3
HMT Queen Elizabeth
Greenock, Scotland
Wednesday, December 1, 1943
Violet closed her suitcase and patted her overcoat pocket to make sure Elsa was safe.
In their stateroom, Kitty and Jo and Winnie chattered. “Scotland! I hope we see men in kilts.” “Do you think we’ll meet the king?” “The air raids are over, aren’t they?” “I brought Pride and Prejudice. Imagine reading Jane Austen in England.”
Violet kept her face toward the bunk, put her helmet over her Red Cross cap, and blinked away the moisture in her eyes.
“You’re quiet, Violet,” Jo said.
“Making sure I packed everything.” She was supposed to be excited, not homesick. This was what she’d worked for, the closest she could get to being a missionary with the war on.
If only Dennis Reeves hadn’t abandoned the dream of missions that had led to their engagement. Then they would have been serving abroad well before the United States entered the war. As Adler had said, “Boys destroy.”
A rap on the open stateroom door. “Ready, ladies?”
Kitty pulled her helmet over her brown curls and saluted the Red Cross chaperone. “Yes, sir! Mr. Porter, sir! Private Kelly reporting for duty, sir.”
Long-suffering Mr. Porter shook his gray head. “The Nazis are quaking in fear.”
Even Violet laughed.
“Come along, ladies.” Mr. Porter motioned them into the passageway.
Violet slung her purse and musette bag and gas mask across her chest and picked up her suitcase. She peeked under the bunks, but nothing had been left behind.
In the passageway two dozen Red Cross volunteers tramped along, looking for all the world like GIs, if not for skirts, curls, and lipstick.
Violet stroked the polished wood paneling as she walked. Her brother Karl would love to get his woodworking tools on bird’s-eye maple like this.
Her throat swelled. Maybe she should follow Adler’s advice—if it hurts, don’t think about it. But why would she want to stop thinking about the people she loved?
Someone bumped her and apologized, and Violet said, “That’s all right.” And it was. She’d be all right.
The throng of officers and Red Cross girls climbed the broad elegant staircase in the middle of the ship. The ladies had been billeted on the deck that would have housed first-class passengers in peacetime.
She scanned for Adler once again. She hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving. Hardly surprising given the quantity of troops aboard, but disappointing.
Most men stretched taller when they talked to her, stood on steps, lifted their chins. But Adler looked her straight in the eye, unfazed by her six feet of height.
And that sad air of mystery about him.
Why had he left so abruptly, ashen faced?
Violet shook herself and climbed the final steps onto the promenade deck. She’d never see him again anyway.
“Stay together, ladies.” In the crowd of GIs, Mr. Porter waved his hand overhead. “If you get separated and catch different ferries to shore, meet at the Red Cross booth on the pier.”
Violet made her way along the covered promenade deck with its banks of long painted-over windows. Cool air flowed through the opening for the gangway, relieving the stuffiness.
Mr. Porter paused at the top of the gangway. “Let this group pass so we can stay together.”
“A gal could get claustrophobic in here.” Tiny Jo looked pale, walled in by the crowd.
Violet didn’t have that problem, but she offered Jo a reassuring smile. “We’ll be on our way soon. Take deep breaths.”
From the other direction, a group of men filed onto the gangway. They wore pilot’s caps.
Violet’s gaze flew over the men. She recognized a few faces from New York, including that horrid Riggs, who was busy joking with a friend, thank goodness.
There was Adler. He had his head down and his collar up, as if he didn’t want to be seen.
“Adler,” she called.
His gaze jerked up. After a bewildering long pause, a smile twitched and he worked his way over to her. “Hi, Violet. Good to see you again.”
“Good to see you too.” Why did she feel like an awkward schoolgirl all of a sudden?
“Listen, I apologize for how I ran off the other day.” He gave her a sheepish look and adjusted the duffel bag over his shoulder.
“It’s all right. I understand.” Although she didn’t.
“Thanks.” He flashed that great grin. “You and Elsa have a good time in jolly old England, you hear?”
“We will.” She smiled, longing to wish him so much more than a good time—to pray for his healing and joy and safety and success. “I’ll be praying for you.”
“Thanks.” He tipped his cap to her. “Bye, now.”
“Good-bye.” He didn’t say he’d pray for her too. Not that she selfishly wanted his prayers, but only a hint that he might know the Lord. God, please be with that man.
“Follow me, ladies.” Mr. Porter led the way.
Violet stepped outside and had her first glimpse of a foreign country. Across the gray waters of the Firth of Clyde, heavy dark clouds pressed low over flat green hills. It was pretty in a brooding sort of way, but it wasn’t . . . home.
For the first time since she was a child, Violet felt very small.
Raydon Army Airfield, Suffolk, England
Thursday, December 2, 1943
So this would be home. Adler peered over Nick Westin’s shoulder out the back of the canvas-covered Army truck.
Through the drizzle, gray-green forms rose from the mud, hangars and huts and utility buildings.
“Notice what’s missing?” Luis Camacho said from the bench across from Adler.
Riggs leaned out the back and swore. “Where are the airplanes?”
“Airplanes for pilots?” Lt. Tony Rosario slapped his hands to his thin cheeks, making his ears stick out even more. “What’ll you want next? Guns for soldiers? Boats for sailors? You keep talking crazy like that, and they’ll lock you up.”
Adler joined the men’s laughter.
“Don’t worry, boys,” Nick said. “We’ll have planes before you know it.”
Riggs waved away Nick’s words. “Baloney. They left us here to rot in the mud.”
Adler chose the middle road between cheerleading and whining. “You know the Army Air Force. Hurry and wait. Hurry and wait.”
“Adler’s right.” Nick gave him a warm smile. “While we wait, we’ll have plenty to do.”
Camacho chuckled. “Leave it to Saint Nick to find that silver lining.”
The nickname had sprung from Nick’s easy way of talking about God.
Adler’s grip tightened around the duffel bag between his knees. Violet talked that way too. So did Mama and Daddy. So did Oralee and Wyatt and Clay.
Clay.
His chest tightened. After he’d seen his brother on the Queen Elizabeth, Adler had stayed in his stateroom except for meals in the officers’ mess.
When Adler fled Texas in June 1941, Wyatt had just graduated from college to take his place in Paxton Trucking, freeing Clay to start college. After Pearl Harbor, the universities had converted to three-year programs, so Clay should have been about done with his bachelor’s degree, ready for medical school. The US desperately needed physicians, so medical students were deferred from the draft.
How on earth had Clay Paxton ended up in an Army uniform on a troopship? And how far was he stationed from Raydon Army Airfield?
A bump in the road jolted Adler. No way of finding the answer, so no use pondering.
The truck stopped in front of a Nissen hut. The building looked as if a giant had pressed a tin can sideways into the mud with only half showing.
Adler hopped out and shielded his eyes from the cold mist. He’d lived in better places, but he’d also lived in worse.
The pilots stepped through a door in the brick end of the tin can, lugging their duffel bags. Cots ran down both sides of the hut, and two coal-burning stoves sat in the aisle.
Nick threw his gear on the cot at the far end, farthest from the stove, and Adler took the one next to it.
Rosario pressed his cap over his heart and sang “Home, Sweet Home” in a warbling falsetto.
The last place Adler wanted to think about, but Rosie’s antics kept the men laughing.
Adler hung up his overcoat on a long rack that ran above the cots and set his cap on the rack. Then he unpacked his uniforms and underwear, and stacked his books on a wooden crate beside his cot—well-worn Zane Grey novels he’d bought in a secondhand store in Los Angeles.
Next to the books, Nick set out framed photographs.
Adler picked one up. Nick and a pretty light-haired woman on their wedding day. “Can’t believe you found a woman willing to put up with you.”
“Neither can I.” Nick handed him another photo. “Here’s Peggy with little Gail.”
“Beautiful.” The baby sat on her mother’s lap, one plump hand stretching for the camera as if waving at Daddy.
If Oralee had lived, they’d have been married by now, might have had a baby.
“Do you have any photos?” Nick asked.
“No.” Adler set down the frames. “I told you I’m estranged from my family.”
Nick sat on the cot. “Your former fiancée?”
Adler stuffed his empty duffel under his cot. “Her picture’s in my wallet.”
He’d escaped that night with his wallet in his trousers and the scrap from Oralee’s dress in his shirt pocket. And he’d barely had time to fetch his trousers and shirt.
Pain ripped through him. He would not think of that.
“Want to hear my theory?” Riggs rummaged inside his duffel. “Paxton’s a wanted criminal. No mementoes, no pictures, no mail.”
“Better watch your back.” Adler cocked one finger at him like a gunslinger and dropped an exaggerated wink.
Theo Christopher jumped in front of Adler and planted his fists on his hips. “I’ll protect you, Riggs. I’m your wingman.”
Adler patted the kid on the shoulder. “We’ll all sleep better.”
Riggs kissed a stack of envelopes. “I get letters from dozens of dames.”
“Good thing you’ve got so many women,” Adler said. “Once they get to know you, they scram.”
Riggs laughed. “Shows what you know. Then we’ve got Baby-Face Theo. Bet he’s never even kissed a girl.”
Theo whirled around. “That’s a lie. I kissed a girl once.”
The men all roared with laughter.
Adler grinned and reclined on his lumpy cot. Thank goodness for the joking. The boys had dug too deep, too close.
When he’d talked to Violet, he should have stopped after he told her Oralee had died. Why had he let more details escape? Every detail poked a hole in his shell, begging more details to follow.
That would destroy him.