War without End

Author's Note: this is my first story. If you feel the need to comment, please be honest but kind.

"Hey Mister, you wanna lick?"

I looked down at a freckle-faced, snot-nosed little cowboy holding up one of those all-day suckers. His other hand was attached to the reins of the stick-horse he'd been riding up and down the aisle for the last fifteen minutes, annoying the hell out of most of the old coots on this Streamliner. I grinned at him. I figured you couldn't expect a four or five-year-old boy to sit still for hours on a bus.

"No thanks, Little Pardner. Maybe later."

He rode off into the sunset and I turned back to the window and the scenic West.

I must have nodded off, because next time I noticed, the bus was no longer headed into the sun. I glanced out the window and saw a small sign - "Welcome to Lordsburg Pop. 3101." Lordsburg - the name sounded familiar; oh, yeah, that was the town those people were headed for in that cowboy picture Stagecoach. Too bad there were no Claire Trevor's on this bus.

We took two rights and stopped in front of a two-story cinder block building with a couple of Signal Oil pumps out front. The hand-painted sign on the front read "Baker's Signal Service." A small Greyhound hung from a rod sticking out over a green and white awning above the door.

The driver barked for everybody to get off and stretch their legs; we were making a 20-minute stop. I was in the bench seat at the very back of the bus, so I could prop up my leg. By the time I got to the door, everybody was milling around the front of the station. Roy Rogers Jr. was still hopping around on Trigger and licking that sucker, while his frazzled Mom tried to wrangle him to the bathroom around the side of the building. I held onto the chrome bar and dropped myself off onto the gravel, pulling out my handkerchief and wiping off my brow and the back of my neck. I lit up a Lucky and stood watching the crowd.

The screen door of the station creaked and opened; that's when I saw her for the first time. Mind you, she was no beauty - no Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable - but she wasn't homely or plain, either. She had dark brown hair streaked with gray, braided into a single pigtail that hung over her left shoulder. Her dress was a simple blue shirtwaist with matching buttons all the way down and a cotton belt tied at the front. She was tall and slim and rawboned; she wouldn't have looked out of place chasing chickens around a barnyard. Her nose was straight and thin; her eyes were light blue-gray and empty. I had seen that far-away look on the faces of a hundred Marines and in the mirror. This lady was broken like me.

Without a smile or a frown or any hint of emotion, she quietly announced that she had sandwiches, coffee, and soda pop for sale inside. I had been sitting on buses for the better part of two days, covering almost 600 miles from San Diego, so I wasn't eager to get right back in that seat. Plus, I had bought a ticket for all the way to the end of Highway 80 at Tybee Island, Georgia, and I had six months to use it. So, not wanting to dine on service station fare and not really having to leave right then, I decided to reconnoiter Lordsburg. I did a complete circle to get my bearings and spotted a Hank's Diner halfway up the block and across the street. I grabbed my duffel and headed for the diner.

Stiff and sore, I hobbled into Hank's and settled on one of a half-dozen chrome and leather barstools at the counter. There were two customers at the far end of the counter and four or five others at a few booths around the outside walls. From behind the counter, the big hairy guy with the paper hat said "Welcome to Hank's; what'll you have?"

Glancing at the handwritten menu above me, I ordered a cup of coffee, a hamburger, and some French fried potatoes.

"Coming right up." Setting the cup in front of me, he poured the coffee, then turned and tossed a patty on the griddle and dropped a basket of fries into a deep fryer. "You just get off the bus over there?" he said, pointing over my shoulder with his spatula.

"Yeah," I said.

"Where ya been and where ya going?" he asked.

"Just got back from a little tour of the South Pacific and now I'm off to see the country."

"Is that so? What tour group were you with?"

"23rd Regiment, 4th Marines."

Nodding at my leg, "where'd you pick up the souvenir?", he asked. "Iwo Jima", I said.

He grabbed a hamburger roll, split it on a plate, set the patty on it, piled it up with some lettuce, tomato, and grilled onions, added a heap of fries on top of that, and slid the plate in front of me. I squirted some mustard on the hamburger, some ketchup on the fries, and dug in, while he talked.

"I'm an old gyrene myself. Belleau Wood. First War. Once a Marine, always a Marine, right?"

I nodded and kept chewing until I finished off the platter. I was hungrier than I thought.

Hank refilled my coffee while glancing out the window at the Greyhound pulling back out on Highway 80. "You missed your bus, son."

"As they say down in Australia, 'no worries, mate.' I was thinking of sticking around here a few days. Speaking of buses, who's the lady running the Greyhound stop over there?"

"You mean Maggie? Maggie Baker?"

"You tell me. I didn't talk to her, but something seemed a little off about her."

"Oh, Maggie's a fine lady, as good as they come - but she might as well have planted herself when she buried her husband Will, although to tell you the truth, they didn't really find enough of Will to bury. He got killed in that Port Chicago ammo explosion. You know the one that killed all those colored sailors in '44."

"What was he doing up there?", I asked.

"Felt guilty 'bout not serving. Too young for the First War, 4F for the Second because of his heart. But Will could fix anything - got a job as a mechanic at the Port Chicago Naval Station. Maggie begged him not to go, but he just had to do his part. Left her to run the filling station; went off and got himself blown up. To top it all off, they had no kids, so she didn't even have any part of him to carry on. Just a headstone over an empty grave. It broke her heart, sucked the life right out of her - like sticking an ice pick in a tire. Now she's just marking time -- like a lot of you boys."

I finished my coffee and tried to pay Hank. "Your money's no good here."

"Thanks," I said, and eased off the stool. Glancing back at Hank, I asked him where I might find a bed for the night. "Try the Stratford up the street...it's on this side, last block before the square." Taking a glance back over at the station, I walked on up the street.

I found the Stratford Hotel and settled into a two buck a night room on the 2nd floor. Generally, the more highfalutin the name, the seedier the joint, so I expected a fleabag. But the Stratford was okay - a basic, no-frills place apparently catering to traveling salesmen and folks coming in from out of town for business at the courthouse. The bed was a lot more comfortable than a bus seat.

Next morning, I ambled back down the street to Hank's. The breakfast crowd was a bit bigger than the day before, but I found a seat at one of the booths. This time, an older blonde waitress took my order and then brought the flapjacks and sausage. I took my time eating. This time, I paid.

I lit one up and wandered down the sidewalk and across the street to Baker's filling station. Noticing the "Help Wanted" sign on the front window, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision; I put out my butt in the ashcan by the door, opened the screen door and approached the counter straight ahead. She was there, standing behind the counter, popping a receipt down on one of those pointy spindles. (I winced like I always do when I see that happen.) She raised those dull eyes to me and asked, "May I help you, Sir?"

"Yes, ma'am. I saw your sign and wanted to ask about the job."

"Oh, all right then, my helper over there, "she pointed to a young dark-skinned boy, sitting on top of a drink box, "is going off to work for his father and uncles, so I need someone to pump gas, handle the cash box, and maybe do some small mechanic jobs, like changing spark plugs and oil. Do you have any experience in that kind of work, Mr.?"

"Murphy, Jim Murphy, ma'am. Not in a place like this, but I grew up on my granddaddy's farm and learned how to fix his trucks and tractors, so I don't think I'd have any trouble here."

"No, with that kind of background, I doubt you would. Unfortunately, the job only pays $15 a week, but it includes a room upstairs in the back, if you need a place to stay."

"That sounds swell, ma'am. If you'll take a chance on me, I'll do a good job for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Consider yourself hired. Now, when can you start?"

"Please call me Jim, ma'am, and I can start in the morning."

"Good, we try to open at 7. See you then. Oh, by the way, I'm Margaret Baker, but you can call me Maggie. The youngster there is David Hidalgo. When you get here tomorrow, he'll show you the ropes. Not that there's a whole lot to learn."

I nodded to the boy, tipped my hat to Maggie, and strolled on back towards the Stratford.

I wasn't exactly sure why I took the job. I wasn't hurting for money - I'd had most of my Marine Corps $96 a month sent back home to my sisters. I was doing the same now with my disability check. I'd held back a dollar here and there to pay for beer and cigarettes, but there weren't many places to spend it in the jungle or the Naval Hospital. And I wasn't planning on settling down in Lordsburg. Maybe, I just wasn't ready to go home. I missed my sisters, but how much help would I be on the farm? Heck, I wasn't even sure I could pump gas.

Whatever my motivation, next morning I was standing in front of Baker's at 0645. The kid, David, was already there. He returned my nod. I lit up a cigarette, offered him one, although I reckoned he might be a bit young yet. He grinned and politely declined. A few minutes later, Maggie pulled up in an old International D pickup truck. "Good morning, Jim - David," she said softly, as she opened the screen and unlocked the front door. She then told David to take me into the garage and show me around. I followed him to the left through a door opening into the service area. It had one bay with a car rack over a poured concrete pit. A good-sized air compressor and tank stood in the left back corner and a rolling tool chest sat on the right. To the left of the compressor, against the side wall, there was a tire breakdown machine. All around the room, about eight feet off the floor, there was a ledger shelf with an assortment of tires, inner tubes in boxes, belts, and other parts. All in all, a typical filling station garage.

David showed me how to roll up the garage door and we were open for business. He rolled a wire rack of Signal Motor Oil cans out by the gas pumps. I filled up the windshield washer bucket, dropped the squeegee in it, and set it in between the pumps. I followed David around like a puppy, while he went through several other small tasks required for opening - turning on the compressor, starting up the electric fan in the gable, and making sure the bathroom was clean. The driveway bell went off several times and I shadowed David while he pumped the gas, cleaned the windshields, or checked the oil. Maggie had a lot of regular credit customers, so David also showed me how to record the chits in the account book. Since David was leaving, Maggie hadn't taken on any repair jobs lately, so I filled in the rest of my time sweeping, cleaning, and checking out the tools.

It was a busy first day, but I managed to take the weight off my leg now and then, so that I didn't completely give out. Close to 1700, Maggie asked me to follow her upstairs, so she could show me the room where I would be bunking. It was a rectangle about 10 by 12, with a wrought iron single bed against the front wall. On the back wall was a cabinet with a laundry sink and about 18 inches of counter space. An electric hotplate sat on the counter. A small three drawer chest sat to the right of the sink cabinet.

"I know it's not much to look at, but it's warm and dry," she said. "You'll have to use the station bathroom. And you can wash up in the sink or use the showers at the YMCA."

"It'll do fine."

I tossed my duffel on the bed, sat down on the edge and watched her walk down the stairs.

So began my career as a filling station attendant. David left the next week...he went to work for his dad and uncles at Hidalgo Brothers Garage. They had shut down in '42 when the brothers enlisted. Fortunately, they came home safe and sound, and were reopening the family business. I wished him well. He was a good kid and a hard worker.

Gradually, I learned my way around the station and got familiar with the regular customers. I saw Maggie every day. She spent much of her time getting ready for the Greyhound stop -- making sandwiches and restocking the drink box. We didn't talk much - except when she would come tell me a customer had called to schedule an oil change or something. Mostly, we walked around like a couple of sad sacks, each in our own slough of despond. After a couple of weeks, I figure I'd built up a little trust because she gave me a key to the door. Now, I could go out after the station closed, so I occasionally spent evenings walking around the downtown. And thinking about Maggie. Not that way. I didn't think I was romantically attracted to her. After all, she was probably old enough to be my mother. And no girl was going to be interested in a man like me, anyway. No, I was thinking about how I could help her out of her funk. I remembered something our priest back home had said in his homily one time: "if you want to forget about your troubles, think about someone else's." And, Lord, I was tired of wallowing in mine. I had been stuck in self-pity since I woke up on the hospital ship on February 20, 1945.

The day before, we had hit the beach just after 0900. Our job was to take the east end of Airfield #1. It was easy going until we were about 300 yards in; then, all hell broke loose. Machine gun fire was coming from two pillboxes at both ends of the airfield. That was bad enough, but the worst thing was the artillery and mortar fire. The Japs had pre-sighted their guns and they were pounding us. I was carrying the.30 cal Browning and the water tank; Lance Cpl Zielinski was lugging the tripod mount and an ammo can. My other two grunts were hauling more ammo. We dove into a good shell crater, set up the gun, and started pouring fire on the pillbox at the east end. It took more than an hour for the rifle platoons to get in position, while we kept up the supporting fire. Just after I sent the two grunts back to the beach for more ammo, I heard the satchel charges go off in the pillbox. I found my oven mitt, pulled the gun from the mount and started across the airfield, with Z on my tail. Moving in that volcanic ash was tough; I felt like I was running in place. And the heavy smoke in the air made breathing and seeing difficult.

What I remember most from that day was the noise. The machine gun and small arms fire was continuous. So was the mortar and artillery fire - especially those big Jap 150mm mortars. Throw in the constant volleys from the offshore tin cans and you had a hellish cacophony that made it almost impossible to hear the man running next to you. Whoever said God was in control, has never been on a battlefield. I was going as fast as I could, my heart pounding in my ears, when the noise just stopped. I had been looking straight ahead towards the north side of the field; now, I was looking up at the sky. I felt like I was floating underwater - my vision was cloudy, and the noise was distant. Then everything went dark.

I awoke to a light tapping on my right shoulder and a soft voice saying "Wake up. Wake up, Sergeant." I blinked my eyes and focused on the unfamiliar face leaning over me. She shifted to the foot of the bed, looked under the sheet for a minute, then came back and listened to my chest with her stethoscope.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You're on board the USS Samaritan. You've been out since you were wounded yesterday. We just arrived today. We got you from a field hospital this afternoon. In fact, you were the first casualty we received from the beach. I'm Ensign Alice Kennedy. I'm going to be taking care of you until we get back to Pearl or wherever we're going. You're still under the effects of the anesthesia from surgery and we're giving you morphine, but you let me know if the pain breaks through. Okay?"

"Surgery? How bad was I hit?"

"One of the doctors will be by shortly to talk to you about your injuries. Let's just say that you were seriously wounded, but you're gonna make it home."

She smiled, patted my shoulder, and walked away, while I, in my groggy state, fell back to sleep.

Sometime later, I was shaken awake again - this time by a much less hospitable face.

"Welcome back, Marine. I'm Doc Sharp, one of the surgeons on board. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, Sergeant -- the bastards hit you hard. First off, the good news is you've still got your dick and your balls. The bad is, you took severe shrapnel damage to both legs; we had to take your right one from just above the knee. We managed to save your left, even though you lost a big chunk of muscle out of your calf, and at the same time, you caught a bullet through your left thigh. Fortunately, it went through clean without hitting bone or a major artery. The left leg's gonna be ugly, but you'll walk on it. As for the right, when it heals up, you'll be fitted with an artificial leg and trained how to use it. It's not gonna be some pegleg -- medicine's made great strides in prosthetics since the First War. I'm not gonna lie and say you'll be like new - that'll never happen. But we'll get you back on two feet again. Now, let's look at those legs."

From that first glimpse of my mangled lower body, I could think of nothing but what I had lost - my leg, my worth as a man, my future. Now, here in Lordsburg, over a year later, I was tired of that hopelessness and despair. I thought about what Father O'Brien had said and decided to focus on Maggie's depression. I set out to try and bring her out of it.

Whenever I wasn't busy in the garage, I would go into the office area and chat with her. You know, talk about the weather or one of the customers who had just left. At first, it was like pulling teeth - she just wouldn't say much, but after a few days, I started talking about my family history, and she started to come around a little.

"So, you're from Georgia? I could hear the southern accent, but I thought maybe Texas or Oklahoma. I wouldn't think there'd be many Irish Catholics in Georgia."

"Oh, yeah, quite a few in the Savannah area. Irish started coming there over a hundred years ago to build the Central of Georgia railway. The Irish worked long and hard for cheap and weren't as valuable as slaves. When the railroad was done, the ones that hadn't been worked to death stayed around and took up farming. My great-grandfather was one of them."

"Is your family still farming there?"

"Yes'm, we're hanging on. My Da's gone, but his father's still kicking at 73. Still could outwork me, before I joined the Corps. My Ma's in fine fettle -- working the farm and watching over her chicks -- my little sisters. There's three of them, all born within five years."

"Jim, why are you here? Why aren't you back home with them?"

"I've asked myself that a thousand times and I still don't know the answer. Seems it's just been too much for me to think about. When my Dad died, I thought I'd be the one to support and protect them but look at me now. I'm a sorry specimen of a farmer and I don't want to be some pathetic figure for my sisters to pity."