Love is a Wounded Soldier (19 page)

The training was grueling, far beyond
anything we’d experienced up until that point. We did physical training in
winter, stripped to the waist, and the obstacle courses and climbing and
marching exercises were absolutely punishing. Our sorry food and shabby living
quarters only made it that much harder to handle the harsh training.

In Bude, however, we had the luxury of
being lodged in a former resort hotel, and the food was fantastic there, too.
It was a welcome change for us, and we all wondered how long the good times
would last.

It was a sad day when we were told we were
being sent to Eastleigh, in Hampshire. We dreaded leaving our cozy digs and
good food, but we soon found out our reluctance to leave Bude was unwarranted.

When we reached Eastleigh, we discovered
that instead of being housed in Nissen huts, we would be billeted in private
homes of local residents. Our billets viewed us as more than allies, and many
did everything they could to ensure our comfort. They were nice people. Sometimes
too nice, maybe.

~~~

“Good day, Mrs. Harrison,” Private First
Class Harvey Thomas and I spoke and doffed our caps in unison.

“Oh, please, call me Claudia!” our new
billet, Mrs. Claudia Harrison, objected as she let us into her tidy, two-story
brick house. She showed us our rooms upstairs, and I could feel my ever-tired
body relax in anticipation as I viewed the thick white comforter and soft
feather pillow on my bed. We each got our own room, another welcome change from
sleeping in close proximity to other men.

We left our gear in our rooms and followed
Mrs. Harrison back downstairs for a bite to eat. She was a handsome woman,
tall, redheaded, with pale, lightly freckled skin. Not a beauty, but without
any obvious flaws in her features to relegate her to homely status.

We got acquainted over some wartime-grade
tea. We found out her husband was serving in the North African campaign with
the British forces, and had been gone for several years now. They had a
nine-year-old son, and I was surprised to learn she’d been married fifteen
years. She was thirty-six, but didn’t look over thirty. There were lines around
her eyes and above her mouth, but they didn’t make her skin look old, just
soft.

Harvey and I both listened intently as she
talked, very entertained by her accent, and she admitted hearing us speak
amused her, too. She thought we must both be from the same state, since we
sounded the same, and Harvey and I couldn’t help but laugh. Harvey was from
Michigan, and I found it hard to believe someone couldn’t differentiate his
clipped Yankee accent from my southern drawl.

Harvey and I had little in common, aside
from being in the Rangers. He was younger than me, single, and seemed afflicted
by the thought that he had a bag of wild oats that desperately needed to be
sown before he went to war. It appeared Eastleigh would be the lucky recipient
of most of the sack. He could be found at one or the other nearby drinking
establishments whenever possible, helping shore up support for the perception
by the locals that our American troops were nothing but whiskey-drinking,
bar-room-brawling, skirt-chasing ruffians. As much disdain as I held for his
indiscipline in the evenings, I admired him for the times he showed up the next
morning, when I knew his head was throbbing and his eye was black from the
previous night’s fisticuffs. He never once slacked or fell behind in training,
and refused to let on that he was feeling poorly. He was smart enough to know
he was the administrator of his own affliction, and that his senior officers
possessed little sympathy for self-afflicted ailments like hangovers.

I, on the other hand, didn’t see what
possible good could come from me joining the boys for a night on the town. With
the exception of one time while we were still Stateside, I never frequented the
pubs.

With little else to do in my down time,
many of my evenings were spent with Claudia and her son, Clifton. There were
some small things around the house that were in disrepair since her husband had
gone, so I straightened a door and fixed some leaky plumbing, and saw to a
number of other minor repairs.

When Claudia was done her day’s work, we’d
sit at the table, sip a cup of tea, and she and Clifton would ask me questions
about America and listen, enthralled, as I told them about the people and
places of the USA. Sometimes I felt sheepish, telling them things I’d only read
in books and hadn’t seen for myself. I vowed if I made it home alive I would
travel to all the fascinating places and meet the magical-sounding people I spoke
of.

After Clifton went to bed, Claudia and I
would sometimes talk for an hour or more alone. It was nice to talk to a woman.
I missed it. Talking to her was a welcome change from the same superficial,
mostly crass conversations I could expect from my male colleagues.

“Why do you never go out with Harvey?”
Claudia asked one evening a few weeks after we were billeted there. I had to
think about that.

“Well, mostly because my pa was an
alcoholic, and I saw how much he hurt my ma. And me. If I stay away from
liquor, hopefully Ellen will never have to deal with the same nonsense my pa
dealt my ma,” I answered. I could feel the dormant anger begin to stir inside
me, and I quickly tried not to think about hurtful memories. “And, it would be
a waste of money,” I continued. “Ellen needs every cent I can send her.”

“She’s a lucky woman, Bobby,” Claudia
smiled at me, admiration in her voice and eyes. “I wonder if she even knows
what kind of prize she has!” I could feel my face get a little warm. She
laughed when she saw me ill at ease.

“You have no idea what a good catch you
are, do you Bobby?” she teased. “Handy, dependable—and a strapping good-looking
bloke, too!” she bantered. “I’ll bet the letters Ellen sends you are brimming
with lonely adoration, aren’t they, honey?”

I smiled as though agreeing, but couldn’t
bring myself to verbally affirm it. My quickly inflating male ego began asking
questions, and I allowed the seed of discontent Claudia had planted to grow.
Sure, Ellen said she loved me and missed me, but did she voice the same level
of appreciation for my magnificent and many positive attributes that Claudia
did? Did she ever even compliment me on anything? I didn’t know if I could
think of one thing, and it miffed me just a little that she couldn’t be bothered
to laud me for at least one of my innumerable qualities that appeared so
obvious to the perceptive Claudia.

“Shall we listen to the radio?” she
interrupted my grumbling mind.

“Oh, yes,” I agreed, always eager to hear
the latest BBC reports on the war. We retired to the living room.

“I’ve been meaning to move the two-seater
closer to the radio, but it’s too heavy,” Claudia commented, motioning to the
loveseat.

“I was wondering—” she began, but I picked
it up before she finished speaking and moved it several feet nearer to the
radio.

“Thank you!” she beamed. “There’s some
strength in those arms!” she gushed, giving my upper arm a long, firm squeeze.
I grinned and nodded knowingly, already past the point of feeling the need to
be modest about being a rather evidently superior representative of manhood.

“Sit,” she said, gesturing toward the
loveseat. She turned on the radio and adjusted the dial to get rid of the
static.

“I’ll get something to drink,” she said,
leaving me to listen alone. It was a quiet night in the news. Claudia returned
with a bottle of wine. It looked homemade.

“I’ve been saving this. Tonight seems like
a good night to open it,” she smiled, putting down two glasses and popping the
cork before sitting down on my left. I was perplexed. Had I not pointed out
earlier that very night that I didn’t drink?

“I’m not really a drinker, ma’am,” I
excused, not wanting to refuse hospitality, but also not wanting her to feel
snubbed if I didn’t eagerly imbibe.

“Aw, drink!” she encouraged with a smile.
She raised her glass, and I reciprocated.

“To us!” she toasted. My face betrayed my
bewilderment.

“To allies!” she clarified, and we drank. I
gingerly took a sip. The wine tasted acetic and dry to me. I couldn’t fathom
anyone drinking the stuff to satisfy their thirst. My second sip was more an
exercise in bringing the glass to my lips than drinking.

“You don’t like it?” she asked, her lips
pouting girlishly

“It’s alright,” I lied. “I just don’t know
if it’s my thing,” I replied, trying not to ruffle feathers or offend her.

“Sometimes it takes a little time to
acquire a taste for it. Your second glass will be better,” she assured me,
leaving me wondering how much of the stuff I’d have to drink to satisfy her.
“It’ll help mellow you out,” she smiled, and winked.

We listened to the war reports for a half
hour or so, making small talk in between. I managed to down only a little more
than half my glass, and hoped I wasn’t committing some egregious British faux
pas.

“Are you done with yours?” she asked after
she set down her empty glass.

“I reckon so,” I responded, trying to gauge
if I’d slighted her.

“It’s not for everyone,” she smiled. She
stood, turned off the radio, and put on a record. She corked the wine bottle,
picked it and the glasses up, and left for the kitchen. I leaned back, closed
my eyes, and tapped my toe along to the big band music.

“I’ll just slip into something more
comfortable. I’ve been in this all day,” she startled me slightly as she walked
through the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. I nodded blankly.

I glanced at the clock. It was getting
late, and I was feeling drowsy.

Claudia returned, and she laughed when she
saw the look on my face.

“It’s just a nightie!” she chuckled, and I
felt like an innocent, blushing boy. It was a nightgown, perhaps, but not my
mother’s nightgown. It certainly wasn’t the neck-to-ankle flannel affair I
associated with the word nightgown. It was cut high on the bottom, low on the
top, made of slinky white satin, edged with lace.

She couldn’t be
. . .
No, why would a respectable married woman
. . . I
recalled every suggestive nuance of our interaction that night, and my instinct
told me I was right in suspecting an ulterior motive on her part. I silenced
that feeling and demanded it fall in line with the more seemly thought that she
was just a woman in need of some companionship and conversation. It would be
ungentlemanly of me to abandon her simply because some of her actions appeared
to be a little untoward.

Her hair, which was usually pulled back
plainly away from her face, was let down, falling like strands of burnished
copper over her neck and partially exposed shoulders.

She sat down, more beside me than across
from me this time, tucked one leg under her body, and stuck the other straight
out. It was long and sleek. I smelled perfume. She rested her right elbow on
the backrest of the loveseat and leaned her head against the palm of her hand.

“You look sad, Bobby,” she chided, twisting
a ringlet of hair around her finger.

“Just tired,” I smiled weakly.

“Aw, it must be hell on you, being gone
from home so long,” she sympathized soothingly.

“I guess it’s not the easiest thing on a
fellow,” I had to agree. She nodded understandingly and leaned forward to pull
down the hem of her gown. Her loose neckline drooped, as though inviting my
eyes to follow the trail of freckles down to her exposed chest. They didn’t
need to be asked twice. Keeping my head positioned away from her, I allowed
myself an askance look at her displayed wares. I was starving for what she had.
I quickly averted my eyes as she sat back up slowly.

The phonograph hissed and popped quietly in
the background as it played songs with fuzzy edges. “Who Wouldn’t Love You?” a
snappy, swingy Kay Kyser tune was playing now. Claudia tapped her soft, fleshy
lips with her finger in time to the beat. Her ring finger was vacant.

“Edwin has been gone so long, I don’t know
if I’ll know him when he comes back,” she sighed dolefully. “If he comes back .
. .” Her painted lips trembled.

“Really, sometimes I feel like I’m already
a widow! I’m so alone!” she said, looking as though she was near tears.

She leaned her head against my chest. I
didn’t know what to do, so I put my arms around her stiffly like I was
embracing a porcupine. She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned her head
on my shoulder.

“I get so lonely,” she sniffed.

“Now, now,” I consoled, patting her back
with my open hand more like I was smacking a horse than comforting a woman.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up and
wiping away the two tears she’d produced.

“You’re so kind,” she fawned with an
adoring smile. I released her, but she stayed close.

“You know, Bobby,” she spoke in a low,
confiding tone, then paused. “It’s been
soo
long since, um . . .” She
halted again and looked down coyly. She brushed her lips against my ear like
she was sharing a priceless secret, and continued in a whisper.

“Since I’ve been . . .
invaded
,” she
finished with some military insinuation, keeping her body near me, but moving
her head back to look me brazenly in the eye, as if driving her statement
through my pupils and into my brain with her gaze. She was a master of explicit
innuendo and direct suggestion.