Sisters in Arms

by Kaia Alderson

  “Mr. Philips.” Grace inclined her head.

  Mrs. Jones’s hand flew up to her chest and gripped the strand of pearls she was wearing. “Oh my,” the older woman said breathlessly. She reached out and gave Grace’s shoulder a nudge.

  “You don’t turn down lunch invitations like this one, dear,” she whispered into Grace’s ear. “Especially when the man inviting you looks like him. Grr-roar.”

  “Mother! Try to behave,” Eliza scolded.

  Grace blinked. She couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Jones had actually growled. And loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear her, including Jonathan himself. Grace felt her cheeks warm.

  Mrs. Jones smiled innocently as she backed away. Grace’s mouth fell open in awe. The woman had absolutely no shame. She could see where Eliza got her fearlessness from. But in this case, it wasn’t about the apple not falling far from the tree. Pfft, the apple and the tree were one and the same.

  Grace could see that Jonathan was trying to pretend that he had not heard Mrs. Jones’s feline antics. But she could see that his tan cheeks and the tops of his ears had a little bit more color to them. He was struggling not to laugh.

  “Excuse me for a moment, ladies,” he choked out before turning around to wipe the corner of his eye with a linen handkerchief.

  This whole scenario was becoming more and more embarrassing by the second. There was only one way to end the craziness. Grace felt like she had been backed into a corner. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t think of any other way. She took a deep breath.

  “Fine, Mr. Philips. I accept your invitation. But under one condition: we must go to lunch in the mess hall. I won’t have anyone thinking the wrong thing about me because they saw us alone together in town.”

  “Oh, you misunderstand. I wasn’t asking you on a date, Miss Steele. I was inviting you—all of you, really—to the gathering St. Paul AME Church is hosting in honor of you ladies.”

  Grace felt her cheeks, along with the rest of her face, warm even more. She felt like she had been on the receiving end of a blow to the stomach. But she kept her chin up and shoulders erect through sheer will alone. “Oh. My apologies for assuming.”

  Jonathan inclined his head. “So, does that mean you don’t have a problem being seen with me in public now?”

  Grace narrowed her eyes at him. “Not when it’s at a church function. That’s altogether different, Mr. Philips.” She stopped herself just short of adding, And you know it.

  “Wonderful. Can I give you ladies a lift then?”

  “I came with Mr. and Mrs. Morris of the Iowa Bystander newspaper,” Mrs. Jones interjected. “I think it would be best if Eliza and I rode with them.”

  “Then I can go with you too . . .” Grace started.

  Mrs. Jones waved Grace’s plea away. “With all his photography equipment, there isn’t room for anyone else. Sorry, dear.”

  The fake smile Mrs. Jones threw at her made Grace sick. “Oh. Then I guess I should . . .”

  Jonathan proffered his arm to Grace. “Come along with me,” he finished for her. “I promise I won’t bite.”

  The church was only a few miles down the road. But to Grace, the ride alone in the car with Jonathan seemed to go on forever. She had been so mortified at the thought of riding with him that she had insisted on sitting in the back seat of the Ford Deluxe. As they pulled out, she felt even more self-conscious that everyone who saw them drive by would think she, as a newly pinned officer, was putting on airs.

  She was busy looking out the window as the more industrial side of Des Moines passed them by when he posed a question.

  “Have you given any thought to what you’d like your work assignment to be?”

  “No, I figure they’ll put me wherever the higher-ups think I am most needed. But I was excited to see in the paper that there seems to be a need for us WAACs overseas.”

  Jonathan’s mouth straightened into a firm line. She didn’t like the looks of that.

  “What?”

  “This is off the record, but the odds of the Army sending any of you Negro WAACs overseas are low, at least for now.”

  Grace sighed and looked out the window. She tapped the seat with her fist. “Is there a reason why? Wait, don’t answer that. I already know.”

  “For the same reason that there are almost no requests for Negro WAACs stateside. None of the base commanders want to deal with the additional ‘headache’ of having to house and manage a unit of soldiers who have to be segregated by race and gender.”

  “Then what was the point of all of that?” She jabbed her thumb back in the direction from which they had come. “Why have us go through the spectacle of training us for six weeks in the middle of nowhere and then making a big show of making us officers. Every day I read in the paper about small Allied victories here and there. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that there hasn’t been any hint of an invasion of France or Japan in the works for the near future. All you see on the newsreels is ‘Support Our Boys’ and ‘Buy More War Bonds.’ The whole propaganda campaign around the WAAC is for every woman who joins, that frees up one more GI to go fight overseas.”

  “Now you know what my everyday life is like back home in D.C.” Jonathan sighed. “Grace, I’m not asking you about your expectations to get you all riled up. I’m asking you privately—despite your protests back there—because I’m in a position to help you get assigned to something that won’t have you waiting around and to somewhere that isn’t more isolated for a New York City gal like you than here.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that the only posts that are thinking about taking in you ladies are the ones that already have a huge Negro GI population. Right now that would be out in Fort Huachuca, down on the Arizona-Mexico border, or deep in the Deep South, like Camp Hood in central Texas.”

  “Well, I’ll just go wherever I’m needed then.”

  Jonathan stopped at a red traffic light. He twisted himself so he could get a good look at her. “You’re not hearing what I’m trying to tell you. I can make a recommendation to have you assigned to Washington. Working with me.”

  “Oh.” Grace leaned back into the seat. On the surface, a Washington assignment would be ideal for someone like her who had no experience living in a nonurban environment. But technically, the District still adhered to Jim Crow segregation, even if the practices there weren’t to the extreme found farther South. She hoped it would be more along the lines of what she had, unfortunately, become used to here at Fort Des Moines.

  The decision to take Jonathan up on his offer to help her didn’t require a Ph.D. But from Grace’s vantage point, she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There was no way she could accept his offer to “put in a word for her” to get a choice assignment. Her colleagues had been making innuendos about the nature of her relationship with Jonathan since his first visit to the base. If she let him do this, that would be turning a spark into an inferno. But if she didn’t accept his help, she risked being sent to a location that would either bore her to death or put her at the risk of death.

  Jonathan pulled the car onto the grassy lawn that served as the church’s parking lot. Behind the building, she could see tables, benches, and streamers that were in the process of being set up.

  “You know I can’t accept your offer to pull strings for me to work by your side. And you know why. Thank you for looking out for me. Maybe it’s best for me to go with the luck of the draw. Either I stay here in Des Moines or I don’t. Whatever happens, it’ll be on my own merit.”

  Jonathan frowned. “I understand. Forgive me for putting you in such an awkward position. But if you change your mind . . .”

  Grace tapped her pocketbook with a smile. “I still have your contact information.”

  “Good. Now, let’s go see about getting some pie.”

  IN THE END, the “luck of the draw” wound up leaving Grace in Des Moines as a company officer assigned to help train the first batch of WAAC regula
r enlistees. The now second officer Grace Steele then served as a convoy officer along with Charity Adams, escorting the first batch of WAAC privates down to Fort Huachuca in Arizona. And then it was back to Des Moines to wait for her next assignment.

  Eliza was initially sent back to New York as a WAAC recruiter but wound up spending the rest of the year out in the field. In the meantime, hundreds more white WAACs had been deployed to meaningful assignments around the country. Grace loved shaping the women who volunteered into soldiers who could drill with razor precision. However, it was disheartening to watch class after class of talented young Negro women essentially pile up at Fort Des Moines, all waiting to be assigned somewhere, while their white counterparts went on to have a more exciting start to their military careers.

  Morale on base among the Negro privates went south quickly. It was hard for Grace and the other officers too when they—whom Dr. Bethune still called her “best and brightest”—had become nothing more than glorified babysitters.

  SIX MONTHS LATER, when the first contingent of white WAACs were on their way to Europe, Grace was still waiting for an assignment. She finally broke down and sent a telegram to Jonathan Philips. It read:

  * * *

  TELEGRAM

  PULL YOUR STRINGS.

  I’M READY TO GO TO WASHINGTON.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  Des Moines, Iowa

  September 1943

  CONGRATULATIONS, FIRST OFFICER STEELE.”

  Grace smiled at Charity’s use of her new rank. She and a number of the women who had been her classmates in Officer Candidate School had been promoted and pinned that morning. Their promotions were a result of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps disbanding to allow for the new Women’s Army Corps, or WAC. The WAC was an official part of the U.S. Army, entitling them to all the benefits that the male GIs and officers enjoyed.

  Charity, who herself had been made the commanding officer over the incoming Negro recruits, smiled at her. “It looks like you’re headed to Washington, D.C.”

  “I’m what?” Grace couldn’t help herself from breaking out into a grin. She hadn’t been allowed to go anywhere outside Des Moines since she first arrived over a year ago, except for the one trip down to Fort Huachuca in Arizona to escort a batch of Negro WAAC privates to their assignment down there. It had been an uneventful trip, aside from the base full of Negro male soldiers who apparently hadn’t seen a woman of color in a very long time. Since then, Grace had been doing nothing but shaping fresh meat off the streets into well-trained WAAC soldiers.

  Charity handed Grace a telegram and an envelope. “Here are your orders.”

  Grace took the documents and looked them over. “I don’t believe it.” But the words on the telegram transcript confirmed it.

  Whatever excitement had begun to bubble up inside her quickly burst when she opened the envelope and saw who she’d be reporting to. A frown quickly replaced any signs of excitement on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Charity’s brow wrinkled as she looked over her friend. “I thought you’d be happy to be back home on the East Coast and in a big city again.”

  “I thought I would be too. Until I saw this.” She passed the orders back to Charity.

  “I don’t see anything wrong. Looks like you’ll be compiling reports about and from Negro soldiers in the field. Sounds a heap better than standing out in the sun all day teaching the newbies how to march.”

  “That part sounds wonderful. It’s who I’ll be compiling those reports with.”

  Charity scanned the document again. “It says you’ll be reporting to Jonathan Philips. I still don’t see the problem.”

  “He is the problem. Every time we’re in the same room, everyone else starts getting the idea that we’re . . . a couple. I barely know the man.”

  “I remember him now. That man only has eyes for you every time he comes here. He’s a problem, all right. One I wouldn’t mind having at all.”

  “Yeah, well, now the problem is my boss.”

  Charity sniffed back her laughter. That only made Grace ball up her hands. Had there been a piano nearby, she would have thrown her palms against the keys.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s not.” Charity wiped her eyes. She nodded at Grace’s fists. “But it looks like you’ve figured out already how to keep your hands to yourself.”

  Grace sighed, then smiled at her friend’s humor. “Keep it up and it’ll be you catching these hands.”

  Charity hid behind her hands in mock fear.

  Two days later, Grace, along with Eliza, was boarding a train headed east. Eliza had been assigned to the recruiting pool immediately after they had finished training and stationed in the Northeast, mostly handling New York City, Boston, and all points in between. She had volunteered to tour the larger bases to “sell” the Negro WAACs to commanding officers in hopes of getting them more, and better, field assignments around the country. On this trip, she was headed to Fort Knox in Kentucky.

  In the time between receiving her orders and actually boarding the train, Grace had learned that the organizational shift from WAAC to WAC had created a loophole that allowed Jonathan to pull the strings necessary to get Grace an assignment in Washington, D.C., without looking like he was directly involved in doing so.

  The trip started out uneventfully. But an hour after they left Chicago, Eliza began to notice that one of the white female passengers had been staring at them in a way that was beginning to make her uncomfortable.

  Negro WACs had learned to get used to the stares when they were in uniform. It was very unusual to see a woman of color in uniform in certain parts of the country. The Army had implemented a recruitment quota system based on population percentages. Negroes made up 10 percent of the American population. Therefore, Negro women could be no more than 10 percent of the WAC’s ranks. It was the same with the number of officers, making women like Eliza and Grace even rarer. By now, there were fewer than one hundred Negro women who had earned officer stripes in the entire country.

  So neither Grace nor Eliza was surprised by the woman’s stares. But what happened next was something entirely new. When the conductor passed through the car, the Nosy Nellie grabbed him by the sleeve. She whispered something to him with her eyes narrowed and her finger pointed in their direction.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I can’t do that. That is a military matter.”

  “Then send in an MP!” The woman’s whisper had grown louder and harsher with each word.

  Eliza continued to leaf through this week’s issue of the Chicago Defender newspaper unbothered. She was more concerned with looking for the write-ups on the upcoming Negro League World Series. Her hometown team, the New York Black Yankees, hadn’t made it this year. But she was looking forward to the matchup between the Washington Homestead Grays and the Birmingham Black Barons nonetheless.

  A few minutes later, the conductor escorted two military police officers into the car. Eliza and Grace shared a look when they saw the two men but went back to reading their respective periodicals.

  “Officers, I demand that you arrest those two Negresses over there.”

  Eliza looked up again. This time, Nosy Nellie’s finger was pointed right at her. Now everybody in the car, including the MPs, was looking at them.

  “Is there a problem?” Eliza folded up her newspaper and put it back in her bag. She would’ve stood up, but Grace held her arm.

  But Nosy Nellie was knee-deep in her own indignation now. “There is no way that those two . . . people are officers in the military. Who ever heard of such a thing? My son is in the military. A private first class.” The woman’s chest puffed with pride as if she had earned the title herself. “There is no way my son would ever stoop down to salute someone like her.”

  Eliza put her elbow on the aisle armrest and rubbed her palm across her mouth. The gesture was the only thing keeping her from blurting out that she wouldn’t be surprised that someone who had her as a mothe
r would be so disrespectful. But on the other side of her, Grace was pinching the life out of her arm.

  “Ow,” she whispered. “Stop.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do. Stop you from doing something stupid.”

  “Are you going to arrest them or not?” Nosy Nellie had now scrunched up her face like she had been sucking on sour lemons all day.

  “No, ma’am. I will not.” The taller MP was firm and loud enough that everyone in the train car could hear him clearly. The woman gasped.

  “If I arrest them and it turns out that they are indeed legitimate officers in the Women’s Army Corps, I’d be in a heap of a lot of trouble.” The MP was now looking straight at Eliza. “I’m not risking a court-martial for myself because of your intolerance. Good day, ma’am.”

  The MPs then marched up and saluted them both.

  “Ma’ams.”

  “As you were.” She nodded at them, mouthing the words “thank you.”

  But old Nosy Nellie wasn’t satisfied. She had clutched the conductor’s sleeve into her fist again. “I demand that they be moved. Isn’t there a separate Colored car on this train?”

  “Ma’am, we’re not in the South. There isn’t any segregated car.”

  The woman’s face bloomed into a purple fury. “Well, I refuse to sit here with those imposters another minute.”

  “I’m afraid there are no more empty coach seats, ma’am.”

  “Then I demand to speak to your supervisor . . .”

  Grace squirmed in her seat uncomfortably as the eyes of the other passengers volleyed back and forth between them and the upset matron. The conductor shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He rushed back down the aisle, pausing long enough to mouth I’m so sorry at them before exiting the car.

  “We’re not moving,” Eliza called after him. Grace swatted her arm. She swatted her back. “Don’t hit me. We paid to sit here just like she has. I refuse to be inconvenienced because she has a problem. Our money is just as good as hers.”