Jane, my 3x great aunt, heard them before she saw them, and peering out the kitchen window she intuitively understood why the Home Guard troops were outside her front door. And she had long since decided that she would have nothing to do with it.
She commanded her young son.
“David, go out the back door! Run to the barn and hide in the hay loft!”
His mother had raised the subject with him several times over the course of the past two years, and had known that they would eventually come looking for him. It scared her to death to think her teenage son would be conscripted into the army, and possibly be deprived of a long and fruitful life.
David ran ‘for all he was worth,’ being careful to hide behind first one tree and then another, as he made his way to the rear door of the barn. He correctly surmised that since he wasn’t able to see the soldiers that they, in turn, wouldn’t be able to see him.
Jane’s son hadn’t been gone more than ten seconds when she swung open the front door and was rudely confronted by Captain Matthews.
“We know who you are, Mrs. McDonald, and we know you have a son by the name of David. We also know that he just turned 15. And by
G_ _ that’s plenty old to shoot a rifle, and to catch a bullet for his country.”
Jane sensed a wave of nausea creep upwards from her belly to her throat, but she found a way to control her nerves, and responded.
“My boy ain’t here. He’s been helping my father in Waycross harvest his tobacco the past couple of weeks.”
The captain had heard that sort of rehearsed monologue before. He knew the little lady was trying to protect her son, and that he was almost certainly hiding somewhere on the property.
(to be continued)
By
William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 48. Copyright pending
If you wish to share, copy or save, please include the credit line, above
************
If you would like to see the titles and access hundreds of my blogs from 2015, do the following:
Click on 2015 in the index to the right of this blog. When my December 31st blog, "The Shot Must Choose You" appears, click on the title. All my 2015 blog titles will come up in the right margin
If you would like to see the titles and access hundreds of my blogs from 2015, do the following:
Click on 2015 in the index to the right of this blog. When my December 31st blog, "The Shot Must Choose You" appears, click on the title. All my 2015 blog titles will come up in the right margin
No comments:
Post a Comment