Now that he'd gotten this far with it—contacting the man and driving all the way up to Gettysburg from Washington, D.C.—Hal Collins was having second thoughts. He arrived at the house fifteen minutes early, but drove right by it and pulled over to the curb two blocks farther on. Several minutes later, the pain in his hands registered in his brain, and he realized he'd had a death grip on the steering wheel. He took his hands away and popped his knuckles.
The old wooden cigar box was sitting on the passenger seat beside him. He remembered seeing it in the bottom drawer of the general's desk in his study, when he was a boy and the family was visiting the general, his grandfather. While the older folks sat out on the porch and talked, Hal would sneak into his grandfather's study, which was stuffed with memorabilia from three wars his grandfather had fought in: World War II, the Korean Conflict—as it was called until recent decades when it was finally given the respect of having been a war—and Vietnam, which his grandfather had fought from the Pentagon, having been called back into duty from retirement. Generals were always subject to being recalled, and Hal's father was a symbol of extraordinary bravery, honor, and service.
But the general never would talk to his family about his war service. Hal's father—and later Hal—had to find out about the general's war service and the stories behind all of his medals and citations through magazines articles from the time, or, like Hal did, while his parents and the general chatted on the porch, by surreptitiously going through his grandfather's study.
For some reason, although Hal always checked that the wooden cigar box, closed by two rubber bands, was always in the bottom drawer of the desk, he never, while his grandfather was alive, had had the courage to open it.
After his grandfather's death—ironically from lung cancer contracted by chain smoking the same cigar brand of what Hal thought of as the general's secret box—Hal's father had quickly packed up all of the memorabilia and sent it off to the general's regimental museum.
For years Hal had kept thinking about the box and wishing he'd had the courage to open it to see what was inside when he was a child. When his own father died, Hal was surprised to find the box—the same one; he'd memorized every torn scrap on its sides and top—tucked away in his dad's attic along with other things Hal knew were very private to his father.
The rubber bands no longer were on the box. Now it was closed with thick string. His father must have opened the box and seen what was inside. He must have read the few notes that were inside, crudely penciled on yellowed paper and secured with a black ribbon.
And when Hal read those notes, he was glad he hadn't read them until now and he knew why both his grandfather and his father had kept them secret—and, most of all, why his father hadn't sent them off to the regimental museum with everything else. Underneath these ribbon-wrapped notes was a short letter from his own father, addressed to Hal. His father not only had kept the notes, but he had known that Hal would find them.
Hal: As it is evident that you have now found and read of your grandfather's secret, I turn over to you the request that he made of me but that I was not equipped—either emotionally or by nature—to fulfill, as you are. You can understand all of this better than I can, I'm sure, and are much better able to decide what to do about this. The enclosed notes were written to your grandfather when he was a young army officer during the Allies' Anzio invasion in World War II, when his unit marched from the boot of Italy to Germany. At the last, the general begged me to find what had happened to the young private who wrote these notes, Benjamin Montgomery, and to pass on the general's highest regards and appreciation and his apologies to Montgomery or his surviving descendents, if any.
I had no idea what he meant before I found and read the notes. When I did find them, I regretted having promised to try. And I put off trying until it was too late for me. But by then, I knew you would be the one to fulfill this request, if anyone could or would. Both because of who you are and because you have the means of searching the records from the Pentagon. So, I leave it entirely up to you on what you can or wish to do about this.
Dad
Hal sighed, picked up the box, opened the car door, and started walking back to the house wherein lived Benjamin Montgomery's grandson. It had taken some time to trace him through the Pentagon files, but Hal had done so. He now wished he hadn't been persistent in doing so. He had assumed he would find nothing, and then when he did, he assumed that Montgomery's grandson wouldn't have any interest in a few notes his grandfather had written in World War II.
He had called ahead and he had said the minimum he thought necessary to be able to claim—to himself—that he'd done what he could to fulfill his grandfather's death wish. But the young man on the other end of the line, Bud Montgomery, had surprised him. There had been a pause before he had spoken.
"General Henry Collins? Yes, I know of him. You say you have some notes from my father, sent to him in World War II?
"Yes, and I promised my grandfather when he was dying to try to track down what had happened to your grandfather in life and to pass on his regards, appreciation, and—he said—his apologies. It might be enough to have done this over the telephone . . ." Hal certainly hoped it would be enough, and he had now passed on the three things the general had asked for, so this would be enough for Hal. "There are just a few notes, probably in your grandfather's hand. But you may not want those, and perhaps just this connection over the telephone is enough." Hal hoped the young man wouldn't want the notes. It was bad enough that Hal knew about them and had read them.
"Where are you?" the young man answered. "I think we should meet."
"I'm in D.C., but I can come to you, if you wish," Hal said, hoping that the young man didn't wish. "But perhaps a meeting isn't . . ."
Hal had done what his grandfather had wanted. He didn't really want to get any further into this.
"I think we should meet. I think I have the notes your grandfather sent mine in this exchange."
Oh shit, Hal thought. "Maybe we should just leave this . . . I don't think it would do either of our families any good to . . ."
"It's fine, Colonel Collins," he answered. "This need go no further than the two of us, but I loved and respected my grandfather, just as I'm sure you must have yours to be doing this. I think we owe it to them to put these notes together, if they do go together, just to give them both some peace and closure."
And thus Hal found himself knocking on the door of a neat little bungalow on the edge of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
A trim, handsome young man met the door. "Colonel Collins? I'm Bud. Please come in. The living room's over there. Would you like to have a beer?"
While the young man was getting the beer, Hal entered the living room, which was minimally but neatly furnished. He sat on the sofa and looked around. There were photographs across the room on a table. A wedding photograph, obviously of Bud Montgomery and a pretty, young blond woman. And a few others, of a couple of older couples—their respective parents? And a more recent one of Bud and his wife and two small children. And one of an older, but handsome man. The Benjamin Collins of the notes?
