As he turned away, Luke said, “Bailey, stop by my office.”
“Okay.” Why did Luke want to see him? Whatever the reason, it would probably not be pleasant.
After Luke walked over to another table, the crewmen ate in a strained silence that was finally broken by O’Reilly. “Squadron lead,” he said thoughtfully. “That means we’d get a room of our own.”
“Maybe Garvey’s,” Cossel added. “He only has a couple more missions to go.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Fox said happily. “I could line up a live-in maid.”
“Screw the maid,” O’Reilly said. “We could fix it up with a pantry. Cossel, why don’t you see if you can make some kind of a deal with Garvey for their hot plate?”
“Okay. I think I can scrounge a toaster too. But you guys’ll have to chip in with the shillings.”
Schultz kept his head bent low over his plate, eating silently and eating fast. From now on, he was an outsider.
O’Reilly stood up, brushing crumbs from his jacket. “Well, troops. Time to get cracking for the big one.”
Hal had not finished eating, but he stood up. It seemed absurdly early to begin preparing for tomorrow’s mission, but O’Reilly had to know what he was doing.
“Sit down,” Cossel said. “They won’t start for a couple of hours. O’Reilly just likes to get there early.”
“The early bird gets the best worms,” O’Reilly said.
“Get where?” Hal asked.
“The officer’s club. It’s Saturday.”
Then Hal remembered. The Saturday night party. “Oh. Do crews go to the party if they’re flying tomorrow?”
O’Reilly chuckled. “Eat, drink, and make merry. You’re only young once.”
Hal sank back to the bench. “I think I’ll pass.”
“You should go,” Schultz said. “When you start flying missions, you’ll be too tired.”
“It never stopped Fox and O’Reilly,” a voice from down the table said.
“Are you kidding,” Fox said. “We get to bed earlier than anybody in the friggin’ group.”
“And never the same bed twice.”
“Well, shit,” O’Reilly growled. “If you guys had any patriotism, you’d be in there helping Fox and me.”
“Patriotism. You call making every woman in England patriotism?”
“Sure. If we all do our duty, the next war all we’ll have to do is send over the uniforms.”
Everyone within earshot laughed.
“War is surely hell,” O’Reilly said with a grin.
“Are you going?” Hal asked Cossel.
“Sure. You should go. It’s a good chance to meet everybody.”
“I’m not sure I want that.”
O’Reilly looked at Hal, his eyes no longer lazy. But it was Schultz who said. “Go ahead. You might meet the girl of your dreams.”
“Not bloody likely,” Fox said. “They’ve really been getting some dogs.”
“Where do they come from?”
“Northampton, mostly. They even queue up for the buses.”
“Queue up?”
“Sure. Almost every base around here has a Saturday night party, and they all send buses into the big cities for the women.”
“English broads really like parties,” O’Reilly said. “One week they’ll hit one base, and the next they hit another. Some of them work their way clear around. ‘Course, if they get to liking a guy at one base, they just keep going back there.”
Schultz said, “Fox’s got about a dozen regulars fighting each other for the bus to Thorpewood.”
“Yeah,” someone said. “But how many of them are commandos?”
At the mention of commandos, a picture of Betty Axley flashed through Hal’s mind. “Do they really come to the parties?” he asked.
“We get a few of ’em,” O’Reilly admitted. “They’re okay for the guys who can’t get anything else.”
“How do you tell? Which ones are . . . uh . . . commandos?”
“Easy,” Fox laughed. “They’re the only ones wearing new clothes.”
“And nylons,” somebody added.
Hal visualized Betty Axley’s nice clothes and shapely, nylon clad legs, and felt a bitter disgust. She might not like Americans, but she was probably making a fortune off them.
“Sometimes the American nurses come over from the hospital in Northampton,” Cossel said. “Some are real dolls.”
Someone laughed derisively. O’Reilly said, “You can forget about them unless you’re at least field grade.”
Fox said, “They’re a bunch of cold-assed broads. Those English girls, though . . . God damn! I remember a couple of weeks ago, Schultzie got hold of a tall blonde. He only came up to her knockers, but that was okay with her.”
“And with Schultz,” O’Reilly added.
“You can say that again. How about that, Schultzie? She coming back tonight?”
Schultz looked up; his face flushed. “Beats me. Anyway, I’ve got to hit the sack early. I’m not like Fox. He can stay up all night chasing women, then fly all day thinking about them.”
Fox laughed. “Damn right, Schultzie. Can you think of a better way to fly a lousy mission?”
Later, when Hal and Cossel were walking through the gathering darkness on their way to the Officers’ Club, Hal wondered whether Fox was able to sustain his erotic visions during a mission. If he could, it would be a wonderful way to hold the fear in check. But what about men who were not like Fox? How did they hold the fear at bay while waiting for the flak and the fighters to strike? He would soon find out.
CHAPTER 5
The Officers’ Club was located near headquarters, a quarter of a mile from the 615th Squadron. Three large Quonset huts had been angled together, one forming the Club, the second the ground-officers’ mess hall, and the third the flight officers mess.
Entrance to the Club was through an unlighted hallway with double doors that not only kept the winter cold out but also kept light from the Club from spilling into the night.
Inside the large Club, the curved walls had been covered with wallboard, which was liberally plastered with pinup pictures of movie stars and artwork, with those by Varga having priority. Their primary purpose was to serve as conversation pieces when talking to the English girls. Many a girl had felt duty-bound to prove she was just as well-built as Joan Blondel or Betty Grable.
The bar was built across one end of the room with a meager row of bottles stacked neatly on shelves behind it. Canadian Club was either a heavy favorite or the easiest to obtain. One or two bottles contained cognac. On the floor were cases of beer and coke and tubs of ice that had been chipped into small chunks. Corporal Weems was behind the bar, an apron tied around his waist, passing out drinks and collecting bar chits.
In one corner, an ancient Victrola blared out a scratchy rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Take The A Train.” But the bus from Northampton was late, and at the moment, the large dance area in the center of the room was deserted. Most of the forty or fifty officers in the room were clustered around two crap tables near the bar.
Hal and Cossel had just entered when they heard an engine in front. Someone shouted, “They’re here!”
Before Hal could move out of the doorway, he was swept along in the general stampede. He did not resist. He was curious about this ritual. How did the men select the girls, and vice versa? And what sort of girls would travel ten miles on a crowded bus to attend a party with a group of horny American soldiers?
Outside, Hal had to stand on tiptoes to watch the girls step from the bus. Five years of war and a wartime economy had taken its toll. The English girls looked well-fed, healthy, but their dresses and coats showed evidence of careful mending and patching. Except for one or two wearing bobby-sox, all were ba
re-legged. Most wore ankle-strap shoes with low heels giving their legs a curious unfinished look. They wore little make-up, and their faces had a fresh-scrubbed, earthy quality. Their coiffures were copied from pictures in movie magazines, with most affecting the Betty Grable upsweep or the Veronica Lake peek-a-boo. But that was where the resemblance to Grable or Lake ended.
Northampton was in the heart of Britain’s industrial district, and, with ninety percent of the men in the military, most of the girls worked in factories. And the factories of Northampton were heavy industry: tanks, automotive and aircraft components, dredges and landing craft. So, the girls of Central England were not pampered clotheshorses who looked as though they had stepped from Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. These were riveters and welders and operators of grinding machines and drop-forges.
But they were young, and they were excited. And what they lacked in natural beauty they made up for in laughing good humor. The new ones, those who were attending their first air base party, smiled shyly as they were jostled forward by their more experienced friends? The girls were quickly swept up by the American officers and escorted into the club amid shouts and squeals of laughter. Hal caught a glimpse of Fox with his arm around the waist of a buxom brunette; he was already pressing a drink into her hand.
Somebody put a recording of Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug” on the Victrola, and the dance floor was soon packed. But there were not enough girls to go around, and the men without partners straggled back to the crap tables or the bar where they stood watching warily like young lions waiting their chance for a mate?
Hal moved to one of the crap games where O’Reilly was clutching a handful of English pound notes in one hand and working the game with the other. Hal admired O’Reilly’s control. He never raised his voice, but he could be heard all around the table, making bets, covering others, quoting odds and telling the shooter which was his point and how many “come” bets he had. He always knew which players were hot and which were cold, just as he always knew exactly how much money he had out and with whom.
Hal waited until the dice got around to him, then threw a pound note on the table. O’Reilly glanced over, and when he saw who it was, he grinned tightly and covered the bet.
Hal breathed on the dice, shook them grimly, and threw snake eyes. O’Reilly gathered up the notes. “You’ve still got the dice,” he said. “I’ll cover anything you put down.”
Hal hesitated, then tossed another pound note on the table. O’Reilly shook his head. “Hey. What’s the matter? No guts?”
“For Christ sake, O’Reilly. You’re holdin’ up the game,” somebody called, and O’Reilly threw two notes on top of Hal’s.
“Two to one, he doesn’t make it,” he called. Several pound notes were slapped down on the table, and O’Reilly quickly covered them.
Hal suddenly felt ashamed. Even when he gambled, he had to stick his toe in to see if the water was cold. He covered his confusion by throwing the dice. They bounced against the far end timidly and fell into a three and a two. It took him just two more throws to lose his money.
As O’Reilly scooped in the crumpled pound notes, he said, “I hope to God you’ve got more luck than that in the air,” and the men around the table were suddenly silent.
Hal glanced at their faces and knew that this was serious. Airmen might laugh and joke about dying, but luck was something they believed in fervently, and none of them wanted to be around somebody without it.
“Looks to me like I am pretty lucky,” Hal said softly, “. . . for you.”
Somebody laughed harshly. Then the sound snapped off as everyone waited for O’Reilly’s reaction. This was between O’Reilly and Bailey. So, they waited.
O’Reilly glanced down at the pile of pound notes on the table in front of him. He chuckled. “By God, you’re right. You can play with me any time, Bailey. Only next time, bring more money.”
The tightness on the other faces eased, and the betting resumed. As the next man grabbed the dice and threw a couple of notes on the table, Hal turned to find Cossel standing close behind him.
“Want a drink?” Hal asked, and Cossel nodded. They made their way to the bar, and Corporal Weems automatically fixed two bourbon and cokes and marked them in his chit book.
Hal had never developed a taste for liquor, and he sipped his drink, trying to keep from making a face. The party had slipped into high gear. Several American nurses had joined the crowd, wearing their officers’ dress uniforms, their legs clad in nylons, and their hair sleek. The English girls looked shabby by contrast.
The men, however, seemed to prefer the gay, laughing English girls to the more reserved female officers. The nurses danced mostly with the upper-echelon officers: captains and majors.
But Hal wasn’t thinking about the party. “Don’t they have missions on Sunday?” he asked Cossel.
“Sure. They don’t stop the war for church service.”
“But . . . when do they sleep?”
“There are some things more important than sleep.”
Cossel noticed Schultz standing alone near the bar, and he excused himself and moved to join the bombardier, and Hal turned his attention back to the party. The dancers were whirling and leaping as they jitterbugged to the pounding beat of the music, the girl’s skirts twirling up nicely. In a far corner, a tall 1st lieutenant had a blonde English girl pinned against a wall and was thrusting at her with his hips while he kissed her, one hand down the front of her dress and the other locked around her waist.
Across the dance floor near the bar, Colonel Sutton was talking to two girls. One was a blonde nurse, a 1st lieutenant, who had the striking beauty of a Nordic princess. The other was Betty Axley. She was wearing the same tailored skirt, blouse, and jacket as she had earlier, and she looked—the English expression leaped to his mind—‘smashing.’ The colonel said something to the nurse, and he and Betty Axley moved away. Left alone, the nurse threaded her way around the dancers toward an empty table near Hal. Even in high heels, she moved with the grace of a dancer. She avoided a few reaching arms with a poised smile, elegance cloaking her like a shield.
Hal knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. She was slender yet with the ripe contours of a bathing suit model. Her ash-blonde hair was worn in a long page-boy that brushed her shoulders. She had high cheekbones and widely spaced, clear blue eyes with dark eyebrows and lashes. Her cheeks had a slight hollow which pulled the focus of her face toward her full lips, almost as though she were born for kissing. But Hal had seen girls like that before, and kissing was usually the last thing they had on their minds. She was one of those very well-bred Americans fresh out of an expensive university with a head full of knowledge and boundless self-confidence. She would be a natural as a homecoming queen, but she wasn’t right for this time and place where airmen and factory girls were trying hard to forget what was waiting for them tomorrow.
As though to prove him right, the girl smiled—a superior, amused smile—her gaze on Fox, who was dancing with his eyes closed, both arms around his girl, holding her plastered against his muscular body.
Hal resented her attitude. She should be damn glad there were girls around like that one, offering themselves as an anodyne for war-torn nerves.
She must have sensed his intent gaze—and his displeasure—because her body stiffened. She turned her head and looked directly at him, and he quickly looked away.
But she had seen his look, and when his gaze was drawn to her again, she was studying him, her perfect features expressionless as though she was willing him out of existence.
Hal’s anger deepened. But he realized it wasn’t because of her supercilious attitude; it was because she reminded him of another place, another life, she reminded him of Susan. It had taken a long time to cleans his mind of Susan McGinnis. Now this girl, with her scrubbed beauty and her queen-of-the-prom attitude, had ripped open
the old wound. Susan had thought she could have any man she wanted, for as long as she wanted. This one probably thought so too. He had proved to Susan that she could be wrong. For once in her life, she could be wrong. Who the hell needed her? And who needed this egotistical broad?
He saw her gaze swing toward him again. Why? Why was she looking at him when the room was full of men? And who were a hell of a lot better looking.
He resisted an impulse to ask her to dance. Why would she want to dance with him anyway? With her looks, she could take her pick of the good dancers. Besides, she had probably heard every line ever invented. She undoubtedly had a thousand ways of putting a guy down. So why was she staring at him? What the hell!
He walked over to her. “Uh . . . I don’t suppose you’d like to dance?” An unexpected harshness in his voice irritated him, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Would you?”
She smiled as though she had just won a bet with herself. “Thank you. But I’m waiting for someone.”
Hal noted with grim satisfaction that he had been right on two counts: her voice had been shaped at an Eastern university, and she wanted nothing to do with him.
“Oh, sorry.” He felt his face redden as he turned away, hating himself for being a fool. Again. He had been able to walk away from Susan McGinnis, but, in the end, he hadn’t learned a damn thing. He was still living in a fantasy world, still clutching at impossible dreams.
“Are you stationed here on the base?”
The warmth in her voice startled Hal, and he turned back, irritated by a sense of pleasure that washed over him. What was it? Hope? God, why did men have to live on hope like idiots?
She was still smiling, but the expression on her face had changed from a look of amusement to one of friendly interest.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m in the six fifteenth.”
“Oh. With Major Bailey?”
“Yes. You know the major?”
Her gaze and her smile slid away. “Oh, yes. I know him.”
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