Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1943)

Record Details:

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We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Then, "The conquering hero comes home from the wars," he said, and the same bitterness lay deep in his voice as he bit off two more short syllables. "4-F!" It took time for the words to sink through all the barriers I had built up against loneliness, all the careful plans I had made for a world in which there would be no Ross for a long while. Finally I managed, "4-F! But Ross, you were 1-A — " My voice trailed away. "Yes," he said, flatly, "I was. Then on the final physical before induction a snoopy doctor discovered I'd had my leg rolled on by a horse when I was twelve — you remember, I told you about that. Imagine it, Ann — thirteen years ago, and it's never given me any trouble. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn't listen. Said the bone was injured, and that the leg would break down in a month of drilling. Said I wouldn't be any good as a soldier. So — " he laughed shortly — "here I am. What a laugh for everybody in town, after the farewell parties, all the good-bys — " lt/fY mind, part of it, was racing ahead, exploring the days to come, trying to find out how this old way of life of ours, which was suddenly a new way, would turn out — trying to adjust myself to having Ross safely home again, after . the terrible adjustment to his going away. And part of my mind was working very slowly, like a swimmer in water, pushing heavily through the tangle of surprise and fears, trying to reach some kind of solid, shore. "Don't say that, Ross," I told him, noting with a kind of strange detachment how slowly my answers came, how there was a pause between his speech and mine. "Everyone will be glad, dear. They'll know — " He came closer to me, then. "Are you glad?" "Of course I'm glad." But it sounded flat, because I wasn't sure. Ross < had wanted so to fight, had been so eager to go — no, I wasn't glad if this were going to make him unhappy, if this were going to change him. I couldn't honestly tell him I was glad that he'd been kept from doing something he so passionately wanted to do. You can't tell a man you're glad he's a failure in his own eyes. No matter that it meant he would be kept safe for me — safe from bombs and bullets. He came closer still, until I seemed to be able to see beyond his eyes, to the turmoil and the misery that lay back of them. His pain was mine, too — so much so that I only half heard him when he spoke again. "One thing, Ann — we can have our dreams back. We won't have to postpone them. We can get married right away." He was crawling to me for protection, I thought sharply. Would it be the best thing, no matter how much I wanted it, to marry him at once? Shouldn't we go ahead, as once we had planned before war destroyed the whole world's plans, and be married on my mother's wedding anniversary, several months from now? Why should we do things differently, as if something shameful had happened to make necessity greater? Shouldn't we face the world as if nothing at all had happened? I could, I thought then, best help Ross by making him do that. . . . And there was something else. Something I was ashamed of, so ashamed that I dared not acknowledge it even to myself. I was a little sorry. Ross had gone away a potential hero. Even as I had been afraid for him, even as I had desperately wished that he might not have to go, I had been proud. I had pictured him in his uniform, so tall, so straight, so handsome. Somehow, this was only a shell of that image which had come crawling home. I don't know what of this showed in my face, but some of it must have been apparent in the silence, for Ross drew sharply away. I knew I must answer him, quickly. "I think we ought to stick to our original plans," I said. "I think we should be married when we planned to be married, and not rush things. . . ." It sounded lame. It sounded insincere. It sounded unsure, and I knew it and couldn't help it. And later I would gladly have cut out my tongue if it would have kept me from saying any of those things. If only I could have thrown back my head, and smiled at him, and said, bravely, freely, "Now — tomorrow, today — whenever you like, I'm yours, Ross, and you know it!" But it wasn't really I who had spoken — it was some shock-paralyzed creature who had forgotten how to think, who had forgotten how the man she loved must feel, lost in her own feelings. . . . Ross said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. I couldn't stand the self-mockery in his eyes, and the shame that lay naked there. My paralysis broke at last, and I began to talk. I said there were other ways of fighting besides shooting people, There was defense work — hundreds of men were needed. There was farm labor. There was — and then, like an inspiration, I thought of Buck Turner. "He needs help badly, Ross, and he told me himself you were the best man with a horse he ever saw. The Government has to have those horses — think, darling, you'd be doing something other people can't do. Breaking wild horses — " On and on I talked. Sometimes I thought he wasn't even listening. Finally he said, "Well, I reckon it's all 38 that's left me to do. I've got to get out of town — and working with Buck at least offers me that. I could live up there at the shack. . . ." I came close to him then. I had to bring back the warm, eager Ross who belonged to me instead of this indifferent, brooding stranger I couldn't talk to. "Darling," I said, "we — we can be married, now. We don't have to wait. We said we'd get married when you came back — and you are back." I tried to laugh lightly. "Aren't you even going to say when you want to?" "No." An angry flush whipped his skin, and the words struck out at me. "I saw your face when you came in and found me here. You looked surprised, sure — but you were disappointed, too. Don't try to deny it, Ann. You want a soldier, not a flop. And when you talked to me, you were trying to pump up enthusiasm, trying to make yourself glad I was back. In your heart, you're not." "That isn't true! It was the shock, Ross. Remember I'd resigned myself to your being away — for a long, long time maybe. I'd steeled myself to getting along without you, to being brave. And then when I found you here so unexpectedly— " "That's just what I mean. You didn't have time to prepare yourself, and you showed what you really felt. I know you, Ann. Don't try to fool me with any phony business. I know where I stand with you and everybody else, and you're free of the engagement as far as I'm concerned." And then he turned and walked out, leaving me standing there. Leaving me feeling my whole world had broken into fragments. . . . The riext few days were the most miserable of my life. I waited for Ross to come, to call. He did neither. I tried to put myself in his place and feel what he was feeling. He was a proud boy, and an intense one. What he was going through wasn't easy. There was the humiliation he felt from every side. People said, "Hear about Ross Coleman? Told everybody good-by and went up to Phoenix to be inducted — and the very next day he was back home again. 4-F." To some it made a funny story, something ludicrous to be laughed over and forgotten. To others, it was pathetic. But being laughed at or being pitied were alike intolerable to Ross. That was only part of it. The thing that went deeper, the dangerous thing, was that somehow he'd been robbed of his manhood. He'd wanted to fight as men should fight, and he couldn't. He felt useless. Buck Turner dropped in at the bookstore to see me about a week later. "I'm worried about Ross," he said right away. "You know he's working for me. He and his mother moved up to the shack — " I shook my head. "No," I said, "I didn't know." "You mean he didn't — " He broke off, and the worry deepened in his shrewd gray eyes. "Well, the boy's taken it harder even than I thought. RADIO MIBBOR