by Sarah Sundin
“Clint’s pursuing you.”
“Exactly.” Rose’s eyes lit up. “What’s wrong with him? I’m not that pretty. I’m not sweet and bubbly like Georgie. What on earth does he see in me? He’s deranged.”
“Deranged?” Mellie laughed. “Because he likes you? Nonsense. You’re prettier than you think, and you have strength and spirit.”
“Guys don’t like that. They like girls soft and sweet. They see me as a buddy, their pal Danny, someone to talk to about the girls they really like.”
Mellie brushed back her hair and peeked at her from the corner of her eye. “Like Ward did?”
Rose sucked in her breath. “And every other fellow I’ve known.”
“Clint’s different. Isn’t that good?”
“Hardly. Something’s wrong with him.”
Mellie stopped in front of the north hangar, which towered over her. The desire to be liked told her to stop, but something else lurched inside, something that felt like true friendship. “So, any man who likes you is deranged, and you can only love a man who doesn’t love you?”
Rose tucked a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in love.”
“Never?” Mellie fidgeted with the strap for her purse. “I see how you light up when his letters come.”
“His letters?” Rose scrunched up her face. “What are you talking about? The only men who write me are my dad and brothers. Not even Ward writes and he’s my oldest friend.”
“I know.” She gave her the soft look reserved for patients in pain.
Rose stared at Mellie. She gasped. “You don’t think . . . ? That’s crazy. How could you think that?”
Mellie glanced away to a C-47 taxiing down the runway. “I don’t talk a lot, but I listen and observe. When you talk about him, when Georgie talks about him—”
“Ridiculous.” Rose’s voice wavered. “They’re my oldest and dearest friends.”
“And he chose Georgie instead of you.” Mellie turned back to her friend.
Her eyes reddened. “I wouldn’t—I’d never hurt either of them.”
“I know, but that doesn’t change how you feel.”
Rose snapped her head to the side and sniffed. Her chin worked back and forth, and the redness spread over her face. “You know, when I was little, I always thought we’d get married someday. We had so much in common. I never pictured myself with anyone else.”
An ache traveled through Mellie’s chest. Her feelings for Ernest were the closest she’d come to love. How would she feel if he loved someone else? Could she rejoice for him as a friend? Or would it break her?
Rose rubbed her cheeks and wiped her fingers on her skirt. She turned frantic red eyes to Mellie. “I’d never come between them. You know that, don’t you?”
Mellie handed her a handkerchief. “I know. That’s why you’ve never told her.”
“Of course. I don’t want to hurt her, and can you imagine how awkward, how miserable . . . ?” Rose raised her shoulders and shuddered. “I’ll keep that ugly little truth hidden.”
“Or you could change it.”
“Excuse me?”
Mellie gazed over the rocky ground toward the briefing room. “If you dated someone else, you could take your mind off Ward.”
“Oh, that’s just wrong. Clint may be annoying, but I couldn’t use him like that.”
“Well, yes, if that’s the only reason you went out with him. But what if you liked him, even a little bit?”
“He’s rude and obnoxious—”
“And he adores you, and he has a nice face, and he’s smart and responsible enough to be a navigator.”
Rose sniffled and blew her nose. A smile twitched around the edges of the handkerchief. “He does have great hair.”
Mellie laughed. Her gaze swept the airfield, a place of new beginnings. “The Twelfth Air Force gave us a trial period as flight nurses.”
“A trial.” Rose wadded up the hankie. “One single evening in the officers’ club. Friday night. You and Georgie will come. He can bring his friends. Find him and tell him.”
“What?”
“Yes, now. Quick. Before I change my mind.”
“All right.” Mellie laughed and walked back the way she came. True friendship required more than being pleasant. It meant being there for the hard times and even confronting if necessary.
She’d done it, and she grinned.
Compared to the palace of friendship, the forest of solitude seemed dull and lifeless.
20
Youks-les-Bains Airfield
March 12, 1943
Wreckage from a German Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber littered the ground near the runway. Privates Earl Butler and Bill Rinaldi shoveled bits of debris into the path of the M1 tractor fitted with a bulldozer blade.
Tom frowned at the scene. “Butler, watch out. You’re too close.”
Sergeant Ferris cussed. “I can handle my own squad.” He cupped his hand over his mouth. “Faster, Butler, you lump of—”
“Please don’t insult the men. Doesn’t help.”
“That’s right. This is the sunshine platoon.” Ferris flicked ashes off the tip of his cigarette. “Never mind, Butler. You’re perfect. Perfectly useless.”
Granted, Butler moved slower than the dozer and had his back turned to the machine. Not smart. Tom stepped closer. “Butler! Watch the dozer. Get out of the way!”
“What?” he called over the rumble of the machine.
“Keep working, you nitwit,” Ferris shouted.
The dozer rolled closer to Butler. Tom motioned him to the side. “Watch out.”
Butler looked over his shoulder to the dozer, and he startled. He lunged out of the way, caught his foot on the wreckage, and fell.
“Stop!” Tom ran forward and waved his hands over his head to Kendrick, the driver. But Kendrick looked out the other side of the dozer and shouted something at Rinaldi.
The machine lumbered closer and closer.
Butler screamed and tugged at his leg—right in the path of the dozer.
Tom sprinted forward, grabbed Butler’s arms, and yanked. No good. His foot was jammed tight.
The dozer blade struck. Butler cried out. A horrid cracking sound, and Butler’s body flipped to the side.
Tom let go of his hands. “Butler!”
The private’s right leg bent at a grotesque angle. He screamed and groped at his mangled leg. At least he still had his foot.
“Ferris!” Tom yelled. “Get the doc!”
For once the man obeyed. Tom snapped open the first aid pouch on his pistol belt, opened a tin, and pulled out a morphine syrette. “Hold still. Let me give you some morphine.”
Butler clamped his mouth shut and gave a stiff nod.
Tom flicked off the cap over the needle, plunged it into Butler’s thigh, and squeezed the little tin tube to release the morphine. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“My leg. My leg.”
“I know it hurts, but you’ll be okay. Doc will truss you up and send you to a hospital. You get a little vacation.”
A strained smile. “Nurses.”
Tom laughed. “Yeah. Lots of nurses.”
The dozer had finally ground to a stop. Kendrick and Rinaldi ran up, and a small crowd hurled questions and accusations.
“It was an accident,” Tom said. “We work with powerful equipment. We’ve all got to keep our eyes open.”
“Clear the way. Everybody out of the way.” The battalion doctor, Captain Abrams, ran up with two medics. He knelt beside Butler. “What have we got here?”
Tom tried to back up, but Butler grabbed his arm and held fast. “Private Earl Butler. He fell in front of the dozer. His foot was trapped. He couldn’t get out of the way in time.”
The doctor did an examination, applied a splint to Butler’s leg, and loaded him onto a litter. “Good timing. An evac flight’s coming in a few minutes. Take him to the flight line.”
“Don’t leave me.” Butler�
�s voice slurred from pain and morphine. He looked up at Tom with anguish all over his beefy face. “Please don’t leave me, Gill.”
Tom shot Doc Abrams a questioning look, and the doctor nodded his consent. Tom turned to Ferris. “Finish the job. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Yes, sir.” Ferris dropped his gaze, his face pale. Good, maybe he had learned his lesson. But Tom couldn’t let it slide, not when a man had been injured.
The litter-bearers took Butler away, and Tom followed down the runway toward the large hospital tent. The 9th Evacuation Hospital served as a holding unit for wounded from the front lines awaiting transport to the rear.
Outside the tent, a couple dozen patients on litters and in wheelchairs waited for the planes. Doc Abrams talked with another officer, and they gestured to set Butler’s litter down.
Tom squeezed Butler’s hand. “Looks like you get an airplane ride.”
“Stewardesses?”
Tom laughed. “No. Just a bunch of fellows, but they’ll get you out of here.”
“Good.” Sweat beaded on his forehead, although it was no more than fifty degrees.
Tom pulled out his handkerchief and wiped Butler’s face.
Planes droned overhead—C-47s from the sound of the twin Wasp engines. Survival on the front meant distinguishing friend from foe. Even Sesame knew the difference. Smart dog. He’d earned a day off. Tom had tied him up in the tarpaulin-covered dugout the men called home, with a long tether so he could explore and hunt. His skill at catching rats added to his popularity.
Three C-47s landed and taxied to the hospital tent. Trucks drove up to meet them, and men piled out to unload the supplies.
The cargo door of the first plane swung open, and a man hopped to the ground. Another figure emerged. A curvy figure.
“That’s a woman!” someone cried.
It sure was. A dark-haired woman stood in the doorway wearing a blue jacket, trousers, and garrison cap. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked into the distance, over the buildings and tents. As her gaze swept the landscape, a smile spread.
A smile unlike anything Tom had ever seen in his life, wide and brilliant, filling her face, filling Tom’s eyes.
One of the patients whistled. The woman glanced down, as if she’d just noticed the men before her. Her smile contracted, and Tom blinked.
“Holy cow! Look at that dame.” A soldier pointed to the next plane down, where a striking redhead disembarked and waved to the crowd. All the ambulatory men ran or wheeled to the second plane and hooted and hollered.
Tom stayed. The dark-haired woman jumped to the ground, her face relaxed again. She headed toward the tent, toward Tom, and his heart rate picked up. At the last minute, he remembered to take off his helmet. A lady was present.
He saluted her. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
She returned the salute. “Good afternoon, sir. Are you . . . ?” She glanced at the lapels of Tom’s olive drab wool shirt, partially hidden under his field jacket. He wore silver first lieutenant’s bars and the gold castle insignia for the engineers. “No, you’re not. Do you know—”
“Looking for the physician?” He grinned at her.
“Yes, sir.” She smiled back, soft and modest. Her complexion was darker than most girls he knew, and her coffee-colored eyes had a hint of an almond shape.
Exotic. Compelling.
“Well?” The corners of her eyes crinkled.
He was acting like a fool. “I’ll help you find him.” He scanned the area and waved over the doctor.
The physician and nurse exchanged salutes. “Capt. Marvin Richards.”
“Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Lt. Mellie Blake.”
Mellie Blake. Mellie Blake. Her hair shone like obsidian and curled below her chin.
The doctor led her away. “I heard you gals were in the theater. Not sure about this. It’s a dangerous place, and the hospitals could really use you.”
Mellie Blake was of average height, but she stood tall and assured. “You want the best for your patients, sir. That’s my job. I’ll give these boys first-rate, uninterrupted care from here to Algiers. And I’ve been in more dangerous places than this and done just fine.”
Captain Richards hiked up his eyebrows.
Tom clamped off a laugh. That little nurse could take care of herself. He’d love to get to know her better.
He scrunched his eyes shut. What was he doing? What about Annie? They knew each other well. He cared for her deeply enough to wonder if he loved her. And she was in North Africa now, the same soil. Maybe God wanted them together. What if she could overlook his name? What if she could love him? He wanted to give that a chance.
Besides, all he knew about Mellie Blake was he liked her smile and her pluck. And she didn’t know anything about him, except that he was a bit daft.
“Gill? You think I’ll go home?” Butler’s eyes roamed in lazy circles.
Tom squatted by the litter. “Maybe. No matter what, you’ll get a few months’ vacation. Algiers, she said. By the shore in the sun. Not bad, huh?”
“I wanna go home.”
“Tell me about home. What’s it like?”
Butler rambled about the farmhouse in Indiana, his Ford with the rumble seat, and his parents and brothers. When he mentioned the cute little gal who liked to meet him in the barn, Tom diverted conversation back to family and crops.
His gaze kept hopping to Lieutenant Blake. She made her rounds, listened to Captain Richards’s reports, made notes on a clipboard, and questioned each patient in a warm voice. Richards prodded her onward, but she resisted and gave each wounded man her full attention.
She came closer and closer, and Tom’s throat swelled.
Captain Richards stood at the foot of Butler’s litter. “Last man. Private Butler. Just arrived. Closed complete fractures of the right tibia and fibula, needs surgery. Had half a grain of morphine at 1300.”
Lieutenant Blake wrote on her clipboard and knelt beside Butler. Beside Tom. Inches from him. She smelled . . . he couldn’t place the scent, but it tickled the edges of memory. Clean. She smelled clean. How long since he’d been around someone clean? And how much did he stink?
The nurse patted Butler’s arm. “How are you feeling, Private?”
“You . . .” He pointed at the nurse, but his finger made a wobbly circle. “You’re a girl.”
“Clever one, aren’t you?” She winked at him and made another notation. “I see half a grain of morphine is plenty for you.”
“I gave him a syrette.” Tom wanted to be included for some stupid reason.
Her dark eyes shifted to him. “Thank you, sir. Are you . . . ?”
“I’m his platoon leader. He wanted me to stay.”
“Don’t go, Gill. Don’t leave me.”
She glanced at Butler’s grasp on Tom’s hand and she smiled. “I see.”
“He’s the best,” Butler said. “Ferris is mean. Mean, I tell you. But Gill, he cares.”
Lieutenant Blake shot Tom a brief smile, not nearly enough. “You can accompany him onto the plane and stay until it’s time to depart.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He gave her a smile in the hopes she’d return it. She did, but only a smidgen.
She looked up at the doctor. “I need help loading the patients. May I borrow some of your hospital staff?”
“I’ll send out some medics.” The doctor went into the tent.
“You don’t need to do that.” A sergeant swaggered over from the plane and pointed his long chin at the nurse. “I can handle it. Always have.”
Lieutenant Blake got to her feet and lifted her own chin. “Thank you, Sergeant, but we were trained to load patients as quickly as possible. Someday we may need to do so under fire.”
The sergeant snorted. “Don’t see no planes.”
Fire rose in Tom’s belly and pulled him to his full height. Thank goodness he had a few inches on the sergeant. He turned his back on the man and addressed the nurse. “We have air raids al
most daily. Loading quickly is smart. I’d be glad to help.” Then he sent a smile over his shoulder to the sergeant. “And you’ll address the lieutenant with respect, as an officer but also as a lady. I’m sure your mother taught you right.”
The sergeant’s eyes flicked back and forth. “Yes, sir.” He turned to leave.
Would she be angry at Tom for interfering? He faced her.
She had a keen gaze fixed on him, her lips in a slight curve. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. Now, put me to work, boss.”
A flash of that smile he’d first seen, but she hauled it in as if ashamed. “Come with me, please.”
Gladly. He bent down to Butler. “I need to help the lady. I’ll be back.”
Butler flapped his hand at Tom. “Bye-bye.”
Tom followed the nurse, who instructed the medics in a voice of authority.
A voice of authority. He needed that. Once again he looked to a woman as an example. Mom had taught him all his life, he sought Annie’s advice, and now he studied the way this young lady spoke.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t toss out cold orders. She didn’t cuss or insult. But she didn’t apologize or bribe or ingratiate herself. She just told them what she wanted as if she expected them to obey. And they did.
So did Tom. He carried litters onto the plane and held them steady while that snake of a sergeant fastened clamps. As the men worked, Lieutenant Blake tucked blankets around her patients and sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Her voice flew like a bird, rising high, gliding, and landing with a calming touch on each man on the plane.
Tom tried not to watch her, but her voice soaked through his skin and warmed his blood. An enchanting voice had been the downfall of man since the Sirens and the Lorelei.
Before long, twelve litters lined the sides of the cargo plane, stacked three high, and another half-dozen men sat in seats toward the front. Butler’s litter was on the lowest level nearest the cockpit, and Tom sat on the floor beside him.
Finally Lieutenant Blake knelt beside Butler. “How did this happen?” she asked Tom.
“Got mowed down by a dozer. I couldn’t get him out of the way in time.”