With Every Letter: A Novel

by Sarah Sundin

Salutes snapped up, and field jackets rustled. The men filed out of the tent.

  Weiser shot Tom a dirty look, as if Tom had imposed the discipline rather than Newman. And he should have. Instead the captain did the hard work.

  Quincy hitched the strap for his carbine higher on his shoulder and gave Tom a look loaded with disgust.

  For once, Tom didn’t smile. He looked away, his heart heavy as if full of black tar. Quincy would bear the brunt of this. He’d lost his best squad leaders, he had to train new ones, and he got saddled with Weiser and Lehman.

  Tom pushed his way through the tent flap with Larry behind him. Sergeants Ferris and Kovatch stood to the side, and a gust of wind tossed their voices into Tom’s ear.

  “Stuck in the misfit platoon.” Ferris lit a cigarette and sheltered the lighter with his hand.

  Kovatch borrowed Ferris’s flame for his own cigarette. “We’ll whip it into shape.”

  Tom swallowed a sticky mouthful of shame and raised a smile. “Sergeant Ferris, Sergeant Kovatch, glad to have you in my platoon.”

  Ferris puffed on his cigarette. He was a small man with dark hair, dark eyes, and an even darker look. “Yeah, thanks, Gill.”

  “Lieutenant MacGilliver.” Right on the spot he made that decision, but it felt right. More distance, less fraternization.

  Larry’s gaze whipped to him. Yeah, that would be a surprise.

  “Sure thing, Lieutenant.” Kovatch’s square face, perpetually red from the weather, wrestled down a smile. “What’s our first assignment, Lieutenant?”

  Tom ignored the mocking tone. He’d earned the disrespect. “Your boys are down at the runway with Moskovitz’s squad, replacing the planking ripped up in the last air raid. I’ll take you down, introduce you.”

  “Why? We know the men.” Ferris blew out a gray cloud of smoke.

  Kovatch slapped Ferris on the back. “What do you say? Think we can find the runway?”

  They were challenging him. Mom’s training told him to back down, but something deep inside told him not to. For once, he’d listen. “I’m going down there anyway.” He marched toward the runway.

  Larry trotted to catch up. “What’s that about, Gill? Or can I call you Gill?”

  “You can. No one else. Things have to change around here. I have to change.”

  “Nonsense.” Larry glanced behind him, where Ferris and Kovatch lagged. “Don’t let this get you down. You’re a great engineer.”

  The gray sky pressed down on him, heavy with the threat of German attack. Rommel had retreated back through Kasserine Pass two days before, but was he just regrouping for another thrust?

  “Come on, Gill.” Urgency laced Larry’s voice. “Where’s the grin everyone loves?”

  “Everyone loves.” Tom blew air between his lips, making them flap. “I’m smart, I’m talented, I’m friendly. But it’s not enough. The men don’t follow me.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “What?”

  Larry motioned with his thumb back at Ferris and Kovatch. “Newman took care of it. Those guys will do the dirty work, and you can be the nice guy. It’s brilliant.”

  Tom shifted his carbine strap. “It’s not right.”

  “Why not? Don’t good leaders delegate? You’re delegating.”

  “Delegating.” That didn’t sit well. He was delegating leadership itself. Or serving as a conduit for Newman’s leadership. Either way Tom was a figurehead.

  “You don’t have a choice.” Larry’s voice flattened. “You and I don’t have a choice.”

  Laughter floated from behind. Kovatch bowed to Ferris, his arms folded across his stomach, his teeth in an exaggerated overbite.

  “See what I mean?” Larry said in a low growl.

  Heat flamed in Tom’s stomach. “Hey, Kovatch! Drop something? Or are you sick?” Half a smile, but he didn’t let it go to his eyes.

  Kovatch snapped upright, his eyes wide. “Um, no, just—”

  “Don’t let it happen again.” Tom strode toward the runway, his insides tumbling.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Larry said. “Keep smiling and ignore them.”

  Sounded like Mom. If only it worked. “It’s one thing when someone picks on me, another when they pick on my men.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know.” Tom gave him a warm smile. “But we can also stick up for each other.”

  Larry dipped his chin. “Yeah. We can.”

  The gray steel runway stretched across the rocky tan soil from northeast to southwest. A mountain range jutted up in the east, the only barrier from Rommel’s panzers.

  Tom’s platoon laid planking at the northern end of the runway. “Afternoon, Moskovitz.”

  “Hiya, Gill.”

  “Lieutenant MacGilliver, please.”

  Moskovitz’s bushy eyebrows rose to the rim of his helmet. “Um, sure, Gi—Lieutenant.”

  Tom gestured to the men behind him. “Sergeants Ferris and Kovatch will replace Weiser and Lehman. Introduce them to their men and let them know what to do.”

  “Sure. Wow. A lot of shaking up around here.”

  Tom nodded. “Things are going to change.”

  Moskovitz searched Tom’s face. “Oh.”

  Cheerful but firm. “It’ll be good.”

  “Sure, boss.” Moskovitz shook hands with the replacements and made introductions.

  The men’s faces registered shock, worry, but mostly annoyance. They’d have to work hard from now on. That churned up more shame in Tom.

  He and Larry headed back to HQ. Paperwork awaited them.

  Larry nudged him with his elbow. “Anything new from Annie?”

  Tom shrugged. “Her last letter was written February 6. She’s in transit.”

  “What if she came here? You could meet her.”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not? Afraid she isn’t pretty?”

  “I don’t care about that, but I still don’t want to meet her.”

  “Why not? You two have something good. I bet she’s falling for you.”

  “Girls don’t fall for me.”

  Larry stopped in his tracks and flung his arms wide. “Where’d gloomy Gill come from? You’re not bad looking. You’ve got a college degree. Girls fall for stuff like that.”

  Tom gave him half a smile. “You read too many pulp magazines.”

  “I like happy endings. You’ll have one too.”

  “First of all, she doesn’t want romance. She told me up front.”

  “She could change her mind.”

  Tom hooked his thumb over his pistol belt. “Even if she did, girls don’t want anything to do with me. They like me as a friend. Nothing more. They’re afraid of me, or their parents and friends are. Don’t forget the name. Who wants to be Mrs. Thomas MacGilliver?”

  Larry tipped his head and looked away.

  “Exactly.” Tom shifted his weight to his other leg. “The only girls who are attracted to me just want to annoy their parents. But when they realize I’m not a bad boy, they lose interest. And why would I want to be with a girl like that anyway?”

  Larry huffed. “Come on, Annie sounds like a swell gal.”

  “Which is why she wouldn’t be interested. Remember, she doesn’t know my name, doesn’t know anything about my father.” A twinge of guilt. Annie told him about her mother, which took guts, but he’d only told her his father was dead.

  Larry resumed walking to platoon HQ. “So tell her.”

  Tom followed in step but not in thought. Any details about his dad’s crime and execution would chip away at the wall of anonymity. He didn’t want to lose her.

  He’d never felt this way about another human being. A mutual need had drawn them together. They’d opened up to each other and exchanged advice. He loved watching her grow and develop. But she was more—his first real friend, the first person who had seen inside him and still liked him.

  Tom looked up and drew a deep breath, and the gray
clouds filled his soul. Whether or not she was falling for him, he was definitely falling for her.

  19

  Maison Blanche Airfield

  Algiers, Algeria

  March 3, 1943

  New sights and smells wafted around Mellie. What could be better? A few years before she’d seen the movie Algiers with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, and now she was there. The C-47 cargo plane had flown over the glittering white city on the Mediterranean and landed a few miles southeast.

  Mellie hauled her barracks bag across the gravel-surfaced runway. Airplane engines roared in the distance, and the scent of citrus and olive groves mingled with the smell of aviation fuel. Papa loved the olive tree in their front yard in Palo Alto. Whenever Mellie had scraped her knee, he’d apply a poultice made from olive tree leaves to prevent infection, and whenever she ran a fever, he’d brew tea from the leaves.

  A gust of wind blew her hair into her face. She directed a puff of breath to get it out of her eyes. Wasn’t shorter hair supposed to be easier?

  It was definitely more fun. Her head felt so much lighter, and she loved how her hair swung when she turned her head and bounced when she walked.

  And it was worth it. After a few days of too much attention, things settled down. Now men looked at her, smiled, and tipped their caps. They didn’t look twice, but Mellie didn’t mind.

  “Right this way, ladies,” Lieutenant Lambert called. “We’ll leave our gear in the barracks and meet in the briefing room at 1400.”

  “The briefing room?” Georgie nudged Rose. “Will we have to synchronize our watches?”

  “The target for today,” Rose said in a deep voice, imitating a newsreel announcer.

  Mellie realized she was smiling. Fully. She reined it in to a more acceptable expression. Still, her step bounced. Maison Blanche Airfield would serve as the home base for medical air evacuation in North Africa. Finally they’d get to practice flight nursing.

  The women passed hangars, administration buildings, and workshops. Behind the buildings, khaki tents fanned out into the distance. A bulldozer rumbled along the far edge of the runway.

  Mellie’s heart shimmied up into her throat. Was Ernest there? Would she recognize him? Part of her thought his soul would shine like a beacon, but the other part realized that was romantic twaddle.

  “Here we are.” Lieutenant Lambert swung open the door of an old French barracks, an attractive tile-roofed building with a stone façade. “There’s a dayroom and an indoor bathroom.”

  “Thank goodness,” Alice Olson said. “Hot water?”

  “No, but at least you can wash your hair in the sink.” The chief gave Alice a stiff smile.

  Rose and Georgie exchanged some message spoken with eyebrows. Mellie still couldn’t translate the intricacies of their language, but she got the gist of it.

  The lieutenant led the women down a hallway, and at each door she read names from her clipboard for room assignments. Four to a room.

  Mellie’s face tingled. Their flight divided into solid groups of three. One of the threesomes would be broken up. What if she had to room with Vera, Alice, and Kay?

  Lieutenant Lambert tapped on the second door on the left. “Mellie Blake, Rose Danilovich, Kay Jobson, Georgie Taylor.”

  Georgie and Rose grinned at Mellie. She smiled back with a twinge of discomfort for Kay. But Kay wore a neutral expression as she stepped into the room and plopped her barracks bag on a lower bunk. “You don’t mind,” she said to Mellie.

  “I like the top bunk.” Mellie gave her a little smile.

  “Good, and with all the flyboys here, I won’t be around to bug you.” Kay sauntered out of the room.

  Georgie hooked her arm through Mellie’s. “Off we go to the briefing room. Do you think we’ll get leather flight helmets? Goggles? Silk scarves?”

  “If we’re going to be flygirls, we have to learn to swagger,” Rose said.

  “Some of us already do,” Georgie said in a low voice.

  Mellie glanced out the door, where Kay chatted with Vera and Alice. “They deserve our prayers, not our gossip.”

  Georgie sighed. “You’re right. But they make it so easy.”

  A few minutes later, the nurses of the 802nd MAETS filed into the briefing room. A dozen men rose to their feet and saluted. Most looked thrilled to have women in their midst, but some wore stony expressions.

  Capt. Frederick Guilford greeted them. The flight surgeon had organized air evacuation in the theater and had recruited thirty-five enlisted medical technicians. Captain Guilford was taking over as the new commanding officer of the 802nd and bringing his techs with him.

  In his early thirties, the CO stood at the front of the room in an olive drab service jacket and khaki trousers. “In December, Major Tompkins, the flight surgeon with the 14th Fighter Group, was stationed at the airfield at Youks-les-Bains. He didn’t have a hospital. An ambulance ride to Algiers takes fourteen hours over rough roads, so he sent out his wounded on returning C-47s. Other medical officers followed suit.”

  Guilford clasped his hands behind his back. “The Twelfth Air Force made it official and assigned air evac to the 51st Troop Carrier Wing. We’ve run flights since January 15, over eight hundred patients this week alone. Most of our men are on flights right now.”

  “Yeah,” a man grumbled behind Mellie. “That’s why we don’t need no skirts telling us what to do.”

  Mellie’s stomach churned. Oh dear, he would be a challenge. He had a long face and a prominent chin, and he raised that chin at Mellie. She spun back to face front, cheeks hot.

  Guilford cleared his throat. “Colonel Woolford with the Air Surgeon’s office just visited. The hospitals desperately need nurses. The colonel says it’s a shame to use nurses in air evacuation when technicians have proven themselves.”

  “Yeah,” came the voice behind Mellie, but she didn’t rise to the bait.

  “However, I think it’s a shame to waste your training. A trial is warranted.”

  A trial? Had their truncated training prepared them? Back at Bowman Field, squadrons underwent a new formal training program, but if the 802nd failed, flight nursing would be doomed.

  As they left the building, Georgie smiled at Mellie and Rose over her shoulder. “I’m glad we get a trial. They could have shuttled us straight to the nearest field hospital.”

  “That’s my optimist,” Rose said. “First they’ve got to send us on flights. Real flights, to the front. Then we have to show we add something valuable.”

  “Well, look who’s here.” Outside the building, a man stood to the side, wearing a leather flight jacket and the “crush cap” favored by airmen. “Saw you ladies and wondered if my rose had arrived. She has.”

  The ladies stopped and stared. Mellie’s jaw dropped. He was the man they’d met in the theater in Louisville.

  “How . . . how did you know my name?” Rose whispered.

  “Your name?” He walked over and took off his cap. Blond curls sprang free and so did his grin. “I don’t know your name—not for lack of trying. Don’t tell me it’s Rose.”

  Georgie laughed. “It is. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.” He gave Georgie a quick smile then turned the fullness of his attention back to Rose. “It’s what I’ve called you in my mind. You drew me like a flower, but oh, those thorns.”

  Rose’s face blanched. Every freckle stood out. “To keep pests away.”

  His face sobered. “Listen, let’s start over. I’m Lt. Clint Peters. I’m a C-47 navigator. We’ll spend time together, so we might as well get acquainted.”

  “I see I’m not needed.” Georgie strode away. “Come on, Mellie.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Rose grabbed Mellie’s arm.

  She gave Clint a sheepish smile. “Looks like I’m the chaperone.”

  “Hi, chaperone. What’s your name?” He shook her free hand.

  “Mellie Blake. The escape artist is Georgie Taylor, and this is Rose Danilovich.”

 
“Danilovich. Nice. But Rose Peters sounds better.”

  “That’s it.” Rose spun away and dragged Mellie with her.

  She scrambled to keep her feet under her. Who knew chaperoning could be dangerous?

  “Hey, now.” Clint trotted around and blocked their path. “Give me a chance. I’m not usually like this. Really, I’m not. Something about you makes me bold.”

  Rose tried to edge around him. “If you find out what it is, tell me so I can turn it off.”

  “Please don’t. Don’t ever turn it off. It’s wonderful.” His brown eyes softened. “Never have I met a woman and thought, ‘Boom! She’s the one.’ Then I met you and boom, boom, boom! You’re the one.”

  “This is nonsense.” Rose’s voice wavered. “Come on, Mellie. Let’s go.”

  Although Rose’s fingers dug into her arm, Mellie hung back. Clint seemed sincere, and hadn’t Rose wanted a man to treat her as precious?

  A soft yearning pulled inside Mellie. Would any man ever look at her like Clint looked at Rose? How would Ernest look at her? Would he see who she was inside or only the broad mouth?

  “One chance.” Clint held his hands in front of his chest like a linebacker blocking the attack. “How about coffee at the officers’ club? Big crowd so you’ll feel safe. Bring your friends if you want. Give me a chance.”

  Rose lifted her chin. “Why should I?”

  A slow smile turned up his lips. “Because the Lord brought us together. I know it, and you know it. That’s why you’re flustered.”

  “I’m flustered because you’re a pest. Good day, Lieutenant.”

  “Good day, my Rose.” He bowed his head and set his cap back in place. “We’ll meet again.”

  “Not if I see you first.” Rose hauled Mellie away.

  She glanced back. Clint wore a smile so big anyone would think Rose had agreed to a date.

  “Insufferable.” Rose let go of Mellie’s arm and marched at a brisk pace. “Conceited. Rude. How dare he bring the Lord into this? If this was God’s will, don’t you think God would have talked to me too? Huh?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know anything about romance.”

  “Neither do I. I’m the tomboy, the sidekick. No one pursues me.”