Today, I’m reminded of the main character in my Depression
Era novel, Face the Winter Naked. A
veteran of World War I, Daniel suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly
known today as PTSD. In Daniel’s day, this was referred to as “Shell Shock,”
and not much was known about the condition.
Unable to deal with his horrific nightmares—not to mention
the economic situation of the time, the heartbreak of fathers unable to feed
and clothe their families—Daniel deserted his wife and children when they
needed him most. He was only one among many men who left to search for work,
and who knows how many other men also suffered from PTSD.
The story opens in the summer of 1932 with a weary, disheveled
hobo standing at the front door of his best Army buddy’s boyhood home. Daniel
had been searching for the families of his friends who were lost in battle, and
the only one he found were the parents of Frankie Kimball, known affectionately
by his Army pals as “Frankie the Yankee.”
~~~
He set his
gunnysack on the front porch, adjusted his tools, and straightened his
overalls. Removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his scalp. He hesitated a
moment, then picked up the brass knocker.
An older
gentleman opened the door, and the resemblance was startling. He recognized
every detail of this man’s features—how could he forget, when Frankie’s face
was permanently burned in his memory?
“Yes?”
“Good
afternoon, sir. My name’s Daniel. I’m looking for the family of my Army friend
Frankie Kimball.” He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and checked the
house number again. “It’s the address they gave me at the gas station.”
The man
stared at Daniel a moment, then came out on the porch and shook his hand.
“Yes, I’m
Frankie’s dad. You took me by surprise—it’s been thirteen years. Please come
in, Mr.—?”
“Tomelin. But
you can call me Daniel. I’d be much obliged if you could give this ol’ bum a
drink of water.” He looked down at his feet. “If you want, I’ll go ’round back
so I won’t track up your floors.”
“You’re a
welcome guest in this house,” Kimball said, “not a servant. My son wouldn’t
turn you away and neither will I.” He smiled. “Besides, floors can be cleaned.”
“I wouldn’t
blame you none for not trusting a stranger,” Daniel said. “But I’ll be glad to
come in and sit. That walk darn near wore me out.”
He wiped his
shoes on the mat and followed Mr. Kimball into a parlor with furniture too nice
to sit on in sweaty overalls.
“Please have
a seat, Daniel. I’ll tell my wife you’re here.”
Daniel
hesitated, then sat cautiously on the edge of an overstuffed chair near a large
stone fireplace, crushing his cap in his hands. So this is where Frankie lived. He looked around the room at the
various artifacts and photos, feeling embarrassed in surroundings far beyond
his means. His glance swept across the top of the mantel and came to rest on an
eight-by-ten-inch photograph in a gold frame.
It was
Frankie, all decked out in his uniform, his service hat placed squarely above
his brows. When his eyes met those of his friend, Frankie smiled, and the
memories came back.
~~~
The trenches. The mud. Everybody hated the
mud. They ate in it, waded in it, slept in it. The weary horses struggled
through mud axle-deep to deliver rations to the front lines. The noise.
Earsplitting blasts echoing in your skull long after they stopped. Shells
bursting overhead, sending his pals and himself flying for cover. Frank
bleeding, crying, begging. Daniel cradling his friend’s head in his arms,
weeping onto a face filled with the terror of dying.
“T-tell my mother I—”
He thought he knew what Frank’s unfinished
words were….
~~~
Daniel’s war
memories appeared frequently throughout the summer as he traveled by foot,
freight, and mule-drawn cart through the Ozark hills of Missouri.
~~~
…Fog
and mist lay over the open meadow and the sky was just beginning to darken. The
air hung still and damp. Not even a blade of grass moved. Poppies stood like
bright orange sentries near the tents and ditches, oblivious to the war
ravaging their homeland.
This night was quiet along the front.
Too quiet.
Fritzie was up to something.
Shine crouched in a trench surrounded by
sandbags, and waited. His skin prickled as he shifted his eyes back and forth
like small searchlights. There were no signs of enemy soldiers—they’d expected
to see them, but much farther ahead. But he knew they were there and he sensed
stealthy movement behind the stand of trees that edged the meadow. Soon his
battery would be under cover of darkness. But safe? Not bloody likely. He
glanced toward a nearby trench, feeling alone, yet comforted by the nearness of
his friends. Most of them were just kids who had no business fighting a war,
young men who grew up fast when faced with unseen enemies.
“Man, I wish I had a smoke.”
Shine jumped at the sound of Milt’s voice and
glanced over his shoulder as the young soldier rested his arms on his rifle
stock.
“Don’t sneak up on me, Milt!”
“Okay, okay.”
“Good thing this gun was pointed the other
way—I might’ve shot and asked questions after.”
“Okay, Shine, take it easy.”
Shine nodded, reached out and lay a hand on
Milt’s arm. Everyone was jumpy. This was no time for arguments; they were all
in it together.
Milt opened his mouth to speak, but Shine shook his head. “Shhh—listen.” His heart
drummed in his chest. His nerves were as tight as a banjo string as he
tightened his grip on the rifle, fingers opening, squeezing. “You hear
something?”
A shadowy form appeared at the edge of the
field near the front trench. A moment later, three shells whizzed through the
air, the first hitting a sandbag, the others almost blowing the ground out from
under them.
“Jesus!” Shine grabbed his worthless helmet and ducked. “They’ve seen us!”
“Cover me,” Milt said. “I’m going after the
son-of-a-bitch!”
He climbed out of the hole, bayonet fixed,
and waved toward the trenches where the other guys waited. Someone joined him.
In the dim light it was hard to tell who. Leonard. In a matter of seconds Leonard was out of the trench and running at a
crouch through the shadows to join Milt.
A burst of machine gun fire kicked up the
dirt around them as they ran, ducking shells. More soldiers appeared in the
clearing. It was almost too dark to see now. Milt and Leonard opened fire as
they ran. Streaks of light burst from their guns. Loud shouts came from the
direction of the targets. Then a chilling scream. From the front trenches came
a barrage of rifle fire.
Shine broke out in a cold sweat as he took
careful aim in the near darkness and squeezed the trigger. A man screamed; a
soldier went down. Kill or be killed, soldier.
Someone jumped in the trench with him.
Frank. He smelled like cigarettes as he took a position next to Shine.
Sporadic gunfire continued for a few more
minutes, then stopped abruptly.
“They got Woody,” Frank said, gasping for
breath.
“Dead?”
“Yeah.” Frank’s voice broke. “It was too
fast, Shine, too fast! He—he went
down without a sound.”
“Maybe he’s not dead, maybe—”
“We both know better. He ain’t moving, Shine. Goddamit, he’s dead!”
“The bastards!”
Shine listened to the stillness. Dense fog moved
in and hovered above the field. It crept close to the ground, leaving a foot of
space at the bottom through which the men watched.
“Someone should be with Woody,” he said.
“Aw no, the poor bastard’s beyond help.”
Gunfire started up again. Through the
opening under the mist they saw a cloud of dirt fly through the air where
they’d last seen Milt and Leonard. Piercing screams rent the night, and Shine knew without a doubt they didn’t come from
Fritzie.
With Frank beside him peering over the edge
of the trench, he tried to take aim. The growing darkness made it hard to see.
All was quiet from their side, the bursts of gunfire having died down. They
used the time to reload.
But the lull was deceptive as another round
came at them. The two men returned rapid fire and the smell of gunpowder filled
the air. Shine jerked as something
banged his head and almost tore his helmet off. Forgetting himself for the
moment, he jumped up. Frank grabbed his legs to pull him back down.
“Get your ass down!”
But Shine could not hear nor see. He was intent on getting out of the hole
alive. Something snapped inside his head and he swore at Frank.
“Fuck that, they’re killing us!”
“Stay down!”
His feet flew out from under him. His
shoulder screamed in pain as he rose in the air, then slammed onto the ground
and screamed. The blast loosened dirt from the edges of the trench and buried
him.
He blacked out a minute from intense pain in
his right shoulder, then came alert and frantically clawed the soil. Reaching
air again, he expanded his lungs and dug out his rifle.
His hands touched something hard. Not a
rifle. Something round. He ran a hand over it, onto the face of his friend.
“Frankie!”
The concussion from a shell bursting
overhead knocked him down on top of Frank. He waited, his heart pounding. As he
listened, the gunfire stopped abruptly.
He got to his knees and touched Frank’s arm.
His hand came away wet. Frank gasped for air, and a gurgling sound came from
his mouth when he tried to speak.
He pulled Frank from under the debris and
cradled his head in his arms.
“Mama… Shine… tell Mama I—”
Frank’s chest no longer rose; his mouth
stopped bubbling. When daylight came up through the poppies and burned the mist
away, Shine found Frank staring up at
him, eyelids partly closed and mouth open. But even in the midst of this
hellish war, the dead soldier’s face looked strangely at peace.
Shine wept unashamedly. And when he’d cried
himself out, he laid the still body on the soil and brushed his hand across
Frank’s eyes, pushed up gently on his chin to close his mouth. When he pulled
his hand away, he looked down upon the bloody stump of his ring finger….
~~~
Susannah’s voice carried over the wind:
He was a well-known bard; he was straight
and honest.
Daniel forgot
the storms of weather and war swirling around and inside of him and listened to
his grandmother’s words.
Over the ocean he came. Despite the dangers,
he traveled with a strong heart to a new country without fear in his breast.
He raised his
head and listened—the sound of the storm was distant now and gentle rain fell
upon the parched earth.
The earth is restless.
He wiped his
glasses on his wet shirttail, then checked his sack to be sure his supplies and
the banjo were intact. He arose slowly, knees creaking. His body ached from the
cramped position and he stood a moment finding his balance. His cap lay on the
wet ground nearby, and his lower back complained when he reached down to get
it. The old cap was soaked; he shook off the water and put it on anyway. His
shoes squished when he walked, and his latest Hoover insoles disintegrated.
He didn’t
know if the long finger of a cyclone had touched the earth. All around him lay
broken twigs, leaves, and branches. He hadn’t even heard them crash, so intent
he’d been on listening to his grandma’s strange lessons about a relative he
never knew.
She had
calmed his nerves and saved his sanity. Few people knew how afraid he was of
storms. Susannah had known. So did LaDaisy. But he’d had to bear the fear
silently when the kids were around.
Wherever she
was now, did Grandma know loud claps of thunder and bursts of lightning brought
back his horrible war nightmares?
~~~
Traveling by
foot and not eating right for long periods of time had sapped the strength from
Daniel’s body. He’d had a decent living at Petrie’s farm, but the damage was
already done. Now his heart raced and he gasped for breath as he sat in a
corner of the boxcar, and after a few minutes his overworked body settled down.
He cradled George’s banjo lovingly, thinking of the time not so long ago when
the two had shared a boxcar, before the banjo man departed at St. Louis and Daniel headed south.
The rocking
car lulled him to a half-awake existence, his restless mind slipping again and
again from the present to the past. Night flew by the open door, occasionally
broken by lights in the distance. Dark shadows on darker backgrounds. The stuff
of nightmares that scares kids, and grown men.
~~~
…Gunfire broke out and mortars blasted in
the distance. Tracers lit up the sky and whistled overhead. Light rain fell,
and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder as Shine crouched in a trench with an inch of water
at the bottom. Rain and fear soaked his shirt. His hands trembled trying to
steady the gun. He listened, not daring to move.
Silence—an ominous sign of danger on a
battlefield. The gunfire ceased for a few minutes then started up again.
Hearing a scuffling sound, he jerked his Winchester up just as an
enemy soldier surprised him with a fixed bayonet at the edge of the trench.
“No! Stop!”
The young soldier yelled something in German
and screamed as Shine fired at his
chest, then fell into the muddy hole.
“It’s like
killing a fox with rabies,” his battery
commander had said. “When your life’s in danger, you don’t think, you shoot.”
It wasn’t true. Shine knew better than anyone about the binding
tie between humans that prevented most from taking a life, even in
self-defense.
He retched repeatedly, racking his body as a
dark stain spread through the front of the soldier’s uniform. Wave after wave
of dizziness washed over him until he thought he’d pass out. The soldier raised
a hand, but Shine shrank away as life
flowed from the body.
He’s just a
kid!
The soldier’s hand fell limply on Shine’s knee. His lips parted, but no words came.
He stopped trying to breathe. His jaw dropped, his eyes fixed on his enemy as
life deserted him.
The sounds of artillery increased in the
distance. Voices shouted. Someone screamed. Rain fell…
“Daniel!”
Someone
touched his shoulder and shined a light in his face. His hands thrashed at the
intruder and he rolled away as screams filled the boxcar.
“Come on,
wake up! You’re scaring me! What’s wrong? What happened?”
The
voice—young, familiar. He couldn’t place it as he struggled to bring his mind
back.
“Who—?”
Sweat broke
over his brow as he tried to sit up and focus his eyes in the darkness.
“Wake up,
Daniel, please. It’s me, Chris.”
Daniel
reached for the small hand as it touched his shoulder again, and suddenly all
hell broke loose and hot tears spurted from his eyes.
Chris pulled
his hand away.
“I’m afraid!”
Chris cried. “You were screaming. Screaming that you shot a man!”
“Yes, oh
yes.” Daniel tried to control his weeping, but found he could not. “I killed a
man. Many men.”
“What are you
talking about? What men?”
Daniel took a
deep breath to steady himself, ashamed for a grown man to be caught crying like
a baby.
“Where did
you come from?” he asked Chris. “I couldn’t find you and had to leave without
you.”
He sat up,
now fully aware of his surroundings, his face wet, still weeping silently.
Grotesque mental images crawled away to the bottom of his mind. He was on a
fast-moving train to Kansas City.
It was good to hear the boy’s voice. But he was puzzled that Chris seemed to
have materialized from nowhere. Where had he stolen the flashlight?
“Where were
you?” he asked again. “How did you get here?”
“I didn’t
think you’d let me come,” Chris said. “So I followed you and sneaked in this
boxcar with you.”
Daniel tried
to smile, but it made his face hurt. “So that’s it. I thought I sensed someone
lurking around. Where’d you go last night, you sneaky little rascal?”
“Uh, what do
you mean?”
“You know
what I mean.” He wiped his eyes. “Dadgummit, Chris, I left you to watch my
stuff and you cut out on me.”
“Aw, I just
walked around by the depot.”
“Somebody
could’ve come along and stole my things,” Daniel said. “That’s what I get for
trusting a kid with a head full of bright ideas.”
“Wasn’t
nobody there to steal anything except cows.”
“So you
decided not to come back at all, right? Just strike out bumming on your own
without a care in the world.”
Chris thought
for a minute. “I was coming back, then I got the idea to follow you. Are you
mad?”
“I’m mad as
hell you didn’t tell me where you were going,” Daniel said. “But I’m not mad
you hopped aboard this train.” There was no answer from the boy. “Life’s too
short to stay mad at anyone. You can come to my house with me, Christopher
Davis.”
“You know my
name.”
“Yep, the man
you accused of picking my pocket told me.”
“Gee whiz,
Daniel, why’d you ask him?”
“I asked
because kidnapping ain’t legal, and if you go with me, that’s what a judge
would call it.”
“Then I can
still go?”
“Looks like
you already decided.” Daniel wiped his wet cheeks with the back of his hand.
“Can I?”
“Yep. But
only till I get in touch with your family.”
“I’m not
going back there!”
“Maybe not.
But I’m obligated to let them know where you are. If they don’t care, maybe I
can get custody, and you can live with my family.” He paused. “But I can’t
picture them not caring about their own son.”
“Trust me,”
Chris said, “they don’t care a hill of beans. They done told me that.”
“You might be
surprised. People’s hearts can change in a minute if a loved one’s threatened.”
“You didn’t
threaten me.”
“I whipped
your thieving little hide, didn’t I?”
“That don’t
count. Did you mean it about me going home with you?”
“Certainly.”
“I don’t
believe it. Really?”
“Yes,
really.”
“Are you mad
at me for hiding? What were you dreaming? You didn’t really kill someone, did
you?”
“Hey, one
question at a time.” Daniel could see the boy’s outline with the flashlight on
again and his eyes more accustomed to the dark. “How could I be mad? You’re my
friend, little buddy. I tried to find you but you were gone.” He paused.
“Matter of fact, if I had my choice of traveling companions, I’d pick you.” He
reached out and patted Chris’s head. “When a man comes out from a—a nightmare
like I just had, he needs a good friend to lean on.”
“What was it
about? The nightmare. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Don’t cuss!”
Daniel said, his voice stern. “I don’t know if I’d tell a young squirt your age
what the nightmare was. It’s too scary.”
“I’m not a
innocent little kid,” Chris replied. “I seen things most kids never would. So
come on. Was it about the man—or men you said you killed? You didn’t really do
it, did you?”
“I did, and
I’m sorry.” Daniel’s tears started again, and he was glad it was dark. “In the
war. I killed men in the war. I didn’t want to, but they said I had to.”
Chris
listened as Daniel explained about the war. Finally he said, “You had to kill
your enemies or they’d kill you.”
“That’s
right. But it tore my heart out to shoot another human being.” He paused a
minute. “My best friends died in the war, Chris—Milt, Leonard, Frank, Big
Woody. They were good boys, each with his own family. Moms, dads, and wives.
Now they’re gone, and ol’ Shine’s
still alive. It ain’t fair.”
~~~
Thank you for
reading this long excerpt. I wrote it in remembrance of and appreciation for
all the men and women who fought in the Great War, and for those who gave their
lives in all the wars that followed. I lived through the Great Depression and
also World War II. Thankfully, three uncles survived the second one.
Namaste!
