His Very Own Girl (14 page)

Joe was completing medical tags for the wounded while Lulu gingerly wiped flecks of concrete off the rescued boy’s face.

“How old are you?” Lulu asked him. “James? You in there, guv?”

But he was lapsing out of consciousness. His eyes rolled back and his lids flickered over private dreams. Lulu decided he couldn’t be more than fifteen; his cheeks were smooth and hairless, even though rationing meant his baby fat was long gone. If the war didn’t end soon, he would put on a uniform, pick up a rifle, and do his bit—James and the other young men who’d been boys in knee breeches when Hitler’s tanks had rolled into Krakow.

However, she knew children could adapt to even the most dreadful circumstances. This boy James would look back on his youth from a distance of decades and see violence, turmoil, and death. If he lived that long. Nothing was guaranteed on such a night, not even seeing the dawn.

The waxen-faced military policeman, Hawes, was riding on the outside of an approaching ambulance, holding onto the runner. Lulu left James to signal with the blue-tinted torch. Her stockings were ruined and her hands steeped in blood. Yet she was more conscious than ever of still being able to take a breath. She’d felt that same awareness after every raid she’d survived in London. And after her plane crash. But the feeling always wore off, when she’d fall back into the habit of taking life for granted, swamped by petty demands.

Joe met the ambulance and talked to the driver—a woman. His words were sharp and firm even in the din of that chaotic scene. Lulu couldn’t look away from his authoritative bearing, so straight and tall, his shoulders thrust back as if always standing to attention. He seemed so potent. So
real.

Why had they been fighting?

She remembered the tension between them, how they’d walked in a terse quiet, their bodies stiff and wary rather than leaning into each other, touching, whispering. And then they’d kissed on the platform, a moment of bliss. That’s what she wanted, not the fear or the suspicion. In those moments of destruction, when a woman sprawled dead on the sidewalk, Lulu cut through the turmoil. She wanted Joe Weber. She was being a silly, ridiculous fool every minute she denied that.

“Lou, you with us?”

She blinked and found Joe at her side. His hand tucked into the hollow of her lower back. She turned and looped her arms around his neck, pulling him close. After a flicker of hesitation, he returned her embrace. They stood there, absorbing and holding. She’d never been so close to him before, with only her tunic top and his thin, filthy cotton T-shirt between them. He was alive, vital, solid like a monument or a mountain—perpetual and durable, no matter how frail his human flesh would’ve been if crushed beneath that falling building.

“I was so scared for you, Joe,” she whispered. His neck smelled bitter and dry, like dust in a stuffy attic. “I haven’t felt that helpless in ages.”

“Lulu—”

“Because you wouldn’t have come out without that boy, would you?”

The muscles of his jaw bunched. “I couldn’t just leave him.”

And that’s why you’re going to break my heart.

He would keep putting himself out there for the men he was bound to save, and one day he wouldn’t be so lucky. She admired him and feared for him in equal measure, drowning, completely overwhelmed, until the emotions swelling in her chest threatened to burst.

“Lulu, I have to go.” He pulled free of her arms, gentle but determined. “There’s more to do here in the city, and then I have to report to my unit.”

“I can help—”

“No, Lulu. This was hard enough with you being here, no matter how you helped me. I can’t . . .” He looked up at her with an oddly sheepish expression. But neither did he seem willing to bend on this point. “I can’t do my job and think about you, too. Just go back on the ambulance, get home. Let me work. Please.”

He wasn’t out of line to demand it of her, no matter how gently, and she knew he was right. But her blood sizzled and she couldn’t catch her breath. How was she going to survive this—the wondering and not knowing? At least in the midst of showering sparks and crumbling buildings, they’d been together. She’d been able to help, to see him move with easy, composed confidence. She’d taken comfort in his assurance. What did she have back at the ferry pool other than silences and endless waiting? What would she have when he jumped, inevitably, someday soon?

Her terrified mind screamed
I told you
to the heart that had behaved so rashly. But it was too late now.

“All right, Joe. I’ll go.” She wiped the tears that had collected at the corners of her eyes—proof that she’d lost her grip entirely. “I’ll go. But you have to promise you’ll get someone to stitch your head.”

“I will. It hurts. I’ll have someone patch me up tonight. Promise.”

The driver beeped her horn.

“C’mon, now.” Joe took her by the elbow and urged her toward the ambulance’s passenger door. “Can you take my girl wherever you’re going?”

“Hospital,” the blonde young woman said.

“That’s fine. I’d appreciate it.” Joe assisted Lulu into the cab and gave her hand one last squeeze. “You can catch a taxi home from there.”

She wanted to tell him so much. But his patients, the ones he’d worked so bravely and selflessly to save—they needed the attention of a real doctor. They needed to be at hospital. So Lulu held her tongue and let Joe shut the passenger door. He disappeared into the smoke-drenched aftermath of the bombing, leaving Lulu to cope as her body deteriorated into uncontrollable tremors.

“You all right, miss?” the driver asked. Her accent revealed her as a local girl.

“I’m fine. Just . . .” Lulu cleared her throat. “I’m fine.” But her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her heels bobbed up and down. She’d experienced those same wicked, disobedient shakes after her crash.

The driver wove through the narrow Leicester streets using one hand, and with the other she fetched a drab army blanket from the floor. “Put this on,” she said simply.

Lulu wrapped herself in that coarse wool and closed her eyes, allowing the ambulance siren and its back-and-forth weaving to lull her. Only then did she remember that Joe had called her
my girl
.

chapter twelve

Lulu had barely stepped through the door to the pilots’ residence when Paulie and Betsy were hugging her, rattling off a barrage of questions.

“I’m all right, really.”

But when Paulie refused to let go, Lulu’s tears began. Her shoulders bowed as she leaned into her friend. One hiccupping breath after another wracked her from hair to heel. Every emotion—the fear and confusion, the revulsion and gratefulness of having survived—bubbled together. She tried to sniff past the outburst, but it wouldn’t be quelled. She still tasted the bitter burn of smoke on the back of her tongue. Eyes closed tightly, she kept seeing images of the woman with the smashed head and of Joe ducking into that rickety cave of rubble.

Every day. Once he jumped into Europe, he would face that and worse
every day
. And she would be in the same position over and over again, waiting to learn if he’d made it back alive. That wasn’t a future; that was a path to madness.

But she remembered Joe stripped of his tunic, standing so tall and proud when the ambulance had arrived. His expression had hardened then. Severe, serious, he’d transformed into a soldier right before her eyes—not fighting the Germans but fighting death itself. He was a brutal, unlikely angel of mercy. In the midst of crisis he’d given everyone, including Lulu, just what they needed to keep a level head. How much anxiety and fear had he borne? He’d swallowed every hint of it.

For her. For all of them.

A tender heat bloomed beneath her sternum, one more shocking than the insistent clench of desire. The overwhelming pride she felt in knowing him, in being the girl who’d turned his head, added to her tearful emotions.

“God help us,” she whispered, not knowing what it was she prayed for.

Rubbing Lulu’s back even when she pulled away, Paulie didn’t smile and she didn’t tease. Her face was as grim as if Lulu had told her that Joe was dead. The understanding between them was thick and heavy. No matter how hideous that night had become, the worst lay yet ahead of them.

“I’m here.” Paulie gave Lulu one more fierce hug and wiped the corners of her overly bright eyes. “I’ll always be here, you understand?”

Lulu nodded. She pulled a handkerchief from her tunic pocket and swiped at her nose.

“Come inside, now,” Betsy urged. “Come in and have a bath. You look a fright. I’ll get you a drink.”

“Thank you.” Lulu’s voice sounded tinny and distant. Her ears still clanged with the sound of enemy bombers and fire brigade sirens.

While she’d wanted to luxuriate in the steaming bath Betsy drew for her, Lulu couldn’t sit still. Her skin chafed and reddened in the hot water. She took a washcloth to it and scrubbed as if trying to scratch it off her body. Then she did the same to her scalp as she lathered and rinsed, wishing for something more luxurious than rationed hard soap.

A half hour later she wearily returned to the lounge. Everyone was still awake, even at that late hour, quietly talking and sharing Jack Plimsole’s priceless reserve of sherry. She’d known it would be this way, which is why she hadn’t retired to bed. They lived in an age when the unspoken need for news and companionship was paramount. Lulu sat between Betsy and Nicky, holding his hand, and told them what had happened. She spared no detail save her feelings for Joe. But perhaps her description alone told of those untested emotions, because Nicky’s posture changed. He sat up and rubbed his neck with the hand she’d held.

Felix puffed out an exhale of cigar smoke. “You were lucky, girly, and so was that medic of yours.”

The others murmured their agreement.

“Must’ve been part of this weak little blitz the Jerries have going,” said Todd. “I was reading about it again this morning. Seems they’re trying one more campaign before the invasion everyone knows is coming.”

“I’ve never moved so many transports,” Betsy said.

When Paulie returned from the kitchen, Lee made room for her on the leather Morris chair. It was barely big enough for two. She wiggled in beside him as he hitched an arm around her shoulders. Lulu blinked. She was tired, but she wasn’t
that
tired.

Perhaps her jest about Paulie taking up with Lee hadn’t been so far off course.

“It’s invasion buildup,” Lee said. “Has anyone flown over Hampshire this week? The ships are so thick you could walk Southampton Water without getting your shoes wet.”

“So’s the Hamble River.” Margaret didn’t look up from the stocking she darned. “Thick with smaller boats.”

“Whereas the rest of the country is beginning to empty of vehicles,” Todd said, his voice always so rough from the cigars he adored. “Whatever’s going to happen will be soon.”

Soon Joe would be swallowed into the silver belly of one of those cranky two-engine brutes, bound for someplace in Europe. He and thousands of his fellow paratroopers would jump behind enemy lines. If they didn’t link up with the regular infantry divisions, they would be surrounded and destroyed.

God, she was being ridiculous. By comparison, worrying about a soldier was far easier than actually
being
one. But she’d never much been one for sitting around and waiting. Perhaps she was like her mother that way, a woman who’d been so reluctant to let her husband fly on his own that she’d become a pilot, too.

“Not too much longer now,” Paulie said, almost to herself, almost a prayer. In fact Lee added a quiet “Amen.”

Lulu pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She was losing the ability to hold fatigued tears at bay. But she’d done enough crying. On unsteady feet, she said her good nights. Nicky stood and supported her with a hand at her elbow.

“I’m all right, Nicky. Honest.”

“Yes, but I have some news for you, if you’d like to hear it.”

She glanced around at curious faces. “Good news?”

He nodded, but his mild face remained impassive, as if he was not entirely sure.

“Go on then,” she said.

“You’re leaving for Marston Moor on Monday.”

Her friends offered happy words of congratulations, but Lulu couldn’t speak.
Too much,
her mind shouted. She’d already been through the wringer that evening, and this added an extra dollop of emotion to the mix. Nicky’s hold moved to her shoulder. She leaned into his comforting warmth.

Ever since learning women would be allowed to train on four-engine aircraft, she’d been mad for the chance. Those massive, unparalleled machines fascinated her. For years she’d pictured flying war machines that would take down Hitler’s regime brick by brick.

Now the privilege looked like a lifeline. Maybe she was falling for Joe Weber. By the end of the war, she might be heartbroken again. But at least she had a purpose. She’d do her best to make sure the Allied troops had every aircraft, every box of medical supplies, every cartridge of ammunition. She was so very proud.

More tears.
Blast
. But these were silent tears, just rolling down her cheeks.

“You fly like you were born with wings,” Nicky said. “Go show them what this outfit means to the ATA. You should take tomorrow off to get some rest. Recuperate from all this.”

Her regular time off—two days after every thirteen in the air—wasn’t for another week. “Are you sure? Who’ll take my flights tomorrow?”

“I will. Don’t worry.” Nicky nodded to Lee. “Oh, and you’ll be going with her. You’ve been approved, too. Sorry it’s not as big a show for you, old boy.”

Lee shrugged, which gave Paulie an excuse to snuggle more deeply into his embrace. “Can’t help how things are. Just doing our jobs, eh?”

Margaret linked arms with her husband where they sat together on a settee. She raised a glass of sherry. “To Lulu, to Lee, to all of us. And to those men who will soon be fighting on our behalf. May God keep them and bless them.”

Joe felt like an idiot. He was a fool and a dreamer, but he kept walking up the path to the pilots’ house at Mersley. He’d taken this walk with Lulu a few times, with his anticipation building like steam in a locomotive. Part of him had always wondered which night she’d finally say no to a good-night kiss, when she’d offer her handshake and a conciliatory smile—not her warm, sweet mouth.

Now he walked in the gathering brightness of early dawn. He wore a new uniform, his hands freshly scrubbed of blood and his ears still ringing.

Joe glared at the strip of white that banded his upper arm. Was this his fate? Was this how war would be for him? He was ready, he knew. Two years of training meant he’d worked like a machine throughout the night, fixing and patching and bandaging before moving to the next patient. The roll call of wounded seemed to go on forever; that it was only five in the morning seemed impossible.

But he wasn’t sleepy. His body was as limp as a cooked noodle while his mind revved. When Capt. Crowly had given him the day off, assuring him that he’d earned the right, Joe’s only thought had been to see Lulu. He wanted to finish their conversation. As deep as blood and bone, the need to know if she believed him was a physical ache. So much to say to her and so little time to say it. Baker and the rest of the 512th were bound for RAF Spanhoe within the week to begin training with their troop carrier squadrons. Command was no longer playing coy. They might even be sequestered, miles away from the barracks at Rothley.