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"Mary Rose O'Donnell"
Love Under Fire, The War Brides
by
Alice Bateman
CHAPTER NINE
Diary, with this young man's permission, I am going to copy down a letter here. Reading these letters to the soldiers always breaks my heart. I have to somehow try to remove my emotions from this life at present, and just live and do my duty.
Death is not a harmful thing
Not to the one who goes
They are about to find their wings
Just beyond death's throes
I do not wish to leave this world
Just to escape the pain
To find my corner of the world
To find my self again
No, that wasn't the young man's letter. Funny, many times in my previous journal {the one from when I turned sixteen}, I'd sit down to write one thing, and end up having something entirely different come out of my pen. It just happened again. I sat down to copy the letter, and a poem came out.
The letter: {I had to read this aloud to this boy, barely eighteen years old. His head is covered in bandaging, and one leg was removed above the knee.}
Dear Timmy:
I hope this letter finds you well, and not in danger. I'm fine, been working in the factory in XXXXXXX {removed by the censors} for about six months now, ever since I decided that I just couldn't go back to school when there's work to be done, and money to be made.
I've taken a room in a boarding house on XXXXXXX {censored} so I can walk to work every day. Only takes about twenty minutes, and people think that's a long way. I used to walk a sight more than that every day, just to go round up the cows!
Life sure is different here in the city, Timmy, I don't rightly know how to even describe it. People are kind of cold, unfriendly, kinda scared and suspicious all at the same time. And when I smiled at them, I got the feeling that half of them thought I'm plumb crazy!
Why, whatever could be wrong with smiling at people, I thought at first.
But you know what? Now I've just stopped smiling too, Timmy, and that makes me sad. Oh sure, I still smile at the people I work with sometimes, and of course at Brian when we go out together ------- oh no, oh Timmy, I didn't mean to say it like that!
Timmy, I didn't think I'd ever hurt you, and I meant it very much when I said I loved you, but everything's changed now. You've been gone for so long, and I'm not the little country girl you used to know. I am a grown up woman now, I smoke, I make my own money - and I've been dating a couple of the men from work.
Of course you're probably thinking right now that all the real men are over fighting where you are, but there are still some here. Brian's almost blind, he wears real thick glasses, but underneath his eyes are real nice.
I'm sorry, Timmy, I shouldn't talk about him to you --- but you've been my best friend for years, and I really did want to marry you when I said yes the weekend before you left. But something inside me changed. I learned that there's more to life than cooking and cleaning and milking cows. There's life outside the farm, Timmy, and I like it. If I married you, I'd have to go back to the country and stay there. I like it too much right here - I'm staying.
So I guess this means goodbye. Timmy, I'm sorry, but this is what I have to do.
Linda
Tears have been streaming down my face as I've been copying this letter into here. This is only one of the letters I've had to read to heartbroken young soldiers over these past months. I wanted to write it in here to remind me how monstrously cruel this life is.
It's really hard for me to maintain my belief in a just and kind God right now. None of the platitudes comfort me. And yet, judging by the peom that flowed out a short time ago, I still believe in angels at least. I've had to hold these young men as they cry more often than I care to remember. It's so cruel of these girls to send a letter such as this when their beaus are over here fighting, but maybe that's better than going home again to find their girls with someone else. I just don't know.
Sometimes, if there is a letter such as this for a boy I know is going to die anyway, I don't read any of the parts about the girl saying goodbye. Why should I let them die with a broken heart if I can avoid it? I know this isn't really very honest of me, but my job is to make these soldiers more comfortable, and I think that part of that is to protect them from some things that they don't really need to know.
The young men that pass through here call me an angel all the time. I am much too prey to human emotions, to revulsion and horror, to be an angel. And right now, too angry with the God that I've worshipped and loved all my life.
I still have no idea what to tell Robert, and he's leaving tomorrow. I think I love him, but everything is so uncertain right now! I did let him kiss me last night, and it did feel wonderful... He'd like an answer before he leaves in the morning, but I just can't give him one yet. I'm still too frightened. I don't think I could survive if I let myself become so attached to Robert, to promise to marry him, and have him die too. I'm just so confused, I don't even know what to think anymore!
Good night, Diary. More when I can.