In Perfect Time (31 page)

Kay smiled. “Good for you.”

“How about you, Vera?” Georgie leaned forward. “Are you going to marry this mysterious nameless boyfriend of yours?”

“I plan on it.” Vera gave a smug smile.

Kay’s stomach turned, and she exchanged a glance with Mellie. So Vera still had designs on Captain Maxwell. If they ever got out of here, Kay still had to deal with that situation.

“Your turn, Kay.” Mellie looked too eager, probably to steer the conversation away from Vera’s adulterous plans.

“Me?” She’d shared bits of her dream with some of the ladies, but only Roger knew all of them. Well, almost all. Not the dreams that involved him.

“Yes, you.” Georgie laughed. “This was your idea after all.”

“All right.” Kay worked her fingers through holes in her blanket. “I hope Lieutenant Lambert will recommend me for the chief nurse program. After the war, I’d like a job in a hospital as a chief. If I can’t, I’ll work my way up.”

“I can see that.” Louise coughed. “You’d be a good chief.”

“Then you’ll buy a house,” Mellie said gently. “Tell us what it’s like.”

Kay’s eyes watered. “It’s just a little house, one bedroom, painted yellow like the sun. I’ll have my own kitchen, and a comfy wingback chair in the living room, and closets, and a front porch with a wicker chair and table.”

“By yourself?” Alice frowned. “You’ll live in a house alone?”

Kay’s throat clamped shut.

“Hush now, Alice,” Georgie said. “If the Lord wants her to get married, he’ll bring a man into her life.”

Silence fell among the ladies, a pitiful silence that made Kay’s eyes water more. Over by the window, Roger’s drumsticks lay still.

Had he heard her? Heard the longing in her words . . . in her silence?

She didn’t want a home alone. She wanted a home with him.

January 7, 1945

Roger helped Anselmo spread out the map on a dry spot on the floor, while Kay and Enrico looked on. Both daylight and rain streamed through holes in the roof of the stone shed, and the rest of the party huddled by the walls, trying to sleep.

Roger studied the map. “What’s the plan, Captain?”

Anselmo traced the curve of the bay between Genoa and La Spezia. “This is the only spot in the Mediterranean where the German Navy is still active. They’re weak but present. We have moonless nights between January 10 and January 18. However, we also need smooth seas. We’re sending our Navy boys in on an Italian fishing boat. This is the area we’re looking at. It’s fairly isolated.” He pointed to a spur of land about ten miles north of La Spezia.

“We’re not far.” Roger tapped a spot inland and to the north.

Enrico held his chin high. “Partisan territory.”

“For the most part.” Anselmo gazed from under heavy dark brows. “Tonight we’ll head to this cluster of villages, all within ten miles of the pickup. We’ll have you zigzag between the villages, with the exception of this one.”

“Are the Germans there?” Kay asked.

“No.” Anselmo pointed to a crossroads. “This is the best of all, only six miles away, and we’re saving it for last. When we receive word that the boat is coming the following night, you’ll move here. After dark, you’ll head to the coast and wait. Can the ladies do it? You’ll have steep hiking along the coast.”

“Yes.” Kay gazed around to her napping friends. “Our shoes are in bad shape, and everyone’s weak. But more than anything, they want to go home.”

Roger drank in the smooth curve of her neck, the strong set of her jaw, the compassion in her eyes.

“All right, Cooper.” Anselmo folded up the map and handed it to him. “Tonight Giovanni and I will go to the coast, set up the radio and beacons. When we get the signal, I’ll send a message with Giovanni. Enrico will stay with you. Both men know the terrain, the villages, the people. You just keep the party together and moving.”

“I’ll do that, sir.” Roger tucked the map inside his flight jacket.

“I know you will. Say, what are your plans after the war?”

“I want to be a drummer in a big band.”

Anselmo’s face puckered up as if he’d bitten into a rotten apple.

“I know.” Roger fingered the drumsticks inside his jacket. “No money, no stability.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just a waste of your talents.”

Roger squirmed. “Drumming is my talent.”

“Not the only one. Don’t you see how everyone in this group respects you? Because you respect them all, officer and enlisted, male and female. You treat them fairly and make sound decisions. You lead and they follow. Those are rare and fine qualities.”

Roger shrugged and got to his feet. He needed to hit the sack. “They’re my friends.”

Kay smiled up at him. “It’s more than that.”

“I agree.” Anselmo stood and straightened his coat. “You could do great things in this world if you put your mind to it.”

“You could be a teacher.” Enrico scrambled to his feet and grinned. “You teach me algebra and English.”

Roger stared at the boy, at his latent dream spoken out loud yet again.

Anselmo pulled out his blanket and settled down in a corner of the shed. “I was thinking captain of industry, but if education is in your blood, aim for principal.”

Roger barked a laugh, then clamped his mouth shut for the sake of the sleepers. “The only experience I have with principals is being paddled—a lot.”

Anselmo tipped his service cap over his eyes. “Think about it.”

“I’ll forget about it. Best for everyone.” Roger stomped to another corner and squatted by the bag of blankets.

“What’s wrong?” Kay leaned against the wall beside him. “Why do you get touchy when anyone says you should teach?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He wrestled out a blanket, didn’t matter which one. They were all threadbare, dirty, and smelly. “Just tired of people nagging me.”

“Nagging you? Sounded like they were encouraging you.”

“Feels like nagging.”

“Why? Because you don’t want to teach? Or because you want to teach but don’t think you deserve it?”

Roger sucked in a breath and jerked his head toward Kay, so hard he almost toppled over. He braced himself against the wall.

A slight lift of the eyebrows, of the corners of her mouth. She nudged his foot with her own. “Remember that day by the lake at Istres when you gave me advice?”

“Yeah.” His voice rasped.

“A wise man told me God gives us good things not because we’re good, but because he’s good.”

“Not the same.”

Kay lifted one shoulder. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. That’s between you and the Lord.” She headed for the ladies’ side of the shed.

Roger yanked the blanket around him, got as comfortable as he could on the dirt floor, and closed his eyes. Between him and the Lord. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. What did Anselmo and Enrico know? They didn’t know what he was like.

A rock jabbed his ribs as truth jabbed his brain. They knew him as he was now, not a goof-up but a leader.

Roger opened his eyes. He’d changed. Could his dream change too?

38

January 15, 1945

The nurses sat in the cellar of a home in the crossroads village, silent but exultant. Kay studied the small window at shoulder height that opened to the alley behind the house. The orange glow of sunset filled the cellar. Only a few more hours and they’d head to the coast, where the boat was scheduled to arrive around two in the morning.

The inside door to the cellar banged open, and Giovanni scrambled down the narrow steps, wild-eyed, and he spoke to Enrico in quiet but frantic tones.

Kay’s breath stilled. She stood and joined Roger, Mike, and the partisans.

“What’s up?” Roger asked.

Enrico’s dark eyebrows drew together. “A German patrol is in town, searching house to house. They come from the west. Two soldiers search, one driver in the car.”

“Man alive.” Roger ran his hand through his hair. “We’re only about six houses in.”

“We need to leave now,” Mike said.

“No.” Roger grasped his copilot’s arm. “That’s what they want. They want to flush us out. We need a plan. Kay, get the ladies ready. Keep it quiet.”

Kay’s hands felt numb, but she nodded. She returned to the nurses.

“What’s going on?” Vera asked, a bit too loudly.

“Quiet.” Kay squatted in front of them. “We have to leave very soon. A German patrol is in town. We’ll have to move fast. Get ready.”

“Oh no.” Georgie clapped a hand over her mouth, and her eyelids fluttered. “We were so close.”

“We still are. Get ready and stay calm.”

Mellie squeezed Georgie’s shoulders. “We will.”

Georgie lifted her chin. “Yes, we will.”

The ladies put on their outerwear, looped musette bags around their necks, and piled the few remaining barracks bags by the window.

Kay returned to the men. The map was spread on a table upside down, and Roger was drawing a map of the village on it. The town was shaped like a
Y
, with the long leg pointing to the sea. Blocks represented the houses, with a bunch of dots in one house on the long leg—where they were now.

Roger beckoned her close to the map. He traced an arrow running from the back of the house, down the alley, connecting outside the village with the main road to the sea.

“That’s our route,” Kay whispered. “Won’t they . . . ?”

Roger pressed a finger to his lips, his brown eyes serious. He traced a second arrow running from the back of the house in the other direction and into the street in front of the German car. “Diversion,” he wrote.

Kay’s breath quickened. The partisans would do that for them? Just so they could escape?

Roger pointed to the house next door, drew two swastikas inside and one in the car, then he retraced the diversion arrow.

Kay nodded. They’d time the diversion when two of the Germans were inside.

Roger ended the diversion arrow close to the car, drew an
X
, then mimed honking a horn. The driver would make a racket, but he’d wait for his colleagues before he chased the partisans.

He pointed to Kay then to the window. That was the signal to escape. Kay nodded and wiped her palms on her trousers.

Starting at the
X
of the diversion, Roger drew a line heading inland through town, branching at the fork in the road at the piazza.

All right. That might work. The Germans would chase the men—two of them—and they’d go in two directions. As Italians, they could blend in and evade capture. Meanwhile, the Americans could escape to the sea.

Someone stamped upstairs.

Kay startled.

Roger stared at the ceiling, then motioned to Enrico. Oh no, was Enrico part of the diversion? He was just a boy. They couldn’t let him.

Then Roger turned to Kay and laid one hand on her shoulder. His eyes—she’d never seen that look in them—as if he were memorizing everything about her, and so firm, so fond, so sad. He pressed his lips into a straight line and headed to the window where Enrico waited.

Terror ripped through her heart. Good Lord, no! Not Roger! He couldn’t be part of the diversion.

Kay dashed after him, grabbed his arm. “No,” she whispered.

Roger faced her and nodded. He took her by the shoulders and leaned close to her ear. “Need two to divert.”

She shook her head, over and over. No, not him.

He pointed at Giovanni, at the group, at the window. Giovanni would be their leader. They did need someone who spoke Italian. That left Enrico . . . and the Americans.

Tears filled Kay’s eyes. Roger would never ask his men to sacrifice. He’d do it himself. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” he murmured. He gestured with his head to the ladies. They needed her.

Her love and her grief welled up and melded together. She placed her hands on his chest and tapped dot-dash-dot . . .
R
, her Roger, the man she loved, the man she’d always love.

His eyes scrunched up, and he mashed a kiss to her forehead, stayed there, his fingers tapping on her shoulder.

Kay struggled to concentrate on the message with his warm lips full on her forehead, with grief straining at her heart.

K,
he tapped.

She nodded gently so as not to end the kiss.

He drummed out a message, his fingers insistent.
R-U-N
.

She gulped back a sob and tapped,
Y-O-U-T-O-O
.

Roger broke away and climbed out the window. Gone, just like that.

Georgie slipped an arm around her shoulder. “He’ll be fine, sweetie,” she whispered.

Kay slapped her hand over her mouth. She’d never see him again, would she? He wouldn’t live the day.