JASON CHAPTER 5

War Wounded
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After an hour of standing by, I was ordered back to the beach to pick up the wounded, and bring them back to the ship where they received some medical care.

There were so many wounded we could hardly keep up. There was no time to think about the circumstances surrounding us it was just do the job you were trained for.

As I was returning to the ship a shell went of near my craft and I received some shrapnel and a hole in my craft. I managed to get back to the ship and get the wounded off before it sank.  

They were able to stop the blood from my wound but I was going to have to be operated on when we got to the hospital ship.  

Some days later I was shipped back to Pearl Harbor and then to the states. Eventually my wound started to heal but because of infection it was a slow process.

When Carme realized I was back in the hospital she looked in on me and we talked about her letters and laughed about the crew's response to them.

I hesitatingly asked about her boyfriend and if he ever got around to asking her to marry him.  She said, “No he didn’t, and the last thing she heard was he had another girl friend where he was stationed.”

“Do you have a new guy you are dating?” I asked and she responded, No, no one.”   I asked, “Why not, you must have been asked for dates.”

She said, “Yes, by sailors, but I have had it up to here with them.”  

I said, “Well, that shatters my dream for I was going to ask you out to dinner and a show as soon as I was cleared to do so.”  She just smiled and said, “I didn't include you in that bunch.”

Carme came and visited me each day until the doctor said I could go out if I wished to, but to be careful not to reinjure myself.  She and I would have lunch together and sometimes both lunch and dinner.  

 
I received some information that I was to be reassigned again.
     
I hadn't looked forward to this news, for that meant I probably wouldn't be seeing Carme.  When the orders came I was going to be transferred to a desk job down south, and that was four hundred miles from Carme.

A couple of days before I was to leave I decided to ask Carme if she thought we could ever be more than friends.  

I asked her, “Since you don’t have a boyfriend now would you consider . . .  uh just forget I said anything.”  

She looked at me with those beautiful dark brown eyes and began to grin, and then to laugh and said, “As you started to say.”  

 



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This embarrassed me and I had trouble getting the words out but finally said, “What I wanted say was; will you marry me?”

At that she stopped laughing, and gave me that steely eye look and said nothing.  So there we sat not saying a word.

I thought to myself, “Now you've done it!  Why couldn't you have just kept my mouth shut instead of moving so fast?”   I determined not to say anything more, and after several minutes she finally spoke.

“You know, you surprised me. I never expected you to ask me that although being honest I have thought about it. You leave in two more days. Why don't you ask me what I have decided before you leave? You know how my family is, and I must talk it over with them before I give you my answer.”

I thought, “Well that does it. Those brothers of hers will surly shoot me down, and I'm not sure about her dad.  Her mother I think likes me alright, but she is the only one that might give her the okay on me.  By tomorrow she will have had time to discuss it with them and I should know one way or another. “

I called the next day and asked her what her decision was.  (Afterwards I thought that sure was romantic).

She said, “I want you to come over for dinner tonight and hung up.” 

To be Continued