I have not heard from you since June 6. I suppose this darn war and D-Day and some new secret job you apparently have pursued have changed every corner of this world and now has reached into mine. I will keep writing to you and keep loving you. I will have faith that you are safe and that you will return to me that way. I love you, Emory Story. I trust you. I have faith that you will return to me.
The letter continued for three pages, and Irene told him about Corby’s accident. It seemed that Corby had broken his ankle while working on an engine. Apparently, something had fallen on his leg and put him out of commission for a few days. Irene said that his letters to his mom had assured her that he was fine and would heal within a few weeks. He had told her that he would even graduate with his original class. She never mentioned whether he would be going “over there” or staying in the States.
She ended her letter with a profession of undying love. Em felt tears on his cheek for the second time in one day.
“Really, Storybook, enough is enough! When you gonna forget her? She makes you all crazy and turns you into a crybaby,” Jack said as he folded his last letter into his pocket.
“Mind your own business, Jack!” Em didn’t even look up when Jack said this. He folded the letter and immediately reached for another.
The final two letters from Irene were out of sequence and had been written before July 4. Both were full of the same things about needing desperately to hear from him. He folded the last of the five letters from Irene and held them all in his hands for a few minutes. Five minutes went by and Em never moved. His thoughts were of nothing but Irene. He felt that he loved her more than anything. He knew she deserved an explanation. He vowed once again to himself that he would call home and tell her the truth. As soon as he saw Sergeant Cannon, he would demand to call home. He decided this was the surest way to get what he wanted. If Sergeant Cannon said no, he would refuse to cooperate any longer.
He reached into his bag to retrieve another letter and picked the one with his mother’s handwriting. While he read her letter, he felt tears once again. If he did not get his emotions in check soon, Jack would begin to mock him again.
His mother never mentioned Corby or even that she had spoken to Irene. She just told him about everything happening on the farm. His father had set all the tobacco and hired a boy from town to help with the chores. She never said his name. Em could read between the lines. He knew that his mother was distressed. She had taught Em about writing, but she could not hide her feelings from him.
He read all three pages and wiped tears from his face at least five times. Jack never said a word. Em looked at the final two envelopes and set the one from Corby on the pile that contained his mother’s and Irene’s. He held the other envelope in his hand. It looked exactly like the one from Corby. It had the same return address. Em did not recognize the name: “L. Daniels, Biloxi, Mississippi.” He opened the envelope and found a folded piece of paper with tape keeping it closed. On the paper was written “Story, give this to Jack.” Before Em could even reach for the tape that was keeping the paper closed, Jack grabbed it out of his hand.
“What the heck is this?” Jack asked as he tore the tape and opened the folded piece of paper. “Well, son of a—” he said. The look on his face went from amused to furious instantly. “That little son of a—I’ll kill him.”
A light bulb suddenly turned on inside Em’s head. He knew the letter was from Larry.
“I will kill that little pip-squeak!” Jack was getting angrier every time his eyes moved from one side of the paper to the other.
Em tried to look over Jack’s shoulder to read the letter. Jack suddenly wadded the paper into a ball and stuffed it in his pocket. Em started to ask Jack about the note from Larry but, at the last instant, decided not to. He knew his friend awfully well. He was sure that it would not take Jack very long before he told him all about it. Instead, he reached for Corby’s letter.
Jack grabbed his arm and said, “Hey, let’s go. We got a few minutes. Let’s go make a phone call.” Jack practically pulled Em to a stand-up position and turned to go out the door. “Sergeant Cannon should still be in the administration building. I saw him there not too long ago. The telephones are there too, so let me do the talking, and we will get to call home.” Jack said all this before they reached the door that led them outside.
“I don’t know,” Em said. “He might respond to me a little better.”
“No,” Jack said. “I know what to say to him.”
The rest of that night, they spent waiting on Sergeant Cannon to get out of a meeting that was way more important than the two of them. They waited inside the administration building until the young female army air force lieutenant told them to go back to their barracks. She would make sure Sergeant Cannon got their message. Jack was upset. Em tried to calm him down by explaining that they could not call home anyway because it was the middle of the night on the East Coast.
Em spent the rest of that night lying on his bunk. He read Corby’s letter and laughed out loud when he read the story he told about breaking his leg. He knew that it should not be considered funny, but when Corby told how the minutes prior to the engine falling on him went, Em felt a sense of familiarity. When Corby’s sergeant told Larry to move a heavy piece of equipment out of the way so they could have access to the engine block, it was all Larry could do to lift it off the ground just one inch. The other guys were laughing when the sergeant said, “Come on, you little pip-squeak, move it!” Larry lost it. When one of the other guys, who just happened to resemble Jack, echoed the sergeant’s comments, Larry charged at him just as he had done to Jack back in basic training, only this time he missed his target and ran into the precariously balanced engine block. When Corby stepped up to try and stop the block from falling, he got in the way, and the block fell on him. When Corby looked at Larry and said, “You idiot, what were you thinking would happen?” Larry said, “Sorry, Corb, but Jack makes me so mad.” That’s where Corby said he lost it. He said he told Larry that he should beat the crap out of him, but he couldn’t stand up. Larry ran out the room like a little girl. Em could not believe that Larry was still carrying a grudge against Jack. This just made him want to know what was in Larry’s note. He still did not want to ask Jack. He knew Jack so well, so he knew the best thing to do was wait.
He started thinking about everything that had happened that day from meeting Jeff to getting mail to deciding that he would insist on calling home. Sitting here on the hillside, he felt like all that was an eternity ago. That made him think about Irene. As always, the white dress lofted into his mind. He drifted off to sleep with thoughts of her waiting at home in Kentucky.
Em opened his eyes and saw that the sun was beginning to break through. The rain was disappearing once again for another day. Here in paradise, the sun always won. Each day was a carbon copy of the previous one. The rainbow vanished, and the heat wave began. He began to scan the hillside on the other side of the camp, looking for Jack’s signal. When he did not see it, his eyes went to the camp. He saw Sergeant Cannon come out of one of the tents and instinctively ducked behind a tree. When he carefully looked into the camp again and saw Sergeant Cannon, he noticed that this was the first time that he had looked anything but crisp. He really looked like he had slept in his clothes. He looked up just in time to see a quick flash of light coming from the top of the hill directly behind the tent where the men were gathered. He and Jack had discussed how long they would wait, so he knew he had just a few minutes before he would begin to descend. He thought that their plans may be spoiled because all the sergeants were coming out of the tent. He could see Sergeant Cannon emerging from the far side of the tent. Coming out of the front of the tent was Jeff, and following him were two unfamiliar faces. One of the new men looked to be a little overweight, but he seemed to move with surprising agility. Em wondered if perhaps this could be the remaining members of their team.
