AWOL in North Africa

by Steve Watkins

  The three of us met up again that afternoon at the Kitchen Sink. The excitement of the encounter with Belman had worn off and we were all pretty down again about John Wollman. It had been a few days since we last saw him. As we locked up our bikes outside Uncle Dex’s store, I remembered the money Greg and I had made from busking and pulled it out of my backpack to give to Julie.

  She actually teared up. “You guys did this to surprise me?” she said. “That’s so sweet.”

  “It’s not the whole fifty,” I said. “Just thirty-seven dollars. But that’s all we could make. But I bet we could make more if we went out again.”

  Julie brightened. “Can I come, too? We could do a lot of business all performing together. Plus, it would be great practice. Live rehearsal.”

  We agreed we’d give it another try soon, then headed inside the Kitchen Sink.

  “Hey, kids,” Uncle Dex said as we walked in, sounding more cheerful than usual, which is saying a lot since if being cheerful was an Olympic sport he’d take the gold medal. Maybe the silver. No way just the bronze.

  Then he gestured toward the back of the store. “You have a visitor.”

  It was Reverend Simpson, tucked into a big, overstuffed chair that had been there for so long it probably had a foot of dust underneath. He was holding one of Uncle Dex’s big clocks, though he didn’t seem to be doing anything with it. Just holding it.

  “Afternoon, kids,” he said.

  We said good afternoon back.

  Reverend Simpson opened the back of the clock and slowly, carefully, wound it up so it started working again. He checked his watch for the time, then opened the face of the clock and reset the hands so they were correct. After that, he carefully placed the old clock back on the table beside him.

  “I’d invite you all to sit down,” Reverend Simpson said with a chuckle, “but there are so many of these antiques piled on the chairs, doesn’t seem to be enough room.”

  “We don’t mind standing,” I said.

  “Or we can just sit on this rug,” Julie added quickly. I realized she was afraid Reverend Simpson might stand up with us out of politeness, and he probably needed to stay sitting.

  We all sat on the rug.

  “The reason I came,” Reverend Simpson began, “is ever since you children visited with me the other day, something’s been nagging at me, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then, finally, after I prayed on it — because I knew it was something important — it came to me. Why, I actually sat up in bed and said out loud, ‘Now I remember!’ My poor wife, woke her out of a dead sleep. She thought I was going crazy.”

  “What was it?” Greg asked.

  Reverend Simpson pulled an old clothbound notebook out of his coat pocket. “This old diary of mine I kept off and on — from back in the war.”

  He opened it slowly, going through the pages cautiously, probably afraid of tearing the old, brittle paper, until he found what he was looking for.

  “A name came to mind when you kids visited. It may have been mentioned: Mr. John Wollman. From the medical corps. Turns out we were once aquainted.”

  “John Wollman?” I asked, incredulous. “But how?”

  “I met him in the war,” Reverend Simpson said. “Very briefly. But I did meet him. According to what I wrote, it was in 1943 and it was in April of that year, near the end of the Tunisian campaign.”

  He adjusted his glasses and seemed to be reading for the next few minutes.

  “They needed blood donations for transfusions,” he continued, “but they’d already gotten as much as medically possible from white soldiers. And this young medic — it was Corporal John Wollman, a nice young man — came from the field hospital down to where they had us Negro troops quartered, about a half mile away. Don’t recall exactly where they had us, but wasn’t a terribly long ways from the fighting, up to the north in Tunisia. He asked our captain if any of the Negro troops — that’s what they called us, you remember — would be willing to donate. Well, of course, the captain voluntold each and every one of us, and so we lined up for hours one evening while Corporal Wollman drew blood to take back to the surgical unit. I remember speaking to him about where he was from and where I was from, and how he came to be in the medical corps. He told me he was one of those Pennsylvania Quakers, which I had never met before, and I was fascinated to hear about what all they believed and how they held their Friends meetings and such. Nothing like I’d ever known growing up in the South, of course.”

  “And then what?” Greg asked.

  “And then he finished up with me and I went back to work,” Reverend Simpson said.

  “And that was it?” Julie asked.

  Reverend Simpson shook his head. “Wish it had been, but no. That wasn’t all. Turned out what they needed the blood for — or rather who they needed it for — was German prisoners they’d taken in the fighting. A whole lot of them by that time, with more pouring in all the time.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I mean, was that a problem or something?”

  “Against military regulations,” Reverend Simpson said, still shaking his head.

  “What was?” Greg and I both asked.

  “Using Negro blood that way,” he responded.

  “You mean it was illegal to use blood from black soldiers for transfusions for white soldiers?” Julie asked, catching on a lot quicker than Greg or me. “Even if they were prisoners of war?”

  “Hard to believe today, I know,” Reverend Simpson said. “But that was the law. Scientists back then all said that there wasn’t any difference between Negro blood and white folks’ blood, so no health reasons for keeping it separate. They said blood was just blood. All you need to know is the blood type, but not the race. They said the race didn’t matter. But politicians, and a lot of folks back in America, and a lot of folks in the military, they were all worked up and worried about mixing the races, mixing up the blood like that. Even if it was for saving the lives of those German prisoners of war.”

  “What happened to John, I mean Corporal Wollman?” Julie asked.

  “Well, we heard about that, too — that while there were plenty in the medical corps who would look the other way about a thing like that because it was helping folks, there was a colonel they had over there who found out they’d used ‘black blood’ for white German soldiers and he was hopping mad about it. He had that poor young man arrested. Said Corporal Wollman collected blood from the Negro troops without permission from his commanding officer. Said they were going to court-martial him. Give him a dishonorable discharge from the medical corps and out of the army. Send him home in disgrace.”

  “But there wasn’t anything disgraceful about what he did!” Greg exclaimed. “He was trying to save lives!”

  Reverend Simpson had about as sad a look on his face as I’d ever seen. He reached out and patted Greg on the shoulder. “I know he was, son. We all knew he was. And you’d think we’d be able to put aside those sorts of prejudices when we’re having to fight a war. But people being people, some are always going to bring the prejudices along with them no matter what they’re doing and no matter where they go.”

  “Do you know what happened to Corporal Wollman after that?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t help you there,” Reverend Simpson said. “Right on the heels of that happening was the last big fight of the war there in Tunisia. We had the Germans and the Italians pushed all the way back almost to Bizerte and Tunis, and everybody’s attention was on finishing the job.”

  Uncle Dex had finished with his customer, and he came over and interrupted us. It was obvious that Reverend Simpson had tired himself out. His head was starting to droop again, and his hands had gotten shaky. “I’m going to drive Reverend Simpson back to the church,” Uncle Dex said. “I think we need to let him catch a little break from the interrogation.”

  We all nodded and said, “Thank you.” Greg added, “We really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. We know how hard this
must be.” He looked a little sad when he said it and I think it’s because he was thinking of his dad.

  He helped Reverend Simpson stand, and we followed them to the door. Reverend Simpson turned to us just before they left.

  “When you see John Wollman again, please give him my best regards,” he said. “I’ll be praying that he has found his peace. You can tell him that, too, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  We were all quiet for a moment when the door swung shut behind Uncle Dex and Reverend Simpson. Then we exploded.

  “How could they do something like that?” I said once I could get over being so totally outraged that I could speak.

  “That’s about the most racist thing I’ve ever heard of,” Greg said.

  “There is something so wrong with people,” Julie said, her voice softer than ours. Greg and I were nearly shouting, we were so mad.

  “I guess not everybody was that way,” I said, trying to calm down some and look at the situation fairly.

  But Greg wasn’t having any of it. “Some people might have thought differently, but, Anderson, come on. It was the government policy. It was military law. You heard what Reverend Simpson said. It wasn’t just one guy being a jerk.”

  “A racist jerk,” Julie added.

  “Yeah, a racist jerk,” Greg said. Then he launched into a string of other adjectives, like “stupid,” “moronic,” “twisted,” “bigoted,” and a whole lot of other words that I was familiar with but couldn’t repeat.

  “Better take it easy there, son,” a voice behind us said. “That’s some strong language you’re using.”

  We all jumped up and down when we heard him. “John!” Julie exclaimed. “You’re back!”

  We wanted to hug him, of course, but as soon as we got close we all stopped, realizing it couldn’t happen. It was an awkward moment until Greg said, “Pretend group hug!” and opened his arms and did exactly that — hugged the air, and us — near where John was standing. Julie and I did it, too.

  “Good to see you kids again,” John said. “I have missed you all.”

  “Where have you been?” Julie asked.

  John shook his head. “Close by, mostly. But it’s just been too hard to bring myself all the way here. Don’t know if that makes sense, and I can’t exactly explain it. Or explain why I’m able to be here with you now.”

  “Well, we’re just glad you showed up,” Greg said. “I’m just sorry you had to hear us talking about Colonel Buncombe. I’m so mad about what he did.”

  “I guess he was just raised up that way,” John said. “Many were.”

  “But he was the one who brought you up on charges, just because you got black soldiers to donate blood for German POWs!” Greg protested, not willing to let Colonel Buncombe off the hook for anything.

  “I know, I know,” John said. “And believe me, I was outraged about it as much as you kids at the time. It still gets me angry to think about it today.” He paused for a second and then asked, “That’s not the regulation anymore, is it? I mean, I sure hope not.”

  “No way!” Greg said. “I bet they changed that a long time ago.”

  “I’m sure they did,” Julie said, glancing at her iPhone, but resisting the urge to look it up right then and there on the Internet. There was time for that later.

  “Good to hear,” John said. “I’d have hated to think …” He trailed off.

  “So, um, since you must have heard what Reverend Simpson told us?” I began.

  John nodded. “Most of it.”

  I continued, “Well, I was wondering if it helped you remember, you know, the rest.”

  John thought about it for a minute, then nodded some more.

  “I do,” he said. “But it’s like, well, like in Corinthians: ‘through a glass, darkly.’ You all know that Bible verse?”

  We all shook our heads, though Julie said she had heard the expression before and was pretty sure she knew what it meant.

  “ ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly,’ ” John said, quoting the passage.

  “But you can remember at least some of what happened after Colonel Buncombe had you arrested?” Julie said.

  “It’s hazy still,” John said. “And like flashes, or scenes, or minutes of what happened. Not too clear, in other words.”

  “Like through a glass darkly,” Greg said. “Now I get it.”

  “I was confined to medical corps quarters near the field hospital in northern Tunisia, a couple of miles behind the front lines,” John said. “Waiting on the military police to take me away. Only they didn’t come — not that day, and not the next day. I remember writing that letter to my brother, Aaron, the one you read, or read part of, anyway. About the court-martial.”

  He paused, as if trying to remember what had been redacted. Whatever it was, it didn’t come to him.

  “Anyway, on the third day, I was going stir-crazy, and the MPs still hadn’t come. So I just up and left. I could hear the sounds of the battle, and knew it was miles away, but that’s the direction I headed. I had my medic’s kit with me — I always carried it no matter where I went, because you never knew when you’d need it. Troops passed me in trucks and tanks, hurrying to the front, and other troops passed me going the other way, many of them infantry, on foot, some dragging their weapons behind them. And there was ambulance after ambulance after ambulance, carrying wounded soldiers, or soldiers who had died.”

  He paused again, and this time it seemed as if he was actually looking right at the lines of survivors and ambulances streaming past him, his heart going out to every one of them.

  “I heard it before I saw it,” he began again. “A German Stuka, machine guns blazing, swooping in to strafe the road and everybody on it. I’d heard that sound a hundred times, maybe a thousand. I dove to the side of the road and covered my head. We all did, which probably didn’t make any difference, probably didn’t give us any more protection than if we’d just stood there, but it’s just your instinct to duck away from something like that.”

  “Did anyone get hit?” I asked.

  John nodded. “I ran across the road over to them. It was one of the ambulances, hit and on its side and burning. Me and a couple of others dove inside to pull out the guys in there — the driver and the medics and the wounded soldiers. We got most of them out, too, but there was one more still inside.”

  John stopped there. He couldn’t seem to say anything else.

  “You went back for him, didn’t you?” Julie asked gently.

  He nodded.

  “Did the plane come back, too?” Greg asked. “The Stuka?”

  “Yes,” John whispered.

  “Nobody knew it was you in there, did they?” I asked.

  He shook his head, and then regained his voice, though he was still whispering as he finished his story. “They always flew in formation,” he said. “But this one was a lone wolf. We must have destroyed most of their planes by then, but this one somehow slipped through. He must have gotten hit when he circled back around for another pass, because I heard the screaming sound of him diving, free-falling, straight at the ambulance.”

  “And that was the last thing?” Julie asked.

  “Yes,” John whispered. “That was the last thing. I was still inside with the last man. And like you said, nobody knew I was there.”

  We were all crying by now, and once again, it was too hard to speak. So we didn’t. The four of us sat in silence for a really long time, as the shadows grew longer inside the Kitchen Sink. I wondered how it must feel to John, if sitting there like that with us reminded him of those long ago Friends meetings when he was a boy growing up in Philadelphia in his Quaker family with his mom and his dad and his brother. I remembered what we were supposed to tell John — what Reverend Simpson had asked us to pass on to him about finding peace.

  I turned to tell him that, but too late. John Wollman was gone, and I had a feeling this time it was for good.

  Julie sent the money for the letters to John Wollman III, and include
d a letter of her own to tell him what we’d found out, even though Greg and I both told her not to bother.

  “I just think John would have wanted us to,” she said. “And you never know what might come of it. Somebody in his family should know what a hero John was, even if we don’t have the kind of proof we’d need to go to the army and have his record changed or whatever.”

  We went with her to the post office to drop off the letter, then we all went home to get ready for the open mic competition that night. We only had two songs to perform — Julie still hadn’t taught us the rap song that she was supposed to be working on — but surprisingly none of us seemed stressed out about it. In fact, the subject never even came up during rehearsal for some reason.

  I wondered for a long time about what Reverend Simpson said to us — about giving his regards to John the next time we saw him. How could Reverend Simpson know we would see John Wollman, or had ever seen him? Plus, I wasn’t sure we’d even mentioned John’s name to Reverend Simpson in the first place.

  In the end, though, I decided to just let that mystery be.

  We were one of the last to play that night at the open mic competition and had to wait a really long time because there were more bands than when we’d played before — eight of them. Belman’s band, the Bass Rats, played right before us, and I hated to admit it but once again they were pretty clearly the best band there.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a carton of eggs and another rubber chicken,” Greg muttered to me halfway through their set. That got me laughing so hard that when it was our turn to perform I forgot to be nervous, and managed to make it through our two songs as lead singer without throwing up.

  Then, without us even discussing it, we all just started playing “Simple Gifts” — softly and slowly at first, and then Julie started picking up the tempo a little, and then picking it up a lot until it turned into a different song almost. Then, moved by the spirit or whatever, she, all of a sudden, jumped up from her keyboard and grabbed the mic and the mic stand, and the next thing I knew she was rapping. So that was her rap song! I nearly fell over when I realized what was going on.