With D-day came the V-1 flying bombs, as many as a hundred a day. Though the destruction they wrought was nothing like as lethal as the bombardment of the Blitz, the panic they induced was nearly as awful.
There was never any warning. Before long, Ruby lost count of the number of times she had been walking down the street, feeling reasonably cheerful, the sun full on her face, and the next moment found herself cowering behind the nearest post office box or parked car as a building at the end of the block exploded into flames. People nicknamed them doodlebugs, but she couldn’t think of one thing that was funny about the flying bombs and the terror they sowed.
A month passed, then another, and there was no renewal of the reassuring postcards to Uncle Harry. Yet Ruby couldn’t bring herself to give up on him, not without any definitive news that he was lost. It was that scrap of belief that she clung to, a buoy of hope in a sea of despair.
Work was another solace, although she soon began to chafe at the restraints that Kaz continued to place on her and everyone else at PW. No matter how many times she asked to go over to France, to report from a safe distance behind the front lines as so many others were doing, he flatly refused. Instead, Kaz relied on freelancers for stories from France, claiming that it was cheaper for the magazine to do so, at least until the Allies had gained a firmer hold on Europe.
Ruby tried to be patient, yet it was agony to be left behind—and all the more so once she read Martha Gellhorn’s description of stretcher-bearers ferrying wounded to the hospital ships, or Lee Miller’s dramatic accounts of field hospitals, devastated French villages, and pockets of German resistance amid the ruined streets of Saint-Malo. The nadir was a copy of The American, sent to Kaz by Mike Mitchell, which featured a cover story by Dan Mazur on the liberation of Cherbourg.
“It’s an overcooked piece of tripe, Ruby. I don’t know why it bothers you,” Kaz observed calmly.
“You know why. You know I could have written that story ten times better.”
“Yes, but I don’t much care what happens to Dan Mazur. If you get yourself killed, however, I won’t have a decent night’s sleep again for the rest of my life.”
“If I were a man, you would let me go,” she persisted. “And you wouldn’t make him feel guilty for asking.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. Certainly my reasons for holding you back have nothing to do with your sex. You’re as capable as any male journalist I’ve ever met, and every bit as tenacious and brave. Far more so than that cretin Dan Mazur.”
She ignored his praise, though it would make a fine memory to focus on as she tried to fall asleep that night. “Well, then? If I’m so good—”
“You are, but we both know the War Office has been refusing to accredit women as war correspondents. And without a pass you can’t go to France.”
“Promise you’ll let me go if they do start accrediting women.”
“Fine. I’ll send you—but only if you can get a pass, and not until I think it’s safe for you to go.”
AS JULY GAVE way to August, and as resistance from Axis forces was steadily if bloodily quelled across France, Kaz’s opposition melted into resigned acceptance.
“So I ran into an editor at the Evening Standard yesterday,” he mentioned one morning. “He said they’ve applied for a war correspondent’s pass for Evelyn Irons.”
“Did she get it?” Ruby asked eagerly.
“Not yet. Apparently the War Office is still thinking about it. But it might be worth starting your application now. God knows how long it’ll take for them to make a decision.”
“May I go to Macmillan Hall now?”
“Let me talk to Frank first. You can’t go to France on your own—don’t even think about fighting me on this—and there’s no point in getting stories without photographs to accompany them. But you know Frank. He hates being away from home, so I know he’s going to kick up a fuss.”
It was hard to imagine mild-mannered Frank being difficult about anything, and in the end he couldn’t have protested all that much, for Kaz gave them permission to head over to Macmillan Hall later that morning. By eleven o’clock she and Frank were sitting across the desk of Captain Tuttle, Ruby’s favorite among the information officers at the MOI’s London headquarters, and the same man who had given her the runaround when she’d asked for information on Bennett’s mysterious employer.
“Getting you a pass for the European theater of operations, Mr. Gossage, is no trouble at all,” he said after they’d made their case for accreditation. “But regretfully I can’t do the same for you, Miss Sutton.”
“Surely I’m not the only woman correspondent to ask,” she protested. “You can’t be turning all of us down.”
“We aren’t. A few, a very select few, are being considered, but only for work well behind the lines. And even then, I have to tell you, my superiors are not at all enamored of the idea.”
“So what am I meant to do? Just sit out the rest of the war in England?”
Captain Tuttle leaned forward, his voice thinning to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you asking me what would I do, hypothetically speaking, were I in your shoes?”
“Yes. Hypothetically speaking,” she hissed back.
“In that case, as an American, I would speak to someone in press relations at SHAEF. I would ask for Captain Zielinski. That’s what I would do, if I wanted to get to France before the end of the month.”
“Aren’t the SHAEF offices all the way out in Bushy Park?” Frank asked. “That’s past Twickenham. More than an hour on the train one way.”
Captain Tuttle shook his head. “Fortunately, they have a satellite office here at Macmillan Hall. I believe Captain Zielinski is here today.” He sat back and, speaking at a normal volume again, gathered together the forms he had filled out for Frank. “I’ll have your photographer’s pass ready for the end of the week, Mr. Gossage. Is there anything else I can do for the two of you? No? In that case, have a pleasant day—and good luck, Miss Sutton.”
Half an hour later they were speaking with Captain Zielinksi, who listened intently as Ruby described her credentials and experience.
“That all sounds fine to me. I can accredit you for thirty days, beginning on the date you sail for France. Do you know when you want to leave?”
“That’s it? Don’t you need anything else? Don’t I have to fill out some forms?”
“Nope. You’ll have to sign your war correspondent’s pass, but that’s all. And I do know who you are, Miss Sutton. I’ve been reading your column in The American for years. You might actually send back some stories worth reading—unlike some of the sausage makers we’ve got over in France already. At any rate, when do you want to leave?”
“I don’t know. Kaz didn’t say.”
“Let’s check with him. What’s your number at PW?”
“Central 1971.”
The captain began to dial even before she’d finished reciting the number. A few seconds later he was talking to Kaz.
“Mr. Kaczmarek? Tim Zielinski here, calling from SHAEF press relations. I’ve got your Miss Sutton here. Wondering when you’d like me to date her press pass. Yeah . . . yeah. Uh-huh. Thirty days. There is that, I agree. No, I doubt they’ll open the press camps to women. Yeah, got it. Good. Thanks. I’ll get on it now.”
He hung up the receiver and grinned at Ruby. “You’re all set. We agreed on August twentieth as your departure date. Come along with me and we’ll get your picture taken for your pass. I’ll grab your insignia, too. Pins for your collar and cap, a shoulder badge, and we’ll get some dog tags made up. You’ll have to supply your own uniform, though—one of the girls here can tell you where to find an outfitter. And I think that’s about it. Oh, hold on—you’ll need a field manual, too. Spells out all the rules and regs.”
RUBY WAS IN a triumphant mood when she returned to PW late that afternoon.
“See?” she told Kaz, handing over her war correspondent’s pass so he might inspect it. “Accredited for thirty days. And here are my insignia and dog tags. I just have to get a uniform jacket and skirt, but apparently there’s a tailor—”
“We can talk about that later. Did Zielinski say where he’s sending you?”
“Yes. I can’t stay at any of the official press camps, since they’re still closed to women, so they’re sending me to an evacuation hospital. It’s the hundred and twenty-eighth, about halfway between the landing sites and Paris. And then, when Paris is liberated—he said it’s sure to be anytime now—we can go there. Can you believe it? Paris!”
“But only once I give the go-ahead, and only if it’s safe to do so.”
“Yes, yes. Of course, only once it’s safe.”
“No heroics. No venturing off the beaten path. Don’t even think about going out after dark, and make sure Frank sticks to you like glue. Understood?”
“Understood. Thank you, Kaz.”
“Make me proud, Ruby.”