by Sarah Sundin
Quincy laughed. “You’re making demands? You can’t do that.”
He’d made a lot of demands lately. First with Annie, now with Newman. Both would lead to disaster, but he didn’t care. Tom didn’t break his gaze with Newman. “Here’s the situation. If you order me to stay away from the field, and Quincy doesn’t give me the data, I can’t do the paperwork. Then I fail. There’s no reason for me to be here. You make that order, my career is dead. Quincy knows that. So give me back my platoon or get it over with and send me home.”
“Send him home,” Quincy said. “The man’s dangerous.”
“You think so, Quince?” Tom sloughed his carbine off his shoulder and dropped it to the ground. “If you’re too chicken, I’ll work unarmed.”
“I’m no chicken, you jerk.”
Newman raised one hand. “Gill—”
“If I’m unarmed, I won’t be a distraction. I can’t be a murderous superhero without a gun.” He handed Newman his pistol.
“Gill, that’s not—”
“Let me work.” Tom drilled a strong look into his shocked commander. “I want to lead and I need to build.”
“Send him home,” Quincy said, and Reed murmured his approval.
Newman’s face twisted through a dozen emotions.
Words burned holes in Tom’s throat, but none would help. If he didn’t get his platoon back, he’d go home one way or the other—through an immediate order or due to slow failure as Quincy’s secretary. Either way, he was done here.
Tom shoved his way past Quincy and marched toward quarters.
“Gill, come back here,” Newman called.
He lifted a hand to block the command and continued on his way.
“Lieutenant MacGilliver, that’s a direct order.”
His feet thumped on the compacted dirt. He’d never disobeyed an order before, but what did it matter? He was going home. His career was over.
44
“Hiya, ducky. You the gal training me?” A nurse approached Mellie outside the airfield tent hospital. Her broad grin revealed pronounced buckteeth.
Even though the woman would replace her, Mellie smiled. “If you’re Lieutenant Gerber, I am.”
The nurse stood several inches taller than Mellie, and her unruly blonde curls made her look even taller. “Call me Goosie. Everyone does.”
Childhood nicknames could be so cruel. “Is your name Lucy?”
She let out a peal of laughter. “Nah, it’s Mary. They call me Goosie ’cause I call everyone ducky. Me mum’s British,” she said in a fake accent. “Dad brought her home as his trophy from the last war. For her looks, you know.”
Mellie nodded and gave her a sympathetic smile. It had to be hard to be plain if your mother was beautiful.
“Thank goodness I look like her and not my dad.” Goosie wiped pretend sweat off her brow. “You think I’m ugly, you should see him. Whoa, Nellie!”
Mellie laughed. If only she could joke away her looks. If only she could stay and get to know Goosie better. “Well, I think you’re fine.”
“Get some eyeglasses, ducky.” She strolled among the litters and wheelchairs lined up for loading. “What’s this about air evac-a-tu-a-cation?” she said in a loud voice. “You mean, we go on one of them there air-e-o-planes?”
Mellie stared at her. Goosie wore the official new flight nurse uniform the women in her squadron craved—gray-blue trousers, a matching waist-length “Ike” jacket, and black Oxfords. Low-heeled Oxfords. She’d come through Bowman Field’s School of Air Evacuation and probably knew more about flight nursing than Mellie did.
Goosie clapped her hands on top of her garrison cap, which made her curls spring higher on the sides. Then she dropped to her knees beside one of the litters and leaned toward the patient. “An air-e-o-plane? In the sky? I ain’t never flown before. Will you help me? Will you be brave for me? Will you hold my hand?”
The soldier laughed. “Sure thing, toots.”
“Oh!” She hugged his arm. “I’m indebitacated to you forever and ever. Indebitacated.”
A smile of wonder crept up Mellie’s face.
“You know what that means?” Goosie sprang to her feet and pressed her hands over her heart. “We’re engagitated. Soon’s we land, you and I are getting hitched. Yahoo!” She danced back to Mellie as her “fiancé” shouted his protest over his fellow patients’ laughter.
“You’ve done this before,” Mellie said.
“As often as I can.” She hooked her arm through Mellie’s. “You going to show me the ropes?”
“I think you should show me the ropes.”
“Just relaxing the fellas, taking their minds off their troubles. Sorry, ducky. I didn’t get your name.”
“Mellie Blake.”
“Mellie Blake?” A serious look darkened Goosie’s pale gray eyes. “You’re the one going home?”
She nodded.
“They say it’s because you don’t fit in.” Goosie set her hands on her hips. “Well, if you don’t fit in, what’ll they do with me?”
Mellie gazed at a woman who’d been dealt as bad a hand as she had—but chose humor. “What’ll they do with you? They’ll bake you in a moderate oven with a nice orange sauce. Goose à l’orange.”
She whooped with laughter. “I’d look good in orange.”
Sergeant Early poked his head out of the cargo plane. “Lieutenant Blake, we’re ready to load.”
“Thank you.” Theirs was the last plane to load.
Medics brought patients to the cargo door, and Mellie showed Goosie how she greeted each patient, checked his Emergency Medical Tag against the flight manifest, and decided where he would be placed based on his medical needs. Then the medics and Sergeant Early assisted the patient to his seat or clamped his litter in place.
After the last patient was loaded, Mellie and Goosie climbed into the plane to make sure the patients were secured and comfortable.
“Lieutenant Blake!” Captain Maxwell beckoned her from the door with a concerned look on his face. He’d been disgustingly nice to her since her decision. He got to keep his mistress and be rid of the one person who knew of their affair.
“Yes, Captain?” She joined him outside the plane, where a patient lay on a litter, his torso swaddled in white gauze.
“Do you have room for one more litter case? The other planes are full.”
“Yes. Two actually.” She stared at the unconscious patient. Bloody streaks painted his face, arms, and khaki pants.
“Emergency situation. Private Jenkins and a buddy were playing football in a local field, fell headlong on a land mine. His buddy didn’t make it. The nearest hospital’s in Cefalù, a long ambulance ride over rough roads. By air he’ll be in Mateur in two hours. He needs a thoracic surgeon.”
Mellie frowned. “Is he stable enough for flight?”
“Honestly, no. His left lung’s collapsed, shrapnel dangerously near his inferior vena cava. We gave him whole blood, hung plasma for the flight, patched him up a bit, put in a chest tube.”
“Chest tube?”
“Yes. He’s a lousy candidate for air evacuation, but this is not a normal circumstance.”
“We’re his only hope.” Mellie gazed down at the young man with his matted sandy-blond hair and solid build. If Tom were in a similar situation, she hoped someone would give him a chance. “I’m training a nurse on this flight, so we have extra hands. We can ‘special’ him.”
“Knew I could count on you.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and gave her a cheesy smile.
Although bile rose to her throat, she managed to thank him. She never thought she’d miss the old antagonistic Maxwell.
During takeoff, Mellie talked Goosie through in-flight duties. While Mellie gave Private Jenkins the special one-on-one care he needed, Goosie would care for the others.
After the plane leveled off, Mellie went down the aisle and knelt beside Jenkins’s cot. She wrapped her fingers around his cool wrist and had to shift them twice to find his
pulse—rapid and thready. His respirations were shallow.
Although the patient’s cot was tilted in the Trendelenburg position, with his feet higher than his head to promote blood flow to his heart and brain, he was going into shock.
Mellie sang “Abide with Me” while she adjusted his oxygen mask and the flow of oxygen from the yellow tank.
She sang “Softly and Tenderly” as she opened two plasma cans, transferred sterile water from one bottle into the other, dissolved the life-giving flakes, and exchanged the new bottle for the almost-empty one hanging on the litter rack above.
She sang “He Leadeth Me” as she used a rubber bulb to suction the chest tube, and then administered more morphine and adrenaline.
But Private Jenkins was dying.
Both his heart rate and respiratory rate grew irregular and faint. His eyes were open and glassy. And Mateur still lay an hour away.
Mercy led to the death of her career and dreams. Mercy would lead to the death of her relationship with Tom. And mercy couldn’t save the young man in front of her.
An ache grew in her chest, a gaping raw hole as if she’d fallen on the land mine herself, but no matter what, she’d choose mercy again.
She gazed around at the other patients. Goosie occupied most of them with her antics, but the man across the aisle eyed her movements carefully. The most merciful thing she could do was to keep Jenkins’s condition secret.
“Here. Let’s clean you up a bit.” Mellie moistened a gauze pad with water from her canteen, turned Jenkins’s head toward the fuselage wall so no one could see his blank expression, and cleaned his cheek and neck. His carotid pulse fluttered beneath her fingers. “I’ll be right back with more fluids.”
She passed Goosie and Sergeant Early. “Come with me, please, so I can hear report.”
At the rear of the plane, Goosie flipped pages on her clipboard. “Everything looks—”
Mellie held up one hand. “Private Jenkins is dying,” she said in a low voice.
“Oh no.” Shock registered on Goosie’s face, but her voice remained low too. Behind the comedienne lay a competent nurse.
Early cussed under his breath and wiped his hand over his mouth.
“I don’t want the patients to know,” Mellie said.
“Yeah,” Early said. “Don’t want that.”
“I’ll pretend to tend to his needs. You two keep the men distracted.”
Goosie raised half a smile. “I’m good at that.”
Early cast a glance down the aisle. “We’ll unload him last so no one can see.”
“Thank you.” Mellie pulled gauze pads and a bottle of normal saline from the medical chest and filled a rubber basin with water from a spare canteen.
She returned to her patient. His arms twitched, and his respirations hopped around. The end would come soon.
Mellie sang “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go” and replaced the empty plasma bottle with normal saline. Then she bathed the young man, gently cleansing his arms of dried blood.
Some twenty years before, another woman had cleansed these limbs, then small and pudgy and pink. In a few days that woman would receive a telegram that would rip her heart inside out.
As she sang, Mellie prayed for that woman and the boy’s father and his brothers and sisters and sweetheart and friends. With so much death around, she wanted to remember, needed to remember, that each man was precious and cherished.
The life of Private Jenkins eased out with a long breathy whisper and a relaxation of muscles and the extinguishing of light in his eyes.
Still Mellie sang. She didn’t even know what she sang, but she had to continue for the other men, for those who lived. She adjusted oxygen flow and IV flow and bathed his limbs, now muscular and limp and pale. Never again would he throw a football or clap to music or hold the woman he loved in his arms.
A quiver entered Mellie’s voice and she stretched her neck to clear her vocal cords.
Tom said he wanted to hold the woman he loved in his arms. Mellie had chosen to deprive him of that.
Mercy yanked her in two directions. Was it more merciful to give him the chance he wanted, even if it meant deep disappointment for him and devastating rejection for her? Or was a sudden end more merciful?
Mellie cleansed blood from the sandy blond hair framing her patient’s face.
Yes, a fast death was best. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Tonight she’d unsheathe her dagger and write her final letter.
Termini Airfield
Inside the pyramidal tent he shared with three other officers, Tom stuffed his belongings into his barracks bag. Sesame sat at his feet and whimpered.
He rubbed the top of the little guy’s head. “Get to go home now. No more rats and air raids for you, boy.” He shoved aside the concern that dogs would be banned from the troop transport. Somehow Tom would sneak him on board.
Sesame cocked his head and whimpered again. He could always see behind the smile.
Tom huffed, tired of faking it, even for a dog. “All right. It stinks. It all stinks. No matter what I do, I can’t succeed. I can’t be a normal leader, Annie probably won’t write back, and I don’t know what I’ll do for a job when this war’s over.”
Sesame wagged his tail on the dirt floor as if pleased with Tom’s honesty.
He stared at the stump. When Mellie amputated his tail, Tom had worried about Sesame’s identity, but Mellie had reassured him. “He’s loved. He has a purpose. He’ll be fine.” And he was.
Tom was loved too—by the Lord, by his mother, and by Sesame. He had a purpose—to build, whether as an engineer or in construction. And he would be fine.
“I will,” he mumbled. “I’ll be fine.”
He laid the stationery box with Annie’s letters on top of his belongings. He wouldn’t get to meet her. Kay had his APO number so she could mail Annie’s reply if it ever came. If Annie did reveal her identity, their relationship would be limited to letters for the duration of the war.
But her silence screamed.
“I’ll be fine.” He yanked the drawstring shut.
The tent flap opened, and Captain Newman stepped inside. “Gill, I gave you an order.”
Tom’s shoulders sagged, and he folded his bedroll. “Quincy said everything he needed to say. I said everything I needed to say. Why stick around?”
“So you could hear what I had to say.”
Tom shook his head and rolled the bedding. “I’m going home. I know that.”
Newman fiddled with something in his hand. Silent.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tom sneaked a look.
Newman had a carbine slung over his shoulder and he inspected a pistol in his hands. Tom’s pistol. “How often have you fired this?”
“Five times, sir.”
“No more than that?”
“No, sir. I was afraid of what I’d become. Completely unnecessary. I was also afraid of how people would react. That was well grounded.”
The CO polished the barrel of the gun with his thumb. “You’re a good shot.”
“Excellent, sir.”
“Good.” He held out the gun to Tom. “I need fine marksmen with personal control.”
Tom’s mouth drifted open. He closed it. It opened again. “But, sir, I thought—”
“You asked for your platoon back. I’m giving it to you.”
“But, sir—”
“Arguing with me?” One side of his mouth twitched up.
Tom blinked, but the sight remained—his commander returning his pistol, his platoon, and his future. “No, sir. But what about the men?”
“It’ll blow over. The reporters will find new prey. Do your job, make the men work, and they’ll forget all about it. Even if they don’t, they’ll obey.”
Tom nodded, but his mind swarmed with questions. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because of what you said. I waited all year for that. I deliberately remained quiet to see what you’d do. And you did it. You stood up for yoursel
f. You stood up to Quincy. You got angry with him when he deserved it, and no one died.”
A smile tugged at Tom’s lips. “Not even Quincy.”
“I’ve wanted to strangle that man a dozen times myself. Didn’t I tell you he respected vinegar? You dumped a whole vat of vinegar on his head.”
He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin and chuckled. “I suppose I did.”
“He had it coming. And watch, he’ll respect you now.” Newman jiggled the pistol in his hand.
Tom took it and slipped it back in its leather holster. “I’ll use it wisely, sir.”
“I know.” He returned the carbine. “Now get out there and yell at those men when they’re lazy, mope over a girl, laugh at the jokes, grumble about the chow, and lead.”
“Yes, sir.” Tom stood taller than he’d ever stood in his life, his chest and heart full. “I’ll do that.”
45
Termini Airfield
August 8, 1943
“Hode shti’ or I shtick you,” Georgie mumbled over the sewing pins clamped between her lips.
“Sorry.” Mellie stood still on top of an empty crate in the four-man tent while Georgie pinned up the hem of the turquoise sundress. Georgie was determined to finish before Mellie left.
Kay lounged on her cot. “That turned out cute.”
“I know,” Rose said from her bed. “Wait till Tom sees you in it.”
Mellie groaned. A dress, no matter how cute, would not make a difference.
“There. All done,” Georgie said in her normal voice. “Here’s a mirror. What do you think?”
Mellie tilted the hand mirror up and down to get a complete view. The fitted bodice and slightly gathered knee-length skirt complemented her figure, and the square neckline and wide shoulder straps provided plenty of modesty. “You do excellent work. It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” Georgie said. “And that color looks great on you.”
Mellie had to admit she looked nice. An image popped in her mind—Tom seeing her in the dress, admiring her with that tremendous grin, holding her, kissing her. Nothing but a fantasy, and she shook it out of her head. She’d made her decision and written her letter the night before. She only had to hand it to Kay.