Louise's Chance

by Sarah R. Shaber

  ‘I’m third-generation,’ Merle said. ‘My grandparents never learned English, so to talk with them I had to speak German. I’m fluent, but I speak with a powerful Texas accent. I couldn’t pass for a native German if my life depended on it.’

  ‘OK, are you two ready to go?’ she asked. ‘The car is probably already waiting for us at the gate.’

  Lester tossed our bags in the back of an open jeep. All but one, which Miss Osborne grabbed back from him and kept with her. To me it looked suspiciously like an OSS suitcase radio. Miss Osborne saw me staring at it, wondering if we were going to set up a covert radio somewhere. ‘It’s a tape recorder,’ she said. ‘We’ll be recording all our interviews.’ She took the passenger seat while Merle and I clambered into the narrow back seat. We held on to our hats as the jeep pulled out on to Constitution Avenue and accelerated.

  I leaned forward to speak to Miss Osborne, still holding on to my hat with one hand.

  ‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘could we ask Lester to stop long enough to put up the jeep top? We’re getting blown away back here.’

  ‘The airfield isn’t far,’ she answered. ‘We’ll be there before you know it.’

  ‘The airfield?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? We’re hitching a ride on a military transport flight to Fort Meade.’

  I felt my stomach churn as I leaned back in my seat. I had never been on an airplane before! I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be up in the air so high. It gave me the heebie-jeebies just to climb into the steeple of my church back home.

  I kept a firm grip on my hat as we traveled east, skirting the Capitol and then turning southeast on Pennsylvania Avenue. Well before entering Maryland we turned even further south, to the eastern shore of the Potomac, and drew up to the gates of the Naval Air Station.

  The navy MP on duty at the gate raised his hand to halt us, but after a quick examination of Miss Osborne’s papers he motioned us through the gate and into the airfield. Our jeep pulled right up to a two-engine military transport plane parked on a dirt runway. My nerves began to overwhelm me. Why were we flying to Fort Meade instead of driving? The base was only thirty-five miles or so from Washington! We could drive it in an hour! Of course, I reminded myself, with wartime traffic it could be much longer.

  I wished I didn’t have a new, exciting job. I’d give anything to be wandering among the forest of file cabinets at the Registry just now.

  Merle noticed the fear in my eyes as he helped me out of the jeep. He leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘It’ll be OK, it’s a real short flight to Fort Meade. Maybe a half-hour, depending on air traffic.’

  ‘What if I heave?’ I whispered back. Merle opened his jacket to show me the brown paper bags he’d tucked into his pocket. ‘I brought these. You wouldn’t be the first to use one.’

  Lester carried our bags over to the belly of the plane and stowed them in the storage compartment. A navy seaman, looking quite odd on an airfield, latched the door.

  I followed Miss Osborne as she climbed the movable metal staircase into the airplane. Inside quarters were so close that Merle had to duck his head. Eight seats, four on each side of a narrow aisle, crowded the claustrophobic passenger compartment. A sliding panel at the front of the plane concealed the cockpit. There were two flyboys up there, thank God. If one of them had an appendicitis attack the other one could land the airplane.

  I edged down the aisle and scrunched myself into the seat behind Miss Osborne, buckling my safety belt, pulling it as tight as I could tolerate. She turned her head to speak to me.

  ‘Mrs Pearlie,’ she said, ‘have you ever flown before?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ she said. ‘Everything looks amazing from up in the sky, and you get where you’re going so quickly, and it’s less tiring than driving.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said.

  ‘This is an Electra 10, although the navy calls it something else,’ Miss Osborne added. ‘It’s basically the same airplane Amelia Earhart flew. I don’t think they’ll ever find her, do you?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I said. So here I was, trapped inside a big cigar tube with a half-inch of metal and rivets between me and the open air, about to fly off and away into the blue sky, something no human being other than Superman was meant to do. If Amelia Earhart had crashed in one of these airplanes were any of us safe? It was only by sheer willpower that I didn’t unlatch my seatbelt and run screaming down the aisle and beat on the exit door.

  Merle must have noticed my hand gripping my armrest so tightly that my knuckles were white. He reached across the aisle and grasped my wrist, squeezing it reassuringly. Then he passed me a brown bag. I stuffed it into my handbag.

  The two propellers engaged, and the Pratt & Whitney engines roared with increasing volume. Looking out my window I could see the propeller on my side of the plane rotate more and more quickly until it blurred. The aircraft actually trembled and rattled with a metallic sound. Was it supposed to do that? No one seemed troubled but me, and that included the three officers seated at the front of the plane. Two army light colonels and a navy captain, I could tell by the bars on their sleeves, on their way to Fort Meade for some reason. One of the colonels was calm enough to be asleep already!

  Our version of Amelia Earhart’s plane turned and headed down the dirt airstrip. We lifted into the air, and I felt as well as heard a huge thud beneath my feet. My stomach stayed behind on the ground but I managed not to barf.

  ‘What was that noise?’ I shouted to Merle over the sound of the engines.

  He leaned toward me. ‘The wheels retracting,’ he shouted back. ‘They’ll make a racket when we prepare to land too.’

  I kept my eye on the horizon while clutching my bag with both hands as if I expected someone to try to take it from me. Beneath me the dirt runway of the airstrip receded as we headed north toward Maryland. The Capitol, gleaming white marble in the midst of a hodgepodge of tacky tempos, passed to my left far below. I guessed we were well short of the aircraft’s cruising altitude, but it was still too high for me. We followed Route 1 into Maryland, and I thought I could see Baltimore in the distance when the airplane shuddered again.

  ‘It’s just the wing flaps,’ Merle shouted into my ear. ‘We’ll be landing soon.’

  Fort Meade stretched out below us. I spotted neat rows of brick barracks, a small church and a vehicle depot full of trucks and jeeps. A column of tiny men marched across a parade ground. Further north row upon row of white tents stood behind a tall barbed wire fence cornered by watchtowers.

  We landed on a dirt airstrip half the size of the one we had left in Washington, coming to a stop with what looked like inches to spare between the airplane and a low building flying a windsock and the American flag.

  Merle let me out ahead of him and I staggered down the center aisle and the metal staircase to the ground. I was mighty glad when my feet touched earth. My nerves began to calm. Miss Osborne came up behind me.

  ‘Wasn’t that great?’ she asked. ‘So easy!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, pulling myself together. ‘It was swell.’

  FOUR

  An army private with ‘McVey’ stitched on his khaki shirt presented himself and saluted. He looked about twelve years old, thanks to the freckles that crowded his face and his blond GI haircut.

  ‘We’re not in the military, private,’ Miss Osborne said, extending her hand. ‘No need to salute.’

  Flustered, McVey took her hand and pumped it before standing at ease. I wondered if he’d just completed boot camp.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m to take you to the WAC barracks, you’ll be bunking there. And you,’ he said, looking at Merle, ‘you’ll be in an enlisted men’s barracks nearby.’

  ‘I guess we’ll have plenty of roommates, then,’ Merle said.

  McVey suppressed a grin. ‘Not exactly, sir,’ he answered. ‘After you’ve had a chance to settle into your quarters I’
ll take you to meet the base commander and the camp commander. Where are your bags?’

  We directed McVey to the baggage compartment under the airplane. He refused Merle’s offer of help, carrying all three of our bags to the jeep and stowing them in back. Miss Osborne insisted on carrying the tape recorder herself.

  McVey pulled up to a four-story brick barracks, the first in a street full of similar buildings.

  ‘Go on in there,’ he said to Merle, pointing toward the door to the barracks, the first of four on a tree-lined street. ‘Just pick any bed. I’ll be back here in half an hour to take you to the base commander.’

  ‘Sure,’ Merle said, retrieving his suitcase and heading for the stairs to the barracks. ‘See you all later,’ he said.

  McVey drove to the end of the street and pulled up to a single-story clapboard house, painted white with bare wooden steps.

  ‘You’re quartered here,’ he said to Miss Osborne and me. He jumped out and went around to the back of our jeep to retrieve our bags.

  ‘We can carry our own bags, private,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘We’re not crippled.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ McVey said, ‘if I let you tote your own luggage my sergeant would have me peeling potatoes for a week.’

  We followed him up the steps and into a room with six narrow beds, none of which seemed to be occupied. Sheets, blankets, towels and a pillow lay at the foot of two of the beds.

  ‘Are we the only girls here?’ I asked. ‘I thought we were bunking with some WACs.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ McVey answered. ‘Until the prisoners of war arrived three WACs and two army nurses were quartered here.’

  ‘Where are they now?’ Miss Osborne asked. ‘I hope they didn’t have to leave because of us.’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ the young private said. ‘It was because of the Geneva Convention.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said to McVey.

  ‘I do,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘The Geneva Convention says that prisoners of war must live under the same conditions as their captor country’s soldiers.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ McVey said. ‘So all of us assigned to the prisoner-of-war camp have to live in tents as long as the POWs do. When the camp’s permanent barracks are built we’ll be able to move back into our regular quarters. Before winter, we hope.’

  I remembered seeing the orderly rows of white tents north of the base as my airplane was landing. They weren’t all behind barbed wire.

  ‘Not the entire base!’ I said.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ McVey said. ‘Just those of us who are assigned to the POW camp. The WACs who bunked here work in the camp administrative office and the nurses are assigned to the camp infirmary.’ He drew himself to attention and saluted, then realized he didn’t need to, letting his hand fall to his side.

  ‘I’ll be back to pick you up in half an hour,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, private,’ Miss Osborne said. McVey turned on his heel and left.

  In the bathroom of our quarters I filled a glass with water and took my aspirin. I realized we hadn’t had lunch and wondered if we would be offered any food before dinner. McVey hadn’t mentioned it, and it didn’t seem to be on the schedule.

  The bathroom wasn’t luxurious, but it was roomy, with two sinks, a toilet and a shower. I washed my face and hands and applied powder and lipstick, the only makeup I ever wore. Ada urged me to use mascara and foundation, saying they would make me look younger, but I didn’t see the point. I was a thirty-year-old widow and didn’t see why I should pretend not to be.

  Miss Osborne, Merle, Private McVey and I cooled our heels for two hours waiting to meet the base commander, sitting on a hard wooden bench in the reception area of the base administration building. We watched while dozens of soldiers of various ranks milled about, dispersing down hallways then reappearing again. Then a group coalesced around a tall, balding lieutenant colonel on his way out the door. We stood up and McVey saluted.

  ‘Colonel Peterson, sir,’ McVey said.

  Peterson paused, his entourage of junior officers collecting around him.

  ‘What, soldier?’ Peterson answered him. ‘Can’t you see I’m leaving the building? I’ve cancelled the rest of my appointments for today.’ His gaze swept over us. ‘Who are these civilians and why are they here?’

  Miss Osborne spoke up. ‘We’re from the Morale Operations branch, Office of Strategic Services, here to interview your German prisoners of war.’

  Peterson paused. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘right. Well, welcome to Fort Meade. Do you have everything you need?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Miss Osborne said.

  ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can join me for dinner one night.’

  McVey saluted again, the group of officers left the building and we were left standing there, watching them go.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Merle said. ‘He had no idea who we are!’

  ‘That’s a good thing,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘The less he’s aware of us and our mission, the better. I don’t want any interference from the military.’

  I was hungrier than ever.

  ‘What’s next?’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘I’m supposed to take you to the prisoner-of-war camp and introduce you to the commander there,’ McVey said. ‘But we can stop at the PX first, if you want a snack.’

  ‘Please,’ Merle said. ‘I’m hungry too.’

  After waiting in a queue of jostling GIs, I edged myself to the front counter of the mobile PX parked outside the base rec building. I’d never seen so much packed into such a small space in my life. And it wasn’t all cigarettes and candy, either.

  The GIs could buy everything from toiletries to shoelaces there. I was sure condoms were available under the counter. Even beer was for sale after evening mess.

  I found myself averting my eyes from the barbershop magazines. The army felt that access to pictures of practically naked pin-up girls was important to soldiers’ morale. We girls had to be happy with movie magazines with Dana Andrews wearing a tux on the cover.

  Since I didn’t have any idea where my next meal was coming from, I bought a Snickers bar, a bag of Lay’s potato chips and a Coke, all the PX soldier behind the counter would let me have. He told me I was entitled to a package of Twinkies too, but I wasn’t that desperate. Merle bought a candy bar, cigarettes and a Coke. We rejoined Private McVey and Miss Osborne, who had been waiting for us in the jeep.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I said to Miss Osborne as she extended an arm to help me into the back seat. Once seated I tore into my candy bar.

  ‘I had some crackers in my purse,’ she said. ‘I should have told you to bring snacks. If you miss chow on an army base you’re SOL until the mess horn blares.’

  McVey backed the jeep around and headed north on the base main road.

  ‘Could it be possible that we are actually going to the prisoner-of-war camp?’ Merle asked him. ‘We’ve been on this damn base for hours.’

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s where we’re headed,’ McVey answered.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Merle said, alternating bites of his candy bar with swigs of Coke.

  ‘Calm down,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘This is the military. All the necessary rituals and niceties have to be performed before we’ll be free to do our job. That’s just the way it is.’

  Merle mumbled under his breath. ‘Where I come from we don’t have to wait hours to meet people who don’t even remember who we are before we start work.’

  If Miss Osborne heard him she didn’t respond.

  Private McVey drove past a watchtower and a block of white tents and then turned right immediately before reaching a tall, rectangular stockade constructed from two barbed wire fences which ran parallel to each other. The fences were topped with nasty-looking razor wire wrapped in a circle.

  McVey parked at a low building with the American flag flying overhead. Another watchtower stood guard over the building. As I climbed out of the jeep I noticed a glint where the sun s
truck a guard’s rifle sight.

  ‘This is the administration building for the prisoner-of-war camp,’ McVey said, opening the passenger side door for Miss Osborne. Merle and I clambered out of the back seat yet again. ‘You’ll meet the commander, Major John Lucas, now.’

  ‘Before midnight?’ Merle asked.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said, nudging him. ‘He’s a private, don’t pick on him, he can’t talk back.’

  Inside the building we sat on yet another wooden bench. It wasn’t as busy there as the base commander’s HQ, but the door labeled ‘Camp Commander’ remained closed. An hour passed. Finally the door opened and a young army lieutenant emerged.

  ‘Miss Osborne,’ he said, reaching out his hand to shake hers. ‘It’s good to meet you. I’m Lieutenant Gary Rawlins, Major Lucas’s Executive Officer.’

  ‘At least this one is expecting us,’ Merle muttered.

  ‘Come in, please,’ Lt Rawlins said.

  The camp commander’s office was empty.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Merle said. Miss Osborne shot him a look that silenced him.

  ‘Major Lucas will be available soon,’ Lt Rawlins said. ‘I’ll go tell him you’re here.’

  Merle waited until Rawlins closed the door behind him. ‘At least these chairs are more comfortable than those benches,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d brought a deck of cards. Or a book.’

  After half an hour, which we passed without any conversation, the office door opened and an army major entered, followed by Lt Rawlins. The major’s appearance surprised me. He was short, bald and chubby. And at least sixty, I guessed. Not a photogenic candidate for an army recruiting poster. I’d read in the newspaper that most of the POW camp commanders were World War I officers recruited out of retirement, and I could believe this man hadn’t worn a military uniform in years.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Osborne,’ Major Lucas said, in a voice that was more authoritative than his looks. Booming, actually. They shook hands and Miss Osborne introduced us to him.

  ‘Mrs Pearlie is my assistant. Mr Ellison will be working as our translator.’