A Distant Melody (21 page)

The intelligence officer poured Cracker another shot, which he gulped down.

Walt shook his head and drew braces straddling the bombsight. Whiskey wouldn’t help. Yeah, tonight Cracker would get a good drunk on, but when he sobered, the pain and anxiety would come right back.

The Germans did seem to have it out for the 306th. They had the highest losses in the Eighth Air Force. Granted, they were now the grizzled veterans. The other bomb groups transferred to the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa after the U.S. invaded on November 8. The 91st, 303rd, and 305th Bomb Groups had arrived with B-17s, and the 44th with B-24s, but no one got picked on like the boys from Thurleigh. They could only muster eight planes today, and four aborted with mechanical problems. The fewer planes, the more vulnerable they were to Goering’s men.

“Tell me about the flak,” the intelligence officer said.

“Flak?” Al drummed his shot glass on the table. “Saint Nazaire’s flak city.”

The door to the briefing room opened. Walt sighed in relief. Frank made it back to base.
My Eileen
had straggled at the French coast, one engine feathered.

Frank’s men sat around the empty table at Walt’s right. Another intelligence officer would interrogate them as a crew. Walt counted six men. Who was missing? Petrovich, the copilot; Willard and Russo in the nose; Thompson, the flight engineer. Oh no. Were they killed? Wounded?

Frank’s face was rigid, and his hands lay like wood in his lap. He stared at the table, at the shot glass in front of him.

Walt’s chest tightened. Frank never drank. He’d seen how alcohol destroyed his father after the First World War—seduced him with forgetfulness, stripped him of dignity and ambition, and burdened his family with a drunkard husband and father.

Frank groped for the glass.

“Frank,” Walt said.

He couldn’t have heard over the noise in the room, but he looked up. The expression in his eyes socked Walt in the stomach—empty, haggard, despairing.

Walt shook his head slowly.

Frank’s face collapsed in a grimace. He shoved the drink away with the back of his hand and splashed amber liquid onto the table.

Cracker was right. They were all dead men. With seven planes down in less than two months of combat and no end to the war in sight, it didn’t take a mathematician to calculate the odds of survival. Walt wasn’t bothered much. He knew where he’d spend eternity. Sure, his family and friends would mourn, but unlike Frank he didn’t have a wife and kids who loved him and depended on him.

For the first time, he was glad things hadn’t worked out with Allie. What if they’d fallen in love, and then he’d been killed? No, this was better. He couldn’t stand for her to be devastated.

Flossie
’s crew was dismissed for the mess hall. After dinner the enlisted men would go to the Red Cross Aeroclub. If Frank was okay, he and Walt would go to the Officers’ Club to play chess, read magazines, and maybe play some tunes on the piano. At some point, one of the men would stand on two other men’s shoulders and use a cigarette lighter to burn the mission into the ceiling: “11-23-42 St. Nazaire.”

Mission number nine. If Walt survived one more, he’d get an Oak Leaf Cluster for the Air Medal he earned after the fifth mission.

Louis held the door open for Walt. “Coming with us or waiting for Kilpatrick?”

“Waiting.” He leaned back against the building’s brick wall.

“I’ll save seats for y’all. I guess the other four . . .”

“Yeah. We’ll find out.”

Walt opened his Bible, retrieved from intelligence, and a chilly breeze lifted the pages. The psalms came alive to him as never before. Now he understood how enemies attacked, pursued, hurled spears and arrows and bullets and shells at you, wanted you dead.

What was it like to live like that all the time? For the Marines slogging through the jungle on Guadalcanal? For the soldiers racing tanks across the Sahara? For the sailors like Jim Carlisle never knowing when a sub or plane could send you into the drink? Walt’s war was strange, civilized. Three square meals, cots and showers, a cozy Officers’ Club— then adrenaline-charged missions with hours of action and danger.

The door opened,
My Eileen’s
crew filed out, and Frank sent his men off to the mess.

“Hungry?” Walt asked.

Frank faced him, his eyes still empty. “Can’t eat. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. Go to bed and sleep for days? Walk and walk and never come back?”

Walt didn’t know what to say. That’s why he was the only Novak brother not in the ministry.

“Gotta walk. Yeah, walk.” Frank strode down the road toward the living sites.

Walt’s stomach gurgled. Oh well. He had a Hershey bar by his cot. It’d have to do tonight.

Frank walked in silence, hands in trouser pockets. They passed a cluster of Nissen huts, like giant tin cans half-buried in the ground, then a clump of trees under the clear sky, then the communal site with the mess halls. Walt’s stomach rumbled. They always had great food after missions. Did he smell steak? Oh, swell.

Frank turned south down a path that ran behind the living sites to the village of Thurleigh. Never—never had he been silent so long.

“His head,” Frank choked out. “Petrovich. The right—the whole right side of his head—gone. They shot it off. They killed Petrovich.”

Walt’s stomach turned, hunger forgotten. John Petrovich was a nice guy, always wisecracking about the food, quick with a practical joke, first to sing when Walt sat at the piano. Now he was gone, and Frank saw it, saw his copilot die, saw the blood.

Dear God, no.

“Willard?” Walt swallowed to moisten his dry mouth. “Russo? Thompson?”

“Wounded. Willard’s in bad shape. His leg—he’ll probably lose his leg.” Frank’s breath came out in hard puffs. “What am I doing here? What on earth am I doing here?”

“I—I don’t know.” He clutched his Bible tighter. “Maybe you should look into a transfer.”

Frank stopped under a tree that clung to its last withered leaves. “A transfer? You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious.” Walt poked the hedge along the road with his toe. “This is a voluntary service, you know that. You can transfer to ops, intelligence, no questions asked. Remember?”

“Yeah? So why hasn’t anyone done it? Not one man. I tell you why—they’re not chicken, and neither am I.”

“Of course not. But how many of us are married? Not many. Even fewer are fathers, much less fathers of four. No one would call you chicken.”

“I would.”

“Swell. You’re a hero. How are you going to get through this, huh? Turn to drink like your dad?”

Frank thrust a finger in Walt’s face. “I didn’t do it, Novak, and you leave my dad out of this.”

He knew he should keep his mouth shut. “What about Eileen?”

Frank’s hand folded into a fist.

Walt was going to get a black eye, but he stood his ground. “What about Eileen? What about your kids?”

“What do you know?” Frank’s fist trembled, a pink blur in front of Walt’s eyes. “You had to make up a girlfriend.”

A bloody nose would have been better than that, but he refused to stand down. “Yeah, so I’ve got nothing to lose. Unlike you.”

Frank scrunched his eyes shut and pressed his fist down on Walt’s shoulder.

“Come on, buddy. Leave the air war to us single guys.”

24

Riverside
December 12, 1942

“Hiya, Miss Miller. Over here. I get her first, boys.” Lieutenant Patterson rolled onto his side in bed and pushed up onto his remaining elbow.

“Good morning. Would you like me to write a letter for you?” Allie sat in the chair next to his bed and stifled a yawn. Last night she’d awakened again, compelled to pray for Walt.

“Nope. Doc says I’ve got to write left-handed. I just want to lose myself in those pretty eyes.”

When Allie first started at March Field, the men’s flirting bewildered her. Now she knew they flirted with anyone in a skirt, regardless of age or beauty. She smiled and got to her feet. “If you only desire my company, come join us in the rec room after lunch, but meanwhile—”

“That’s not all I desire.” Lieutenant Patterson waggled his eyebrows at her.

Heat rushed up her neck. Why, oh why, must she blush? And when would she learn not to use words like
desire
around the men? She turned and crossed the aisle. “Good morning, Lieutenant Duncan. Where did we leave off yesterday?”

“Hello.” Lieutenant Duncan looked up at Allie through the holes in his bandages. “Second Corinthians. I think we finished chapter 5.”

She settled in a chair and exchanged her clipboard for a Bible. The fire in the cockpit of Lieutenant Duncan’s fighter plane had scorched his hands and face but had kindled a deeper love for God’s Word.

Allie flipped to 2 Corinthians. A few weeks before, she and Lieutenant Duncan read the chapter Cressie recommended. What was Cressie thinking? All that talk about harlots and fornication? Why, Baxter might not be a believer, but he could hardly be compared to a harlot, and they would be getting married, not . . .

She shuddered and started to read. Occasionally Lieutenant Duncan stopped her, asked her to repeat a verse, and said it to himself.

She turned a page and continued at the fourteenth verse: “‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers—’”

Second
Corinthians, chapter 6. That’s what Cressie meant. There it was in brutal black and white.

“Miss Miller?”

She forced herself to respond. “Yes?”

“I have this section memorized.” He spoke slowly, his face stiffened by scars. “‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what—’”

“Why?” She cleared her throat, unable to break away from the text. “May I ask why you memorized these verses?”

Lieutenant Duncan chuckled. “My mother made me. The first girl I brought home only attended church for holidays, weddings, and funerals. Mother thrust my nose in this passage and wouldn’t let me date again until I memorized it and took it to heart.”

“Did you?”

“Of course. I’d rather have a wife who loves the Lord than one who belongs on a magazine. I hope—I hope I can find—” His eyes squeezed shut.

Allie swerved from her predicament to his. She’d seen his portrait. Before his accident, he had been a handsome man. “I know—I know someone will see past the scars.”

“Well, if it isn’t Allie Miller, ball bearings heiress.” A nurse stood behind Allie, her arms crossed over her white uniform. She looked familiar—a gorgeous brunette with a smirk. “Josie Black, Riverside High School. Josie Black
Cummings
now. But you wouldn’t remember me. You always thought you were too good for the rest of us.”

Allie’s mouth fell open. Josie and her popular crowd had looked down at
her
, but this was hardly the place for an argument. “I—I assure you I never thought any such thing. Now, may I help you?”

“Yes, you may,” Josie said with a tilt of her head. “Isn’t this interesting? Your daddy bosses my father and my husband all day on the line, but I get to boss you.”

Although Allie reported to Regina, not the nurses, in the interest of peace she stood and placed the Bible on the nightstand. “Pardon me, Lieutenant Duncan. We’ll finish later. Now, how may I help, Lieutenant Cummings?”

Her smile didn’t even approach her eyes. “We’re short staffed today, and the bedpans need to be scrubbed.”

Allie swallowed a mouthful of pride and disgust. “I’m here to help.”

“Good.” Josie flounced down the aisle. “Imagine Allie Miller scrubbing bedpans. You’ll have to take off your fancy jewelry first.” She stopped and glanced at Allie’s hands. “Oh, no ring. Still not married?”

“Not for long. My boyfriend and I will be married soon.”

“Oh? Someone from high school?”

“No. Baxter Hicks, the business manager at Miller Ball Bearings. Perhaps you’ve heard mention of him.”

Josie’s eyes widened. “Um, yes.”

Allie had the upper hand, but guilt from resorting to snobbery eradicated her enjoyment. “I’m here to help. Where are those bedpans?”

Alarm flashed across Josie’s face, but she matched Allie’s smile and led her to a workroom where a stack of enameled bedpans sat by a stainless steel sink. “Here you go. Soap, disinfectant, scrub brush.”

Allie unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled up her sleeves. She refused to pucker her nose at the smell and give Josie the satisfaction. At least the bedpans had been emptied.

Josie leaned against the wall. “So Mr. Hicks has a girlfriend.”

Allie put a bedpan in the sink and turned on the water. If they were short staffed, why was Josie still there? “Yes. We’ve been seeing each other for five years.”

“Five years? Oh my. Well, I’m glad to hear it. What a relief.”

“A relief?”

“Well, yes. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. Don’t you hate hearing such nasty things about people? I’m so glad it isn’t true.” Josie’s eyes stretched too wide.

Allie rinsed the bedpan and let it fill with water, as a chill twined about her. Josie’s bait hung within reach—the juicy bait of gossip—and Allie knew it was best to ignore it, but . . . “What—what rumors?”

“Oh, you’ve heard. The men at the plant don’t even think it’s rumor; they think it’s fact. You know how Mr. Hicks walks, how he watches the men, how chummy he is with Mr.—well, your father, but I’m sure that’s ambition rather than . . . well, you know.”

“No. No, I don’t know.” Allie gave the soapbox a vigorous shake.

Josie leaned closer, no longer pretty at all. “Don’t you know everyone says he’s . . . well, homosexual?”

“What?” Allie snapped up to her full height.

Josie pressed her lips together, a laugh in her eyes. “You don’t know what that means, do you?”

“I know what that means, and I assure you, Mr. Hicks is most definitely not—not what you say.” Now was the time for snobbery. She lifted her chin high enough to actually look down her nose at Josie. “My father will be most upset to learn such vicious rumors fester in his factory.”