When the Clouds Roll By (2 page)

2

Aboard the U.S.S. Comfo
rt

December 1918

S
mooth seas today, praise God!

For the first time in days, Army Chaplain Samuel Vickary actually finished his breakfast without the urgent need to rush to the nearest head. He’d already “fed the fishes” too many times to count on this journey. The
U.S.S. Comfort
, formerly a passenger steamship, had been converted to a floating military hospital, and now ferried troops home from the war—a more blessed Christmas gift no one could ask for!

Teeth brushed, his uniform inspected, Bible in hand, Samuel prepared himself for a task that had grown even more draining to his spirit than those daily bouts of seasickness were to his body—morning rounds among the returning wounded. Once again he prayed for the Lord to give him words that would comfort and reassure, words to give strength and hope.

Words he prayed would find their way deep into his own wounded soul.

A refreshing breeze greeted him as he stepped out on deck. The ambulatory patients preferred the sea air over the medicinal smells of the wards, and who could blame them? Not to mention the smoke from their cigarettes dispelled much more quickly in the open air. While serving in the trenches, Samuel had been tempted many times to take up the tobacco habit but managed to resist. Tobacco might provide temporary relief from the stresses of war, but it too easily became a physical craving. Faith came hard enough these days, and Samuel intended to crave nothing more than his Lord and Savior.

He inhaled a bracing breath and tightened his grip on his Bible. Still getting his sea legs, he slid one hand along the rail as he walked. The deck beneath his feet rose and fell in a comforting rhythm, a certitude that somewhere ahead of them across the vast Atlantic, home and loved ones waited.

At least for some.

“Padre, will you pray with me?” A doughboy reclining on a deck chair reached a hand toward Samuel.

The thin, freckle-faced boy didn’t look a day over seventeen. Samuel knelt beside him. “What’s your name, son?”

“Private William Jeffries, sir. I survived Belleau Wood with nothin’ worse than a bullet in my leg, but now they say I got somethin’ called shell shock.” The private couldn’t seem to stop shivering, even beneath a wool blanket. “The things I saw, the nightmares—I can’t sleep, can’t hardly force myself to eat.”

“I know, son. I know.” Samuel knew all too well and briefly closed his eyes against the specters that still haunted him day and night, the doubts and questions that rose in his heart to battle with the remnants of his faith.

Private Jeffries fixed Samuel with a look of desperation. “Do ya think it’ll ever go away? The fear, I mean? The shakes? The nightmares?”

“I doubt we’ll ever forget what we saw over there.” Samuel pressed the boy’s hands between his own and squeezed hard. “But you must cling to the assurance that Jesus saw it too. Give it all to Him. Trust Him to carry you through the agony of remembering, just as He carried you through the battle.”

The boy nodded, moisture rimming his reddened eyelids. “Thanks, Padre. I know you’re right. And I do trust Jesus. It’s just . . . so hard.”

“This is why we need Jesus all the more.” Samuel bowed his head over their clasped hands and lifted up Private William Jeffries to the Lord in prayer, while in his heart he prayed for all the other doughboys and marines and sailors and aviators, the doctors and nurses and Red Cross volunteers, the mothers and wives and sisters and children—

Dear Lord, he could pray night and day for the next century and never cover all the suffering and loss.

If he could only be certain God still listened.

If only he dared to hope heaven hadn’t barred its doors against him for eternity.

With a parting word of peace to the young soldier, Samuel rose and wearily went on his way. One after another, he sat with the men, listening to their stories while silently reliving his own.

Desperate for a cup of coffee as the morning wore on, Samuel detoured to the mess. Attacks by U-boats during the war had severely handicapped supply lines, which meant what he’d find there would be little more than coffee-flavored water, but he’d need every last molecule of caffeine to get through the day. After filling a mug with the weak brew, he sank into the first empty chair, curled his hands around the warmth of the cup, and inhaled the aroma. Maybe he could extract some extra caffeine from the escaping steam.

Seconds later Dr. Donald Russ plopped into the seat across from him with his own steaming mug. “You look beat, Padre. It isn’t even noon yet.”

Samuel gave a sardonic laugh. “You look pretty tired yourself, Doc.”

“After this bloody war we just fought, who wouldn’t be exhausted?” The lean, stoop-shouldered man lowered his gaze. “And you know full well that for most of the men under my care, the toughest battle is still ahead of them.”

Samuel nodded. He’d spent the last several weeks working alongside Dr. Russ in a French field hospital, so no explanations were necessary.

The doctor took a cautious sip of coffee and then narrowed his eyes at Samuel. “I can give you something if you need it for sleep.”

“Thanks, but I’m managing.” Wakefulness seemed almost preferable to the troubled dreams neither drugs nor Dr. Russ’s compassionate concern could vanquish. Samuel ran a thumb along the ragged leather binding of his Bible. If only he could find the comfort there that he tried so hard to impart to others.

“Say, could you look in on one of my patients later?” The doctor massaged his temple with two fingers. “Turns out he’s an officer from my home state of Arkansas—mending okay, but I worry about him.”

“Certainly. What’s his name?”

“First Lieutenant Gilbert Ballard. Wounded at the Marne River. Lost a leg, nearly lost an arm.”

“Ballard, yes. I’ve tried to talk with him once or twice. He . . . wasn’t too receptive to what I had to offer.”

“Figures.” The doctor offered Samuel a pleading smile. “Would you mind trying again? Seems like the closer we get to home, the more depressed he gets. Anyway, something tells me you two might be good for each other.”

Samuel wondered at the doctor’s remark. Did he suppose their wounded spirits might find some commonality—more so than with the myriad other traumatized soldiers Samuel dealt with day after miserable day? “All right, I’ll do my best. Does he have family waiting for him?”

“His mother and a brother. His father died a hero in the Spanish-American War.” Dr. Russ heaved a tired sigh. “You know exactly how it is—boys going off to war with visions of gallantry and a speedy victory, only to find themselves shot up and shell-shocked. Now they can’t imagine how they’ll ever return to their old lives.”

Indeed. Samuel could barely remember what his life had been like before he enlisted and shipped over to France.

Truth be told, he didn’t want to remember. At least in his role as chaplain he could focus on others’ concerns instead of dwelling on his own. “Will he recover enough to work again, make a decent life for himself?”

“Physically, yes. He’ll eventually get a prosthesis, learn how to compensate for the bad arm. But the trauma, the battle fatigue . . .” The doctor glanced up at Samuel and gave his head a helpless shake. “I wish I could help him—help
you
more than I have—but there’s too much we still don’t know about the human brain.”

Samuel tilted his mug and stared into the murky depths. The Marne—he’d been there, too. They may have held off the Germans, but the cost in human lives was staggering. Then Saint Mihiel. The Meuse-Argonne. He could still smell the gunpowder, feel the mud of the trenches beneath his waterlogged boots, taste the stench of blood and fear and hopelessness.

“Sam? You sure you’re okay?”

Samuel blinked several times. “I’ll be happy to look in on Lieutenant Ballard. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“
Blast it all, I
don’t
need your help!” Using his good arm, Gilbert Ballard gave the corpsman a shove and swung his right leg off the edge of the bed.

“Careful, sir, you’ll—”

Gilbert’s knee buckled the moment his bare foot hit the floor. With no left leg to break his fall, he tumbled forward into the corpsman’s sturdy arms.

“I tried to tell you, sir.” The corpsman lowered Gilbert into the waiting wheelchair.

Gilbert ground his teeth as he covered the remnants of his dignity with the blanket the corpsman offered. “Save your ‘I told you so.’ You made your point.”

“Sir, I just meant to—”

“Go pester someone else, will you?” Gilbert tried to wheel the chair into the narrow aisle, but with his left arm still in a sling, the best he could do was turn in a drunken arc.

The corpsman took a step forward but froze in his tracks when Gilbert snarled a curse.

“Perhaps I can be of help?”

Gilbert swung his head around. A tall, sandy-haired man in a chaplain’s uniform stood at the foot of the bed. At the sight of the tiny gold cross pinned to the chaplain’s collar, something cracked inside Gilbert’s heart. He sucked in a quavering breath. “Sorry, Padre, didn’t see you standing there.”

The chaplain nodded to the corpsman, who squeezed past the wheelchair and hurried on to assist another patient. “Lieutenant Ballard, right?”

Gilbert shrugged. “Says so on my chart. Some days I’m not so sure anymore.”

The chaplain glanced away for a moment. “That’s okay. There are days I’d just as soon forget who I am too.”

“Is that allowed?” Gilbert lifted an eyebrow. “You being a man of the cloth and all.”

A dark look clouded the chaplain’s gray eyes, but he covered it with a lazy smile. “I’m Army Chaplain Samuel Vickary. I’ve stopped by before, but . . .”

A pang of remorse tightened Gilbert’s throat. He gritted his teeth against the constant thrumming between his temples. “Sorry if I gave you the brush-off. This headache makes me half-crazy most of the time.”

“Understandable.” The chaplain nodded toward the wheelchair. “Looks like you were headed out for some air. Feel like some company?”

“Sure, why not?” Gilbert gave his useless left arm a disgusted shake. “Apparently I’m not getting anywhere under my own power.”

He allowed the chaplain to wheel him onto the starboard deck and tried to ignore the stares of the men they passed along the way. Or maybe they weren’t staring at him but into their own tortured souls.

The chaplain parked Gilbert next to the rail and pulled a deck chair alongside him. The ocean air tasted of brine, and the sunshine on his face felt good. He closed his eyes and drew a hand through his wind-tousled hair.

“I understand you’re from Arkansas,” the chaplain said.

“Hot Springs.” It would only be polite to ask where the chaplain hailed from, but Gilbert let the impulse pass. Politeness didn’t come easy these days.

“Bet your family can’t wait to see you again.”

“My mother will fuss over me. My brother will brag about me to all his friends.” Gilbert snorted an ugly laugh. “The conquering hero home at last.”

“It’s no small thing, serving your country as you did. I’m sure they’re proud. I’m sure your father would be proud, too.”

Gilbert slanted the padre an accusing glare. “You’ve been talking to the doc.”

Chaplain Vickary tilted his head and smiled. “It’s true. Dr. Russ did ask me to visit with you. He mentioned your father also served in the army and lost his life in the Spanish-American War.”

Gilbert glanced away. “At least he died a hero, not a cripple.”

“Sometimes it takes more courage to go on living.” The chaplain fell into silence for several long moments, his thumbs scraping the binding of his Bible so hard Gilbert wondered how he kept from wearing a hole straight through to the flimsy pages.

Finally the chaplain spoke again, his voice muted. “And do you have a wife or a sweetheart waiting for you back home?”

Gilbert’s gut twisted as Annemarie’s face danced across his mind’s eye—raven curls that resisted every effort to restrain them, eyes as big and brown and luminous as a fawn’s, lips so pink and ripe that he could taste their sweetness even in his dreams.

“Yes,” he said on a pained breath. “I have a sweetheart. We’re—we were planning to marry as soon as the war ended.”

“That’s terrific.” The padre cleared his throat and sat forward. “What’s her name? Do you have a photograph?”

“Annemarie. Her name’s Annemarie Kendall.” Gilbert reached into the breast pocket of his pajama top and slid out a worn, ragged-edged photo stained with flecks of Gilbert’s own blood. Heart thudding, he stared into Annemarie’s smiling eyes before passing the picture to the chaplain.

Chaplain Vickary smoothed the wrinkled photograph atop his Bible cover. “She’s beautiful. You’re a lucky man, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, I’m one lucky son of a gun.”

Silence settled over them again, while the sound of waves crashing against the prow swallowed up the muted conversations going on nearby. Gilbert took one last look at Annemarie’s faded portrait where it still lay upon the chaplain’s Bible and then tore his gaze away. He knotted his right fist until it ached. Pounding it against his thigh, he murmured, “How can I go home like this?
How
?”