Across a War-Tossed Sea by L.M. Elliott

enough”—Bobby lowered his voice to a whisper—“we might feel him pass right by us, a-wailing and a-carrying on, reminding us to think twice about going to war.”
    That silenced the boys.
    Bobby gazed into the darkness and added in a voice hushed with thought, “Thousands of boys died here, and the battle didn’t decide a thing. I swear, man is a perplexing species.” He sighed. “You know, a bunch of the guys from last year’s football squad are shipping out soon. Bet they’re heading over for the coming invasion of France.” He turned back to the campfire and poked at it with a stick before looking back up to his brothers.
    The twins’ eyes had expanded in fear to the size of golf balls.
    â€œOops,” Bobby murmured, recognizing that his ghost story had probably been a bit too much for them. He clapped his hands, changing the mood abruptly. “Who can spit into the fire from ten feet out?”
    Long into the night, as the other boys slept by the campfire, Charles stewed over that ghost story and Bobby’s reaction to Bloody Mary. It was the first time he’d really thought about the ridiculousness of England’s Catholics and Protestants murdering each other, basically over how they said their prayers. And what about the American Civil War? How could a father and son end up on opposite sides of such an argument?
    Would adults ever stop slaughtering one another? Well, at least this world war was a righteous fight, Charles told himself. Hitler was a monster, no question about that. He had to be stopped. Of course, Hitler should have been shut down before he gained so much power. So many people, including the British—if he were honest about it—had looked the other way for so long, hoping that what was happening, really wasn’t. And why hadn’t some good Germans spoken up against the prejudices Hitler was spewing, even if all their friends and neighbors bought der Führer ’s racist and anti-Semitic baloney?
    That thought drew Charles up short.
    He looked over at Wesley, who was flopping about on the ground, probably having nightmares again. He’d let his little brother down, hadn’t he? Charles hadn’t spoken up when Bobby said Freddy couldn’t come to the party just because he was a Negro. He hadn’t because he knew it was an accepted prejudice, just like the Brits’ attitude about the natives of their colony India. Charles hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.
    Suddenly Charles felt ashamed.
    Out in the night, a fox yelped, sounding alarmingly like a woman screaming. Wesley flipped over again and whimpered.
    Charles got up and sat himself down by Wesley. He put his hand on top his brother’s blond curls, just like their mother had done countless times during the night for Charles when he’d had bad dreams.
    Wesley quieted, and slept. Under that big, open, starry American sky, Charles kept watch and thought of England and the changes the Allies themselves would have to make when they finally won the war.
    15 November 1943
    Dearest Mumsy,
    Things are finally looking UP! I have a friend! His name is Freddy. He loves books nearly as much as I do. But he has hardly any, so I am lending him mine. He has started with
Treasure Island
. Now we have such fun talking PIRATES! Did you know there was a horrid pirate named Blackbeard who used the Outer Banks just south of here as his hideaway cove? Now the Yanks call it Torpedo Junction because of all the ships Hitler’s U-boats sunk there last year. Some of my classmates go to those beaches, but I think I would rather not. Sometimes pieces of blown-up ships and dead sailors wash up.
    School is better now that we are past the War of 1812 and focusing on Thanksgiving. At an assembly for the lower grades about the Pilgrims’ feast with the Indians, I am to recite a Longfellow poem about Hiawatha. ‘By the shores of GITCHE GUMEE’ is how it begins. I