Battle Hymns (17 page)

Will leaned in to Charlotte’s ear, grinning. “I don’t
think they know I can’t remember what happened that day. Let’s go
before they realize.”

They found their escort and followed him to the exit.
It was approaching five o’clock, and many of the men and women who
worked in the building were leaving for the day.

“Charlotte?”

She stopped at the sound of her name. Will halted
beside her.

Her father approached them. He wore his workday
uniform and carried a leather briefcase at his side. “What are you
doing here?”

Charlotte looked at Will. “Will, this is my father,
Thomas Donahue. Dad, this is William Kendrick. He was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross today.”

They shook hands.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Major Donahue,” Will
said.

“Likewise”—her father glanced at the insignia on his
uniform—“Lieutenant.”

“I met Will volunteering at the Army Medical Center,”
Charlotte explained.

“It looks like you’ve met a true war hero.” Her
father gestured to the medals on Will’s uniform. “A Distinguished
Service Cross. That’s rather impressive.”

“It was nothing,” Will said.

“On the contrary. They don’t award many DSCs. I have
no doubt you deserved it.”

Will bowed his head. He didn’t seem accustomed to so
much praise. “Thank you, sir.”

“How long have you been recovering?”

“Almost six months, sir.”

“And before that, how long were you on duty?”

“Two years, sir.”

“You must’ve been fighting with the British or the
Canadians.”

“The British. Royal Air Force, sir.”

Major Donahue patted Will’s shoulder. “Then you’re in
need of a good home-cooked meal. Charlotte, why don’t you and Will
come to the house for dinner?”

Will frowned. “I couldn’t impose.”

“Nonsense. It’s the least we can do for you after all
you’ve sacrificed for us.”

Charlotte nodded. “He’s right. You’ve also been
complaining about the hospital food for months. I’d accept the
offer.”

Will smiled. “All right, then.”

They rode with Charlotte’s father to the Donahues’
house in Chevy Chase, and though their arrival was a surprise to
her mother, Will was wholeheartedly welcomed into their home.

“I hope you don’t mind meeting my parents,” Charlotte
said as she showed him through the house while they waited for
dinner to be prepared.

Will studied the photographs on the fireplace mantel.
“I don’t mind. It’s nice, actually, remembering what a normal
family is like.”

When dinner was ready, they joined her parents at the
table. Will and Charlotte sat across from each other. Mrs. Donahue
had prepared a stew from leftover beef and the victory garden
vegetables she’d canned last fall. On account of the food
rationing, the stew wasn’t the most delicious meal her mother had
ever cooked, but the taste had to surpass that of the Army Medical
Center’s food.

Mrs. Donahue glanced at Will. “Lieutenant.”

“Will, please,” he said.

She smiled. “Will, forgive my ignorance. You’re in
which branch of the Army?”

“The U.S. Army Air Forces, ma’am. I joined the Eagle
Squadron in 1940, which allowed me to fight with the Royal Air
Force in England. But the Eagle Squadrons were turned over to the
Army Air Forces last September.”

“I’ve heard good things about the Eagle Squadrons,”
Major Donahue said. “You fought in the Battle of Britain?”

“No, sir. I would have liked to, but I was in
training.”

“Are you from this area?” Mrs. Donahue asked.

“No, ma’am. I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. These
past few months have been my only time in Washington.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen much of the city. But I don’t
plan on leaving anytime soon, if I can help it.”

“You don’t want to return to your family?”

“I don’t have any family to return to. Not
anymore.”

Mrs. Donahue frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. What
happened?”

“Mother,” Charlotte said in gentle warning.

Will shook his head. “It’s fine, Charlotte. It
doesn’t need to be a secret.” He swallowed a spoonful of the stew
before answering. “My mother died when I was very young, and my
father and I had a falling out a few years ago. I was close to my
sister, Margaret. But in thirty-eight she moved to London with her
new husband. Two years later, the Luftwaffe bombed London, and my
sister and her husband were killed in the Blitz. So, I have no one
to return to.”

His voice remained steady, his eyes trained on the
middle of the table. Charlotte couldn’t believe Will was able to
explain his sister’s death with such detachment. She knew how much
it affected him. His sister was the reason he fought in the war
before the rest of the country.

“I’m so sorry. Well, you’re welcome here any time,”
her mother replied.

To Charlotte’s relief, the conversation steered away
from Will’s personal life for the rest of the meal. Charlotte
updated her parents on her studies and her friends. Will and her
father discussed the war in Tunisia and the plight of Jews in
Eastern Europe. They also discovered a shared affinity for military
aircraft, so Will spent much of dinner describing the strengths of
different bombers. He opened up comfortably with her parents, more
than she would’ve imagined given his usual reticence for
conversation.

Following dinner, Charlotte helped her mother with
the dishes, while her father and Will went into the sitting
room.

“He’s in love with you.”

The dish Charlotte washed clamored into the kitchen
sink. She turned to her mother. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

“That may be the case on your end, but I see the way
he looks at you.”

Charlotte resumed washing the dish. She had noticed a
change in Will over the past few weeks that supported her mother’s
position. After all, Will had invited her—no one else—to his award
ceremony that afternoon. She wasn’t ignorant to it.

“Even if he is, it doesn’t matter.”

Her mother picked up the dish Charlotte had cleaned
and dried it with a towel. “You don’t feel the same way? He’s a
handsome man.”

“Of course not. I can’t feel that way for anyone
right now.”

Her mother placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s
understandable if you do. You have to move on some time,
sweetheart.”

Charlotte returned to washing the next dish, which
was getting far more attention from her scrub brush than what was
needed. “Well, I don’t.”

Twenty-Three

W
hen Charlotte visited the
Army Medical Center on Sunday, Will had a visitor. She could only
see the man’s back from where she stood in the ward. He wore a dark
suit and his gray hair was slicked back. Whatever they talked
about, Will didn’t seem pleased by his presence.

As Will was otherwise occupied, Charlotte tended to a
young soldier who’d been recently admitted to the hospital. The
Army Medical Center had become busier in the last few months. More
soldiers had been deployed into combat in the European and Pacific
theaters of war, so more soldiers sustained severe enough injuries
that sent them home to recover. Will was no longer the only patient
who had fought on the front lines. There were now thousands in the
hospital, including this young man.

The soldier couldn’t have been much older than
eighteen and yet he was bruised, gaunt, and had lost one of his
arms to infection. Despite his treatments, he suffered from a high
fever. He should’ve been in an observation ward, but they were
overcapacity, and the doctors had deemed him to be noncontagious.
In the past two days, his vital signs had been measured at least
thirty times by the nurses’ aides.

Charlotte approached his bedside. His face was
flushed, and his skin felt warm to the touch. Even without a
thermometer, she could tell his fever had spiked. Still, she placed
the instrument under his tongue and checked his pulse as she
waited. When she was done, she penciled the measurements in his
chart and found Nurse Parker.

“Jimmy’s fever is up to one-oh-five, and he’s
tachycardic,” she whispered.

Nurse Parker frowned. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Charlotte returned to the patient with cool, wet
towels. She folded them and placed one beneath his neck and the
other over his forehead. Jimmy opened his eyes and offered her a
weak smile.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Eh.” He glanced at his elbow that was now a bandaged
nub. “I’m left-handed. Ain’t that just my luck?”

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

“I don’t know about that.” He coughed. “Hey, can you
write someone for me?”

“Of course. Let me get some paper.” She left and
returned with a pad of paper, a pen, and an envelope. She pulled
out the stool and sat. “Who’s the letter for?”

“My father.”

“What’s his address?”

Jimmy provided his father’s address in Detroit,
Michigan and then started on the letter. “Dear
Pa . . .” He paused and looked at Charlotte. “I
don’t know what to say.” He coughed. “I haven’t written to him or
my mother since I joined the war.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure how long Jimmy had been in the
war. It had to have been long enough for him to complete Army
training, go abroad, get wounded in battle, and travel back to the
States.

“You could tell them what happened and where you are
now. I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you, regardless of what
you share with them.”

“All right.” Jimmy was silent for several seconds.
“Dear Pa. It’s Jimmy. I’m sorry for running away and any worry it’s
caused you and Ma. You’ve probably guessed by now that I enlisted
in the Army. The recruiter either believed us or didn’t care that
me and Tom were only seventeen. We heard they’d let just about
anyone volunteer, and that seemed to be the case. We joined a
regiment that was part of the Michigan National Guard. We were sent
to New England to train for fighting in Europe, but then orders
changed and we were shipped to California, and then to Australia.
We spent last summer in Adelaide and Brisbane to complete training
in jungle warfare. And then we were sent to New Guinea.”

Jimmy closed his eyes and grimaced. Charlotte
readjusted the towels.

“Don’t let Ma read this letter. Just tell her I’m
alive and back in the States. Truth is, we got beat up pretty bad
out there. Tom and other guys from our group died from some
tropical disease and then I got it myself. I survived that, but
then I got shot in Buna. The field hospital was able to get the
bullet out of my arm, but the wound became infected and my arm was
amputated at the elbow.

“Hopefully I get better and can come home soon, but
if I don’t, I want to tell you I’m sorry for not writing until now.
I was afraid you’d report me for being underage and I’d get kicked
out. After that, I never built up the courage to write. I thought
it’d be better for you not to know where I was and what I was
doing. I’ve been constantly afraid over the past couple of years. I
was afraid of not doing my part in the war and then afraid of being
rejected. I was afraid of failing my country, but also afraid of
dying. But I’m not afraid anymore.”

Jimmy glanced at what remained of his left arm. Then,
with his right hand, he wiped the towel from his forehead and let
out a resigned sigh. “I hope you, Ma, and Julie are doing well. I
don’t know what’s happened since I left, and I hope you can forgive
me for that. Love, Jimmy.”

Charlotte finished writing and read the letter back
to Jimmy for his approval.

“Take out that stuff I said about being afraid. I
shouldn’t be saying those things.”

She scratched out the paragraph until it was no
longer legible.

Jimmy stared at Charlotte. “What do you think?”

“I think your parents are fortunate to have such a
brave son.” She folded the letter and stuffed it into the envelope.
“I have no doubt they’ll be proud of you.”

Tears formed in Jimmy’s eyes. “You think so?”

“I do. Now, try to rest.”

Nurse Parker and Dr. Robinson approached Jimmy’s
beside as Charlotte left. She placed the letter into the stack of
outgoing mail, washed the thermometer and her hands, and watched
the medical team from a distance.

The doctor unwrapped the bandages and inspected the
amputation. He took out his stethoscope and auscultated Jimmy’s
chest. Jimmy's head lolled to the side, his eyes closed. Nurse
Parker placed her fingers to Jimmy’s neck and shook her head.

Charlotte rushed forward and halted at the foot of
the bed. Nurse Parker whispered to her, “I’m sorry.”

Charlotte clenched her fists and retreated to the
nurses’ lounge. She shut the door behind her and sagged against it,
taking deep breaths as her eyes welled with tears.

As serious as Jimmy’s condition was, she hadn’t
expected him to die. She was sure they’d control the infection, and
Jimmy would eventually walk out of the hospital and go home. She’d
seen medicine work miracles. Will was a testament to that. But
Jimmy was a sobering reminder of the costs of war.

She pushed herself away from the door and staggered
to the nearest chair. Her shoulders slumped as she allowed herself
to cry. She cried for Jimmy, Nick, and all the families that were
being torn apart. It seemed everyone who joined the war would never
come back the same, if they returned at all. Oh, why did Nick have
to join the war?

The door to the nurses’ lounge creaked open. Rachel
entered. Her eyes widened when she spotted Charlotte. “What’s
wrong?”

Charlotte sat up and sniffled. “Jimmy is dead.”

Rachel grimaced. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was so
young.”

Charlotte blinked away her tears. She didn’t want to
linger on Jimmy’s death, and especially not Nick’s.

“Anyway . . . How are you?”