With Love, Wherever You Are

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “Illinois.”

  Michel frowned. “Ellen Oye? I don’t know Ellen Oye.”

  “You’d love it there—well, parts of it. Many farmers and lots of room, except for Chicago.”

  Now his eyes doubled in size. He had his mother’s beautiful brown eyes. And Marie’s. “Chicago! I know Chicago!”

  “Helen was a nurse in a big hospital there,” Frank said. “She’s a wonderful nurse.”

  Helen glanced at him to see if he was mocking her. His eyes and his mouth had lost their edge.

  “Almost as wonderful a nurse as she is a wife.”

  With that, something inside of her softened. She read love in his eyes. And longing. He reached for her hand, and she met it with her own. When he moved his thumb to stroke her palm so gently, she shivered.

  Marie cleared her throat, making her presence known. She stood so quickly, her chair squealed. Michel turned to watch her storm to the kitchen. He shrugged. “Women, oui?”

  Frank broke into his dimpled smile. “Women, oui.” He tightened his grip on Helen’s hand. “Pretty amazing, aren’t they?”

  Michel’s eyes narrowed. Helen didn’t know if the word amazing baffled him, or the thought that women were.

  Finally, Madame LeBlanc ushered them into the kitchen. Michel’s two little brothers hid behind their mother and made faces at the Americans, giggling when Helen returned the favor. Marie said something to the boys, and they shuffled out of the kitchen and out of sight. There were only four chairs at the kitchen table, and Michel directed them to sit on one side, while he and Marie sat across from them.

  Helen assumed Michel’s father wasn’t home and his mother wouldn’t be eating with them. Helen’s mother would have been the same way, keeping her apron on and choosing to serve her meal rather than eat it.

  Madame bowed her head, and they all followed suit while Michel said a French blessing.

  “Something smells good,” Helen said, repeating it in French, though maybe not since whatever she’d said made Michel laugh and Marie scoff.

  When Madame stepped away from the old black stove, she was carrying two plates, fine china, the rims bearing hand-painted flowers and circled in gold. Helen tried to tell her they were the finest china she’d ever eaten from.

  “Bon appétit!” said Madame.

  The plate in front of her held two thick stalks of asparagus, the stems so long they extended over both sides of the plate. Helen had eaten asparagus before, but only the heads, the part missing from this picture. A trickle of white sauce marked the center of the stalks—definitely the origin of the lovely smell. “C’est si bon.” She inhaled the savory aroma, fearing it had cost this family several months’ worth of butter.

  Frank had already taken his first bite, and so had Marie and Michel. Frank continued to smile, but she could tell all was not well. He chewed and smiled, chewed and chewed.

  When she took her first bite, she understood. Chewing did little to dissolve the stalk in her mouth. She kept chewing, smiling idiotically, like Frank. They were still struggling with their first mouthfuls when Michel and Marie finished.

  Helen refused to quit. When Frank tried, she kicked him under the table. She asked Michel questions about Marseille to give them more time to chew. It took over an hour, but they cleaned their plates.

  Madame refused to let Helen help with the dishes, so they thanked her profusely and left the house. The wind had picked up, but the sun shone with patches of blue sky. Frank took Helen’s hand in his.

  “I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds in a boxing match,” Frank said. “And lost. Are you okay, Helen? Are we?”

  “I’m okay if you are, Frankie.” She leaned into him and felt the real Helen and Frank had replaced those other two.

  With what remained of the day, she and Frank strolled the streets and docks of Marseille. They stopped on the Cours Julien and listened to beautiful violin music coming from an open window. They bought trinkets and postcards in the square. And they took off their shoes and dipped their toes into the Mediterranean, the bluest water Helen had ever seen. That night, they made love in a way they hadn’t before, with their eyes as open as their hearts.

  When it came time to leave, they walked to their drop-off point, where they found Fritz waiting.

  On the short ride to the station, Helen sat on Frank’s lap and rested her head on his shoulder. Neither of them said much. Helen couldn’t talk around the lump in her throat.

  Fritz waited in the jeep while Frank walked her into the station. Her train was already in. “Of all times for the stupid train to be on time!” she said.

  “I know.” Frank looked as close to tears as Helen had ever seen him. “I hate the time we wasted in petty arguments and misunderstandings.”

  Guilt sprang to life in her. “You know nothing went on in Paris, right? You know I could never love anyone but you.”

  Frank took her in his arms. “I know. And you trust me too, don’t you, darling?”

  “I do.” She smiled, remembering another I do.

  “I like the way you say those words, Mrs. Daley,” he said, still holding her like he’d never let go.

  The whistle blew. The conductor called in French, urging passengers to board.

  Frank walked her to the train steps, his arm around her waist. Then he lifted her up so they were nearly eye to eye when they kissed.

  “I hate saying good-bye to you, Frankie!”

  “One day soon we won’t need to,” he said. “Until then, just remember that I’ll always love you, wherever you are.”

  Helen tried not to cry as she asked him, “When will we see each other again?” But what she was thinking was, Will we see each other again?

  The train jerked, and Helen climbed aboard while Frank jogged to keep up with her. “Don’t worry, darling!” he shouted. “We’ll see each other soon!”

  Helen ran to a window where she could watch Frank on the platform until the train pulled out of the station. She closed her eyes and tried to pray, to believe that they really would see each other again. Soon. But they both knew firsthand that anything could happen in war.

  Rennes, France

  H. E. Daley

  Dearest darling,

  I know you’re swamped with an entire unit with ptomaine poisoning, on top of the wounded you already had. Wish I were there to help.

  No more news about the Russian–Japanese deal, so it was probably a false rumor.

  Guess MacArthur is doing fairly well in the Pacific. Hope Balfour is OK with Halsey. Wish Dotty’s husband would be released. Gosh, won’t it be wonderful when we’re all home! Could we have Dotty and Boots as our first guests? And Eugene. I haven’t been able to get through to him in letters. I wish he’d write me back. Naomi says I need to turn it over to God. She’s such a good gal. She doesn’t say much about God or about her stateside husband. So when she does talk about either, I pay attention.

  With love, wherever you are,

  Tiny

  P.S. As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, my clever captain, I have enclosed the letter I received from Dotty.

  Feb. 18, 1945

  Dear Helen,

  It’s hard to realize that we haven’t met because I feel I know you well. I can tell Frank did the right thing. He sounds very happy in his letters to me.

  I haven’t heard from Boots since the card sent from his prison camp. You know that before his camp was liberated, 2,000 prisoners were sent to other camps. His parents have thought him to be in Japan the whole time, but perhaps now they are right. I know it won’t be much longer until he is free to come home. I’m praying for him day and night. Keeps me out of trouble!

  Finally heard from Jack. He says he likes Belgium, though it happens he was there for the Bulge, when the Germans pushed back with great force. He lost friends and called it a “rough trip,” which for our brother is quite an admission. Glad we didn’t know at the time.

  Thank you for sending the picture taken in Chicago. It’s very good, and for
a time I was fooled, thinking Schnapps was a real dog. I do so enjoy your letters.

  Love,

  Dotty

  BATTALION AID STATION INSIDE GERMANY

  Frank tucked Helen’s letter back into his pocket. He’d started carrying one letter with him wherever he went, which had been all over the place. How did Dotty do it? It was like she never doubted Boots, never doubted God.

  Frank had to admit that he had his share of doubts. He knew Helen had told him the truth about Paris. But what about her relationship with her colonel friend? He knew nothing had happened between them, but he couldn’t deny his feelings of jealousy. Colonel Pugh saw a lot more of Helen than he did. Frank wanted to be back in the barn hideout with his wife. He could still smell her cologne on his sleeve, or at least he imagined he could. Weeks had passed, and still he hadn’t been able to arrange another rendezvous. It wouldn’t be easy now that he’d been assigned to battalion aid. It was all he could do just to stay alive. Acting purely on adrenaline, he’d pulled a dozen soldiers, kicking and screaming, from the edge of a live battlefield. It made him think of Nurse Becky. It felt like years since she’d told him about being knocked unconscious by a patient in a field hospital.

  Their aid station was not much more than a three-sided tent—slushy-mud floor, sagging canvas roof—with room for seven cots. They could have used three times that many. Frank thought about Anderson and Lartz, still assigned to Strasbourg, where battalion aid evacuated patients stable enough to be moved. Why Major Bradford had chosen him to advance into Germany with the British outfit was still a mystery.

  Frank would never admit it to Anderson, but he was right: this was not what they’d signed up for—carrying a medical bag onto the battlefield only seconds after the cross fire that had turned dozens of soldiers into wounded, crying boys. Or worse yet, corpses. Anderson had sent word from Strasbourg that he’d been granted a seven-day leave to see his brother, who was wounded in Holland. From Lartz, Frank had received no word at all. And as far as he knew, Major Bradford hadn’t found out anything about Lartz’s mother or his brother.

  The stray snowflakes that had floated over the battlefield earlier turned back into rain as he crouched over a GI so young, so thin, his helmet made him look like he was playing soldier. Blood gushed from his left thigh, and Frank had to fight with the kid to get close enough to tie a tourniquet.

  “I won’t let you cut it off!” The kid landed a fist squarely on Frank’s jaw.

  Frank struggled to recover, throwing his shoulder up for defense while wrestling with the tourniquet. “Nobody’s going to cut off your leg, soldier.” Nobody would cut it off here, in this mud. Back in a real hospital, though . . . Frank placed the boy’s arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get out of here before the Jerries decide to come back and invite their friends.”

  He half carried, half dragged the kid back to the aid station. Cots in the battalion aid tent were so low to the ground, he had to kneel in mud beside the bed to treat his patient. In the next cot over, a British enlisted man groaned and tucked himself into the fetal position. Frank glanced at him, but there was nothing more he could do.

  “What’s the matter with him?” the kid asked, sinking into the cot so that it nearly touched ground.

  “Too much chocolate.” The soldier had reported eating a gold-wrapped chocolate bar he’d “confiscated” from a German pack. Frank knew the Jerries left behind poisoned candy for unsuspecting GIs.

  “Are you a real doctor?” the kid asked.

  “That’s what my medical license says.”

  “So what did you do wrong?”

  Frank laughed. The boy wasn’t stupid. “Long story, the moral of which is, ‘Never tease a bald colonel.’”

  That night, Frank was about to try for a couple hours’ sleep when he spotted a lone soldier standing by a barren tree a few yards out. The tip of his cigarette glowed in the dark night, and not a single star broke through the clouds. But Frank knew he was looking at Bradford.

  He walked out to join him. After a minute of silence—if you didn’t count the sporadic gunfire—Frank said, “Mind if I ask you something, Will?”

  “If it’s about your mate, Lartz, I haven’t forgotten about him, nor his mother and brother. I am working on it.”

  “That’s great. Thanks. But that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

  Bradford tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his boot. “Ask away.”

  “Why me? Why did you choose me to come along with your unit? Not saying I mind. I just wonder.”

  “You’re a good chap, Daley.”

  “Thanks. But now that you have four British doctors assigned to Strasbourg, isn’t one of them a good chap?”

  Major Bradford made the nasal sounds that served as laughter for many Brits Frank had met. “You’re American.”

  “True.”

  “That’s why I chose you, Yank. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve watched you work, and you’d have been my choice, no matter what nationality you were. You’re an ace at identifying aircraft and patching up patients.”

  The compliment took Frank by surprise. Bradford had seen him at his worst, treating burn patients back at the hospital near Pinkney, when he’d been afraid to do grafts on his own. Plus, the man wasn’t known for his praise. “Thanks. I think.”

  “Look. You’ve seen the number of Germans surrendering this week. You know how shorthanded we are since this push into Germany. I need more than your medical skills, Captain.”

  Frank hoped Will wasn’t counting on his soldier skills just because he’d been promoted. “I should warn you I’m no hero, Major.”

  “So you’ve said on numerous occasions. I believe you’ve ceded that role to your sister and brother. But there are many kinds of heroes. Not all are John Wayne.”

  “My five-foot-tall sister would make a better John Wayne than I would.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. I’ll bet the lovely Mrs. Daley considers you heroic.”

  Frank thought about one of the last letters he’d received from Helen—which had also been one of her saddest. She’d just lost a patient. “My wife says we just have to do the right thing, the next thing in front of us, the thing we can do.”

  “A wise woman. As it happens, I hope to be placing a ‘right thing’ in front of you starting tomorrow.”

  Frank braced himself.

  “We’re expecting more German soldiers to try to escape through battalion aid stations. Infiltration is at an all-time high. Some of the German officers, especially the SS, have been caught wearing dead men’s uniforms, mostly British and American. We believe some of those masquerading as Brits and Yanks have already made it through, perhaps through our own station.”

  Frank couldn’t fathom it. Could any of the wounded he’d treated have been Germans? “So what are we supposed to do? If they’re like Fritz, they can speak better English, or American, than half our troops.”

  “True. And that’s why we need more filters at the battlefield level. I was going to go over this in briefing tomorrow, but you might as well hear it now. We need to police every soldier that passes through here. We Brits are well represented, so we should be able to weed out Jerries trying to pass as members of the queen’s regiment. But you’re our only Yank, Captain Daley.”

  “If they speak English, how am I supposed to know they’re German?”

  “You’ll quiz them.”

  “You mean like, what’s the capital of North Dakota?” Frank wasn’t sure he knew the answer. Bismarck, maybe?

  “If they’re SS, which the smart ones are, they’ve been trained as spies, mate. They’ll know more about your American history and geography than you do. They may have gone to your universities.”

  “Then how am I supposed to—?”

  “Talk with them. Don’t grill them, though. Remember, they may all be Yanks. You don’t want them to think you’re suspecting them of being traitors, not after what they’ve been through. I’ll give you a heads-up if we s
uspect one. Then you try your Yankee wiles, eh?”

  For the next few days, Frank suspected every soldier who came into the battalion aid station. Most were British, but Bradford sent each American to Frank. He talked to them about high school, if they went to college, what cars their dads drove, where they went through training. He got so tired of the same questions that he had trouble focusing on the answers. It didn’t help that he worked through the night two nights in a row.

  He was treating burns on the torso of a boy from Ashland, Ohio, who said he planned on going back to Ohio State when he got home.

  “And where did you go to college?” Frank asked.

  “Huh? I just told you Ohio State.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Frank could not ask one more question. If this kid were a Nazi, Frank would eat his helmet.

  “I want to play football,” the boy said.

  “Yeah? I played in high school. But I didn’t get my growth spurt until college, so I wasn’t much good. I like baseball better anyway. You’re not a Reds fan, I hope?”

  “Nah. The Indians. My dad grew up in Cleveland.”

  “So you’re a Bob Feller fan.” Suddenly Frank was wide awake. Baseball! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Now there was something he could talk about all night. He knew trivia no German would ever know.

  It worked. For the next few days, Frank talked baseball. It seemed every American soldier loved America’s pastime. Talking about ERAs and no-hitters brought home a little closer.

  He was pulling another all-nighter when Bradford took him aside and handed him a cup of joe, black. “I think we’re the busiest we’ve ever been. I had to send Rafferty and Jones on stretcher duty. You holding up?”

  “Coffee helps.” Frank wondered if he’d ever go back to sugar and cream.

  “Good. I’m sending you a bloke with a tricky broken leg. I think we need to go ahead and set it here. Run your talk on the fellow, will you? He’s American. One of the men had a funny feeling about him. No reason. And the chap’s been wrong before. I think he suspects all Yanks.”