An ode to Maxy Noble - the ghosts of war - Cover Story

Humanist, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Ralph M. Patterson

An autumn chill settled grey and dreary over the harbor as water churned between the U.S.S. Leonard Wood and its ratty old pier. New York City's spires jutted from misty shrouds as wind sliced into the matching cap and coat Mom had bundled me in that morning. Then, while our ocean liner's bow cut through the bay, gulls circling its stern screeched warily at a blast from the ship's horn. Looking back, it was a lonely, ominous sound.

Our first night out, the ship plunged through foaming Atlantic swells that sent Mom to bed with what she called "terminal mai de mer," but dawn broke on a tranquil ocean and balmy skies. After entering the Panama Canal, my father, a U.S. Army doctor with orders to the Philippines, took us on a shopping spree in Cristobal. I got a toy gun, and Mom picked a Chinese rug from a rack that soared to the shop's ceiling like in "Jack and the Beanstalk." The shopkeeper wrapped the rug around a wooden peg then had it stowed in our cabin; but when the sun struck our porthole just right, I would peel back its fringes and the deep blue nap glistened as if it had been kissed by a morning dew. At last it was unrolled in our new house on a sunny street bordering the parade ground, two blocks from Wheeler Field, but I digress.

While the Leonard Wood's wake melted into a slate green Pacific, its wireless operator translated the dashes and dots of a communique to my father from the War Department. Did we know it was a reprieve, a call from the governor's office to our executioner? Not then, but our destination had been changed from Manila to Honolulu, Hawaii. If that spinning ball hadn't dropped into just the right slot, my children would never have been born.

What followed our arrival in Hawaii were breezes perfumed by fragrant tropical flowers, tasty avocados falling from a tree in our front yard, and surf pounding the sands of Diamond Head. Mom would read to me from A. A. Milne's Pooh Bear series, and I would tag along some golf course with my father and Maxy.

We still had horse soldiers in those days. Major Maxy Noble, a West Pointer, cavalry officer, and my father's best friend, would drop by our house for "one" beer, then he and Dad would spend lazy afternoons in the backyard, swapping lies and cussing Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But every time he knocked on our lanai's screen door, Maxy gleamed and glittered. A saber dangled from his left hip and silver spurs spun on cavalry boots that held a spit-shine like I've never seen since. A Sam Browne belt's diagonal strap ran across his chest to disappear under a khaki epaulet. But mostly it was the hat. Its leather noose rose jauntily from just below his dimple, hugging square jaws up to a wide brim with a dome circled by gold braid and tassels on its front. Shazzam! He was Captain Marvel, Superman, and Hannibal riding an elephant into battle.

A pat on the head from this swashbuckler would be enough for most pre-TV preschoolers, but it got better, much better. I told you there was a parade ground across our street. The U.S. Cavalry drilled there; twice a month Maxy would lead three columns of mounted, steely-eyed soldiers to "troop the line." Awestruck, I squatted on a curb with the neighborhood kids, waiting for him to spur his steed toward us, then with practiced dexterity he'd reach down and I'd vault into space. Straddling his charger I'd clasp that Sam Browne belt while we cantered to a reviewing stand amid pennants popping in tropical breezes. A metallic whisper of steel and sunlight glinting on his saber was a prelude to his crisp command, "Eyyyes, RIGHT!" His blade would flash, tip freezing at a perfect forty-five-degree angle to the ground quivering with hoofbeats, and every head in the trailing columns snapped right. After the last trooper cleared the reviewing stand, Maxy would wheel his mount, spur it into a gallup, and return me to the peanut gallery. His horse would slow when we approached my pals, and Maxy would lower me into a sprint, usually resulting in an end-over-end tumble. But I'd rise like a victorious phoenix; these kids were now my troopers!

Then the long shadow fell across my world: Maxy and his band were ordered to Manila. I wept when he left because the elegance of our island dissolved like wisps of rising smoke. Even though other people inhabited my life, Maxy Noble was gone.

Under the avocado tree, if I faced our front door, the Momms lived on our left. Captain Momm, a signal officer, was built like a tank: short, wide, and with a nose like a cannon. His wife Anna, lithe and stately, saw darker visions that I yet understood. My mother said her parents were white Russians and that during the revolution there a Red Army firing squad had forced her to watch their execution. No wonder her smile seemed to come from the moon.

The Walkers lived to our right. I don't remember his name or rank, but she and her daughter have tugged at my memory for six decades. Jewell and Billie Jewell. On weekends, if I got up early enough, Jewell Walker served fluffy pancakes or magic waffles, dripping in Log Cabin syrup, with crispy bacon as an extra. Sometimes Billie Jewell--a worldly, older woman of twelve, with glowing cheeks and honey-colored hair--would attend. I adored her.