D-Day 68th Anniversary
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D-Day 68th Anniversary Anthology edited by Walter Ruhlmann mgv2>publishing © mgv2>publishing & contributors, June 2012 Contents:
Walter Ruhlmann Arromanche photograph Nick Armbrister Normandy Beach poetry Eleanor Bennet photograph Fern G.Z. Carr The Devil poetry Bob Cooper Lest We Forget poetry Emer Davis Moonlight poetry Emer Davis The Crossing poetry Bill Dodds In the Background poetry Bill Dodds photograph SJ Fowler Muyock poetry Gene Grabiner Normandy poetry Jan Oskar Hansen Landfall poetry Charlotte Henson Poppy 1 poetry Charlotte Henson Poppy 2 poetry Charles Langley Christmas 1942 fiction Lyn Lifshin War poetry Lyn Lifshin World War 2 poetry Eleanor Bennet photograph Lyn Lifshin Why the Charcoal... poetry Andy N. Percy poetry David Pointer Shoreward poetry Harold G. O'Leary D-Day non-fiction Walter Ruhlmann Where Allies Lie poetry Tom Sheehan Mushawie off the Hill fiction William Tinkham Beginning of the End fiction Normandy Beach by Nick Armbrister
I walk along the beach, my bare feet parting the fine sand. I wonder how many people have died on this beach, shed blood for freedom or fascism, called for their mother. This is a Normandy beach full of so much history and life, past and present. It is a timeless place now, as it was then back in ’44. Now the sea washes up the sand in an endless wave, of time and of water. To do so forever more. Will more blood be shed, more lives taken here?
Photograph by Eleanor Bennet
3 The Devil by Fern G. Z. Carr
The devil greedily licked his lips as the lambs were led to the slaughter, perched on his haunches cackling derisively and salivating unholy water; mercilessly he lay in wait tail flicking like savage beast as the masses fell prey to his guile they indulged in carnivorous feast – the blood dripped from their greedy lips as they witnessed with glazed eyes the carnage that only brainwashed minds could ever realize.
With forked tongue the devil enticed man down the slippery slope, inciting patriots to genocide as the Fatherland’s only hope, “Inferiors contaminate our master race! They are a genetic mutation! The final solution for these lowly vermin is wholesale extermination!” the devil shrieked as his flared nostrils snorted cyanide gas into the death camps of Auschwitz where millions were murdered en masse.
What blinded the devil’s henchmen to such depraved animosity, to so obediently perpetuate these vehement atrocities? It began insidiously with propaganda and misplaced blame, leading to suspension of freedoms in justice’s name.
4 Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, proved an ominous sign – a flight from pandemonium thwarting the devil's design.
Cordoned off into ghettos some of the lambs were held in submission, exposed to poverty and disease they were incapable of opposition; others were callously executed randomly on the spot – a period of intense culpability that history never forgot. The devil flexed his muscles as he seethed with murderous lust, reveling in hateful sadism and betraying his country’s trust.
The lambs were lured into the Devil’s clutches via deportation; with cunning lupine rhetoric he ordered their transportation unfittingly in cattle cars not worthy of his bleating beasts, packed so tightly their movement restrained, they could barely breathe. Ruthlessly flocks were rendered asunder – the ewes separated from the rams, perversely mocking the innocence of these tender little lambs whose juicy flesh would soon be cleansed in preparation for the altar – a sacrificial rampage from which he’d never falter. “Move rats! You will be deloused! Step quickly into the shower!”
5 he howled triumphantly in an orgy of diabolical power; unable to fathom any method to the madness of his sinister plot, the terrified lambs couldn’t predict those to be gassed and those not.
Hiding his profanity from the outside world was an act of cowardice, attempting to disguise his vicious obsession and genocidal avarice; yet smoke still belched from crematoria with tell-tale acrid smell, unable to camouflage the flames of those who burned in hell. But the devil forgot that the bible proclaims “The meek shall inherit the Earth,” in fact, the lambs were courageous survivors who never lost sight of their worth – despite lack of food, abuse, disease and experimentation, they valiantly fought to exist, escaping hell’s conflagration, surmounting astronomical odds, defiantly and with persistence, they ensured their children’s future by their tenacious resistance; these traumatized heroes were survivors right to their very core, tragically, they bear the devil’s brand of the ravages of war.
6 Lest We Forget by Bob Cooper
Sod it. Who was it said he’d rather drink piss than the spray that sloshed over and then he was sick as the ramp slapped on- to the sand?
Sod it. Who was it scared of cows in a field with the serge and the subaltern when the Spandau opened up and they each crumpled down?
Sod it. Who was it I dug the fox-hole with, gold rings on three fingers, every other word “Christ,” as tracer necklaced the moon.
In a baccy tin: cap badge, identity disc, postcard of Caen – and sod it, who was it said he’d never forget all we’d been through as he tore this pound- note in half?
On the telly: maps with arrows, figures crouching, explosions, ruins, then panoramas, in colour, of wind-swept dunes, a voice-over saying we veterans have memories… but, sod it, some are missing in action, some have died.
7 Moonlight by Emer Davis
Moonlight Becomes you Standing on deck Shimmering On the water’s edge, Your eyes drift Across the black sea Moving nearer To the unknown, We hold onto That last note And drift With the reclining moon, The terror in our hearts Clasped in that final note.
8 The Crossing by Emer Davis first published in Poetry Kit's Caught in the Net Issue 95
From our outpost we tiptoed across this green divide rifles in hand. A ragged allied force sleep walking this unknown land we marched on, hoping to smell the sweet scent of summer.
Fields pockmarked by war stood before us. Bloodied and betrayed empty shells littered the scorched ground. A soft light flickered through as we retraced our steps on the relentless road of an unnerving peace.
9 In the background by Bill Dodds
She crouched on a crumbling carpetless stair, offended by the rancorous early summer smells bitten by midgies in that Glaswegian tenement, a chipped tumbler of gin held like a grenade, as if she feared to swallow her first session, to release the pin that restrained her auburn hair, against the chatter, laughter, fiddle and accordion, off key, six smiling wrens, six young women, six sisters, all wrapped in dark blue suits, white shirt and tie, each a given name, a word or two, a home town, so Annie, the prettiest, “lovely girl but Scottish.”
In the foreground
Before she awoke, she could not dream, her brother stood with Sherman tanks, feminised with floating canvas skirts, launched a mile or more offshore, to swim unseen by Wehrmacht guns, he watched the vicious sea explode, water, oil and spew carpeted the deck, whilst others lowered landing ramps, in rough seas with waves a metre deep, their tanks drove off, struggled, sank, but his ramp was jammed fast shut.
10 Photograph of Bill Dodds's mother and uncle Muyock by SJ Fowler poetry for Tiphaine Mancaux
if you weep, I think that others might cry Larry Eigner
on m knees theearth bere ft breaks intodryred mud heavy w birds & gherman pricks dumpin a way that invites... until th wet congeals everywhere / in the great arches of invitation tolerant*stretched like a house cat whoishungry wellgroomed &wellsought out th ceilings in florence are so high but the summertoo hot after all the singing faces u with u handinmouth out & ready fortackle
12 what is being said, from over that is was a aste on you then, please but i shouldn be attending to a sister physically for ive yet not grown old but youll not come back again unless i m nice ^today my lovers are here talking&talking while you arein the opposite
the closed rm library a book on social ethics th art of writing / reading th notion of recognising as necessary
all th roads ar ebuilt now you can fuck off back to spider island w allthe dead i cant thank enough sweet beaches
13 Normandy by Gene Grabiner
I climbed the boardwalk down the bluff, unruffled open sea out front. And on the strand, amplified, diminished, enlarged again in the sand by so many hands taking stones, replacing some, all worn smooth, this agate band. Testament to that world-affront of war, memorialized with all the dead ― known but one, who could be one or many, garnered here, garnered there, on Omaha shore.
René Coty’s pathetic letter on display decried democracy’s flinch ― liberal cowardice. Untold millions gone, too abstract to speak for themselves. And my father’s cousin from Utah Beach, to whom I gave two smooth round stones; he and dad ― both came home.
He held the touchstones; talismans of when and what they thought was ended, then he cried. His tears burned these rocks, unquiet stones; telling what was done, he raised the question, with constant warring since, what was won?
14 Landfall by Jan Oskar Hansen
Normandy, the day the allied landed, should like the holocaust not be forgotten, it spelled the end of a malevolent empire.
When landing crafts hit the shore, many brave soldiers died before they could step ashore on the golden sand of Normandy.
By blind courage and a will of steel many soldiers got to where banks are steep seek shelter and rest before carrying on.
This, a hard war, yet an honourable one; there are times when wars must be fought as we cannot afford to let the world drown.
Dictators come and go, but we must not shirk in our duty to face them squarely and kill the darkness of their rotten souls.
15 Poppy 1 by Charlotte Henson
Outside the window, an ocean of poppies, red as balloons at children’s birthday parties.
She watched them day-in-day-out, from sunset to the first hints of sunlight which crept through their leaves, tickled their stems, and reflected the underside of their petals. From this she saw veins; a tiny network of lines like join-up-the-dots; a motorway map, thin like emotion.
But now she’s there amongst soldiers in a field of blood and flowers, dancing, dancing like she had nothing left.
16 Poppy 2 by Charlotte Henson
The blurring of a world through the glass; unseen but there. Crystalline night and cracks – oh god the cracks. How they’d shatter and crash, fall and land, remain still but malign.
Dawn did not break but ripped, slashed the stems of poppies and revealed the dead, their heads trampled and muddy beside the bloodied bodies.
Yes… about them.
They’d been half gutted by scavengers, an eye dislodged in the mud, its feather-gill iris devoid. Ivory bone protruding through the roots.
The girl still danced in the silence, in the tranquility of dawn and immobility of death. A quiet violence in her steps, and nothing in her eyes.
And the dead, watching still with morbid curiosity.
17 Christmas 1942 by Charles Langley
It was Christmas at Fort Dix. It hadn’t snowed and there were no twinkling lights or decorated Christmas trees, but there was a nip in the air and it was Christmas. And I was alone. There were seven thousand troops scattered around me, but I was alone. I came off guard duty at two o’clock, showered, changed into olive drab and was free until reveille the next morning. Well meaning civil authorities had decreed that military personnel without emergency passes\ could not use public transportation over the holiday. The hard working defense workers needed all the space. Those few soldiers who had their own cars, and ration stamps for enough gasoline to fuel them, were packing their vehicles with paying passengers for the trip home. For the rest of us, it was hitchhike or stay put. Cpl. Al Walters and I stood by the road to New York and waited. Not a car passed in half an hour. My chances of seeing my wife for the holiday became very slim. We saw a lone car coming from the opposite direction and changed our minds,
18 crossed the road, and got a lift to Philadelphia. We didn’t know a soul in the city, and it was foolish to go there, but it was Christmas. Philadelphia at its best is not a bright, fun loving town. And on Christmas in wartime it was really a drag. We made our way to the Salvation Army Canteen. We were too late. The last of the food had been eaten, and the only ones there were four weary women who had spent the day feeding hungry soldiers. They eyed with dismay the mountain of dirty dishes in the sinks, and the smeared pots and pans on every sinktop. But they were game and were ready to go forth into the fray when Al and I intervened. KP in the army is a dreaded task. Elbow deep in hot soapy water scraping the stubborn grime from the bottom of a cooking pot is not a proper job for a first class fighting man. It isn’t even a fit task for untried dogfaces such as we, but we tied on aprons and dived in. The ladies, tired as they were, argued against our endeavor, but we persisted. We washed, dried and stacked the dishes, shined the pots so they gleamed like a shavetail’s boots, and then tackled the floor.
19 The ladies somewhere found two pieces of pumpkin pie and made fresh coffee. They sipped coffee with us while we pigged out on the home-made pie. I hoped that their sons, where ever they were, had such caring people near. They gave us each a hug and a hand-knitted O.D. Sweater, and we were on our way. We had taken a chance of getting back to the camp late and missing reveille, but luck was with us and we got a ride almost immediately. The car radio was playing Christmas music. "I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on me." I wished it were true. "Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents on the tree." Not this year. It had started to drizzle, but the moisture on my cheek wasn’t rain. The barracks was silent and dark. I hit the sack, hoping to get a few hours sleep before the five-o’clock reveille call. God was in His Heaven. All was well. It was Christmas, and I was alone.
20 War by Lyn Lifshin
I fight the dead who are always with us. We carry them in our chests like an extra shovel. Why can’t we let go of what is already lost to us. We must walk about as if we had some place to go, let the dead go
World War 2 by Lyn Lifshin sometimes there was chocolate in radio stories there were always tunnels with Germans in them even the children dreamed what they'd do to young girls there were no fathers
21
Why the Charcoal in Grainy World War 2 Movies Always Seems more Blue than Black by Lyn Lifshin
Because the trains are always departing, because I could have been in the clang of rails, maybe a cattle car. Blue of smashed Delft, of the stained glass clattering. Somewhere an aunt I might have been named for, some Raisal, a rose focuses on a sliver of sky, crammed into a car so packed no one could squat to pee, who went over all the Dvorak violin sonatas in her head to not go crazy, held the blue in until it leaked out on her arm, that tattoo of numbers
Opposite page: photograph by Eleanor Bennet
23 Percy by Andy N. first published by N. Press in “A Means to an End” by Andy N. and Jeff Dawson, 2011
I never met you but can imagine you stood there even now in your uniform with your slightly bent cap.
I never looked up at you growing up and said with a wide eyed innocence you were almost as big as a tree (All 6 foot 4 of you).
Never served beside you through the mud in Burma which must have been hell to crawl through before being transferred possibly against your choice to India where I like to think you imagined you were an explorer stepping into the unknown.
Never marched alongside you every morning and at night as part of the fusiliers
24 or drank a warm beer Percy Henry Nicholson with you on the rare occasion My Uncle you were able to rest. 1918 – 1943 I wasn’t there when you went back for that final time and never heard you say ‘I’ll write soon’; and the letter only arrived after you had gone.
I was told you died like a man leading your men into the gates of the machine guns which cut you down like the charge of the light brigade and passed on so others lived to fight another day.
I never knew you but can imagine you stood there in your uniform even though we never met.
But I can taste your thoughts right up until the end into the embrace of shadows.
25 Shoreward by David Pointer
Easy Green, Easy Red, Easy Company, everything was hard listening as the old Army vet told us about that day ashore was just another massive shoot out away battle dead,
landing craft,
beach barbed wire, half-tracks, and a whole lot of heavy artillery mortars, small arms fire, men screaming away dreams through aerial bombardment by other exploding soldiers’ body parts and a final dose about 29th Division Military Police Platoon extinguishing his last cigar in a brass fly ashtray as always on fire like a B-24 Liberator.
26 D-Day by Harold O'Leary
“Hello…Matilda?...This is Boney.” My nickname then. “How would you like to take in a movie tonight. My furlough ends tomorrow.” The time was 4:30 PM. “I don’t have a car, but the theatre is only a block from your house.” The date was June 5, 1944. “Great, I’ll see you about 7:30,” And so I did.
To be honest, in the very last row in the topmost balcony, we didn’t see much of the movie. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t even tell you what the movie was, but then that was not why we were there. We actually left before it was over to walk out into a most beautiful night, complete with a most glorious full moon that argued for amour. My being more obsessed with the fullness of something other than the moon, it was Matilda who first noticed it and commented, “Oh, would you look at that moon, I’ve never seen it so big.” Not too pleased. I managed to tear myself away from her fullness and look up. In an attempt to disguise my obsession with her fullness, I assumed an attitude of serious meditation, and I gravely observed, “Matilda, do you know what that means?”
“What?” she said, half-heartedly, still gazing at the moon. “They’re going in tonight.” I said a bit too emphatically which
27 seemed to annoy her somewhat. “Who’s going in and where?” she said with a slight hint of displeasure. “The invasion.” I said, “It means they’re going to invade France tonight.” “What would you know”, she scoffed. “ Why can’t we just enjoy the moon and forget the war for one night?” and the subject was promptly dropped, but not before it had cooled our ardor for the rest of the evening. What had gone unrealized the evening before was made up for in my dreams that night, but even they came to an abrupt end with the clanging of the telephone at whatever ungodly hour the next morning. It was Matilda. “My God!” she screamed even before I could get in a Hello. “You were right…It happened…How did you know?” “Right about what?...What happened?” I managed to stammer, only half awake. “The invasion you fool, the invasion”. It’s in the paper and all over the radio. You knew something didn’t you?” “Now wait a minute.” I said, not quite believing what I heard. “Are you sure you didn’t just dream this?” “It’s real.” she screamed, “Turn on the radio. I’m scared to death. How did you know?” “Matilda!” I barked. “Calm down. I did not know. I don’t even know what made me say that. We all knew that it was bound to
28 happen soon and well, I was just trying to be cute, believe me.” I’m not sure she ever did believe me. After the war, we went our separate ways meeting only occasionally, but for the remaining years of her life, we never came together without opening the conversation with her playfully asking, “How did you know?” We may have spoken of it playfully, but with me, it was with some sense of guilt when I reflect on the subsequent fortune that followed my outfit, the 281st Field Artillery Battalion for the remainder of the war. In November of 1944 we embarked for the ETO on a liberty ship, the Marine Wolf in a 35 ship convoy. For some unknown reason the Marine Wolf, with us aboard, went to Liverpool, England, while the ship with our howitzers went to France. It wasn’t until February the following year that we recovered them. This meant that, had we gone with our howitzers to France, we would have found ourselves amidst the horrors of that other most costly engagement of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. Instead, we had been safely ensconced in North Wales while they were flying troops from the states to reinforce a desperate situation.
With the recovery of our howitzers, we finally crossed to the continent and were attached to General Hodge’s First Army. We were commonly referred to as a ‘bastard battalion’ to be sent
29 wherever the need arose. We reached the Rhine river at Remagen just as the Ludendorff bridge finally collapsed. It’s capture, before it could have been demolished, made possible our first crossing of the Rhine, Hitler’s last natural line of defense. Before the collapse, we had gained a foothold on the eastern shore and had in place two pontoon bridges to supply it.
There we remained for two weeks guarding the bridges with our howitzers idled while our trucks were used to ferry the infantry in pursuit of the rapidly retreating enemy forces, ultimately to entrap huge numbers of the German Wehrmacht in what was known as the ‘Rhur Pocket’.
No longer needed by the First Army, we bastards were relocated south to General Patton’s Third Army. Having been used as a back- up, it was only then that we came face to face with the enemy in one of Patton’s famed spearheads, but this being April, it was for a very brief period, for the war came to an end on May 8th but not completely for us. In the year that followed, we remained as troops of occupation.
It was at the beginning of this period that I came to know one Albert Alfred Rupee, a German soldier who came to our outfit fleeing in desperation from what was left of the German Army on
30 the Eastern (Russian) front. His greatest fear, as with most, was being captured by the Soviets. Albert and I became the closest of friends during the year we were together for he chose to stay with the outfit on permanent KP duty. As occupation troops we were moved from town to town and with each move it fell to Albert, who spoke German, French and Italian fluently, to reconnoiter the landscape for whatever wine and/or women might be available.
After returning home in May of 1946, I did receive one letter from Albert, written in the best English and German either of us could muster, in which he stated that with my leaving, things weren’t the same, and that he felt it was time to move on. I tried to answer it but with no luck. Ironically, aside from the guilt I feel, for having escaped the fate of all those thousands who were lost on D-Day while Matilda and I enjoyed a full moon on a soft summer evening, and the guilt of our time in North Wales while the horror of the Bulge was being played out, I am sorely troubled by the knowledge that I could have conceivably killed my friend Albert, or that he could have killed me. Is there really any way we could have justified either, having come to know and appreciate, yes, love each other. Our justification then was that Germany was the enemy, but try now, as I may, I have great difficulty in thinking of Albert as the enemy. At that time, Germany was a cabal of pathological mad-men. Albert was not one of them. With a German
31 mother and a French father, living in the Alsace he was nothing more than cannon fodder for the cause. Originally taken into the German Navy, he was subsequently sent to the Eastern (Russian) front where he lost three fingers of his right hand.
There is one other problem I have. Where is the guilt the whole human race should accept for not having learned a lesson from D- Day, The Battle of the Bulge, the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Could it be that all those precious lives may Indeed have been sacrificed in vain. Not only have we continued to make war, but the ferocity of the wanton slaughter, not only of the military, but of totally innocent civilians, women and children, makes monsters of all who would support it. Why have we not learned to ask why? That age old canard among others that our freedom is threatened should no longer be persuasive when our own governments deny the very freedoms we are asked to die for, in order to preserve.
During the Viet Nam war, a friend of mine, Joe and his wife, lost a son in that obscenity. When such loss occurs, the parents become either horribly embittered or they become super patriots. This couple opted for the later and set about trying to initiate a national movement in support of the war. Joe’s wife had researched and prepared a document which purported to account
32 for every penny America had spent on war, a sizeable sacrifice. My friend called and asked if I, as an actor, would record this document for national distribution to gain support for the war. I told Joe that I would be glad to look it over and get back to him. After reading what his wife had, with great effort, prepared, I had to call Joe and regretfully decline. He asked if I had a problem with his wife’s figures. I told him no. They seemed realistic in accounting for the source of all those funds, but I had to question why there was no accounting for where the funds went. “Who wound up with all that money Joe?” I asked. Your wife is obvious in her request that we the people should be willing to sacrifice, but I detect no explicit call for sacrifice from those who profited the most from the sacrifice that we the people made. That ended both the conversation and our friendship.
33 Where Allies Lie by Walter Ruhlmann
Miles of alleys where white crosses stand straight, white crosses showing the dead bodies of soldiers, brothers in arms, harmed and fallen on Norman beaches, descended from barges released from grey battleships, young lads sacrificed for the good of mankind, blood spread on sand, limbs torn and organs split, skulls slit, no helmets, no uniforms could prevent mayhem.
Standing over the tombs, I watch infinite lines of corpses hidden under six feet of dirt, grass, trees, tourists; the wind comes from the sea to wipe the shrieks of so many forgetful gulls flying above the land where ancient birds of prey dropped bombs, shot bullets, raped girls, killed boys, abducted and burnt and left so many bruises on the soil now covering the bones of slaughtered innocent lambs.
34 We Marched On by Andrew Scott
We arrived on Juno during the morning light already fighting rough seas loosing comrades in the pools of water each one of us not knowing what awaited our landing where the enemy were hidden there was courage in this Canadian Infantry Brigade as one we looked forward and marched on
As our boots started our journey to gaining territory in this Second Great War we knew we were alone separated from our Allies thought their warrior spirits were with us on every step so with determination we march on
The clouds overhanging us let us know there would be no aircraft to assist us with their strikes from the air the airman may have hit friend or foe the battery was to be just us and to a man, we knew that yet with fear we marched on
We knew that Normandy had to be taken to start the end of years of tyranny and torture that many in this old world had been a witness to for too many years
People’s future lives needed to be saved so not even bullets heard cracking bones could deter from our mission Juno Beach would be ours, not theirs with every step we marched on.
35 Mushawie off the Hill by Tom Sheehan first published in Foliate Oak in 2005
Jimmy Mac, on the second floor porch of his Smith Road house and the early sun barely creasing the edge of Baker Hill, looked over the top of the box scores, the Sox winning their fifth in a row, and saw, for the first time in he’d later guess to be about eight years, Mushawie just coming to the bottom of the Cinder Path. Coming off Baker Hill. He couldn’t remember Mushawie being off the hill. My God! Jimmy, said to himself. Nobody saw Mushawie unless he wanted them to see him, him socked away back in on the Delmere property the way he’d been since VJ Day in ’45. Now and then, and always after dark and often after Tate had closed his little Variety Store on Western Ave, Mushawie would come to the back door, and with meager pennies and odd coin get tobacco, a couple of cans of soup, some real day-old bread old man Tate’d hold for him like it was barely suited for the birds, once in a great while a bar of soap. Mushawie never bought a razor, matches, tools, or containers of any sort. Tate was sure of that. Now and then a hill denizen would mention his long-handled spade had disappeared from the back yard, or his hoe or his rake “had just got up and walked off the damn hill.” People counted off such losses as contributions.
36 “Jeezus, Martha,” Jimmy Mac said, urging his wife out of the hallway and onto the porch. He hurled his 135-pound body up out of the wicker rocker as if he’d come off a launching pad. “That’s him,” he said loudly, surprise rampant in his voice. “That’s Mushawie. That’s him. Jeezus, Martha, he must be sick or something. I can’t remember the last time I saw him. I can’t remember him ever being off the hill. I never saw him off the hill! I wonder if he got burned out, if he got the bum’s rush finally from the Delmere clan. The old man would have a friggin’ bird.” Jimmy’s arms were thin, his face was thin and coppery, and energy appeared to leak out of him as if he had enough for the next guy. Martha McLaughlin had never seen Mushawie. Twenty years married to the widower Jimmy Mac, and she had never seen this empty-looking man, clothes obviously dirty though his khaki shirt was buttoned at the collar, his pants tucked into dark socks. She could remember Jimmy saying that the man she had never seen, who lived in a shack on the hill, used to blouse his pant legs all the time. “That reaffirms military to me,” Jimmy had added. She knew she’d remember that word, the pictures coming with it. Jimmy was loyal to anything to do with the army, the navy, the marine corps, the coast guard, World War II, Korea, veterans organizations, old vets he could pick out at the shopping mall, the way the light folded down and back in their eyes, the way they held their heads in a crowd of any sort, perimeter checking, ears
37 cocked like a .45.
They watched the man Mushawie come off Cinder Path the way some people come off a roller coaster, trying to gain his legs back, looking around, detecting places, things, almost as if he were looking for the enemy, or for friends. Jimmy had told her years ago about the strange man who came up the hill one day, walked to the back of the Delmere property, found the old chicken house way in the back end of a mess of apple trees, and took up his lodgings. It was VJ-Day, 1945, the silence at last coming across the vast oceans of the world, coming to rest on quaint streets, hushed dales, secret cul de sacs, and the quietly agonized farms across America. Plenty of veterans were soon loose in the world, some of them guaranteed never to go home again, keeping company with the dead, with their lost comrades, with the unreported.
Mushawie walked down the edge of Smith Road cautiously. Martha said, “Tell me what happened up there when Mr. Delmere found him.”
Jimmy had his eye on Mushawie, looking for signs, looking for a single sign, and could find none. “The old man, he was with the 69th in France in the First World War, got a dose of gas for his troubles, goes up there one day and there’s a Purple Heart on a
38 ribbon hanging on the door of the chicken coop, which had really undergone a few quick changes, two windows had been added, a tin flue was coming out the side wall, some ground turned over like there’s going to be a garden if there’s time for it.”
“What did he do?”
“Old man Delmere?”
“Yes, the owner.”
“He just pointed to the Purple Heart hanging on the ribbon on a nail on the door of his old chicken coop and said, ‘Is this yours?’ Said Mushawie just nodded. The old man asked his name, he said, ‘Mushawie.’ Not another word. Went back to his family, did Delmere, sat them all down at his dining room table, every last one of them, grand kids and all, said, ‘If I go out from this life and anyone of you so much as says a bad word to that man, I’ll goddamn come back in the middle of the night and haunt you. That old shack is his house for as long as he wants, for his lifetime if need be. You all swear by that this very minute, on my blood, on my screwed up lungs, on my soul, so help you god.’ Never was another word said. The old man was gone in two-three years, and none of them, ‘til this latest ramble about houses coming up there,
39 saying or doing anything, yet some of the young ones starting a sneak attack from what I hear.”
“Look,” Martha said, leaning against the screen of the porch, “he’s sitting down on the curbstone. I bet you’re right, Jimmy. He’s probably sick. You better go down there.”
Jimmy was going down the front walk and Harry Matthers came out of his house two doors away. “See what I see, Jimmy?” “I got a sinking feeling he’s sick, Harry. Let’s check him out.”
“You okay, Mushawie,” Jimmy said, as he and Harry Matthers stood a few feet away from Mushawie. Jimmy first noticed how time itself really had folded itself down in the backside of Mushawie’s eyes, the palest green he could remember, and distance knocking itself further away. A ring of bites circled one ear looking nearly savage in their redness, and more bites were on Mushawie’s hands, as if the black flies had hung resolutely back on the sides of Baker Hill from spring’s onslaught, or the green horseflies had come up from Rumney’s Marsh. A few prominent black spots behind Mushawie’s lips announced serious dental lapses had occurred. His nose was thick and wide at its bottom, his forehead wide, his hair was full and still as black as night itself. The brows above the distance-seeking eyes were hemp-thick, the
40 cheekbones like new shellac in a drying stage. The hands clasped on his knees were huge hands. If he walked out of a teepee he could have been home, if he swung a quiver and bow across his shoulder, Jimmy McLaughlin would not have been surprised. The man from the backside of Baker Hill looked to be about seventy- five years old, and he looked tired, a sense of loss or displacement evident about him. If it were steaming out of him it could not be more noticeable.
“Are you okay, Mushawie?” Jimmy shivered and put a hand out to touch the shoulder of the strange man who had pinned the Purple Heart on a chicken coop door so many years before.
Mushawie, his head still up as if he were standing in the ranks, said, “My name is Clinton Baker Thurstbody, my serial number is 11270952.” His voice was droning and his eyes began to float. He repeated the name and serial number half a dozen times, the voice thick, phlegmy, and dull in its monotone. Perhaps a day or two earlier he had shaved, showing depressions below the lacquer-like cheeks. Mushawie’s words hit Jimmy McLaughlin right in the middle of his gut, like a sledgehammer had come home from way out in space, like Lucifer’s hammer. Whack! Bam! Whack! The Been-there Done-that buzz came on him. Years before, the slight German
41 corporal had leered at him every time he’d asked a question, his eyes yellow, his teeth full of food not yet fully chewed, morsels at the corners of his lips, sort of bragging how good he had it, living like a king, good food all the time, America on its way down to her goddamn knees just like the Poles and the Slavs and the Danes and the Norwegians and soon the stubborn Brits holding on for nothing at all. All of it came back in one resounding rush that slammed him in the gut again. Jimmy Mac put his hand out for Harry Matthers.
“Jeezus, Jimmy, not you too!” He spun and yelled to Martha on the second floor porch. “Martha, quick, call the goddamn ambulance. Call the medics. Call the fire department.” He heard a door slam in the neighborhood, then a second door. He sat Jimmy Mac down on the curbing. Mushawie said it again, “My name is Clinton Baker Thurstbody, my serial number is 11270952.” This time he added, “United States Marine Corps.”
Martha rode to the hospital with Harry Matthers. Jimmy Mac rode with Mushawie, both on their backs. Jimmy came home with Martha and Harry a few hours later, flabbergasted at what had hit him. One doctor said it was too much recall all at once. That night, just after midnight, the man known for years as Mushawie died peacefully in his sleep. And Harry Matthers and Jimmy McLaughlin set about to recover the life of Clinton Baker Thurstbody, USMC.
42 It did not take too long. Through the long arms of the Legion and the VFW magazines the story unfolded. Clinton Baker Thurstbody had come out of the University of Iowa when the war started, joined the Marine Corps, ended up in Naval Flight School, chose to be a Marine fighter pilot, and shot down five Japanese planes on his very first day in combat in the South Pacific. Twenty- two Japanese planes fell from his shooting accuracy, until the day he did not come back from his flight out over a small group of islands whose occupancy was still being contested. His wingman said small arms ground fire had claimed him and he had bailed out. Five months later, with the aid of a Japanese soldier who knew the end was coming, he had slipped away from a prisoner of war compound and was picked up at sea by a Navy submarine that had surfaced at dusk. Captain Thurstbody had been awarded a host of medals, shipped home in June 19, 1945, the same day that Marine ground forces were forcing Japanese troops back toward the cliff lines of Okinawa where many leaped to their deaths rather than be captured. Not long thereafter the big bombs went off.
Official reports, eventually surfacing in Saugus, said that Captain Clinton Thurstbody was last seen when he flew (commandeered was the word whispered at an aside) a Navy fighter from Pensacola and took it due south, out over the Gulf of Mexico, not to be seen again. He was written off as missing while
43 on routine flight assignment, a last fateful and justifiable task the base commander could do in accounting for “one helluva pilot.”
Now, even after a small fire had started at the old chicken coop and had been beaten back by neighbors, even as the coop has begun its journey into eventful dust, even with the threat of that whole side of Baker Hill being smothered in new houses or condominiums and the apple orchard being leveled by Cal Delmere’s grandchildren, each August 10th for a whole lot of years, a group of veterans have gathered there and remembered a man who ran away from it all, from what he had trouble remembering in the first place, and where he had found solace, they had hoped, in a rude hillside home, back of the apple trees on Baker Hill.
44 Beginning of the End by Will Tinkham
Come June of 1944, America listened to President Roosevelt's radio prayer after the successful D-Day landing and despair turned to hope. Pêche sat in front of her old Silvertone radio as an announcer summed up the invasion as "the beginning of the end of the war in Europe." Pêche combed out her daughter's hair and wondered if there would be a celebration at Mount Rushmore. The town of Keystone celebrated everything at Rushmore. The Silvertone replayed FDR's prayer: They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise—
A groan sounded from the kitchen as the back door slammed. Pêche picked up her daughter and hurried into the kitchen. Patsy Paster sat at the table, her face buried in her arms. Pêche noticed the heaving of her shoulders before she heard the sobs. She laid a hand on Patsy's back and pulled a chair closer.
"It's Petey!" Patsy cried out before slumping against Pêche. Peter Noble, Patsy's twin, had been in the Navy for nearly two years. He had just missed the Battle of Midway but did take part in the Guadalcanal Invasion. "A Jap sub," Patsy managed through her
45 tears. "Why? Why? I thought it was all happening over there."
Pêche steadied her daughter on her lap as the toddler began to cry. "Where's Anne?" Pêche asked in a whisper about Patsy's daughter.
"With Foster," Patsy managed. "We found out this morning. I thought I was all through crying."
"It'll be okay." Pêche cradled Patsy's head on her shoulder and felt foolish for such a lie. Patsy grew limp and heavy.
"I need to lay down..." Patsy mumbled.
"Can you make it home?" Pêche asked, received no answer and held her.
"Did I ever tell you that Petey idolized your Ernie?" Patsy asked finally.
"Idolized?" Pêche paused as she reached for a towel.
"The way he played baseball. Petey always talked about playing like Ernie, being a shortstop like Ernie. The way he dove for balls
46 in the infield and how he slid head-first when he'd steal bases." Patsy wiped her face and smiled a sad, sad smile. "I got to admit, um, I always had a crush on Ernie. I was just a kid but he was very handsome. He was the only reason I ever went to watch that team play."
"I remember Petey way back when he was bat boy for the team. And later I heard Ernie say more than once: 'when that Noble kid gets old enough, I'll be out of a job at shortstop.'" Pêche slipped her arm around Patsy's shoulder. "They were both handsome boys. I guess that's what first got me off on the wrong foot with the ladies of Keystone, that I stole handsome, young Ernie away from them." Pêche felt a small shudder of laughter as Patsy's head nestled onto her shoulder.
#
Patsy made it home later that day and the next morning a Rapid City Journal article told of the death of Signalman Peter J. Noble. The accompanying photo appeared to be a high school graduation picture and Pêche cut it out of the paper, along with a reprint of FDR's prayer. She wondered vaguely what the D stood for in D-Day as she watched Patsy carrying Anne across the back yard.
47 "Thanks so much for everything you did yesterday," Patsy said as Pêche held the door open.
"Nonsense. What're friends for?" Pêche poured some coffee.
"I'm just glad I had a friend." Patsy sipped from her cup. "I know you never had many friends when you had to go through all you went through."
Pêche could only nod and poke a finger at the giggling Anne.
"She helps lift my spirits, too," Patsy said, fussing with her daughter's hair. "In fact, I came by thinking that the two kids would be twice as good."
"Do you feel up to watching them both?" Pêche asked. "Just for a few hours."
Patsy jumped at the chance and hustled the children back to her place. Pêche made a sandwich and loaded up her rucksack with chisels and plenty of sandpaper. She called out a good-bye to the three in the back yard and set out to find Ernie. She felt guilty for having left him out there alone for...over two years now? Ernie had no war to die in, just asthma and years of sucking in granite dust
48 while working on the monument. He died in his sleep just days after work ceased on Rushmore and a month before Pearl Harbor. While pregnant, Pêche had carved a likeness of Ernie in the rocks high above Grace Coolidge Creek. President Ernie Appleton, she etched in the granite above him. In no time after her initial carving, the baby had grown too big inside her to make the climb. And once she was born, she was too small to take on such a hike and, just like that, she became too big again to haul around. And poor Ernie, left all alone.
Pêche paused, hiking up the mountainside, surprised how much the sculpture stood out. Had others stumbled upon it? If someone from town had, she surely would have heard about it—they'd have screamed sacrilege at the thought of a fifth President hiding on their precious mountain.
With work still to be done on his eyes, Pêche dug out her carver's chisel and small hammer. The chisel seemed to move on its own; so well she knew those eyes. She made a point of slowing herself down, getting it right.
The eyebrows were easy, she left the rough texture of the granite as it was. With the gold claw she scraped the edges of the eyelids to give the feeling of eyelashes. Her hands ached from sanding the
49 eyeballs smooth, but smooth and expressive they were—at least to her. Others might not even recognize him but Pêche felt she could see right down to Ernie's sweet soul.
Pêche pulled out the sandwich and ate while searching for a suitable piece of rock. Just behind Ernie and to the left, jutting out nicely, she found a chunk of granite slightly larger than a human face. She pulled Peter Noble's picture from her pocket and reasoned that she could—allowing for the rock she'd chisel away— create something about halfway between life-size and the face in the photograph.
One-third the size and finer than the work she had done on Ernie, it was still far less intricate than figurines she'd done in the past and in no time she had a rough image of the handsome, young Signalman. Looking about, she noticed Ernie's stone plaque. There was no such granite slab near Peter Noble's sculpture, only a thin band above his face. Pêche chiseled Petey into the strip of rock but he deserved more. She recalled some narrow brass plates she had at her workbench. They just might do the trick. She began to pack up her things; Petey needed another day's work and she would do him justice tomorrow. Pêche played with her smallest chisel, writing Signalman Peter J. Noble dozens of times on one brass strip in a variety of styles. She
50 messed up the "g" in Signalman on her first real attempt on a three by five inch plate. Trying again, she scratched block letters into the brass: SIGNALMAN PETER J. NOBLE. And below that: SON, TWIN, SHORTSTOP. Then, at the bottom, she added in a flashier script: Could have been so much more...
Back on the mountain—with Patsy again watching the girls—Pêche put the finishing touches on Petey, struggled mightily with a drill but managed to secure the brass plaque into a space she'd chiseled out under the boy's chin. She sat staring at her work. Would this be her sole contribution to the war effort? A solitary tribute to one fallen boy that few would ever see. She had been officially pregnant or caring for her daughter ever since Pearl Harbor, leaving her of little good for scrap metal or rubber drives, or working at a plant in Rapid City. She would have gladly watched other mothers' children but wasn't to be trusted—in the eyes of the families of Keystone.
Saying goodbye to both Petey and Ernie, Pêche made her way back home, figuring she'd show Petey to Patsy first, then to the parents if Patsy approved.
#
51 While Pêche watched Patsy and the children hide on the neighbor's back porch from a sudden downpour, the Silvertone spoke of an attempt on Hitler's life and something called Operation Cobra and driving the Germans back toward Paris in late July. She turned to a knock at the front door, moved to open it and found Mrs. Severson, from the fabric store, all dressed in black. "Will you do my Sammy," she said, almost apologetically, and handed her a page torn from a newspaper. "Like you did the Noble boy."
"We hadn't heard," Pêche managed after a glance at the obituary. "I'm so very sorry." She ushered the woman inside; Mrs. Severson oblivious to her muddy shoes and the living room rug. A sniffle could be heard beneath the veil and Pêche felt a tear roll down her own cheek. A picture accompanied the story; the freckles and red hair apparent even in black and white. The obituary mentioned Paris; Pêche discreetly turned off the radio. "Didn't he have the paper route?" she asked and followed as the woman wandered into the kitchen.
"Yes. Years ago." Mrs. Severson eased down on a chair. "He was very conscientious."
"I remember," Pêche said, though she only really recalled a fellow redhead trudging up to the door. "Coffee?" she asked and the
52 woman nodded, then held her head in her hands. Pêche noticed FDR's D-Day prayer, which she'd tacked to the wall, and wondered how the woman had heard about Petey; after all it was supposed to be a secret. "I'd be honored to do a small memorial for your Sammy," Pêche said, pouring a cup and sliding it onto the table. "He was a good boy and a hero."
Mrs. Severson pointed to the muddied floor. "Oh, and I've tracked all through your house!" She held her hand to her veil and began crying in earnest, thanking Pêche—and apologizing—repeatedly between sobs.
#
Pêche packed up her gear and headed for what was becoming her own private shrine behind Rushmore. After filling her jug from Grace Coolidge Creek, Pêche started up to find Ernie and Petey. She had Sammy Severson's photograph in one pocket, a finished brass plaque in her rucksack and almost fell backwards off the mountain upon spotting a flag snapping in the breeze just above where Ernie should be. Sure enough, she scrambled closer and recognized an old Rushmore Memorial baseball pennant. Someone had jammed a stick into a crevice above Ernie with the flag attached. And, near Petey, a Keystone High pennant stuck out from
53 the mountainside. Pêche spun around half-expecting people to jump out from behind the rocks. Turning back she noticed the baseball bats. And the flowers. In a little alcove between Ernie and Petey, someone had leaned two bats—handles up and crossed— against the rock and filled in the bottom with an assortment of flowers, which were now fairly beaten up by the wind.
#
"Honest, I didn't blab," Patsy swore after Pêche told her about the pennants, bats and flowers. "But my mother never could keep a secret. And my father was really touched by the whole thing. I think he wanted to show the whole world."
"It's not that I mind." Pêche rolled a baseball at the two toddlers on the floor. "It was just such a shock. I always thought, if anyone did find it, they'd dynamite it away and lock me up for defacing Mount Rushmore." She reached for the ball the kids had managed to get halfway back to her. "I bet it was Petey's friends." "I kind of liked it being our little secret."
"Maybe one of these kids blabbed." Pêche gave them an accusatory look and rolled the ball back.
54 Patsy laughed. "Probably was kids, though. You know how tough it was for my parents getting up there. And we drove up as far as we could."
"You're probably right," Pêche agreed, struggling to get to her feet as the ball rolled in completely the opposite direction. "I don't know how many more trips up there I got in me. With any luck this damn war's almost over and no more boys'll die." Behind her the Silvertone spoke of a second Allied landing in southern France in mid-August, the announcer summarizing the Allied advances and concluding: "this spells the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany." Pêche thought back to D-Day and FDR's prayer: They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
55 Contributors' Biographies
Nick is 40, lives near Manchester. He likes writing, tattoos, history, planes, goth music and paganism. He likes beer.
Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic,The World Photography Organisation, among others. Her photography has been published in the Telegraph , The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United States and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited, having shown work all around the world and especially The Environmental Photographer of the Year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010. http://www.eleanorleonnebennett.zenfolio.com
Fern G.Z. Carr is a lawyer, teacher and past president of the local branch of the BC Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She is a member of The League of Canadian Poets and former Poet-in-Residence who composes and translates poetry in five languages. A winner of national and international poetry contests, Carr has been published extensively world- wideCanadian honours include being featured online in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, having her poetry set to music by a Juno- nominated musician and having her poem, “I Am”, chosen by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate as Poem of the Month for Canada. www.ferngzcarr.com
Bob Cooper recently won the Camden Lumen Poetry Competition, see http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/competitions.htm, and a collection will be appearing later this year. His last one is still available at: http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/allwe.html He lives in Birmingham.
Emer Davis is was born in Ireland and is currently living in Abu Dhabi. She has several poems published in various anthologies, magazines and journals in Ireland, UK and USA. Her collection of poems Kill Your Television was published in 2010. She is a regular performer at the Rooftop Rhythms Poetry Open Mic Session in Abu Dhabi.
Bill Dodds was born in Liverpool and read history at Peterhouse, Cambridge. After graduating he became an accountant and worked in local government ending his career as a county treasurer. He has published 'Twisted Lives' a historical thriller set in sixteenth century England, and 'The Almond Tree' a collection of poetry. SJ Fowler has published four collections of poetry and has received commissions from the Tate Online, the Southbank centre, the London Sinfonietta and Mercy. He is the UK editor of Lyrikline.org and the poetry editor for 3am magazine. He has read his work at international poetry festivals and has been translated into seven languages. He has featured in over 100 poetry publications. He did a phd student at the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre in London and he is also an employee of the British Museum. http://www.sjfowlerpoetry.com/ http://www.blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/
Gene Grabiner's poetry has appeared in: Blue Collar Review, J Journal, Poets Against the War (web site), Earth's Daughters, and HazMat Review, among other journals and ezines. His work has been widely anthologized, and he is a regularly featured reader in New York State and Canada.
Jan Oskar Hansen Norwegian/Portuguese poet
Charlotte Henson is a student and freelance poet from Bury, Greater Manchester. Her work has been featured in Writers' Forum, blankpages and Best of Manchester Poets: Volume 2. She is also a performance artist who runs an open mic called Once More With Meaning in Bury.
Since returning to e-writing after a long hiatus, Charles Langley has published five hundred stories, poems or articles in books, e-zines or articles.
Lyn Lifshin has been called "The Queen of the Lit Mags" and "The Queen of Modern Romance Poetry". Over 120 books and chapbooks of her work have been published. She has also edited 4 anthologies (appearing in innumerable others) and was the subject of the award winning documentary film, Not Made of Glass. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and cultural publications. [from wikipedia.org]
Andy N is a writer / experimental musician from Manchester, UK. He was a founding member of the collective 'trio writers' and now co-runs 'writers of the third kind' and co hosts the night 'guitar and verse'. His first book 'Return to Kemptown' was published in 2010 by N Press and his second book 'A Means to an End' co wrote with Jeff Dawson was published in 20110. He is currently working on his second full length collection 'The End of Summer' and his first new novel as well as gigging with his band 'A Means to an End'. For more info go to - http://www.andyn.org.uk
Hal O'Leary is an eighty-seven year old veteran of WWII who has come to realize that all wars are fought to enrich a wealthy elite. As a Secular Humanist, and having spent his life in the theatre he believes that it is only through the arts, poetry in particular, that we are afforded an occasional glimpse into the otherwise incomprehensible. Hal has been inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame and is the recent recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from West Liberty University.
David S. Pointer served in the United States Marine Corps from 1980-1984. He is the author of "MPs, Snipers and Crime" available at "Writing Knights" bookstore. He has a poem incuded in "Tales From the Combat Zome" at "Blue Cubicle Press," and a flash fiction story coming out in "Battlespace Volume 1" anthology. He lives in Murfreesboro, TN.
Andrew Scott is a Canadian Native. He is a reviewer for literature and music on Swaggakings.com and hosts ReVerse, an international on-line classic poetry radio program. Andy's eclectic poetry style has been featured in numerous publications worldwide. His chapbook, Snake With A Flower, is available now on Amazon.com.
Sheehan served in 31st Regt., Korea, 1951-52. His books are Epic Cures, 2005, and Brief Cases, Short Spans, 2008, Press 53; A Collection of Friends and From the Quickening, 2009, Pocol Press; and three manuscripts tendered. He has 18 Pushcart nominations, in Dzanc Best of the Web 2009, has 284 stories on Rope and Wire Magazine and work in four issues of Rosebud Magazine and 8 issues of Ocean Magazine. His newest eBooks from Milspeak Publishers are Korean Echoes, 2011 and The Westering, 2012, with 9 more in the publisher's queue.
Will Tinkham has published short fiction most recently in mgv2_69: Fifty Stars & A Maple Leaf, Skive Magazine: Americana, Wilderness House Literary Review, A Small Good Magazine, and Talkin' Blues (2010 B.J. Rolfzen Award). "Beginning of the End" is an excerpt from an as-yet- unpublished novel. He can be found at: willtinkham.blogspot.com
With contributions by:
Nick Armbister Eleanor Bennet Fern G. Z. Carr Bob Cooper mgv2>publishing Emer Davis D-Day 68th Anniversary Anthology Bill Dodds edited by Walter Ruhlmann © mgv2>publishing & contributors SJ Fowler June 2012 Gene Grabiner http://mgv2publishing.hautetfort.com Jan Oskar Hansen [email protected] Charlotte Henson Facebook page Charles Langley Lyn Lifshin Andy N Hal O'Leary David Pointer Walter Ruhlmann Tom Sheehan Andrew Scott Will Tinkham