Janette Oke and T Davis Bunn - Another Homecomming

Another Homecoming

Copyright 1997

Janette Oke and Davis Bunn

Cover design by Eric Walljasper

Cover photography by Mike Habermann

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

E-book edition created 2011

ISBN 978-1-4412-1470-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

T HE B ALTIMORE TRAIN STATION was awash in khaki. Soldiers crowded every nook and cranny, their faces taut with the excitement of travel and adventure and war. Uncle Sam pointed fiercely at them from every wall, exhorting them to go and do their duty.

She was one of a thousand weeping women that day, her quiet misery a single drop in an ocean of noisy chaos. Martha clung to her husband, feeling his strength as he held her close, so tight she could scarcely breathe. Take care, my love, he said to her ear, having nearly to shout just to be heard. Ill be back soon.

But what if The question she had dared not voice during their nine short weeks of marriage now was cut off by his lips finding hers with urgent passion. Even here, amid the tumult of a world going to war, with the tooting whistles and the blaring brass bands and the shrilly, excited kids, Martha felt herself once again overwhelmed by Harrys kiss. It had been that way since the very first time. Before, really, though she could not have explained how, even to herself. Back when Harry had simply been the young boy who had returned from boot camp a man, back when they were walking out to picture shows and taking ices beneath the softly greening trees of spring, back when she felt her heart first begin to sing with love. Even then she knew that if ever he kissed her, even just once, she would be lost forever to loving him.

Harry released her, and the world jarred back into painful focus. Dont even think it, he ordered. Just remember, Ill be back soon as I can. With the good old US of A in it now, well have them Krauts ducking for cover in no time flat.

His jaunty strength and confidence was overpowering. She managed a wobbly smile and a nod. But the tears kept coming. He was leaving and going off to war. And what if

The whistle shrilled another time and was joined by a single, impatient chuff from the distant engine. The soldiers who were not already on board surged forward. Marthas sob was lost in the khaki tide that plucked Harry from her embrace.

This time he did not return to her and silence her fears with his lips. This time he shouldered his kit and turned just long enough to give her a grand flashing smile and blow her a kiss. This time her arms reached out, but he was not there to fill them. She could only stand, one in an endless line of weeping mothers and wives and lovers and children. They watched as their men raced for the slowly moving train, flinging their bags and then themselves into the doorways. They saw the men fight for a crack of space to stick out heads and one arm and shout farewells. Marthas last image of Harrys departure was of a train smothered in smoke and made even more blurry by her tears, a train that had grown a thousand arms of its own.

There were three enemies in Harry Grimes warthe Germans, the heat, and the desert.

Harry tried not to show his discomfort. He was a master sergeant, after all, and Sergeant Grimes had a reputation for not showing anything. But as far as he was concerned, the desert was a lot harder to take than the Germans. He had seen the Jerries only twice during recent skirmishes. But Harry was surrounded by the desert night and day.

He stretched out in the trench, the camouflage netting overhead offering a hint of shade. Though it filtered out the worst of the blistering sun, it also kept out any breeze, trapping the heat and turning the trench into an oven. He looked up and noted the sun slowly sinking toward the ochre hills. He glanced at his watch, then held it to his ear. Even when he heard the ticking he had trouble believing it was keeping proper time.

Aye, the last two hours are the longest, and the last five minutes longer still. The boy with the British accent to his left was named Harry as well, which was good enough for a laugh now that Sergeant Grimes had been tested under fire and found acceptable. The Brits were a scrawny lot, mostly wiry and small, but they fought as if the worlds future depended on them alone.

Harry Grimes asked, You really think well find them this time?

Not a doubt, Yank. Theyre out there. Theyre ready, and theyll find us , he corrected. Harry the Brit was only eighteen, three years younger than Harry Grimes. But he had been fighting in Montgomerys North Africa Campaign for ten long months. His face was a taut mask tainted by sun and war and desert sand. His eyes looked a thousand years old. Old Rommels a wily foe. Hes kept shifting and turning and running back and forth until he has us right where he wants us. Now hell be on us like a pack of wild dogs.

Ease up, Harry, yer a right one with the gloom and doom. The man farther to their left was a heavyset Londoner with a cockney accent so thick Harry Grimes could hardly understand him. Pay the bloke no mind, Yank. All them Lancashire ladsve got porridge between their ears.

Aye, wait til youve been out here long as me, then well see how you hold up, sitting here on Rommels flank.

Ang on, let me go find Monty, tell im me mates got word on how to fix the Jerries up proper.

Harry Grimes slid farther along the trench and shut his ears. The grousing would go on for as long as they were forced to sit and wait. That much was the same here, but not much else. He had been assigned liaison duty with the Brits, and he felt like the proverbial fish out of watera fish in the desert, no less. But the Brits had been here for a year already and had learned the lessons of desert warfare the hard way. The Americans were just getting started, and everything was in chaosno surprise, given the speed with which their army had been plucked together.

Harry pulled pad and pencil from his pocket. He had been working on this particular letter to Martha for almost a month. But he never had been much with writing. Besides, there was so little he wanted to saycould sayfrom such a dislocated distance. The fact that he was thrilled to bits that Marthas pregnancy was going well had been good for a paragraph. Harry desperately wanted that child. The thought of being a father fueled his homesickness. Home to Martha, home to a son. Or a daughter. It really didnt matter one way or the other to Harry.

The fact that he was to become a father made this war even more important. He wanted a safe world for his child. Sure, it would be harder moving from base to base with a family in tow. But many men did it. It gave added stability to army life. And Martha was so excited. He could feel her anticipation even across the miles. It flowed from every line of her letters, and she said it gave her something to look forward to in his absence. A little bundle of you, she called the child she carried, but he knew it was not just him. The new baby would be a part of each of them.