Homefront Hero Page 2

  John had saved six lives, but only really in his efforts to keep his own. That didn’t feel like bravery. He wasn’t even supposed to be on that navy dirigible except for a favor he was granting to his commander’s buddy. Still, John could spin a rousing tale and history had thrown him into a dramatic scenario. As such, John had been healed up quickly and delivered to several American cities to give speeches. He was eager to return to fighting, but hoped this recruitment tour would better his chances at being admitted to pilot training. Pilots, now those were the real heroes. If doing his best to stir up the patriotic spirit wherever and whenever asked got him closer to that kind of glory, he’d gladly comply.

  “How handsome you look,” Mama went on. “How much older than twenty-two. You walk differently, even.”

  John winked. “That would be the cane, ma’am,” he joked, swinging it the way Charlie Chaplin did in the movies. He tipped the corner of his hat for effect.

  Father made some sort of a gruff sound, but she laughed. “No, that would be the man, son. I’m not talking about your gait, but the way you carry yourself. With wisdom. Authority.”

  “Flattery. Don’t you think you’re just a little bit biased?” he teased her.

  “Of course I am,” she said, reaching up to lay a hand on each of his shoulders. “Oh, I am just so glad to have you home!” She hugged him tight. “And for so long a leave! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had this nasty business sewn up before y’all even had a chance to get back over there.”

  “Now, Deborah,” John’s father replied in his “let’s be sensible” voice, which had the desirable effect of removing Mama’s hands from John’s shoulders, “I hardly think they’d want Johnny back here making all those speeches if the end is near.” His father’s gaze flicked down momentarily to the black cane. “Besides, you’re here to get the best of care while that leg heals.”

  “How is it?” Mama asked, following Father’s gaze.

  It hurt. All the time. But John had figured out early on that truth wasn’t always the desired answer. “I’ll be fine,” he said, employing his now-stock reply to all such questions. Most days, it was the truth. Yet every moment since the train had pulled into Columbia, he’d felt odd…as if his body suddenly found his home state a foreign land.

  Mama tucked her hand in John’s free arm. “To think of my boy, dangling up there over the water, saving lives at the risk of his very own.” Her voice trailed off and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

  Saving lives at the risk of his very own. The words came directly from the press wire he’d seen. From the paper they’d read when they’d pinned the medal on him. From the leaflet that papered the cities where he spoke. Funny, all that bravery sounded like it belonged to someone else, even though John had vivid memories to prove otherwise. No man forgets hanging upside down from the stay wires of a dirigible a mile up and a mile out to sea. An army captain, in the air and out to sea. A fluke of circumstance that turned into a near-death disaster. He’d take the memory of nothing but air between himself and his death to his grave, even if he never spoke of it again. He wished he could never speak of it again, never again hear himself be lauded for an act that had no selfless heroism to it at all. It wasn’t admirable to go to drastic lengths to save an airship when the alternative was crashing into the ocean with it.

  “A heroic tale, surely,” Papa boasted. “I imagine the ladies think even more highly of you now.”

  Father was right in that respect. The only thing ladies liked more than a man in uniform was a decorated hero in uniform. And John—like every member of the well-bred Gallows family—was a social success even before he slipped into uniform. He’d not lacked for company for one minute of his hospital stay, the voyage home, or his multi-city speaking circuit. “Well, now,” he quipped, “hard to say. The nurses are supposed to be attentive. It’s their job.”

  “I have the feeling ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ has a new meaning.” Oscar Gallows laughed. He’d been a dashing soldier in his own day, Mama always said. “Seems to me y’all won’t hurt for company one bit.”

  “Do you have to stay at the camp?” Mama asked…again. “Why can’t you come home to Charleston? You’d be so much more comfortable at home with us.”

  “The hospital reconstruction therapists are here, Mother. And I am still on active duty. I’ve got to go where they send me.”

  Mama pouted. “Tell them to send you home to your mama’s good care.”

  “That’s no way for a Gallows to serve, Deborah. John has duties to perform even while he heals. You wouldn’t want him to finish up the war as a mere spokesman, would you?”

  Oscar Gallows began strutting toward the general’s house where they had a luncheon engagement before John’s big speech tonight. His father walked quickly, giving no quarter to John’s injured leg.

  John wasn’t surprised. A Gallows gave no quarter to anyone, least of all himself.

  * * *

  “It’s so dry here.” Leanne watched her mama mop her brow and frown over her glass of tea. “And dreadfully hot without any kind of breeze. I don’t know how you don’t just shrivel up.”

  In truth, Columbia was a lovely town. It held the University of South Carolina and the state capitol—both as fine cultural centers for the region as any of which Charleston could boast. While it lacked the sea breeze, it also lacked the rain-soaked humidity that sent Charlestonians running out of their city to their beach houses. “I’m half a day to the coast, Mama. And no, I won’t shrivel up. For goodness’ sakes, I’m a nurse… I imagine I’ve learned how to care for myself in the process.”

  “That place is just massive,” Mama moaned, casting her glance across town in the direction of Camp Jackson. Mama had made it clear, over and over and despite Leanne’s many statements to the contrary, that she had fully expected Leanne to return to Charleston after completing her courses at the university, not join the service as she had done. “And so drab.” Mama put a dramatic hand to her chest. “What if they decide to send you overseas?”

  “They won’t send me overseas, Mama. I’m needed here. Can’t you see what an opportunity this is?”

  Papa, who had been rather quiet the entire trip, put a hand on Mama’s shoulder. “She needs to do her part, and far better here than over there. She’ll learn a great deal.” Leanne had the distinct impression he was half lecturing himself. “Honestly, Maureen, Columbia is not that far from Charleston.”

  “Not far at all, Papa,” Leanne assured him. “And I’ll be able to feel so much more useful here.” She’d learned a great many things already, and was about to learn a great deal more. The world was changing so fast for women these days—there was talk of voting and owning property and pursuing careers in literature and painting, serving overseas, all kinds of things. Awful as it was, the war gave women the chance to do things they’d never done before. The lines of tradition were bending in new and exciting ways, and if they would only bend for this time, she couldn’t bear to miss exploring all she could in a town that was right at the heart of it all.

  Leanne yearned to know she’d made a difference—in lives and in the healing of souls and bodies. She felt as if she would make too small a contribution in Charleston now that the university had shown her how far a life’s reach could be. Leanne wanted God to cast her life’s reach far and wide.

  As they finished their luncheon and walked reluctantly to the train station, Mama smoothed out Leanne’s collar one last time.

  “I’ll be fine, Mama, really. I’m excited. Don’t be sad.”

  Mama’s hand touched Leanne’s cheek. “I’ll pray for you every day, darlin’. Every single day.”

  Leanne took her mother’s hand in hers. Mama’s promise to cover her in prayer ignited the tiny spark of fear—the anxiety of God’s great big reach stretching her too far—that she’d swallowed all day. Her assignment in the reconstruction ward of the camp hospital, helping soldiers recover from their wounds, was so important, but a bit fr
ightening at the same time. She swallowed her nerves for the thousandth time, willing them not to show one little bit. “I’d like that,” she said with all the confidence she could muster. “But I’ll be home for Thanksgiving before you know it. And I’ll write. I’m sure the Charleston Red Cross will keep you so busy you’ll barely have time to miss me.”

  “I miss you already.” Mama’s voice broke, and Leanne gave a pleading look to her father. The Great Goodbye—as she’d called it in her mind all this week—had already taken an hour longer than she’d expected.

  “We’ve lingered long enough, Maureen.” Papa took Mama’s hands from Leanne’s and tugged her mother’s resistant body toward the station platform. Leanne thought that if he waited even five more minutes, Mama might affix herself to a Columbia streetlamp and refuse to let go. “It’s high time we let our little girl do what she came to do.” He leaned in and kissed Leanne soundly on the cheek. “Be good, work hard.” It was the same goodbye he’d said every single morning of her school years. It helped to calm the tiny fearful spark, as if this was just another phase of her education instead of a life-altering adventure.

  “I will.” Leanne blew a kiss to her mother, afraid that if she gave in to the impulse to run and hug Mama, Papa would have to peel them tearfully off each other.

  “Write!” Mama called, the sniffles already starting as Papa guided her down the platform toward the waiting train. Leanne nodded, her own throat choking up at the sound of Mama’s impending tears. Papa had joked that he’d brought eleven handkerchiefs for the trip home and warned the county of the ensuing flood.

  Leanne clutched the hanky he’d given her as she stood smiling and waving. As sad as she was to see them go, she couldn’t help but feel that this was a rite of passage, a necessary step in becoming her own woman. Childhood was over—she was a nurse now. Part of the Great War. Part of the great cause of the Red Cross and a new generation of women doing things women had never done before.

  It is, she told herself as she turned toward the university auditorium where she’d promised to meet Ida, a very good sort of terrifying.

  Chapter Three

  It could have been any of the dozens of halls, churches, auditoriums and ballrooms John had been in over the past month. He paced the tiny cluttered backstage and tried to walk off the nerves and pain. He tried, as well, to walk off the boyish hope that his father had stayed for the presentation. Foolishness, for not one of these maladies—physical or mental—would ease with steps. He knew that, but it was better than sitting as he waited impatiently for his speech to start.

  If only he could run. It would feel wonderful to run, the way he used to run for exercise and sheer pleasure. More foolishness to think of that, for it would be torture to run now. John’s uncooperative leg ignored his persistent craving to go fast. The fact that he went nowhere fast these days proved a continual frustration to his lifelong love of speed. He’d been aiming to drive those new race cars when the war broke out, and he’d heard some of the race-car drivers were trying to form a battalion of pilots. Airplanes, now there was the future—not just of warfare but of everything. Nothing went faster than those. When the army had hinted he’d have a chance at the Air Corps, he’d signed up as fast as he could.

  And he did end up in the air.

  On the slowest airship ever created.

  John’s only chance at air travel came in the form of a diplomatic mission on a huge, sluggish navy dirigible—the furthest thing from what he’d had in mind. Still, as he was now about to tell in the most enthralling way possible, even that fluke of history had managed to catapult him into notoriety.

  Pulling the thick red velvet curtain to the side, John couldn’t stop himself from scanning the sea of uniforms for the one he would not see: Colonel Oscar Gallows. Mother had surely pleaded, but even as a retired colonel Father wasn’t the kind of man who had time to watch his son “stump” for Uncle Sam. How often had the colonel scowled at John’s oratory skills, calling his son “a man of too many words”? And not enough action—Father had never actually said it, but the message came through loud and clear.

  John consoled himself by scanning the audience for the scattered pockets of female students and army base nurses. Nearly all, as Nurse Sample had predicted, were knitting. He tried to seek her out, looking for that stunning gold hair and amber eyes that nearly scowled at his swagger. It was clear her friend Ida was taken with him—women often were, so that was no novelty. Leanne Sample, however, fascinated him by being indifferent, perhaps even unimpressed. He scanned the audience again, hoping to locate her seat so he could direct a part of his speech especially to her. Her kind were everywhere, a sea of women with clicking needles working the same drab trio of official colors—black, beige and that particularly tiresome shade of U.S. Army olive-green.

  There she was. My, but she was pretty. Her thick fringe of blond lashes shielded her eyes as she bent over her work. She seemed delicate with all that light hair and pale skin, but the way she held her shoulders spoke of a wisp of defiance. He made it a personal goal to enthrall her to distraction. To draw those hazel eyes up off those drab colors and onto him.

  In full dress, John knew he’d draw eyes, and easily stand out in this crowd. And if there was anything he did well, it was to stand out. Gallows men were supposed to stand out, after all. To distinguish themselves by courageous ambition. Ha! Even the colonel seemed to realize that John’s path to notoriety had only really been achieved by climbing up and falling down on a ship he should never have been on in the first place. This from a man who’d spent his life trying to stand out and go fast. His life had been turned on its ear in any number of ways since this whole messy business began.

  The university president tapped John on the shoulder. “Are you ready, Captain Gallows?” John could hear the school band begin a rousing tune on the other side of the curtain.

  He did what he always did: he dismissed the pain, shook off his nerves and applied the smile that had charmed hearts and reeled in recruits in ten American cities. “By all means, sir.” He left his cane leaning up against the backstage wall, tilted his hat just so and walked out into the myth of glory.

  * * *

  Proud.

  Did Captain John Gallows earn such arrogance?

  Yes, he was heroic, but the man’s self-importance seemed to know no bounds. As he told the harrowing tale of his brush with death, dangling from airship stay wires to effect a life-saving repair while the crew lay wounded and helpless, Leanne could feel the entire room swell with admiration. Women wanted to be near him, men wanted to be him. His eyes were such an astounding dark blue—rendered even more astounding against the crisp collar of his uniform—that one hardly even noticed his limp. He didn’t use his cane on stage, but Leanne reasoned that they’d arranged the stage in such a way as to afford him the shortest walk possible to the podium. The way he told the story, however, it was a wonder the audience didn’t break into applause at his very ability to walk upright. While his entanglement in the dirigible’s stay wires had saved his life, it had also shredded his right leg to near uselessness. He never said that outright, but Leanne could read between the lines of his crafted narrative. She guessed, just by how he phrased his descriptions and avoided certain words, that his leg still pained him significantly—both physically and emotionally. He did not seem a man to brook limitations of any kind.

  “Now is the time to finish the job we’ve started,” he said, casting his keen eyes out across the audience. “Our enemy is close to defeated. Our cause is the most important one you will ever know.” Captain Gallows pointed out into the audience, and Leanne had no doubt every soul in the building felt as if he were pointing straight at them—she knew she did. “When you look your sons and daughters in the eye decades from now, as they enjoy a world of peace and prosperity, will you be able to say you did your part? Can you say you answered duty’s sacred call?”

  Cheers began to swell up from the audience. The young students off to her lef
t began to stand and clap. Next to her, Ida brandished her newly employed knitting needles as if she were Joan of Arc charging her troops into battle. Despite her resistance to Gallows, Leanne felt the echo of a “yes!” surge up in her own heart. Her work as a nurse, her aid to the troops and even her leisure hours spent knitting dozens of socks for soldiers answered her call. Homefront nurses were as essential to the cause as those serving overseas. She understood the need for combat, but wanted no part of it. Leanne longed to be part of the healing. And beyond her nursing, she was using her knitting, as well. She’d taught hospital staff how to knit the government-issued sock pattern, and she’d teach her first class of patients later this week. When those classes were off and stitching, she would teach more. For there was so very much to be done.

  When someone behind her started up a chorus of last year’s popular war song “Over There,” Leanne stopped knitting and joined in. It felt important, gravely important, to be part of something so large and daunting. To be here, on her own, both serving and learning. The whole world was changing, and God had planted her on the crest of the incoming wave. While her grandmother had moaned that the war was “the worst time to be alive,” Leanne couldn’t help but feel that Nana was wrong. Despite all the hardship, this was indeed the best time to be young and alive.

  If Captain Gallows wished to stir the crowd to the heights of patriotic frenzy, he had certainly succeeded. More than half the students in the room were now on their feet, cheering. Even Leanne had to admit Gallows was a compelling, charismatic spokesman for the cause. Perhaps she could be more gracious toward his very healthy ego than she had been earlier that day.

  Captain Gallows made his way off the stage as the university chorus came onstage to lead in another song. She could see him “offstage” because of her vantage point far to the left, but he must have thought he was out of view for his limp became pronounced and he sank into a nearby chair. As the singing continued, she watched him, transfixed by the change in his stature. He picked his cane up from where it lay against the backstage wall. Instead of rising, as she expected him to do, he sat there, eventually leaning over the cane with his head resting on top of his hands. He looked as if he were in great pain. From the looks of it, his leg must have been agonizing him the entire speech. And surely no one would have thought one lick less of him had he used the cane.