This is the final chapter of the preview of my work-in-progress, the novel "Your Pal Al." The previous four chapters are here on my blog. If you want to start at the beginning, here's Chapter One. I'd love to hear what you think. Please comment or send me an email.
“We’d been livin’ in and out of the trenches for weeks. It was raining hard, Burty, kinda like a hurricane, but it was too cold—way too cold. We got all turned around and had no idea where we was and to make matters worse we got pinned down real good by a machine gunner. Being stuck there was terrible, but the rain and the mud was much worse. We couldn’t get dry no matter what we did. You know how your hands and feets wrinkle up if you stay in the bath too long, Burty? Well, what do you think they’d look like if theys in the there for more than a week?”
Albert shrugged but not because he was bored or not interested. It was the only thing he could do. The stories from the War were his favorite, and while Mr. Sam did seem to tell the same ones over and over, this was one he had never heard – not even the corners or edges of this story.
“Not a pretty picture, eh Burty?” Mr. Sam smiled just a bit and stared hard at him, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. It didn’t make Albert feel any better. In fact, it made him squirm just a bit and the squirming was just enough moving for him to see that Miss Lottie had stopped her ironing and was doing a bit of staring herself.
“Please, Mr. Sam,” Albert said in a very small voice. “Tell me what happened.”
The smile warmed up, but something dark was still there hiding in his eyes. “Well Burty, we was pinned down, but we didn’t seem to be in too much danger. As long as we stayed down—there in the trench—we was safe. But our food was running low and we was getting to acting like rats down there. People ain’t s’posed to stay in small, wet places like that Burty. It makes ‘em do crazy things.” The smile was back, and so was the faraway look in his eyes. Then they started rolling all around. It was the remembering look, the one that made him slip, but it didn’t last. “A few of the fellas got into fights—mostly over silly things—laughin’ at someone’s song or steppin’ on someone’s boots. Why, we’d been in mud up past our knees, water and much worse for over a week, it wasn’t like they's shoes could get any dirtier, eh, Burty? Heh, Heh, Heh…” Albert noticed it was his old laugh and he repaid Mr. Sam with a big smile of his own. Then the old man licked his lips and took a sip of his iced tea, slapped both hands down on his knees, and took a deep breath.
“So, things is about to get pretty bad, son. Are you sure you still wanting to hear this?”
“Are you kidding, Mr. Sam? This is the best story ever!”
“Alright then. You listen up real good, and you remember this. I’ll only tell you this story once.” Mr. Sam leaned in and gave him a look like no other—if that look had hands, Albert was sure it could have reached down into his very soul and squeeze. Luckily it didn’t, but even so, it certainly made his insides go all squooshy. “You might think what I’m sharing with you is a great tale, but it’s real. And it happened. And I was there.”
“Yes, sir,” Albert said because it seemed like the right thing to say. And Albert was rewarded with a nod.
“So Burty, as I was sayin', we’d been down there for over a week, and we hadn’t eaten for two days. With all the rain, we had plenty of water to drink. We’d catch it up in our helmets. It had a bad taste to it—greasy and smelly just like the air. Cap’n Day figured that something had best be done and done quickly. And the Cap’n—well Burty, he was a good man—a good officer too, mostly ‘cause he never would ask any of us to do something that he wouldn’t do hisself. But he should have this time, Burty, oh yes. This time it was just too dangerous for our commanding officer to be risking his life. But he didn’t see it that way. So once it got dark he slipped out of the trench and started to make his way across the field with only one thing in his mind. He was gonna stop that gunner so we could get out of that trench and get some food.”
“You know what’s comin’ don’t cha Burty?” It wasn’t really a question, but Mr. Sam answered himself, just the same. “Course you do. And it didn’t take long neither. If it hadn’t been raining and if the lightning hadn’t flashed he might have made it. But the lightning did flash. And it was followed by thunder. And that thunder went on much longer than normal thunder’d do. And that’s ‘cause the gunner must have seen Cap’n in the light and turned his gun on him. He damn near cut Cap’n in half. I don’t think he knew what hit him, thank the Lord. Well, we didn’t know that at the time, so the next time that lightning flashed we all had to see if the Cap’n made it. But we knew the answer before we looked. There was nothing there. It was still dark, see, and the rain was still coming down so hard that we couldn’t see much even if it were full daylight. We musta had our heads out of that trench for too long ‘cause that gunner sprayed us with another burst. None of us was hit, or so we thought. All of us fell back into the trench. We just sat there in the mud real quiet like for a long time—just listening—hoping that we might hear something that would tell us Cap’n Day was alive and okay. But the thunder and rain was all we could hear. No one knew what to do so we just sat there staring into the darkness.”
“I think I was the first to wake up. I can’t believe I fell asleep, but I wasn’t the only one. The whole ragtag bunch of us been asleep. It was probably shock and the lack of food. I might have believed it was something normal if everyone hadn’t gone to sleep. But we all did. There was something about that morning that just wasn’t right, Burty. We didn’t know what it was, but somehow the day just seemed like no other day. We all felt it. It was like someone pulled the curtains right off the wall and let the sun shine in yo’dark room after you been sick but now was feelin’ better. You know that feeling, right Burty?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “…but no one was feeling better. Like I said it was still raining hard and we all had to look up to the sky anyway, to make sure, ‘cause something sure was different. And you know what? We heard singing, and from real close, too. So some of us climbed a bit up out of that trench—now it was just a little bit. Eh, Burty? And that’s when we saw him. It was Jim. He was standin’ up there starin’ into the sky. At first, I thought he was up there so’s the rain could wash away all the mud. He had his arms stretched high.”
Mr. Sam began to slow down and spoke in a soft dreamy way. He stretched his arms high for emphasis before he just stopped. Albert had seen Mr. Sam stop like this so many times before that he would have been scared that he wouldn’t get the end of the story if Mr. Sam hadn’t slammed both of his outstretched hands down on his knees with a dazzling quickness that let out two sharp, almost simultaneous pops.
“Then I realized that he was the one doing the singing. And it hit me.” A snap of his fingers. “Jim had done gone crazy!”
He made the same swirling finger sign at the side of his head that Papa Jack made when Grandmother said something that didn’t make sense, but only when she couldn’t see. And that move was always followed by a wink. Mr. Sam didn’t wink.
“He was lucky that he hadn’t been killed by that German gunner yet. ‘Jim!’ I yelled. ‘Jim! Get back down here now you crazy Injun!’ Now I know I shouldn’t have called him that but in the heat of the moment I just blurted out whatever was down in my mouth! ‘Jim!’ I yelled again. All the fellas was. Well, all of us but Alvin. He was still at the bottom of the trench with a bullet hole just above his left eye. He must have been hit the night before when we was all lookin’ for the Cap’n.”
“So like I said, we was all yellin’ at Jim to take cover but Jim, why, he just stood there.” Again he stretched his arms wide and looked up. Albert steeled himself for another quick jolt, but Mr. Sam's only move was to slowly turn to him and say, “Now, I wasn’t about to let my friend die like the Cap’n did so I started up and out of that trench myself. But not too fast and not too much of me. He was close enough to the edge so I didn’t have to get all the way out, ya’see? I just grabbed at his ankles and started pullin’. He didn’t budge and he didn’t say nothin’ neither. Not at first. But then, real slow-like he looked down at me and he said ‘Samson, the last thing you want to do right now is pull me back into that hole. It might make me angry.’ Something dark was shuffling around his words that had power to ‘em so I stopped pulling.”
Mr. Sam licked his lips. Albert had never seen the old man so animated or agitated.
“I tried tellin’ him that he needed to get back here in the trench so’s he wouldn’t get shot. Then he looked down at me and extended his hand. ‘It’s all right Sam. Come on up. I made sure that we wouldn’t be troubled by those gunners no more.’ And I knew right then, Albert, that it was so. I reached up and took his hand. He pulled me up out of that trench. He was a strong one, my friend, Jim. He then turned his gaze skyward and just stared up into the rain. I was drawn to do the same, and for what seemed like the longest time the two of us just stood there holding hands and staring up into the sky. It sounds kinda silly, don’t it Burty? But that’s what we did. Then it got all quiet. None of the fellas could figure out what was happenin’, but something took ahold of them, too! And finally, the rain just stopped and we-uhs greeted by the sweetest ray of sunshine that I ever did see. It came beamin’ down at us like somethin’ from heaven! And I guess it was too!”
“When that sun come out, the magic was gone. And you know what Burty? We realized that we was still holdin’ each other's hands.” Heh. Heh. Heh. “Now that was a sight that it took a long time for the fellas to forget!” Heh. Heh. Heh. He laughed long and hard and laughed himself into quite the coughing fit. Miss Lottie was on him like a shot handing him his Nestea and gently patting his back. When the coughing let up, she took the glass from his hand and gently kissed him on the forehead, smoothed out his hair, and turned towards Albert. On him was more like it because she now had fury in her eyes.
“I’m heading into that house to fetch my Samson another glass of tea, boy, and while I’m gone the two of you had best sit there quietly. No talking!” She pointed a thick, well-worn finger at Albert and held it there for emphasis. Albert wanted to say that he had maybe said all of five words in the last fifteen minutes and that Mr. Sam had been doing all the talking, and that he was just being polite by being a good listener, but he knew better, especially after Miss Lottie said, “And if I catch either one of you not minding me, them words will be the last ones the two of you will ever share together!” She didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t have to. The two of them were just as she left them when she returned five minutes later with Mr. Sam’s Nestea. The surprising thing for Albert was that she handed him his own sweaty glass and headed back to her work.
“I know you have your concerns, Burty, but my Lottie really is an angel.” Mr. Sam said in barely audible words and gave him a wink.
“I heard that!” Miss Lottie roared, and Mr. Sam smiled, then turned towards Albert.
“Where was I, Burty?”
“You and Jim was holding hands, and the sun had started to shine.”
“Right. So, one by one, the whole company come up out of the trench. The fellas sure was a sight! Heh, heh, heh. They sure was—all covered in mud, filthy. Heh, heh, heh.” He rocked his chair lightly, then brushed at his overalls and continued, “…but we was still alive and now the sun was shining. Shinin’ Burty! Sweet baby Jesus. We was alive! And for the first time, we could see the lay of the land.”
He leaned forward and looked hard at Albert then spoke matter-of-factly. “You see, when we was forced to take refuge from that gunner in that ol’ trench, it was night time, and it was raining hard, and we was all turned around. We really did stumble into that trench, and it saved our lives. So we didn’t know that there were buildings nearby. And they weren’t too far away neither. Just across an old field—an old vineyard, to be true. But we had to cross that field before we got to them buildings. Not that we was worried about getting shot, if that was gonna happen, Burty, we’d have been shot dead already. No suh, that field was where the Cap’n was cut down. And after our initial joys of getting up out of that trench and the rain stopping, we remembered our Cap’n Day and started to look for him. We could only hope, but I already told you what happened to him.” He took a deep inward breath and went on exhaling as he spoke.
“We found him almost halfway to the farmhouse. We only stopped for a minute to pay respect. Some of us said a few words. ‘Course some had words for the Lord and some of those weren’t too good, neither,” he said with a slow shake of the head. “Well, we figured that we might find an old board or something in that house to get the Captain and Alvin back and hopefully find some food in there, too. So we quickly made our way to the house. And besides, we had to make sure that machine gunner was dead, so we left him there for a time—not alone, mind you, Jim stayed with him—there in that field. Later he told me he had stayed with the Captain because he could never go inside that house. And because he told me after we’d already been in there, I was pretty sure that I knew why.”
“That house was full of surprises, Burty, and when we opened that front door, we got the first one. And it was a doozy.”
He had that far away look in his eyes again and grew quiet.
“You just can’t stop there Mr. Sam!”
No change.
“Please, Mr. Sam!” Still nothing so Albert settled in against the wall, his feet up pulled tight and his head between his knees. Quietly, he said to no one in particular “It just isn’t fair…”
That brought about a faint “heh heh heh” and a little nudge from Mr. Sam’s dusty boot. “Burty, you ain’t gonna take a nap on me now are ya? This is just getting to the good part.” He winked at Albert.
So, lucky for Albert it was only Mr. Sam having a little fun with him. It was also another break for tea. Albert was engrossed in this story. This one was new, and while he had come for the Shadow, he was now quite happy with this tale. He couldn’t help but start wonder what the surprises were and how this story would end. And that’s when Miss Lottie appeared out of nowhere. She usually did that when she blamed Albert for something he’d done or didn’t do. This time it was different. What he hadn’t seen before was the large wooden spoon that she had in her fist… never seen anything like it. All of a sudden he was thinking about a cottage in the woods, very much like the Browne’s… far away from everyone just like the Browne’s… and a witch with an enormous, black cauldron. Well, maybe not a cauldron but, Albert was positive that there was a witch…
SMACK!
It was Miss Lottie herself that brought him back to reality when she slapped that spoon into her hand…
SMACK!
“Samson, I know where you headin’ with this story and you best stick to what you told me.”
SMACK!
Even Mr. Sam jumped a little at that one. And with that, she turned and walked back across the porch.
Mr. Sam took a breath and continued. “We could see that the front door stood wide open. They’s feathers and a bit of blood all over the ground leading up to the door. As we got closer, we could make out a big ol’ wooden farm table just inside. And I'll bet you cain’t guess what we found on that table, Burty.”
“I don’t know. The machine-gunner?”
Mr. Sam just shook his head.
Albert tried again, but with a smile this time. “Food?”
“Well o’ course there was food, Burty! But they’s also a note. It read, ‘Eat up and don’t worry about the gunner. I took care of him.’ It was signed ‘Your pal, Jim.’ He must have been up all night preparin’ that feast. And there was plenty of wine and roast chicken and fresh bread and cheese and olives and… well, I think you get the idea. We ate ‘til we could eat no more. The wine was making all of us sleepy, and we started to think that there might be actual beds but we realized that we hadn’t looked about the place. We hadn’t yet cleared it. And most importantly, we hadn’t gone to go see about that gunner.”
“No one?”
“Not a one, but at this point, we knew there was no danger from Jerry. If there had been, he’d’ve got us all when we was eatin’ and drinkin’. There wasn’t many of us left, but we still split into two groups. One for the downstairs and one up. We thought that’d be best, but we kind of all ended up clearing the downstairs first. We all sorta stayed together as we looked. Mostly, the place was empty and neat as a pin. All clear on the first floor except for this one door at the end of the hallway. Half the fellas stood guard. The other half got they guns ready. Marcus got the honor of opening the door, but I had to go in first. We wasn’t sure if the best way was to go in all at once screamin’ or do it more orderly. By this time our nerves was all jittery, and a cold sweat had taken us. The place was too empty, Burty, but we was soldiers so quiet and orderly was the plan. I gave Marcus a count with my head and mouthed the words. On three, I’d go. I started countin’. By the time I got to three everyone was so worked up we just all burst into the room screamin’ anyway! ‘Ahhhhh!!!” We all screamed and had our rifles ready, but we found out that there was no reason for the screamin’ or the rifles. We found people—finally! Everone was in a nice neat row on the floor—like someone was takin’ count or settin’ up a hospital. One of them was covered in a sheet. She must have been the lady of the house. They all looked like they was sleepin’, but they weren’t, Burty. They was all dead. Three was wearing Italian uniforms. The fella on the end had a rosary wrapped in his folded hands. I ‘spect you know what that is. Some of the fellas didn’t. One was so perplexed by it that he reached down to see what it was. When he touched the beads…” Mr. Sam was fast and snatched Albert by the wrist. “He got grabbed and that Italian fella…”
Albert jumped and let out a high-pitched wail. “Dang, Mr. Sam! Why’d you go and scare me like that?” Albert’s brow furrowed. He was on the verge of tears.
“You like these stories so much, Burty, I just wanted to give you a little taste of what it was like. Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“But I’m just a kid, Mr. Sam.”
“‘Ceptin’ for me, so was all the fellas.” Mr. Sam stopped and let that sink in. When he saw that Albert had forgiven him, he continued, “So where was I? Oh yeah, Justino. That was his name—we found that out later. Well, he started mumbling in Italian, and at that time, none of us spoke Italian. We was positioned with the French Fourth Army, and some of us had learned the basics, so we picked up a word here and there ‘cause they kind the same when you get right down to it—you just had to add an 'O' to many of the words. He, heh, heh.”
Albert was still rattled and didn’t think that this was the time or place to be laughing, but Mr. Sam continued. “‘E'stato il diavolo. Santana stesso!’ he kept mumbling—over and over. He kept doin' the sign of the cross, too. He jumped when one of the fellas got close. He was like a scared dog—his eyes as big around as dinner plates. Ain’t never seen a man act like that before or since.” Mr. Sam paused—remembering.
Albert interrupted, “Mr. Sam? What did he say? I don’t understand.”
“Well, him bein’ Italian and all, he was speaking Italian. Parli italiano? Capisci? Heh, heh, heh. It’s alright, Burty. I didn’t know it then either, but I picked up quite a bit over there. Forgot most of it now, after all these years but what he said was ‘It was the Devil. Satan himself’.” He made little horns with his fingers and held them up by his head.
Albert scooched a little away from Mr. Sam and balled himself up a little more tightly. Mr. Sam saw the concern and fear ease on Albert’s face. He gave Miss Lottie a look and let his hands drop back into his lap. She looked quite concerned and maybe a little mad. She said, “I think it’s time you best be wrapping this story up, Samson. It’d be getting late, and I bet Albert has other places to be today. Ain’t that right, boy?”
Albert was happy for the way out of this. He was scared, but he still wanted more. This story was like riding the scariest roller coaster he had ever been on. “Well…” he started. He dragged it out and couldn’t bring himself to finish.
“It’s a’right, Burty. Ain’t no such thing as the Devil.” A cough escaped Miss Lottie that sounded suspiciously like his name. Samson chanced a quick look in her direction and was rewarded with a frown and a shake of her head but continued anyway. “Well, I don’t think the Devil had a hand in what happened that day, if it makes you feel any better. We had Marcus sit with the man as the rest of us went for the stairs.”
“We tried to be quiet, Burty, but them old wooden stairs had other things on they mind. Some squealed. Others moaned. Some was quiet, like they was waiting for us. Daring us to climb one more step. I could hear some of the fellas breathin’ heavy like behind me. T’wasn’t no use shushin’ them. That would have made just as much noise. When we got to the top of the stairs, I had a decision to make. Left or right? It ended up being easy. I let the sunshine guide our way. Y’see, all of the doors was opened, and light was fillin’ the hall. All but the one door at the far end of the hall. I give the fellas some directions to cover our backs, and we made our way to that door. You got to know that opening that door was something that none of us wanted to do. But someone had to, and since the Captain was gone and Jim wasn’t with us, the fellas gave me the honor. Again.”
Mr. Sam stopped for a minute and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Albert thought that he should have wiped his upper lip off as well.
“I’ll tell ya Burty, my insides ran like iced water. And look here…” He held out a very shaky hand for Albert to inspect. “Why, I can still remember just how I felt to this very day.”
“We stood to the sides of the door as much as we could just in case. We had Jim’s note, after all, telling us that everything was taken care of, but there was something about that day that didn’t seem right. And we hadn’t seen any Jerries yet, so…”
Miss Lottie coughed and then cleared her throat. Mr. Sam just kept right on talking.
“There was a picture of Jesus, hanging just outside the door. I reached up and touched it, just in case. When you face these types of situations Burty, the best way to deal with them is to deal with them quickly, d’ya understand, son?”
Albert nodded because he thought he did. “Like rippin’ off a Band-Aid?” he mumbled. Miss Lottie had come back over and now stood by her husband. She placed her hand on his shoulder and nodded. Then Mr. Sam nodded as well.
“So I grabbed the latch on the door, lifted it and threw the door open. It slammed back against the wall revealing something that I just cain’t explain, Burty. And won’t. But I will tell you this, there was blood everywhere. It looked like a buzz saw went through that room. I seen a man get his arm cut off once at one of the sawmills they run over in Brunswick, but this was so much worse. It took us quite some time to put all the pieces together. When we did, we found that there had been eleven German soldiers in that room. Eleven.” He repeated, then stopped for a minute and rubbed his eyes. He was shaking much more now.
“That’d be enough Samson.”
“I’m gonna finish this. The boy may need it one day.”
She planted her feet and folded her arms. Most days that might have been enough, but not today. Not now.
“We couldn’t leave them like that. It was war, Burty, but even in war, there are lines decent people don’t cross. We spent the rest of the day collecting their remains and scrubbin’ that room. We took them downstairs and made a big fire and burned them. Then we buried what was left. No one understood how Jim pulled it all off. And none of us ever spoke of it again.”
End of Chapter 5 and the end of the Preview of "Your Pal Al."
© 2009 Michael O’Connell. All rights reserved.
