In Perfect Time (12 page)

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain—

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

The words wrapped around her and drew her in. How did this fellow know how she felt? How did he know what she needed to hear? She wanted to rip out the page and take it with her, but defacing a hymnal would undo her salvation, wouldn’t it?

The music soared, lifting her from the inside. Mellie’s birdlike soprano and Georgie’s buttery alto flanked her—just like Jemima and Keren, but without the cruel jests. Now Kay was white too, she was redeemed, she was good.

If she was a new creature, then maybe . . . just maybe.

The chaplain directed them to number 41, “This Is My Father’s World.”

Kay listened to the first verse and built up her courage, turning the crank over and over until she opened her mouth.

Her voice creaked.

She cleared her throat and tried another line. Ouch. So sour.

Mellie’s head turned slightly toward her, turned back.

Kay hadn’t changed, and her cheeks heated with the shameful truth.

She was only partly redeemed.

14

Dinjan, India
May 16, 1944

The mule didn’t budge.

Two native workers tugged on the rope attached to the harness, to no effect.

Roger didn’t blame the creature. They’d awakened the mule in the middle of the night and were coaxing it up a plank into the plane’s dimly lit cabin. He wouldn’t have cooperated either.

Regardless, the troops in besieged Imphal required mules for transportation over rugged jungle trails. He slapped the mule on the rump. “Git on there.”

A whinny ended in a hee-haw, and the mule skittered up the ramp, shoving the workers aside.

“Tie him up nice and tight.” Roger shone a flashlight at his Form F, every box filled in with military precision. He wanted to scribble on it, just to mar the perfection.

Grant Klein said Roger only did this to impress Veerman, and he was right. Roger had volunteered for the mule-hauling mission, and Grant hadn’t, the nincompoop. More concerned with his reputation than with the men in Imphal.

“All loaded, boss.” Pettas leaned out the cargo door.

“Great.” Roger climbed the ramp. The C-47 already smelled like a barn. Never thought his mucking experience on the farm would be used as a pilot.

Four of the beasts were tied up to poles along the sides of the plane, and a canvas tarp covered the floor. Roger patted each animal on his way to the cockpit. “Thank you for flying with us this evening. Our stewardess will see to your needs during the flight. If you want anything, just bray.”

“I ain’t no stewardess.”

Roger shone his flashlight just below Whitaker’s big lumpy face. “But you’re pretty enough to be one.”

A fine compliment like that, and Whitaker only cussed in response.

Up in the cockpit, Roger and Elroy ran through the preflight checks. Roger didn’t like night flights, but round-the-clock missions brought more supplies to Imphal, and at least the Japanese didn’t fly at night. Maybe the mules would sleep.

When they had clearance, they started engines, performed their final checks, and dimmed the cockpit lights to reduce glare off the windshield.

Roger taxied into position, his landing lights illuminating the runway. He and Elroy ran up the engines, and the plane jiggled and swayed more than usual. The passengers must not have liked the noise. “Say, Whitaker,” he called on the interphone. “Sing them a lullaby, would you?”

“Shut up, Coop.”

He grinned. Grant Klein would write up the sergeant for insubordination, but not Roger.

Bert Marino and Bill Shelby took off first. Roger preferred flying in formation, especially at night. The extra navigational help came in handy, even though they all could fly to Imphal blindfolded by now.

When word came from the control tower, Roger released the brakes, raced down the runway, and lifted off.

As soon as they raised landing gear, the plane tilted to the right.

“What on earth?” Roger turned the wheel to the left to compensate. His pulse thumped against his earphones. Maneuvers were stupid at such a low altitude.

She flew heavy in the tail now, making his climb steeper than he liked. He eased the controls forward.

“What’s going on?” Elroy said.

A sense of foreboding filled his stomach, as deep and dark and stinky as the manure would be when they landed. “The mules.”

“Think they broke loose?”

The plane jerked left, and Roger pulled right. “Must have. Whitaker, go check the mules. Something’s wrong.”

Whitaker swore. “Got one up in the radio room. Thought you made sure they were tied up, Pettas.”

“Me? That’s your job.”

Roger’s eyes drifted shut, but he forced them open. No, it was
his
responsibility. Whitaker, as the aerial engineer, needed to secure all cargo, but Roger needed to make sure his crewmen performed their duties. “Tie ’em up, Whit.”

The plane nosed lower, slipped to the right, and Roger struggled with the controls.

“Elroy,” Pettas called from the radio room. “Whitaker wants the cabin lights on.”

“Sure.” He flipped a switch on the overhead panel.

Light glared off the windshield and blinded Roger.

“Sorry.” Elroy flipped it off, flipped another. “Sorry about that, Coop.”

“It’s all right.” He blinked away the stars in his eyes and focused outside.

The C-47 lurched. Old swear words formed in Roger’s throat, but he swallowed them down and leveled the plane.

“Coop,” Pettas said. “Command set. Shelby.”

Elroy turned the dial on the overhead panel.

“Cooper to Shelby. Over.”

“Shelby to Cooper. What’s going on? Your plane’s bucking like—”

“Like a mule?”

“Um, yeah.”

“They got loose. Whitaker’s taking care of it.”

“Didn’t he—didn’t you—never mind.”

Roger let out a deep sigh. “No, I didn’t.” He didn’t check. All his little boxes might be filled in, but that didn’t make him a good pilot.

Nettuno, Italy
May 26, 1944

So this was the infamous Anzio beachhead.

Kay twisted in her seat to see out the C-47’s cabin window. Below her lay a turquoise harbor studded with ships and a wide toast-colored plain circled by jagged hills.

Three days before, the American and British troops had finally broken out of the beachhead. Yesterday, the Allies driving north from the Cassino front had linked with the forces at Anzio. Today, for the first time, four months after the landings, air evacuation planes were sent to Nettuno, just south of Anzio.

Kay had never been this close to a combat zone. Near the base of the Alban Hills, puffs of smoke arose and P-40 fighter planes zipped around.

Now she could do some actual nursing. She was tired of babysitting convalescing patients between Naples and North Africa.

The plane made its final turn for the landing, and Kay settled back in the folding seat along the side of the fuselage
across from Sergeant Dabrowski. Stacks of crates filled the rest of the plane, rations mostly, from the labels she could read.

A rough landing rattled her bones. The airstrip at Nettuno had been declared secure, but no one said anything about declaring it smooth.

After the C-47 stopped and the engines died, Kay and Dabrowski stepped outside into a clear and warm day. A row of khaki hospital ward tents stood near the landing strip, and a medic pointed them to the second tent.

Four US field and evacuation hospitals had been stationed at Nettuno during the siege of the beachhead, enduring near-daily shelling and bombing. Georgie’s boyfriend, Hutch, served as a pharmacist in one of the hospitals, which had recently rotated back to the Cassino front. Georgie said his tales were horrific. Dozens of patients and hospital personnel had been killed.

Now the Allies had the advantage. Kay could almost smell it in the sea breeze.

She ducked inside the tent and inhaled the peculiar odor of a mobile hospital—canvas and antiseptic and mustiness.

An officer approached and extended his hand. “You must be one of the flight nurses. I’m Capt. Jim Kirby, the physician in charge.”

Jim Kirby was a fine-looking man, tall, midthirties, no wedding band, wavy dark hair, and appreciative gray-blue eyes. Very appreciative.

“Lieutenant Jobson.” Kay gave his hand a cursory shake and surveyed the patients on their cots. “Who do we have today?”

“Um . . . well . . . let’s start over here.” He sounded confused, a bit wounded, and he led the way to the first cot on the left.

How could she be so rude? But how else could she avoid
such a handsome temptation? A month before she’d have added him to her lineup. For heaven’s sake, she would have swept her lineup clean to make room for him.

Captain Kirby introduced the first patient, Pvt. Corwin Bailey, who had received multiple gunshot wounds in his abdomen and thighs on the first day of the assault. He’d barely survived surgery.

Kay asked questions and took notes on the flight manifest, reserving her warmth for the patient, which made her cool tone to the doctor stand out starkly.

They proceeded to the next patient, Cpl. Wayne Anderson, who had extensive burns to his hands and arms from an explosion in his tank. Captain Kirby relayed his condition in a clipped manner.

Kay’s face heated as she made her notes. What was wrong with her? The other nurses managed to talk to men professionally without flirting.

She patted the corporal’s shoulder. “We’ll take good care of you. It’s a short flight to Naples, and then you’ll stay in a nice new hospital complex, where you’ll receive top-notch care.”

He looked at her through pain-watered eyes without a hint of romantic interest.

That was the key, wasn’t it? A happy medium lay between flirtation and rudeness. She could relate to good-looking unattached males the same way she related to patients and married men—a dialed-down smile, no dazzle in the eyes, no leaning close, no touching.

As the physician reported on the remaining patients, Kay relaxed her voice and manner, but Jim Kirby didn’t reciprocate. What a shame. When they first met, she could easily have made him swoon. A lingering gaze, a flip of her hair, and he’d have crawled into the palm of her hand.

Except now Kay sat in the Lord’s hand and she liked it there.

“That’s all.” The doctor slipped the last patient’s records into a large manila envelope.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate all the information.” She raised one of her professional smiles.

One of his eyebrows hiked up in a curious way, and he excused himself.

If she weren’t careful, she’d just replace one bad reputation with an entirely new bad reputation—odd and mercurial.

Kay headed outside into fresh air. The ground personnel would have unloaded the cargo by now so she could set up the plane for her patients.

In front of the next hospital tent, Vera and Alice stood chatting.

Kay waved and strolled over. “Hiya, ladies. Have a good flight?”

Alice shielded her eyes from the sun and frowned at the hills in the background. “I don’t like the sounds of that artillery. Don’t you think it’s too early for us to be flying in here?”

“Not for these patients.” Vera turned to Kay, and her dark eyes gleamed. “Have you come to your senses? Are you going dancing with us tonight?”

Kay’s feet did itch to dance, and she couldn’t unify the nurses in the flight if she became a hermit. But if she went dancing, she’d come home with three new boyfriends. “Sorry. Not tonight.”

“Are you all right, sweetie?” Alice’s blue eyes brimmed with concern. “You’ve been so quiet lately. You’ve lost your zest for life.”

Actually, she’d never felt more zestful, as if she’d been faking it for the past twenty-eight years. She shrugged. “I’m still new to this—to God—and I’m trying to figure things out.”

Vera eased back.