“If he survived Holland?” I said, thinking about the captain’s words and feeling sick all over again. “I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. I still love Danny with all my heart. But then the war happened, and he went missing, and here I am now, in this place, where I care about Peter too. And what do I do with that? What do I do if I see him again?”
“Here’s what I think you should do, Fi,” Viv said, sitting up and looking at me, her face serious. “Stop thinking so damn much. Stop trying to control what you can’t. This life over here is a world all its own. None of us knows what the hell is going to happen in the next hour, never mind months from now. Focus on one day at a time. And if one of these days you happen to reunite with Peter? Simply enjoy that day for what it is.”
We were all quiet for a moment as we sipped red wine, and I thought about Viv’s words. The truth was that living for the moment had occurred to me too. It was impossible to plan for anything or anyone when your future could be shot out of the sky tomorrow.
“You’re right,” I said. “But you both know how much I like to plan.”
“No, really? You?” Dottie and Viv almost said these things in unison, full of so much sarcasm that I kicked both of their feet across our bedrolls.
“All right, point taken.” I sighed.
After we stopped talking and settled down to sleep, I stayed up for a long time watching the horrible, fascinating flashes of shell fire in the distance against the black sky. It was still hard to believe I was camping on a beach in France in the middle of the war.
I thought about my last days with Danny and kissing him on our checkered blanket on Bunker Hill. And I thought about the feel of Peter’s lips on my forehead before he left for Holland. Viv was right: living in the midst of war was its own reality. And all of us that were living in it longed for intimacy and connection, however fleeting, because it reminded us of what mattered most.
Chapter Nineteen
September 25, 1944
After a fitful sleep, we woke up caked in more “Normandy dust,” as the soldiers called it, and I was desperate to get to Cherbourg so we could take a real shower at the Red Cross Club Victoire.
We followed Liz’s jeep in a convoy and made the thirty-mile trek to the newly liberated city. England had barely prepared us for the devastation of the battle-scarred Normandy countryside. And though Jimmy had tried to teach me well, my just passable driving skills were not quite up to the task of navigating the near-demolished roads.
There were enormous bomb craters everywhere. Sheep, cows, and horses lay dead, pushed off to the side of the road or in pastures. Hundreds of flies buzzed around them, and the stench made you cover your face as you passed. There were trees that had fallen in the road as well as others with sheared limbs dangling dangerously above us. We saw newly erected signs in English with notices such as “Mines Cleared to Hedges.” One sprawling field was littered with the helmets of German soldiers that had been taken prisoner by the Allies.
The road was also congested with heavy traffic going in both directions. Allied army vehicles of every type, including large convoys like ours, shared the road with haggard French villagers that were finally returning to their homes, many of them with only a baby carriage or cart full of their possessions.
But amid all this devastation, there was also a feeling of goodwill and genuine happiness among the Allied soldiers and the French. Now that Paris was liberated and the D-Day invasion successful, it felt like everyone was exhaling for the first time since the war started. There was a palpable degree of hope in the air.
As we drove, our Clubmobiles were greeted with whistles and whoops from the hundreds of soldiers we passed. Some were walking, weighted down by their battle gear, their faces streaked with dirt under mud-crusted helmets. When they spotted us, they broke out into smiles and shouted familiar questions like, “What state are you girls from?”
French men, women, and children stood in front of their destroyed homes and still managed to smile and wave at us as they watched us go by. Some gave us the V for victory sign, and we heard yells of “Vive la France!”
One little dark-haired girl in a tattered pale-blue dress came running up to the Cheyenne to toss us a bouquet of pink roses. Hers would be the first of several baskets and bouquets of flowers we would receive along the way, and we decorated the Clubmobile with them inside and out.
Halfway to Cherbourg, we reached the town of Valognes, which was decimated to the point that it was no longer a town at all. There were gigantic heaps of rubble where buildings had once stood. Any structures that were still standing had been hollowed out, some stripped down to their frames, a phantom of what they used to be. A couple of buildings resembled oversized dollhouses, the facade blown off, but the broken stairs and shattered, furnished rooms inside fully visible.
“That was the longest thirty-mile drive I’ve ever taken,” Viv said as we finally arrived outside the city of Cherbourg hours later. Liz was parked on the side of the road near the entrance to the city. She waved us down.
“Park here. I’ll drive you to the club in the jeep like I did the other two groups,” she said. “Some of the streets are too narrow to maneuver the big vehicles through.”
Dottie had fallen asleep with her head against the door of the truck, Barbara softly snoring in her lap. Viv elbowed her awake.
“My arm aches from waving at people so much,” Dottie said stretching, much to Barbara’s annoyance. She put her hand to her head and added, “Oh, and my hair feels awful, so stiff, like it’s plastered with dust.”
“Uh, yeah, it is, and it looks disgusting,” Viv said. “As does mine. But Fiona, I think yours might be the worst.”
“Hey thanks, Viv,” I said. “Pray the showers at the club are working.”
The city of Cherbourg also had areas that were destroyed, though some streets had fared better than others. On the less damaged passageways there were beautiful, unscathed gray stone buildings with chocolate-brown storefront signs advertising various patisseries, boulangeries, and boucheries. I finally felt the first thrills of being in France, a place I had only dreamed about visiting. We had made it at last.
The enormous American flag in front of Club Victoire made it easy to spot. Liz dropped us at the door, and we were greeted by the club director, Marion Hill, and her staff. They were dressed in fresh uniforms and white shirts, which made me feel even worse about how grimy we were.
Marion led us into a large lounge where a number of soldiers and Red Cross personnel were having coffee, sodas, and cigarettes. The walls were freshly painted battleship gray and decorated with numerous army division emblems and American flags.
“Holy cow! Is that who I think it is under all that dirt?” Then I heard someone scream my name before we were tackled by Blanche, Martha, and Frankie. The six of us hugged and laughed, and Dottie and Martha shed some joyful tears. A few of the soldiers started clapping for us, enjoying our reunion scene.
“Viv, how’s that manicure holding up now?” Frankie said, laughing.
Viv held up her short, polish-free, chipped fingernails and smirked. “You’re hilarious, Frankie.”
“Follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight as well as where the showers, toiletries, and towels are upstairs,” the club director said. “No hot water, but at this point, I’m sure you just want to be clean. Oh, and I have some fresh white shirts you’re welcome to have if they fit you.”
We told our friends we’d be right back and went to scrub up, wash our hair, and feel human again.
When we emerged downstairs an hour later, Martha, Frankie, and Blanche applauded as we twirled around and showed them our newly clean selves. They had saved us some seats around a scratched-up wooden coffee table in the corner of the lounge.
“Okay, Liz is running around like a chicken with her head cut off; I see that hasn’t changed,” Blanche said, taking a cigarette from Viv. “She came and told us that she’ll be back to talk to us about our first assignments in a little while. And then we’ll take you to a café down the street we’ve been to a few times. There isn’t much food available, but there’s tons of wine and liquor, and, between the French and American soldiers, we’ve never had to pay for it. We’re staying here tonight too—cold showers or not, it’s a nice break after living like gypsies for the last two weeks.”
“Girls, it is crazy over here,” Frankie said, coming back from the little bar with a Coke. She took a sip and just paced back and forth in front of us. “Leicester was a picnic in the park compared to this. But it’s thrilling to finally be right in the thick of the action . . .”
“It’s also sometimes horrific and traumatizing—don’t forget to mention that,” Martha added, raising her eyebrows at Frankie.
“Really?” I said. “How’s that been, getting used to it, I mean?”