The Fire by Night

by Teresa Messineo

  “You won’t be needing that in the truck,” Jo laughed. “We’re heading back to the hospitals, soldier, not on into battle.”

  “You’re heading back to the hospitals,” David said, and her heart stopped.

  “Don’t joke, David.”

  He looked steadily at her in reply.

  “David, come on. Get on the truck.”

  “I cannot go with ye, miss.”

  “Of course you can. What do you mean? You’ve been lying in bed with typhus for God knows how long before I even saw you. You’re weak as a kitten. I mean, you’ve only been walking around a few days and—”

  “I cannot lie abed, miss,” he said, slowly shaking his head, keeping his voice low and gentle, as if trying to spare her even now. “There are so many worse off than I, out in the field. I cannot stay back.”

  “David, this is nonsense.” Tears pricked her eyes. Then, stamping her foot, “I order you to get in that truck.”

  And he smiled at her, a mischievous smile that was almost all eyes.

  “Aye, you have some fire in ye, miss,” and he was beaming. “That’s a good thing. I shouldn’t love a woman without some spit and fire in her, and that’s the truth.”

  Jo was speechless.

  “And although you do outrank me, miss”—here he stepped toward her, softly touching her shoulder where her insignia should have been—“I’m afraid that’s one order I cannot obey.”

  Jo felt nothing. It wasn’t the cold, frozen numbness she had known for so long but, rather, she was feeling everything so much, so intensely, that none of it could register. She had never even conceived of this—that he would do anything but go back with her to the hospital, to safety. She would help him get fully well, recover, and then, in the course of time, with enough time—well, then, anything could happen. But now—

  He was in the middle of an eloquent speech. She heard something about light and a bit about power and mountains and glory and love conquering all. He must have practiced it a thousand times. It was perfect, but she couldn’t hear it—she was trying to memorize his face, his eyes, the way his lips moved when he talked. She could have done that on the journey back, over the next couple of weeks, but now she had to do it before he stopped speaking. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t possibly; there wasn’t enough time.

  David ended his soliloquy.

  “—every man here is in love with ye. And I am no different.”

  He had both hands in hers now; she was rubbing her thumbs against his fingertips, against his knuckles—there wasn’t enough time to memorize how they felt, she couldn’t do it in time.

  “The first thing I saw when I woke up from the typhus was a beautiful creature, an angel with copper hair, holding on to me. I didn’t know who you were, didn’t know how much you had done for me already. I just knew I was alive, I wasn’t dead—I felt so peaceful and warm—and I had this great sense of gratitude. I knew, I absolutely knew, that someone had saved me.”

  Jo inched closer to him, she wanted his smell, the feel of his hair, she couldn’t get it, she couldn’t get it all in time.

  “You saved me, miss. Aye, God saved me—and my mother’s prayers saved me—but God and my mother’s prayers got me you, got me to you—and you saved me, Josephine,” and as he called her by her Christian name for the first time he seemed to savor every syllable, as if they were delicious, as if just pronouncing them delighted him.

  “You are an angel, a beautiful guardian angel.” Here he touched the tendrils of her hair, wet and sticking to her face. “You have given me everything. And I have nothing to give you but my heart. And this—”

  And he was pulling off the great ring his father and grandfather had worn before him.

  “This will be too big for your wee hand,” he said, smiling, putting it into her right palm and curling her fingers around it. “But keep it for me. Keep it without promising anything. Keep it so I can know it goes with you—that my love goes with you—so I can hope, one day—”

  The truck horn sounded outside, jarring and cruel. Time was speeding away. They would be parted in a moment, in just a moment, there was nothing she could do to stop time. David’s eyes were deep and calm and knowing. He kissed the open palm of her left hand.

  “God bless you, Lieutenant McMahon. Even if I should die, my love never will.”

  And Jo turned away, turned without saying a word, because she couldn’t, because she had to, because none of this was happening, it was all happening at once.

  The rain had redoubled. There was no wind, just a relentless downpour that made it difficult to see, difficult to breathe. She walked up to the ambulance. An orderly inside was holding out a hand to help her over the tailgate, but she just stood there, rooted in place, looking into the rear of the truck without seeing it.

  It was an absolute deluge. The new men were eager to pull out.

  “Forget something, honey?”

  Then, as if waking up suddenly—

  “Yes.”

  She ran back into the tent. David looked up and took off his helmet. Then she was in his arms, kissing him.

  “Damn you,” she said desperately in between kisses, coming up for air. She was exposed, she was naked, she was raw and open to the world, but with that vulnerability, her passion and her heart and her fire came back to her, she ignited—she was Jo again.

  “Stay alive, David. Just stay alive, just live,” and she was vehement, almost angry, her kisses burned.

  Then just as suddenly, she ran out into the rain, jumping into the back of the ambulance without any help. The orderly banged twice on the outside of the cab, and the truck lurched into gear, tires spinning for a second before rattling off, leaving two thick gouges in the mud track behind it.

  12

  Kay Elliott

  February 3, 1945, Santo Tomas Internment Camp,

  Manila, Philippines

  Twenty-four cents a day. They used to spend twenty-four cents a day on each of us for food. Two whole bits. There used to be enough food to buy a quarter’s worth of food for every man, woman, and child in this place. And we thought we were hungry then.

  I am writing this down. It looks like scribble to me, I don’t recognize any of the letters, but these are the words I am saying, inside, whether it looks like it or not. We are not allowed to write at Santo Tomas, our diaries are burned, we’ll be shot if we’re caught writing, but I am going to die anyway so this is my final act of difiance. Do you spell that with an e? I was going to go back and fix it, but it’s not there anymore, none of the words are really there, or they are and I can’t see them. All right, I’ll just mean it with an e, that’ll have to be good enough.

  The planes flew over, and in the dark of the blacked-out dormitory Kay heard Manila being attacked. She wondered what the Americans would find when they finally got to Santo Tomas. The inmates were locked in. Even those out in the courtyard who looked like they were dead had been scooped up and dumped just inside the door. Kay couldn’t see anything from where she was lying, scratching pen against paper. Someone had told her the stairwells were packed with barrels of gasoline. They’re going to burn us alive, she guessed, if the Americans get here. Maybe before the Americans get here.

  The Japanese shot at the prisoners if they got near the windows, so it was hard for anyone to tell what was going on. The courtyard was empty—that much they knew. The Japs had set up signals and machine guns on the rooftops, which made them a military target, but when had they ever followed any convention? Kay liked to imagine that somewhere—in a small fishing village perhaps, far from all this—a nice, plump Japanese woman was bouncing her baby on her knee, singing him a funny lullaby about dragons and magic kites, because other than her, they all seemed madmen to Kay—cruel, hard madmen. Destroying just to destroy, because the rest of humanity wasn’t human, wasn’t like them. No, they won’t think twice before burning us in here like trapped rats.

  Kay remembered the Japs talking a lot to the nurses about rats. In the infirmar
y they had wanted the women to inoculate everyone against some kind of “plague.” They had a new serum. They said it would protect the inmates against it, against malaria too. Good God, what did I give out in those shots? Looking back now, she didn’t know. One of the missionaries had told her later—after she had done it believing what the Japs had said—that in China the Japanese had dropped a ton of fleas infected with plague, real bubonic plague; they had done it without hesitating. Turning the “worthless Chinese” into guinea pigs for their biological weapons. If they died during the course of their experiments, so much the better—one less lab rat, that was all. God forgive me for what I may have done.

  Kay wondered what was happening in the rest of the world. There was no way to tell. She imagined the world was still fighting against the Axis powers—but what if they weren’t? What if Hitler had taken Europe, taken Britain, (good God) what if he had taken America, and not recently but years ago? What if the world was already dark? What if this little, insignificant speck on the map was the last thing they were fighting over? Then it would all be over. The Japs and the Germans could start picking over the remains. They could start killing each other.

  In that one letter Kay had from Jo, they still were fighting, back then anyway, crawling across Italy, heading north to France, to Germany itself—were they crazy? Kay remembered every word by heart, she had read it through so many times.

  Dear Kay, I hope this reaches you, that you are being treated well in captivity, that you come back home, or come join me here at the front. To be fair, we’re not always at the front, sometimes we’re a little behind it, sometimes a little in front of it, but we seem to hover right around the center here, getting quite a beating at times and then picking up the men, picking up the pieces of this tragedy—and war is a tragedy, hot or cold, wet or dry, Pacific or Europe or Indo-China. But you’re famous, did you know that, Kay? It was an ad for war bonds, I think, no, here it is, a homefront “Work to set them free” campaign in the paper, you know what they’re like, no, maybe you don’t, I guess you haven’t seen them yet. Well, there’s a mean-faced Jap in the foreground (do they all look that sinister, or is it just for the posters?) and, behind a barbwire fence, there’s an artist’s rendering of what he thinks “nurses taken prisoner in the Pacific” look like. Well, you’d be glad to know you’re still glamorous, Kay, with a fresh permanent in your hair, and you’re wearing the most outlandish getup imaginable—starched cap and white uniform (like at our commencement, remember? real fancy dress) with white pumps and (get this) bright white stockings, no runs in them even; and the whole silly thing’s topped off with a Florence Nightingale cape from the last war. I never saw anything like it. I know you would laugh if you saw the picture, Kay. (Queenie says hi, and is laughing next to me now, just looking at the paper, she says she wouldn’t be caught dead in it.) We both say, keep your chin up, let us finish up over here, and we’ll be right over to visit you next.

  The fighting was much closer now. Kay wondered what the Americans were using. Maybe tanks? She liked to think tanks. Rolling toward them, crushing stone and rubble beneath their tracks as if they were nothing. Coming toward them. Toward the enormous rat trap soon to be set ablaze.

  Kay pretended to write, not even noticing that the pencil stub had slipped from her hand. Not even noticing that her hand had stopped moving.

  I hope they get here, I hope the Americans crush this place, that they tear down these walls, that they break through the gates of our hell. I hope they come here and finally end all this madness.

  “The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.”

  It’s night now. Just follow the light, boys, you’ll find us.

  Peacetime

  13

  Jo McMahon

  June 21, 1945, London, England

  Jo scratched at the collar of her dress shirt. It had been especially tailored for her, it wasn’t too tight, but she was unused to it—to the beige tie that had to be worn just so, to the formal brown jacket, the fitted skirt. She sat there, in that quiet room, listening to the clock on the wall tick incessantly. The floorboards were so glossy they looked like there was a layer of ice on them. The windows in the room were shut tight against the sun outside; Jo felt stifled. She readjusted her collar and wiggled uncomfortably in her seat, her stockings itching her legs, her high-heeled shoes hidden beneath the hard-backed chair, one foot tucked demurely behind the other.

  The door opened and a woman with a bad complexion said she would be seen now. Jo stood up quickly, and the sunlight glaring down on car windshields below shot up and hit her in the eyes, blinding her for a second. She clicked carefully across the shiny floor and entered the small, smoky office.

  “Lieutenant McMahon,” said the captain at the desk, half-sitting up as she entered and saluted. He made a brushing gesture with his free hand in response.

  “Sorry about the mess,” he said, smiling, putting down his coffee mug, pushing an enormous pile of papers aside to make room for it. “There’s so much to do, and only so many hours in the day. Who knew winning a war would make so much paperwork?”

  He grinned enormously at his wit, and Jo smiled politely in response.

  “So, miss”—he was checking a list in front of him—Jo saw names messily crossed off in blue, others with large red check marks next to them—“ah, yes, now I remember. Well, dear, we have some good news and we have some bad news.”

  The “dear” gives it away.

  “The good news really is tremendous,” he continued patronizingly, as if speaking to a very small child. “Looks like you were busy across the channel, huh?” He handed her a tiny cardboard box like it was a birthday present. She opened it.

  “The Silver Star,” he proclaimed, as if she needed a refresher on military insignia. “That’s amazing. I mean, I don’t know, but you may be the only woman to have ever received this.”

  No, not the only woman, she thought.

  “There will be a pinning ceremony sometime,” he said vaguely, waving his hand in the air, looking again at his chart. A buzzer went off, and he said, “Not now, Bessie,” scowling as if Bessie could see his disapproving face.

  “You can ask my secretary the date as you go out.”

  He seemed to have dismissed her, to have forgotten about her, about the bad news he still had to give. He was counting under his breath and shaking his head, as if the sums weren’t coming out right.

  “Can I ask who recommended me, sir?”

  “For this? Uh, sure, no problem,” he said in a tone implying the opposite. He clicked on a switch. “Bessie, see if you can find out who recommended this woman for the Silver Star, I don’t have it here. And have my lunch sent up, will you? I’m starving.”

  Jo sat quietly, hands folded, looking at the man. He was running to fat; he must have had a desk job the whole war. He never looked up at her, checking and rechecking his charts. The bald spot on the top of his head was shiny. It reminded her of Billy. There was a clock in this room too, noisier than the one in the waiting room; the clicking sound was so loud, she wondered how he could stand it.

  “Oh,” he said, as if just remembering something, crossing off another line with satisfaction. “You’re also promoted to first lieutenant. You must have been busy,” and the way he said it sounded suggestive this time, as if being promoted was not exactly a good thing, was somehow questionable.

  Jo looked around the small office—a smug room, she decided; there were diplomas and medals and fake swords crossed above his head. The room was littered with books, with pamphlets, with a half-eaten sandwich; there were orange rinds peeking out from under his desk, his area rug peppered with pencil shavings and ash.

  Jo cleared her throat.

  “The bad news, sir?”

  “Oh, oh, yes,” he said, his voice growing serious. He put on the glasses he had been reading without only a moment
before. Jo imagined the thick frames were just for effect, to try to make himself seem formidable.

  “Miss, there seems to be some question as to your—uh, how do I say it—fitness?—to continue nursing, at this time.”

  “There’s no question about it, sir.”

  “Now, I know what you’re going to say, that you’re fine, that you can keep at your post, and I highly commend the sentiment, but—”

  “Excuse me, sir.” His eyebrows rose in surprise at the interruption, his glasses slipping a notch lower on his nose. “I meant there was no question. I am not fit to stay on in nursing. I have been saying that since I got here.”

  The man seemed genuinely surprised.

  “You’re not contesting it? You’re not going to put up a fuss?”

  “Sir, I have asked the matron since the day I arrived to please find some other kind of work for me. A desk job. Paperwork. Anything. But I can’t help these soldiers, sir—”

  Her voice trailed off, and she looked vacant for a moment, lost.

  “I’m sure you’ve been through a lot, miss—”

  What do you know about what I’ve been through?

  “—and no one can blame you if you’re ready for a change.”

  Jo felt her eyes prick; she would not show emotion in front of this man. He wasn’t worth it.

  “Sir, it’s not that. I love nursing. I love the men. It’s—it’s just this.”

  And she extended her arms in front of her, palms facing downward, and her hands shook, trembling uncontrollably. The man’s face went white, as if this were the worst thing he had seen in the war, the worst thing he had ever seen.

  Perhaps it is, Jo thought.

  “Shell shock, sir,” Jo said simply. “Battle fatigue. God knows I’ve seen enough of it in others to know it in myself. I am not able—not competent—to care, to give medical care, sir. I’ve been saying that since I got here.”