And Then We Heard the Thunder by John Oliver Killens

Author:John Oliver Killens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2015-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

The soldiers were marching in full field dress, with packs on their backs, duffel bags on their shoulders, and carbines and rifles. They were talking and joke-cracking and nervously laughing as they approached the big white ship. They were the lead company in the regiment immediately following the last of the white troops. Even at route step there was a certain uniform cadence in the sound of their feet striking the asphalt road as they moved forward under the midday sun, through a long funnel of noisy people and quiet palm trees and gorgeous shrubbery. But Solly hadn’t spotted Millie yet and he was getting sick from worry. Something must have happened to her!

Bookworm walking beside him, talking, laughing and grumbling, and eating candy. “Man, I’m telling you, these people a bitch on wheels. What you reckin I read in your Harlem paper last night? Some of your folks’ leaders called on the President down in Washington and demanded that colored soldiers be allowed to die with dignity at the front rather than serving in the Quartermaster. Now ain’t that a mother-fer-ya?”

Solly’s eyes shifted distractedly from the line of people to the Bookworm and back to the people again.

Worm said, “Percy Black can have my uniform any day in the week, he wants to fight so damn bad. Them Japanese ain’t done me nothing. I ain’t mad at a living ass.”

Solly could see the big ship plainly now and the white troops getting aboard, and the fear was almost overwhelming. Maybe he had already passed Millie and they hadn’t seen each other for looking so damn hard. He opened his mouth and let the air go in and out to relieve the pressure in his chest and the griping in his belly. He thought of Fannie Mae and felt an awful guilt toward Millie. Maybe she had been so upset last night, she had become ill and something awful had happened to her, with no way to let him know, too sick to move. He could hear her crying: “I’ll kill myself! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll kill myself!” He felt weak all over. Maybe she—maybe she—A wave of panic swept over him, and wave after wave after wave. Maybe—maybe—she had seen through him completely, she had felt his hatred and his anger, even as they’d made their love together. And she had killed herself. He loved her! Yes he loved her!

And then he saw her up ahead, waving at him with the widest prettiest most confident smile that anybody ever smiled. He was so glad he could hardly move his lips to smile or laugh or anything else. He loved her, yes, he loved her. She came to him in all her raging beauty, and his ears burned as he heard the soldiers whistling and signifying.

“Hello, soldier boy, where do you think you’re going?”

“Damn,” he said finally in as calm a voice as he could manage. “I thought maybe you had forgotten what day it was. Thought you had forgotten to come to my going-away party.

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