“How are you liking it?” the man asked her when she sat back again.
“It’s noisy!” she nearly shouted back.
He nodded and used the opportunity to lean in closer, “I hear on commercial flights they have learned to eliminate much of the noise.”
She realized he had leaned in a bit too close and needed to brush his teeth. She pulled back slightly as she found it offensive.
“Do you know where you are headed?” he asked loudly.
She shook her head and then indicating her ears she leaned back further in her seat nearer the window and glanced outside the plane again. She found the passing landscape endlessly fascinating. They went over large rivers, she could see ponds or lakes, the farms with their large squares of lands, and even woods were visible from up here. She was puzzled when she began to see circles and wondered at their shapes and then realized they must be some type of farms out on the plains, she didn’t know why they would be circular but remembering geography they had to be flying over the plains states.
After many hours they landed in Denver to refuel and stretch their legs. The man she was sitting next to introduced himself as Max Werner and he was being stationed out in San Francisco. He was some type of mechanic and he was flying with the type of airplanes to see how they ran.
“I hope we won’t be needing your services on this flight,” she lightly teased him and then realized that was a mistake as he took it as a sign of encouragement. She turned to head to one of the buildings to grab a lunch, she was starving and he fell in beside her.
“Maybe we could catch a movie when you’re in San Francisco?” he asked admiring how she fit in her overcoat. He liked big women and she was not only fairly tall but muscular if she fit into that outfit like that.
She couldn’t shake him while she grabbed a sandwich. He insisted on talking to her about the places he had been and the things he had seen. It didn’t seem to matter that she hadn’t told him anything about herself. He even followed her back to the plane as she boarded and while he was temporarily distracted she took a seat next to the window with someone else sitting next to her. By the time he turned around they seemed to be in deep conversation and she pretended not to see his hurt expression.
“Hi I’m Doreen, Dory for short,” the woman introduced herself. She was short with a pug nose and freckles all over, her hair was cut short and she had a pleasant mouth and laughing brown eyes.
“I’m Cassandra, Cass for short,” Cass returned pleased to be talking to someone else. The engines hadn’t started up yet so the noise wasn’t so overwhelming. It was cold here in Denver, colder than in Milwaukee but she had been informed they were a mile above sea level here and there were mountains beyond those clouds she could see in the distance.
“Heading to San Francisco with the rest of us eh?”
Cass nodded, “But I don’t expect to be there long, they won’t tell me exactly where I’m going.”
“Really, that’s odd, let me see your orders,” Dory offered.
Cass handed her the papers and Dory read them.
“Lieutenant Colonel Anderson eh? I’ve heard of him but I don’t remember where,” she mused. She shrugged. “Hey, you meet one lieutenant colonel you meet them all eh?”
They shared a laugh as Dory handed her papers back to her.
“What are you going to San Francisco for?” Cass ventured to ask.
“I’ll be working in the hospital there, nurse of course. I hear it’s where our men are coming back to when they are wounded. It’s probably where they go before they are mustered out.” She lowered her voice for that last sentence. It was fairly early in the war and the casualties were rather high already. They weren’t supposed to talk about it though. “How long you been in?” she asked.
Cass told her and Dory looked at her in surprise.
“How’d you get through training so quickly?” she asked in awe.
Cass shrugged, “I was a midwife and doctor around our place and the town doctor recommended me I guess.”
Dory shook her head, that was unheard of but she didn’t want to pry and of course the Army frowned on too many questions. The Red Cross was technically who they answered to but the Army oversaw it all. They both heard the door being pulled up and secured.
Cass strapped herself in this time. She had figured it out when she got up to get her sandwich earlier. She looked and saw her bag still in the netting over her previous seat. Secure in the knowledge her gear was still with her she looked out the window again at her second take off. The sensation was similar to that in Wisconsin when they took off. It seemed much steeper this time and she found herself grabbing the arm rests once again only to find Dory had grabbed the one between them first. When she went to put her hand on her lap Dory grabbed her hand and held onto it for dear life. Exchanging a look they smiled and held hands as the plane fought the wind currents and began to climb to fly over the mountains.
“Is this your first time seeing a mountain?” Dory yelled in her ear as she joined Cass looking out the window.
Cass shook her head and explained that there was a mountain in Wausau, only one, and a few smaller hills but nothing like these snowcapped behemoths. The Rocky Mountains were a sight to see. The snow looked deeper somehow as though it had swallowed the land underneath it. The two women enjoyed the sight and exchanged minimum conversation due to the roar of the engines. Both of them shared a blanket as it got colder and colder. The land beneath them seemed to go by so slowly. Cass could feel herself getting sleepy and knew that was not a good thing in cold weather. She fought the sleepiness determined to stay awake until they landed once again. Slowly the scenery changed, Dory shared it with her as they both looked out the window and Dory was nearly in her lap. They laughed and shouted an occasional conversation but mostly they were quiet as they watched it go by and the sun began to set.
It was dark when they finally landed in San Francisco. The plane was met by several personal and Cass grabbed her bag before exiting not really sure where she should go.
“Lieutenant Scheimer ma’am?” a voice questioned her as she walked off the now silent plane. Her ears were still muffled from the din.
She nodded and he saluted. She returned the salute automatically.
“If you will come this way ma’am I’ll see that you are billeted for the night, your transport leaves at oh six hundred tomorrow.”
She nodded and began to follow him as she quickly turned and waved goodbye to Dory. They hadn’t been able to exchange addresses or information but they felt good about sharing the trip. She smiled and waved in return and Cass turned to catch up to the corporal who was escorting her to a Jeep. He threw her bag in the back, similar to what the boy had done in Milwaukee; they must be trained by the same sergeant she thought briefly to herself as she got in.
“They have you billeted at one of the hotels in town ma’am. There are no beds available on base for you but I’ll have a breakfast ordered for you at oh five hundred and a Jeep out front at oh five thirty,” he informed her.
Her ears still felt odd from the flight and she nodded not trusting herself to speak. He drove quickly and she held on for dear life. He escorted into the hotel and introduced her to the manager who then escorted her to her room and handed her a key. It was a very nice room, nicer than what she had at home and she didn’t understand why she was being given the treatment she was but she accepted it. She realized she had at least ten hours before her next ‘transport,’ whatever that meant and she could write Stephanie a quick note.
Dear Stephanie,
I went on my first plane ride today! It was incredible. We flew from Milwaukee to Denver and then from Denver to San Francisco! I have no idea where I am going. They tend to tell us after we have gotten on board. I know because of the government censors that you might not read everything I send so I am writing this quickly and dropping it in the regular mail. I miss you all so much. I’ve been very lonely in the months since I left. I imagine the sap rising in
the maples and know that spring isn’t far away. I hope the work isn’t too much for you. I’ve met some lovely people but none of them are you. I miss our conversations. I miss our walks. I miss the boys and Summer. I wish I could tell you where I was going so you could look it up in the atlas. My mail they tell me will be forwarded to wherever they send me. So write me,
Hugz,
Cass
She finished it and put it in an envelope she found in the desk with the embossed return address of the hotel on it. It was so pretty. Her fingers touched over it several times before she addressed it. It felt so rich and lovely it was a shame to write on it but she duly addressed it to Stephanie instead of the family. She hoped she wouldn’t start reading it in front of the children or Cal.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stephanie was thrilled when the letters started to arrive. Despite the harsh winter winds and the fear of getting caught out in a storm she tried to get into town at least once a week usually on Sunday for church. When Cal was well enough she badgered him into going as well. She wasn’t kind to him, she still blamed him for Cass having to leave the farm in his stead but he was getting around on the crutches. He hobbled to the barn to do the milking twice a day but Stephanie found she and the boys had to use the shovels to clean up after the cows and horses. He did what little he could but she still found it lacking. He was still sleeping on the couch in the den and she made it a point to go out to check on her plants in the greenhouse at least once or twice a day. She found him either sleeping or reading when she did so. She fed him, reluctantly, three times a day but she insisted he wash and come to the table, she wasn’t a maid and she wasn’t going to feed him in the den anymore now that he could walk on the crutches.
She shared the letters with the family and occasionally there was an extra one for her personally enclosed with the other. When she realized this ‘extra’ page she began carefully hoarding them so that the children didn’t clamor for them. They loved hearing Cass’s letters read to them, hearing about the lake front in Milwaukee, how big Lake Michigan was, as big as she imagined an inland sea was but having never seen a sea or an ocean she was only guessing. She had shown them in the Atlas book that Cass had given them as a going away present where she was and where Merrill was on a map of Wisconsin. They had gone over where Pearl Harbor was and explained that was where the Japanese had bombed their western fleet.
Cass didn’t sound happy. She sounded homesick. She was trying to make friends but between her basic training and studies she wasn’t popular. Whatever they were giving her for studies she was reading all the time and she tried to help her fellow students. They must resent her or be jealous because she wasn’t making very many from what Stephanie could read. Stephanie didn’t understand it; Cass was the easiest woman on the Earth to get along with. She had to acknowledge that she was a little biased.
The weeks and months that went by were hard on Stephanie. She hadn’t realized how much work Cass actually did. Cal wasn’t physically capable of doing the amount of work that Cass had done and he tried, he did try. He started going to church to please her, he was able to drive the well-mannered horses that Cass had trained but planting the fields were a bit beyond him. He could plant the corn but not much else. He made a game of it with the boys who were warming up to him after all this time and company. They seemed to unnerve him a bit. He had to ‘hire’ the men to plow the fields for him and to plant many of them as well. Cass’s ‘favors’ owed were used up quickly as the scent of money being paid for their work took precedence.
Stephanie watched him carefully and she could see he was restless, he wanted to go back into the woods, she often found him on his crutches gazing longingly into the North Woods. Then he would sigh and get back to whatever work he was trying to do. He had managed to help them gather the maple syrup that they boiled off but they didn’t collect nearly as much as they had with Cass. Stephanie found herself comparing him to his sister unfavorably time and time again. At least he was trying, she kept consoling herself with that knowledge.
Once a week they sent a long letter off to Cass from the whole family. The boys would send pictures they had drawn and even small words that Timmy now knew and could write. Secretly Stephanie wrote longer letters at night when she was longing for Cass in the bed they had shared and slipped those in with the rest of the packet they sent.
She missed her, boy she missed her a lot. She had taught her so much, how to survive up here but not how to survive without her. Everything was different without her there. Stephanie wasn’t really lonely with the boys and Summer to take care of. Melanie visited when she could with her brood of children but it was a lot of work to go anywhere with that many children. Cal was always there too and while he was healing he hadn’t healed enough to do much work. The work he could do he did willingly and Stephanie’s resentment of him was lessening on some levels.
When the letter from San Francisco arrived Stephanie stared at it in awe. The embossed stationary, the postmark, she couldn’t imagine who knew her all the way across the country in San Francisco! Opening it right there in the store, her curiosity got the better of her, she saw it was from Cass and she told the curious on lookers that it was from Cass and she was now in San Francisco. Everyone was impressed. She quickly completed her purchases and got out of the store and headed for home. She read it that night at home in bed, hiding it in her dress all through the afternoon so that the children or Cal wouldn’t come across it by accident.
Stephanie missed her on so many levels, she missed making love to her, she wondered what she did every day, what she was thinking, what she was doing at any given moment. The loneliness despite the children and Cal was the worst. Sleeping in their bed every night was a torment. With all the added work on her plate she was exhausted so often that she slept solid through the night not waking even when Summer woke up and the boys frequently had to come get her to go comfort the little girl. She would take her back to bed with her and sleep the rest of the night with the little girl in the big bed; unfortunately she wouldn’t stay in the big bed. Stephanie found her trying to crawl down the steep stairs to the first floor on more than one occasion and lived in fear that she would tumble down them. Keeping her in the crib was the best option; it kept her from roaming about the house when everyone should be sleeping. She missed talking to Cass about such problems but she was so many miles away now.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Ma’am, I’m here to take you to your transport,” the corporal, a different one this morning, saluted her and helped her with her bag. She noted he too tossed it in the back of the Jeep as though it was nothing. She wanted to laugh at her thought that they all had the same drill sergeant who taught them to toss luggage like that.
“Do you know where the transport is taking me?” she asked but he didn’t. He did however take her on the ‘scenic’ route as he drove her back to the base. She couldn’t see much this early in the morning as the sun wasn’t quite up over the hills beyond Oakland. She thought she saw a palm tree or two but couldn’t be sure as they drove rapidly through the streets. She could barely see the Golden Gate she had heard so much about. He drove them to probably the largest airplane Cass had seen in her life, it was absolutely huge. Because of his driving the route they had the plane was already warming up and loud. They closed the door behind her as she mounted the steps hurriedly and everyone in the transport looked up to see who they were waiting for. The accommodations weren’t nearly as ‘plush’ as the plane she had ridden in the previous day. This was for transporting troops; they lined the sides of the plane in their seats and their gear and in the wide middle of the plane were supplies, more gear, and equipment. The men looking at her curious were all dressed for combat. She saw no other women.
“Here ma’am, please take this seat,” someone offered and quickly made his way further back into the plane and was soon out sight in its vast depths.
Cass had no choice but take the seat and she quickly stowed her bag and put on her seat be
lt. There was no window and she faced the packed gear. She had no idea where they were headed but the rumble of the plane indicated it was getting ready to move if it hadn’t already. She held on and saw that several of the men on either side of her seat did the same. The rumbling increased as the large plane began to move. It was too big, it was impossible for it to get off the ground. Cass imagined the look on Stephanie’s face when they told her that the plane she was on had crashed. She was more frightened today because she couldn’t look out a window. She hadn’t realized that watching the ground below had calmed her on yesterday’s flights. The huge plane took off and she could feel by the slant of it that they were climbing; it seemed to go on forever. Her stomach wasn’t happy. The breakfast she had gulped at the hotel was not settling in her stomach properly. She took deep breaths through her nose to avoid throwing up all that good food. The deep breaths made her tired, she hadn’t slept well in the strange bed and in the strange city, her thoughts of home had kept her awake most of the night. She yawned a lot to combat the difference in air pressure, she wasn’t the only one.
When the plane finally began to level off she saw a couple of officers come back to where they were all sitting and begin to check gear, see that it was securely strapped down and tighten a few of the straps.
“Hey, lookee here, we got a Lieutenant riding back here,” one of the officers said to the other smacking him on the chest to get his attention.
The Journey Home Page 23