“Were you able to save him?” I asked.
John sighed. “Don’t know. I hope so. Anyway, he was still alive when they came with a litter to put him on it and carry him off the beach. I guess they’d been able to set up a surgical tent by then in a safe spot. Things were happening so fast I couldn’t be sure where they took him. And there were so many other men that needed help. So I had to leave him and just keep going. To the next guy. And the next guy. And the next guy.”
“So you never saw him again?” I asked.
“No,” John said. “He was passed out. From losing all that blood, and his leg, or from the morphine. Or from the shock. Anyway, he was my first. I said a prayer for him while they carried him off. And I thought about him every day after that, hoping he lived. Or I guess I should say I thought about him every day that I was still alive myself.”
I asked John if he remembered anything else about that day. He frowned and brought his hands together under his chin, almost as if he was saying a prayer right then.
“I remember what happened before that. I remember the ocean when we were on the landing craft,” he said. “I remember climbing down the side of the ship to board, and how rough the waves were, and guys asking me for something to keep them from getting seasick. But I didn’t have anything. So a bunch of them, you know, lost their dinner right there in the landing craft, which was pretty disgusting, and everybody stepped in it because there wasn’t anywhere else to stand until we hit the beach, or close enough to the beach that we were supposed to be able to wade to shore.”
“And then the land mine,” I said. “And the guy lost his leg.”
John nodded. “Yeah. And then that happened. But I don’t remember much after that. Just that there were more guys, and they kept calling for me — ‘Medic!’ Or I guess calling for any of us in the medical corps who were close enough to help.”
John had been around a lot longer this time than ever before, but, of course, as soon as I thought about that, wouldn’t you know he started fading out again, going all staticky so I couldn’t understand what else he was saying. And then he was gone.
I woke up in the morning humming a song I’d never heard before. Actually, I wasn’t even aware that I was humming it until I walked into the kitchen to get breakfast. Mom was at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, just like an ordinary parent and not like the one she usually was — the one with MS, and having to stay in her bed most of the time.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “Want some coffee?”
I knew she wasn’t serious — they would never let me drink coffee — but I said sure anyway, hoping she’d let me just for once this morning. I probably hadn’t gotten five hours’ worth of sleep.
To my surprise, she got up and went over to the coffeepot and poured some in a mug. Then she poured about four times as much milk in with it, and stirred in some sugar. “Don’t tell your dad,” she said. “And it’s just this once.”
I thanked her, but probably should have said, “No thanks,” instead, because even with the milk and the sugar, it tasted bitter, like something somebody burned. I couldn’t imagine what it would have tasted like without the sugar and milk.
Mom laughed. “Not a fan?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just grabbed a box of cereal and poured me a bowl, with some milk. I ate as fast as I could — less because I was hungry than because I wanted to get the nasty taste out of my mouth.
Mom sat with me while I shoveled it in. “I didn’t know you knew that song,” she said.
I looked up with what I’m sure was a quizzical look on my face. “What song?”
“The one you were humming when you came in,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head.
She started singing. “ ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free, ’tis the gift to come down where we ought to be …”
I recognized it right away, sort of. And realized I had been humming it. But I still had no idea where I’d ever heard it before.
“It’s an old song that the Quakers like to sing,” she said. “It’s called ‘Simple Gifts.’ I’ve always loved that song.”
I had to admit it was really pretty. But I was still confused about why I’d been humming it.
“You do know who the Quakers are, don’t you?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “Oh, sure. We studied them in school, too. They were a religious group. Kind of a small religious group, one of those that came over from Europe so they could practice their religion the way they wanted. But that’s about all I know.”
“That’s right,” Mom said. “They’re a small religion with very different beliefs than the mainstream churches. There aren’t a lot of Quakers, but some still practice it today. Especially up in Pennsylvania — around Philadelphia — in that area.”
“What do they believe?” I asked. The mention of Philadelphia definitely had me interested, since that was where John Wollman was from.
“Oh, well, let’s see. They won’t go to war, or they won’t fight in wars, anyway. And they believe in living very simply, and helping other people, especially prisoners, and anyone suffering from war, or poverty, or anything like that.” Mom took another sip of her coffee and carefully folded the newspaper. “As I understand it, they believe that God is in each person, and God shows Himself to ordinary people directly. So they don’t really have ministers or priests or anyone who is in charge. They call themselves the Society of Friends, because everyone is equal, and whoever feels called to can speak at their meetings. Or they just sit quietly. At many of their Friends meetings, no one says anything at all. Not like our church.”
We’re Presbyterians, and Mom was definitely right about that — it didn’t sound anything at all like what I was used to at Sunday school and church, where we sat in pews and sang hymns and listened to Bible readings and a twenty-minute sermon, which if it runs any longer than that people start checking their watches, wondering what’s up with the minister.
“And you said they don’t believe in war?” I asked. “So what about when there is a war? Like, um, World War II? What would they do then, like if they were drafted or whatever?”
Mom shrugged. “I guess some sort of alternative service.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mom said. “I’m certainly no expert. But my guess would be that they would serve as doctors or nurses or orderlies, that sort of thing. Helping people who are wounded.”
“You mean like a medic?” I asked, practically shouting.
Mom laughed at how excited I was. “Why, yes,” she said. “I suppose so.”
“Cool. Thanks, Mom,” I said, grabbing my backpack and dashing out of the kitchen and out to the garage for my bike. “I’ve got to go — going to be late for school.”
I couldn’t wait to tell Julie and Greg — and John! This was huge. Another major clue to share. I must have picked up the song from him somehow. Maybe he came back in my bedroom and sang it in the middle of the night while I was dead asleep. Maybe he’d been humming it under his breath all along without me even noticing. Who knows?
Julie had news, too, and she started telling us before I had a chance to tell them mine. She’d gotten a message back from John Wollman III.
“He said never mind about the medic’s pouch. He said he didn’t guess he needed it and thanks anyway,” she said. I had just joined her and Greg outside the school. We still had a few minutes before the homeroom bell.
“Well, where does that leave us?” I asked. “I mean, what now?”
“We need fifty dollars,” Julie said. “That’s what.”
“Why?” Greg asked.
“I wrote him back again,” Julie said. “I explained that since we found the medic’s pouch and John Wollman’s ID, that we decided to do a research project for school about him and the war in North Africa and the medical corps, and was there anything he could tell us to help us find out if our John Wollman was also his J
ohn Wollman, and if there was anything he could also tell us about who our — and hopefully his — John Wollman was.”
“That’s very complicated,” Greg said. “So did he answer?”
Julie nodded. “He said John Wollman had been his great-uncle, and that he had a stash of letters that John Wollman wrote during the war. He offered to sell them to us for a hundred dollars.”
“That’s great!” I said. “I mean about him having the letters. But why can’t he just send us copies of them and not charge us anything?”
“Yeah. Where are we going to come up with fifty dollars?” Greg asked. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Me neither,” I said. I was concerned about something else, too. “Did you tell your parents about this?”
Julie looked annoyed. “Of course I did,” she said. “My mom even helped me.”
“Helped you how?” Greg asked.
Julie smiled. “Negotiate. He wanted a hundred, but she emailed him and got him down to fifty. She said if it was that important to me for our research project I could buy the letters — but John Wollman III can only get the money after he sends them to us.”
“Wow,” I said. “Your mom is awesome.”
“I know,” Julie said. “And you don’t have to worry about the money. I have some from my birthday that I didn’t spend yet. So now we just have to wait.”
The bell rang and we all dashed off for homeroom. I realized there’d been so much going on that I still hadn’t told them my news.
I took care of that at lunch — told them all about the army landing in Algeria, and John Wollman’s first casualty he treated, and about me waking up humming “Simple Gifts,” and about everything Mom had told me about the Quakers. They were pretty impressed with what I’d found out, too. “I can’t wait to tell him,” I said. “I bet just knowing about him being a Quaker will bring back some memories about stuff.”
“Yeah, probably,” said Greg. But then he switched the conversation back over to John Wollman III. “It’s those letters I’m mostly interested in. I really, really can’t wait to see what’s in there.”
“I wonder why John Wollman III isn’t interested in the medic’s pouch, or in anything else about his great-uncle. He just seems to want to find a way to make money,” I said.
“Well, maybe it’s like Greg said yesterday,” Julie responded. “Maybe he just lost his job, or just really needs money right now for some other reason. We shouldn’t judge him without knowing.”
“Well, I’d still be interested in finding out about my great-uncle and what he did in the war,” I said. “No matter what. So it’s hard not to judge the guy.”
A chair scraped out from the table next to Julie and somebody sat down, interrupting our conversation. It was Belman, of course, though no Three Stooges with him for once.
“And who might that be?” he asked. He had his usual smirk on. “The guy you’re going to judge? Were you little potato heads talking about me?”
Julie tensed up. I tried being sarcastic. “Oh yeah, sure, Belman. Because we don’t have anything better to do with our time than to talk about you.”
The sarcasm was lost on him, though. “I thought so,” he said. “Well, sorry to disappoint you little spudnuts, but I really couldn’t care less.” He grabbed a bag of chips from Julie’s lunch box. “Just dropped by for a snack.”
He was gone before any of us could stop him.
“Did you hear that?” Greg asked, fuming. “He called us potato heads and spudnuts. So it was definitely him and his friends who blasted us with those rotten potatoes yesterday. Or why else would he say that?”
Julie clenched her fists. “One of these days,” she said, “we’re getting that guy back. One way or another.”
I was in the bathroom that afternoon when I heard somebody humming “Simple Gifts.” This time it wasn’t me.
“John?” I asked from inside the stall. “Is that you?”
It was the second time he’d shown up in the bathroom. I wondered if he’d stick around a little longer this time.
“Yes,” he said. “Out here waiting. You going to be long in there?”
“Uh, not much longer,” I said. “Is anybody else out there?” I couldn’t imagine there would be.
“Nope,” John said. “Just me. Hope you don’t mind me showing up here. It’s about the only place there’s any privacy.”
“Oh, it’s not the first time a ghost has followed me into the bathroom at school,” I said.
I finished up quickly and came out of the stall to wash my hands. John was leaning against the wall under a high window.
“I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation at lunch,” he said.
“What part?”
“About a brother. My brother. And that he named his son after me. So there’s a John Wollman III now, too.”
“Do you remember all that?” I asked. “About having a brother and being from Philadelphia? And were you — are you — a Quaker?”
John looked surprised. “A Quaker?”
“Uh, I think they call it the Society of Friends,” I said. “You were humming one of their songs just now. I was humming it, too, this morning when I woke up. I must have heard it from you. My mom knows the words.”
He smiled and sang softly, the same lyrics my mom had sung that morning at breakfast. “ ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free …”
“That’s it,” I said.
“I guess I do remember,” John said. “At least I remember that. And come to think of it I do remember my brother! His name was Aaron. He was my little brother — too young to get drafted.” He laughed. “I remember Aaron and I always had a hard time sitting quiet in the Friends meetings the way we were supposed to. But nobody got on us about it, of course — about squirming and messing with each other. That wasn’t the Friends way.”
His smile faded. “I wonder if he’s still alive. It’s been a long, long time since then, and since I went off to the war. I sure would love to see him again.”
Julie, or her mom, got another email from John Wollman III, telling us it was going to take him a couple of days to mail us the letters since he was going to have to go across town to get them out of a storage unit. He also told them, because Julie and her mom had asked, that John Wollman’s brother, Aaron, had died a long time ago. Aaron’s son, John Wollman Jr., had passed away, too, a couple of years ago. So had his wife. If there was any other family, John Wollman III didn’t mention them. He must have read the letters, though, or heard stories about his great-uncle, because he warned us about something.
Good luck writing your school paper about the guy. He was a pacifist in World War II, which a lot of people back then thought was just a big excuse for cowards getting out of going to war. Plus, they said he went AWOL in the middle of the war and no one ever saw him again. That’s not exactly what makes for a brave soldier.
“Wow,” Greg said. “That was mean. Maybe John Wollman III is just a big jerk after all.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to judge him,” I said.
Julie ignored us. “The important thing is we’re getting the letters. And we’ve learned a lot already. We know John’s name, and his brother’s name, and they were Quakers from Philadelphia. And of course we know John was a medic, and he served in the army in the war in North Africa.”
“We know he landed in Algeria,” I added. “And they had to fight the French army there. At least for a couple of days.”
“But we still don’t know what happened to him,” Greg said. “How he ended up AWOL — and missing.”
“Maybe there will be something in the letters,” Julie said. “And maybe just what we know already will be enough to help John remember more things the next time he shows up. We can ask him about being a pacifist.”
“A lot of Quakers were,” I said. “So it makes sense. They didn’t believe in war, but they believed in helping people.”
“Right,” Greg said. “And you kno
w what I would like to tell that John Wollman III? That I bet it took a lot of guts to be out there on that beach trying to save the guy who lost his leg. Maybe even more guts than if he’d been shooting a gun or whatever. He must have been getting shot at, too, the same as all the rest of the soldiers, even if he was a pacifist.”
“Conscientious objector,” Julie said. “That’s what they called them. It meant they objected to the war, that it was against their religion, or their conscience.”
“Do you guys ever wonder what you would do?” I asked. “Or what you would have done? If you would have gone to fight like you were ordered to do. Like in World War II. Or if you would have been a, um, what Julie said.”
“A conscientious objector,” she repeated.
“Right,” I said. “That. But, anyway, do you guys wonder about that?”
Greg shrugged. “I would have gone to fight,” he said, not even having to think about it. “My dad did. I would have, too. But knowing what I know from what the ghosts have told us, I wouldn’t have thought about it the way I used to.”
“Which was how?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” he said. “Like it’s a video game. Call of Duty. Something like that. Or like in the movies. It just seems so much more real now. And so much sadder than I ever thought. Even though I already knew how it affected my dad.”
Julie nodded with a solemn face. “I feel that way, too. Only I think perhaps I would be a conscientious objector. Depending on the war. Though I’m not sure that’s how it works. I suppose you can be against war because of your religion, but you would have to be against all war. Like John Wollman. Or at least that’s what we think was the case with him. But that’s where it gets complicated, because some wars I think maybe you do have to fight. So maybe I don’t know what I would do. I know I’d be very afraid. And like Greg, I know now that it would be very sad for the families.”
AWOL in North Africa Page 5
