With Every Letter (21 page)

Vibrations from the two engines rumbled the length of the plane and tickled Mellie’s feet in her black nurse’s pumps. Completely impractical for use in a combat theater.

She returned to the rear of the cabin and sat on the floor against the cargo door as she’d been trained. Early perched on the medical chest against the back wall, smoking a cigarette. None of the patients needed oxygen, so Mellie didn’t say a word.

The plane rolled forward, turned, then accelerated down the runway. Mellie held on to a metal litter support so she wouldn’t slide.

She fixed her mind on the bleak, rugged beauty of the landscape that had enthralled her when she landed, so different from the coastal region. But Tom’s face popped up. Such
a nice face. That contagious grin. Not movie-star handsome but boy-next-door handsome, and far too good-looking to notice her in a romantic way.

Mellie’s stomach squirmed. His character in person matched his character on paper. His kindness to Private Butler, his chivalry to her, his willingness to help, how he confronted Early with a smile. Everything matched.

And everything made sense. Ernest said he had to be sunny for reasons he couldn’t mention. Why, of course. With a shameful legacy of violence, he’d chosen to erect an inoffensive façade. His letters showed her the man behind the façade, safe in anonymity, never knowing the anonymity would be demolished.

Mellie pressed her free arm over her roiling stomach.

The only time he hadn’t smiled was when she mentioned his father and presumed to know how he felt. Anger sparked in his eyes.

What a fool she was. She scrunched her eyes shut, then forced them open in case Early watched and judged.

Tom never mentioned his father in his letters, yet Mellie babbled about his happy memories. Maybe he didn’t have any. Maybe his father had been a raging drunk who beat his son. Mellie had no right to project her childhood stories about scrapbook Tommy to the real man.

He was so real. The streak of dirt across one cheek. How his sandy blond hair stuck up at all angles when he removed his helmet. The smell of earth and oil and hard work about him.

Her eyes slid shut, and everything inside her turned as soft and warm as his gaze. If only she’d had more time with him.

“Sleeping on the job?” Early prodded her calf with his combat boot. “Or just scared?”

“Neither.” Mellie scrambled to her feet, picked up the flight
manifest, and scanned it. Eighteen patient names were listed, with columns for time, the plane’s altitude, and the patient’s temperature, pulse, and respiration. “Time to do TPRs.”

“It’s better to do them at the end of the flight.”

“Yes, but I’d like to take care of the litter patients now as well.” Mellie headed for the front of the cabin and asked the ambulatory patients if they had any needs. Some wanted a cigarette lit or a drink of water, and she motioned for the sergeant to take care of them.

At the first tier of litters, Mellie checked her manifest. Top patient on the right, Corporal John Fordyce, stepped on a land mine while retaking Sbeïtla. He’d lost his right leg below the knee.

Mellie used the stirrup-shaped foot under the middle litter to hitch herself up. She smiled at her patient. “Good afternoon, Corporal Fordyce. Are you enjoying the flight?”

“Sure.” He stared at the fuselage curving over his head. Mud from the battlefield speckled his hair, and dark stubble covered his cheeks. The forward hospitals didn’t have time to clean the whole patient before surgery, only the affected area.

Nineteen years old, but the corporal looked much older.

Mellie settled her hand on his blanketed arm. “How does your leg feel?”

“It’s gone,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I know,” she said softly. Now was no time for platitudes.

He turned to her, dirty eyebrows raised.

“Are you in any pain?” She folded back the blanket to examine the bandages around the stump. Clean, dry, no signs of bleeding. He’d had a dose of morphine an hour before and wouldn’t need any until they landed at Maison Blanche, but she liked to ask.

“No,” he said. “No pain.”

“Good. When you get to the hospital in Algiers, they’ll give you a bath and a shave. Won’t that be nice?”

The corporal gazed over her shoulder. “Haven’t had a bath since . . . I dunno.”

“To think, when you were a boy, your mother probably had to wrestle you into the tub.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “I liked to hide in the cellar.”

Mellie laughed. She recorded his vital signs, all within normal limits. “Anything you need in flight, anything at all, flag us down.”

She eased herself to the floor to check the middle patient, Private Harry Jones, who took a machine gun bullet in his gut in the battle for Kasserine Pass. After his initial surgery, complications set in, and he needed further surgery in a specialized hospital.

The broad grin on the private’s face didn’t reveal how serious his condition was. “Hiya, nursey.”

“Lieutenant,” she said, but she smiled back. “How are you feeling?”

“Depends. How many girls you got at that hospital in Algiers?”

“Oh, not one of them is good enough for you.”

“She wears a skirt, she’s good enough.”

Mellie clucked her tongue. “Too bad. All the women wear trousers.”

The door to the cockpit opened, and Clint Peters entered the cabin. “Hi, Mellie.”

“Lieutenant Blake.” She inclined her head toward her patient. She had to maintain professionalism. “Do you need something, Lieutenant Peters?”

He rested his elbow on the top litter pole. “Your opinion on Rose.”

Mellie groaned and examined Private Jones’s dressings. “I hate to keep you from your navigation.”

“Ten minutes before I check our heading again. What do you think? About Rose?”

“She’s a good nurse and a great friend.”

“I know that, but what do you think? It went well last Friday, didn’t it?”

Mellie sent him a sidelong glance. “She didn’t slap you and she only insulted you a dozen times.”

“Yeah.” Clint let out a dreamy sigh. “Isn’t she swell?”

Mellie wrapped her fingers around her patient’s wrist.

“So do you—”

“Ssh.” She tapped her ear and looked at her watch to time Private Jones’s pulse.

Clint jiggled his leg while she worked. Oh dear, he had it bad.

After she finished timing respiration, Clint spoke up. “What do you think? She let me sit with her in church. I talked with her three times this week, and she didn’t punch me. Do you think I can ask her out, just the two of us?”

“Oh, why do you want to drag me into this?”

“Come on. I’m not asking you to break a confidence. I just want to know if my life’s in danger.”

Mellie laughed. “It wouldn’t hurt to wait.”

“Another group date?”

Goodness, no. The first one had been painfully awkward. Clint brought two friends, but not the men from Louisville. Mellie couldn’t think of a thing to say to them, and when they learned Georgie had a boyfriend, they looked ready to bolt.

“Well . . . ?”

Mellie sighed and noted her patient’s vitals on the manifest. “I suppose so. No need to bring your friends. As long as Georgie and I are there, Rose will probably agree.”

“Swell.” Clint turned for the cockpit. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

Jones grinned at Mellie. “I’m no doctor, but that man’s got a bad case of it.”

“He sure does.” She knelt down to take care of the man on the bottom litter. Private Butler. The man under Tom’s command, the man he’d cared for so tenderly.

She smiled at her patient, but all she could see was Tom’s kind face. All she could hear was his deep laugh. All she could feel was his strong hand in hers.

Oh dear. She had a bad case of it too. And he could never know.

22

Youks-les-Bains Airfield
March 19, 1943

Rain tapped on Tom’s helmet and his thigh-length mackinaw. “Come on, men, a little more.” He attacked the mud with his entrenching tool. Only a rookie would call it a shovel. Slowly he carved space around the nose wheel of the P-39 Airacobra.

Another rookie mistake. A replacement pilot parked the fighter plane on low ground, ignored his ground crew, and got the plane stuck knee-deep in Algerian mud.

“Ready for the planking.” Sgt. Lou Moskovitz handed scraps of pierced steel planking to his men, who wedged it under the P-39’s wheels.

Two men secured rope around the plane and hooked it to the winch on the dozer. At Moskovitz’s signal, the dozer churned into reverse and spat out dollops of mud.

Tom wiped his face and went to work with the entrenching tool. Only the white bar painted on his helmet differentiated him as an officer, and he was fine with that. He didn’t mind dirt or hard work like some of the officers, and it fit his emerging leadership plan.

At Annie’s suggestion, Tom had searched the Gospels for a picture of Jesus as leader.

Sure, Jesus had divinity on his side, but the human side of his leadership showed Tom something striking—balance.

Jesus as the servant leader called the disciples his friends and washed their feet. Tom understood that.

But Jesus also rebuked his disciples when they erred, and the original misfit platoon erred frequently. Tom needed to work on that.

“Faster, Rossi. That’s the way,” he yelled to the man digging around the right wheel.

The plane’s nose tipped up, lifted by the winch, and the wheels slurped out of the mud and climbed the planking ramps. A cheer went up from Tom’s men, and he clapped them on the back.

The dozer towed the muddy fighter plane to a higher spot paved with steel planking.

The ground crew watched with arms crossed and muttered to each other. The rookie’s mistake meant more work for them.

Off to the side, the pilot stood smoking. He wasn’t in Tom’s line of command, but Tom addressed him with a grin. “You’ll clean her up, all by yourself.”

The flyboy’s jaw dropped.

Tom set his muddy hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t be fair to the ground crew to clean up your mistake.” He tilted his head toward the crew. “They’re your best allies, keep your plane in top shape. Do right by them.”

His thin lips pressed together. “Fine.”

“Good man.” Tom patted his shoulder. He left a muddy handprint on the pristine leather flight jacket and he’d do it again.

Tom followed his men toward the control tower, where they needed to repair the roof. The buoyancy of his heart counteracted the mud tugging down on his feet. He’d been
firm. He’d been gentle. He’d rebuked. Annie would be proud of him. “Thanks, Lord. Maybe I can do this.”

Sesame trotted toward him with his working-dog belt in place.

“Hey, buddy.” Tom squatted and gave the dog a rubdown. “Got something for me?” One of the pouches on the belt bulged, and Tom pulled out a slip of paper. He leaned forward, using his helmet as an umbrella to keep the rain off the note.

Larry wrote, “It’s happening again. Quincy’s giving orders to Kovatch.”

“Great. Just great.” Tom crumpled the note.

“Come on, Sesame.” He marched toward the hospital tent, where Kovatch’s squad dug trenches. Tom had given thorough instructions. Why did Quincy have to interfere again? Payback? Arrogance? Disrespect?

A prickling sensation, and his buoyancy drained away.

Not only was Quincy undermining him, but Tom preferred to avoid the hospital. In weather like this, no evacuation flights would come, but what if a flight had arrived two days before in clear weather and had gotten grounded at Youks-les-Bains? He didn’t want to run into Mellie Blake.

He couldn’t get her face out of his mind or her words out of his head. Even thinking about her felt disloyal to Annie. For a brief moment, he’d entertained the hope that Annie and Mellie were the same. After all, both served as nurses in North Africa. But Annie’s painful shyness contrasted with Mellie’s confidence.

Too bad. Tom drew a deep damp breath to clear his mind. Kovatch and Quincy stood next to the hospital tent and shouted orders at the men. Larry stood to the side.

An acknowledging wave to Larry, and Tom approached Kovatch. “How’s it going?”

“Almost done.”

“Almost done?” Tom scanned the length of the tent complex. A narrow trench ran through the center of each tent. “I told you to dig them three feet wide.”

Quincy snorted. “Busy work.”

The muscles in Tom’s arms contracted, and he jammed his hands in his mackinaw pockets to conceal his fists. He looked Quincy in the eye and reminded himself not to smile. “It’s not just for drainage. The hospital staff wants shelter for the patients in case of an air raid.”

“Since when have we taken requests? And haven’t you heard?” Quincy’s misshapen lips curled. “Patton’s on the move. We’ll push the Jerries into the sea within the week.”

Tom kept his gaze locked on his rival. “Never underestimate your enemy.”

Quincy drew back his chin and hiked up one eyebrow.

A belt cinched around Tom’s heart. What was he doing? That sounded like a challenge, like an invitation to a school-yard brawl. Like danger.

He switched his gaze to Kovatch. “You have your orders. You need to finish before dinner, and you don’t want cold hash. It’s bad enough hot. And Quincy, I know you’ll be glad to return to your own platoon. Kovatch is under my command.” Tom walked away.

Quincy’s snort caught up to him. “That’s what he thinks.”

A chill snaked around Tom’s gut. He forced himself to walk away from conflict and catastrophe.

Did Quincy want to take over his platoon? Was that even possible in the Army? Sure, Ferris and Kovatch were used to Quincy, but he couldn’t muscle his way in.

What would his dad have done? Cussed the man out and pummeled him with his fists? That’s what a murderer did. That was the image he’d been fed. But what was the man really like?

He did have good memories of his father. Mellie Blake’s words had pierced holes in a wall blocking them from view.

When he peered through that wall, he saw his father playing with him, reading to him, singing with him, dancing with Mom, twirling her around, kissing her, making her laugh. He remembered a couple of spankings, well deserved. Nothing negative. Nothing at all.