Free Beneath Gray Skies by Hugh Ashton Page B

something in his stomach for more than a few minutes, Tom entered the stateroom. Tom was another of the lucky few, along with Brian, who didn’t seem to be affected by seasickness.
     
    “Talked to one of them sailors. He reckons things are going to get a bit easier some time soon,” Tom announced to the room of groaning soldiers. “We’re going to get into something called the ‘English Channel’ and then it’s only a day or so till we get to dry land.”
     
    There was a weak cheer from the bunks. Brian came in, grinning. “If the rain lets up, there’s a chance I might get a look at jolly old Blighty tomorrow, what?” The others gazed at him in bewilderment. “Oh, never mind, chaps.” He threw himself on his bunk and soon started to snore.
     
    Despite the motion of the ship and his nausea, David dozed off. He was awakened by the sound of the bugle calling them to evening prayer. Clutching his complaining stomach with one hand, David grasped the railing beside his bunk with the other to brace himself as he swung down. To his amazement, the ship seemed to have stopped rolling and pitching.
     
    Tom noticed his look of surprise. “Stopped about an hour back. I went up on deck, and it’s as purty a sight as you could wish. Sun going down over the sea and all. Never seen anything like it. Come on, prayers.”
     
    David could hardly concentrate on the prayers, as he was starting to realize how hungry he was, having kept nothing in his stomach for what seemed like months. Once or twice his stomach let out loud complaints, but luckily these occurred during the hymns, and only Tom, who grinned broadly at the sound, seemed to notice. At last, they sang the final verse of “Dixie” and Reverend Pollock (“and he really is one of them queers”, Tom had said, having long since disposed of any such thoughts he might have had about Brian. “You don’t want to find yourself alone in a room with that one, Davy. I’ve heard tales.”) droned the last “Amen.”
     
    “Time to get something inside you,” said Tom, as the black slave mess-boys set out the tables. “But take it easy, now.”
     
    The fried pork chops still didn’t hold much appeal for David, but he ate several spoonfuls of hoppin’ john, and drank a lot of cold sweet tea.
     
    “Feel better?” asked Tom. “Let’s go up on deck.”
     
    Most of the troops on board seemed to have had the same idea now that the rough weather seemed to be over, and the companionways leading to the deck were crowded with excited soldiers.
     
    “Smells good,” said David, sniffing appreciatively. And it did, after two weeks of a cabin shared with a dozen other seasick, tobacco-chewing men. “Smells like home,” he said. “Like goin’ down to Goose Creek Bay and the oyster flats.”
     
    “I kind of forgot you was brought up near the sea,” remarked Tom. He was from North Texas (“little place you never heard tell of, called Claude, just outside of Amarillo”).
     
    “Sounds like home, too,” said David, listening to the seagulls.
     
    “Certainly does,” agreed Brian’s voice behind them.
     
    “Why, are your folks on the coast, too?”
     
    “Not this coast, worse luck,” said Brian, joining them. “My people live on the East coast, near Hunstanton, if you’ve ever heard of it. Didn’t think you would have done, somehow.” He pointed into the darkness, where a faint light flashed at intervals on the horizon. “I asked one of the ship’s officers where we were, and he told me that was the Eddystone lighthouse. Nearly home for me. So near and yet so far.”
     
    -o-
     
    T wo days later, the
Robert E. Lee
made her way up the River Weser, and tied up to the quay in Olslebshausen , one of the dock areas in Bremen. David had been busily copying orders and messages since they had entered the Channel, so it came as no big surprise to him, or to his companions, whom he’d forewarned, when a large bundle of somewhat smelly old clothes was thrown