When Johnny Came Marching

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

The two-year-old girl with strawberry blonde hair peeked through the curtains of the Teddington, Middlesex, England flat. A vehicle had parked outside the gate, and a matronly woman wearing a raincoat over her white garment disembarked, opened an umbrella, and hurried toward the front door with a black medical bag.

Florence Joan Downes ran into the bedroom where her mother, Jane (nee Palmer) Fisher Downes, was writhing in the throes of childbirth and scarcely noticed her daughter's presence.

"Mama! Mama!" the little girl shouted. She reached up and gripped her mother's fingers.

A long, anguished moan was followed by shrill, short-breathed, screams. The sound of the front door opening occurred. Suddenly, Florence Joan felt herself being lifted up, then away, from the bedside and placed in a high-chair.

"There, there, pretty girl ... it looks like you are about to have a brand-new baby sister or brother," the midwife said, as she threw off her raincoat. Hers was a relaxed, reassuring, voice. She turned to the distressed woman, opened the black bag, and removed tools of her trade. "Your baby is making an appearance, Mrs. Downes. Make as much noise as you like. It won't be much longer."

Gusts of wind rattled the windows. Thunderstorms had been constant for two weeks. The cold, damp, English winter had been tougher to bear than most. A shroud of gloom had settled over the countryside from Adolf Hitler's saber-rattling and the devastating future the citizenry feared was in store. War had not yet been declared against Germany, but fear permeated Great Britain and all of Europe.

Appeasement talks with Adolf Hitler by Neville Chamberlain to prevent another World War had only been met with cobra-like smiles that preceded lies and false promises. For months Winston Churchill had stood virtually alone in Parliament, being called a warmonger the whole while, as he verbally assailed Hitler's imminent Nazi peril and validity of a treaty. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was being hailed by the press as an architect of peace, offering concession after concession to Hitler and his Nazi regime to avoid war at any and all costs. Two fortnights earlier, when Chamberlain presented the Munich Agreement to Parliament for ratification, Churchill railed against it.

"We have sustained," he proclaimed, "a total and unmitigated defeat." The House of Commons erupted into a storm of protest against him, rudely interrupting his speech throughout, but he continued in bulldog fashion. "We need not suppose this is the end ... only the beginning of the reckoning ... the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be forced-fed to us year by year."

British Parliament approved Neville Chamberlain's Munich Agreement by a vote of 366-114.

"My my my," said the midwife, holding the newborn child up with two hands. "A strong-looking baby boy ... you have a brother to look after, pretty girl."

His name became John Roger Downes.

* * *

During her pregnancy Jane and her husband had been preparing for a move with their two-year old daughter, Florence Joan, to Peking, China, where Albert John Roger Downes had been proffered a position as a foreign correspondent for a London newspaper. The plan had been forestalled by the uncertainty of the political situation in Europe and a possible global war. Moreover, John Sr. was a reserve officer in the Australian Air Force and was subject to being drafted into England's Royal Air Force (RAF).

On 3 September, 1939, England declared war on Germany. Shortly thereafter John Sr. received orders to report for military duty as a pilot.

American citizens residing in the British Isles were given a choice. They could remain there or depart for the United States immediately. Since Jane was born in Kansas City, Missouri, she was qualified to leave with Florence Joan and John Roger. Dozens of U.S. and British merchant ships, military transports, and commercial passenger liners were chartered for the task, billeted to over-capacity, then set out for New York together in a convoy, criss-crossing through Nazi U-boat infested Atlantic waters with more than one hundred military vessels as escorts.

* * *

August 11, 1940

The second morning out of port was frantic. Two vessels had been sunk by U-boat torpedoes since midnight. Jane gripped the rail on the port side. In the distance she spotted British sailors in countless rubber rafts picking up survivors. Depth charge explosions roared unceasingly, along with heavy gun fire from Navy destroyers. Dead bodies and flotsam floated everywhere. Heaving seas broke over the ship's bow during the ship's frequent turns. Jane noticed that ships within view turned simultaneously. Passengers lined the rail beside their assigned life-boats. Many vomited over the side. Seasickness or fright ... it didn't matter. Johnny wailed beside his sister. Both wore life-jackets that were secured to one of the benches that lined the deck. He was two years old; she was four. Florence Joan hugged her brother protectively.

Two crew members were responsible for each life boat. They constantly counted designated passengers by shouting their names from a prepared roster. None were missing. Acknowledgment was required. Parents responded for their children. Organized cacophony!

Jane had been warned by the bureaucracy the voyage would be difficult, even life-threatening. She hadn't seen her husband since he'd been assigned to be second-in-command of a flight squadron in Iraq months earlier. His daily letters arrived in a bundle about once every four weeks. Thus, she didn't know his opinion about her journey before her departure.

During moments of serendipity aboard ship she pretended she was on the Queen Mary ... there was no war ... and her entire family was destined for China and the prestigious-sounding journalism assignment. She'd even acquired a Chinese-American dictionary to prepare for the adventure.

What about those who'd drowned in the convoy since midnight? she thought. They were dead. Their dreams quashed by a devastating event. Poof! Gone! One minute breathing ... the next not.

What about loved ones who were awaiting their arrival in America? Their dreams were quashed, too, weren't they?

How were the dead ones chosen? And the survivors? Some would say it was their destiny, the work of an omniscient God. Surely, purpose and meaning mattered, though, or why would God even cause their existence to occur, if only to end for some in such a questionable and unfathomable fate?

Those other ships were sunk by German U-boat torpedoes, but not the one that she, Joan, and Johnny had been assigned to? She had no voice in the choosing ... not that it would have mattered.

How easy would it have been within the pile of visas, passports, and other documents in the government travel office for her name to be printed on the roster of one of the ships that sank. She and her two children could have died, and three now deceased others would still be alive in her place, grasping the same deck rail she was holding on to for dear life

God must have known about Hitler ... that there would be a war ... that Jane would marry Albert John and move to England ... give birth to Florence Joan and John Roger ... have expectations of moving to China ... having those hopes dashed ... then being separated from her husband ... given the opportunity...