A Memory Between Us (25 page)

“You sure are lucky to be alive, young man.”

“Lucky?” Even if he believed in luck, which he didn’t, was it lucky to cause your best friend to plummet to his death?

Mr. Noia whisked away the towels.

“Sorry, gentlemen. Some other time.” Jack pressed a quarter into Mr. Noia’s hand and left the shop.

A stiff wind blew down Second Street, and Jack clapped his hand over his service cap as he passed El Campanil Theater. Too early for a show. Wouldn’t it be great to sink into a plush seat in the ornate theater alone in the darkness with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour on the road to anywhere?

He looked both ways before crossing, still not used to downtown with so few cars. A horse even stood tied in front of Palace Drugs. He wandered up G Street. Why did so many people roam downtown? Each needed a tip of the hat and a cheery “good morning.” Couldn’t let the town whisper about Pastor Novak’s middle son, who had always been such a nice boy.

Some wanted to talk, but Jack explained he was in a hurry. Yeah, a hurry to get away.

The door to Della’s Dress Shop banged open. A young woman burst out and ran smack into Jack. He caught her by the elbows. “Whoa, there.”

“I’m sorry. Oh, Jack, hi. I heard you were home.”

He smiled. Helen Carlisle, Dr. Jamison’s daughter, belonged to Walt’s gang of friends and had a knack for accidents. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“Oh, I need to pick up Jay-Jay at my sister’s, and run to the bank and post office before lunch.” The wind whipped dark blonde strands of hair around her face, and she tucked them under her hat.

“Jay-Jay—how’s that baby of yours?”

“Not much of a baby anymore. He’s twenty-one months old and cute as can be.”

“I’m sure he is. And how have you been?” Helen’s husband, Jim, had been killed off Guadalcanal about a year before.

“I keep busy.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I have two meetings this afternoon. I wasn’t supposed to help at the dress shop today, but no. Oh, I could strangle Jeannie Llewellyn.”

“Yeah?” Jack didn’t mind her stories as long as he didn’t have to tell his.

“We worked late nights all week on a gown for her, used up the last of our silk. She insisted she needed the dress by Friday—insisted. Well, today was her final fitting—and it fit perfectly, by the way—but she decided the blue did nothing for her coloring and she’d wear the red dress she bought in San Francisco—black market, no doubt. All our hard work for nothing. Mrs. Carlisle won’t even charge her, doesn’t want to get on the Llewellyns’ bad side. I hope someone buys it.” Helen motioned to the store window. “Well, I have to run. I’ll see you around.”

Jack mumbled something, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the evening dress in the window, from the striking shade of blue, the same color as Ruth Doherty’s eyes.

He could imagine her in that dress, but he didn’t want to. He’d never seen her in an evening gown or any civilian clothes. Had she ever dressed up? In her life?

A nasty feeling squeezed his belly. Any girl who sold kisses to buy food wouldn’t have money for fancy clothes.

Jack leaned his forehead against the cool glass. What did he know about poverty? Sure, the Novaks had struggled in the Depression, but they never missed a meal. Ruth, however, knew hunger and did what she thought necessary for her family. Yes, it was stupid and wrong, but she was only thirteen.

He peeled away from the glass and strode down the street. Thirteen? That’s how old he was when he sold rides in Grandpa’s biplane. Stupid and wrong, and not even for a noble cause.

Would he have kept it up for two years? Sure, but he’d been caught.

Ruth hadn’t been until those three rats caught her in the alley.

Jack whipped around the corner onto his parents’ street. He could still see Ruth pounded into the grass by his anger, his pride, his self-righteousness. She didn’t need confrontation—she was no longer sinning. And she didn’t need punishment. She punished herself and denied herself any small luxury. She didn’t need Jack’s help.

Up the driveway, behind the house, and he flung open the garage door to find his old Schwinn with tires pumped full. Dad must have been using it. A clergyman’s E rationing card for unlimited gasoline didn’t do any good when the stations had no gas at all.

He coasted down the driveway.

Mom stood on the front porch, drying her hands on her apron. “I thought I heard you. Where are you going?”

“The farm.” He didn’t know it until he said it. Grandpa Novak never made a fuss.

“Oh good. Your grandparents will be glad to see you. Have fun.”

Jack sent a wave over his shoulder. Fun? What a lousy goal. Charlie had him pegged. Jack loved the game with Ruth, the challenge—yes, the manipulation.

When he reached A Street, he turned right. Ruth told him straight out she didn’t date, hated kissing, couldn’t love him, but no, he was convinced he’d change her mind. Why? ’Cause he was such a swell guy? Yeah, how could she resist?

He slammed his fist on the handlebar and made the bike wobble. Pride! All about what Jack wanted, not about what Ruth wanted, what she needed. Fine thing he called love.

Fighting the wind, Jack pedaled hard down A Street, down Lone Tree Way, past farms and ranches and rounded hills and green grass passing last year’s dried-out growth. Despite the cool air, he worked up a sweat under his flight jacket. If only he could sweat out his pride.

He let his bike fall in a clatter next to the barn and marched inside, where Grandpa groomed Winchell’s blasted donkey. “Put me to work.”

Even though he hadn’t even gotten a hello, Grandpa just tossed Jack a pitchfork. “Stalls need mucking out.”

Jack threw his jacket over a railing, rolled up his sleeves, and dug in with vigor. In blessed silence he cleaned stall after stall. The smell of ammonia made his eyes water, but his pride stank worse. He wiped sweat from his mustache, took off his shirt, and dug in harder.

“Sure am glad you brought home this little miss,” Grandpa said. “Coyotes have been getting the chickens. Nothing like a donkey to chase off coyotes.”

Jack groaned. No amount of chicken dinners could make up for carting that beast.

“Things not going well over there?” Grandpa asked.

“No, they’re not.”

Grandpa grunted.

“We need fighter escort all the way to the target. Too many good men dying. A waste—a stinking, bloody waste.” The pitchfork clanged into wood. Jack heaved out the forkful and moved on to the last stall. For the first time in his life, he wished for more manure.

“Home to stay?”

“No. I’ve gotta fly, gotta be with my men. I made a mistake—a stupid, prideful mistake, and I paid for it. But it’s what I’m good at, where I do some good in this stinking, lousy world.”

“So, you figured it out.”

Jack drove the pitchfork into the pile and leaned his elbow on top, panting. “Figured out what?”

“You’re meant to be a military man, not a pastor.”

Jack’s pride had to be located in his chest, because that’s where he felt the punch. “I’ll—I’ll be ready for the ministry after the war.”

Grandpa fed Sahara Sue a carrot. “Why? You’ve found what you’re good at, where you do some good. Some people live their whole lives, never find that.”

Jack’s mouth flapped open and shut. “But … but …”

“But that son of mine’s got you filled with the notion you can only serve God in the pulpit. Balderdash.” Grandpa stomped up to him, and his hazel eyes flashed. “Can’t all of us be pastors. Even the Good Book says that. Someone’s gotta farm the earth and build the houses and care for the sick. Now, your brother Walt—that boy was made to be an engineer, no doubt about it. He uses the gifts the good Lord gave him for a good purpose. So do you. Don’t you think we need godly men on the farms, at Boeing Aircraft, on your air base?”

Jack’s mind whirled as he stared at his grandfather in his overalls and barn jacket with a crumpled hat over his gray hair. “Yeah, but—”

“Jack Novak, you share your dad’s name, but you do not have to share his profession. God has a purpose for you, boy, and you’ve found it. Now, be a man and trust God to work in his way, not your dad’s.”

Jack had never heard his grandfather give a long speech. Ever. Could Jack do that? Could he abandon the ministry and stay in the military?

Would it be a failure? Or a victory?

31

Bowman Field

Monday, December 13, 1943

Ruth scrambled up the wall and hoisted herself over the edge. For the first time, she landed on her feet. She sprinted forward, dropped to her belly, and slithered under camouflage netting. When they went on bivouac in a few weeks, they’d dodge live ammo, so Ruth tucked in her chin.

“Keep that backside down, Doherty. You’ll get it shot off.”

She grimaced and splayed her knees to do as she was told. Free of the netting, she sprang to her feet and raced for the finish.

The sergeant hit the stopwatch. “Better. You shaved three seconds off yesterday’s time.”

Ruth set her hands on her knees and let her chest heave. “Didn’t fall today.”

“About time.” He glanced at his clipboard. “La Rue, you’re next.”

Dottie took off at a fast clip. All that singing must have strengthened her lungs.

“Good job, Ruthie.”

She smiled up at May over her shoulder. “Not as good as you.”

“I’m just little and wiry.”

“You’re getting strong too.”

May grinned and flexed her bicep. “I look like Rosie the Riveter, don’t I? Won’t Charlie be surprised when he gets back?”

Ruth pretended to be too winded to answer. Charlie’s name hadn’t appeared on the POW lists, but since evadees took many months to work their way back to England, May’s hope was artificially prolonged.
Lord, let her see the truth, and let me help her when she sees it.

“Your best time yet, La Rue.” The sergeant sent the nurses back to the barracks.

Showers had never felt better than they did at Bowman Field, where mud and sweat rolled off Ruth’s body and down the drain. She wrapped her towel around herself and shook her hair out of her shower cap.

On the bench, Dottie fluffed her curls, cut short to get rid of most of the green. “You really should let me give you a permanent, Ruth. It’d be so much easier. Doesn’t May look cute?”

Ruth couldn’t afford a perm, but May did look darling with her face framed by platinum curls.

After they dressed in their U.S. Air Forces T-shirts and olive drab trousers, they went to the mess for breakfast, then to the airfield, where a dozen nurses were scheduled to train inside a C-47.

Ruth climbed through the cargo door in the rear of the plane and sniffed in the oily, metallic smell. When she graduated, she would work in either a C-47 or a C-54, a larger plane designed for transoceanic flights. She passed aluminum ribs in the tubular fuselage. To the front a door led to the radio room and the cockpit.

The instructor, Staff Sergeant Rawlinson, greeted them in an authoritative voice that contrasted with his soft eyes. Ruth settled into a canvas seat next to May, and her knee jiggled in anticipation.

A C-47 accommodated twenty-four patients on their litters straight from the battlefield, and a well-trained team could load the plane in under ten minutes. Sergeant Rawlinson reached up to a canvas storage bag on the ceiling, emptied its load of web strapping, and anchored the webbing to a bar on the floor. Then he demonstrated how to insert the poles of a litter into the strap.

The nurses divided into pairs, and Ruth and May received four litters to arrange like a bunk bed.

May strained to slip a pole through the top loop. “I see why they don’t take nurses shorter than I.”

“And why they make us do all these calisthenics.” Ruth looped the strap through the buckle. “Imagine a 250-pound man on this litter.”

May groaned. “Does the Army take them that big?”

“Only as officers.” Sergeant Rawlinson inspected their work. “Tighter.”

Ruth grunted and tugged the strap, even as she smiled at the sergeant’s joke.

The instructor paced the aisle. “As Lieutenant Jensen noticed, the top litter is hard to reach. Reserve those positions for patients who require minimal care. Arrange your patients so anything that needs attention during the flight faces the aisle—wounds, drains, casts. Put men with heavy casts on the bottom. Yes, you’ll have a technician with you, as well as ground personnel to help load and unload, but ultimately, this is the flight nurse’s responsibility.”

Ruth and May guided the next litter into its slot at chest level.

“Speed is vital.” Sergeant Rawlinson unbuckled Norma Carpenter’s strap and made the willowy blonde start over. “You may load your plane near a combat zone and come under fire. You may need to unload after a crash or ditching. Your speed, your calmness, your efficiency will be the difference between life and death for your patients.”

Norma’s eyebrows shot up, but Ruth felt a thrill. This was what she’d signed up for.

May stopped to catch her breath. “After all this, the flight will seem dull.”

“Oh no,” Ruth said. “We’re allowed to use Pentothal. That could be fun.”

“Fun? Putting patients under?”

“Yeah.” Ruth used all her weight to tighten a strap. “Any man makes a pass at me, I’ll threaten him with Pentothal.”

“We’re done, Sarge.” Dottie stood on the lowest litter and swung into the aisle with a sweep of her arm. “‘Off we go into the wild blue yonder.’”

“Take it down, and put it up again. Faster. Tighter.”

“But when do we get to fly?”

He jiggled the litter. “When you realize this is the Army Air Force, not the Navy. No hammocks.”

Dottie pouted and hopped down. “But I wanted my flight pay to buy Christmas presents.”

Flight pay. Ruth sighed. She had to fly forty hours a month to earn it, so Aunt Pauline wouldn’t get a higher check until January. One end of the litter slipped down with a clatter.

Sergeant Rawlinson fixed a stern look on her.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” Ruth said. “The patient was in shock. I had to put his head down in Trendelenburg position.”