Naples, Italy
December 13, 1943
Never before in her life had Georgie felt alone in a crowd.
She stood on Naples’s waterfront overlooking the busy bay under a clear sky. Vesuvius loomed black to the east, not far enough away. At least in the daytime she couldn’t see the ominous red glow from the crater.
All around her, people chatted and laughed. Mellie hung on the arm of her boyfriend, Tom MacGilliver—the first time they’d seen each other since September. Louise Cox had found lots to talk about with Lt. Rudy Scaglione from Tom’s Engineer Aviation Battalion. Kay flirted with—yet managed to keep her distance from—pilot Grant Klein, recovered from the crash that killed Clint and Rose. And Vera and Alice giggled at Captain Frank Maxwell’s joke.
Vera’s mood had improved as soon as they boarded the plane taking them away from Kentucky. Taking Captain Maxwell away from his wife.
What a horrible thing to think! Just because gorgeous Vera never dated, just because she simpered in the physician’s presence, just because Georgie didn’t like her—none of that justified her catty thought.
The cool sea breeze lifted Georgie’s curls. She smoothed them and forced her mind to contemplate Christmas. The holiday was coming in less than two weeks, her first without Rose’s off-key carol singing. Somehow she had to overcome her grief and make the holiday special for the nurses and patients. And for Hutch too. Their first Christmas. She wanted to find him the perfect gift.
“All right, folks. Let’s keep moving.” Captain Maxwell showed the way down the waterfront road.
“Stay close, ladies.” Grant put his arm around Kay’s waist. “We men have our sidearms to keep you safe.”
Kay laughed and wiggled free. “Until the pickpockets steal your pistols.”
As they headed down the road, Georgie tucked herself between Tom-Mellie and Rudy-Louise. If only Hutch could be there.
Mellie looked over her shoulder and beckoned Georgie. “I don’t want to abandon you.”
She came alongside her friend. “Nonsense. You two deserve some time together.”
Tom straightened his service cap over his sandy hair. “We have an entire evening of dining and dancing ahead, just the two of us. Now’s a good time to get to know Mellie’s friends.” He had an appealing smile and a friendly personality. For the son of a convicted murderer, he didn’t seem like such a bad fellow.
“How are things at Foggia?” she asked.
“Busy. Seems like new fighters and bombers come in every day. They need runways and facilities, which keeps us engineers busy. It’s worth it when I see those big birds head for Nazi targets in northern Italy and Austria.”
“If only they could help us break the Winter Line. I’ve lost count how many times we’ve attacked San Pietro.” Mellie tucked thick black hair behind her ear.
“It won’t be long. We’ll break through.”
She leaned against her boyfriend. “One of the many things I love about you—your optimism.”
He gazed at her in pure adoration, and Georgie felt completely out of place. Was this how Rose had felt with her and Ward all those years? Even worse, since poor Rose once had a crush on Ward.
Georgie’s eyes prickled, and her throat swelled. To distract herself, she stopped and focused on the massive structure across the street.
The Castel Nuovo looked less like a new castle and more like a medieval fort, with high walls to repel invaders and round crenellated towers at each corner to provide good vantage points for defenders—like Italy’s many steep hills favored German defensive fighting.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Tom said.
“Yes, it is.” Georgie mustered a smile and turned—but Tom and Mellie faced the waterfront, where throngs of men unloaded Liberty cargo ships.
Mellie held back her hair. “Is it true this port gets more traffic than New York City?”
“Sure is.” Tom pointed to the nearest dock. “The Germans did everything in their power to prevent it, confiscated every boat in Naples, then sank them to clog the harbor.”
“That’s where engineers come in, isn’t it?” Mellie snuggled close.
He grinned and led the way down the road. “Sure is. They had a big job. The Nazis blew up the sewers and aqueducts and electrical plants, yanked up railroad track, ignited the coal stocks, planted time bombs throughout the city. They know starving people riot. So we had to provide food and water and basic safety. We still have a long way to go.”
Georgie passed street urchins clustered around a couple of GIs who passed out sticks of gum. The poor things looked like they hadn’t had a solid meal in weeks.
Mellie motioned for Georgie to catch up with them. “Have you heard from your family yet? They were so kind to us.”
Georgie clutched her shoulder bag across her stomach as she stepped around a trio of skinny teenage boys. “I received a big ol’ stack of letters last night. They must have written two, three times a week since I left. All of them.”
“And . . . ?”
She sighed. “They think Ward and I just had a misunderstanding. They say Ward didn’t mean to break up with me, only to change my mind. He’s beside himself, and Pearline has her sights set on him. They say I’d better act fast and win him back. Why can’t they see I don’t want him back?”
“Have you told them about . . . ?” Mellie glanced around, lips tucked in. Only she and Kay knew about Hutch.
“Not yet.”
Tom gave her a soft smile. “Mellie told me. Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
They followed the group into a dark stairwell guarded by a white-helmeted MP, and voices echoed off the stone walls as they climbed. Hardly the place to discuss Hutch.
The group emerged into the sunshine and headed into the wide open Piazza del Plebiscito, according to the chatter from Captain Maxwell and Vera and Alice farther ahead.
Mellie led Tom and Georgie away from the crowd to the center of the piazza. Long, ornate three-storied buildings anchored three sides of the piazza, but the west side featured a church with a low dome and a semicircle of colonnades reaching out in an embrace.
Mellie turned serious dark eyes to Georgie. “Why haven’t you told your parents about Hutch?”
Georgie rolled her purse strap in her fingers. “It’s so soon. I’m afraid they’ll think I broke up with Ward because of Hutch, which isn’t true and wouldn’t be fair to Hutch. It’ll be hard enough for my family to accept any man who isn’t Ward.”
“You two were together a long time, weren’t you?” Tom asked in a low voice.
“Nine years, and my parents have all but adopted him. And here comes poor, sweet Hutch with his Yankee accent. I want my family to adore Hutch, but I don’t know if they ever will. At this point, I just hope they’ll be civil.”
Mellie looped her free arm through Georgie’s. “I can’t imagine your family being anything but civil. And it won’t take long for them to see how good he is for you. They’re reasonable people. They’ll come around.”
“I hope so. I’ll tell them when he gets his commission. He’s taking his test for the Pharmacy Corps next month.” If he could figure out a way to get to Naples for the exam.
“Then they won’t be upset with you for breaking the fraternization rules.”
“That too.” Georgie shielded her eyes from the sun glinting off marble columns. “And it buys time. Hutch won’t hear back until February at the earliest, so my letter wouldn’t arrive until March. That’ll make over four months since I broke up with Ward.”
“No, grazie,” Tom said to a shoe shine boy and lifted his well-shined shoe as proof. “What’s Hutch think of it?”
“Hutch would get a shoe shine.”
Tom laughed. “I meant about not telling your parents.”
“I know. He agrees. He’s waiting to tell his family for similar reasons.”
“Come along, folks,” Captain Maxwell said. “The ladies want to do some shopping.”
Georgie certainly did. Maybe the perfect present would erase the melancholy she read in Hutch’s last letter. If only she could give him a commission for Christmas.
Off the piazza, the road narrowed and the sun seemed to disappear. Three-storied buildings rose on each side, crowned by iron balconies festooned with laundry and flower boxes. Bombs had sawed some of the buildings in half and reduced others to rubble.
Before the Italian surrender, Naples suffered from Allied bombing. After the surrender, the city suffered from Nazi fury.
The store windows on Via Roma held none of life’s necessities but an odd assortment of luxuries.
“Interesting things in here.” Grant led Kay into a small shop.
Georgie stepped into the dim, musty-smelling store. Ramshackle cases displayed all sorts of goods, from watches to clocks to binoculars.
“Hello! Hello!” The shopkeeper waved them inside, a balding man in his sixties with a scruffy gray mustache. “Ah, so many beautiful American girls.”
“You have excellent eyesight,” Grant said. “And very good English.”
“Ten years in New Jersey. Came back here in ’35 to care for my mother. Should have brought her to America instead.”
“I’m so sorry.” Georgie scanned the cases. Would Hutch like a new watch? A pair of binoculars? Would that be a good substitute for his beloved telescope?
Tom fingered a wristwatch and showed it to Mellie. “What do you think? For my mom?”
“It’s lovely.”
“I have more.” The shopkeeper pulled out a long narrow box and opened it. “I still have many beautiful watches because I am smart. When the Neapolitans rose up against the Tedeschi late in September, the Nazis struck back. So I buried the best merchandise in my basement, left the cheapest things in the cases, then smashed up my own store, broke my windows.”
“Oh my!” Georgie tried to lean on the case, but it didn’t have any glass.
“Si. When the Tedeschi came, they thought they’d already looted my store and left it alone. Now the Americans come, and I make good money, take care of my whole family.”
On a high shelf over the shopkeeper’s head, a telescope was set up.
Georgie gasped. “Sir, is that telescope for sale? May I see it?”
“Si. It is very nice.” He scrambled onto a stool, brought down the telescope, and presented it to Georgie.
It looked smaller than Hutch’s, but newer. The shopkeeper talked about magnification levels and refraction and the wonders of a telescope made in Italia, the homeland of Galileo himself.
All Georgie understood was restoring joy to Hutch’s face, returning a relaxing diversion to his life. “I’ll take it.” She hadn’t looked at the price and she didn’t care.
“For Hutch?” Kay said.
Georgie winced. She spoke his name so openly. “Yes.”
“You can give it to him at the dance up at the 93rd next Saturday.”
“Yes and no.” She counted out liras for the jubilant shopkeeper. “I can give it to him, but not at the dance. He can’t go, poor thing. Just for officers.”
Kay ran a finger along the smooth leather telescope case. “Meet him behind the tent and dance your heart out.”
If only they could. She’d never danced with Hutch. “I don’t dare get him in any more trouble.”
Kay set one hand on her hip. “I need to give you lessons in sneaking around.”
Georgie gave her a strained smile and took her change from the shopkeeper. The thrill of a secret romance dissolved in the reality of inconvenience.