Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Part Three of TWCBC.
Tick
That Which Cannot Be Changed
Part III
For decades, Dirk Callahan’s family had had something to do with time.
His great-great-great-great-ancestor, Dirk was told, had been an avid collector of sundials. He had been obsessed with time, adding up all the hours until he died.
His other great-great-great-ancestor had devised the world’s earliest working model of the mechanical clock and his grandfather had been one of the most successful clock makers around until he died. Dirk’s father had taken over the family business and now Dirk, at age ten, was already mending watches and helping his father at the shop.
Dirk was a nice, quiet lad, a typical boy next door who minded his own business and didn’t speak to anybody unless spoken to. He got good grades in school and was a fast boy on the track. But the thing that Dirk loved the most? Clocks and watches. Every day after school Dirk would rush back to his father’s clock and watch shop and learnt everything he could digest. He learnt how to fix clocks when they broke, learnt why they broke down, learnt how to take care of them; he soon became as proficient a clock and watch mender as his father.
Watch mending and clock making were just becoming hobbies for Dirk’s father, however. Slowly, as he taught Dirk everything he knew about his art he was also handing the business over to his son. He himself was preparing for a career in the Navy. Europe was bristling with rivalry and tension and America was sure to join the war – after all, Americans loved a good old bloody armed conflict, and they had never lost one – and Dirk’s father, being a true blue American, wanted to make sure he was in the thick of it when it started.
At 41 years old, Jed Callahan was no spring chicken. But he was in remarkable physical shape. Basic training was no match for a man who had spent his life splitting firewood and bending metal. Jed was accepted and became Lieutenant Callahan. Soon he became Captain.
To this very day, if you are old enough, people still ask what you were doing and where you were on the First of September 1939. Dirk Callahan was working on a gold pocket watch with intricate designs and a “J.B.C.” engraved on the back in his father’s workshop. The watch had stopped ticking. When he heard the announcement over the radio he dropped the watch onto the workbench and rushed to the house, right behind the shop. His mother had been doing the dishes, which now lay on the floor in pieces.
His father, however, had an entirely different reaction. When the news crackled over the radio he jumped out of his bunk and yelled in his best drill Sergeant voice that it was here, it was here, it’s here, and we’re going to be joining them any moment now! His Lieutenant groaned and turned over in his bunk, and his aide did not move at all. Nevertheless, it had been what Jed was waiting for. Excitedly he threw on his uniform and rushed off to inform his commander.
The last leave that Jed Callahan ever took was on the 7th of November 1941.
Every time he came home he had the most amazing stories to tell. Dirk and his mother heard what they could on the radio, but Jed got the real thing from his Lieutenant, whose brother was a Briton and fighting in Europe. Dirk and his mother heard story after story – breathtaking escapes, heart-stopping battles, remarkable raids. Jed Callahan had a knack for storytelling; sometimes it was nigh impossible to tell if the tales were real or not. If he didn’t join the navy he could have become a professional storyteller.
There were stories of the Battle of France, of Britain, of North Africa. Jed left on the 11th of November, promising his wife and son that he would be back soon with another story.
He didn’t keep his promise.
***
9 December 1941
Mrs Diana Callahan
The secretary of war desires me to express his deep regret that your husband, Jedadiah B. Callahan, has…
***
She was inconsolable.
Dirk tried all he could to help her, even taking a few days off work which had since consumed him as he tried to drown his sorrow. But his mother refused to be consoled. She locked herself in her room and it was Dirk who had to attend the funeral and be given the American flag by the solemn Navy Lieutenant after the casket was lowered into the ground along with dozens of others. The Navy men who had served under his father shook Dirk’s hand, muttered their condolences and marched off with stiff, straight backs, trying not to betray their emotions.
Jed Callahan had been visiting the U.S.S. Arizona on the 7th of December 1941. It had been an informal visit, Jed wanting to present one of his protégés who had been posted to the Arizona with one of his most beautiful watches. Legend had it that a few moments before the ship was bombed, the watch suddenly stopped ticking.
Jed left the shop to Dirk along with the second love of his life – his golden, wondrously designed pocket watch. It was the best watch Jed had ever made. And through its five year life, it had never once stopped working.
Dirk brought it along to the recruitment station. He brought it along to Fort Bragg, carried it in his pocket at all times, and it was still in his pocket on his very first jump. It was with him when he received his jump wings, when he made his first visit back home after a year, when he prepared to go into his first combat jump. The date was July 9, 1943.
Dirk was now affectionately known to his platoon as “The Little Sergeant”, because Sergeants at fifteen were not at all usual. He had won respect from many of the men for his quiet, undemanding manner. He never expected from the men things he couldn’t do. Plus, he was a great watch mender and never hesitated to repair any watch for a dollar.
The Little Sergeant and his Pocket Watch were inseparable. Peter Sanders, who bore the proud label of Company Scrounger, remarked that stealing Colonel Gavin’s helmet was easier than Stealing Dirk’s Pocket Watch. To prove his point he broke into Regimental HQ, stole Gavin’s helmet, and wore it through the rest of the war.
The Little Sergeant was jump master for his plane on the 9th of July. The winds that night were something terrible and the little plane was blown about everywhere. Dirk struggled up as the red light came on. He opened his mouth to ask them to hook up, but just then the plane bucked and he was thrown out into the darkness. The men watched silently.
“The poor young chap,” they whispered among themselves before standing up, hooking up, checking their equipment and jumping out of the plane into the darkness, just as the plane’s engine caught fire.
Quite amazingly, The Little Sergeant was still alive. He had managed to pull his chute just in time and landed in a tree, which cushioned his fall. Dirk Callahan’s clock was still ticking. The first thing he did was to check his pocket watch. It was still working. Relieved, he proceeded to get himself out of the chute, hacking it off with his jump knife.
Someone stepped on a twig. He spun around and said “George!” softly, warily.
“Marshall.” A shadowy figure stepped into the sliver of moonlight. Corporal Sanders, wearing Jumpin’ Jim Gavin’s helmet, allowed himself a bit of a smile – it looked like his Sergeant’s lucky star was still shining brightly. Dirk grinned, took a step towards him and
Rat a tat a tat a tat! Bang, bang, bang!
Dirk collapsed, unconscious. Sanders had been hit too, but he could still walk. Or at least, he forced himself to believe he could still walk. He had to walk. He picked his Sergeant, heaved him over a shoulder and began to jog until they were safely away from the machine gunner.
Sanders waited until a medic came along before going off to rejoin the fight.
***
The Little Sergeant had been badly wounded, but amazingly enough, he was not dead. It was a miracle. The bullets had missed most of his major organs and the one bullet that had headed for the heart had been deflected – by his precious, favourite golden pocket watch. And the most amazing thing was that the watch was of such good quality and placed at such an angle that it hadn’t been dented at all. It hadn’t stopped ticking. The doctors began to call it the Miracle of the Golden Watch.
Even though the bullets had missed his heart, Dirk was still in a terrible shape. He was evacuated, and was still unconscious when his unit got back from Italy, having done extremely well. He was unconscious when James Gavin was promoted to assistant division commander and Brigadier General and the 505th got a new C.O. He was unconscious when Operation Overlord training began, and he was still sleeping on D-Day.
When Dirk woke up on the 7th of July 1944 only a few original men in his platoon remained. The rest had been killed – their bodies littering the battlefields of Italy and Normandy – or transferred. Dirk himself found a home in his new outfit, the Third Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was immediately put back into training, using his legs which had grown week over the months in bed. The pocket watch was given back to him, and he cradled it dearly before putting it back in his front pocket, barely stopping himself from kissing it.
The original soldiers, having also been transferred, were delighted that the Little Sergeant was well and alive again. Not that he was a little Sergeant anymore, however. Recruits now referred to him as ‘sir’ – his old friends called him the Little Big Lieutenant.
Corporal Sanders too was no longer Corporal Sanders. In Sicily he had won the DSC for bravery, in Normandy he had received a battlefield commission and he was now Captain Sanders, in charge of the Company. And he still wore Colonel – now Major General and commander of the 82nd – Gavin’s helmet.
The 17th of September was a beautiful day. The jump and the landings were perfect. The 82nd assembled in an instant, just like during practice. They attacked Grave Bridge and advanced all the way to Nijmegen, just like it was supposed to be. And that was when the trouble started. Nijmegen was defended, it seemed, by the whole German army. Time after time they attacked. Time after time they were repulsed. As Captain Sanders remarked to Lieutenant Callahan, “I’ll separate that watch from you before we ever take Nijmegen”, to which Dirk replied, “That you will,” took out the watch and gave it to Peter for a few seconds.
On the 20th of September they tried out General Gavin’s most audacious plan yet – cross the Waal River in boats in broad daylight. Everybody thought that Gavin was going crazy. Gavin knew a lot of men would die, but he also knew it was the only way to do it.
Before the battle, the Little Big Lieutenant amazed everybody by pulling out his golden pocket watch, fingering it lovingly for a few seconds before tossing it onto the muddy bank. “I won’t be needing this anymore,” he said quietly, sadly.
Peter Sanders shook him, hard. “You’ll survive,” he said, almost angrily. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t give up hope. You’ll live.”
But Dirk didn’t say anything, he merely jumped into the boat and started to paddle.
It was a terrible battle. Peter had to watch, helplessly, as his men were mowed down, one by one, falling like puppets whose strings had been cut. Their lives had certainly been cut – cut short. None of the men deserved to die. Peter could only cursed and continue to paddle. They scrambled up the opposite bank, their numbers greatly diminished, but they took the bridge. They took it.
But the Little Big Lieutenant was not there.
They found him on the bank, eyes wide open, mouth set in a crooked smile. The bullet had hit him in the heart, where his golden pocket watch, had it been there, could have saved him, like it had done last time. The watch was found on the other side of the bank, its face in the mud, dirty for the first time in its eight year life.
When they picked it up, they found that it had stopped ticking.
2:00 AM
This is part two of the newly named series "That which cannot be changed". I think it's dumb.
***
Windows
That Which Cannot Be Changed
Part II
Windows. He had always been fascinated by them. The way they made was exciting enough, but windows didn’t just mean a pane of glass with a plastic frame. Windows were openings, portals to the world as you never saw it before. As a small boy Jackson P. Hartwell had seen a window, and he had looked through it to see a picture, so horrific at first that he had thought it was a painting, rather than the real thing. Outside his home two boys were beating up a smaller boy, viciously, so viciously you would have thought they were trying to kill him, which they were. The small boy was but Jackson’s age, and the two older boys were but half a year older. And what was this? A crowd of schoolchildren was gathering. Jackson watched in horror as they started to applaud, terrible, evil grins plastered on their faces. Jackson had run from the window, trembling. It was his first introduction to the real world, and he never forgot it.
The next window Jackson encountered was his father. His father was a philosopher, an avid reader who had a library in his study larger than the town library. Jackson had learnt how to read from an early age and was fascinated by books. His father had been overjoyed, and father and son often spent the evenings together reading in the study, reading their own ‘book of the week’. And every week it would be a new book.
The third window in his life was the mirror. When Jackson walked by a mirror he would never look at it. His mother had forbidden him to, saying that it would induce pride and pride came before a fall. She cleaned Jackson up in the mornings so he always looked presentable. But one day his mother wasn’t home and Jackson, curious like all small children are, peeked into a mirror and saw himself for the very first time.
Staring back at him was bright, green eyed little boy of five and a half, with tousled and unkempt dark hair. He smiled, and the person in the mirror smiled too. And the reflection looked so happy that whenever Jackson was scared, or angry, or frightened, he would go back to the mirror and smile. But then the smile would look fake and strained and abnormal and soon Jackson learnt that in life things were not always what they seemed.
Jackson P. Hartwell was not a normal boy. He had grown up highly intelligent and often talked philosophy to his fellow schoolmates, who didn’t understand a word of what he said. Everything had a deep meaning and this was what Jackson saw, not the mere superficial meaning. He was, in other words, quite incapable of calling a spade a spade. He was a devout Catholic – his mother’s idea and his mother’s choice – and recited the Glory Be at twelve noon, the Hail Mary whenever his mother instructed him to and the Lord’s Prayer when he woke up and when he went to bed, which was a punctual nine o’clock sharp.
There were no games in the Hartwell household, no fun, no color, no liveliness. Just a dull, boring, big 18th Century mansion with a huge library. Every day Jackson was dressed by his own “gentlemen-in-waiting” and paraded in front of his mother, who would frown and adjust his clothes. On Saturdays and Sundays he would be served breakfast in bed.
Despite all this Jackson was not a happy child. He did not want this life. It was like living in a golden cage. No matter how golden it was it was still a cage. And Jackson yearned to break free.
So eighteen years passed in this manner and Jackson’s fourth window, one of opportunity, came in the form of a recruitment poster. England had declared war on Germany and desperately needed to beef up her Army. Jackson had signed up immediately and at dinner he told his parents. His father had not been happy, saying that philosophers observed from the sidelines, not from the front. His mother had been hysterical, sobbing that her darling little boy was about to go off to war and be killed. Jackson explained, as politely as possible, that he was no longer a little boy but a man, and he had to fight for his country and for his friends and for his family. And so he went.
But the truth of it all was different. Jackson did not want to fight. Jackson had absolutely no intention of pulling the trigger of a gun and killing a fellow man. He joined up because he wanted to see what it was like. He wanted to know why war was hell, why war was such a terrible thing. He wanted to know why wars were waged. And most of all, he wanted to know about the men; why men died willingly for their friends or family or country, why men killed their own brothers, why men could turn into monsters in war. He wanted to know why men fought.
***
The first person Jackson met in the barracks was a tall, slight, lean youth of twenty who spoke with an American accent. James H. Petersen had been born in Bingham, New York and it was only because his parents were British that he had joined the British Army. The lad’s dark brown hair was perpetually messed up and a few stray strands fell into his blue-grey eyes. He walked around in a devil may care way that had many ladies flocking to him when they had their passes to London. His uniform was rumpled and a red beret was perched precariously on his head. After being around him for a few days, Jackson learnt to keep his hand on his wallet at all times when around Petersen.
Practically everything Petersen owned was stolen. The only thing he didn’t steal was his Sergeant rank and a Victoria Cross, earned in the deserts of North Africa in 1941 for recklessly charging a bunker, killing everyone inside, before single handedly clearing the way for his unit to advance. He was moved back to England and to a different unit after he was wounded severely in a fight.
The training began and Jackson, though older than most, found it much more taxing and complicated because he was a philosopher, a thinker, he wasn’t used to extensive physical training. Through the entire course Petersen and Jackson developed an odd friendship. Petersen was three inches taller than Jackson; on the physical course Petersen would finish first and Jackson last; Jackson was pious and a “good little church boy” while Petersen swore and drank; Jackson was honest and never broken a rule before (save his mother’s strange rule about the mirror) while Petersen stole everything he could get his hands on (including the drill Sergeant’s handkerchief which he then tacked up for everyone to see). But they were inseparable.
They fought in many scenarios – marsh, jungles, street-to-street, desert, even in the water. To their surprise – or rather, to Jackson’s surprise – both men were offered commissions. Jackson took it; Petersen didn’t. Petersen’s only, rather strange reason was that he would allow him to nick more things because there were more soldiers than officers, although Jackson pointed out that officers had a lot more things to steal from. Whatever the case, Jackson now commanded first platoon and didn’t know what to do with it, so Petersen helped him run it as the Platoon Sergeant.
One rainy day in London while on a pass Jackson walked into his father, who took one look at Jackson’s uniform and clucked disapprovingly, although you could still see a sparkle of pride in his eyes. When he saw Petersen in his (stolen) red beret and crumpled uniform, however, his eyes narrowed, and it was only because the man was Jackson’s father that Petersen refrained from punching him. Jackson and his father exchanged a few half hearted words before his father left. When he did, Petersen said through gritted teeth, “Doesn’t think much of us lower class folks, does he?”
Jackson was saved from having to reply by noticing a slight bulge in Petersen’s pocket. He ordered sternly, “hand it over.”
Petersen gave him a sheepish grin before pulling out Jackson’s father’s wallet. “You’re not going to give it back to him, are you?” he asked as Jackson pulled out the money from the wallet.
“No,” Jackson grinned. “We’re spending it. Didn’t I tell you? Tonight’s our last trip to London. We’re going to France pretty soon.”
***
Sitting in the LCVP, Jackson felt sick. Looking over at the other men, he realized that they were all looking liable to vomit anytime, except for the Navy coxswain, hollering cheerfully, “Why the green faces, lads?”
A couple of soldiers were vomiting into the sea, unable to keep it together any longer. The coxswain in another boat not too far from them was also taunting his charges, but then the whizz of a shell came and his face paled and the next second the boat had disappeared, leaving nothing but small splinters of metal and a pool of red liquid mixing with the blue sea until there was nothing.
The coxswain in their own Higgins boat wisely shut up after seeing that.
BLAM! The ramp slammed down and the men swarmed out. The Germans raked the LCVP with agonizingly accurate machine gun fire, killing many with their first bursts. Jackson waddled over to a huge metal structure, hiding behind it, shivering – he had thrown off his jacket and equipment in the water so as to lose weight and be able to climb out. He couldn’t see Petersen anywhere. The beach was littered with the bodies of the dead and the dying, and barely five minutes had passed. Knowing that the tank traps were as good as a bright red “HIT ME” target, Jackson scrambled on, dodging the bullets as best as he could, stopping only to pick up another jacket along the way from a man who lay face down in the sand.
The men who witnessed him on that day later said that he was a miracle. The moment he ran from one tank trap, a shell landed there, a shell that would have killed him had he still been there. He huddled with a group of soldiers at the next tank trap, and a shell landed, injuring three, killing six, and yet he was unscathed. And Jackson P. Hartwell ran on.
He made it to the foot of one bunker, where the machine guns couldn’t get him and neither could the shells. A medic and two others soldiers were already there, one with a familiar red beret on top of his bandaged and bleeding head.
“James H. Petersen,” Jackson said sternly, ruining the effect with a relieved smile. “Been dodging your duty again?”
Petersen looked up and grinned. “I would say the same of you, Major.”
Major? Jackson was still a Lieutenant as far as he knew. He looked down at his jacket and groaned. On the jacket’s epaulettes was the insignia of a Major.
***
His platoon had lost seven men killed and twelve more severely wounded. Out of the remaining men at least three quarters were walking wounded, Petersen included. The assault had taken a huge toll on the platoon, on the company and pretty much the entire Third Infantry Division.
Over the next few weeks of battle, which was mainly an attempt to take Caen, Jackson’s lucky star never failed to shine. Once, on the outskirts of the city, friendly aircraft had plastered Jackson’s position with bombs, killing some soldiers and wounding many others, but amazingly Jackson had walked into cover a split second before and was unharmed. In another instance, Petersen had procured a jeep (as always, Jackson didn’t dare ask how) and he and Jackson were ferrying the wounded out of the Germans’ reach. Petersen pressed his horn loudly while Jackson picked the last wounded man up. They made it out of the shelling area just as the German shells started to land. And an hour after that, when they went back out in the jeep, a shell landed directly on them, killing the soldier in the back, throwing Petersen out headfirst, turning the vehicle over. But Jackson had gotten out a moment before that and was safe, without a scratch anywhere on his body.
Unknowingly, subconsciously, Jackson began to take more risks with his life, each time believing that his luck would protect him. When volunteers were needed for a patrol, Jackson raised his hand and insisted on going with his men. He said that it was to protect his soldiers, that if anybody was going on a patrol it should be him. But this was not entirely the truth. The reason why Jackson volunteered was because he knew that he would not be killed. And so life opened up his fifth window – the window of delusion.
People noticed this, but now Jackson was a Major and nobody dared to tell him so. Nobody except Petersen, that was. At every opportunity Petersen would remind him that his lucky star couldn’t and wouldn’t shine forever. Jackson never listened to him, even threatening him once to court martial him for “harassing an officer”. But Petersen, old for his years and knowing what Jackson was getting himself into, persisted. Slowly, they drifted apart.
At the news that volunteers were needed to go up in a reconnaissance plane and take photographs of enemy positions, Jackson’s well-practiced arm shot up. The plane flew straight into Flak Alley and was hit critically. The pilot, bleeding form his head, managed a perfect belly landing before slumping over, unconscious. Once again, Jackson’s luck had saved both him and the pilot. He picked the unconscious men up and trekked two miles in the direction of HQ before a recon jeep found them and brought them back. That night, Jackson and his friends (Petersen excluded) drank to the now-famous, much admired, so-called Jackson’s Luck.
Now Jackson was confident that he would survive the war, and wrote his mother to tell her not to worry. He was also aware that he was turning into a hardened, grizzled veteran, no longer that rich, soft kid who couldn’t call a spade a spade and had everything done for him. In the battlefield, with bullets screaming around you, artillery shells landing, people dying, there wasn’t time to think, let alone think deeply about abstract things that people didn’t care about anyway.
Slowly but surely, the war drew to a close. Jackson couldn’t wait. He longed to be there at the end of the war, to cheer when they announced it, to feel damn proud of himself for playing a part in bringing about an end to the horrific conflict, to prove to Petersen that he wasn’t going to get killed. They walked down the street, no longer looking for Krauts, but rather for things to take home as souvenirs. The day was May 8, 1945.
All of a sudden, with no warning, a stray bullet – American, from fighting a few streets down – struck Jackson’s head. He fell, a wondrous look on his face. Petersen was by his side in an instant, but it was much too late. His final window – the window of enlightenment – had opened for Jackson. He realized that throughout all this time, he’d only survived because Death wanted to show him that luck couldn’t last forever. He realized that he was finally free of the chains that had bound him since childhood. He realized that Petersen had been right all along, and after all he had done or tried to do for Jackson, Jackson had rejected him. “I’m sorry,” Jackson whispered. Sorry to Death, to his parents, to Petersen. His eyes closed and he stopped moving. Nobody spoke a word.
A few moments later, the radio broadcaster announced with unashamed glee that the war was over.
