Carly (24 page)

She ended the silent prayer. Still, she didn’t know what God and this war would demand of her. Did she have strength enough
not to let her fellow soldiers and family down, faith and courage enough to face what would come and stand strong?

Ivy Manor, January 17, 1991

Nate nudged Leigh’s shoulder. She turned over, blinking. “What is it? Does Grandma Chloe need—”

He shook his head, his bad news dragging his mood down. “It’s started. The war’s started.”

“What’s happening?” Leigh threw back the covers and slid out of bed, moving toward the door.

Nate stopped her, bracing her with his hands on her arms. “I got up to put on the coffee, and I turned on the radio. Schwarzkopf
has started an air war with Iraq.”

“No ground troops?” She pulled away and slipped on her robe.

“Not yet. Come on down. I’ve turned on the TV in the den.” Hand in hand, they shuffled down the stairs in their fleece-lined
bedroom slippers to the small room at the back of the first floor. The TV anchorman in khaki was standing in Saudi Arabia
with the night sky behind him, discussing Scud missiles. A siren sounded, and a brilliant white eruption lit the desert sky
behind him. He switched to talking about stealth bombers and Patriot missiles. He displayed the gas mask he had been given,
the same kind the troops carried at all times.

To Nate, the gas mask looked like something from a horror movie.
Our daughter has to carry a gas mask with her at all times
. He urged Leigh onto the love seat. He sat down and put his arm around her shoulders to make sure she could feel his concern,
his love. He gazed at her profile as she watched the TV screen. A station break came. She turned toward him. “I feel so close
to the war, and yet so far away.”

“It’s strange to watch a war,” Nate agreed, stroking her upper arm. “It’s kind of like the day in 1969 when I watched men
step out onto the moon’s surface and wondered not so much how they could do it, but how could I be sitting in my parents’
living room watching it.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t feel real.” Leigh lowered her head to his shoulder. “Like it doesn’t feel real that I have a daughter
over there.”

“
We
have a daughter over there.”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.” Leigh turned in to him and burrowed her face into his shoulder. “How are we going to get through
all this?”

He closed his arms around her. “We pray. And hope that our girl will come home safe.”

“I’m glad you’ll be going to the hospital with us today.” She rubbed her face against him. “It’s all too much.”

He understood. “You’re strong, and God hasn’t forgotten us.”

“I wish I had your faith.” She sounded wistful.

“I have my faith, and you have yours. You just haven’t relied on it in a while. But war is one of those situations that’s
too much for us humans. It’s too big, too horrible.”

“Yes,” Leigh agreed. “Yes, it is too big.” She stood up. “Let’s get that coffee. We have to get off early. I want to be there
when Mom wakes from the anesthesia.”

Nate followed her out. When they entered the dining room, he breathed in the heartening aroma of fresh brewing coffee. “I
think you were right to let Dan take her to the hospital this morning.”

“I had to. I didn’t want to be away from Grandma Chloe the night before Mom’s surgery. I knew she’d be worried.”

“The war’s started.” Grandma Chloe walked briskly into the dining room behind them. “My clock radio came on with the news.”

Leigh turned back and hugged her grandmother. “Carly will be fine.”

“She’s in God’s hands, and I trust him with her. Bette has me more worried.” Grandma Chloe stroked Leigh’s uncombed hair.
“Does that make any sense?”

Nate watched silently. Leigh’s golden hair caught the anemic morning sunlight. “Maybe it’s because Bette’s just closer. Today
will be a rough day for a lot of people,” he said. “Chloe, we’ll call you often from the hospital—”

“I’m coming with you two. Michael told me he doesn’t mind staying with Rose, and he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.” Chloe
went on into the kitchen toward the cabinet of cups and saucers. “Rose will be here soon.”

“Grandma, are you sure you’re well enough to sit around the hospital most of the day?” Leigh asked, a plea in her tone.

“Bette’s my daughter. If I can walk, I’m going. Period.”

Nate patted Leigh’s arm. Of course Chloe was coming with them. Rose walked in the back door and slammed it.

Nate felt the whoosh of cold wind swoop into the kitchen. He hurried forward to help Rose out of her coat.

“What a day, what a day,” Rose said, walking into the kitchen and grabbing her apron from the hook. “I’m glad someone had
the sense to put the coffee on. I called our pastor, Miss Chloe, and he’s got the whole church praying for our soldiers, Carly,
and Bette. So don’t you be worried.”

Nate leaned over and kissed Rose’s full cheek. “You’re a godsend.”

“I always heard Irishmen knew how to charm the birds from the trees.” Rose chuckled. “Who wants bacon and eggs?”

Later that day, Bette was moved from post-op to her room. The nurses lowered the sides of the gurney and moved her into her
bed, and then Dan’s face loomed above her—and her mother’s, her daughter’s, and Nate’s. She smiled and tears welled up. They
all looked so worried; she must be brave.

“Don’t cry,” Dan said. “The surgeon said you came through fine.”

“I know,” she mumbled. “Everything seems fuzzy.”

Chloe stroked her hair. “The anesthetic is still in your system, and I’m sure they’ll have you on painkillers for the next
few days. But you’ll feel more like yourself soon.”

Bette blinked back tears.
Feel more like herself?
She’d not let herself think about the fact that her left breast had been taken from her today. When would she ever feel like
herself again? “How’s Carly? Has the ground war started?”

Nate came up behind Chloe and looked down at Bette. “No ground troops yet. Just bombing missions. We were watching it on the
TV in the surgical waiting area.”

“Yes,” Dan added, “it must be the first
live
televised war—I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.” He reached down and took Bette’s hand in his, warming it.

Leigh stood just behind her husband, watching everything with her large, cornflower-blue eyes.
Does Leigh know how lovely she still is? Does she know how much I love her? I will have to let her know, make her believe
me. I’m still alive and there’s still time to heal the rift. God, help me. And please keep Carly safe
.

Saudi Arabia, February 23, 1991

In the smoggy winter twilight, Carly, Bowie, Joe, Sam, and the rest of the company stood uneasily around their trucks, waiting
for those who were loading them to finish. After five weeks of the air war, their orders had come down today. Tonight, under
cover of darkness, they would secretly cross the border into Iraq. Her company wouldn’t be fighting but they were going da>
to set up the supplies, most especially gasoline and water, that the ground troops would need as they advanced toward Baghdad.

The general had decided to mislead Hussein into thinking that the Americans would attack from their battleships in the Gulf.
Actually he would outflank the Iraq army on the north and west and head straight for Baghdad. It was crucial to the battle
plan that the ground troops have the supplies they needed on their way to Baghdad. This was what Carly and her battalion had
trained and prepared for.

There was one big catch. They were part of a support company. Yet Carly and her platoon now faced advancing
da>
of the combat troops. Glacial fear like nothing Carly had ever felt before wrapped her body in a tight, icy web. Her face
was stiff and frosted. She was very careful of whom she looked at and how.

According to what they’d been told, the Iraqi army was now blind and deaf since precision air strikes had taken out their
communication centers and destroyed their reconnaissance planes. The invasion of Iraqi territory should be undetected. But
what if her company ran into a stray Iraqi force? They had once before, hadn’t they? Evidently this thought had occurred not
just to her. For once, the guys in her platoon didn’t stand around grinning. Everyone looked very focused, very serious, and
quiet. This was the real thing.

The last of the supplies was loaded; the trucks were closed and secured. Bowie got the signal, and he and Carly climbed into
the lead truck. Once again, Carly had been given the map. Bowie started the engine growling and leading the company, they
headed for the highway out of camp. On the seat beside Carly sat the pair of night-vision goggles she’d been issued. Their
NBC warfare suits sat in two sacks on the floor between them. She tried to whisper a prayer, but her lips seemed frozen shut.
Instead, she stared through the windshield, her hands fisted on top of the map.

Night came and the headlights ate up the black miles da> of them. The
shammal
buffeted them as usual. Around midnight, they left Saudi soil and headed into the desert of Iraq. With intense concentration,
Carly used her compass, binoculars, and goggles, trying to keep the platoon true to course. The supplies they carried must
arrive at the right location on schedule. Ground troops couldn’t waste precious time looking for them. Carly had no margin
of error. None.

As they drove on, all she could hear were the powerful windstorm and their motors sounding so loud in the desert night. The
smell of the burning oil wells, carried by the wind, became stronger and stronger. Was that thunder in the distance?

Her thoughts strayed to the most recent letter from home. Her grandmother Bette was taking chemotherapy, and Chloe had gone
to Florida with her friend Minnie to spend some time in the warm tropical sun to recover from pneumonia. Now, at least, she
knew what they had been keeping from her: her grandmother’s cancer. And that all explained why her mother hadn’t turned up.

Being far from home when her family, her mother, needed her was hard. Carly wished she were closer so she could visit her
grandmother. For a moment, Carly tried to imagine what life would have been like if she hadn’t enlisted last May. Now she’d
be in her second semester of college somewhere. She would have been watching the war in front of a TV set, not on this black
chilly desert. What would that have felt like?

The wind picked up. Thunder rolled. The sand gusted against the truck, swishing away the finish, nearly shutting off their
view. Suddenly, lightning struck the earth right in front of the truck. Thunder detonated around them. Carly screamed. What
if one of the fuel trucks was hit by lightning? Hussein would see that fireball all the way to Baghdad and figure out the
battle plan. Lightning struck again—just a breath away. More thunder jackhammered them.

Wind hit the truck’s sides like boxer’s punches. Blazing, brilliant lightning crackled and arced all around them. Carly held
her breath and pressed her hands over her ears against the pounding, echoing thunder. Rain lashed their windshield, blinding
them. Bowie stomped the brakes repeatedly as a signal to the truck behind him, then stopped the HEMTT. “We’ll just have to
ride it out!”

For the next uncounted minutes, gales of rain deluged. Lightning and thunder battered the supply train. Then the storm moved
on, the thunder still exploding like bomb blasts on into the distance.

Both Carly and Bowie leaped out of the cab into the pouring rain and looked back over the supply train. Nothing was afire.
Carly’s knees weakened with relief. She caught hold of the truck and steadied herself, then swung back up into the cab. She
was drenched and her heart pounded, but she sat back against the seat feeling grateful to be alive.

Bowie started up the motor and moved forward. “What was that?” he asked.

She looked over at him. “Don’t you remember them warning us that this was the season for
haboob
?”

“What?”

“Bedouin word for the worst of all possible combinations. Vicious, fast-moving sandstorms with thunderstorms in them.”

“Just what we needed for a little more excitement.”

Her heart still racing, she tried to grin. “Hey,” she said in a shaky voice and with a snap of her fingers, “piece of cake.”

Bowie shook his head and wiped rain from his face with his sleeve. “Check the map, lady.”

Holding her compass close to the dash light, she nodded. “You’re fine. Just keep heading due east-northeast.”

Sometime before dawn, they reached the point they’d been headed for. By the first few rays of sunrise, Carly gazed at the
vast empty desert around them. She checked their location by the map, compass, and shadow-tip method, and she nodded to the
drivers gathered around. Bowie stood beside her double-checking. Finally she confirmed, “This is it.”

They all looked back at Bowie, at her. Carly took a deep breath. “Now we just wait for the army to catch up with us.”
Wait for the war to catch up with us
.

One tense, interminable day passed and then another dawn. They slept in shifts. Leaning against and squatting near their vehicles,
they ate their packaged MREs, drank bottled, lukewarm water, and swatted flies. Little happened to break the tedium except
the flights of the airplanes and helicopters overhead. Periodically, some private who didn’t know Carly would ask her to recheck
their position, but finally Bowie put a stop to that, saying firmly, “We’re where we’re supposed to be. Chill.”

The Iraqi army was blind and deaf, but so were the Americans. They weren’t supposed to signal anyone unless they were unexpectedly
attacked. The soldiers kept their weapons and NBC gear within reach and scanned the open skies and the vast, uncluttered horizon.
They had no cover. Carly drew new significance from the saying “like a sitting duck.”

If Iraqis came upon them, Carly’s company was completely on its own—a terrifying thought that no one voiced. Carly realized
that war forced them to act in opposition to their natural desire to hide from danger. They must follow orders, do their duty,
stand firm no matter what. Those weeks in boot camp had taught them all unquestioning obedience, and now she saw why. She
could depend on the men and women around her to carry out their orders without fail. In this daunting situation, that was
their strength.