost. I wondered if he would come back tonight, and since I couldn’t fall asleep, I hoped so — at least I could tell him his name.

  He didn’t, though. And I finally fell asleep anyway.

  We filled Julie in on everything the next day at lunch — me about my brief visit with John Wollman, Greg about everything else. I could tell Julie was impressed by all Greg knew, the same as I had been.

  She even said, “Very impressive” when he finished, which was a high compliment coming from Julie, who always wanted to be the most impressive person around.

  Greg grinned a very big grin. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Meanwhile, you’ll never guess what I found out in a World War II causalities database,” Julie said. She didn’t wait for us to answer. “A medical corps corporal named John Wollman is listed as AWOL — Absent Without Official Leave. He disappeared in Tunisia in April 1943.”

  She was about to say more when a shadow darkened our table. We all looked up, though we knew who it was even before we confirmed it.

  “Hello, Belman,” Julie growled.

  Belman, who was in eighth grade and our self-appointed archenemy, helped himself to my carton of chocolate milk, or tried to.

  “Hey,” Greg said, grabbing it back. “Knock it off. This is a no-bullying zone. The whole school is.”

  Belman grinned his own big grin. “So sorry, midgets. You’re all so tiny, I didn’t even notice you there. I thought somebody had just left a carton of milk here all for me.”

  His friends — Julie had started calling them the Three Stooges since we didn’t know their actual names — all laughed as if anything Belman said was actually funny. Which it wasn’t. Usually.

  Then they all started clucking like chickens for some reason, and laughing even harder. We tried to ignore them, though it was pretty much impossible.

  Belman and the Three Stooges finally finished clucking after about a minute, which seemed like forever, then he patted each one of us on the head like we were little kids, and strutted off across the cafeteria to harass some other sixth graders, with the Stooges trailing behind him.

  I felt humiliated, the way I usually did when stuff like that happened and I couldn’t do anything about it. Julie grinded her teeth.

  Greg just sat there and fumed.

  “What was with all the clucking?” I said to try and get us out of this low place.

  “Who knows?” said Greg.

  Julie sat up straight all of a sudden and actually said, “Aha!”

  “Aha what?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Greg said, rousing himself a little. “Aha what?”

  Julie got a really serious look on her face. “Aha I know why they did that. It was because they must have been the ones who hit Greg with the rubber chicken.”

  Greg and I stared at each other, then we both started nodding.

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Greg said. “I mean, why else would they do that?”

  “But we still don’t have any proof,” I said.

  Julie made a fist and quietly pounded the table. “Then we’ll just have to go get some.”

  I had no idea how we were going to do that, but then I figured if we were able to solve ghost mysteries, we ought to be able to get the goods on Belman and the rubber chicken attack, too.

  “Meanwhile,” said Julie, “just so you know, you two weren’t the only ones doing ghost research last night. In addition to finding out that John Wollman was AWOL in the war in North Africa, I may have found somebody who would know about him.”

  “No way!” I exclaimed. “How? Who? Where?”

  Julie smiled. “The Internet. John Wollman III. And Philadelphia, just like your uncle Dex said.”

  I couldn’t believe Julie had waited this long to tell us her news.

  She shrugged. “Greg was so excited about everything, I didn’t want to interrupt. And then Belman showed up.”

  “That was very nice of you,” Greg said, sounding almost formal about it. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Julie said.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have almost thought they were, like, flirting or something. As soon as the thought came to me I smacked myself in the forehead to make it go away.

  “What did you do that for?” Greg asked, looking at me oddly.

  “Just remembered something,” I said.

  “What?” Julie asked.

  I was stumped. Usually I could make stuff up pretty quickly, but this time my mind was a blank. “I guess I already forgot.”

  Julie sighed. “Boy, are you weird.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “So what about this John Wollman III?”

  Greg and I both leaned in closer. We were the perfect audience for Julie.

  “I emailed him,” she said. “And he emailed back.”

  “But how did you find his email address?” Greg asked.

  “Same way I did with the last ghost.”

  “Oh yeah,” Greg said. “The Internet white pages or whatever.”

  “Anyway,” Julie continued, “I couldn’t be sure it was the right person, but since it was the same name, and he was the third, it all fit. Plus, Philadelphia. So I asked if he was related to a John Wollman who was an army medic during World War II.”

  “So what did he say?” I asked. I couldn’t believe Julie was stretching this out so long. The bell was going to ring any minute for class. Lunch period only lasts half an hour.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Julie said. “He emailed me, though.”

  Now I was getting exasperated. Greg had this look on his face like he thought Julie was just being — I don’t know exactly — maybe charming.

  “And?” I said, trying to hide my irritation.

  Just then the bell rang. We were out of time, and now we were going to have to wait until after school when we met up at the Kitchen Sink for band practice to hear the rest.

  Julie paused when she stood up with her lunch tray. “And he wrote, ‘Who wants to know?’ ”

  I was standing at the urinal, doing my business, thinking I was totally alone in the bathroom, when somebody spoke.

  “I didn’t have any children. I wasn’t ever even married.”

  I started to turn and see who it was — I hadn’t heard anybody else come in — but, well, I couldn’t.

  “Uh, be with you in a second,” I said over my shoulder as I finished up. “Just have to wash my hands.”

  But nobody was there.

  “Ghost?” I said. “Is that you? I mean John. John Wollman. Is that you?”

  It had to have been. And if it was, it meant that even if he was having a hard time showing himself, and sticking around for longer than a couple of seconds, he was at least able to be close enough — somewhere, somehow — to listen in on our conversations.

  It also meant John Wollman III couldn’t be his grandson.

  Julie and I were the first to the Kitchen Sink that afternoon for band practice. Greg was late, as usual. But it gave me a chance to tell her about the encounter in the restroom.

  “He must have heard us talking,” she said. “But you’re right about him not having a grandson. There couldn’t be a third if there wasn’t a junior, and there couldn’t be a junior if he never got married or had any kids.”

  “Right,” I said. “So what do we do?”

  “We wait for John Wollman III to email me back,” she said. “Maybe he’s still related to our John Wollman somehow. You never know.”

  I strummed through a chord progression on my electric guitar, even though I hadn’t plugged it into my amplifier yet. “Why does this stuff always have to be so complicated?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be nice for once if we co
uld solve one of these mysteries in just one day?”

  “Well, certainly,” Julie said. “But just think how difficult it must be for the ghost? You said it yourself. Corporal Wollman didn’t even know he was a ghost, or at least that’s how it sounded.”

  I nodded and kept strumming. I was the least musically talented of the three of us — Julie was by far the best, and Greg had really gotten a lot better on guitar, and could even play some lead guitar on some of our songs. But I was still trying to master barre chords. Plus, now I was the lead singer — ever since Greg’s voice had started cracking — and it was making me very anxious. I actually had to leave the stage and throw up at the last open mic competition. Which we lost, though at least we didn’t come in last. I did manage to come back on after Greg filled in on the first song, and I warbled my way on vocals through the rest of our three-song set.

  “I’ll tell you what else would be nice,” I said. “And that’s if John Wollman could stick around for a little while longer one of these times he shows up, or even if it’s just his voice we hear, like in the bathroom.”

  “Well, here’s his chance,” Julie said, looking behind me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, but I kind of had a feeling as I turned.

  John Wollman was sitting on Greg’s amp. He smiled and waved. “Hey,” he said, sounding almost shy.

  Julie and I waved back, even though we were just ten feet away.

  “Sorry for all the coming and going,” John Wollman said. “I’m having a hard time getting used to, well, to this.” He gestured at himself and then all around him. I nodded as if I knew what he meant, and maybe I did.

  “Being around people?” Julie asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “And being around myself, as strange as I guess that must sound.”

  “We understand,” Julie said. “We were just hoping you wouldn’t disappear so quickly. We have so much to tell you, and to ask you.”

  “So we can help you,” I added.

  He thanked us. “I already heard you say my name. John Wollman. Or Corporal Wollman. But I hope you’ll just call me John. Or Johnny. That’s what they called me when I was little.”