A Sword in the Darkness Read online

Tegan made it to his locker and realized that he did not have the key to his lock. He forgot his keys in his room. “There was no way I’m going back to my room to get that ‘….. key,” he thought.

  He quickly scanned the room for something that would open his lock violently because he didn’t have time for any other option. He saw a fire axe. Tegan moved to the axe, but was simultaneously being thrown forward by a flash of blinding light and a numbing force that picked up his body and flung it across the room.

  Funny, but he felt no pain and no control at the same time. For Lieutenant Tegan Braden, it was a feeling that he’d never experienced. All those years of football back in Colorado had never prepared him for a “hit” of this proportion. He was known as a hard hitting defensive halfback, but he couldn’t handle this hit.

  The hanger began to collapse in on itself with a fireball exiting the impact spot.

  For Tegan, everything turned to darkness and he never saw the mass of debris fall on him. The gracious unconsciousness saved him from the pain and agony of the chunks of debris from the bomb’s destruction.

  II

  The early morning light coming through the window suddenly caught Tegan’s attention.

  Total confusion embraced him as he tried to figure out where he was or recollect what had happened to him.

  He had a lightheaded sensation and a dull pain in the base of his spine. He frantically realized that he could not feel his legs. His mind was racing, but his body was lethargic. He simply could not respond to his mind’s will.

  He lay motionless wondering if he had lost his legs.

  ‘What had happened?’

  He closed his eyes trying to see the events of what seemed to be a previous life. He began to see visions of planes, exploding bombs, and panicking soldiers running in all directions. Attack! They were being attacked by planes. Whose planes? When? He didn’t understand anything.

  Tegan heard a moan and tried to turn his head but felt resistance. His head moved but his muscles were stiff from an unknown period of non-use. The movement caused some minor pain in his lower back, but Tegan figured that was also stiffness.

  As he looked toward the sound, his gaze caught the site of several beds lined up on both sides of the room. People were lying injured in every bed he could see.

  A hospital? It all started to make sense. He was in a hospital. Which hospital? How did he get here?

  Tegan thought about his legs? What about his legs? He must have been wounded in the attack. Did he lose his legs? He tried to move to see if he still had legs, but again met resistance and pain. He must know how badly he had been wounded.

  He braced himself and pushed downward on his elbows with all his might. Pain! Immense pain! Pain that he’s never felt before. His stinging arms gave way as he simultaneously let out a short, sharp scream.

  The nurse at the end of the room heard him and moved in his direction. Tegan grimaced as he tried to get the pain out of his mind. The pain in his arms was familiar, but never to this degree.

  Tegan recognized that he had burned arms. He thought, ‘burned arms, too?’ What was his condition? A nurse appeared standing next to his bed and peered down at Tegan.

  “Are you all right?” she said with genuine concern.

  “The pain killer you guys gave me isn’t working,” Tegan said through clenched teeth.

  “Well, if you wouldn’t move, it would work a lot better,” replied the nurse.

  Tegan took offense to the nurse’s tone. However, he had no idea that the nurse, having dealt with so many wounded men and nearing the end of her fourth twenty hour day, was so on edge that even the most reasonable request irked her.

  “Do I still have my legs?”

  “What?”

  “My legs… are they still attached?”

  “Of course. Don’t be silly,” the nurse said with a sarcastic giggle.

  Tegan looked at the 2nd Lieutenant with a frown. ‘Silly,’ he thought, what was silly about his question. He didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there. He was too weak to really get angry.

  “How long have I been here?” he finally said.

  “Four days,” she said, as if he should have known.

  “Your bedside manners are atrocious.”

  “You’re in no condition to be critiquing me,” she said with a smirk.

  “What day is it?”

  “You don’t know what day it is?”

  “Look at me. Do I look like I know what day it is let alone much of anything else? Huh! I mean, I don’t even know what happened to me,” he said with an edge to his voice.

  “Well, you’re not going to get any answers with an attitude like that!” she said with another smirk.

  “I am lying in a hospital, which one, I don’t know, not knowing how I got here! Now can you, if at all possible, exercise a little patience with me?” he said, giving her the full force of his frustration.

  The smirk was gone in an instant and she now realized his plight. “Yes, you still have your legs, but the doctors aren’t sure if you will walk again.”

  “How bad?”

  “You’ve fractured your spine in two places in your lower back. You have first and second degree burns on 30 percent of your body,” her tone was different as she saw the pain in his eyes.

  “You will be in traction for several months.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Japanese attacked the Hawaiian Islands. You, I believe, got blown up in a hanger and debris from the hanger’s roof fell on you. Fortunately, enough debris fell around you to keep you from being completely crushed. It’s really a miracle that you’re alive. Do you believe in miracles?”

  “Yes, I do and I’m grateful.”

  “By the way, does this mean war?” continued Tegan.

  “Three days ago, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan.”

  “Then again, maybe I wasn’t so lucky. I could miss this war lying in a hospital bed. What day is it and where am I?”

  “The eleventh of December. Tripler Army Hospital.”

  “Who else got hit besides us, Pearl and Wheeler?”

  “Let me see, Hickam, Schofield, Ewa, and Kaneohe, I think.”

  “Damage?”

  “Four battleships,” a voice sounded from over the nurse’s shoulder. “The Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia were sunk. Also, some Cruisers and Destroyers. The Japs caught us with our pants down around our ankles and all we could do was pull them up to our knees and trip ourselves.”

  “What about the Carriers?”

  “Out to sea,” said the amplified voice as the nurse moved and exposed the bandaged head of a partially burned sailor.

  “Roosevelt declared war on Japan on the eighth. Germany and Italy declared war on us today. You just missed the announcement.”

  “Anyone else attacked?”

  “The Philippines were attacked on the eighth and Wake Island is being attacked as we speak. We can’t help them. They’re on their own. Poor ‘Jirines.’ I hope they can hold out.”

  Tegan could only turn his head enough to see the bandages starting at the bridge of his nose and extending to cover the top of his head.

  “Where were you when they attacked?”

  “Gunners-Mate Second on the Oklahoma. I’m one of the lucky ones,” he said with a saddening voice.

  “Oh yeah, may I ask why?” asked Tegan pretending that the sailor’s condition had no bearing on the statement.

  “Cause they’re still trying to get a bunch of ‘em out of her,” the sailor said disgustingly. “The ship capsized an’ sank into mud.”

  “Trapped?” Tegan shouted surprised.

  “Yeah, I got a buddy who’s UDT and he sez it don’t look good. Sez he can hear tapping coming from the inside, but they can’t get to ‘em.”

  Tegan didn’t know what to say. He was speechless. These were real people with real dreams and real families. They will have real feeling about their loss and spend the rest of their lives with real memories of a person they loved, who gave the ultimate sacrifice for them and this country. Generations have come to an end in one flash of a moment.

  The nurse’s sudden movement caught Tegan’s attention.

  She whispered “I have to check on the other patients. I’ll check on you a little later, okay?”

  Tegan tried to smile but even that seemed hard for him to do.

  “Nurse, I’m sorry for getting angry.”

  “It’s all right, I’m used to it.”

  “What were you doing in a hanger?” said the sailor, as the nurse walked away.

  “I was trying to get into my flight gear.”

  “You a pilot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whatta ya fly?”

  “Pursuit.”

  “Fighters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t quite get one up, did ya?”

  “Didn’t even get close,” Tegan was feeling the full effects of the events that placed him in that bed. Remembering, as the pictures passed before his eyes, only made him feel the dull ache of his injuries as he now tried to lie still to avoid the pain in his body.

  It was bad enough not to get a plane up, but now he would be laid up for ‘who knows how long’ while the United States is at war. How long? Will they discharge him? Is his service now in question? To fly a fighter in war, what more could anyone ask for?

  He thought that he was in the right place at the right time. As it turned out, it was entirely the opposite.

  A direct hit on the hanger, maybe he should be thankful to be alive. What could be worse, unable to fight because of wounds, or to die fighting? The confusion just seemed to add insult to injury.

  He closed his eyes praying it would all go away. Should he have looked out for himself instead of trying so hard to put up a fight? Fighting is what he trained for; sometimes people back home don’t understand the sacrifice it takes to commit oneself to that concept.

  What about the pilot who died trying to get a P-40 airborne while the airfield was under full air attack? What about all those guys trapped on the Oklahoma? What will happen if they can’t get to them? Their cover was their ship and now it might be their tomb.

  If he had stayed under cover, he would have undoubtedly been shipped out somewhere to fight the enemy.

  Tegan’s mind drifted back to earlier days in Southern Colorado. Things now seemed just as bad as those days long ago. But back then, there was a way out. Tegan’s brother had discovered the way out, they both took a chance that changed their lives for the better, at least, ‘Up until now,’ thought Tegan.

  He tried to clear his mind but he couldn’t stop thinking about his younger sister who never had a chance to grow up.

  He drifted back to sleep saddened by his current condition and the ugly memories of the past. His dad always said that “suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.”

  “God intended for Christians to have some suffering. Suffering exposed our weaknesses and revealed our total need for Him.”

  “Suffering is not necessarily bad. It is your response to the suffering that can make it bad.”

  III

  It was a dreary overcast night with no moon to illuminate the clouds.

  The train pulled out of Trinidad, Colorado.

  Two young boys emerged from a grove of bushes.

  It had rained an hour before and the wetness had chilled them.

  They had spent a day and a half walking or hitchhiking from Capulin in the San Luis Valley.

  Both boys ran for the open boxcar door for which they had been waiting.

  It was their escape to paradise.

  Daniel, thirteen, and Anthony, ten, had long desired to leave their abusive parents, the area, and the lack of potential for advancement in any decent paying livelihood, especially in 1928.

  Both parents were school teachers. Unfortunately, these educated people could not control their personal lives. Both parents were physically abusive and their father was a womanizer.

  The final crime was the death of their nine-year-old sister.

  After her disappearance, their parents showed only minor concern. Their father was more concerned with the fact that he might be a suspect because of the terrible atrocities he had committed on his own daughter.

  The final shame was seeing the relief on their father’s face when someone else was charged with the rape and murder of their sister.

  After the burial, there was almost no remorse. Their maternal grandparents and a few aunts and uncles were the only ones to show any real concern while the little girl was missing.

  Daniel and Anthony searched for two weeks endlessly on their own for any signs of Jeanette. On several occasions, they searched all night. The children all felt a bond to each other because of what they were experiencing.

  Now the youngest was gone.

  Their mother physically could not have children after Jeanette. Maybe their parents secretly blamed Jeanette. Either way, the parents were more concerned about themselves than the children.

  Their mother was an alcoholic and their father, on top of being a womanizer, beat the mother and children frequently. Their mother let their father beat them the same way she allowed him to abuse Jeanette. She chose to ignore the disturbing world around her. Daniel and Anthony believed these events led to her drinking problem.

  They were Hispanic, but were not allowed to speak Spanish because their father felt they were better than the people with whom they existed.

  The children were expected to attend college and pay for it themselves, like their parents did. Higher education went to their parent’s heads because most Hispanics in 1928 did not have college degrees.

  Other children always made fun of them because of their lack of understanding of their own “native” language.

  Life was more difficult than it should have been.

  While the boys remained searching, no one would look for them.

  After returning the next day, no one chastise them for being gone all night.

  Instead, their father beat them for not being at their summer job. The money the boys earned all went to the parents. The only reason the children had decent clothes was to avoid the “embarrassment” of looking poor.

  They were always criticized for eating more than they were worth. Daniel realized that the parents could care less whether they were there or not. It seemed as though they were not missed while they were gone.

  Daniel conceived the notion to leave. Staying was no longer an option and his only concern now was taking care of his tough little brother.

  Running away, though terrifying, was much better than staying. Anthony agreed immediately and said that he would go anywhere Daniel wanted him to go no matter how hard it would be.

  That night, after the parents fell asleep, the two left without a word.

  Daniel was the first to reach the boxcar door and pulled himself inside. He immediately turned to assist Anthony, who was only a few feet from the door.

  The train lunged forward and started to pick up speed. Daniel stretched out his hand and reach for his brother. Anthony was determined not to be beaten or be separated from his brother. He bore down and pushed himself as fast as he could go. He began to keep up with the train and moved closer to the open door. With a quick toss, he threw in his bag. A second later, he placed his left hand on the platform of boxcar and grabbed Daniel’s hand with his right hand. With a pull and a push, he had hoisted himself up to his waist. He let go of Daniel’s hand and balanced himself on the edge of the platform. Daniel grabbed Anthony’s belt and pulled him into the boxcar.

  Gathering themselves, they turned and found they were not alone.

  An older man in ragged clothes sat in the corner and stared at them.

  “We don’t want any trouble. Were just here for the ride,” said Daniel.

  “We won’t bother you if you don’t bother us,” added Anthony.

  “You boys running away?”

  “None of your business,” fired back Daniel.

  “Yeah, I ran away when I was your age. Still running.”

  Daniel and Anthony looked at each other.

  “Well, we’ll stay on our side, make sure you stay on yours,” said Daniel.

  “Yeah, and if we catch you stealing our stuff, we’ll throw you off the train while it’s moving,” said a defiant Anthony.

  “No need to be rude. The law of the train riders is that you don’t hurt or steal from each other.”

  “There’s a law?” said Daniel.

  “Sure. We help each other get away from the rail people who search the trains when they stop.”

  “Well, we don’t plan on making this a habit,” said Daniel.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said when I was your age.”

  Again, Daniel and Anthony looked at each other. Daniel then pushed Anthony to the opposite end of the train as he watched the man pull his blanket up over his shoulder.

  “Get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch,” whispered Daniel. Anthony complied and lay down and curled up in a ball to stay warm. Daniel sat down with his back against the wall of the boxcar as he watched the man.

  The train passed through a large city in the early morning. Daniel didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark. The train didn’t slow down as they neared the depot. The area was filthy and the town smelled of burnt coal. This reminded Daniel of where they came from. Daniel decided that this was not the place they wanted to stay.

  Daniel felt that it would take at least a full day or more to ride some place better than Trinidad. He felt that they would be harder to locate if anyone was searching for them.

  He thought that they were traveling north, but couldn’t be sure.

  He let Anthony sleep; after all, there was no way they were getting off the train.