“What in the world are you doing here?” Viv asked, with her hands on her hips, face flushed, and hair wrapped up in a red kerchief.
“It’s a RAF base, my dear; we just let you Americans borrow it,” Westwood said, smiling. “Come along now, we’re going to watch some of your boys coming in. I’ll explain what your job is here on the way; you won’t need that big truck of yours.”
“Yes, but why are you taking us?” Viv said, annoyance in her voice. “You’re not even American.”
“You don’t say?” Westwood said. “I’m a RAF liaison officer, which means I may pop up in unexpected places whenever I please. In this case, the American officer who was supposed to be here took a two-day leave. He went to Stratford-upon-Avon with a lovely English gal he met. So here I am.”
“Did you know it was going to be us three?” Viv said, still eyeing him with suspicion.
“Well, of course, I had no idea,” Westwood said, feigning shock at the accusation. “How could I have known that?”
We asked him to give us five minutes to grab our helmets and some candy and cigarettes to pass out.
“Pretty sure he’s lying,” I said to Viv.
“Of course he’s lying,” she said. “He’s here because I am.”
“And . . . that bothers you?” Dottie asked.
“Yes,” Viv said as she reapplied her lipstick and brushed her hair. “No. I don’t know. I’ve no interest, really.”
“Nobody would blame you for being interested,” I said. “He’s, well, he’s pretty dashing . . .”
“Don’t you fancy him?” Dottie said. “He really is the spitting image of Cary Grant. And that accent . . .”
“Oh please,” Viv said with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t come here to meet a man. I could have done that at home. I’ve been thinking lately that I may never get married. Look at my sisters—living in walk-up apartments in the North End, pregnant and fat with sniveling toddlers clinging to their legs. The only letters I’ve gotten from them? All they did was whine about their miserable lives. No thank you. I’ve got some living to do.”
“Who has some living to do?” Harry Westwood said as we walked over to the jeep. He held each of our hands and helped us climb in.
“Nobody,” said Viv, as he helped her in last, again holding her hand for a beat longer than necessary. “Explain what we’re doing again, please?”
“I’m to escort you to the field line to watch your American flyboys come in after their mission, because you really ought to see it,” Westwood said. “It’s the Thirty-Sixth Bombardment Squadron, and they’re brilliant. After they land, they’re taken straight to the interrogation room at headquarters. I’ll drive you over there. You’re supposed to help them get over their jitters, calm them down, pass out some cigarettes, sweets, coffee, and doughnuts if you’ve got them. You’ll help remind them they’re in safe territory again.”
We pulled up to the airplane hangars at the field line as the sun was starting to set. The sky was a gorgeous pink and purple, and a cool breeze was blowing. The air smelled like gasoline and grass.
Soldiers on bicycles arrived from all directions, many of them with dogs following behind. They sat together in small groups, leaning against their bikes, smoking cigarettes. Their mutts laid down at their feet.
The B-24s started to appear on the horizon, and for a moment it took my breath away.
“You okay?” Dottie said, touching my arm. We were all sitting on the hood of the jeep, watching the show.
“I am, yeah,” I said. “It’s something to see, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said with a small nod.
I could hear the men nearby as they debated whether it was one of theirs or one returning to a nearby base. And then they started to count. Some of them were murmuring under their breath; others were counting as a group, calling out the numbers as if in prayer, collectively willing all of their planes to come back safely.
“Twenty-nine so far? That was twenty-nine, right?”
“I’ve counted thirty-one . . .”
As they started to land, a crew would run over and inspect each B-24 for damage. A few of the planes came in with one motor blown up; many were shot up with flak. One of the last planes in started to drop red flares just before landing.
“That means someone is injured,” said Westwood, pointing to it. “An ambulance will be here any minute.” He kept stealing glances at Viv, but she was staring at the sky.
“Oh no,” Viv said. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
At the sight of the flares, the atmosphere grew tense, and every one of the soldiers in the field stood up, pacing, swearing, and lighting up cigarettes, waiting to learn who it was and how grave the injury.
“You can see the buzz bombs, you can hear the ack-ack, you can talk to the soldiers at the bases, but this . . . ,” Dottie said in a quiet voice.
“I know,” I whispered, gazing at the plane with the red flares landing as an ambulance came speeding past us to attend to the injured.
We watched all of these American men coming back, filthy dirty, many of them shaking uncontrollably. Their friends breathed sighs of relief at their arrival, laughing and joking as they clapped them on the shoulders. My eyes filled with tears. It was humbling, witnessing the kind of bravery that many of these guys never knew they had until they got here, thrust into these circumstances because history required it.
As Dottie had sensed, I was thinking about my own brave soldier when I watched the planes come in. I would find out what happened to him; he deserved at least that after all he had sacrificed. And so did I.
Chapter Twelve
August 4, 1944
In our first week as Clubmobile girls, we were assigned two stops per day. Even though our days were over twelve hours long, they flew by. After serving the troops, there was always more work to be done—coffee urns to be filled, tins of lard and bags of doughnut flour to be lugged, floors to be scrubbed, and Lord knows how many pots and bowls and cups we had cleaned.
Some of the officers were dismissive upon meeting us, and it was clear they questioned our value and thought we were nothing more than an unnecessary distraction for their troops. But others were warm and welcoming, and the overwhelming gratitude from the GIs at every stop more than made up for the doubters.
I sat on my bed, finishing up my paperwork for the week. On Thursday, August 3, we made 1,833 doughnuts (with the help of the British bakers) and brewed 120 gallons of coffee in our fifteen-gallon urns. I knew the exact numbers per day, because in my new job as the Cheyenne’s captain, I had to log these tedious details for the Red Cross brass. I silently cursed Dottie and Viv for volunteering me.
My hands were raw and red, a result of both hand-mixing the dough and washing dishes for so many hours. I had a couple of burns up my arms from getting splashed by doughnut grease, and my shoulders ached from the heavy lifting. As I examined my logbook, I felt my eyes grow heavy. I was falling asleep right there in my uniform.
A loud knock on our bedroom door startled me and woke me up. I told whoever it was to come in, and there was Blanche, blonde curls tucked under her Red Cross cap.
“Hello, friend,” I said, giving her a tight hug.
“You reek of doughnuts, Fi,” she said, smiling.
“Ha, so do you,” I said.
“Also, there’s a brown baby goat wandering around the sitting room downstairs. Pretty sure she just ate a book.”
“Mrs. Tibbetts loves her animals,” I said, laughing as I tidied up the paperwork on my bed. “They’ve been her only company out here for a long time, so they have the run of the place.”
“Ew,” Blanche said, making a face. “You ready to go? The girls are waiting for us downstairs. Mrs. Tibbetts is pouring rum and Cokes—excuse me, Cuba libres—but not really, because no limes to speak of around here.”
We went downstairs to join the party. Frankie and Martha gave me hugs as Mrs. Tibbetts handed me a rum and Coke in a teacup. Benny Goodman was playing on the record player, and the windows were open, letting in an evening breeze that smelled of garden flowers with a touch of manure. Blanche had been right, the brown baby goat that Mrs. Tibbetts simply called “Baby” was roaming around the house, and two skinny chickens had wandered in from the garden.
“Mrs. Tibbetts, are you coming to the dances tonight?” Frankie said, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulder. “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Tibbetts said, finally making a drink for herself, her cheeks glowing. “My dancing days are over, but I love having a house full again. It makes me miss my boys a little less.”
“I thought we were only going to one dance?” I said, frowning.
“Well, we were thinking of stopping by a GI dance first,” Martha said. “Then we can go to the officers’ dance at the golf club. One of the majors told us we need to socialize with the GIs sometimes too. They get jealous, there’s so few American girls here.”