“Dan’s talking about an ambulance, Rafe.” Alan tried not to smile, and failed.
Carlo stuck two fingers in his mouth and emitted a whistle that made them all cringe.
“I don’t need an ambulance.” Rafe’s protest went unheeded, and a passing ambulance was waved to a stop.
The pilots completed their post-flight procedures and dropped down through the nose hatch. Steve charged into their midst. “Martell, when I ask for a heading, I expect a prompt response. If you can’t handle emergency situations, maybe you shouldn’t be flying.”
Silence reigned. Steve’s face glowed red with anger. They’d lost the inboard engines over two hours ago. The plane had never been in dire straits once the fire was extinguished and they’d turned back. The emergency had passed. Rafe stared at him. Losing one minute in response time with their general direction didn’t warrant this censure.
Alan apparently didn’t think so either. “Chief? You mind taking a look at the nose? See all those holes? A lot of lead was flying around in the air today and each of those holes represents a chunk that flew into our compartment.” He grabbed Rafe’s briefcase and fished out the shrapnel. “When I pulled Rafe up off the floor, he was blue and this was wedged in his flak suit. But before he was even breathing easy again, he had our position.”
Amid the gunners’ expressions of awe at the size of Rafe’s shrapnel, a medic pushed into the circle. “Where were you hit, sir?”
“I’m all right.” Rafe raised a hand to his chest, and winced.
“Uh-huh.” The medic opened the ambulance’s rear door. “Would you sit right here, sir.” He didn’t ask. He ordered, and started unbuttoning Rafe’s shirt.
Rafe loathed stripping down out in the open. “No, really. I’m fine. The vest stopped the metal. I’m just bruised.”
“Sure you are. Right over your heart. Humor me.” The medic stuck his hand in the neckline of Rafe’s long underwear and pulled it down, exposing widespread vivid purple bruising that stopped Rafe’s protest in his throat.
The gunners’ excited chatter started up again.
Harold’s eyes grew to saucer-size. “That would have killed you for sure if you hadn’t been wearing the armor.”
“Say, you could pose for advertisement photos.” Herb saw dollar signs.
Rusty snorted. “Flak suit companies don’t advertise.”
“Yeah,” Mickey chimed in, “no one’s gonna come in off the street and buy a thirty-pound flak suit.”
“Gangsters might.” Dan sidled up to Rafe. “Maybe you’ll get a Purple Heart.”
“No, thanks. That one I don’t want.”
“Severe contusions like this call for a visit to the doc to ensure you have no fractures or internal bleeding.” The medic prodded him to crawl into the ambulance.
If that meant getting out of this circus, fine. Rafe glimpsed Steve’s face, and clamped his jaw before he laughed at the pilot’s dumbfounded expression. Maybe he wouldn’t hear any more about being unfit for flight.
As soon as he was ensconced in the base hospital, Major Blount poked and prodded, seeming determined to add further injury. Rafe held his breath and breathed deeply in turn.
“Lean back against the cushion and I’ll let you rest with an ice pack.” The doctor chuckled at Rafe’s sigh of relief. “At least until the group returns from the mission, you’re my only patient, so you get lots of undivided attention, Martell. Rest now. We’ll check your vitals again in a few hours. You should be back in your own hut by evening.”
#
He must have dozed. When he opened his eyes, Steve sat on the neighboring cot, watching him. He stared back. They might not be buddies, but until today, he thought they had a good working relationship. Now he waited for Steve to say he’d asked for a different navigator.
Steve cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I snapped at you in front of the men.”
Rafe’s eyes popped wide open. What about his transfer? “So, it would have been okay if they hadn’t been there?”
“No.” Steve twisted his cap in his hands. “No, I’m sorry I snapped at you. That was uncalled for.” He tossed his cap to the cot. “I know you enjoy playing with your Gee Box, but I do not expect you to know exactly where we are every minute.”
Rafe grinned. The pilot referred to Alan’s announcement during one of their first missions. Rafe’s playing with his toy so you’ll know exactly where we are every minute along the way. Even the post-mission interrogators expressed surprise at his numerous log notations.
Steve sighed. “Maybe I’m the one who can’t handle the stress. Today could have been a lot worse.”
“Yeah, that burning engine could have exploded and torn off the wing. But it didn’t. You handled it.”
Steve’s left shoulder jerked up in a shrug as he opened his mouth and closed it. He wiped his hands on the knees of his pants.
“I guess I’m jealous of your way with the crew.” The words came out in a rush.
He could have said the infirmary was on fire and not been any more surprising.
Steve continued. “Sometimes I think you should be plane commander instead of me. I don’t think they like me, especially after berating you today.”
“They think you’re stiff.”
That brought Steve’s head up from studying the floor. “Stiff? They told you that?”
“Not me. They told Jennie, my, uh, a friend on the Queen Mary.” Steve’s brow quirked at his stumble. “And she told me. They also described Cal as always disappearing and Alan as so in love with his gem of a wife Ruby. So they latched onto me. Jennie said I’m like their big brother, which is a lot nicer than comparing me with a bear.”
Steve blinked. “A bear?”
Rafe pushed away his leaking ice pack. “You heard Dan. I’m like the mother bear in the bear scouts.”
Steve laughed in a most unstiff manner. “You mean den mother in the Cub Scouts. The den mother is their leader. Dan’s right about that. They look up to you.” He stood. “Don’t get too comfortable here.”
Rafe laced his fingers behind his head as Steve left, but complaints from sore chest muscles brought his arms back down. Coming to apologize took courage. Steve was worthy of a lot of respect for that.
Given the chance, would his father apologize for turning them out? Or did he not even regret his conduct? A fresh stab of pain didn’t come from his chest wound. It came from his heart, aching for his father’s love.
Stockholm, Sweden
Saturday, April 1, 1944
Phyllis watched Jennie stroke blue paint onto her canvas. “This is a nice little studio you’ve got set up in your living room. Good lighting. What sort of work did you do in the museum?”
“Primarily special exhibits. Keeping track of what was where, how they were presented. I arranged special tours, mostly with school groups. We considered that as our war work, maintaining morale on the home front. We’d emphasize the beauty in the world and what we were fighting to save. Rather lame, but…” Jennie stopped talking as she worked on a precise curve.
“We can’t all be Rosie the Riveters.”
“Did you read Nancy Drew mysteries? I started borrowing them from my cousin when I was eleven, and loved them. Nancy could do anything, solve any mystery that came up in her father’s legal cases. I wished I was brave and bold like her.” Jennie waved her brush around the apartment. “This hardly equates, but here I am, helping out in my dad’s place of work while a terrible war rages all around. In a way, I’m sort of living out a fantasy.”
She dipped the brush in white paint and blended it with blue. “Doing something like creating fake German newspapers or falsifying coded messages has more appeal than an assembly line job, no matter how important that work may be.”
Phyllis picked up a stack of sketches and thumbed through them. “I wish I was more than a clerk, but at least I’m on the periphery of the cloak and dagger stuff. To tell you the truth, though, I have no idea what you may be called on to do. The Penetration Reports are as
deep in as I get.” She sighed. “You are so talented. I wish I could draw like you.”
Jennie blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Didn’t you tell me you can crochet? That’s your talent. I turn yarn into a knotted mess.
“Ooh la la.” Phyllis’ eyes widened. She held up one sketch, dropping the others back on the table. “He is gorgeous. Who is he?”
“Oh, uh.” Jennie swallowed hard. How had Rafe’s portrait ended up in that group? “One of the servicemen who came over on the Queen Mary. I sketched a lot of them.”
“I should have had the luck to come over on a troopship.” Phyllis sighed again. A dreamy look settled in her eyes.
Jennie pursed her lips. She needed to divert Phyllis, fast. “I also learned how to crack a safe and open sealed envelopes undetected.” She grinned. “Just in case you have need of those talents.”
Phyllis set down Rafe’s sketch. “Oh, good. If we get bored, we can go on a crime spree.”
The afternoon flew by as Phyllis entertained her with tales of life in Stockholm. “I hope we can get to Blanche’s Café next week. It’s too bad Emma, my friend from the British Legation whom I often meet there, wasn’t available this week. We’ll point out some Germans. It seems so peculiar. We’re at war with them, but here we all wander about as we please. Anyway, you have to hear Emma’s story of how she got to Stockholm three years ago. It’ll blow you away.”
#
Jennie spent Monday morning familiarizing herself with the embassy’s cryptography room and decoded a message to her supervisor’s satisfaction. A man entered the room in time to hear, “Well done.” He was impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit with a handkerchief positioned just so in his breast pocket. Dark hair flowed in waves back from his forehead. Humor danced in his eyes. Ed, the OSS bureau chief.
“Coming along, are you?” He pulled up a chair and handed her an illustrated guide to Stockholm. “Spend the afternoon acquainting yourself with the Old Town. Memorize your surroundings. Should you ever need to elude someone, you must have a route instantly in mind. Determine hiding places—shops if they’re open, churches, whatever. Don’t go into a dead end. You must be as familiar with your surroundings as you are with your neighborhood back home.”
Her pencil rolled away from her suddenly nerveless fingers. She opened her mouth, closed it, and tried again. “How dangerous is this job? I thought neutral territory didn’t carry the risk…”
“We may not be operating behind enemy lines, but the enemy is here among us. You’ve trained in psychological warfare, so we’ll utilize you with black propaganda. Any time you can do something to undermine the morale and unity of the Germans, do it. The OSS has been recruiting creative types like artists such as yourself with the idea you’ll come up with creative ways to embarrass the enemy.”
He stood and looked down at her from his lofty height. “Just remember, the Germans will try to turn the tables on you. They’d love to compromise you, embarrass the legation, get the Swedes angry with us. That’s why you need escape routes.” He slid a file across the table. “Here are lists of establishments that are favorable to Germany or are known hangouts for the Germans. Also those that support the Allies. Watch for them as you familiarize yourself with Stockholm so you know who to avoid or who may offer help. Get started this afternoon.”
If he meant to be intimidating by towering over her, he succeeded. What had she gotten herself into? All the cases studies she’d learned in training had indicated she’d help produce subversive cartoons or posters, or create forged documents. But to need an escape route? She rested her forehead on her hand. Then she shot to her feet. Time to set aside such thoughts and find Phyllis to go to lunch.
It being Monday, Phyllis’ burlap sack lay draped over a chair in case she needed it. Meanwhile, she wore a skirt in a subtle pattern of navy, orange and gold. She twisted her hair into a snood when Jennie arrived, and from her purse she pulled a scarf in colors matching her skirt. A few deft folds and twists, and the scarf draped her shoulders.
“Wow. Cinderella is ready for the ball.” At some point, Jennie would ask for pointers in the fine art of scarf tying.
Phyllis’ merry laugh rang out. “Just because I need to discourage Stanley doesn’t mean I want to scare away everyone else.” She held up the ugly skirt. “I don’t wear this outside. The consul periodically sends around memos reminding us we are guests in a foreign country. How we act or dress will determine how the Swedes perceive Americans. When you think about it, that’s a daunting responsibility. I don’t want anyone thinking badly of us because of my revulsion to Stanley.”
Whenever she said the name, she placed exaggerated emphasis on the first syllable. There might be a radio show she was imitating, but it escaped Jennie now. “Maybe all you need to do is let him know you have a man in uniform and aren’t available.”
They stepped outside into a cloud of suffocating fumes. Cut off by the Allied blockade, the Swedes had no gasoline. Ugly, three-foot high generators strapped on the backs of their vehicles burned wood or coke briquettes, the resultant gas providing power that couldn’t have gotten more than ten miles per hour. In front of the legation, a car idled while its owner emptied a sack of cubed wood into his device. Jennie and Phyllis covered their noses and hurried away.
Her eyes streaming tears, Jennie coughed. “Back home, we have sufficient gasoline, but not tires. I never gave much thought to how Sweden is affected by war despite not being a belligerent.”
“Bullets may not fly here, but it’s no utopia.”
They walked at a fast pace to avoid overextending their lunch period, and burst breathless into Blanche’s Café. A petite, auburn-haired woman waved.
“There’s Emma. And there’s the server. Good. Emma’s already ordered for us."
Emma greeted Jennie warmly, but she was not a chatterbox like Phyllis. Jennie valued Phyllis’ friendship, but two such talkative companions could be wearying.
Jennie grabbed her chance to enter the conversation when Phyllis raised her soup spoon to her mouth. “Emma, I understand you had quite an adventure getting to Sweden.”
The English woman raised her eyebrows. “How long did it take for you to arrive from, Scotland was it?”
“Under five hours.”
Emma nodded. “So you flew across Norway rather than straight over the Skagerrak between Norway and Denmark. Considering Stockholm is nine hundred miles from London, that’s not bad. It took me six months to get here.”
Jennie frowned. She must have misunderstood. “Months?”
Her new friend laughed. “I left England in December of 1940. Two routes were available at that time. One was by way of the United States and the Trans-Siberian Railway. The foreign office opted for the other way around South Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. I traveled by ship the first month.”
She interrupted herself, her eyes glittering with laughter. “Are you with me so far? A second ship traveling with us was torpedoed, and all aboard were lost. From Cape Town, South Africa, I traveled by train, then flying boat, eventually reaching Cairo, where I had passport difficulties.”
Leaning back, she interlocked her fingers and stretched them forward, laughing again. “There’s no such thing as an easy journey. I even crossed a canal in a rowboat. Getting a Russian visa was so time-consuming, I worked at our legation in Istanbul for a while. By the time my visa arrived, the Germans had broken through to the Black Sea. I had to cross Turkey to the Caspian Sea and eventually got to Russia through a barbed wire fence. I shan’t bore you with the horrendous conditions and filth and bug bites.”
She waved a hand through the air as if brushing away the memories.
Jennie glanced at Phyllis. Her colleague watched Emma with rapt attention, even though she must have heard all this before.
“I did finally reach Moscow, flew to Finland, and then on to Stockholm. And then the Germans attacked Russia. I have no plans for leaving Sweden until after the war.” Emma smiled and picked up her spoon.
>
Jennie closed her mouth and looked at Phyllis before turning back to Emma. She laid a hand on the table between them. “I am so sorry I ever complained about that cold, scary, five-hour flight.”
Phyllis nearly spit out her bite of ham roll, saving her dignity by slapping a napkin over her mouth.
Emma’s grin disappeared behind her tea cup. Then she leaned forward, her tea cup rattling into the saucer, and she touched Jennie’s hand. “That man at your one, no, two o’clock position. With the jowls and the ill-fitted suit? He’s a German and loves to eavesdrop.”
Jennie turned and looked right into the man’s eyes. He stared openly at her. Her first enemy contact. She continued sweeping her gaze around the room. No one else seemed to pay them attention.
Phyllis fluttered her hands in front of her red face. She finally got the ham bite swallowed. “He must think we’re chatterboxes with secrets to divulge.”
“Too bad we don’t have a story prepared. Something like a big meeting that’s going to take place at such and such an address that turns out to be the residence of a German official.” Jennie scooped up the last of her cabbage and cranberry salad.
“Oooh, I don’t have any German addresses memorized.”
“No matter.” Emma raised a finger to gain their server’s attention. “Plenty of opportunities will come up.” She smiled at the server. “We’ll have the baked apples with almond filling for dessert, please.”
Jennie leaned back in her chair. She pulled a small notepad from her purse and quickly sketched the man’s face. With the server’s departure, she continued in a quiet tone, “Do you know who that German is?”
Emma replied in an equally low voice. “Thought to be in finance, often spotted at Enskilda Bank, owned by the Wallenberg family. He apparently fancies himself skilled at subterfuge, but makes no effort to blend into his surroundings.” She leaned over to stare at Jennie’s sketch. “That’s amazing. I wish I had your ability.”
“We likely have his picture posted on the rogues’ board in the break room.” Phyllis turned to Emma. “It’s like Most Wanted posters of all the bad guys. Some of them are goofs though. We once posted a photo of an innocent Swedish mailman.”
No Neutral Ground: A World War II Romance (Promise for Tomorrow Book 2) Page 10
