Chapter Fourteen Forward into Battle

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets and trenches there, And stretched for the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heavn, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, -And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

By the time twenty-five-year-old Wilfred Owen died from enemy machine gun fire on November 4th, 1918, he was just one of 8.5 million casualties in a war that had raged on for so long that even the winners would be losers, except for the AEF. For the American forces arrived in time for mop up. But their glory would come with a very high price. On September 12, Bill entered the fray with the allies to rout the Germans from France at St. Mihiel. The Germans expected the attack. They planned to smash the American forces at a place called Woevre Plain. Too late, they learned that allied forces had amassed on both the German flanks; the Germans retreat amounted to a shooting gallery for the allied forces, led by the American General Black Jack Pershing, who watched the progress perched on a height at the old FortGironville.

St. Mihiel, France. September 12, 1918. 5:03 a.m. The air was foggy and drizzly, foul with smoke and the faint coppery smell of blood. Bill awoke to the grey light and the sounds of movement in the camp, barely 60 kilometers south of the border with Luxembourg. He remembered that he had not slept well during the night, but figured he must have dozed from the stiffness he felt in his muscles and joints. He arose and rolled up his kit before heading to a makeshift latrine. No pissoires here, he thought. The Sergeant barked orders at the men as the troops headed out. Allied artillery had bombed German positions all night. Bill heard the rustling of rucksacks the men carried on their backs, and the sucking sounds made by the heels of their high-topped boots as they marched through slippery mud. Few words went between the men who tromped out in uneasy

anticipation. Bill felt his stomach churn and moisture formed on his brow and cheeks and nose as he looked out upon the grisly horizon that lay ahead. Within the hour, Bill and the other men in the outfit crawled on their bellies, like crabs, sidling across the cold ground of no-mans-land that surrounded them. When they reached the first trench, panting, they jumped into it, relieved to be alive, and waited for someone to give more orders. They had not yet fired a shot. Distant explosions, occurring at random, punctuated the eerie quiet in the trench. The men spoke in soft voices, rolled cigarettes and smoked them. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the order came down the line to advance. Men scaled the front wall of the trench in waves and made their way on foot, holding their rifles in front of them. The wet earth, thick with mud, held their boots as if it were their mothers, telling the men not to go on, trying unsuccessfully to hold them back.

9:48 a.m. When Bill and the men reached the second line of trenches, the sun showed up only as a diffused brightnessunable to pierce the cloud cover or the gray atmosphere created by the black smoke of ominous fires burning helter skelter across their line of sight. No shadows delineated the landscape; Bill saw only flat light on the monochromatic visage of burned-out trees, skeletal buildings, and broken vehicles against the somber firmament overhead and the rich umber of the mud under foot. Bill dropped against the front wall of the trench, next to his buddy, the cocky little Texan, Rowland. They both rolled smokes and shared the same match lighting them. Rowland looked at his cigarette and said, Shit, man, if this dont beat all.

Bill took a deep drag and asked, Where you think the Kraut bastards have gone this morning? To hell, for all I care. Somebody said they already on the way back to Berlin. That would make it easier. Bill took a swig from his canteen and offered it to his buddy. Remains to be seen. Rowland cocked his head back and took a drink, then handed the canteen back to Bill. Before they could finish their cigarettes, the call came in with orders to advance. The men took deep drags and threw the butts into the slew that ran beneath the palettes on the floor of the trench. Then they strapped their rifles onto their backs and prepared to climb out of the trenches. They fired no shots as they ran towards the next trench, nearly doubled over. Running like hunchbacks would make them smaller targets, if not invisible.

10:27 a.m. Bill heard a whistling sound overhead and then an explosion came suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a hundred yards or so to the right of his line of sight. The sound of soldiers screaming came next, over the clatter of dirt and rocks hitting the earth. The rest of the men hit the ground as if in response and crawled on their bellies with a new sense of reality and fear in their eyes. What the fuck was that? Rowland asked when they found the safety of the next trench. The smell of feces assaulted their senses. They looked up and down the line and saw what appeared to be raw sewage filling the ground below the palettes on which they sat and waited. Artillery. Theyve got cannons up ahead. Its what we been hearing all morning, but now theyve found us . Bill sensed something moving at his feet. Oh shit! Goddamn it! Bill recoiled as a rat, the size of a fat farm cat, ran across the boards in front of him. The rat

scurried on his way, unperturbed, as if it found nothing uncommon about this morning, neither the men, nor the noise. The rat just wanted food for its belly and expected that someone would be left behind, somewhere down the way. Rowland laughed maliciously, Little fuckers just hungry, thats all. Too bad the Frog ar-till-erary didnt take their fuckin rats back to Gay Paree with them. Then, looking ruefully at the mayhem behind them where the blast had occurred, he said, Maybe they just got lucky over there. Maybe they just shootin random. Come seecome saw. Rowlands voice had a manic edge. To Bill the whole trench seemed like a dream, an insane asylum. An asylum from which he could not escape; a dream from which he could not awaken. A flash marked another explosion that closed the trench a hundred yards down the way. More screams through the rumble of falling earth. The rat had run the wrong way.

11:04 a.m. The men in Bills outfit followed orders to advance to the next trench when the shelling abated. Further down the field of battle, Bill watched a dozen men, Germans in uniform, emerge from the woods beyond the armys current target, their hands in the air. One of the Germans held a severed branch from a blackened tree with what seemed to be a white undershirt, smudged black and gray. Bill could see their eyes behind the black smudges that camouflaged their identities. They appeared slight of build; their uniforms fit loosely. One of the men shouted, Wirbergeben! another, Freunde! Bill did not understand the words, but took their meaning. They carried their rifles on their backs. From somewhere down the line, Bill heard the report of a rifle, and one of the Germans fell. The rest stopped dead

in their tracks. Bill could see the look of terror in their faces. So this is the German army, he thought, as they raised their arms higher, almost in unison. An American commander ordered, Hold your fire! Great idea, Rowland muttered. This could turn out to be a goddamn ambush. But the Americans held their fire, still pointing their rifles, aimed at the German men. Bill heard one of the American officers shout something to the surrendering soldiers in German. All he could make out from the Germans was the word kameraden. The Kaisers men threw down their guns on the ground in front of them and walked cautiously towards the American troops. Without warning, at the edge of the clearing, a lone gunman opened up fire from a machine gun nest and mowed down a dozen Americans within his range. The remaining American troops dropped to their knees and opened up fire. In a minute, the gunner fell dead, as did the German soldiers who had only hoped to make it home in time for Weihnachten, caught in the crossfire as they attempted to surrender. The Americans headed out again, double time, towards the next trench, vainly seeking to dodge incoming shells that whistled in at random.

12:02 p.m. Bills heart raced and his breathing sounded as if he had just completed a hundred yard dash. Since daybreak he had seen more death than he had ever imagined as a farm boy back in Kansas. He followed the rest of his company into the next trench and dove for cover as another cannon shell exploded behind them. He heard the engines of American aeroplanes flying overhead and looked skyward to see the formation. Bill reached for his tobacco tin, and then he realized that the soldier beside him was not Rowland, nor even an American. He recognized the

blue uniform of the French army, but Bill did not think this soldier looked much older than Speck, wearing the uniform of the French army. The arms of his coat covered his hands. He was just a kid. What was a kid doing, alone in a trench during a major offensive, somewhere in the north of France? Je ne veux pas mourir! Je ne veux pas mourir! Je ne veux pas mourir!The boy cried, frantic, sobbing, his eyes pleading with Bill.Je ne veux pas mourir! Je ne veux pas mourir! Je ne veux pas mourir! Bill had no idea what the lad wanted to say, but in any language he would have understood that this was a terrified child in a mans uniform, lost in a war, abandoned by his cohorts. The French army had held this territory in the days and weeks before, but their army had retreated, replaced by the American forces. Bill wondered how long this boy had waited here for someone to find him. He should be in school somewhere, not on a battlefield, Bill thought. He folded the boy into his arms and tried to comfort him. The boy quieted, but continued to sob. Bill looked into his face and saw in his dark hair and eyes a reflection of himself beyond the tear-streaked dirt that smudged his cheeks. Its okay, fella, Bill said in a comforting voice. Youre going to be okay. The call came down the line to leave the trench and advance further down the field. Bill put his rifle onto his back in preparation for the climb out, but the French boy grabbed at the hem of Bills overcoat and looked up into Bills face. Ne pas partir, the boy said in a desperate voice, Ne pas me laisserici! Dont worry, Bill said. Someone will be along to get you. Ive got to go now. The boy looked up at Bill with no message of comprehension in his eyes, only a blank, desperate stare. If I had a son, Bill thought, would he look like that? Will I ever have a son? he wondered, not sure if he would even draw breath by tomorrow.

12:29 p.m. The shelling intensified as the men made their way to the next objective. Sunlight seemed to emanate from high in the sky, though obscured by smoke. The air remained cold and damp; it smelled like the inside of a machine shop, oily, stale and foul. Bill checked to make sure he had his gas mask firmly tied to his belt and wondered what the mustard gas would smell like before he died. Instead of another trench, he saw a row of buildings, shattered by bombing, bricks piled in on them. Was that St.Mihiel, Bill wondered. Why all the fuss about a bombed out village? As they approached, he realized that it was not a village, but what was once a farm house, its outbuildings now shattered, its animals dead or run away. As Bill looked ahead to the outpost, he stumbled on something in his path and looked down to see a blackened, dismembered hand sticking out of the sleeve of a filthy blue uniform. Bill gagged and stifled his reaction when he realized what he had stepped on, but then ran on with the rest of the men, towards the next outpost of the day. Bill found Rowland sitting under a tree, his back against the trunk, eating from a brick of cheese, like it was a sandwich. Whered that come from? Bill asked. Rowland cut mold off with his pocket knife and chewed a mouthful of cheese. He pointed with his knife to a cellar door adjacent to the base of the bombed out farm house. A couple of men handed out cheeses that the farmer had evidently abandoned, that somehow neither the French nor the German invaders had discovered. Bill turned and walked over to the cellar. He had just reached it when he heard the whistle of an incoming shell. Instinctively, he dove for the ground and felt it shake before clods of dirt and rocks pummeled him and dust settled into the sweat that beaded up on the back of his neck. In

the silence that followed he arose and felt the warmth of his own blood streaming down his cheek. He had taken a shard of shrapnel at his cheekbone. Not a significant cut, no purple heart for Bill. He looked around and called out with a grin to Rowland, Im hit! he joked. But only a crater remained where the tree had stood and Bill saw no sign of the little Texan. Rowland? Bill called, not loud enough for Rowland to have heard, but Rowland had disappeared, gone. They got my buddy, Bill said, staring, stunned, as he took a cheese from the soldier standing at the top of stairs to the cave from which he had liberated the cheese. Yeah, well they got mine, too, the soldier growled, without sympathy, leaning around to hand another cheese to the man behind Bill in line. In shock, Bill shuffled over to the side of a demolished foundation and sat, watching as the medics searched for body parts in the area where the tree had stood. The enormity of Rowlands sudden disappearance left Bill stunned, but he peeled some of the wax off the cheese , cut out a wedge, and chewed it slowly, watching the cleanup proceed. Looking back towards the crater where the tree once stood, Bill saw that the corpsmen had gathered several good size clumps of olive drab wool, stained black with blood. Thats all thats left of Rowland, Bill thought. He knew nothing about Rowlands family, or where in Texas Odessa was. Did he have a mother or a sister at home, he thought, remembering his own. Or a lover?remembering Rosa. He did not know where to write to express condolences, nor what he would say if he did. Branches of the tree lay scattered at the perimeter of the bombsite. Bill eyed a black army boot, its heel and sole pointed towards him, lying on its side. He watched as a medic made the discovery too, picked it up casually, and tossed it into the mound of Rowland.

1:22 p.m.

Most of the advancing infantry carried their rifles slung over their shoulders as they moved out that afternoon, across badly broken ground, past whole villages deserted, reduced to rubble. More Germans emerged from their dugouts with their hands in the air and surrendered en masse. Bill watched the unraveling of the war as it played out before him, ever wary for snipers or random artillery shells. Thinking of Rowland, Bill mused philosophically, I guess if its your time to go, its your time to go. He wondered when it would be his time and imagined that he might do something heroic in the passingsave someones life, capture a machine gunner. Or just survive, return home and learn to forget that this day had ever happened. The offensive liberated 200 square miles of French territory, captured 257 guns and 15,000 prisoners. American casualties proved light at first, but they found no trenches beyond the bombed out farmstead. As they advanced in the open, they found booby-traps and met retreating German forces, still armed with machine guns. Abandoned ammunition dumps became portals to disaster until the Americans destroyed them in rumbling explosions, throwing boiling clouds of black smoke into the air, visible for miles around.

3:06 p.m. Bill heard the engine roar of aeroplanes again and looked up at the sky, but this time they were not American flyers. The German planes strafed the American soldiers from treetop levels. The infantrymen ran for cover and took aim with their rifles, but their guns proved useless against the aircraft. Bill watched as the bullets created poufs of dust hitting the ground but winced as they created red explosions in the chests of American soldiers. The Yanks returned fire using stump-mounted heavy Maxims abandoned by the German infantry. After a while the planes flew away and did not return. The soldiers gathered their dead and wounded and arranged

them like cordwood on the sides of the road, dead on one side, wounded on the other. The wounded lay bleeding with makeshift tourniquets and splints for shattered bones, waiting for clumsy Ford trucks, converted for the purpose, with large white circles painted on the canvas sides and red crosses that served as targets for the enemy aircraft. By half-past four, they made camp in the forest and measured their lives against what they had already endured. Somehow a mess truck got through with food to make an evening meal. The men camped in the open and under trees for the night, lying on damp ground. The lucky ones found mossy patches on the north sides of trees and imagined it a mattress. In their dreams they slept in beds thousands of miles away. None of this had really happened. Bill lay on his blanket roll and stared at the sky, but saw no stars. He remembered the kick of his rifle on his shoulder and the look on the face of a blond-headed, blue-eyed German who held his hands high as he fell walking towards the line of American soldiers, asking in German to surrender so that he could go home. The next day they captured more territory as the Germans continued to flee. Abandoned cellars held stores of excellent wines and cognac, but the enemys kitchens revealed that they had subsisted on horse meat and potatoes black with rot.

A week after St. Mihiel, the army posted mail call. Bill received several letters from home, newspapers, and other correspondence. He carried the mail he received to a tree and sat on his helmet to read. Tears formed in his eyes as he read the news from home. When he

finished, he took time to write home on YMCA stationary. The postmark on the envelope reads 29SEP1918. The back side of the envelope bears this insignia:
NATIONAL WAR WORK COUNCIL

ARMY AND NAVY

YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATON WITH THE COLORS

Sept 19 1918 Dear Mother and all Yes I think I have gotten all your letters and all the rest. We have had a nice bunch of mail. I just read letters and news of all kinds and am hoping you also have been reading the good news of your American boys in the papers. Believe me mother, those dirty Bosche can do two or three things: They can run like the devil, work a machine gun, and holler Kamerad! Outside of that they are rotten. Before going farther get your calendar and just put a great big mark on Sept 12 and proclaim it a holiday. For it will live long in the hearts of anyone who happened to be in hearing distance and for those who happened to be in seeing distance. Well it will never be forgotten. We are out for a rest again. I am feeling good and surely hope you folks are as well. I have letters from so many I dont know when I will ever get caught up. I recd three from Ramsey, two from you, two from Vesta, one from Delphos and many others. So Fay thinks he will enlist in the Navy. Well I havent anything to say only wish I could talk to him for I believe I might help him. It will be hard to start with but once he is used to his work he will make it alright. I wouldnt mind the Navy myself. For one thing is certain, you have a good place to sleep and eat, and in the army you have it just catch as catch can. At present I am setting on my helmet by my Pup tent leaning against an ancient old tree. Something different from the Navy. Mother, I will have to ring off for I am too scattered to write a very sensible letter this morning. So with love to all I will close as ever, your Son and Bro Bill

Eight months later, as she rested on the wicker chaise lounge outside the screened porch at the back of the little house in Langdon, Josie folded the letter Bill wrote on September 19.

She tried to imagine the Battle of St. Mihiel, for which he had received a Battle Bar for his Service Medal. She put it back into its envelope and retrieved a letter from Bills Sergeant Hopkins. She sat with her feet up on the wicker chaise lounge, outside the screened porch at the back of the house. The smell of the lilac bushes in full bloom wrapped around her. It was the last Sunday of May and the rest of the family would arrive soon for the Memorial Day dinner. But Josie was lost in her thoughts. She did not hear or respond to the sounds of the house wrens singing, nor the soft cooing of the mourning dove perched on the highest branches of the crab apple tree. She ignored the sounds Vesta made in the kitchen as she hurried to complete lastminute preparations for the noonday meal. She felt the onion-skin paper of Hopkins letter between her soft, withering fingerstyped neatly with perfect spelling and elocution. Sergeant Hopkins had served with Bill through the last days of the war. His letter had come a few days before; he described a chance encounter with her son that left Josie unable to speak each time she read it. As Memorial Day approached, she had found herself reading Sergeant Hopkins letter again and again, drifting more and more frequently into her solitary reveries. Due to a blockade of traffic his outfit passed mine passing over the top of a hill just outside of Martincourt, I might say that in glancing up this hill road, many sights were seen, shells bursting, mud, rocks flying, horses, wagons, trucks and men disappearing. But such things as that do not stop AMERICAN soldiers who are fighting for a just cause. I heard someone yell Hello Hop and hold his hand high so I could pick him out quickly. It was Bill, my friend Bill, just all smiling from ear to ear. I ran to him and had about a three minutes talk, wished him well and returned to my outfit which followed them over the top. Next meeting was after the drive only for a half a minute, the last time he looked the result of hard fighting, clothes torn from barbed wire entanglements, besmeared from head to foot with mud, lines of fatigue were easily traced in his expression. The radiant sunshine smile broke from behind and beneath his muddy face like the sun rising in the East, and the words exchanged were Ah! Weve met again! It meant more

to us than I can write because when one meets his friends after having gone thru a living hell, there are no words to tell that feeling.

Josie held the letter as if she continued to read it, but she only stared at it. Her eyes did not focus on the words. She felt the sting of tears forming on her eyes and pressure in her nose as she stifled the urge to weep again. She wiped her nose and eyes on the end of her apron and arose. No time for this. Vesta would need help inside. Everyone would arrive soon, she thought.

In less than two weeks following the mop-up at St. Mihiel, the Americans prepared for the final offensive in the ArgonneForest. The allied forces numbered 820,000 in all. The Germans believed that the next great battle would take place either toward Metz or in Alsace, but their intelligencers discovered the movement of troops north from St. Mihiel to Verdun and concluded that the battle would unfold near Metz. So they barricaded the front with wire, steel, and concrete bulwarks. They created four successive defense belts, ten miles deep along the MeuseRiver. The terrain itself, consisting of many switchbacks and spurs, did not lend itself to battle. Tree covered heights of the Argonne woods dominated the valley below that the American troops would have to occupy. The enemy looked right down the Americans throats. The battle opened on September 26 with a three hour Allied bombardment that began at 5:30 a.m. Bill advanced with the others under the cover of hundreds of Allied planes. The constant drone of the aeroplanes made the scene surreal. Americans had come to the offensive with a numerical superiority of eight to one, but after a week of constant fighting, the Germans

had reduced the odds to even up. American forces offered too bright a target to be missed. The terrain offered too great an advantage and the Germans fled from no one. The Signal Corps left St. Mihiel and holed up for a few days rest, arriving at Dieulouard on September 19, just one week after the third and final registration for the draft back home, stateside. The boys gorged on cheese and sausage and beer. They watched the local winemakers tromp their grapes barefooted. Finally, they headed to the front at Tronde on the last day of the month before heading into the Wood, as it was called, on October 4. During a lull in the fighting, Bill took the time to write a letter to the folks back home.

ON ACTIVE SERVICE
WITH THE

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

Oct 2 1918 Dear Mother and all Have some spare time and will send you a few lines even if I havent recd a letter for a few days and have written since. I expect some mail this evening for we are to be here a few days. I have read a few of your letters this morn and want to say again I think I have recd most of yours and the clippings are fine, I think most every one of yours have had clippings in them and say in regard to the boys who are weak. Dont be too hard on them now. For they will get theirs when the boys return. It is everyones duty to jump in without hesitation and volunteer to carry a rifle. For the boys who have given their lives over here. They all carried the great American spirit and a man at home now who says he cant give up and go is not a man. He is a mere trifle. I have seen our boys laying in shell craters with an arm or leg gone, others laying out with their faces turned heavenward who left important vacancies at homeleft mothers, fathers, wives and children and when a man claims exemption now he is a cave man or in other words a coward. Oh no, I am not brave. I have run for a cave. I have fallen in shell holes, flat on the ground, been covered up with dirt and got a couple of pieces of something in my leg and another below my eye. Not bad, but enough that when I come face to face with a man who has stayed at home because he could sneak around it, I will never fear him and think I can give him a very dirty sneer.

Enoughfor I expect the censor will cut out half of this. We all feel pretty foxy as Bulgaria has given up. Von Hertling has quit and it might come to pass that one Kaiser might quit soon. But now we are going to keep plugging away to make sure. I will close. So send me all the news you can and I will remember you every day With love to all and best wishes I am your Son and Bro Bill

The Signal Corps arrived in the Argonne Forest on October 5 and realized almost immediately the dire straits the allied forces faced. But unknown to the men engaged in the battle for the Argonne, the Germans had lost ground badly on all other fronts. By the date of Bills letter, a message received at the Reichstag warned the Kaiser of imminent defeat. On October 3 in Berlin, Hindenburg speculated that German troops might defend German soil until spring, but insisted that a peace offer be made to the Allies at once. On October 4, the Western Front exploded again, Prince Max von Baden succeeded to Chancellor, and sent this cable to Woodrow Wilson, TO AVOID FURTHER BLOODSHED, THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT REQUESTS THE PRESIDENT TO ARRANGE THE IMMEDIATE CONCLUSION OF AN ARMISTICE ON LAND, BY SEA AND IN THE AIR. Wilson contemplated the surrender for days. The devout Presbyterian intellectual and former President of Princeton University needed time to formulate a decent and orderly response to von Badens plea. For nearly two weeks Wilson refused to notify the Allies of this drastic development in the course of the war. Chancellor von Badens cable would have caused the German Army to collapse in its boots. Instead, the war dragged on. On October 8th, German machine gunners ambushed American troops, killing or wounding almost all. But one American corporal, Alvin York, managed to pick off the machine

gunners with his rifle from a kneeling position and captured the remaining enemy soldiers. Somehow he managed to round up the German survivors and marched them back to camp. On October 10th, a German U Boat sank a passenger vessel off the IrishCoast. Three hundred civilian passengers lost their lives. The same day, German torpedos sank the mail boat Leinster, killing 520 persons, mostly women and children. Wilson finally acknowledged the Allied victory on October 14th, but the war raged on while the politicians and diplomats debated the terms of its conclusion. The Signal Corps left the Argonne Woods on October 10th and the Army issued each man a coupon which could be used by his family back home to ship a Christmas parcel overseas. Bill had time to write, and he needed to get his coupon to the folks back home. Bills excitement filled his letter to his family as he looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas at home. Somewhere in France October 11, 1918 Dearest Mother and all--: Am sending you a Christmas coupon to put on a package. So now you see I am getting pretty important just sending you an order for a pkg. Ha Ha! But you see a fellow gets only one coupon and I knew you would be disappointed if you didnt get to send one. I am feeling fine and hoping that peace will come soon, but say, I go to sleep every night hearing peace stories in gob lots and when I awake in the morn a new line of proposals are sailing at a very lively clip. Oh yes, its a merry life, but believe me the boys are giving those dirty hounds a grand taste of American fighting spirit and ammunition. I have received many letters here of late. Just cant keep up by half, but tell all I will write when I can. I get to write about one to your two it seems. I honestly think you have done your part in writing. I dreamed last night I recd a letter from Fay and did receive two from Vesta. I havent written her for some time and she does so well too. I can only send her one to her three. My buddy who I barbered with in Texas, the company tailor, he got a machine bullet thru his knee our last trip over but not bad. He is at the hospital.

I have to go to work so with love and best wishes, I am as ever your son and Bro Bill

The coupon about which Bill had written did arrive, but the deadline for shipping Bills Christmas package had already come and gone when Vesta opened his letter and found the Christmas Package Coupon on the day before Thanksgiving. She returned for the weekend on November 27, having recently taken a new job working in the office at the Stafford Flour Mill Company, a half days drive from Langdon. After reading his letter on Thanksgiving Eve she wrote. At home, November 27, 1918 Dear Brother Bill, I came home this afternoon to spend Thanksgiving and also the remainder of the week at home. Im very thankful. Mr. Koster let me come on the condition that I take him half a hog or something of the kind when I returned. I solemnly promised. Then, I must tell you what I did about your Christmas box. Your coupon did not reach here until this very morning. Papa and mama had given up receiving it before the end of the month so they procured a box from Mrs. Cole on Monday of this week and sent it to me thinking I could better fill it at Stafford where there was a greater supply of things to select from. It was such a hurried selection as I dont have much time, that I want to send my love to you herein, because the contents of the box do not fully express it. I did not know that they were going to send it or I could have planned something better.

You know what a poor place Langdon is to get things you want. Stafford is about the same. Please dont condemn us too harshly. I had to sign an affidavit that I was your nearest blood relative also filled out the address, in order to get their inspection at the Red Cross rooms at Stafford. But they were very obliging, asked no questions, that is, only the necessary ones, and the box was sent out by them this afternoon. I placed the stamps on it that were required to take it to Hoboken. Of course, I have not heard from you direct for a long, long time, and I certainly was glad to get here to read your letters to mama. I am quite anxious to have word, written since the Armistice, but presume that you are in the American occupation army. I mean following up the Germans. We have been trying some winter weather here. But the snow melts almost as quickly as it falls. Everything was beautiful this morning. There was just enough snow on the trees and bushes and houses to be real pretty. And it was just right to snow ball, but I had to be grown up and could not. Also as I was on my way to work this morning, I saw a car pulling three boys on sleds behind a car. They were having fine sport. I would have enjoyed a nice sleigh ride too. I had rather a delightful little drive yesterday just after lunch. But it could have been better. I did not have a hatpin in my hat the top was down and he drove forty and forty-five miles an hour. Two mechanics board where I do. One is married. He and his wife, the other mechanic, George and I, were the party. The flu still rages. That is, I should say it is raging again. Schools, movies, and shows were opened but now they have to close up again with greater restrictions than before. Papa has taken care of a family over west of here, and he was up all night last night himself. He went to sleep quite early tonight. Seems to me like Ive been by myself for an hour now. I knitted some, then decided I would write to you. I am hoping that I can tear around tomorrow just as I please. If the day is at all fit, I want to be outside. I shall dress in a suit of Fays and chase rabbits on Blaze, and other equally graceful things. Honestly, there has been no chance for excitement anywhere so I think Ill manufacture some tomorrow. I am going to Hutchinson Friday, the first time since leaving there September 30. I suppose I shall spend some of my hard earned cash. My eyes are inclined to close and my fingers are rather indifferent so had better stop when I can do it well. Your loving sister, Vesta

The next morning, before she basted the turkey and put it into the oven, Vesta folded her letter, put it into a stamped envelope and addressed it to Bill. After she sealed the flap, she wrote across the seal, Snowed again last night!

Bill and the Signal Corp only enjoyed a brief respite from fighting after they returned from the Argonne Wood, for on October 11th they returned to the front where they fought in the Meuse Offensive in the face of the almost insurmountable odds that the German defense had placed before them. The timeline he kept in the pocket scripture booklet records that after leaving Battle Line on October 22 they arrived in Martincourt the next day. Bill left the encampment at the Meuse suffering from exhaustion and dysentery. Half the troops required immediate hospitalization for symptoms. Bill might have gone too, but he stayed with the men, figuring a little rest would cure him. He resisted attempts to remand him to a base hospital; he decided he had had enough of hospitals in Texas. He did not know that an epidemic, later suspected by some be bubonic plague, carriedin the trenches of Northern Franceas influenza, would become the final insult of the war. He lived in a pup tent under shell fire from the Meuse Offensive until November 4th, when the Signal Corps moved out with one of the Battalions. On November 10, the day before the signing of the Armistice, Bill finally entered the Base Hospital at Allerey, in the Loire Valley, too sick to travel further with the other men. A few days later a pretty nurse brought Bill his first letter from home, postmarked Emporia, KS. She had fair complexion and ginger hair almost completely covered by her hood

and cowl, but Bill lay in a fever, barely able to breath, so he did not recognize her at first, or associate her fair skin and red hair with anyone at home. Bills younger brother, Fay, wrote from school at EmporiaCollege on stationary the color of an Army uniform. His words suggested the ambitions of an articulate young man who had recently declared his intention to join the military.

EmporiaKansas K.S.N. Barracks S.A.T.C. October 5, 1918. Dear Brother: Bill, did you think I had forgotten you because I never did write? Well I havent not by a long sight. But you see, before I left for school, I always let the responsibility shift upon mother. But now she cannot do it for me so I thought I had better begin. You know they are letting all men between 18 and 20 and above 21, go to school and at the same time join the army provided they are high school graduates. It is called the S.A.T.C. I expect you have read about it if you get the Hutch papers. We get everything furnished and $30 per month, the same as they do in the Army. To be exact, we are in the Army. The only difference is we go to school instead of drilling so much. If we make good we are either sent to an officers Training school or kept in school to become technical experts. If we dont make good, we are shot into some cantonment as a buck private. Believe me, I intend to make good. Oh yes, I am playing on the football team here. We go to K.U. next Saturday. That is, I will if some one doesnt beat me out of my place before then. I got my leg twisted last night in scrimmage and am hobbling around on one leg today. But it all comes in a lifetime and Im in the Army nor or will be Monday. I get out of two hours of drill every day by playing football, however. So that helps a little. We have a fine company here and fine officers. From what I hear you are stationed 40 feet under the sod as hello girl. Must be afraid a sniper will pick you off. Ha. Ha. Well I think I would rather be there than on top of the ground. Well I have told you about all I know about myself so will close. Oh yes, Albert Dralle that was killed was an old schoolmate of mine and he was a mighty fine fellow too. Write soon if possible.

Bill folded the letter and smiled weakly. Brother Fay. In college?Football? Bill had not gone to high school. All this had happened while he had been away. What a great kid, he thought. Hello girl? When was that? The army had brought in women to man the phones months ago. Or was it just weeks? Those early weeks in France, his first job in the Signal Corps had him answering the telephone line that had
Brothers, Fay and Bill, c. 1916

been strung to and from the front. Hello Girl had become a dream from which he had long since awakened. He had not wigwagged since summer. The nurse stopped by Bills cot as he struggled to insert the letter back into its envelope. Can I help you with that? she said, smiling. Her voice sounded like distant church bells on a warm summer morning. Never thought thered be a day when I would be too weak to put a letter back into the envelope it came out of, he said, between labored breaths. Im Annie. Annie Gosman. Nurse Annie. My names Bill. You dont sound like a local. No, she smiled, Kansas City. Been there? Got married there. But the towns no worse for it.

Wheres your family, Bill? Annie was very sweet. Pretty, even. He noticed her teeth, straight and white. Her lips were the color of a seashell he saw once in a display window in New York. New York? When was that? Langdon.RenoCounty. Heard of it? Been there.RenoCounty, that is. Hutchinson. I played baseball in Hutchinson. Bill managed a collegial grin. A little of his familiar charm managed its way through his fever. She smiled and nodded. So what are you doing here? Bill asked. Oh, I needed to go somewhere. Nobody at home anymore. He detected no accent or regional dialect. The sounds of her words made her seem worldly and sophisticated. Youre too pretty not to be married. I was married. We had a child. First I lost my husband, then I lost our son. I just needed to live somewhere else, where I could put my problems in perspective. Did it work? Some days are better than others. You look familiar to me. Annie imagined that she saw sincerity in Bills eyes, but suspected it was an act. I could hang my wash on that line, she said. No, really. You do. You look familiar too. But its a very distant familiar. A faint smile played on her lips. Was it another life? Maybe so. Say, kid, you think you could rustle up some paper for me to write home to my little mama and my baby brothers?

Sure. Annie disappeared and returned in minutes with single piece of paper and an envelope for him to use, but he had fallen asleep. She left them on top of the table beside his bed, touched his forehead pushing his chestnut colored hair away. He felt warm to the touch. Too warm. Later, Bill found the paper and picked it up. He wrote with an unsteady hand. Somewhere in France Nov. 16, 18 Dear Mother and all After a months time I will drop you a line or two. I am in a hospital, not wounded, but have been a sick human. My stomach and a little touch of the grippe, but am feeling pretty bright this morn. I dont know when I will leave for the boys stay around for quite a while.

Bill stopped writing and gazed for a long time out the window across the way. A few members of the hospital staff made a funeral procession to the cemetery atop the hill which overlooked a river that Bill did not know the name of, but could see in the distance. Even from his bed he recognized Annie among the mourners in the funeral cortege. He continued. I dont suppose I will ever get my Christmas package, just my luck. The Red Cross lady only gave me a sheet of paper and one envelope, so you know I am alive. Your son and Bro. Bill

Bill folded the letter but left it on his chest, too exhausted to face putting it into the envelope, sealing it and addressing it. He dozed for a while in the stuffy confines of the ward he occupied with so many other men, each in various stages of distress. Hacking and wheezing was the sound of their lives, between fitful sleeping and night sweats.

After their initial conversations, Nurse Gosman checked in on Bill regularly after she reviewed the case load with the nursing staff each morning. It became a routine. She looked forward to the way he watched her when they talked. His eyes followed her as she moved around his bed, even though he peered out at her over dark circles that underscored the severity of his illness. On the day before Thanksgiving, she decided he needed a shave. With nearly 80 men in the ward and only sixteen staff, including the ambulance driver, the doctors (who did little hands on, day-to-day care) and the novices who qualified only to carry bedpans, the demands of the ward left little time to provide much more than minimal personal hygiene for the patients, let alone personal grooming. So when she approached Bill as he slept this morning with a basin of warm water and a razor in the pocket of her apron, she pulled the curtains around his bed to afford them some measure of privacy. It would not be fair to the other patients to see her bathing and shaving Bill when they could see that he was in no worse shape than the others and they could not all expect to be treated in such a manner. When he awoke, Bill had no idea how long he had slept. He saw daylight outside, but he had no sense of the time. A rustling noise beside him caused him to turn instinctively, but motion came slowly and left him feeling dizzy. He looked up and smiled faintly; his eyes sparkled in the morning sunlight that poured through the window behind him. Annie set the basin on the table beside the bed and put her hand on his arm. That was a good nap, P.F.C. Holmes. How are we doing this morning? Would you like to try something to eat?

Not now. Bills voice came as little more than a whisper between labored, shallow breaths. What you got in mind this morning Nurse Annie?Pulling the curtains together and all. He tried to make it sound like a suggestive joke. How about a little ice? She held a spoon with chipped ice next to his lips. Bill obliged, without moving, other than to accept a half teaspoon of ice into his mouth. He felt the cold ice melt against his gums. I think we should get you cleaned up if youre ever going to get out of here and go home, Bill. How about we play Nurse Shaves the Barber this morning? Smiling broadly, she withdrew her razor from her pocket and flipped open the blade which glinted in the morning light. Whoa, watch where you go with that thing, Bill joked, feebly, feeling his equilibrium restored. Should I be ready to call for help? I think youll be safe. Here, lets get you propped up a bit. She set the razor down beside the water basin and moved to help Bill sit up in bed, propping the pillow behind his back. She reached behind his neck and untied the knot that held his bed shirt together and pulled it down, exposing his arms and chest. Blood stained the front of his shirt from the unpredictable nosebleeds that plagued him and the other patients in the ward. His skin felt warm to her touch. With the toe of her shoe, she pulled open the bottom drawer of the table, confirming that a clean gown would be ready when she needed it. Youre not going to get a chill on me, are you? Seems Im more apt to get a rise in my temperature than anything else, he quipped again, speaking slowly.

You have a foul smell about you this morning, Private. She wrinkled her nose. Lets give you a little bath. In truth, the ward smelled worse collectively than any of the patients individually, owing to the results of incontinence among the patients, coupled with inadequate laundry facilities. She withdrew a washcloth and a large bar of soap from the drawer in the table and put them both into the basin until the water grew grey and cloudy. Then she wrung out the cloth before applying it first to Bills face and neck and shoulders. She returned it to the water and repeated the process again, this time with more soap and extending her work to his chest and arms and armpits, leaving a bit of lather on his skin. He felt cool to the touch now, but his skin hung loosely on his frame, owing to the incremental weight loss he had experienced over the previous weeks. She rinsed the washcloth and covered the territory again, removing the soapy film from his exposed skin. Then she found a shaving brush in a coffee mug and dipped the brush into the water, working up foam in the mug. She covered Bills sunken cheeks and face with shaving lather and retrieved the razor. As she shaved his neck, he asked, Howd you lose your husband and little boy? Annie flinched at such a direct question, but continued the process as she spoke. My husbands family introduced steam shovels to copper mining out West and he had gone there periodically to teach the miners how to use them. She held his chin up with the thumb of her left hand, cocking his neck back at an angle while her forefinger rested on his nose. With the razor in her right hand, guided by her index finger, she directed it carefully over the stubble on his neck. Bill thought she must have shaved men every day of her life to be this skillful at the process. There was a terrible accident and two of the miners he had been working with died instantly. He was severely injured and languished in a hospital for a few days. Our son, Chester, and I left for Utah as soon as we learned of his predicament, but he died before we

arrived. All I could do was bring his body back to Ohio for burial. She rinsed the razor in the basin. When did you learn to be a nurse? Before or after you learned to barber? Bill shot a smile at the pretty nurse in an attempt to lighten the mood. I decided long ago that I would never depend on a man for my well-being. My mother had done that and I saw what happened. I had just finished nurses training when I met Charles. I never expected to marry, but when I got to know Charles, and he asked, I never wanted anything else. Her words landed on Bills chest with all their weight. He looked at her and saw Rosas face in her fair complexion and pale red hair. Tears formed in his eyes as longed for Rosa to be beside him at his bed at this moment. Annie continued. When Chester and I got home, I decided to go to work. His family had money and I could have settled into a lifestyle with them, but I needed to become my own person. She wiped the lather off Bills sideburns and trimmed in a neat edge just above his jawline on both sides of his face. So we moved to Kansas City and I took a job in a hospital. Obstetrics. I actually learned how to deliver babies. Bill thought of Maxines birth in Kansas City and of her mother, Kitty, and felt a wave of remorse for all the mistakes he had made with them. What happened to your boy? he asked. The influenza epidemic made a run through the states last spring. One day he was a happy little guy, tearing about with his friends, playing outside. The next day he developed a high fever and couldnt lift his head up off the pillow. It was a terrible thing to watch, him just lying there, staring up at me with such pain and confusion in his eyes. And me, with all my training and still feeling so helpless. Not being able to do anything. She paused for a long moment and said nothing, staring blankly into the air in front of her. The third day he was

gone. It was a mercy, I guess, he was so miserable. She looked away from Bills gaze. A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand leaving a smudge of shaving soap on her nose. When she turned to look at Bill, he mustered his strength to wipe it away with his thumb, allowing his hand to linger for just a moment on her cheek before moving to wipe a new tear from her other eye as well. What about you, Bill? Whats your story? Aah, nothing much to tell. I played some baseball back in Hutchinson. Barbered some, worked in the mills.Got me a baby girl back home. Shes he hesitated, remembering Annies loss, thinking. Lets see about a year and a half old now, I reckon. Whats her name? Maxine. And her mothers the love of your life? Her mothers he stopped and coughed deeply. Annie heard the similar sounds of others coughing beyond the drape that had created an artificial room apart from the other patients. He wondered what to say. Things didnt work out with her mother. Im sorry. You seem like a man who would be so easy to fall in love with. Annie blushed at her observation. She was not usually so forward. Oh, Ive been in love a few times, Bill grinned. Then his eyes looked away from Nurse Gosman. He felt his temperature rise again. Well, really only once. With Maxines mother? Bill did not answer at first. Annie felt uncomfortable, as if she was prying. Nah. She loved me, I guess, and we had some good times together. But he stopped again. She was never the one. There was always someone else. A girl I couldnt ever have.

Why Private Holmes, I do declare you could have any girl you ever wanted! Annie gushed, trying to find humor in the situation. Not this one, Bill said, staring at the top of the curtain in front of his hospital bed. Not in a million years. But I tell you what, Nurse Annie. If I ever get out of this place, Im going to change that. If shell still have me. Later that night, unbeknownst to anyone in Langdon, while Bill slept fitfully in his hospital bed in Allerey, France, more than nine thousand miles away, three young girls came home from school to begin their Thanksgiving holiday. Playing in front of their home, two of Uncle Sherman and Aunt Stellas girls, named Ida and Audrey, held a jump rope. The other one, their sister Clara, kept warm without her coat by skipping to a new chant she taught the others: I had a little bird, Its name was Enza. I opened up the win-dow, And in-flu-enza!

Saturday night, December 7, 1918 Margaret Kelley worked alone in the kitchen after supper while Frank pored over the farm accounts on the dining room table. She felt especially satisfied this evening as she hummed a sweet melody half aloud. It had been a good day, having all, or almost all, of her children at home. When she finished washing the supper dishes, she carried an old cracked bowl from the sink to the door and tossed the accumulated food scraps from it to the cats in the back yard. They argued with each other, hissing and spitting as if they might starve by morning if they missed their fair share. The dogs ignored the fray and slept with full bellies under the porch,

owing to the rabbit hunt they had gone on that afternoon. Frankie, the Kelleys middle son, had come home for dinner after work on Friday and stayed. Such a young man he had become! And handsome, fair haired with blue eyes, and strapping. He and his baby brother, Tommy, nineteen now (where had the years gone?), had taken their dad and the horses out for a rabbit hunt in the afternoon and rode horseback across the dormant fields, frozen black and green with winter wheat, firing shotguns at cottontails and jack rabbits that scampered for cover in their path. The weather had been icy cold, but clear with little wind. She had heard the reports of their guns echoing across the pastures, interrupting the quietness of the afternoon reverie that she and the girls enjoyed in the mens absence. Black crows, perched in the tops of barren trees, scattered airborne with every shot, though no one aimed at them. They came to land again in other trees and the roof of the barn. It would have been better if Jim, had been with them today. The oldest of the Kelley boys, he was still in France. His letters came almost every week, sometimes more often, and the paper talked as if the boys would start coming back in just a few weeks, maybe by Christmas or else after the first of the year. Margaret dipped the bowl that had held the scraps into the lukewarm dishwater and swirled a limp, gray cloth around the inside and outside of the bowl before dipping the old bowl gingerly into the slightly warmer rinse water. That afternoon the girls, Theresa, Rosa, and Agnes, had stayed inside and played cards while Margaret took a nap after writing letters to relatives back east, in Illinois. Frankie had stayed until after an early supper, but then Frank took him back into Langdon to catch the late train to Hutchinson. Their two youngest, Tommy and Agnes, had gone to their bedrooms to study their assignments for school next week. Theresa slept in an overstuffed chair in the parlor with a volume of Dickens lying open on her chest. Rosa said good night earlier than her younger brother and sister, as usual, retreating to the

solitude of her room at home, which she had occupied since returning to Langdon nearly a year ago, after the awful mess she had gotten herself into, living in Hutchinson, working at PeguesWright. She had finally got back on at the Langdon State Bank, working as a clerk, away from the eyes of the public, after several months of moping about the house and helping on and off again with the housework. Rosa. Margaret thought about her second-born and let escape a long sigh. Twenty-six last month and she should be married, and even have children of her own, but no prospects now. And still pining for Bill Holmes, off in the war, nor fit if he was home, with a baby and a wife in Turon. Margaret dried off the bowl with her apron and set it back in its place at the corner of the sink before withdrawing a fresh towel from the drawer beneath the counter to use drying the other clean dishes in the rack at the side of the sink. When she finished, she left the warmth of the kitchen, turning off the lamps before entering the dining room where she encouraged her husband to come to sleep, leaving Theresa snoring in the corner at the far side of the room. After counting the beads in their rosaries, they pulled up the covers of their bed and settled into each others arms against the encroaching cold of the night with the affection and familiarity that comes from years of becoming used to one another. In her room down the hallway, Rosa slept, dreaming of her beloved Bill, far away. Her dream changed little from night to night. Against the cold night air in the unheated bedroom, she lets the pounds of quilts and comforters envelop her, warmed by her own body heat between her mothers soft cotton sheets. She drifts off, held safe and secure in her lovers arms and by his promises to return for her. She feels his flesh against hers and snuggles into the tuft of hair at the center of his chest, and soon finds his soft, wet lips. She molds herself into the lumpy bedcovers that personify his form, transporting herself back to the last night they had together, so long ago

and yet as immediate as if he had never left. After spending herself, she lies in his arms and feels his lips brush the skin behind her ears and his hot breath in her golden hair. Finally they both sleep, breathing deeply and rhythmically, until something in the silence causes her to awaken, though only in her dream. Still sleeping, but now dreaming vividly, she wonders what time it is. How long has she slept? When she reaches out to her lover she finds his form silent and as chilled as the room. She tries to awaken him with her kisses, but his skin is tight and cold and hard. A sour, musty smell fills her nostrils. She shakes him but he does not respond. His hair shimmers and bounces unfettered in the moonlight. When she looks at his face, his eyes gape open, but they do not see her. She calls his name, Bill? Quietly at first, as if she knows he is only teasing her. But still he does not answer. Louder now, Bill? She shakes the covers of her bed again, Bill! she howls in fear and desperation. NO! She calls again louder, now sounding like a frantic animal, its leg caught in a trap, waiting to become prey to something fiendish. BILL! Her sobs grow deeper and her voice harsher. Where are you? Bill! And she shakes the bed clothes again as if they contain his human form, but finds nothing there save the acrid smell of the chamber pot below. Margaret Kelley heard her daughters cries from her bedroom where she had just drifted off to sleep a half an hour before. She threw back the covers and hurried out of the bedroom without regard for the winter air that had settled into the house. Frank sat up on one elbow and looked more confused than concerned as he watched her leave in the darkness. Neither of them spoke. Margaret made her way through the dark corridor, barefooted, and opened the door to Rosas room without stopping to knock. Rosas wailing became much louder once inside than

when she first heard it, and Margaret went to her daughters bedside where she reached out to her, speaking in low, soothing tones, as if to a baby with colic. But Rosa pushed her away, almost knocking her off the side of the bed, and she would not listen to her consolations, nor would she awaken from what seemed to be a trance. Rosa continued to wail, No, no, no, and Bill? Where have you gone? Bill! Come back! No, no, no she repeated herself over and over again, finally allowing herself to be held as she wept violently into her mothers gown until the bodice and shoulder grew wet with tears and spittle. The women held each other for an hour. Frank and the others watched through the door until he shooed his other children back to bed with puzzled looks on their faces. He waited a little while longer and watched his wife and daughter as they found comfort in each others embrace. But finally he became weary of the scene and returned to his room. The shuffling of his feet on the bare floors made a soft sound, like sandpaper, until he climbed into bed and fell back to sleep in a few minutes. But Rosa and Margaret held each other and rocked, until they both fell asleep on the bed and slept until just before dawn without further interruption. When she awoke, Margaret sat up and looked at her daughter for a long time as she slept. Rosa lay in repose, not peacefully, but with a frown on her face and an expression of worry and despair around her eyes. Finally Margaret got up and, as if Rosa was still a little girl, adjusted the covers to keep her warm until she awoke later. Barefooted, she felt the cold wood beneath her feet and held her breath as she tiptoed, missing the squeaky floorboards for once, and closed the door to Rosas room behind her as she left. When she crawled into bed beside her husband, he pulled her to himself without waking as she adjusted the covers up to her chin and lay still beside him, wide-eyed, staring into the air in front of her. She noticed tiny specks of dust floating at random, catching the morning light, and then she fell asleep again in her husbands

arms. They would not go to Mass this morning; they would ask for forgiveness at Confession next week.

The letter Bill wrote on November 16 arrived in Langdon on Thursday, December 12. Jonas brought it home after he completed his mail route. As Josie read his words, feelings of dread filled her up. The next morning she found a piece of Jonas stationary, and before he left on his delivery route, she wrote: Langdon, Kan. Dec. 13, 1918 My Dear boy, We got your letter of Nov. 16th last night, the 12th, nearly a month since it was wrote. We surely hope you still improved and did not try to get out too soon. I know you were a sick boy and hope your care was sufficient to bring you out all right. And I know the hospitals must be crowded You will get your Christmas box all right, I think probably long before you get this letter. I sent the box to Vesta to fill and send you, as I was not so I could get to town. I sent her some of the chocolates you gave me when you left, but she said they wouldnt take chocolates, and she sent some other harder candy. You have the best Christmas wishes from all your friends. They are always asking about you. Although you are so far away from us you are always in thought. Hope there will be many kind messages sent to all the boys over there that cant come home. Quite a few from the camps here are getting to come home. Fay packed his troubles in his old kit bag and come home Tuesday morning the 10th. He was glad to get home, and said he wouldnt take anything for his experience. Fay just came in singing the stars and stripes will wave over Germany. I expect you realize that. Have you heard much about Pres. Wilsons being over there with you all? We search the papers for every bit of news we can get. Sherman and Stella want us all to come in to their place Christmas. Delphos and Allie and children were home Sunday. They were all well. The boys are not going to school on account of the Flu. Not very many schools are open.

Papa is ready to go and I must close hoping you receive this soon as possible. With lots of Love, Mother

The telegram came later in the day, after Jonas had already posted Josies letter. She opened the door to their home and recognized the delivery boy and knew in her stomach what he brought. She closed the door before the messenger had time to turn away. She stood in the living room, her knurled, arthritic hands shaking as she opened the envelope, tears already welling in her eyes before she saw the name, W. G. Holmes on the message and the words We regret to inform you She fell to her knees and wailed, sobbing like an inhuman thing, pounding the floor with her fist.

On Christmas morning Jonas came back from the post office after checking the mail. He was in a state, clutching a letter in his hand, and bounded through the front door of their little house in Langdon, out of breath, panting. Mama, weve got another letter from Bill! Here, read it out loud. The handwriting was not as shaky as the previous letter. Josies heart pounded as she opened the envelope wanting it to mean what it could not. Somewhere in France Nov 25 18 Dearest Mother and all Oh yes, I am still among the living. Am still in the same place.Cant say if I will get out but dont want you to worry. For the Army boys are to start coming back across soon.

I expect you had just as well not write to me any more for my outfit is up in Germany and if you wrote me here I would be gone before it could get here. So dont write any more now. I will let you know that I am still kicking. Would sure like to eat Christmas dinner with you but that is only a dream. I will have to close with love and best wishes I am as ever your Son and Bro Bill.

Christmas brought no further false hope to the Holmes family in 1918 and the reality of his passing set in gradually over the months that followed. Records reflect that William Holmes took sick from exposure in the Argonne Drive and died at base hospital #26 on Sunday, December 8, 1918. He was buried in a grave so marked as to be easily identified. The site faced the SaoneRiver on a slope at Allerey, Saone et Loire, AmericanCemetery #84, in France. Before the orderlies put his body into a simple coffin, Annie Gosman brought a basin of warm water into the room where they had prepared his body for burial; she silently and meticulously shaved the whiskers from his sallow and sunken face. The army stated that he died of bronchopneumonia. The Langdon Christian Church held a memorial for Bill during services on December 22. Though no one invited her, and though she had never attended worship services at a Protestant church, Rosa attended services at the Christian Church that morning. She came with her mother and father. She wore a simple black dress that fell to her ankles with dark hose and black pumps. She wore a black hat and a black scarf at her neck that trailed over her shoulder and caught the wind as she moved. The Kelleys sat near the back of the church to one side. Rosa saw Jonas

and Josie near the front, sitting together with the two young boys, Speck and Badger, between them. Vesta sat next to her mother and Fay. Delphos and Mary Alice sat next to Jonas with baby Doris. Though she did not show it and only her husband knew, Mary Alice was nearly two months pregnant. The preacher took his message of hope from First Peter. From the pulpit he read the words of Peter, the Disciple who wrote, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. At the end of the worship service the Holmes family remained in their seats while the rest of the congregation passed by to extend condolences, wish them well, and offer help. The Kelleys came by near the end of the procession. Frank and Margaret shook hands with Delphos and Mary Alice, and made over little Doris. Rosa looked ahead to Jonas and Josie, as she nodded and smiled at Bills younger brother and his wife and child, and the boys who sat between them. When Rosa stood in front of Josie, the two women looked into each others eyes for a long moment and saw the regret and pain that each felt. Finally Josie spoke, My dear girl, she said, What have we done? And the two women embraced. When they pulled back, still holding each others shoulders, tears in their eyes, Josie asked, What have I done? Rosa found no words to respond, but they hugged again and Josie whispered into Rosas ear, Im so sorry, dear. Im so sorry. As they moved on, Rosa looked past Fay, to Vesta, who held out her arms to Rosa. The two hugged each other as they cried together for their loss.

The holidays passed with the help of family and friends. Then, on a Sunday morning, January 5, a letter arrived at the Langdon Post Office from France, typed on plain paper with Bills name, Rank, Company and Battalion for purposes of identification.

Office of the Chief Nurse Base Hospital No. 26, Allerey, Saone etLoire, France Dec. 9 , 1918

My dear Mrs. Holmes: Your splendid son William has been in our hospital since November 10 and his pluckiness and courage in fighting a hopeless case of pneumonia has won the love and admiration of all around him. Even though he was so weak he always had a smile for those who were caring for him. He died yesterday at noon and the end was very peaceful. He did not know he was dying and passed very quietly away. We all sympathize so deeply with you now and hope that there will be consolation for you in knowing that your son died for his country in this big war of democracy. We will bury him in our American cemetery, a lovely spot on top of a hill overlooking the Saoneriver, where many of his countrymen are also buried. Assuring you again of our heartfelt sympathy, I am

Annie Gosman

Josie read Nurse Gosmans letter over again and again. She made handwritten copies for all the family. By the time she formulated a reply, she had memorized every word of Nurse Gosmans eloquent consolation. She practiced her response on old lined tablet paper, written in a careful hand, scribed in brown ink with an old-style pen.

Annie Gosman My Dear Friend With a heart full of Love I am trying to answer your kind and appreciated letter which we received Sunday morning, Jan. 5th. We had received the Telegram from the War Department in December and thought we would in time hear from some one at the Hospital where he was. Which we thank you allwe had hoped after peace was declared that our boy might get to come home, but he with many others had to make that Supreme Sacrifice. In Hospital or in battle the Gift to our country is the same. Though they be laid to rest in France, loving hearts will follow them in gratitude, and I know kind hands tucked them in gently beneath the flowers to sleep until we all awake together. I would be glad to hear from any of the nurses who might have talked with him. If he had any special desires or if he received any of our letters while at the Hospital. We had two from him from there. The last one came to us on Christmas Day, written November 25. He seems so hopeful of getting out then. I hope I am not asking too much for I know you are all so busy. Surely many mothers appreciate your service, Heres one. I have tried to do all I could at home to help. May you all be strong and of good Courage Your loving Friend, Mrs. J. H. Holmes