In Perfect Time

by Sarah Sundin

  Two shots rang out. Roger jerked, banged his head on the roof of the oven, and rubbed the sore spot.

  Enrico! Did the Nazis catch him, kill him? What about the ladies?

  He coerced his brain to think. No, the shots came from the inland side of town, not the direction the ladies were heading. But Enrico . . .

  Why, those dirty rats. Roger shoved aside the pot so he could climb out. He’d hunt them down and shoot them like the rodents they were.

  He paused at the oven door. Would he really? He’d get shot himself. And what if they were just shooting at Enrico while he ran . . . and they missed? What if those weren’t even gunshots? Then Roger would endanger himself for nothing.

  He sighed and rearranged the door and the pot. All he could do was follow the original plan. If Enrico lived, he would come for Roger when all was clear. If he didn’t come, before daylight Roger would slip out of town and into the woods.

  Then what?

  Where could he go? Back to the last village where they’d stayed? Maybe the host family would let him in, hide him, and contact the partisans somehow. Maybe the partisans could contact Captain Anselmo.

  A plan with more holes than his trousers, but the only one he had.

  He huddled in the ashy cold and prayed for Enrico. The poor kid. Youthful enthusiasm and a clever mind had gotten him into this mess. Knowing Enrico, the boy would be proud to die for a good cause and for people he cared about, proud to die a hero.

  Hero.

  Nothing but a word for a good man who was dead. Too many heroes in this stinking war. Wouldn’t be any good men left around afterward.

  Roger’s nose felt stuffy, and his eyes felt moist. Had to be from the ash. He wiped his face with his handkerchief.

  A soft creak, a thud.

  Roger tensed, slapped his damp hankie over his mouth and nose again, and readied his pistol. They came back. They’d be more thorough this time around.

  Feet shuffled, wood scraped over tile.

  He aimed his pistol at the entrance. He didn’t intend to join Enrico among the ranks of dead heroes. If he did, he’d take a Nazi or two with him.

  “Ruggero?” A quiet voice.

  Enrico! He was alive! “Enrico? That you?” He kicked aside the pot, shoved open the door, and slithered to the door. In the darkness, he could just make out a skinny silhouette.

  A flashlight shone in his eyes. “Ruggero!”

  Roger tilted his head away from the beam and crawled out of the oven. “I heard gunshots, thought you were dead.”

  “Si. Thought the same about you at first.”

  “Any idea what it was?” He brushed ash from his jacket.

  “A goat. The last goat in the village. The Tedeschi shot it out of spite.”

  “The ladies? Did they escape?”

  “They must have. That’s why the goat died. We must leave now.”

  He kicked his cramped legs. “Let me work out the kinks first.”

  “Don’t know the word kinks, but we must leave now. The Tedeschi called in the Brigate Nere. They’ll probably burn the village and shoot the civilians.”

  A hollow pit formed in Roger’s chest. “No.”

  Enrico shrugged. “They do that.”

  He clamped his hands behind his head and slammed his eyes shut. The townspeople had done nothing wrong. Only a few of them had harbored the Americans—and they’d harbored innocent women, at that. Why should hundreds of people suffer?

  “They’re running away, the whole town. We join them and escape.”

  “You can. I’d stick out too much.”

  Enrico shone the flashlight at Roger, and he laughed. “You look like old man.”

  The ash. He whisked off his service cap, shoved it inside the pot in the oven, grabbed a handful of ash and smeared it into his hair.

  “Here. Saw this when I looked for you.” Enrico dashed for the doorway and returned with a tattered coat and cap.

  “Great.” Roger tugged on the coat over his leather flight jacket. Barely fit.

  Enrico set the cap on his head. “Now you old Italian man.”

  “Si.” With his legs so stiff, he’d have no trouble doddering. “I’ll need my grandson to lean on.”

  They picked their way through the broken pottery and glass to the front door. On the main road, mothers pushed carts loaded with small children and belongings. Older children carried little ones. Elderly couples lugged sacks over their shoulders.

  Roger hesitated, his stomach twisting. For two months he’d been in hiding. He hadn’t been out among people.

  Enrico tucked Roger’s hand around his arm. “Andiamo, Nonno.”

  He lowered his head and shuffled forward. “Si, si.”

  40

  January 16, 1945

  Kay didn’t bother taking off her shoes but waded into the cold black water to the motorboat a few feet from shore. What did it matter? Her shoes were ruined, and she’d get new ones if the boat succeeded in taking them to the port of Leghorn.

  What did anything matter?

  A small wave chilled her to the knees. She stopped and peered behind her into the dark, willing Roger to come clambering down through the brush to the beach. But he wouldn’t. If he’d survived, he was trapped in enemy territory with the Nazis on his trail.

  Captain Anselmo took her elbow and guided her to the boat. “Don’t worry. I’ll search for him.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat felt as briny as the ocean. With the captain’s assistance, she climbed over the side of the boat and flopped inside.

  “Stay low.” A man whose voice she didn’t recognize put a hand on her shoulder. “Any more, Captain?”

  “No, she insisted on going last. Thanks for your help. Godspeed.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The motor revved, and the boat wheeled around and headed out to sea, bucking and rolling.

  Kay huddled on the cold floor with Mike, Pettas, and Whitaker nearby. The rest of the nurses had gone out on the first trip.

  “How far to the fishing boat?” Whitaker asked.

  “Quiet,” the sailor said. “And lie low.”

  “What if I get sick?”

  “Then you get sick.”

  Kay curled up. Puddles of seawater soaked through her trousers. She’d never been airsick, but the small craft heaved more than any airplane.

  She hugged her stomach. She didn’t care if she threw up, didn’t care if she died. The man she loved was dead, or at the very best in the greatest danger of his life.

  Why, Lord? Why? Take me too.

  And Roger had died for nothing.

  The boat jolted over a wave, and the truth jolted her mind. No, he hadn’t. He’d sacrificed himself for his friends, for the nine people now on their way to safety and freedom.

  He’d died for her sake, so she would live.

  She wiped her eyes and steeled her jaw. For his sake, in his memory, she would live.

  Leghorn, Italy

  Kay steadied herself on the narrow gangplank down to the dock. Army photographers swarmed the nurses and airmen.

  Kay ducked her head. Not only was she filthy and sloppy, but she couldn’t manage a smile.

  “That’s enough for now.” Lt. Cora Lambert shooed the photographers aside. “You can take more photos after they’ve had meals, baths, and medical exams.”

  The familiar voice and face turned up the corners of Kay’s mouth.

  Alice squealed. “Lieutenant Lambert! I’d hug you, but . . . you don’t want us to hug you.”

  The rest of the girls laughed—quick, joyous, relieved, nervous laughter.

  “Let me take a look at you.” Lambert set her hands on Mellie’s and Louise’s shoulders, closing the circle. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Well, we are a sight.” Georgie adjusted the grungy kerchief over her hair.

  A few feet away, the air crew had a more subdued talk with a fair-haired officer, most likely Major Veerman—he did bear a resemblance to the big band leader.

  Fresh gr
ief coiled around Kay’s heart. Roger had earned a recommendation, and now he’d never play drums again.

  “Come along, ladies.” Lambert waved them onward. “What would you like first? A bath or breakfast?”

  “Breakfast!” Five voices all at once, and they laughed.

  Kay didn’t, but she worked up a smile for her friends’ sake. She doubted they could keep anything down. They were accustomed to so little food, and seasickness had taken its toll.

  Army Air Force personnel ushered them into a dockside building. A long table heaped with breakfast food lay before them, and the ladies rushed in.

  “Eat slowly,” Kay said. “We haven’t had a full meal in over a week.”

  “And we haven’t had food this good in two months,” Georgie said.

  Vera hobbled to the table with a crutch the sailors had fashioned for her from a mop. “Is . . . Captain Maxwell didn’t come?”

  “Hmm?” Lambert assisted Louise onto a bench. “I asked if he wanted to, but he’s been busy this week.”

  “Oh.” Vera plopped down, and the crutch clattered to the floor.

  Kay took a seat, and her stomach clenched. She had to report them, but perhaps she’d wait until Vera had healed some.

  Lambert joined them at the table. “After you eat, we’ll fly you down to Naples. You’ll be admitted to the hospital for exams and treatment—as well as baths.”

  “When can we send telegrams to our families?” Georgie scooped a small serving of scrambled eggs onto her plate.

  “In Naples. Meanwhile, this gentleman would like to hear your story.” Lambert motioned over an officer. “May I introduce Captain Freeman with Army Air Force intelligence?”

  Kay sighed and spread butter on a piece of toast, all she felt like eating. If only the interrogation could wait. Roger Cooper would infuse every tale, and she couldn’t bear it.

  The stories poured out, disjointed and out of order, but this wouldn’t be their only interrogation.

  Kay kept quiet. Her throat refused to swallow. The bread turned to paste in her mouth. She stood and pressed her hand to her stomach. “Excuse me. Where’s the . . . I need to—”

  “Oh! Come with me.” Lieutenant Lambert took her arm and led her down a hallway. “I’m sorry, Kay. Too much food too fast.”

  She hadn’t swallowed more than one bite, but she nodded. In the refuge of the bathroom, she sat on the toilet, waiting for the meal and the stories to finish, rocking back and forth to keep the tears at bay.

  After half an hour, she went to the sink and saw herself in the mirror for the first time in weeks—the filthy thin face, the too-large eyes, the red nose. She turned on the water and scrubbed her face and hands and ragged fingernails, cool brownish water streaming down the drain. After she blotted her face dry, she only looked a bit better. The grief in her eyes couldn’t be washed away.

  Back out at the table, her friends looked at her with concern.

  She wrangled up a smile and held up her hands. “Clean.”

  “Oh!” Georgie stared at her palms. “Goodness’ sake. I haven’t washed my hands before a meal in so long, I plumb forgot. What would my mama say?”

  “May we?” Mellie raised pleading eyes to Captain Freeman.

  “Of course.”

  While the nurses headed for the washroom, Kay sat and nibbled her toast.

  Lieutenant Lambert scooted next to her. “The ladies said wonderful things about you.”

  “That’s nice.” She swallowed, and the morsel went down.

  “They say you unified them, held them together.”

  So much of that was Roger’s doing—his calm, wise strength. Oh God, please let him be alive.

  Lambert leaned one elbow on the table and studied Kay. “Awhile back, you asked me for a recommendation for the chief nurse school.”

  She gazed into Lambert’s brown eyes. “I did.”

  “Not only have you put your personal life in order, but you’ve turned into a true leader. I would be proud to recommend you.”

  Kay’s vision shimmered, and she mumbled her thanks. She’d embrace that dream and live it.

  Northern Apennines

  January 23, 1945

  Even growing up in Iowa hadn’t prepared Roger for this cold. At least in Iowa he had a toasty farmhouse. Here in the partisans’ mountain hideout, he had no such luxury.

  Roger tugged his coat tighter and pulled his knees to his chest. The partisans had built the hideout in a narrow gorge, with a ramshackle roof of boards and branches, more for concealment than shelter.

  Four partisans sat in a clump deeper inside the gorge, discussing sabotage plans in Italian and shooting Roger nasty glares for the increased German attention he’d drawn to the area.

  As if he wanted it himself. Running from the Nazis meant he could be shot, wearing civilian clothes guaranteed instant execution as a spy, but hiding out with partisans meant he could add the extra delight of torture.

  Roger scratched his beard. He’d left behind his shaving kit, Bible, and his other belongings when he helped the ladies escape. If they’d survived, all this would be worth it. Please, Lord. Let Kay be alive and safe. All of them.

  Enrico worked his way down the tunnel with a woman behind him, a nondescript-looking lady in her thirties with shoulder-length black hair. “Ruggero, this is Maria.”

  “Buongiorno, Maria.”

  “She’s a courier.” Enrico squatted beside Roger. “She knows where our friend is in Genoa.”

  “Will you go?” Roger asked her. “Tell him I’m here?”

  Maria frowned and spoke in Italian to Enrico. A spirited discussion followed with lots of head shaking and hand waving.

  “Translate,” Roger said through gritted teeth.

  Enrico sighed. “She doesn’t want to go for one man. She went once for the group, for the women, but doesn’t want to go now. Too dangerous. She says the work here is too important.”

  Roger rested his head against the rock wall. The partisans had been busy. They expected a big Allied push in March or April and were wreaking as much havoc as they could behind German lines and planning uprisings in the major cities.

  Enrico tapped Roger’s arm with the back of his hand. “I tell her you’re a pilot. You drop supplies to the partisans.”

  “I won’t fly again. They’ll interrogate me and send me home. Standard procedure when you spend time behind enemy lines.”

  “She doesn’t have to know that.”

  He fixed a firm gaze on the kid. “Yes, she does. Tell her.”

  Enrico groaned and spoke to Maria, a lot more words than Roger told him to relate. As he spoke, Maria’s eyes engaged Roger for the first time, and she leaned forward.

  “What are you saying to her?”

  Enrico waved him off and kept talking. Roger couldn’t pick up more than a handful of words, but he could translate the hand motions. Enrico was telling how they’d created a diversion and helped the nurses escape, how Roger hid in an oven, how the Nazis shot the goat.

  Maria tucked in her lips and blinked too much. “Si. I go.”

  “You’ll go?” Roger clasped her hand. “Grazie. Grazie.”

  Enrico gave Roger a smug smile. “She goes for the great war hero.”

  Oh brother. If his parents heard that, they’d die of laughter. Yet Roger smiled. No matter. Getting a message to Anselmo was his only chance.

  41

  45th General Hospital, Mostra Fairgrounds, Bagnoli, Italy

  February 2, 1945

  Flashbulbs burned Kay’s eyes. She smiled, stiff and phony, as she’d been doing for the past two weeks. She and Georgie and Mellie sat on chairs between Louise’s and Vera’s hospital beds, and Alice sat up in bed beside Vera.

  “Great. Swell. One more. And one more. Now with the two lovebirds.”

  The reporters and photographers had a reason to renew their frenzy today—Tom MacGilliver had a week’s furlough to see his wife. If only the Army had sent them someplace romantic and private for the reunio
n, but no, the Public Relations fellows wanted a spectacle.

  Tom led Mellie to the hospital aisle, and Kay took advantage of the break to rub the bright spots from her eyes.

  Major Barkley, the PR officer, grasped Mellie’s shoulders and angled her to face Tom. “Just like that. Put your arm around her, Captain.”

  “Captain.” Mellie smiled up at her husband. “I’m not used to that.”

  “Neither am I.” He put his arm around her waist.

  “Now kiss her,” Barkley said.

  While bulbs flashed, Tom grinned and complied.

  “I see my headline,” a reporter said. “MacGilliver the Lady Killiver.”

  Kay winced. Poor Tom. No matter how good he was, he never seemed to be able to break free from the reputation of his father, a notorious executed murderer.

  “All right, gentlemen.” Tom held up one hand. “That’s enough. The ladies are in the hospital for a reason. Some are sick, some recovering from surgery, and they all need rest.”

  “I quite agree.” Lieutenant Lambert opened the door and swept her hand toward the opening.

  Major Barkley, a dark-haired man in his forties, tugged down his jacket over his paunchy stomach, sniffed, and led the men out.

  Lambert closed the door behind them and groaned. “So sorry. What good does it do to have a private ward for you ladies if the vultures have access?”

  “We understand.” Mellie snuggled close to her husband.

  Kay put her chair back where it belonged, while a ward nurse assisted Alice to her bed. Louise’s pneumonia was responding to penicillin, Alice had undergone surgery on her arm, Vera wore a cast on her broken ankle, and everyone had plumped up and regained color. Georgie had finally been able to write her beloved Hutch and was waiting to hear back from him.

  Kay wanted to get out of the hospital, but the Army hemmed and hawed about the nurses’ fate. A recommendation for the chief nurse program did no good here in Italy. And she wanted to leave the peninsula more than anything. Every day she asked if anyone had heard about Roger, and every day the Army brass said they hadn’t.

  Her friends told her to hold on to hope, but each day hope felt flimsier.