His Very Own Girl (19 page)

“Lou, honey?”

Lulu jerked to wakefulness. She rubbed her eyes, her head throbbing. Wracked with chills, she pulled her blanket more tightly around her feverish body. A cup of tea and two slices of bread with preserves sat untouched on her bed table. Years of rationing had conditioned her to cringe at any waste of food, but the thought of eating or drinking made her stomach scream in protest.

Luckily, the nasty attack of flu had waited until after finishing at Marston Moor. It had been as exciting and satisfying as she could’ve imagined. But laid low, she hadn’t the strength to think fondly on her accomplishments, let alone take to the skies in one of the gorgeous airplanes. People all over Britain were doing their bit while she was entirely laid up.

“What is it?” she called, her teeth chattering.

“Lou, it’s Paulie. Open the door.”

“It’s unlocked.”

Paulie entered the room, her face ashen. “Oh, goosey, you look wretched.”

“I feel it,” she croaked. “What time is it?”

“Early. But you have to get up now. Come downstairs.”

“Paulie—”

“It’s important, Louise.”

Her grave use of Lulu’s given name propelled stiff, aching limbs to action. Something wasn’t right.

Feeling ridiculous wearing flannel and a bird’s nest of tangles, she slunk out of bed. “I’m coming.”

Paulie wrapped a knitted blanket around Lulu’s shoulders, then picked up the tea and plate of bread. Lulu almost smiled; it wouldn’t go to waste after all. She leaned heavily on the handrail as she slunk down the stairs. She was surprised to see Lee, Felix, Nicky, and Betsy in the lounge. Betsy still wore pin curls and a white bathrobe, when they all should’ve been dressed and ready for the first flight of the morning.

“What’s the matter?” Lulu asked. “Nicky?”

“Come listen,” he said.

He helped settle Lulu into a Morris chair. She was winded from the simple task of walking downstairs, her lungs overtaxed by a weeklong bout with the flu.

Margaret and Jack came down the stairs, both bleary-eyed. Todd emerged from the kitchen and placed a tea service on the lounge’s low central table, then proceeded to light his first cigar of the day. Nicky fiddled with the aerials of the wireless until a news broadcaster’s voice crackled into the room. The static cleared. Then came the words that tossed Lulu’s empty stomach and made her light-headed.

“This is the BBC Home Service with a special announcement. We can confirm that the invasion of Europe has begun.”

Gasps sounded across the room. Margaret leaned into Jack’s embrace. Todd asked Nicky to turn it up.

“And now,” said the announcer, “a special address from the Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

Eisenhower’s steady, measured voice filled the room. “People of Western Europe: A landing was made this morning on the coast of France by troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force. This landing is part of the concerted United Nations’ plan for the liberation of Europe, made in conjunction with our great Russian allies. I have this message for all of you: although the initial assault may not have been made in your own country, the hour of your liberation is approaching.”

Paulie had taken Lulu’s hand. Lulu squeezed it, fighting back her tears. At that moment Joe was somewhere in France. She didn’t know where. She might not ever know.

And she was terrified for him—not for the hurt she would feel should he become a casualty of the invasion. No, she was simply terrified for Joe Weber. He was a man worthy of a bright future, as were all the fighting men. But he wasn’t just another solider. Not to her. She knew his past and how much he deserved a second chance to make a good life for himself.

The BBC newsman resumed his broadcast. “To all of those who have departed England today in order to fend off the fiendish advance of the enemy, we pray for you and honor you. And to all of those whose loved ones wait by the wireless, listening to my words, we pray for you as well.”

The room remained eerily still. Lulu’s chest was ready to burst, waiting for what came next. What was that, exactly? The day they’d prayed for and worked toward was finally here. No more distant islands and desert outposts, but the actual liberation of Europe. And for Lulu it had become an even more personal endeavor.

“Well.” With a solemn but determined expression, Nicky switched off the radio. “We all have work to do.”

Joe followed the others, except for Henry Norton, who now happily took up the rear guard. They trekked through a cluster of high trees to a clearing. Two more Americans huddled there, one lying on his back with his head in the other man’s lap.

“You three fan out,” said Sgt. Saunders. “Partridge and I will help Doc Web.”

Taking a knee, Joe slipped off his helmet. He never liked working while wearing the clumsy thing, always convinced it would fall on his patient. But he kept his head low, a turtle nearly tucked into its shell.

The wounded man groaned. It was Harry Dixon.

Joe’s body jerked as if he’d touched a live wire.

“How’s he doing, Partridge?” Saunders asked.

“In and out, sir.” The nervous private swallowed so hard that Joe could hear it. “Keeps mumbling. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“It’s okay,” said Saunders. “We got us a doc now.”

“Lt. Dixon,” Joe said. “Can you hear me, sir?”

Dixon groaned again but didn’t answer.

“You know him?” Partridge asked.

Joe hauled his aid kit around. “We’ve met. Is he bleeding?”

“Not that I could tell. But I haven’t looked too much. Didn’t want to hurt him worse.”

For no more than a few seconds, Dixon opened his eyes. His pupils were wide, his gaze unfocused. He mouthed something silently, twitched once and coughed. His chest sounded clear of fluids, and the cough had been strong—both good signs.

“Where . . . ?” Dixon mumbled like a drunken man. Then his eyes focused not on Joe’s face but on the red cross. His mouth slid into a smile. “Good to see you, Doc.”

His eyes lolled shut. Tense shoulders went slack.

Running his hands over Dixon’s chest, down his sides, Joe found no trace of blood or telltale scent of copper. He probed with his fingertips, searching for internal damage that might explain the man’s unconsciousness and pain. Despite Joe’s pushing and prodding, Dixon didn’t make another sound.

Gorzinski edged closer to get a view but kept his rifle high and ready. “He was the first out the door from my stick,” he said in a stage whisper. In the near darkness, without Joe’s being able to see his face, he sounded like he hadn’t yet reached puberty. “I saw him hit the ground. Real bad. He just crumpled and never got up.”

Saunders waved him off. “Gorzi, get back with the others. Cover us, damn it.”

“Wait, he hit hard?” Joe asked. “Damn it, help me get his boots off. Carefully.” The laces were stuck with mud. “I can’t see a thing. I need light.”

“Sure.” Partridge glanced at Saunders. “But won’t light give us away?”

Joe had already fished the flashlight out of his med bag. “Not if you have a poncho.”

“Do it,” Saunders ordered.

Partridge gently laid Dixon’s head on the marshy ground and rummaged in his gear. He produced his poncho and draped it across Joe and the sergeant as they worked on Dixon’s boots. Joe flipped the switch. Pale blue light made a tiny cave out of their makeshift cover. When precious seconds had passed and the laces wouldn’t budge, Saunders asked, “You got scissors, Doc?”

“Not yet. Let me try again.”

After managing to get one of the boot’s laces untied, he loosened the leather tongue and slid two fingers inside. He got under Dixon’s sock and probed along his skin. What he felt made him grateful he couldn’t see. He stubbornly repeated the process on the other boot, none too gently shoving Saunders out of the way as Dixon’s condition became clear.

The bones were all wrong.

“Damn,” he whispered before shutting off the flashlight. He poked out from under the nylon poncho and breathed cool air.

Saunders appeared confused and a little angry because of it. “What’s wrong?”

“Both ankles are broken. Busted all to hell.”

The sergeant swore softly.

“Can’t you do something?” Partridge asked, his expression like a child afraid of the dark.

“Give him morphine. Bind his feet together.” Joe had already started to retie the laces, working by touch. “His boots will help hold everything where it should be. We just need to keep from jostling him.”

Saunders appeared to breathe easier, as if bad news was more of a comfort than none. Joe could appreciate that. At least now they knew what to do with the man.

He removed the aid pack strapped into the webbing of Dixon’s helmet, pulled out the morphine syrette, and dosed him. The lieutenant went slack, revealing how much tension his pain had caused, even while unconscious. Joe used the bandages from the aid pack to strap the man’s jump boots together. Then he huddled under the poncho again and filled out an EMT.

Only after he’d dispatched his duties did he yield to the shudder of revulsion that crawled up his spine. Harry Dixon. After what the bastard had done to Suzie’s reputation, Joe should’ve been more upset about this twist of fate. But none of it mattered there in a Normandy clearing. Dixon had only seen Joe’s armband, those pain-filled eyes taking on a glint of relief and hope.

Joe had become just another doc, and Dixon just another wounded soldier.

An explosion touched off nearby. “We gotta move,” said Saunders.

“Right.” Joe shoved the poncho back at Partridge and looped the EMT on Dixon’s left breast pocket. “Gorzi, Partridge, get the clips out of your rifles and give them to Sgt. Saunders. We’re going to carry the lieutenant.”

Saunders’s face took on a hard look, as if the explosion had reminded him why they were in France. “When it comes to the lieutenant and medical matters, you listen to Doc Web, got it?”

Gorzinski emptied his rifle. “Yes, sir.”

With the help of the other men, Joe directed them in constructing a makeshift litter out of the two rifles and the unsnapped poncho. They gently, quickly, shoved Dixon into position. Partridge held the front of the litter and Gorzinski the rear as Joe went alongside to steady his patient’s feet. Henry Norton stepped into place as their rear guard.

“Ready, sir,” Joe said to Saunders.

“Then let’s move out.”

chapter seventeen

The Midlands were socked in with fog as thick as wool serge. Along with the other Mersley pilots, Lulu sat just inside the open hangar doors and waited for a break in the weather. But the foul conditions didn’t mean a day of leave. If the skies cleared, Margaret would taxi them to their respective airfields. If not, they’d spend the rest of the day eyeing the shifting shroud of clouds and feeling useless.

Seated at a rickety folding table, Lulu looked up from a stack of letters. The sky hadn’t changed, and neither had the scene in the hangar. Lee and Felix were playing cards again—gin rummy this time. Their cups of coffee sat cooling next to plates empty of what had been toast. On a foul-looking sofa behind them, Jack Plimsole was stretched out beneath a horse blanket, his gentle snores echoing beneath the hangar’s high corrugated tin roof. Margaret sat knitting on a folding chair beside her husband’s feet.

Betsy flipped through a three-month-old issue of
Life,
which the American transatlantic pilots brought on their journeys, along with items that had become impossible to find in Britain: nylons, lipstick, Brylcreem, tooth powder. The pilots supplemented their income by trading black market goods. Betsy made do without most of the niceties, but she adored keeping up with events and celebrities from back in the States.

All polite reserve and manners, Betsy fitted in so well that Lulu occasionally forgot she was actually a Jewish lawyer’s daughter from Manhattan, more accustomed to the supper club set than roughing it in drafty hangar bays. She certainly didn’t fit most English pilots’ snobbish opinion of Yanks in the ATA. Not that they had much say. Everyone was from somewhere else. Only when Lulu saw her reading an American periodical did she realize how homesickness, on occasion, must have worn on Betsy.

Then again, her husband was British. Citizens of the Allied nations had become so attuned to the same cause, especially since D-Day, that many of those old distinctions no longer applied.

And Betsy loved flying almost as much as Lulu did. No one stayed in the ATA out of obligation.

“Did you know there are nearly eighteen thousand women in the Marine Corps now?” Betsy asked.

Felix snorted and snuffed out a cigarette. “What are they going to do? Amphibious landings on the Caroline Islands?”

“No.” Betsy frowned, revealing obvious annoyance. “They’re helping with noncombatant roles—aircraft landing crews, administration, training nurses. I find it exciting. Not as flamboyant as flying a Spitfire, but just as important.”

Where she sat artfully close to Lee, Paulie looked up from a dog-eared copy of
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. “But that’s no more than the women’s reserve forces do here. What Britain has been doing for years makes news in the U.S. when they finally catch up.”

“I don’t know if that’s the fault of Americans for bragging up our accomplishments,” Betsy said with a grin, “or the British for not speaking up! The WASPs hit the front pages for doing calisthenics in Texas, then wind up courted by Hollywood as starlets rather than pilots.” Feigning a little pout, she searched the fog-enshrouded sky. “I don’t see Frank Capra coming over here to cast me in his next film.”

“Maybe they don’t want actual pilots, Betts.” Lee smiled over his hand of cards. “Just girls who can
act
like pilots and pose for pinups.”

“Hey.” Paulie put the book aside and crossed her arms. “
I’ve
been a pinup girl. So has Lulu. And we fly as bloody well as you do.”

Lulu couldn’t muster the effort to agree with Paulie. Yes, when stationed with the ferry pool at Hatfield, every female pilot had been actively pursued by reporters and photographers. Ever since, female pilots had been the rage of Fleet Street. Slow news days were never without a source of glamor and controversy. Lulu had been amused at seeing her picture in
The Daily Mail,
but she hardly set as much stock by it as Paulie still did.

Lee leaned over and kissed her cheek. “It’s not about whether anyone makes the papers, whether beautiful as you, or as ugly as Felix here.”

Felix tossed a pair of sixpence into the kitty. “Pot. Kettle.”

“Doing your job,” Lee continued, “doesn’t cut it when it comes to the press. You three—heck, all of us—we’re just too damn competent.”

Paulie beamed. “Nicely saved, Mr. Cooper.”

Betsy set aside her magazine. “You’re awfully quiet, Lou.”

“Have I been? Sorry, hadn’t noticed. But you can hardly blame me with you lot nattering on. Can’t get a word in edgewise.”

“Anything the matter?”

Yes,
Lulu thought.
Everything.

It was D-Day +6.

Joe was out there keeping his head down and patching up wounded soldiers. That was the best-case scenario. Her body knew the worst case, because her heart raced and her limbs turned rubbery when she drifted too near that hideous possibility. Yet it lingered at the edge of her awareness like a ghost that relished haunting her. And even
when
he came home, what would remain of the man who’d made love to her in that sweet, sun-bathed dawn? Casualties of the mind could be as crippling as casualties of the body.

Robbie had proven that with heartbreaking results.

“No, no,” she said at last. “Well, not beyond the obvious. I’m just trying to catch up on my letter writing. Being out sick put me behind.”

Lee picked up his coffee. After one sip, he grimaced and returned the cup to its saucer. As handsome as ever, with his charming smile and sturdy jaw, he looked
different
. More relaxed? More confident? His uniform was as precise as that of a real serviceman. Paulie hadn’t ventured to the clubs in weeks, and Lee Cooper was becoming a squared-away chap. What a strange turn of events.

“Would you read us a few?” he asked.

“Oh, no.” The idea so appalled her that Lulu crossed her hands over the letters, none of which, of course, had come from Joe. It could be weeks yet. “I couldn’t. I’m sure they value their privacy.”

“I didn’t mean anything personal,” Lee said. “Just, it would be nice to hear news that didn’t come from magazines or the wireless.”

Betsy set aside her copy of
Life
. “Letters are censored so dreadfully that it’s hard to tell where anyone is or what they’re really doing. Remember my cousin Anthony? In the Marines? When he took part in the Marshall Islands landings, we didn’t learn about it until well after the fighting stopped. Aunt Patricia can’t make heads or tails of his letters half the time.”

“Like this one.” Lulu held up a sheet of paper where swathes of black marred a precise string of words. Sgt. Blankenship was a cartographer and had access to better writing materials than most. Some of the men wrote using pencil nubs, with their knees as desks. “So many passages are blacked out. Evidence of an office clerk with strict orders and a full well of ink.”

“Go on,” Paulie said gently. “Read one. We won’t pry when you skip the juicy bits.”

Lulu sighed and found a letter from Pvt. Michael Hallstead of St. Petersburg, Florida. He was a cute young man of only nineteen who’d bought Lulu a beer back in November using the last of that month’s paycheck. They’d danced, they’d flirted, and at the end of their one evening together, he’d asked for a kiss. Lulu had obliged because she’d liked his smile and manners. Quite a nice kiss—gentle and respectful without forgetting that he was a man.

A few weeks later, writing from somewhere in Italy, Michael had confessed to having a fiancée. He’d felt guilty about that kiss ever since, but his letters kept coming. In every one, he provided an update about his girl back home and their long-distance romance. Maybe he simply needed as many words of encouragement as possible to keep his spirits up. Lulu would keep writing until he asked her not to, or until her correspondence went unanswered.

As wrong as she knew it must be, she needed to share. Every page contained so much grief and hope, resignation and bravery. She used to be able to sort through the emotions they engendered—sort through and then forget. But every boy, no matter the individual she knew him to be, had started to represent Joe and the danger he faced.

Hesitantly, she cleared her throat and scanned the first few lines. Nothing personal. She owed him that much.

“‘Dear Lulu,’” she began. “‘I’m here at’—and see, this part’s blacked out. But the last I heard from him, he was still in Italy. ‘We had a hard time last week but took’—well, some town or another. It doesn’t say. ‘The mountains are like scaling a wall. They’re so steep. Tuesday I helped get a buddy of mine out of a valley. His foot had been sliced off by a pocket mine. We carried that stretcher up and up to find the aid station. We took turns hauling each other out of the mud. But when we got there, the aid station was blown to bits by artillery. Jimmy—my buddy—he got a fever. We finally found a doc but haven’t heard back about Jim. Funny how I’d think this place was pretty if I was a tourist.’”

Silence had taken hold of the pilots. Paulie wouldn’t look up from the card table. She held one of Lee’s gloved hands. Margaret had stopped knitting. Only Jack remained unaffected, still asleep.

Lee took a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. “I’m numb to it these days. Wouldn’t think it possible. But that’s what it’s like. Just easier to figure out where the next plane goes.”

Lulu had known that feeling. Since losing Robbie and finding a new family with the ATA, she’d been able to keep the horror at arm’s length. Grab a chit. Take off and land. Start again. A twelve-hour shift really was the cure for too much thought.

But the revulsion of war only ebbed. It never went away. Pilots died far too frequently to forget the danger. Margaret Plimsole’s best friend from her days as an instructor had been caught out in a dense bank of cloud. The woman had slammed her Tiger Moth into the Pennines somewhere over the Lake District. Even famed pioneering aviatrix Amy Johnson had been lost to a crash over the Thames.

Beyond those daily risks, meeting Joe had made her duties all the more real. More vital than ever. She cared for a man who had dropped into France. Now, there was no distance to be found.

It was all too much. She stood from the table and collected her letters. “I’m cold.”

She exited the hangar and crossed the grass airstrip, heading back to the manor. The sky still hugged the ground, filled with too many roiling clouds to accommodate air traffic. She yanked her greatcoat around her shoulders and trudged on with brisk steps.

“Lou,” Paulie called. “Wait up.”

Knowing what was to come, Lulu slowed as Paulie closed the distance. Fickle, foggy, late spring afternoons were so damp and chilly that Lulu expected to see the white puffs of breath. What a miserable day.

“Too soon for any word from Joe, isn’t it?”

Lulu shook her head. “God, this is so hard.” She inhaled and held the wet air in her lungs until it changed to poison. “On paper, I’m nothing to him.
I
hardly know what we are, let alone the army. If he doesn’t write, if he
can’t
write, how will I ever learn what’s happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Paulie’s whisper could be heard as clearly as if they’d sat alone among the refined furnishings of the parlor room. The airfield was ghostly quiet. Unnaturally so. Fog muffled noises from the distant country roads. For months they’d reluctantly grown accustomed to the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the nearby training bases. Now the silence was simply another reminder that thousands of Yankee soldiers were gone.

The invasion was well under way. Every Allied family knew the names of the five Normandy beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. But that’s where the news ended.

“Are you writing to him?” Paulie asked.

“No. Not so far. Strange, isn’t it? I hardly know what to say. With all these other boys, I can write about my day and wish them well. I just . . . I simply can’t with Joe.” She shrugged. “It always seems so trivial, biding time rather than saying the things I’d like to say.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t even know!” Lulu felt edgy and angry, inexplicably so. “That’s the worst of it. You’d think all of this would make everything clear. I thought it would bring some relief and answer these riddles. I keep waiting, but that’s not happened.”