by Jodi Thomas
Sarah understood that. She had always let Kat be the strong one because Kat needed to be. “He’ll be back in three months. Wait until you see how much he misses you.
And you might be surprised at how much he may need you with him.”
“Anyway,” Kat added, “I couldn’t just run off with Cody without telling Daniel good-bye. I owe him that.”
“He’s a good man.” Sarah nodded her agreement. “We’ll miss him around the hospital when he leaves in a couple of weeks. Once he got over being sick at the sight of blood, he became a promising doctor.”
Kat smiled through her tears. “You wouldn’t consider marrying him?”
“No!” Sarah said quickly. “I may want a quiet life, but not a dead-boring one. To be honest, I’ve been waiting for months for you to part ways with the man so I wouldn’t have to have dinner with him every Friday night.”
Suddenly Kat’s tears turned to laughter as she learned Sarah’s real feelings about Daniel.
“We’ll wait for Cody,” Sarah announced, leaving no room for argument.
“And I’ll tell Daniel good-bye at breakfast.” Kat raised her hand in promise. “Then I’ll start counting off the days until Cody will be back.”
* * *
But three months stretched into four and four into eight Katherine spent another winter alone without Cody. As spring came to Dayton his letters were few, but those few were filled with news of the storm building in Europe. He never spoke of the night they held each other, but Katherine knew he remembered. Sometimes she’d lie in her bed at night and try to cross half a world and send him her thoughts…her love.
As his three-month tour stretched to more than a year, Cody’s prediction came true. By late summer war spread like a huge prairie fire across Europe, with Cody in the center. He wrote about how it began, with parades and promises that the soldiers would be home before the leaves began to fall. As the months passed, everyone in the world realized this was not to be a short war but a bloody conflict in which men would die facing machines.
Katherine and Sarah watched the mail each day for word from Cody. His letters were now filled with sorrow. He’d remained in France, teaching Frenchmen to fly since, as an American, he couldn’t fight beside them. He told of how the French marched proudly into battle with their bright blue and red uniforms, only to be splendid targets for the German machine gunners. He reported seeing rivers flowing red with the blood of German troops who had been cut down while trying to cross.
Cody described the planes the French had called into service. They were of every shape and size, piloted by young men who’d learned to fly in an afternoon. Through each letter he kept reminding Kat not to worry. Planes were used only for observation and he would rather be in the air than near the fighting on the ground.
Katherine read his letters over and over, always fearing each one would be his last. Finally a short note came just after Christmas almost eighteen months after he’d left.
He wrote: “They’ve started shooting at us in the air. One of the pilots reported a German Taube flew over him and dropped a brick. Another was fired on with a rifle. The men are going up armed now. I don’t know how long I can stay out of the fight.”
Each night Katherine lay awake staring at the light burning in her room and waiting for the next letter. She and Sarah, along with Miss Willingham, searched the papers for news of the war and of the pilots’ role. The young men who took to the air were rapidly becoming the Knights of the Sky in a war that was short on heroes. Foot soldiers who marched by the thousands to their death received only short reports in the paper, but pilots’ escapades were written up in detail, drawing Americans into the spirit of war despite President Wilson’s determination to keep America neutral.
By the time Cody’s next letter arrived, the war in the trenches was in full swing. Two parallel scars had been cut across Europe with bodies piled up in the barren land between. The machine gun had made it impossible to fight with charges and advancements, so mighty warriors became nothing more than targets within their opponents’ sights. With each day of battle on the ground there were no heroes, only survivors.
As she opened the next envelope, Katherine couldn’t keep her hands from shaking. “They’ve begun to kill one another in the skies,” the letter began. “France figured out how to mount a machine gun synchronized to fire bullets between the whirling blades of the propeller. The boys I’m training are dying faster than I can get them ready for the air. I’ve decided to join the Foreign Legion and fly for France. Something’s got to stop the slaughter before every young man in Europe is dead. I only wish I knew what.”
All three women began to cry as Katherine continued, “I know my chances of living through this as a pilot aren’t good, but I’ve got to help.”
Katherine passed the single page to Miss Willingham, who finished it despite tears running in a steady stream down her face.
Cody told of men who were cut down by guns with no one left in their squadron to pull them back to the trenches. Often they bled to death waiting for help or cried out only a few feet away from safety. Sometimes the blood made the mud in the trenches red for hours. With the rain and the filth, the mud never dried in the walkways along the trenches. Those who weren’t being shot were ill from poor food and wet clothes.
When Miss Willingham finished the letter, she looked up at Sarah who watched little Matthew playing on a blanket at their feet. “I want to go,” she said with the determination of an old warrior. “I’ve spent my life trying to stop suffering. The need for nurses in that awful place pulls at me, and I’m not too old to help.”
Sarah was too kind to comment on Miss Willingham’s age. She simply said, “You’re needed so desperately here. I also feel the need to go. If Matthew were old enough to be in school, I’d be tempted to answer the Red Cross’s call for nurses.”
Both women looked toward Katherine.
Katherine tried to shake the thought from her head. She could feel her direction being changed as surely as if Miss Willingham and Sarah had put both their oars on the same side to alter her course. “I can’t leave you and Matthew. I have to help you take care of him.” Her words were hollow, for her thoughts were only of Cody. If she went to Europe somehow she’d find him. If he wouldn’t come back to her, she’d go to him.
The thought of seeing all that dying frightened her at the same time the lure of the adventure called her. Nursing had never really seemed exciting enough for her spirit, but working in a field hospital sounded like a challenge. But she would never leave Sarah.
“Nonsense.” Miss Willingham stood up and laced her hands together at her waist as she always did before starting a lecture. “Sarah and I are perfectly able to take care of one little boy. Nurses are desperately needed in Europe, and you must answer that need. I’d go myself if they’d have me. Our calling is to relieve suffering.”
Once more Katherine tried to remember ever having answered a calling. She’d become a nurse because it was Sarah’s dream. Now it looked as if they planned to put her on the next boat to France because it was Miss Willingham’s dream. She was afraid to admit, even to herself, that it was also her dream.
As Katherine listened to Sarah’s arguments she wondered briefly why the strong were so often manipulated by the meek. She wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to talk Sarah into such a thing, but Sarah would stand fast next to Miss Willingham, a firing squad of two against all her objections.
“I…” Katherine could think of no words that didn’t make her sound like a coward. How could she fight both her calling and her heart?
In less time than she thought possible, she found herself on the train to New York for training with the Red Cross. The blood was pounding in her head with uncertainty, and her white gloves were already dirty from being twisted and pulled on in her lap.
As she sat quietly among the other travelers, Katherine closed her eyes and thought of Cody. What if he were dying in the rain-soaked trenches? What if his eyes c
losed forever, all because she didn’t come to help? She had to go. She had to do the best she could. He would probably be far too busy flying to even know she was in the country, but somehow knowing he’d be near made her warm inside.
Hours later a woman in a Red Cross uniform met her at the station. New York should have fascinated Katherine, but the hours on the train had shaken out all response. All she could think about was stretching out in a bed.
The training school reminded her of the state hospital. Day and night it was drab and cold. The outside doors were kept locked most of the time, and by the third day Katherine began to wonder if the locks were meant to keep the public out or the trainees in.
The Red Cross philosophy was pounded into them eighteen hours a day. Though they operated under military-style discipline, the workers saw themselves as neutral, ready to aid the injured from all warring nations. The Red Cross provided temporary shelter, medical and nursing care, and even sanitary engineering if it was needed.
Katherine handled all the nursing procedures with practiced efficiency, but she had difficulty making herself believe she could dig privy lines. Strangely, the memory of Miss Willingham’s face kept her going when the training seemed endless. Katherine would simply picture the dean working beside her, doing chore for chore while she inspected everyone’s hands for cleanliness.
Every night, no matter how exhausted she felt, Katherine wrote a short note to Sarah and Miss Willingham. Sometimes she’d include something she’d learned about field nursing, knowing the information would be incorporated into next year’s curriculum at the Willingham School.
The time passed quickly, and Katherine was walking up the gangplank almost before she realized she was about to leave her homeland. All the other nurses danced with excitement. A few hugged their loved ones as they said good-bye or talked with friends they’d made in school. But Katherine walked alone to the ship’s railing and watched all the people move like ants on the pier below. Because of her training and experience, she’d been appointed the leader of the troop of women. As in the nursing school, the position held her apart from the others.
Watching the land recede as the ship left the harbor, she felt suddenly very alone. “Sarah,” she whispered as she looked down at the scar along her palm, “stay with me in spirit.” She closed her empty fist, almost feeling Sarah’s hand inside hers. “Forever and ever,” Katherine whispered her oath. “Forever and ever, no matter what.”
* * *
Summer of 1915 was half gone when Katherine crossed the English Channel and landed near Abbeville. Trucks met the nurses and hauled them southeast to Amiens on the Somme River.
The land was beautiful, with wonderful little high-pitched houses scattered over the countryside, but the rainy day made the cold seep all the way to Katherine’s bones. She was told as she bounced along the rutted road that the armies on the western front had dug in along a four-hundred-mile line from the North Sea to the Swiss border.
Closing her eyes, Katherine tried to picture how all those miles of trenches must look. Within an hour she no longer had to imagine. She stood in horror with the others and took her first view of the conflict people were already starting to call “the great war.”
A network of trenches with narrow passages just taller than a man stretched miles into the distance. Huts of sorts were carved out of the dirt walls with boards placed across the top to serve as roofs. Barbed wire marked the other border of the trenches, destroying any beauty that might have existed before them. Fog settled just behind the wire, hiding the other side and the enemy. Every now and then Katherine heard the rapid fire of a machine gun somewhere beyond the wire. It seemed unreal, like a ghost firing on unseen targets as if hoping to hit something by luck through the fog.
The constant shooting made Katherine’s nerves tighten. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax, only to have another burst of fire shatter any calm she’d mustered. Don’t think about the firing, she told herself. Think about the job you’ve got to do. Think about finding Cody.
As the days passed, the firing became almost as routine as the endless rain. The Red Cross had set up a field station far enough from the front to be safe but still within hearing distance of the war. Two days passed before she had time to unpack her bags. The work was endless. The small tent hospital was organized and ran like a well-oiled machine. Only the human element sometimes faltered.
Katherine took pride in excellence. By the end of her first week she’d proven herself to the head doctor, who could have been a twin of Dr. Farris back at the state hospital. He regarded the world with the same lifeless stare.
On the morning that marked the end of her first week he called her into his office. “Nurse McMiller,” he began as he lifted a stack of letters on his desk, “are you aware that almost half the women have already asked to return home?”
Katherine nodded. Sometimes she thought the only reason she didn’t request a transfer was because she’d been too tired to write the necessary letter. She’d come all this way and hadn’t even had time to look for Cody.
The doctor slapped the letters down. “How can we win against death without an army?”
She’d been there long enough to understand his desperation, but he needed more than understanding. “Those of us who are left will have to fight harder.” Suddenly Miss Willingham and Sarah were at her side. “It’s our duty to help where we can.”
Dr. Wells smiled at her with an ounce of respect blended into his pound of doubt. “Will you take over as the head nurse, Katherine? I need a fighter at the top because this threatens to be a long war.”
She fought the urge to cry out she couldn’t, she’d never heard the calling, but his sad eyes penetrated into her sense of duty. “I came to France to find someone I love, Doctor.” She had to be honest. “But I’ll stay to help.”
“Do you know where this young man is?” The doctor didn’t have to ask if it was a man.
“I don’t even know.” Katherine realized how foolishly she’d been to think she could find Cody so easily. Even if he’d told her his location, his letters always took months to arrive, and he would have moved on by the time she could get to him.
“You’ll wait until he finds you?”
“Yes.” Katherine had written him several letters. Surely it wouldn’t take much longer.
“And you’ll be head nurse in the meantime?”
“I will,” Katherine answered and returned to her duties before she had time to change her mind.
That night when she wrote a note to Sarah and Miss Willingham, she described every detail of her nursing assignment, told of the long line of men trooping through the mud bearing heavy-laden stretchers. They looked like death’s porters bringing body after body to the hospital door. As she put down each detail, she knew the two women would write back with suggestions.
“Thank you—both of you—for urging me to come to Europe,” Katherine wrote. “I see now that waiting wasn’t the answer. I’m glad I’m here near Cody even if he doesn’t know it or can’t get to me. Someday I’ll find him.”
During Katherine’s third week the fighting increased, and casualties tripled. The wounded were carried to the tent door in an almost endless procession. Dr. Wells finally gave up trying to run back and forth and waited just inside out of the rain. He’d look at the body for a few minutes, then raise his finger. If he pointed left, the man was assigned a bed. If he pointed right, the body would be taken farther down the road and covered until a truck could take the soldier home.
Katherine watched him at the entrance for so many hours that she finally saw him as Saint Peter at the gate of heaven, only in this place of endless damp, she was unsure if hell was to the right or to the left.
So many had became faceless bodies covered with mud and blood. Once, after three days without sleep, she thought she saw Cody on a stretcher Dr. Wells had assigned to the right. A sob ripped through her before she could stop it. Through tears of fear and exhaustion she ran outs
ide and grabbed the arm of one of the soldiers who carried the stretcher. She stared at the dead soldier for several moments before she realized it wasn’t Cody.
Dr. Wells noticed her behavior and ordered her to bed for a few hours in a voice that was both fatherly and professional.
Walking back to her little half-tent, half-office Katherine resolved to become as ruthless in her fight to save the men as the machine guns were at shooting them. She would become a machine, emotionless, tireless. Miss Willingham’s voice lectured inside her mind, telling her what she must do. Calling or no calling, there was a job to be done and no one except Katherine to do it.
When she reached her tent, she took the time to do paperwork until her eyes would no longer focus, then she collapsed in her bed without even undressing. As slumber began to relax her, she looked out into the darkness. In her mind she saw Sarah’s hand reaching across the ocean and gripping her hand as she had done when they were children.
“It’s all right,” Sarah whispered in Katherine’s mind. “Someday we’ll live in a house with lots of windows, and we’ll leave the lights on all night long.”
Katherine smiled and allowed sleep to possess her, blocking out the sounds of war rumbling in the background.
Katherine’s only peace in a world gone mad was her dreams. They were filled with Cody. Even if he never returned out of the clouds to her, he would always have a place in her heart. His arms would protect her in sleep even if they were not there to do so any other time. Somehow she felt closer to him here at the front. They were fighting against the same enemy. He was close: she knew it.
Twenty-one
1915
FOR ALMOST A month Cody Masters had been grounded west of Verdun, France. He’d paced the camp’s perimeter until he knew every inch of the place. He’d complained to everyone who would listen and still couldn’t get his men airborne.
Several of the pilots fighting for France were American, though the French didn’t like to take anyone without military experience into the Foreign Legion. Cody had already met one man who’d listed five years with the Salvation Army as his armed service background. There was talk of a new all-American flying squadron by April.