Chapter Thirty-One

No matter how many times she took a train, Penny could never help but compare them to what they were in prewar days. She hadn’t always traveled first class, but she’d rarely traveled without being in the presence of her mother and then, after she’d died, her father. He never took any public transport where first class wasn’t an option. The first wartime train she’d taken had been a shock to the system. Cramped, dirty, surprisingly smelly, and crowded. She’d hoped she’d simply been unlucky, but it had been much the same from then on. However, she knew the railway workers did their best to keep up standards. Like many things these days, you had to grin and bear it.

Making the mistake of yawning at the same time she opened the carriage door and stepped out, she nearly fell flat on her face. She’d managed to get some sleep, but not much. On one journey to Hamble by train, she’d overslept and missed her stop. The backtracking she’d had to do had been hell! Since then, she’d become much better at catnapping, though she still liked to sleep with a note on her lap asking to be woken as they came into the station where she wanted to get off.

She took a deep breath of air as she handed over her ticket. Some of the weight of the world she’d been carrying since finding out about Tom being wounded finally lifted.

He’d woken around eleven the previous evening. Stretching out a hand, just as she was dropping off to sleep, he tapped her on the shoulder. Penny promptly fell off her seat.

“What the hell?”

It took all her self-control not to jump on him and wrap him in her arms. Eventually, she told him, “Never, never, scare me like that again!”

What followed had been a brief reunion, because as soon as the doctors found out he was awake, they insisted upon running some tests, very much to Penny’s annoyance. In fact, she’d made her objections so vehemently it had taken the Sister threatening to revoke her right to sleep next to Tom for the night for her to rein in her temper. By the time they’d finished, her husband was exhausted, and they barely had enough time for Penny to explain to him how she came to be there. She didn’t think he managed to take in half of what she said. So whilst he slept she penned him a short letter, in which she told him how his CO had let her know what had happened, and that she would be going back to base sometime in the morning.

As it turned out, once she was awake, she found it impossible to get back to sleep. Aware the trouble Jane had gone to on her behalf, Penny made certain reception knew she was going. It may have been only five in the morning when she’d kissed her sleeping husband goodbye and gone out into the hall. Nevertheless it had been just as busy as when she’d arrived. Doctors, nurses, ancillary staff, all were rushing around, and the scene was one of organized chaos. Though she was leaving Tom behind, she could now at least smile, knowing he was in the right place, getting the best care possible.

Maybe stopping off at RAF Polebrook, her ulterior motive for turning down Jane’s offer of a flight back to Hamble, hadn’t been the best of ideas?

****

Penny had known for a good while a pretty girl in uniform, especially one with pilot’s wings on, could get in most anywhere. This proved to be just as true on the American base as anywhere else. It also got her a ride in a Jeep, one driven with considerably more care than when Jane drove hers, up to the hangar where the 351st Bomb Group were based. Shortly after, she stood outside the door of the same officer Doris had talked to on the fateful day of the B17 crash, Major Jim Fredericks.

Introductions were made quickly, perhaps because Penny was in full uniform, as opposed to Doris in her Sidcot suit, but Major Fredericks treated her to a beaming smile and a quick invitation to take a seat. He also sent out for a pot of coffee. Not wanting to appear ungrateful, Penny accepted with a diplomatic smile. The friendly effect was somewhat spoiled when she gagged and had to fight the impulse to spit the beverage out. She’d never tasted real American coffee. When she next saw Doris, she would have to interrogate her as to why she worshipped the stuff. Penny suspected boiled cowpat would taste better!

If the major noticed her forcing the liquid down, he was polite enough not to comment on it. “You’re my second lady ATA pilot in the last couple of weeks. I don’t suppose you know someone by the name of Doris Winter?” He read her name from a piece of paper he’d pulled out of his desk drawer when he noticed Penny come in.

Determined to keep things polite, Penny smiled and was happy to find the coffee hadn’t destroyed her vocal cords. “As a matter of fact, yes, she’s my best friend. Nearly wasn’t, the other night,” she added, though not really sure why she’d told him.

It piqued the officer’s interest, though, and he leant toward her. He frowned, concern creasing his brow as he asked, “Oh? What happened? Is she all right?”

When she’d made the decision to come to Polebrook, Penny hadn’t been sure what she hoped to accomplish, nor how she should go about it. However, his reaction sparked her womanly intuition, and she realized she could play on his natural sympathies for the fairer sex. Best not to mention this to Doris, if she managed to get anything done, as she didn’t think her friend would appreciate being used by proxy.

“She was very lucky.” Penny decided to lay it on thick. “We were caught in the tail end of an air raid on Portsmouth. Doris was visiting a next-door neighbor when a Nazi bomber dropped a bomb in the field behind them. She got caught by some shrapnel.”

The major ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “She probably doesn’t think so, but she’s one lucky girl. I expect she told you what happened whilst she was here?”

Penny attempted a grimace and a smile at the same time. “Yes, she did. I’m very sorry.”

He’d obviously become used to death, as he merely nodded, not expecting Penny to be able to add anything else. “So, Penny, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t expect you remember me. I didn’t see you either, but I was at the hangar dance where a certain handkerchief went missing. Doris has been accused of taking it.”

The major sat back in his seat, nodding. It took him a few moments to respond. “Yes, I remember. It certainly explains why she was here. By the way, tell her I was most impressed by her engine-trouble ruse.”

Penny couldn’t help but laugh. “She can be very imaginative.”

“To preempt you, though,” Jim Fredericks said, “that handkerchief still hasn’t been found.”

Penny had to ask, “You don’t mind my just dropping in and asking about it?”

He shook his head. “One flier to another, no, I don’t. I notice you’re married.” Jim nodded toward the ring on her left hand. “Can I ask what your husband does?”

Penny had to swallow hard before she could reply, something which Jim didn’t miss. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I have asked? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay,” she eventually began. “He’s a Mosquito pilot. I’ve actually just come from visiting him. He…” She gulped in more air. “He was wounded the day before yesterday.”

Jim looked distraught. “Aww, crap. I beg your pardon. Can I ask? Will he be okay?”

Here, at least, Penny was able to muster a genuine smile. “Yes.” She nodded. “He took some debris to his body, and a bullet creased his head. He’s been one lucky sod!”

Jim returned her smile with interest, slapping the desk with enthusiasm. “Sounds like it. Wish him luck from me when you speak to him next, won’t you? Hopefully, the next time we have a dance, you’ll both be able to come.”

“Even taking into account what happened at the last one?” Penny had to ask.

“Even taking into account what happened then.”

“Thank you, Jim,” she told him, holding out her hand and getting a warm handshake in return. “Anyway, as I’m here… The handkerchief… I have to ask, but everyone’s looked—everywhere?”

“Pretty much everywhere has been turned upside down. As you can imagine, he’s a bit of a celebrity.” Jim couldn’t help but grin at how inane this comment was. “So naturally, we haven’t looked absolutely everywhere he’s billeted.”

Penny raised an eyebrow.

****

“I still don’t know how you talked me into this,” Jim Fredericks muttered, as he used a master key to unlock the door to Clark Gable’s quarters.

As she moved past him into the room, Penny told him with a wink, “Womanly charm.”

If she’d been expecting a room to resemble those at the Ritz, Penny was disappointed. Mind you, as it was a Nissan hut, she shouldn’t be surprised, she scolded herself. Inside were about a dozen beds, each with a single narrow wardrobe to one side and a footlocker at the end of each bed. To her eyes, even for a bunch of men, it looked remarkably untidy.

Upon her commenting on this, Jim admitted, “We’ve a problem keeping our cleaners. Most of them, well, all they want to do is catch sight of Gable. It’s actually gotten so bad they aren’t allowed in this hut anymore.”

“Explains why it’s locked.”

“Yes. Believe it or not,” he said, “the occupants of this hut are supposed to keep it clean themselves.”

“I’d believe it.” Penny grinned, walking down between the rows of beds. None of them were made up, and some still had the blankets thrown back. As she reached the end of the room, she turned and cast her gaze around. Apart from the furniture she could see, the only other thing of note in the room was a cast iron heater in the center. She involuntarily shivered, as she didn’t think it would keep a hut this size very warm in England’s winters. As she’d walked between the beds, she’d taken note of one thing. The only place there wasn’t an excess of dust was on the floor, around the footlockers. It looked like each had been pulled away from its normal location, bar one.

“Can you tell me whose bed this is?” Penny asked, as she came to stand next to the anomaly.

“First Lieutenant George Adair.”

Both Penny and Jim turned at the unexpected voice, though neither needed to look to see who had spoken.

His hat askew, Clark Gable strolled into the room. “Sir,” he saluted the adjutant, who nodded back.

Doing her best not to be distracted from her task, Penny knelt down to take a closer look.

“There’s something about George you should know,” Jim began, but Penny waved him to silence, not wishing to be put off. It wouldn’t do to voice her suspicions without any evidence. As she did, she was aware the film star had knelt down beside her.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

Not quite knowing how she was going to explain this to Tom, let alone her friends, even if she was right, Penny pointed to the floor and the dust. Or in this case, the excess of dust compared to the corresponding location at every other bed. “It’s just a hunch, but when everyone was searching for your bloody handkerchief, who searched this hut?”

If he was annoyed or amused even by her colorful description of his prized possession, Gable didn’t let on. “George did. He even volunteered. Insisted we all watch whilst he searched everywhere in this dump.”

Penny canted her head to look at him, nearly losing her train of thought as she hadn’t realized he was so close. “Ahem,” she coughed. “And he did search everywhere?”

“Everywhere,” Gable confirmed.

“Under every footlocker?”

“Every one.”

“Even his own?” Penny asked, firing an eyebrow at her illustrious companion.

Clark Gable opened his mouth and was halfway through a nod when he stopped.

Penny noticed. “Thought not. Can you give me a hand? Let’s put this onto his bed.”

Jim insisted upon taking the other end of the trunk. To be certain, Penny opened the footlocker and, carefully, took out each item and laid it on the bed. There wasn’t much—letters, a couple of baseballs and a catching mitt, an issue of Stars and Stripes, and a few cheesy-looking Western pulp novels. No handkerchief. However, a scrapbook was taped to the inside lid, difficult to see unless you had a suspicious mind.

Feeling a little like a peeping Tom, Penny opened it to the first page, finding there exactly what she’d expected…and feared. Slowly, she turned over each page. Each was the same, yet slightly different. They were all filled with newspaper articles and pictures, carefully cut out and stuck down with loving care. Each was of and about Clark Gable.

If anything, Jim looked more startled than Clark. No doubt the film star had come across obsession before. Penny wasn’t finished yet, though. Taking a deep breath, as she was about to be proved either a genius or a fool, she turned the wooden box upside down.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” Jim Fredericks exclaimed.

“Don’t be, just yet,” Penny told him, reaching for the plain brown envelope stuck to the bottom of the footlocker. Not troubling to ask either man, she slit it open and out onto the jumbled bed fell a handkerchief.

Feeling like she was some private eye in a cheap B-movie, Penny couldn’t resist asking, “Do you recognize this, Mr. Gable?”

Holding it up, he turned it back and forth and then folded his precious autographed handkerchief before putting it away safely in an inside pocket.

“I don’t know how to thank you. I’d like to know who I should thank, though?”

“Penny Alsop,” she told him, holding out her hand.

When she turned to Jim Fredericks, who stood shaking his head back and forth, he asked, “How did you know? I mean, apart from looking in his trunk, we’ve literally turned the base on its ass…oh, sorry, ma’am.’

Penny waved his apology away and picked up the scrapbook. “You saw this?” The Americans nodded. “Did either of you notice the initials carved below his name on the trunk?” she asked. When neither answered, she turned the trunk back over and closed the lid. There, carved so faintly they were hard to make out, were the two initials, CG.

“You saw them? When you were standing up?” Clark Gable asked, disbelief in his voice.

Penny shook her head. “It was a hunch,” she admitted and then went on to explain. “I’ve a very good memory for names, if not faces, and I distinctly recall hearing someone called George amongst the group which was always around you at the dance, Mr. Gable. Whenever I looked, there he was, never appearing to say anything, but his eyes always seemed to be on you. You probably didn’t notice, or perhaps didn’t want to, but I’ve been around men of a certain…persuasion. Together with the dust, when you lifted the trunk, I had a quick look at the initials, and it seemed like too much of a coincidence after you’d said whose bed it was. A friend of mine told me he did the same thing when he was at school and had a crush.”

“Would you have thought of that, Clark?” Jim Fredericks asked.

He got a shake of the head in reply. “Sure wouldn’t.”

“What are you going to do about the thief?” Penny enquired.

She couldn’t miss the look they shared.

Not really sure she wanted to know, Penny nevertheless had to ask, “Is there something I’m not aware of?”

Jim nodded permission for Clark Gable to be the one to tell her. The film star looked like he aged five years in a few seconds as he informed a horrified Penny, “George was killed on a mission yesterday. The B17 he was in was hit by flak. Nobody managed to bail out. I was coming in to pack up his things so they could be sent to his folks.”

****

Lost in thought, Penny’s legs were taking her automatically toward home when she nearly knocked Shirley over as the younger woman appeared from around the corner.

“Oops. Sorry, Shirley, I didn’t see you there.”

“No problem,” her mechanic friend assured her. Reaching out, she took Penny’s overnight bag from her unprotesting hand. “Come on, Jane lent me her Jeep to pick you up.”

A combination of the long, virtually sleepless couple of days, together with finding out about the death of an airman she’d never known, had combined to hit her hard. She allowed Shirley to lead her toward the Jeep.

“She’s been too good to me,” Penny thought she heard her voice saying. “I’ll have to say thanks to her.”

Shirley gunned the Jeep into life. “She also told me you are to take the rest of the day off. Eat something and then get some sleep. She’ll see you in work as normal tomorrow.”

Taking her seat, Penny automatically started stroking Bobby as Shirley, considerably more carefully than the Jeep’s owner would, drove her home.

“Sounds like a good idea, Mr. Gable,” she mumbled, surprising Shirley, before somehow dropping off to sleep.