by Dean Hughes
The crossing took twenty-three days, considerably longer than Wally would have liked, but it was time to rest and eat, and he enjoyed himself. All he had to do was remember that he had made it, that he had survived all the illnesses, the starvation, the beatings, the torture, and then he would remember that he was one of the lucky ones. In the Philippines he had found some men from his old squadron, and together, with all of them putting their knowledge together, they could account for only about forty of the men from their squadron who were still alive. There were probably more than that, but they had started with two hundred. Certainly over half, maybe two-thirds, were now dead. Wally knew that all kinds of factors had come into that, and one of them was luck, but he also knew that his faith and his family had often given him the strength to get through when he otherwise might have given up.
He and his friends still spent a lot of time together, but sometimes Wally would sit on the deck alone and watch the rolling water. Over the years he had often thought of Warren Hicks and Jack Norland, who had died at O’Donnell, and Alan West, who had apparently died on a work detail after surviving Tayabas with him. He thought of George Robbins, who had died in the jungle and had asked Wally to go see his parents when he got home. Wally was going to do that, too. Through all these years he had been too intent on surviving to devote much of his mental energy to grieving. Now, however, all those deaths were coming back, all the friends he had watched die, all the men of his squadron he had known as young, joyful guys. He felt an overwhelming sense of thankfulness, partly that he had been blessed to stay alive, but even more for who he was, coming home, compared to who he had been, sailing the other direction five years before. He had missed a great deal and hardly knew his family anymore, but in some ways he was more a part of them now than he had been then.
More than anyone else, however, he thought of Gene. During all these years, his family had been a sort of collective whole, and he hadn’t really missed one of them more than any other—except perhaps for his mother. But now he felt so cheated to have missed those years when Gene had grown into manhood. Wally’s relationship with Alex had always been complicated; he had felt such a competition with him. But Gene had been pure little brother, a kid who looked up to him, who laughed at his jokes, who was always ready to tag along with him from the time they had both been little. And it was mostly those younger years Wally thought of now.
He and Gene had built a tree house once, or at least tried to. Gene had ended up falling from the tree and breaking his arm. The project had ended with the fall, Dad telling Wally to pull down the boards they had managed to nail into the big old apple tree. But Wally remembered the day they had finally gotten something of an off-balance platform established in the tree. Wally and Gene had made themselves sandwiches—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—and they had climbed that tree, using the rungs they had nailed to the trunk. They had sat there together and eaten, and they had told each other time and again how “neat” it was to have their own place. But once the sandwiches had been finished, they couldn’t think what else to do, and the project had lost some of its momentum.
Somehow, maybe a day or two later—Wally wasn’t sure now—Mel had come into the picture, and he and Wally had dominated the play after that. They had hidden out and played war, and they hadn’t sent Gene away, but they hadn’t included him as fully as they might have. Wally had known that, even then, and had felt a little guilty, but not enough to do much about it. Gene, however, had never gone to the house crying. He had stayed with the bigger boys and not complained about the treatment he was getting. What Wally remembered now was the day—probably the next day after Gene had broken
his arm and Dad had demanded that the tree house be dismantled—when Gene had told him, “Sorry, Wally,” meaning sorry that he had fallen and caused such trouble.
Wally could still see Gene’s innocent face, his sincerity. Wally hadn’t cared that much. The treehouse hadn’t turned out to be all that great, and he and Mel were on to something else, but now he pictured Gene’s sorrowful face, and he longed to have that little brother back. He thought if he could just have one day with him, just enough to remember, then he could wait so much easier for his chance to see him in the next life.
And what about Mel? What about all his friends? Where were they now? How many of them had died? It was all too much to comprehend—so much had happened while he had been in prison. He was learning from newspapers and radios, from talking to people, about the tremendous scope of the war, all the countries, all the fronts, all the people who had been involved. Millions of Jews killed. Millions of civilians. Millions of soldiers. How could all this have happened?
On the twenty-third day of the trip, Wally heard someone shout, “There’s the Golden Gate.” The men crowded out to the deck, and all of them waited to catch sight of it. Chuck and Wally stood together and watched the bridge grow larger as they approached. “Are you scared?” Chuck asked Wally.
Wally was surprised. He thought maybe he was the only one who felt that way. “Yeah,” he said. “The closer we get, the more scared I keep feeling.”
“Same here.”
“What are we scared of?”
“I don’t know. For all these years, I’ve been able to say, ‘Once I get released, everything will be all right.’ But now we’ve gotta get back to reality, and I’m not sure how well I’ll handle that.”
“Everything is going to be coming at us, all at once, isn’t it?” Wally said. “We’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do with our lives now. I keep thinking I ought to go to college, maybe, but I’m not sure what I’d study.”
“I want to get married, Wally. I just keep thinking about that. I want to have a normal life. I want a family. But maybe we’re too strange now. Maybe no girl will ever want me, the way I am now.”
Wally knew exactly what Chuck meant. They could put on weight, get their dental work done, buy some clothes. But how did they stop thinking like POWs? How did they get used to people again? To life? How did they learn to relax around women? What did people say when they just chatted? It was like starting over on life. The world had kept going, and they hadn’t been part of it.
“We’ll just take it one step at a time,” Wally said. “I don’t know what the army is going to do with us for a while, but everyone says we’ll be sent to a hospital first, not home. Maybe that’ll give us a chance to get back to normal a little before we face everyone.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
As the ship neared the bridge, and San Francisco, Wally could see a blimp flying overhead. On the side of it was painted, in huge letters, “Welcome home, POWs.”
All the men cheered and laughed and slapped each other on the back. How long had they been dreaming of this moment? “Still alive in ’45!” men were shouting. It really was too good to be true. Wally told himself he wouldn’t think too far ahead now. He would just take things as they came and try to enjoy it all.
The ship passed under the bridge, and then, in the bay, a smaller ship approached. It was loaded with young women. The men shouted and waved at them, and the girls threw kisses. They were calling out, and mixed into all the noise, Wally heard a clear, mellow voice shout, “You boys are heroes to all of us. Welcome home!”
It was more than Wally could handle. He cried unashamedly, and as he looked around, he saw that all the men were doing the same thing. He told himself that whatever else happened in life, he had this moment to remember. He was almost home.
Author’s Note
When a missionary departs or a loved one is about to go away, it’s common for Latter-day Saints to sing the hymn “God Be With You.” It’s a way of praying that God’s presence will accompany the loved one “till we meet again.” The lyric is comforting: “When life’s perils thick confound you, Put his arms unfailing round you. . . .” In the chorus, however, the consolation takes on a higher meaning: “Till we meet, till we meet, Till we meet at Jesus’ feet, God be with
you till we meet again.” We put our trust in God, in other words, even in the case of the ultimate separation—death. We don’t say “if we meet again” but “when we meet again,” because we take to heart the hymn’s promise.
There were so many hardships during the war, but maybe the worst were all the separations. Young men and women were away from home; couples were pulled apart; friends were divided. Kids missed their big brothers and sisters; young people missed their sweethearts; parents and grandparents worried every day about the soldiers gone from their families. Everyone dreamed of the day when it would all be over and those separations would end. Most Americans prayed that God would protect the ones they loved. But faith required that those who waited at home accept that other consolation—that if the loved one didn’t return in this life, families would still “meet again.”
We do our wars “quick and clean” now. We watch them on CNN, and we get impatient if the bombing lasts more than a couple of weeks. We expect no American to die, we get upset if the smart bombs miss by an inch, and above all, we expect life to go on without any change or inconvenience. For all those reasons, it’s difficult for most of us to comprehend fully the commitment that was required during World War II. Everyone was affected by that war. Every life changed. When the separations ended, friends and lovers saw each other again, but that meant new challenges as relationships had to be rebuilt. Some feelings were easily renewed, but many memories, many experiences, were better forgotten. And yet, all in all, the end of the war was glorious. Soldiers and civilians alike had done what they had to do, the victory had been won, and basic freedoms seemed a wonderful blessing, not something to take for granted.
The story of the war didn’t end in 1945, and my story won’t end there either. There will be one more book, volume 5, in my series. It will be about meeting again and about the difficulties and wonderful joys in doing that.
In past volumes I listed some of the resources I have used to understand the history I have covered in these books. Let me add a few more to the list. Two excellent books about the closing months of the war have been published in recent years. To comprehend the conditions in Europe when the war ended there, see Martin Gilbert’s comprehensive The Day the War Ended, May 8, 1945—Victory in Europe (Henry Holt, 1995). A fascinating book about politics at the close of the war is J. Robert Moskin’s Mr. Truman’s War: The Final Victories of World War II and the Birth of the Postwar World (Random House, 1996).
Charles Whiting wrote a number of fine books about the latter stages of the war in Europe. Two that helped me were Siegfried: The Nazi’s Last Stand (Stein and Day, 1982) and The End of the War, Europe: April 15–May 23, 1945 (Stein and Day, 1973).
In trying to understand Germans and the affect of Hitler on the people, I have found three books insightful: The Burden of Hitler’s Legacy by Alfons Heck (Renaissance House, 1988), The Tragedy of Children Under Nazi Rule by Kiryl Sosnowski (Howard Fertig, 1983), and Voices from the Third Reich, an Oral History by Johannes Steinhoff, Peter Pechel, and Dennis Showalter (De Capo Press, 1989).
A book I enjoyed, even though it is a little sloppy in its research at times, was What They Didn’t Teach You About World War II, by Mike Wright (Presidio, 1998). It explodes some clichés and provides a lot of interesting background about life at home and at war.
I am always trying to understand the mind of a warrior. We have often gotten false ideas from movies, and even from reticent soldiers, who don’t like to talk about the psychology of combat. One honest and fascinating writer on that subject is Paul Fussell. I have especially enjoyed his books Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (Oxford, 1989) and Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic (Little, Brown, 1996).
There are a number of books about behind-the-lines espionage in World War II, but the book that helped most in writing this volume was Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II, by Joseph E. Serpico (Viking, 1979).
One book I bought recently but wish I had owned all along is a wonderful general reference in encyclopedic form: The Oxford Companion to World War II, edited by I. C. B. Dear (Oxford, 1995).
My wife, Kathy, has been my partner again on this volume. She helps me work out plot detail, brainstorms with me, and sometimes helps with research. She also reads my drafts and criticizes gently but directly. Jack Lyon, Emily Watts, and Tim Robinson, all editors at Deseret Book, were not quite so gentle, perhaps, but supportive and wise in their advice. A number of my friends and relatives also read the manuscript and offered advice and lots of enthusiasm: Tom and Kristen Hughes, Amy and Brad Russell, Rob Hughes, Dave and Shauna Weight, Richard and Sharon Jeppesen, and Pam Russell.
This book is dedicated to my daughter Amy Hughes Russell, her husband Brad, and their two little boys, Michael and David. Amy knows the characters in my books as well as I do, and we talk about them as though they were our old friends. Brad has also become interested in the books and likes to join in the discussions of plots and outcomes. Michael and David, along with their cousin, Steven, are the best compensation for my “loss of youth.” Of all the roles I’ve played in life, I like “Papa”—as they call me—the very best.
As Long As I Have You
As Long As I Have You
Children of the Promise: Volume 5
Visit us at DeseretBook.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hughes, Dean, 1943–
As long as I have you / Dean Hughes.
p.cm. — (Children of the promise; v. 5)
ISBN 1-57345-800-7 (hardbound)
ISBN-10 1-59038-589-6 (paperbound)
ISBN-13 978-1-59038-589-0 (paperbound)
;1. Mormon families—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.U36 A8 2000
813'.54—dc21
00-055473
Printed in the United States of America
Banta, Menasha, WI
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Rob Hughes
Chapter 1
Wally Thomas sat on his hospital bed with a couple of pillows propped behind his back. A nurse had given him a Life magazine full of photographs of the impromptu celebrations across the nation on V-J Day. But Wally couldn’t concentrate. Everything in the magazine was foreign to him, a reality he could hardly imagine, and besides, he was too worked up. He glanced at the clock every minute or two, but it wasn’t until after ten o’clock in the evening that a stout young nurse named Myrna looked into his ward and called, “Okay, Thomas. Come with me. You’re up next for the telephone.”
Wally slipped off the bed. His excitement had instantly turned to nervousness, although he couldn’t have said why. It would be after eleven in Utah, and surely his parents would be home, even if he did get them out of bed. He pulled his slippers on, grabbed a robe, and followed Myrna down the hall. She told him to sit down outside an office door. “We can only give you five minutes,” she said. “When the fellow on the phone comes out, go right in, and the corporal will place your call.”
Wally did sit down, but as soon as Myrna walked away, he stood again. He watched the door. What should he say first? How should he use his five minutes? All evening he had been thinking of things he wanted to say, and ask, but he needed hours, not minutes.
Finally the door opened. The man who stepped out was far too thin not to be another released POW, but he was no one Wally knew—not anyone from his camp. Wally stepped forward a little too quickly, brushing against the man. The corporal was sitting at an oak desk in a tiny room. He was holding a telephone receiver in one hand and a pencil in the other. “Give me the number and then step in there,” he said. He pointed with his thumb but didn’t look up. Wally recited his parents’ phone number—which he had never forgotten—and then stepped into the larger inner office and sat down. The office, except for a desk and chair, was empty, with stark white walls. The air smelled of something strange, sour—maybe some sort of salve or dressing from one of the men who had bee
n there ahead of him. When Wally picked up the phone he could already hear the ringing on the other end. In a moment he heard a click, and then his mother’s voice, breathy, anxious. “Yes? Hello.”
“Mom, it’s Wally.” Then his voice broke, and that was all he could get out.
“Oh, son,” his mother said, and she too began to cry. He suddenly felt like a little boy. He wanted to be there, to let her take him into her arms. “Wally, are you all right?” she finally managed to ask.
“I’m fine, Mom.” Wally swallowed and tried to get control. He couldn’t waste any more of this valuable time. “They’ve put me in a hospital, in San Francisco, but that’s just to check me out. I’m doing great.”
“When will they let you come home?”
“I don’t know. I hope it won’t be too long—maybe just a few days.”
“Oh, Wally, you must have been through some terrible things.”
“Well . . . yeah. But I’m doing fine now, and I’m putting on weight. I’m feeling pretty good. Did you ever get any of the letters I sent?”
“No. Sister Adair got a card from Chuck, and he wrote on it that you two were together, and you were okay. But that’s the only thing we ever heard—and that was a long time ago.”
Wally had always feared that, but it hurt to think that not one letter had reached them. “I didn’t get any letters from you, either,” he said. “I got a package a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. We wrote all the time, and we sent you lots of packages.”
“I know.” But the thought of it—all those letters and packages he would have loved—was agonizing. “Well . . . it’s over now.” He bent forward and looked at the floor, the gray tile. It really was over, and he wanted to be home, really home.
