With Love, Wherever You Are

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  Oblivious, Andy said, “At least we could sit in that boxcar. And it didn’t smell like chickens.” He lit up again.

  “Give it a rest,” Frank begged, feeling the smoke in his lungs. He coughed to make his point, then couldn’t stop hacking.

  Lartz moved away from them, and Frank suspected it wasn’t only the smoke that drove him. Frank stared out the window at barren fields frosted by the cold night. How was he going to pull off a rendezvous with Helen now? He’d planned three perfect days in the farmhouse barn. The LeBlanc family seemed as excited as he was. And now, every minute on this blasted train was taking him farther away.

  And closer to Germany. Alsace-Lorraine formed an eastern border with Germany. Croane had gleefully informed them that more people spoke German than French there. He’d added that the Germans had occupied Alsace-Lorraine in 1940 and continued to occupy major portions of the area.

  Someone cracked open a window—probably so they wouldn’t die of smoke inhalation, a fate worse than freezing in the unheated train corridor. Through the open window, the sounds of war grew louder. Bouts of gunfire punctuated the night, followed by occasional whistle-bursts of bombs. He’d finally memorized the aircraft chart Major Bradford had given him, so he might have identified the planes if they hadn’t been invisible beyond thick clouds.

  Frank joined Lartz away from the smokers, and they found an empty compartment. Frank wondered if this could be the right time for Lartz to open up about whatever was troubling him. “Lartz . . . I know you’ve been asking around about Germany’s treatment of Jewish POWs.”

  Lartz sucked in a long breath but didn’t look at Frank.

  “I hope you know I consider you my best friend. I’d never want to pry. But I’m here if you want to talk.”

  “Thank you, Frank.” Lartz studied his hands. He had the hands of a surgeon, fine-boned for a man, but with unexpected strength. “I don’t know much. My parents separated when I was in grade school. I stayed in Illinois with my father, and my older brother moved with my mother . . . to Frankfurt.” He grew silent, but Frank waited him out. He hadn’t even known Lartz had a brother. “Mother’s a Jew in Germany—not a safe thing to be these days. I haven’t heard from her in four years.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He might be in a labor camp. Or he might be a Nazi soldier. I haven’t heard from him since they left America.”

  The train passed through mountains and over bridges that had seen better days. Frank wanted to comfort his friend, but he was out of his depth. Which would be worse—to discover your brother was a slave, or to find out he was a Nazi?

  When the train came to a final stop in Strasbourg, which, Lartz informed them, was the former capital of the region, they fell in with the British soldiers, who seemed to know where they were going. The three American doctors were definitely in the minority. In crowded, cobblestone-paved streets, Frank gazed in wonder at the spectacle of workhorses pulling hay wagons next to fully armed tanks. Gunfire, no longer distant like thunder, sounded so close that Andy ducked twice before they got out of the city limits.

  They reported to a small British outfit, where Major Bradford greeted them like long-lost cousins.

  “Good to see you again, Major.” Frank meant it, too.

  “Shall we repair to my office?” Bradford led the way to a tent with three wooden folding chairs and a small desk. Lartz, Andy, and Frank took the chairs as directed, and Bradford settled onto the corner of his desk. Frank decided that Bradford couldn’t have looked more like a British officer if they’d hired an actor to play him. “I’m glad you’re here, Yanks” he began. “For now, you’re needed at the local hospital. Our boys have suffered heavy losses in the Ardennes. The worst of the injured are being sent here. You’ll have your hands full, lads. Still, don’t get too comfortable. We’re pressing into Germany even as we speak, and the enemy doesn’t like it one bit. They’ve still got too many weapons, including some of ours, and they believe they can win this thing. So we’ll be setting up a joint battalion aid station deeper inside Germany, which is where you come in.”

  Anderson looked ready to implode. “Shouldn’t we stay on here? Wouldn’t our skills be better used in the hospital? In the US Army, it’s the medics who patch up soldiers on the field, then hand them over to us for skilled medical treatment.”

  Frank wanted Andy to shut up. He wasn’t thrilled about a battalion aid either, but why should they get special treatment?

  “That’s the way we’ve done it too, Lieutenant,” Major Bradford said. “But we’re finding our losses on the field are too high. Not acceptable. Giving better care to the wounded on the field before they reach the hospital—that’s our goal. We’ve set up battalion aid stations at crucial junctures inside enemy lines. Lines, I might add, which we are steadily pushing back. Our greatest need now is for trained doctors to man the stations. We can have sterile instruments on hand in the tent, cots and water mere yards from the battle. Your immediate care will make all the difference in this push into Germany.”

  Frank nodded as he listened. He had to admit it made sense. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d cursed, thinking that he might have saved a patient, or a limb, if only they’d gotten to him sooner.

  Bradford gave a crooked grin that made Frank think of Jack. “I don’t know what you did to get sent this way—and I won’t ask. I’ll just say I’m glad you’re here . . . and I hope whatever you blokes did to incite your commanding officer was worth it.”

  Lt. Helen E. Daley

  Dear Frank,

  As I said in my last letters, I was disappointed not meeting you in Marseille. Now I admit that I was also hurt, even though I’m trusting that you didn’t break our reunion lightly, and I pray that all is well with you now, as it’s been so long since I’ve received a letter. Surely soon it will be raining letters from my husband.

  Yesterday we received a patient who thinks he may know a Lt. Daley who is a doctor on the move with the 6th regiment, but I assured him my Lt. Daley is with the 11th General and not the fighting 6th.

  I told you about Liddy’s harrowing injury. We’ve received word that she is on her way back to the States on a hospital ship. I only hope her lousy, cheating husband turns over a new leaf and will care for her as she deserves.

  With love, wherever you are,

  Tiny

  RENNES, FRANCE

  “Can you believe they’re giving us pineapple again?” Victoria complained. “That’s the sixth meal in a row they’ve passed off pineapple as dessert.”

  “No wonder there’s a shortage back home,” Peggy said.

  “Did anybody get mail?” Helen asked. Not since the staging theater had Helen gone so long without a letter from Frank. She knew she should trust God and trust her husband, but there had been moments when she couldn’t call up Frank’s face, his laugh, the sound of his voice. Although she’d kept writing him, she hadn’t written about Paris. He might not understand. Neither of them had seen Paris, and they’d promised to see it together. And anyway, she hadn’t actually seen the city, just the hospital.

  “I got a letter from Liddy’s sister,” Naomi said.

  Helen felt a pang of guilt for not writing Liddy yet.

  Naomi sighed. “Poor Liddy arrived home just in time to learn that her husband got another woman in trouble.”

  “The cad!” Helen exclaimed.

  “It gets worse,” Naomi said. “His girlfriend is five months pregnant and demanding he divorce Liddy and marry her.”

  Helen felt like crying—for Liddy and for herself. “I’m off. I’m going to try the showers again.” There’d been no hot water for a week, but maintenance promised today would be the day.

  Maintenance lied. Helen endured an ice-cold shower. Still shivering and towel-drying her hair, she raced back to the ward and rammed into Colonel Blalock. Nurses rated him the most handsome male in Rennes, but Helen couldn’t see it. He had patrician good looks, a broad forehead and prominent nose, and a cl
eft in his chin that Victoria couldn’t stop talking about. Helen suspected him of dyeing his hair black. He stood six feet tall and looked the right weight. But as Helen said whenever the subject of Colonel Blalock came up, “Handsome is as handsome does.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel.” She said it not as an apology for bumping into him, but as a request that he let her pass.

  “Thought I’d find you here.” He sidestepped to block her way, then laughed, like they were playing a game. “Some of us have arranged a private party off base in a lovely tavern in Rennes. I would like it very much if you would be my guest.”

  “No, thank you.” Again she tried to edge past him, but failed.

  “Why not?” His question carried one part incredulity and two parts shock.

  “I’m married, Colonel Blalock.”

  He laughed. “So?”

  She had to grit her teeth to keep herself from saying what she was thinking. “So, I only go to parties with my husband.”

  “Come on. I know better.”

  “Colonel Blalock, do you also know what no means?” She tried again to get past him.

  “I see. You only accompany colonels if they take you to Paris.”

  This time, she shoved past him hard and kicked the door shut behind her.

  Victoria was standing just inside. “He’s right, you know. It’s all over the hospital that you and Colonel Pugh had a fling in Paris.”

  “What? We did no such thing!”

  Victoria tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t go to Paris with Colonel Pugh?”

  “No! I mean, yes. But not for a fling, for crying out loud. You know that! We took Liddy there.”

  “And then what? You see, it’s the then-what that spreads the rumor.”

  Helen couldn’t believe it. So now everybody not only labeled her a German spy, but they thought she was an adulteress, a wolfess? That explained why Pugh had kept his distance from her since the Paris trip. He was probably fighting the same rumors.

  Vic wasn’t done yet. “Frankly, Helen, I don’t know what you see in Pugh. Not when Colonel Blalock is knocking at your door. I always thought you were a little batty. Now I know for sure. Blalock is a catch!”

  “You can have him!”

  “I wish. But I’m with Major Grayson now.”

  “You know he’s married, right?”

  “But he’s planning to leave his wife. I love Bob. I just don’t know if I should tell him. Or wait? I know he loves me. I just wish he’d come out and say it.” Her whine would peel the hide off a skunk. “Don’t you think Bob is the biggest catch in the unit?”

  “Do you want an answer, an honest answer?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Your Major Grayson is a two-timing cad, and everybody but you knows it.”

  “You’re lying!” Victoria drew herself up to her full five-foot-seven and glared down at Helen with a fierceness that brought to mind lions and gladiators. “You’re just jealous because you’ve had to settle for Colonel Pugh!”

  “Stop saying that!” Helen liked Pugh as a friend. She respected him. But that was all.

  So why did she feel caught?

  Colonel Pugh found her in the afternoon. “Helen, I have to go to Paris for a few days.” He paused, and she hoped he wasn’t about to ask her to go with him. She couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to take over for a couple of days as supervisor of the German ward.”

  Helen swung from relief about Paris to angst about supervising the whole German POW ward. She didn’t want to do it, but she couldn’t say no. With a quick plea to God in Heaven, she said, “I can do that, Colonel.”

  “Good. The patient in bed eight is Colonel Blalock’s. He concerns me. I don’t believe the colonel understands German, so perhaps you can clarify for him.”

  Helen figured Blalock was one of those doctors who didn’t think their Hippocratic oath applied to Germans. “I’ll check on him, Doctor.” Victoria was going to love this—Helen in charge of the Germans.

  Helen found Bill, and they descended the concrete stairs to the POW ward. “How you holding up, Nurse?”

  “Not the best day to ask, Bill.”

  They began with the first row, skimming charts. When she got to the first trench foot patient, she lifted the covers to check his feet. His toes felt like ice. “Bill, this patient needs stockings. Where do they keep them?” Stockings weren’t a convenience or comfort. A good pair of socks had been known to stave off amputation.

  “None of the German patients have stockings,” Bill said.

  “Since when?”

  Bill shrugged.

  “Do I have to do everything?” she muttered. “Who’s the supply sergeant?”

  “Sergeant Orrick’s in charge of medical supplies.”

  “Terrific.” Orrick looked like a Chicago gangster and acted like one too. Helen thought the man’s hair might have been painted on, parted in the middle to accent his crooked nose. “I don’t think General McNeal will mind if I use his phone to call the good sergeant.”

  “Be my guest!” Bill shouted over the groans and cries of the patient he was wrestling, a young man who suffered from violent nightmares.

  Helen hurried to the general’s office, only to find he wasn’t in. But his secretary, a friend of Sally’s, let her call for supplies.

  Orrick answered on the ninth ring. “What is it?”

  “Sergeant Orrick?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Helen wished it had been the general calling and getting such rude responses. “Lieutenant Daley. I’m temporary supervisor of the POW ward.”

  “Yeah. I know who you are.”

  “We’re in dire need of stockings for my patients.” This was followed by silence. “We can use four dozen pair of medical stockings. When can you deliver them?” She thought again. “Never mind. I’ll come pick them up.”

  “No.”

  “Really, Sergeant, it’s no trouble.”

  “I meant no, you can’t have four dozen stockings.”

  “I see. Well, how many do you have?”

  “None. Not for that Nazi ward. And not for you, lady.”

  “You weasel! I’m your superior. I’ll report you for insubordination. You better get me those stockings right—!”

  “Auf Wiedersehen.” Click.

  Helen stared at the receiver. That jerk, that gangster! He was probably selling the supplies on the black market. She stormed back to the basement, enraged at yet another proof that she had absolutely no control over anything.

  “Didn’t go well?” Bill ventured when she stomped past him.

  Helen filled him in. “He is such a scoundrel, Bill! He doesn’t care if all our patients lose their feet or legs.”

  Bill’s countenance never changed during her tirade. “I got this.” He strolled off, leaving Helen more wound up than ever.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bill returned with five dozen pair of surgical socks. Elated, Helen tried to get him to tell her how he’d done it, but he gave her his crooked cowboy grin and politely refused.

  She took a pair of socks and laid them over Bill’s shoulder. “Bill Chitwood, I dub you Knight of the Ward Masters.”

  Bill bowed. Then they began the tiresome task of putting socks on every patient in the basement.

  As soon as she finished the tedious sock duty, Helen found Blalock’s patient in bed eight, the one Colonel Pugh had asked her to check on. Even handcuffed, the man thrashed so violently his gown was soaked with sweat. He was babbling in German, something about needing to get to work at the factory or they’d fire him and his children would starve.

  She checked the man’s chart for Blalock’s diagnosis and treatment. All he’d scribbled on the clipboard was Patient appears to have had a concussion, but is recovering nicely.

  Below it, Helen wrote, Patient is not recovering nicely. He is incoherent and out of touch with reality, not unlike certain doctors around here.

  Jan. 23, 1945

/>   WANTED!

  Blonde

  Height: 5’3”

  Weight: 123 when last seen

  Waist: 26” when last seen

  Shoe size: 8AA—no kidding

  Stocking size: 9 1/2

  Glove size: 7

  General size: 13

  Elsewhere: 34”

  Dearest Helen,

  If you see anyone answering the above description, please bring her to me at once, personally.

  I was desperately counting on our rendezvous. We shall have it yet, darling. I’m already trying to figure out how to get us back to the rendezvous place. Until then, I wait eagerly for your letters to lessen the physical pain of your absence.

  It’s good to be with Major Bradford again. He is such an interesting fellow.

  Just stopped writing to listen via radio to Hitler in German, ranting to cheering crowds. But Stotle, my German prisoner patient, says the voice doesn’t belong to Hitler. Who knows?

  The Russian offensive is going well. Everyone agrees it’s making us look as bad as it is the Germans, though.

  I have 26 patients here, including one former prisoner from Italy, one from Puerto Rico, and one from St. Louis. All are intriguing and intelligent fellows.

  Cold and snow! Last night I had to disregard my sheet and sleep on my blanket—sheet too cold to get into bed. If you were here, I would jump in first and warm the bed for both of us.

  With love, wherever you are,

  Your Frankie

  ████████████████████

  ████████████

  Dearest Helen,

  I’m now convinced that war IS hell. I am sitting on a pile of rocks, writing with numb fingers. Suffice it to say that last night Anderson and I slept on mud-soaked ground in a pup tent, and our standard of living was higher than anyone else’s. Where I’m going, I don’t expect to receive mail, as I may be dodging bullets and tanks. But I’ll continue writing and hope you get the letters. Sorry I can’t say more, but the censors would only cut it out. (Say, fellas, cut it out, will ya?)