“Okay.” Dottie sighed. “I think I can manage that without dying of embarrassment.”
We leaned out of the Cheyenne and started waving and smiling. GIs peeked out from tents and looked up from cleaning their guns or shaving over water-filled helmets, then cheered when we passed. A couple of mangy-looking dogs started chasing after us. We went by a small muddy field, where a group of men was playing a game of pickup football, shirts versus skins. Viv whistled at them, and they went crazy.
Major Bill pulled his jeep up to the electrical hookup, and we parked right next to him. There were already men swarming the Clubmobile, waving their canteen cups in the air. One of them climbed onto the back and walked in.
“Hey, can I help?” the GI said. “I helped the last Clubmobile girls that were here.”
“Sure,” Viv said, handing him a tin of cream to open and stir into the coffee urn. “What’s your name, soldier? Where you from?”
“I’m Private Edward Landon from Mesa, Arizona.” He was a stocky, blond-haired boy who couldn’t have been older than eighteen.
“Can you help us make some doughnuts for the next stop?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said with a huge smile, so thrilled that we had taken him up on his offer. “I learned how with the Daniel Boone crew, before they left for France.”
Viv turned on the Victrola and started blasting “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers over the speakers, and the soldiers cheered in delight. Dottie and I were on doughnut duty, handing out two apiece, while Viv and our new friend Edward started filling coffee cups. There had to be over a hundred soldiers surrounding the Cheyenne. Each conversation started out the same: “Hey, soldier, where you from?”
“I’m from Queens, New York,” said a blue-eyed, black-haired soldier named Patrick Halloran, “but my buddy Tommy Doyle is from Boston. Hey, Tommy! Come over here, these girls are from Boston.”
“No way. What part?” Tommy said, running over, an urgency in his voice. He looked more Italian than Irish. He had an olive complexion and deep-set brown eyes, a dimple in his right cheek.
“Charlestown,” I said, smiling and handing him two doughnuts. “You?”
“Southie,” he said. “You look like you’re around my sister’s age. Her name is Bridget Doyle.”
“Hmm,” Viv said. “Don’t think I know her, but if she’s as pretty as you are handsome, I bet she’s popular.”
This brought a roar from the crowd, and Tommy blushed, shaking his head.
“Come on in, Boston Tommy, and help us get these huge cans of lard off the floor,” Viv said with a wink.
“Sure!” Tommy said.
Tommy rushed inside, pushing past another young soldier that I hadn’t noticed. He was tall, standing at the back of the truck almost hunched over, with his helmet on and his carbine strapped to his back, looking at us all shyly.
“What’s your name, hon?” I said.
“Sam. Sam Katz, I’m from Scranton, Pennsylvania,” he said. He had a pale complexion and a distinct cleft in his chin. “It’s so nice to see you gals.”
“Well, Sam from Pennsylvania, would you like to help us pick some records for the record player, maybe pass out some candy?” I asked him.
“I sure would,” he said, his face lighting up as he took off his helmet, revealing dirty-blond hair. “I’ll help you gals with anything. Hey, a cat! What’s your name, kitty?”
“That’s Vera Lynn,” I said. She was curled up on top of the record cabinet.
“You can put your gun down; I promise you don’t need it to play records,” I said, teasing.
His face got very serious, and he gripped the carbine on his back. “I . . . since our last, I’ve got to have it with me,” he said, stuttering. “I, I know we’re in safer territory, but . . . if you don’t want me in here with it . . .”
“No, no, it’s perfectly fine, really,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “Whatever you need to do, it’s fine. How about putting on some Glenn Miller?”
I felt him relax as he let out a deep breath and nodded. Vera jumped down and rubbed up against him, and the two of them started going through our limited record collection.
After he was done with that, I handed him some gum, boxes of cigarettes, and packs of Life Savers and told him to pass them out to everyone waiting in line. I put another young GI in charge of the “guestbook,” the state registry where GIs could sign their name and where they were from, so when we visited other units, soldiers could look through for friends from home.
This happy chaos went on for three hours as Tommy and Patrick helped us keep the six-and-a-half-gallon coffee urns full. When the doughnut machine was finally heated up, Edward from Mesa assisted us in mixing the eighteen pounds of doughnut flour with ten pounds of water. Our helpers were eager but not neat—the coffee, flour, water, and grease splashed all over our tiny kitchen, making a gooey mess, mucking up the floor and dripping down the cabinets, and soon everything stank of fried doughnuts. The boys loved the smell, but Viv, Dottie, and I were nauseated by it.
“Eau du Doughnut,” Viv said as we finished making over five hundred doughnuts for the next stop. “I’ll never get this smell out of my clothes.”
“Got to leave at half past,” Jimmy announced from the front seat at three o’clock.
“Okay, I think we’re almost done here,” I said. “Dottie, one song?”
Dottie looked at her guitar resting against the doughnut racks.
“You play?” Tommy asked. “Please play a song. The guys will go crazy.” He held his hands in prayer and was about to get down on his knees.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, all right,” Dottie said, grabbing her guitar.
We turned off the music and the crowd started to boo. Viv put her hand to her mouth and whistled for quiet. One of the GIs cupped his hands and said, “Anything for you, gorgeous!”
“We’ve got a treat for you all before we go,” Viv said. “Dottie Sousa is a fantastic musician, and she’s going to play a song on her guitar for you.” Dottie put her guitar strap over her shoulder and stepped up to the window next to Viv, and everyone started clapping.
I stood next to her on the other side.
“I’m not going to sing,” she whispered to me through gritted teeth.
“You don’t have to sing,” I said. “Just play one song.”
“What song?” she asked, looking at the two of us in a panic.
“‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,’” a GI called out. Other soldiers echoed this request.
“There you go,” I said. “You know that one.”
Dottie closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Oh, hell, Dottie, just play,” Viv urged.
Her hands were shaking as she strummed the first notes of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” and the soldiers started clapping. And then, a whole bunch of them started to sing.
The three of us looked at each other, surprised at the spontaneous sing-along. It was amazing to hear all these soldiers, in a dusty field in the English countryside, singing an Andrews Sisters song at the top of their lungs with pure joy. And the more they sang, the more comfortable Dottie became. The three of us, and even Jimmy, started singing.
The crowd clapped in delight when the song was finished, and the soldiers begged for more, but it was time for us to go. We waved good-bye to our new friends and promised to come back soon.
“Look at my hands,” Viv said, clicking her tongue. Once again all the nail polish had worn off, and they looked raw and red from mixing the dough.
“I’m proud of you, Dottie,” I said as we cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. “I know that wasn’t easy for you.”
“Me too,” said Viv.
“Thanks,” Dottie said. “I was terrified. But I felt better as I went along. All those soldiers singing was something to see.”
“Why don’t you sing and play for them next time?” I said. “I know you do it at school. I want to hear a solo; don’t you, Viv?”
“No,” Dottie said, shaking her head. “I can barely do that in front of my students.”
“Before I forget, we were invited to an officers’ dance on Friday night by Major Bill,” Viv said. With a shrug, she added, “Might be fun. And maybe we can get Martha, Blanche, and Frankie to come.”
We talked more about the day, exhilarated and relieved that we hadn’t completely failed on our very first Clubmobile assignment. Viv dozed off on my shoulder. I felt myself nodding off too, when Jimmy announced we were at our next stop.
It was past five o’clock when we arrived at the base the US Army Air Force shared with the British RAF. We pulled up expecting an American officer to be waiting to greet us. Instead, we were greeted by Harry Westwood.
“You’re coming in the jeep with me,” he said, as the three of us looked at him with skepticism. I could tell Jimmy was more than happy to drop us and search for some whiskey, but even he hesitated.