The Wings of Morning (15 page)

Jude didn’t know how to respond. The Amish had lived peaceably in America for centuries. Now, overnight, they were suspected spies and traitors just because they spoke with a German accent and refused to kill other men.

“Your sister, lady friend, whoever she was,” the sergeant went on, “she really made me think. Sure, I’d like to see you men fight. You all have the hearts of lions and you’d be great soldiers. But what makes our country great is that persons like you can be different and safe here and, I guess, give America the kind of color and character and, I don’t know, flavor that makes us special. I’ve turned this over in my head a lot, Whetstone. Here’s what I have to say—it’s a privilege to have you Amish as American citizens, the courage of your faith and convictions is as American to me as apple pie, and it’s an honor to preserve a way of life that permits people like you to flourish.”

Jude felt a warmth go through him at this unexpected friendship. “Thank you—but shouldn’t you be telling the others as well? It would mean a great deal to them.”

The sergeant shook his head. “Let them sleep. They’ll need it. Once I’m gone they’ll be treated even more severely and there’ll be no one around to say,
Stop, enough
.”

“So—is that why they’re transferring you out?”

“They won’t say as much. My orders state that my skills are needed elsewhere to prepare American soldiers for combat. But I suspect the real reason is to give the corporal and others like him free rein to do as they see fit with you. The nation is in no mood to quibble about how you and other war objectors are treated. They don’t care. Their sons and fathers and brothers are being killed in France. For all your treatment here, you’re alive and safe and have food—such as it is—and you have a roof over your heads. The soldiers being killed in Europe sleep in the mud under an open sky and eat cold beans. To tell you the truth, I worry about what will happen to you. I don’t know where they’ll draw the line. Whenever we get a report of heavy casualties over there, they take it out on you.”

The sergeant got to his feet and picked up the lantern. “President Wilson was concerned that getting into the war would make America thicker-skinned and cruel. I thought he was wrong. Now I see he was right to be worried.”

Jude made no reply.

“You’d better get back under your blanket before the corporal shows up or it will go from bad to worse for you.”

They walked outside. There was still no light in the east. As they went toward the barracks Jude thought about everything the sergeant had told him. Why had the man taken Jude into his confidence?

“I still don’t understand why you’re telling me all this,” he said.

The sergeant stopped walking and turned the lantern so it shone fully in Jude’s eyes. Jude blinked and squinted in the glare.

“Because you’re the only one who can stop it.”

“How can I stop it? What is it I can do?”

“This British officer Cook convinced the brass you’re ace material. That you can fly as good or better than any of the German pilots he’s faced at the front. That you can be America’s hero. The day you say you’ll fly for the United States in France is the day the others from your church go home.”

Jude gently pushed the lantern down so he could see the sergeant’s face. “Are you serious when you tell me this?”

“You remember how they tried to get you signed up and you refused? This goes on until you change your mind.”

“I fly and the others go free—is that it? Is this official?”

“Yeah. After they soften you all up some more an officer will be along to pop the question.” Then the sergeant shook his head. “But it’s a lot to ask of a man to go back on what makes him what he is. You cross that line and suddenly you’re someone else and it makes you less, no matter how good the reasons are. Oh, I guess you could argue in your head that you have better reasons than most for selling your soul to the devil. But I wouldn’t go back on what I am. And I’d never tell another man to do it either.”

He began to move toward the barracks again, holding the lantern in front of him. “You’d all probably be better off dying here together. Like a squad of soldiers in the trenches. At least you wouldn’t risk losing the best part of yourselves.”

“Surely they’re not going to kill us off, Sergeant.”

“Accidents happen. Or someone goes too far and a man collapses and never gets up. Believe me, Whetstone, we’ve sent Mennonites home in pine coffins with no apologies or regrets. War changes a nation’s heart. Sometimes for the better. But, and now I can see for myself, sometimes for the worse.”

They were at the barracks’ door. The sergeant extended his hand. “It’s been an honor knowing you and your men. Good luck. And—God bless.”

Jude took his strong hand. “Thank you.”

He watched the lantern move away into the blackness until it seemed as far away as a star. He remained standing in his shirtsleeves with his hands in his pockets, feeling the November chill, but unwilling to go inside and crawl back under his warm blanket, looking at the sliver of moon slowly setting in the west and thinking of his friends asleep, their bodies aching and bruised, eyes swollen, fingers broken.
God, what shall I do? How can I say I will fly with machine guns on my plane? How can I say I will kill so my friends may go safely home to Paradise? If I asked them, none of them would want me to take up arms, even to save their lives
.

Jude returned to his bunk, but sleep would not come. And only an hour later, the corporal and a group of men with truncheons descended on the barracks. As the sergeant had warned Jude, it was a worse day than any that had preceded it. It was as if someone in higher authority had given the corporal orders to literally kill the Lapp Amish from Paradise and be done with it.

They were ordered outside, naked, and made to line up in the dark. Pails of water were thrown on them until everyone was shaking from the cold. Then the corporal ordered them to go back inside and get dressed. When they returned he told them to run to get their hearts pumping and warm their bodies up. At the end of the run he had every one of them beaten harshly with the truncheons.

“You’re traitors to your country!” shouted the corporal while this went on. It seemed to anger him more that the young Amish men scarcely cried out as the blows fell again and again. “You don’t deserve to be called Americans! You’re nothing but German spies, Huns,
Boche
, devils! You send reports back to Kaiser Wilhelm about our troop preparations. You tell him about our training methods and equipment. You slip notes to your mothers and sisters and they give them to enemy agents in Philadelphia and New York. You think we don’t know? You think we’re fools? This beating is nothing compared to what I have in store for you swine.”

The corporal had his men put their boots on the Amish men’s heads and press their faces into the muck and stench of the latrines. Had them carry one another on their backs and run back and forth carrying cans of garbage. Made them pick leftover food from the cans and eat it for their breakfast—and then their lunch. Ordered them to crawl back and forth under barbed wire strung so low it tore their shirts and pants to pieces. Then had them beaten again for destroying military equipment.

Each of them handled it according to the sort of person they were. Jonathan absorbed the punishment, only the eyes in his childlike face showing the struggle, then slept it off and began anew each morning. Sam was dark and grim, ready to argue and protest, ready to fight, it seemed to the guards, so they beat him more severely than the others because they perceived him to be a threat. Jacob was the opposite—he couldn’t control himself from crying out—“yelping” the soldiers called it mockingly—or stop the tears from bursting down his face so that he was beaten as much or more than Sam. It took all of Jude’s self-control to stop from attacking the guards whenever they knocked a sobbing Jacob Beiler to the ground.

Despite the agony of watching his friends get hurt and of taking his own blows, Hosea somehow managed to stay the best-natured of any of them, maintaining his easygoing smile and sense of humor and his faith, encouraging the others to stand up under the harsh treatment and not lash out. He was, Jude thought, so much like his father Bishop Zook.

Though most of them looked to Jude as the leader of the group, he knew they would gravitate to Hosea if anything happened to him. And should anything, God forbid, happen to Hosea, it would be David Hostetler they would turn to—tall, strong, always thinking, always working out a plan, kind to everyone, a man who prayed constantly and who always had a Bible verse on his lips. The only one who might not fall into line under David’s leadership was Sam Miller. But then Sam didn’t like anyone’s leadership, whether in the camp or back in Paradise. He would go along with things as far as he needed to, yet he always preferred to go his own way. After particularly difficult times, while the others came together at night to lift each other’s spirits, he often chose to sit apart and stare into space.

For three days the harsh treatment went on with hardly any variation except the fourth time the Amish men crawled back and forth under the wire in their ragged clothing the corporal blasted the air over their heads with a semi-automatic pistol. Several of the men were coughing uncontrollably by the second day, but no doctor was brought in. They began to sleep in pairs for warmth on the second night, but made sure they woke early enough to return to their own beds before the corporal’s arrival each morning.

When the third day was over, Jude listened to Hosea Zook struggling for breath next to him. He turned and whispered, “Perhaps we should do what they want and enlist.”

Hosea turned over and looked at him in surprise with bleak, swollen eyes. “How can you say that? We know what God expects of us. How can we help the world if we are just like them? Weren’t our ancestors persecuted for following Jesus? Don’t we sing the hymns about their suffering every time we gather for worship?”

“But several of us are sick. You yourself are not well.”

“I’m as strong as a draft horse.” Somewhere inside himself Hosea found his lopsided smile. “I could pull a plow for our corporal if only he would ask.”

“Our corporal?”

“Yes. Our corporal to pray for. Who knows what God will do to change his heart?” Hosea put a hand on Jude’s arm. It was ice-cold. “We can do nothing for America if we do not remain true to our beliefs. If we stay faithful to Jesus, we can do the nation much good. But if we break off following Jesus and his teachings, America will wind up the poorer for it, and we should lose our own souls in the bargain.”

Jude estimated it was around midnight when he saw a part of the thin moon through the barred window. Now and then someone coughed for a long time before returning to sleep. Next to him, Hosea had taken most of the blanket and was lying on his side, breathing through his mouth because his nose was plugged. Jude felt the chill on a leg and arm that were not covered. But he had no intention of taking any portion of the blanket from Hosea.

The wooden aeroplane was under his bunk, tucked behind one of the iron legs. The corporal had never bent down and looked there and so he had never found it. Jude reached for the model and held it up to the white moon.
Should I fly again, Lord? Is it possible to go up in the air once more and feel the rush of your wind, the color of your blue? Is there a way to fly and not shoot, a way to go into combat and never kill?

He did a barrel roll with the plane and smiled. Barrel Roll Kurtz. He saw again her bun falling loose, the pins scattering into the air like startled blackbirds, the color of the hair a sudden and welcome burst of light. He thought about both Emma and Lyyndaya often during the hard, cruel days at the army base and the images of their beauty warmed his mind and body and helped him endure. That and the strength and presence of God in an environment that appeared utterly forsaken by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All the men lived only to see their loved ones again and to thank God. A Thanksgiving visit had been denied, so now they could only wait another month until Christmas, hopeful but tormented by the nagging thought that even on that solemn day they might be denied a visit from the home folk.
Unless…

Unless I tell the army I will fly
.

Jude pictured himself in a uniform standing by a fighter plane. The thought repulsed him. He had been taught since he was ten that war was wrong, that the Amish did not embrace a military solution to conflict though they did pray for the souls of the soldiers on both sides. Other young men might dream of flying at high speeds and shooting down enemy planes and being called an ace. He simply dreamed of doing cartwheels in the sky and calling upon God to enjoy the tumult and exuberance of flight with him.

For a few moments he drifted off with the aeroplane on his chest. Words from the Bible entered his sleep—
the Son of Man came to give himself as a ransom for many
. It seemed as if the phrase was addressed to him. He protested,
But I am not the Son of Man
. Immediately, more words clustered in his mind—
He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me
. Then Lyyndaya was smiling and touching his hand and telling him,
Even if others turn their backs, I will always believe the best of you, and God himself will never reject or shun you. That’s two of us
. His eyes opened and everything was suddenly crystal clear. He placed the plane carefully back under his bunk and waited for the corporal’s arrival.