Redemption - Leon Uris [267]
“I’m staying in the Army, Landers. I’ve done too many things for the wrong reasons in my life. We’re going to come into a lot of new medicine before this thing is over. I’d like to do another tour of duty to help put some of these lads on their feet and make their lives more livable. How’s that for the old hippopotamus oath?”
“A lot of thinking changes out here, doesn’t it?”
“Thank God for that,” he said.
I told myself, “Rory, get a grip. He’s getting too drunk.” What the hell, I’ve seen him either drunk or out on his feet and snap out of it in a blink and go on to operate on twenty more men without a mishap.
“You’ve no wife, Landers.”
“No.”
“But you’ve a sweetheart of a sweetheart.”
“In actual fact, when I left home, the future was so far away I decided to leave New Zealand without commitments.”
“I did, too,” Norman said, “but it was the worst decision I ever made.”
“But you’ve a wife,” I blurted.
“Second wife. Brigadier Christian Holiday’s widow. Decent sort.”
“But you’ve no wife in New Zealand?”
“Noooo. I was divorced by the most lovely, quick-witted, capable woman any man could wish for. We were actually divorced six months before the war started. I knew I’d be heading back to the Army, what with my reserve commission. Georgia-that was her name-was decent enough to keep the divorce secret to protect my professional standing. I was a lecher, you see. She let me remain in our house until I went off to the Army…and I decided to make my mark in Alexandria…and I did. Brigadier Christian Holiday’s widow is a decent sort, good career move for me…. I’m talking too much….”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Feels rather a relief to be able to speak about it. My Ghurka lads wouldn’t understand, what? I was a rotter, Landers, driven to try to have sex with every woman I came upon.”
“But…this Georgia woman…”
“Ah, Georgia.”
“Didn’t you ever write again to her?”
“I wrote once to ask for a chance and she wrote back inferring that she had found the love of her life and would probably be leaving New Zealand. Oh Landers, do keep this hush-hush. Bernice Holiday is a decent sort.”
We were interrupted by a barrage that nearly shook us out of the shelter. From the sharpness of the explosions I guessed it was from mortar rounds.
“Cripes!” someone from outside called, “they got the Red Cross tent!”
My Beloved Georgia,
I pray that Wally knows where you are and gets this to you. I can scarce forgive myself for not declaring the enormity of the love I hold for you. I know you turned me loose because you thought it was a shallow fling of a wild boy, but it is not that way.
I have seen the trenches in a hard way and I write you not as a homesick lad, but as a man who has grown to know himself. If I do not find you, I will never get over it.
Your former husband, Calvin Norman, and I are in common cause here. He has become a giant, not only for the lives he has saved and for sacrificing himself physically and mentally…but because he has set lovely new values for his life.
He is a difficult man to know. I am the only one he speaks to in confidence. I’m sure you know, he gets pissed on two drinks and having taken to me, he’s poured his guts out.
Calvin Norman has been good for me, Georgia. I have seen this nasty man become human and stand up under the cruel pressures of deciding life and death.
I also know that you did not tell me the truth when you told me he was writing to you every day and pleading with you. I know now you wanted to free me, to give me my own life. My only life is with you. I will not believe you don’t love me until I hear it from your own lips.
Norman has married again, apparently the right marriage for him. She is the widow of a Brigadier. He confided that he is going to remain in the Army, but for the right reasons. A lot of men are going to need a lot of help after the war.
I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve felt your love transcending time and space and it has reached me and told me we’re still holding on to one another…
Please God, let’s find each other.
We were sure glad as hell to see June over and done