Wendy was taken to where two small but well-formed women were doing a series of tumbling maneuvers on mats laid out for them. They wore brief costumes and their muscles were firm. Both of them had dark hair and were obviously identical twins.
As they left the two young women doing back flips, Mona said, “They’re both crazy in love with Rob.”
“I suppose that’s natural enough. He’s a handsome man and a movie star.”
“He has real talent. He’s not just a half-baked second banana.”
Wendy smiled at Mona’s show business slang and said, “You like him yourself, don’t you?”
Quickly Mona turned to face her and said defensively, “Well, what if I do? He likes me. We’ve gone out together twice already.”
“He seems very nice, but movie stars aren’t exactly the most stable people in the world.”
“Don’t be so full of prejudice! You sound like Uncle Owen. He’ s against Hollywood down to his bones. There’re good people here just like there are everywhere else.”
“I’m sure of that, but be careful. You always were too easily impressed by men.” Mona’s mouth tightened, and she did not answer. Wendy realized that she had offended her and determined to say nothing else.
Mona was quick to forgive, and her mood changed almost instantly. With a roguish grin, she said, “Come on; you should meet our tour director. There he is over there.”
Wendy followed Mona to one corner of the room where a man was standing with his back toward them. He was bent over a desk and was writing something.
“Well, here’s the last of our troupe, Wendy Stuart, my cousin.” As the man turned around she added, “You’ve met Alex, I think, haven’t you, Wendy?” She laughed aloud and hugged Wendy, saying, “I wanted to surprise you. I’ve been wondering how you let him get away. Now—you’ve got him where he can’t run!”
Wendy could not speak for a moment, the shock was so great. She had not expected to see Alex Grenville, since no one had mentioned his name, and when he saw her he smiled easily, saying, “Hello, Wendy, I guess you’re surprised to see me here.”
“Well—yes, I am. No one told me you’d be leading the tour.”
“I wasn’t supposed to, but Neil Carrothers got appendicitis, so they called me at the last minute.”
“I’m glad they did,” Mona said instantly, nodding firmly. “You’re much better at the job than he was.”
Wendy felt foolish and could not think of a thing to say. Finally, she said lamely, “I brought my music, Alex, but I’m not sure it’s the thing that the soldiers will want to hear, arias from operas.”
“I’ve got some ideas about that,” Alex said quickly. “You’re great at opera, but you can handle the popular stuff, too. I’m thinking maybe we can mix it up a little bit, a little serious stuff but with some light things, too.”
“I don’t know much about the new songs.”
Alex shook his head. He was looking fit and tanned and very handsome. “You’ll pick it up. You were always quick. I guess we’d better start right now. There’s not much time.”
“I’ll leave you two alone. Don’t forget,” Mona said. “We’re going to do our dance routine later on this afternoon, all right?”
“You talked it over with Rob?”
“Oh, yes, he’s excited about it!”
“All right, I’ll have the music ready.” Mona left, and Alex turned back to Wendy. He was silent for a moment, and there was an awkwardness about him. “I feel strange, Wendy,” he admitted. “I thought I had a little poise, and I knew you were coming—but somehow just seeing you brings back old memories.”
“We don’t need to talk about those.”
Alex looked at her quickly. He saw that she was upset and did not wonder. Quietly he said, “I guess not, but we’ll have to be working together, and we’ll do the best we can. I know you’ll do that.”
“Of course, Alex; I want to do this for the men in service. I’ve had doubts about it, though.”
“They’ll love you. Well, what shall it be first, see to your costume or the music?”
“Oh, let’s go over the music. I can wear anything.”
“That’s what you think.” Grenville grinned suddenly. “We’re going to give these guys something to look at. You’ll be outfitted from head to foot courtesy of Monarch Studios. Your aunt and uncle have just been princely about this. They’ve put themselves out, of course. The fact they’ve got a son in service doesn’t hurt any.
“They talk about him all the time. I can tell they’re worried, and I guess they have reason to be. It’s not easy going over Germany in those bombers day after day—after every mission some of them don’t come back.” He looked serious and then suddenly added, “I’m like you; I wanted to do something. Have you ever wondered why I’m not in the army?”
“Well—”
“Of course you have. Well, the truth is, I’ve got a little heart murmur. Nothing serious,” he added quickly. “Just enough to keep me from passing a physical. I tried every service—army, navy, marines. Got turned down by all of them, so I thought this was something I could do.”
“I’m glad you told me, Alex. It must be hard on you,” she said suddenly.
“You know, I think it is. I want to stop people when I think I see them looking at me and wondering why I’m not in uniform—but I can’t stop everybody I see and explain my physical condition, can I?”
“No.”
“All right, let’s talk about the music. Come sit down over here. We can have coffee, tea, or Coke.” He glanced around and said, “I know you don’t want anything stronger, but they’ll be after you to take it.”
“I wish they wouldn’t.”
Alex shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just the way they are. They drink alcohol the way other people drink water. It’s kind of an occupational hazard. They won’t believe you when you say you don’t drink.”
“They will by the time we get back.”
Alex laughed at the firmness in Wendy’s lips and said, “I could tell them something about that! Well, you brought some music; let’s see what it is.”
By evening, Wendy was totally exhausted. The flight had been long, and the day had been difficult. Alex had been everywhere, directing the band, working with Rob and Mona on their routine, and between times the two of them had gone through all the music she had brought and worked on some sort of program for her.
At seven o’clock Alex finally said, “OK, that’s it, everybody. Get a good night’s sleep. I want you all here at six o’clock in the morning.” Ignoring the groans, he turned to Wendy and said, “Come on; I’ll take you out for supper. No argument now!” When she stared at him, he said, “I’m not the big, bad wolf with long, white teeth, but I think we might talk a bit more about how you’re going to fit in. You’re getting a late start.”
“All right, Alex.”
The two went to a small restaurant where there was quiet music and the lights were low. As she sat across from him, Wendy slumped down and said, “I’m tired. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when we’re flying around the Pacific. I don’t know if I’m tough enough for it.”
“I think you are.” Alex smiled at her and gave the order to the waiter. Then the two sat there letting the frantic activities of the day seep out. “This is nice,” Alex said finally. “Won’t be any of this when we get in the Solomons.”
“What will it be like? Will it be dangerous, Alex?”
“Oh, they’ll route us around the hot areas, but from what I hear there’s always the chance of a bomber flying over those islands. The Japanese are out to cause all the trouble they can, as you might imagine.” He sipped the water in front of him and asked curiously, “Are you afraid?”
“I don’t know. Not now.” She looked around the restaurant. A few couples were talking, speaking quietly. Waiters were moving back and forth with food, and danger seemed far away. “Nothing to be afraid of here.” She smiled at him wanly. “But if a bomb were falling, and t
he bullets started flying, I think I’d run like a rabbit.”
“Me, too, but we’ll hope that doesn’t happen. Tell me about your folks; I’ve missed them.”
She brought him up to date on her life, and then asked him about the symphony.
“I’m on a leave of absence, actually.”
“Will you go back after the tour?”
“Probably. It’s going well.” He hesitated then said, “It’d be going better if you were there as soloist.”
“Alex, let’s not talk of that.”
“All right. But one thing I better talk to you about is Mona.”
Instantly Wendy knew what he was going to say. “She’s falling in love with Rob Bradley, isn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t call it love. She’s infatuated with him.”
“That’s the way she is. She’s always been like that with men.”
“I sort of thought that was her way. She’s a beautiful young woman and sweet, too, but she’s absolutely crazy over the movies. Rob Bradley’s just exactly the wrong kind of man she needs to be around.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, he’s just Hollywood. They’ve got different standards out here. They don’t think anything about divorces. Their morals aren’t the highest—as you probably already know.”
This was exactly the sort of thing that Wendy had feared. She waited as the waiter served their meal before returning to the subject. “I am worried about Mona. She’s really very vulnerable. She’s so beautiful, and men are drawn to her.”
“I know. I haven’t been here long, but I can see that this is the wrong atmosphere for her. You’d better try to talk to her about Bradley.”
“It won’t do any good,” Wendy said slowly. She took a bite of the steak that was in front of her and chewed it thoughtfully. “She’s never been one to take counsel—very headstrong.”
“I think all Stuarts are headstrong. It must go with the breed.”
Suddenly Wendy smiled and reached over and put her hand over his. “I think you’re right about that. You might as well write us all off as a bunch of stubborn mules.”
Alex looked down at her hand, and memories came back to him. He did not try to touch her, but when she removed her hand, he leaned back and said, “Well, we’ll be thrown together a lot, and I’m looking forward to it. Being with you and being on this tour, it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I hope I can cut it.”
“You can, Alex; you can do anything you want to.”
“Except one.”
His words came with force, and his eyes were intent. Wendy knew exactly what the one thing was that he had not been able to accomplish—to win her love. She thought suddenly, He already has my love, though he doesn’t know it, but she only smiled and said, “What’s good for dessert here? We should call it a night early since we have to be back to rehearse at six.”
DEATH FROM THE SKIES
After Guadalcanal, Will Stuart and the bloody remnant of the First Division left for what seemed to be a paradise. Will was so weak from fever he could not make the climb into the waiting boat. He fell into the water, pack, rifle, and all and had to be fished out. A baby-faced man named Bobby Carr, who had turned out to be one of the most ferocious combat marines Will had ever encountered, reached down and yanked him up.
“Hey, you can’t drown now, Will,” he cajoled, a cocky smile on his face. “We’re gettin’ out of this place!”
Coughing and choking the salt water out of his mouth and lungs, Will gasped, “Thanks, Bobby, I’ll save your life the next time.”
The marines finally got aboard the ship and Will and Bobby set out for the galley. The soldier who watched them as they drank hot coffee from thick white mugs said, “How was it?”
Will blinked with surprise, “You mean Guadalcanal?”
“Sure!”
Carr stared at him. “I didn’t know that anybody ever heard of the place!”
“What are you talking about?” the soldier said. “Guadalcanal, the First Marines. Everybody’s heard of it. You guys are famous—you’re all heroes back home!”
Carr grinned broadly. “Well, what do you think of that, Will; we’re heroes! Maybe we’ll get to meet Lana Turner when we get back.”
They did not meet Lana Turner, but to their immense relief they did not go to another island. Instead the President Wilson took them to New Hebrides, and for three weeks they languished. Finally, they loaded again and went to Australia. There, the men who had won the battle at Guadalcanal went mostly in two directions. Some went to the hospital for the malaria that racked them and finally brought collapse. This was Will’s fate. No sooner had they arrived than he began shaking so badly he could hardly walk. Carr took him to the barracks at once, and he was clapped into the hospital to recuperate.
The other destination for the marines was the fleshpots of Australia. They spent their nights in the bars, their days sleeping. Carr was one of these, for despite his cherubic features, he was worldly to the bone. He came to see Will almost every day—usually late in the afternoon after he had slept the mornings away.
They were sitting outside the hospital in the shade of some trees one afternoon when Will said, “I wonder where we’ll go when we leave here.”
“Not home,” Carr said. “That’s the scuttlebutt.”
“I guess it will be another island. Did you read about what happened to the invasion at Tarawa?”
Carr made a face. He had heard, as everyone had, of the terrible casualties the marines had suffered in taking that little piece of rocky island. “It wasn’t worth it,” he scowled. “What good is it, anyhow? All these little islands, I wouldn’t give one square mile of Michigan for the whole bunch of ’em!”
“I guess we’ve got to take ’em back from the Japs, though,” Will said. “We’re winning the war, but it’s costing a lot of blood. Did you hear what happened in Russia last week?”
“No, what?”
“The biggest tank battle ever fought.” Will nodded. “The Russians beat the soup out of the Germans. The Krauts had all their big new heavy-duty tanks, and they got zapped!”
“I’d hate to be in one of those things.” Carr gave a slight shudder. “It’d drive me crazy being cooped up inside a tank, nowhere to run.” This coming from a man who had crept through the jungle with bloodthirsty Japanese on all sides night after night was rather grimly humorous.
“I’ve got a brother in the tank corps,” Will said. “I’m like you, though; I just don’t see how they crawl into those little tin cans. One hit with a rocket or a fire bomb and they’re gone.”
The two men spoke mostly of home and when the war would be over, and finally Carr rose and said, “Well, I got to go see my sweetie pie. When you gettin’ out of this place?”
“Two or three days, I guess. By that time I reckon we’ll be leavin’ here.”
“Yep, they’ve always got another island for the First Division,” Carr replied. He grinned, slapped Will on the back, and left.
Will was discharged three days later and discovered that their days in Melbourne were drawing to a close. He had no sooner gotten back to his outfit than they were marched from the huts down to the docks, onto the ships—and back to the war.
Crowds of women lined the dockside, and Carr jabbed his elbow into Will’s ribs. “See that one there, the blonde one up front—the big one? That’s Susie; ain’t she something?” He waved enthusiastically, and the blonde woman waved back.
Curious, Will asked, “Was that the only one you knew here, Carr?”
“Nah, I think I had four pretty serious squeezes.”
Will was silent for a while as the ship began to pull out. He asked, “Do you think you’ll ever see her again?”
“Nah.” Carr shook his head. “I’ll miss her; she was a sweet kid, but in a war that’s the way things are.”
The liberty ship pulled slowly away from the dock, and the voyage began. Will ate on the deck where, in a strong wind, it was hard to k
eep the food on the mess kits. The ship plowed its way up the Australian coast, sailing inside the Great Barrier Reef. Will was amazed at the natural phenomena that flanked them to starboard and to port. The reef was a natural protective barrier, and there was no danger of submarines in such a labyrinth.
The days were long, and the ship was slow, and Will found that he had lost much of the tension that had built up in him at Guadalcanal. He had no idea where he was headed, nor did any of the other enlisted men. They only knew that it was somewhere back to the war. By this time the Japanese had been cleared from the Solomons and most of New Guinea, and the marines and other forces had launched the northward island-hopping progress across the watery waste of Oceania. The bloody losses at Tarawa were on their minds, but as veterans they could talk more and joke more about the place where they were going than of the hard days that were behind. Conjecture kept their tongues wagging. Every day a new rumor about their destination spread as they sat gossiping on the greasy canvas covering the hatches. Sometimes it would become a word game or a slogan-inventing contest.
“Keep cool, fool, it’s Rabaul,” Carr said, naming the impregnable Japanese fortress at New Britain.
Will grinned back at him, relatively sure that not even the officers in charge would have little enough sense to attack Rabaul.
“No, it’s the Golden Gate in forty-eight.”
“I hope not! That means we’ve got five years of this,” Carr said.
A big marine sitting beside them, named Abe Mattell, said, “I heard one. ‘Will you be on the roster when we get back from Gloucester?’” This was a gloomy reference to Cape Gloucester on the further end of New Britain, with the prospect of invading Korea.
Will studied the men, wondering how they would all take another battle. They were idle, immobile, and bored. This meant they were irritated rather easily. The food, which would have been manna back on Guadalcanal, was exasperating. It got to be irritating to assemble the mess gear, to arrive and get in line, then afterward to clean the mess gear to stow it away.
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