Reluctant Warriors (43 page)

As he passed an alleyway, five young men in their late teens yelled at him. “Hey,
you, soldier boy! Stop!”

As they came closer, Wiley felt for the ever-present Colt pistol in his pocket.

“Drop your wallet on the ground and move back,” the leader said. “We're gonna jump
you and slit your throat if you don't.”

Wiley sized up the boys for a minute and then laughed. “Why don't you come and get
it?” he said coyly.

Two of the boys made a move toward him, but he stood his ground. They sensed that
they were overmatched and backed up, one of them cursing him. “All right, soldier
boy
, we'll catch up to you later!”

“Why not now?” Wiley lifted his arms up in mock innocence. “It's just little old
me, and there are five a you great big men!”

With that the boys backed up more and, cursing, melted into the shadows.

The next day, he spent nearly five hours tracking down the Kuehl family. First he
went to the address he had copied down in Germany, which turned out to be an apartment
building.

He found apartment fourteen and knocked. A woman answered the door. She was huge,
probably close to three hundred pounds. She wore a massive and dirty print dress
and completely lacked the simple innocence the poor sometimes possess.

She responded to every question gruffly and in a language completely unknown to him.
She evidently understood at least some of what he was asking. Sensing that, Wiley
asked about several things, only to be baffled by the rattled-off answer and her
obvious wish to close the door. Finally, she had had enough and slammed the door
in his face.

Next he knocked on other doors in the complex. Three people answered their doors.
One man again spoke no English, though he was most friendly. Another had no idea
who the Kuehls were.

Only the third person, a man named Ogacheski, recalled the family. He was one of
those men who had begun work in the 1910s, before there was much in the way of job
safety. His hands and body bore the marks of serious accidents for which no compensation
had been paid. Though he looked
ancient, he was fifty-three and still worked the
night shift in a factory that made steel electrical boxes, just as they had for thirty
years. His wife long dead, with no savings and not a relative in the world, he prayed
each day to last long enough to collect Social Security.

“Yessa, Ia knew dem. Day had ta go avay. I tink day ah lib near da lyberry Mr. Carnegie
gab us ober dare on 12f schreet. Dat's a big famly! Lots a kids.”

The two men talked for a long time. The old man asked about the war and was fascinated
by the scout's responses, every time nodding his head and pensively saying the same
thing.

“Dat rite!”

When he left, Wiley almost said, “Tanks,” but he caught himself.

He had his lunch from a vendor who sold him a Polish sausage and a Nehi orange soda
near a park and spent a nice hour sitting on a bench, watching children play and
cars go by. The weather was warm for March.

He didn't feel so well. He kept feeling odd twinges and occasional sharper jabs of
pain in his side.

After lunch, he walked over to the neighborhood near the library, knocking on doors
until he found someone who could point out exactly where the Kuehls lived. He followed
the directions to a garage apartment behind one of the old tenement buildings. He
could hear yelling inside and a radio blaring.

A woman of about forty with a baby in her arms opened the door.

“Yes, what you want?”

“Ma'am, I'm tryin' ta look up the family of Private Thomas Kuehl.”

“Why you want dem?” she asked.

“Ma'am, I served with him in Europe. My name is Chip Wiley.”

“He dead.”

“Yes, ma'am. I know. I was there when he went missin'.”

The woman looked confused. “He not dead?”

The child looked at him, her face dirty, her clothes no better.

“Well, ma'am, we don't really know what happened ta him. I was on a mission with
him and we . . .”

“So, he dead!”

“Perhaps so, ma'am. Are you Mrs. Kuehl?” Wiley could see past the woman into the
room. There were five children of various ages playing on the floor and a girl of
perhaps sixteen.

“Mrs. Soldawitz, now. What you want?” she asked more suspiciously than before. “We
don't have no money.”

“No, no, I just wanted ta look up his family ta tell you about him.”

She looked at him blankly. “We know about him.”

In the back, he saw two of the children fighting. The older girl yelled at them,
and then the entire room seemed to descend into chaos. He wondered who the mother
of the infant was, the woman at the door or the young girl?

“You go now,” the woman
said. She closed the door slowly, looking curiously at Wiley the whole time.

Wiley stepped back. He figured that Kuehl would have listed his family as the beneficiary
of his service insurance policy. Soon they would have its $10,000. He wondered if
they knew that or would know how to spend the money wisely. For a second, he thought
about knocking again and telling them, but instead he walked off.

He went back to sit on the park bench.
I knew Kuehl pretty well
, he thought, depressed.
He wasn't much of a scout, but he was a pretty good guy. But his family has forgotten
him.

He thought of the reason he was going to South Carolina: the letters from Mrs. Gregory
inviting him to come whenever he could. “Please, Chip,” she'd begged, “you're family
to us. Come to Columbia whenever you can. We want to see you!”

He wondered whether it would work.
People like me and Kuehl
, he thought,
we're not
much, and when we go nobody even notices.
Many instances from the war came to mind,
times he could just as easily have been killed and was not.
That time in Africa when
those German tanks nearly ran over me. Or in Sicily when the sniper shot and killed
Enrique standing right next ta me, when I was six inches taller and several feet
closer to the enemy. Why didn't he shoot me and get it over with? Everyone would
be better off.

And he still felt lousy.
Aw, I guess it's just my body gettin' used ta movin' around
again. That Polish sausage probably didn't help either. Stomach's probably not used
ta it after hospital food.

A ball rolled into his foot. He heard running footsteps approaching. He looked up
to see a girl of perhaps seven or eight standing there, looking at him.

“Can I have my ball, sir?” she said innocently.

“Sure.” He pushed it back toward her.

She didn't move other than to pick up the ball. “Are you a soldier, like my daddy?”

Wiley smiled. “Yes, I am.”

She perked up. “My daddy's a soldier far away. He can't come home now,” she said,
nodding. “Mama cries. She wants to see him! I want him to come home too! But he can't,
my Mama says, can't for a long time.”

“Doesn't know when, eh?”

She shook her head. “He was here when I was six, but he had to go to Italy. He bought
me my ball then. It's mine, just mine!”

“Where's your mama now?”

“She works over there at the drugstore. She says we need the money. Sometimes she
lets me play here when she works.”

The scout knew what this all meant. The Italian campaign had ended two years ago.
The girl's father was probably dead but still listed as “Missing in Action,” which
meant that his family couldn't get the insurance money. Probably the girl's mother
had to work to get by. The girl was probably out here alone because her mother couldn't
afford anyone to watch over her, and so just had to hope she'd be okay.
A single
woman with a kid should live someplace better than here
, he thought.
This isn't safe
for the child or her.

He had an idea. He'd have to do this quick or his chance would pass. “Would you give
your mama something for me?”

The girl looked at him a little blankly.

“This will have to be a secret. Can you keep a secret?”

The girl beamed. “Oh yes!”

Wiley loosened his boot and pulled out his roll of money. He took two
one hundred
dollar bills from the inside of the roll and folded them very carefully. The child
didn't recognize the large bills.

“This money belongs to a princess.”

“What princess?” she asked in wonder.

“Well,” the man stumbled, “it's a . . . a secret princess your mama knows all about.
See where I took this from my boot?”

“Yes,” the girl said eagerly, nodding her little head.

“Well, you must put this money in your shoe just like I did. Don't you want ta help
the princess?”

The girl's face turned solemn. “Oh, yes, I do!”

He handed her the money. “Well then. This is very important. You mustn't tell
anyone
about this except your mama.”

The girl was almost breathless, her little mouth wide open.

“Now, put it in your shoe and lace your shoe back up.” He paused while she did it.
Then she looked up and nodded, awaiting the next instruction.

“I know you're a good girl, and you will help your mama save the little princess.”

The girl nodded again.

“Now, look around. Do you see any bad people?”

The girl looked very hard but only in one direction. “No!”

“Okay, it looks clear. Now I will watch you. Is it that drugstore over there with
the blue sign, Rexall?”

She nodded again.

“You go there and tell your mama all about this and give her the money for the princess.
You go now, and watch for cars when you cross the street. Go ahead.”

The child walked off toward the store, proceeding so haltingly that Wiley had to
laugh. He watched as she crossed the street and went in the store.

“Time for me ta go,” he said to himself. He looked down at what was left of his roll.
“Thirty bucks. Damn, I hope it's enough to get to Columbia.”

As he stood, he felt a sharp pain in his side. It took an entire minute to pass,
but it did, and he headed toward the train station a mile away.

Wiley perked up as he walked.
Could I have a girl like her someday?
he
thought.
If
a man has a child, then he leaves something that can't be taken away by anybody.
He shrugged, finding it hard to believe that any woman would be interested in him.
Cute little kid. I would like a boy! I would like a boy ta maybe throw a ball with.
Maybe I could own a house. Maybe I could have a wife who . . . loved me.

He thought again of the dark-haired Gregory girl he had known. It seemed so long
ago.

Jill. She'll be grown up now. They say they want me ta come. I'd like to go there.
But Scott's still overseas, so I hope it won't be awkward.

Wiley had met Scott Gregory in basic training in Columbia and had spent many evenings
at the Gregory home. He thought back to the first time he entered the big two-story
house with its giant chandelier and staircase. He had never been in such a house
before, and it had dazzled him, shocked him.

And yet they were always nice to him, including him in everything they did, which
he thought a wonder. He was still in wonder of it, and it made him worry that it
would not work. At the same time, the Gregory place was the only real home he'd ever
known besides his grandparents' tiny house. The pain in his side came back and remained,
not always as sharp as before but enough that his breathing quickened.

He took a train into Chicago. There was a telegram office near the Chicago train
station, so he stopped to send the Gregorys a wire letting them know he was coming.

He caught another train for Knoxville, where he arrived twenty hours later.

He paid $12.52 for the last leg of the journey: Knoxville to Columbia, with a layover
of ten hours in Asheville, North Carolina. With almost all of the money from the
paymaster gone, he had to dip into his personal “stash” of twenty dollars. After
buying the ticket, he had five dollars and some change left. He shook his head as
he walked away from the ticket counter.
I'm gonna show up with no money
, he thought.
What'll they think of me?