‘Maureen? Mr Bronson is here.'
‘What?'
‘May I come in? I have something to show you.'
I didn't want to let Father in; I hadn't cleaned up and I was afraid Father would notice. But... Mr Bronson here? Here? After what Father had said to him? ‘Yes, Father, come in.'
He showed me a piece of paper. I read it; it was a carbon copy of an Army enlistment form... which stated that ‘Bronson, Theodore' was enlisted at the rank of Private in the National Army of the United States.
‘Father, is this some sort of bad joke?'
‘No. He's here. That's authentic. He did it.'
I got out of bed. ‘Father, will you start me a tub? I'll be down quickly.'
‘Certainly.'
He went into my bath; I peeled off my gown, went in after him, thanked him. I didn't realise that I was naked in front of him until he looked at me and looked away. ‘Ask Nancy to serve him something, please. Is Nancy still up?'
‘Everyone is up. Get into that tub, dear; we'll wait for you.'
Fifteen minutes later I went downstairs. I suppose my eyes were red but I was smiling and no longer stunk and I was dressed in Sunday best. I hurried to him and offered my hand. ‘Mr Bronson! We are all so proud of you!'
I don't remember details of the next hour or two hours or whatever. I sat there in a golden haze of bittersweet happiness. My country was at war, my husband was off to war, but at last I knew the deeper meaning of ‘better death than dishonour' - I knew now why Roman matrons said, ‘With your shield or on it.' Those hours of believing that my beloved Theodore was not what I had believed him to be but a coward who would refuse to defend his country - those hours had been the longest, most hateful hours of my life.
I had not really believed that there were such subhuman creatures. I had never known one. Then to have it rum out simply to be a bad dream, the result of a misunderstanding over words... I've read somewhere that pleasure is relief from pain. Psychologists are a silly lot, mostly, but that night I enjoyed that sort of ecstatic pleasure. Even my fires of libido were banked and, for the time, I did not worry about Briney, so joyed was I that Theodore was indeed what a man to be loved must be: a hero, a warrior.
My big girls did their best to stuff him full and Carol made him a sandwich and wrapped it to take with him. Father was full of man-to-man advice, old soldier to new recruit; my big boys were falling over each other to try to do things for him, and even Woodrow was almost well-behaved. At last they all lined up to kiss him goodbye, even Brian junior, who had given up kissing save for an occasional peck on his mother's cheek bone.
They all went up to bed but Father... and it was my turn.
I have always been of such rugged health that winning testaments for perfect attendance at Sunday School was never any trouble to me - so wasn't it nice that I had two testaments when I needed them? I did not even need to think up a new inscription; what I had written for my husband was right for any Lucasta to any warrior off to the wars:
To Private Theodore Bronson
Be true to self and country.
Maureen J. Smith
April 6, 1917
I gave it to him, saw him read it, then I said, ‘Father?' He knew what I wanted, a decent amount of privacy.
‘No.' (Damn him! Did he really think that I would drag Theodore down on to the rug? With the children awake and only a flight of stairs away?)
(Well, perhaps I would.) ‘Then turn your back.'
I put my arms up and kissed Theodore, firmly -, but chastely... then knew that a chaste kiss was not enough to say farewell to a warrior. I let my body grow soft and my lips come open. My tongue met his and I promised him wordlessly that whatever I had was his. ‘Theodore... take care of yourself. Come back to me.'
Chapter 13 - ‘Over There!'
My father, having been refused a return to active duty in the Army Medical Corps, was then turned down again when he tried to enlist as an infantry private (he made the mistake of showing his separation papers... which showed his 1852 date of birth), and then tried to enlist in St Louis with a claimed date of birth of 1872 but was tripped up somehow - and finally did manage to enlist in the Seventh Missouri, an infantry militia regiment formed to replace Kansas City's Third Missouri, which was now the 110th Combat Engineers training at Camp Funston and about to go ‘Over There'.
This new home guard, made up of the too young, too old, too many dependents, too halt, or too lame, was not fussy about Father's age (sixty-five) in view of his willingness to accept a dull job as supply sergeant and the fact that he needed no training.
I greatly appreciated Father's decision to live with us for the duration. For the first time in my life I had to be the head of the family, and it's really not Maureen's style. I like to work hard and do my best while the key decisions are left up to someone bigger, stronger, and older than I, and with a warm male odour to him. Oh, I'll be a pioneer mother if I must. My great-great-grandmother Kitchin killed three hostiles with her husband's musket after he was wounded -and Father did teach me to shoot.
But I would rather be a womanly woman to a manly one.
Brian was emphatic that I must not let Father dominate me, that I must make the decisions - that I was head of the family. ‘Use Ira to back you up - fine! But you are boss.
Don't let him forget it, don't let our children forget it, and don't you forget it ‘
I sighed internally and said, ‘Yes, sir.'
Brian junior did nobly when he suddenly found himself in his father's shoes - but twelve is young for that job; it was well that his grandfather had agreed to stay with us. Brian junior and his brother George kept on with their jobs, delivering the Journal and lighting street lamps, and still brought home straight A's. When the summer ended and the weather turned cold, I started getting up at 4.30 a.m. as they did, and served them hot cocoa before they started out. They enjoyed it and it made me feel better as I watched them start off to work before daylight. 1917-18 was a bitter winter; they had to bundle up like Eskimos.
I wrote to Betty Lou every week, and also to Nelson. My beastly, lovable cousin Nelson came home on the Monday following the declaration of War and told Betty Lou, ‘Hon, I've found a wonderful way to avoid going into the Army.'
‘How? Castration? Isn't that rather drastic?'
‘Somewhat At least I think so. Guess again:
‘I know! You're going to jaiclass="underline"
‘Even better than jaill. I've joined the Marines.'
So Betty Lou was managing our mine. I had no doubt that she could do it; she had been in on every detail from the day we acquired majority ownership. She was not a mining engineer but neither was Nelson. The minority owner was our mining superintendent - not a graduate engineer either but with over twenty-five years of white metals experience.
It seemed to me that it would work. It would have to work. It was ‘Root, hog, or die.'
During those war years people all over our beloved country were doing things they had never done before - doing them well or doing them badly, but trying. Women who had never driven even a team of horses were driving tractors, because their husbands had gone to ‘Hang the Kaiser!' Student nurses were supervising whole wards because graduate nurses were in uniform. Ten-year-old boys such as my George were knitting squares for blankets for British Tommies and buying Baby Bonds with money earned from newspaper routes. There were dollar-a-year men, and four-minute speakers, and Salvation Army lassies (loved by every serviceman), and volunteers for every sort of special war work, from rolling bandages to collecting walnut shells and peach pits for gas masks.