The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [16]
In Massachusetts, the Baileys rented a small one-room apartment in the town of Ayer near Fort Devens. It was a happy time for Katherine; she was in love, and she was pregnant. In early April, though, the inevitable finally came.
When Zelma Boice came to see her husband off, she presented him with a small black diary. William “Jim” Boice loved literature and was the proud owner of a collection of first-edition novels. It was one of the traits that Zelma admired most about this thoughtful, reflective man. She was his opposite—spirited, quick to act and speak. Their marriage had yielded one child—Billy Jr.—and she and her son made the same trips that Katherine Bailey did from Louisiana to Georgia, back to Louisiana again, and north to Massachusetts.
Zelma’s independence and self-reliance had caught Boice’s eye. In Swayzee, Indiana, a small town located in the flat farm country north of Indianapolis, he had been dating her sister when Zelma and a beau joined them on a double date. It quickly became apparent to Boice that he was with the wrong woman. Though Boice would never be described as impulsive, it didn’t take him long to correct his mistake.
Boice knew, too, that back in Swayzee, Zelma and Billy would be well cared for. Zelma would continue to teach third grade, and on weekends she and Billy would go out to the farm where Zelma’s parents still lived.
Billy Boice, just two, stood watching his parents say good-bye, too young to understand the psychological burden his father carried. As a boy who had hardly known his own father—Boice’s father was a glass blower who had died young of black lung—Captain Jim Boice was determined to be a loving presence for his own son. The war changed all that.
Major Herbert Smith had been transferred from the 128th to the 126th and was acting as the 2nd Battalion’s XO (Executive Officer). He was too busy for teary good-byes; besides, his wife Dorothy and their son Jerry had spent a week at Fort Devens in March. He had discouraged their visit, but Dorothy had a mind of her own, and she and Jerry came by train despite Smith’s objections.
For a week, Jerry followed his father wherever he went and was especially happy when his father took him to see the guys in the 128th, Smith’s old unit. These were men whom Jerry knew from home in Neillsville, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. When the week came to an end and it was time for Jerry and Dorothy to return to Wisconsin, Jerry, according to his father, was “heartbroken.”
Smith himself felt a sense of relief when Jerry and his mother departed. He had to get back to his new regiment. The transition from the 128th to the 126th was not an easy one for him. After having spent his entire military career in the 128th since enlisting in the Wisconsin State Guard in 1919 at the age of sixteen, Smith was faced with having to try to win the loyalty and respect of a bunch of guys he did not know. Truth was, he was lucky to be in the army at all. Smith was a tall (six foot three), raw-boned man with black hair and hollow cheeks. While at Camp Beauregard, he flunked his physical because he did not meet the army’s weight requirement. The regimental surgeon granted him a six-month waiver, and Smith was literally told to eat to save his military career.
The 126th, though, was his biggest challenge to date. It was a Michigan outfit, and Smith hailed from Wisconsin, on the other side of Lake Michigan. He was not averse to proving himself. Back home in Neillsville, Wisconsin, the Badger State Telephone and Telegraph was a family-owned business, and Smith was the boss’s kid. His father rode him hard, too. The elder Smith expected his son to earn the front office by digging postholes, setting poles, trimming trees, and stringing wire and cable with the line crew.
Now he would have to prove himself again. The junior officers and the grunts were watching