In Perfect Time

by Sarah Sundin

  Roger nodded and kept his hands steady on the C-47’s control wheel. As the head aircraft in his nine-plane “V of Vs” formation, he had to keep a constant watch on his heading, altitude, and speed. Ahead of him, Veerman led the flight of thirty-six planes. An hour later, the remaining twenty-seven planes of the 64th Troop Carrier Group would follow.

  Morning sunlight spilled through the cockpit and illuminated the instruments. The altimeter read three thousand feet, airspeed one hundred forty.

  Good. Roger chomped on his gum, thankful that Wrigley’s had requisitioned enough sugar to provide chewing gum for the troops. Helped with his nerves.

  Especially today. Two paratroopers from the British 2nd Parachute Brigade rode in the back of the plane, ready to jump over a practice drop zone north of Rome.

  Some big operation was coming. A betting pool kept the boys busy at Ciampino Airfield. Where would the US Seventh Army land? At Genoa at the top of Italy’s boot? Or at any of a dozen potential sites in Southern France? Roger wasn’t a betting man anymore, but he would have put his money on someplace near the mouth of the Rhȏne River, near the huge port of Marseille. He’d ferried enough cargo to know how vital supply routes were to an army.

  The sun finished poking its head over the rugged hills to Roger’s right and brought out the blue-green of the Mediterranean spreading to his left. The coastline ran in a jagged line to the northwest, pointing to France.

  Roger rolled the ball of gum around in his mouth. He had to do his best today so he could do his best when it mattered, when he was dropping more of these men into enemy territory.

  How had Dad worded it in his last letter? “Your mother and I are pleased and surprised that you haven’t gotten yourself killed—or worse, gotten someone else killed.”

  No one knew how to raise his morale better than Harold “Copper” Cooper.

  Then Dad went on for another two pages about the farm, and his brothers’ farms, and his sisters’ husbands’ farms. All of them good Coopers, patriotically growing food for the Allies.

  And here was Roger, three thousand feet above the earth, playing in his aeroplane, as his oldest brother Joe had put it when Roger joined the Army Air Forces.

  Yeah. Playing. Roger shook his head. The men in the back of his aeroplane weren’t playing, and neither was he.

  “Coop, I’ve got the homing station at Lido loud and clear.” Pettas’s voice crackled on the interphone. “Time to start our descent.”

  “Thanks.” With radio silence required, Roger waggled his wings to signal the eight planes behind him. Then he edged the control wheel forward to descend to eighteen hundred feet.

  The radioman was doing much better as a navigator, really applying himself.

  Just like Roger was trying to better himself as a pilot. His reports were neat and complete. He was on time or early for briefings. He’d even read Elroy’s meteorology book after he finished teasing his copilot for bringing a big fat textbook.

  Most difficult of all, he’d resisted the temptation to get Grant Klein back for lying to him about the partisan supply mission.

  Roger tapped out a rhythm on the control wheel. Man alive, what an opportunity. A local woman had delivered a package to the house at Ciampino—Klein’s laundry, spanking-clean white underwear.

  And Roger had received a red scarf from his mother. Making sure he got it in time for Christmas, she said. Couldn’t trust the Army Post Office, she said. But red? Had Mom forgotten he was in the Army? Drab colors only.

  He’d pictured the tiled kitchen in the house, the big kettle, the red scarf and white undies swirling together on the stove.

  Instead, Roger had scrawled a message on the paper wrapper: “Decided not to dye your lingerie pink. One of us has to grow up. Coop.”

  Although Klein liked to report Roger’s every doing to Veerman, apparently he hadn’t reported that.

  Below, a spit of land stuck out into the Mediterranean. Looked like Lido di Roma. The altimeter read eighteen hundred feet. Perfect. Ahead of him, the other planes turned right.

  “Coop, we’re at the IP,” Pettas said.

  “Thought so. Thanks.” Roger waggled his wings again to signal the initial point, the start of the run to the drop zone. He put the plane into a dog-leg turn until the heading read thirteen.

  “Ten minutes to the DZ,” Elroy said.

  “Check.” On the overhead electrical panel, Roger rang the bailout bell to signal the men in the back that the drop zone was approaching.

  The beachside town of Lido di Roma slipped underneath his plane. That’s where Kay was stationed. Was she down there right now, shielding her green eyes from the sun, watching the C-47s trail overhead?

  Oh brother. When had he turned into a sentimental fool? He was a fool, all right. Never should have told her his secret. Never.

  Once again, the Lord hadn’t given him a choice.

  Roger throttled down from 140 to 110 mph.

  He wouldn’t have minded sharing if his sin involved espionage or murder or armed train robbery. But his sin was sexual, and she was a beautiful woman who used to flirt with him.

  He preferred it when she thought he was a prudish monk.

  “Coop, the Rebecca picked up the Eureka beacon at the DZ,” Pettas called on the interphone. “It’s working.”

  “Good.” They hadn’t used the new Rebecca radar system yet. “How long until the drop, Elroy?”

  “Two minutes.”

  “All right.” On the overhead panel he switched on the red light to signal the paratroopers to stand to the door.

  He had to keep the plane steady and level. He reached to the side of the copilot’s seat and flipped the lever to raise the flaps.

  “Ninety seconds.”

  Roger throttled back the left engine to lessen the impact of propwash on the paratroopers when they jumped from the cargo door on the left side of the plane, while he throttled the right engine up to compensate.

  “Thirty seconds,” Elroy said. “Heading thirteen, altitude eighteen hundred, airspeed one ten.”

  “Right on target,” Pettas said.

  Roger’s hand hovered over the light switch, and his jaw set hard. Lord, keep those men safe.

  Memories of failure galloped through his head. Most of the Allied airborne missions at Sicily and Salerno hadn’t gone well. Men had been scattered far from their drop zones, far from each other. Too many men had been lost.

  “Coming up,” Pettas said. “Three, two, one.”

  Roger gritted his teeth and flipped the light to green.

  While he kept the plane level and true, he ventured a glance out the window behind him. The two paratroopers flung themselves out the door, hurtling toward the ground below, trusting in a flimsy piece of silk to save their lives.

  They had no choice but to obey.

  After a minute or two, Roger made a climbing 180-degree turn to the right.

  He had no choice but to obey either. God had a reason to make Roger yank his secret from hiding. The peaceful look had returned to Kay’s face.

  There’d better be some reward for all this painful obedience—like never seeing Kay Jobson again. The dame was dangerous.

  Roger headed south toward Ciampino and huffed out a sigh. More accurately, Kay had the power to bring out the dangerous in him. And he never wanted to see that part of himself again.

  20

  Rome

  August 5, 1944

  “Watch out!” Mellie called.

  Kay ducked, and the soccer ball soared over her head.

  “Ha!” Roger caught it and bounced it like a basketball, up and down, one hand to another, eyes alight. “Guess you’re one of those fraidy girls.”

  “No hands in soccer.” Kay kicked the ball away from him and toward the children. “Guess you’re one of those milksop boys.”

  “Funny girl, are you?” He jogged past her to where the children jostled the ball back and forth in the orphanage’s dining room, tables and benches shoved against the walls for
the game.

  “Sure am.” She smiled at the back of his mussed-up head. This was such a great idea.

  Georgie had organized visits to an orphanage in Naples earlier in the year, and now she’d found a place in Rome. Mellie had expressed concern that the children only had females in their lives—the nuns, Red Cross workers, and flight nurses. With only occasional visits from a priest, they were starved for adult male influence, so Kay had suggested recruiting the flight crews. Today some of the men had joined them, since they were grounded in bad weather.

  The children did fancy footwork, bypassed Roger, and kicked the ball between the chair goalposts.

  “You guys are killing me.” Roger scooped up two of the smallest boys and tucked them under his arms like sacks of corn. “I need a break.”

  Two little girls clung to his legs, laughing and calling to him in Italian.

  Kay smiled. These children might not have families, but at least they had a home. The old longing for a house swelled inside her—four walls, a floor, a ceiling, doors, and separate rooms.

  Perhaps today’s outing would put her another step closer to her goal. If she could bring Lambert an offering of a unified flight, maybe she could persuade the chief to write a recommendation. Today all the nurses worked for the same purpose. In the classroom across the hall, Vera, Alice, and Georgie did art projects with some of the children, after distributing clothing sewn and knit by the nurses.

  Kay “knit her bit” because she had to, but knitting reminded her of evenings in the family tent. Mother and Jemima and Keren sewing industriously, her sisters scoffing at Kay’s uneven stitches, her younger sister Keren smugly proclaiming that even she sewed better than Kay.

  They did everything better than Kay.

  Until Kay realized she earned better grades, played sports better, and made friends more easily—all worldly, sinful things in her father’s eyes. So Kay embraced them all the harder.

  “Some teammate you are.” Mellie tapped Kay on the arm, her golden cheeks glowing from the exercise. “Mike and I need your help. Roger, Louise, and Bert are plotting something.”

  Kay hauled up a grin. Self-pity only wasted time and energy.

  Mellie pulled Kay to her team’s side of the room. On the far side, Roger gathered his kids in a huddle as if they were playing American football. His rich voice carried even though he spoke low. He used lots of hand motions, patting kids on the head, and they looked up to him with rapt attention.

  His care for the children shone in every gesture and word, and they soaked it up like dry little sponges.

  But she had to defeat him. She turned to Mellie and Mike. “He thinks he’s playing football. How can we use this to our advantage?”

  Mike Elroy squinted at his pilot. “I bet he’ll go long. He’s thinking like a quarterback. He’ll send one kid down deep on each side, go for a long pass.”

  “That’s not how you play soccer.” Mellie raised a mischievous smile. “Long passes are easy to intercept.”

  “All right then.” Mike crouched down, pulled a handful of pebbles from the breast pocket of his khaki shirt, and used them to show the children what was going on.

  The older boys pointed to the pebbles, laughed, and elbowed each other.

  Kay smirked at the auburn-haired jock. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  Roger clapped his hands, and the kids spread out in a line, just like in football.

  Sure enough, the girl in the center kicked the ball backward to Roger, who booted it long and low down the left side of the room. Before it could reach the boy who was loping for it, two of Kay’s teammates rushed in. The children dashed down the room, and the ball zigzagged between them in a series of short passes until—boom!—“Gol!”

  Roger tossed up his hands. “I do not understand this game.”

  “Obviously.” Kay burst out laughing. “Stick to badminton.”

  “Badminton? Badminton?” Roger dribbled the ball toward her like a basketball, eyes flashing. “I’ll show you badminton.”

  Kay grinned. He had no idea how good she was at basketball. She snatched away the ball and twirled to get around him.

  For a big man, he moved surprisingly fast. He blocked her.

  She spun the other way, shouldered up against him, spun again, bumped again.

  He was so solid, and he didn’t stop laughing. “Say, you’re not half bad, kid.”

  “I’m not a fraidy girl.”

  “I’m not a milksop.” His big hand swatted at the ball.

  She whirled around and thrust the ball in his face. “And this is not a basketball or a football. It’s a soccer ball. You kick it with your feet.” She tossed it over her shoulder.

  The children pounced on it, falling naturally into the game, free of the American pilot’s game plans.

  Roger didn’t follow the ball. He didn’t follow the children. His brown eyes focused hard on her, and one side of his mouth twitched up. Sweat darkened his hair to a deep russet brown around the hairline.

  Her heart did some fancy footwork of its own. He was too close and too handsome.

  His smile grew. “Guess you’re not a fussy kind of dame after all, kid.”

  “Never was.”

  Roger nodded, broke his gaze, and ran back into the fray of the game.

  Kay blew out a hard, hot breath. Goodness, what he did to her!

  That was the closest she’d seen to admiration from him—but nowhere near attraction. His “kid” nickname for her rang of brotherly platonic affection.

  What kind of woman did he like? Since he’d confessed his past to her, she kept tripping over that thought. Her image of him continued to shift—from fuddy-duddy, to a vigorous man immune to feminine charms, to a man with a healthy appetite for women. A man of passion.

  She’d been better off not knowing that.

  Why had he never shown any interest in her? Had the Lord taken away his appetite? Had he sworn off women for good? Did he find her unattractive? Maybe he liked his girls voluptuous, or blonde, or giggly.

  Or maybe Kay wasn’t good enough.

  “Stop it,” she murmured to herself. “No self-pity.”

  The game had wound down, and a nun gestured for the children to line up.

  Roger worked his way down the line, shook hands with each child, and addressed them all by name.

  Kay’s throat closed off. To the rest of the world, these orphans were a burden, a waste, a hassle. But Roger Cooper saw the value in each and viewed them with interest, understanding, and respect.

  He turned to the American visitors and clapped his hands. “All right, crew. Let’s put this place back to rights.”

  Along the wall, Roger and Mike rocked one of the tables onto its feet and wrestled it into position.

  Kay and Mellie grabbed a bench, while Louise Cox and Bert Marino carried another.

  Mellie puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “So, Roger, what did you do in the real world before the war? Were you a teacher?”

  “What?” He stared as if she’d said he were a bank robber.

  “You’re so good with children.” Mellie set down her end of the bench.

  “You are.” Kay straightened the bench.

  “Nah, I’m a drummer.”

  Mellie laughed. “Of course. I forgot. Well, if drumming doesn’t work out, you’d be an excellent teacher.”

  “Hardly.” His voice came out low, and he headed for the next table.

  Kay fetched another bench. An image of Mr. Warburton flashed in her mind. She’d never stayed at any school more than three months in a row, but she’d never forgotten the tenth-grade history teacher.

  Big and loud, Mr. Warburton used to perch on the front of his desk and tell stories. In his classroom, history was more than terms and dates—it was real people in the sweeping arc of life, caught up in grand events. And he cared. The students responded.

  “Little more this way.” Roger tugged a table to the side, face red.

  Kay pictured Roger as that s
ort of teacher, the once-in-a-lifetime sort who could engage children and change lives. “I can see you as a teacher too. I really can.”

  Roger scrunched up his face. “Hardly. Kids only like me because I’m an overgrown kid myself. I’m not a teacher.”

  She frowned and helped Mellie carry a bench over to his table. “It’s more than that. You have a gift.”

  He shot a glare at her. “I’m not good enough, all right?”

  She almost dropped the bench on his toes. “Not—not good enough? I thought—I thought you were redeemed.”

  He stared down at her with a look in his eyes she’d never seen before—a strange mix of shock and . . . insecurity?

  Kay’s heart shriveled up. Deep down inside, he didn’t really believe he’d been redeemed, did he? And if he hadn’t been . . .

  Roger blinked, and the insecurity vanished. “Not that kind of good. Just meant I wouldn’t be good at teaching. All those routines and regulations and stuff. I can barely fill out my forms right. Ask Elroy.”

  “He does fine,” Mike said with his shy smile.

  “Fine. Yeah. Those forms about kill me. Couldn’t do that for the rest of my life. Okay, the room’s back to normal. Somehow we managed not to break anything.” He strode out of the room.

  The shriveled-up feeling didn’t go away.

  “Come on.” Mellie touched her arm. “Georgie and the other girls are waiting for us.”

  “Yeah.” She walked with Mellie and Louise into the foyer.

  “The children had so much fun with the art projects.” Georgie stepped forward, blue eyes dancing. “How was the soccer game?”

  Mellie smoothed her hair and smiled. “The nuns will have a hard time settling our little soccer players down again.”

  The ladies headed outside, and Kay hung back to walk with Vera and Alice. “Did you have fun?”

  “How could we not with Shirley Temple herself in charge?” Vera rolled her eyes and trotted down the outside steps.

  Alice hummed “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and did a little tap-dance move.

  A sour taste filled Kay’s mouth. True, Georgie was cute and perky and curly-haired, but what had she ever done to hurt Vera and Alice? “She’s just trying to do something nice for the orphans. Don’t act so superior.”