A Memory Between Us (19 page)

“Do your best for me, buddy,” Jack said. “I’ve got you for only three more missions.”

Charlie’s cheek twitched. The bombardier had his future lined up. When he finished his tour, he’d be promoted to major, forsake the one-month furlough offered to entice men to volunteer for a second combat tour, and take a ground job training lead bombardiers.

Colonel Castle stood, gave words of encouragement, and dismissed the men to their specialized briefings. Conversation picked up as the men filed out of the briefing room, tones quiet in expectation of a long haul, but eyes bright in anticipation of success.

Jack looked over his shoulder to Charlie as they edged down the aisle. “Boy, will this be good. What a shame Babcock has to miss it.”

Charlie connected the zipper on his sheepskin-lined flight jacket. “Are you gunning for Hitler? Or Babcock?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Come on, buddy. I know the difference between an enemy and a rival.”

Charlie’s grumbling reply was lost in the chatter. Just as well. Today was Jack’s shining day, and he wouldn’t let Charlie’s morning grouchiness mar its luster.

“What’ll it be, Winch?” Jack stretched tired fingers over the piano keyboard in the Officers’ Club. “One more song, then I’m taking a break.”

“‘Take the A Plane—Train.’” Joe Winchell sputtered a laugh and sloshed scotch on the piano top. “Ha! That’s us, the A planes. Square A? A Plane? Get it?”

“Got it.” He smiled and searched through the sheet music for the Duke Ellington hit. Tonight he’d cut Winchell some slack. Jack was in too good a mood after the mission, and Winchell deserved a celebration, even if Jack thought little of drunkenness as celebration.

Not many men survived twenty-five missions. In fact, very few. But today Winchell and the men in his crew had 25 painted in blue on their foreheads.

“I tell you, Novak.” Winchell leaned on the piano top, his gray eyes bleary. “What a way to finish. I tell you, I saw that map this morning, thought Sahara Sue would be a poor little orphaned donkey. ’Bout breaks my heart. How many fellows get it on their last mission? How many, I ask you?”

“All too many.”

“All too many. That’s right, my friend, all too many. You’re a good man, Novak. A good man. It’s been a prib—prib—privilege flying with you.” His head bobbled his sincerity.

“Same here, Winch. You’ll do a great job in Intelligence.” Then he grinned. “Once you’re sober.”

Winchell exploded in laughter, and his drunken crewmates jostled him. More whiskey dribbled on the piano top. Mom’s piano at home never had such a baptism.

Jack launched into the song and jiggled his knee to the beat despite creeping fatigue. Up at 0300, takeoff at 0700, a ten-hour mission, then debriefing and dinner. It was only 2000, but after this song and some time with Charlie, he’d hit the sack to rest for tomorrow’s mission.

The song and the day’s success pumped energy back into him. Although Castle was never one for flattery or exaggeration, he called it the bombing of the year. Strike photos showed 58 percent of the bombs fell within one thousand feet of the aiming point, the best percentage ever.

As predicted, the southern Anklam leg drew the Luftwaffe’s attention and took most of the losses. On the Marienburg leg, only two planes fell, none from the 94th.

Jack finished the song, shook floppy hands in congratulation, and scanned the club for Charlie, who wasn’t in his usual spot by the piano. There he was, across the room with Norman Findlay and Gene Levitski. A tentacle of smoke rose over Charlie’s head.

Jack spun a chair around and straddled it backwards. “Fell off the wagon, huh? Guess it’s good you won’t see May tomorrow after all.”

Gene and Norman got to their feet. “Good night,” Gene said. “Hate to go, but tomorrow’s early, you know.”

An abrupt departure, but Jack couldn’t fault them. “Night, boys. See you at briefing.”

“Yeah.” Gene and Norman exchanged a look and turned to leave.

Jack watched Charlie tap a cigarette into an ashtray. “Run out of pencils?”

Charlie stuck the cigarette in his mouth and inhaled deeply.

Jack studied his friend’s face. He couldn’t be down about the mission, so he had to be down about missing tomorrow’s Sunday picnic. “You know, buddy, it’s not so bad missing a date with the ladies. Every time we do, they worry a bit, get a little sentimental and a lot more appreciative.”

Charlie stared at the ashtray and blew smoke out his nose.

“Besides, May’s already crazy about you. Of the two of us, I’m the one who should be blue. Ruth’s not in love with me yet—close, but not quite.”

Charlie let out a smoky huff. “Still won’t let up with that plan of yours, will you?”

“Why would I? It’s working.”

“Working? The woman—” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “She runs off in London, she hyperventilates, she—she—something’s wrong, but you keep pushing. You treat her like a project, not a person.”

Jack leaned back, “Oh, come on. I treat her like a person. More than that. I love her.”

“No, you think you love her. You love the challenge, the plotting, the manipulation.”

“Manipu—” His mouth drew up. “Oh, come on.”

“What’s the goal you’re after? A kiss. Since when is that the most important part of love?”

Jack stared at Charlie de Groot, a man he’d known for three years, a man who knew him well, or so he thought. “You’ve got my motives mixed up. I’m in love with her, and if I want her to fall in love with me, what’s wrong with that?”

Charlie pounded his cigarette into a little accordion in the ashtray.

Jack blew off the steam in his chest. Charlie had never been in a worse mood—he was tired, disappointed not to see his girl, and anxious about his two remaining missions. He needed rest, and so did Jack. Now was no time for an argument. He shifted his feet to push himself to standing.

“Hiya, fellas.” Nate Silverberg grasped Charlie’s shoulders from behind. “Great mission today, wasn’t it?”

“The best.” Jack grinned. Silverberg had proved an excellent pilot, and Jack had moved him to deputy lead. He’d command the squadron well someday—in the near future, Jack hoped.

“Well, de Groot, I’m looking forward to flying with you tomorrow.” Silverberg thumped Charlie on the back. “Thanks for sharing the wealth, Novak.” He tipped a salute and was gone.

Jack shook his head to clear his ears. “What’s he talking about?”

“I was about to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

Charlie lit another cigarette. “I’m flying my last two missions with Silverberg. Crew lists are posted for tomorrow. It’s set.”

“What?” Jack gripped the chair back in front of his chest. “Who switched the crews around? That’s my responsibility. I make the crew lists.”

“Jack …”

He scanned the room. “Babcock. I should’ve known. He won’t get away with this.”

“Stop it. This is why I switched.”

“What?”

“I went to Castle and requested a crew change. It was my doing. Mine alone.”

“Huh?” A sick feeling oozed into his stomach.

“I know. I only have two missions left, but I had to get off your crew, and now.”

The sickness crept, green and vile, up to his chest. “Off my crew, but—I don’t—why?”

“Your pride.” Charlie raised his eyes, resolved and self-righteous. “I’ve never minded before, because you’re a good pilot and a good friend. But lately, that pride’s grown. You’re so consumed with beating Babcock, you’re more focused on the promotion than the job, just what you accuse Jeff of doing.”

Jack gaped at the lies spewing from Charlie’s mouth.

“At some point your pride will make you do something dangerous. I don’t want to be around.”

Anger ignited in the green mess in his stomach, but he laughed it off. “Come on, we’re a team. You and I. Since primary flying school.”

“I know, but I can’t fly with you again. You’re too good, Jack. That’s your problem. Because you’re good, you’ve never let yourself down, and you trust in yourself. You can’t do that. You have to trust in God alone.”

“I do.” He drummed his knuckles on the chair back. “Of course I do.”

Charlie sighed, ground out his cigarette, and got to his feet. “I’ve got to go.”

“Come on. We’ve been friends too long.” Jack dug in his pocket, pulled out a dime, and pressed it into Charlie’s hand. “Go get us some coffee, and we’ll talk about this.”

Charlie stared at the dime in his hand. “You know, for once I’d like to see you get your own drink.”

Jack blinked. “What do you mean? I’m paying.”

Charlie laid the coin on the table. “You don’t understand, do you?”

Understand? He glared at Charlie’s retreating back. It was a bunch of baloney. How could you understand baloney?

22

12th Evacuation Hospital

Tuesday, October 12, 1943

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Ruth took the basin of Dakin’s solution from the medic and set it on the table next to Lieutenant Baker’s bed. The smell of bleach wafted up from the basin. Ruth tried to smile away the nervous look in her patient’s eyes. “Let’s clean that wound.”

When she removed the dressing, Lieutenant Baker howled. “Look at that big hole in my thigh. That doc didn’t even stitch me up.”

“Dr. Hoffman used the latest technique, developed at Pearl Harbor.” Ruth irrigated the wound left by a Luftwaffe cannon shell, which brought more howls. One of her whiniest patients ever. “Open wounds rarely develop gas gangrene, because the bacteria can’t grow when exposed to oxygen. If Dr. Hoffman had closed your wound, as they did in the First World War, you might have lost your leg or your life.”

“But the hole.” He arched his neck on the pillow when she patted the wound dry with gauze. Most men barely flinched.

“God designed your body to heal itself. Before you know it, all you’ll have left is a scar.”

He whimpered. “A scar?”

She smiled to disguise a sigh. “Think how it’ll impress the folks back home. And your children. And grandchildren.”

“Hmm.” Lieutenant Baker’s eyes narrowed. The thought of milking sympathy fifty years into the future seemed to distract him, because he didn’t protest when Ruth applied a clean dressing. He yelped, however, when she injected a quarter grain of morphine into his deltoid.

Ruth gathered the soiled dressings and dumped them in the workroom. She tried to ignore the envelope stiff in the pocket of her white dress. She should have opened it at lunch. Now she didn’t dare open it until after her shift.

A narcotics count would keep her occupied. She unlocked the narcotics cabinet and counted vials of morphine, phenobarbital, and the new wonder drug, Pentothal. Now anesthesia could be induced by injection, not just by inhalation. Dr. Hoffman had used Pentothal for an emergency procedure in the ward, and the patient had been knocked unconscious in ten seconds flat.

On her last round she took vital signs, charted her notes, and turned down Captain Heller’s marriage proposal. If it weren’t for the fluttery feeling in her stomach, she might have convinced herself the envelope was forgotten.

Seven o’clock arrived, and so did Flo Oswald for the shift change. After Ruth gave report, she stepped into the cool autumn evening. The envelope crinkled like the leaves underfoot.

She fastened her cape around her neck and explored the letter in her pocket. It was thick. Rejection would require only one thin piece of stationery.

Her heart and stomach tumbled so she couldn’t tell which organ was in which position. She should be thrilled. This was her dream—to fly, to be independent, to wear the golden wings. She could provide for her family and keep Maggie out of the orphanage. This was a blessing from God. A blessing.

Yet as she walked between the rows of Nissen huts, a sense of loss hollowed out her soul.

She finally had a girlfriend, someone to talk to and laugh with, someone she could trust. Even if she made a new friend at Bowman Field, she would never find someone like May, who shared Ruth’s history of pain and loss yet kept her faith and serenity.

She’d also lose her group of friends. On Monday, while Jack stayed home with paperwork, Charlie had taken May and Ruth to Cambridge to see ancient university buildings, majestic cathedrals, and charming boats on the river, all more meaningful when shared.

Ruth turned onto the path toward Redgrave Hall, in too much turmoil to eat.

Jack. She’d put off thinking about him until last. Why was the thought of losing him the most painful? After the trip to London, she knew he cared too deeply for her, and now he could find the nice, normal girlfriend he deserved. But she also felt too deeply for him. She loved being with him, loved everything about him.

“Ruth!” May called behind her. “There you are. I saw you pass my ward. Aren’t you going to dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.” Her eyelashes were wet, her vision blurry.

May gave her the probing look. “Are you all right?”

Ruth drew the letter from her pocket and blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “I heard from the School of Air Evacuation.”

“Oh.” May’s face drooped. “Oh, I thought you’d get in.”

“I think—I think I did.” She examined the return address. Kentucky—she’d never been to Kentucky.