Light Over Water
Page 11
Pearl blinked rapidly, her breath coming in angry puffs now. She grasped Alison’s shoulders. “Where did he go? Do you know?”
Alison shook her head. “He was going to join the military. I don’t know where he went. Why? Why does it matter now?”
“He must be held responsible! What he did was wrong!” Pearl replied vehemently.
“No, no, no!” Alison cried. “No one must know! I would die if people knew what happened. I want to die anyway.” She collapsed sideways on her pillow, fresh sobs surging through her.
Pearl slipped to her knees, pressing her arm around Alison. “Oh, Alison, no! You mustn’t think that way, darling!”
Alison moaned, covering her eyes with her hands. “My life is ruined. What’ll I do, Aunt Pearl?”
“First of all, we must find out if it’s true. Your father must examine you.”
“No,” Alison wailed. “I don’t want him to know!”
“Alison, listen to me. Your father must know.” Pearl pried Alison’s fingers away from her face and gazed at her intently. “You cannot keep this a secret from him.”
Her breathing stilled. Her cheeks were flushed despite the cold and her hair lay in masses of curls framing her face. Pearl thought she never looked more beautiful or so fragile. In a thin bleak voice she asked, “How can I tell my father such a thing?”
Pearl stroked her face. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Alison stayed home from school that day. Aunt Pearl sent notice via Owen that Alison was not feeling well. When her father heard her say this, he wiped his mouth with his napkin and rose. “I’d better see what’s wrong.”
Pearl stopped him with her hand on his arm. “No, Brother.”
He looked startled at her refusal. “Why ever not?” he laughed.
Pearl’s brow drew together as she thought. “It’s…it’s of a womanly nature.”
Daniel Granger gazed at his sister a moment, as if decided whether to believe her. “I see. She’s never had any difficulties before.” After a long pause he added, with a brief smile, “I expect it’s nothing you don’t know how to fix. And I’ve got to go see to the pastor’s wife. She’s still not able to hold down much food. Not that I can help too much, I guess. Did you make up some more of that ginger tea?”
Pearl nodded and said, “It’s in the medicine cupboard.”
He pulled his suspender straps up over his shoulders, slid his jacket on and went on his way.
As soon as all the boys were gone, Pearl hurried back upstairs. Alison was still curled on her bed, still crying, but quietly now, as if the sorrow was seeping out of her. “Come down to your father’s office,” Pearl beckoned. “It’s warm there. I’ll examine you.”
Pearl closed and locked the door of the examining room as Alison took off everything but her under garments. Where she’d been chilled to the bone up in her room, she now felt a dreadful heat. She lay down on the soft leather of the exam table, praying she was wrong.
“How many cycles have you missed?”
“Two,” Alison replied. “I should have had my second last week.”
Pearl lit the lamp that hung on the wall, then she went to the other side of the table. “I need to…” she stopped and sighed quickly. “I need to look at your chest and I’ll need to feel your abdomen.”
“I know. It’s all right.” Alison unbuttoned her chemise.
Aunt Pearl studied her chest for a moment. “Are you sore?”
Alison nodded. “Just like right before my cycle, only all the time.”
Pearl’s gaze traveled downwards. “Have you felt sick at all, especially when you wake up?”
Shaking her head, Alison said nothing.
Pearl examined in the smooth flat belly between the thin hipbones. She noted with the dismay the darkened line that extended from her belly button on down. It was a phenomenon she’d seen in most expectant mothers, although she had no idea why it happened. Finally she placed her hands on Alison and felt deeply around the womb. Alison grunted but said nothing. Pearl knew the signs; she’d helped her brother with so many expectant mothers. She should barely be able to feel the womb at all from the outside. But Alison was already swelling with the presence of a child.
Alison knew as Pearl slowly drew up her pantaloons and tied them that her fears were confirmed. Pearl was so gentle and quiet, holding herself carefully. As Alison sat up, buttoning her chemise, then hopping down to pull on the remainder of her clothing, she asked, “I was right, wasn’t I?”
Pearl nodded, and then she burst into tears, covering her careworn face with her thin hands. Alison pulled her close, numb now that she knew the truth. “What’ll I do?” she asked.
Pearl gave no answer.
After school Mrs. Reid walked out to the Granger’s house with Davey and Owen. “She’ll be wanting to know what she missed,” she told Davey. “I know how she hates to get behind in her work.”
The teacher was flushed with the cold when Doctor Granger opened the front door for her. “I think it feels like snow, don’t you, Doctor? My head is telling me something’s on the way.”
“Your head, Mrs. Reid?”
“Oh, aye. It always feels like it’s stuffed with wool before we get precipitation. I am my own barometer.” And she laughed a quick chuckle.
Davey and Owen slipped past her, heading for the kitchen and the bread they smelled.
Mary stood in the doorway. “I wonder if I might see Alison. I understand she is unwell.”
Dan nodded. “She’s upstairs in her room. I don’t believe she’s got anything contagious.”
“Oh, I’m not worried. I can show myself up, thank you, Doctor.”
He offered, “Let me take your coat, Mrs. Reid. She’s in the room at the top of the stairs.”
She just smiled and thanked him as she moved across the large front room to the stairway. When she tapped on the door Alison’s voice questioned, “Who is it?”
“It’s Mrs. Reid, dear. May I come in?”
There was no answer, but Mary heard movement within. After a moment the door opened slightly. Mary could see one swollen and bloodshot eye. “Dear, please let me come in. I must speak with you,” she urged.
Alison simply backed away from the door without opening it any further. She sat down in front of a small writing desk that looked to be covered with letters. The bed also was littered with them.
Mary took in the sight; Alison with her tear-ravaged face and listless behavior, the mess in the room, the letters.
“What on earth goes on here?” she asked, her voice rising in confusion. “I thought you were sick.”
Alison picked up another letter from the desk, seemed to read bits of it, and then tossed it onto the bed.
Mary drew closer to the bed and picked up one of the letters, turning it over to see its author. She figured they must be from Sam and she was right.
Alison drew her hand to her mouth and began gnawing on her thumbnail. Mary recognized it as one of Alison’s nervous habits. She rushed to kneel beside the girl, gently drawing her hand away and asking again, “Alison, what is wrong?”
“I’m reading Sam’s letters one last time. Then I must be done with them…with him.” And she moaned softly, as though she couldn’t cry anymore but her heart was breaking.
“I…I don’t understand, my sweeting. Why must you be done with Sam? Have you heard from him? Has he another girlfriend?” Suddenly Mary turned to Alison, put both hands on her head and drew her reluctant gaze up to meet hers. She didn’t question again but steadily looked in Alison’s eyes.
The girl’s vibrant blue eyes held a sheen of unshed tears, which slowly spilled over onto her cheeks. “You remember what happened to me?” she whispered slowly. “What I told you at your house that night?”
Mary nodded, pained at the remembrance and at her promise to the girl not to tell anyone, especially her father.
Even more quietly Alison breathed out, “I’m going to have a baby.”
Whipping around, she rushed back over to the crying girl before her. “My dear, I have an idea. I…I must think for a bit, but you, you carry on as usual. Do you hear me, Alison?”
Alison was wiping her eyes, stunned out of her misery by her teacher’s smile and optimism. “I hear you but I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to yet. Just, just…oh, I don’t know. Act normal. Come to school. And write to your dear boy, because everything will be all right. Write to him tonight, now!” She slipped out the door with a girlish wave and grin.
Alison slowly turned to her desk. She was confused but heartened. She picked up a pen, dipped it in her inkwell, and began writing.
Chapter Fourteen
All Considerations of Humanity
Sam was going to die. He didn’t know if he was injured at all because everything had gone numb shortly after the horse fell on him. He didn’t feel pain anywhere, just pressure, enormous pressure. He didn’t think he was mortally wounded, but he knew he would die.
It was beginning to rain, an icy downpour that felt like needles landing on his forehead. No one knew he was there in the mud, under a dead horse, with the sludge slowly sinking beneath him and oozing higher around his head.
The shallow hole where he lay would soon fill with rain, if he didn’t suffocate first. He tried not to panic but it was so hard to get a breath. Earlier he had yelled, to no effect with the roar of the battle eclipsing any small sound he could make. Now it was an effort just to breath, let alone to make any noise.
They were in the midst of an intense battle while enduring the heaviest rains in thirty years. They were working on pulling a fresh shipment of field guns to the front, but the mud had mired down everyone and everything. The battle continued unrelentingly even while they strained with all they had to move the guns. The afternoon brought a chill wind pressing around them and a barrage of mortars began in their sector. Sam had tried to shut out any thought but moving that gun one more foot. Even a few inches would have been nice. He was just moving from behind a wheel to try to coax the horse that was mired up to its knees, to lift its leg once again. The poor animal was trembling with weariness and rolling its eyes in fright with each explosion. Sam had his hand on its flank and was learning towards its ear when the air seemed to tremble around him and there was an intensely bright explosion. In slow motion Sam saw men thrown into the air, the heavy gun they’d been struggling over blew to the side as if it were a toy and the horse beside him slumped sideways, on top of him.
If it weren’t for the mud, he’d have been crushed right away. If it weren’t for the horse he’d have been killed by the blast. He could discern no movement around him although the noise continued.
He had been working on pulling his arm free. Somehow he had fallen on his back; the neck of the horse was across his chest and face. His head was pinned sideways. He had a quickly diminishing view of the edge of the hole and the mane of the horse. One arm was behind his back, the other across his stomach. This arm he thought he might free. If he could pull it out before it was too dark, he might attract the attention of the stretcher-bearers, or someone.
Concentrate, he told himself. Don’t think about Alison, or home, about the ocean or fishing or this poor dead horse. Feel your arm. Move your muscles. Everything was so numb. He pushed all the air out of his lungs, tried to pull his stomach in tight, but nothing budged.
Sam realized how cold he was; at least his back was cold. The horse was still warm. It had stopped breathing long ago. Sam was glad that it hadn’t suffered long. They wouldn’t have to shoot it. They shot them after they took care of the wounded men, getting them off the field as quickly as possible. Maybe they’ll find me. Then…Probably they won’t.
He ceased struggling for a moment. He let his mind go, for a time, back home. He saw his little village, clustered around the small port, each house and building familiar and dear. He thought of the crisp blue sky; of green trees whole and strong. His mouth watered at the thought of his mother’s bread, hot out of the oven on a snowy winter morning. He imagined himself outside at the woodshed, in the simple act of splitting a piece of wood for the fire. He conjured up the briny smell of the water on the shore. He saw the waves that were a backdrop to his every waking moment and heard their crashing on the rocks below his house. He remembered the lighthouse and relived the comfort it was to see that light over the water, shining through a thick fog or a dark night. He saw the faces of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters. He lingered over the thought of Alison, remembering her, strangely enough, when she was little; long black braids flying out behind her as she ran with her chin thrust forward wherever she went. A deep sadness overtook him. He imagined her sorrow and it filled him with pity. He felt his warm tears join the icy rain on his head and seeping around his shoulders.
Suddenly a rage filled him. Chaplain Hudson’s words came back to him, that he wouldn’t die until it was his time. “It’s not my time,” he gasped. He wasn’t even hurt! “God, help me,” he pleaded, thinking still of his chaplain. “Can you hear me? I need help.” He lifted his knees with all his strength, wriggled violently and felt a small movement of the ground move beneath him. He twisted his arm and eased it out, flailing it in the mud and spreading his fingers in relief.
Suddenly he felt a hand clasp on his. A face came into view and in the dimming light he recognized Aubrey Newell grinning at him. “I’m not God, but I’m here to help!” he laughed.
“Hurry up, mate,” came the sound of another voice. Sam heard them moving around him.
“Please hurry,” he managed to gasp out. He felt himself sinking in the mud deeper as they struggled with the horse on top of him. Suddenly the weight shifted and the pressure was relieved. He took a deep breath and felt a tingling all through his body. Hands pulled him from the mud and he was quickly lifted onto a stretcher. Abruptly he was aware again of the noise of battle all around him. He felt strangely vulnerable out in the open. He was glad as Aubrey and his partners trotted as quickly as they could through the mud back towards the trench.
“Your chaplain told me where to look for you,” Aubrey explained cheerfully as he puffed along. “I’d have gone right by if it wasn’t for your hand sticking out there all of a sudden like.”
It was a long way to where the lone ambulance waited on firmer ground. They eased the stretcher into the back. One man sat in back with him while Aubrey and the other two rode in the cab.
“Am I the only one?” Sam questioned, lifting his head to peer around him.
“Yeah, mate! We’re not even supposed to be here. We’re with another unit. But your friend finished three days on and then insisted on coming here to look for you. Dead on his feet, he is. He sure must think a lot of you.”
Sam recognized the unusual accent of a person from Australia and he tried to see the man in the murky light of the ambulance. The Australian hung grimly onto the leather arm strap as they lurched through the desiccated ground. His face was streaked with mud and blood, his eyes were bloodshot and his shoulders slumped in his weariness. “You hurt?” he asked now, kneeling closer and tucking a blanket around Sam.
“I…I don’t know.” His shoulder was throbbing now that he had feeling back, and his feet hurt. Mostly he realized a strong thirst and an equally strong exhaustion. He had no idea how long he was trapped, but it was dusk now. His company had moved on and the stretcher-bearers that came behind them never saw him. “I think there’s something wrong with my arm,” he said. Then he slept.
Chapter Fifteen
The Progress of the Cruel, Unmanly Business
Robbie Bell was grievously wounded. Sam managed to reach hi
m and stumbled back through the shell holes and mud, carrying him on his shoulders through the maze of trenches, to the first aid station. But the ambulances were all gone and their medics in the trenches were dead. Everyone was sick and dying, not from the fighting but from an illness that was proving more fatal than the German bullets.
After his injury, a dislocated shoulder, had healed, Sam rejoined his unit and they pushed through the front to end up now at Verdun. Sam, having survived what he called his baptism, had lost his fear of death. In some way, when he, in his desperation called out to God, he knew without any doubt that God was there. He felt a great peace in knowing his life was in the hands of a mighty God. He understood at least in part, the faith that Chaplain Hudson lived out.
But Robbie was afraid. Sam eased Robbie to the patch of fairly dry ground and knelt beside him. His face was gray and contorted. His breath came in shallow gasps, and blood was trickling from the edges of his mouth. Sam scrambled in his pack for his field kit, throwing aside tins of pills and salves. He tore open a thick bandage and lifted Robbie’s shirt up off the wound. His whole abdomen was a pool of blood in which the bandage was lost. Robbie grabbed Sam’s hand, his breath now bubbling as he grunted, “Sammy, Sammy. Help me!” His eyes were wide, with tears trickling back through his hair. “Sammy, I feel so bad!”
“Shhh, Robbie.” Sam lowered the tatters of Robbie’s shirt and pulled one of his extras out of his pack. He put it over the wound and looked at his friend’s face. “Hey, you’ll be going home now. Think of that, Robbie.”
Sam wiped away the tears and laid his hand on Robbie’s forehead. Then, amidst the noise and clatter of the battle, Sam talked about the distant shores of Maine; the cool jolt of the Atlantic ocean after a hot day of work, the peace of a snowfall on the green pines in winter, the smell of the air after haying, and taste of a clambake on a summer night. He spoke of Rena, Robbie’s sweetheart, who would be so happy to have him back home. As he said it he couldn’t help thinking of her real sorrow when she learned that Robbie had died. But now Robbie stopped trembling, the fear left his eyes and he seemed to smile, listening to Sam. His breathing slowed until it stopped, then Sam stopped talking. He wept a little for his friend, but couldn’t linger. He rejoined his unit in the fight.