With Every Letter (18 page)

“You look so pretty,” Georgie said. “But then I always thought so.”

What would Ernest think? Mellie peered at her image, fuzzy and dark in the metal mirror, and she sighed. She’d never find out, and that was best.

18

Youks-les-Bains Airfield
Algeria
February 28, 1943

Tom forced himself to lift his chin as he stood at attention in the crowded company headquarters tent.

Captain Newman addressed the group with stern words.

How could Tom look his CO in the eye? Weiser and Lehman were demoted to corporal and transferred to Quincy’s platoon. Sergeants Ferris and Kovatch, who headed squads in Quincy’s platoon, were transferred to Tom’s platoon to replace them. Two corporals were promoted to replace Ferris and Kovatch.

A mess. And all Tom’s fault.

If he’d been a better leader, Weiser and Lehman would have obeyed orders when evacuating Thélepte.

Shame burned in his chest. His engineering degree saved his position, but Newman’s grace only extended so far.

Tom had to change. But how? He didn’t want to be cruel like Quincy or aloof like Reed. Newman wasn’t the best example either. He was pleasant and excellent at logistics, but he couldn’t contain Quincy or teach Tom.

The wind ruffled the canvas, just as Annie’s last letter had
ruffled Tom. She suggested looking to Jesus Christ as an example of the perfect leader.

Yeah. Perfect. How could he draw parallels? The disciples had chosen to follow. Tom’s men had been drafted.

“Company dismissed,” Newman said.

Salutes snapped up, and field jackets rustled. The men filed out of the tent.

Weiser shot Tom a dirty look, as if Tom had imposed the discipline rather than Newman. And he should have. Instead the captain did the hard work.

Quincy hitched the strap for his carbine higher on his shoulder and gave Tom a look loaded with disgust.

For once, Tom didn’t smile. He looked away, his heart heavy as if full of black tar. Quincy would bear the brunt of this. He’d lost his best squad leaders, he had to train new ones, and he got saddled with Weiser and Lehman.

Tom pushed his way through the tent flap with Larry behind him. Sergeants Ferris and Kovatch stood to the side, and a gust of wind tossed their voices into Tom’s ear.

“Stuck in the misfit platoon.” Ferris lit a cigarette and sheltered the lighter with his hand.

Kovatch borrowed Ferris’s flame for his own cigarette. “We’ll whip it into shape.”

Tom swallowed a sticky mouthful of shame and raised a smile. “Sergeant Ferris, Sergeant Kovatch, glad to have you in my platoon.”

Ferris puffed on his cigarette. He was a small man with dark hair, dark eyes, and an even darker look. “Yeah, thanks, Gill.”

“Lieutenant MacGilliver.” Right on the spot he made that decision, but it felt right. More distance, less fraternization.

Larry’s gaze whipped to him. Yeah, that would be a surprise.

“Sure thing, Lieutenant.” Kovatch’s square face, perpetually
red from the weather, wrestled down a smile. “What’s our first assignment, Lieutenant?”

Tom ignored the mocking tone. He’d earned the disrespect. “Your boys are down at the runway with Moskovitz’s squad, replacing the planking ripped up in the last air raid. I’ll take you down, introduce you.”

“Why? We know the men.” Ferris blew out a gray cloud of smoke.

Kovatch slapped Ferris on the back. “What do you say? Think we can find the runway?”

They were challenging him. Mom’s training told him to back down, but something deep inside told him not to. For once, he’d listen. “I’m going down there anyway.” He marched toward the runway.

Larry trotted to catch up. “What’s that about, Gill? Or can I call you Gill?”

“You can. No one else. Things have to change around here. I have to change.”

“Nonsense.” Larry glanced behind him, where Ferris and Kovatch lagged. “Don’t let this get you down. You’re a great engineer.”

The gray sky pressed down on him, heavy with the threat of German attack. Rommel had retreated back through Kasserine Pass two days before, but was he just regrouping for another thrust?

“Come on, Gill.” Urgency laced Larry’s voice. “Where’s the grin everyone loves?”

“Everyone loves.” Tom blew air between his lips, making them flap. “I’m smart, I’m talented, I’m friendly. But it’s not enough. The men don’t follow me.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“What?”

Larry motioned with his thumb back at Ferris and Kovatch.
“Newman took care of it. Those guys will do the dirty work, and you can be the nice guy. It’s brilliant.”

Tom shifted his carbine strap. “It’s not right.”

“Why not? Don’t good leaders delegate? You’re delegating.”

“Delegating.” That didn’t sit well. He was delegating leadership itself. Or serving as a conduit for Newman’s leadership. Either way Tom was a figurehead.

“You don’t have a choice.” Larry’s voice flattened. “You and I don’t have a choice.”

Laughter floated from behind. Kovatch bowed to Ferris, his arms folded across his stomach, his teeth in an exaggerated overbite.

“See what I mean?” Larry said in a low growl.

Heat flamed in Tom’s stomach. “Hey, Kovatch! Drop something? Or are you sick?” Half a smile, but he didn’t let it go to his eyes.

Kovatch snapped upright, his eyes wide. “Um, no, just—”

“Don’t let it happen again.” Tom strode toward the runway, his insides tumbling.

“What’s gotten into you?” Larry said. “Keep smiling and ignore them.”

Sounded like Mom. If only it worked. “It’s one thing when someone picks on me, another when they pick on my men.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” Tom gave him a warm smile. “But we can also stick up for each other.”

Larry dipped his chin. “Yeah. We can.”

The gray steel runway stretched across the rocky tan soil from northeast to southwest. A mountain range jutted up in the east, the only barrier from Rommel’s panzers.

Tom’s platoon laid planking at the northern end of the runway. “Afternoon, Moskovitz.”

“Hiya, Gill.”

“Lieutenant MacGilliver, please.”

Moskovitz’s bushy eyebrows rose to the rim of his helmet. “Um, sure, Gi—Lieutenant.”

Tom gestured to the men behind him. “Sergeants Ferris and Kovatch will replace Weiser and Lehman. Introduce them to their men and let them know what to do.”

“Sure. Wow. A lot of shaking up around here.”

Tom nodded. “Things are going to change.”

Moskovitz searched Tom’s face. “Oh.”

Cheerful but firm. “It’ll be good.”

“Sure, boss.” Moskovitz shook hands with the replacements and made introductions.

The men’s faces registered shock, worry, but mostly annoyance. They’d have to work hard from now on. That churned up more shame in Tom.

He and Larry headed back to HQ. Paperwork awaited them.

Larry nudged him with his elbow. “Anything new from Annie?”

Tom shrugged. “Her last letter was written February 6. She’s in transit.”

“What if she came here? You could meet her.”

“Uh-uh. Don’t want to do that.”

“Why not? Afraid she isn’t pretty?”

“I don’t care about that, but I still don’t want to meet her.”

“Why not? You two have something good. I bet she’s falling for you.”

“Girls don’t fall for me.”

Larry stopped in his tracks and flung his arms wide. “Where’d gloomy Gill come from? You’re not bad looking. You’ve got a college degree. Girls fall for stuff like that.”

Tom gave him half a smile. “You read too many pulp magazines.”

“I like happy endings. You’ll have one too.”

“First of all, she doesn’t want romance. She told me up front.”

“She could change her mind.”

Tom hooked his thumb over his pistol belt. “Even if she did, girls don’t want anything to do with me. They like me as a friend. Nothing more. They’re afraid of me, or their parents and friends are. Don’t forget the name. Who wants to be Mrs. Thomas MacGilliver?”

Larry tipped his head and looked away.

“Exactly.” Tom shifted his weight to his other leg. “The only girls who are attracted to me just want to annoy their parents. But when they realize I’m not a bad boy, they lose interest. And why would I want to be with a girl like that anyway?”

Larry huffed. “Come on, Annie sounds like a swell gal.”

“Which is why she wouldn’t be interested. Remember, she doesn’t know my name, doesn’t know anything about my father.” A twinge of guilt. Annie told him about her mother, which took guts, but he’d only told her his father was dead.

Larry resumed walking to platoon HQ. “So tell her.”

Tom followed in step but not in thought. Any details about his dad’s crime and execution would chip away at the wall of anonymity. He didn’t want to lose her.

He’d never felt this way about another human being. A mutual need had drawn them together. They’d opened up to each other and exchanged advice. He loved watching her grow and develop. But she was more—his first real friend, the first person who had seen inside him and still liked him.

Tom looked up and drew a deep breath, and the gray clouds filled his soul. Whether or not she was falling for him, he was definitely falling for her.

19

Maison Blanche Airfield
Algiers, Algeria
March 3, 1943

New sights and smells wafted around Mellie. What could be better? A few years before she’d seen the movie
Algiers
with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, and now she was there. The C-47 cargo plane had flown over the glittering white city on the Mediterranean and landed a few miles southeast.

Mellie hauled her barracks bag across the gravel-surfaced runway. Airplane engines roared in the distance, and the scent of citrus and olive groves mingled with the smell of aviation fuel. Papa loved the olive tree in their front yard in Palo Alto. Whenever Mellie had scraped her knee, he’d apply a poultice made from olive tree leaves to prevent infection, and whenever she ran a fever, he’d brew tea from the leaves.

A gust of wind blew her hair into her face. She directed a puff of breath to get it out of her eyes. Wasn’t shorter hair supposed to be easier?

It was definitely more fun. Her head felt so much lighter, and she loved how her hair swung when she turned her head and bounced when she walked.

And it was worth it. After a few days of too much atten
tion, things settled down. Now men looked at her, smiled, and tipped their caps. They didn’t look twice, but Mellie didn’t mind.

“Right this way, ladies,” Lieutenant Lambert called. “We’ll leave our gear in the barracks and meet in the briefing room at 1400.”

“The briefing room?” Georgie nudged Rose. “Will we have to synchronize our watches?”

“The target for today,” Rose said in a deep voice, imitating a newsreel announcer.

Mellie realized she was smiling. Fully. She reined it in to a more acceptable expression. Still, her step bounced. Maison Blanche Airfield would serve as the home base for medical air evacuation in North Africa. Finally they’d get to practice flight nursing.

The women passed hangars, administration buildings, and workshops. Behind the buildings, khaki tents fanned out into the distance. A bulldozer rumbled along the far edge of the runway.

Mellie’s heart shimmied up into her throat. Was Ernest there? Would she recognize him? Part of her thought his soul would shine like a beacon, but the other part realized that was romantic twaddle.

“Here we are.” Lieutenant Lambert swung open the door of an old French barracks, an attractive tile-roofed building with a stone façade. “There’s a dayroom and an indoor bathroom.”

“Thank goodness,” Alice Olson said. “Hot water?”

“No, but at least you can wash your hair in the sink.” The chief gave Alice a stiff smile.

Rose and Georgie exchanged some message spoken with eyebrows. Mellie still couldn’t translate the intricacies of their language, but she got the gist of it.

The lieutenant led the women down a hallway, and at each door she read names from her clipboard for room assignments. Four to a room.

Mellie’s face tingled. Their flight divided into solid groups of three. One of the threesomes would be broken up. What if she had to room with Vera, Alice, and Kay?

Lieutenant Lambert tapped on the second door on the left. “Mellie Blake, Rose Danilovich, Kay Jobson, Georgie Taylor.”

Georgie and Rose grinned at Mellie. She smiled back with a twinge of discomfort for Kay. But Kay wore a neutral expression as she stepped into the room and plopped her barracks bag on a lower bunk. “You don’t mind,” she said to Mellie.

“I like the top bunk.” Mellie gave her a little smile.

“Good, and with all the flyboys here, I won’t be around to bug you.” Kay sauntered out of the room.

Georgie hooked her arm through Mellie’s. “Off we go to the briefing room. Do you think we’ll get leather flight helmets? Goggles? Silk scarves?”

“If we’re going to be flygirls, we have to learn to swagger,” Rose said.

“Some of us already do,” Georgie said in a low voice.

Mellie glanced out the door, where Kay chatted with Vera and Alice. “They deserve our prayers, not our gossip.”

Georgie sighed. “You’re right. But they make it so easy.”

A few minutes later, the nurses of the 802nd MAETS filed into the briefing room. A dozen men rose to their feet and saluted. Most looked thrilled to have women in their midst, but some wore stony expressions.

Capt. Frederick Guilford greeted them. The flight surgeon had organized air evacuation in the theater and had recruited thirty-five enlisted medical technicians. Captain Guilford was taking over as the new commanding officer of the 802nd and bringing his techs with him.

In his early thirties, the CO stood at the front of the room in an olive drab service jacket and khaki trousers. “In December, Major Tompkins, the flight surgeon with the 14th Fighter Group, was stationed at the airfield at Youks-les-Bains. He didn’t have a hospital. An ambulance ride to Algiers takes fourteen hours over rough roads, so he sent out his wounded on returning C-47s. Other medical officers followed suit.”