A Distant Melody (22 page)

Josie’s face pulled into several expressions, none of them attractive. “I—I’ll leave you to your work.”

“That would be wise,” Allie said in her most regal air.

After Josie left, Allie plunged the brush into the suds and tried to scrub away the thought, but the gossip stained her mind with doubt.

Was that why Baxter never looked at her with interest? Why he never really kissed her? Why he didn’t love her?

No, it couldn’t be. Besides, if he really were what Josie said, he wouldn’t have a girlfriend, much less entertain the thought of marriage.

Flats and sharps collided, as if a child pounded on a piano in her head. What if Baxter was using her—not only for the inheritance and social position and favor with her parents, but also for respectability, to prove the gossips wrong?

No, it couldn’t be. The men on the line simply didn’t recognize refined mannerisms and mistook them as effeminate.

So why did her tears dimple the puff of suds in the sink?

Oh Lord, it can’t be true.
She scrubbed harder. The water swirled up and dampened her sleeves. She didn’t care.

She dragged her mind away to the rest of the day. After she finished this task, she would go back to the ward before her afternoon in the recreation room. She’d have time to finish reading with Lieutenant Duncan.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”

Allie groaned and dumped the water down the drain.
Lord,
you know I have to marry Baxter. It’s best for everyone, and
with that rumor around, it’s vital for Baxter’s reputation. And
remember, I’m doing this for you, to bring him to you.

She scoured another pan, but harmony eluded her. Why this growing unease? Why this nagging about marrying an unbeliever? Why did she feel her sacrifice wasn’t pleasing to the Lord?

“Goodness, Allie, you’re drenched.”

“I’m fine, Mother.” She slouched off her raincoat and hung it on the coatrack in the marble hallway. “I forgot my umbrella.”

“Yes, dear.” She fingered Allie’s dripping hair. “But what about your hood?”

Allie shook her head. She had no answer. She hadn’t put up her hood, because the rain felt right, stinging her eyes, matting her hair, washing her mind.

“I hope you aren’t coming down with something. That hospital runs you ragged.” Mother pursed her lips and patted Allie’s cheek. “Go change out of those damp things. Oh, you got some letters today.”

“Letters?” She dashed to the hall table and gasped. Lots of letters—one from Betty Anello, one from Louise Morgan, and three from Walt. Three—what a treat. Even though he wrote regularly, his letters arrived in fits and starts.

“Those can wait until after you’ve changed.”

No, they couldn’t—not today.

After Allie wrapped her hair in a towel turban, she sat cross-legged on her quilted white satin bedspread and studied the envelopes. This had to be done right, in chronological order, so Walt’s came first. She opened the first letter, dated November 13, and admired his precise handwriting.

Dear Allie,

Curtsey when you read this, because the
hand that wrote it shook hands with the King
of [censored]. Can you believe it? A small town
pastor’s kid talked to royalty. I guess the war’s
not all bad. He called
Flossie’s Fort
a “smashing
aeroplane.” I hope he doesn’t mean she’ll end up
in pieces.

Mail call is either feast or famine, and
today it was feast. Two letters from you and
applesauce! Allie, you’re the best friend a man
could have. All the fellows agreed it was the best
applesauce ever, and Baxter is one lucky man.
I prefer to say he’s blessed. By the way, Frank
said if you want to write him, he’d be fine with
that. He likes cookies.

We’ve got four bomb symbols painted on
Flossie’s
nose, one for each mission, and four
swastikas. Mario Tagliaferro in the tail earned
three of them. The crew calls him Tagger. I feel
good about what we’re doing here. Some of the
missions have been tough, but we’ve done lots of
damage.

I’m still digesting something in your last
letter—along with the applesauce. You said
you woke up and felt compelled to pray for me.
Allie, that was the day of our first mission. The
middle of the night in California corresponds
with the time [censored]. Do me a favor, and if
you’re ever led to pray for me again, please do so.

Allie stared at the letter, warmed by Walt’s cheer, struck by his comment that Baxter was blessed, and stunned that her dream corresponded with his mission.

What about the other dreams? She crossed the room to her desk and drew a slip of paper from under the model of
Flossie
. Nine dates—ten after she recorded today’s. Now she was glad she had mentioned them to Walt.

She read the next letter, dated the eighteenth, and another from the twenty-third.

Dear Allie,

We flew a mission today. Did you wake
up again? Tonight I read your letter from
November 9. You said you woke up three nights
in a row—I flew missions all three days. If
we weren’t both Christians, I’d mark this as a
coincidence, but there are no coincidences, only
God. I have no doubt the Holy Spirit prompted
you to pray. I’m honored. Lots of people pray for
me in general, but I’m amazed how you pray
for me when I’m in the thick of combat.

Could you include Frank in your prayers?
He’s having a rough time. [Censored] He’s
taken it hard, of course.

Allie could barely read the rest of the letter. Her dreams, her awakenings, her compulsion to pray—all came from God. Goose bumps ran up her arms like notes up a scale. “Thank you, Lord, for using me like this.”

Next, she read Louise’s letter, in which she described San Francisco’s twenty-fifth air raid alert and her search for roommates. Dear, sweet Louise—so resourceful to take in girls to help pay the rent, so patriotic to relieve the city’s housing shortage, and so lonely with her husband deployed to North Africa.

Last came Betty’s letter. Betty wrote as she spoke, and her letters always topped six pages whether anything had happened in Antioch or not. Today’s letter, however, filled less than a page. Allie frowned and read:

Dear Allie,

Please pray for us. How I wish you were
here. You have always been a comfort to me,
and I’ve never missed you more than I do now.
Yesterday my sister, Helen, received a telegram.
Jim’s destroyer was torpedoed off Guadalcanal a
month ago. Oh, Allie, Jim was killed.

Jim Carlisle? Handsome, charming Jim Carlisle, who teased his sister about her doll, who jitterbugged with his wife, who fussed over his baby son? How could he be dead?

Allie had hardly known him, but her tears left pockmarks on Betty’s letter. “Oh, Father in heaven, poor Helen. She’s only twenty, Lord, and now she’s a widow—a widow with a baby boy. Oh, and baby Jay-Jay won’t know his daddy.”

Allie couldn’t fathom the loss. Her mind careened as she thought of each person now in mourning. Dorothy lost her brother, Betty lost her brother-in-law, Walt and George and Art lost their childhood friend. And Walt—he couldn’t know yet. Poor Walt, he was going through enough already. And Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle . . .

Allie sobbed at the thought of the Carlisles’ white house with its high hedges of oleander.

A gold star would replace the blue in the Carlisles’ banner.

25

Over Paris
December 20, 1942

Walt stole a glance from the instruments, his group’s sloppy formation, and the charging Focke-Wulf 190s. Even from twenty thousand feet, he recognized the Eiffel Tower. If he survived, he had something good for his next letters. If not? Well, at least he’d seen Paris before he died.

One hundred eighty miles inland, the Eighth’s deepest penetration yet into enemy territory. The air depot at Romilly-sur-Seine was a great target, and the Luftwaffe attacked as if they knew the Americans were headed to their servicing center. Ever since the Spitfires had turned back from escort duties at Rouen, the squadrons of Fw 190s attacked in relays.

With the chatter on the interphone to call out fighters, the stutter of
Flossie
’s guns, and the zing of incoming bullets, a man could go mad, or he could do his job.

Walt did his job. Was he fatalistic? Who cared? He was calm.

Frank, on the other hand . . .

Walt sighed. Frank was a nervous wreck at the briefing and barely got past the physician screening for combat fatigue. If only Doc had nabbed him. If only Frank would transfer.

Walt looked down through the blur of prop blades to the silver trail of the Seine River. The fighters slacked off—must be flak ahead—but they’d be back, refueled and ready to hassle the remainder of the hundred bombers on the return run.

Sure enough, flak appeared—how could he describe it in his letters?—like dirty black cotton balls. Nah. He’d leave the poetry to his brother Ray.

“We’re at the IP,” Louis called on the interphone from the nose.

Walt made a thirty-degree turn to start the bomb run and glanced at his watch—1229. They’d been under attack for a solid hour, since about 0330 California time. Was Allie praying again? Was that why he was calm? Something warm filled his chest. He never thought she’d write as much as she did—twice a week now and Walt matched her.

Lots of flak. None near
Flossie
. Walt drew a deep breath and felt light-headed. Yep, the bag on his oxygen mask was icing up. He squeezed it to break up the ice. With the temperature at forty below zero, his fingers were stiff, even with gloves and what passed for a heater in the cockpit. But the waist gunners, with those open windows, had no relief.

“Oxygen check, Cracker. It’s been a—”

Black cloud, flaming red center—twelve o’clock low.
Flossie’s
nose lifted, and shrapnel hit the windshield like gravel. Walt whipped his head away in reflex. He looked back and leveled the nose. Cracks in the Plexiglas let in frigid darts of air.

“Fontaine? Ruben?”

“We’re fine,” Abe said. “Got some new ventilation. Coming up on the target.”

“They’re—they’re getting a bead on us.” Cracker clenched the wheel.

Walt had to distract him. “Oxygen check?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Cracker nodded too many times and called through the stations—engineer, radio, ball, right waist, left waist, tail. “Tail?” he repeated.

No response from Mario. Walt and Cracker shot each other a look.

“Wisniewski, check on Tagger,” Cracker said to the right waist gunner. Pete would have to crawl through the narrow tunnel to the tail turret and drag Mario out.

“On my way. Glad you have a medic on board?”