TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH: INTO THE WIND

Changing Winds

By

L.C. Chilton

&

C.L. Flenniken

With special thanks to James and Sydney who gave this work flight.

Foreword

“True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher.”

— John Petit-Senn

As international affairs erupt, so do the personal lives of Joe, Rigel and Sandy. Joe’s handed hot button assignments that assure him a second star but what becomes known as the “Gallagher Incident” sparks international outrage and threatens his career. Moreover, Joe and Rigel’s pasts come back poignantly to haunt them and their marriage snaps under the strain. “Kiwi” Savage is taken under the wings of unexpected kind guardians and he develops a deep emotional bond with Joe. Sandy’s rocket ride through college propels him into his dream job, or so he thinks. He finds his ideal woman and prepares to marry. Pres commands a chancy covert rescue mission and he and Betty learn that fame comes at a high price. Harvey returns to practicing law with the Judge Adjutant General corps. His stellar performance in Nuremberg cements Harvey’s reputation as an outstanding litigator, catapults him into high profile cases, and prepares him for future challenges, which include the U.S. Supreme Court. The enigmatic henges, foo-fighters and triangles still baffle scientists while new conundrums elude explanation. In “Changing Winds,” more TV series characters join the story as do new and intriguing “Into The Wind” personalities. You’ll meet Lt. Juliette Lovelady, Joe’s new aide; Alec FitzGerald, veteran CBI pilot, son of Victoria and Senator Hugh FitzGerald and touted as the “Most eligible bachelor in Congress;” Cam St. Giles, a slippery, smooth and devious high level diplomatic liaison between the U.S. and the U.K.; and a shadowy “man in black” makes his first appearance. Stay tuned for subsequent “Changing Winds” installments that follow Joe, Rigel, Sandy and Harvey through the late 1940s up to the Korean War. Revisit “Windfall,” “Homeward Winds,” “Cold Winds,” “Hidden Winds” and “Craiceailte Ceilidh” at http://www.twelveoclockhighintothewind.com

Changing Winds

1947

Joe and Rigel: Crosswinds

April, London, Joe and Rigel’s Goodge Street flat

APRIL 1947 had not been kind to Joe and Rigel. Although they had been married three years and had survived a war, they both had emotional wounds from the loss of Brynn and their inability to conceive another child. Doctors, vitamins, sex manuals, thermometers, calendars…nothing worked. What had once been so passionate and pleasurable had deteriorated into a chore. And they hated themselves for it. They decided that they needed a break. On the spur of the moment, and on their anniversary, the couple decided to make a day trip to Stonehenge, that ancient enigma on Salisbury plane. Rigel made some sandwiches while Joe perked a large pot of coffee destined for their dented but still serviceable Thermos. Along with the food and drink, Joe tossed a blanket in the back seat of the Jeep and they headed out. The junket was supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. It was anything but.

By the time they arrived at their destination, the fickle English weather turned overcast and the sky was a strange mix of blue, gray, lilac and sea foam green clouds. As Joe looked at the circle of giant stones, the sights, sounds, smells, sensations of that similar place in Yugoslavia percolated up from Joe’s memory … buzzing in his head, feeling a thousand ants crawling on his skin, the red triangle on his right forearm burning, dizziness, that electric scent in the air that comes after a lightning storm, and those strange blue-green balls of…whatever they were, Foo fighters maybe. But at least he knew he had seen that odd circle of stones. They were real albeit unpleasant.

The undulating dark low hanging dark clouds resurrected other memories. For months now, fragments of the same dream--or nightmare ?--pierced Joe’s sleep and harkened back to that storm tossed C-47 en route to St. Laurent Sur Mer...and Rigel. The swirling purple-green clouds above Stonehenge reminded him of that weird flight, the suddenness of the storm, the turbulence, the strangely colored clouds, the electrical odor in the atmosphere, then blackness…and waking up the next morning inside the Skytrain. The ship had settled herself in the middle of a meadow and neither the glen nor the plane showed any traces of encountering the violent storm that had downed the aircraft. No broken tree limbs. No mud. No puddles. No wetness anywhere. No lightning marks. No dents from hail. No broken landing gear or cracked windshields. But the eeriest thing of all was the time he’d lost. Hours were unaccounted for and not just with Joe but with the others on the plane, too. The mix of Stonehenge and the churning fluorescent clouds above, plus a growing headache, put a damper on the day. He wished he had not come to this place.

As for Rigel, the standing stones unexpectedly made her think of Bryncote, the birth of Ben and her own daughter buried on a hilltop. The sharp sadness contrasted with how happy she and Joe had been at their rewedding! The world was at peace, they were madly in love with each other, and were over the moon about their baby. Rigel smiled as her thoughts drifted back to that night at Bryncote. Standing on the table top together, basking in the bonfire light and blissfully wrapped in contentment, Joe proclaimed his love for Rigel to the guests. “Here’s to the woman I love and… the mother of my child…I’ll love you both forever and a day.” All of that past joy was now salt on the current open wound that was their troubled, infertile marriage. The steles dragged up too much heartache and Rigel wanted to leave this place. Now. They drove back to their Goodge Street flat in near silence, each lost in their own thoughts and feelings.

They had one more night together before Rigel had to leave…again. In 1942, the 801st and 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Squadrons had their training cut short and were sent into combat zones without officially graduating. As chief nurse of the 802nd, Rigel had served in North Africa and Italy. In March 1944, she was sent to England to teach the flight nurses there what she had learned from experience in the MTO. The next 14 months she spent in the ETO. By the war’s end Rigel had racked up an astronomical amount of flight time. But now, some desk bound paper-pusher in the bowels of the Pentagon decided that the 801st and 802nd nurses had to return to flight school for a “refresher” course at the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field and formally graduate or lose their wings. No way in hell would Rigel let that happen.

When they got home, Joe drew a tub full of hot water which had always been a reliable relaxant and aphrodisiac, too. Rigel disrobed and silently slid down into the warmth. Joe joined her and positioned himself behind his wife. Without saying a word, she rested her back against Joe’s chest and laid her head on his shoulder. Joe lovingly encircled his wife with his arms and whispered, “I love you, Stars” into her ear.

“Are you sure, Danzo?” Rigel asked in a voice that sounded distant and flat.

“Uh-huh,” Joe said as he gently stroked his wife’s arms and let his hands linger on her breasts. He kissed her neck and shoulders and his hands roamed down her abdomen to her thighs.

Abruptly, Rigel leaned forward, shattering the passion of the moment. Well, Joe’s moment anyway.

“Sorry, Joe. I’m just not in the mood now,” Rigel said as she rose up from the tub, grabbed a towel, draped it around herself and left. Joe sat stunned for a moment and pondered what to do next. For months now, Rigel had grown more distant, irritable and withdrawn; their relationship started to go downhill after the miscarriage. “Practicing,” which once had been so spontaneous, passionate and fun, had morphed into obligation rather than desire.

Joe was beside himself, he didn’t know what to do anymore, what to say, or what not to say. The loss of Brynn wasn’t just Rigel’s loss. She was Joe’s loss, too. Brynn was his daughter, his child, as much as she was Rigel’s. True, Joe had not carried her in his body as Rigel had or felt the physical pain or bled nor had his body prepare to feed her. Rigel’s had, and perhaps that was the difference. He remembered laying his hand on Rigel’s tummy and feeling his daughter move that fateful morning and he reveled in that touch, as if his daughter was reaching out to hold his hand and know him, her father…and then she was lost. Joe felt as those a part of him was lost, too, and he would have gladly given his own life for her. But it was not to be.

As the days and months marched on, putting more time and distance from Brynn’s passing, the searing hurt that Joe had felt last April had tempered down to an ache and then to a numbness and finally to a memory. Rigel didn’t seem to be able to make those transitions and let go of her grief. All of their trying to conceive another child magnified the loss of the first one. The trying yielded nothing and made matters even worse. Joe was afraid to ask himself if their marriage was over because he dreaded the answer. But he knew that he—they--couldn’t go on like this. Something had to give, had to change, and he was at a loss as to what that “something” was and how to fix it. This was their last night together before Rigel left for Randolph and he wanted it to be special, warm, loving, passionate. Instead, it turned out to be this…mess.

Joe got out of the tub, and pondered what to do as he dried himself with the other bath towel. Finished, he hung the towel back on the rack. A naked Joe entered their bedroom and found Rigel wearing her white bathrobe, sitting on the edge of the bed, towel drying her damp hair. Joe quietly sat down next to his wife as she continued fluffing her hair and looking at the opposite wall. Joe reached over and touched Rigel’s hands with his.

“Stop.” It was an order but a gentle one.

She did and turned to look at her husband. Joe extended his hand to Rigel. She did not take it. They sat there, on the edge of the bed--and the edge of their marriage--silently reading the lines and expressions on each other’s faces.

“Rigel…I…we…can’t…” Joe said softly, slowly, as he lowered his hand.

Rigel quickly placed her right hand finger tips on Joe’s lips, silencing him.

“Not now, Joe, please…” Rigel uttered, distressed.

“All right. Okay…” Joe replied. His eyes escaped to the safety of the floor as he had seen Sandy do so many times. Now he finally understood why Komansky did that.

Joe rose up and went around to his side of the bed, pulled down the blankets and slid underneath them. They were cool and soft and retained the merest hint of Rigel’s perfume that he loved so much. He was going to miss her while she was gone.

Rigel picked up the white metal Big Ben alarm clock from the night stand, wound it up and set it for 0600. She took off her robe, tossed it on the floor, pulled down the covers and slipped between the sheets. For a while, they just lay in bed, silently, not touching each other.

Sleep ushered in Joe’s dreams and took him back to “Failte” on Sky Fire Lake and the night he and Rigel made love in front of the fireplace. She was beautiful, wild, unleashed, lusty…he loved the way her hands touched him and the way her lips explored his body. The dream was so very, very real… he could even smell her perfume in her hair and on her breasts, feel her warm breath against his skin, the weight of her body on top of him…It was no dream. It was real. For the first time in a very long while, they truly made love…rather than trying to make a baby. Sated and content, they cuddled close, face to face, wrapped in each other’s embraces and drifted off to sleep.

Joe awoke to the sound of thunder rumbling which always made the creaky old windows rattle, too. He reached over to hug Rigel but her side of the bed was empty and cold. A quick glance at the Big Ben clock told him it was 0700. Their bedroom door was ajar and light from the adjacent kitchen leaked around the door and into their bedroom. Joe stretched, smiled to himself. What a night! He grabbed his robe, opened the door to find Rigel dressed in her uniform trousers, shirt and shoes. Her B-4 was open and resting on the kitchen table. Rigel was taking clothes from the laundry basket and packing them into her suitcase.

Joe, in wonderful spirits and rarin’ to go again, hugged Rigel from behind and kissed her cheek.

“Morning Major,” he said, nuzzling her neck, and turning her around to face him. He drew her closer and kissed her lips, softly at first, then more passionately.

“Joe…I gotta pack…” Rigel muttered between kisses.

“Later…” Joe said, as his fingers nimbly began unbuttoning Rigel’s uniform blouse.

“There isn’t enough time…” she protested.

“You didn’t take very long last night…” Joe said with a smile.

“Neither did you,” Rigel quipped back.

“You…were…incredible, Major.”

“You weren’t too shabby yourself, General.”

“Last night was, well…we haven’t made love like that in long time,” Joe said tenderly.

“I know…I shouldn’t have started…I’m sorry….”

“Huh?”

“Flight school…I can’t be pregnant at flight school….”

“I hope you are already,” Joe said, patting Rigel’s belly and kissing her lips again.

Rigel cut short the kiss and backed away from Joe. “I don’t want to talk about this again, Joe.”

“Then when will we talk about it?” Joe asked, a mix of confusion and hurt. Rigel was so passionate a few hours ago and now she was an Ice Queen.

“I don’t know. Not now,” Rigel said as she tossed underwear into her bag.

“That course is two months long. Then will you talk to me about it?” Joe’s voice was controlled but insistent.

“What more is there to say, Joe? We’ve been through all of this before,” Rigel said.

“Last night…I didn’t say everything that I was feeling, Rigel.”

“And what was that?”

“That I love you…I want us to be like we used to be…like we were last night…and I still want a baby...and I hope I gave you one last night.”

Rigel squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled. Joe’s comment hit a very raw nerve.

“I can’t…not now…” Rigel muttered.

“Okay then… I’ll say it with the bark on. Rigel, I want children… and soon. I’m ready to be a father and neither of us is getting any younger.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean, Joe?”

“The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to make a baby, and harder on you to carry it and give birth.” Joe tried to lighten the mood a little. “And besides, I love practicing with you.”

“Yeah, well, we practiced, practiced, practiced and what did all of that practicing get us? A grave on a hill.”

“Rigel, I can’t believe you just said that about Brynn,” Joe’s brows knitted together in concern and he could feel his temper rising.

“I remember some kids I met in some bombed out village in France.” Rigel’s voice started out slow and controlled but the more she spoke the more emotional she became. “The women were worn out. The children were skinny, dirty, sick, with green snot running out of their noses and open sores on their faces from starvation. The kids were thrust into that damned war and the world is still not safe for them or anybody’s kids. Maybe that’s why we don’t have any. We’re not meant to.”

“There is no ‘meant to’ about anything. We control our lives, our destinies, we decide. Some grand plan doesn’t control us, Rigel.”

“Oh really? Just think about all of the twists and turns that brought us together. You could have gone to North Africa but you didn’t. I could have been sent to the Pacific but I wasn’t and look at all the shit that happened that sent me to the 918th! Be honest with yourself, Joe. You even knew it when we were kids and you gave me your tie… ‘cause I knew it then, too. We’ve been blown together for some reason, to do something, and maybe having children is not one of them.”

“Well, that’s pretty damned grandiose. You really think we’re meant to save the whole fucking world, Major?” Joe was incensed by now.

“Maybe just a little fucking piece of it, General!” Rigel volleyed back.

“Well, as long as we’re being totally honest…” Joe’s voice was biting. “I’ve always wanted a family, and I want children with you… and from you.” He pointed his finger at Rigel’s belly.

“Well, Joseph,” Rigel said, laying her hands on her lower abdomen, “… the only one that came from here, died. If you want babies so badly, get a divorce and then get them with some sweet young thing… like…Lt. Lovelady!” Rigel stunned herself with the words that fell out of her mouth.

Joe, angry and hurt, stormed off into the bedroom.

As Rigel slammed the last of her clothing items into the B-4 bag and zipped it up, Joe emerged, dressed. He grabbed his keys and wallet from the kitchen table and brushed past Rigel. She blocked him with her body but his forward momentum accidentally propelled Rigel against the wall with a thud. “And where are you going?” she demanded.

“Out…” was his terse reply.

“I won’t be here when you get back,” Rigel barked as Joe reached for the knob on the front door.

“I don’t give a fuck if you’re ever here again.” SLAM went the door. And then he was gone.

Rigel was shell shocked. She’d fucked up royally and she knew it but pride and stubbornness got the best of her. She ran into the bedroom and looked out the window to see Joseph Anson Gallagher walking away in the driving rain and disappear around the corner…and probably out of her life.

Rigel got hold of herself. She was due at RAF Northolt in London to board a C-54 air evac flight originating on the Continent with a stopover in London and then on to Westover Field in Massachusetts rather than good old Mitchel Field on Long Island. She put on her flying jacket and cap, grabbed her purse and B-4 bag, and locked the front door to the flat. As she closed it behind her, Rigel wondered if she was also closing her marriage. She hailed a taxi in front of their building and headed off to her plane.

Joe returned about an hour later, soaking wet, chilled to the bone… and alone. He half-heartedly expected to see Rigel there, waiting for him, ready to kiss and make up. Surely she must have known, felt, sensed, that he didn’t mean what he said. Joe’s famous Irish temper was a sight to behold and, unfortunately, Rigel got to see it.

Joe changed into his robe and started a fire in the fire place to take the chill off his bones as well as the living room. The apartment was eerily still and quiet. It hit him then just how much better Rigel made the place with her presence. He checked the clock on the mantel--it would be too late to try to get a call to her at Northolt, her plane had already taken off by now. He ran through options in his mind and decided he’d call Northolt base ops and find out when Rigel’s plane would land in Iceland. He’d call her there. What good were these damned stars on his shoulders if he couldn’t use them for his own benefit once in a while?

Joe poured himself some brandy--it would taste a lot better if he were sharing some Irish coffee with Rigel--looked at the wedding photo of them under the Lily, thought back over the three years of his marriage to Rigel and wondered just how in the hell they ever got to this fucked up point.

There was an unexpected knock on the door. Joe opened to find his aide, First Lieutenant Juliette Lovelady, in civilian clothes, drenched, and carrying a brief case in her right hand.

“Sorry for disturbing you General…and for the attire…” her explanation was interrupted by a loud “Ah ah ah CHOOO!”

“Come in, come in,” Joe said cordially as he dug into his robe pockets hoping to find a handkerchief. He did not. “Let me help you out of your coat,” Joe offered chivalrously.

Lt. Lovelady put her valise down on the floor, doffed her soggy head scarf and unbuttoned her tan trench coat. She handed it, dripping, to Joe who hung it up on the coat tree in the hallway.

Next, Joe ushered Lt. Lovelady into the kitchen. “Please, have a seat,” he said. Ever the officer and a gentleman, even in this rather unusual situation, Joe held the chair for her then helped her scoot it in toward the table. Joe quickly grabbed a hand towel from the wall hook by the sink and handed it to his wet guest. She genteelly dabbed her nose and face with it.

“What brings you out on a day like this?”

“Well, sir, I wanted to catch up on some things since I’d had been out sick. I intended to go in uniform but there was a mix up at the laundry and my uniform went to someone else and I got hers…so until I can track down where my uniforms are, I’m stuck with civvies until the laundry opens tomorrow.”

“I think we can bend the rules a bit under the circumstances,” Joe said with a smile.

Although Lovelady’s wet outerwear was off, the problem of the rest of her being soaked still remained and Lovelady tried to control her involuntary shivers.

Through chattering teeth she explained events. “I called your flat several times for an hour or so but there was no answer. And, well, General Doud said that this was a very hot item and I told him that I’d bring these reports over to you myself.”

“Oh? Hot item? What about?”

“There have been some racially motivated brawls, sir. Lots of arrests and I’m afraid injuries and a murder.”

“Murder?”

“Yes, sir. The local police have charged a colored sergeant in one of the aviation battalions with murder. It’s all in the reports. General Doud and Air Commodore Smythe-Beckworth specifically asked for you on this matter.”

“I see. And what bases are involved?”

“You’re not going to like this, sir,” Lovelady said apologetically. Dasham Heath, Nixygyll, High Caris…and Archbury.”

Joe let out an exasperated sigh. “That means Colonel Baily and Lieutenant Colonel King.”

“And Air Commodore Smythe-Beckworth, too, sir. There were RAF men involved…ah ah AH CHOOOO!!!”

“Lieutenant, you need to get out of those wet clothes,” Joe said matter-of-factly.

“But…but…sir…”

“Just think of this as a combat situation, Lieutenant, and you’ve got to do the best with what you have.”

“Yessir… ah ah ah CHOOOO!”

Joe had to stifle a laugh and he wondered what in the hell Sandy would say about this state of affairs.

“You can change in the bedroom. There’s an extra robe in the armoire. Hand me out your wet clothes and I’ll hang them by the fire to dry.”

“Yes, sir…combat situation…” Lovelady repeated through rattling teeth as she shut the bedroom door.

“Did you find the bath robe, Lieutenant?” Joe said, keeping a safe distance in the kitchen.

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Hand out your clothes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door cracked open and Lovelady’s arm extended through it, delivering her soggy trousers and shirt.

“Lieutenant…all of them,” Joe said.

“Yes, sir. Combat conditions…” Lovelady repeated. “Ah ah AH CHOOOOO!!!” resonated through the bedroom door. A few seconds later, she emerged, wrapped in Rigel’s bathrobe. With her socks, bra and panties in hand, Lovelady crossed into the tiny living room and hung her garments on the fire screen and placed her squishy wet loafers on the floor. For a few seconds, she stood there looking at her clothes with a quizzical look on her face then sat down on the floor in front of the fire and extended her hands toward it to take in the warmth. Joe followed her into the living room and offered Lovelady a towel which she turbaned around her damp blondish locks.

Joe lifted the metal screen to one side of the fireplace and put another lump of coal on the fire which improved the heat a bit. He took a seat on the floor next to his young aide. “Lieutenant, we’re both adults and two soldiers who work together,” Joe instructed.

“Yes, sir. It’s just that this kind of thing was never covered in basic training,” the young lieutenant explained, looking Joe straight in the eye. He had to admit to himself that she was attractive. Lovelady was about Rigel’s height, trim, and buxom. She had a classic oval shaped face, expressive chocolate brown eyes, and high cheek bones that were sprinkled with a dusting of freckles. Delicate lips framed her smile, revealing perfect, straight white teeth. Her neck was swan-like and she had long well-manicured hands and painted red fingernails. “Get a grip, Joe,” he said to himself, realizing that he was paying too much attention to his guest.

“General, do you think that Major O’Ryan will mind that I’m here and in her robe?” Lovelady asked a bit sheepishly.

“Rigel’s been in similar situations with pilots she’s flown with.” It was factual but didn’t answer Lovelady’s question. “But why do you ask?”

“Permission to speak freely, General?” The tone of her voice indicated just what a sensitive topic this was to the young woman.

“Lieutenant, you always have permission to speak your mind with me.”

“Well, sir…” Lovelady averted her eyes and fidgeted with her fingernails as she spoke. “… it’s just that Major O’Ryan… scares the beegeebers outta me.” Lovelady blurted out the last few words as a blush reddened her cheeks. She hid her face in her hands.

Joe chuckled at her honesty. “Rigel? Scary?”

“Yessir.” Lovelady peeked at Joe through openings she made between her fingers, still trying to hide the crimson flush.

“How?”

“She’s just so…so…perfect,” Lovelady said, as she lowered her hands to her lap but picked at the terrycloth fabric of Rigel’s robe. Joe questioned her remark with his raised eyebrow and Lovelady elaborated on her statement. “I mean…she always seems so confident and sure of herself…I can feel her electricity when she comes through the door.” Lovelady looked at Joe whose accepting expression encouraged her to say the rest of what was on her mind. “She’s...smart…pretty…strong…and brave.” Lovelady emphasized the last adjective. “I’ve seen the ribbons on her uniform. One of ‘em’s a Purple Heart. The only blood I’ve shed for my country was a paper cut last week at the mimeograph machine.”

Joe mulled over the list of attributes Lovelady used to describe his wife. He thought to himself, yes, Rigel was all of those…plus stubborn, brash…and childless. Then he mentally kicked himself for even thinking that the last one was a fault.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lieutenant. You have a lot on the ball, too, and you’re much better organized than Sandy…and you speak Russian and Japanese.”

“You and Lieutenant Komansky were together for a long time, sir, and…” she abruptly halted her words.

“And what?” Joe asked.

“…and sometimes I feel like I’m competing with him, sir.”

“Oh? “

“Yessir, and occasionally you call me Sandy on the intercom,” Lovelady said.

“Force of habit, Lieutenant, but that’s no excuse. I apologize,” Joe said.

“No need to apologize, General.” She paused a moment then continued. “But I bet Lt. Komansky never ended up in Major O’Ryan’s robe,” she said lightheartedly.

“No, this is a first,” Joe said with a smile. “Would you like something hot to drink?” Joe then asked, politely. He thought of offering her some Gallagher family brandy but clipped that thought in the bud.

“Yes, sir, some good strong coffee if you have it.”

“Sure do,” Joe replied as he headed toward the kitchen.

“Here, let me help,” Lovelady said, rising to assist Joe.

“Cups are in there and spoons in there,” Joe said pointing to the cupboard and drawer, respectively.

He turned on the gas burner and heated water to pour over the grounds in the French coffee press.

“You were saying, sir, that Rigel--‘scuse me, Major O’Ryan--had this happen to her?”

“Yep, a few times….” Joe lightheartedly recounted the time Dash and Rigel got stuck out overnight and ended up drinking Patton’s champagne. His tone changed though, as he told Lovelady about Rigel and Dash overnight in the Ardennes and the time she shared a foxhole with an engineer on Omaha Beach.

“General, I’ve never been in war, not like you and Major O’Ryan have. Those really were combat conditions. This, well, isn’t. I think I should leave.”

“Lieutenant, it’s still pouring rain, your clothes aren’t dry and you’re still sick. It would be stupid for you to go out and catch pneumonia.”

“Yes, sir, I have to admit, you’re right about that.”

Joe poured coffee into her mug. She took it in both of her hands, smelled the brew and took a tentative sip.

“Can I make a good cup or can’t I?” Joe joked.

“Yes, sir, you sure can,” Lovelady confirmed.

“Have you ever had Irish coffee?”

“No, sir. What is it?”

“I’ll fix it for you,” Joe said.

He retrieved the bottle of spirits and poured a wee drop of the craythur into Lovelady’s cup. She took a tiny sip.

“Well, what do you think?” Joe asked.

“I like it!” Lovelady said cheerfully. “I could get used to this!”

Joe smiled and thought back to that night in the “Star and Bottle” when he watched Rigel concoct her Irish coffee, heavy on the Irish, light on the coffee. And then there was Sandy’s first encounter with Irish coffee that same night in Joe’s office. His young sergeant said the same thing as Lovelady…

“When your clothes are a bit drier and the rain lets up I’ll drive you to your flat.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“I appreciate you bringing these reports over. I understand why Phil and Royston are concerned.”

Joe excused himself for a minute and headed down the long hall to use the toilet.

Lovelady, with Irish coffee mug in hand, used the time to look at the photographs on the mantel. She recognized Major O’Ryan and Lieutenant Komansky right away. The others, she assumed based on their resemblance to General Gallagher, must be his parents and brothers.

As she was perusing the images, the telephone rang. Instinctively Lovelady answered it saying, “General Gallagher’s quarters.”

“They’re my quarters, too.” It was Rigel.

“Major O’Ryan?” Lovelady squeaked out.

“Yeah. Major O’Ryan,” Rigel said with an edge in her voice. Her departure had been delayed due to the storm and after the fiasco in the apartment earlier in the day, Rigel called to apologize to Joe and try to set things right again.

“This…is Lt. Lovelady, ma’am…”Her voice cracked as she spoke and she wanted to melt into the floor with embarrassment.

In the meantime, Joe had returned to the living room and Lovelady held out the receiver with a shaking hand. “It’s Major O’Ryan, sir,” she said apologetically.

Joe took the phone in hand and spoke firmly. “Rigel?”

“Is she pregnant yet?” Click. A stunned Joe looked at the phone receiver in his hand as Lovelady stood by with her hands over her mouth, realizing that her presence triggered…something…and it wasn’t good. Joe dropped the hand piece back on to its cradle.

“I better go,” Lovelady said in a shaky voice. Joe, brows knitted together and jaws clenched tight in a mix of hurt, anger and embarrassment, silently nodded in agreement as his aide scurried off to get dressed, damp clothes or no.

The short drive to Juliette’s flat was wordless except for Joe thanking her for her help and Juliette thanking him for the ride.

Joe dreaded returning to the eerily quiet flat. The silence sliced into him, reminding him that he was alone again. Doffing his raincoat and shoes in the living room, Joe mechanically got ready for bed. He made his way to the bathroom, turned on the cold water faucet, washed and dried his face then reached for his toothbrush dangling by its lonesome self from the metal holder attached to the wall. Right below it on the countertop rested Rigel’s hair brush with dark auburn strands wrapped around the bristles. As he scrubbed his teeth, Joe picked up her brush and pitched it into the trash can under the sink. He spit out the toothpaste, rinsed his mouth and turned to leave the bathroom when his eyes lay sight on the tub. Unfortunately, that brought both happy and terrifying memories, the pleasures of soaking in the bath, Rigel’s smooth slick skin against his, and the horrible sight of her laying in bloodied water, in pain and crying. He retraced his steps down the hall that emptied into their small kitchen. The coffee press and bottle of brandy on the countertop brought more memories, then into the bedroom where Rigel’s white robe was draped over the armoire door. Joe picked it up, held it, slowly ran his right hand over the terrycloth then pitched the garment under the bed. He switched on the gooseneck reading lamp that stood at attention on the nightstand next to his side of the bed, dropped his pants, underwear, and shirt on the floor, pulled back the emerald green bedspread and white sheets, stacked the four white cased bed pillows against the headboard, slid between the cool cotton linens and adjusted himself in bed. Although his body was tired, Joe’s mind churned over myriad memories, fragmented thoughts, flashes of scenes, words he wished he’d said and words he wished he hadn’t. He retrieved his most recent read from the night stand and as he positioned the book in front of him the bookmark--an old short letter from Sandy--fell out and Joe wondered what was going on with his friend half way around the world in California, the land of sun, sea, oranges. The book in Joe’s hands, “Serenade to the Big Bird,” was written by one of his former pilots, Lieutenant Bert Stiles. He remembered the young man, how full of life and zest he was, and well-liked by his comrades, too. Bert’s writing reminded Joe of Jeff’s--they both had the same Hemingwayesque style—simple, direct, earthy, focusing on the salient events without getting tangled up in verbosity. Bert completed his tour of thirty missions with the 918th and asked Joe for a transfer to fighters which Joe approved. Bert was assigned to Fowlmere, a Mustang base not far from Archbury, and Joe wondered how many times Bert might have been one of “little friends” that had protected him and the crew of the Piccadilly Lily to Germany and back. Sadly, Joe learned that Bert was killed in his P-51… after having survived his tour in B-17s. The young man had such promise and Joe kicked himself for approving Bert’s move. Maybe if he’d denied the request, the young author would still be alive and the world would have another Hemingway. After reading a few chapters, Joe deposited “Serenade” on the night stand, snapped off the light then rolled over on his left side, his right hand resting on the place where Rigel had laid hours ago. Joe gathered her pillow up against his chest and the scent of her perfume still lingered on it…then threw the damned thing across the room and onto the floor.

Finally, sleep came to claim him. It had been one interesting and fucked up day.

Rigel: Turbulence

April, Long Island and Randolph Field, San Antonio

THIS was the first time in Rigel’s life that she dreaded going home to 600 Main Street with the people who were waiting for her at Westover Field…Caed, Ursa, Hunter and Martha…to fly her home in the Altair. Two years earlier it had been given to her and Joe as a wedding gift. Rigel thought that she could leave Joe far behind in England but his ghost followed her across the Atlantic.

Travel orders called for her to fly commercial stateside with the drawdown of Air Transport Command in the years after the war. She had an overnight stay in Long Island and reservations for a New York to Dallas flight then on to San Antonio. The flight from London to Iceland was blessedly busy with a plane load of patients and Rigel was glad that the regular air evac crew needed an extra pair of hands. Tending to the spinal cord injured patients relieved a bit of the pressure on the regular team of two flight nurses and two medics. Rigel recognized one of them, a Captain Collins, who in 1944 had been a green lieutenant at one of the bases England that Rigel spent time at, teaching, counseling, mentoring the flight nurses there preparing them for their upcoming challenge. Captain Collins remembered Rigel from those days as well as the newspaper stories about her and the movie newsreel about the trip that she, Joe, Sandy and Harvey had made back to Normandy. The other younger flight nurse, Lt. Nash, was a butter bar not long out of flight school. She looked at the seasoned major with a blend of awe and trepidation and every time that Rigel helped her with a patient the young woman devolved into stutters and ham-handedness. The climax came when Lt. Nash bumped into Rigel, sending a tray laden with paper cups filled with apple juice on to Rigel’s chest, down her trousers, and splashing to the floor.

“Oh…oooooh….Major…I’m…I’m…so sorry…” spluttered the embarrassed neophyte, her face flushing crimson which Rigel could see even in the dim lights of the plane’s interior.

Rigel calmly got down on her hands and knees and helped the lieutenant clean up the debris on the planking. The image of Joe on his hands and knees in the kitchen of her Bethpage home wiping up burned carrots, charred potato quarters and pot roast grease from Ursa’s ill-fated venture into domesticity flashed in her brain as she now found herself in the same position as her husband. Rigel wondered just what in the hell she was going to tell everybody when she got home, if she was going to tell them anything at all. Why should I, she thought to herself. It’s my damned business and I don’t have to say anything to any of ‘em.

Then the young female voice snapped her back to the here and now. “Major, let me pay to have your uniformed cleaned, please, Ma’am,” Lt. Nash asked as she and Rigel simultaneously stood up after clearing the mess.

“Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant. If this is the worst thing that happens to either of us in an airplane, we’ll be lucky.” Rigel didn’t know just how prophetic her words would be in the not too distant future.

Flying time to Iceland was just under five hours. When she walked into base ops, the duty officer called to her. “’Scuse me, ma’am but are you Major O’Ryan?” he asked in a voice tinged with a Philadelphia accent.

“Yep, that’s me lieutenant,” Rigel replied casually.

“I have a note here, Major,” he said waving a slip of paper in the air. “A General Gallagher called for you, ma’am.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, ma’am, and he left orders for you to return his call,” the young officer said perfunctorily.

“Ordered me to call him, huh?” Rigel replied, piqued.

“Yes, ma’am. You can use the CO’s phone,” he said, nodding in the direction of the OIC’s office. “He told me to have you call him at this number and he said he’ll be there...” the young man paused and looked down at the telephone memo, “…and I’m quoting the General, ma’am… he said he’ll wait ‘til hell freezes over, Major.” And with that he handed the slip of paper to Rigel.

“Thank you Lieutenant,” Rigel said politely taking the note in her right hand. The phone number was to their Goodge Street flat. “This won’t take long,” she explained as she walked the few feet to the officer in charge’s workplace.

She closed the door to the windowless cubicle and dutifully contacted the base operator who set the wheels in motion for the call. She and Joe had tangled over their ranks in the church at St. Laurent Sur Mer and vowed never again to let the different metal pinned on their shoulders get in the way of their marriage. Well, so much for that promise. A few minutes passed as Rigel waited for the outgoing calls operator to make the requisite connections. She drummed her fingers on the old and worn wooden desk nervously passing time. Then she heard the operator on the line, “General Gallagher, I have your overseas call on the line, sir.”

Next she heard “Rigel?” She gripped the hand piece so tightly that her knuckles blanched.

Rigel closed her eyes and swallowed back the nervous metallic taste rising in the back of her mouth and she was silent, too upset to speak.

“Rigel…please talk to me,” Joe’s voice was ardent, even through the crackles of the staticky connection.

She finally found her tongue. “Your order, General Gallagher, was for me to return your call. It didn’t say I had to talk to you.” And with that, she hung up. Rigel’s hand visibly shook as she purposefully returned the receiver to its cradle. She felt bile rising up in her throat, quickly opened the office door, and with discipline sharply honed over years of flying asked the duty officer, “Lieutenant, where’s the toilet?” He pointed to his left. “Second door, Major. It locks from the inside.”

“Thanks,” Rigel replied collectedly as she strode past him. Underneath the façade of calm, she was crumbling.

Her hand shook as she turned the knob on the washroom door, opened it and then quickly shut it, leaning against the door with her back. Tears leaked from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks as she turned to face the door and fumbled with the chain lock. She pivoted back toward the commode, dropped to her knees, bent over the toilet and hugged the cold white porcelain bowl as spasms of vomit plopped into the toilet…again…and again. “Get a hold of yourself, O’Ryan,” she muttered to herself, forcing herself to take in slow deep breaths until the urge to retch had been subdued by her willpower.

There was a knock on the door. “Major O’Ryan? Are you in there?” Captain Collins asked.

Rigel dabbed the vomit from her chin with the scratchy GI toilet paper then spoke. “Yeah...be out in sec…” She wiped her clammy face with her hands, flushed the toilet then stepped to the sink. As she turned on the faucet which elicited cold water, Rigel caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. She didn’t like what she saw and that had nothing to do with the physical appearance reflected back at her. Rigel splashed some water on her face hoping to wash away more than puke and perspiration. She dried her face and hands with a paper towel, and opened the door to Captain Collins’ smiling countenance.

“The patients have been fed, the plane’s refueled and restocked, and we’re ready to leave Major,” Captain Collins reported.

“Great, let’s go,” Rigel said, trying to sound upbeat. Twelve more hours until she was home.

***

As expected, there was a lot of hugging and kissing at Westover when Rigel’s duties to the patients and crewmates concluded. To her surprise there was a new face in welcoming committee, Martha Britt. Hunter’s letters to Rigel revealed that after meeting at Bryncote, Martha and Goose had kept their promises to each other and kept in touch. In fact, there had been a whole of touching as she and Goose were now sharing the little studio flat over the garage in the back of the O’Ryans’ home while they both attended classes at UIT. Hunter was pursuing a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and Martha was working on a master’s in psychology. Hunter entered into his program quite easily, already possessing a masters in the same field prior to enlisting in the AAF. Martha, on the other hand, faced an uphill climb. True, she had a baccalaureate degree in nursing, years of experience as a neuropsychiatric nurse and high graduate admission test score but she didn’t have the right gonads apparently. UIT only had one slot for a woman every academic year in its psychology program and the 1946 one had been given to someone else. Undeterred, Martha applied again, retested again, reinterviewed again and was admitted to the graduate program on her second try. Ursa, having decided that limiting how many females can be allowed into any program or institution was Neanderthal, started to hatch a plan in her head. She knew several of the board of trustees for UIT and planned to talk to them and perhaps sweeten the pot with an endowment from the FitzGerald Foundation. And if these good ole boys wouldn’t play ball with her, she’d simply take her ball and start a new game someplace else…maybe Bassingbury?

Caed and Ursa had kept their promise and maintain Joe and Rigel’s Altair in tip top condition at O’Ryan Aviation. The flight to Long Island brought back more memories for Rigel and it seemed that no matter where she went or what she did Joe’s shadow followed her. On the way home, they stopped at George and Gracie’s for dinner, recalling how the last time Ursa tried to cook anything she torched the kitchen curtains. Tonight was Asturian night and the entre was “tortilla patata” a delicious thick omelet that resembled a crustless quiche. It was followed by “brazo Gitano,” a thin rectangular sponge cake spread with custard, rolled into a log, painted with sweet wine and dusted with powdered sugar. These just happened to be two of Rigel’s favorite dishes on George and Gracie’s menu. When Ursa told Gracie that Rigel was coming home for an overnight stay, Gracie made certain to have Rigel’s favorites ready to go.

The old homestead hadn’t changed at all in the almost two years since Rigel had been there with Joe, Sandy, Ursa and Caed. But Rigel had. In that time, she’d become the consort of a charming and famous general, become a major, and become pregnant, only to lose her daughter. And it seemed that now she was losing Joe too because of that. After they had all entered the house, Caed asked briskly, “Who’s for a night cap?”

“I’m gonna get out this uniform first and then I’ll take you up on that, Dad,” Rigel said as she unzipped her flight jacket and pitched it on the couch in the living room.

“Count me in, Caed,” Martha replied.

“Me too, Dad,” Hunter tacked on.

On purpose, Ursa turned to Rigel to test the waters. “Rigel, we have some Gallagher family brandy that Max and Irene gave us. Want some?” She watched for a reaction from her daughter and shot a quick glance to Caed, who was watched the reaction with concern.

Rigel caught their exchange. “Okay, what’s up? I’ve seen those looks too many times.”

Ursa walked over to the coffee table in front of the couch and picked up a yellow rectangle of paper.

“This came for you yesterday, Ri,” Ursa said, handing her daughter a telegram.

“And Joe’s called here, twice, wanting to talk to you,” Caed said softly as he came alongside Ursa.

“Oh?” Rigel said.

“C’mon sit down, let’s talk. Telegrams and phone calls from across the ocean spell trouble,” Ursa said as she lightly touched her daughter’s shoulder and motioned to the couch with her head.

Brusquely Rigel replied, “I don’t want to sit down and I sure as hell don’t want to talk, okay?” She wadded up the telegram and pitched it across the room, then stormed up the stairs to the reliable safety of her old bedroom. Caed, Ursa, Martha and Hunter were left standing, perplexed. Three pairs of eyes all turned to look at Hunter and their glances all conveyed the same unspoken message.

Hunter nodded in acceptance, picked up the crumpled up telegram along with Rigel’s B-4 bag and went upstairs. He gently tapped on his twin’s bedroom door. “Shortstop, can I come in?’

“Go away Goose!”

“No.”

“I locked the door.”

“Unlock it.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Open the door Shortstop or I’ll break it down.”

“You won’t.”

“I will. Just like I did when you wouldn’t talk to me about Will Madigan dumping you for the priesthood.”

“That was different.”

“Why?”

“Because then I was dumpee now I’m the dumper.” She opened the door and stood in front of her brother, looking tired and small with puffy red rimmed eyes.

Hunter didn’t say anything as he enveloped his sister in his arms and held her. She finally released the tears that had been pent up and sobbed into her brother’s chest.

Hunter let her cry and when the sobs subsided he guided Rigel over to the edge of her bed and they sat down. Hunter took the lead. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t know what to do, Goose,” Rigel said wanly.

“About what?”

“About Joe.”

“Go on.”

“Things haven’t been the same with us since I lost the baby.”

“Or maybe it’s more like things haven’t been the same with you since you lost the baby. Am I close?”

“You always could see right through me, ever since we were kids.”

“Joe loves you, Ri, he really does.”

“How would you know?”

“I answered the phone when he called here early today.”

“Oh? And my loving husband blabbed to you about our marriage in the toilet?”

“No, he didn’t say anything like that. I could hear the hurt and worry in his voice.”

“Hurt and worry?”

“Yep.”

“Oh shit,” Rigel said burying her face in her hands.

“What’s going on Ri?”

“Joe wants to have children.”

“And you don’t?”

“Not don’t. Can’t.”

“Ahh, I see.”

“How’d you feel about Martha if she lost your baby and couldn’t get pregnant again?”

“It wouldn’t change how I feel about Martha and it won’t change how Joe feels about you.”

“Ha! That’s a crock of shit!”

“I have a feeling that there’s a story to that statement.”

“Yeah, there is.”

“Wanna tell me voluntarily or do I have to drag it out of you?”

“C’mon, cut the shit Goose.”

“No you cut the shit, Shortstop.”

“Huh?”

“What’s got you so pissed off at Joe?”

“We had a fight right before I left the flat.”

“What about?”

“Babies.”

“So…?”

“I lost my temper and….”

“What? You? Lose your temper, Ri? Nah.”

“I told Joe that if he wanted children he should get them with some sweet young thing, like his aide.”

“Then what happened.”

“I felt like shit for saying that and when I got to Northolt I called home and…”

“And what?”

“She answered the phone.”

“She as in…?”

“Joe’s aide, Lieutenant Lovelady.”

“And where was Joe?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Sorta.”

“Sorta?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It wasn’t.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him if she was pregnant yet and then I hung up on him.”

“Those were kinda dumbass things to do dontcha think?”

“Yeah.”

“You must have been hurting pretty bad to say it though.”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, I do. The first thing you’re gonna do is read the telegram.” Hunter pulled out the rumpled paper from his pocket and handed to Rigel. She didn’t take it.

“Okay, have it your way then. I’ll read it to you.”

“No!” Rigel said, snatching the telegram from her brother’s hands. She opened it and Hunter watched her as she read it.

“Gonna tell me what it says?”

“Here. Read it for yourself.”

Hunter took the telegram from Rigel’s shaking hand. He looked at the single word, a question: “Forever?”

The ringing of the upstairs phone in the master bedroom across the hall penetrated the closed door of Rigel’s bedroom. The ringing stopped indicating that someone had answered it.

“You’ve got a lot to think about Ri.” She glumly nodded her head in agreement.

From downstairs Caed’s strong baritone voice resonated up the staircase. “Rigel, Joe’s on the phone for you!”

Rigel stood up from the bed and opened the bedroom door and hollered down to her father. “I don’t want to talk to him!”

Hunter had had enough. “Rigel Bellatrix O’Ryan Gallagher…”

“I’m not a Gallagher!”

“Like hell you’re not! You’re him with tits and he’s you with balls. Get your fucking head out of your ass and talk to your husband.” He took hold of his sister’s hand and half pulled her over to the phone in their parents’ bedroom. Hunter picked up the hand piece and spoke into it. “Here she is, Joe” then placed the receiver in his sister’s hand gently instructing, “Talk to him, Ri.” Hunter walked out and closed the door.

“Rigel? You there?” Joe asked through the occasional crackles on the line.

“I’m here.”

“What do you want, Stars?”

“The question is what do you want Joe.”

“Huh?”

“Do you want me or do you want babies?”

“I want both.”

“And what if you can’t have both?”

“Are we over then Rigel?”

“You tell me.”

“I…” and then the line went dead.

Rigel stared at the receiver in her hand for a few seconds then placed it back on the phone. What do I want? She asked herself. I want to be happy with Joe and I want Joe to be happy. What is the greater good? Staying with him, making him unhappy or setting him free to find someone else. Her mind was mush right now and she didn’t want to think. Rigel opened the bedroom door and hollered down to Caed. “Dad, I’ll take that brandy now.” It might be the last bit of Joe Gallagher that she’d ever have.

***

It had been a helluva beginning to flight school--arriving a day late due to the airline’s DC-3 blowing an engine and then having to land at some Podunk airfield, being put up overnight in the Kon-Tiki Motor Lodge complete with cockroaches, finally making it to Dallas and being mistaken for a stewardess by at least a half dozen travelers who asked her for directions to restrooms, coffee shops, and the baggage claim area. Rigel wanted to yell at them, “Look, you idiots, airline stewardesses don’t wear major’s leaves, a Purple Heart and DFC on their uniform” …but her irritation was soothed when she remembered how calmly and kindly Joe reacted to the little old ladies at Mitchel Field who thought he was a sky cap. There he was…Joe…again…So many memories of him tied to every day mundane things…Would these recollections never end? Part of Rigel wanted them to and part of her never wanted to forget.

No sooner than Rigel had arrived at Randolph, checked into billeting, got the key to her temporary quarters, kicked off her shoes, found the toilet that she shared with another student, then there was a knock on her door. She opened it to see a spit and polish master sergeant standing there. His salute was just as sharp as the creases in his trousers and shirt sleeves. “Major O’Ryan, I’m Master Sergeant Kinney. The commander sends his regards and would like to see you, Ma’am.”

“Now?” Rigel said.

“Yes, ma’am. He said for you to report in STAT. I’m to drive you over to his office, Ma’am.”

“All right sergeant, I’m coming. Just a sec…” She quickly rummaged through her B-4 bag, found her tooth paste tube, uncapped it and dabbed a tad on her tongue to offset coffee breath. That task done, Rigel collected her purse, slipped on her shoes, deftly positioned her flight cap on her head at just the right angle and distance above her eyebrows, grabbed the room key, stepped out and locked her door then joined the sergeant waiting for her in the Jeep. A memory darted into her consciousness of riding out to the “Piccadilly Lily” with Joe, Sandy and Harvey and a slight smile crossed her lips. Then she remembered who she was and how she got here and the smile faded. Dammit, another memory of Joe…he must be embedded in every cell of her body. She had two months to forget him, to get him out of her system and move on with her life. Yeah, right, O’Ryan. What’s the next lie you’re gonna tell yourself?

The Jeep drove past the old main gate and ambled down the orderly streets of Randolph. The “Taj Mahal”--a tall Spanish Colonial style building with russet tile roof--was still there, too, smack dab in the center of the base, just where she left it in 1942. The flight line where she got thumbs up from Flight Officer Richard Yarborough Headley the Third hadn’t changed either. Kinney pulled up to a reserved parking spot in front of the School of Aviation Medicine, another distinguished, beautiful Spanish Colonial edifice, and shut off the motor. Rigel hopped out as Kinney instructed, “This way, Major,” and motioned with his hand to follow him. He waited until Rigel joined him and he stepped to her left side, the spot for the person who is junior in rank to walk, and then opened the front door for her, another sign of respect from a junior rank to a superior one. The inside lobby was cool, spic and span clean with highly polished terra cotta tile floors and white walls hung with photos of Randolph over the decades. Kinney directed Rigel down the left corridor to the last door on the right. A sign on the wall read “Commanding Officer, School of Aviation Medicine.” Kinney opened the door for her again and ushered Rigel into the CO’s outer office. The secretary had gone by now--it was 1900 hours - - and so the sergeant assumed the duties of announcing Rigel’s arrival. He knocked on the CO’s door twice, heard “Yeah?” and then reported to the voice, “Sir, Major O’Ryan’s here.”

“Well, hot damn, send her in!” the voice boomed. It was a familiar voice too…

Rigel entered the inner office, got half way with a salute but was swiftly greeted with a big bear hug instead….by Magnus Johansen!...

***

Mercy by Air by Antonia Karacimos. Anson News Service - April 17, 1947, Texas City, Texas

Just one hour and fifteen minutes after the explosion of a nitrate-loaded French freighter touched off a chain of death in the little Galveston Bay industrial town of Texas City, the first mercy planes were circling for a landing on the community’s small turf airport. Around them and below, the air reeked with the stench of still burning chemicals, gasoline and oil, pillars of black smoke rose up thousands of feet and soot rained down on the town. It was hell with the lid off and the Army Air Force planes and personnel flew right into it.

Thus began the greatest peacetime emergency aerial mercy operation in aviation history, in which hundreds of airplanes hurriedly mobilized aid from twenty far-flung localities in thirteen states. Incoming planes brought doctors, nurses, Red Cross officials, tons of blood plasma, embalming fluid, gas masks, food, foamite to smother fires, asbestos firefighting suits, bedding for the homeless and clean water. Outgoing, these same aerial ships of mercy became wings of life, shuttling the injured to hospitals.

The call came in yesterday around noon to the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field. A short time later, Army Air Force doctors and nurses were flying to the scene while other planes brought in penicillin, morphine, and tetanus antitoxin. C-47 Skytrains and C-54 Skymasters from Kelly and Brooks Fields in San Antonio brought more doctors and nurses, supplies and equipment for an emergency hospital.

Seven AAF C-47’s based at Bergstrom Field near Austin flew 6,550 air miles carrying 141 passengers and 15,835 pounds of blood plasma and other medical supplies and 2,000 blankets to Texas City. One C-46 brought in a load of nitrogen and oxygen. A C-54 Bergstrom ship was sent to Scott Field, Ill., for additional plasma. Another was sent to Devil’s Lake in North Dakota to pick up military cooks for field kitchens which already had been flown to Texas City.

Thirteen C-47’s from Air Training Command landed with loads of gas masks and medical supplies on the bumpy Texas City runways half an hour after word was flashed that poison fumes from chemical and nitrate fires were menacing rescue workers.

Maj. Gen. Robert M. Webster, commanding general of the Air Transport Command, placed his entire fleet of air evacuation planes and medical personnel at the disposal of the Texas City authorities.

The Texas City airfield was not unlike those in the Mediterranean, Europe or the Pacific that the rugged C-47s landed on time and time again during the war. The planes were quickly unloaded and then patients who had been waiting in a tent hospital ward by the airstrip were gently and efficiently loaded on the planes to be watched over during their air time by a flight nurses and medical technicians. In some instances, involving extremely critical patients, a flight surgeon was in attendance. I flew along on one of the flights carrying critically injured patients to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Flight Surgeon Colonel Magnus Johansen, Flight Nurse Major Rigel O’Ryan, and 2Lt. Gwyn Bowman, flight nurse student at the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field, saw to our contingent of 18 litter patients on this flight. It was not the first flight for Colonel Johansen and Major O’Ryan, both of whom were veterans of Omaha Beach and the ETO, and it would not be the last. Lt. Bowman, a perky, petite blond, with a winning smile, was a former airline stewardess before joining the Army Air Force and cinching a spot in the air evacuation school. Despite looming storm clouds, the flight deck crew tried their best to keep the plane in smooth air for the hop to San Antonio. When patients are aboard, the pilots take great care in maneuvering the plane in the air and smoothly bringing it down on the runway. Our plane was just one of several making the trip from the Gulf Coast to the Alamo city. We landed at Kelly Field and were met by a body of Army ambulances and our patients were expeditiously transferred to the waiting doctors, nurses and medics.

Disasters know no geographical limitations and the Army Air Force--mobile, quick to rise to the need--is frequently the only organization that is equal to the meeting crises in hard to reach places. No place is more than a few hours away from a hospital anywhere in the U.S. Expert doctors, surgeon, specially trained flight nurses and medics--all of these along with trusted pilots and crews make the Army Air Force ready to serve in any emergency, in war or in peace.

Rigel by now had grown accustomed to having reporters circling around, almost like vultures orbiting above carrion. But this cub reporter was different. Antonia and Rigel had known each other since childhood, their mothers being close friends practically forever. They were separated by years and experience but Antonia had always been mature for her age and Rigel wondered if Sandy could handle her. During the flight, Rigel’s thoughts and actions were concentrated on her patients. Now that they’d landed and the mission was just about over, Rigel was tempted to ask Antonia about Sandy but frankly she was too damned tired to think about much more beyond getting back to Randolph and her quarters. Was it just two years ago that Irene had accompanied the O’Ryans back to Long Island and they all danced and laughed and partied until the wee hours at George and Gracie’s restaurant? She and Joe were so happy then…and Sandy had taken a shine to Antonia. That life now seemed like it belonged to someone else.

Magnus, Rigel and Gwyn assisted in the offloading and transfers of patients, accompanying them to the waiting ambulances. The last patient off the plane was a youngster swathed in bandages from head to toe. Rigel held up the glass bottle of intravenous solution and rubber tubing that channeled fluid into the child’s arm as medics lifted the litter from the brackets. Rigel walked beside the litter, IV bottle in one hand and her other hand holding onto the child’s. The medics gingerly carried their precious cargo down the aisle of the plane toward the rear cargo door. Rigel laid the IV bottle on the litter for a few seconds, just long enough for her to jump down to the tarmac, ready to take up her position again as the patient was off loaded. Rigel picked up the IV bottle and she bent down to talk to the little boy laying in the stretcher. His small hand reached out for Rigel’s and she took his in hers, looked down at him and smiled. They walked the few feet to the waiting ambulance as the young reporter looked on with her camera busily preserving events on celluloid.

And that’s when Antonia captured the million dollar shot--Rigel placing a kiss on the palm of her young charge just before he was lifted up and into the ambulance. The image of the veteran nurse calming the frightened and injured child would be picked up by the news wires and make its way across the country…and across the Atlantic…to Joe’s concerned and downhearted gray-hazel eyes. Antonia clicked away again and again with her camera, getting shots from different angles in the waning spring evening light.

With the last patient now in someone else’s hands, Rigel combed her fingers through her hair and drew in a deep breath as she surveyed the scene. It brought back memories of June 9, 1944 on the flight line at Archbury and Joe folding a kiss into the palm of her hand, the thought of which made her instinctively clench her fist. That was three years ago. So much had happened since then, to the world and to her and Joe.

Well, their job was done for tonight, almost. Rigel hollered to her classmate who was chatting with Antonia. “Lt. Bowman! Front and center!”

Rigel watched as the two young women effortlessly jogged up toward her. She envied their youth and their resilience, something she used to have and it had somehow evaporated on April 11, 1946.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Bowman said breezily.

“Lieutenant, now comes the boring end of the job, the G.I. party,” Rigel said with a hint of fatigue in her voice and a slight droop to her usually squared shoulders.

“G.I. party?” Antonia asked.

“Yep, clean up time,” Rigel replied.

“Yes, Ma’am, right away Major,” Lt. Bowman replied with a perky smile and jaunty salute. As she hopped up into the C-47s cargo doorway, she looked over her shoulder and called to Antonia with an accompanying wave of her hand. “It was nice meeting you!”

“Likewise. I’ve got your address and I’ll send you some pictures,” Antonia said as she waved so-long to Bowman then turned to Rigel as Gwyn disappeared into the plane’s interior.

“Where to next for you, Antonia?” Rigel asked.

“I’m following the survivors to the hospital and then I’ll be heading back to Texas City,” Antonia said as nodded toward the last ambulance receiving its passengers. “After that, who knows? That’s what I love about this job. It’s never the same one day to the next.” Her enthusiasm for reporting hinted at no settled domesticity in Los Angeles with Sandy, at least for the time being.

By now Magnus had concluded his business with one of the receiving ambulance doctors and he sauntered over to Rigel’s side and caught the tail end of the conversation between the two hometown friends. Antonia turned toward him and extended her hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Johansen.”

Magnus took Antonia’s hand in his and felt her firm grip. He liked that, it was positive, confident and forthright, just like Antonia herself. “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Karacimos,” Magnus said gallantly.

“Antonia…” she replied with a warm smile.

“I look forward to reading your story about all of this…Antonia,” Magnus replied.

“I have it whirling in my head as we speak…” She made little circles in the air with her right index finger by her right temple. “…and I’ll file it as soon as I get to a phone,” Antonia said. The ambulance driver sounded two quick honks, urging Antonia to wrap up her farewells. “Well, gotta go…” Antonia gave Rigel a quick hug. “Rigel... it’s been marvelous seeing you again. Give Joe a hug and kiss for me next time you see him.”

“Sure…next time…” Rigel said, trying to sound upbeat and positive and not add that she had no idea when she’d see Joe again. Magnus narrowed his eyes at Rigel’s reply and caught the edge in her voice. Something was wrong, very wrong, and he felt it.

Magnus took a step closer to Rigel, brushing up against her left arm, as they watched Antonia trot away. They waved to her as she climbed up into the passenger seat of the ambulance.

“Dat was da most pissyassed answer I’ve ever heard from ya, O’Ryan…” Magnus said perceptively.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Whaddya wanna tell me?”

“How much time ya got?” Rigel asked as she looked Magnus squarely in his eyes.

“How much time ya need?” he said softly, seeing the pained look on his old friend’s face which she was bravely but unsuccessfully trying hide.

Magnus arched his back, stretched his arms and raked his thick mop of flaxen blond hair with his fingers. “I’m thinkin’ of a hot bath and a cold beer. What about it, care to join me, eh?”

Rigel let out a chuckle at Magnus’s solecism and laid a hand on her old friend’s shoulder. “Do you always ask a woman to drink beer with you when you’re taking a bath?”

Even in the dusk light, Rigel could tell Magnus’s fair complexion was blushing. “Um, uh…dat came out wrong….”

“What I need is a hot bath and some uisce beatha,” Rigel admitted. She caught herself wondering what Magnus looked like in a tub and mentally chastised herself for even letting that break into her thoughts.

“Say what?” Magnus asked.

“Hot bath and very old brandy,” Rigel clarified.

“I know where we can get both,” Magnus said with a smile as he and Rigel walked back into the plane to retrieve her gear and the medical supply chest.

“Oh? Where?”

“My place,” he replied matter-of-factly.

They then looked up to the plaintive sound of Lt. Bowman’s voice as she stood in the doorway of the C-47 holding some receptacles in her hands.

Rigel turned to Magnus and muttered wearily, “Another eager beaver. Were we ever that young Magnus?”

“Nope. We were born wise and 30,” Magnus replied.

The two seasoned soldiers arrived at the fuselage of the Skytrain to find Lt. Bowman holding a full urinal and a barf bag, equally laden. “Um, Major…Colonel…what do I do with…these?”

Without missing a beat, Magnus drolly gave instructions. “The pee goes on the co-pilot’s seat the barf goes on the pilot’s.”

“Sir?” the young lieutenant gulped out as her eyes widened, questioning the order she was just given.

“And after that, go over to the control tower and get three buckets of prop wash and a couple of yards of flight line…” Magnus said with equally sounding veracity.

“I have to wash the propellers too, sir? And…and what I’m I supposed to do with the flight line?” Bowman asked, a blend of curiosity, gullibility, and fear etched in her voice and facial expression.

“Relax, Lieutenant, the good Colonel here is messing with your head,” Rigel said. Bowman was only half relieved.

“But, um, Ma’am…what do I do with…these?” Bowman asked again, nodding to the containers in her hands.

“Give ‘em to me…” Magnus said. Bowman complied then hopped down on the cement to see what the colonel was going to do.

Magnus walked around the tail of the plane and unceremoniously pitched the contents onto the tarmac.

“He dumped it…on the ground!” Bowman gasped.

“And what were you going to do with the stuff, Lieutenant? Flush it down the toilet?” Rigel asked.

“Ma’ am?”

“What are you going to do with no toilets, no toilet paper, no Kotex…and no doctor?” Rigel asked the neophyte.

“I guess I never really thought that much about that kind of stuff,” Bowman said.

“You’re not a stewardess with an airline anymore, Lieutenant. You’re gonna be flying into places where people are shooting at you.”

“Have you been shot at Major?” Bowman asked meekly.

“Yeah, she has,” Magnus answered before Rigel had the chance to speak.

“Sir, it’s been an honor watching you and the Major work. I hope someday I’ll be as good,” Bowman said earnestly.

“Did you learn anything today Lt. Bowman?” Magnus asked. Rigel looked on, curious as to how this wisp of young woman would reply.

“Yeah, I did. I learned that just when I think the entire human race has gone to shit real heroes emerge to give me hope.”

“Atta, girl,” Rigel said, giving the young lieutenant a reassuring clap on the shoulder, just as she’d seen Joe do to Sandy…Dammit, there was Joe again…

“Look…our ride’s here,” Magnus said, pointing to the staff car from Randolph that had come to fetch them.

They gathered up their jackets, stowed the medical kits and supply chest in the trunk, piled into the sedan and headed back to home base. Hot baths, cold beer and brandy awaited.

***

Two hours later, Magnus’s Jeep bearing Rigel pulled up in front of a mom-and-pop restaurant not too far from the base. Both were in casual civilian clothes, blue jeans, cotton buttoned-down shirts, loafers. Even before they entered the parking lot, the eatery announced its presence; the atmosphere was thick with the smell of mesquite wood smoke and the rhythmic sound of Tejano music.

“Goodgawd, this place is still here?” Rigel exclaimed as she waved her hand in front of her face trying to shoo away the aroma. Smoke. Roasting meat. Rigel swallowed hard and told herself to relax and enjoy Magnus’s company.

“Eh-yup, still here. The base couldn’t operate without it. Best damned calabacita con carne in Texas. C’mon.”

“Best damned heartburn in Texas you mean,” Rigel teased. “And the borracho beans should be outlawed the night before altitude chamber flights.”

“Well, don’t worry, class isn’t doin’ that tomorrow. Time for some good grub, loud music and dancing,” he said good-naturedly. Magnus rounded the front of the Jeep, came over to the passenger side and offered his and to Rigel to help her get out of the vehicle.

She cast a suspicious eye at him. “Geez, Magnus, I’m not an old lady ready for the rocking chair just yet…am I?”

Magnus pursed his lips as he thought of a diplomatic answer. “Old no, tired yes.”

Rigel chuckled a bit. “Damn right on that diagnosis, doctor.” She accepted his hand and rose up from the seat and out of the Jeep.

“How’s come Bowman didn’t wanna join us? That young lady really worked her tail off with us on those flights this past week. I was real prouda her,” Magnus said as they walked across the gravel parking lot toward the establishment.

“She said she was pooped and wanted to write a long letter to her boyfriend about everything she’s seen and done the past few days,” Rigel said as they climbed the four wooden steps up to the broad covered front porch of the old gray sun-faded clapboard building.

“And speakin’ of boyfriends, how’s General Mooseling?” Magnus asked casually as he opened the screen door entrance to the restaurant for Rigel.

Rigel replied with silence and a stare split three ways among icy, hurt and confused.

“Ah, I get it,” Magnus said as Rigel passed in front of him and into the little foyer of the beanery.

“Magnus, I don’t get it so I don’t know you could,” Rigel replied.

“Somethin’ you wanna tell me?” Magnus said lightly, curious but not wanting to probe too deeply.

“Not here and not now,” Rigel admitted.

“Wanna leave? I promised you brandy at my place,” Magnus said.

Putting on a cheery façade, “Nope, I’m hungry. No nopalitos in England,” Rigel said, referring to a Tex-Mex favorite, tiny, succulent cacti.

By now the owner of the restaurant had greeted them and asked if they would mind dining outside as all indoor tables already had diners around them. The couple agreed and they threaded their way through the maze of seated patrons. It was a warm pleasant April night with a slight breeze and low humidity. The gray slate patio was decked out gaily with candles in hurricane glass chimneys atop a variety of wooden tables and a just-arrived band of local musicians were tuning up their instruments in preparation for the night’s festivities. Three large blazing braziers provided light. And then there was the smell…smoky… roasted…meat. All in all, it reminded Rigel of her and Joe’s rewedding at Bryncote…and that other scene that she had been trying to repress.

“Hey, Magnus! Over here!” A quartet of smiling faces and waving hands was the source of the greeting.

Magnus nodded and waved in recognition. “It’s some of the flight surgeons from Randolph and their wives. Wanna join ‘em? We don’t have to if ya don’t, well, feel up to it.”

“Why the hell not!” Rigel exclaimed. “I want to have a good time tonight!”

“Atta girl, O’Ryan!” Magnus said cheerfully. He lightly placed an arm around Rigel’s waist as they walked toward the four seated at a table under an ancient spreading live oak tree. The two men were in their thirties but their wives were a decade younger. They stood up when Magnus and Rigel drew alongside them. One of them look familiar to Rigel but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly where she’d seen him. In contrast to Rigel’s attire, the two women were in dresses with sweaters draped over their shoulders, red lipstick, red fingernails, red toenails that peeked through high heeled sandals. And jewelry, lots of jewelry, with big hoop earrings, diamond wedding rings, clanking bangles and tinkling charm bracelets. Rigel’s accessories were simple--her gold Claddagh wedding ring, the star pearl necklace from Joe and the dog tags from Uncle Sam.

Magnus took the lead. “Rigel O’Ryan, I’d like you to meet Pete and Molly Florentino…” Molly’s eyes widened at the sound of Rigel’s name. Rigel cordially extended her hand to them and received reciprocated friendly handshakes. “And Darcy and Curt Douglas…” Rigel took Darcy’s hand first then moved on to Curt’s.

Curt looked at Rigel and smiled. “I know Captain O’Ryan from Archbury.”

“It’s Major O’Ryan now, Curt,” Magnus said with a hint of pride in his voice. He caught the semi-catty glance that Molly and Darcy exchanged.

“That’s right! You were there with Doc Kaiser!” Rigel exclaimed.

“How’s that leg of yours, Major?” Douglas asked.

“I’m Rigel…just Rigel…got a big ole scar but the leg works just fine,” she said honestly as she patted her right thigh.

Noticing that the men were still standing out of courtesy to a superior officer, Magnus told them to take their seats.

Curt continued his queries of Rigel. “How’s Joe doing? He sure was bunged up pretty bad after that last mission of his.”

Magnus notice Rigel’s almost imperceptible wince at the mention of Joe’s name. “Oh, once in a while his shoulder and leg bother him.” She flat out lied big time. They bothered Joe more than just once in a while.

“Who’s Joe?” asked Molly asked.

“My husband,” Rigel replied and caught Darcy’s eyes darting over to Magnus.

“Ooooohh…” Molly said with a forced smile of feigned approval.

“Joe was the 918th CO,” Curt explained to Darcy as her pretty blonde head nodded with more feigned approval.

“Joe’s a general, a big wig pilot with the air force over in England. Rigel and I knew each other from Omaha Beach,” Magnus said as he popped a corn tortilla chip topped with salsa into his mouth.

“Omaha Beach? As in D-Day?” Darcy asked naively.

“Eh-yup, very same,” Magnus said. “The Army had Joe and Rigel do that newsreel about them meetin’ up at Normandy.”

“I saw that newsreel when it came out!” Molly said. She rattled on to Rigel’s controlled amusement. “That lieutenant Sandy something-ski was a real cutie…not that your husband the general isn’t a cutie. I…I…it’s…well…older men in uniform are so distinguished looking…” She shot a glance at her amused spouse. “But Joe doesn’t look that old in the movie and neither do you…close up…” Molly abruptly shut up realizing that the more she tried extricating her foot from her mouth, the deeper she shoved it in.

“And speaking of lieutenants and those who are otherwise wet behind the ears…” Magnus asked Curt and Pete, “How’d the students handle the Texas City emergency guys?”

“They all did a fine job,” Curt said.

Pete seconded Curt’s report. “I agree. I didn’t know what to expect but you were right, Magnus, all hands were needed whether they’d finished the courses or not.”

“But why exactly are you down here, Rigel? Are you teaching the flight nurse course?” asked Curt.

“No, not teaching it. Taking it. My squadron got sent to North Africa before we officially graduated and some Pentagon brainwave decided that I had to retake the course if I wanted to keep my wings,” she clarified.

“So you were in the 802nd then?” asked Molly.

“Yeah, I was. Why?” Rigel asked.

“I remember when that happened,” Molly said sheepishly.

“How?” Rigel asked.

“Colonel Munroe is my father,” Molly said.

Rigel’s eyes widened in astonishment. “And you were driving that car….”

“That was me. Boy, did I get into trouble for that little stunt! Dad grounded me for a month and took away the car too.”

Rigel chuckled at the memory from Bowman Field and it seemed that Molly still had trouble controlling her mouth. And another memory flashed up. “How’s your brother. I remember him from Magadar.”

“Matt’s fine. He was sent back home after he was hurt. He did mention this red haired flight nurse who was wounded too but tried to make the guys think she just had a rip in her pants.”

“He didn’t buy it, huh?” Rigel asked.

“No, but he thought you were pretty swell anyway,” Molly said.

“Helluva small world, ain’t it?” Magnus said as he smacked the table with his hand for emphasis.

The proprietor came over to take their orders, and they all ordered the house specialty, to no one’s surprise. More chit chat followed as well as more discussion about Texas City, the rumored separation of the Army Air Force from the ground Army, who knew whom at what bases, and what the future held for those at the table. Dinner was served expeditiously and tasted marvelous. The band had struck up lively tunes and soon the patio was populated by dancers. The married couples got up to join them, leaving Magnus and Rigel alone at the table, sitting next to each other watching the others.

“C’mon Rigel,” Magnus said as he stood up offering her his hand—again--and nodding to the dance floor.

“Do you think we should?” she asked. “I’m sure the rumor mill already has enough grist about us.”

“I’m askin’ ya ta dance with me, O’Ryan, not ta go ta bed with me,” Magnus said glibly.

Rigel accepted Magnus’s hand which garnered a smile from him. She looked at his face a little longer than she should have maybe. It was a handsome face in a rugged sort of way and he had gentle, kind eyes.

“Do my looks so repel you that you don’t want to take me to bed?” Rigel asked facetiously.

Magnus put his arm around Rigel’s waist—again--and clasped his other hand in hers as they danced to “San Antonio Rose.”

“Shut up O and dance,” Magnus said grinning as he expertly led Rigel around the floor.

“Why do you call me O’Ryan or O and not Rigel?”

“Who calls you Rigel?” Magnus asked, looking down on his partner’s upturned face.

“Just about everybody.”

“And who calls ya O’Ryan?” Magnus asked.

“A few.”

“And who calls ya ‘O’?”

“Only you.”

“Good,” Magnus said with smile as he pulled Rigel a bit nearer to him. She didn’t resist the press of his arm against her back and she liked it when he called her “O”.

Being held so close to him, Rigel couldn’t help but notice Magnus’s gentle hands, strong shoulders and the light aroma of his aftershave. To Rigel’s surprise, her former foxhole buddy was agile, graceful, confident--an altogether an excellent dancer. And dance they did. To the next song, and the next and the one after that until it was closing time.

The Douglases and the Florentinos declined Magnus’s offer of night caps at his place. The three couples exchanged good-byes with Rigel asking Molly to pass on her regards to Colonel Munroe and Matt.

“Well, looks like it’s just you ‘n me,” Magnus said to Rigel as he turned the key and started up the Jeep’s motor.

“Yep. You promised brandy and I’m gonna hold you to it,” Rigel replied. Brandy wasn’t all that she got.

Magnus steered the Jeep down the street of the little burg and turned down a lane that dead ended on the banks of a creek. “Welcome to Casa Johansen,” Magnus said as he put on the parking break and turned off the motor. Before them sat a quaint, well-manicured white Victorian bungalow on an acre or so of land populated with live oak, mesquite, pecan and fig trees.

Magnus keyed open the front door, flipped on the hall light and was greeted by a three-legged black cat and a one eyed mutt that had one ear that stood up and the other that flopped down.

“Meet Whisky and Rum,” Magnus said to Rigel. Whisky the cat purred and rubbed herself up against Magnus’s calf and Rum the dog wagged his once broken and now permanently kinked tail so fast Rigel thought it would fall off.

“What? No brandy?” Rigel teased, smiling as she bent down to scratch Rum behind his ears.

“Ah, the O’Ryan weak spot, brandy…and Irish coffee.” Her smile evaporated and Magnus noticed it.

“Brandy’s in the kitchen and so’s the coffee,” he said as motioned with his hand for Rigel to follow him into the small but well-appointed cooking space with a large butcher block center island. A plethora of cast iron and copper bottomed pots and pans hung by their handles from a large rectangular metal rack suspended by chains from the ceiling. A wall mounted board was home to various sizes and shapes of culinary knives, whisks, sifters, mashers, spoons and spatulas.

“Damn, Magnus, this place looks like a restaurant,” Rigel commented, having seen George and Gracie’s kitchen at their eatery back on Long Island. “What’s your best dish, Swedish meatballs?”

“Hell, no. I’m Norwegian. Believe it or not, I actually make a pretty good chocolate soufflé.”

“That sounds pretty hoity-toity. Where’d you learn to do that?” Rigel asked. Obviously there was a completely different side to Magnus than the one she’d seen up to now.

“My wife’s parents own a restaurant--I worked there to put myself through college.” Magnus opened the bottle of Hennessy and poured ample amounts into two brandy snifters.

“Wife?” Rigel queried as she accepted the glass from Magnus.

“Yeah, wife.” His brow furrowed when he said it. “Tell ya what. I’ll tell ya my tale of woe if you tell me yours. Deal?”

“Deal,” Rigel said as she lifted her snifter toward Magnus in a toast. “Slainte!”

“Skål!”

They clanked their glasses and downed the liquid in one or two swallows.

“Ready for a refill?” he asked.

“Yep,” Rigel replied.

Magnus picked up the bottle of Hennessy and gave instructions. “C’mon. Back porch. Nice moon out tonight.”

“Lead on MacDuff,” Rigel replied as she followed Magnus out on the porch.

“You like Shakespeare?” he asked as they sat down on the old wooden porch swing. Magnus placed the brandy bottle between them.

“Hate him. I only remembered that line because it was a question I got wrong on a test. It’s ‘lay on MacDuff’” Rigel said.

“Hey, don’t be so hard on ole Will. He had some pretty good ideas in those plays,” Magnus said in defense of The Bard.

“Well, they got lost in translation. Too wordy, too flowery. I like things that are clear cut, plain spoken, no pretense,” Rigel explained.

“The world ain’t like that, O. There’s a lotta gray in between the black and white,” Magnus said with a hint of sadness in his voice.

“And speaking of gray areas…whatever happened with you and Martha Britt, hm?” Rigel asked perhaps more bluntly than she should have. She saw Magnus’s jaws tense to her question.

“Nuthin’,” Magnus said after taking a long sip of his brandy.

“Well, that’s pretty black and white from a guy who sees shades of gray,” Rigel said.

“Too many ghosts hauntin’ us up there in Scotland. I had mine and she had Josh,” Magnus said. “Ya know, O, I may not be da best lookin’ or richest guy inna world but I couldn’t ever see whuddinda hell Martha ever saw in that officer and gentleman.” He shook his head as he poured more Hennessy into his glass and Rigel’s.

“Josh McGraw may be an officer but he sure as hell isn’t a gentleman. I can tellya first-hand about that,” Rigel said emphatically.

“Oh? Do tell,” Magnus coaxed.

“Remember when I was ordered to get my happy ass to London pronto?” Rigel said, recalling her short stay at Aberfeldy after being rescued from the crash site in the Cairngorms.

“Eh-yup, sure do. What happened down there anyway after I called? Did they give ya the DFC that I put ya in for?”

“Yeah, sure did. Thanks Magnus,” Rigel said humbly.

“You deserved it,” Magnus replied as he patted Rigel on the knee.

“Josh’s dad’s a real prick and some of the shit he’s thrown goes back years but the last straw was when General McGraw tried to rough up Sandy and Max caught him in the act.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Rigel replied emphatically. “Lemme tellya somethin’ Magnus…don’t…ever…get…a Gallagher… mad atchya.”

“Why?”

“You’ll lose,” Rigel muttered into her snifter, took a sip, and let a sigh escape.

“So what’s this gotta do with Josh?”

“Our dear bosom buddy, Captain Joshua Milton McGraw, called up a newspaper in London and blabbed that General Joe Gallagher’s wife cut off a guy’s foot in the boonies of Scotland.”

“Damned fine job, too, ya saved the guy’s leg and life,” Magnus stated approvingly.

“That wasn’t all he told this raggy newspaper. He told ‘em some bullshit story about Joe getting some general’s daughter pregnant when he was in the academy and when he wouldn’t marry her, she killed herself over it and it all got printed in the London newspaper.”

“What?” Magnus yipped incredulously.

“It didn’t happen that way,” Rigel explained matter-of-factly.

“What way?’

“Some other cadet got her pregnant, he refused to marry her, and when she started to show she told her Dad that it was Joe Gallagher who knocked her up.”

“She lied?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“’Cuz she was scared and desperate I s’pose,” Rigel replied.

“So what happened to old Joshy-boy?” Magnus inquired.

“Max had the reporter that wrote that hatchet job hauled in front of the committee…”

“And?”

“Turns out that old Joshy-boy was the one who reported about Joe, me, and the rescue of a planeload of Nazi scientists. That was the kicker. Ratting out those scientists. You shoulda seen the look on old Daddy McGraw’s face when it turned out Josh spilled the beans on a big secret!” Rigel cackled.

“Wind blew, shit flew and there stood Josh!” Magnus tacked on gleefully. “So what’s he doin’ now?”

“Working for the congressman who tried to screw Joe and me. He and Josh deserve each other.”

There was a pregnant pause in the conversation and both Rigel and Magnus knew what was on each other’s minds as to what needed to be discussed next. Rigel broke the ice.

“Martha’s living with my brother, Magnus,” Rigel blurted out as she squarely looked into Magnus’s eyes.

“Your brother’s shackin’ up with my kinda sorta old girlfriend?” he asked, his voice tinged with emotion but trying to put a light hearted spin to it.

“Yep. They met at my second wedding at Bryncote. Joe and I sent you an invitation…but you’d already gone stateside.”

Magnus was quiet, too quiet, which told Rigel that there was still a hole in his heart where Martha had been…and could still be if timing had been different.

“Is she happy? Are they happy?” Magnus asked, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Rigel. He honestly cared about Martha. There was no pretense to the man. Ever.

“Yeah, they are,” Rigel replied. “Magnus…” She halted midsentence trying to figure out what to say. “My brother--Hunter--he’s a very good man. He really loves her.”

“But does he like her?” Magnus asked. This question revealed a lot about what made Magnus Johansen tick. Rigel found herself becoming more drawn to him. He was warm, funny, quirky, brilliant, definitely not boring and she wondered if Martha hadn’t passed over a diamond in the rough.

“Yeah, he likes her,” Rigel answered softly.

“So…. are they gonna get married or just keep livin’ in sin together?” Magnus said, trying to sound upbeat.

“Sin for now. They’re both in school full time. Goose is working on his doctorate in aeronautical engineering and Martha’s going to be a psychologist.”

Magnus smiled a bit and nodded. “I can see her doing that. She’s got a big heart and a good head on her shoulders. Maybe she can iron out some of my wrinkles,” Magnus teased.

“The nightmares?”

He nodded in reply.

“What do you do to deal with them, to get over one?” Rigel asked.

“Read.”

“What?”

“Shakespeare.”

“Really?”

“Eh-yup. I hafta really concentrate on what’s he’s sayin’ in all those flowery words and the hard thinkin’ pushes back the fear. You should try it.”

“No thanks.”

“So what do ya like to read anyways? Ladies’ Home Journal?” Magnus joshed as tapped Rigel’s arm gently with his elbow.

“Hell, no,” Rigel scoffed.

“Didn’t think so,” Magnus said as he patted Rigel on her knee.

“So what else do you read, cookbooks?” Rigel teased.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Angela--my wife--wrote one. It’s in the kitchen, autographed ‘n all.” Magnus said. “An’ ya know what’s worse…I created allda recipes an’ she’s takin’ credit for ‘em.”

“So, where is she…I mean… her…Agnes…” the brandy was getting to Rigel by now.

“Angela…”

“Right, Angela…”

“She’s in New York City…”

“With…” Rigel coaxed.

“Him.”

“Who’s ‘him’?” Rigel asked.

“Smithton Blanesworth Armatage, Jr., that’s who ‘him’ is,” Magnus said mockingly.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really. He’s some 4-F fancy pants editor for her cookbook publisher.”

“Well, what kind of smarmy fancy pants publisher does this sleazoid Smitly work for?” Rigel asked. The brandy was definitely playing havoc with her.

“The sleazoid Smitly works for Anson Publishing…”

“OH SHIT!” Rigel yelped as she scrunched up her face at the name.

“What’s oh shit?” Magnus inquired.

“It’s Joe’s mother’s company,” Rigel explained apologetically.

“His mother owns a publishing house?”

“Yep, and a bunch of newspapers, too.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” muttered Magnus.

“So…so…how come she’s in New York City with Smithly Woolworth Arm and Hammer, hmm?” Rigel asked earnestly if not grammatically correct.

“Smitty’s fecund… and I shoot blanks,” Magnus muttered.

“Blanks?”

“Yeah, blanks. I got a Dear John letter from her and a complementary autographed cookbook, too, so I let ‘er go so’d she be happy,” Magnus said sarcastically.

“I know about blanks,” Rigel offered. She grabbed the brandy bottle and poured more for herself and for Magnus.

“So no mooseling?” Magnus asked.

“Nope…well, not at St. Laurent anyway.”

“I grounded ya for nothin,’ eh?”

“Yeah, for nothin’,” Rigel repeated.

“I hear a ‘but’…” Magnus said.

“But, there was another mooseling… and I lost her April 11, 1946. Her name was Brynn.” Rigel’s words dropped off and slid into a little whimper.

The two friends sat quietly for a minute or two. “I’m sorry Rigel,” Magnus said, putting his arm around her shoulders. She briefly laid her head on his then straightened back up.

“Are ya pregnant?” Magnus asked directly.

“Huh?”

“Are ya?” he asked again, more strongly this time.

“Why?”

“‘Cuz I saw you throwin’ up back at Texas City when you thought no one was lookin’.”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Eh-yup. ‘Fess up.”

Rigel took another sip of the Hennessy which had already sufficiently loosened her tongue. “Nope. Not knocked up. Just scared.”

Magnus looked at Rigel disbelievingly. “You? Scared? Nah. I’ve seen you in worse hell holes than Texas City an’ you never broke a sweat.”

“I was sweating at Normandy, believe me. I just got really good at controlling it. But I’ve lost it, I can’t do it like I used to, Magnus.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I screwed up, I failed, I wasn’t good enough and a pilot burned to death because of me.” Rigel tightly closed her eyes as if doing so would blind her from the memories of the fire.

“So Texas City reminded ya of that?”

“Yeah, it did. The smell of the burning oil and metal, the black smoke, the blood. Not good things for a flight nurse to puke over.”

“Do ya have nightmares?” Magnus asked softly.

Rigel just nodded.

“And if ya ask Curt Douglas if he has ‘em, he’ll tell ya. A lot of us do.”

“So does Joe,” Rigel said, barely above a whisper.

“Speakin’ of Joe, what’s goin’ on with yuz?” Magnus asked.

“We’ve kinda hit a big patch of hard sledding.”

“Over what?”

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Rigel said taking another sip of truth tonic.

“And what makes you happy ain’t what makes him happy, is that it?” Magnus asked.

“He wants children and he wants them now…and there aren’t any,” Rigel said. “And I think he’s having an affair with his aide.”

“Joe? Screwin’ around behind your back? Nah,” Magnus said shaking his head as his spoke. “Joe’s not like that. He’d at least have the guts to tell ya to your face if things were over between yuz.”

“I love Joe enough that I want him to be happy and if that means I’m out of his life, then I’ll have to let him go.” Her words broke over into a quiet sob. Magnus put his arm around his old friend, pulled his handkerchief out of his pants pocket and placed it in Rigel’s hand.

Rigel blotted her eyes with the cotton cloth and composed herself. “Thanks Magnus,” she said offering it back to him.

“Nope, keep it. I’m gonna make you cry again,” Magnus lightly.

“Huh?”

“Onions. Gotta chop ‘em for meatloaf,” Magnus said as he stood up from the swing. He extended his hand to Rigel which she took, again.

“Meatloaf?” she asked as they walked toward the kitchen.

“Eh-yup. I’m gonna teach you how ta cook O’Ryan,” Magnus said as he opened the screen door and held it for Rigel.

“Now?”

“Ya got somethin’ better ta do?” Magnus asked as he took down two aprons from a hook on the kitchen wall and tossed one to Rigel. She looked over at the café curtains that hung over his kitchen sink, thought back to Ursa’s flaming pot roast that caught her curtains ablaze.

“I hope you have fire insurance,” Rigel quipped with a smile. And Joe didn’t even pop into that memory this time.

Yessiree, it had been an interesting day.

Sandy Komansky: Books Were Opened

April, Los Angeles, near University of Southern California

Bassingbury College in shock as over 400 GI Billers enroll. Special to the The Lighthouse Reporter by Antonia Karacimos. September 10, 1946. Dean Otis Dodderidge, Bassingbury College, a former teacher’s college, announced that he, his faculty, and the town’s small cultivated campus were in for a great surprise when over 400 former GIs, taking advantage of their GI Bill of Rights, showed up to start classes, September 8. More than a few men and women, not fully knowledgeable of the admissions process, showed up on the first day of class, and had to be turned away. However, a sympathetic registrar rushed into battle to combat this situation and reported that she was deeply impressed with the excitement and the commitment these former soldiers brought to an opportunity of gaining a college education; several said they were the first members of their family to go to college. This is not an isolated incident; colleges and universities all over the nation are experiencing tremendous upticks in their enrollments and their communities are feeling the impact. Reportedly at one college in Arizona, housing is at such a minimum, the college administrators bought a thousand GI surplus mattresses, pleaded for donations of linen, blankets, and towels from the community, which reciprocated, and opened the gymnasiums, male and female, for students to bunk down on the floor.

On a chilly night in April 1947, Sandy Komansky walked up the steps to his apartment, which roosted over a garage attached to a home on the residential street of Catalina. Ten at night was late, but as his life had unfolded since he had arrived at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, just under a year before, it was a not-unknown arrival time as he dedicated himself to work in the wind tunnel, under the direction of Dr. Ian Crusard, famous professor of aeronautics and leader of the endowed Aerial Institute at USC. Actually, they had dedicated themselves to work in the wind tunnel as his roommate, fellow undergraduate, fellow veteran and very good buddy Raymond Zemler also worked there as they studied and help test projects of wing design. It was pretty good work for two guys that were not only undergraduates but were underclassmen as well. People had spoken up for them.

But that night and the next morning were more than just work—there was an important visitor coming to dedicate the new wind tunnel, which had rather suddenly replaced the old but serviceable structure in use since the 1920s. The important visitor was no less than President Harry S Truman, who was in Southern California to stump for Democratic candidates and incumbents who were in some peril of losing their seats as a not unexpected wave of conservatism inundated the country—people were already predicting he would be turned out of office in 1948. Truman had also expressed a wish to visit the Southern California aeronautical industry, riding a high wave of success in their stunning wartime achievement and growth even though it was now peace time, of some sort. At the moment, Sandy was so tired that he hardly cared the chief executive was arriving within a few hours—he was expected to be on hand, too—no disrespect to Harry S, Sandy thought, but he would like to skip the checking and re-checking of his credentials and the campus was awash with Secret Service agents, campus police, city police…

An automatic check in the boughs of the madrona tree which arched over the roof confirmed that Ray was alone that night in the sofa pull-out in the small living room that he insisted sleeping in. Sandy proposed they alternate between the bedroom and the living room sofa-bed but Ray had turned it down. The tie business worked well, even if Sandy had to make a slightly perilous climb through the bedroom window...he still entered quietly. He had once come in to find Ray “in love”—though thankfully the lovers were just sleeping when he entered. And Ray was in love—truly--with his cousin Betty Komansky, former flight nurse, and now a stewardess who flew out of Los Angeles on American Airlines. They were going to marry in June and they wanted to make it double wedding with him and Antonia.

Sandy showered and climbed into bed…He then awoke upon hearing “Stay away—stay---oh, GOD!!”

Sandy launched from the mattress to bolt into the living room. Ray, alone, sitting up, realized Sandy was in the room, he reached over and turned on the lamp. “Just a dream,” he said.

“Like hell,” Sandy said, seeing perspiration glittering on Ray’s receding hairline. He recalled how in 1945 when he was wrenched out of sleep by a dream too—and he had had it since but managed to keep it under control--and then further back to 1943, when he first met Ray, who was a special assistant to Dr. Rink, whose Bombs Through Cloud Device was being pioneered by the 918th with moments of triumph and then of tragedy. He and Ray had become good friends despite Ray’s first façade of prickliness, which rose from Ray’s protecting the rather eccentric Dr. Rink.

“I’m okay,” Ray insisted. “I just got caught this time, is all.”

“You’ve had it before?”

“Seems like a million times. Though maybe just a dozen. Then he grinned. “Look, I get this dream when I get tired and when I get tired I get kinda...well, paranoid.”

“Ray…where were you this afternoon? I called several times—Crusard wanted to know—“

“I called him,” Ray said, sharply.

“Okay,” Sandy said after an awkward moment. Ray was incredibly good-natured and when he turned surly, things were going on which Sandy knew of… but didn’t know the details.

“Look, I’m fine—go back to bed.”

Sandy toyed with accepting his answer but he too had had rotten dreams—still had them once in a while. He also recalled how he had figuratively held Ray’s hand in late 1943, when he had been blinded during one of the BTC missions and his present and future seemed pretty poor—and how he, Sandy, hadn’t minded it, one bit. He didn’t mind now. “How about a cup of tea?”

“Oh man, how about a shot of something stronger, huh?”

“Tea’s cheaper, but done.” Their combined GI Bill rights and part-time jobs in USC’s wind tunnel had kept them afloat but their dollars got stretched pretty thinly. They could be making better money elsewhere but undergraduates getting jobs in the wind tunnel was damned coveted thing. Sandy got them two libations, pouring out the last of the Gallagher brandy from Pres’s crumpled flask; before leaving London back in April 1946, Joe had topped the flask off and he had spun it out for a year. He put the flask on a kitchen shelf, put the glass in Ray’s hand, and then sat down on the thin mattress. Sandy could feel the sheets damp with his sweat. Ray took a small gulp of brandy before he talked, in a steady voice.

…He was walking along a dirt road, the ruts of which ran through a hard golden meadow. Cloudless blue sky overhead, crows croaked in the black, branchy live oaks bordering the field…and his feet hit pavement. A crumbling runway stretched to the east, and it terminated in a stubby control tower. He advanced toward it, wondering if he could learn where he was.

Somewhere overhead in the distance, a plane grumbled. Wondering if it were going land here—and why—he hurried down a path to the door, slightly ajar. The tower was stripped yet somewhere, a radio droned. He mounted the interior steps to the upper floor, following the noise.

The grumbling grew louder, and he advanced to the dirty windows looking out on the runway. There was a plane landing…a B-17.

Red flares shot out. The broad wings were waggling, wildly…two props, no more…It smashed into the runway, and then bellied toward the control tower and crashed into it—he, rooted to the spot, saw the pilot’s severed head, on fire, hurling towards him, its eyes, its mouth open— he threw his arms out to knock it away…and with that, he always woke up.

“Wow,” Sandy said.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever told that—it actually happened to me. After my eyes cleared up, and Dr. Rink had moved in with his sister in Michigan--I was assigned to teaching radio skills at March Field. I had the cadets at the tower, to get some practical experience, and this B-17 came crashing into the tower—all the shit that crashed into us, I really did see the pilot—I learned later that the guy’s name was Roman Egar—his head came flying at me—with the cap--mouth open, eyes open…God.”

Sandy had seen whole bodies, arms, legs—other body parts—being ground up in propellers, or removed from the planes—but not a bodyless head sailing at him.

“In the middle of all that shit, I caught it—and-- God, Sandy, his eyes blinked and his lips moved…”

Sandy was silent.

“I held onto it…I guess he—the head—died. But it spoke to me.”

“What?”

“At least, I think it did.” Sweat once more rimmed Ray’s forehead. He clutched the glass of brandy to his mouth. “I don’t—know—if it happened—or if it’s in my dream. I don’t know anymore.”

“What did it—ah---Egar say?”

“I swear it was something about…’the bell.’”

“Well…you know, there was a ‘bail out bell’—that pilots could hit to—let—the crew know to bail—if the com system broke down. He was trying—“ Sandy then remembered that this was a detached head speaking. “Um, warn the crew.”

“Yeah, I know, yeah. Think I’m crazy?”

Sandy shrugged. “How can we not be, after what we saw, what we’ve been through?”

“And what we’re involved in?”

“Hm?”

“Come on. Why is it—the Nazi shits we were trying to kill two years ago are now working for us?”

“Among the best in the world.”

“You know what the hell I mean.” Ray didn’t seem to be questioning; he seemed to be making a bitter demand.

They both knew, by quiet currents, that German scientists had been “contracted” by the United States into leaving Germany and coming to the United States some by flights from London and other parts of Europe, and some through more devious ways. Though they claimed Germany as their sole loyalty—not Hitler-- there were rumors, more than rumors that some had been die-hard Nazis. Just yesterday, a cheaply printed newspaper with random publication dates and an unknown circulation had identified a Neil Warhner, a new professor in the chemistry department, as a professor at Ingoldstatt, and, moreover, had conducted “experiments” for IG Farben, Europe’s biggest company and stellar producer of Zyklon B which asphyxiated hundreds of thousands of Jews—he had claimed when taken into custody he didn’t know what the experiments were for or about…though he was a party member and rumors were that he wore his party insignia when he lectured.

The Horten flying wing being tested at the wind tunnel? Born and bred in Nazi Germany.

Sandy raked a tired hand through his hair...in which, he thought just that morning, he could find some gray strands. Classes—work—study. He had to. Dusky Boughs—invited to be a member of the Gallagher family, carving his name in that mantel, he had been placed in a gallery of shining stars, and he had to shine too, hard and bright.

“Go to bed,” Ray told him. “Sorry to keep you up.”

“Getting ready for Mr. Truman. We gotta get there seven in the morning.”

“I gotta be there at seven—to make up for not being there today. You sleep in—but be there by 9:00.”

Sandy paused--and agreed. His exhaustion hung on him like scales on a dragon and he wasn’t sure where he got that image. “Deal. Now if you’ll take my final in advanced aerodynamic theory for me, I’ll love you forever.”

“Too late. Your cousin’s got dibs on that.”

“Still planning on June 15th?”

“Yep and make it a double?”

“Love to.” Antonia Karacimos had promised she would visit him in May 1947—less than a month away—and maybe to marry him too? Her letters had told Sandy how she longed for him; his letters had warmly reciprocated.

He went back to bed and conked out, the brandy helping him to sink into deeper layers of sleep. He stirred as bells rang…the telephone. Ray answered it, speaking quietly. At times, Betty called him in the wee hours, but she was a stewardess and kept some pretty strange wee hours. He rolled over and went back into the depths although wondering if Ray were seeing a former girlfriend…he hoped not...

He awoke at seven to find Ray already gone. He had made strong coffee but it was already cold. Sandy reheated it in a saucepan. At least it took the edge off sleepiness but also articulated the issues Ray had identified last night. Issues that drifted over national defense, a multiplying issue as the Russian Bear prowled about with increasingly loud growls, at which the Allies, led by the atomic-bomb toting United States, growled back, but the growls were mixed, and were beginning to resound in all corners of the world, from Korea to Turkey to Iran.

So were more and better planes and bombs and better and bigger what-have-you the answer? He revisited the conversation he and Ray had the night before. And the answer was like tangled spaghetti. It was incredible technology buried so deeply in massive bunkers it had survived--incredible things that might, could be used for good, or at least not for evil. Sandy had never easily figured that everything fell into two clearly defined categories of right and wrong, and all this was proving it.

Ian Crusard, their teacher, mentor, and boss since the commencement of the fall semester 19476 wouldn’t discuss the issues. The guy was a kind of a legend, having, in the twenties, invented an injection device that had promoted the effectiveness of fuel consumption. Rumor was that he had made millions... He had done some test piloting in the early thirties, and had helped found Barton Aircraft in 1936. Crusard had been on the ground seemingly minutes after airfields in France and Germany were abandoned, well before the end of the war, to help find whole jets, bits and pieces of jets, and to find and crate up hordes of information, some of it bearing the insignia of Albert Speer, who, in April 1946, received 20 years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials. The Germans had advanced into astonishing levels of technology—which might have won the war—if the scientists and their bosses hadn’t drunk out of poisoned wells of ambition, simple bickering, intense rivalries and a viciousness that led some of them into driving slave labor to horrific levels of work and death even in the fading days of the Reich when they must have known it was over. But their driven work and focus suggested that perhaps those “wonder weapons” Hitler touted would save the Reich from its enemies were less propaganda, and possibly quite real, though they were prevented from being used by a variety of reasons, ranging from lacking materials to being too sophisticated…or so insanely conceived their powers were equally weird. The V-1 and V-2 had made it out of the labs and warehouses to bomb London...Sandy had seen and heard those things in the final year of the war, and while they were frightening, they had also been fascinating...what was the US and its Allies going to do with them—possibly already doing, Sandy thought. He then recalled those crazy henges he had blundered into—God, he was glad those things were a continent, an ocean, and half a continent away...rotting, he hoped. The scientists he had helped fly out had been sick and half-mad from those things and he had been affected by just a brief visit.

The phone rang. Sandy’s arm shot out, nearly knocking over the desk lamp and Antonia’s picture in its Woolworth frame. “Hello,” Sandy said hoarsely. A familiar voice said “Komansky, you should have been here an hour ago—and where the hell is Ray?”

“Coming,” Sandy said to Claud Walkert. He knotted his single good tie after he carefully locked the door—and then unlocked it, opened up his strongbox, and took out a tear-shaped piece of amber. He was determined to get this into Betty Komansky’s hands, and carrying it with him would help him remember…He galloped downstairs to start the six block walk and then jumped again when his landlord, Gene Armer honked his car’s horn at him. He stopped his new DeSoto by Sandy. “Give you a lift?”

“Sure,” Sandy said and climbed in...wondering what the hell it was about Gene Armer that always bothered him. Not bad bothering, just bothering.

The man had a reasonable question. “I was up getting something for a headache when I saw Ray take off at 1:00—and then I saw him leaving again about 5:30—everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy answered. A 1:00 leave taking suggested that Ray was still seeing Diane, who worked at a movie theatre and got off at after midnight. Ray’s business, Sandy thought, though feeling a protective rush for his cousin, Betty. “I guess so—but I didn’t know he had come back and then left again.”

“You slept through it?”

“Brandy really knocks me out.” But he was worried—Ray was supposed to be at the wind tunnel by seven.

Mr. Armer stopped the car, waved goodbye after Sandy climbed out and then drove off to his work at Bartonair Systems in El Segundo, where he was chief of security, or something...

Though he had been given a lift, it took Sandy longer to get to the wind tunnel, as crowds in the hundreds were gathering, voices were talking, and the usual campus soreheads milled about, lifting hand-lettered signs, protesting Nazi technology being developed on their campus—their complaints, Sandy admitted, were legitimate, but what the hell were the Soviets doing?—there had been enough reports about the scientists they had “liberated”—yeah, but what about “their side?”—Sandy recalled from playground politics that balanced power kept a degree of peace that swaggering stood in for battle. He heard a campus police officer arguing with their leader, pointing out he had said he would not lead a protest while the President was there—“Well, is he here yet?” Blair “Red” Hurlbert demanded. He was famous on campus for breaking the news that the old wind tunnel at USC was being replaced by a new one to test Nazi-technology. “Maybe when he comes, we won’t be here.”

Good point, Sandy thought. He glanced at their lines and saw both sincere protesters, as well as girls with stringy hair and careless clothing, and some boys young enough and therefore lucky enough not to have gone overseas and maybe making it up by this sort of excitement. Some other students on campus—those with snappy clothing and playing the current trend of rhyming conversation “What’s the deal, McNeal?” answered with “Got no tale, nightingale” and words of the same silly ilk—stood around and egged them on with cat calls. A radio announcer from KFI was busily speaking into his microphone, commenting on the lovely day and how many minutes to go before the president arrived.

As Sandy tried to quietly slip through the lines, his credential ready to present to the guards around the doors, and he suddenly heard a loud voice: “And what are you up to, Alexander Komansky?” He stopped and looked around and saw the leader with the quick comeback. Blair Hurlbert pointing at him. His people or toadies shouted various things in support; Sandy him bellow “Warmonger!”

Mild epithet, but it stunk, particularly coming from the throat of a guy doing a doctorate in geopolitics. Sandy resisted an obvious hand gesture, and carved his way to the chief entrance of the shiny new wind tunnel, paid for by Bartonair Systems, which only recently went by the more pedestrian “Barton Aircraft.” He ran the gauntlet of eyes, belonging to a variety of people in charge of security. He was emitted into the inner chambers of the wind tunnel, so new that it still smelled new. Despite the fact that he had been there all of eight hours earlier, he was still identified and after that gauntlet he stowed his jacket at the locker he shared with Ray. That morning, with the President watching, they were going to test a model wing based on the principle of the Horten flying wing. To be safe, they were running the test to make sure all was well, and then re-run it for the President.

He hurried into the place, all new and shiny. With displeasure—more like the feeling to gag, he saw Claud Walkert—“Clod” Walkert most people punned, knowing it was pretty mild, but it still described the guy. A partner of Bartonair Systems, an engineer who didn’t seem to know much as he claimed, Walkert had headed up the building and operations of the new wind tunnel. Ian Crusard, who at least figuratively headed up the project of replacing the old university wind tunnel with this endowed one, with its mighty new turbine for testing jet engines, was patient with the man. To his credit, Crusard didn’t seem to care for the guy either, which was putting it mildly. And Crusard said something to the effect that Wallace Barton, the executive officer of Bartonair, was not in the best of health, and had put lot of affairs in this guy’s hands.

He asked where Ray was—and to his relief learned he was in the Wind Tunnel chamber. Sandy entered the enormous wind tunnel—and it was incredible. It had been built on specifications taken from wind tunnels found in Germany in underground hangars. The Horten wing was set up on wooden struts.

Walkert, he then realized, seemed to be following him.

“Hey pal,” he said, seeing Ray. “I’ve got to ask you—“

“No time!” shouted Walkert from behind him.

“Go,” said Ray, gesturing with his hand. “Schnell,” he grinned.

Sandy stifled a response and followed Walkert down the corridor to operations; the door opened and he saw Crusard, his silver hair flaring like a crown, talking on the phone--

A BOOM rocked the wind tunnel.

Sandy fell to the floor, instinctively. The entire structure shook. Fragments clubbed down from the ceiling; insulation bulged from a rent in the walls, and a terrible whining sound…around him were cries of fears and pain, and his brain took a trip through dozens of missions, landings, full ambulances, which more than once had carried him.

He was all right; he later found bruises the size of dinner plates on his back and thighs. There was a rush of bodies, noise, cries to be let out…but Sandy got to his knees, headed away from everybody else, and instinctively made his way down the corridor to the wind tunnel chamber.

The flying wing section looked like a torn apart chicken.

He found Ray on the floor. He gasped only slightly when Sandy took him by the shoulders and rolled him over into his lap. Blood slithered...from his nose and mouth and blood was blotting his shirt…

“Sorry,” Ray breathed into his ear.

“Nothing to be sorry about. Help’s on the way,” Sandy urged. “Come on, Betty’s coming today. You have a date tonight.”

“I gotta…n’other date… Tell Betty…my Elzie--love her. Take care of her…she’s got wounds…” His voice breathed down and low. He began to speak. Sandy put his head down to listen to words issuing out of Ray’s mouth…

“What?” Sandy whispered.

Ray was fighting to live. “Bell…more –said—he… ‘nother bell…” He died, in Alexander Komansky’s arms.

The things that happened next were dreamlike. Fire might be breaking out and he couldn’t leave Ray there—tried to pick him—maybe dragged him—the smoke and dust and crap in the air blew him down—hands took him by the elbows, a wet cloth was crushed over his mouth and he was led out into the air and away, where he collapsed on the grass and he became aware of people surrounding him, and helping him.

The President never arrived. It turned out later that there had been a delay…Truman did request that he speak with the injured, but was prevented. He later sent messages to the wounded, including Sandy, and he put this note into his strongbox—which Susan Nesbitt’s silver watch, and his Silver Star, both covered by his discharge papers.

There had been a blur of sirens, and Ray’s body, after an unimaginably long time being carried away. Others had been hurt by things falling on them, or beating it out the doors. There were questions from a lot of mouths to answer. The protest crowd had surged about and fragmented. Sandy, when he could, detected men in uniform, police officers and others in ties and jackets. He saw Crusard, silver hair flying around his face, shaking his head.

The survivors, those who wished to, were allowed back in the building to claim their stuff from their lockers. Everything taken out was checked, including Ray’s jacket. Sandy claimed and slipped it over his shoulders. He felt cold to the bone.

His face and shoulder throbbing from his dive to the floor, conscious that his shirt and pants were streaked with dried blood, he was finally escorted into the nearest building, which was the Little Chapel of Silence. It had been taken over as a triage and a morgue. Wounds ranged from scrapes to concussions; there was a critical case already taken to the hospital.

He was led to a covered form. A blanket was gently lifted from the face. “Yes, that is Raymond Oscar Zemler.”

The police asked him to stay handy, a nice way of saying he was not to leave. He understood that only an investigation would identify the reason for the explosion.

Somebody drove him home though he had rather walk back to the Armer bungalow. Mrs. Armer, his landlady, though, was watching for him on the porch. “Betty arrived by taxi a few minutes ago,” she said. “I don’t think she’s heard the news.” She then offered Sandy one of her beautiful roses to give to her. He took it.

Mr. Armer then drove his DeSoto into the driveway more quickly than he should. “I heard over the radio,” he said, climbing out. “He was a good kid.”

He climbed the steps with them watching him and he let himself in. “Is that you baby?” called Betty Komansky’s voice from the tiny bathroom. She was showering.

“Sandy,” he called back.

“Where is that man of mine?” she said after a few minutes, emerging from the bathroom, unembarrassedly wrapped in Ray’s bathrobe, her dark hair sleeked behind her ears. “Had a guy with about ten hands fiddling with my ass all the way from El Paso to Phoenix to Los Angeles and I want to send Ray out to kill him—got his address. He should be proud to be killed by a guy who shook the president’s hand today. Good to see you cousin,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. She then pushed back with a grin and grinned at the rose in Sandy’s hand. “Saw a friend of yours,” she said. “In San Antonio.” She took the rose from his fingers.

Sandy stared at her, as he removed his jacket—Ray’s jacket—and hung it in the closet.

She grinned, but knew he was taking too long at something… “Antonia Karacimos! I recognized because of her picture on the desk!—she’s doing some interviews at Randolph--she should be here in a few days!”

She grew uncomfortable when he dissembled a smile.

“Great,” he said. “Betty, sit down, I have something to tell you.”

***

Later that night, after urging her to cry all she wanted—he had joined with her for a while, tears not startling him-- Sandy went out on the small deck and as always felt he was living in a treehouse. In his hand was a glass of brandy, which he had rushed out and bought, price be damned. ...The smell of the madrona tree enveloped him and he melted into the darkness and kind of wished he could stay there. A year ago, life was simpler, and resplendent with opportunities for a wonderful quest.

Some wonderful opportunities had opened up—and one of the greatest, working first hand with Nazi technology in the Wind Tunnel--had turned into a dragon. Had there been signs along the way in the last 12 months?

***

Back in May 1946, separated, paid, discharge papers in hand, with no home to collapse at for a while, and filled with the desire to get on with it, separated soldier Alexander Komansky got to Teaneck, New Jersey, boarded a bus to New York, and then another bus for the long trip to Los Angeles…he could have flown out. But that was expensive, and he was sick and tired of propeller noise, hour after hour, year after year...

After four days and nights later he climbed off at the massive terminal in the city of Angels, got oriented after a night’s sleep and a shower at a hotel he hoped never to see again, and B-4 bag in hand, strode onto the campus of University Southern California and thought he had walked into a movie—swarms of people in academic robes and square caps with tassels were walking about the beautiful campus. It was graduation day.

Sandy intended to attend summer classes to compress four years into two if he really poured it on. Then the Ph.D.—a Masters came first—and then maybe he could finally enter into that secret tunnel there at the Long Island plant… he had dreamed of walking in into that cave of wonders more than once, but every dream was something different, and pointless, such as in one dream…he found nothing but a table covered with kaleidoscopes.

But first he had to deal with the growing maw of Veterans Affair at USC. Then, after three days, Sandy thought he had been through another Slaughterpen as he was formally admitted, was issued a university identification card, got enrolled in two freshman classes for the first summer session, blundered his way around. One of his final stops was the student housing office, which seemed like a waste of time considering the shortage of housing—but it wasn’t. When he finally met one of the clerks, he gave his name and the middle-aged woman said, “Oh, wait...” She left him without another word, walked into an office half-fronted with glass, spoke to a man there, gesturing at him. Sandy was then motioned into the office where the man vaguely greeted him and handed him a 3x5 card, with a name and address: The Armers, 373 Catalina Drive, about six blocks away from the campus.

His first reaction: complete suspicion. Then, come on, Komansky, he said to himself. Don’t be scared of some human kindness, yeah, but from whom? Was somebody taking care of him or was somebody steering him? He realized two sets of eyes were on him, probably surprised that he was scowling at something being offered on a silver tray. He smoothed out his brow. “Thank you,” he told them both.

Sandy quickly located 373 Catalina. He found a lovely blue frame bungalow. Mrs. Jeanne Armer, a fortyish lady, tending to generous bushes of white roses in the front lawn, met him. She nodded when he handed over the card.

She escorted him to the one-bedroom apartment. It was built over the garage, and, though small, after his Goodge mouse hole, it seemed enormous. The galley kitchen was furnished with pots, pans, dishes and cutlery; the bathroom, accessible through the bedroom, was tiny but efficient. The open windows circulated a cool breeze and stirred the leaves of the madrona tree rising up behind the garage and covering the apartment like wings. The rent was—a lot—but Mrs. Armer said they were expecting another young man with whom Sandy could share with—no problem he was accustomed to sharing room, sharing latrines; done it all his life. He was surprised to see a phone—“Is that hooked up?” he asked. “Yes—but you’ll share the line with us. We make a deal with the tenants about certain hours.” He took it on the spot, forked over the deposit and closing the door on his landlady he gazed at his own little castle, not believing his good luck—while wondering what the hell was going on. But he knew that some strings had been pulled getting him into USC; a guy with a nothing education like his wouldn’t have landed on a major university without some help... He thought he knew where the help came from.

He unpacked the few things he had. There was a knock on the door.

“Uh, uh…can I help you?” Sandy said to the middle aged man, resisting the urge to salute. That was over. Mr. Armer, after he introduced himself, smiled at him until Sandy felt his forehead clenching.

“Join us for dinner tonight,” Mr. Armer then said. “Get your groceries tomorrow. There’s a small market two blocks away.” He left and then came back. “Dinner’s at six.” He then grinned.

Sandy grinned back, perfunctorily. Closing the door, he thought about groceries. For himself. Of course, he had shopped a bit in London when living on Goodge Street, but it had been largely tea, bread and cheese because the markets were still austere, at times even worse than during the war—which was due to the United States cancelling lend lease agreements, complicated by a wretched year of weather. His kitchen, lacking a refrigerator, couldn’t hold much else, and so he had eaten a lot of his meals at the commissary there at USAFE in London. Back in 1945, he had picked up groceries for Irene back at Dusky Boughs, but she had created the list, put them on her account and all he had to do was carry them to the car. And then laundry…ironing? Cripes.

It really hit him—he was a civilian now. No pre-selected wardrobe, no orders for the day, no passes, no expectations except what he put on himself—and he expected himself to finish college in two years, then get a Masters, then a Ph.D.

He felt a thrill of delight—excitement--and then a surge of panic. Was he good enough? What would happen if he weren’t? He might disappoint people—himself too. But he also knew that he wanted to get past that mysterious door he had seen on Long Island months earlier... He found himself staring at the small window to the quiet street, framed by the limbs of the madrona tree—and then recalled another mysterious door which he had opened: at Bryncote, in the midst of that crazy wedding, he was running some errand involved with food, or furniture, and he took a wrong turn and found himself in a small vestibule with doors...he opened one and viewed a medieval chamber, complete with stained glass windows illuminated by afternoon sunlight. There was one of a knight in white robes, golden Prince Valiant hair, and a draped horse, kneeling to a woman. One hand held a sword up, the other was proffered as if asking for the woman’s blessing. The next morning, before he left for Hitchin, he managed to ask Sydney about that room—he was a little disappointed to learn that it was actually a room fixed up in the late 19th century by the contemporary Viscount who lapped up the ideals of William Morris and his cadres who worshipped the medieval era. He had new stained glasses window made and placed in a chamber that had been re-done into an Arthurian kind of thing--but the image of the knight, offering his power and his love to the woman stayed with Sandy. Knowing that nobody could see him in his new abode, he held aloft an imaginary sword and proffered his hand—to the future, to people he loved, and wanted to serve, wanted them to be proud of him.

He could do it. There was the GI Bill. He would find a job. Maybe buy a car—for Los Angeles, which was draping itself over hills, into the nearby valleys, climbing up mountains as GIs returned by the dozens, thousands. And he had a certain amount of time to get out of his uniform and into civilian clothing. He had grown comfortable in uniforms since he had been in them since 1938, right out of a boys’ home which had clothed him as well. Putting on civilian gear—that he would choose for himself--was both exciting and disturbing. The expensive London-tailored suit he had planned to get married in had already been hung up in the tiny bedroom closet.

And...he was rocked smack into the figurative arms of Antonia. She had taken some precious time from a reporting junket to meet him in London, in that crazy time between leaving Bryncote and getting on a States-bound DC-3, and they used the time well…oh, brother, he thought, still smelling her dusky blonde perfumed hair…he got busy.

Sandy reported for dinner, served on the patio. Mrs. Armer loaded up his plate with two pork chops, spiced stewed tomatoes, a baked potato big as his hand and a beautiful salad of fresh greens and cucumber and red bell pepper rather than the inevitable sprouts or peas. It was delicious, and the Armers were pleasant hosts. Gene Armer told him that he worked at Bartonair Systems, in El Segundo. Sandy asked Armer if he possibly knew the O’Ryan west coast plant was starting up. Armer gave him a pretty noncommittal answer--just that the facility, a former Lockheed plant, had been gutted and was being rebuilt. He was disappointed; he hoped to get line work there. During dinner, Sandy learned that the Armers had a 19 year old son in the Navy, and said their boy had fallen in love with ships when they lived in Oakland—“And if you grew up in Oakland, how come you joined the army?” Armer asked jokingly.

“How did you know I was from Oakland?” Sandy asked, and hastily unclenched his forehead.

“Ian Crusard mentioned it.”

Crusard was a famous and respected aeronautical engineer at USC, and had been in Europe during the war inspecting, identifying and learning about Luftwaffe aircraft that had been abandoned or hidden when the German forces withdrew. He had connections with people that Sandy knew. “Did Dr. Crusard send me here?” he asked, almost demanding.

The answer seemed to be the front door buzzing. Mrs. Armer left and answered it and called back, “Gene!—the other young man is here!”

The “other young man” joined them on the patio. “Ray!” Sandy shouted.

Raymond Zemler—whom Sandy had last seen being loaded on a transport for London where an eye doctor awaited him, to cure his damaged eyes, scorched over Germany as the Bomb Through Cloud device had turned on them like an enraged demon. Ray and Sandy had promised to write but that fell by the wayside as the war and worries intervened—but here Ray was, his moderately handsome face grinning, and his eyes good and maybe twenty-twenty—and he yelled, “Sandy! Good God, give me a hug, kiddo!”

The Armers let the two men forget all about them as they sputtered with astonishment and went to “their” apartment. Their talk centered largely on Ray’s eyes being fixed, a helluva long but successful process.

The next morning Ray Zemler opened his eyes in the late morning when he heard Sandy bang the door shut and yell “Breakfast in twenty minutes.”

Ray came out to find his new roomie preparing eggs, bacon, coffee, and toast and decided he had gone to heaven. “Man, if marriage is this good, sign me up,” Ray said, seating himself on one of the two mismatched stools at the kitchen counter.

“Celebrating this morning and then back to reality. Prices are like a kick in the ass,” Sandy told him. But he had been delighted at the variety of food available in the small market, in contrast with London, which was still practically starving on rationed bread, fats, and dairy while some food resources were being directed to Germany which was similarly starving.

Over breakfast Sandy learned Ray, after his eyes recovered, finished the war at March Field, teaching radio operators for B-17 crews. Dr. Rink’s difficult heart had retired him to Ann Arbor in Michigan, where his widowed sister in law was taking care of him. Ray had gone there to study. “But Rink wanted me to study under Ian Crusard at USC and arranged it.”

That explained things, Sandy realized. “You know anything about him? All I can learn is that he teaches aeronautical theory and runs some kind of special program.”

Crusard, Ray reported, was well known for assessing German swept-wing aircraft, several of which he investigated on site in Germany pretty much only hours after they were found. But prior to that, he went on to say, Crusard, in 1923, had invented a fuel-injection system which had tripled the effectiveness of intake. He had leased the technique, made a fortune, then sold it for another fortune and then devoted himself to teaching and research at USC, creating and endowing Aerial Institute chair he occupied, and worked for the government pro bono. He and associates had been tinkering with jet technology in early 1940. Also, Crusard and some other guy, a silent partner, had bought out Barton Air Craft in 1930 when is bankruptcy made it cheap. The plant made luxury aircraft in the thirties and during the war had kind of eked things out making engine parts for other aircraft. As if trying to reinvent itself, it been recently renamed “Bartonair Systems.” Ray added, “Crusard’s kind of curious—he hit it big in 1924, and really nothing since—it’s been over twenty years. But he’s up to exciting things I understand.”

“Did Dr. Rink and Crusard ever work together?”

“I don’t really know. I know they travelled in Europe at some point—Rink told me that if you had your ear to the ground after the Nazis took over, there was incredible stuff going on in Germany and they went over to see it.”

That same morning they dutifully called Ian Crusard and only heard a detached male voice saying that Dr. Crusard was not available. A few days later they received a message that Dr. Crusard was busy this summer but looked forward to meeting them in the fall.

Ray for one was delighted. “Well, a summer free in the Golden West! Man, I’ll race you to the beach and the babes!”

“After classes,” Sandy said so firmly he sounded priggish. But Ray was a year ahead of him, and summer classes were already rolling—and his name carved in that mantel had kind of carved into his brain. Ray for a while did as he said; he visited the beaches as much as he could, and found some ladies—but took some advice from Armer who said that Bartonair Systems was hiring, and he found a 12-8 shift. Gene Armer was good enough to give him a lift to El Segundo when he could; otherwise, Ray took two buses, and was soon talking about buying a car.

As for Sandy, civilian life proved pretty okay—though after eight years, you just couldn’t shed the military life that quickly, and at times, he missed its structure. But he was soon comfortable in civilian clothes bought at Penney’s and for a few days having a choice about what to wear kind of confused the hell out of him…and he refused to buy a stylish fedora; man, after eight years wearing his flight cap, garrison caps, and on occasion, full service hats, he never wanted anything on his head again. Increasingly comfortable in sports shirts and civilian khaki pants, he dutifully attended both summer sessions; his writing, honed by reports, and mathematics, after his engineer training, were no sweat. Although Ray told him there were opportunities at Bartonair in El Segundo, Sandy decided to work part time at a local dairy distributor, the motor pool of which needed mechanics. It was a lot closer than El Segundo, and weirdly, he had quite enough of planes...for a while...though that magic door he had seen on Long Island still beckoned him and he could still hear the strange whine of what he knew later had been jet engines.

The unattached Ray soon found a girl who worked late hours, as she was a cashier at local movie theatre, and when the phone jangled in their apartment, Ray answered it being that it was Donna—or Diane--Sandy never knew her last name and never met her. As for Sandy--Antonia was in Italy, as she wrote him, covering, for Anson news service, the lessening of Allied presence in the country as the Allied nations demobilized. Sandy, after reading the letter, studied for a math test in the morning, wrote a theme out longhand, crashed into sleep, then woke up at two in the morning and lay awake, one moment missing Antonia like hell, the next minute toying with the idea of announcing, heroically, “darling, you’re free”—oh, like hell he would.

Sandy had learned about Harvey’s marriage in a note from Harvey—and Maeve--and he had written a quick letter of congratulation, thinking cripes, everybody was married but him.

But for Sandy, things were great—greater if Antonia had been around, but hell, nobody could have everything. He and Ray got on like a house on fire and Sandy carried good memories for the rest of his life of their infrequent dinners when times and paychecks coincided. With Irene’s training in mid-1945 at Dusky Boughs, Sandy had turned into an efficient and even a rather imaginative cook. Ray arrived one night with a bottle of Chianti. “Hey, got a small bonus today and your manager said you were the best mechanic they ever had—man, we’re goin’ places!”

“With grease under our fingernails,” Sandy joked.

“That won’t last,” Ray assured him.

Chianti loosened their tongues. Sandy that evening told Ray he didn’t know much about his parents, as his father had died when he was three, and his mother at eight. “I sure would like to see them.”

“Why?”

“Good question,” Sandy admitted, though surprised.

Ray never knew what happened to his mother—“One time, my dad told me she had left, another time he threw her out for sleeping with his boss at the lumberyard. Another time, she had died. After a while, I didn’t believe anything he told me.”

“Where’s your dad now?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. He never beat me but I kinda think he was too drunk to care.” Ray was merry enough that when he grew serious, it was like a cloud passing over the sun. “He didn’t give a damned fuck about me but I was his kid so he was gonna take care of me though that meant dragging me in that lousy tin-can trailer all over the place and the places none too good. Didn’t care we once ate beans for three weeks running.”

“Could he have left you grandparents, or somebody?”

“I doubt it.” Ray refilled their wine glasses, bought at Woolworth’s for 15 cents. “For eight stinking years we travelled all over the west.” He then barked when Sandy threw enormous spoonfuls of mustard into the mashed potatoes. “Is that the hell why they taste so good?”

“Yeah. Wise old Irene recipe. Well, go on.”

“Somehow I decided I was gonna go to school no matter what ‘Dad’ said. I don’t think he could fuckin’ read…” Ray’s face softened a bit. “I think he was ashamed of it too…and that his real name was Zemlosch.”

“Zemlosch?”

“I grew up speaking some lingo that Dr. Rink finally got identified as Serbo-Croat.” He reeled off a series of words. “I just told you I gotta date tonight at 1:00.”

“You got me beat…all I know is some Ukranian and I don’t know it what it means.” He beheld an array of memories, from his mother telling him “We mus’ speak Enn-glish,” to the puzzled, suspicious and rifle-toting Yugoslavians, back in 1943, he had inflicted his scrappy Ukranian on…Joe asking him what the he had said, and his honest answer—“I don’t know—the guy upstairs said it to his wife all the time,” prompted Joe’s tersely humorous remark: “Let’s hope they loved each other…”

Ray continued. “I finally stole five bucks from his wallet, and with some of my own money, got on about twenty different buses to get to Michigan—and found my grandma had had a stroke and being cared for by my aunt who wasn’t thrilled to see me.” Ray went on to describe how he held out though his aunt gave him the fish eye for every bite of food he consumed, every shower he took, and made him sleep on the back porch. “That’s why I think blood’s overrated.”

He went to school and hated it because he was stuck in the sixth grade—at the age of fifteen. The kids in the nearby high school gave him hell, even after he polished off the sixth, seventh and eighth grades in twelve months and started as a freshman. By that time he was a marked man, and marked others up, and kept getting called to the principal’s stuffy office to be threatened with reform school. By now he kind of glided through classes not really trying. “The principal kept hoping I would go away. I think I stayed there to torture him.”

Sandy served up the meatloaf, inflated with bread and eggs, strongly flavored with onion and garlic, with mashed potatoes and salad on the side. They happily diverted themselves with dinner. Ray took their plates and commenced washing up. Over clanking pots and pans, he spoke more how he met Dr. Rink. “Actually, I met him ‘cause my aunt was trying to find somebody to feed me. There was this youth program being offered by the Rotarians, and if you came and stayed through a Saturday morning, they gave you lunch. I put up with a lot of boring stuff—they were trying to teach us about stuff we could do for a living like—oh, crud, like installing windows—and one Saturday, Dr. Rink came. He took us to his home—his garage, and showed us how radio broadcasts worked. Man, I loved it.”

“Why?” Sandy asked as he dried the plates.

“What grabbed you about planes?” Ray asked.

“I could understand planes. They were rational.”

Ray grinned. “Well, I couldn’t understand radio waves exactly, and I wanted to. I kept asking Rink questions. He seemed really happy that I wanted to know more.”

“You told me he kept you out of reform school.”

“He gave me a reason to stay out of trouble—not that I did exactly, but he kinda—gave me hope beyond the horizon—that other things existed beyond an aunt who hated my hungry guts and those stale old classrooms and a bunch of jerks giving me problems because I was born before they were.” Soon after December 7 Dr. Rink told him he was joining the Signal Corps. Ray was ready to join up, but Rink, wisely, told him to graduate high school—and he did, after cutting a deal with the principal, who was amazed to see Ray honor it, and he then marched in spring graduation. The next day he volunteered. Despite Rink’s efforts to get his protege in the Signal Corps, he was pretty much walking up the gangplank on his way to North Africa, when he was taken out of the line, and sent to Fort Monmouth, where Rink was working on the BTC device.

His story got Sandy recalling a beat cop in Oakland who helped him…back in 1937. “A cop hauled me and two guys I was with into the station to question us about a robbery. There was this other cop who challenged the guy, told him he was wrong. He got us home but left a lot of threats about the staying the hell where we belonged at night. That night was the second time we had been hauled in for suspicion of something and he said a third time he couldn’t help.”

“And there was a third time, right?”

“I was roaming at some idiot hour of the morning--“

“I know that feeling.”

“This same cop took me to some diner and bought me coffee and doughnuts—and told me he could give me a way out.”

“Which was?”

“He could arrange it so I could join the service.”

“Brother, he sure wanted you off his beat!”

“He said would take care of things.” Man, Sandy thought, that guy could have been hung out to dry for that act of kindness—or expediency. “Then he drove me back to the home and didn’t pound on doors, just let me sneak back inside.”

“What happened?”

“A week later he stopped me and slipped me an envelope—when I finally opened it up I found my birth certificate—or a copy of it—with my birth year changed by three years.”

“How’d he do that?”

“He knew people. That cop did okay by me.”

“You did okay by yourself,” Ray said. “And shit, I’m running late.” He showered and shaved and took off.

“Blood doesn’t make family, the heart does.” Sandy mused on Joe’s words, told to him back in May, 1945. People, not family members, were helping him, because, well...they liked him. Not a bad thing, it was a wonderful thing, but it still made him uncomfortable, since he felt that he could never pay such people back, ever.

Too much Chianti sent him on a walk to steady his head…he was still unsettled by being able to go where he wanted to go without orders, and without the lurking feeling that a future mission might be his last…three blocks away, he saw Ray in a phone booth. Ray hung up, left, and walked into the darkness. Then he heard a car door slam...

The next morning Ray said, without being prompted, the girl didn’t show, a friend picked up and gave him a ride for a drink somewhere and that seemed the end of it. But his story didn’t fit what he had seen…he wondered if Ray was living some kind of a second life—but when did he have time? In any case, that was his business, Sandy guessed.

The next morning, Sandy placed Antonia’s photograph on their common desk, covered with their textbooks. It was a professional portrait, done in Rome. It had arrived a few days earlier, and he had privately treasured it; she was the girl you don’t show the other guys. Her slightly almond-shaped eyes peered mischievously into the camera, with her thick blonde hair framing her face. Her shoulders were bare.

“Zowie,” Ray said when he beheld Sandy’s “girl.” “I can see why you don’t give any other lady your attention. Say, was that who you were talking to?—a few days ago—you know, when you got a phone call at two in the morning? I figured it was a wrong number but you talked for a long time—but if you got a secret life pal, that’s your secret--“

“Just a woman I know.” The caller had been Susan Nesbit, calling from the East Coast—how did she get his number? “I have ways,” she said. Susan’s wistful voice, coming over the wire at 2:00 in the morning suggested things that made him happy but uncomfortable, like memories of an incredible three days in a London hotel in December of 1945 which he happily participated in, despite the fact that he learned, after their first night of passionate lovemaking, that she was married…and he was already seeing Antonia, and getting pretty seriously in love. He couldn’t help but be flattered by Susan’s interest as she wanted to write an article on him—“Colonel or General Gallagher told me to wait to see how the story ends—and it’s ended well,” she told him. However, afterwards, he hoped the article would never be written. He still had her watch. He should give it back.

So ended the rather idyllic first summer of Sandy’s civilianhood. The future opened up in bright colors—that were tainted by some unanswered things. By now he knew that Ray had a secret life but if it involved a lady—well, that was his business…by summer’s end, Ray seemed to up his love life by purchasing a pre-war Buick.

***

Fall semester 1946: Sandy felt as though he was taking off in Gallagher’s special P-51, stripped of armor for speed. They both took 18 credits, kept their jobs, humbly waiting for the word from the mighty Crusard…who had kind of grown into this mythical figure as they waited for him to contact them. They were finally invited to Crusard’s office at 3:30 the next afternoon, a rainy Friday in mid-October.

Ray led the way through some grimy hallways which sounded with noise and yells and roars beyond broad doors. They knocked at a positively filthy door, which elicited a “come in!”

Finally they came face to face with the shaggily silver-haired Ian Crusard whose enormous office was smelly with age, sweat, coffee and pipe tobacco. A rumpled cot was in the corner, looking like the man slept in his office, which was a rumor of sorts. An ancient hotplate was nearby along with cans of soup. The man’s greeting was equally unpretentious. “Gentlemen, good to meet you. If you two got the balls to stick Aeronautical Theory and get an A that you deserve, you both get into the wind tunnel this spring—and I will tell you, that we have a brand new wind tunnel at our disposal. That piece of 1920s shit is going to get torn down in two weeks.”

Dr. Crusard asked them about their war experiences. Both men spoke quietly of their time in the Army; Ray was really close-lipped, not going into the time he was in the skies over Europe. Crusard then fired some questions about aerodynamics at them, and Sandy answered back perfectly. He then got up from behind his desk, and seized his crutches. He grinned at their surprised faces. “Still want to be great aerodynamic engineers?” he said. “There can be a price to pay, you know.”

“How did it happen sir?” Sandy asked.

“Car accident in Germany,” he said.

The phone rang, an old candlestick affair. Crusard answered it, a little too quickly, and he motioned the two young men that they were excused. They left, with Sandy feeling somewhat let down but ready to get those A’s... Ray’s forehead had lowered down to the bridge of his nose, a sign that he was thinking about...something. “That’s the first I’ve heard about a car accident,” Ray said. “Rink told me he heard that Crusard fallen down some stairs.”

“Does it matter?” Sandy asked. Ray shrugged.

The next day, the Daily Trojan announced that Bartonair Systems was endowing the new wind tunnel. “I thought that was being endowed by, uh, another company,” Ray said. “They must be having troubles.”

“Like what?” Sandy asked.

“Lots of junk—but I think some of it might be industrial espionage. Armer—uh, tells me a few things when we drive to Bartonair.” He said nothing further.

***

The next weekend, Sandy found an unfamiliar car on the street, and Ray at home at ten on a Saturday night—and he was chatting with a young, beautiful dark-haired woman in uniform though he didn’t recognize the service branch.

“Well, the prodigal cousin! You do exist!” she cried out.

“Betty!” Surprised at how joyful he felt--he threw his arms around Betty Komansky. His cousin, whom he had first and last seen in Barth, Germany, in 1945, was now in the uniform of an American Airlines stewardess. They had corresponded a few times the year he was in England. Sandy started explaining: Uncle Tym, her father, was in Oakland, a pretty far ways away from Los Angeles, and he had been working and going to school—“Yeah, I know,” she said. “When my last letter to you came back, I wrote you at the address you gave me, and a nice lady gave me this new address. Keep a girl informed, why don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He still wasn’t used to having family, real blood family. That had to stop.

Sandy had to get to work at the dairy garage. When he arrived after four in the morning, neither Ray nor Betty were there. Trying not to be worried—and almost succeeding—he was groggily awakened at 8:00 when Ray and Betty arrived with eggs, donuts, and orange juice. Betty cooked breakfast for them all, and Ray told Sandy that they had actually attended 6:00 Mass at Our Savior Parish. “Why, to confess?” Sandy quipped, but hell, they were two adults—still, because Betty was family, he felt, for the first time in his life, a strong urge of protection for a relation. But she was strong, sharp, and sure of herself—she couldn’t have made it as a flight nurse if she hadn’t been, so he quelled any words or worries.

Betty was on her way after her third cup of coffee as she was flying to El Paso by way of Phoenix at 12:15. She departed in her car, and after kissing Ray goodbye—pretty warmly considering they had known each other less than 24 hours--she pecked Sandy on the cheek and said, “You are going to see Papa at Christmas time, you hear me?”

Yes, he agreed. Ray continued to see his girl at wee hours of the morning, but Sandy could see things had changed when one November night he came home earlier than usual and entered the apartment to find Betty and Ray sound asleep in the bed, looking quite serene-- then and when they greeted him the next morning over coffee. Aware that Sandy was a bit uncomfortable, though happy for them, they talked about other things, and she left within the hour, with her and Ray fondly kissing each other on the curb when her ride came.

“You!” she then called to Sandy. “Oakland!” Ray then volunteered to go with Sandy because he wanted to meet—his future father-in-law!

“God, Ray, that’s great!” he blurted. “But so soon—I mean, you know, it’s been really about three weeks since you met.”

“Look, sometimes you know when you got the right girl. Betty’s the right one.”

“When are you marrying?”

Ray identified June 15 1947 as their date…soon, yeah, but neither was getting any younger—she would quit her stew work and settle down because both wanted babies…and both wanted a home near the ocean, but hell, that could wait…

“What about your degree?” Sandy asked. “I’ll get it,” Ray assured him. “Otherwise Dr. Rink will come out here and kill me. But Betty and I both want to get married and soon—those kids we want can’t wait forever.”

Sandy lay awake again that night, wondering if he ever really had that feeling about Antonia. Surely he had but he could not identify the moment. Actually, he could identify a lot of moments, but how much of that was what he told himself? He turned on his stomach then on his back, flipped his pillows, drew up and threw off his blankets, trying to imagine himself and Antonia as parents…and couldn’t, except seeing them cooing over some faceless infant.

The thought of being a parent... got him to thinking—again-- that he had never received any wonderful news from England, news that he had been expecting late August, early September.

Had something happened? He had to write...no...he would write Harvey and Maeve. But in the letter he had received from Harvey in October, there had been no mention... Perhaps it had been too sad to write about, but he wished he didn’t have to draw his own conclusions.

Then, though he told himself to stop, he wondered, not for the first time, if he had made anybody angry with him. Yeah, he thought, Joe might have realized how much in love he had been with Rigel...and Joe had learned about him getting that ring stuck on his finger…crap…stop it, he ordered himself, but cripes he had messed up—again, dammit, dammit…dammit.

***

Fall semester ended, the new wind tunnel was completed PDQ and with work there assured for the spring, both quit their jobs and took a holiday. On December 15 both young men went to Oakland—minus Betty, who had unluckily volunteered to fly some routes up the west coast months earlier. Ray’s car had enough problems to make them unsure if it could make it up the coast so they boarded a Greyhound. Sandy had identified Oakland as home, though in the most abstract sense of the word; he had grown up there, had some guys he called friends there, had some good and rotten experiences, including losing his virginity--twice.

He still got sick at that memory. Forget it, he told himself. Old business, old crap.

Oakland was sunny, cold, and friendly when they claimed their bags from the bus’s luggage bay and swung out onto San Pablo. They started asking about Shepherd Canyon Road which ran through the Polish neighborhood where Tymoteusz Komansky had lived since 1937, tutoring Latin at a Catholic high school in the parish.

Sandy was surprised when Betty told him this. He always figured that his family were laborers. But there had been books in that two-room tenement he and his mother lived in, and when he opened one, after he learned to read, he couldn’t make sense of it—maybe because it was in Polish.

They found 7177 Shepherds Canyon—and a small white Victorian-looking frame on short stilts. Sandy found himself greeting another blood relative.

Uncle Tym may have tutored Latin but his English was a spotty, and Sandy’s Polish was non-existent and he at first felt like squirming with embarrassment. Neighbors came in—who, in a mixture of Polish and English, greeted him, exclaimed over his height, his broad shoulders, his handsome face. “He is going to college,” said Tym, proudly. “As my Elzbieta gone.”

“Who?” Ray said. Sandy told him that was Betty’s Polish name. From then on, Ray called her Elzie, which she first didn’t like and then came to love when spoken by her special guy.

That evening, Tym took them to Casimir Pulaski Hall, long, narrow, and noisy as hell; a polka band played away in one end; couples danced and people shouted at each other in both Polish and English and other Eastern European tongues. Sandy learned years later that Tym found the evening a hard one, because in traditional Polish observance, the month before Christmas was spent quietly awaiting the birth of the Christ child, rather than shopping, partying, singing, attending pageants and parades. But he knew the two young American men knew nothing about such things, and made sure they had a good time among the young Polish people of the neighborhood who were gradually getting away from the “old ways.”

A table groaned with all kinds of Polish dishes and Polish pastry. Two rounds of Polish vodka later, he found himself whirling in polkas, with him and Ray linking arms with each other and with a lot of pretty girls in the neighborhood. Uncle Tym himself led the two young men home, who had imbibed more Polish vodka, pulled out a bed from a davenport, and guided them into it.

Sandy awoke smelling the familiar damp air—hating it. He smelled that air for years—centuries—at the boys’ home. Oh, Komansky, gag the drama, he told himself. That was years ago. Years and years, and years…in the thirties, this was the forties and the 1950 was little more than four years away, when the century tipped into its second half—hopefully better than the first half. Could he make it better?

Then he smelled coffee and left the gently snoring Ray.

“Hair of dog?” said Uncle Tym, seated in a chair at the small kitchen table. A bottle was by his elbow. He poured him out a shot of vodka, while pushing a cup of coffee at him.

Sitting down, Sandy drank both. “Your English is better,” he then said.

“I—make scared—and don talk English good,” Tym admitted.

“You were scared?” Sandy asked. “Why?”

“Why you?” he asked. He stood up, advanced, and put rather frail arms around Sandy. He then clasped his hands around Sandy’s face and two pair of blue eyes peered into each other. “Brother’s boy—miracle to find…miracle.”

Sandy had held his emotions in check but now they burst out in some tears—family...he had a real blood family. Somebody who could tell him something about his family, which might tell him about himself. A few years ago he wouldn’t have cared, but knowing the Gallaghers had made him understand. “Uncle Tym, I am so happy to…meet you.”

Ray woke up, dressed, and went on a walk, missing Betty, or Elzie… After he left there was a knock at the door, and Uncle Tym escorted a man into the parlor. Sandy stood up automatically for the priest. “Father Adam Belieuz,” he introduced himself, and served at St. Joseph the Worker. “And I’m here to help Tym here with his English. He wants to talk with you and was afraid he was going to take up too much time.”

Tym grilled his nephew and soon Sandy understood why. He was more alone than he thought; he always dimly figured there were Komanskys in Poland somewhere—but, as with many Polish families, there were few Komanskys left after the Nazis were through with Silesia, in Poland—gutting its coal and then its people. Their village, fairly near the small city of Posen, which had survived for centuries against the Huns, the Teutonic Knights, various and sundry ruling houses including the Hapsburgs, stubborn Polish politics, was then raped by Nazis and then surged over again by Soviet forces and an agenda hatched at the Kremlin; it no longer existed but for some hovels. If family members survived, they were scattered to the winds—harsh, horrible winds. There were, in Tym and Sandy’s father’s generation, thirteen brothers and sisters!—and who knows how many were dead now. He, Tym, and Mateusz were the two youngest, with about fourteen months between them—but they had different mothers. Their father had been widowed when his wife had died in childbirth to Tymoteusz; then he married a recent widow and Sandy’s father had been the first child of that union, born only 13 months after Tym.

The two young half-brothers became close and swore never to go down into the coal mines. Tym ignored a beating his father gave him at the age of 17 and left for school and a year later, Mateusz did the same, and walked over twenty miles to a school taught by priests, where the two boys built fires, cleaned the school, and slept in a hayloft. Tym decided to stay and study for the priesthood—which obviously didn’t last! Mateusz packed what he had and walked to Warsaw and with hard-won immigration papers in his pocket, boarded a ship in Gdansk and sailed to the New World in 1910. Tym followed in 1920 with his pregnant wife, Elizbieta, who gave her name to their single daughter. She had died in 1930 of pneumonia, in New Jersey.

Tym then asked Sandy, “What do you know about Mateusz? I found his grave and no more.”

“He died when I was three—tuberculosis. My mother never told me much. I think she loved him,” he finished.

“I loved him too.” Tym wiped his eyes, and then got up, went to his bedroom, and then returned. He had a battered gray envelope in his hand. He spoke, and the priest translated. “Mateusz wrote the letter after his marriage in 1916.” Sandy sat and waited for Tym to speak, and the priest to translate, slowly. “He says that the letter was sent to Sroda, in Silesia, but he, Tym, was not there. Somebody sent the letter back in 1919 but it was wrong address or your papa and mama had moved. The letter went back to Sroda. By luck somebody found the letter a few years later, knew where Tym was to send it to him.” Tym then spoke quietly. The priest said, “It arrived on August 31, 1939.”

Sandy winced—the next day, Nazi Germany had invaded Poland.

A photo came with the note. His parents. How young they seemed, and how defenseless. A date on the back: April—something...1916.

He recognized Magda…Komansky—what was her maiden name? He didn’t know. On her wedding day, she wore a short veil and earrings—Sandy suddenly recalled the amber earrings. “You look as him,” said Tym, pointing to his father. Sandy couldn’t see it at the moment, but he later saw the faint clench in his father’s forehead and eyes. “What…does the letter say?” Sandy then asked. Tym read the letter and Sandy learned that his father had roamed the United States, working in wheat fields, oil fields, and finally in California vineyards but when he married he found work on the docks in Oakland. He joined the AEF in WWI and returned to Europe…and survived. “Only other things I know is that they had a child and died young,” the priest translated from Tym. “Not you. Another child.”

Sandy was quietly thunderstruck. He had a sibling. Had a sibling, he thought.

Tym then spoke in English. “Wait—here—wait.” He left and returned with a shabby box. He opened it and showed the contents: a tear-shaped orangish transparent stone. Tym handled it reverently, far more reverently than its size suggested.

“Amber,” the priest. “It’s not a stone, it’s--“

“Petrified tree sap.” His mother wore tear-shaped amber earrings at Easter and Christmas. She explained what amber was to him, though she called it “The blood and tears of an ancient tree.” What happened to his mother’s amber earrings?—which were tear shaped. Maybe the Ukranian woman who lived above them helped herself.

Tym was telling the myth of amber...Perkunas, God of Thunder, had a daughter Jurate, a mermaid who lived in an amber palace in the Baltic Sea. One day a fisherman named Kastytis cast his nets to catch fish from Jurate’s kingdom. Jurate went herself to demand he stop. Once she saw him she fell in love and brought him back to her amber palace. Perkunas, knowing Jurate was promised to Patrimpas, God of Water, grew angry and destroyed the amber palace with a bolt of lightning to kill her mortal lover and Jurate was chained to the ruins for eternity. When storms in the Baltic stir the sea, fragments from the amber palace wash up on shore. Pieces in the shape of tears are particularly treasured, as they are the tears from the grieving goddess, as she weeps tears of amber… Sandy thought the story was quite pretty, but petrified tree sap was petrified tree sap…but his memory found Angel Babe, the B-17 with a beautiful name, a beautiful face painted on her nose, and a seeming fierce desire to survive on her own terms when it was ordered she would be flown to the States for a bond drive—and so she killed herself. On the report: engine trouble. In everybody else’s unstated beliefs, including his own, the B-17 had a soul which loved, hated, rebelled, and finally immolated itself.

Ray suddenly returned—“Hey, I got us a ride, Sandy, all the way to the bus station,” he said, sensitive enough to know he was crashing into some kind of tender moment—and fought feelings of “Yeah, sure,” when family ties were so strong you could feel them. “I love your daughter, sir,” Ray then blurted. “We are going to marry some time soon.”

Tym graciously nodded. Sandy saw that he made peace with his daughter’s American ways. He pressed the box into Sandy’s hand.

“Betty—should have this,” Sandy said.

“No. Betty marry—Mr. Zemler here. The name different—no more Komansky. You, you Komansky.”

They were in a hurry, so Sandy accepted the box, deciding he would tell Betty about the piece of amber he had been entrusted with…just because he had balls, he thought crudely. That was no way of measuring who should get a family treasure, that he didn’t even know existed until a few minutes earlier. Sandy scribbled his address for his uncle. With intense relief, Sandy followed Ray out the house and down the steps, with the priest calling goodbyes to Tym, who waved, and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. He then shouted—“We—we—Komanskys—we rule By-santum. We kings.”

Sandy, Ray and the priest waved, and then hurried down the steps to the crumbly sidewalks and Ray led them to where they were going to be picked up. Sandy started to relax when finally off and away. Ray asked, “What was that about you being a king, your majesty?”

“Huh?”

The priest laughed a bit, but was serious. “Your uncle isn’t talking out of his hat—there was an Alexis Commenes, emperor of Byzantium at the time of the First Crusades, in--”

“So?”

“Commenes—Komens—ky?—and Alexander, too, come to think of it,” the priest chuckled.

“Oh, come on,” Sandy said.

“Well, perhaps not, but the trans-European lands are mysterious and tangled,” he said.

“Brother, you know it,” he remarked, and then mentioned that he had studied—a bit--the politics of the Balkans—and Turkey—and Greece as well. They caught the bus, arrived in LA the next afternoon, and made their way to their home. During the long ride home he had given his uncle’s words some thought—cripes, royalty? He doubted it.

Mr. Armer was trimming the house with the last of the Christmas decorations when they returned. He called to them, but Ray demurred, saying he needed the toilet.

Armer asked where they had been. “Visiting family in Oakland,” Sandy said, liking the word “family” that he could claim as his own now. They chatted for a few minutes. He then climbed the steps and entered the apartment. After Sandy used the toilet he found Ray peering at the molding top of the kitchen door.

“What’s up there?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then...what’s up?” Sandy suddenly asked. “Other things are going on, Ray—“

“Like what?”

“Like I felt as if I were being detained down there while you checked our apartment.”

“Check it for what?”

Sandy then framed the word “weeds” in his head. He was in ‘em and Ray knew it and Ray was trying to give him a way out. After a slightly taut moment, Ray said “Look, Sandy—I’m your friend. Do you trust me?”

“Sure.”

“I trusted you once…There at the…918th. You lied to me about Rink. He was hiding out at the local booze shop and you said Gallagher was keeping him busy which is why he wasn’t coming to see me…you lied, but you got me through a bad time, pal, because of your lying.”

“Lying is never good,” Sandy murmured.

Ray’s answer was not the one he wanted, whatever it was. “We’re both gonna be okay, Sandy, you get me?”

“Of course,” Sandy whispered.

“Don’t ask questions. And I swear, I’ll never betray you.”

Justice and Other Mysteries: Archbury and Nuremberg

FOR Harvey and Maeve Stovall, their lives together between 1947 and 1950 were Dickensian: the best of times, the worst of times.

***

Lt. Juliette Lovelady, at her desk, picked up the phone and spoke: “General Gallagher’s office. Lt. Lovelady speaking.” A moment’s pause and then a woman spoke: “This is Maeve Stovall. Is General Gallagher in please?” After Juliette informed her he was out and not expected back for several hours, there was another pause. Then, “Lt. Lovelady, we met in Archbury in early January; do you remember? Joe—General Gallagher—was in a car, and you were driving, and he saw us--“

“Yes mam,” Juliette said. “We all had a cup of tea together. Mam, might I be of help to you?”

Mrs. Stovall spoke quickly, but clearly. She had to communicate with her husband, in Nuremberg, at the Trials—immediately. A letter would take too long; she had sent a telegram telling her where and when to call her, and was now trying to call him. “It’s not an emergency, but time is critical. Can you help me?” she asked. “Ah, General Gallagher did say—“

“To call if you needed any assistance,” Juliette finished. She remembered General Gallagher saying that and recalling how nice an offer it was. Warming to the challenge, and glad it was a slow day, with projects completing in a timely fashion, she asked, “Give me your number.” Maeve did. Juliette set about making a call to the Palace of Justice, in Nuremberg, to speak with a Lt. Colonel Harvey Stovall. After delays, a near cut-off; the central operator for the Palace of Justice sent her through. The phone rang and rang and was finally answered—but not by Colonel Stovall. However, a message was taken—to call his wife at the number provided, and the voice said it would be placed on his desk. With some regret, she called Maeve at the number. The phone was snatched at first ring.

“Yes?”

Juliette wished she had better news. Maeve sighed but said, “Thank you so much for your help. Goodbye,” and rang off. Juliette turned to her delayed work and could not help but wonder what was so critical.

In Nuremberg, Harvey finally returned to his desk three hours later and found the message, another hour later, buried under some documents delivered to his desk and laid on top of it. “Damn,” Harvey growled, put through the call which he recognized as being Roy Burnham’s office number—and finally, on the third try, two hours later, after he had found her telegram, Maeve answered, breathless. “Oh, Harvey,” she said, with a slight gasp. “I’m glad you called but it’s too late—“

“Late for what?” Harvey demanded, standing up at his desk.

“Too late to say yea or nay.” After a pause in which she caught her breath and cleared her throat, she said, simply, “I put earnest money down on a house. I just did it.”

Harvey breathed out. For all the things he had imagined...putting money down a house seemed nothing. But he was startled after a moment and when this softened to mere surprise, he took pleasure in what Maeve had done...but...well, anyway, it was not the first nor the last time his dear wife startled him.

***

Harvey and Maeve’s first eighteen months of marriage were happy—but Harvey frequently wondered if they were happy because they didn’t see each other that much!—as they were kept apart by their individual lines of work.

Both lines were absorbing: as the local licensed and registered midwife, Maeve tended to, administered to, and educated expectant mothers, and delivered babies in the Archbury area. She then followed up on both mother and baby’s habits and health for several weeks. She worked closely and well with Dr. Burnham who had courageously pioneered advanced natal care in the area; many women, born and raised in the countryside and following tradition, still did not seek medical care with pregnancy. With Burnham and Maeve as a team, this was changing, and more and better babies had been delivered since 1943.

Harvey sought to deliver justice at the Nuremberg Trials, the international military tribune, now in their second year with more years to come. More than once, Harvey admired the clear objectives of his wife’s work; justice, on the other hand, was more complicated to deliver. Harvey had voluntarily joined the corps of lawyers at “subsequent Nuremberg Trials”--specifically Military Tribunal IV, the United States vs. Carl Krauch et al. or simply, the “Farben trial.” With his work at the 918th finished, and upon joining JAG, he requested transfer to the Nuremberg Trials in November 1945, the month the Trials commenced, after months in preparation. He arrived, B-4 bag in hand, in January 1946 and in the spring of 1947, the work went on, with no end in sight. Rumors were the trials could continue through the end of the decade...

Harvey’s presence was crucial—as were all the other lawyers, military and civilian who volunteered for this remarkable duty. For one, after the trial of the chief Nazi architects of evil—and their execution, imprisonment, even, amazingly release of two individuals--the Soviet Union intended to withdraw, as did the French and the English. The United States would proceed by itself and needed all legal hands it could get, civilian and military. Their first objective on the subsequent agenda was to prosecute the industrialists whose efforts went hand in glove with the Nazi’s regimen of conquering: Farben, Europe’s largest private corporation, had produced synthetic rubber and fuel from coal that assisted the war machine. Farben had also produced the Zyklon B that had been shaken down into the filters of the “showers” of Auschwitz, at times on the slaves the Farben industry used to mine and process their raw materials. Farben continued to do so, contracting with other companies, including the oven companies that reduced the “shower” victims, employing slave labor culled from the camps, and knew it.

Harvey, with Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, who, like him, had been a civilian lawyer prior to the war, helped prepare the prosecution of the 23 principal Farben officers on trial while the first round of trials went on. Rosie, formerly Lt. Colonel Rosenthal had experience; he had been at Nuremberg from the beginning—returning from civilian life barely taken up again to go back to Germany. He had helped to prepare the prosecution of the high command figures, which had been exciting as well as sickening, disturbing. Rosie and his colleagues had to deal with one of the chief issues of the Trials—the lack of precedent for such crime and prosecution, and this would be exploited by the defense. The laws the defendants were charged with had been derived from the charter for the trials.

As the first “subsequent” trials prepared, Rosie, Harvey and other lawyers pondered the five points of the indictment:

1. Planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries.

2. War crimes and crimes against humanity through participation in the enslavement and deportation to slave labor on a gigantic scale of concentration of camp inmates and civilians in occupied countries, and of prisoners of war, and the mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved persons

3. Membership in a criminal organization, the SS.

4. Acting as leaders in a conspiracy to commit the crimes mentioned under counts 1, 2. 3.

Only Count Two was undeniable, Rosie argued. That would have to be the prosecution’s chief platform. But there was an argument to counter: that the law was a retroactive response to the situation. Could a law be broken if it had not been made? How fair was it when the enemy, now the conquerors, made the law to prosecute the conquered?

Playing devil’s advocate, Harvey argued it had been war, and war always trumped convention…yet there was no doubt in his mind that the Reich, which set new precedents in cruelty, had to be brought to account. These and other such questions, indicated how the trials were dramatic, horrifying...grinding...confusing at times...as they should because the western world was breaking new legal grounds and that wasn’t something that happened in a flash of brilliance. This lack of a flash of brilliance contributed to the turnover of personnel. The lawyers and other staff became tired of being alone, away from home; civilian lawyers departed; military personnel requested transfer from rubbled Germany and the at-times grinding business of bringing Nazi villains to justice…which had to be done. Harvey, when he learned this, was glad his wife was only a relatively few hours away…and, when he made himself admit to it, he had no real desire to return home to Providence, with Rachel and Michael both gone.

But Harvey was sincerely concerned about historical verdict of these trials. International law was being made—but were the Allies, and in this case, was the United States being truly just in what it was doing?

Tough question, elusive answer. Maybe even a mystery. Harvey knew that justice never could be fully defined or objectified... Not only was there criticism from Germans who spoke out against their conquerors leveraging brand new laws, created after the crimes were committed, but a Supreme Court Justice, the famously liberal William O. Douglas had his say, huffing that the trials were “more about power than principles.” But Douglas was safely insulated in Washington DC, and he had admitted that the mass scale, programmatic genocide of the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals was too terrible to pass off as a mere matter of war and the old excuse of “following orders.”

Harvey, when he became confused, told himself he could at any time request transfer from the staff of Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor. Military personnel serving at the Trials had not been assigned; it was all voluntary, but walking away when “you had had enough” wasn’t right to Harvey. The airmen he watched go up in their planes could not resign when they had had enough. The foot soldiers that slogged over Europe could not resign when they had had enough.

Rosie Rosenthal gave Harvey support during these moments. Soon after peace had been declared, Lt. Col. Robert Rosenthal had resigned his commission and returned to civilian life intending to take up work again at his law firm—but swiftly returned to Europe for the Trials, realizing their scope and magnitude. The two US Army Air Force officers—one former, the other still commissioned--had a lot in common: they had both been the CO of a base, though Harvey had commanded the ground contingent, while Frank Bailey had taken over the air wing. Rosie, like Joe Gallagher, had started out as just one of the pilots, rose to squadron leader and eventually assumed a command of a base in the Midlands. Both Rosie and Harvey had been a lot older than the rest of the guys they had flown with. Both had been junior partners in conservative law firms which believed staying out of the courtroom was better, settling issues with paper and pen. Both, as they realized, had been in Russia!—though Rosie had jumped from his crippled B-17 and rescued by ground forces. While waiting to be flown home, he joined the Soviet guys in drinking bouts beyond belief—he recalled, dimly, falling off a table! Harvey recalled that he went almost in embassage, his Dress A uniform in his B-4 and there were tidy rounds of vodka at their departure. Rosie also showed him a picture of himself, taken after he had gone down in Europe and had made it home by the French Underground. He was “dolled up” in his Dress A—with his left arm in a sling, and him, he joked, trying to look “heroic” for the press guys. Harvey doubted if he had to try...Rosie was the real thing.

One more thing they had in common: they both agreed on a principal point that law was the province of all, not just the rich and the powerful, but everybody—the dispossessed, the ignored, the poor, the sidelined. It might be all they had, the law to protect them, to make sure they too could get justice…even the dead, the most helpless of all, Rosie said, required justice.

One evening at the pub or bar that had grown up in the Palace, Rosie recalled for Harvey, how, when he was interrogating Hermann Goering, that even captivity and imprisonment had not convinced that ogre that he was not above the law. He was too powerful to go to trial, and if he did…well, he would be judged innocent because of his money—all confiscated—and who he was. “The asshole came in with a prepared statement and was pretty damned surprised when the chief judge shut him up,” Rosie recalled with pleasure. “And then he made a complete jackass out of himself when spoke at the end of the trial. Man, even the other defendants wanted to shut him up.”

“Being Jewish,” Harvey commenced delicately, “how did you feel assisting with prosecution of these men?”

Rosie’s answer was eloquent. “Triumphant. But that doesn’t necessarily mean good. But it was something…that a man who was American, and Jewish…could stare these Nazi shits in the eye, demand an accounting of his work and let him know that he was a criminal and would have to face consequences—like the most common thief.”

They had then both left the smoked out pub to get some fresh cold air and stood back as they could to take in the massive complex—they could not see the grim prison areas, where defendants had been kept—and two suicides had taken place, though not in remorse. One, Robert Lay, was from fear; the second, Goering, was from arrogance—and deliberately done on the eve of his hanging. He would not die on the gallows like a common criminal. “Though he sure as hell was,” Rosie finished. “Spectacularly common.”

“Well, let’s keep going,” he then said, referring to their walk and the cause they had committed to. Harvey nodded, reinvigorated, and he always recalled how Rosie made the law transcend his personal, cultural and religious beliefs to not only prosecute the Nazi high command, but to make sure it was done fairly—at least, as fairly as possible.

So Harvey and his associates kept up interrogating, repeating questions, listening patiently for the translators, reviewing the transcriptions.

So, Maeve buying a house was certainly less critical than this. His surprise was actually a welcomed diversion. He was still startled as they had not discussed such a step—but then again, they hadn’t discussed their future much anyway, simply because the present had its exigencies. He had planned to start the process of Maeve immigrating shortly after their marriage, because it seemed a wise thing to do. But he hadn’t.

***

Harvey received a ten-day pass in mid-April 1947. The Farben trial was set to begin on May 2 1947 and all hands were to be visible in the courtroom as the US “took over” the Nuremberg Trials. There was a lot of howling in Washington over that...

Maeve met Harvey with a resounding kiss and a hug the moment he stepped off the train at Archbury. Past 9:00 in the evening, they opted for dinner at the Star and Bottle, the cuisine of which had improved somewhat since the war, and going to her—their--small but cozy flat on Waterloo lane in outer Archbury. They didn’t avoid the issue, but there was not really an issue: Maeve found the property desirable, there was another party inquiring about it, and she had the cash. Far from being a penniless war widow, she had a substantial amount of money from her husband, who had been a doctor. She had signed papers and secured a ten-year mortgage with good terms.

However cozy, her--their--flat was always redolent with the floor’s common and rather ancient toilet, which Harvey disliked but accepted as it was kept meticulously clean. Also redolent: never really opened-up serious conversations about their future, as in going “home” to the States. Harvey, under warm blankets, watched as his wife prepared for bed. She disrobed and quickly scrubbed herself at the old fashioned bowl and pitcher, and then glanced at him in the mirror. He was admiring her modestly voluptuous body as she sponged off, dried herself and quickly wriggled into her flannel nightgown. The gown caught on the moisture left on her body and revealed her handsome breasts and buttocks. Harvey found another reason why he kept putting off the paperwork to get Maeve’s immigration commenced. They saw each other so infrequently, and so enjoyed being with each other at their reunions—and he loved saying once more “my wife,” and he could hear the same pleasure in Maeve’s liltingly lush “my husband” that he gave into temptation…“Procastinator,” Harvey thought to himself, not blaming this warm, pleasant, second marriage; it was too pleasant to blame anybody, anything.

And did he ever say to her, “Don’t buy a house?” No, but…

Thus he gave into the temptation of putting things off a while longer...who knows, maybe he would stay here in England. So there would be an interlude...good, bad? Harvey had long learned that every dark cloud had its silver lining...which then frequently produced another dark cloud. Maeve buying a house pleased her immensely, and gave him another good reason to stick it out with the trials, which some predicted could go on until 1950. Maybe by 1950 he would really and truly desire to return home.

He evaded the dimensions of that truth about himself by reminding himself he would be fifty in 1950. Not old, but not young, either. His good friend and fellow junior partner Theo Suttler, there at Pottle and Johnson in Providence, had encouraged him to return. The firm was proud of him, for his war service and his work at the Trials, and it would welcome him back with a full partnership, no more of this junior shit—but couldn’t offer it forever. And the number one case on the dockets was divorce, as hasty wartime marriages crumbled under the impact of more leisurely peace. However, there was some interesting issues going on, such as a black veteran contacting the firm to sue a local hospital for sub-par care provided for his wife, admitted for delivery.

As for Maeve, Harvey knew her first excitement over the idea of moving to States had palled a bit—giddy thoughts of moving had been replaced by contentment as their long-distance marriage worked out well and her own important work continued—but that work would probably end in the States.

Conversations with some military doctors, including Doc Kaiser before he departed for the States, had informed her that midwifery was not merely frowned on, it was gaped at. To be fair, a lot of British doctors did as well, but the practice in the rural areas was economically efficient and some doctors, like Burnham, wholeheartedly supported it.

The small fire in the grate and the Irish cream and the comfortable bed took care of conversation—and worries—for their first evening together. The next morning, after Maeve made their black tea and brought a cup to Harvey, she told him “Get your clothes on my dear, we shall have some breakfast and we will go out and see our home.” She packed a small hamper with food and put in a flashlight. Harvey hired a bicycle for himself and they sedately pedaled down Waterloo Lane. It intersected with the road to Gordonet, which led to Wretham. Less than a mile down the road, just past Dancer Lane, a footpath, Maeve swerved at a mailbox festooned with eglantine and branded with the name “Troyroys.” They continued down a short lane running past a tall hedge of thick box. She then braked, stopped, put her feet on the ground and cried “Here it is!” She parked her bike and took keys from her pocket. Harvey peered at the place and recalled the name on the box: “Troyroys”—which meant, in French ‘three kings’ as in “trois rois”…We three kings of Orient are, he thought, recalling the Christmas song.

Then he looked up at the cottage—built on a stone foundation, the brick walls rose up one storey to graduate into a Tudor-styled beam and plaster edifice. A chimney towered above all.

“What do you think?” she asked, in a mix of directness and some hesitancy.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t like old houses?”

“Not that old. It was built in 1860. You Yanks don’t appreciate old houses—“

“You Brits—don’t know the charm and convenience of the new.”

Her eyes sparkled, her mouth opened—she thought and then said “Well, when it’s yours, it’s different.”

“Yours?”

“Yours too, as in ours. Come along then.”

Harvey paused at her peremptory request. “Come my love,” she said, holding out her hand.

They entered into the foyer and forced the door to the parlor, which was centered on a marble fireplace too grand for the place. The wallpaper, even though in reasonably good condition, was a hideous Victorian “diaper” pattern. They progressed to the kitchen and Harvey stared at an enormous iron range. That was the only thing in the kitchen. They left by the kitchen door back into the garden, which had nearly flowed over paving stones. They found a potting shed. “Look, a turtle run,” Maeve said, pointing to a raised platform, surrounded by a low fence. “I had one when a girl.” Harvey wondered if that had sold her on the place. “And a poultry house…Harvey, we could raise chickens, and sell eggs!”

“Yes,” Harvey said agreeably, mentally recalling a hilarious book that frequently diverted him at the end of the day at Nuremberg: The Egg and I, about a woman who married, moved with her husband to a chicken ranch hell and gone on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington—and ended up hating eggs, hating chickens, and though not said openly, hating her husband!—but…this was not the book. She was pulling him over the paving stones down into the garden, to a cottage, saying they could live there while the house renovated. Harvey peered in the dim windows to see a transformed carriage house, which was tiny but livable; they might be able to live there, she explained. She hurried him back to the house where they ascended the service stairs to the second floor, finding two large bedrooms, and smaller one, and an enormous bath-room—with a Victorian tin tub, and an old toilet in literally the water closet. They descended the main stairs and emerged back into the world. Harvey, brushing cobwebs from his forehead, avoided Maeve’s eyes, which had grown somewhat horrified in their tour. “Let’s have some tea,” Harvey said. They untangled shrubbery from an old iron bench, Harvey undid the Thermos and poured tea into the mug, sprinkled in some precious sugar, and she unwrapped tomato-egg sandwiches and gave one to him. Harvey sat, and ate…until finally Maeve, with elbow on knee, and chin on fist, said, rolling out a faux brogue, “Harvey, me darlin’? We need to make a decision, that we do.”

“Well, you never seem to want a home—I mean, since we’ve married—which hasn’t been long, I grant, but it did come out of the blue.”

“I want a home with you. With Finn…well, there was the war, and we were both busy…it never seemed right. I pedaled by this place many times, and one day I stopped, looked at it, and it seemed like a place I wanted to share with you.”

“Why?” This was no demand, this was an affectionate question.

“I have no answer at all. Yes, it’s perfectly dreadful, worse than I recall. But we could make it into a home for us.”

After a while, Harvey said, quietly, “Does this mean children?”

“You tell me,” she whispered. She smiled but there was a guarded look on her face.

“What does that mean?”

“Meaning…Finn and I never once talked about a children. It seems odd, being a midwife, but he never, we never spoke about it. I guess we would have talked after the war...do you want children?”

“I will say…yes—but that does not mean we must have children,” Harvey said, awkwardly. They had never really broached the subject. Now that they had, Harvey felt only confusion, and he wondered if Maeve felt the same way.

They sat in the weak sunshine coming down through the untrimmed lime trees and Harvey, unsure what to do or say simply opened his arms to this living, this beautiful woman. She came into them and sat on his lap while they kissed. He was still darned good at it.

“Pardon,” said a polite voice. They both looked around to see the estate agent, whom they had been expecting. Becoming businesslike, they parted, greeted him, and accepted documents which Maeve immediately studied. “My wife tells me there was another inquiry about the estate,” Harvey said in way of conversation.

“Remarkably so, after years of scant interest. I assure you sir that was no ploy to make the property more attractive. The other inquiry came from an estate agent in Hitchin.”

“Hitchin?” Harvey asked.

“Sir?”

“Uh, nothing,” Harvey answered, but wondered if that were the same Hitchin, the nearest town to Bryncote…which did not mean the Percy family made the inquiry. And why would a family living in a grand house like that be interested in this heap of brick and stones? Later, Harvey remembered that there was no kind of intense moment of perception or understanding as he thought that; but if there was a moment where time and place and something melded together and made the moment memorable for being memorable…the real world came together like a series of puzzle pieces and there was soft sunshine coming down through the lime trees.

Well, what was done was done…and Harvey realized he had a new reason—or rationalization—to put off going home. His intention to speak with Maeve about beginning her immigration process was deflected. His letter to his cousin, who was looking after his home in Providence, was also put off.

They returned to their flat, with Maeve checking in with Burnham and learned that a baby was on its way. She quickly dressed and pedaled off. Harvey walked into Archbury proper and had a drink at the Star and Bottle, waiting for Maeve to join him, if she could. She did…and seemed grim. The baby had been born easily and well—right into a conflict. Not only was the teenager mother unwed, the baby girl…was brown. The mother, a pretty 17 year old girl named Molly Staller, was completely unshocked and seemed surprised that her parents were appalled at the color. “You knew I was seein’ a Negro airman,” she told them. “And he wants to marry me, he does.”

“When he wrote that? Six months ago after the last you saw of him? What happened to him?”

“He said he would come for me…”

The father spat his disgust; the worn out mother sighed.

In the pub, Maeve continued. “Molly said she met him at the cinema in Archbury. Though claiming he wants to marry her, she hasn’t heard from him in months…could you try to find out about him? She said his name was Harlin Morrow.”

Harvey shook his head at the old but still embarrassing issue of the birthrate booming, further complicated by the father being a Negro—who might indeed request to marry the girl, but might be refused by his white superiors—and sometimes a refusal was the nicest thing that could happen; the black soldier might find himself transferred at best, at worst, beaten and threatened—by fellow Americans. This was complicated by calls for equal treatment, equal opportunities, equal education, which Harvey believed in but knew first hand and by report of the troubles these calls for honest decent equality stirred up.

In any case, it didn’t sound promising but he said he would contact Frank Bailey at the 918th for assistance. He had learned that recently the Departments of War and State had concluded an agreement—whereby the State department would finally assume responsibility of answering letters from lovers and wives jilted, abandoned, and divorced, who were trying to track down their missing husband, ex-husband lover, fiancé—father of a child. When he called with requests for assistance Bailey was apologetic. “Messy consequence of troop deployment,” Bailey sighed. “Get this young girl to write the State Department.” Bailey found out the right address, which Maeve delivered to Molly, haggard from birth, sleepless nights and her disgusted parents.

After doing so, she joined her husband once more at the Star and Bottle. “Harvey, god rest his soul, but I remember hearing that your President Roosevelt was told about such babies—white or brown—and said it seemed to be a British problem, rather than an American one, and that just can’t be the answer—I’m not saying that these babies—with black American fathers--should be shipped off to the States, but it seems like something could, should be done. I learned the other day that Negro women in Chicago were mailing packages to mixed-race orphans here in England—which is nice of them, and it’s a beginning, but there so much more needs to be done.”

Harvey agreed, but was not sure what to do, or where to start---which didn’t stop Maeve; three days later she had invited herself to the local Council meeting and demanded into three white middle aged men’s faces what were they going to do about this local shame—unwed mothers were looked down on to begin with, but there was a special rejection of brown babies, of which there were at least five in the Archbury area alone, three of which were in public care. They fended her off, though one of them privately encouraged her to pursue the matter and present the problem with a proposal as what to do.

Yes, pointing out the problem was one thing, but explaining why it was a problem, and what could be done, was another.

On their private home front, Harvey and Maeve began consulting with craftsmen and technicians: Harvey insisted that the house be wired properly, price be damned, and that meant that three new power poles had to be set up. Wiring the house fully was another matter and had to wait. They needed a phone, too. The upstairs bathroom and water closet were to be joined and fully modernized. A turn of the century cesspit was found and cleaned out. Together, he and Maeve raked out cobwebs and swept out years of collected dirt from the upstairs rooms and consulted on wall paper, which created a slight war of its own…

Harvey, keeping his promise, called Frank Bailey to inquire of the whereabouts of Harlin Morrow or Morris. After a few days, a duty sergeant called to say that Harlin Morrow was now stationed in…Alaska.

On April 30, Harvey entrained for London and Croydon airport, and he hugged and kissed his beautiful wife on the platform. “Get solicitors if you have problems and keep notified,” he said. “Do as you think right with the house, and sweetheart, take care of yourself.”

“You too,” she said. “And don’t worry about me or the house. Worry about what you’re doing in Germany...and worry about those brown babies.”

***

The enormous and beautiful Palace of Justice—which the Nazis had named, not the Allies with an eye to ordain their agenda—had become a bit homelike in the months he had lived there. Harvey lived, as many others did, in the residential and administrative building across the road from the sand-colored monolith; his little gray room in the west contained a bed, a closet, a desk, a lamp, and little more. Married personnel had fanned out into the city, including Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor, his wife and two daughters. At six o’clock on a Sunday there was a general gathering of friends in the English-style pub that had started and grown on the main floor of the palace; he and Rosie had shared some good talk there after “quittin’ time.” But being only five o’clock, and feeling lonely, Harvey walked out of purlieus, thereby exposing his life. It sounded melodramatic, but Nuremberg citizens presented an array of neutral, angry, supportive and vengeful types—with some reason, as the situation of the average German citizen was not much better than in the final weeks of defeat. Some believed they deserved every hunger pang they suffered, while others pointed out the hungry and the angry impelled the French Revolution, while still others pointed out the lame and the orphaned suffered unfairly as the Morgenthau Agenda ground on. Allied personnel were on constant watch for booby traps; one GI was decapitated when he drove his Jeep into a wire strung at neck level—two years earlier.

He walked calmly if cautiously down Fuerther Street with the plan of intersecting with Nordwestring, to simply see the broad Peignitz River, which flowed peacefully through the war-damaged city. The rubble was being cleared away, largely by wheelbarrow, and you could hear now and then the bang of hammers and the snort of machinery digging. Otherwise, very little was reviving as Germany struggled with the course of peace or at least the absence of war. That Sunday evening all was quiet. He then paused as he felt the pain in his chest. He should see a doctor; no, that might lead to--he caught a glimpse of a young woman, in a plaid jacket, across the street. Smoothing her gloves, she seemed to be looking at him.

He walked on. Gaining Nordwestring, he climbed onto a tram trundling up. When he looked back, he saw the same young woman, on the sidewalk, watching. Her blonde hair glinted under a beret. He got off the tram at the river, and then walked back to the Palace, hurrying along. He was glad when he joined colleagues at the pub, its Englishness evoked by advertisements for Guinness, and a worn dartboard. Harvey took pleasure in ordering and sipping on a scotch and tonic, and being swept into a round of bridge. He and Rachel made an unbeatable team back in Providence; did Maeve like bridge?...does not matter, he told himself.

Harvey then saw Captain Christopher “Bo” Boleslawski, a lawyer he frequently worked with, come into the pub. “St. Harvey of Stovall! The man who came back after all!” Harvey grinned; inspired by good old Rosie, he too had convinced a tired or lonely American, civilian or military, to hang on, stay a little longer at the trials. Bo was kind of a typical case; a civilian, deemed 4F in 1943 because of suffering a mild case of TB in the late thirties. As manpower dwindled, he was finally accepted into the Army but worked Stateside JAG. He had volunteered after the Trials began, and was, well, not only interested in seeking justice, but also building up his credentials, maybe too much of the latter. Like some lawyers he saw himself in front of the courtroom, with a jury hanging on every word. Poor old Bo had been too late to get in his digs at the more glamorous portion of the trials—in which Goering at times nearly preened for the cameras.

Bo had first furiously dug into his duties, but after a few weeks of interviewing important, small and even smaller fry—whose recollections counted Harvey reminded him—he had grown bored and then got a little desperate after a dear John letter from his fiancee, whom, he admitted, he hardly knew, but courted before departing for the trials. Harvey had kept him on track, reminding him that justice was not swinging his arms in a court room, but research, work, attention to details and a reminder of what justice meant. “You sure sound like an adjutant,” Bo had remarked. Harvey nodded, not asking if that was meant as a compliment or a kind of harmless insult. He did not tell the friendly if immature Bo that he had, after his son being reported MIA, that he resolutely taken up the yoke again and flew in combat.

“Well, I have to provide a good example,” Harvey told Bo, and looked at his date, a WAC sergeant whose fingers were stained from changing typewriter ribbons; transcriptions of reams of data demanded a lot from the clerical staff. Bo took her order and went to the bar. They seated themselves on a wall bench. “Terry Cahill?” Harvey asked. “I didn’t know you were here.”

She nodded. Her face was still pretty, but she looked tired. “I’ve been here since for three months. I’ve been pretty much drowning in the clerical pool. God, I’d like to drown those Farben people—“

“Hey, get away from my date, married man,” Bo interrupted, returning with the drinks, sitting down and placing his arm around Terry’s unenthusiastic shoulders. They chatted and then joined several other people in the journey to the Grand Hotel for Sunday dinner where a pack of cigarettes was prized as a tip for inevitable black market trading, and Harvey obligingly bought and put two packs in the pocket. Harvey walked home with everybody, but thought he saw the young woman he saw in his afternoon pausing across the street…and disappearing when several Army vehicles drove past. Before he went to his room, one of the other lawyers told Harvey that he had been selected to present in the courtroom: he was going to explain statistics of Farben buna production, from 1942 to 1945 and how slave labor impacted it. “Yes sir,” Harvey said, excited, and a bit fearful. This was a moment on the stage of the world. Bo took it well, but you could see his envy.

The next evening he took another walk, to get some air after studying, with others, photographs of the Farben synthetic rubber (called buna) plant at Auschwitz, which had consumed able-bodied Jews diverted momentarily from the gas chambers. Nearby, in the mines producing raw stuff for the factories, life expectancy became all of four weeks, late in the war. Depositions from the Farben people claimed they did not understand that Jewish and other slave labor was being worked to death, and if death did not intervene, their emaciated bodies were sent back and gassed. Yes, of course, the Farben people posed inquiries about this, and a reliable source said it was a rumor…yes, they accepted the explanation.

God, Harvey thought, how human beings can deceive themselves. But the more acceptable story was always more tempting to believe.

The Farben Trial began on May 2. The 22 defendants, neatly dressed, sober, came in, sat down, fit earphones over their ears. The courtroom was more than crowded with both personnel and also Nuremberg citizens who had been encouraged to come to the trials. After being barred, there had been a change of heart as the Allies began to realize that the German citizens, after years of being lied to, assumed this was another set of lies…so the doors were opened, and that first day, quite a new Nuremberg citizens, found their way into the Palace of Justice.

As many lawyers as possible came that day, distributing themselves around the table and in the benches, hoping they would witness a dramatic opening that had seized the world’s attention in November 1945… in which the Chief Justice announced that the loss of “a single human life” was the foundation of the trials… US Chief Prosecutor, Telford Taylor made the opening statement…understandably lengthy. Harvey concentrated on his words of the handsome, surprisingly youthful general: “Their purpose was to turn the German nation into a military machine so it could impose its dominion on Europe, and, later, nations beyond the seas. They were the warp and woof of the dark mantle that settled over Europe.”

“What does ‘woof’ mean?” Bo whispered. “Essential fabric,” Harvey whispered. Taylor was proceeding on the platform that without Farben, Nazi Germany could not have accomplished…its agenda of murder and destruction.

Next to Harvey, Bo alternately listened and flinched with frustration; Harvey knew he wanted to be up there, in everybody’s line of vision.

After Taylor concluded, the defendants were arraigned and all pronounced themselves “not guilty.”

Lunch, clearing the head, and the afternoon took up. Bo, still beside him, was rubbing his hands. At the break, as they sipped coffee, Bo grinned at Harvey, admitting, “Yeah, I know, big affairs take time.” After court recessed for the evening, Bo then went up to Terry, who was one of the many stenographers. She looked at him as if he were a fish, and certainly not a fresh one.

Harvey found his coat and walked out in the mild May evening, celebrating the end of the day…and his own liberty and innocence, though Harvey was experienced enough to mutter, “there, for the grace of God, go I…” One thing he had learned at these trials…that the love of money—and not resisting temptation—was a powerful root of evil. He had wondered if he had ever been offered vast sums of wealth and power, or something that he truly desired...if he had been able to resist.

The next day in the massive courtroom, Harvey, neat in his pressed Dress As, rose and presented. Figures were projected on a screen, copies passed out, and were read and analyzed—notably, as Harvey and his people were able to deduce, there were massive jumps in production and profits after 1942 when slave labor, recruited in the camps, became a factor. Harvey, with a pointer, explained the figures. He was aware that the Farben executives were looking away, looking at each other, looking at their hands. Harvey finished with figures of those who died in the synthetic rubber factory in Auschwitz, 26,000 within a number of months--and the use of slave labor from Auschwitz, where the factory had been built. “This was corporate policy. All the defendants,” Harvey said to the courtroom, “viewed the availability of labor as assistance to Farben…and therefore all defendants should share in the responsibility for its utilization.”

There was rarely silence in the courtroom as people coughed, moved chairs, muttered to each other—the hum of noise was suddenly broken by a clatter of an overturned chair and a young man literally flung himself over the barriers, across the tables, a knife in his raised arm, charging toward the defendants who were frozen in the advent of his screams…and he was suddenly on the ground as Harvey threw himself on the young man…whose young face was aged and lined with horror and grief as he was pinned on the floor, cursing. The rest of the afternoon was a blur, as the proceedings were recessed for an hour, the young man taken away, and the Farben defendants were alternately laughing, frowning, smirking, and hoping that this disgraceful exhibition would be in their favor.

“Pretty damned good,” Bo told Harvey as they walked away from the courtroom. They waited for the elevators, which were always jammed, always slow. He looked around before admitting, “I don’t think I’m gonna make a trial lawyer. I wet my pants when that happened.”

“I damned near did too,” Harvey admitted back. He was lucky not to be injured himself; but he could feel bruises rising on his rib cage and right leg. When court went back into session, he fought to keep his voice steady as he took up the pointer and continued with his presentation…”The defendants had may not have been directly concerned with the cruelty exercised on the labor…but they were perfectly aware of its existence.” Some of the defendants were yawning at this time; others shook their heads with the attitude of “nein, nein…” and kept this up even in the face of evidence.

Rosie poked his face into Harvey’s office corner that late afternoon. “Well done,” he said, a smile on his broad, warm face.

“Thanks and that’s the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me, in a courtroom.” The event had been swiftly processed, with no arrests made yet. Harvey had sent a pack of cigarettes to the young man, detained in the prison wing, though not locked up exactly. He learned he was Ivan Knesst, and seemed to be a displaced person. Harvey wondered what that was like. The past erased by violence and shifting borders; the future unknown…

That evening he took another walk, realizing how good it was to be free—nobody questioning you about what you were doing—feeling so glad that he had never had to face such temptation as those men had…then he saw the woman crossing the street to speak with him.

He turned and walked away and heard her footsteps behind him, and the desperation of her hissed “Kuh—nel!”

Their forced meeting was more comic than serious—she neither spoke nor understood English well, and Harvey dredged up his German: “Was kunn ich fur dich tun?” (What can I do for you?) He hoped it did not assume a sexual meaning. She spoke in German, rapidly, and then opened up her leather bag—she took out a handkerchief to dab at her nose. Still speaking, she extended her hand with the handkerchief; he took it, and found a piece of paper in his palm. “Lesen, bitte,” she said. “Auf weidersehn.”

“Auf weidersehn,” Harvey whispered, and feeling as though dozens of eyes were on him, he turned, walked quickly to the Palace environs, his brain trying to remember if “lesen” meant “read” or “listen.” Back in his simple room, he switched on his desk lamp, unfolded the piece of paper and read “Come 83 Brunnegasse, 9:00 pm, May 7. Number fore. Bitte come lone.”

Harvey rose, stood by the window and stared at out the twilight city. It was tempting….to ignore this, calling it a solicitation which he was wise enough to duck. But the young woman did not…well…Harvey vacillated…

But what if it were something more?

Despite the evening hour, Harvey went looking for somebody to talk to. Searching in the administrative areas, he found Justice Curtis Shake, who had been appointed to preside over the Farben Trials, still at his desk. The Hoosier justice, whose sterling record in the courtroom and legislative halls of Indiana had led to his appointment, welcomed Harvey, even though he did not personally know him. Harvey nodded graciously at Shake’s congratulations of his stopping the young fellow… He read the note. Shake flipped through notecards, and then seized the phone and dialed a number. Within minutes, Harvey, controlling his nerves, and feeling some familiar pains in his chest, heard strident footsteps coming down the outside corridor…a knock on the door, “Come,” and there stood a young major—who sternly identified himself as Major Lucas Merriwether, CID.

The major read the note, hmphed a little, and then asked Harvey why she singled him out. “I have no idea,” Harvey said firmly. Merriwether then gazed at Harvey--who recalled being on the rack with Colonel Hollenbeck, after his scalp to rationalize his own failures to destroy the Nordesholme Wolfpack in early 1945.

As for Merriwether, he held back a faintly sarcastic remark—because he, despite an undulating sense of self importance could see that Harvey, with a straight calm gaze that resembled Mount Rushmore’s George Washington, had nothing to hide. The older man also had a wedding band on finger; some of the married men, far from home, gladly removed theirs while they ploughed merrily through the clerks and secretaries. Paying his respects to civilian Justice Shake, who had the luxury to simply peer at the two officers, Merriwether invited Colonel Stovall to his post stamp-sized office in the building across the road.

“How do you wish to handle this?” Harvey asked pointedly, while Merriwether seemed to procrastinate, ordering coffee. He made a few more phone calls, keeping the conversation to “yes,” “right, and “thanks.” A WAC corporal knocked and entered with a file, which she gave to Merriwether, and then brought in the coffee. Her face was wrenched with nausea. “Thanks Paula,” he said and then looked with some real concern at the corporal. “Another migraine?” “Yes sir,” she said. “Sir, when I finish with the typing, may I be excused?” He agreed to her request and with a “Thank you sir,” she withdrew.

Merriwether consulted the file, obviously his. “Sir, where is your wife?” he asked.

“England. She’s English.” Harvey added that she was a district midwife in Archbury.

To a knock on the door Merriwether said “Come,” and the WAC corporal came in, shielding her eyes against the light and handed him a note. After she left, Merriwether reported to him the young woman might be Clare Schmidtz, as she was the listed resident of the flat he was directed to. “Sir, who is this young woman to you?” Merriwether asked quickly, as if trying spook Harvey into an answer.

“I have no idea.” Privately, Harvey wondered if she were somebody he had interrogated. There had been so many. He thought he would remember a pretty young blonde, but maybe not. “Perhaps she had been one of the local citizens visiting the trial.”

“Perhaps, but why choose you?”

“Again, Major, I have no idea.”

That seemed to conclude matters for the night. “Sir, we will be in touch,” Merriwether said, and saluted Harvey, who returned it, a little fiercely. He had some dinner and then returned to his room. He wrote a letter to Maeve, his current situation giving him a true affection for the rundown place, and a deep longing for Maeve. In his letter, he asked if she wished to keep the name “Troyroys”—which might be a corruption of “Turtle Run” he thought. He then wrote a letter to Theo and Bernice Suttler, back in Providence. He and Theo had shared a desk, then an office, and a lot of coffee breaks at Pottle and Johnson, their law firm, where they were junior partners... Theo was an avid golfer, and Harvey thought fondly of their Sunday afternoon tee-offs at Triggs Links, where young Mike caddied for them while learning golf. Six years since those days. So long ago, he didn’t know if he wanted to return.

Mike’s memory intruded and he let it, for once, to divert his thoughts from the day. Tall, handsome, blonde like his mother, with his dad’s blue eyes, his son had held so much promise, so much potential…and proved it, becoming a pilot. And then MIA.

And then…nothing. It was like reading a mystery novel…to find the last few pages ripped out.

The next day, the third day of a trial that would last for 97 days, the WAC corporal, who still looked ill, handed Harvey a note, telling him to be waiting at his room at 20 hundred hours. He did, and at the exact moment, there was a tap on his door. Merriwether. He told Harvey to come with him. Wishing he were someplace else, he followed Merriwether down through the grungy service elevator and into the garage. Harvey was relinquished into the protection of two MPs, and a lieutenant who did not introduce himself. They slid into a car. It crawled down the dark streets and the lieutenant told him what to do. “We want you to meet her, and then convince her to come with you. The car will be empty, but it is wired for sound.”

They passed and then circled the apartment building which had suffered damage. Harvey sighed within himself, wanting to see buildings without missing roofs, dislodged bricks, braces holding them up. Providence would not be like that—the numbers of his house on Rossiter Lane came into his eyes and he had sharp almost painful visions of the pattern of the tile in the bathroom; the spiral turns of the bannisters, the pale green glass-fronted cabinets in the kitchen...he suddenly remembered that every other week they volunteered to serve at their church’s weekly dinners for the hungry families in Providence, and when they got home, hungry themselves, they roasted wieners in the fireplace. The memory of Mike became a knife which twisted deeply into him. If somebody could just tell him what happened to Mike—the dead were dead, he didn’t want Mike back but...he yanked that knife out.

The car stopped and Harvey slowly climbed out, walked to the central door, entered the damaged foyer and climbed the steps. Around him he heard laughter and shrieks of German people dealing with life after Hitler, probably wondering when and if things would ever get to some kind of normal.

He found #4. The door pushed open at his knuckles’ touch in a quiet knock. When nobody came, he used his knuckles to push open the door farther. “Hallo.” Then, “Guten abend?” He pushed it further.

A single lamp burned on an end table. The room was disturbed. The carpet was raked up; a floor lamp knocked over. Two cups of coffee were on the table, one knocked over. Staying in the doorway, Harvey then saw a man’s shoe—attached to a foot. The foot extended into a body, face down on the floor.

Somewhere, a woman screamed—it was a scream of drunken laughter. Harvey clutched at his throat and chest—he felt as though his heart were on fire—hold on, hold on--he calmed himself, turned, and went downstairs. He climbed into the empty automobile and spoke. A moment later, the lieutenant came to his summons. He told him what he had seen.

Things moved quickly. The lieutenant contacted Major Merriwether, who then contacted the Nuremberg Police. Within a half hour, the place was swarming with German investigators who were inspecting measuring, knocking on doors. The lieutenant, who had been joined by Merriwether, told them, in flawless German, that Colonel Stovall had a meeting with a young woman at this apartment, and he had found the body.

His throat had been cut. There was no sign of Clare Schmidtz. Some curious observers were called to by police; some scattered, but some came forward with dim reports that a young woman had been seen hurrying from the building.

Despite his experiences, during the war, and in the coiled mess with Troper in which he discovered George Trethels knifed to death in the field, Harvey felt pretty well shaken—and exhausted. He was questioned for hours and finally, at 3:00 in the morning, was allowed to return to his room. He was dropped off in the interior garage and there, next to the filthy elevator, lay Clare Schmidtz.

“Oh God,” he muttered.

Pity overcoming stunned fear, he kneeled down beside her. “Fraulein?” Her eyes moved under dark lids. “Bitte,” she breathed. Harvey did not know what the hell to do except to leave her, get to reception, find a phone and call for help. Within moments, Merriwether, his face weary and dark with stubble, arrived. Clare Schmidtz was now dead, blood leaking from two knife wounds in her side puddling on the floor. Merriwether looked up to see Harvey looking as though he were about to keel over—‘Sit down, sir,” he said, and Harvey did so. Merriwether hurried away, and Harvey tremulously got to his feet to look down at the young woman—and saw a bundle of paper poking out of her coat. His eyes snagged “Polen”—German for Poland.

There was also the distinctive Farben logo printed on the top page. The first line held the word “zug”—which he recalled later meant “train.”

Merriwether returned, saying people were coming. Because she died on the grounds of the Trials, the military could investigate this death. Harvey was asked questions, and more questions, while the body was photographed several times. At last, the poor girl was removed. Harvey then went with Merriwether to his office, where the WAC corporal, bent over her pad, took notes, though wincing.

Within two days he had been, as he expected to be, fully cleared, but it was a relief. But there was no relief to the mystery that had overtaken him like a thief in the night. He felt like was he was in the middle of one of those moody crime films that had become popular in the States during the war, and were shipped over to be shown in the auditorium to entertain the personnel. They had grim titles like “He Walked by Night,” and “Cry of the City” and their equally grim stories told of the role of fate in people’s lives—wrong place, wrong time.

Harvey finally learned, over coffee with Merriwether in his office, that the body found in Clare’s flat was a 40 year old Wermacht officer. His name was Richard Stolfuz.

“Stolfuz?” Harvey asked.

Merriwether nodded. “You know the name sir. Saw it in your records.”

“Yes.” Harvey recalled the incident for Merriwether. In August 1944, some two months after the Normandy invasion, Harvey had been sent to France by Joe Gallagher to attend the court martial of two 918th pilots, Captains Chad Enitiz and Bill Bramlett. Their B-17 damaged and losing fuel, they set down in a rough field near the quaintly Norman town of Giverney. Unable to repair the damage and waiting for help, the crew was taken in various households, with the two pilot hosted by the town’s leading family, a Madame Camille Stolfuz—whose German name was the result of her marrying a German and Nazi party member, Herr Richard Stolfuz who had been posted to the town to direct re-education and other cultural adjustment. He seemed to have departed. Within a few days, the plane was repaired and nursed back to England.

Then the two American pilots were accused, by the wife, of robbing and murdering Richard Stolfuz. When the two pilots were charged with the murder, they protested, singly and together, “We never even saw the guy!”

Eager to shore up relations with the French, whose towns were getting more banged up by the rescuing Allies than the occupying (and departed) Germans, JAG came into the situation, but with orders to dispose of it, quickly. Harvey, in Giverney to represent Colonel Gallagher at the pilots’ court martial, met Madame Stolfuz. Her story was a little curious and the JAG lawyers jumped on it immediately. Her husband, who had been German, and a party member, had stayed in Giverney after the Normandy invasion had commenced. Furthermore, neither she or nor her children, nor one soul in Giverney accused the German of anything, and even spoke respectfully of him, as he sought to protect the citizens rather than exploit them. One story went that he even turned his eyes away from Allied airmen being sneaked to the coast. He was there so long, and the town dwelled so peacefully that he openly joked the Reich had forgotten about him—gutte, he wished to forget the Reich! But the family and the townspeople agreed that Herr Stolfuz was not seen again after the crippled plane had landed.

His blood-stained coat was found in a field near the town…ergo, he was murdered by the Americans.

The case was completely circumstantial—for one, there was no body. But in the spirit of appeasing a battered ally—no less than Charles DeGaulle made inquiries even though the murder victim had been German—JAG undertook the cases. The pilots’ movements in Giverney were carefully accounted for as were the rest of the crew. Their B-17, “Lovergirl” was examined for blood. Their jackets were examined minutely. The pilots’ quarters back at the 918th had been searched for souvenirs of the victim. Proving them at least not guilty was swiftly done.

Madam Stolfuz quietly accepted the verdict of the pilots’ non-guilt. The town seemed to shrug collective shoulders. Harvey was glad of the verdict, appreciating habeas corpus more than ever before—but wondered about the idiotic poverty of the evidence yet understood the socio-political value of putting the two accused pilots on trial…and for the first time, considered joining JAG after the war was over, which he actually did, in late 1945 and departed for Nuremberg in 1946.

And now here, in Nuremberg, Richard Stolfuz had turned up, dead in the apartment of a young woman whom Harvey met, and been given an invitation laced with desperation. Stolfuz’ physical description matched the records made at the court martial in Giverney. Harvey knew an investigation would begin—should begin, but in the slew of past and current problems, how soon, if ever. At least, he thought, Einitz and Bramlett would now be judged innocent rather than not guilty.

Harvey learned in time that Clare Schmidtz had been more fully identified. Investigators learned that she was a Swiss citizen though her father’s family was German. A student at an academy at Lausanne, she had volunteered for the Red Cross, and had made sure that mail and packages not only got into Germany but into the hands of the POWs. Finally: her uncle and guardian, an Adolf Schmidtz had worked at Farben, in the Finance and Accounting sections. He was dead; a suicide after learning he had cancer in April 1945, when the country was in collapse.

A search of records indicated Clare Schdmidtz had not been interrogated for the trials, but one of the white helmeted MPs recalled her. Bored in his duty of guarding, his eyes roamed the audience for pretty girls, and she was one of them...maybe she had been there when Harvey had presented evidence.

Merriwether asked Harvey if he had anything to add before the report was forwarded to his superior. It seemed a friendly gesture. There was nothing he could say. He could only think more would be known when the Stolfuz connection was further investigated.

The next day, he and several other lawyers and staff people boarded touring sedans and were driven to Auschwitz. This was not their first trip; Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor had a point that everybody had to see the camp, one of the worst scenes of crime in history. Though Rosie had already been to the camps, he willingly came along again, remarking “Out of sight, out of mind. I don’t know what the plans are for this place, but I think it has to turn into a monument.”

This time they were gathering and reexamining claims made by Farben executive that they did not know—how could they?—about the slave labor. For two days, the group paced out the horrors of Auschwitz, led by a former prisoner who spoke of whippings, decapitations, remarkable escapes, evening entertainment of dancing, geraniums in the windowboxes of the “company town.” Harvey could also see the smokestacks of the Farben plant. It and its personnel were close enough to assure the prosecutions that only idiots could not tell what was going on—even if the idiots were in massive corporate headquarters in Frankfort. Slave labor--greater profit—temptation, plain old temptation.

They returned, recorded their report. By now, the interrogation for the doctors trial was beginning and Harvey and his colleagues were busy with translators and stenographers and…the doctor’s victims as well as German personnel also came forward to talk.

Merriwether then contacted him to see him in his office. He went there fairly willingly, figuring this was probably some kind of follow up to his connection with Stolfuz. After the horrors of Auschwitz, everything, in their rather abnormal world seemed beautiful. Also beautiful was the sight of Sgt. Terry Cahill at the outer-office desk. She was beaming as she toggled a switch to tell Major Merriwether that Colonel Stovall had arrived. Merriwether greeted him with a salute. “Somebody wishes to speak with you and his request was sent to me. This somebody is a General McGraw.”

“David McGraw?”

“It is. Well?” But the query was friendly. Merriwether now truly respected and liked Colonel Stovall. The guy had no detractors, his record was sterling, no skeletons anywhere. And Terry—ah, Sgt. Cahill—who had replaced Cpl. Paula Milner (whose migraines were so severe she was had been relieved of duty), spoke highly of him as she had known him as the adjutant of the 918th.

Harvey was cautious. “There is a degree of ‘bad blood’ between the McGraw family and Joe Gallagher, my former CO—and I may say a friend—the latter, that is.”

“Enough to spatter on you?”

“Perhaps,” Harvey hedged. McGraw had been brought up on charges after slamming Sandy Komansky around and got off with a letter of apology.

Merriwether consulted some notes. “McGraw’s adjutant to a General Earl Hattner who’s in charge of the ETO financial and accounting organization, stationed in Frankfort am Main.”

“At Farben, right?”

“Yes. It seemed odd that a general would take up some paper pushing like that, but he’s not in best odor at the Pentagon right now.” After a moment, during which Merriwether lighted a cigarette, drew in a breath and swirled smoke out, he said, “’We—my superior officer and I—think McGraw’s a dickhead.”

“May I ask who your superior officer is?”

“Lt. General David Creighton.”

Ah. When had he last seen Creighton, Harvey thought. St. Laurent sur Mer. Back in the fall 1945. He had learned by grapevine that Creighton was back in Europe, maybe to further investigate more rumors and more finds of Nazi technology. Harvey then said, “If we—I, you—have Creighton on our side, he will fight both clean and dirty, and his motives are unimpeachable.”

“He said rather the same thing about you, Colonel, which is maybe why he gave us the go-ahead to let you talk with McGraw.” The box on the desk buzzed; Sgt. Cahill announced that General McGraw had arrived. “You ready, sir?” asked Merriwether.

“Of course.” He had nothing to hide.

General McGraw came in. He was wearing sunglasses, even though they were inside, and outside, clouds were over the sun. After exchanging salutes, they sat down. He seemed friendly, if curt—or in a hurry. As a member of USAFE’s Financial Branch, he announced, he had gotten a line on Nazi money paths.

“What has this to do with me?” Harvey asked.

“It is understood that Fraulein Schmidtz gave you certain documents, ones involving huge amounts of money.”

“Fraulein Schmidtz did not give me documents.”

Merriwether politely explained that the documents found on her person had been claimed by his own hands, and they were sent on to authorized personnel. It was not known that she was intending to give the documents to Harvey who had encountered her body.

McGraw did not buy this, but tried to remain courteous. “We determined that Schmidtz smuggled certain documents to his niece,” McGraw said, trying to sound even-tempered, yet failing.

“Sir, why would she give me such documents?” Harvey said.

“That’s not really the point. I’ve understood that you were alone with the body for a few minutes, and you could have read them--“

“Sir, I did not.”

McGraw retreated from Harvey’ blue eyes, that could turn steely. Some inconsequential talk went forward. Harvey kept waiting for the Stolfuz connection to be made, or him being accused of—something--but nothing. Then, thanking the two men, and trying to be gracious, he left. Merriwether, Harvey learned later, started immediately to learn if McGraw had the authority to know the details about the situation. “If he doesn’t, cripes—there’s been some leaks.”

He had one more encounter with McGraw; at the pub that evening, after the day’s work, Harvey sought some solace with a scotch and tonic, and a round of bridge.

The only person available for the latter was David McGraw, wrapped in a trench coat, and still wearing his sun glasses. He was finishing a whiskey. McGraw, pretty tipsy, saw him, took off his sunglasses to jab them at Harvey. “You have a wife in England.”

“Yes sir.”

“Who just bought a big house—quite a bit of land too.”

“A modest house, pretty well dilapidated, and the grounds need a McCormick reaper.”

“Don’t want to go back home to the States?”

“Sir, I am not sure what your point is.” He waited while McGraw ordered another whiskey. He then motioned Harvey to a table. “Your wife was involved in a murder investigation.”

“Because she found the bodies, sir,” Harvey said. McGraw sat down in a captain-styled chair. Harvey remained standing, pushing away little pains in his chest.

“And now you discovered some bodies,” McGraw finished. Harvey was silent at these facts; though he knew the whiskey was talking. “Why are you here in Nuremberg? You haven’t been home in years. Good law practice there. Fine home. You have a damned attractive wife in England. Why are you here?”

Harvey’s response was guarded though his rage was simmering, ready to boil. “Sir, to see justice done.”

“Shit on a shingle, these trials are a joke. The setting stinks. You’re doing things for your friends...those two dead people are involved...”

“Sir, they were murdered.”

“You could hire anybody to kill for you for a few pfennigs in a country this flat on its ass.” He drank his whiskey in one gulp. “You know-- those documents went straight into the hands of Max Gallagher?”

“No sir.” Privately, he doubted it. McGraw was baiting him.

“Someday, Gallagher and his charming little boys and all his other minions are gonna foul up—“

“Sir, how is your son?” Harvey immediately regretted saying that. Josh McGraw had been pretty well kicked out of the Army after his foolish ugly actions in summer 1945: blabbing lies about Joe Gallagher to journalists.

“He’s in the States—in Washington, on Senator Fink’s staff.” Harvey wondered if that were an admission or a confession—but realized later that was probably how he knew Harvey’s life, pre-war and now.

How he knew led to the question of why he knew.

Harvey saw, in the mirror behind the bar, the door opening. Another familiar face, attached to a familiar body, entered: Trixie Nye. Faces from the past, neither one welcomed.

Lushly furred, a fashionable hat perched like an uneasy bird on her curled hair, wearing the latest Paris design of the dropped hemline, she looked around in the dimness. “David,” she said, and then stopped short when she saw Harvey.

McGraw, pretty well sloshed, threw his arms and legs out. “Miss Nye…”

Her net veil did conceal her sudden frown. “We have a dinner date and I am very hungry,” she said, evenly, ignoring Harvey rather pointedly.

“Darling…” he mumbled. “Whatever you desire…”

While pulling and nudging and hustling McGraw out of his chair, she then rather pointedly nodded at Harvey, and got him out of the pub, in such a state that she didn’t know her furs slapped at a quiet face, belonging to Terry Cahill. She had come in behind Trixie so quietly that she was not noticed and intended to keep it that way. She melted back through the open door.

Harvey slapped on the counter for service, and then nervously left to find Merriwether. He was coming along the same corridor, headed to the pub…and Harvey could not miss the slight smudge of lipstick on the man’s mouth. They returned to his office, and Merriwether took his report about Harvey’s encounter with McGraw and Nye…who seemed to be in cahoots with each other, but Harvey, admitted, what they were cahooting about was unknown. And maybe he was reading something into their relationship just because of old encounters with the lady…and the general.

Of the two, Merriwether was more interested in Trixie. “Nye’s a cipher,” he admitted. “Journalists can get pretty damned close to the line separating research and flat out spying. That outfit she was decked out in—straight from Paris--might have cost a thousand, easily and journalists don’t make such wages. Course, she’s got sugar daddies up the wazoo.”

Colonel Stovall learned, in the next few days, that General McGraw returned to Frankfort, sober. Trixie Nye stayed in Nuremberg, writing and filing articles, and probably playing legsie and more with several men who had been in her bed. Harvey kept waiting for some connections to be made between him, the strange events, and certainly Stolfuz, but nothing was said. Trixie Nye then left Nuremberg. Harvey learned later, when he unofficially inquired, she was in England.

That ended that strange interlude...and the trials ground on. Harvey and other personnel, when not in the courtrooms, had long since commenced interrogations for the upcoming doctors trials. If the interrogations of the Farben witnesses had been upsetting, the interviews of the “patients”—the victims—was heartbreaking, enraging, horrifying. Harvey never forgot interrogating a young woman who claimed she was a gypsy. For three weeks, under something called “medical supervision,” she had been fed nothing and was given, to drink….seawater…until she foamed at the mouth, cramping until she lost consciousness.

Even the ambitious Bo had grown more serious, putting aside his desire for recognition for the work to bring those Nazi bastards to justice. Both men more than once got tears in their eyes as they asked questions, listened to the answer, and helped compile evidence that could shake the most unshakeable.

Harvey worked on, attending court when he could find the time, sensing the growing sense of confusion with the trial of the Farben people…could you hold a huge conglomerate for trial, concentrating on only a relatively few people…when Farben crimes “had ramifications everywhere, from Bombay to Berne.” He and Rosie got together for a drink when the could, and by the end of the sixth week, Rosie remarked evidence was “wanting”—how could they prove “Hitler’s aggressive intentions” fueled Farben, which had long been in business to invent, sell, make money—“That kind of evidence,” said Harvey, “is not proof... mere conjecture.”

Harvey, whenever he hit the hay, gave into the temptation of dreaming about his leave, scheduled for August, still quite some way down the months. Couldn’t come soon enough…

Crosswinds: Early May, London, Joe and Juliette

JOE and Juliette Lovelady concentrated their work efforts after Rigel’s departure--and that rather ill-timed delivery of documents--on dealing with the serious matters those papers addressed.

Post-war insouciance and the lack of an obvious enemy combined with an influx of new green troops and inexperienced junior officers to England was a perfect breeding ground for resurgence of racial flare ups. The Gillem Board, composed of four general officers, was created to establish an acceptable policy for the postwar era. Basically, the board proposed more opportunities for blacks, but within the confines of a segregated system. This did not sit well with black community leaders in the states who continued to press the War Department and the President, calling for fully equal treatment within the military. The armed services had a mishmash of poorly defined and inconsistently enforced policies. Compounding the problem was a shortage of qualified officers and NCOs to work with black units. As it happened, those that were assigned were often misfits from other units or green second lieutenants. Such was the state of the post-war military. Still, the task of enforcing fairness and discipline fell to the base commanders.

The most serious incident was at Archbury whose personnel were now commanded by Col. Frank Bailey. Lt. Col. Glenn King’s base was also involved. Joe knew both men well, or at least he thought he did. How could this have happened to men assigned to their bases? Joe was going to find out.

The Archbury incident involved black airmen and military police which got out of hand which led to rock throwing, gunfire, wounding of two black soldiers and the death of another. It started innocently enough at the “Star and Bottle” when black aviation battalion engineers asked English women to dance. In England, interracial dating was not looked down upon with such distain as it was in states. Unfortunately, a number of white troops from the 918th did not quite see it that way.

Glenn King’s base erupted in a near riot when black sergeants were denied entrance into the NCO club. Severe injuries ensued on both sides of that fight.

The fur balls involving Yanks and RAF personnel fell under Royston Smythe-Beckworth’s purview. In an East Anglia town near another base, black soldiers were refused service in an English pub and forcibly ejected by the white barkeeper and patrons. They left quietly but returned later armed with rifles and knives. A fight broke out between the English customers, some of whom were RAF troops, and the American soldiers. The barkeeper called the local police who arrived in the middle of a melee and hauled the Yanks, RAF airmen and townspeople off to jail. Yet another fracas erupted at a club in London when drunken white Army Air Force men started yelling out racial slurs to black troops who were dancing with English women. They also threw epithets at the English women who were their dance partners. This did not sit well with RAF airmen who took to the defense of their countrywomen.

Britain was America’s most important ally and just as Britain needed the U.S., the U.S. also needed Britain. Britain’s prime North Atlantic location made it a vital staging ground for allied naval and air assets should they be needed in a conflict with the Soviet Union. It was in America’s interest to maintain good relations with the United Kingdom. General Philip Doud knew Joe Gallagher brought many assets to the table, one of which was his good relationship with Royston.

Diplomatically, Joe had “Gallagher charm” and a solid reputation as an honest broker, having proven himself at Poltava and St. Laurent Sur Mer. Politically, Joe was highly regarded by many in the halls of power on both sides of “the pond,” he belonged to a powerful family and had married into another. Militarily, Joe understood tactics and strategies and his war record was stellar. Pragmatically, Joe was a problem solver and Doud wanted him involved in adjusting American attitudes, changing behaviors, and developing policies. Ethically, assigning the approachable and unprejudiced brigadier to the investigating committee was the smart thing to do and right thing to do.

Accolades aside, Joe’s duties had a serious problem of “mission creep.” Daily, Joe was feeling the stress of being pulled in multiple directions and assuming tasks that weren’t part of his original assignment. Initially, Joe looked on these additional responsibilities with irritation but then he remembered that old military adage whenever an officer was handed a shitty job that no one else wanted to do. Instead of it being a pain in the ass, the unattractive and unasked for duty became “another opportunity to excel.”

A week ago, over brandies at a pub near Joe’s Goodge Street flat, Ed Britt, on one of his transatlantic junkets, plied Joe with words of wisdom, counseling him that such breadth of assignments puts him in good stead for a second star. Joe balked at that and flat out told Ed that he didn’t give a damn if he ever saw more twinkling silver on his shoulders. “The country needs you, Joe. You’re young, smart, respected, enlightened, damned charming when you want to be and a big pain in the ass when you need to be. You have a vision of what the world can be rather than just seeing it as it is. And I’ll sleep better knowing you’re awake.”

Ed’s sage advice didn’t make Joe’s left shoulder and left leg hurt any less tonight; it would be another eighteen-hour day tomorrow, too. The observant Juliette had noticed her boss limping earlier in the day. Somehow she rounded up a padded oxblood leather four legged footstool, marched into Joe’s office with the prize, and placed it on the floor next to him. Joe, seated behind his paper cluttered desk, looked at her with a curious eye. “What’s this for?” Joe asked, pointing to the item that looked like it belonged in the Twombley’s antique shop.

“General, that leg o’ yours is as swollen as a pregnant heifer,” Lovelady opined, hands on her hips, standing her ground with her general.

“That thing doesn’t exactly look GI, Juliette. Where’d you get it?” Joe asked as he gingerly rested his left lower extremity on the stool.

“You don’t wanna know, sir,” Juliette said resolutely.

Joe let out a chuckle. “Geez, you sound just like Komansky.”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll take that as a huge complement,” Juliette said.

“Sandy used to make me take aspirin when…” Joe was interrupted by his aide.

“….yes, sir, before he left, Sandy told me about you bein’ hurt on your last mission and he told me what to watch for in you, especially when you get overtired. I’ll be right back, General.” And with that she went to the outer office, opened a desk drawer and returned….with a nylon stocking draped over one hand and a glass bottle with a screw top lid in the other.

“Ah, what’s that for?” Joe asked, pointing to the stocking.

“It’s for you, sir,” Juliette said assuredly.

“Huh?”

“For your leg, sir. It’ll help with the swelling. Take your shoe and sock off,” Juliette said authoritatively.

“You’re kidding….”

“No, sir, I’m a serious as taxes. C’mon…off with ‘em…and roll up your pant leg,” Juliette instructed. Joe wondered what was stranger, him wearing one of Juliette’s stockings or Juliette wearing Rigel’s robe.

Joe wondered what Rigel would think if she were to walk in right now. Well, she couldn’t say too much, considering she’d spent a few nights with Dash….

“Here…” Juliette said, handing Joe the hosiery. “Slide it up your leg up high as it’ll go…the nylon will kinda hug your leg…”

Joe tried to don the dainty item but wasn’t doing it very well.

“No, sir, not like that, you’ll get a run in it. Didn’t you ever watch your wife puttin’ on her stockings?”

“Rigel usually wore pants,” Joe replied, still fumbling with the hosiery.

“Sir…not like that…you gotta roll the top part down….”

“Dammit,” Joe said as the thing fell to the floor.

Juliette picked it up, and demonstrated the proper technique. “See, ya gotta roll it from the top, just like you were rollin’ on a con…” she stopped short in the middle of the word, looked at Joe, eyes wide and an embarrassed blush crept up her neck and across her face.

“Just like a…yeah, I know what you mean, Lieutenant,” Joe said with a straight face, holding back a grin.

He rolled the nylon stocking up his leg, starting with his swollen foot and over his similarly swollen calf… and it did roll just like a condom.

“How’s that feel?” Juliette asked.

Joe wiggled his toes, rotated his ankle and flexed his knee a bit as a sort of test drive. He looked up as his aide. “Ya know, I think it does help. Thanks, Juliette.”

“You’re welcome, General, and by the way, I keep a spare pair of nylons in my bottom right hand desk drawer along with a bottle of aspirin, in case you ever need either of them again,” Juliette instructed.

“And I keep a bottle of brandy in my bottom right hand desk drawer in case you ever need some, Juliette,” Joe said.

“Thank you, sir, but no, sir, I wouldn’t dare think of gettin’ into your family’s uisce beatha,” she said, pronouncing the Gaelic words properly.

Joe took notice of that. “You speak Gaelic?”

“No, sir, but I’ve heard you on the phone with Ri…er, um, Major O’Ryan…” She stammered a bit over Rigel’s name, especially when she saw Joe wince ever so slightly at its mention “…lotsa times and I heard you call your family’s special brandy by that name…and you made me Irish Coffee with it, too.”

“I could use some right about now. Any coffee left in the pot?” Joe said as he started to rise up from his chair.

“No, sir, you stay put I’ll make some,” Juliette said practically ordering him to stay seated. As she walked away from Joe toward her own office, he couldn’t help but notice Juliette’s own shapely nylon stockinged legs… then rebuked himself for looking.

Juliette reappeared a few minutes later, bearing Sandy’s old coffee pot in one hand and two large heavy GI coffee mugs their handles looped in the fingers of the other hand. Just as she prepared to place the mugs and the coffee pot down on Joe’s desk, his phone rang. Joe reached for the hand piece at the same time Juliette was lowering the coffee pot on to Joe’s desk. Their hands collided over a framed rewedding photo of Joe and Rigel at Bryncote, sending it crashing down on the floor, breaking the glass. The phone went unanswered.

Lovelady gasped audibly and stared at Joe with a deer in the headlights expression. Joe looked at the shattered pieces on the floor and wondered if this was a mystical warning from Rigel or worse, an omen. “Oh, sir, I’m so sorry!” Lovelady blurted out.

“It was just an accident, Juliette,” Joe said, trying to be reassuring. As Joe rose from his desk and then stooped over to retrieve the shards, he wondered if his marriage was as fractured as the glass.

“It’s all my fault…” Juliette said shaking her head. She got down on her hands and knees and began collecting the jagged pieces when…”OUCH! Dammit!” Juliette yelped, grabbing her lacerated right hand with her left one. Blood seeped through the spaces between her fingers, trickled down her hand and dripped on the floor.

“Elevate your hand and put pressure on the bleeding,” Joe instructed. Luckily, this was a minor hemorrhage compared to the ones he had dealt with during the war. The closest item to use for a bandage was Joe’s uniform tie draped over the back of his desk chair. He grabbed it, knelt down and quickly wrapped it around Lovelady’s injury. The last time he’d used a tie to stop bleeding was with Rigel when they first met as children.

Still in her kneeling position on the floor, Lovelady started breathing rapidly, beads of sweat appeared on her upper lip and forehead and she grew pale. “Sir, there’s something I’ve got to tell you…” Juliette said in a hushed stammer as she started to sway back and forth. “I don’t do well with the sight of blood….it makes me p...” BLLOPPP! And she vomited all over Joe’s right pant leg. Her eyes rolled back and she passed out, falling right onto her boss. Despite his sore shoulder and leg, Joe scooped up Lovelady--cleaning himself up would have to wait--and gently placed her on the small couch in his office. Semiconscious, Lovelady smiled dreamily and whispered, “…kiss me…” After a few minutes and a few more subconscious mutterings, Lt. Lovelady came to with Joe sitting beside her, holding her right hand in his and fanning her with a manila file folder in his left hand.

“Oh, sir, I’m sorry…First, it’s the broken picture and then I puke all over you,” Juliette said contritely. The she swallowed hard and blushed again. “I hope I didn’t say anything when I was out. I have a tendency to…say things...”

“Not a word, Juliette,” Joe replied, lying through his teeth, as he helped his aide to sit up. The truth would only embarrass the young woman more.

“Oh, good. Last time this happened, I told my drill instructor to go fuck herself,” she said sheepishly.

Joe chuckled at the thought of that encounter. “And so how many push ups did you have to do for that cute remark?”

“Not push-ups. Laps. About 2 miles worth,” Juliette said as she, still wobbly, rose up from the couch. Joe steadied her by putting his arm around her shoulders. Their eyes met for an instant then they simultaneously looked in opposite directions.

Joe broke the tense moment. “C’mon, I’m taking you to the hospital. That cut needs stitches.” Juliette nodded in agreement and she went to her office to collect her coat, cap and purse.

Meanwhile, Joe sat back down in his chair, hiked up his pant leg, rolled down Juliette’s stocking from his leg and tossed it on his desk. He stopped for a moment and gathered his thoughts. Things were so much easier with Komansky….Or were they? Nope, not really, but then again Sandy never wore hose.

Joe, in the driver’s seat of his staff car for a change, headed to the closest infirmary, St. George’s, which was only a few minutes’ drive from his office. Poignant memories of the stately old hospital percolated up as scenes from the past played out…victims from the Langham bombing…Max recuperating after being poisoned…and Rigel miscarrying Brynn.

Juliette sat quietly and somewhat stiffly in the passenger seat, held her injured right hand in her lap and stared out the window to her right. She clumsily cranked it open with her left hand and a stream of cool evening air rushed into the car. Juliette inhaled deeply, held her breath a moment, then slowly exhaled. “Not gonna pass out on me, are ya, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir, the cool air helps. I always had to put the window down when I’d take my dog out in the car back home.” She turned her youthful face toward Joe and continued. “Hypatia would hang her head out the window and her big ole floppy ears would flap in the wind.” She pantomimed the motion of the dog’s flouncing ears with her unscathed hand.

“Hypatia?” Joe asked with a grin.

“Yessir, I named her after…”

“Hypatia of Alexandria, a brilliant woman philosopher, mathematician and astronomer,” Joe replied.

“You know about her?” Juliette blurted out then quickly tacked on “…sir.”

Joe chuckled at his aide’s remark. Juliette’s forthrightness reminded him of Sandy. “I’m not a complete barbarian, Lieutenant.”

“No, sir, you’re rather enlightened,” Juliette offered.

“Well, here we are. St. George’s,” Joe said as he pulled the car around to back of the building and parked it. As soon as the wheels had stopped and Joe put on the parking break, Juliette scampered out her door, hurriedly rounded the front of the sedan and opened Joe’s door for him with her left hand. “I don’t want you to think that I can’t do my job, General.”

“Relax, Juliette,” Joe said as he pushed himself a bit slowly up and out of the car. Juliette took notice.

“It’s your leg again, isn’t it, sir? You should have a doctor look at it,” she said, concern etched on her face.

“We’re here about your hand, Lieutenant. Let’s go.” And yes, Joe had to admit, he probably needed to see a doctor. Later.

As the duo entered the receiving ward’s heavy wooden doors, an exiting gentleman, too absorbed in reading his journal in hand, bumped into Joe. “Oh, pardon me…” the offender said politely.

Joe immediately recognized the voice and countenance of none other than a former physician to his father. “Doctor Gagarin, it’s nice to bump into you,” Joe said with a hint of pleased reacquaintance in his voice.

“General Gallagher… Joe…yes, it is good to see you too,” Gagarin replied, happily. “But what brings you here at this hour of the day?” His keen eyes quickly assessed Joe and then moved over to the young military woman standing to Joe’s side.

“My aide, Lieutenant Lovelady here, needs some attention,” Joe said by way of introducing her to the doctor.

“Come with me,” Gagarin said, motioning with his right hand for Joe and Juliette to follow him into the hospital. They walked up to the nursing sister on duty as she was leaving of one of the examination rooms.

“Excuse me, Sister Walker, which space is available for me to look at the Lieutenant’s hand?” Gagarin’s competence, compassion, courteous manner and warm smile earned him the respect and admiration of the nursing sisters in the receiving ward and in the operating theater. Unlike some of his colleagues, Doctor Gagarin never berated the sisters or threw bloody scalpels at them as more than one prima donna surgeon at St. George’s had been known to do.

“Number seven is clean and open, Doctor,” Sister Walker instructed. “I’ll get one of the sisters to chaperone.”

Juliette spoke up. “That won’t be necessary, Sister, really. It’s just my hand...” Juliette raised up her hand covered with the bloody tie, the sight of which made her sway on her feet.

Joe caught her before she hit the floor and hoisted the limp and woozy Juliette up in his arms. He looked over to Pavl and explained, “She…uh…doesn’t handle blood very well.”

“General Gallagher can assist me, Sister,” Gagarin said with a smile. “Good thing the young lady is your aide and not a nurse.”

Doctor Gagarin ushered Joe with Juliette in his arms into the small but well-lit area. A metal cabinet with glass doors lined one wall, a small desk was up against another. A padded examination table covered in a clean white sheet was in the center of the room; a tall silver metal medical spot light on a metal pole was at the table’s head. Joe gently laid Juliette on the table and stayed by her side while Doctor Gagarin retrieved smelling salts from the cabinet and proceeded to wave the stuff under his patient’s nose. Juliette’s eyes fluttered open almost immediately and she looked up to see Joe standing next to her, his right arm gently poised over Juliette’s waist so that she wouldn’t roll off the table.

“Again?” Juliette asked weakly to Joe.

“Yep, again,” Joe replied without a hint of disapproval in his voice.

“Well, now, let me have a look, Lieutenant,” Doctor Gagarin said as he unwrapped Joe’s bloody tie from Juliette’s hand.

He inspected the laceration with expert eyes and then tested Juliette’s ability to move her fingers and feel various sensations. He then gave his diagnosis and prognosis. “A clean slice on the fleshy side of your hand...an easy fix and no long term damage done. But I will have to place several sutures. Have you ever had them before?”

“No sir,” Juliette admitted to Doctor Gagarin. She looked up at Joe. “Have you had stitches before, General?”

“Oh, once or twice,” Joe replied, choosing not to bring up his multiple war wounds here and now.

“I’m going to anesthetize part of your hand, Lieutenant, with an injection. It will hurt like hell fire for a minute but then it will go numb and you won’t feel pain from the sutures going in.” Gagarin then drew up the medication.

Juliette cast a fearful eye up at Joe; he gave her a reassuring smile in return.

“A little stick, Lieutenant…” Gagarin said as he injected the local anesthetic.

Feeling the predicted scorch, Juliette reflexively grabbed on to Joe’s hand with her left one as the medication infused into her tissue. Joe was momentarily taken aback by Juliette’s grasp but then coolly reminded his aide to take slow deep breaths and listen to the sound of his voice as he asked his aide sundry questions about Hypatia, the astronomer and the canine, to distract her.

A short time later after all the medical business had been concluded and thanks expressed to Doctor Gagarin, Joe and Juliette once again piled into the staff car and headed toward Juliette’s flat. Neither of them spoke and the silence scratched at Joe like an irritating wool sweater. He had to ask himself why he felt so…uncomfortable. His occasional sideways glances at his aide caught Juliette darting looks at him, too, then trying to pretend that she hadn’t looked at him. Get a grip, Gallagher, he said to himself. She’s your aide, you’ve done nothing improper…unless he counted the mere thought that he had as breech in his relationship with Rigel, but that whole thing was languishing in limbo. Joe broke the tense quiet in the car with a work related question.

“So, what did you think of my report about the racial incidents and my recommendations to headquarters? And by the way, you did a great job typing it up. It was a pretty long report.” Joe kept his eyes on the road as he spoke.

“Thank you, sir,” Juliette said quietly, then added, “…but…” and then stopped mid-sentence.

“But what?” Joe asked.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Juliette asked firmly.

“Granted.”

“Your investigation into the facts of the matters was objective and your analysis was thorough.” Juliette paused.

“I hear another ‘but’ coming,” Joe said.

“Yes, sir.”

“But…my recommendations went too far and will never fly back at War Department,” Joe said flatly.

Juliette turned in her seat and faced Joe as she spoke. “No, sir, your recommendations didn’t go far enough.”

“Lieutenant, sometimes you gotta go with what can be done instead of what you’d like to be done,” Joe opined a bit pessimistically, knowing the political climate in the current halls of power. He kept his hands on the steering wheel, gripped it tighter and focused his eyes straight ahead.

“Man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” Juliette said resolutely.

Joe pulled over into a side street, brought the car to a stop and turned toward his aide. “Okay, Lieutenant. Let’s hear it.”

“You really want me to tell you what I think?” she asked.

“Hell yes!”

Juliette spoke passionately about what should be done. “The Negro soldiers need to be treated equally with the white soldiers, paid the same, given the same promotion opportunities. The Army Air Force has to integrate all of its units--no more of this separate but equal bullshit. Separate isn’t equal. And Ri…I mean Major O’Ryan told me that there were perfectly qualified Negro nurses in the Army but they were never allowed to become flight nurses like the white nurses were. And the enlisted men--and women--should be given educational assistance so they can be on par with the white soldiers, they need to be trained in technical and professional fields just like the white soldiers. The military justice system is seriously out of whack, too. Negro troops are brought up on silly trumped up charges that a white soldier never would have been brought up on and when they go to court martial, the jury is usually all white as the driven snow. And more Negros need to be admitted to West Point and Officers Candidate School so that a future long term leadership cadre can be developed. You did all of the research, you have data for the short term and long term personnel and cost projections, you mapped out a plan how to implement the changes over the next five years…but dammit you didn’t put all of that into the recommendations in the report, General, and you should have.”

“So I need to reach for heaven, eh Lieutenant?” Joe asked.

“Damned right you do,” Juliette said decisively.

“That means that the entire report will have to be redone…and it’s got to be to General Doud by tomorrow morning,” Joe said. As he spoke, Juliette started to unwrap her much-bandaged right hand.

“What are you doing?” Joe asked, confused.

“I can’t type fast with my hand wrapped up like this,” Juliette said pragmatically.

Joe’s face broke over in one of his lopsided grins as he released the parking brake, turned the car back toward the main thoroughfare and pointed it in the direction of their office. “It’s gonna be a long night, Lieutenant.”

Juliette grinned back at her boss. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

Yessirree, it had been an interesting day…and was going to be a very interesting night.

Books Were Opened: April, Los Angeles

AS he carefully showered the morning after the bombing, Sandy realized something—he could not really clearly remember what had happened in the wind tunnel. Temporary amnesia?—nah, he had not received any particular clunk on the head. But he could not scrape up from anywhere how he got out. But that happened to guys he knew back in England. Plane landed, well, badly, weirdly, and they got out…and later admitted they didn’t recall a thing.

Betty pulled herself together, though with very tight bands. She revealed her days as a flight nurse, keeping going no matter what. Her tears were finished, a blank mask replacing them.

They were silently having coffee and not knowing what to say, when Betty spoke. “We need to talk with Dr. Rink.”

“Yeah...did you ever meet him?—no, you couldn’t have.”

She hadn’t but Ray had spoken so sweetly of him to her, that she had to call...and then the mask slipped...a few tears slid out and then she got hold of herself again.

“I’ll do it,” said Sandy said. Not wanting to stick the Armers with a long distance bill, he fished a pile of dimes out of the kitchen drawer, got Rink’s number out of their phone pad, and walked to the Rexall store three blocks away. The phone jangled three times, it was picked up…a pause while Sandy fed dimes into the socket, and a female voice said “Hello?”

“Um, good morning mam…I’m calling for Dr. Rink..?”

A period of quiet on the slightly crackling line. “Mike Rink died day before yesterday.”

“Uhhh,” Sandy said.

“Are you Ray?”

For some reason, he said he was…he was stunned with relief not having to deliver bad news to Dr. Rink...and then evaded even giving her the news.

Sandy slowly returned to his apartment where he found his cousin packing her suitcase. He encouraged her to stay. “No, I have mail, and checks to write, and...other things,” she said, glancing at him. Their eyes were almost identical to each other, and both saw the clouds in the others, and they went into each other’s arms for comfort. She didn’t cry and neither did he but it was as if their hearts connected in grief. “I’m a jinx,” she muttered into his shirt.

“Oh, now—“ he said, with more understanding than she knew.

“I mean it—loved two men, and both die—violently.”

“Elzie—it’s just—bad—bad—rotten luck.”

She lifted her face to his. He realized he had called her by Ray’s pet name. He smiled apologetically. “Betty—“

“Do you believe in fate?” she interrupted him.

“God, I don’t know...sometimes it seems things are fated to happen and at times things seem to be like a—kaleidoscope—though you don’t know who the hell is twisting, if it’s some kind of powerful—whatever—or if the world just hurls itself along.”

“Kaleidoscopes are full of a bunch of random chips you know...a mirror creates the pattern.”

“We gotta find the mirror,” Sandy said.

He never did, though he tried.

***

Questioning began the next day. At first, the agents came to Sandy’s apartment. Once they showed up at the lab he was working in. Once he came to the Federal Court House on North Springs street.

The interviews went over again and again his actions; how he had come in late; he spoke with Ray and then was called to see Crusard; no, he didn’t see Crusard. He was with Ray when he died. He crawled on his hands and knees to find him. He was a friend from the war. He had crawled through such crap before, being in the Eighth…

At his third round of questioning, this time at the Federal Court House on North Springs street, two nameless men then asked him: did he know that Dr. Rink, Ray’s mentor, was dead. Yes, he said curtly, he knew. Sandy waited for a question about a phone call—which the speaker identified himself as Ray Zemler, though this was 24 hours after he had died. The question did not come up.

He was asked more than once: “Did you speak with Ray before he died?”

“Yes.” His memory had started to fill out on that moment.

“What did he say?”

“To…say goodbye to his fiancée.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes...a bell.”

“A bell?”

“He had a bad dream the night before about a bell—a bail out bell. It was a bell on a B-17 to warn crewmembers. That’s all I know.”

“He had a dream about a bail-out bell?”

“That’s what we figured out. He dreamed of a crashing B-17, and if a B-17 is going down, the pilot alerts the crew by the bail-out bell. He seemed to be talking about it before he died.”

After another hour, he was let go, but he knew that questions would probably continue. He had no more answers. Of course, convince them of that…

At home, after classes, Sandy ate something, and drank some brandy. He didn’t sleep but he felt himself relaxing in a disoriented world where sometimes things made sense—or swam up like fish from dark waters: “More...said he.”

So who was “he”?...and what was “more” to be said? He lay like a bunch of noodles in bed and then another memory came up—he didn’t get far with Ray’s body...he was sinking into the crap going on and then hands and grunts and cursing from two figures who hauled him out of there and plunked him on the grass.

So far, nobody had asked him how he escaped. Probably didn’t matter, Sandy thought, but felt as though he were rationalizing curious events—kind of the way he rationalized Ray’s other life.

He sat up in bed at a knock on the door. Gene Armer. “You okay?” It was more peremptory than a friendly inquiry.

Sandy nodded. “Sure, Mr. Armer.” He and his wife had been kind to him the last few weeks. Armer said he would help him transfer Ray’s car to him. He was prepared to take up payments but learned that Ray had paid cash for it—where he had gotten that kind of money? He appreciated having a car—his first car—but felt no thrill about it. He had to move too, but Armer told him that “I’ve been talking with the wife—and we agree that if you want to stay here, by yourself, then just pay half the rent. We’d like to keep you here.”

Sandy within time found some sinister qualities in the phrase.

In the meantime, accusations flew; newspapers seethed with rumors; the FBI finally announced that the explosion had been a bomb which had been triggered by radio control. Next, they announced the arrest of Blair Hurlbert, who protested, naturally. More news reports announced that bombmaking materials had been found in Hurlbert’s apartment, concealed behind the kitchen sink. Of course, Hurlbert said the stuff had been planted. A Vincent Hunt Jacobsen, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, put a lonely howl of protest; asking openly on radio and in the newspaper if the President were really the target—or if other issues were afoot and not being addressed.

As for Betty, she had firmly folded her emotions away like out of season clothing, and kept flying. Sandy’s heart ached for her, and he was also proud of her courage. Because she was the dead man’s fiancée, she was questioned. She never went into detail when she reported on her questioning to Sandy, but she did say that the questions largely ran on Ray’s behavior and his actions before he died. “I guess they were going on the angle that maybe Ray was murdered, deliberately, by that bomb.” Sandy mentally braced himself for that round of questions…but they never came up.

Crusard, after a few weeks, emerged out of cocoon of sorts. One day he appeared at Sandy’s elbow in the workshop, commented on Sandy’s notes, and then asked, “Why don’t you come up to my cabin in the Sierras for a few days?--the mountains and lakes were so beautiful that it might help, you know?”

“Help with what sir?” Sandy said.

“I know Ray Zemler was a good friend,” he said, and then started tracing a route for Sandy on the sawdust on the worktable, and then looked up and smiled when Claud Walkert appeared at his elbow. “Bartonair issues,” Walkert said in way of introduction, and then draw Crusard away.

That same night, the phone jangled at 3:15, shortly after Sandy got home. He was so tired he felt his brain was oozing from his head, but he answered it.

His hello was greeted by a hoarse breathy voice asking, “Ray? Ray?”—then words he couldn’t understand grated on his ear, followed by what was surely cursing and a voice speaking, soothingly and the line broke off. Sandy put down the headpiece and wondered who she was—or had that been a male voice?

As he kept up with his classes, dutifully ticking off papers, projects, etc., Betty had also held up in her duty, and she flew out of Los Angeles to Phoenix, El Paso, and San Antonio, and back again. Hurlbert still protested his innocence, backed up by a lawyer from the ACLU, who was taking on his case pro bono, and claiming that his client was accused because of his predilection for protest against current policies and he was being framed.

And throughout this, Ray’s body was still in the county morgue. The mortuary service contracted to handle his remains were stymied. As his fiancée, Betty had spoken with Ray’s aunt, who seemed to not give a shit about her nephew, and didn’t mind causing troubles for people who loved him. She finally had sent her written permission to the Los Angeles county morgue for Betty to make decisions. Then Betty had to decide whether to have him interred as a veteran in the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Sawtelle, or to have him cremated, which he had once spoken of his preferred way to go…Several months ago in the fall, on a warm Saturday evening, they had built a beach fire and roasted weenies, and Ray had remarked, with his mouth full, as the Pacific surf sloshed and grumbled behind them in long sliding sheets of gleaming gray, “Man, when the time comes, just use my body to roast somebody else’s weenie at a beach fire.” He meant it jokingly of course, but Betty thought that scattering his ashes over the Pacific might be something he wished.

Sandy went with her to the facility and stood by while she identified the body as Ray Zemler. “Guess they didn’t want to burn the wrong one,” she said with brittle humor as he escorted her away. After several days, they went with her to pick up the ashes, contained in a steel urn. He then drove her back to the airport for her scheduled flight. After she climbed out, she then said, in a voice that didn’t shake, “I don’t want to scatter him—Ray—for a while... and I want you to take Ray’s ashes, for the time being. I’m gone a lot and I want…“

“You want him in some company, right?”

She got out her lipstick and outlined her mouth. “If it sounds stupid, that’s how it is.”

“It’s not. We both loved him.” She leaned forward, put her palm on his cheek; he laid his hand on hers and kissed her palm. “Bye, cousin.”

“Bye cousin.” She walked away, completely collected, professional. Helluva girl, he thought.

The urn sat around for a while until finally Sandy took it up, wrapped it in Ray’s jacket, and placed it in a cabinet in the small living area, next to his strongbox. He had also placed his parents’ wedding picture in it.

Two days later, Sandy was waiting in his car for Betty at Los Angeles airport and watched her walk from the terminal, clutching her flight bag, and looking half dead. But she hugged him, actually bestowed a pat on his hands, and then pointed.

“Antonia!”

Mussed from travel, with her hair unpinned, she dashed over the sidewalks on high heels and she was swept into his arms, clumsily and they banged against the passenger side door, and Betty winced.

Antonia clung to him with so much strength that he felt it coursing through him, and he wished it would last…Betty automatically climbed into the back seat and let the reunited lovers sit in the front. Understanding, she allowed herself to be driven to, deposited, and rather hastily left at her apartment. Sighing, she climbed up the stairs alone, opened the door to emptiness, and had a deep brandy which she found put to her to sleep, easily and sweetly. Then she awoke to sadness...and curiosity. The gauntlet of questions she had been put through by federal something or others had made her start intensively reviewing her time with Ray. She had fallen in love with him in a matter of hours—loving his joy in life, developed, he said, when he got his eyes back. He had been reborn, and everything was great. He was eager to marry—they talked about kids... With their schedules, true, they had not spent that much time together, so she really did not know his patterns that well. Once he had promised to come to her apartment, and stood her up—coming back hours later, full of apologies. Another girl?—no, she would not be that suspicious.

***

Antonia moved out two days later, in a fairly business-like fashion, and stowed her effects in Betty Komansky’s glisteningly new apartment building, named, for some pointless reason, “The Regency.” Her move was at Betty’s invitation and the two women got along well, aided in that they weren’t together very often. When Sandy asked her why she was living part-time at another address…she pointed out that the Los Angeles Times building was closer.

After Sandy delivered Antonia and luggage to The Regency, he then took them all to dinner, and was worried when Betty picked at her enchilada. After dinner, he finally gave her the amber.

“No, you keep it,” she said. “I’m glad you were carrying it at the wind tunnel that day. It may save your life…Dad always said there were good fortune in it.”

So it stayed in his possession. On some hunch, he placed the amber in a tiny leather pouch, and stuffed it deeply into his wallet.

Antonia started on her investigations. Well trained by her journalism professors, assisted by Jacobsen, she examined all known documents, read up on issues, got into the archives of the Los Angeles Times and read all the reports about union activity Communist and otherwise—and there was a lot of it, she was surprised to learn, in the movie studios but it made sense considering the power they wielded and the money they generated. She, like Irene Gallagher, believed in unions, but they also knew that unions could be easily exploited by individuals or by groups that were vaguely motivated by some kind of exciting future, or incredible power, which the USSR was presenting itself for the second time after its first attractions of 1919. However, some said that it was an over-reaction and people were hunting Commies everywhere and in everything that challenged the status quo. She could find no evidence of worker slow-downs at the plants where Communist activity was rumored. Strikers at other places work did not claim Communism; their wages were not keeping up with the cost of living which had surged after the Office of Price Control deactivated.

But her attention was also given to the incident on campus, still served up by the newspapers and some radio commentators as an attack on President Truman who had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for his post-war decisions, his understandable errors, his addressing of racial inequities. She was told by her Anson contact, who was the first one to speak up for Hurlbert, there was something very messy going on behind the official line. That did not surprise her a bit. As a journalist, her ears were always listening.

Crosswinds: Mid-August 1947, Joe’s office, London

THE weather in the summer of 1947 paralleled Joe’s life in unpredictability and extremes, swinging wildly between soggy deluges of rain and stretches of hot drought. Joe’s corner office was both damned and blessed with windows. Damned in that the old flaking glazing and casements leaked like sieves which let moisture creep into the plaster causing the drab olive paint to bubble and peel. When Mother Nature finally turned off the spigot, Juliette decided to do something about their sorry condition. Ever the industrious aide who didn’t need to be told what to do when she saw a problem, Juliette put in work orders and got the windows recaulked. She also finagled the requisite supplies and decided to rectify the dreary color and nasty state of her boss’s office walls and planned to do so on her day off. All of this was unbeknownst to Joe until he unexpectedly showed up one Sunday to catch up on some paperwork. To his surprise, Joe found the lieutenant clad in dungarees, an old GI t-shirt and tennis shoes, perched up on a ladder, skillfully rolling toasty light goldish “Ws” of paint over the old dull color while singing along to the Andrews Sisters rendition of “Near You.” “There’s just one place for me, near you…it’s like to be heaven to be near you, time’s when we’re apart, I can’t face my heart, say you’ll never stray more than just two lips away…”

With her back toward the office door and busily painting and singing, Juliette hadn’t a clue that Joe was present. With an amused smile, Joe, himself clad in jeans, a cotton shirt and loafers, crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the doorjamb and momentarily took in the sight and sound of his aide. He had to admit to himself that she was as pretty as she was competent, and he was pissed at himself for noticing her trim hourglass figure. Juliette was oblivious to her observer…until Joe spoke up loudly over the music. “Those must be some lips to get you to come in on Sunday,” he said casually.

Startled by Joe’s unexpected presence and still holding the long handled paint roller, Juliette pivoted too quickly toward the sound of Joe’s voice, teetered on the rung, and began to lose her balance. Joe rushed to the rescue just in time and prevented her from falling from the ladder.

“Ooooh…thank you, sir,” Juliette eeked out rather sheepishly as the twosome stood still for a few seconds with Joe’s hands squarely on his aide’s derriere.

Joe cleared his throat, removed his hands from Juliette’s behind and stepped back a few paces. “You’re welcome…now what in hell are you doing in here on a gorgeous day like today?” Londoners were taking advantage of the warmth and sunshine and the small park across the street from his office building was filled with picnickers and playful children.

“It was going to take weeks to get a crew in here to paint these four dingy walls, General, so I decided to do it myself,” Juliette said jauntily. “So, whaddya think about the color, hm?”

“It’s definitely not GI,” Joe replied, acknowledging that the last several years had been an olive drab panorama on the ground and in the air.

He saw the worried look on the lieutenant’s face and then quickly added, “I like it! Kinda gives the office a lighter feel. Besides, why be normal? It’s boring.”

“My sentiments exactly, sir. Goose shit green walls dampen creative energies,” Juliette instructed with a straight face.

“Dampens creative energies?” Joe repeated back to her for clarification.

“Yessir. Did you know that listening to baroque music and the scent of coffee enhance one’s attention to detail?”

“Nope,” Joe replied. “And speaking of coffee, I bet if I make us a pot we can get this done pretty quick.”

“But, sir…” Juliette injected with concern in her voice. The last time Joe tried to make coffee in the office he over perked it and it tasted like crap.

“No buts, Lieutenant,” Joe called over his shoulder as he went to the outer office and started the brew.

And Joe was correct, the two of them finished the task, which was interspersed this time with perfectly perked coffee, singing along with more tunes issuing from the radio on the credenza behind Joe’s desk, and some shared apples, cheese and crackers which Juliette had brought with her. Their task and the obligatory clean up completed by late afternoon, the two departed for their respective quarters…and Joe had completely forgotten why he’d come to the office in the first place.

Returning to his desk very early Monday morning before Juliette arrived--and yes, the new color on the walls did make him feel more energetic--Joe tackled the reports that he’d failed to read over the prior day. As pleasant as Sunday’s diversion with Juliette had been, it was a chink in Joe’s usually iron clad work ethic. His self-discipline and introspection questioned just why in the hell he’d let this slip up happen in the first place… and he didn’t like the answer.

Juliette arrived at her usual time, neat and sharp in her uniform. She brewed a fresh pot of java, poured a mug for Joe and nabbed the schedule book from her desktop. The door that separated their offices was open and Joe was absorbed in reading one of the myriad reports routed to him daily. Juliette entered with a chipper “Good morning, General” and set the steaming cup down in front of Joe. He looked up at his aide, smiled, took the cup in his hands and inhaled the aroma before taking a sip. She remained standing in front of Joe and waited for his pronouncement.

“Ya know, Lieutenant, I think you’re right about the color and the coffee,” Joe admitted.

“Toldya,” Juliette replied brightly. Then she got down to business, opened the notebook and rattled off today’s scheduled gauntlet of meetings with Phil Doud, Eoghain St. John-Keighley, and Royston Smythe-Beckworth. Matters great and small included the status of the B-29 bases runway construction, supply and maintenance issues, upcoming joint AAF and RAF war games which included the new RAF jet fighters. And then there were the ridiculous matters. A group of local farmers complaining that window rattling Superfortress engine noise caused their cows to stop giving milk. Another complainant was an outraged country squire. The gentleman grumbled that the noise so terrified the peacocks on the grounds of his estate that the birds molted off their exquisite tail plumage. All of these had relatively easy fixes when compared to one major problem that so far had eluded resolution--the plight of “the brown babies.” These were the mixed race children of black soldiers and English women, the majority of whom had American fathers while others were fathered by British Empire soldiers from the Caribbean, India or Africa. The children, as were their parents, were caught in a Gordian knot of bureaucracy, indifference, bigotry and political denial. Joe made a mental note that when he got back from the morning’s meetings, he’d pen letters to Max, Ed Britt, Hugh FitzGerald and Enid Minton Dashall about the brown babies. Hopefully, whatever “juice” they had would cut through the red tape bullshit and get some help for these children.

Hours later, a tired and stressed Joe returned. Juliette noticed that he was limping slightly when he walked by as she sat typing at her desk.

Wearily, Joe retreated to the creaky worn brown leather chair behind his desk, rubbed his temples with his fingertips and rotating his neck in circles. It was times like these that he missed Rigel’s soothing touch. He’d written to his wife but so far, no letters from Randolph…

Juliette’s voice crackled on the intercom. “‘Scuse me, General, Lieutenant Colonel Stovall and Mrs. Stovall are on line one for you, sir.”

Joe picked up the receiver and employed a bit of Gallagher charm, or at least he tried. “Hiya, Harve. How are you?” Joe asked, trying to put an upbeat tone to his voice.

“You sound tired, Joe. Too much London nightlife, eh?” Harvey joked back. After working closely with Joe Gallagher for years, Harvey had become adept as seeing past the charm and the will power and could always tell when his former boss was exhausted or in pain.

“Yeah, right. Party, party, party,” Joe replied.

“And that’s why Maeve and I are calling…” In the background, Joe heard Maeve’s lush voice calling “Hellooooo Joe….”

“Tell Maeve I said that she’s looking ravishing as usual,” Joe said lightheartedly.

“We’re firming up plans for the weekend. Are you still coming?” Harvey asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, but you’ve gotta understand that I’m no carpenter.”

“Any and all help will be appreciated. A couple of Maeve’s friends have had to cancel so it looks like it’s just going to be you, Maeve and me working on this old heap of stones,” Harvey said. In the background Joe heard Maeve’s retort. “But my dear husband, it’s such a lovely old heap of stones!”

Harvey spoke candidly. “Joe, this place is in worse shape than Bryncote was. Remember the weeping walls and all of us having to flush the toilets at the same time?” Harvey asked, recalling the wild rewedding weekend at the country estate.

“Please reassure me that there won’t be any KGB agents skulking around…and no Brussels sprouts,” Joe joked.

“No and no, that’s for sure! But if there were any KGB agents I’d stick a paint brush their hands. We’re way behind schedule with the remodeling.”

“And speaking of remodeling, you should see what a great job Juliette did repainting my office. She said that the GI goose shit green color dampened my creative energies,” Joe said with a chuckle.

“Well, then, Joe ask Juliette if she’d like to lend some creative energies to our walls!” It was Maeve speaking now.

“Maeve, are you serious?” Joe asked.

“Damned right I am. We need all the help we can get and I’m not too proud to admit it.” It was typical forthright Maeve.

“Well, let me ask her and I’ll call you back,” and with that pending action, Joe rang off the phone. He mulled over the best way to broach this subject…It’s not like he was asking her out on a date, right? They’d be pitching in to help two old friends after all, he convinced himself. Joe asked, Juliette agreed, and Harvey and Maeve privately wondered what in the hell was going on…

At the conclusion of that bit of business, Juliette sifted through the afternoon mail delivery. In among the usual stack of 8 x 10 manila official business envelopes was a small white one that exuded an exotic and enticing fragrance…it was from Rigel. Juliette sorted the envelopes by size, placing the small white on top of the stack. She knocked on Joe’s door and in a business-like manner said, “Mail’s in, sir” and handed the envelopes to her boss.

For a few seconds, Joe just stared at the small white envelope. “Thanks, Lieutenant. Close the door on your way out, please.”

For the first time since she became Joe’s aide, First Lieutenant Juliette Lovelady disobeyed an order from him. She left the door slightly open, just wide enough so she could observe Joe and not be seen by him. He picked up the small white envelope, lifted it up to his face, inhaled the scent of Rigel’s special perfume and smiled faintly. He then gingerly opened it with his fingers and carefully removed the pages within. She watched as Joe read one page and then the next…and saw his face contort, anguished. He let out a guttural groan and in one forceful sweep of his right arm dashed the papers, pencils, pens, phone and photo of Rigel from his desk…he pulled the gold Claddagh ring from his left hand and pitched it across the room, it ricocheted off the wall and fell to the floor…Joe bent over the trash can next to his desk and heaved into it…again…and again…He wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand…then launched up and out of his chair knocking it over…and stormed passed his flabbergasted aide and out of the office. Before she had met him, Juliette had heard about the famous Gallagher charm and the equally notorious Gallagher temper but she’d never witnessed the latter…until today. When Joseph Anson Gallagher erupted, the ground split open, continents crashed into one another and the Earth shifted in its orbit. To Juliette, Joe’s display of emotion was powerful, primal…and mesmerizing.

Should she leave the room as is and pretend that she didn’t see or hear what transpired? Juliette’s sense of order compelled her to clear the debris field left by Joe. Thusly, she righted the chair, collected the strewn reports and pencils, the telephone and the fractured photograph of his wife, putting them all back from whence they came. Juliette picked up the crumpled sheets of Rigel’s letter and a dog eared English pound that came with them. The paper money had a curious note in Joe’s distinctive handwriting on it. “Have some coffee ready for me when I get home. You know the way I like it. I’ll love you forever and a day. Love, Danzo.” Juliette pondered what to do with them, too. Throw them away? Put them on Joe’s desk? Hide them in a desk drawer? Read them? No, she couldn’t do that, could she? She waivered back and forth but ultimately succumbed to her curiosity, smoothed open the pages and read them and felt the pit of her stomach churn. Now she understood Joe’s reaction. She rewadded the letter and left it along with the pound on top of Joe’s desk. As she did so, she caught sight of Joe’s gold Claddagh, glinting on the floor in the late afternoon sun. Again she questioned what to do, leave it where it lay or put it away for safe keeping. She decided on the second course of action. Juliette had always wondered about Joe’s ring, especially when he’d told her the story behind the Claddaghs and how “the rings had found their fit.” And now she held it in the palm of her right hand…it was solid eighteen karat gold, intricately carved detail, weighty…Juliette slipped it on her left hand ring finger and caught up in a momentary daydream softly sang “...there’s just one place for me, near you…”

The ringing of the phone jolted Juliette out of her fantasy, which had suddenly shifted from unattainable to possible. She removed Joe’s Claddagh and placed it in his bottom right hand desk drawer, right next to the “Uisce Beatha” and her nylon stocking.

Yessirree, it had been one hell of an interesting day.

Justice and Other Mysteries: Troyroys, near Archbury

MAEVE had handled the property sale, with her usual efficiency, and forgoing her proposal of moving into the back cottage, had moved into the dump. With the same efficiency she had birthed the kitchen into a livable area. She had scrubbed it down; managed to get linoleum laid over the floor, had the water and gas turned on, had the fireplace swept and cleaned.

When Harvey entered their abode, on his first trip back, he wasn’t thrilled, but he wasn’t revolted either—and took pleasure in Maeve’s happiness—and her domesticity. Kneeling before the parlor hearth on a threadbare carpet she laid in the parlor, she scrambled eggs and fried bangers for their first dinner. Their bed, a mattress on the floor, made up with sheets and pillows, was beckoning...

The next day, with great joy in life and love, Harvey pitched into the cleaning of the rank summer undergrowth in the back areas, stacking and burning great piles of weeds and grass. It felt great to work with his hands and the solution to weeds—whack ‘em down!—was an easy one, with no filters and lenses of justice, and what it meant. When at lunch, Maeve pulled out rolls of wallpaper with a typically English floral design and talked about matching paint on the woodwork. She looked so happy with her first real home that Harvey simply put off talk about returning across the pond—who knew, maybe he wouldn’t. That coming weekend, the wallpaper was going up, with the help of Joe and his aide, Lt. Lovelady.

That evening, Maeve took Harvey to the old carriage house. She had heeded the warm request of a captain attached to the 918th to rent the house for him and his bride, and she relinquished the small place for renters, who were grateful for the nominal sum she charged. Harvey was interested in meeting the couple living really within yards of their house, and in the soft evening of that day, he and Maeve, hand in hand, walked down the paving stones, over the lawn, followed a portion of the old road leading to it, and Maeve knocked on the door.

Bryon Mahoney, an officer in one of the all-black aviation engineering battalions working on adapting B-17 bases to the needs of the B-29s, greeted them, with his pretty British wife at his elbow, who said to Harvey, “Call me Roxanne.” They shook hands, and the young couple offered their landlords the upholstered easy chairs while they occupied the kitchen chairs. Sherry was served around in a variety of glasses, and the couple spoke about how they met… “At Scarborough there on the ocean…I was recovering from some leg wounds which I didn’t give a shi—pardon me mam,” he then said to Maeve who grinned. “I’ve heard worse,” she said.

“Well, it was Guy Fawkes day and nobody cared that I was up and hobbling around—I went out on the promenade with everybody else and just about the time I realized I had to get back to the hospital because my leg was hurting—I saw her. Suddenly the leg didn’t hurt at all.”

“I’m a miracle worker,” she said, clasping her hands and directing her eyes upwards.

“I proposed that very night.”

“And I said no…but then I said yes the next day!”

“We got married a few months later.”

He then looked into Harvey’s face, with both a smile and a degree of challenge. “You know, sir, you didn’t express one bit of surprise that I am a Negro.”

Harvey smiled. “Well, I admit with a name that suggests the ‘old sod’ yes, I was surprised...”

“Well, sir,” he said, daring to interrupt a colonel, “Jesse Owens and Cab Calloway are Irish names.”

Harvey then grinned, abashed and admitting, “You are absolutely right Captain. My apologies. We are very happy to have you here. Colonel Bailey, I understand, speaks highly of the all-negro engineering battalions.”

“I’m glad you are, sir. And Colonel Bailey at the 918th has been very helpful to me and my wife.”

“Good,” Harvey murmured, glad for some courtesy and understanding that foiled racial prejudice that yeah, he was capable of too. He had detested his parents’ unthinking prejudice; they complained how there had been too many Portuguese in Rhode Island…Cripes, he had thought at the time, glad he was not like them. But prejudice and misunderstanding lurked everywhere; sometimes like small weeds, other times like tall deadly trees…as in Germany. Other places too. Like Rhode Island. Like in his mind.

But Frank’s actions were a positive step, and more steps had to follow. After a while longer, Harvey and Maeve thanked them, said their goodnights, and walked back to their own home, larger, and in far worse shape. In balance, Harvey learned that Captain Mahoney, while being treated with dignity at the 918th—at the order of Colonel Bailey—still had an undignified going to and back from the base. Going home, he would circle about Troyroys, and cut through a natural grove of trees to come down Dancer Lane…admittedly keeping an eye out for everybody. In the morning, he would repeat his path. Not only had he received some ugly words from base personnel, he had received some crap from Archburyites.

Before they left, Harvey asked if they would enjoy coming to a wallpapering party to be held soon. “Thanks,” Mahoney said, mentioning they were visiting friends at the time.

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London and Archbury

BEFORE sunrise in London, Joe was up, dressed, shaved, packed for a two day working weekend with Harvey and Maeve, and in his Jeep en route to Juliette’s quarters. Ready for hard and dirty labor, he donned grungy sneakers, old blue jeans, a snug-fitting, physique-revealing white short sleeved t-shirt with “USMA” and “Gallagher” emblazed across the front. He tossed his B-4 bag in the back seat, hopped into the Jeep and drove over the short distance to Juliette’s flat, which she shared with Lt. Lucy McMahon, Phil Doud’s efficient WAC secretary. As he ascended the stairs two at time toward the second floor, Joe whistled a cheery non-descript tune. He located apartment 2 B and gave three quick knuckle wraps on the old dark oak door which was quickly opened by Lucy clad in a floor length pink chenille robe.

“Good morning, General Gallagher,” Lucy said brightly. “Please come in. Jules is packing up supplies.” Lucy McMahon was a statuesque brunette with turquoise blue eyes below dark brown angel wing shaped eyebrows, full pink lips and a summer tan that she worked fastidiously to maintain given England’s climate. Her long fingers were always meticulously manicured and tipped with bright red nail polish.

“Supplies?” Joe asked, curiously. Admittedly, Juliette was a well-organized pack rat. She had a penchant for always being prepared and her desk drawers were a stockpile of goodies from aspirin to Hershey bars to mimeograph fluid.

“Yessir,” Juliette said chipperly as she walked in from the kitchen carrying a large wooden crate in her arms. She, too, was clad in blue jeans, and old blue front-button work shirt and scuffed up tennis shoes. Her blondish brown hair was pulled back from her face with tortoise shells combs, one above each ear. “I thought we might need some extra stuff, things we had left over from painting the office.” The crate she held contained tarps, paint rollers, mixing sticks, paint pans, large and small brushes, rags, turpentine, metal buckets--a veritable hardware store of supplies--and more.

Lucy’s face swiveled and left eye brow raised at the way Juliette said “we.” She filed that comment away for future use.

“Here, lemme take that,” Joe said, as he lifted the cargo from Juliette. He glanced quickly at his wrist watch. 0600. “We gotta go, Juliette. I told Harvey and Maeve we’d be there early.”

“Yessir,” Juliette said as she opened the door for her boss. She bent over and picked up her own B-4 bag similarly filled with two days’ worth of clothes and toiletries.

“Nice seeing you again, Lucy,” Joe called over his left shoulder as he stepped through the doorway with Juliette tagging along behind him.

“Have fun you two,” Lucy called out playfully with a hint of suggestiveness in her voice. She wiggled her right hand fingers in a semi-wave to Juliette who shot her a disapproving look over the comment.

As Juliette and Joe started down the staircase, Juliette stopped short on the step and snapped her fingers. “I forgot my purse! I’ll be right back.” She pivoted and scampered up to the landing still carrying her luggage.

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the Jeep,” Joe called over his left shoulder as he descended the stairs.

As Juliette put her hand on the brass knob, Lucy flung the door wide open, holding Juliette’s brown leather Army regulation purse in her right hand. “You forgot this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Juliette said as she grabbed for her purse.

“He’s gorgeous!” Lucy declared, star struck.

“He’s married,” Juliette replied matter-of-factly.

“Not for long from what I hear,” Lucy said slyly. If there was a rumor blossoming on the grapevine, Lucy knew about the new bud. No doubt she’d add the painting and plastering weekend to the bush telegraph.

“Well…I gotta go,” Juliette said dismissing Lucy’s comment with a flip of her right hand and once again headed for the stairs and out the foyer door to where Joe and the Jeep were curbside. Joe was standing, waiting with his arms across his chest and when Juliette appeared he popped a question. “It’s a beautiful morning. Wanna ride with the top down?” he asked gamely.

“Sure!” Juliette tossed her purse on the passenger seat and her B-4 in the back seat next to Joe’s and the carton of supplies. Giggling, Juliette pitched in to help Joe drop the canvas top. When that was done, Joe hopped behind the steering wheel, donned his aviator sunglasses, turned out into the street and pointed the Jeep toward Archbury.

The drive to Joe’s old stomping ground passed quickly as he and Juliette discussed their work projects and the upcoming week’s schedule. Conversation turned to more personal topics--with the exception of Rigel--such as how Harvey and Maeve met, Harvey’s work at Nuremberg and Maeve’s work as a local midwife. Joe caught himself casting sideways glances at Juliette--she looked young, fresh, comely as the wind tousled her hair and the morning sun bathed her in a warm golden glow. He commanded his brain and eyes to get back on the road in front of him.

They finally arrived at Harvey and Maeve’s cottage--and to call it quaint would be an upgrade. The couple greeted them warmly at the front door and then Maeve proudly gave Joe and Juliette the cook’s tour of house and the grounds before setting them to work. It was obvious that Maeve was deeply attached to the place but Harvey, well, um, not so much. But no matter, he took pleasure in making his wife happy, and that’s what really mattered.

Maeve as “decorator-in-chief” wanted each room wallpapered but Harvey declared “no damned flowers, bows and curlicues on the walls!” in the bedrooms. Translated from “man-speak” Harvey wanted tranquil bedrooms with serene sky blue walls. To keep the peace, Harvey acquiesced to the living room being dressed out in Jacobean sapphire blue, ruby red, and emerald green floral wallpaper above white wainscoting that ran around the entire bottom third of the room. Furthermore, Maeve wanted the woodwork around the windows painted emerald green, too. Authoritatively, Maeve took command and marshalled her troops: Joe and Juliette got the living room while Maeve and Harvey tackled the bedrooms and the kitchen. Each team with their supplies and equipment went their separate ways and got to work.

Joe and Juliette appraised the living room. In its current state it was ghastly. The house had been left in disrepair for a number of years and the old hideous wallpaper had to be removed before the new could be put up.

“This is gonna take a helluva lot of elbow grease, Lieutenant,” Joe said, already dreading what stress it was going to put on his left shoulder.

Juliette brushed that aside with a wave of her hand. “Nah, just remember to mix the water and vinegar in the correct ratio to get pH right, saturate the sponge so enough dissolvent will penetrate through the paper and cleave the methylcellulose. Simple.”

Joe, stunned, looked at his aide and marveled at what she’d just said. “Huh? Where’d you learn that, Juliette?”

“Chemistry lab in college. I wanted to be a nurse but I have a problem with the sight of blood…”

“Yeah, I know,” Joe chuckled, recalling Juliette puking on him and then passing out on his lap when she cut her hand picking up glass shards from the floor of Joe’s office. “Well, let’s get started…” And so they did, through several arduous hours of scraping the paper and old gunk from the walls. Painting the windows’ woodwork was next, and although it took time and attention to detail, it wasn’t stressful. Maeve called everyone into the kitchen for a break. She’d laid a scrumptious table with finger sandwiches, a block of locally made cheddar, sliced cucumbers and apples, and even “iced tea” which she’d learned to appreciate from Harvey. Harvey and Maeve sat on one side of the antique kitchen table leaving seats for Joe and Juliette opposite them.

Seeing the feast, Juliette piped up, “Geez, I almost forgot!” Before sitting down, she dug into the supply carton that rested on the countertop next to the sink, retrieving a round biscuit tin. Chivalrously, Joe remained standing and then helped Juliette take her seat.

“What’s in the tin?” Joe asked, hoping above hope it wasn’t really biscuits. Harvey and Maeve looked on curiously.

“I made them last night,” Juliette said as she pried open the container. She ceremoniously removed the top with a “Voila!” and flourish of her left hand to reveal…

“My favorite!” Joe exclaimed with a wide, surprised grin…and to Maeve and Harvey’s surprise, too, as they observed the interaction between Joe and Juliette.

“Yep!” Juliette replied smiling. “Oatmeal raisin walnut cookies. I remember you said you liked them.” Courteously, Juliette passed the box to Joe who nabbed a cookie then handed the tin to Harvey and Maeve who likewise sampled the treats, which were chewy and delicious.

In addition to being soft and moist, the cookies were a bit crumbly and an oatmeal flake stuck on the corner of Joe’s mouth. Juliette saw it and intuitively flicked it away...Joe didn’t resist her touch. Instead his lips turned up into a smile and he thanked her with his eyes. Harvey and Maeve shot quick sideways glances at each other. These simple actions belied a deepening rapport between Joe and Juliette...and the Stovalls were worried.

With lunch consumed and the table cleared, the worker bees went back to their tasks. For Joe and Juliette, that meant hanging the wallpaper. This was a tedious job of measuring and trimming the paper laid out on a rectangular board hoisted on top of two saw horses, coating the back of each section of wallpaper with gooey paste then climbing up a ladder and adhering the paper to the wall. It had been a long day, started before dawn for both Joe and Juliette, and after hours of back bending, muscle stretching messy, sweaty, work, they were getting a little sloppy and punchy. To make the chore go faster, Joe and Juliette both pasted glue on the wallpaper starting from opposite ends and meeting in the middle. During one round of pasting, Juliette’s brush slipped out of her hand and plopped on the floor all the while Joe continued making back and forth sweeps with his paste laden brush, applying the goop to the paper. Juliette stooped down to retrieve her brush and she rose up…right into a faceful of paste brush accidentally applied by Joe.

“Oh, gee, I’m sorry!” Joe spluttered as he tried to wipe the mess from Juliette’s neutral face with his fingertips. As he was doing so, Juliette surreptitiously lifted her brush and with a gleeful “Gotcha!” swiped her brush across Joe’s face.

“Oh-ho, you’re in trouble now!” Joe said lightheartedly with the paste brush in his right hand, chasing Juliette as she dodged back and forth around the two saw horses so to avoid Joe’s gooey touch. Juliette swooped by Joe, let out a whoop and swiped Joe across his chest with her paste brush. He countered by doing the same to her, quite literally plastering her shirt to her breasts. The two of them, giggling and bubbling like children, dabbed each other on the arms, legs, cheeks, and buttocks, laughing and playfully tussling with each other the entire time. Peals of merriment rang throughout the house, drawing the attention of Harvey and Maeve who were painting one of the bedrooms. Coming out to investigate, they were almost mowed down by a tittering paste-laden Juliette darting through the kitchen and out the back door into the yard with an equally goop-basted Joe chasing after her. Having arrived in the back yard first, Juliette picked up the garden hose and opened it full blast, right onto the onrushing brigadier, dowsing him from head to toe. Joe good-naturedly encircled Juliette in his arms and turned the hose on her. The two of them gleefully scuffled with the hose, lost their balance on the wet, slick, grass and tumbled down on the lawn; Joe landed on his butt, Juliette plopped down in his lap and both of them fell over with their arms around each other and dissolved into laughter.

As Joe and Juliette frolicked with each other, the dumbfound Harvey and Maeve, mouths agape, looked on. Maeve turned to her husband and asked bluntly, “Harvey, what in the hell is going on?”

“Too much,” the usually broadminded Harvey replied tensely--and he intended to get some straight answers from Joe when the time was right.

Juliette, as it turned out before her father’s job took the family to California, had spent summers on her grandmother’s farm in the Ozarks, and had loved feeding and taking care of the chickens—“‘Course, it was easy in the summer months, don’ know what it would have been like in the winter but I loved the way the mamma hens clucked and the lil’ bitty chicks ran about.” With fellow feeling, Maeve immediately took Juliette to the old hen house to show her “The shambles,” as Harvey said to Joe. His parents had a chicken yard too and he, Harvey, the kid, had to submit one of the old out-of-eggs hens to the axe on Sundays. He forgave his parents because they finally told him they didn’t like it either!

“So, how’s married life, Harvey?” Joe asked, easily.

“Fine Joe,” Harvey answered, surprised and touched that Joe would broach the subject...and he wondered, tensely, if he were going to get some kind of announcement—about divorce, remarriage, etc. but then Maeve, calmly excited, came dashing in, saying that Juliette’s leg had poked through the floor of the hen yard…

”What?” Harvey said.

“Is she all right?” Joe demanded.

“She’s fine, but I’m scared the whole floor might collapse—hurry, please—“

They found Juliette seated on the hen house floor, with her right leg curled up and her left leg poking down between rotten boards...and into a hole, as their flashlights revealed. Wisely, they did not take any chances with the insubstantiality of the ground and engineered her safe escape…and she was perfectly calm when she was once more in possession of both legs and with a rational story—“My leg wasn’t just stuck in some hole, there was some kind of open room down there,” she reported. “And I think my foot scraped on something hard.”

As Juliette cleaned up, Harvey looked at Joe, and Joe nodded. “We’re going to investigate,” he told Maeve. “Not without me,” she answered. “But what do you two plan to do?”

“Let’s go figure it out,” was her answer and they all trooped out to the henhouse with the conspicuous cave in. They both glanced at Maeve who had a sort of claim to the henhouse with her plans for chicken-raising. “Oh, I won’t stand in your way,” she said. “Have at it.” Gleefully, feeling like kids on a river bank pretending it was a tropical island and pirate treasure lay below, they rustled up the old tools left in the gardening shed and with careful enthusiasm, spaded at the earth gently, then vigorously…until the henhouse floor subsided to yield up its secret: below lay some kind of room…or chamber, Joe thought. “Room” seemed too pedestrian. Their flashlights, which they stuck down the large hole, illuminated walls built of dressed stone—at least, a portion of a wall. Joe’s hands probed about the edge and encountered some weak but substantial timbers that had been broken many years or centuries ago. They seemed to have been the ceiling of a what, an old Norman keep? What else lay below? Joe’s flashlight revealed a wooden box.

“BINGO!” Joe whooped. “You hit the target, Harve!”

Harvey, his legal training rearing up said, “Maeve, are there any laws here about finding treasure…old things, like this…place?” When she shook her head, he spoke briefly about the 1906 Antiquities Law, passed by the US Congress to prevent further destruction of Indian ruins which white people happily plundered for grave goods and whatever else they could find, not caring that they were desecrating hallowed sites of burial.

“You’re the lawyer, Harvey. You tell me,” she snapped, flashing her Celtic contrariness.

Harvey shrugged slightly…and fought down feelings of “Omigod, now what?”

The four of them used some elbow grease and Yankee Ingenuity, shored up the walls with some wooden planks left over from repairing the fence and gently lowered the ladder used in painting the living room. The chamber was small, too small for Joe or Harvey, both of whom were six footers. Maeve was a doer, never an onlooker, and flashing an adventurous smile toward her mate, confidently descended the steps to the bottom, flashlight in hand. She reached the bottom. It felt solid. Not going a step in either direction, Maeve beamed the flashlight around. “Maeve, we’re dying up here,” shouted Harvey. “What’s down there?” Jocularly, he shouted “There be any dragons?”

“Get the box, the box!” shouted Juliette. “Can you get it?”

For all her excitement, Maeve had a strong feeling of being a fly caught in a spider web—the whole damned thing could come down with a stray breath, she thought, though she knew that was unlikely—she had a strong memory of nights spent wedged into her back yard bomb shelter in during the heady days of the Blitz. She darted forward, placed her hands on the box, the size of which reminded her of her parents handsome, dignified, box of silverware… She grunted as it refused to budge from years of dirt and mud, and then she yanked on it and got to the ladder and tried hard not to scramble up.

Harvey rushed to hot the pot as they came into the kitchen filthy, sweating, and despite it being a mild summer night, they were cold.

It sat, encrusted with dirt, mud, dead crawly things, and time, on the kitchen table. “Let’s not pretend we’re interested in tea,” Harvey said. “Let’s see what’s inside!”

“This is my work,” said Maeve. “These hands have gently delivered many living treasures.” Harvey knew how much this old house meant to his wife and it warmed his heart watching her investigating its treasure, that like a newborn, she delivered from its dark earthen womb to daylight and life with her sure and gentle hands.

She fiddled with the lock, which was little more than a chain. It fell off nearly at her touch. She wiped off the encrusted gunk, felt the wood, swollen with years—centuries?—of dampness. With a table knife, she then popped the opening. “Well, here is the moment of truth,” she said and pried up the lid.

It seemed empty save for a lot of filth.

“What’s that?” Juliette then said and poked her finger into a clump of debris. It clinked, ever so slightly.

Maeve soon had a basin of warm water in her hands. She dunked and then dabbed at the clump with a sponge until it loosened. She then gently picked up the clump of something and placed into a basin.

A necklace emerged. Ever so gently, Maeve removed and sponged it relatively clean and then laid it out on a clean towel.

“What a beautiful necklace,” Juliette said.

“What is it?” breathed Maeve. “Maybe…Viking?”

“Well, finders keepers…?” Harvey asked her after a moment.

“No,” she said. “That necklace belongs in a museum.”

“Or…at Bryncote,” Joe said.

“Where?” Maeve asked. “Oh…that place…where you married again.”

Joe was silent and then spoke. “This necklace looks a lot like the one in Lady Caris’s portrait, right down to the Horsehead Nebula that shouldn’t have been there.”

“What’s so mysterious about this Horsehead Nebula?” Juliette inquired.

“It’s not the nebula itself. It’s the nebula being depicted on the pendant. It wasn’t discovered until 1888 and this necklace dates back to the 1500s,” Joe replied.

“That is mysterious,” Juliette agreed. “Maybe the portrait and this necklace aren’t old after all.”

Harvey explained further. “Percy was emphatic about the age of the painting and the necklace. The pendant was supposed to have been made from a shooting star and brought back from one of the Crusades...Maeve, didn’t you tell me that the other offer for the property came from Hitchin?”

“Yes. But--I would have to see that necklace and the painting with my own two eyes.”

Joe turned to his old friend. “Harve, why don’t you call Percy and Sydney and see if we can visit Bryncote. I’ll drive us up there in the Jeep. It’s too late to go today but I bet if you tell Percy and Sydney what you found, they’d want to see it, too. I’ve got the Jeep and I’ll drive us up tomorrow.”

Harvey put in a call to Bryncote and after a while finally spoke with Chauncey—who properly if warmly greeted Lieutenant Colonel Stovall and said that he would call m’lord to the phone. It took a while and Harvey grew impatient, even while reminding himself that communications were not that emergency-related anymore. But he was relieved when Percy picked up the phone with a “Hello?—Colonel Stovall?”

“General Vivyan, thanks for taking my call. My wife and I found something that may belong to you and Sydney.”

Silence ended with Percy clearing his throat. “Details, please?”

Harvey quickly related the find. There was another period of silence. “Have you informed the local authorities of this?” When Harvey assured him they had not, Percy asked, equally quietly, but with his fine aristocratic voice on edge. If they could come to Bryncote…for tea…the following afternoon, Sunday.

Harvey turned to Joe. “Percy wants to see it and has invited us up for tea tomorrow. Can you do that, Joe?”

“Ask him if we can come tomorrow morning. I need to get back to London tomorrow afternoon,” Joe said.

Harvey relayed the request and Percy agreed.

Despite the long work day and sore muscles it brought--Joe didn’t complain about the pain in his shoulder and leg-- the foursome was too excited to head to bed. Maeve had prepared the guest bedroom for Juliette--in the future it would be Harvey’s office--and brought down pillows and a comforter for Joe’s place on the living room couch. They cleaned themselves up and reconvened in the kitchen. The women took on the cooking; the men mixed drinks, and built up the fire in the living room hearth. A dinner of bangers and mash, with Brussel sprouts--“those little balls of flatulence” as Uncle Henry called them--was laid on the table. Juliette had made a nice cobbler and they had it with Irish coffee in front of the fire. “My chore,” Joe said. He gingerly rose up from one of the cozy room’s soft overstuffed easy chair, collected everyone’s plates and cups to take them to the kitchen, and he was walking with a noticeable limp. Harvey, Maeve and Juliette followed Joe with their eyes. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Harvey asked Juliette.

“Yes,” she said seriously, nodding in agreement. “I’ll get him some aspirin.” And with that, Juliette left.

Later than night, as Harvey and Maeve were getting settled in bed, Maeve broached the other pressing issue of the evening. Maeve turned to her husband who was winding the alarm clock in preparation for an early rise. “She’s in love with him Harvey. I can see it in Juliette’s eyes.”

“But is he in love with her?” Harvey said as he placed the clock on the night stand, switched off the lamp light and got into bed. “That’s the big question.”

“Are you going to ask him?” Maeve said as she snuggled up to her husband’s shoulder.

He answered her question with a question. “What do you think?”

“I asked you first,” Maeve said, half teasing and half serious.

“Joe’s a big boy and smart enough to keep his wick dry and his zipper up,” Harvey said with a wry smile then leaned over and kissed his wife on her lips. She kissed him back. “One thing I do know for sure,” Harvey said.

“What’s that?” Maeve asked.

“I love you,” he replied tenderly. They kissed again, snuggled closer, and drifted off to sleep.

***

Sunday morning came way too early but they had to make the most of what time was left to them. The four of them chuckled as they wedged themselves into the tight quarters of Joe’s Jeep. Harvey and Maeve sat in the back seats with their feet resting on Joe and Juliette’s B-4 bags, prepositioned for their long return drive to London later that day. Maeve protectively held the antique box in her lap. As they bumped along the old country road to Bryncote, Harvey and Maeve recalled their last visit to the gracious old estate. Juliette, sitting in the front passenger seat, noticed Joe’s jaw clench and his hands tighten on the steering wheel at times as the other couple recounted the events of that memorable rewedding weekend. Joe’s silence spoke more loudly than words.

Chauncey greeted the foursome at the great front doors and courteously ushered them through the imposing lobby, past the grand staircase and into the drawing room through the great dining chamber that was being completely renovated. Platforms and ladders were against the walls though no workmen were there. “His Lordship will be here directly. Please be seated,” and he withdrew.

Amazed by the grandeur of the rooms they had gone through, Juliette felt like a fish out of water. “Gee, if I’d known what this place was--like, I’d have worn something more fitting.”

Joe assuaged her worries. “Relax, Juliette. Combat conditions, remember?” He was dressed similarly in jeans, loafers, and white t-shirt from his Randolph days that had gray-tone pilot’s wings emblazoned across the front of it. “Well, at least Chauncey and this room haven’t changed in a year,” Joe said, as he looked around at the familiar furnishings. Juliette was in awe of the place from the moment they drove up to the front door. She quietly perused the room, taking in the old leather bound books on the shelves, the wall hangings, and the décor.

“Don’t they ever stop fixing this place?” Harvey laughed. “I wonder if we all still have to flush the toilets in unison.”

“Maybe we should send for Sandy to check the toilets,” Joe joked.

“In houses this old, the maintenance is an ongoing battle,” Maeve insisted.

“When was Bryncote built?” Juliette asked as she ran a hand over the carved mantel above the fire place.

“It started out as a Norman keep about eight hundred years ago,” Joe replied.

Juliette whistled at the age. “This house is older than our country,” she said, acknowledging the antiquity of the place.

Percy arrived in the drawing room and genially greeted his friends and was introduced to Lieutenant Lovelady. “Welcome back to Bryncote!” he said proudly, then greeting Joe and Harvey with handshakes, and a kiss to Maeve’s right hand. Chauncey then entered, pushing a cart with accoutrements for tea. A younger servant girl, Maisie, garbed in the customary black dress and white apron followed, carrying a tray with a great silver teapot, cups and saucers. They withdrew after they were placed for the visitors.

Joe provided the introduction to the newcomer to Bryncote. “General Lord Percy Vivyan, may I present First Lieutenant Juliette Lovelady, my aide.”

Gallantly, Percy took Juliette’s hand but deferred the kiss. “Lieutenant, I’ve heard many good things about you.”

Poised and calm, Juliette, replied, “And I about you, sir.”

They leisurely sat down and Percy prepared to pour, but Maeve could no longer wait. “This is what we wanted you to see, General Vivyan,” she said, handing Percy the old box.

“I’m Percy…General Vivyan is off duty today,” Percy said with an easy smile. Joe and Harvey shot surprised looks at each other, as if asking what in the hell happened to unstarch the previously haughty Percy, Viscount of Bryncote?

Maeve, who’d protectively been holding the box with its precious contents, handed it over to Percy. “We--well, Juliette in a way--found this under the chicken coop.”

“Please, help yourself to tea,” Percy said, and carefully opened the aged container and gently lifted up the jewelry. He examined it, and then walked slowly over to the painting. Percy then returned, nodding...and then turned the necklace He actually looked rather disturbed. He covered up his features by saying to Harvey and Maeve, “Well, what do you ask for it?”

“Nothing,” Maeve said after she and Harvey looked at each other. That had not occurred to them. “It belongs here…but you…you knew of the necklace being at Troyroys…our home?”

“Yee—es.”

A particularly loud BAM echoed in the room and Joe thought he saw Lady Caris—the painting of Lady Caris—shake slightly.

Percy rubbed his ears and said, simply, “Because of that.” The ground floor of the northern wing had been opened, cleaned, and prepared to be renovated for Sydney’s school. The old uneven floors had been dug up, and curious things were found between the paving stones...slivers of glass, bits of paper, a snuffbox...and a metal box, so thin it looked like a flask. Within was a legendary sheet of paper—which proved an oral history that certain treasures had been removed, and a record, carefully hidden, identified locations.

The date: 1670, at the height of the civil wars in England, precious items were being removed from Bryncote to keep them falling into the hands of Cromwell and his army. One item had never been recovered or accounted for: the “Turkish necklace,” the description of which fitted the beautiful jewelry displayed by Lady Caris. The hiding place: an old Norman stronghold, named DeLancet, located near the town of Arcborough—“or, Archbury, written in times before spelling and maps became standardized. Some casual research in published records turned up the facts that DeLancet had long since been reduced by locals seeking cut stones, but the nether rooms were still in existence. Though there was no DeLancet property in the neighborhood, my esteemed Chauncey ventured that ‘Dancer’ lane might be a corruption of DeLancet. Then, by a seeming miracle, the estate of Troyroys was up for sale—but the day of my inquiry, it had been sold.” He glanced at Harvey and at Maeve. “I didn’t recognize the name of Halloran.”

“My first—married—name,” Maeve said.

Joe noticed that Percy’s sister hadn’t joined them for what was surely a bit of family history and asked about Lady Sydney. Percy gladly took up Joe’s theme and got up, pulled a bell rope and finally went out and called around for his sister who came, after several minutes, saying that Adelaide was coming as well. “Joe! Harvey!” she said, joyfully. She came forward and they hugged each other.

“Congratulations to you and Ethan. Eoghain told me that you two finally tied the knot!”

“Yes, and I know Ethan’ll regret not being able to be here today. He’s out with the congregation helping the Smithers family rebuild their barn,” Sydney said, and nearly started to say—then refrained—that she and Ethan had barely noticed each other during Joe and Rigel’s wedding, but they re-met at Brynn’s funeral. Three weeks later, Ethan proposed, Sydney accepted and being a modern woman refused to buckle under to that old male chauvinistic tradition of needing her brother’s approval. After experiencing the extravagant craiceailte ceilidh, Sydney and Ethan opted for a simple but meaningful ceremony.

Joe and Harvey caught the expression on Percy’s face when Adelaide, once the hard working and overworked maid entered the room. His entire countenance brightened and relaxed. So the stiff upper lipped Percy had finally been smitten by Cupid’s arrow?

Sydney poured a cup of tea, gulped it while talking, and apologizing for the noise and mess, but there were great things going on at Bryncote. Adelaide sat quietly at Sydney’s side--and Percy couldn’t keep his eyes away from her.

Sydney eagerly explained Bryncote’s resurrection and new mission to the visitors; Bryncote was now a school for war orphans. She turned to Adelaide. “Tell them about our plans.”

Adelaide spoke about how they had interested the Women’s Institute in the area about creating more training schools for orphan girls in their teens; they could be instructed in housekeeping, which was more than just sweeping and cleaning. Both Sydney and Adelaide spoke about how these girls weren’t going to be turned into mere serving girls; they would be taught mathematics, writing, handling money, speaking well, posture...perhaps office skills as well, such as typing.

Joe noticed that Percy turned his attention to the necklace when Adelaide spoke, and then somewhat off-handedly poured some more tea for himself.

“How many are here?” Juliette asked, impressed with how Sydney, who was about the same age as she had developed the idea and went about implementing it, which was no small task.

“Miss Sydney?” said a small voice from the door.

Two young boys, thin but well dressed, no more than three and a half years of age, stood in the doorway holding hands. One was fair, blond hair, with piercing ice blue eyes. The other lad was tan with big expressive gray eyes. The tan boy, Jonathan, spoke again. “Kiwi got hurt,” he said, pointing to a bleeding scrape on his compatriot’s knee. Jonathan was a “brown baby,” the child of an English woman and a black father, probably American but could be from one of the British crown colonies. The mother may have rejected the boy, or was driven to it by angry parents, and the father may have wanted to marry the mother, but red tape and common disapproval prevented it, aided by Americans in England who started bigoted, bold face lying whispering campaigns full of bullshit about “uppity Negros who didn’t know their place…”

Despite the injury, Kiwi was stoic and didn’t react to pain--and he didn’t talk. For some reason he was drawn to Joe, staring straight at him and Joe’s heart went out to the little boy. He walked over to the children and crouched down to their eye level to talk with them. The boys reminded Joe of his own brothers, the protective big brother Preston and shy youngest brother, Jefferson.

Joe smiled at the boys before speaking. “My name’s Joe,” he said softly. “I have something in my pocket that can help your knee, Kiwi.” He reached into his pants and pulled out a clean white handkerchief and tied it around Kiwi’s knee in a makeshift bandage. His friend Jonathan looked on and never let go of Kiwi’s hand. Then Kiwi did something unusual--he took his tiny right index finger and traced the pilot’s wings imprinted across Joe’s t-shirt and offered up an innocent smile, then retracted his tiny hand back down to his side. Juliette watched the interaction between Joe and the children and silently told herself he’d make a wonderful father…

Adelaide intervened, “Come, Jonathan and Kiwi, let’s take care of that knee. You also have milk and biscuits waiting for you in the kitchen.” She reached out her hand to Kiwi which he hesitantly took and the three walked off together.

Joe then spoke but carefully. “Kiwi? I thought you said this was a school for orphans.”

Harvey directed his question to Sydney. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes, there are other kinds of orphans too,” Sydney said sadly and then, with decided firmness, “As in the lame, halt, and ‘inconvenient.’”

Joe recalled Harvey and Maeve’s wedding…which Liz and her husband, Montgomery, had attended, because they happened to be there. Kiwi had been there too, and it seemed to Joe as if his mother and step father were sort of tolerating him…and that Kiwi seemed to be both innocent of and yet aware that his presence was not welcomed.

When they were alone again, Percy examined the necklace and seemed to grow uneasy. “Perhaps…this should be handed over to a museum,” he then said. “And the box too—may I see it?”

Harvey handed him the box, and once more, an astounding discovery was made, as Percy’s inquisitive fingers probed out another surprise: a small piece of amber, wedged gently, but determinedly into a corner of the box. After Percy plucked it free, he placed it into one of the sockets on the underside of the pendant. “Well, one has found its way home...I wonder where the other two are?”

It fit. Percy seemed pleased, and amazed…and then dropped everything at the sound of a crash and Adelaide’s voice screaming out an “OH!!”

He seemed to vanish from the room he moved so quickly. Joe, Juliette, Harvey, and Maeve quickly followed him and beheld the sight of love being finally acknowledged. “Those little men with their carelessness—in another century I would have drawn and quartered,” Percy fairly sputtered as he tended Adelaide—who had been knocked down by a fallen platform. He had knelt behind her and was supporting her body in the cradle of his arms and chest.

“Perhaps I was careless,” Adelaide said. “When I was returning from the kitchen--I left the boys there with Maisie--I was thinking about them…and bumped into the scaffold--“

“No matter, no matter, you’re safe—you’re safe...” Percy closed his eyes when Adelaide’s arms and hands pressed on his own...and they finally looked up to see faces gazing at them...not embarrassed, or interested, just concerned... Percy withdrew into himself for a moment—perhaps the necklace being returned was some kind of omen that it was a new day and era at Bryncote--and then, to hell with it, to hell with family pride and that rot he had been raised in, bathed in, fed with, benighted with—and sent out into the world with... “My friends, I want you to meet...my beloved,” he said.

In front of them all, they put their mouths together and kissed.

“Can we help?” Maeve offered.

Percy said no, and helped Adelaide to her feet and helped her into the drawing room. For the moment, they had no more need of anybody...

Chauncey, perhaps summoned by Percy, soon came to ask about their tea and to refresh pastries. He too seemed bemused at the sight.

“Chauncey, as an old hand here, can you tell us anymore family history?” Harvey asked. “Certainly, sir,” Chauncey said, and launched out into a history of the family during the Elizabethan era and early Stuart era and how some members had fled to the New World...”because there had been accusations of witchcraft, we understand.”

“Such as what?” Maeve asked.

“It seemed that there were blue-green lights...dancing about the standing stones...”

The company was so occupied by Chauncey’s enthralling history telling that they didn’t notice for some time that Joe was not among them for a while. Even Juliette had missed him leaving.

It was Juliette who finally observed that Joe was gone. “Where’d he go?” she asked Harvey.

“I think I know,” Harvey said perceptively.

Harvey looked out the window at the hillock that rose up behind the manor. He saw his friend standing near a special place at its zenith. Harvey and Maeve exchanged glances which Juliette didn’t quite understand.

“Go to him, Harvey,” Maeve said softly. Harvey nodded in silent agreement.

Before he left Bryncote, Joe had a pilgrimage to make…

Joe knelt down on the cool green English earth and touched the granite headstone bearing the inscription “Brynn O’Ryan Gallagher April 11, 1946.” The wings that he and Rigel had laid there were still present and he picked them up, clutched them tightly in his hands, and wept. Caught up in his thoughts, Joe didn’t hear Harvey approach from behind him. The elder man knew the pain of losing a child and the hole that gets burned in the heart that never completely heals from that hurt. Unbeknownst to Harvey, Juliette had followed him up the path and she remained a discrete distance away, shielded in part by one of the ancient gray steles. In front of her, she saw Joe weeping, shoulders drooped, lost in his thoughts and in his pain. He looked so vulnerable to her now in a way that she’d never seen before or imagined. She beheld a man who had been wounded, broken and bled, who had survived the frigid hell five miles above the earth, who had commanded a powerful, lethal and victorious armada of men and machines yet still possessed tenderness of heart and spirit so much so that he wept over a small grave. Harvey came alongside Joe, knelt down next to him, put an arm around Joe’s shoulders and let Joe release his grief. Juliette watched, transfixed, as Joe replaced the pairs of wings on his daughter’s grave, rise up, unashamed of the tears, and descend the hill with his old friend with whom he’d been through so much. Juliette was overcome by the power of what she witnessed in front of her--the grace and humanity of Joseph Anson Gallagher--and she would remember this moment for the rest of her life. She picked a handful of wild flowers that grew around the stele, placed them next to Brynn’s headstone, wept herself, then descended the hill alone.

It was time to leave Bryncote--again. As the couples seated themselves in Joe’s Jeep, Sydney, with Kiwi in hand, came to the front door to bid them good-bye. The lad, exiled and ignored by detached parents, needed tender loving care and Joe was glad that he would be under the benevolent wings of Sydney, Percy, Adelaide, Ethan and Chauncey. “Wings”--that reminded Joe of something...He swung out from behind the steering wheel, resurrected his luggage from under Maeve’s feet, dug into one of the inside pockets of his B-4 bag were he kept uniform “extras” and found the perfect thing. The curious faces of the three Jeep passengers as well as Sydney’s looked on as Joe walked over to Kiwi, bent down in front of him and looked deeply into the boy’s unforgettable eyes--Savage’s eyes.

“I want you to have these,” Joe said, the gentleness of his voice reflecting the genuine affection he felt for Frank’s little boy. In Joe’s hand was a pair of silver command pilot’s wings. He carefully pinned them on Kiwi’s shirt as Sydney, Harvey, Maeve and Juliette watched the tender scene unfold. “These were your father’s. He gave them to me a long time ago, for luck, and now I want you to have them.” The little boy smiled then surprised everyone by reaching out his arms to Joe and tightly hugging him around his neck. Joe welcomed the embrace, held Frank’s child close to his chest…and remembered his own child at the top of the hill. Years from now, Kiwi would need the luck that those wings carried.

Troyroys, later that day

BY 3:00 pm they were back at Troyroys. Harvey and Maeve invited Joe and Juliette to come in, but they both had to hurry back to London and their work on Monday morning. Harvey and Maeve waved them farewell, and, with their arms around each other, strolled back to their home, still damp and redolent with wallpaper paste and paint. But it was a clean, reassuring smell, bespoke progress in their home and life together…and kind of distracted them from their visit at Bryncote--and for Harvey, some lurking concerns about his friend and his aide. He liked Juliette immensely, but still wished that Rigel had been the one walloping Joe with wallpaper paste…and with him, at Brynn’s grave.

But Joe and Juliette were adults, and they were responsible ones, Harvey reminded himself, lighting the fire as Maeve put on a kettle of soup in the kitchen. He settled into one of the two chairs with a grunt of tiredness…and his brain sailed back to the morning and early afternoon. Little Kiwi. Father dead, and son alive…unlike him, he then thought--father alive and son dead…

He turned to happier ideas. He had a thought of writing Sandy about recent adventures at Bryncote, which recalled the Ceilidh there in April 1946—but in sadness. He then recalled that Sandy, who was helping with the plumbing in the stellar regions of the house, had not heard the story about Lady Caris, so telling him about the necklace and the piece of amber that belonged with the necklace might be more confusing than anything.

But amber... that was an interesting substance.

After dinner they started the process of heating water in a copper boiler for their bath. When the water boiled on the range, they would hand ladle it into the tin tub which Harvey had carried down from the bathroom to the kitchen: in the day, when servants were plentiful, some wretched hired girl probably hauled the water up the stairs.

Maeve filled the tub with a hose attached to the kitchen tap. She then ladled boiling water into it. With towels and nightgown laid out, she took a bath, and then she and Harvey would drain the tub outside, refill it, warm the water and Harvey would take his own bath.

While he waited, she bathed first, enjoying his admiring gaze. They then emptied the water, hosed more in, ladled in boiling water and then Harvey took his bath, grinning at her admiration. Though Harvey tended to call himself “stout” he also knew that his belly was fairly flat, his chest reasonably broad and two well-shaped legs completed his anatomy.

Tub emptied, dried off, clothed, but chilly, they hurried upstairs…and read. While Maeve had been tending to the bath protocol, Harvey had gone upstairs to find the moving boxes and dug into Maeve’s books to find the encyclopedia. In bed, squinting in the lamplight a little, he read the article on amber…didn’t tell him much, except he had not remembered that an ancient term for the substance was “electrum,” the source of the word electricity.

He also learned of its mythical qualities—brings success, promotes humor, heightens instincts, enhances artistic qualities, relieves grief…He veered off that and read an account of scientific experiments with amber…but kept thinking of how amber supposedly relieved grief.

He had not told anybody, but in two days it would be the fourth anniversary of his son’s death—or the anniversary of the day he learned about Mike. Mike didn’t even have death day...

When he let it become so, the wound of Mike’s loss was as raw as ever. The blankness of his death was even more raw…when he let his mind roam around the idea.

Or maybe not. Harvey Stovall, he told himself, you can’t spend your life in pursuit of a…lost boy. Hundreds, thousands of people, everywhere, in Germany, Russia, Japan, China…were lost as well or had lost loved ones. His interrogations at Nuremberg had uncovered so many heartbreaking stories of death by violence at the hands who thought they had the perfect right. Mike’s death was with some mission, some objective. He died serving his country, rather than being some wretched victim of the Nazi maw of racial superiority.

He was married, and perhaps there were children in future. That thought he turned into amber. Yes, they could have children. They could.

Maybe it was lingering paint fumes, but Harvey became restless and he knew he was torn between sleep and wakefulness, and his dreams were dancing like the blue green light at the standing stones. At Bryncote, he was searching for Joe...he became lost and followed the sound of hammers and shovels and curses of bricklayers.

A figure in an army trench coat was standing in an opening between two buildings. He seemed to be waiting.

“Hi Dad.”

Harvey reached out in joy and fear to take his long-missing son Mike in his arms and they closed on nothingness. He awoke as the dream dissolved. He lay still in their bed, as Maeve, beside him, breathed deeply and regularly.

He had dreamed of Mike before, but never so clearly, so rationally.

His dream was so clear and rational, Harvey told himself, because of his visit to Bryncote, and joining with Joe in his grief over his own child.

And he then had another clear rational thought….somebody somewhere knew of Mike’s fate. He was positive in this although he had no rational explanation for why he thought so. But it was not only in his mind but in his gut.

Where would be begin? Who might know? Could Joe, with his “pull at the Pentagon” help? No. He couldn’t put Joe to such a test. If he were to ask, he knew that Joe would start making inquiries, perhaps to his detriment, as the Gallagher family had their share of enemies there, in Washington, in many places.

But there were secret operations, disastrous missions which nobody wanted to talk about, such as rumors of the messy Aphrodite project, in which unmanned B-17s, loaded with explosives, were sent out to crash on targets and it was a helluva failure; the aviator son of former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy had died in this operation.

Harvey, quit chasing ghosts, he told himself and soon fell asleep, but Mike’s happy tenor voice, saying “Hi Dad” stayed with him...as if demanding Harvey say “Hi son,” back to him. If he did, then a sad possibly heartbreaking journey might begin...was it better not to know?

Harvey lay in bed until dawn, struggling to find the answer. He really looked forward getting back to Nuremberg, though uncomfortable in knowing that family members of the defendants were struggling to save their loved ones too.

Books were Opened: June through August, Los Angeles

“SOMETHING stinks,” Antonia announced to Sandy, as they curled up on the couch together, in the evening, in his apartment.

Despite Betty’s apartment newness, she preferred the worn but homey quality of his home over the garage. Having gotten a taste for Chianti in Italy, she had bought several bottles and they were finishing one.

Sandy’s sleep had been erratic since the incident on campus, six weeks in the past. “Really?” he remarked to Antonia’s comment. Antonia was patient enough to hold her tongue and smiled when he then said, “What stinks?—beyond Communist infiltrating labor unions of the aviation industry?”

“That’s what’s been reported, not a fact,” she answered. “You can read my article series, starting July 13.” She continued, firmly, gently: “What stinks…is that this Hurlbert was arrested so suddenly, and is still being held, despite the fact that his whereabouts on the morning before the explosion can be accounted for—including another fact that he was leading the protest at the explosion, really just a few feet away.”

“Hiding in plain sight.”

“Drawing attention to himself like that and then leaving wires and whatnot in his apartment? Sandy, he’s not that stupid—Vincent and I got all of fifteen minutes to interview him day before yesterday with his attorney and he…well, to me, he gave a good account of himself.”

“Fifteen minutes is nothing.”

“This is something. Blair Hurlbert is connected by marriage to Averell Harriman—even accompanied him to Russia in 1940, 1943 and again in late 1945. Went as one of his aides, but he sure wasn’t piggybacking for some fun—he did good hard work while his uncle was playing some hardball with Uncle Joe.” She went on to say that Hurlbert had actually been a line worker at Boeing in Seattle during the summers of the war—and though suspected of Communist sympathies had never said a word about strikes or anything during or afterwards. Moreover, as a trained pilot, he had ferried civilian-purposed aircraft as well.

He was surprised by that bit of news. Averell Harriman was a public name--a rich scion who had dedicated himself to the service of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and had been a reliable and astute personal emissary to Moscow during the war---flying there in his own plane. “Mr. Harriman sent his own attorney to inquire into this—and for heaven’s sake, Harriman and Truman have worked together since the war and several weeks ago, before all this crap, Hurlbert openly said he admired Truman even if didn’t agree with some of his decisions.” Antonia was silent for a moment. “I didn’t know Ray. I never met him.”

“I was going to be his best man this summer when he married Betty…”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But that shouldn’t interfere with a matter of justice which seems to be getting stuffed on a slow boat to China.”

When Sandy was silent, Antonia said, “And did you ever stop to think...that somebody else might have been the target? That maybe Truman’s visit there was being used as a kind of blind, for well, murder—or destruction?”

“Like who?”

“Some other engineering students—Crusard—Walkert—Maybe...even Ray.”

“What about Ray?”

She spoke carefully. “The way I see it, everybody is considered a suspect. Maybe Ray was the one who planned it.” She stared uncompromisingly into his eyes. “But that’s just a theory. One of many. In journalism, you have to look at an event like this from many different viewpoints.”

“Throw that one out.”

She slid to the floor from the couch, and put her hand and chin on his knee—and laid her hand on his hand, fisted around the stem of the wineglass. “Those questions are being posed but answers are not coming. But, Hurlbert is a sorehead so he’s guilty. The President was coming, so he was the intended victim. That’s what we are expected to think. Journalists are told—trained—to see things from different angles.”

He looked down into almond shaped blue eyes, liquid and soft but with an aromatic bite, like brandy. Once again, he thought of how much she looked like Mara Vellen…thick hair, eyes, the shape of the face, the same graceful body…he drew himself back to the present but whenever his thoughts drifted toward that brave, tragic woman they had met in Yugoslavia, then teamed up with again…and he saw and experienced his first henge.

“You once told me that in Oakland the cops were always on your case…and that one cop listened to you—and helped you.”

“Not fair. But all right, tell me more.”

“Hurlbert’s too easygoing. One of his profs also told me that he was known to leave his apartment open for almost anybody to come in, spend the night, crash for a while…somebody could have easily planted that wiring stuff on him.”

Sandy grew uneasy with this good information and good logic.

“I know he called you a warmonger,” Antonia said. “He told me he was being more of a loudmouth than savvy.”

“Oh, hell, that’s nothing,” he admitted after a moment, recalling how many times his loose mouth had hurled him into trouble. “‘Warmonger’ is vanilla. But it sounds like he’s buttering you up.”

“Maybe you’re right about the butter, but somebody’s got to be this guy’s friend—the USC newspaper is blistering him maybe to save government contracts, which may include that fancy new wind tunnel, and the LA Times publishing readers’ letters calling him a Communist. It might all be a way to protect the airplane industry out here.

“Well, I won’t stand in your way,” Sandy said. “If you want to defend this guy, it’s your business, but remember, I lost a friend in that bomb blast—and he was going to marry the young woman you’re rooming with.”

“I know,” she said, pulling her blonde hair from her face and tossing it behind her neck. “But Betty will understand—she’s as intelligent as her cousin.”

He loved the spirited look in her face, which reminded him of Rigel. And Antonia was right, he made himself acknowledge. The jerk deserved justice, real justice, not just what he believed justice was or should be because a friend got killed.

When Betty dropped by the apartment to pick up something of Ray’s, he asked her about what she thought…if Antonia had brought this up. “Not much,” she admitted, “but Antonia is sincere—and logical—about Hurlbert being sold down the river.”

And ten days later, thanks to Antonia’s spirited work, and the efforts of his lawyers, Averell Harriman’s own lawyer, several professors, and the Los Angeles Chronicle, an alternative newspaper to the Times which published the stuff the Times refused to--Hurlbert was out on bail. Upon his release from a federal lock-up, he spoke quietly with the press and went home—to a house he was buying in Arcadia, once a village outside of Los Angeles, and now becoming a suburb. Soon, in all the usual bad news, interest segued from Hurlbert, who had quietly returned to digging into his dissertation. The one comment he made for the USC’s Trojan was that he still protested former Nazi scientists serving the unstated aims of the United States but was sorry for the death of Ray Zemler—for which he was not responsible.

On the following Saturday morning, Antonia, who had spent the night with him, rolled out of bed, started the coffee and prodded Sandy awake—telling him that they were driving out to Arcadia… “Not him,” Sandy with some anger. “Yes, him,” Antonia said, firmly.

“Why?”

“He called me yesterday and said he wants to talk with you,” Antonia said. “This is critical, Sandy, for justice.”

Fair words. He got up, showered, and had coffee with the smartest most beautiful girl in the world…

They drove out to Arcadia and they located the address. The front yard of the substantial bungalow house was a small grove of orange trees. They pulled into the twin concrete strips of the driveway, and parked next to the porch of the small house, which Hurlbert was, prosaically if vigorously painting. He met them, wiping his hands on a towel, to greet them. His words were brief enough to be sincere: “I’m sorry about Ray Zemler’s death. I understand you were two war buddies and you’d been rooming together. It’s tough, man, tough.”

“It got out of hand,” Hurlbert then admitted as Antonia got busy with her interview. They had sat down on old wicker chairs on the spacious front porch overlooking the orange trees. “I mean, the Trojan began reporting on us, and then the LA Times, and the KFI radio---and it was kind of exciting. And plus—well, frankly, there was a girl in the crowd that I wanted to impress. So, if you want to call me a, uh well…” He paused in a courtly way, looking at Antonia.

“Asshole,” she said.

“Yeah, go ahead. But don’t think I’m stepping off my soapbox. Guys like you and that crowd busily trying to get the next war started off—“

“Hold it,” Sandy said. He searched for words, surprised that Hurlbert admitted to an adolescent flourish of trying to impress a girl. “Let me remind you those four—fucking lousy years—I wasn’t fighting for war. I was fighting for peace. And the Soviet Union doesn’t seem to be interested in that state of affairs—“

“The Soviet Union has an enlarged sphere of influence to protect for themselves, just as we, now the almighty atomic age United States, has its own sphere to protect so don’t tell me that one side isn’t listening to the cooing sounds of the dove of peace—“

“Hold it, time,” Antonia said. “Both of you. Sandy, speak your piece. And I mean p-e-a-c-e.”

“Fine,” Sandy snapped. “Look, shooting war or economic war aside—the Soviet Union is not putting down its arms, and neither can we—we can’t be caught with our pants down again. Russia did. England did. We did. If we had had ‘em up and buckled, Hitler may have stayed a local loudmouth rather than some guy—whose—damage—is going to be around for a helluva long time. If you got competition, you gotta stay up with the competition or they’re gonna leave their tire marks on your ass.”

“Nazi scientists are part of the competition. Scientists that created a helluva lot of damage too. Yeah, Komansky, they’re here…on the US government’s dime. The government’s probably gonna make them pay that dime back, with interest. What the hell are they going to make or do to pay it back?”

“I don’t like people who make catastrophes without knowing the full facts—“

“I don’t like people who won’t open their eyes—“

“Peacemonger,” Sandy interrupted.

“No more than you’re a warmonger. Let’s agree… to disagree.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly, a van drew up and two men got out with a bill of lading. They were delivering a washing machine. Blair excused himself to direct their activities and when Antonia and Sandy glanced through a window, they saw a spiffily new modern kitchen. Blair returned, mentioning that after he finished painting the house, he would be building a bookcase in the den. Roofers were due in the morning. “Gotta buy a lawnmower too,” Blair said.

Then they all saw a young woman approaching the house from the back, her feet crunching on the chinaberries dropping from the ancient tree shading the garage. “Hi sweetie,” Hurlbert said, getting and guiding her on to the porch. “This is my fiancée—Arlene Croom.” He grinned rather abashedly. “This was the—woman—I was trying to impress that morning and shot my fucking mouth off.”

Arlene was quiet, well-groomed and very polite to Antonia and Sandy. Her eyes were clear-set and intelligent, and she was clearly in love with Hurlbert, who reciprocated.

Antonia said, “Are you marrying?”

“When this mess is over. A while—this is the house that we are going to move into.”

“Hello,” called another female voice.

“Moire?” Hurlbert looked up to see another young woman approaching them on the sidewalk bisecting the orange trees. She looked like one of those stringy-haired girls that had been present at the protest back on April though her hair was clean and bound back in a scarf. She stopped and stared at the quartet. For a moment, Hurlbert looked like a thirteen year old boy being ratted out by a girlfriend on the playground. He looked at Antonia who was sitting up straight, tense and eager. “Miss—Moire-- Sexton told me an interesting story about—a night at your apartment. A story she didn’t tell the police.”

“I didn’t know you talked with Moire,” Hurlbert said.

Sandy sat back in his wicker chair, adoring Antonia and her gutsiness.

Moire spoke firmly...and honestly. Blair Hurlbert opened his—their-- apartment on Friday evenings to Monday morning and people came and went—including Blair who took a phone call, shouted “what?” into the noise, then his face went...coy...and then he left, soon after. When he didn’t come back…her suspicions were confirmed; Blair was seeing someone else. Humiliated, she lasted out the party, and even began to clean up though she was shit-faced drunk. That’s how she still was when she found some fellow who sat quietly in the kitchen, a hat on his head. She was suddenly quite sober.

He needed to speak with Blair, he said. He would wait. Go to bed, he urged, lighting a fresh cigarette off his old one.

Like hell was she going to bed with that guy sitting in the kitchen and she was as mad as hell…so she packed a few things and left. After an hour of useless stamping around, she came back—and one of the reasons was that she distrusted that guy she left behind. He was gone.

“What happened when you returned?” Antonia asked her.

“I, uh, checked around…nothing seemed to be missing or wrong…I went to bed and, uh, uh, Blair returned about an hour later, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Hurlbert asked. He was not reproachful.

“I was mad. And then...scared and I decided not to say anything—besides...nothing was missing.”

“But something could have left behind, right?” Antonia said. “Like those wires.”

Antonia talked with her for several minutes, trying to provoke memories, details. Moire said, “No, no. But I would know that guy again, though.”

Antonia continued a while longer asking the increasingly weary Moire, until she judged it time to end. “Thank you very much,” she said.

Moire got to her feet, glanced at Blair and Arlene who had the grace to gaze back, not smugly or sorrowfully, but openly. “Well, good luck you two.”

Sandy and Antonia bade them the same and returned to Los Angeles. The next day, Moire showed up at Sandy’s door, asking for Antonia, and volunteered to talk with authorities. Antonia started writing, investigating and making some cautious phone calls. Some were cut off immediately; some promised to return the call and never did. But Moire kept her promise and finally, a sympathetic ear listened.

***

Four days later, a small article, nearly buried in the inky depths of the Los Angeles Times, announced that Blair Hurlbert had been released by federal authorities for lack of evidence that he was involved in the bombing. Antonia was very pleased but realistic about how tenuous the situation was.

Blair and Arlene called one day and then, picked up Sandy one evening at his apartment and then picked up Antonia at the Regency. “Who is it?” Antonia cried from the other side of the door of the Regency apartment. “Your fiancée,” called Sandy, proud as all get out over his girl who through her work had freed a man wrongly accused. He believed it himself too, though his innocence spiraled open the questions of who was guilty.

“Just a minute!” she cried back, and after more than a just a few minutes, she came out on the landing and joyfully greeted Blair and Arlene, who were discreetly dressed and Blair had even shaved his beard, which reduced his recognizability for the time being.

“Let’s go,” she said, after darting back in and coming out with her stylish shoulder bag. They went out for drinks, which Hurlbert bought.

Antonia and Arlene left for the ladies room to freshen up before they went to dinner. Blair spoke to him directly. “You may be surprised to know …that I have a few contacts and might be able to help…with a few things.”

“Like what?”

“With the wrong people—look, I know I gotta big mouth—“

“So do I,” Sandy said.

“But I’m proud of mine—but I know things here and there—“

“What kind of things?”

“I meet with crackpots—idiots—and for lack of a better word, gold-diggers. I’ve also met with important people—largely through my uncle-in-law. I’ve seen some things too. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for you. No ratting out. But I’ve been taken advantage of and being a perfectly normal human being, I want whoever did this to get what’s coming to him—or her.” He ordered a fresh drink. After it was served he said, “I’ll just drop in from time to time, okay?”

“Okay...say, by any chance did you see how who got me outside?—after the bombing I mean.”

“What?”

Sandy explained for the first time he had no clear memory of how he escaped, or at least got clear of the place. Blair didn’t know, and nodded when Sandy told him to keep his question quiet.

Keeping his promise Blair did drop by with Arlene--but once in a while with Moire...

In between all the craziness that late spring and summer of 1947, Sandy and Antonia talked about marriage. Sometimes lightly after making love. Sometimes heavily when they were doing something domestic such as shopping for groceries—sometimes with a certain amount of trepidation. “I may leave tomorrow,” she pointed out, at 1:30 in the morning, out as he reviewed a textbook and she was at the desk writing in long hand. “I hope not…”

“Do you?” he asked.

“Hm?” She twisted in her chair to look at him.

“Sweetie, sometimes you get a kind of faraway look in your eye.”

She smiled at him and turned back to her work. Then, “Faraway look or not—I’m crazy about you.”

On the couch, he stared at her—“Let’s drop all the talk and the fear and all that and get married.”

“Now you’re talking.” She jumped beside him and they kissed until they had to catch their breath. “When?”

When she chided him about asking about a date, he told her that he had to tell Joe Gallagher so that he could try to get there to be his best man…

“Your what?” she asked. “Oh, no, I don’t want anything big.”

“It doesn’t have to be big,” Sandy said. “Betty could be your maid of honor and Joe, if he can make it, be my best man.” As he said this, he recalled how he had not heard from Joe for months. For good reason, too. Forget it.

“I want to go to a JP or judge somewhere and just get married—you know, just take a drive some place and find a nice little town.”

“Well, I don’t want anything big either—but…what about your family?”

“They’re wonderful—wonderful enough to understand. And we can do what—Rigel and her husband did—get married again, when we—you—meet them.”

Well, if the woman he was planning to marry had courage to do things the way she wanted to and her parents were allowing her—well, okay by him. Antonia had described them as hardworking, wonderful and while honoring their Greek heritage, also understood that their daughter was an American-born and raised girl and new ways were new ways.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Are you?”

“Absolutely.” They picked up a calendar and circled five days in August…on the road, somewhere they would marry.

In the brief break between summer sessions and the beginning of the fall semester, armed with their marriage license, on August 13 they rented a car, borrowed a tent, sleeping bags and canteens from the Armers, drove out of the Los Angeles basin, heading towards Needles. Antonia was dissatisfied with the high desert towns and Sandy didn’t like them either. “I kind of thought California was one big lane of palm trees,” she admitted when they spent the night in Needles. As for him, for the first time since 1942 he was close to Kingman, where he trained in gunnery. His memories were not the best, but he felt a strong pull of nostalgia and said so when he saw the Arizona ATSF railroad town on the map they studied after hunkering down in bed in a guest cabin after their first night on the road.

“We can’t get married there,” Antonia said. “Our license is for California.”

“No.” Sandy could not help but feel they were eloping, despite chatting with her parents, Iona and Leonidas, and agreeing that he would do his best—they would do their best—to get back to Long Island during the Christmas season. But he was getting into the spirit of this free and untrammeled wedding trip. “But we can ‘honeymoon’ in advance at the Grand Canyon park--It’s about a four hour drive from here.”

“So close--I had no idea! Oh, let’s go!” They did, the next day, driving through three thunderstorms that tore through the high desert skies.

They drove into the park past sundown, and set up camp in the dark. Sandy built a fire and set up the tent; Antonia gamely and happily fried slabs of ham, he baked potatoes in the fire, and after eating, they made delighted love in their oiled canvas palace.

They slept in the silence—which Antonia remarked on as they lay together in sweet stupor. “How quiet the canyon is,” she said. “Hm,” he murmured…but his dreams were not so quiet. Of all things, he dreamed of Ray, Ray, speaking to him as he was dying....”More said he. Nother bell.” Sandy woke, listened to the unearthly silence, and hurried back to sleep.

In the morning, he woke up alone. He thrust on a pair of pants, slid naked feet into moccasins, and parted the tent’s flaps. He walked out into pale dawn light and heard a “Hello!” He jumped, and saw that not too far away a tent was pitched and its owner was kindling a fire. “If you are looking for—uh—well, she walked towards the rim.”

“Thank you,” Sandy said awkwardly to the unassuming middle aged man, wondering if he heard some of the noise they had made in the night…he found Antonia frighteningly near the rim, though she was safely anchored on a low stone wall. “Watch,” she whispered as the dawn gently filled the canyon, illuminating a sight so ancient and pure that it was better than any movie he had ever seen. The Canyon spread out below them in terraces, towers, chimneys, and spires, layers of colors…

Their neighbor invited them to breakfast. “Got plenty,” he said. “Don’t have neighbors too many times.”

They enjoyed a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, even a dutch oven full of biscuits. It tasted wonderful as everything was flavored with the fresh cool tang of juniper trees dampened by the previous day’s thunderstorms. When they asked him about his work, he pointed to an easel. “I’ve been trying to capture this canyon for thirty years…I might do it, yet.”

“How do you paint a place this big?” Sandy asked.

“You don’t.” He went into his tent and brought three more paintings: one of the canyon in mid-morning, the other in the afternoon…even one at noon, in which the overhead sun washed out the vivid colors. “I’ve painted the canyon from the North Rim—and when younger, painted at a campsite down in the canyon. You can only get a piece of the canyon at a time.”

“All different places,” Antonia said.

“A place so big….it can’t ever be the same not at any minute, not anywhere—it’s like a kaleidoscope,” Sandy said.

“That’s what a professor said about truth,” Antonia said, pointedly. “She said you had to look from many different perspectives.”

Sandy realized how right Antonia had been in refusing to take Hurlbert’s guilt for granted. He took the advice to heart and it would serve him well in the future, in times of fear, uncertainty—and downright terror.

He and Antonia packed up and headed for the nearest phone, which was at the Visitor’s Center. Always conscientious, she called in to Anson to tell them where she was; anything she should know? He admired the view and then turned back to see Antonia come running towards him—“They want me in Greece,” she shouted, her face alight with joy.

She then stopped and met him, stare for stare.

“Well, we’d better drive home—we can get married before I leave,“ she said.

“Is it the right time for getting married?” he asked.

“No,” she said, honestly.

He nodded in agreement. They got something to eat, filled up on coffee, and started the long drive back to Los Angeles, which they made in fourteen hours, with no flat tires and only case of overheating.

He felt a little better when she said that she had already planned to visit relatives in Macedonia when she would be sent to that part of the world and use their home as a base. He helped her prepare for her long trip, his heart aching—that was no poetic fancy, it was for real.

He drove Antonia to the airport the next evening. She nestled against him all the way, occasionally kissing him on the neck, which he reciprocated, on the mouth. It seemed kind of distant and make-believe as she arranged for her ticket to New York, stopped and opened her suitcase to snatch out a sweater; and then finally looked at him, with apology and at the same time, no apology. That was his girl, he thought. He loved her because she lived her life on her own terms, much like he had…in a way.

“When will you be back?” he asked. He knew the question was stupid.

“Soon as I can,” she breathed in his ear, after kissing him. She took a look at his face, which he thought was keeping straight. “Sandy, we’re both on the same quest.”

“What are we questing for?” he asked with a smile.

“Doing the best work we can do.”

He could not disagree with her.

She then scampered out the gate and up the steps of the DC-3. Once more he saw Mara Vellen in her graceful, athletic walk. She turned and waved before disappearing into the interior. He couldn’t bear to watch it take off. He took some comfort in that she was going to seek out her family’s village in Macedonia, so she would not be alone. But alone, or with people, Sandy told himself, she would be okay.

He hoped…

The Los Angeles airport had thoughtfully placed a full bar at its patron’s disposal, and he ordered and sipped on a scotch and soda and wondered why the hell... He didn’t get along with the smoky amber liquid, and it roused old memories of another relationship that didn’t work out.

He felt utterly abandoned. Oh, gag the drama, he told himself. She had the courage to do what she wanted—she was brave and beautiful...and...

“Sandy?”

He looked up and around. The lounge was open to the broad corridor leading to the departure gates. “Susan?”

Susan Nesbit—Mrs. Edward Jerrald Edward since early 1945—was holding two little girls by the hands as she beamed with astonishment and delight. “Well, I didn’t expect you to meet me—I wasn’t even sure if you knew I was coming!”

“Coming?” Sandy said. He was still astonished and had a fleeting thought this was some kind of hallucination of the scotch and Antonia leaving.

The next emotion: wariness.

One of the two girls looked at Susan and said “Mama?”

“Girls, I said I was coming out here to interview somebody, and this is the man. Sandy, please meet Marie, and Elenka.” Sandy greeted them, asking them how old they were; eight and six respectively. He already knew—from that 1945 meeting at a London hotel--they were orphans and had been adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Edward—and that they had been the principal reason that wealthy widower Ed Edwards had proposed to Susan, a fellow volunteer at the New York Red Cross, in 1944.

The skycap then said “Mam?” Susan asked him and then Sandy to follow, hustled herself, her daughters, and their mound of luggage into a taxi.

She walked steadily, though slowly. The last time he saw her, back in December 1945, she was still using a wheelchair most of the time. She was still pretty, but Sandy could see the wear and tear of her injuries, received in 1943.

He rode with them to the Hotel Figueroa, not far from USC and helped carry in their luggage. Before he left them in the lobby, he learned she had sent him more than one telegram, saying she was coming to Los Angeles.

“Why?” he asked.

“To finish that article,” she said, tapping him on the chest with a manicured fingernail. “An editor at Saturday Evening Post wants a happy post-war story and this seemed perfect. Call me in the morning, after ten. Come on, girls, bath time!—and then some cookies and a story.” Before the elevator doors closed on them, she said, stridently—“Please?”

Startled—wary—but somewhat distracted from Antonia’s leaving he went home…to find three telegrams slipped under his door: “Arriving in Los Angeles, June 15, at 5:15 me and two daughters. Can you meet? Looking forward to seeing you and finishing article. Susan Nesbit.”

Hm. Another shift of the kaleidoscope. He didn’t like the pattern being produced.

***

Actually, meeting with Susan again turned out to be...okay.

Though not okay was his decision to give her back her watch—the one he admired in the Hound and Heather in that flat stupid meeting they had, and the one she handed over to Joe Gallagher who gave it to him…and not knowing how to accept such a gift, he placed it deep in his footlocker, next to his Silver Star, which he didn’t quite know what do with either. Well…he pulled it out, but left it in the kitchen, deciding that he would decide…after he met her.

He was honest, saying he was at the airport to see his fiancée off on her…work. She seemed genuinely interested when he told her he was seeing Antonia Karacimos. “She’s good,” Susan said. “Congratulations.”

“You sure?” he said when he saw her right eyebrow lift and then lower.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve met her at some press things back east. If I’m jealous of her, it’s well, because she’s—well, doing very exciting work.”

She seemed honest. She told him flatly that this article was her first real commission since 1943; and even though she once cringed writing for the Saturday Evening Post, she was grateful for this chance. Second, if the article was successful it would help her advance in other things: she had a local radio program in New York titled “Calling Our Soldiers.” Anson had expressed some interest in it, maybe turning it into a nation-wide broadcast, and then there was the new medium, television. “Yep, still ambitious, but at least I’m asking for your help this time, not...maneuvering you, I guess.” He nodded, still a little unsure, wondering why she didn’t give it up to live a life of luxury…but journalists, he knew from Antonia, had objectives in life and their work was important—like his work was important.

So, for two days, after he finished his daily classes, he went to the hotel. He twice found an excuse not to bring the watch. She interviewed him by the huge enclosed and heated pool at the Figueroa, while her two daughters swam and shrieked, and emerged to their get bathing suits adjusted. She asked him about what it was like to leave the service, his studies, the new challenges facing the world. She completely avoided the wind tunnel bombing. They ate lunch together at poolside on the second day, the girls were toweled off and put into dry robes and told to lie on nearby lounges and take a nap—which they did.

Susan then encouraged him to put on the trunks she had told him to bring, and join him in the water; her body felt lighter and more flexible in that element. He did so, uneasily sitting beside her on the broad steps.

“They’re really great,” Sandy said about the girls, conked out on the lounges. Susan positively beamed. “Yes, aren’t they? They’re doing well at school and Elenka is so good at the piano I’m already calling her the next Chopin!”

He ventured getting personal. “You seem well and happy.”

“Well, I am walking again, and yes, girls and I are happy and Eddie is a very kind and attentive husband.” She immediately returned to the interview, which covered time in 1947. Sleepy from lunch and the rocking motion of the warmed water, Sandy stretched and yawned—and found Susan staring at him.

“Is that a wound?”

“What?”

“That.” She pointed to the strange triangular blemish on his arm.

“I don’t know what it is. Just one day I found it.”

He went home, and for all his intentions to give back her dad’s watch, he didn’t…over dinner. After coffee, he escorted them to her suite and at her request, waited, pretty uncomfortably, while she put them to bed. Softly closing the door, she said “Brandy?” and before he nodded, she poured out two shot glasses. Murmuring thanks, he sat down on a chair well away from the couch where she settled.

They raised their glasses to each other and took a sip. She then, to her credit, opened up on an uncomfortable episode in London, 1945, when he met her for an interview to complete the article she wanted to write on him. He understood—directly from her--that she was trying to re-ignite her journalism career, lopped off after her injury—and that she really wasn’t ready yet as her injuries were still bothering her. She was taking pain medicine, and her memory and focus would fade in and out. They parted friends, but it had become hair-raising at one point...

In 1947, she told him “I’m not going to throw myself on your bosom and howl to be taken away with you…as I did in London back in 1945. That wasn’t very good of me. And it was very wise of you to tell me I had a husband and children were involved—and that we wouldn’t be happy.”

“It wasn’t very nice that after you told me you had a husband I still stuck around for two more days, either.”

After a short pause that seemed an eon, in which they both privately recalled an explosion of physical passion that was not entirely devoid of love—bared bodies, then bared hearts, and finally bared souls that were then covered as they quietly took their leave of each other, physically pleased, mentally appalled—at least he was. He had never made love so well—he had to be slow and gentle, and had learned a lot...But Susan had been a married woman and that had been a first with him--and he wanted it to be the last. He finally asked, “Are you happy with Eddie?”

“I’m content,” she said after a moment. “And, the older I get, the more I think that contentment is better. Contentment…lasts longer.”

“What is contentment exactly?”

“What... do you think it is?”

“Being okay with things—not wanting much. You wanted a lot when we first met.”

“And how, brother.” When he said nothing else, she took up the conversation. “In the last four years, in and out of surgery, wheelchairs, pain, marriage—children—I’ve grown--well, somewhat philosophical. I saw the war was a canvas and I was the painter. Actually, we were all canvases and the war was the painter. I got painted good. So did you. So did everybody.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re neither happy nor content nor okay,” Susan observed.

“Yes, I am—but not in everything.”

“But...I would like to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For teaching me what love means.” She said this in a slow rush. Her eyes went elsewhere.

“When did I do that?”

“This also came about in my philosophical moments...back in 1943—despite all that crap I put you through, you still taught me about love.”

“What was the lesson?” Sandy spoke carefully, not sure where this was heading.

“That love means giving, not just taking. I was taking Kirby Wyatt for everything he could do for me, like I had taken several other men and you…I wanted to take you for your story and I ended up wanting to give you—so much...you know, that’s when I realized I loved the girls...when I wanted or at least didn’t mind giving up my time for them, and helping them.”

After a moment, Sandy finished his brandy, said he should leave, and bent down to kiss Susan on the forehead. She didn’t lift her face to present her lips.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Good night.”

The next day he saw them off the airport; Marie and Elenka thought Uncle Sandy was pretty wonderful when he brought them small bouquets of flowers, as he brought their mother a large bouquet. “My goodness, we feel like brides, don’t we girls?” she asked them, averting her face from his, perhaps regretting her choice of words. “Keep in touch,” she said, awkwardly. “But I will send you a draft of the article to make sure I get things right.”

Get things right, he mused. And love means giving…It never made so much sense.

But he was still lonely.

Call to Glory: Mid-August 1947, C-47 airborne over the Adriatic

COLONEL Augustus Minton “Dash” Dashall deftly commanded the controls of the C-47 while his co-pilot sat right seat, hands in his lap, scanning the sky out of habit. Dash liked this guy and was glad to have him on his team. Dash was CO of the Massachusetts-based AAF air transport group responsible for flying the North Atlantic route to Europe. It was familiar sky to Dash who’d trekked all over those countries and crisscrossed the Atlantic during the war in two and four engine aircraft, hauling supplies, troops, and patients. However, this was new sky to his co-pilot.

Major Alec FitzGerald, Dash’s co-pilot, was a 27-year-old sharp, charismatic, strapping six footer with sky blue eyes and dishwater blond hair. He enlisted in the Air Force immediately after graduating from Harvard with majors in political science and history. Having been flying from an early age and already possessing a multiengine pilot’s license, Alec sailed through the Air Force’s pilot training. He wanted to fly heavy bombers but a slight congenital vision deficiency in his left eye precluded that. He took the disappointment in stride and went where the Air Force needed him, China-Burma-India, one of the most challenging--and unsung--flying theaters in the war. Flying “The Hump”--the Himalayas--wasn’t as glamorous as the bomber boys in England pummeling Berlin or “The Flying Tigers” dogfighting with Zeros but it was a vital component in defeating Japan. AAF Combat Cargo Groups flying over the Himalayas from India became an important factor in the Allies’ supply strategy. Before a large scale ground assault in Burma could occur, it was first essential to supply Chinese guerilla forces fighting the Japanese in Burma. That task fell to the 10th AF based in India and they began the dangerous 530-mile air route over the peaks of the world’s highest mountain range…and faced Japanese fighters to boot. The allies were reticent to commit their own ground troops into the theater but finally a task force of 3,000 soldiers, code name “GALAHAD,” better known as “Merrill’s Marauders,” raised hell with Japanese forces on the ground while relying on the skill and courage of the combat cargo groups to keep them resupplied from the air. Alec volunteered for the most dangerous missions, and proved himself as a highly skilled pilot and as a dedicated officer. Added responsibilities and promotions followed as did numerous decorations including Silver Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross…along with a back injury that had temporarily grounded him at the end of the war. Alec was determined to keep flying, though, worked through months of therapy and returned to the sky in Dash’s group.

At the beginning of today’s flight, Alec followed his routine of draping a special talisman over one side of the yoke in front of him. From this keychain dangled an odd collection: a St. Christopher medal, a 1921 silver dollar, and photo of a young woman in a flight suit. The snapshot had a four leaf clover taped to the back of it along with some faded feminine handwriting. Alec also wore his weathered “lucky” CBI leather jacket with a blood chit and several dozen camels painted on the jacket’s back. The blood chit was a note written in Chinese identifying the wearer as a friend and ensuring a reward for helping him return safely to American lines. The dromedaries indicated each time Alec had flown “The Hump.” That was two years ago and half a world away from where the young major found himself now. Alec was taking time off from his regular job to fulfill his active duty obligation as an Army Air Force reserve pilot. Coming from a family who embodied “Why be normal? It’s boring,” Alec’s “regular” job wasn’t all that “regular” or normal. He was United States Representative Alec FitzGerald of Massachusetts, son of the well-known and well respected Senator Hugh FitzGerald and the equally well regarded Victoria Whitfield FitzGerald, formerly “Lady Victoria” of English aristocracy. And to make this mission even more interesting, Alec’s twin sister, Realta, was Dash’s fiancé. Small world. And it was going to get a whole lot smaller…

So why was this Skytrain headed to the Balkans? Without fanfare or public scrutiny, the U.S. supplied military aid to the Greek Air Force to help that nation resist communist control of the country. In addition to food and supplies, the U.S. provided airplanes, armored vehicles, small arms weapons, munitions and radar. In neighboring Turkey, various AAF intelligence gathering aircraft were deployed along the northern Black Sea coast, providing the U.S. with valuable information about Soviet aligned countries of Armenia and Georgia. Overflights of the Soviet Union were also performed. Albania, Greece’s neighbor to the northwest, posed a special problem. The Albanians, led by communist General Enver Hoxha, were aggressively protective of their airspace, especially since the Soviets had a secret submarine base on Sazan Island, just a few miles off Albania’s coast in the Adriatic Sea. AAF pilots were warned to avoid the area at all costs.

Today’s trip was the start of a two-day mission. The outbound leg would deliver cargo to Florina Air Field in the northern Greece area of Macedonia. They would RON and in the morning take on patients injured in the recent earthquake that shook the region and fly them back to the Army hospital in Germany. In addition to the pilot and co-pilot, the Skytrain’s crew included the crew chief, T/Sgt. Clement “The Rat” Rathbone, a flight nurse, Lt. Gwyn Bowman, and a surgical technician, T/Sgt. Patrick Murphy. “Rat” was doubling as load master over the big crates marked “Fragile This Side Up.” Bowman and Murphy had nothing to do on this leg except enjoy the long flight and keep from being bored.

After several hours of flying and having exhausted idle chit chat, Dash decided to broach a sensitive subject with Alec: the photo on keychain.

“Alec, how long’r you gonna keep luggin’ that picture around,” Dash asked gently, pointing to the item dangling from the yoke. “It’s been over two years now.”

“Two years, five months, twenty one days,” Alec answered reflexively as he stared straight ahead at storm clouds building and churning upward ahead of the plane.

Alec turned the tables on Dash and asked him a question. ”How much longer are you and Realta gonna keep shackin’ up together before you get married?”

“Good question,” Dash replied. The tone of his voice indicated that it wasn’t him that was putting off the wedding. “Realta’s doing as much flying as she can, working hard at the airline, and learning the ropes from Tailspin.”

Alec continued. “Good ole Tailspin. He’s been at Mom and Dad’s side as long as I can remember. Done a helluva job of managing the company for ‘em all these years, too. It’s about time he retired.”

“Why didn’t you take over Realtair?” Dashed asked. He’d always wondered why Alec decided against that.

“Realta’s got a better head for business than I do. I love flying but I hate counting beans. Besides, the company’s named for her,” Alec replied without a hint of jealousy. “Realtair sounds a helluva lot classier than Alecair,” he quipped with a smile. “Why don’t you give up the Air Force and go fly with Realtair, hm?”

“Realta and I’ve talked about that but I really like what I’m doing, especially being based so close to home,” Dash offered.

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the cockpit door. It was the crew chief. “Rat” was a fast talking New Yorker in his early twenties who bore an uncanny resemblance to actor John Garfield.

“I come bearing gifts,” Rat said, handing a box lunch to Dash and one to Alec. Dash had flown with Rat on several occasions and he’d never met anybody better at scrounging whatever the plane needed than “The Rat.” He was a top notch crew chief, honest, skilled, with a wicked sense of humor and Dash liked him.

“Ahh…thanks Sergeant. You were readin’ my mind,” Alec said appreciatively.

“If you’ve got any coffee, Rat, I’ll promote you to captain on the spot,” Dash teased.

“Ask and you shall receive, Mon Colonel!” Rat said triumphantly in a fake French accent as he produced a gray metal Thermos and two paper cups. Alec took them and held them between his thighs. “Go ahead Dash, eat up. I’ll wait.”

“Pour me some coffee, will ya?” Dash asked Alec. He did so and handed a half full paper cup of coffee to Dash.

Alec turned his face to Rat and asked, “How’re our two passengers doin’ back there?”

“You mean Florence Nightingale and Mickey Medic?” Rat quipped, shaking his head in a mix of amusement and concern.

“Careful, Sergeant, you’re talking about an officer and a lady by act of Congress,” Dash replied, nicely chastising Rat for his remark.

The seasoned non-com smiled and pointed to the rear with his right thumb. “We got ourselves a couple of eager beavers on this haul, sir. The two of ‘em have checked every item in that damned medical supply chest at least four times and I swear the lieutenant’s counted every aspirin and Band-Aid, too. Not to mention they’ve checked and rechecked every oxygen tank and rehearsed egress procedures a half dozen times.”

“Sounds like they have the first-time jitters, that’s all. They’ll smooth out when the patients come on board,” Alec said.

“I hope so, sir,” Rat replied. He looked out of the cockpit windows and commented on the clouds. “Where’d this stuff come from? We weren’t briefed about any storms? That stuff looks nasty.”

As Rat spoke, the plane went from flying straight and level into being jostled by turbulence, sending Dash’s coffee all over his leather jacket. “Dammit! We need to get around this shit!” Dash’s voice was controlled but concerned. Without having to be told, Alec worked the throttles as Dash wrangled the yoke.

“She’s not responding!” Dash said through gritted teeth as he wrestled with the controls.

“Yeah, and that ain’t all…look at the instruments…they’re all fucked up!” Alec said.

“I’m gonna check the payload, make sure it’s secure!” And with that, Rat returned to back of the plane. Much to his surprise, he found “Florence Nightingale” and “Mickey Medic” sitting calmly, strapped in.

As Dash and Alec struggled to control the Skytrain, an ominous swirling vortex of purplish green clouds swallowed the plane and blue-green balls of light were headed straight toward the cockpit…

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Florina, Macedonia, northern Greece

IN Greece, ostensibly covering that country’s civil war for Anson News Service, experienced photojournalist Theodora Smythe-Beckworth’s sub rosa duty was to shepherd cub reporter Antonia Karacimos on her first junket into unsettled territory. Yes, they had crisscrossed the country interviewing military officers, diplomats, mayors, businessmen, housewives, children and even one priest who chastised the women rather loudly for wearing pants. For the last two weeks they had scoured Greece, the ancient cradle of democracy and western culture, for human interest stories. They did not come up empty handed. There were stories of bravery in battle, stoicism and resilience on the home front, tragedies, victories, pompous champions, quiet heroes and heroines. Dutifully, they wired their reports back to the office in Athens which forwarded them on to London and then to New York where the discerning eyes of editors, including Irene Anson Gallagher herself, would bless the story and put it to bed. Their reports were all timely, well written, factual, geopolitically relevant…and boring. No sizzle. No zing.

The women were heartily welcomed at Antonia’s paternal ancestral village of Florina in the Macedonian region of northern Greece, not far from the border of her mother’s native country, Albania. The Macedonians were proud of their ancient heritage as a separate kingdom whose most celebrated member was none other than Alexander the Great. As a child, Antonia grew up in a multilingual home, and fluently spoke English and the dialects of her parents’ regions in the Balkans. Uncle Georgios, Florina’s semi-official mayor, and Aunt Hera, an experienced and well respected midwife, rolled out a traditional welcome for their niece, whom they had only seen in photographs exchanged over the years. There was plenty of music, food and dancing to celebrate the visit.

Theodora stood by as the “cub reporter” interviewed a trio of gentleman in their native tongue. She posed questions about the civil war that swirled throughout Greece and which side they supported. The men were reticent to speak in the presence of an outsider which is what they considered Theodora. Antonia quickly dispelled their concern by telling them that Theodora was on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Since many of the village women were also fighters in the resistance against the Nazis, the men drew the conclusion that Theodora must have been some kind of resistance fighter too. Antonia fudged history a bit on that, and just repeated that yes, indeed, Theodora was there at Normandy. That bit of diplomacy concluded, the men’s demeanor toward the elder American woman noticeably warmed and they gave her hearty claps on back, praising her bravery.

One man, cousin Aristotle--“Ari”--asked a question to Antonia that put a puzzled look on her face.

“What did he say? Theodora asked.

“He wants to know if we came back for the American nurse and the ‘Gulgur ari.’ ‘Ari’ means gold in Albanian. Don’t know what Gulgur means…and no, he’s not named for gold.”

“What nurse…and what gold?” Theodora asked which Antonia translated to her kinsman.

“Ari says that American airplane nurses--I think he means flight nurses--crashed in Albania during the war and his cousins helped hide them from the Nazis.”

“Yeah, the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron flight nurses and medics back in November 1943. It was in the newspapers and newsreels when they were rescued. Nothing news worthy about that,” Theodora said.

“According to Ari, an American nurse was still in Albania in 1945.”

“That was two years ago, Antonia, it’s a cold story even if it were true,” Theodora advised.

“He said that there have been sightings of her among the partisans…and supposedly she knows where the Americans hid a cache of gold.”

“What is she, a leprechaun? It’s just a fairytale, a rumor, no proof…” Theodora told Ari through Antonia. Ari didn’t take that well at all and the tone of his voice and wide-eyed facial expression indicated that dammit, it was true and how dare Theodora challenge his verity.

Antonia played the diplomat again and smoothed over cousin Ari’s ruffled feathers. It worked, kinda.

“C’mon, boss, you know as well as I do that a lot of legends are based on facts,” Antonia addressed to her mentor. Theodora crossed her arms in front of her chest and shot Antonia a skeptical look.

In reply to Theodora’s visibly disbelieving body language, Ari resumed speaking rapidly in the local dialect. He emphatically gestured with his hands, holding them cupped together in front of him as if they were holding something heavy. He shifted his gaze back and forth between Antonia and Theodora trying to convey his message. Whether or not there was an American nurse and a cache of gold in Albania, Ari earnestly believed there was.

“He says, it’s no legend. The partisans had gold coins, lots of them. When the Americans came back in 1945, someone named Gulgur brought more gold.”

“And what’s the gold got to do with this left behind nurse?” Theodora wanted to know.

“She came in the B-17 with the American flyers, the ones who brought the gold. They left, she stayed,” Antonia explained.

“Ask him why she didn’t go back with the other Americans.” Theodora found herself wishing she knew Greek. She spoke five languages but Macedonian wasn’t one of them.

“Ari says that she killed a man and couldn’t go back to America or she’d be shot. She supposedly married a partisan and is still in the hills with them, tending to them and delivering their babies.”

Theodora shook her head, squinted her eyes at Ari and the young eager beaver reporter. “I dunno…that seems pretty far-fetched...”

“Yeah, that’s what Ferdinand and Isabella said when Columbus told them he bumped into the New World,” Antonia quipped in frustration. “Dammit, Teddie…we were sent to get news…and finding that flight nurse is big news! This is a once in a life time chance. We can’t blow it.”

Theodora--whose nickname was Teddie although no one called her that in a long time--had to agree. Compared to interviewing locals about how American aid was saving them from the Soviet Bear, this was a much more interesting and exotic quest. An American woman, a flight nurse, in Albania, married to a partisan and living in the hills for two years was tantalizing. Who is she? Why did she stay? Is she a deserter?

“What’s it gonna cost us? Ask him.” Antonia did. Ari thought a minute then and he stated his price.

“Well, how much?”

“Not how much. More like ‘what.’ He wants your big camera,” Antonia replied.

“That camera’s a piece of shit,” Theodora said. “Tell him that. If he still wants it, he’s got a deal.” The man nodded and pointed to the camera.

“No, I won’t tell him that. We’ve got to haggle a bit. That’s how things are done here,” Antonia said, remembering stories told to her by her parents.

Theodora looked on as Antonia expertly negotiated with rapid chatter and forth bartering. It took several minutes but in the end the deal was done.

“He thinks that bigger is better,” Antonia replied.

“How’s he gonna get us to where this nurse supposedly is?”

Antonia translated the question and from the look on her face it was obvious that she didn’t like the answer.

“He knows a way to get us across the border and then we’re on our own,” Antonia answered.

“Is he involved in the black market?” Theodora asked. She and Antonia had discovered that some of the military supplies sent to Greece by the U.S. had “gone missing”--which is to say, stolen, and probably diverted to Albanian anti-Communist insurgents. The U.S. and Britain had been covertly testing the waters, so to speak, in Albania, and sowing the seeds of a possible future insurgency against the Soviets.

“Maybe. That’s the risk we’ll have to take.”

“So we’re just supposed to trust Cousin Ari to take us into Albania somehow and drop us off somewhere?” Theodora asked her junior partner. The last time the elder reporter had done something like this was when she stowed away on that troop ship disguised as a medic and truly was the only female on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Theodora momentarily asked herself if she had mellowed and become much less ballsy now in peacetime.

“Pretty much,” Antonia said. Half of her was itching to go on this quest and the other half was scared shitless. She wondered if this was how Sandy felt each time he climbed into the Piccadilly Lily.

“Okay. When do we go?” Theodora asked confidently. Yep, she still had some big brass ones.

Yessirree, there were going to be some interesting days.

Call to Glory: Mid-August, London, the New Theater

“BRAVO!” “Bravo!” “Bravo!” London’s venerable New Theater audience, roused to their feet, clapped and cheered loudly as the cast of “Taming of the Shew” made their end-of-the-play curtain calls. The applause and shouts crescendoed when the beautiful leading lady and the dashing 6-foot-tall, well built, blond haired blue eyed leading man took center stage to receive the well-deserved admiration of the play goers. A veritable “Who’s Who” of London’s powerful and privileged populated the cushy upholstered front row center seats. As they stood and applauded the cast, two of those dapper gentlemen looked knowingly at each other. They then caught the eye of Sir Anthony Quinlan, the recently knighted star of the production, gave him broad smiles of recognition along with jaunty salutes. Quinlan returned the gesture to his two old Army friends, General Sir Eoghain St. John-Keighley and General Percy Vivyan. Eoghain was as revered as ever at Downing Street and in British military and political circles while Percy, who’d solidified his reputation as a stalwart leader and innovative tactician, was now assigned to an exclusive and rather hush-hush Army unit.

Over the din of the crowd noise, Eoghain leaned in to Percy’s right shoulder and spoke into the younger general’s ear. “We’ll tell when we meet him back stage. It’ll be a softer blow that way,” Eoghain said wryly.

“He’s not going to believe we can do it to him, Eoghain,” Percy replied.

“We’ll see about that,” Eoghain said with a twinkle in his eye. “What’s that saying that the Yanks had about HMRS or some such rot?”

“It’s R H I P,” Percy answered perfunctorily.

“Ah, yes, so it is…. Rank Has Its Privileges.”

As the ovations died down, Eoghain and Percy, accompanied by Percy’s fiancé Adelaide along with his sister Sydney and her husband Ethan Archer, slowly carved a path through the press of people and made their way back to Tony’s dressing room. It was awash in laughter, cigarette smoke, congratulatory telegrams push-pinned into the wood paneled walls, bouquets of red roses and all manner of spiritus fermenti served in Waterford crystal. The cream of British society in their best evening apparel were attentively offered hors d’oeuvres on silver trays carried by serving ladies attired in the customary black dresses, white aprons and frilly white lace caps. In the center of the bevy, Quinlan, who had changed out of his Shakespearean character’s costume into a stylish, masculine burgundy colored cashmere robe with white monogramed initials on one of the heavy satin lapels audaciously used a saber to slice open yet another bottle of expensive pre-war vintage champagne. Unexpectedly, the frothy brew erupted in a high arc which came crashing down on Ethan’s new suit.

“A thousand apologies, old boy,” Tony offered sincerely as he took the white Turkish towel from his dressing table and dabbed at Ethan’s soggy jacket. Sydney and Adelaide, quick to nab linen serviettes from one of the coffee tables, likewise tried to mitigate the moisture. They were laughing about the affair and kidding back with the similarly kidding Antony Quinlan when they noticed that the more aristocratic guests were eyeing them...actually, they were eyeing Adelaide, whose auburn hair was done in an attractive knot, and whose lovely body was draped in a beautiful if simple dress of teal velvet. They weren’t admiring her; they were just a polite shade off of glaring at her...the maid (and a foreigner, what’s worse) who had the effrontery to catch and become engaged to a Viscount. Adelaide was well aware of their attitude—to put it politely—and stood up to it, magnificently. She had been well warned of this by her darling Percy, who had wasted no polite words on the “white wig” types who hadn’t grasped the idea that their day was over.

Ethan took it all in stride, as usual also ignoring the less acidic glares at him, a Yank, and a Universalist minister from Grand Rapids Michigan who had also penetrated Anglican English society—which he would prefer not to be bothered with except as one human being to another. “Don’t worry Tony, it had to go to the cleaners anyway.”

“Which I shall pay for, and if you’ll let me, I’d like to offer you a substitute jacket for the rest of the evening,” he turned his attentions to Sydney, “… and no doubt your charming wife would love to help make that selection.”

Smiling genially, Sydney obliged. “That’s most kind of you, Sir Anthony…”

“I’m Tony…” he inserted quickly and earnestly. Sir Anthony Quinlan was one Knight of the Realm that didn’t stand too much on pretense, unless it helped get him better parts in plays and movies or dates with glamorous women who craved being seen on the arm of well-known actor.

Tony waved his hand in the air snagging the attention of a white jacketed gentleman who was serving caviar and toast points to the guests and signaled him to come over. The gentleman did so.

“Ethan, this is my man, Gormley,” Tony said with genuine affection as he touched the elderly yet still robust gray haired valet lightly on his shoulder. “He’s been with my family for two generations and I’d trust him with the keys to the castle. He’ll take you to my private quarters and make sure that your needs are met.”

With that, Gormley nodded in acknowledgement and extended his right hand saying, “This way, if you please.”

Sydney turned to Adelaide, “C’mon old thing, this could be fun!” And off the trio went, trooping along behind Gormley.

Tony was still playing the life of the party when Eoghain and Percy surrounded him, one on his right side, and the other on his left.

“It was a wonderful opening night, Tony,” Percy said. Percy’s broad grin revealed that he had the upper hand over Quinlan... and he enjoyed having it.

Quinlan sized up St. John-Keighley and Vivyan and seeing the looks on their patrician faces knew something was afoot. “Why do I get the feeling that this is my closing night?” he said, shifting his gaze back and forth between the two Army officers.

“I’m sure you’ll be back very soon…after your bout of influenza,” Percy said tongue in cheek.

“What influenza?” Tony asked, sensing the other shoe was about to drop.

“The one your publicist is going to tell the press about in the morning,” Percy said.

Seeing the pieces of the puzzle fitting together, Tony objected although subtly since they were in a room full of theater going fans.

“Now, wait just a minute…you can’t recall me…”

“Oh yes, we can, Major,” Percy said authoritatively.

“I’m over and done with all of that SOE skulking around,” Tony insisted with noted irritation in his voice all the while keeping his handsome face smiling so not to disclose his displeasure to his guests.

Eoghain relished watching Sir Anthony, noted thespian and budding silver screen idol, twist in the wind a bit. The elder general took a drink of his champagne and over the rim of the glass peered at Quinlan. Finishing his sip, he flashed his legendary charismatic smile at the actor and posited a revealing question about Quinlan’s near future. “Tell, me, Tony, how’s your Albanian these days?”

“Oh, no, not Albania again,” Quinlan uttered.

“If you get back…” Eoghain began but was quickly interrupted by Tony.

“What do you mean ‘if’?” Quinlan asked. His facial expression masked his irritation but the tone of his voice did not.

“Well, then, let’s say ‘when’ you get back, I’ll ring up my old chums Arthur Rank and Carol Reed and tell them I think you’d be perfect for their next big movie production.” Percy had used “the stick” and now it was Eoghain’s turn to use “the carrot”--his connections with two highly respected film producers.

The next day, the planned cover story was splashed across the theatrical sections of the best London newspapers. Actor Sir Anthony Quinlan had taken ill with an upper respiratory infection and his doctor was admitting him to a private hospital for treatment. A grainy photo showed a man supine on a stretcher, large black oxygen mask over his face with two brawny white uniformed orderlies loading him into a waiting ambulance. The stage was set for Quinlan’s next act.

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Scotland, war games

NORMAL people don’t jump out of perfectly good airplanes in the rain and the dark but tough, specially trained warriors do. And that included Brigadier General Preston Maxwell Gallagher. No longer a paper pushing, bean counting Pentagon desk jockey, Pres led his men by example. Whatever they do, he does. Where ever they go, he goes. It was exactly this commitment to his troops, his war time experiences, his guts and his tactical genius that landed Preston in this plum assignment, resurrecting him from the halls of ennui and back into real soldiering.

With a war weary public and stressed national budget, all of the military branches were downsized and forced to do more with less. Politicians, some well-meaning and others not so benevolent toward the armed forces, and their cadre of sycophant ass kissers at the Pentagon, were too short sighted to prepare now for the inevitable conflict between the U.S., its western allies and the Soviet Bear. However, in some cases, good ole Yankee Ingenuity and the Bard’s wise words prevailed. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Ergo, “Gold Team” was hatched. It was Preston’s idea, born out of frustration and tedium as he stagnated in a mundane staff job in the Pentagon where brigadiers were a dime a dozen and full colonels fetched coffee and donuts for them. Don’t change the troops or the mission, just change the name. That’s the concept that Pres pitched to certain influential men in the Army, and they bought it. Since congress felt that a peace time Army didn’t need a special operations unit anymore, the Rangers were disbanded. At least officially, on paper. Preston’s stellar record as an effective and even handed officer led him to the rather inglorious but vital job as commander of the POW camp at Ober-Stettin. That reputation was sullied by the ineptitude of his deputy, Lt. Col Borden DeWitt. Even though Preston was off base on orders to contact his brother Joe and return him to Normandy, Pres was still responsible for the goings on at the camp, DeWitt’s cluster-fuck included. The career blow back from that was mitigated by the facts of the case, Preston’s personal heroics at St. Laurent Sur Mer…and, as Preston would find out years later, some well-placed words and favors called in by his father, Max. After recovering in London from his wounds, Preston won a coveted assignment with the British Army and what was left of their special operations unit. He loved it…and was exceptional at it. As he’d told Betty at Magadar back in 1943, unlike his “famous kid brother” Joe, Pres saw himself as “just a soldier.” It was what he was born to do…which brought him to the here and now: joint maneuvers and war games with the British army in Alba, the ancient and rugged country of the Picts and Celts to England’s north.

The national color of Scotland should be “damp” Preston thought to himself as he dropped through the wet atmosphere, misty rain drops stinging his cheeks. He rocked back and forth beneath the wide open canopy of his parachute, fighting with the changing winds, tugging on the risers to keep himself in line for the soggy drop zone at Garlochhead. The average monthly rainfall for Scotland in August is 15 inches and Preston swore that all of that fell during the 10 days of combined training he and his men were doing with the British special operations unit.

The training ground, a remote area previously used by British and American troops preparing for D-Day, also offered Balkans-style topography putting Preston and “Gold Team”--”Gallagher’s Golden Boys” as they called themselves---at the right place, at the right time. Kismet.

No sooner had Preston’s black jump boots touched the mud and he’d corralled his deflating parachute in his arms than a Jeep drove up to meet him with a large duce-and-a-half truck pulling up behind it. A young British Army officer sporting the famous SAS--Special Air Service--sand colored beret with its red flaming Excalibur insignia, approached and rendered a snappy, classic British palm-forward salute which Preston returned. “General Gallagher, I’m Leftenant Davies. I’ve been ordered to bring you ‘round to headquarters immediately, sir.” Preston couldn’t help but notice that the young man wore a black patch over his left eye, a large scar crossed from above his left eyebrow diagonally downward over his left cheek to his left ear and he walked with a limp favoring his left leg.

“What’s this about Leftenant?” Pres asked as he began shedding his harness.

“Sorry, General, I’m not at liberty to say.”

“And what about my men?” The question was one of the hallmarks of the Gallaghers’ leadership style; Max and Irene imprinted it into each of their three sons. “If you take care of your troops, they’ll take care of the mission,” Max always said. Irene imparted the same concept but in different words and context. She taught her children that bonds of trust, respect and loyalty extended beyond family to friends and neighbors and community. With those philosophies, Maxwell Preston Gallagher rose to have 3 stars on his shoulders and Irene Anson Gallagher steered a media empire. Now, their two surviving sons were following their leads if not exactly in their footsteps…yet.

“They’ll be collected by the sergeant in the lorry and taken back to quarters for now,” Davies said. “Begging your pardon, sir, you’re required at headquarters directly.” He nodded with his head toward the waiting driver in Jeep with it motor running.

“All right Leftenant, let’s go. I just hope there’s brandy there,” Preston said with a tired smile. He was dying for a drink. Betty had been asking him to cut back and it was on his New Year’s resolution list but, well, there were always reasons why he didn’t.

“Very old Scotch and very old brandy, you can be sure of it, Sir,” Davies confirmed as he and Preston traipsed through the continuing drizzle and muck to the Jeep.

In short order, they pulled up to the camp’s headquarters, an unassuming wooden building not unlike those found at the many Army and AAF bases scattered throughout Britain. Davies ushered the muddy booted, damp and dripping Preston into a conference room which was just as basic yet functional as the rest of the camp, with a few exceptions. Three general officers and a major were already huddled over maps spread out on the large rectangular table in the room’s center and, as Davies’ had predicted, bottles of Scotch and brandy, flanked by glass tumblers, stood on a nearby side table. Davies, assuming that his duties were completed by delivering Preston, began to close the door and leave.

“Davies, come in, come in,” Percy said. The young officer did so and promptly saluted General Vivyan, General St. John-Keighley and General Dave Creighton who returned the military courtesy. The major, however, remained studying the charts and maps. “Gentlemen, this is my aide, Leftenant Angus Davies. He has my full confidence,” Percy said with a hint of pride, indicating that Davies was cleared to remain in the room for the pending discussions.

“It’s good to see you again, Pres,” Percy said with an outstretched hand. Preston took it and gave it a few firm pumps of a handshake.

Percy then stepped to the bar and poured himself some brandy. He turned toward the others. “It’s way past 5 o’clock gentlemen. Can I pour anyone a brandy or a Scotch?”

“Why, yes, Percy, I’ll take Scotch, neat,” Eoghain instructed.

“Brandy for me, please,” Pres asked, which was expeditiously poured and handed to him. Preston took a sip. It was good put not as good as the family’s “Uisce Beatha.”

“How’s your lovely wife Betty and little boy? Benedict Maxwell Gallagher if I recall correctly,” Eoghain asked as he also gave Preston a courteous hand clasp.

“They’re both well, Sir. Thank you for asking,” Preston said. He didn’t tell them Betty thought she was pregnant again. There weren’t any obstetricians at Fort Upstatt where Preston was stationed in the Adirondacks and that concerned him. He recalled what Max had told him about his own birth in which Irene was attended only by Max at a remote Army post and Preston didn’t want history repeating itself. With Preston’s career taking him away from a predictable desk job and returning him to the uncertain schedules of field command again, he worried about Betty being left back at the Army post, one hundred miles away from the nearest town with an obstetrician. Midwives such as Maeve, Harvey’s wife, were common in England but scarce and underutilized in the states. However, Preston knew that Irene most assuredly would help Betty and little Ben if Preston couldn’t be there. He’d wondered if it would be best for Betty and Ben to relocate to Dusky Boughs if need be.

“I’m Dave Creighton,” said the intel expert with the mop of coffee bean brown hair, piercing brown eyes and Clark Gable style mustache beneath and long straight patrician nose. “Joe’s told me a lot about you, saw him just last week. He’s doing a real bang up job in London. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a second star soon.”

“That sounds like my famous kid brother for sure,” Preston said, hiding the sting of resentment from Creighton’s praise and prediction for Joe.

Eoghain nodded his head in the direction of the Army major with the very familiar face. “That’s Major Anthony Quinlan, he’s an integral part of this mission but you’re in command.” Eoghain motioned with his hand for Quinlan to join him. He did so. In Quinlan’s presence, Eoghain continued, “We’ve stolen him away from the theater for a week or so under the guise of a respiratory infection. Too bad for you, Tony, but a bit of good luck for your understudy. Who is it this time?”

“Some young Welsh chap by the name of Burton. I’ve watched him in rehearsals…he has a commanding voice and air about him and I think the lad does have a knack for acting,” Tony explained.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Major. I saw you in ‘Hamlet’ a few years ago when you came to New York City,” Pres said, extending his hand to the junior officer which Quinlan accepted.

“So you’re a Shakespeare aficionado, General? I thought you Yanks would be more in tune with my brother Lance’s movies,” Quinlan added, referring his younger, more famous sibling, silver screen heart throb and idol, “Lance DuLac.” “Perhaps you’ve seen his latest film ‘Rats in the Desert’?” Quinlan asked.

“I have,” Preston replied a bit hesitantly.

“And what did you think of it?” Tony asked.

“The movie stank, white washed the war in North Africa and your brother can’t act his way out of a wet paper bag,” Preston stated, looking Quinlan straight in the face as his spoke. “Gallagher Charm” belonged to Joe, not Pres.

Quinlan let out a guffaw and broke into a smile. “My sentiments exactly! He’s had no theater training, lacks discipline and the only things he’s good at are kissing starlets and taking his shirt off apparently.”

“I don’t think we’ve been brought here to discuss our famous kid brothers, though,” Preston concluded, redirecting his eyes toward Creighton, Vivyan and St. John-Keighley.

“No, you haven’t,” Eoghain said. “There’s a situation in the Balkans.”

“What situation? We’ve been out on bivouac and I’m not up on the news,” Pres said.

“In the last two weeks, Soviet Yaks have forced down two American C-47s. One crashed in Yugoslavia and the other one crashed in Albania. The crew that went down in Yugoslavia died in the crash but General Hoxha’s captured the ones that hit Albania. And he’s also holding two American women reporters as spies. You’re going to get them back for us, Preston, Tony.”

“And I’m sure General Gallagher will do an excellent job at that so why in bloody hell did you bring me into this? It sounds like a purely American affair,” Quinlan said.

“Because Britain has some skin in the game too,” Creighton said with an edge in his voice. “Lady Theodora Smythe-Beckworth, widow of Group Captain Arthur Smythe-Beckworth, is one of the women. She’s accused of spying for Britain.”

“Who’s the other one?” Preston asked.

“Antonia Karacimos. They’re both reporters for Anson News Service, which I think you’re familiar with Preston,” Creighton said.

Preston nodded confirmation. “Yeah, sure am.” Pres saw no reason to explain further.

“So you dragged me into this because of Arthur’s American widow?” Tony asked.

Eoghain explained crisply, reminding the Quinlan of his duty. “You, Major Quinlan, are uniquely qualified for this mission. You speak Albanian, Greek, Macedonian, you’re an expert…”

“WAS an expert, WAS….” Quinlan added quickly, stressing the past tense verb. “That ended two years ago.” The displeasure in his voice was obvious.

“…you’re an expert in mountain survival and guerilla tactics and you have worked with the partisans,” Eoghain concluded.

Pres posited the next question. “What’s your specialty, Tony? Engineering? Explosives?”

The former SOE operative clenched his jaws, narrowed his eyes, locked his gaze onto Preston’s and quietly replied, “Killing people…and yours?”

Preston held Tony’s look for a moment and the two of them bonded then and there. “Yeah, same here,” Preston answered with an almost imperceptible nod. As cold and sharp as it was, that’s what war boiled down to.

“The Albanian partisans are willing to help us, for a price, of course,” Percy added.

“What price?” Quinlan asked, not at all surprised that there was a catch to this cooperation.

“Food, munitions, supplies,” Davies explained. “Not much at all, really. We could send in a P.T. and have the Albanians meet the boat…” and then quickly tacked on, “…sir,” realizing that he was offering strategy to a group of battle seasoned senior officers. “Excuse me, sirs, I didn’t mean to speak out of line.”

“You weren’t Leftenant. I like input from my junior officers. So…where would you have the ‘Peter Tare’ land?” Pres asked, using the military slang for the Patrol Torpedo boats. They were fast wooden hulled ships that could operate in shallow waters.

Davies approached the table and the maps, studied them, then pointed to a location. “Here sir,” he said looking at Preston. Preston took a look and wanted to know more from Davies.

“And what strategy would you use Leftenant?” Preston asked. “You do know tactical theory don’t you?”

“Yes, sir I do. Military tactics take the forms of attrition, annihilation, surprise and calculated risk.”

“And so..?” coaxed Major Quinlan.

“I’d like to bomb the hell out ‘em, sirs. Annihilation,” the young officer said resolutely.

“That’s what they want us to do Leftenant and so we won’t,” Quinlan opined but without haughtiness.

Quinlan looked over the maps again and tapped a spot with his right index finger. “I know that area where they’re holding our people. It’s rugged terrain with only one flat place that could accommodate glider insertions, one with men and the other with the weapons and provisions that the partisans want in exchange for their help.”

“Well at least they didn’t ask for mules and gold this time,” Eoghain stated.

“Mules and gold?” Pres asked.

“Quite right, General,” Quinlan said. “We used old out of circulation British gold coins as bribe money. But of the two, the mules were more sought after. Never walk when you can ride, plus you can eat a mule if you have to.”

“Dave, how much can we trust those partisans of…what’s their leader’s name again?” Eoghain asked.

Creighton fielded the question by rerouting it to Quinlan. “I think you know their leader quite well, Tony.” The tone of his voice hinted that he knew there had been something more than business between the two commando chiefs.

“Lyudmila…that was her nomme de guerre...” Tony replied curtly, disliking the insinuation by Creighton, even though there was a lot of truth in the G2 officer’s statement.

“A woman?” Percy blurted out incredulously. Although Sydney and Adelaide had been trying to advance Percy into the twentieth century, he still had some old societal prejudices to overcome.

Quinlan was quick to counter that doubt. “One helluva fighter, General. Don’t let her gender fool you. She’s tough, brilliant and would kill you in a heartbeat if you crossed her.”

“Would you trust her with your life?” Eoghain inquired.

“I have, many times,” Tony replied in a subdued voice as if those desperate days happened just last week, not years ago.

As Quinlan spoke, confirming his knowledge of the Balkans and its people, Pres perused weather charts and reports again. Quinlan glanced over at him and could almost see the wheels and gears turning in Preston’s brain, thinking, weighing, deciding…

Eoghain took a draw from his Meerschaum pipe and exhaled out puffs of gray smoke; to Eoghain, brandy always went well with his pipe tobacco. “The bloody buggers expect our side to keep negotiating, hoping that the Smythe-Beckworths or Anson News Service will come up with the ransom money for the two reporters.” Albania proved to be another problem. The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Albania and was forced to work through the British Military Mission in that country.

“…which Anson won’t do,” Pres said staunchly. He momentarily wondered how his mother was handling this mess but knew that her discipline and resilience would get her through it. The aroma of Eoghain’s cherry-vanilla scented pipe tobacco reminded Preston of boyhood trips with Irene and his kid brothers to Lemuel’s drug store back home in Archer’s Run.

Percy put forth his opinions. “Well, if we bomb them, like Davies wants, they’ll bomb us, then we’ll bomb them again and so on. We’ll have World War Three on our hands over the stupidity of a couple of trigger happy Russian fighter jocks and several American pilots who can’t navigate. We’d be blundering into ‘14 to ‘18 all over again,” Percy offered, referencing how a series of overreactions and misinterpretations launched Britain into World War One.

Taking charge, Preston spoke decisively. “Okay, folks. This is what we’re gonna do… The shoreline isn’t amenable to a seaborne insertion but I like Leftenant Davies’ idea, but we use it as a diversion. The gliders may be great going in but will complicate extrication. According to Major Smythe-Beckworth at the weather shack in London, the weather’s lousy over the Balkans right now and will be for next 48 hours. Gentleman, I say we jump in. I’ll take ten of my men and Major Quinlan, we rendezvous with his partisan buddies, get our people, hop on a prescheduled return gooney bird and get the hell outta Dodge.”

A slight smile crossed Eoghain’s aristocratic face. Apparently Joe wasn’t the only bright young Gallagher, for an Irishman and Yank, too.

Preston turned toward the Leftenant. “Anything to add, Davies?”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” the young veteran asked. Preston nodded in confirmation.

“As you Yanks say, ‘Kick ass and take names,’ sir.”

“Thanks, Leftenant. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Preston said, recalling Quinlan’s “specialty” as well as his own.

Yessirree, it had been an interesting day.

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Albanian rescue mission

THE C-53 carrying “Gold Team” droned through a dark pre-dawn sky in forbidden airspace on its clandestine mission. Preston Gallagher, in full paratrooper gear and seated in the rear of the plane looked down the dimly lit aisle at the men he was leading into harm’s way. Major Anthony Quinlan, Special Operations Executive veteran of three years’ guerilla fighting in Albania, sat across the aisle similarly clad in. The soldiers were all young, dressed out in camouflage, parachutes and packs, faces blackened with grease paint and taut with concentration. “Gallagher’s Golden Boys,” as they called themselves with pride and a hint of hubris, were the best of the best, honed to a razor sharp edge. They’d follow their beloved and respected “Old Man” to hell and back, which was where they could be headed right now. Preston asked himself just how in the hell he ended up in a gooney bird headed to the ass end of nowhere on a risky mission that would make or break his career. The answer was simple. Duty.

The plan was a fairly simple one. Get in. Get out. Go home. They’d jump in under cover of twilight at a prearranged location and there meet the partisan leader, Lyudmila. Pres wondered about Tony’s rather antsy reaction when her name was mentioned and hoped that whatever “more” there had been between them wasn’t going to fuck up the mission.

The C-53’s young co-pilot, Lt. Anders, followed by the crew chief, T/Sgt. LeBreton, threaded their ways back to Preston and Tony. Sudden turbulence pitched the plane up and down and rocked it back and forth forcing the young flyers to brace themselves on by leaning on the bulkhead.

“General Gallagher, we’re close to the drop zone, sir,” Anders said leaning down to face Preston. “Sergeant LeBreton will release the supplies on the first green light then you and your men go on the second green.”

“Right,” Pres acknowledged, as he stood up and stretched. Tony caught Preston’s eye and gave him a thumb’s up.

LeBreton, in charge of the supply load, opened the hatch and waited for the light from the pilot. Seeing the indicator glow green, he shoved the packaged materiel out into the sky. The plane lurched again, almost pitching the crew chief out with the last pack. Preston grabbed him by the arms just in time.

“Thank you, sir,” said the spooked non-com. Pres nodded in quiet acknowledgement. He saw the chutes below… and they were blowing the wrong way!

“Shit!” Pres blurted out as he watched his well laid plan go awry.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asked.

“The goddam changing wind, that’s what wrong!” Pres barked back.

“What do you wanna do, Pres? Divert our drop?” Tony asked.

“No. We go now,” Pres replied steadily. He looked at his men seated on either side of the center aisle. “Mount up, lock and load,” he said, giving a thumbs up signal with both thumbs. The green light came on again and Preston Maxwell Gallagher and Gallagher’s Golden Boys jumped into the dusk.

A handful of armed partisans hidden in bushes watched as the American soldiers floated down from the sky. The Yanks, and one Brit disengaged themselves from their chutes, collected gear and formed up, waiting for instructions from Preston.

One of the partisans, a short dark haired thirtyish man, came forward from the underbrush and clapped Tony on the back.

“Old friend!” the man broadcast. Tony returned the gesture and waved his hand toward Preston, signaling him to come over.

“General Gallagher, I’d like you to meet Azem, he’s one the bravest fighters I know,” Tony said admiringly.

Preston extended his hand to Azem, which he took, and they exchanging necessarily brief greetings.

“Where’s Lyudmila?” Tony asked Azem.

“I take you her,” Azem replied in stilted English. “Come.” Azem lead off, Preston and his men followed while the remaining partisans brought up the rear. After a few minutes of traipsing through thick vegetation and trees, they reached their destination, an old deserted mine.

A thirtyish woman, well built, average height, shoulder length dark hair, dressed in dark pants, black boots, blue shirt with the cuffs rolled to up to her elbows, met them at the entrance. The lady stood with her hands on her hips with confident expression on her attractive, interesting face. All in all, she exuded strength and class. “Tony, so nice of you to drop in and see me again after all these years,” she said lightly in slightly accented English.

Although her tone of voice hinted that she and Tony were more than two old war buddies, no public display of affection passed between them. Regally, she didn’t walk out to meet Tony; she waited for him to come to her. Preston followed behind Tony and quietly watched their reunion play out.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Tony offered politely, with a warm smile. He was genuinely glad to see her. “Thank you for helping us with this little matter.”

“Of course. And who have you brought with you?” she asked, turning her gaze to Preston. She sized him up in a glance.

“General Preston Gallagher, I’d like you to meet Lyudmila,” Tony said with a hint of pride.

She extended her hand in greeting, which Preston accepted, and she gave him a firm handshake. He liked that.

Now that he was closer, Preston appraised the woman more carefully. She wasn’t a classic beauty but had a kind of magnetism that made him want to pay attention to her. “Gallagher is it, eh?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Preston Gallagher, at your service,” Preston said chivalrously.

“Call me Ilka. Come,” she nodded her head toward the cave. “Things have changed. We need to move quickly and in more than one place.”

The partisan headquarters consisted of a main tunnel with a few side rooms. It was lighted by lanterns and large candles and minimally furnished with tables, chairs, makeshift bunk beds and such. Cooking was done inside so that smoke would not give away their position. Monitored by their rivals as well as Hoxha’s men, Ilka’s band kept their assets mobile. They could break down their “camp” quickly and move on.

Preston and his men entered the cave along with Tony and Ilka’s partisans, about two dozen men and women ranging from teenagers to grandparents. They were a hodgepodge of mechanics, marksmen, saboteurs, cooks, shepherds and farmers. Most had fought alongside the British SOE during the war. All of them hated General Hoxha--or so it was thought--and what he had done to Albania.

A map was spread out on a makeshift table and Ilka went over to it. Preston and Tony joined her. Ilka pointed to locations on the map with her right index finger. “We are here. Your people are here.”

“That’s not the information that we were given,” Preston said.

“Hoxha, the old fox, doesn’t keep prisoners in one location too long. He moves them to confuse us and prevent rescues. But, we are in luck. His local chief is a drunken lazy fool with feathers for brains. He stupidly put all of your people in one place, an old house at the end of the village. There is a festival in town tonight and there will be a lot of drinking, dancing, and music. We make a quick strike, get your people…and then we get mine.”

“Your people?” Preston asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I told you that things had changed. Since you left from England, some of my people have been captured. They are to be tried and executed tomorrow. They are being held here,” Ilka pointed to another spot on the map.

“Our orders said nothing about rescuing anybody else except the Americans. We didn’t bring sufficient men for two rescues,” Tony explained.

Ilka looked at Tony with her large expressive dark steel blue eyes then regarded Preston. “If you want my help to save your people, you will have to help me save mine.” Tony knew better than to try to dissuade her.

“That’s my price, gentlemen.” Ilka was adamant and the tenor of her voice reflect that. “We were promised supplies and those have ended up who knows where. Those men who are set to be killed risked their lives time and time again for you English and for you Americans, too, and this is the way that you repay their loyalty? No, gentlemen. Either we save them all--your people and mine--or they all die. Your people are set to be executed along with them.”

“All right. We’ll do it…” Pres said, locking his eyes onto Ilka’s. He intended to keep his word.

“We have two targets, no supplies, no extra men and no extra time. So what do we have a lot of?” Tony asked, more thinking out loud than posing a question.

Preston flashed a confident Gallagher smile at him. “Guile.” He ripped off a corner of the paper map, took out a pencil from his shirt pocket and scratched down words on the back. Tony looked at the note.

Preston walked over to his radioman. “Sparks, get headquarters…and send them this message…in the clear.”

“Why you devious bastard!” Tony chortled. “I love it!”

“It’s something an instructor of mine at West Point taught me. ‘If you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance then baffle ‘em with bullshit.’”

And so the brilliant plan that thrust Preston Maxwell Gallagher in the limelight was hatched. Ilka’s men, along with Ilka, Tony and Gold Team, including Preston, employed multiple diversionary tactics at both locations that divided and confused Hoxha’s troops. Since Tony was fluent in Albania, he joined up with several partisans who raised Cain in one town by torching old abandoned wooden buildings, successfully sending pro-Hoxha villagers scrambling like cockroaches in daylight. Meanwhile, in the hamlet known to house the prisoners, Ilka’s people launched a double feint. The partisans barreled a motley collection of abandoned German vehicles through the main street, lobbing Molotov cocktails out the windows. Hoxha’s men chased after them in their clunky Soviet staff cars leaving the prisoners lightly guarded. Simultaneously, Ilka’s deputy, Azem, launched a bazooka bombardment from the surrounding hills contributing to the noise and melee. The plans worked, making it easy for Ilka’s troops to free their countrymen. The confusion also gave cover to Preston and Gold Team while they extricated the aircrew and the reporters. It had been a while since Preston Maxwell Gallagher had killed a man up close. This mission changed that. He gut-shot two of them as he and Gold Team barged into the old house. Dash, Alec, Rat and Patrick pitched in, wrestling three of Hoxha’s troops to the ground as soldiers from Gold Team dispatched them quickly.

Ilka went along with Preston, thinking that it would be reassuring to the females to see another woman. Ilka was wrong; neither Lt. Bowman, Theodora nor Antonia needed reassurance or coddling and kept their wits about them when male guards tried to use them as human shields. Theodora, who’d been the only woman on Omaha Beach June 6, 1944, took out the goon holding her by bashing the back of her head up against his face, startling the hell out of him. Bowman then crashed a wooden stool down on his head sending him crumpling to the floor. Antonia, not to be discounted, smashed her captor in the groin with her fist, doubling him over in pain and Bowman employed the stool again with the same result. Once disabled, Ilka remorselessly shot them. The diversions, strikes and rescue all unfolded in a matter of a few minutes and the next phase of plan was set in motion. To further flummox the enemy and cover their planned airborne escape at a certain time after the rescue, Preston barrowed Leftenant Davies’ ideas. The uncoded messages Pres ordered sent to headquarters confirmed a bogus rendezvous with an American sub waiting near the sensitive Soviet submarine base at Sazan Island off the coast of Albania while at the same time phony American P.T.s were to pick up the prisoners far to the north. It was pure bullshit…and it completely baffled Hoxha.

The ballsy rescue planned worked and everyone returned to the relative safety of the old mine. Lt. Bowman and Sgt. Murphy tended to the injured, which included Rat and Preston. One of the plane’s crates broke loose during the turbulence and crashed into Rat’s right knee. It was swollen and probably broken. Preston got hit in the right calf by a bullet during the raid to free the Americans. Alec, Dash, and Murphy were feeling the nauseating effects of the local goat meat stew they’d been fed which Gwyn had luckily declined. The Albanian partisans were in much worse shape; though. They’d been beaten up badly but Bowman reported to Preston that they were well enough to fly. None of Gold Team had been seriously injured and the post-mission PRO media blitz and newsreels about the rescue linked Gold Team’s success with “Gallagher’s Luck of the Irish.” In interviews, Pres would later say that luck had nothing to do with it, guts, skill, training and planning did.

However, an “ambush” came from an unexpected source. Ilka and Preston were discussing the raid in her quarters, a side chamber off of the main tunnel appointed with a few small tables, crates to sit on, lantern light, a wash stand and a cot. Ilka rigged a curtain over the entrance to provide some privacy. When the curtain was down, the rule was that no one enters unless Ilka granted them permission.

The wounded Preston, aided by Ilka, hobbled back to her sanctum, entered and Ilka dropped the curtain. Pres eased himself down onto a crate as Ilka spread out the map again on the table next to Preston. The two strategists pored over it, discussed the mission, and as good leaders do, reviewed what worked well and what needed improvement. They were unceremoniously interrupted when two of her followers, including her deputy, Azem, entered without asking Ilka’s approval. He brought one of his toadies along for support.

Azem, backed by his cousin Leka, a tall heavily muscled young man with the same dark hair and eyes, approached the seated Preston and without warning whipped out his hunting knife. Holding it in his left hand, Azem pressed its tip on Gallagher’s chest.

Ilka spun around and commanded, “Out!” and pointed toward the exit with her right arm extended.

“No! Not until he say where is Gulgur ari,” Azem demanded, holding the knife point in place above Preston’s heart.

Coolly, Pres moved Ari’s hand aside and calmly replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Azem directed his eyes toward Ilka. “A man would make him take us to the gold!” The knife was still in Azem’s left hand.

Ilka’s steely stare hooked into Azem as she stepped in front of him, positioning herself between Azem and Preston.

“You challenge me Azem?” Ilka queried coldly.

Azem narrowed his eyes and his lips curled up in disdain as he spoke. “You are weak woman.”

With lightning agility, Ilka grabbed the knife from Azem’s hand and sliced off his left ear. He screamed out in pain, clutched his head with his hands and crumbled to the ground.

Ilka turned toward Leka and while holding the bloody knife in her right hand, threatened him with the same hard cold stare and simply asked him: “Next?”

Leka bent down to the bloodied Azem huddled on the floor and helped him stand up. They turned to leave and started to walk away.

Ilka called out, “Azem...catch!” and with her left hand tossed Azem’s severed ear to him. The twosome, deflated and embarrassed, scurried away.

Pres followed Ilka with his eyes as she poured water from a pitcher into a basin on the small stand next to her cot. Silently, she washed the blood from her hands and the blade, laid it on the wash stand then bent over to extract a bottle, two tin cups and metal flask from a box under her cot.

A female voice called out from the other side of the curtain. “General Gallagher, are you all right in there?” It was Lt. Bowman.

“Fine!” he replied, as he watched Ilka uncork the bottle and pour some amber colored liquid into the cups and the flask.

She handed Preston one of the cups. He sniffed the potion and swirled it around in the tin. “Smells dangerous,” Preston said with the trademark Gallagher crooked grin.

“It is,” Ilka replied with a twinkle in her eye.

Preston lifted his cup and toasted, “Slainte!” He and Ilka clanked the cups in salutes to each other and downed the fiery drink in one gulp. When their hands met in the toast, Preston noticed a unique tattoo on Ilka’s right hand.

“Not bad, not bad at all,” Preston said appreciatively. “What is this stuff anyway?”

“Raika, it’s a local brandy,” Ilka explained.

“My family’s been making brandy for over two hundred years,” Pres said.

“So I’ve heard,” Ilka said, looking over the rim of the tin cup at Preston as she took another sip, having recharged her cup and Preston’s too.

“How’d you know about that?” Preston asked. It’s not like “Uisce Beatha” was a household word in Albania…

Ilka answered with an enigmatic Mona Lisa-like expression and remained silent. She put the cup down and picked up the small silverish vessel into which she’d earlier poured the native liqueur.

“This is for you General Gallagher, for the plane…” Ilka said, handing the metal flask to Preston, presenting it to him with her right hand, the one with the curious tattoos on it.

Pres accepted the flask and held on to Ilka’s hand. There wasn’t much time left…and he just had to find out one way or the other…Pres glanced down at the name on her hand then looked up directly into Ilka’s large dark eyes.

“Interesting tattoos…Anson…and what’s 20 Maj 44?” Pres asked, still holding a lock on Ilka’s gaze.

“Your Polish is terrible General. It’s not pronounced ‘madge,’ it’s pronounced ‘May.’ May 20 1944 is my daughter Anson’s birthday.”

“I didn’t know that Anson was a Polish name,” Pres said. He was feeling his way around the edges of Ilka, probing, but not sure of how deep to go.

“It’s not Polish. It’s American. My daughter’s father was a colonel I met in England in 1943.”

A slight smile crossed Pres’s face. “My brother’s birthday is May 20…and his middle name is Anson.”

“You call him ‘Danzo’,” Ilka replied with a smile that matched Preston’s. Now the truth was out, no more tiptoeing around for either of them.

“Does he know?” Pres asked. The tone of his voice conveyed concern without judgment.

“Know what?” Ilka’s eyes became misty as she looked directly into Preston’s gaze.

“That he has a child…” Preston asked softly, reflecting the sensitivity and significance of what he’s just found out.

“He has a ghost. I gave Anson up during the war for her safety. I have been trying to find her but, so far nothing. She may even be dead.”

“Do you want him to know?” Pres asked.

“Telling him would change nothing, it would not find her or bring her back from the dead so why open a wound when one need not be opened. I hear he is married now. He has his life and I have mine. Tell me, General Gallagher, would you want to know about a daughter that you never knew to begin with…and that may be alive…or may be dead?” Ilka asked.

“I don’t know…” Pres said tentatively at first then added, “Yeah, hell yeah, I’d want to know if I had daughter, especially if it was with someone who meant a great deal to me.” In the short time that Preston had known Ilka he saw why Joe would have been attracted to her. She was strong, smart, gutsy, and charismatic…just like Rigel.

“Then you have answered your own question, General,” Ilka said.

“Give this to your brother, I’m sure you will see him before I do.” From its concealed place under her shirt, Ilka lifted a long leather cord up and over her head. She untied the neckpiece’s knot and let a gold locket drop into the palm of her left hand. Carefully, Ilka opened it and placed it in Preston’s hands. He reverently looked at the locket’s contents: a black and white photo of a baby girl, a small colored portrait of the same child on a square of canvas, and a snippet of scarlet hair.

Ilka placed her hand over top of Preston’s, still holding the precious items. “Give this to Joe.”

Preston, silent, looked at Ilka’s face, her eyes welling up with tears.

He shook his head. “No. I can’t take that. It’s…she’s…yours.”

“She is…was…Joe’s too,” Ilka said, again gesturing with her hand for Preston to keep the item. Ilka sniffed a bit and brushed tears from her cheeks with her other hand. The corners of her mouth turned slightly upward as she spoke tenderly about Anson. “She was a beautiful child and looked just like her Joe, even down to the dimple in her chin, the shape of her lips and her fingernails. She has...had… Joe’s eyes...and his smile. But her red hair, where did that come from? Joe’s hair is chestnut brown.”

“It was reddish brown as a baby but not as red as Jeff’s…” Preston said sensitively.

“Ah, yes, Joe spoke of him. The youngest of the three of you.”

“And buried somewhere in the Philippines.” Pres’s jaw flexed tightly as he pushed down sad thoughts of his youngest sibling.

“I’m sorry for your loss, General Gallagher,” Ilka said, touching Preston lightly on his forearm. He looked at her face and saw the raw beauty and strength that Joe was drawn to.

“And I’m sorry for yours, too, Ilka. I hope you find her someday.”

“Thank you,” Ilka said, giving Preston a gentle kiss on his cheek. She tilted her head slightly and tossed loose strands of raven colored hair from her face. “Will you give Joe a message for me?” Her voice was stronger now, more upbeat.

“Sure.”

“Ask him how he likes his coffee in the morning,” Ilka said with a knowing smile.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of gunshots from outside the cave. Ilka hurriedly left to investigate and found a bevy of her partisans and the Americans standing around Quinlan, Azem and Leka.

Preston, slowed by his injured leg, arrived at the scene a few paces behind Ilka. He found Leka and Azem writhing on the ground in pain, clutching their right thighs with Tony standing over them, his pistol in his right hand with Ilka standing next to Tony’s right side.

“What the fuck happened?” Preston demanded from Quinlan and Ilka.

“I put down a mutiny,” Tony snapped back. “These two stupidly forgot that I speak Albanian. I overhead them planning to turn Ilka over to Hoxha for reward money. They said they’d had enough of the bitch and since Ilka couldn’t get Gulgar ari out of you, they’d get money from Hoxha instead.” It was widely known that Hoxha had put a price on Ilka’s head but this was the first time that two of her supposedly staunch followers had plotted against her. What was also known among the partisans was that Tony and Ilka had been lovers for a time during the war; he defended her now against these traitors as he had done then against the Germans.

“Is this true?” Ilka hissed at Azem and Leka, emotionlessly staring at them. In reply, first Azem then Leka spat at her. In an instant, Ilka swiped Tony’s gun from his hand and dispassionately shot both traitors in the head.

The sound of aircraft engines overhead diverted attention away from the drama that had just unfolded on the ground. Ilka looked at the faces of her people as they stood in a circle around the lifeless bodies, stunned, by what had just happened. “Follow me or kill me now” and one by one, Ilka offered the handgun to them. No one touched the sidearm. After she had tested each one of her followers, Ilka made a final pronouncement. “So be it. We have work to do.” Preston and Tony exchanged glances, silently sharing with their eyes what they were thinking. Ilka Zrada was a force to be reckoned with.

It was time to go and Ilka and Preston gave orders to move out. Gold Team, the Albanian refugees and the Americans loaded onto two mule drawn carts and were transported to the landing zone.

Right on time, the Skytrain landed on the nearby flat stretch of meadow and kept her engines running. To compensate for the lost supplies that the changing wind took, Creighton, who had been informed by the pilots as to the lost provisions, sent replacement stock with the returning C-47. Preston’s men pitched in to unload the cargo while the passengers waited to board. As the last parcels were being removed, gunfire echoed in the air. It came from one of the nearby hilltops and no doubt had issued from pro-Hoxha forces.

“We will take care them!” Ilka shouted to Preston over the din of the aircraft noise. “Go!” and with that Ilka and her band scattered into the woods returning the gunfire as they moved out.

The bullet wound in Preston’s right calf sent searing waves of pain up his leg as he assisted the rescuees up and into the plane. Gallantly, Pres was the last one in. As he closed the hatch, the Skytrain roared with power, lurched forward and threw Preston back against a rear bulkhead. Preston whammed up against the metal resulting in a nasty gash on the side of his head. Bowman, seeing Preston crumple to the plane’s floor, got up out of her seat, lugged the dazed general into a space between coils of rope, survival gear, and GI blankets in the rear of the plane, held on to him with her arms securing both of them for launch and the steep climb out. Preston’s face was streaked with blood which rapidly rolled down on to his shirt collar. Bowman pressed her hand hard against Pres’s scalp to stifle the flow then took off her flight scarf from around her neck and wrapped Preston’s head with it. The red stain on his pant leg was growing too, the wound having opened up again.

When the plane leveled off, the second lieutenant gave orders to the brigadier. “Stay put. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”

Hastily, she checked on the other passengers. Theodora, Antonia, Dash and Alec were dealing with bouts of vomiting but otherwise unscathed.

Sgt. Murphy, although nauseated, was already up and tending to one of the Albanians, a middle aged gentleman, gaunt and coughing up blood tinged sputum. Gwyn bummed some bandages from the Gold Team medic who was checking on the others and she returned to Preston.

As the young flight nurse adroitly tended his injuries, Preston asked, “Say, Lieutenant, have you ever been shot at before?”

“No, sir, I haven’t but Major O’Ryan--she was sorta my roommate at flight school--she has. Colonel Johansen told me about the two of them back at Omaha Beach.”

“Colonel Johansen? Who’s that?” Preston asked, wincing a bit as Gwyn sprinkled sulfa powder on his open leg wound.

“The CO of flight school. He and Major O’Ryan were…” Bowman twisted her lips as she contemplated the best words to use. “…Old war buddies,” Bowman replied a bit awkwardly. Preston caught the drift of the “old war buddies” phrase.

“War buddies, huh? What makes you say that, lieutenant?” Pres recalled Joe describing Dash as an old war buddy of Rigel’s at the chapel in St. Laurent. And then there was that lovey-dovey bear hug between the two of them, too, with Dash lifting Rigel up off the ground while doing so. Pres told Joe that if Betty had an old war buddy like that, Pres would cut the guy’s nuts off. First Dash, now Magnus. So Rigel had more than one, eh? What else doesn’t my kid brother know about his wife, Pres thought then mentally reprimanded himself for thinking the worst of Rigel without knowing the facts.

“They seemed to know each other pretty well, spent a lot of time together when I was there and then he asked her to stay on and teach,” Lt. Bowman explained as she finished wrapping up Preston’s head laceration from his collision with the metal bulkhead.

“You handled yourself pretty well back there, Lieutenant. I’m putting you in for a commendation,” Preston said.

Surprised at this unexpected honor, Bowman froze for a moment, stared at Preston and blinked.

“Thank you, sir,” the surprised junior officer replied. “I gotta tell you, though, I was scared. I just asked myself ‘What would Major O’Ryan do?’ I saw her at Texas City when that tanker blew up, caught the whole coastline on fire...she was one pretty cool cucumber.”

“You were one pretty cool cucumber too, Lieutenant. And now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna close my eyes for a bit so I don’t puke all over you.”

“You might have a concussion, sir,” Bowman said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, I know, just like back at Bryncote,” Preston muttered as he fingered the bandage on his head.

“Sir?” Bowman asked, not understanding the reference.

“I got a concussion playing football at my brother’s rewedding,” Preston explained. “Too bad you don’t have any of that dead donkey potion in your kit,” Pres said with a slight chuckled that made the pounding in his head worse.

“Dead donkey potion?” Bowman repeated, totally confused.

“Yeah, it was some herbal stuff that tasted like the ass end of a dead donkey but it worked great for headaches,” Pres said, thinking back to that wild, weird, wonderful weekend last April.

“You need to stay awake, General.” Bowman used her nurse face and tone this time. “I’ll keep talking to you. Deal?” Lt. Bowman said laying a gentle hand on Preston’s arm. She’d witnessed how Rigel calmed injured patients at Texas City with her voice and her touch.

“Deal,” Preston said wearily as he rested his head against the wall of the plane. “But get me something to puke into, just in case.”

Lt. Bowman smiled at him, patted him on the shoulder and said “I’ll be right back.”

In the young lieutenant’s touch and voice, Pres heard the sound of confidence and the felt her compassion. Rigel had taught Bowman well. And Rigel brought up another whole can of worms...He had to tell Joe about Ilka and Anson, that was certain. But what about Rigel and this guy Johansen? The throbbing in his head pushed those thoughts away. Right now he just needed to stay awake... Preston’s thoughts rumbled back to the times that he’d been shot at that also involved Joe or Rigel. Magadar... St. Laurent Sur Mer... Bryncote...Albania. Though the “Charming Flyboy and his Glamor Girl wife” were not physically present they were still “here” and history repeated itself. Even now, after pulling off a risky rescue mission hundreds of miles away from his famous kid brother, Preston was still in Joe’s shadow, dammit.

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London, two days later, Joe’s office

WITH Albanian rescue in the rear view mirror, it was time to get back to usual business. Lt. Bowman, Sgt. Murphy, and Sgt. Rathbone resumed their duties with the squadron in Germany after going through a thorough debriefing. Theodora and Antonia had gone through a similar ordeal by military and state department personnel. They were temporarily sidelined in Germany pending further assignments. Irene Anson Gallagher had to make a choice, the right of the public to know what happened against the need to protect national security and intelligence sources and methods. She brilliantly found a way to balance both. Theodora and Antonia were cleared to write about their adventure but certain details would be omitted. The ill Albanian refugees were tended to at the well-equipped base Army Air Force hospital while their futures were decided upon. They’d asked for and would probably be granted political asylum…somewhere. Dash and Alec had a chance to change out of their grubby flight suits and into clean uniforms for further debriefing that awaited them in England. Preston received cursory treatment in Germany, but he, along with Dash and Alec had been ordered on to England immediately. Dash and Alec ended up with rooms at the Langham and Pres wound up at St. George’s Hospital overnight under the watchful eye of the good doctor, Pavl Gagarin. Tony was back in London, too, having recovered from his “respiratory infection” of convenience. He reported to Eoghain and Percy what he’d done to Azem and Leka but their deaths were at Ilka’s hands not his. Whether the war was a hot one or a cold war it was still a nasty business.

Lt. Lovelady sat at her desk industriously typing up a report when two tall, handsome male officers entered. The dark haired one was a bit taller but the blond one’s face was one that she recognized from his photos in the newspapers and magazines. They were clad in their dress uniforms and both were drop dead gorgeous. “Colonel Dashall and Major FitzGerald here to see General Gallagher,” Dash said, speaking for the twosome.

Juliette rose from her desk in the presence of two senior officers and greeted them with her usual warm smile. “Yes, sir, General Gallagher is expecting you. He’s on the phone at the moment. Please have a seat. Can I get you some coffee while you wait?” she asked. Joe had explained to Juliette who these two pilots were and why they’d been ordered to report to him. He’d also given her “the scoop” on Dash and Alec. Alec was Joe’s cousin-in-law and Dash almost was. It was all rather convoluted but suffice it to say they were part of Joe and Rigel’s extended family. Once someone entered the orbits of these powerful clans it was difficult not to be crushed by their forcefulness.

“Got any Irish coffee?” Alec asked with a twinkle in his eye as Juliette expeditiously poured java into white GI mugs and handed them to Joe’s guests.

“I’m sure General Gallagher can fill that request for you,” Juliette replied with a perceptive smile.

She returned to her desk and buzzed Joe. “Excuse me, General….”

“Yes…” Joe addressed to Juliette.

“Colonel Dashall and Major FitzGerald are here sir.”

She, Dash and Alec overhead the tail end of his conversation with the caller on the phone. “Right, Phil. Dash and Alec are here for my debriefing. I’ll see you shortly.”

The two pilots exchanged glances wondering what “my debriefing” meant. They’d already been through one gauntlet and they’d get their answer momentarily.

Joe opened the door to his office and greeted Alec and Dash with hearty handshakes and ushered them in with Juliette following behind them with their coffee mugs. They accepted the cups and remained standing. Although Joe was their friend and relative, he was still a brigadier general and due certain courtesies.

“Your aide said that we might find some Irish coffee in here, Joe,” Alec said jauntily. He’d learned about his cousin Rigel’s recipe for “Heavy on the Irish, light on the coffee” from his twin sister Realta.

“And she’d be right!” Joe replied gladly. He opened the bottom right hand drawer of his desk and lifted out a bottle and motioned to Dash and Alec to be seated at the small work table across from his desk. “It’s after 1700, so why the hell not.”

They crossed to the side table but remained standing until Joe joined them and first seated himself. He poured generous glugs of brandy into their beverages…as well as into his own coffee. He raised his cup and toasted his friends with “Slainte!”

“Have you had a chance to see Preston yet?” Dash asked.

“Yeah, I did, over at St. George’s. I took him some clothes,” Joe said.

“Your brother was hell on wheels in Albania, Joe. He did a damned fine job of getting all of us out alive,” Alec offered.

“That’s nice to hear but I’m not surprised at all. Pres is one helluva good soldier,” Joe said.

“Gentlemen, I say ye Brigadier General Preston Maxwell Gallagher!” Dash lifted his mug in a toast and Alec and Joe joined in.

With the niceties over, Alec put it to Joe straight. “Okay, Joe, just why in the hell are we here?” Alec asked, after tasting the brew.

“I think I know,” Dash opined as he sipped his beverage. His sharp copper brown eyes scanned Joe’s face for an explanation.

Before Joe could answer, a knock on the door intervened. It was Juliette asking permission to enter which was granted. She was carrying a tray upon which sat three small plates bearing…something. “I thought you might like homemade apple bread with your coffee, sirs.” Gracefully, she served Joe, Alec and Dash, setting a plate in front of each of them. Juliette flashed a comely smile and asked, “Will you be needing anything else General?”

“Nope, we’re good. Thanks, Juliette,” Joe replied casually….perhaps too casually, which Dash and Alec noticed. Dash and Alec watched Juliette as she withdrew to the outer office.

“Apple bread, eh, Joe?” Dash quipped as he took a bite.

“Homemade, too,” Alec tagged on with a teasing edge in his voice.

Dash took a bite then let out a genuine sigh of appreciation. “Mmm…..this really is good stuff, Joe,” he mumbled appreciatively while chewing the bread.

“Looks like your aide can bake better than Rigel can,” Alec said tongue in cheek.

Joe chuckled at that. “Hell, everybody bakes better than Rigel,” Joe quipped. For a second he thought back to November 1945 when Rigel tried roasting a turkey for their Thanksgiving party. At least she didn’t set the kitchen on fire like Ursa did…

“And speaking of Rigel, what’s my cousin doing these days?” Alec asked.

Joe’s countenance suddenly shifted from relaxed to tense. “She’s at Randolph.”

“Randolph?” Dash asked. He noticed the change in Joe’s facial expression. A quick scan of Joe’s office revealed a copy of their “hardstand hitching” photo on his desk so things couldn’t be that bad, could they? But come to think of it, Realta hadn’t had a letter from Rigel in months…

“Yeah. She had to go back to flight school and retake the course if she wanted to keep her wings,” Joe said. He didn’t add that the course had wrapped up, Rigel stayed on to instruct and that their marriage was hanging by a thread. Later on that day, Joe would learn something that would shred it.

“I don’t think we’re here to talk about Rigel’s baking though,” Dash stated.

“Yeah, Joe, give it to us straight,” Alec said. Raising his right hand to his forehead’s hair line, Alec complained, “I’ve had it up here with all the G2 runaround. They’re worse than that idiot Elmer Fink.” He was referring to Congressman Fink who’d tangled with Congresswoman Enid Minton Dashall and Joe back in July 1945.

“It has to do with foo-fighters, right?” Dash said. He’d heard some rumors that the Army Air Force was “investigating” them.

“Right,” Joe confirmed, looking directly at Dash.

“That’s not all is it, Joe?” Dash asked again.

“Wait a minute…you guys have me lost. What are you talking about?” Alec was confused and leaned forward in his chair toward Joe and Dash. He subconsciously rubbed his right forearm with his left hand.

“The…storm, or whatever it was that we ran into on our way to Greece…” Dash said, turning toward his copilot on that mission.

“So? It was bad storm. Lots of lightning, buffeting and St. Elmo’s fire…so what?” Alec said, not seeing anything too weird about any of that.

Dash’s eyes swiveled toward Joe. “Because it was just like the storm we hit on the way back to St. Laurent Sur Mer. Right?”

“Right again,” Joe replied.

“That was no storm and those lights weren’t St. Elmo’s fire, were they Joe?” This time Dash’s words were more of a statement than a question. He fidgeted, picking at the apple bread with his fingers.

Joe leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know…but I’m in charge of trying to find out. That’s why I’ve asked…”

“Ordered…” Dash inserted quickly and sternly. “We were ordered to come here and meet with you, Joe.”

Dash turned to Alec. “Do you remember how long we were in the storm?”

Alec knitted his brows together, trying to remember details. “Come to think of it, I don’t know.”

“I don’t remember either and when I checked my watch, I saw it had stopped,” Dash admitted.

“Mine, too,” Alec added. He was still subconsciously rubbing his forearm.

Dash pressed Joe for answers to questions from two years ago that recent events had reignited. “Joe, I don’t think we saw foo-fighters or ball lightning on the way to Albania like G2 wants us to believe. Am I right?”

Joe kept silent and locked gazes with Dash. Joe’s non-answer was an answer.

Dash got the message loud and clear. “Yep, I didn’t think so. Ball lightning doesn’t do a 360 around a plane and stay in formation with it. And I swear on my grandmother’s grave that I saw one of them fly right through the cockpit.”

“Make that ‘we’….” Alec said in a low voice. “I remember the storm came up fast and violent with weird purplish green clouds. There were balls…”

“How many?” Joe asked quickly.

“…maybe a half dozen, it was hard to tell…” Dash replied, shaking his head.

“Joe, it was the damnedest thing. They’d change size and blend together then split apart again.” Alec’s voice was tense as his words tumbled out rapidly. “I remember one of them bouncing around in the cockpit, Dash was struggling with the controls, and the next thing I remember we were in clear air with Yaks shooting at us.”

Dash chimed in. “Headquarters’ official story is that a freak storm disabled our instruments and blew us off course over Sazan Island, the one off the Albanian coast that the Soviets are so pissy about.”

Alec spoke up next with irritation in his voice. “Our instruments did go haywire but it wasn’t due to any freak storm. No… fucking…way,” Alec said adamantly.

Joe looked at Alec and then Dash. “How do you explain the missing time?”

“The flight surgeon told me that I must have had post-concussion amnesia,” Dash replied in disbelief.

“Same for me,” Alec said. His furrowed brow and clenched jaws revealed that this was clearly an issue that bothered him.

Joe took up the conversation. “I read each of your reports about the incident and you are two of the highest ranking pilots and aircrew who have been willing to go on the record about these… foo-fighters...for lack of a better name. There’s only one higher ranking officer who’s seen ‘em and gone on the record.”

“So who is this other lucky bastard?” Dash asked.

“Me,” Joe disclosed candidly to Dash and Alec’s surprised faces.

Dash and Alec looked at each other then looked at Joe. They expectantly waited for him to say more. “I can’t tell you details but I can tell you that you’re not alone. And they’re not just in the ETO…” Joe directed his question and gaze to his cousin in law… “Are they Alec?”

Alec leaned against the back of his chair and exhaled in a sign of relief. “So you found out about it, huh, Joe?”

“Yeah, I did,” Joe replied quietly.

“What are you two talkin’ about?” Dash asked with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

Joe remained silent and let Alec take it from there…if he wanted to.

Alec faced Dash. “I had a nice little stay…in the flak house…except it wasn’t for flak…” Alec diverted his eyes to the safety of the windows behind Joe’s desk. He got up from the table, ran his fingers through his dishwater blond hair and walked over to the panes of glass. He looked out at the small neighborhood park across the street at children on swings, people on benches reading the afternoon newspapers, and women pushing prams. It all looked so normal…now.

“They gave me a medal for something I don’t remember doing…must have been Luck of the Irish…but I do remember those damned blue-green balls of light…” Alec turned toward Dash and Joe still seated at the table. “I asked Dad not to intervene…and he didn’t….but it might not sit too well with constituents if they knew their congressman was a special guest in the flak house.”

Joe got up from the table, crossed over to Alec and scanned his face. He’d seen that look before, on faces of the guys in the 918th, on Preston at Magadar, and yes, if he were honest, on himself. It was the thousand-yard stare of…what? Exhaustion? Certainly. Despair? Maybe. Fear? Understandable. Cowardice? Never. “You deserve that medal, Alec. It wasn’t luck, it was skill and guts. You saved a lot of people no matter how it happened.”

Dash looked on, remaining silent, not knowing what to do or say even though Alec was his “almost” his brother in law. But, then again, they really didn’t know each other very well…yet. Maybe that would change with time--he hoped so-- and maybe Alec would tell him what is was that pushed him to the breaking point.

A buzz on the intercom brought Joe’s attention back to matters at hand. He depressed the toggle switch to hear what his aide had to say. “Excuse me, General, but you’re due in General Doud’s office.”

“Thanks Juliette,” Joe replied automatically.

Dash stood up and asked a question that had more than one meaning. “So, gentlemen, where do we go from here?”

Alec, regaining his sense of humor, replied. “We know where Joe’s gotta go but I say we go to dinner then find us some Piccadilly Lilies to dance with!”

Adieus were brief but heartfelt. For Joe, it had been and interesting day. Little did he know it was going to be a helluva interesting night.

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London, General Phil Doud’s office that same evening

JOE arrived to find a constellation of “stars”--and one wanna be--in Phil’s office. Pres, Dave Creighton, and Eoghain St. John-Keighley, were all generals. Major Sir Anthony Quinlan was a theatrical star. And then there was Cam St. Giles from MI 6. Cam reminded Joe too much of “that little vermin Drovnik”--too self-important, too smooth and an enigmatic job description that allowed him too much access to too many people. Joe couldn’t quite put his finger on what it what rubbed him the wrong way about St. Giles but his gut instinct was telling Joe that the guy couldn’t be trusted.

“Long time, no see Joe,” Dave Creighton cracked with a wry smile and an extended hand.

“Let’s keep it that way. Every time you show up, I end up in the ass end of nowhere,” Joe kidded, giving Dave friendly handshake.

“Yeah, well, it’s that charm that makes you Gallaghers so useful to my line of work,” Dave said jovially. Despite their teasing, Joe and Dave genuinely liked and respected each other.

“If that’s the case, Dave, you sure as hell sent the wrong Gallagher,” Pres jested, knowing full well that he couldn’t compete in the charm department with his sibling.

“Now that we’re all here, Dave, I’d like to know just what in the hell this was all about?” Phil asked. The conferees took their seats on the small couch and office chairs in Phil’s office. Phil casually sat down on a corner of his cluttered desk.

Eoghain began with an apology of sorts. “Before I forget, Percy Vivyan sends his regrets but his doctor’s ordered him to bed with a nasty respiratory something or other.”

Tony’s face broke into a smile at the irony of that. “Looks like I was contagious after all!” He was referring to the phony news story about him falling ill as a way to explain his absence from the theater.

Cam spoke up next. “We debriefed Theodora and Antonia about all of this. Apparently good ole cousin Ari drove them to a border town and turned ‘em loose from there. He gave them back their cameras, a sack with some food and wine and that was the last they saw of him.”

Dave took up the report. “To make a long story short, the women asked too many questions in too many villages and, well, that got General Hoxha’s minions scared. One of our sources in the Balkans…”

“Wait a minute…you have sources in the Balkans?” Preston asked, miffed.

“Yep,” Creighton replied tersely.

“So why in the hell did you send us in?” Tony asked, just as irked and perplexed as Preston.

“Weeds, gentlemen, weeds…” Creighton replied in that same cranky tone that Joe had heard so often. Joe let out a chuckle, having heard that answer before. “And speaking of weeds, remember those supply parcels that the changing wind blew off to who knows where…Turns out that wind did us a damned big favor. The supplies fell into enemy hands and apparently the food was tainted. Our source told me that at least a dozen of the bastards died…puked and shit themselves to death apparently and--get this--they all had red lacy rashes and smelled like roses and mint. Sound familiar, Eoghain?”

“Indeed it does!” Eoghain replied with emphasis, thinking back to his brush with Tacere Morte Cesarii.

Cam St. Giles piped up. “Those food packages were destined for our partisan friends. Just think what would have happened if those parcels would have ended up where they were supposed to. We’d be blamed for poisoning allies!”

Joe watched St. Giles’ face as he gave that self-serving explanation and noticed that the man’s left eyelid twitched as he rattled off his answer. That eye tic reminded Joe of Barney Deel’s reaction as a cadet at West Point when he was called on the carpet about honors violations. Each cadet was bound by the Honor Code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.” When Joe pressed Deel about his transgressions, Deel’s right eyelid twitched whenever he equivocated or lied. It didn’t fibrillate when Deel gave a straight answer. Could it be the same with this smooth operator? What was St. Giles hiding?

“Yep, funny isn’t it,” Dave said with a touch of irony in his voice. He narrowed his deep set brown eyes and cast a sideways glance at St. Giles. “A secret mission to aid anti-Communist partisans in Albania just happens to get food tainted by the same rare poison that almost killed Eoghain, Max Gallagher and Royston Smythe-Beckworth two years ago…and did kill that Russian pilot, what was his name?” Creighton asked. He already had his staff investigating how the contaminated items wound on up on that plane.

“Lieutenant Gregori Lritevich,” Cam inserted easily and quickly. Too easily, Joe thought. Just how broad and deep was this guy’s range anyway?

“Well, press on, will you? Why did Hoxha think Antonia and Theodora were spies?” Tony queried.

Dave explained that situation. “The film in their camera is what got ‘em in hot water. Seems they--or cousin Ari either accidentally or on purpose--snapped some scenic photos that caught several worrisome structures on the film. Two were new types of Soviet radar towers that we haven’t seen before and that’s got our experts pretty damned worried. And to make matters worse, that shot down Skytrain was carrying some American radar equipment intended for insurgents in Florina. That’s why Hoxha accused the crew of espionage, too.”

Eoghain added more details. “The British navy has had run-ins with the Soviets and Albanians over operations in Mediterranean. They’ve cost us ships and sailors’ lives. Now with this radar, probably manned by Russians, there’s a lot more to worry about in the Balkans. What’s more to worry about is that the other structure on the film seemed to resemble Stonehenge…” Eoghain said. He knew full well that Joe would understand what that meant.

“A henge?” Joe asked leaning forward in his seat on the couch next to Preston.

“…with some blue-green balls of light in the sky caught on Theodora’s film. Sound familiar, Joe?” Dave queried.

“Yeah, sure does,” Joe said. “That substantiates what Alec and Dash saw. In their reports, Lt. Bowman, Sgt. Rathbone and Sgt. Murphy back ‘em up, too, and about the weird storm.”

“Don’t you Yanks have a name for those things? Foo fighters, isn’t it?” Cam asked.

“That’s what we call ‘em but we don’t know what in the hell they are,” Joe opined. “At the end of the war, I was ordered to investigate them, talk to pilots and aircrew that had seen them. What I found out was a contradiction. Somewhere along the line, they’d been told by some civilian guys sent out from Washington to not discuss what’d they’d seen with anyone. Whatever those men told the aircrews it had them too scared to talk to me.”

Tony offered an alternative explanation. “There’s a practical explanation for those lights. The locals call them ‘earthquake lights’ and they appear around the time quakes happens. There was a shaker in Florina at about the same time everybody was seeing those balls of light.”

“But what about that abandoned flight nurse that Theodora and Antonia went after?” Preston asked. “After all, getting that scoop was the impetus for their trek into Albania. I bet Mom was half worried and half mad as hell about everything.”

“The lone American flight nurse is just a legend,” Eoghain said matter-of-factly.

“That legend had some basis in facts, Sir Eoghain,” Tony explained. “If you’ll recall, back in November 1943, a C-53 carrying flight nurses and medics from the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron went down in Albania. Partisans hid them, got in touch with the SOE and I was ordered to get the Americans out. I got most of them out in January 1944. But, there was a catch, and this is probably where fact gave rise to legend. Three nurses got separated from the main group and didn’t go out in January with the rest. I finally got them out in March 1944.”

“You did a remarkable job, Tony. Thanks,” Joe said. He recalled Rigel talking about the nurses that had gone down in enemy controlled territory. The Army Air Force’s powerful PRO spun a positive story for public consumption in 1944. The public would not learn the full details of their experience for five decades as the aircrew, nurses and medics had been ordered not to talk about what they had gone through.

Dave explained further and directed his statement to Joe. “All of that 807th stuff got mixed in with the trip you made to Yugoslavia in 1945--with one American flight nurse.”

“Rigel?” Joe asked, although his question was more of a statement.

“Yep, Rigel. Some of the Yugoslav partisans moved south and as stories got told and retold, the two separate incidents got morphed into one folktale…that of a lone American flight nurse left behind in Albania after the war.” Creighton’s assessment of the scenario made sense.

“But what about the buried gold?” Pres asked.

Joe chimed in. “I had some gold pieces for Yellich but I only gave him half of them. I buried the other half as insurance. I wanted to make sure that he’d help us complete the mission, which he did. He died before I could tell him where I buried the other half.”

“So you just left the rest of it?” Preston asked.

“Yeah. It was more important to get the hell outta there fast than to dig it up,” Joe said.

“Looks like your gold and the gold we gave the SOE operatives got turned into another legend, too,” Eoghain opined. “We know that ‘ari’ means ‘gold’ and ‘Gulgur’ is probably a bastardization of ‘Gallagher.’ Gulgur ari means Gallagher’s gold.”

“Those old out of circulation gold coins came in quite handy…use them for everything from bribes to mules. I had to barter quite heatedly for the damned animals. They were a valuable commodity,” Tony reported.

Pres began a sentence that didn’t get finished. “That explains why Ilka…”

“Ilka?” Joe jumped in immediately at the sound of her name.

“Yeah, Ilka,” Preston repeated, all the while keeping an eye on Joe. “One of her men challenged her about the gold…so she cut off his ear… and then she killed him and his buddy.”

Preston watched his kid brother’s brow wad up into knots at that revelation.

“Kill them? Why? She must have had a reason.” Joe recalled a conversation he had with Ilka about the work she did in Poland…that of saboteur, spy and whatever else was needed to stop the enemy.

“I guess you’d call it treason. They were gonna turn her over to General Hoxha and collect the bounty he had on her head. She knew what she had to do and she did it. Ilka’s one amazing lady.” Preston watched Joe’s body language and noticed a slight blush to his face. Joe’s reaction just validated Ilka’s story. Pres thought to himself, “So it’s all true, little brother…” and he wondered how Joe would take the news…

“We tried to get Miss Zradna to move to England after the war but she declined. I wonder why?” Eoghain asked.

“I guess she had a reason,” Pres said softly. And he’d tell Joe about that reason later...

“Well, gentlemen, I think that wraps up everything. Thank you all for coming. And it goes without saying that all of this is ‘need to know’ only.” As the senior allied officer present--excluding “that little vermin” Cam St. Giles whose role in all of this was murky--it was Eoghain’s prerogative to conclude the debriefing.

Eoghain turned to Preston. “Our plane to Scotland is on schedule. I’ll leave you to have a few minutes with your brother before we go.”

“Thanks, Sir Eoghain,” Pres replied. To Joe’s curious face Preston explained. “Percy’s sick and out of commission so Eoghain’s going up to Scotland to review the troops at the end of the war games.” Pres paused for a second, thinking of how to say what he had tell Joe.

Crosswinds: Joe’s office later that same evening, with Preston

AS the meeting wrapped up, Pres was running out of time. He had to tell Joe. Now. “Joe, I need to talk to you…in private,” Pres said with a serious face.

“Okay, well, let’s go to my office.” They slowly walked down the two flights of stairs in silence, with Pres using a cane for help. Upon entering, they found Lt. Lovelady still there, reviewing slides of bullet point statements projected onto the wall from the noisy old slide projector. Joe was set to brief the air staff on the status of his various projects and Juliette took it upon herself to get the slides made and organize the slides for her boss. She had an uncanny knack of anticipating what Joe needed and her efforts took a lot of stress from Joe’s broad but sometimes overburdened shoulders. The problem with being good at whatever task was given him meant that everybody wanted Joe for everything. It was another price of fame…and as Preston would find out, sometimes it sucked.

Juliette stood up when the two generals walked in. “Good evening, sirs. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No thanks, Lieutenant. We’re just gonna visit a bit before I have to leave,” Preston said. He tried to sound upbeat but there was a knot of tension in his throat.

They passed by Juliette’s desk and into Joe’s office and Joe quietly closed the door.

“Okay, Pres, what is it?” Joe asked.

“You better sit down, kid,” Pres instructed and pointed to the chair behind Joe’s desk. Instead, Joe rested against the edge of the desk and watched as Preston extracted something from his pants pocket.

“Here, Joe,” Preston said. “Take a look at this.” Preston extended his hand and gently laid the locket in Joe’s upturned palm.

Joe looked at it then directed his curious gaze up at Preston.

“What’s this?” Joe asked tentatively as Preston sat down next to his brother.

“Ilka wanted me to give it to you. Look on the back,” Pres instructed as he pointed to the neckpiece resting in Joe’s hand.

Joe flipped the golden pendant over and saw some delicately inscribed writing on the metal.

“Read it, Joe,” Pres asked softly.

“Anson 20 Maj 44” Joe said, making the same pronunciation mistake that Preston had made.

“It’s not ‘Madge’--it’s May, in Polish. May 20 1944,” Pres said.

“…May 20th--my birthday…” Joe said almost inaudibly.

“It’s her birthday, too,” Pres replied softly.

“Ilka’s?” Joe turned his face toward Preston, confused.

“No. Your daughter’s…” Pres said as he looked Joe squarely in his gray-hazel eyes.

They sat there for a few seconds just looking at each other. Preston broke the silence.

“Ilka told me about you and her. Anson was conceived at Archbury and born on your birthday.” Preston tapped his finger on the locket. “Open it.”

Joe’s hands trembled as he did so. He gently scrutinized each treasure--the photograph, the portrait, a ringlet of strawberry blond hair, an Anson family trait. Joe’s face twisted up in emotion and shock.

“She looks just like, you, Joe…same eyes, same face, red hair like you and Jeff had as babies. Ilka said she has—had-- your hands too.” The use of the past tense “had” must have been a Freudian slip.

“Had?” Joe asked, afraid of the answer.

“Ilka gave Anson over to friends who took her into hiding for Ilka’s safety and Anson’s too. She’s been looking for Anson since the end of the war and that trail took her to Albania.”

“Is she…Anson…?” Joe asked as tears welled up in his eyes and his mouth couldn’t speak the question about death.

“Don’t know.” Preston anticipated his brother’s question and answered it with the painful truth.

“Why didn’t she tell me, Pres? Why?” Joe blurted out, clearly upset by the news of--what? That a woman he had cared about deeply, maybe even loved, bore him a child? That he had lost yet another daughter? That Ilka didn’t tell him?

“Your lives went in different directions. Ilka wanted me to ask you a question, though,” Pres said. Joe reacted more strongly to news about Ilka than Preston had expected and he wondered how all of this played into Joe’s marriage with Rigel.

“What question?” The words barely came out of his mouth.

“How do you like your coffee in the morning?” Pres said gently.

Hearing those words, Joe’s face contracted in pain and he buried his face in his hands which still held the treasured locket. No one else knew about that question. No one else could. Ilka had posed it to Joe in the bomb bay of the Piccadilly Lily moments before she parachuted into her homeland. This wasn’t some ruse, it was real.

Preston laid his arm on his brother’s shoulder. For an instant, Joe leaned against Preston, letting his big brother carry some of his burden. Preston smiled and drew his kid brother closer to him and held him. They had been very close as children but careers and fame drew them apart and it hurt them both to lose that closeness. But for right now, they were as they once had been, and it felt good and right.

The bells from the nearby church tolled seven chimes. Time to go. Pres unwrapped himself from Joe and looked at his younger brother’s tear streaked cheeks.

“You gonna be okay, kid?” Preston asked with heartfelt concern.

“Yeah,” was Joe’s monotone and unconvincing reply.

“I gotta go.” Preston stood up, walked to the door, put his hand on the knob, then turned one last time to look at his brother standing alone, looking out the window behind his desk.

Preston called to his brother. “Danzo?”

Joe turned to the sound of his name. “I love you.” As Preston spoke those words, tears escaped from his eyes, too, and he was glad of it.

Danzo’s face warmed a bit and a slight smile crossed his lips. “Love ya, too, brother.”

Pres just nodded in recognition, opened the door, and was gone.

But Lt. Lovelady wasn’t. And she noticed Preston dabbing his cheeks with his right hand as he walked by her desk and bid her good-bye. Whatever had just happened in Joe’s office was major.

Juliette pondered her next move…leave Joe alone…or not. She chose the latter. Juliette knocked on her boss’s door and waited for a response. None came. She knocked again. Nothing. Out of concern for him, she entered and found Joe sitting behind his desk with his right hand touching the photo of the “hardstand hitching” that stood next to his black telephone. Ilka’s golden locket lay on the desk in front of the wedding picture.

Juliette walked over to the front of Joe’s desk. “Sir, is there something I can do for you?” Juliette asked earnestly. There was still sufficient early evening sunlight to illuminate Joe’s face and the faint wet streaks on his face. Her heart went out to him and she fought back the urge to round the corner of his desk and hug Joe. Juliette’s eyes followed Joe as he stood up, rubbed his sore neck with his right hand, stepped over to the coat tree, grabbed his jacket and his crush cap. When he reached the doorway, he turned toward the young woman still standing next to his desk.

With a tired smile, Joe simply told his aide, “Go home.”

Joe did the same. And for the first time in years, Joseph Anson Gallagher got shitfaced drunk.

Call to Glory: Late August, Fort Upstatt

Daring Rescue Saves Americans, Albanians, by Trixie Nye, Anson News Service.

U.S. Army Brigadier General Preston Gallagher, brother of famed AAF Brigadier General Joe Gallagher and son of distinguished Lieutenant General Maxwell Gallagher kept the family tradition rolling this week as he and his crack squad of Army troops extricated five American aircrew and two women reporters from hostile territory in Albania. An AAF C-47 bound for Greece, piloted by Colonel Augustus Minton “Dash” Dashall, son of well-known Congresswoman Enid Minton Dashall and Major Alec FitzGerald, Congress’s most eligible bachelor, AAF reserve officer and son of Senator Hugh FitzGerald to boot, encountered a freak storm over the Adriatic Sea. Their C-47 Skytrain was blown off course, intercepted and shot down by Yugoslav and Soviet Yak fighters. Dashall and FitzGerald brought the damaged plane in for a belly landing and thanks to their skill none of the crew was injured. Also board this mercy mission to Greece were Second Lieutenant Gwyn Bowman, flight nurse, and Technical Sergeant Patrick Murphy, surgical technician/flight medic. The plane was to retrieve Army Air Force personnel who had been injured in a recent earthquake in northern Greece. The rescued also included Lady Theodora Smythe-Beckworth, American widow of RAF Group Captain Sir Arthur Smythe-Beckworth and Antonia Karacimos of Long Island, New York. The two women reporters for Anson News Service were investigating a lead about an American Army Air Force flight nurse living in Albania. When contacted for comment about the flight nurse, Colonel Emil Jules Preux of the Army Air Force Public Relations Office had no comment.

Trixie’s article was only the tip of the PRO media frenzy and the Army ordered Preston’s participation in it. Irene had instructed Trixie to cooperate with Preux, focus her report on Preston’s actions and stay clear of anything that might tread on Theodora and Antonia’s story. Good for the Army’s image, Preux said. Good fodder for bolstering the military’s budget requests to congress. Good for recruitment. All of this good stuff playing out on the stage of public opinion showed that the British Lion Rampant and the American eagle skillfully took bites out of the Soviet Bear’s underbelly.

Pres was a big hero. Drum roll….ta-DAH!

But, his hero status came with a hefty price tag. Payment didn’t only come from Pres. It bled Betty, too. Civilian and military film crews and reporters just didn’t follow Preston to Scotland, they descended upon the unassuming and unprepared Betty at Fort Upstatt like a swarm of locusts. “Gator,” the Army’s PRO guru, crafted the images the military wanted projected, that of the valiant hero supported by his loving wife and son back home. Although E.J. was a savvy operator, he never crossed the decorum line but he would bump up against it and he knew when to stop. That couldn’t be said about the civilian media who followed Betty, snapping pictures and pummeling her with questions as she took Ben and their rescued mutt Bo out for a walk. Betty smiled courteously, and repeated the stock phrase that E.J. had taught her: She was proud, happy and thrilled about what her husband had done. Somehow, though, Betty’s dress size, height, weight, lipstick shade and favorite perfume all ended up in various magazines as did the unique story of Ben’s birth at Bryncote. The pesky reporters even dug through the trash bins, discovering an empty pill box for Valium, prescribed to Betty by a “Dr. Cure” in Bassingbury, Connecticut and filled at a “Lemuel’s Drugstore” in Archbury. Further digging around by the press found out that Betty suffered from occasional severe migraines for which the Valium had been ordered. But the scrutiny of the newly popular Gallagher couple didn’t stop with Betty’s habits. They included Pres’s, too. In addition to Betty’s pill box, the vermin newsies discovered a dozen empty brandy and scotch bottles in the rubbish. The gossip rag gumshoes hit the local and not so local liquor stores and found out that Preston had ongoing monthly tabs in several establishments for his favorite spirits. The brand names were published in the stories about the gallant General Preston Gallagher and turned him into a modern day version of the allegedly hard drinking General Ulysses S. Grant. Sales of the scotch brands named in the articles soared as did those of “Uisce Beatha” the distinctive brandy made by the Gallagher family for generations. In fact, “Uisce Beatha” was in such demand that the small distillery in Archer’s Run couldn’t keep up with requests. Mother Nature’s process that turned common berries into exceptional brandy could not be hurried. Consequently, there were back orders for “Uisce Beatha” that amounted to years of future business and profits for the Gallaghers.

Preston returned home, feted as a conquering hero, only to find his and Betty’s private lives violated, splashed across newspapers, magazines, and tabloids. Columnists theorized about Preston’s future. Surely there was another star soon to come. Some prophesied a run for the senate, or maybe even the White House. He, Betty and little Ben were even displayed in silver screen newsreels shown in countless movie theater across the nation. Preston was deluged with offers to pose for liquor ads and Betty was inundated with requests to endorse everything from headache powders to vacuum cleaners and dog food. The monetary value of these deals was astronomical and the source of arguments between Preston and Betty. Pres was a general and couldn’t take up any of these offers. Betty, however, was a civilian and the rules didn’t apply to her, except for those unwritten rules about how a general’s wife is supposed to act. Moreover, Preston came from generations of Gallagher wealth and wasn’t fazed when dollar signs were dangled in front of him. Not so with Betty. She came from a second generation American blue collar immigrant family that struggled financially. She loved Preston “madly,” as she’d told Joe back at Magadar but life with the high octane legendary Gallagher clan took some getting used to. True, Max, Irene, and Joe welcomed her whole heartedly but sometimes she felt like the poor kid with her nose pressed up against the hoity-toity candy store window. She could look but not touch, want but not afford.

Betty saw her new found fame as a way to make her own way, unwritten Army rules be damned. Pres didn’t quite see it Betty’s way. The limelight had done more than make them household words, it revealed their values and their roles in their marriage. Wartime life at Magadar was in some ways simpler. The enemy was known and an external force and they faced the hazards together. Peacetime celebrity brought more insidious dangers that threatened who they were. In short, Preston and Betty were at loggerheads with each other for the first time since 1942. After one especially heated and loud argument that sent Betty and little Ben both crying to the bedroom, Preston thought back to their lives as they had been just a few weeks ago. Betty had told him that she thought she was pregnant again and he was delighted. They’d cuddled together in bed with Preston laying his hand on Betty belly and they discussed names for the new Gallagher. They recalled Ben’s momentous arrival during Joe and Rigel’s wild rewedding weekend at Bryncote and hoped for a more tranquil experience this time around. And then there was their tender parting as Pres and “Gallagher’s Golden Boys” boarded Army Air Force troop carrier planes and headed off for wargames in Scotland. Preston picked up his son who looked just like him, gave him a hug and kiss and then tenderly kissed his wife’s lips. He handed Ben over to Betty then placed a kiss on the fingertips of his right index and middle finger and touched Betty’s tummy, kissing the new baby good bye too. Preston’s memory took a snapshot of Betty, holding little Ben, both of them smiling and blowing Preston kisses. That remembrance brought a smile to his lips then as now. But “now” also had his wife and son off crying in the bedroom and Pres was alone in the kitchen. Albania had changed him and his life with Betty and Ben. Preston sought solace in three fingers of aged straight bourbon, which had been sent to him by a distillery hoping to snag his endorsement. He should have sent the damned stuff back dammit, but he didn’t. Preston bolted down the booze and poured himself more then went out onto the back porch to cool off physically and emotionally. He eased himself down on the whitewashed Adirondack chair--his leg was still sore from the bullet wound sustained in Albania --and pondered the current state of his life. He was proud of what he and “Gallagher’s Golden Boys” had done in that “ass end of nowhere” Balkan country. Soldiering was what he was best at and loved to do but he hated killing. What was the price of fame? It was unraveling his private life and his marriage and maybe even his career. So this is what his famous kid brother and his “Glamor Girl of the Air Corps” wife have had to endure? They can have it. Fame sucked.

Crosswinds: late August, the Gallagher townhouse, Georgetown Washington DC

IT was hot. Damn hot, even now at dusk and even with a slight breeze. Joe lazed in a hammock suspended between two old maple trees in the small, well-manicured back yard of the Gallaghers’ 150-year-old red brick townhouse in the historic Washington DC neighborhood of Georgetown. He took a swig of beer and pressed its cool glass bottle against his forehead; it provided little respite from the heat. After so many years in England, Joe had forgotten how oppressive the Mid-Atlantic summers could be. The uncomfortable air thick with humidity reminded Joe of his days back at Langley Field, about 175 miles south of here, at the confluence of Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It was just five Augusts ago that Joseph Anson Gallagher was a cavalier captain rooming with good friend and fellow B-17 pilot, Byrne Chamberlain, and they joked about Joe finding his “perfect woman.” She had to have brains, money, looks, a sense of humor, fly her own plane, drink brandy and know how to use ‘fuck’ in a sentence. Byrne teased Joe and told him that “the only women I could ever see you with Gallagher…is you, with tits.” The recollection brought a faint smile to Joe’s face. Ahh, that was a good day, one of the best and Byrne was one of the best people Joe had ever met. Now, Byrne was dead, what was left of him buried in Cambridge and Joe was estranged from his wife, the woman Byrne said Joe would be lucky to find. What was left of their marriage was just about dead and buried, too. The world had changed so much in five years and so had he…and Rigel.

And being on the hot seat today with the Secretary of War’s aide only served to make Joe hotter. Joe didn’t understand why he had been ordered to Washington for this face to face meeting about the racial incidents in England when his role in them and their resolution was somewhat peripheral. Phil Doud was senior to Joe and in those base commanders’ chain of command. They all reported to Phil, not Joe, which further begged the questions as just what in the hell had happened today. The inquiries put to Joe by the secretary’s aide all could have been answered in a report; there was no need that Joe saw that required him to be summoned across an ocean and appear in person to aide in office in Washington DC. Joe felt as though the functionary was inspecting him, sizing him up, taking Joe out for a test drive like a buyer would before investing a lot of capital in a car. Although nothing verbal was said to support Joe’s feeling, his gut instinct was telling him this was so. But why?

He was looking forward to having a quiet evening with his parents in their Georgetown townhouse--he had a lot to tell them--and that bubble burst when Max informed Joe that he’d invited a few old friends over for an impromptu backyard cook out tonight. The “old friends” turned out to be Ed Britt, Hugh FitzGerald, and Enid Minton Dashall. Victoria, Hugh’s wife, simply could not abide Washington in the hellaciously hot and muggy summer and was back home in Boston.

As he swayed gently in the hammock, Joe’s thoughts drifted back to Bryncote and the wild and wonderful rewedding weekend there…and the sight of Kenny O’Donnell, in his cast, leaning on one crutch, basting Scottish beef over embers as Eoghain St. John-Keighley turned the huge antediluvian spit. What a combination that was--a Boston Irish bombardier and an English knight of the realm jovially and amicably basting and turning and imbibing some of that “basting fluid” too. Joe wondered why we all couldn’t just get along with each other like that. Outside in the small back yard, Max tended the built in brick barbeque pit. The thing might have looked nicer but it wasn’t nearly as remarkable as the sturdy beast that Sandy had cobbled together from scrounged findings around the recovering London, which in the fall of 1945 was still cleaning up after the war. Everyone was in casual summer clothes, the men in shorts, comfortable cotton shirts and Enid and Irene in cool garden dresses. Joe enjoyed going barefoot and the backyard, even though it was small, was carpeted with thick green grass, something he sorely missed living in urban Goodge Street where the closest thing to nature was the potted heart-leafed philodendron that Lt. Lovelady had given him for his birthday and the small park across the street from his office. The shape of the leaves turned Joe’s thoughts to the curves of Juliette’s face…and dammit, he was pissed at himself for even thinking about her.

The back yard was graced with ivy covered brick walls and the cluster of mature maples provided a canopy for rustic ash wood Adirondack chairs. The presence of a bird bath and bird feeders reminded Joe that Irene was an avid bird watcher and amateur ornithologist. Her binoculars and notebook were never far from Irene and he spied them laying on the picnic table. Citronella candles wafted lemony scent up and around and blended with the aroma of charcoal and grilled hamburgers which Max and Ed were tending to. Hugh and Enid were cranking the old ice cream machine under Irene’s direction. All were chatting about Preston’s daring rescue of Dash, Alec, Theodora, Antonia, and the others, thankful that everyone came home safe. The scene of domestic tranquility soothed Joe’s sore soul, at least for a moment or two. It was the lull between the storms. The day’s earlier meeting that he was ordered to give in person to the Secretary of War’s aide went well, so he thought. What he had to tell his parents later tonight might not be so well received. Joe toyed with the idea of not telling them but he knew that he had to. And he had to tell someone else, too. And it had to be in person.

“Joe, dear, would you bring the portable radio out?” Irene asked.

“Sure thing, Mom.”

Joe eased himself out the hammock, his shoulder giving him hell today, and trotted across the grass, up the half dozen slate steps to the back porch then into the kitchen. He nabbed the boxy gizmo and retraced his steps, deposited the radio on the picnic table and flicked on the power. “Find some nice music, Joe,” Irene instructed. He turned the tuning dial slowly, passed some scratchy static, then came upon a station playing a Glenn Miller tune.

“How’s that Mom? ‘Moonlight Serenade.’”

“Ahh… ‘Serenade’…my favorite song,” Irene said with a gentle smile to Joe, joining him at the table and handing him napkins and silverware to lay. The song’s last few bars ended and the refrain of another started. Irene saw her son freeze right in the middle of putting down a serviette at its place on the table and stare at the radio. A young woman’s voice ushered forth, “Someday, when I’m feeling low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you and the way you look tonight…” It was the song that Joe and Rigel danced to at their rewedding at Bryncote. Irene drew alongside her son, and tenderly placed her hand on Joe’s shoulder. He turned to meet her gaze. They didn’t speak. She could see the pain in Joe’s eyes and he could see the concern in hers. From his station beside the grill, Max saw the exchange between his wife and his son. He and Irene knew that Rigel and Joe had been going through a rough patch ever since the loss of Brynn, but they didn’t know just how bad things were. Wait’ll they hear what Joe has to tell them later tonight…

The dinner was a scene worthy of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. Amity, laughter, jokes, talk of old times and old friends filled the air as the group savored hamburgers, iced tea, cold beer, watermelon, apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream. Harvey and Maeve were brought up…yes, Maeve was still in Archbury delivering babies throughout the shire. Harvey was working tirelessly on war crimes cases and other matters. They talked about Preston, Betty and Ben and the new baby that was on the way. Comments about a new baby made Joe’s wince a bit. Joe went through the motions of eating dinner and polite casual conversation but his mind was on other people far away.

The meal completed, they all retired to the family room which sported a great convenience…an air conditioner! Irene and Max also installed window units in the bedrooms on the second and third floors. In the cool relief of the cozy room, the guests relaxed on comfortable overstuffed chairs, love seat, sofa and Shaker style rocking chairs. End tables or coffee tables were in easy reach from any seat and well placed lamps cast a gentle warm glow to the room. Max, ever the attentive host, made sure that each guest had a snifter and then poured ample glugs of “Uisce Beatha” into each. Irene was the last stop on his libation pouring rounds. He looked lovingly at his wife of 37 years sitting serenely on one side of a camel backed love seat and then turned to face his guests and raised a toast. “To our women…may they always love us!” Max said robustly, lifting his glass toward his best girl. He then bent down, gave Irene a peck on the cheek. That pleasant duty completed, Max replaced the brandy decanter on the end table between the sofa and easy chair in which Joe was sitting and rejoined Irene on the love seat. The happiness and love shared by Max and Irene made Joe long for the halcyon days of his own marriage.

Hugh, perhaps by prearranged plan, turned the conversation over to the day’s events.

“So Joe, how’d your meeting go with Chester?”

“Who?” Joe asked, not recognizing the name.

“Chester Schmedlappe, the Secretary’s aide. Good man. I’ve known him for years. Max said you were called over from England,” Enid said.

“Yeah, I was but I’m not really sure why. He could have found out just as much by reading Phil Doud’s report,” Joe replied matter-of-factly.

Ed spoke next. “I’m not telling tales out of school when I say that integrating the military is high on the President’s agenda, especially after the all Negro flying units are to be disbanded.”

“You mean the Tuskegee fliers won’t be flying anymore?” Irene asked.

“Nope not the 99th, the 332nd or the 477th,” Max said.

“Who are the 477th? Irene asked.

“An all Negro B-25 group that got jerked around in the States,” Enid offered, not bothering to hide a hint of irritation in voice.

“We could have used them in England,” Joe said. “How come they didn’t deploy?”

“Because they were kept on indefinite training status and never released to combat,” Ed said. His tone, too, was sharp.

“Why?” Joe asked, looking at Max, then at Ed for explanations.

“Stupidity. Hatred. Bigotry…I heard some general who shall remain nameless say he didn’t think Negros could handling a multiengine bomber in combat,” Ed muttered in disgust.

“You’re kidding,” Joe asked.

“Nope.”

“And just who was this asshole general? Somebody from the 8th in England?” Max asked sharply.

“No. This was a stateside asshole in charge of the 1st Air Force, a 2 star by the name of Frank O. Hunter. And he was and is a 2-star bigot,” Ed replied. “The 8th in the ETO was under command of one general so it was simpler to have one standard for all commanders to follow. In the states, there wasn’t that same unity of command, too many separate air forces, unequal application of standards, too many commanders who ignored the orders about equal treatment.” Ed paused for emphasis, his voice stern. “…And frankly there are some commanders who still believe that the colored soldiers are inferior to whites.”

“What bullshit,” Enid added, shaking her head.

Hugh spoke up next. “Hap Arnold didn’t support the 477th either and he let General Hunter run amok. Hunter saw his role throughout the entire history of the 477th not as one of preparing a unit for combat. He saw his job to block Negro flyers from any respect. What’s worse, he agreed to the illegal humiliation of the Negro aircrews.”

Enid took up the story. “And then there were those incidents at air fields around the country, unequal promotions, unequal treatment, taunts and slurs, colored airmen getting beaten up by whites, even fights between white officers and black officers, like the times that the Negro pilots weren’t allowed in the Officer’s clubs at Selfridge and Freeman.”

“Eaker and Doolittle didn’t stand for that crap,” Joe said.

“Exactly. But they weren’t in charge back home. Too many in the Army only gave lip service to orders and too much leeway to local commanders. That shit’s gotta stop. The Air Force needs to treat everyone equally…Negroes and whites, gentiles and Jews, men and women,” Enid said emphatically.

“Amen!” Irene tacked on.

“Well, then, Joe what seems to be the problem now?” Hugh asked, redirecting the conversation back to Joe.

“Some of the same old shit,” Joe muttered and then took another sip of his brandy. He helped himself to more “Water of Life” from the cut glass lead crystal decanter on the end table next to him. He looked at the brandy in his snifter and swirled it gently.

“We’re not at war for one thing, well, at least not a fighting war—yet--and there’s some backsliding on the Air Force’s part. We need to get back to where we were,” said Ed.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of going back, it’s a matter of going forward, Ed. We have to set a high standard for the Air Force, make sure all of the commanders at every level understand that bigotry will not be tolerated,” Joe replied.

“You’re right. Several committees have studied the issue of segregation in the military and they’ve all come to the same conclusion,” said Hugh.

“What’s that Hugh?” Irene asked.

“That segregating the troops is bad for national security and weakens our ability to wage war and win. That’s the bottom line,” Hugh explained.

“Plus it’s wrong. Just plain wrong,” Enid shook her head as she spoke those words.

“The news service ran an article about Negro Army nurse at Tuskegee Field that made my blood boil. A white bus driver told her to get off the bus. She refused so a white policeman beat her up,” Irene said.

“If that ever happened to Rigel, I’d find that cop and beat the living shit of him,” Joe said, bolting down the last of his brandy. Joe reached over for the bottle of ‘Uisce Beatha’ on the end table next to him and recharged his snifter again. Irene and Max exchanged quick worried glances. They knew things were bad between Joe and Rigel and soon they’d learn just how bad things really were.

“The President’s told me that he wants to integrate the military,” Hugh asserted.

“He’s told me that too,” Enid said. “There’s a lot of resistance on the Hill and among the generals. Vanley’s not too happy about integrating the Air Force, he’s said so in hearings.”

“Who’s Vanley?” Irene asked.

“He’s the general in charge of the Air Force,” Ed instructed.

“Those hearings were last year. I’ve talked to him since and let’s just say that he’s ‘evolving.’” Hugh had a hopeful ring in his voice with that comment.

“And where is he now?” Joe asked.

“Not as set against integration as he was last year and I think he’ll eventually come around,” Hugh replied.

“Plus the Secretary of War is helping him see the light,” said Enid with a wry smile.

“Or feel the heat,” Joe said.

“Joe, what do you think bigotry is based on?” Hugh asked.

Max and Irene, seated next to each other in the love seat, intently watched and listened to the exchange between their son and their friends.

Joe pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before he spoke. “Fear. Ignorance. People learn to hate what they don’t understand, what’s different from themselves.”

“And which of those two do you work to fix first?” Ed asked. Britt leaned forward in the rocking chair and looked toward Joe in anticipation of the answer he knew he’d hear.

“Ignorance,” Joe said with certainty.

“Well, then Joseph, you’re going to help Vanley become less ignorant and see the light,” Ed said with a slight smile of satisfaction.

“Oh? How?” Joe asked, getting the feeling that he’d more or less been an unknowing recruit for this task.

“Vanley’s willing to nibble around the edges of integration,” Max said.

“And you’re involved in the nibbling,” Enid said.

“As what? The dinner or the diner?” asked Joe.

“If you succeed it’ll mean another star, Joe,” Max said.

“Fuck it then,” Joe said.

“Danzo, remember what your grandfather always said about the starfish?” Irene asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Here’s your chance to make a difference, a really big difference,” Max said seriously as he looked at Joe straight in the eyes. Joe had seen that look before, a blend of command and supplication.

Joe thought back to the night when Max gave him his stars and Sandy’s words of wisdom to Joe. “Here’s your big chance to make a difference. Don’t blow it.”

Joe clenched his jaws and pondered the opportunity before him. Calmly he asked, “Okay…what is it?”

“A training program in the ETO for black soldiers and you’re in charge of it,” Ed pronounced, finally spilling the military beans.

Joe let out a quiet whistle at the task laid in front of him. “Why me?”

“Because of the way you handled the mess at Archbury and the other bases, and the Secretary thinks you’re the best man for the job.”

“You mean I’m the most expendable man for the job, don’t you Ed?”

Britt just smiled. “Well, there is an element of risk in it.”

“And if this works, you’ll be proving the president’s and the secretary’s points,” Hugh said.

“And if it doesn’t?” Irene asked sharply. She didn’t want to see her son turned into a sacrificial lamb.

“Then it proves what the nay-sayers wanted and Joe Gallagher takes the fall instead of Vanley, the Secretary or the President, right?” Joe looked around the cozy den at the faces of power gathered in the room. Silence. “Right,” he said, answering his own question.

“The risk comes with the stars, Joe,” Max said.

“And the Secretary was right. You are the best man for this job,” Ed said resolutely.

Joe exhaled and rubbed his eyes with his right hand as if to wipe away the fatigue, stress and yes, loneliness. He then twisted the gold Claddagh ring on his left hand and wished Rigel were here to talk to about this. He looked at Ed and gave his answer. “Why be normal? It’s boring. All right. I’ll do it.”

Irene smiled, got up from the love seat, went over to her second son, the son she never expected to ascend to such a future, and embraced him warmly. She looked into his eyes--her eyes--and quietly told him, “I’m very proud of you Danzo…” She turned around and looked at her guests and exacted a promise from them with her gaze. “And I assure you that each of us here will help you succeed.”

“Damn right. I won’t let the butthead Downer sabotage you Joe,” Hugh said robustly, standing up from his seat. He looked to his right at his friend and colleague. “Enid?”

“I’ll handle Fink. If he tries to mess with Joe, I smear him with so much shit a fly wouldn’t land on him,” Enid said with a wink and a nod as she stood up and joined Hugh.

“And I’ll soften the field with some well-placed editorials!” Irene offered. Max saw the twinkle in his best girl’s eyes, the same spark that was there in Panama when she wrote those strident essays that landed him in hot water with DeWitt and McGraw. It warmed his heart to see that light in her eyes again.

“I think Max and I still have some ‘juice’ left, don’t we, Max?” Ed asked, laying an arm on his old friend’s shoulders.

“Damn right we do…and speaking of ‘juice’…” Max reached for the “Uisce Beatha” decanter and poured spirits once again in in everyone’s glasses.

“Wait a minute, wait one minute!” Joe said, interrupting the festivities. “It’s August. The House and Senate are in recess. You two shouldn’t be here,” Joe said as he eyed Hugh and Enid who both immediately bore sheepish expressions as they looked over to Max and Ed. Joe caught the exchange of glances. “Oh, I get it now…You’ve known all along about this job.” He directed his gaze toward Hugh, Enid, Ed and Max. “I’ve been set up,” he said good-naturedly.

“Would I do that to you, Joe?” Ed asked facetiously.

“Yes!” Joe replied lightheartedly.

“Well, what are friends for anyway!” Ed countered, flashing a broad, satisfied smile.

“May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty!” Max said as he raised his glass in a toast.

“Slainte mhaith!” replied Hugh, which was seconded by the others saying “Slainte mhor!” as they clanked their snifters together in solidarity.

Yessiree, it had been an interesting day…and wait ‘til Max and Irene hear the rest, Joe thought.

After everyone pitched in to help with the dishes and general KP duties after dinner, Max, Irene and Joe bid adieu to their guests.

Joe was finally alone with his parents. The moment of truth could not be put off any longer.

Sitting in the family room on the love seat, Max sipped a glass of iced tea as Irene descended the stairs from the second floor waving several photos in her hand as she entered and took her seat next to her husband.

“Joe, I thought you’d want to see the latest pictures of Ben,” Irene said, smiling warmly as she handed them to her son.

“Here you go Irene, iced tea just the way you like it…no ice, no sugar, just lemon,” Max said. “I never could understand why you ask for iced tea without ice.”

“Same reason I drink Scotch neat. Ice cubes take up too much room in the glass,” Irene quipped.

Joe looked over the photos of a smiling Betty proudly holding the hand of 16-month old Ben as they tossed bread cubes into the water at Sky Fire Lake. Benedict Maxwell Gallagher was hale and healthy, a beautiful child and he looked just like his father. Joe felt a surge of uneasiness wash over him. He’d rather be on a bomb run to Berlin than tell his parents what he had to tell them now.

“Maybe the new baby will be a girl. Wouldn’t that be nice, Max, having a granddaughter?” Irene said as she accepted the glass of iced tea that Max had prepared for her.

“You already have a granddaughter,” Joe said in a low serious voice.

“Oh Joe, I didn’t mean to slight Brynn at all. That was a thoughtless remark I made. I’m sorry,” Irene said apologetically.

Joe took a deep breath and calmly announced, “Your granddaughter’s named Anson. She was born on my birthday in 1944 in Poland. Her mother is Ilka Zradna. I’m her father.”

Irene’s face morphed from happy to shocked and the ice tea glass slipped from her hand and went crashing on to the wood plank floor. Max, equally startled, was speechless.

“Mom, Dad, we need to talk,” Joe said somberly.

“Talk. We’ll listen,” Max said, finally finding his voice. Irene totally forgot about the tea on the floor.

“Where to start…” Joe said, scanning the topics he wanted to cover with his parents. “Ilka was a Polish resistance leader. We met at Archbury. We hit it off. We had sex. She left. It’s that simple, Dad.”

“Yes, that’s pretty obvious,” Max opined bluntly.

“I really liked her Dad,” Joe countered back. “…And if she’d stayed in England instead of parachuting back into Poland, I might have married her.”

“How’d you find out about the so-called child of yours?” Max asked. Irene sat quietly, eyes wide, still stunned from Joe’s revelation.

“Pres told me. He met her in Albania during that rescue mission,” Joe said.

“What in the hell was a Polish resistance leader doing in Albania?” Max asked.

“It’s a long story, Dad, but the gist of it is Ilka feared for Anson’s life and she gave her over to friends who would take her out of the country. After the war, Ilka started looking for Anson and that trail took her to Albania.”

“Did you meet this little girl?” Irene asked, finally overcoming her shock.

“No, Ilka hasn’t found her yet.”

“Well then how do you even know that this child is yours?” Max asked pointedly.

“Dad’s right, Joe, what proof do you have that this little girl even exists?” Irene asked.

“Ilka gave this to Preston to give to me.” From his pants pocket, Joe retrieved a gold locket, opened it and handed to his mother.

Irene took the item, scrutinized the contents, gently touching them and passed the locket to Max who looked at them with the same concern and curiosity that Irene did.

It was so silent in the room Joe could hear the ticking of the antique clock on the mantel.

Max looked at Irene and then looked at Joe. “She looks exactly like you at that age, Danzo,” Max offered.

“…except for the hair…it’s the color of Jeff’s. You had red hair too as baby, Danzo, but a tad darker,” Irene said, recalling what her second born looked like years ago before his hair assumed a chestnut color.

“Yeah, Jeff’s hair and my face and hands,” Joe said as Max handed him back the neckpiece.

“So you don’t know anything about this little girl, where she is or even if she’s still alive, do you Danzo?” Max asked.

“That’s right,” Joe acknowledged flatly.

“Are you going to tell Rigel?” Irene asked.

“I don’t know…”

“You’ve got to tell her, son,” Max advised. “If this child is alive, you are responsible for her and that impacts Rigel, too. She could have a stepdaughter.”

“But he doesn’t know if she is alive, Max. Why open a can of worms for a maybe?” Irene said. Joe was surprised to hear this from his mother. Irene continued, softly. “Joe we know that the miscarriage has really put a little wrinkle into your marriage.”

“Wrinkle? Huh! More like the Grand Canyon, Mom.” Joe swallowed hard, pushing down that metallic salty taste that he’d get whenever he saw the first flak blooms appeared in the sky. “Rigel wants a divorce,” Joe revealed painfully.

“Holy shit,” Max muttered in disbelief.

“Why, Joe, Why? What happened?” Irene wanted to know.

“It all started to go bad after Rigel lost the baby. We kept on trying for another pregnancy but nothing. I suggested adoption and Rigel shot that down in flames.”

“But why? An adopted child needs loving parents, too,” Irene offered.

“She told me that if she couldn’t have one from her own belly she didn’t want one,” Joe replied.

“Did you two talk about children before you got married?” Max asked.

“No, not really. But we did talk about babies at St. Laurent. If fact she gave me an order…three little words…” Joe said with a slight smile remembering that night.

“I…love…you?” Irene asked.

“No. ‘Get me pregnant,’ and we thought she was but found out in November she wasn’t. But when she told me in February that she really was pregnant, she was ecstatic about it. I think she feels somehow flawed because she lost a baby and can’t have another one…yet.”

“’Yet’ is right. You don’t know if that’s certain and you don’t know if the problem is hers or yours,” Irene said.

“Anson proves Joe’s not the problem, Irene,” Max replied.

“I can understand how Rigel feels, Joe. I lost twins after Jeff,” Irene said as she reached for Max’s hand. He took it and then gave Irene a kiss on the cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell me—us--about that?” Joe asked, somewhat irritated.

“You were all little when I miscarried and you didn’t need to know,” Irene replied. “I remember how I felt afterward. I kept blaming myself, thinking I must have done something wrong, or that I was being punished for something.”

“Mom, Rigel’s miscarriage just happened. It was nobody’s fault,” Joe said.

“We know that Joe but you’re discounting Rigel’s feelings about the whole thing,” Max said.

“No I’m not. I cried too. Brynn was my child too. But I’ve been able to move on. Rigel hasn’t and it’s destroying our marriage.”

“And what do you think will happen if you tell Rigel about Anson?” Irene asked.

“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Joe said, shaking his head and nervously twisting his Claddagh ring.

Max leaned forward and looked Joe in the eyes. “Danzo, are having an affair with Juliette Lovelady?” Irene’s jaw dropped when she heard her husband’s question.

“What?” Joe asked, shocked.

“You heard me. Are you sleeping with your aide?” Max was blunt.

“Why do you even ask that, Dad?”

“Because there’s been talk about you two, that’s why,” Max said. “You spend a lot of time with her.”

“She’s my aide, Dad. I spent a lot of time with Komansky, too.”

“Joe don’t be flippant,” Irene said.

“No, I’m not screwing Juliette.” Joe’s answer was just as blunt as Max’s question. “But…something did happen the day that Rigel left for flight school.”

“What was that?” asked Max.

“Juliette brought over some papers that Phil Doud wanted me to see. Rigel and I had a terrible fight just before she left the flat. She called me from Northolt…I was in the bathroom…and Juliette answered the phone. Rigel didn’t take that well at all.”

“Hmm…that does complicate this,” Irene said. “But, Joe, you’ve got to tell Rigel the truth, unless you really want to go through with a divorce. Do you?”

“I don’t know. I do know that I can’t continue the way it’s been between us lately. And Anson really messes things up. It’s not every day a wife finds out that her husband has a kid with some other woman.”

“Rigel’s still in San Antonio, right?” asked Max.

“Yeah, teaching at the School of Aviation Medicine.”

“Then get your happy ass down to Randolph and talk to your wife, straighten things out, tell her you’re not boffing your aide for starters. And then you’ve got to tell her about Anson. You can’t keep the existence of a possible daughter from her.” Max’s comments made sense.

Joe nodded silently. “Yeah, you’re right. But our marriage is probably over anyway,” he said glumly.

“Maybe not. Joe, do you still love Rigel?” Irene asked.

“Yeah, and I still like her, too.”

“Then don’t give up,” Irene urged.

Joe stood up from the rocking chair, arched his back, stretched, and rubbed his sore neck. “I wish Rigel were here to give me one of her great massages.”

“Go to San Antonio and get one,” Irene instructed.

Joe bent over and gave Irene then Max a hug. “Thanks for listening. I love you.”

“We love you, too, Danzo,” Max said. “Now go to bed and get some sleep.”

Joe nodded in silent agreement and headed toward the stairs and his bedroom.

Yessirree, it had been an interesting day….He’d be lucky if it went this well with Rigel…

Turbulence: Early September, Randolph Field, San Antonio

EARLY September in Texas was its usual hot and steamy self, adding a very realistic challenge to the trainees out on bivouac and survival training. Breaking with the former way of doing things since he took over command of the school of aviation medicine, Magnus went out in the hills with the students rather than solely turfing that duty to the field instructors. Rigel, as the senior and most experienced flight nurse in the school, went too. At the end of four days in the sticks, everyone was glad to be headed back to base where hot showers, clean sheets and good food awaited them.

Much to Rigel’s surprise, Magnus was adept at handling the large two-and-one-half ton Army truck that bumped and chugged along the back woods lanes and the concrete highways. Known as a “deuce and a half,” the troops rode in the large rear flatbed while Magnus and Rigel sat in the cab. The drive back to Randolph gave them time to review the students’ performance during the course. The trickier topic of their relationship remained unspoken…so far.

Magnus drove the GI vehicle up to the main gate of the venerable base, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the Army Air Force. The sergeant on duty waved him through then rendered a snappy salute which Magnus returned with a ready smile. Magnus caught the stare of the sergeant as he realized the soldiers seated in the back of the truck were a group of young women although their appearance was camouflaged under olive drab steel helmets, dirty faces and dusty fatigues.

Rigel subconsciously rubbed the old wound on her right thigh and looked out the open window to her right as they motored down the street. The breeze through the window was a welcomed but small relief from the heat and humidity.

Magnus noticed. “Leg hurtin’ again, eh?”

No answer.

Rigel was lost in thought about her days at Randolph back in 1942…the grand experiment of air evacuation, Byrne Chamberlain, Flight Officer “Dickhead,” the shit she had to go through here and then again at Bowman.

“Hey, O!” Magnus barked, finally getting Rigel’s attention.

“The leg…” Magnus asked again, his eyes momentarily darted away from the road and toward Rigel to his right.

“What about it?” Rigel replied, still automatically touching her scarred and aching leg.

“I noticed you were limpin’ and you’re rubbin’ it now.”

She immediately stopped once Magnus called attention to the action. “I’m fine,” Rigel answered flatly.

“Yeah, right. I’ll give you a massage later, it’ll help.” He paused a moment, wondering if this was the right moment to bring up another touchy subject. “Have ya given that other assignment any more consideration? It’s not every day that a ‘by name request’ crosses my desk from Sister Gonorrhea Periwinkle. Is that really her name?”

“Chief Matron Ganymede Bullwinkel. Yes, it’s really her name. She’s a very competent officer and nurse and a very nice lady.”

“How’d ya know her anyway?”

“I had a special duty assignment with the Princess Mary Royal Air Force Nursing Service and she was the chief nurse.”

“Well, ya must have impressed the hell outta her for her to single ya out for this job.”

“Maybe. She’s also the sister-in-law of General Eoghain St. John-Keighley.”

“Who’s he?”

“A good friend of Joe’s and Max’s.”

“Is that a good thing or not?”

“I want to be chosen for what I know, not who I know, Nus. Understand?”

“Yep, sure do. But I’m not stupid either. If who ya know can open doors, then wow ‘em with what ya know after ya get in, kiddo.”

Secretly, Magnus hoped that she had made up her mind, and had decided against this assignment. His motives were a mix of professional and personal and his gut instinct told him that the more he pushed Rigel, the more she’d rebel. The decision had to be hers alone.

Rigel nodded silently and a slight smile crossed her face. In the months that she’d been back at Randolph, she and Magnus had grown quite close, too close perhaps, given Rigel’s unclear and tenuous marital status. Magnus made no demands on her either emotionally or physically and that made Rigel like him even more. As the housing accommodations in the adjacent towns were quite limited, she and the other flight nurse instructors, all of whom were young and single women, were living in the so-called BOQ--bachelor officers’ quarters. For transportation, Rigel could walk to where ever she needed to be on base or ride her bike, just like she’d done on the sprawling 918th. Getting around off base proved to be another matter, though, which Rigel rectified by purchasing a much-used Jeep from another instructor who had been ordered overseas. When she needed more privacy than the three rooms of her GI residence afforded, she sought refuge at Magnus’s cozy cottage. He’d given her keys to the place and the only compensation he exacted from her for using his home was that she would take care of his canine and feline roommates, Whisky and Rum. Rigel did more than that and actually helped Magnus put in rose bushes, Mexican petunias, and lantana around the front of the cottage. In the expansive back yard they also established a butterfly garden which attracted many brightly colored species. All in all, it was a scene of domestic bliss for Magnus and Rigel, one which they understood, consented to and enjoyed, much to the constrained curiosity of their colleagues. The explanation that they were old buddies from Omaha Beach and the Ardennes only went so far but neither Rigel nor Magnus gave a shit about what anybody else thought about their relationship.

“So whaddya think about the class?” Magnus asked as he turned the truck down the street toward their intended point of debarkation, a large hangar that contained mockups of a C-47 and a C-54 fuselage.

“Lieutenant Morley had problems with starting IVs. Lieutenant Duncan got airsick. Lieutenant Schuler got squeamish gutting the rabbit to eat, Lieutenant Betts thinks she knows more than she does and…”

“Do they pass or not, O?”

“Would you go to war with ‘em, ‘Nus?”

“We’re lookin’ for competence, not excellence,” Magnus instructed. “Not everybody’s as ballsy as you are.” He accented the “you.”

“They need to be, or their patients are gonna die.”

“They’re young and inexperienced. Give ‘em some time,” Magnus said.

“And that’s something we--no, you--need to work on,” Rigel said.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Why?”

“You’re in charge of the school, that’s why.”

“So what am I supposed ta work on?”

“The experience factor.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Too many experienced flight nurses left the service. Haven’t you noticed that the classes are mostly young, green second lieutenants? We need more first lieutenants and captains in the course. Next war, we’re gonna get caught with our pants down. There are only a few of us flight nurses who’ve had actual wartime experience.”

“The next war? C’mon, we just got over the last one.”

“It’s brewing, Nus. Can’t you feel it?”

Magnus nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I feel it too. And you’re right about the experience factor. Too many nurses either got discharged, left to get married or got booted out due to pregnancy,” Magnus said perfunctorily.

“The Army tried to boot me out even after my miscarriage.” Her words were bitter.

“Well, I’m glad the stuffed shirts in Tip Toe Alley at the Pentagon decided ya could stay,” Magnus said as he reached over to Rigel with his right hand and patted her left shoulder.

“So…do they all pass or not?”

“Yeah, they all do.”

“Good. Then there won’t be any sad sacks at the party at my house tonight.”

“I heard some scuttlebutt that the big wigs on base frown on that practice…you and the instructors partying with the students.”

“Screw the fogies in the Ivory Towers. The course is over. Tomorrow they get their wings so I don’t see a problem.”

Magnus pulled up in front of the hangar, parked the truck, opened the door, slid out from behind the steering wheel and made his way to the back of the truck. Rigel joined him there.

“Okay, everybody, hop out. Debriefing in the hangar,” Magnus instructed to audible groans from the students.

“The sooner we do this, the sooner you’ll get to the showers,” Rigel tacked on.

The back of the vehicle erupted in cheers and loud exclamations of pleasure, relief and exuberance from tired, sweaty, hungry and dirty soon to be graduate flight nurses. They had endured intense classroom lectures, practice flights, the altitude chamber, chemical warfare training, water ditching, parachute drills, and days out in the wilderness. The rough ride from out in the boonies back to base was the last obstacle between them and the coveted wings.

The cavernous hangar was a large rectangular building with huge horizontally sliding doors on the two long sides of the structure. Both doors being open produced a natural draft through the edifice and welcomed relief from hot and humid Texas summer. The hangar was a classroom of sorts and about two dozen wooden folding chairs were set up next to C-47 and C-54 wingless training mock ups. There were a couple of water fountains along one of the walls but the “piece de resistance” of the place was the toilet, which after the last few days of roughing it in the wilderness, was now an appreciated luxury.

In short order, having sufficiently taken care of necessary bodily functions, the students took their seats in the center of the hangar. They were facing toward the open door while Magnus and Rigel sat facing their students.

Magnus spoke first. “All of ya did real well on bivouac. Nobody got hurt and none of ya got lost…” Magnus then triumphantly announced “...and all of ya are gonna graduate tomorrow!” The students broke out in cheers which echoed off the hangar’s metal walls. Rigel smiled and nodded in agreement with Magnus’s pronouncement.

“All right, all right, now settle down,” Magnus said jauntily, signaling with his hands for the nurses to do as he instructed. “For the last two months, Major O’Ryan and the other instructors and I have put ya through the wringer. It’s been a demanding course mentally and physically. We pushed ya, prodded ya, grilled ya on details and techniques and thrown a million questions at ya. Now’s your turn to ask us…anything.”

“How’d you two end up he-ah?” asked Lieutenant McNamara; her accent said she was from New England.

With a chuckle, Magnus replied, “It was either here or Alaska. No barbeque in Alaska so I chose Randolph.”

“How about you, Major?” inquired Lieutenant Davis.

“I had to take the flight nurse course…again,” Rigel said wryly.

“Huh?” replied the questioner.

“I was here back in 1942 when the Army first tinkered with the idea of having nurses in planes. A few of us were guinea pigs to see if women were airworthy...” Rigel broke off her answer momentarily as her thoughts drifted back to Flight Officer Richard Yarborough Headley the Third, ole Dickhead, and to Byrne Chamberlain, Joe’s friend and roommate from Langley. Both lay buried in the American cemetery in Cambridge. She resumed her answer. “But, we proved that nurses could do the job, so the Army sent us to Bowman Field for the first flight nurse course. We were needed in the Pacific and North Africa so badly that we were sent off to war without completing the course. I had to come back and finish it.”

“But you have all of that real world experience! What idiots thought that one up?” Lt. Rossi blurted out.

“All of that real world experience is why I asked Major O’Ryan to stay on and teach,” Magnus explained.

“What’s the dumbest thing ever done on survival training?” Lieutenant Boisvert inquired.

“Oh, that’s an easy one!” Magnus said with a guffaw. “One of the flight surgeons went out in the woods to answer nature’s call one night…grabbed a handful of leaves and wiped his butt with ‘em. Turned out those leaves were poison ivy. Talk about a pain in the ass! He ended up in the infirmary for weeks.”

“So…with all of that experience, Major, what’s the weirdest thing you ate?” Lieutenant Sampson asked her instructor.

“Armadillo,” Rigel said then added, “…it really did taste like chicken.” She turned toward Magnus. “And what was it for you, Colonel Johansen?”

“Slugs…they taste better if you cook ‘em, kinda like cashews,” Magnus said. A collective “Bleh!” sound issued from the class.

“And what if…you can’t cook ‘em?” Lt. Schuler, who tossed her cookies skinning a rabbit, posited the question. The thought of eating an insect seemed to have the same effect on her.

“Eat ‘em anyway! They’re packed with protein. Don’t think about ‘em, just swallow fast!” Magnus replied nonchalantly to the bemusement of the students who, like Schuler, were contemplating what it would be like to choke down the slimy things.

“Have either of you been in a crash?” asked Ensign Pulasky, one of the two Navy nurses in the class. The Navy’s flight nurses came late to World War Two and flew in the PTO.

“Oh, yeah…” Magnus said, nodding his head.

“Like what, Colonel?” queried Ensign Lowry, the other Navy nurse.

“A crash on take-off in a Skytrain loaded with jerry cans of gas,” Magnus said, the memory of that causing him to furrow his brow and become silent for a few seconds. He morphed the frown into a more upbeat expression. “I had to change my underwear after that little escapade, lemme tell ya.” Magnus’s honesty drew titters from the crowd.

The class’s eyes swiveled to Rigel, awaiting her answer. “The Ardennes during the Bulge and then the Cairngorms, but that was after the war.”

Lieutenant Jackson spoke up next. “Yeah, that’s right! I read about Major O’Ryan’s crash in Scotland. It was in all of the newspapers.”

Rigel acknowledged the comment with a silent nod and wondered why Josh McGraw wasn’t court martialed for leaking the story to that smarmy reporter, Gerritsen.

“And she got a DFC for that, too,” Magnus pronounced, his admiration for Rigel obvious.

A round of spontaneous applause broke out. Rigel waved her hand gesturing for the well-meaning cheers to subside.

“I read about you, too. Weren’t you scared to cut off that guy’s foot?” This question came from Lieutenant Aldorf, one of the more reserved members of the class.

“Scared? Sure I was,” Rigel admitted without a hint of embarrassment.

“You? Scared?” chimed in Lieutenant Lawson. “Neither of you seem scared of anything,” she said, looking first at Magnus and then at Rigel.

Magnus leaned forward in his chair and looked at the young and eager faces in front of him. “Remember this my friends: Anyone who tells you they’re not scared is either a liar or a fool.”

“And what would you have done, Lieutenant Lawson?” Rigel reflected the question back to the questioner.

“I…I…don’t know…” the young woman replied sheepishly then looked down at her boots. Her response reminded Rigel of Sandy.

“An honest answer. I like that,” Rigel opined.

“But we’re nurses, we’re not supposed to operate,” argued Lieutenant Betts, one of the more cocky kids in the class.

“We train you to think and problem solve ‘cause there’ll be times when you’re it,” Magnus said.

Rigel walked over to the student who asked the question and looked down at the fresh, eager face.

“What are you afraid of, Lieutenant?” Rigel asked pointedly.

“Being wrong, Major,” Betts replied.

“And…” Rigel looked at the class and urged the other fledglings to share their fears.

“Having to choose who lives and who dies,” Lieutenant Duncan, who finally overcame airsickness, replied.

“Not being good enough,” said Ensign Pulasky.

Lieutenant Hyde, one of the more quiet students, spoke up. “What are we supposed to do? Take a chance, risk doing something, or do nothing and let someone die for sure?” She searched her classmates’ faces for answers but her concerned gaze rounded back to the war tested woman standing next to her. “Have you made that choice, Major?”

From behind Rigel, came a reply in a familiar and unexpected voice. “Yes, she has…and I’ve seen her do it.”

One of the students perceptively called out, “Ten hut!” They all launched up out of their chairs and stood at attention.

The voice belonged to Joe. There were few sights on the planet more resplendent than that of Joseph Anson Gallagher in his dress uniform looking handsome, fit, confident, and virile. He was still drop dead gorgeous--and he still knew it-- but this time he only wanted to turn one woman’s head, Rigel’s.

“At ease everyone, take your seats,” Joe said genially as he walked toward the clutch of students. He could see their tenseness in the presence of a general officer. They reminded him of Lieutenant Jamie Urban who damn near swallowing his gum when Joe appeared on the flight deck of the C-47 Dash and Jamie were piloting. That little adventure seemed a lot longer ago than just two years.

Magnus, as the senior office, addressed the brigadier. “General Gallagher, what a surprise! To what do we owe the honor, sir?”

Joe strode over to Magnus and extended his hand in a genuine warm greeting. Magnus took Joe’s hand firmly in both of his and gave it a few hearty pumps. It was obvious that the men held each other in high regard; the sticky situation of Rigel’s position in both of their lives was another matter.

Joe had a lot of respect for Magnus, both as a flight surgeon and as a human being. Rigel had told Joe about her time with Magnus at Omaha Beach, his skill, calm, and compassion and how he tirelessly fought to save the lives of the wounded.

And Magnus Johansen didn’t take any guff from anyone, no matter if they had stars on their shoulders or not. He always said what he thought and there was no pretense to the man. That was evident in the way he took on Joe and Rigel in the chapel at St. Laurent Sur Mer and then during the congressional “inquisition” by Senator Downer and Congressman Fink who had their hatchets out for Joe and Rigel.

To Magnus’s question, Joe replied in typical charming Gallagher style. “I heard that this was the where the best of the best were and I had to come see for myself.” He then turned his gaze toward his wife who remained where she stood when the group was called to attention. Joe stayed in his spot, too, but kept his eyes trained on Rigel. “I wonder if I could steal Major O’Ryan for a while.” Magnus looked back over his shoulder at Rigel and noticed the expression on her face--a blend of surprise, delight, pain and worry.

“Of course, General, and you’re invited to the get-together at my place tonight if ya can make it.” Magnus’s offer was quite sincere and set off some amused glances and audible titters among the class.

“Thank you, Colonel Johansen,” Joe replied graciously as he watched for a reaction on his wife’s face. There was none.

Rigel silently complied and made her feet move, although they seemed very far away from her head at the moment. She pasted one of her practiced smiles on her face as she walked over to Joe’s side.

“Major…” Joe said courteously as he gestured with his right arm to the unassuming staff car in front of the hangar’s open bay doors. There was no driver or one-star flag signaling that a brigadier was in the sedan.

“What are you doing here?” Rigel asked quickly and surreptitiously as they exited the hangar and walked toward the vehicle.

“I’ll tell you when we get to your place. The BOQ, right?” Joe said as he opened the front passenger door for his wife. Rigel nodded. Joe remembered the way there from his days as an instructor pilot at Randolph.

Non-verbal tension crackled between husband and wife on the one-minute drive to Rigel’s place.

Joe pulled the staff car to the curb in front of the white stucco and red tile residence, parked it and Rigel didn’t wait for him to open the door for her. She walked up to her apartment which was on the street level of the two story building. Sprinting, Joe caught up with Rigel at her entry.

Having placed her key on her dog tags, Rigel slipped the metal chain up over her head and unlocked the door to her small quarters. Joe noticed that the Claddagh wasn’t on his wife’s ring finger or her dog tags either. These omissions made his stomach turn over sickeningly. Maybe she really meant what she’d written in that one and only letter he’d received from her. After what he had to tell Rigel, Joe wondered if that ring would ever be back where it belonged. He nervously twisted his own Claddagh as Rigel switched on the three bladed fan standing on the half wall between the living area and the efficiency kitchen.

“Open up the window will you, Joe? Let some fresh air in here.”

Joe obligingly did so and pondered if Rigel’s words were a metaphor for their marriage. He then crossed over the small living room to the kitchen where Rigel was standing in front of the open refrigerator, looking inside for…something. He pushed the door closed with his right arm and turned to face his wife.

“Rigel, why didn’t you answer any of my letters?”

“Why didn’t you answer any of mine?”

“I did. I wrote you three but never got any back from you,” Joe said.

“I never got any from you, Joe. Not one. I sent you two and never heard back. I took that to mean that we were through,” Rigel said deliberately.

“The only letter I got from you was the one about getting divorced,” Joe said with a pang of pain in his voice.

Rigel scrunched up her face and exhaled. “Yeah, the asshole letter. I was mad and hurt when I wrote that. I stupidly put it in the mailbox…and I tried to get it back from the Post Office but I couldn’t.”

“So you don’t want a divorce?”

“Nope. And I put that in the next letter, the one that you apparently never got. Magnus was going to the post office and he offered to take it for me.”

“Magnus…?” Joe tone of voice was more revealing than what he spoke. “Come to think of it, I gave Juliette the letters to mail….”

“Lovelady…?” Rigel countered with the same inflection as Joe’s mention of Magnus.

“Are you implying that Juliette ditched the letters to you?” Joe said.

“Are you implying that Magnus did the same thing?” Rigel zinged back.

“Geez, we both sound damned paranoid, don’t we,” Joe muttered in self-recrimination.

Rigel nodded in reluctant agreement. She had to admit that her suspicions of Lieutenant Lovelady’s presence in the Goodge Street flat was the spark that ignited the current tension and impasse between her and Joe. Years later the mysteries surrounding the missing letters would be solved but the damage had already been done.

The black kitchen wall phone rang and Rigel answered it matter-of-factly. “Major O’Ryan…Yeah…Uh-huh…I see…okay…thank you, sergeant.”

“What was that all about?” Joe asked as he unbuttoned his jacket and draped it across one of the two kitchen chairs.

“The sergeant said that there was a telegram waiting for me in the billeting office along with messages that some guy named Danzo had been calling for the last four days.”

Joe flashed a grin and gloated a bit. “Toldya!”

“So you really were trying to call to me,” Rigel replied, relief evident in her voice. Maybe Joe still cared.

“Yep,” Joe said.

Rigel reopened the refrigerator door, peered inside and extracted two cold bottles, one beer, one Coke. She asked Joe, “Which one do you want?”

“I want you,” Joe said. He took the drinks from Rigel’s hands, set them on the kitchen table then gently enveloped Rigel in his arms, and softly kissed her on the lips. She didn’t resist.

“I’ve missed you Stars,” Joe whispered in her ear and then drew his wife more tightly to him.

“Just what are you doing here, Joe?” Rigel said, unwrapping herself from Joe’s embrace.

“I came to see you…and then I was ordered to meet with the training command staff and General Pritchard…”

“What’s Pritchard doing here?”

“Having a confab with ATC generals about integrating the Army Air Force. I got put in charge of a test project in England and I had to brief them about it.”

“Sounds pretty impressive, Danzo…and that you have a tiger by tail.”

“A very big tiger that’s making a lot of people very edgy. Pritchard and I are flying out to Washington to meet with Spaatz.”

“When?” Rigel asked.

“Not for a little while…but soon enough,” Joe said looking at his GI watch on left wrist.

“What do I have to do with any of that?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I wasn’t here to get any of those calls or messages or telegrams…obviously,” Rigel said referring to her sweaty fatigues, mud encrusted combat boots and dirty hair.

“You need a shower, O’Ryan. I can help you with that,” Joe said, tenderly tracing Rigel’s cheek with his index finger, then let his hand flow down her neck to the buttons on her shirt. Rigel took Joe’s hands in hers and halted their advances.

“You’re wearing your ring. Why?” she asked.

“Because I’m your husband and I love you. Where’s yours?”

“In the night stand drawer….in the bedroom.” She nodded with her head to the adjoining room and walked in. Joe followed her. He noticed the framed picture of them at the “hardstand hitching” resting on the bedside table next to the alarm clock and under the lamp. “She still loves me” he thought to himself and felt passion stirring within him; the passion eclipsed the more difficult duty that he still had to perform.

Joe looked on, enamored, as Rigel sat down on the edge of the bed, unbuttoned her uniform shirt and tossed it on the floor. She then unlaced her heavy boots and kicked them off along with the thick woolen socks. Lithely, Rigel stood up, unbuckled her belt, dropped the fatigues and stepped out of them. Next, she took off her GI t-shirt, undid her bra and slid her panties down her shapely legs, the right thigh still bearing the scars of war. Rigel opened the night stand drawer, picked up her Claddagh and held it between her right thumb and index finger. Naked, she approached her husband with the grace of a lioness, held the ring up and asked him, “What should I do with this?”

Joe smiled sensuously. “I can help you with that, too.” He took the ring from Rigel and once again placed it on her left hand ring finger then planted a kiss in her palm, just as he had done before she left him to return to Omaha Beach. Perhaps it portended the clash that was to come.

“Now what about the shower?” Rigel purred as she started to unbutton Joe’s shirt and loosen his tie.

Joe ventured a furtive glance over his wife’s shoulder at the Big Ben alarm clock on the night stand. Time was one thing he did not have much of but he wasn’t going to blow this moment, Army punctuality be damned for a change.

“I like the way you think, O’Ryan,” Joe lustily replied. He divested himself of his uniform then scooped Rigel up in his arms and ferried her to the small bathroom with its tub and shower.

The warm water cascaded down over both of them, washing away months of hurt and anger, perhaps only temporarily. Their lovemaking again was passionate and real, like it had been when they first met.

They cuddled in bed, blissfully relaxed, sated, and happy…for the moment. Joe eyed the clock--he hadn’t much time left --and couldn’t put off the news any longer.

Rigel lay on her right side with her head resting in the wonderful niche between Joe’s neck and shoulder and entwined the fingers of her left hand with those of Joe’s right. She kissed him softly on his left cheek. “Happy?” she asked.

“Very. You?” Joe asked.

“Yep.”

“Stars, I have to leave soon…”

“Tell Pritchard that you quit, you’re gonna make babies with me instead,” she teased, recalling a former similar conversation they’d had years ago about both of them leaving the Army Air Force.

Babies… “Tell her now,” Joe said to himself.

“Today we got a lot of things straightened out Stars, didn’t we?” Joe said, laying the predicate for what he was about to tell Rigel.

“Mm-hmm…” Rigel purred in agreement.

“And you believe that I love you and I really meant forever and a day?”

“Yep, forever and a day,” Rigel echoed and once again kissing Joe on his cheek.

“Nothing’s gonna change how I feel about you Rigel…” Joe offered.

Rigel raised herself up on her elbow and looked down at her husband. “Why do I feel there is a ‘but’ coming?”

“Because there kinda is.”

“Like what?”

“This is hard for me to say, especially now…”

“What?” Rigel repeated, only more sharply this time.

“It’s about Ilka.”

“The one that dropped you for Poland in 1943, right?” Rigel harkened back to an amusing conversation she and Joe had had about his former romantic interests, which included the Polish resistance leader, Ilka Zradna.

“1943. Remember that.”

“Why?” Rigel asked.

“Because I knew her a year before I even met you.”

“Where’s this going, Joe?”

“She gave birth to a baby girl in 1944…named her Anson…”

“No, oh, please no…!” Rigel blurted out, her face twisted up with understanding what Joe was breaking to her.

“…and I’m her father.”

Rigel buried her face in her hands and broke over into sobs.

“Rigel…” Joe said softly as reached out to touch his wife. She recoiled and blurted out, “Don’t touch me!” She bolted up and out of the bed.

“Rigel, please…” Joe pleaded, reaching out to her with his hand.

Rigel paced back and forth next to the bed, more like a restless caged lioness, no longer a graceful one. “Please what? You come here, butter me up, make love to me….and then tell me that you’ve got a kid with another woman! What a goddam bait and switch you fucking bastard!” She grabbed the alarm clock and zinged it at Joe. He dodged it.

“I know that’s a lot to throw at you. I’m sorry,” Joe said. And he really was. He saw the hurt etched in Rigel’s face and it turned his stomach.

Rigel, still pacing nervously, wiped her tears with her hands. “Get a grip, O’Ryan,” she brusquely instructed herself out loud. She had flipped the switch into “Major O’Ryan mode” which is the way she dealt with crises…she shoved her feelings down deep and made her intellect take control.

“Where were you in 1943?” Joe asked Rigel, trying offset emotion with logic.

“1943…I was in North Africa…”

“With Gator…”

“What’s Gator got to do with this?”

“Because it’s the flip side of coin. You met Gator. You were attracted to Gator, you were intimate with him…a long time before you met me.”

“I didn’t have sex with Gator and certainly didn’t have a child with him!” Rigel protested.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not quite the same,” Joe admitted. He pushed himself up in bed and rested his back against the wall and released a sigh of remorse and exasperation. He’d fucked up…and he knew it.

Rigel, having somewhat regained her composure, sat down on the bed next to Joe. He and Rigel were eye to eye now.

“Did you…do you…love her…Ilka, I mean,” Rigel asked calmly.

“I liked her quite a bit…” Joe admitted after choosing his words carefully.

“And…”

“…and maybe it could have become more if she’d stayed in England. But she didn’t.” Joe’s honest words were like salt in the open wounds of Rigel’s emotions.

“And this little girl, Anson, are you for sure her father?”

“No, not for certain, but details line up.” He was tempted to tell Rigel about the locket with ringlet of red hair but decided against it. Things were bad enough as they were.

“How’d you find out about all of this anyway?”

“Preston. He met Ilka and she told him.”

“On that Albanian mission that’s been in the news?” Rigel asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Rigel leaned back against the wall, deflated. “All this does is to remind me that I failed at motherhood,” Rigel said glumly as she stared down at her ring. She lifted her gaze up to Joe’s face. “Do you still want children, Joe?”

“Yes, and I want them with you.” Joe leaned closer to Rigel and took her hands in his. “Come back to England and let’s keep trying. What happened with Ilka doesn’t change how I feel about you and it never will.”

“You have a child with her, Joe, and that changes everything.”

“How? I met her a year before we even met.”

“I know that--here,” Rigel said, pointing to her head. “…But it still hurts--here.” Her right hand touched her chest over to her heart.

“Ilka’s no threat to you, Rigel.”

“She gave you a living child, Joe, and yes, that does make her a threat.”

“You’re my wife, I love you. I want you, whether or not we have a child of our own. And besides, Ilka doesn’t know where Anson is. She gave her up when she was a baby for safety reason. She doesn’t know if Anson survived the war or not.”

“Oh, hell…to have a baby and then to not know if she’s alive or dead…I can understand how Ilka must feel…and how you must feel too, another child lost.” After miscarrying their baby, Rigel had genuine empathy for a parent losing a child. Rigel’s capacity for compassion was one of the traits that Joe loved most about her.

“So, where do we go from here, Rigel, you and me?” Joe asked softly.

“Where do you want to go, Joe?” Rigel locked on to her husband’s gray-hazel eyes, and yes, they were moist.

“I want you in my life as my wife. What do you want?” Joe said as he sniffed and quickly dabbed a tear.

“I...I…don’t know…” Rigel shook her head. “All of this makes me feel really shitty. I’m angry at myself for being angry at you because you—maybe--made a baby with a woman that you met a year before you met me…and it just makes me feel even worse about not giving you a child.”

Joe looked at the clock. It was time. “Stars, I gotta go,” Joe said, throwing the white cotton sheet aside.

“Now…with my guts hanging out?” Rigel said plaintively.

Joe rounded the foot of the bed and stood over Rigel where she sat. He took her by the hands and pulled her up, then wrapped his arms around her. She felt very small and vulnerable to him. “The timing sucks, you’re right. I don’t want to leave you like this, believe me.”

“It’s June 4, 1944 all over again,” Rigel lamented.

“No, it doesn’t have to be…not this time,” Joe replied. He kissed his wife’s cheek and withdrew to get dressed. Rigel grabbed her favorite old white terrycloth robe from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around herself as she watched her husband transform back into Brigadier General Gallagher.

“Wait a minute…” Rigel said. “Your tie’s crooked and your hair’s mussed. Can’t have you look like you’ve been rolling in bed with your wife when you meet Pritchard.” She adeptly tamed the stray strands and adjusted the knot. Getting both just right, smiled at Joe and pronounced, “There, that’s better.”

Joe smiled down at his wife. “Are we better, Stars?”

Rigel offered only a weak smile in return. She had a lot of emotions to digest. “Go…Pritchard, Tooey Spaatz and history are waiting for you.”

Joe walked over to the kitchen, donned his “Ike” jacket and put his arm around Rigel’s shoulders as she walked him to the door. He turned to face his wife. “Have some coffee ready for me. You know the way I like it.”

“Heavy on the Irish, light on the coffee,” Rigel replied wanly. Joe hugged her tightly and gave his wife a long, passionate kiss. That memory would have to last them both quite a while…

Rigel watched as Joe drove away and wondered if he was leaving her in more ways than one.

The ringing of the phone broke into her thoughts. She picked up the hand piece and spoke. “Major O’Ryan.”

“Hey, O, you and Joe comin’ to the party tonight?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“No to what part? You or Joe?”

“No to Joe. He’s gone,” she said with a quiver in her voice. Magnus heard it.

“O, r’you okay?”

“Yes…No…oh, hell, I don’t know…”

“Sounds like ya need a shoulder to lean on, kiddo,” Magnus offered kindly.

“More like three fingers of very old brandy,” Rigel replied trying to sound composed and upbeat.

“We can do that, too. Tell ya what, I’ll pick ya up and ya can crash in the guest room tonight. We can talk, get drunk, play Sheepshead …”

“Sheepshead?” Rigel chuckled as she repeated the name of that old card game popular in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Okay, nix the sheepshead, how’s ‘bout strip poker then?” Magnus said jokingly…or maybe not?

“You’re on, Nus!”

“Dat’s my girl! I’ll pick ya up in thirty minutes. Deal?”

“Deal,” Rigel answered. And then she realized that Magnus made her smile. She wondered what that meant…but she knew it was important.

Much later that night….

Magnus and Rigel stood on the front porch and waved good night to the last of the partiers to leave. It had been a lively shindig…volleyball in the back yard, grilled corn on the cob, fajitas on fresh tortillas, homemade vanilla ice cream, dancing to the swing music from a local radio station, a skit put on by the students in which they good naturedly imitated and roasted their instructors. Rigel had learned to compartmentalize her emotions pretty well during the war and she used that skill again during the party. She maintained the happy façade with smiles and gregariousness during the get-together but when the last guest drove away, Rigel deflated. It had been a very long day and Rigel was worn out, but there was party residue to clean up. “Time for the GI party,” Rigel said as she and Magnus reentered the living room.

“Nah, manana…” Magnus said. “I’ll do it in the morning. Time for that brandy ya said ya needed.” Rigel got two snifters from a kitchen cabinet while Magnus located a full bottle of brandy from another cupboard. They headed out to the back porch swing which had been the locale of several heart to heart talks over the past months. The night air was still warm and flickering citronella candles protected by hurricane lanterns gave off a golden glow and sweet scent. Rigel sat down first and held the glasses while Magnus pour libations.

“Ya asked for three fingers…this ain’t that hoity-toity ‘Uisce Beatha’ stuff the Gallaghers make but it’s the best I can afford.” He noticed Rigel flinch slightly at the mention of “Gallagher.” She downed the brandy in one gulp.

“More?” Magnus asked.

“More,” Rigel confirmed. Magnus obliged then took his seat to Rigel’s left as the swing rocked gently.

Magnus had his snifter in his left hand and casually extended his right arm, letting it rest on back of the wooden swing…and around Rigel’s shoulders as well. She didn’t object to this act of familiarity.

“So, O…what’s eatin’ ya,” Magnus asked as he urged Rigel on with a little nudge to her shoulders. She took another big gulp of the brandy before she spoke.

“Joe’s got a kid with some other woman…” Rigel muttered as she stared at the brandy glass in her hands.

Magnus let out a whistle in astonishment. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“When’d ya find this out?”

“Today,” Rigel said, taking another gulp of brandy. She picked up the bottle that Magnus had set on the wooden planked floor in front of them and poured herself more.

“Whaddaya gonna do about it, I mean you and Joe?” Magnus asked sensitively.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Not much to do. The woman was a Polish resistance leader that Joe met in England in 1943. She went back to Poland and the baby was born there. She gave the baby up and doesn’t know if the little girl is alive or dead.”

“So why did she tell Joe about this maybe-baby of his now, four years later?” Magnus asked. It was a valid question.

“I don’t know. Preston told him about Ilka’s baby.”

“Ilka?”

“Yeah, that’s her name. I knew that she was one of Joe’s romantic interests but I didn’t know how he felt about her until today.”

“I found out ‘bout somethin’ else today, too.”

“What?”

“That assignment you were recommended for by Lady Bull-somethin’ back in England…”

“Not Lady. She’s Chief Matron Bullwinkel…”

“…. had a typo in it. The job’s not with the RAF. It’s with the RAAF….”

“…Royal Australian Air Force?”

“Yep, Australia. You know, the big island on the other side of the world?” Magnus said tongue-in-cheek.

Rigel chuckled a bit at the irony of it. “The day just keeps getting better….” Rigel observed sarcastically, shaking her head.

“What’s so funny?” Magnus asked, taking a sip of his brandy.

“Back in 1942 at Bowman, I put in for the 801st. Colonel Munroe assigned me to the 802nd instead. Looks like I’m being offered a chance to finally get to the PTO after all.”

“I’ve got more news, too, ‘bout me.” He bolted down the remaining brandy and recharged his snifter with more.

“Have you got an illegitimate kid, too?”

“Nope…I got two job offers. One’s to teach at a really good medical school back home. The other’s to stay in the Air Force and be in on the ground floor of building our new medical service.”

“Those both sound wonderful, Magnus. Which one do you want?”

“Neither. I kinda like stayin’ here…with you.” He accented the “you” and touched Rigel’s left arm with his left index finger for emphasis.

“With…me?” Rigel was a bit taken aback by Magnus’s confession. Still, his straight shooting was one of the traits she admired most in him.

“Yeah, with you,” Magnus admitted, drawing out “you” as he spoke. “And I kinda got the feelin’ that ya liked bein’ here with me, too. Am I right?”

“I do, dammit, I do.” There, she’d finally said it, and simultaneously felt relieved and guilty as hell.

“So….?” Magnus turned to look right into Rigel’s eyes.

Rigel’s head was swimming from the brandy which had also eroded her inhibitions. She had come to Randolph in an emotionally vulnerable state which slowly ebbed away but came flooding back due to Joe’s news from earlier in the day. Over the last four months, Rigel worked herself out of the maudlin hole she was in and Magnus was a large part of that recovery. Magnus’s personality and character had always attracted Rigel but lately he’d become more physically appealing and handsome to her. The candlelight highlighted Magnus’s cheeks and made his glacier blue eyes sparkle. Tonight, right now, she felt drawn to him like a moth to a flame and that was dangerous.

“I like being with you Magnus. You make me laugh. And you make me feel good,” Rigel said earnestly.

“Yeah, well, so do Whisky and Rum and a pair of cotton socks. Is that all I am to ya, O?”

“You’re a whole lot more to me.”

“Like what?”

“I like you.”

“Do ya love me?”

“I dunno.” Rigel swallowed hard at that confession.

“Do I make ya wanna jump my bones?” There was a lilt in Magnus’s voice when he said that, as if he was trying to sugar coat the sensitive question.

“I’ve resisted thinking about that, to tell you the truth. I was afraid of the answer.”

“Well, do ya or dontcha,” Magnus asked softly as he tenderly caressed Rigel’s left cheek with his left hand.

“Dammit, Nus, the answer is yes.” There, she said it and at the same time she asked herself how she could be mad at Joe for having had similar feelings about Ilka four years ago.

“I don’t want to be a pair of socks or a pet to ya, O. I don’t want a ‘comfortable’ relationship. I want a passionate one, one that knocks your socks off. I deserve that kind of relationship…and so do you.”

Rigel nodded in agreement.

“When you told me just now that you might be leaving, I felt…a knot in my stomach. I shouldn’t, but I did. That’s got to tell you something about how I feel about you.” Rigel put down her glass, took Magnus’s face in her hands and traced his lips with her right index fingertip. Her breathing quickened as did his. Magnus drew her closer to him and Rigel melted into his arms. “I’m so confused, Magnus…” she whispered as she buried her face in Magnus’s chest and silently wept. Decisive in wartime and in matters of life and death, Rigel faltered now in matters of the heart. Magnus understood this paradox and accepted her unconditionally. Rigel, after all, was first and foremost his friend.

The gentle man lovingly held Rigel in his arms, stroked her dark auburn tresses with his hands and kissed her on the forehead. His next words were tender, pure and prescient. “I want ya, Rigel, but not like this. Go to Australia. Forget Randolph and forget England. When ya come back to me, if that’s what ya decide, it’s because ya want me, Magnus Olaf Johansen from Minnesota, and not because you’re runnin’ away from Joseph Anson Gallagher and bein’ hurt by him. C’mon, I’ll take ya home before we do somethin’ we’ll both regret.”

Yessirree, it had been an interesting day.

Books Were Opened: Autumn, Los Angeles

IN September, Antonia wrote and without details, said she would return in November.

She didn’t return in November but wrote to say she would try to return in early 1948 and no mention of getting married.

No details.

Both lonely, Sandy and Betty began to eat dinner together that fall when they could—sometimes at coffee shops, sometimes in a nice restaurant when they both had the time and the inclination and went dutch.

One Friday evening, he asked an uncomfortable question spurred by his sight of Ray’s urn of ashes a few days earlier. Had she accepted Ray’s death?—yes, of course, she sighed over pot roast, but she could not yet accept that his death was unsolved.

“It may never be solved,” Sandy pointed out, gently, as they sipped on coffee and watched the neon lights twinkle on the darkening street.

“No, but I won’t move on until...” Her strength faltered. “Until...oh, I don’t know.” She stared out the window for a long time and then returned to her coffee and cake with a watery grin. “I hope I don’t shock you with this...the last time I visited Dad...he told me that you and I should get married.”

“What?—I mean—we’re cousins—“

“Half cousins, Dad was quick to remind me. But, in Poland, in the rural areas, cousins marrying is not that uncommon. The Church doesn’t approve but when there’s not many people available...and it’s better to marry than burn…well, anyway, I pointed out I was not in love with you and I needed love to marry.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that marriage is to produce children, unite families, and protect the woman from other men...well, anyway, enough of that.”

“Those are important,” Sandy said.

“Romance is too.”

They were so embarrassed by the subject they did not trade hugs and pecks on the cheek as they usually did when parting.

Sandy embarked that fall of 1947 on his last two semesters of undergraduate work—in summer 1948, with luck, he could start on his Masters in engineering. Class after class battered him; advanced physics, mathematics...he somehow sneaked in a class of Shakespeare which really bedevilled him...but taught him the joy of language. Engineering labs, work in the wind tunnel consumed his days. One particularly exciting development at the wind tunnel was conducting experiments with portions of rockets, and missiles. The tests were basic, but Sandy felt real enthusiasm for the rocket devices, so different from planes. And they weren’t henges.

Unlike many students on campus there was no sense of finish and nostalgia for him, the last football game and the last homecoming. He and Betty made a pledge they would attend the 1948 Rose Parade in Pasadena and then cheer for whatever team at the Rose Bowl, because it seemed the right thing to do. But that fall he also gave thought about taking his Masters at Cal Tech, not USC. Crusard, curiously, had urged him to change schools, telling him that taking all degrees at the same place was not a good idea.

Sandy didn’t know if Crusard was trying to get rid of him, or do right by him.

If he went to Cal Tech, he could not study rocketry. No professors for that yet, at least ones who could conduct advanced study. Rather, he could conduct advanced study of electro-magnetism, one of the principles of the henges. He hated that; even memories of the henges made him...sick, mentally and physically. But, if he went to Cal Tech, he could at least get away from Walkert, who always seemed to be at Crusard’s elbow.

That fall he also continued waiting on word about O’Ryan fully opening. It didn’t. He had given up hearing from any of the O’Ryans. He had avoiding contacting them, feeling that was pushy, to put it mildly. When paranoia got him, he knew they knew he had been in love with Rigel… and they were avoiding him. In cold rational light he figured that the O’Ryans were involved in affairs that did not concern him. After all, the plant had not opened yet. So what were they up to--? Weeds, Sandy told himself. I bet you, it’s weeds. This was a way to convince himself that the O’Ryans weren’t punishing him for loving Rigel…

As for other weeds...beyond feeling a little unsure about his future—and lonely as Antonia continued her work overseas—and abandoned as nobody but Harvey had written him. No news…

As 1947 began to wind down, Sandy was as busy as hell but he still felt as lonely as hell. He still missed Ray and felt that Antonia was dancing on a distant star--so far away she might never come home. Friends were still across the oceans, across the continent…why had he decided to come to California? Shoulda stayed in the Army...maybe…

To distract himself, he caught movies whenever he could, read best sellers that he picked up from the library…at the request of his Shakespeare professor, who was kind at his bungling attempts to interpret the Bard, he actually volunteered to be a supernumerary—or spear carrier--in Julius Caesar, staged by the drama department. Fortunately, he didn’t have lines to learn and too many rehearsals to attend, and had a good laugh when he saw himself in his Roman uniform, a musty skirt and a gold painted cardboard armor and shield. He muttered when the other supernumeraries muttered, and cheered when the other supernumeraries cheered.

He and Betty went dancing once in a while, just enjoying being together and momentarily, fending off loneliness. He read up on rocketry and missiles when he had time. He understood that the Navy and the Army were both fooling around with these gizmos.

One evening, Thanksgiving Eve, an unusually warm day was finally shredded by cold and changing winds off the Pacific. He welcomed the damp chilly air, opening the windows of his apartment that could get stuffy, and he sat on the steps going up to his apartment, growing colder and colder as the night lowered and golden lights appeared in the neighboring houses. Betty was flying in the next day, and they planned to get together at the Figueroa Hotel which featured a Thanksgiving Dinner. But he had to get through this evening.

Hell, in the Army Air Corps, he had frequently savored the feeling of loneliness—no, he thought, being alone. There was a big difference between the two states. Being alone, once prized, was now just loneliness.

Rain began to pepper down on him, but he still sat on the steps, hating to go into that apartment one more time, by himself. He finally did, and went to the medicine cabinet for some aspirin. When he opened the cabinet door there was a bottle of Antonia’s perfume.

Also, there was Ray’s razor. He couldn’t lift his hand to get rid of it.

He refused to melodramatically slam the door; found and took some aspirin, and as the rain began to pummel down he started dinner…Antonia receded as once more Ray punched in his way in. What the hell had Ray been mixed up in? It was clear as…a fly in amber…that he had been living a double life. The late night date girl, a good excuse to receive late night phone calls, a good excuse to get away. The car he bought was a way to get places fast. Two sudden phone calls, somebody bellowing for Ray, for his help, for something. What sort of help could Ray have been? Had he been killed deliberately in the wind tunnel? But you don’t kill a single person by blowing a place up, but you could, if you were desperate. But who was this “you”--?

Winds lashed a branch of the madrona tree against the single kitchen window. He jumped and then fought against the feeling that somebody was watching him.

He snapped on the radio for company. A female voice came on, singing, “They can’t take that away from me…” Whatever the heck “that” was, Sandy thought, yes, “they” could…ah, hell, quit feeling sorry for yourself.

Through the kitchen window, he saw, through the fall-thinned leaves of the madrona tree, strange coils of light...he had seen them before and knew from Crusard they arose from Muroc, a place hell and gone in the Mohave Desert, where planes had been tested and were being tested. The word, the engineering students had been saying since late October was that the sound barrier had been broken out there.

If that had been broken, they agreed, other things were on the literal and figurative horizon…rocket ships to the moon? Further on…to the stars? But tonight, the stars just seemed cold and solitary.

Turbulence: September, Australia

AUSTRALIA. Ancient. Alien. Vast. And far, far away…from Randolph and England, Magnus and Joe.

For about 50,000 years, before the Dutch Europeans discovered it in 1606, Australia was inhabited by indigenous people who had more than 250 languages, were hunter gatherers, had a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for their land and their connection to the cosmos. Rigel remembered from high school geography class that arguably, Australia was the world’s largest island, the world’s smallest continent, it was in the southern hemisphere, winter was in June, kangaroos and platypuses lived there, and it was “down under” on the other side of the planet. When serving in North Africa with the 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Squadron Rigel cared for some “Aussie” soldiers, many of whose Irish ancestors had been sentenced to life in Australia as part of the British penal system. That was as close to Australia as Rigel had gotten--up until now.

For once, the Army Air Force subscribed old adage that “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” and rather than shipping Rigel to Japan to await a possible RAAF air evac mission to Australia, she was routed to Hawaii on an AAF plane then booked on a British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines DC-4 flight to Melbourne. While with the RAAF, Rigel’s duties were to include flying, teaching, consulting and that wonderful catch-all phrase “and all other duties as deemed necessary to complete the mission.”

Rigel’s orders posted her to Point Cook, Victoria, in far southeastern coastline of Australia. Point Cook was the birthplace of the Royal Australian Air Force, and like Randolph where she had come from, had a rich and proud aviation history. Prior to leaving Randolph, Rigel boned up on her air evac course content covering tropical diseases and ocean survival and she also dug up what she could find out about the RAAF and their flight nurses. Most RAAF aviation medical activities were based at Point Cook and nearby Laverton. From modest beginnings in a hut at Point Cook in 1921, the RAAF developed a specialized medical service of its own. It grew to include medical research, aero-medical evacuation, a nursing service and RAAF hospitals located in Australia and overseas. The RAAF did important testing and research work into problems such as motion sickness, night vision and oxygen starvation (hypoxia) encountered at altitudes over 8,000 feet.

Initially in the PTO, the allies planned for the American Army Air Force to provide all air evacuation services. However, by 1944, it was obvious that more help was needed to cover the vast territory and large number of patients. Patterning their flight nurse program after the AAF flight nurses who’d been serving in the PTO since early 1943, the RAAF trained Number One Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit (MAETU 1, pronounced “meet you”) that went into action later that year. Nicknamed “The Flying Angels,” flight teams comprising a “sister”--which is how the British and Australians addressed nurses--and an orderly flew in C-47s, carrying up to 18 stretcher cases at a time, from forward areas such as New Guinea back to base hospitals in Australia. Within the first year of operation, some 8,000 patients had been evacuated. In 1945, Number 2 MAETU was formed with ten new nurses. After the war both units assisted with the repatriation of thousands of prisoners of war.

Just like the US, Australia wanted to move on past the war years and downsized its military, discharging the majority of the RAAF nurses. As one poet put it, “In time of danger and not before, Women were added to the corps. With the danger over and all well righted, War is forgotten and the women slighted.” Thusly, the progress in air evacuation--and women’s roles in Australian society--made during war evaporated. The MAETUs were formally disbanded in 1946 but a handful of experienced RAAF flight nurses remained in the Interim Air Force. These few remaining flight trained sisters undertook air evacuation duties on an as needed basis in Australia and as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan.

However by the latter half of 1947, wiser heads in the Commonwealth, which included RAF Chief Matron Ganymede Bullwinkel in England and her Australian cousin, Chief Matron Vivian Bullwinkel in Australia, could see another war on the horizon and the Australian military put plans in motion for expanding the Commonwealth’s nursing services. While England had experienced the “Friendly Invasion” of about a half million Americans on their soil during the war, Australia had not experienced an equivalent interaction with Americans. Consequently, there had not been much merging of philosophies and tactics. In short, certain very influential people in the Commonwealth saw that RAAF needed to open some windows, so to speak, and let in some fresh air. Part of those changing winds just happened to include the gutsy, highly decorated and nontraditional Rigel O’Ryan. It was those qualities, coupled with knowing the right people at the right time, that brought Rigel to this moment, landing at Melbourne, after what seemed like an eternity in the air and crossing the international date line into tomorrow to boot.

As the DC-4 taxied to the arrival gate, Rigel dug into her purse, resurrecting a telegram she received in Hawaii informing her she’d be met at the airport by someone from the air base and driven to her quarters. Popping a lime Lifesaver candy in her mouth to ease a growling hungry stomach and craving for some coffee, Rigel looked out the plane’s small round passenger window at her new home away from home. She listened to the young, pretty stewardess, who had been both curious about and attentive to Rigel during the flight, give the usual airline spiel: welcome to Melbourne, local time 9 a.m., temperature 56 degrees Fahrenheit, overcast with probability of rain today and thank you for flying with British Commonwealth Overseas Airlines. From her window seat during the flight, Rigel monitored the churning gray clouds and they reminded her of that memorable day in May 1945 when she, Caed and Ursa flew from Long Island to the tiny Archer’s Run county airstrip where, after almost a year apart, she reunited with Joe on the tarmac. “Dammit, O’Ryan, stop looking back” Rigel scolded herself. She collected her purse, jacket, musette, automatically donned her flight cap at the correct angle and distance above her eyebrows, and took lead position in queue of travelers as they assembled in the aisle The ground crew moved the mobile staircase into place against the fuselage and the stewardess opened the cabin door. The fresh moist seaside air felt clean and crisp against Rigel’s face after having been cooped upside an airliner for so long. As she descended the steps, a few big raindrops plopped on the tarmac, making a staccato sound as they hit. Just as Rigel’s comfortable low quartered shoes touched down on the ground, she heard her name called by a strong but feminine voice.

“Major O’Ryan! Over here!” issued the voice from the sideline near the air terminal. Rigel turned her face toward the sound to see an attractive, smiling 30ish woman in a Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service dark blue dress uniform with its distinctive jacket, skirt, white shirt, black tie and matching dark blue wide brimmed hat, waving her right hand in the air. She held up a white cardboard placard with “WELCOME MAJOR O’RYAN” printed on it in bold black block letters.

Rigel smiled and returned the wave in recognition of the greeting. As Rigel drew closer, the woman snapped to attention and rendered a British style palm forward salute as she was junior in rank to Rigel. Closer inspection of her uniform cuffs revealed flight lieutenant braid, roughly equivalent to an AAF captain. Rigel returned her host’s salute with a jaunty American one.

“Welcome to Australia, Major, I’m Senior Sister McLarkin and I’ve been assigned as your aide while you’re with us.” Her voice was smooth and proper yet welcoming. Rigel extended her hand toward McLarkin who was a bit surprised at the American officer’s casualness but liked it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Senior Sister McLarkin, but I don’t think I rate an aide,” Rigel said amiably, giving the senior sister a firm, friendly handshake. McLarkin’s was firm, too. So far so good, thought Rigel.

“If you give me your ticket, Sister, er, I mean Major, I’ll fetch your bags,” McLarkin said. The Australian nurse was about Rigel’s size and height with wide set expressive gray eyes, a dainty straight nose and thin lips. Her voice had a velvety lush tone to it and short medium brown curls framed her face underneath her hat.

“Bag, Senior Sister, I travel light, and you don’t have to fetch me anything. I can carry it myself,” Rigel said.

“As you wish, ma’am,” McLarkin replied but Rigel did let her open the door into the passenger lounge nonetheless. Just as they entered the building the sky finally let loose with a downpour.

“Looks like the stewardess was right about rain,” Rigel remarked as she and McLarkin waited for the luggage handlers to unload the carts.

“The weather around here changes quite rapidly, makes for very dicey flying at times. Give it ten minutes and it will be clear as a bell and in another ten the clouds scrape the ground and a deluge blows in,” McLarkin explained. Her words would prove prophetic.

“There it is,” Rigel said pointing to her scuffed, well-traveled B-4 bag. Rigel dug in her purse looking for tip money for the porter, then realized that she only had American currency.

“Crap,” Rigel muttered, mad at herself for the oversight.

“I’ve got it,” McLarkin replied genially.

“Thanks. I owe you,” Rigel said as she hoisted her bag with her left hand. Military custom required the right arm and hand remain free to render or receive a salute and over the years carrying things in her left hand had become second nature.

“I’ll get the car and meet you ‘round the front,” McLarkin said trying to be courteous to her guest.

“Nah. I’ll walk with you. I’m used to it. Lead on MacDuff,” Rigel replied. And a memory bubbled up, that of Magnus and their late night talks about Shakespeare, life and love while sipping brandy on his back porch swing. What she’d give for an Irish coffee right about now….

By the time the two women exited the terminal and reached the staff car, a new black 1947 Mercury, the first post war Australian made passenger vehicle, the rain had stopped although patches of fog hovered over the ground. “See? What did I tell you?” McLarkin said as they reached the car.

“The fog reminds me of Archbury,” Rigel said, recalling how it made everything appear ghost-like.

“Where, ma’am?” McLarkin queried as she opened the passenger side door for Rigel; she pitched her luggage in the back seat.

“England,” Rigel replied nostalgically.

“I hope to get there some day,” Lark said.

“It’s a beautiful country with remarkable people,” Rigel replied. More recollections came flashing back...the 918th, Bryncote, the Goodge Street flat, Eoghain St. John-Keighley, Percy and Sydney Vivyan, Thomas and Moira Twombley, Royston Smythe-Beckworth, London, Stonehenge…

McLarkin rounded the hood, slid in behind the steering wheel, started the motor, released the brakes and headed the car on the short trip to Point Cook. They motored along the bustling city streets which were lined with an occasional palm tree, rows of one and two story buildings housing shops and businesses, dotted with tall telephone poles, street signs and billboards--not unlike any thoroughfare back in San Antonio or Long Island.

“I have a confession to make, Major,” McLarkin said as she a bit sheepishly as they drove along.

“Oh? What’s that?” Rigel replied casually.

“I had to get Higgy--Flight Sergeant Higginbotham--he’s the enlisted man in charge of the orderlies--to teach me how to give you a proper salute. He had me practicing for half an hour before I came out here to collect you,” she explained as a blush of embarrassment pinked up her cheeks. “RAAF sisters don’t salute but since you’re an American and a major I thought a proper one was in order.”

“Well, you looked pretty snappy, Senior Sister, and I appreciate the effort you put into it,” Rigel said, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a yawn. She cracked the window a bit hoping cool air would perk her up. “Sorry…my gyros are all screwed up with the time changes. What I wouldn’t give for an Irish coffee though…even if it is 0930.”

McLarkin gave a mischievous chuckle which turned up the corners of her mouth and put a twinkle in her gray eyes. “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, Major…and I have a coffee pot and some brandy in my quarters.”

“You’re on Senior Sister!” Rigel quipped. Yeah, so far so good….and then Rigel decided to take this one step further. “Whaddaya say that we dispense with the formalities. I’m Rigel.”

“I’m Narrandera but everybody calls me Lark. Narrandera is rather a mouthful, isn’t it?” she said with an easy smile, briefly taking her eyes off the road to turn toward Rigel.

“It’s a lovely name, very unique,” Rigel opined graciously, and meant it.

“Narrandera was the town my ancestors settled in when they arrived from Ireland. It’s actually not too far from Melbourne.”

“So give me the scoop on today,” Rigel asked. All she’d been told was that someone would meet her and that having been accomplished she wondered about what happened next.

“The what?” Lark replied, not understanding the American slang.

“What’s on the agenda for today,” Rigel clarified.

“Ah, I see. First off, Matron Kenny is expecting us--well, make that expecting you--straight away and later today Matron in Chief Bullwinkel is hosting a tea in your honor. Miss Bullwinkel’s scones are something of legend around here, just like she is. You do like scones and tea I hope?”

Rigel smiled, recalling the tea and scones reception two and a half years at Dusky Boughs by another legendary woman, Irene Anson Gallagher. That was a wonderful day with Joe…and dammit again… even now, years and thousands of miles apart, he’s still with her.

“Who’s Matron Kenny?” Rigel asked, not familiar with her. She knew that Chief Matron Bullwinkel was Eoghain St. John-Keighley’s relative by marriage.

“Matron Kenny is Miss Bullwinkel’s deputy and she’s yin to Chief Matron Bullwinkel’s yang,” McLarkin explained as she steered the sedan along Melbourne’s bustling streets.

“I don’t quite follow you,” Rigel said.

“What Miss Kenny starts, Miss Bullwinkel finishes. Miss Kenny’s the lightning and Miss Bullwinkel is the thunder. They play off of each other’s strengths and personalities and they get things done that way…like keeping the air evacuation sisters on staff when the government ministers wanted to axe us. You know about Miss Bullwinkel’s war record, don’t you?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Miss Bullwinkel is a quite a lady and a true hero,” Lark began. Her voice conveyed the high esteem that she felt for the Matron in Chief. “Chief Matron was the sole survivor of a massacre and was a POW for several years. She’s revered here, and when Miss Bullwinkel speaks the generals and government ministers listen.” Decades later, Vivian Bullwinkel would be awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for gallantry, The Order of Australia for “heroism, courage and humanitarian achievements which are unique,” The Florence Nightingale Medal, and Associate of the Red Cross. Upon her death, Vivian Bullwinkel would be given an official State Funeral attended by dignitaries and heads of state and she was mourned as the true national treasure that she was.

“That is remarkable. I knew some of the American nurses captured on Bataan but this is the first I’ve heard about Miss Bullwinkel.” Rigel had been through her share of hell but she felt that was insignificant compared to what they had gone through.

“Miss Kenny’s pretty remarkable, too. She was the senior sister posted to New Guinea, she’s got way over 800 flying hours and she’s survived three ditchings. Have you ever had to ditch Major, um, I mean Rigel?”

“No, no ditchings, just crashes,” Rigel replied as memories of each of them darted into her mind. “How ‘bout you?”

“Several close calls…had an engine catch fire once. The landing was, well, not very graceful,” Lark explained. Lark hedged a bit when she gave that answer as if there were more to these instances than she was willing to talk about, at least for now.

“There’s an old Air Force saying ‘Any landing you can walk away from is a good one,’” Rigel replied.

KA-POW! And in a split second a car traveling on the opposite site of the road and moving toward them, blew one of its tires causing the driver to lose control on the rain slicked street. The car swerved back and forth as the driver fought to gain control, crossed into the lane in front of Lark and Rigel and ran into a telephone pole, setting the crashed car’s horn blaring.

Meanwhile as the accident was unfolding in front of them, both women, long used to in-flight emergencies, kept their wits about them and Rigel braced herself for the impact. Lark slammed on the brakes and cranked the steering wheel hard to the right. Her quick action allowed them to narrowly avoid hitting the back end of the other car but they run up over the curb and into a small car park. When the Mercury sedan came to a halt, Rigel looked toward Lark who was still gripping the steering wheel.

“You okay?” Rigel asked, concerned about her “aide.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go check if they are,” Lark said, nodding with her head toward the crashed vehicle nearby. A crowd of gawkers had already started to gather but no one was doing anything to help. Rigel spied a young man in an RAAF uniform and hollered at him.

“You! Airman! Call for help!” Rigel instructed firmly.

“Right-o, Sister!” he replied, turned and hustled into the bakery that was just a few yards away on the other side of the car park; the shop’s sweet aroma filled the air.

The car’s driver was a young woman who’d been thrown against the steering wheel and windshield. She was moaning and semi-conscious with blood rushing from a forehead laceration and a bloody nose. A young boy, about 5 years old, was crammed under the dashboard, screaming, with blood coming from his mouth. Communicating only with their experienced eyes, Rigel and Lark got to work. Lark, who’d been a pediatric nurse before joining the RAAF, took responsibility for the lad and Rigel tended to the woman, presumably his mother. The boy was badly shaken up but moving his arms and legs purposefully and he calmed down when Lark talked to him, telling him to stay still. Lark scrunched down close to the lad, held his hand, and soothed him with her voice. Things didn’t go so smoothly for his mom, however, as she lay motionless against the steering wheel. The driver’s side door window was down which allowed Rigel access to her.

“Don’t move,” Rigel spoke with a calm but confident voice into her patient’s right ear. She then opened the back door, slid in, positioned herself behind the injured woman and stabilized her head against the steering wheel with her hands while simultaneously pressing her right hand fingers against the woman’s forehead laceration trying to stifle the bleeding. By now, the young RAAF airman had returned to the scene to help out.

“What can I do to help, you sister?” he asked, anxious to be of service.

“We need something to stabilize their necks before we move them.” Rigel scanned the car…nothing here that would help…but wait a minute…the scent of baking bread and cookies hatched an idea…

Rigel turned her face to the soldier and gave crisp instructions. “Get long cutting boards or baking sheets, some towels or aprons, belts…anything that we can use as a brace for the neck, straps, and bandages…”

The young mother mumbled concern for her child. “Joey? Where’s my Joey?” she asked worriedly.

“He’s okay. He’s being taken care of by a nurse. I’m a nurse too. You’re going to be fine. Just don’t move until I tell you to.” Rigel’s voice was smooth and reassuring, a skill honed by years of experience. Lark’s past experience with sick and injured children really paid off this morning.

The soldier returned with several different sized wooden chopping boards, hand towels and a long white apron. “Got your stuff here, sister,” he said calmly.

“Good. What’s your name soldier?” Rigel asked.

“Sergeant Kerry, sister.”

“Rip up that apron, we need at least six good long straps.” Kerry extracted a pocket knife from his pants and quickly did as Rigel instructed.

From out of the crowd a middle aged, short, portly, balding man emerged blustering “Out of my way!” as he pushed through the press of onlookers and stopped next to Rigel’s side of the car.

“Get those people of there now!” he demanded loudly as his round face flushed.

“Not until their necks are braced,” Rigel replied sternly.

“I’m a doctor and I say to get her out now before she bleeds to death!” the man boomed as he started to open the driver’s door. Immediately, Sergeant Kerry interposed himself between the injured woman and this so-called doctor. Yes, the woman was bleeding but Rigel balanced that against paralyzing her from the neck down.

“I don’t care if you’re goddam Winston Churchill, they’re not moving until I--”

Rigel’s voice was interrupted by Lark who quickly added “WE…”

Rigel nodded in recognition of Lark joining her in standing up to the doctor.

“…until we say so, unless you want to be responsible for making them both quadriplegics for the rest of their lives.” Rigel was in full “Major O’Ryan mode” and her authoritative voice and presence prevailed. “We could use your help. So what’s it gonna be, help us or not?”

The gentleman glowered at Rigel while curiously looking at the wings and ribbons over her jacket’s left breast pocket. “I’ll have you brought up on charges for this Sister…whoever you are,” he barked, finally realizing that he wasn’t dealing with an Australian nurse. He acquiesced albeit ungraciously.

“O’Ryan…Major O’Ryan. O-R-Y-A-N,” she said with steel in her voice. “Doc, take off your belt. We can use it.”

“For what?” he fumed.

“You’ll see,” Rigel replied, cool, calm and steady.

“Sergeant, bring me that cutting board…” And with that Rigel and Kerry proceeded to stabilize the woman’s neck. The wooden plank was placed behind her head and it was long enough to extend from the top of her head to her shoulder blades. Her forehead was held against the board by Doctor Big Mouth’s generously long pants belt, a strip of apron cloth over her chin, a third strap cloth across her shoulders and all three tied tightly behind the board. Rolled up towel bolsters placed along the sides of her face further secured her head and neck from movement. Additional towels bandaged the gash on her scalp and were secured with cloth strips.

In the meantime, acrid ominous black smoke curled out from under the car’s hood portending a fire and the rain commenced again sending onlookers scurrying into the shelter of nearby shops.

“Oh, shit, first blood on my hands and now smoke….” Rigel thought to herself as she pushed down the rising waves of nausea …Not again….

Lark saw the billows and knew all too well what could happen. “Doctor, I could use your help securing the boy to a board, too.” It was done expeditiously and without complaint from the doctor but the frightened boy began to sob. Lark calmed him with her voice, her gentle touch, her smile and got the child to sing a song with her.

Rigel’s only remaining helper was Sergeant Kerry and a decision had to be made, now. The wail of fire truck sirens echoed off the buildings and sliced through the sheets of falling rain as more smoke rose from the car’s engine and the stink of oily smoke grew thicker…the car could burst into flames and explode…Rigel had been in this position before and knew what she had to do…and she did it. With Sergeant Kerry’s assistance, Rigel extricated the woman from the car and removed her to the relative safety of the nearby car park yards away from the smoking engine.

By now policemen, ambulance crew and firemen had arrived to secure the scene and take over care of the injured driver and passenger. White uniformed orderlies gently lifted the still semi-conscious woman onto a stretcher and loaded her into the back of a war weary but still serviceable olive drab Army surplus ambulance. A police officer assumed responsibility of little Joey from Lark, much to the child’s protestations. The policeman, who probably was a dad himself, gave the boy his whistle to play with and engaged the boy in conversation to divert attention away from the accident. Surprisingly, Doctor Big Mouth joined them all in the back of the ambulance but not before ordering the driver to proceed to City General Hospital straightaway.

Rigel looked at her hands, and despite the rain, they still were caked with clotted blood. It was those old bugaboos still haunting her, the stench of fuel, oil, metal and smoke and sticky blood on her hands. As quickly as the rain came, it halted again just as if Mother Nature turned off the spigot. Rigel knelt down to retrieve a left over piece of the apron from the ground and wiped her hands with it. The firemen quickly got the crashed car’s smoking engine under control and allowed Lark access to the RAAF staff vehicle. She tooted the horn which drew Rigel’s attention. With her nausea suppressed at last, Rigel rejoined her colleague in the Mercury.

“You did good work, Rigel,” Lark said.

“You too. That little boy really took a shine to you.” Lark smiled her appreciation. She then eased the car back out on the street and they resumed their trip in silence until reaching the airfield.

“And here we are at good old Point Cook,” Lark said as she waved at the sentry, steered the car through the main gate, down broad flat streets dotted with occasional hardy cedar and bottlebrush trees and various types of squat shrubs. The old but well maintained flight line, hangers, red brick and white clapboard buildings reflected Point Cook’s distinction as the first military airbase in Australia and as such, its perimeter bumped up against the shores of Port Phillip Bay to accommodate seaplanes. Beyond the protection of the bay lay Bass Strait and the Tasmanian Sea.

“It looks pretty much like where I just came from,” Rigel said matter-of-factly.

“You were expecting kangaroos and koala bears singing ‘Waltzing Matilda?” Lark teased lightly.

“What’s a billabong anyway?” Rigel joked back.

“I’ll explain all of that later… over some Irish coffee…minus the coffee. But for now, I expect that you’ll want to freshen up and change into a dry uniform and skirt to meet Matron Kenny,” Lark said.

“Didn’t bring any skirts. Hate ‘em,” Rigel said. “As for freshening up….” Rigel extracted a comb from her purse and ran it through her damp hair. “...I just did. She might as well see me as I am.”

Larked pulled the staff sedan up in front of the white single story clapboard headquarters building, parked the car in the “Reserved for Chief Matron” space and the two women entered together. Matron Kenny’s office was at the end of short hallway and across from Chief Matron Bullwinkel’s. Rigel and Lark entered Kenny’s outer office and were greeted warmly by a young enlisted woman secretary, Sergeant Donegal, another Irish penal colony descendant, busily typing at her cluttered desk. She didn’t rise in the presence of “sisters” who, although officers, were regarded by the RAAF as ladies first, nurses second with officer status a far distant third place. Donegal cast curious glances at the two damp nurses, one with blood spatters on her jacket.

“Senior Sister McLarkin and Major O’Ryan to see Matron Kenny. We had a spot of trouble on the drive here,” Lark said casually, hoping that generalization would suffice.

“Yes, I know,” Donegal said with a bit of an edge in her voice as if she was privy to some additional information.

“News travels fast,” Lark quipped as she and Rigel exchanged questioning glances, interpreting the sergeant’s comment as a forecasted warning.

“Matron is expecting you. She’s on the line at the moment.” Donegal pointed to the illuminated knob among the row of buttons on a wooden switch box which served as an intercom and also routed calls to the Matron’s black office desk phone. “I’ll announce you as soon as she’s rung off the call. Can I get you a cup of tea?” the young woman asked politely.

“Only if it has brandy in it,” Rigel replied half in jest. Seeing the confused look Donegal’s face, Rigel clarified her position. “Yes, Sergeant, I’d love a cup of tea. Thank you.”

Before that could be brewed, however, the lighted button went dark indicating that Matron Kenny’s conversation was concluded. The sergeant depressed a toggle and spoke into the switch box. “Matron, Miss O’Ryan is here along with Miss McLarkin.”

“Send Miss O’Ryan in,” directed the stern sounding voice from the box.

Rigel and Lark traded quick glances. “Looks like you’re off the hook, Lark,” Rigel said.

“Good luck. That offer of brandy still stands,” Lark said, crossing her fingers of both hands for lagniappe.

“Thanks. I may need it after this,” Rigel replied, assuming there was an ass chewing about to be had…namely hers.

As Rigel entered the neatly maintained inner office, Matron Lyra Kenny rose up from sitting behind her busy but well-ordered desk and silently appraised the newcomer, her sharp brown eyes not missing any details: soggy uniform, hat missing, wet hair drooping on her shirt collar, no lipstick or nail polish, major’s leaves on the shoulders, gold flight nurse wings with multiple ribbons below them, blood stained “Ike” jacket and trousers, low heeled sensible shoes. Rigel was a stark contrast to Kenny who was garbed in traditional nursing attire consisting of an immaculate white mid-calf length dress, red cape around her shoulders that fell to just above her elbows, black leather waist belt, and starched white veil that pulled back her medium brown hair. The Matron’s uniform was completed by dark stockings and practical black oxford shoes. Kenny wore no make-up so she and Rigel at least had that and shoes in common. The only thing that was not stiff and starched about Matron Kenny and her office was the Victorian plant stand next to the window that held several potted red, pink, white and yellow miniature roses that contributed a light appealing fragrance to the air. Although a petite woman and not especially pretty, Lyra Kenny had a commanding presence about her that exuded energy and demanded respect.

Rigel reported in, American style, coming to attention in front of Matron’s desk, raising her right hand to her right eyebrow while saying, “Major O’Ryan, reporting as directed” and holding that posture pending Matron Kenny’s response. In keeping with RAAF custom, Matron Kenny did not salute.

“Welcome to Australia, Major O’Ryan,” Matron said cordially and motioned with her right hand for Rigel to sit down in the worn but serviceable metal olive drab chair in front of her desk. Matron retook her seat, a plain high backed wooden armchair, and opened a file laying on the ink stained green blotter on her desk. Rigel sat quietly, waiting.

Matron Kenny finally spoke in a calm, businesslike manner. “I’ve been reading your dossier, Miss O’Ryan. It says here that you landed a crippled Dakota, performed a tracheostomy on a radioman, amputated a pilot’s foot and shot and killed a Yugoslav man.” Kenny looked up from the file and met Rigel’s gaze head on.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Rigel replied without blinking.

Kenny looked down at the paperwork again and continued. “I also see that you have nine battle stars, a Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with Oak Leaf cluster, Air Medal with Oak Leaf clusters, more flying hours than our any of our sisters…and you are married…to a very well-known and highly regarded brigadier general whose name you do not carry.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Matron Kenny continued her monologue with an amused look on her face. “Within the last fifteen minutes, I’ve received three phone calls about you and your…adventure…with Miss McLarkin this morning. One from the police chief, one from City General Hospital’s Chief of Staff and one from an MP.”

“Military police?” Rigel queried. She didn’t recall seeing any military police at the accident site….

“Member of Parliament,” Kenny clarified. Kenny paused a moment for emphasis. “You’ve had quite a first day. Are you always this exciting?” Matron’s question was uncannily the same as Joe’s back in March 1944. And just like Joe, the expression on Matron’s face indicated that she was not all that displeased with Rigel’s actions.

Rigel’s answer was the same now as then. “Sometimes I’m even more exciting.”

“I hope so,” Kenny replied. She rested her forearms on the desktop and leaned toward Rigel nailing her in place with her eyes. “Do you know why you’re here Miss O’Ryan?”

“It’s Major O’Ryan and my orders state that I am here to consult and advise…” Matron Kenny interrupted quickly.

“You’re here of because of the stunt you pulled this morning,” Kenny said. “You Yanks have a name for it. ‘Hotshot.’”

“It was no stunt, Matron. Perhaps the RAAF would be better served by someone other than me,” Rigel said matter-of-factly.

“Oh rubbish,” Kenny said with crisp wave of her left hand. “Let me explain how things are here and why you were selected for this job, Major. The Royal Australian Air Force equates being a ‘good nurse’ with being a ‘good woman’ and a good woman is silent, mundane and subservient.” Kenny paused and a slightly defiant smile crossed her face. “You’re here because you are none of those. Miss Bullwinkel and I aim to bring the nursing service out of Queen Victoria’s closet and into modern daylight. We aim to rock the boat, Major O’Ryan, and you’re going to help us rock it. Are you on board or not?”

“Why be normal? It’s boring. Yes, Matron, I’m on board,” Rigel said agreeably. She expected an ass chewing and instead found a kindred soul.

“That’s the spirit O’Ryan,” Matron said as she stood up, signaling that their meeting was coming to a close.

“You’ve been billeted in the sisters’ quarters across from the base hospital. Miss McLarkin will help you get settled. Chief Matron Bullwinkel is hosting a welcoming tea for you this afternoon,” Kenny said as she rounded the corner of her desk and stood next to Rigel.

“Lark tells me that Miss Bullwinkel’s scones are as legendary as she is,” Rigel said.

“Yes, that’s quite right. She adds an extra touch to the batter,” Kenny said lightly.

“Oh? What’s that?” Rigel asked.

“A lot of brandy!” Kenny said with a broad smile.

“Matron, I think I’m gonna like it here,” Rigel said.

Matron Kenny escorted Rigel to her office door. “I’ll leave you to rest and get ready for tea this afternoon. Wear a skirt,” Kenny advised.

“Can’t. Didn’t bring any,” Rigel replied.

“What a pity,” Kenny said facetiously. She then opened the door for Rigel, and with Lark and Donegal looking on, bid Rigel good-bye. “I look forward to see you at tea this afternoon,” Kenny said amiably then withdrew into her office.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rigel caught the surprised look on Lark’s face.

“I don’t believe that,” Lark said in amazement.

“What?” Rigel asked.

“Walked you to the door. Matron never does that,” Lark explained. She posited a question to the clerk. “What do you make of it, Donegal?”

“It’s a bloomin’ miracle,” the flabbergasted clerk said.

“What’s so damned weird about her walking me to the door?” Rigel queried.

“I’ll tell you later. Let’s go,” Lark said as she nodded toward the exit with her head.

“Just a mo, Miss, um, I mean Major O’Ryan, these two telegrams came for you,” Sergeant Donegal said, handing Rigel the communiques.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” Rigel said as she took the papers in her hands. She resisted the urge to open them and instead shoved them in her pants pocket.

“You’ve been on base for fifteen minutes, have Matron Kenny eating out your hand and already have fan mail and love letters,” Lark quipped cheerily. She noticed the look on Rigel’s face which was a mix of curiosity and apprehension and sensed that the “love letters” was a sensitive subject and redirected the conversation. “What do you do for an encore, change water into wine?”

“Nope. Change it into Irish Coffee,” Rigel replied and unsuccessful tried to stifle a yawn. “Sorry,” she offered to Lark and Sergeant Donegal. “I’ll be okay after a shower and some caffeine.”

On the drive to the nurses’ quarters from the billeting office where Rigel picked up her room key, Lark explained the surprised look on her face in Matron’s Kenny’s office.

“Matrons don’t usually do that, see someone out to the door. It’s part of the unwritten code of conduct,” Lark explained.

“She stood up when I went in, which I thought was a bid odd since technically we’re the same rank,” Rigel said.

“Kenny must have a lot of respect for you, Rigel,” Lark said seriously.

“I like Matron Kenny and I can see what you mean about her being lightning. She definitely has an aura of energy about her,” Rigel opined. “And speaking of lightning...” A bright bolt pierced the churning gray clouds and was followed a few seconds later by the low rumble of thunder and strong protracted gust that bowed the tree branches. “I see what you mean about the weather and the changing winds.” Rigel wondered if the storm was an omen for her personal life and career, too.

“Well, here we are, home sweet home,” Lark said as she parked the Mercury in front of the nurses’ quarters. It, along with the hospital, was one of the older red brick buildings on the base and reminded Rigel of her quarters back at Randolph. Rigel nabbed her luggage from the back seat of car and walked up cement sidewalk bordered by the manicured lawn and ascended the gray slate steps to the building’s entrance. The main double doors opened into a foyer flanked by a “visiting parlor” on one side and a “music room” complete with worn upright piano on the other. The interior had an “old” smell to it, like the aroma of aged library books.

Lark explained the house rules. “Male visitors are received in the parlor or the music room between noon and eight p.m. No men allowed upstairs in the bedrooms, ever. Get caught and you get booted out dishonorably.” The rest of the first floor tour included the kitchen, the laundry, and what was called “the phone room.” It was not much bigger than a closet but it was private. The second floor had only one hall phone for everyone. “For meals, we can either eat here in the kitchen and if invited by a man, we can eat in the officers’ mess.”

“You’re an officer. Why do you--we--have to be invited by men?” Rigel asked.

“That’s the way it’s done here and was done out in the field, too. And you have to dress for dinner, including wearing gloves and a hat at all times.”

“You’re kidding,” Rigel replied, astonished by the parochial social rules that relegated the nurses to second class citizens.

“No, I’m not,” Lark replied with a note of disgust in her voice.

They ascended the two flights of stairs to second floor where the dormitory style bedrooms and communal bathrooms were. Lark pointed out Rigel’s room to her. “You’re right here, next to the bathroom. The down side is that you’ll hear every flush and the up side is if you have to pee during the night you won’t have far to walk.”

Rigel slotted the key into the lock, pushed open the heavy wooden door and was greeted with a waft of sweet fragrance. The source was a large colorful bouquet of flowers in a vase set on the writing desk in her room. She dropped her luggage on the floor, flipped on the dim overhead lighting and checked for a card amid the blossoms. There was none. Quite by accident it had fallen off in transit somewhere between the florist shop and Rigel’s room.

“Matron in Chief Bullwinkel saw to it that they were delivered to your room first thing this morning,” Lark explained.

“That was very thoughtful of her,” Rigel said as she plopped down on the foot of the bed. “I’ll have to thank her for them.”

“You’ll get your chance in….” Lark paused to look at her wrist watch, “….three hours and twenty minutes. I’ll collect you at 1545 hours and drive us over to the officers’ club for tea and scones. Brandy’s later…in my room.”

“You mean you’re allowed to have booze here in the convent?” Rigel teased.

“It’s sacramental brandy!” Lark joked back. She saw how tired Rigel was and the day wasn’t yet done. “Take a nap for a couple hours, I’ll see you later,” Lark advised as she exited the room.

Rigel got out of her wet and soiled uniform, retrieved the telegrams from her pants pocket, set them on the desk, then turned to unpacking. Housekeeping had left a set of bath towels and a bar of soap on the bed and she intended to put them to good use next door. She retrieved her shampoo bottle, a robe borrowed from Magnus that she forgot (?) to return, slung two fresh white towels over her left shoulder and wearily walked next door. She was the only one in the bathroom this time of day and the solitude and warm water were comforting and relaxing...and she was finally able to wash the dried blood from under her fingernails.

After returning to her room, Rigel retrieved the two telegrams, doffed her robe and slid naked under the gray wool bedspread and crisp white sheets of the bed. She switched on the reading lamp on the bedside nightstand and opened up the first telegram. It was from Magnus and his message perfectly reflected him.

“Shoulda kissed ya on the lips before ya left. I will when ya come back to me. XO ‘Nus.”

Good ole Magnus. He always made Rigel smile and yes, there was “chemistry” between them so much so that Rigel felt guilty about it. She hadn’t crossed a physical line with Magnus but she surely was tempted to and thought about it. Did that count as betraying Joe? Yes and no. She recalled Magnus wisely telling her that life wasn’t all black or white, there was a lot of gray to it. And her relationship with Magnus fell in the gray zone.

Rigel ripped open the second telegram--and its words ripped into her heart.

“Coffee’s ready for you when you come home. Still love you forever and a day. Danzo.”

Rigel clenched the paper tightly in her fist as if to hold on to what was left of her marriage, or so she felt. The pain of finding out about Anson was still very fresh but how could she blame Joe for something that happened a year before they met? Her heart and her head wrestled over this dilemma. Rigel folded up each telegram carefully and placed them in the nightstand drawer. Half way around the world, Magnus and Joe still had holds on her, dammit. Fatigue lapped over her from head to toe as she set the small travel alarm clock to rouse her in two hours. Then it would be time to face tea and scones…and tradition.

“Knock, knock,” Lark said as she tapped on Rigel’s door then cracked it open a bit.

“C’mon in,” Rigel replied as she finished placing her flight cap on her head.

“You’re wearing…pants?” Lark said, pointing her right index finger toward Rigel’s legs.

“Yep. Toldya I didn’t bring anything else,” Rigel replied briskly as she slung her brown leather purse strap over her left shoulder.

Lark rolled her eyes at Rigel’s remark. “It’s going to be an interesting tea,” Lark prophesied.

By the time they arrived as the officers’ mess, the rain had started up again and the cloud bases seemed to touch the ground making driving dangerous and flying impossible.

The officers’ mess was another old single story red brick building from the early days of Point Cook. It sat on a green well-maintained lawn and fronted with flowering euphorbia bushes which resembled feathered pineapples growing on thick stalks. Lark parked the car in a “Reserved for Guest” spot and then adjusted the rear view mirror to check her make up. She pulled out a tube of “Passion’s Angel Pink” lipstick from her purse and applied a final touch up to her lips. With the tube still in her right hand, Lark asked Rigel, “Want some? I understand it’s Princess Elizabeth’s favorite shade of lipstick.”

Rigel chuckled recalling past run-ins with lipstick…from “Precious Peach” in North Africa to “44 GG” etched on to her bra in Normandy. “Thanks, I pass. Well…into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred….” Rigel muttered, quoting Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

The mess facility housed multiple rooms which included one large main dining room and several smaller “club” rooms plus a hat check stand in the main lobby. A placard in front of one of the clubs announced “Welcome Miss O’Ryan, USAAF.” Rigel had never been overly rank conscious but being addressed as “Miss” instead of “Major” was beginning to bug her. She thought back to the time when Ed Britt told her to use “some of that Gallagher Charm” when he assigned her to that viper warco Trixie Nye. If she could handle Trixie, she could handle this. Show time.

Rigel put on a practiced smile, opened the door to the room and was immediately assailed by the sight and smell of smoke. Cigarette smoke. The same stuff that sent her scurrying to toilet to vomit back at Goodge Street. Smoke. Twice in one day. Rigel quickly scanned the venue with its leather chairs and low tables arranged in small conversation groups. The setting reminded her of the drawing room at Bryncote. The attendees, some of whom preferred to stand rather than retire to the leather chairs, casually chatted with each other and were an eclectic mix of several dozen military and civilian men and women. The off duty sisters from the hospital as well as the flying sisters were in attendance wearing their dark blue dress uniforms and wide brimmed hats. Against one wall stood a mahogany serving table topped with a silver tea service accompanied by white bone china cups and saucers…and a tray of those legendary brandied scones made by the legendary Chief Matron herself. And that’s where Rigel’s eyes found her, by the scones, in conversation with the waitress who had brought out a coffee urn, a rather novel and chancy item at afternoon tea, at Chief Matron’s request.

Lark and Rigel were met at the door by Matron Kenny who ushered them over to the head of the nursing service. Vivian Bullwinkel was an imposing figure in her dark blue dress uniform whose coat cuffs bore the four rows of braid indicating her rank. She stood about five and half feet tall, fortyish, solidly built with prematurely gray wavy hair framing her oval tanned face. Her intelligent large wide set eyes, one of which was hazel the other was a bronzy brown, were bracketed by lines from years spent in the tropical sun. She was a quick study with keen intellect and photographic memory. Vivian Bullwinkel was the personification of dignity, courage and honor and one could sense these when in her presence. Yet for all of her renown, Vivian remained down to earth, pragmatic and approachable.

Matron Kenny performed the introductions. “Chief Matron Bullwinkel, may I present Major O’Ryan of the United States Army Air Force.”

Chief Matron turned toward Rigel and extended her right hand which Rigel took in her own. “Welcome to Australia Major O’Ryan. I’ve been looking forward to your arrival.” The handshake, a rare gesture, did not go unnoticed by Lark and Kenny nor did Bullwinkel’s keen visual appraisal of Rigel’s uniform, notably her trousers. If Chief Matron had problems with Rigel’s pants, she never let on.

“Thank you, Ma’am, it’s a privilege to be here,” Rigel said earnestly.

Bullwinkel turned her attention to the roomful of attendees and genteelly called the room to attention with an announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, our special guest has arrived.” The background chatting stopped momentarily in deference to Bullwinkel’s words. All eyes then swiveled toward Rigel and she noticed surreptitious nudges and whispers exchanged among the audience which were accompanied by darting surprised glances toward her pants. As Matron Kenny and Chief Matron Bullwinkel had hoped, Rigel was indeed rocking the boat.

“Major O’Ryan was one of the Army Air Force’s first flight nurses. She is a distinguished and highly decorated flying sister who saw duty in North Africa, Sicily, England, Normandy, the Ardennes and most recently was an instructor at the School of Air Evacuation. We are indeed privileged to have Major O’Ryan here to share her expertise with us. I know you will all join me in welcoming her.” And with that Chief Matron Bullwinkel led the room in polite convivial applause. When it ceased, she turned toward Rigel. “Major O’Ryan, perhaps you’d care to address us with a few remarks?” Chief Matron Bullwinkel asked, which was seconded by polite nods from the crowd.

“Think fast O’Ryan,” Rigel said to herself while smiling graciously and making eye contact with several of the people in the room who waited for her words of wisdom. She didn’t expect to give a speech but then a very appropriate one came to mind… Rigel recalled Ira Eaker’s short and sweet address that won over the hearts and minds of the RAF in 1942. Poised and confident Rigel addressed the gathering. “I’d like to thank Chief Matron Bullwinkel for hosting this wonderful tea and I’d like to thank the Royal Australian Air Force for inviting me here. I won’t do more talking until I’ve done more flying. After I’ve gone, I hope you’ll be glad I came.” Her words were met with another round of genial handclapping and the crowd returned to their tea, coffee, and scones.

“Major, I’d like to introduce you to a few special guests…” and with that Chief Matron guided Rigel toward two gentlemen standing near the entry door talking animatedly with each other. One was a handsome tall blond blue eyed square jawed thirtyish civilian. He was dressed more informally than the other civilian men in the room, wearing a brown tweed jacket, white shirt, brown tie, tan trousers and oxblood loafers. His conversation partner was a stocky fortyish gentleman with a ruddy complexion, thick wavy red hair and wearing a black civilian uniform suit. He had a military type white service hat with black band and visor tucked under his arm just the way Joe used to carry his crush cap.

“Major O’Ryan I’d like you to meet The Honorable Mr. James Riordan, Member of Parliament, and Chief Nolan Galway of the Melbourne fire department,” Bullwinkel said graciously.

“I saw you in action this morning, Miss…” Galway began.

Riordan interrupted quickly, “Major…”

“…excuse me, Major…You and Miss McLarkin were, pardon the expression, hell on wheels together,” Galway said with a cordial grin.

“Thank you, Chief. You’re very kind to say that. Senior Sister McLarkin certainly was exceptional with the little boy. She has a way with children.” Rigel looked over Galway’s shoulder and saw Lark seated on a sofa, nibbling on a scone while talking with two other sisters.

“If you’ll excuse me, Major, I want to thank Sister McLarkin, too.” And with that, Chief Galway moved off toward Lark. Riordan remained.

“I especially wanted to thank you, Major O’Ryan.” Riordan’s polished baritone voice resonated with emotion and Rigel saw the glint of tears welling up in his eyes. “The woman and child you and Sister McLarkin helped today are my wife and my son.”

“I was glad I could help, Mr. Riordan. How are they doing?” Rigel asked with genuine concern.

“Lydia is rather bunged up, I’m afraid. The worst of it is a crack in one of the vertebra in her neck, and she’s in a brace. She had a nasty cut on her forehead, concussion and cracked ribs from hitting against the steering wheel, too. Joey’s top front teeth got knocked out and he has a broken nose and some bruises. But, all in all, things could have been a lot worse--I could have lost them both. I’m returning to hospital tonight to be with them but I wanted to meet you and express my personal thanks. If there is ever anything that I can do for you or your family, it would be my privilege to serve. And now if you’ll excuse me, I want thank Sister McLarkin for taking such good care of Joey.” Before he moved off, Riordan extended his hand to Rigel in a farewell handshake. She readily took it and received one…and then something else, too. Riordan gallantly kissed Rigel’s hand and once again thanked her with a smile and gratitude in his eyes.

Just then the club room door swung opened emitting a middle aged, portly, balding man in a dark gray suit who looked vaguely familiar to Rigel. Chief Matron Bullwinkel signaled with her right hand for him to join her and Rigel. As the gentleman walked toward them, he looked like a storm cloud about to explode.

“Major O’Ryan, I believe you have already met Dr. DeLancey, chief of staff at City General Hospital,” Bullwinkel said, employing her most diplomatic voice.

“Oh shit!” Rigel thought to herself but never let that emotion show through. She fell back on the trained calm that saw her through many prickly moments in the air. He was Doctor Big Mouth.

Dr. DeLancey drew a bead on Rigel and didn’t mince words. “Madam, you are by far the most impertinent woman I have ever met…but your work today was... satisfactory. Good day to you both.” And with that short conversation concluded, DeLancey chugged toward Riordan. Years later, Rigel later found out that it was Dr. DeLancey himself who attributed Lydia Riordan’s eventual full recovery to Rigel’s insistence that she not be moved prior to stabilizing her neck. James Riordan would go on to champion the development of emergency medical services and use of flight nurses in the RAAF. That legacy would come into fruition in the not too distant future…in Korea and Vietnam…and one of his descendants would make a discovery that would rock the world.

“That went quite well,” Bullwinkel observed tongue in cheek. She’d tangled with Dr. DeLancey before and was accustomed to his bark and his bite.

“My work was satisfactory?” Rigel asked Bullwinkel, puzzled.

“Coming from Dr. DeLancey that’s high praise,” Chief Matron explained. “He’s an excellent surgeon, married to medicine, but his bedside manner, is…how shall I say?…leaves a lot to be desired.”

“But why if he’s such an excellent doctor did he insist on moving Mrs. Riordan without stabilizing her neck?” Rigel asked. The two seemed to contradict each other.

“That’s part of the reason why you’re here, Major. Old habits die hard and so do old ways of treating patients. You’re going to help Kenny and me air out the place and help new ideas bloom,” Bullwinkel stated.

“And speaking of blooming, thank you for the beautiful flowers in my room. Lark said that you made sure they were there this morning,” Rigel said.

“Ah, yes, the flowers. Well, I can’t take credit for those. I was just the last step. They’re from your husband,” Bullwinkel relayed.

“Joe? How did he pull that off? It’s not like Melbourne is down the street from his office,” Rigel asked, surprised.

“From what I understand, Joe talked to Eoghain who talked to Ganymede who telegrammed me with the plan. He must miss you a lot to go to so much trouble. I must say is warms my heart to see such devotion. You’re a lucky woman.”

Rigel simply smiled and nodded politely…Bullwinkel didn’t know the half of it.

Yessirree, it had been a very interesting day.

The next few days were blur of meetings, reading course materials, policies, procedures and talking with each of the remaining flying sisters. There were only a few of them left now to cover Australia, the outlying islands and Japan and a remote location at RAAF Mallala in South Australia for one flying sister. In addition to rotating “on call” for air evacuation flights from Point Cook, the sisters also took turns being posted to Mallala, near Adelaide, about 250 miles as the crow flies northwest of Point Cook. Lark had just returned from her month long duty at that site.

“What did you do there?” Rigel asked Lark one early evening as she and some of the other sisters chatted in the first floor parlor.

“Not much,” was Lark’s honest reply. From talking with the other sisters, too, Rigel saw a pattern emerge. They flew only when called upon and usually for some civilian emergency ranging in numbers from a single patient to several dozens. Although the sisters worked in the base hospital providing patient care when not flying, they needed more than this to stay proficient in the air and it wasn’t just the sisters. It was the entire air evac system that needed revamping. The training course was much briefer and less in depth than the American one, too. Making necessary changes would require the thunder and lightning of Chief Matron Bullwinkel and Matron Kenny, especially in a military culture that viewed them “ladies” first and denied them access to the officers’ mess unless invited by men.

Finally, Rigel was cleared by nearly all parties who had to bless her as a qualified RAAF flight crew member, everyone from the quartermaster, to the admin bean counters to the flight surgeon. There was one more hurdle, a check ride, with none other than Matron Kenny herself. That notification came in the form of an unexpected visit from the senior nurse to the sick call office where Rigel had been assigned that morning doing vital signs, dispensing pills and giving injections, all necessary but boring. That changed in an instant when Matron Kenny, dressed out in her MAETU flying gear, showed up in the infirmary unannounced.

“Major, I need to speak with you privately,” Kenny said calmly, not wanting to reveal details in front of the soldiers in the office. She turned toward Flight Sergeant Higginbotham who was assisting Rigel that day and issued instructions.

“Sergeant, please contact Sister Cameron and have her take over here for Major O’Ryan. Cameron’s on duty in the medical ward.”

“Right away, Matron,” Higgy replied, as he picked up the heavy black desk phone to place a call to that unit.

Matron motioned with her right hand for Rigel to follow her outside the dispensary and then she closed the door.

“What is it, Matron?” Rigel asked. It must be serious based on Kenny’s expression.

“There’s been a plane crash. At least twenty casualties. You’re coming with me,” Kenny said. They first stopped at the hospital’s receiving ward where the “casevac”---casualty evacuation--supply foot locker was stored, quickly exited the hospital taking the chest with them and depositing it in the boot of Matron Kenney’s staff car where Sergeant Donegal was serving as driver. Matron Kenny waited in the car while Rigel crossed the street to the nurses’ quarters and took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor to her room. Long accustomed to having to move on a moment’s notice, Rigel had her flying gear readily accessible, did a quick change and then joined Kenny in the back seat of the sedan. As Sergeant Donegal headed the car toward the flight line and base ops, big rain dros hit the car’s roof making a loud plopping sound.

The pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and radioman were already at ops, huddled over reports, checking weather and plotting the course.

“Gentleman, may I introduce Major O’Ryan,” Matron Kenny said briskly and one by one pointed them out to Rigel by name: Squadron Leader McCoy, Pilot Officer Attenbury, Sergeant Tyler and Sergeant Casey. Rigel greeted them all with a ready smile and an extended hand which caught the men off guard, not used to such Yankee informality, especially from a woman.

“Matron, what are you going to need in terms of altitude from us?” Attenbury asked.

“The flight surgeon said that we can expect fractures, hemorrhages, burns, chest and head wounds, so we’ll need to stay as low as you can keep us,” Matron said.

“There’s going to be a lot of chop down low, Matron. A bad storm’s headed our way so says the crystal ball gazers at weather shack,” McCoy added.

Squadron Leader McCoy gave out more details about the accident itself. Ranchers heard the plane first, then saw it slice through the low clouds with its landing gear down for an emergency landing, it came in steep, hit the ground at an angle, pigeon hopped, then smacked the ground hard and skidded a good quarter mile along a stretch of flat pasture. The two engines burst into flame after the skid stopped. Two ranchers ran out to the accident site to aid the victims while a third drove the farm truck into town to put out a call for more help. The plea was answered by the RAAF medical branch which dispatched this casevac crew.

So far, Rigel had only seen the urban coastal areas of Australia. The casevac would be her first foray into the more sparsely populated interior of the country. It took the RAAF Dakota about 45 minutes through rain and bumpy weather to reach the crash site. As the C-47 circled the location, Rigel saw the flat land below scattered with luggage, bodies, pieces of smoldering twisted fuselage, and injured passengers being tended to by rescuers. Local residents and town doctor came to help and did the best they could with what they had which wasn’t much. The plane broke apart in two places, one behind the flight deck and the second behind the wings with many of the passengers being thrown clear of the fuselage. The setting reminded Rigel of many she’d made on flat grassy fields with only a roll of toilet paper suspended from a tree branch to act as a wind sock. As Rigel exited the plane, she was assailed by the smell of the burning fuel and metal…it was Scotland and the Ardennes all over again. She shoved back the rising wave of nausea and went to work… Rigel would later learn more facts about the crash. The airliner departed Adelaide and headed due east to Sydney, its destination, when it went down in foggy and rough weather. An investigation panel was unable to conclusively establish the cause but it decided the most likely cause was the automatic pilot was inadvertently engaged shortly after takeoff while the gyroscope was caged. An inquiry also discovered that the captain of the aircraft was diabetic and had kept it secret from both his employer and the Department of Civil Aviation. The accident investigation also cited a convergence of poor visibility and an inexperienced co-pilot whose unfamiliarity with the aircraft contributed to engine failures. This wasn’t the first crash for this type of aircraft purchased by British commonwealth countries from O’Ryan Aviation for airliner use. Senator Downer and Congressman Fink, both on committees overseeing civilian aviation, licked their chops to take bites out Caed and O’Ryan Aviation.

Later that day, a tired and dirty Rigel trudged up the stairs to her room in the nurses’ quarters, wearily stripped out of her clothes, wrapped herself in her robe, grabbed her toiletries kit and shuffled off to the showers next door. She was alone, thank goodness for that. Rigel picked the stall farthest from the door, drew back the canvas curtain, cranked on the water and stepped in, not waiting for it to get warm. She wanted to wash away more than dirt and perspiration. She wanted to wash away fear and panic that were getting harder to suppress. The ache in her leg reminded her that she wasn’t the tireless machine that she used to be, no longer the young woman that ran on a few hours’ sleep, coffee and adrenaline. Rigel rested her back against the cool white tiles of the enclosure and slid down the wall until she came to rest on the tile floor, with her arms hugging her knees. With the water beating down on her, she started to cry. What in the hell was she doing in bathroom on the other side of the world from…who? Magnus? Joe? Dammit, things were fucked up. She was unraveling and wrestled with herself to stop. She dug down deep into her inner core and used her intellect to stop the emotional hemorrhage. She was strong, healthy, had family and friends, a meaningful job that she loved and excelled at so what was wrong? Why did she feel so empty? “Get a grip, O’Ryan,” Rigel scolded herself. She shook off the shawl of self-doubt, stood up, turned off the water, dried off, wrapped her robe around her and padded back to her room.

Rigel’s quarters still held the sweet aroma of Joe’s flowers which drew her eyes to the desk where they stood in the clear glass vase. As a self-reminder, Rigel had placed the telegrams from Magnus and Joe next to the bouquet. She owed both men a reply, if not final a decision. Rigel sat down at the desk, retrieved pen, notepaper and envelopes from the middle drawer, nervously drummed her fingers on the desk top, and stared at the blank stationery waiting for words to come. They did not, which reflected the muddled state her emotions were in, and not just about fire, smoke and stink, but about her feelings for two very different men--the fiery charisma of Joe and the gentle magnetism of Magnus. After a dozen or so futile attempts ended as wadded up paper rejects on the floor, Rigel decided to keep things simple, penning brief, intense and honest replies:

“Nus,

I wish you had, too. You’re more than comfy socks to me.

Love?

O.”

“Danzo,

Got the flowers, they’re lovely. Thanks. We have lots to talk about. Letters won’t do. Everything will have to wait until I can look into your eyes again. It seems like a million years ago that changing winds dropped me on your runway. Can we get those days back again?

Have some coffee ready for me…at home? You know the way I like it.

Forever and a day?

Stars”

September quickly rolled into October with its spate of emergencies interspersed with days of dull ground duty, meetings, writing proposals, and watching Chief Matron Bullwinkel and Matron Kenny in action, yin and yang, thunder and lightning. And as Gator often reminded Rigel in the past, “A little schmoozin’ can go a long way ta gettin’ what ya want.” The trick was for Bullwinkel and Kenny to make generals and politicians want the same things that the two nurses wanted: a permanent, well trained, well equipped, well respected Royal Australian Air Force medical air evacuation force that can be used in war and in peace.

At the end of the Second World War, the allies bore the responsibility of rebuilding the defeated countries and the Australians were the largest component of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan. As part of that force, a few RAAF sisters were stationed at Iwakuni air base and undertook air evacuation duties on an as needed basis. Huge RAAF Lancaster bombers, with their long range capabilities, were the aircraft of choice, flying supplies, patients and personnel back and forth from Japan to Australia. Before Rigel was approved to make one of these treks, she had to get checked out on the Lancaster and also pass the same water ditching procedures that the RAAF sisters had to do. It didn’t matter to Chief Matron Bullwinkel that Rigel had just completed similar requalification back at Randolph or that Rigel had been a champion swimmer in her school years. Gotta prove it and do in the ocean in front of Matron Kenny to make it official. Rigel showed up at the base’s seaside dock and was cheerfully greeted by Matron Kenny, Flight Sergeant Higginbotham…and Chief Matron Bullwinkel herself. Bullwinkel was attired in her flying uniform and “Mae West” floatation vest just like Kenny and Higgy were.

“Good morning, Major,” Chief Matron said chipperly as Rigel stepped down into the small motorboat that would take them out into the bay.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” Rigel replied somewhat curiously as she donned her own deflated floatation vest. “I didn’t expect to see you out here, Chief Matron.”

“Why not? I’m flying with you to Japan and I need to requalify too,” she reported matter-of-factly.

A thought darted through Rigel’s mind. “What in the hell am I going to do on a bomber with Bullwinkel from here to Japan?” She kept it to herself although the wry smile on Kenny’s face indicated that she knew what Rigel was thinking.

Bullwinkel must have read Rigel mind, too. “Don’t worry, Major, I don’t bite,” the elder woman offered tongue in cheek with a slight smile.

Higgy revved up the engine and motored them out to where a mock up fuselage was anchored for testing purposes. Rigel and Bullwinkel went through the egress procedures which eventually called for them to deploy a life raft, swim to it and haul themselves inside. And that’s when it happened… Kenny spotted a gray fin slicing vertically through the greenish sea water toward Rigel and Bullwinkel. “Shark!” Kenny yelled out loudly as Higgy turned the small boat about and raced toward the two swimmers in the water. Without hesitation, Chief Matron Bullwinkel interposed herself between the would-be attacker and Rigel. She barked orders to Rigel, “Stay calm, don’t thrash about, if it comes at you aim for the eyes and gills with your fists!” Rigel could feel her heart racing. She’d faced many emergencies in her tenure but never an aquatic killer.

By now Higgy and Kenny and the boat were side by side with Rigel. Kenny helped pull her up out of the water while Higgy drew a bead on the animal with a rifle.

“Don’t shoot, dammit!” Bullwinkel commanded loudly. “You’ll just piss it off and blood will draw others.” Rigel and Kenny looked at each other in disbelief hearing the regal Chief Matron swear. Bullwinkel kept her cool and so did the shark, neither one being eager to have a go at the other. Rigel and Matron Kenny helped Chief Matron into the boat and she flopped in laying on her side.

“Are you all right?” Rigel inquired as she instinctively assessed Bullwinkel, running her eyes and hands over the Chief’s head, arms, back and legs for signs of bleeding or damage.

Calmly, Chief Matron Bullwinkel righted herself, doffed her Mae West, brushed her hair away from her eyes, and pronounced her condition. “Quite all right, thank you. I’m too tough an old bird to make a tasty meal and that damned fish knew it.”

Rigel, Matron Kenny and Flight Sergeant Higginbotham chuckled with relief. They would always remember October 30 1947 as the day that Chief Matron Vivian Bullwinkel stared down a shark. In Japan, she’d stared down her previous attackers, too.

After landing at Iwakuni, Rigel and Chief Matron Bullwinkel parted ways, Bullwinkel destined for Tokyo and Rigel to RON --remain overnight --on base and fly back to Australia with patients and one of the Australian flight nurses. The return trip was long, tiring but uneventful. By the time she got home, the mess hall was closed so dinner would be something out of can stored in her room. Rigel traipsed up the stairwell to her quarters and dropped off her luggage. She then grabbed a box of crackers and a can of tomato soup out of the closet and headed down to the first floor kitchen intent on assuaging her growling stomach. After heating the soup, she poured it into a bowl, crumbled crackers on the liquid, sat down in a wobbly wooden folding chair and scooted in to the small round kitchen table to enjoy her meal. A previous diner left a newspaper on the table and Rigel casually picked it up and perused it. There, on the front page, was a photo of Chief Matron Bullwinkel, and an article to go with it.

War crimes tribunal hears testimony of Australian Nurse; White woman beheaded, Japanese atrocities disclosed by Theodora Smythe-Beckworth, Anson News Service, Tokyo.

An Ambonese soldier, Yohan Tomascoa, formerly a prisoner of war, told the Army Military Commission today that he saw a Japanese soldier behead a white woman believed to be either an Australian or American flight nurse in the Celebes in late 1944. The woman was tied with her back against a small sapling with her wrists behind her, Tomascoa said. She shouted and a Japanese soldier removed a blindfold from her eyes. Then she shouted something sounding like ‘Mother, mother.’ As she cried out she was executed by a man named Abi with a stroke of a sword. More gripping testimony of war crimes came from Chief Matron Vivian Bullwinkel who spoke about her own ordeal.

Bullwinkel, 21 other nurses and a large group of men, women, and about 100 British soldiers survived the sinking of their ship by Japanese aircraft, washing ashore on a Japanese held island. The group elected to surrender to the Japanese, and while the civilian women and children left in search of someone to whom they might surrender, the nurses, soldiers, and wounded waited.

Japanese soldiers ordered the men into the nearby jungle. Those remaining on the beach heard machine gun fire and the men’s screams. Japanese soldiers returned to the beach, some of them cleaning blood from their guns and bayonets. They motioned the nurses to wade waist deep into the sea and machine-gunned the nurses from behind. Bullwinkel was struck by a bullet and pretended to be dead until the Japanese left. She hid with a wounded British private for twelve days before deciding once again to surrender. They were taken into captivity, but the private died soon after. Bullwinkel was reunited with other survivors of the ship. She told them of the massacre, but none spoke of it again until after the war lest it put Bullwinkel, as witness to the massacre, in danger. Bullwinkel spent three and half years in captivity.

Further down the page, Rigel saw another familiar name next to a by-line.

Amelia Earhart discovered? by Antonia Karacimos, Anson News Service. Lae, New Guinea

An apparent castaways’ camp on tiny Gardner Island may be were famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan met their fate in 1937 during their attempt to circumnavigate the globe at the equator. Pieces of a man’s shoe and a woman’s shoe, and bottles of skin care products Earhart was known to use have been found on the tiny coral atoll, one a type of liniment and mosquito repellant and the other a freckle treatment. Fish and bones were found inside camp fire remnants and pieces of a metal and mirrored compact like one Earhart had been known to carry were also found. But perhaps most intriguing and significant finds were human skeletal bones belonging to a man and a woman. Earhart departed Lae, New Guinea toward a fly speck in the ocean, Howland Island, where she was to refuel. She never made it. The search launched for Earhart and Noonan was the largest endeavor of its kind so far. Stories of a white woman flier held captive by the Japanese made their way from island to island among the various native peoples and as we all know many legends are based on shreds of facts. One prevailing theory is that Earhart was on a secret mission for the U.S. government. She was to fake a crash which would validate a huge search to find her and in the course of that search the U.S. would catch Japan red handed, militarizing islands in violation of treaties. Hollywood got into the act, too, with “Flight for Freedom.” The movie which starred Rosalind Russell as aviatrix “Tony Carter” supposedly had the tacit blessing of Earhart’s husband, wealthy publisher George P. Putnam, so long as his wife’s name was not mentioned. When asked about this ploy, Chester Schmedlappe, aide to the Secretary of War had ‘no comment.’ What is certain, though, is that the search for Amelia Earhart will continue.”

Leave it to Theodora and Antonia to get scoops. After a rather hair raising and largely off the record assignment to Greece and Albania, Irene assigned the women to the other side of the planet on two widely divergent stories.

Crosswinds: October, B-17 over Norway

ALTHOUGH Norway had been occupied by the Germans during the war years, the Norwegians had an active insurgency that did everything from publishing outlawed newspapers, to small scale sabotage, to special operations that included combat. In 1943 during a daring and nearly disastrous secret night mission, Joe and the crew of the Piccadilly Lily airlifted famed Norwegian resistance leader Arne Borg and his son, Christian, to England. Borg brought intelligence with him about locations of various German fuel facilities but his true reason for the flight out of Norway was to secure Christian’s safety by bringing him to England. At the time, Joe had little tolerance for Borg’s deceptions but now, with his own poignant experience with fatherhood in 1946, Joe’s attitude had mellowed.

Borg wasn’t the only show in Norway; it was also the location of a series of costly raids on secret and highly sensitive targets that almost cost Joe his career and pitted him against his father, three-star general Maxwell Preston Gallagher. Over snifters of Gallagher family brandy in his suite at the Langham in 1943, Max warned Joe, “We are headed for a showdown as a colonel and a general…for a fight that I cannot lose and neither one of us could forgive me for winning.” Fortunately, father and son struck a balance between duty to one’s conscience and the responsibilities of command. Max was eventually allowed to disclose the importance of those Norway raids--the destruction of facilities that produced “heavy water,” a vital component in Germany’s quest for their atomic bomb. Thanks to the AAF and the Norwegian partisans, the plant was put out of commission.

In the post war period of the mid to late 1940s, Stalin’s national security theory and actions were based on the premise that “more territory means more security.” To that end, the Soviets gobbled up eastern European countries to act as buffers between them and the west. The Soviets also wanted to secure their Nordic borders with Norway, Finland, and Sweden. They eyed Denmark, too, as it controlled two crucial islands, Iceland and Greenland. Should Norway side with the Americans and the British, its long western coast line would give the U.S. and U.K. strategic control of the seas and air leading into the all-important North Atlantic. They were also wary of the U.S. striking deals with Denmark over use of Iceland and Greenland for naval and air bases. The far northern countries not only protected the pivotal North Atlantic but played key roles in monitoring any Arctic and polar traffic to and from the USSR.

With a hot war over and a new insidious cold war brewing, Norway faced a turbulent relationship with its former ally, the Soviet Union, with whom it shared a small but critically important stretch of border in the far northeastern section of the country. Norway and the USSR were allies during the war while Finland, who also shared borders with Norway and Russia, sided with Germany. Sweden, wedged between Norway and Finland, remained notoriously neutral but on occasion turned a blind eye to certain clandestine activities. Finland fell in 1944 and Russia scarfed up some of Finland’s territory as victor’s spoils. Finland had a stronger Communist Party in its government than Norway did and after some threats and wooing by their mighty eastern neighbor, Finland signed a mutual assistance agreement with the Soviet Union in 1947, acknowledging that the two countries had a “special relationship.” That scared the hell out of the Norwegians and motivated them to side with the western powers. That, in turn, scared the hell out of the Soviets.

Thus, in addition to its territorial disputes with the USSR over Svalbard, Bear Island and portions of the Barents Sea, Norway had a pivotal role in the developing game of cat and mouse played by the US and the UK with the Soviets. The Soviet surface fleet at Murmansk would have to sail around Norway to get to the indispensable sea lanes of the North Atlantic…the gateway to Great Britain and to North America. By virtue of its geography, Norway, perhaps unwillingly, got sucked into the power struggle between East and West.

And geography was playing an important part in the western Allies’ policies and tactics. Bases for land, sea and air forces would be needed at strategic locations in countries around the world if the Soviet Bear was to be contained. But before those facilities could be built, the land--and perhaps other things--had to be surveyed. The most efficient way to do this herculean job was by air. The one-time B-17 war birds were relegated to this vital--and boring--duty.

But this particular mundane mission had a bright spot, at least for the two pilots, Colonel Frank Bailey and Brigadier General Joe Gallagher. Both of them had moved on from their wartime duties at the 918th, moved up the chain of command, away from flying and most definitely far away from flying B-17s. The venerable Fortresses in which they had spent hundreds of hours hanging in the sky facing death were now obsolete, superseded by the bigger and more sophisticated B-29. Frank had mastered the plane and was in the process of schooling Joe in the Superfortress much to the consternation of Telemachus LeRoy, now also a brigadier heading up a training command stateside.

“Mac” LeRoy’s irritation over Joe’s plum high profile assignment in England sloshed over from personal jealousy to outright public attacks bordering on slander, libel and breaches in national security. Mac LeRoy may have been a brilliant air power strategist but his irritating and destructive steel wool personality, vindictiveness and big mouth were his undoing and stood in sharp contrast to Joe Gallagher who had the perfect blend of toughness, compassion, substance and style.

All Joe and Frank expected on this mapping mission was to log a substantial number of air hours and maintain their flight status. The navigator, Captain Coleman, and the photo specialist, Captain Yeltz, were hard at work at their stations, plotting locations, grids, and such. T/Sgt. Oscar Gist was along to man the radio. The B-17 had long since been stripped of her armaments which made her lighter, faster and gave her a longer range. The two old friends, Frank and Joe, used the cockpit time to catch up on work and each other’s lives and pretty much “mind the store” while the crew went about their tasks.

“So, tell me Frank, how’s the training program for the Negro troops going at Archbury?” Joe asked.

“So far, so good. I’ve had to adjust a few attitudes of some officers and key non-coms involved in the project and I flat out removed one bone headed major, but I can see progress being made.”

“You know why I selected you and what’s left of the 918th for the first stage of the project, don’t you?” Joe asked.

“Probably had something to do with the racial incidents a few months back and the outcomes of the investigation,” Frank said with a bit of tension in his voice. He had come under a lot of fire over those, been slapped with accusations of dereliction of duty, laissez-faire attitude and lax leadership.

“And…” Joe said, indicating that Frank was on the right track but there was more.

“And…I suspect that you wanted to give me a chance to redeem myself. I appreciate that Joe, I really do,” Frank said earnestly.

“You’re a good, honest officer Frank and you don’t have a prejudiced bone in your body. I know that. And your testimony on behalf of the men who were handed those bogus convictions was key in getting those overturned and expunged from their records.”

“Joe, what was done to those men was pure bigoted bullshit. It was wrong and I just couldn’t stand by and let it happen. I’m glad that I was able to set some things right. But--” Frank clipped off his sentence as he gripped the yoke tighter indicating the tension the topic elicited in him.

“But what?” Joe asked.

“You really wanna hear it?”

“Damned right I do. Spill it, Frank.”

“Look Joe, I’m a lily white guy from the great white north. This idea isn’t gonna play well with some other folks…and you know what I mean.”

“Injustice is wrong. Period. End of story. I want you to help me make a difference.”

“Ah, c’mon, Joe, you’re not gonna tell me that old Grandpa Gallagher story about throwing starfish back into the ocean are ya?”

“Nope,” Joe said with a pleased grin.

Frank stretched his arms and flexed his back as well as he could do sitting in the confines of the pilot’s seat. “Take her for a while will ya Joe?” Frank said as he tapped his hands on the yoke.

“Roger,” Joe replied casually as he took over control of the Fortress.

“You never did tell me how you managed to save the ‘Piccadilly Lily’ from the scrap heap,” Frank asked.

The question relit Joe’s smile. “RHIP…and I just couldn’t let Miss Lily die like that…at least this incarnation of her anyway,” Joe said as he lovingly patted the instrument panel in front of him with his right hand.

“How much longer can you protect her, Joe?”

Joe shrugged. “Don’t know. I’d like to see her continue to fly. Maybe turn her over to Air Sea Rescue or maybe even buy her myself.”

Frank whistled at that remark. “Say, I knew you were a rich kid but I didn’t know you could afford a quarter million dollar bomber.”

“Our Forts aren’t selling for what they cost to build ‘em, they’re going for pennies on the dollar. But you’re right, it’s still a chunk of change.”

“And what would Rigel say about you bringing home a flying mistress, hm?” Frank’s question was meant to be humorous but when he caught sight of the wince on Joe’s face at the mention of Rigel, he wished he hadn’t said anything and offered a quick apology. “Sorry, Joe…I didn’t mean to….”

“It’s okay, Frank…”

“…pry into your life…”

“It’s no secret that we’re separated.”

“Geographically or, um, legally?”

“She’s TDY with the RAAF in Australia,” Joe said tersely as he kept his eyes looking straight ahead at the towering thunderheads that grew bigger, closer and darker every second.

“So you are or you’re not getting divorced?” Frank’s query was pointed. Joe responded with a non-answer.

“It was a really great career opportunity and I don’t blame her in the least for taking it,” Joe said honestly. To himself he wondered what the next course of action would be, “out of sight out of mind” or “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” He hadn’t resolved which way to go in his own mind and heart and abruptly decided to change the subject.

“And speaking of wives….How’s Phyllis enjoying civilianhood?”

“Honestly, I don’t know which she hates more, being a civilian or the morning sickness…” For a second time Frank put his foot in mouth. Realizing what he said, he scrunched up his face after his words had escaped. Frank shook his head and apologized--a second time. “Dammit…I did it again, Joe. I’m sorry…”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. We lost Brynn and I’ll grant you that it hurt…a lot…and for a long time, too. But the miscarriage happened, I’ve dealt with it and moved on.”

“And speaking of moving on, I’ve got a bad case of cement butt. Mind if I stretch my legs and go in the back for a minute?”

“Nope, I’ll go when you get back.”

Frank rose up and passed back through where the top turret used to be en route to where the cameraman was busily at work. As he squeezed by Joe he muttered, “I wanna see what’s so damned important that we’ve gotta fly half way to the North Pole to map it.”

Joe called on the navigator for a position check. “Captain Coleman how soon before we run out of Norwegian air?” Their mapping mission orders called for them to fly over the far northeast tip of Norway where it bumped up against Finland and Russia, two countries who were entirely too friendly with each other.

“Two minutes seventeen seconds, General, before we need to execute a turn back out to the west. I’ll give you a signal at one minute, sir.”

“Roger. I don’t like the looks of those clouds that are coming our way either.” Joe had great respect for Mother Nature and knew that when an airplane tangled with her, the plane usually lost.

Joe’s words were prophetic. No sooner had he spoken them than this newest incarnation of his beloved “Piccadilly Lily” sank through a bottomless hole of air…falling, buffeting, swaying…as if some powerful unseen hidden hand had grabbed the Fort, and flung her who knows where….Joe was left alone on the flight deck struggling with the controls, the four engines growled under the strain as Joe asked them to help the “Lily” defy gravity…the fuselage shuttered and quaked under the stress of combat between the forces at work upon her….minutes passed….and as swiftly as the invisible hand came, it left….but they were lost and way too close to the ground.

“Frank! Get up here!” Joe yelled over the intercom. His left shoulder and leg ached from the wrestling match with the controls but they held up though Joe was sweating and breathing hard and fast.

“Navigator, where in the hell are we?” Joe barked as Frank returned to the left hand seat.

“I…I’m not sure sir…my instruments are all fucked up…I don’t understand…” spoke the frazzled voice in the nose.

“Holy shit Joe…what’s that?” Frank said as he pointed to a strange looking structure not too far below them.

Joe looked down, out the window and saw…it.

“A henge…” The words escaped from Joe’s lips in disbelief. Another one? Here? Where ever “here” is? He kept his wits about him and ordered the photo specialist to get pictures of the collection of pillars and roads and buildings. It was a big complex and he could see vehicles moving about. Unlike the one in Yugoslavia, this was one was active and whoever was running it had the balls to not even try to camouflage it.

“A what?” Frank asked.

“Something I’ve seen before and never wanted to see again,” Joe replied recalling the off the record mission to Yugoslavia and the strange effect that the henge there had on him.

“We’ve got trouble, Joe, number one is running hot and we’re losing oil pressure on number 4,” Frank reported in a calm but concerned voice. Joe automatically cut switches and feathered both props.

Captain Coleman’s excited voice came over the intercom “Uh-oh, I think somebody’s pissed that we’re here. Four o’clock low, fighters coming up and…they’ve got red stars on them!”

The flight of Yaks closed in on the slower, ailing American B-17 and fired at her. Frank ducked the plane into the relative safety of a cloud bank and asked Captain Coleman just where in the hell they were.

“The best I can figure is somewhere over Finnish-Russian border, Colonel.”

“What do you wanna do Joe? Put her down in here in Finland or try for Sweden?” Frank asked.

“Negative. We can’t let the film get into the wrong hands and it might if we land anywhere else except back home.”

“It’s gonna take Luck of the Irish if we’re gonna do it. Look.” Frank nodded to the instrument panel and Joe didn’t like what he saw there either.

“Coleman, what’s the nearest base in Scotland that can accommodate a B-17?” Joe asked.

“Let me check, General….” There was a pause of a few seconds and then a reply. “Lossiemouth about 40 miles northeast of Inverness. It had Lancasters during the war-- The Dam Busters--and it’s right on the coast.”

“Okay, plot a direct course to Lossiemouth, Captain,” Joe instructed.

“But, sir, that’ll take us through Finnish and Swedish airspace and we were briefed to stay out,” Captain Coleman replied.

“Do it, Captain,” Joe said firmly.

“Yessir.”

Frank looked over at Joe who sat calmly in the co-pilot seat. “Shit’s gonna fly over this, Joe.”

“Yeah, and it’ll land on me, not you.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away another B-17 on another so-called “mapping” mission snapped images that would herald a sea change in the world’s balance of power in the not too distant future…

By the time Joe and Frank landed in Scotland, complaints had already been lodged by the Soviets, the Finns and the Swedes and Joe got an earful from Phil Doud when he spoke to him over a secured line from Lossiemouth. “The Gallagher Incident” as it was now being called, had been burning up phone lines and cables from London to Washington and the PRO boys and girls were working overtime to put a favorable spin on the whole affair. But shit rolls downhill and a big avalanche of it started at the Pentagon and careened down on to Phil Doud who heaved it on to Joe. Phil found out that good ole Mac LeRoy was doing his best to stir up more shit, too, and had sent a letter to Air Force Chief of Staff General Tooey Spaatz, decrying his self-proclaimed nemesis, “that gallivanting glamor boy of the Air Force” as LeRoy called Joe.

Time dragged slowly while the crew and their precious film were stuck up north for a week due to severe weather that had followed them from Norway. As they waited, stopgap repairs were done to Miss Lily so that when the weather lifted she could fly them back to England.

Finally, back in London, tired and grungy, Joe dragged himself up the flights of stairs to his Goodge Street flat. He wished that Rigel was home to share some Irish coffee with him and then move on to a soothing massage…and some “practicing.” He wondered if those days were gone forever or just put on lay-away. As he was about to key open the door, a young man in a courier’s uniform and cap reached the landing. Joe noticed that he walked with a limp and was minus a left hand. He held a clipboard between his upper left arm and chest and nestled a white cardboard box against him with his right arm and hand.

“Excuse me, guv, could you direct me to number three please?” The young man, tall and thin, with ice blue eyes and pale complexion, couldn’t have been more than eighteen and he looked unwell. “Roy” was the name embroidered above the left breast pocket of his uniform jacket.

“Right here,” Joe said. “What can I do for you…Roy?”

“You can sign off for this here package, sir,” Roy said as he handed the box to Joe who took it.

“Who’s it from?” Joe asked.

“Haven’t the foggiest, guv, but I had to go to all the way to Kneesworth to get it.”

“Kneesworth?”

“That’s right…at a pub…the Cup and Vine. I was told to go to the Cup and Vine and that there would be a white box sitting on top of a table in the back of the pub. Sure ‘nuff there it was. Strange t’aint it?”

“Damned strange,” Joe confirmed.

“And there was somethin’ else kinda strange too…”

“What’s that?”

“There was a man sitting at the next table reading a Russian newspaper.”

“How’d you know it was Russian?”

“‘Cuz of the letterin’--kinda like English but some of their letters are backwards and look different, you know?”

“Cyrillic.”

“Sir-what?”

“Never mind… but what did the man look like? Do you remember?”

“Kinda ordinary, about your age maybe older, brown curly hair, glasses…he didn’t look up at me, just kept on reading.”

Joe shifted the box in his hands and felt its weight. It wasn’t very heavy at all and nothing rattled. “Wonder what it is…” he muttered to himself.

“Haven’t a clue…but there is a message that goes along with it, sir.”

“I always wanted a singing telegram,” Joe said drolly.

“What’s that guv?”

“Not important. What’s the message?”

“Check six.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. What’s it mean to ya if ya don’t mind me askin’?”

“It’s pilot jargon, it means to watch your back,” Joe explained and Roy nodded in semi-understanding.

“Well now, sir, if you’d be so kind as to sign off and I’ll be on my way.”

“Right.” Joe took the clipboard and pen that Roy offered him, affixed his John Hancock to the paper then fumbled in his pockets to find one last pound note which he gave to Roy along with the clipboard and pen.

“Thank you, sir!” Roy said briskly then turned and disappeared down the staircase.

Joe opened the door into the cozy living room that he’d last seen a week ago, switched on the lamp standing on the end table next to the couch, placed the box next to the lamp, divested himself of his leather flying jacket and hat, and plopped down on the squishy cushions. He rested his head against the back of the couch and put his aching left leg up on the ottoman, closed his eyes and relaxed for a moment. Curiosity soon got the best of him and he investigated the box and its contents. There was no note as to the giver. Joe lifted out scads of rumpled up newspapers that protected a glass bottle with a leather pouch suspended around its neck. Next to the bottle was a newspaper folded open to a page bearing a photograph of Joe and Nicholai Vorodenko at the Suvorov ceremony in July 1945. The other item was a 1946 bottle of Medova, the Ukrainian liqueur made from honey and Nik’s favorite libation. He’d gifted a bottle of the stuff to Joe and Rigel at Bryncote for their rewedding on April 4, 1946. Joe removed the pouch from around the neck of the bottle, opened it, and a familiar ring fell out onto Joe’s outstretched hand. It looked like the one that Irina wore at Bryncote. Upon closer inspection, Joe saw that this was a Borgia ring and opened it to find several irregular grayish small stones, nothing that resembled the so-called “impact diamonds” that were a part of Irina’s beautiful gold cross pendant. He had no idea what these small rocks were but assumed they must be important enough for someone to go to such lengths to get them to Joe. Everything else pointed to Nik. But what could all of this mean? Joe reached for the phone on the other end table and called Phil Doud.

“Phil? It’s Joe. I need to see you right away.”

“I was just about to call you Joe. Something’s come up. I’ll send my driver over to get you in ten minutes.”

“Make it thirty. I stink.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you smell like, Gallagher. I want you here pronto,” Phil said in a tone that let Joe know he wasn’t kidding. “Ten minutes.”

“But Phil…”

“My two stars beat your one, Joe. I win,” Phil replied, gently pulling rank on his longtime friend.

“Right. Ten minutes.” Joe stood up and rubbed his stubbly red beard with his hands and headed toward the bathroom for a quick GI bath, shave and shampoo. He shucked into whatever clean underwear, socks, and uniform he found in the armoire and was ready to go when Doud’s aide knocked on the door.

Joe made the ride to headquarters in silence, pondering his thoughts alone in the back seat of the sedan. Just what in the hell was going on? He didn’t know but he was going to find out from Phil Doud.

Joe knew Phil well and they were closer in age than Joe had been to his previous boss, Major General Ed Britt. Phil was articulate, fair, erudite, innovative, a straight shooter…and always had Joe’s back. He and Ed Britt were the same in that regard.

Phil’s greeting in person was a lot friendlier than the hell-fire telephonic ass chewing he gave Joe about trespassing into the airspace of not one but three countries, all in the span of one mission. Phil set the phone line ablaze with expletives interwoven through his commentary of Joe’s odyssey aloft and the current geopolitical mishegas that it had created.

“Coffee?” Phil asked when he saw the fatigue etched on Joe’s face.

“With brandy?” Joe hinted as he placed the mystery box on Phil’s paper cluttered desk then sat down in the worn wooden chair in front of it. Phil’s office in USAFE was smaller than the one he’d inhabited at PINETREE, that venerable centuries old abbey and country manor house turned into a girls’ boarding school for Britain’s elite. It was handed over to the 8th Air Force when its staff arrived in England in 1942. The workspace may be smaller but the workload was bigger now that the nascent “United States Air Force” and the rest of the military were expected to do more with much less.

“It’s been a rough week, eh Joe?” Phil said as he resurrected a bottle of brandy from his bottom right desk drawer and poured generous glugs of the potion into coffee mugs for Joe and himself. He handed a steaming cup to Joe then took his seat in the well-worn squeaky leather chair behind his desk. “You know, you and Rigel got me hooked on this Irish coffee stuff. By the way, how’s she doing Down Under?”

Joe took a sip of the brew before responding. “You didn’t order me here to talk about Rigel, Dave.”

“And you didn’t call me to get some Irish coffee either.”

“Nope.” Joe nodded in the direction of the box. “Open it.”

“What is it?”

“I think it’s a message from Nik.”

“Nik as in your old buddy General Nicholai Borisovich Vorodenko?”

“Yep.”

“What’s he trying to tell you…us?”

“That’s why I’m here. I don’t know what it means but I guess the gurus in G2 and MI 6 might be able to figure it out. A courier delivered it to me and said there was a message. ‘Check six.’”

“Watch your back?” Phil said, decoding the meaning of the pilotese.

“Yeah, I guess he’s trying to warn me about…well, something. And another thing is odd. That pouch, open it.”

Phil did and the ring fell out into his palm. “So?”

“That ring looks like the one that Irina Zavanoff wore at Bryncote last year when she and Nik were at our rewedding party. Her ring had a sample of some special kind of radar invisible metal in it and it was supposedly turned over to British intelligence for analysis. G2 got the impact diamonds and the microchip in the deal.”

“So how’d Nik get the ring if MI 6 had it? Do you think this is the same ring?” Phil asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not. That’s a Borgia ring...and so was Irina’s at Bryncote.”

“A what?”

“It opens up, like a locket, and there’s stuff inside, small rocks. But they’ve got to be something other than ordinary stones or Nik--or whoever--wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.”

A buzz on the intercom interrupted their conversation. It was an announcement by Lt. Lucy McMahon, Doud’s Secretary and Juliette’s roommate. “Excuse me General Doud, but his Lordship is here.”

“Send him in, Lieutenant.”

In walked Cameron St. Giles, looking dapper as usual.

Joe rose up from his chair, extended his hand in greeting and St. Giles took it in a firm, confident grip.

“Well, General, we meet again.” The thirtyish blue eyed well-built six footer with his pomaded blond hair, thin mustache and square jaw just oozed of English high society and aristocracy.

“Are you related to Squadron Officer Tydd St. Giles by any chance?” Joe asked in an attempt to make some small talk to break the ice around St. Giles.

“Yes, Tydd was my brother. Did you know him?”

“No, but I heard many good things about him. I’m sorry for your loss, Cam.” Joe’s offer was sincere.

“Thank you, General…Joe. Tydd was an amazing man, a damned good pilot, too, and I shall always miss him.”

“So, Cam, what’s so important that it took you away from your club and a cricket match?” Phil asked tongue-in-cheek as he poured some brandy sans coffee into another white GI coffee mug and handed to Cam. Cam took it and sat down in the other wooden chair next to Joe.

“The images captured from the mission General Gallagher and Colonel Bailey made over Norway, and by mistake the ones in Russia and Finland…and from other images one of your B-17s took over Germany.” Cam turned his patrician face toward Joe. “I understand that two years ago you made a trek to Yugoslavia and found some rather interesting things there.”

Joe didn’t know how to respond to Cam’s statement. The mission was classified and compartmentalized on a “need to know” basis so how did this Brit know about it? He looked askance at Phil who read Joe’s expression perfectly.

“It’s okay, Joe. You can speak freely,” Phil assured him, knowing Cam’s position as a liaison between British and American intelligence offices.

“Yugoslavia. Yeah. Sandy--Lieutenant Komansky--my aide at the time, he and I saw and experienced the thing, too.”

“Things. There are more than one as you know,” Cam replied, having been involved in debriefing the personnel involved in August’s adventures in Albania and Greece and now involved with the ones in Norway and Russia.

“Is--or was--one of ‘em at Watten?” Joe asked.

“Yes,” Cam confirmed. “And your mission to Norway found two more…plus those that were found on Lady Smythe-Beckworth’s film.”

“Two more in Norway? I only saw one,” Joe said. And that little unplanned flyby launched a hornet’s nest of Soviet Yaks.

“The mission film also showed a second one on the Norwegian side of the border. Tell me, just how did you know about the one on the Russian side?”

“I didn’t. Chalk it up to problems with navigation above the Arctic Circle and some violent changing winds that blew us further off course. We came out of a downdraft…and there the damned thing was. We’d lost power in two engines so I decided to take the straightest course back to Britain to deliver the film into safe hands.”

“Congratulations, General Gallagher. In one fell swoop, you single handedly caused international incidents with three countries simultaneously. I think that must be a record.” Cam’s sarcasm didn’t set well with Joe.

“I made the right decision, Lord St. Giles, and I don’t give a damn if a bunch of diplomats got their knickers in a twist over it.” Joe’s face was set and Phil recognized the famous Gallagher Irish temper on the rise.

Phil spoke next to diffuse the quickly building tension. “Our official story to the Finns, Swedes and Russians is navigational error plus that damnable changing wind pushed you off course into Russia and Finland. Everybody knows that navigating above the Arctic Circle is tricky. The dust up from this will settle down quickly. And it must have been the Luck of the Irish that brought you out of that storm right over that Russian henge or else we’d never have known about it.”

“So did the Finns, Russians and Swedes buy our explanation?” Joe put to Phil.

“Hell no, but that’s for the diplomats to iron out,” Phil said with a chuckle.

“The henges in Norway don’t appear to be as active as the one you discovered in Russia, though,” Cam reported.

“So what are these henges anyway?” Joe asked.

“We’re not positive but they apparently have something to do with generating a new source of power,” Cam said.

“We flew some pretty costly missions to Norway three years ago to wipe out a heavy water facility. Do they have something to do with atomic weapons?” Joe put the question to Cam and then shifted his gaze over to Phil.

“Maybe,” Cam said.

“But you’re not sure,” Joe asked.

“No,” Cam confirmed.

“Show him the box, Phil,” Joe said. Cam looked at the contents and focused on the ring and the rocks it contained. He whistled in a blend of amazement and incredulity when he fingered the mineral. Cam then walked over to Phil’s bright desk lamp and examined the specimens more closely under the strong illumination, then touched one of them to his tongue and made a displeased face.

“What is it? Do you know what those rocks are?” Joe asked.

“I think so. Bitterfeld calcium…it’s the right color and reflectivity…and has a taste like garlic.” Cam’s face was taut and deadly serious.

“What in the hell is Bitterfeld calcium?” Phil asked.

“It’s a special type of calcium that’s needed for atomic research and atomic energy. The I.G. Farben company--the same bastards that made the poison gas for the death camps and are on trial at Nuremberg--owned the calcium and a processing facility at Bitterfeld. Now the Soviets have it and they’re moving trainloads of the stuff east, to their atomic research sites…and we think it may have something to do with those damnable henges, too. Intel’s a little wanting on that, though.”

“And what happens if this flow of special calcium continues?” Joe asked.

“That’s not the right question, Joe.” Phil turned toward Cam and pinned him down with his stare. “Is it Cam?” he asked.

Cam got up from the chair and paced a few steps, considering his words. “Hypothetically, let’s just say that if we could manage to sabotage the Bitterfeld calcium and taint it, and the tainted calcium got delivered and our Soviet friends used it, it could completely gum up their atomic production works. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“I see. Hypothetically,” Joe said acknowledging what Cam was conveying by his shaded words. At any moment, Joe expected to see Dave Creighton’s sharp face and form come bursting into the room, swoop up the bottle, the ring and the rocks and tell him, “Weeds, Joe, weeds…”

“But if you--and by that I mean you intel guys--already know this then why did someone go to such great lengths to get this ring and the stones to Joe and make it look like Vorodenko has something to do with it?” Phil asked.

“The ring went missing last year,” Cam confessed rather sheepishly.

“What! How in the hell could something that important just go missing?” Joe asked pointedly. His friends Irina and Nik had risked their lives to bring out that item and now some inept bean counter lost it…Then it dawned on Joe what Nik was trying to warn him about. He almost blurted it out but his gut instinct said “No, not now.”

“That I’m not at liberty to discuss.” With his revealing eye tic twitching, Cam’s retort was final and his body language of arms crossed over his chest and failure to look Joe in the eyes backed up his words. And with that, Cam looked at his wrist watch and feigned an excuse. “I’m sorry to cut our meeting short, gentlemen, but I must be off. King’s business and all of that rot.” He shook hands with Joe and Phil and left.

Joe waited until he and Phil were alone and then spoke. “Phil, I know what Nik was trying to tell me--warn me or us --about and his Lordship’s sudden closed mouth about the ring’s disappearance confirms it.”

“What is it Joe?” Phil asked, both concerned and excited.

“We’ve got a leak somewhere, that’s what he’s trying to tell us. I betcha that it’s Irina’s ring and I betcha St. Giles knows it, too. There’s something about him that just…just…” Joe stammered, trying to find the right words.

“Just what?” Phil prodded.

“Just sets off my gut instincts,” Joe said bluntly. “I felt it back in August, saw that eye tic of his then and now, and on top of his actions today, I’m telling you he’s not to be trusted.”

“Are you shitting me? That guy plays in the highest circles on both sides of the Atlantic, Joe,” Phil said.

“I don’t give a damn if he swipes spit with King George and Harry Truman. He’s a phony, Phil…and he’s dangerous. I can feel it.” Joe’s eyes were wide and his voice was resolute. “What are you gonna do about him, Phil?”

“Me?” Phil asked, surprise painted all over his face.

“Yeah, you,” Joe said as he firmly laid the tip of his right index finger into Phil’s chest.

“Why me and not you?” Phil replied.

Joe’s crooked grin lit up his face as he turned the tables on his friend and boss. “Your two stars to my one. You win.”

Phil nodded in agreement. Sometimes rank was just a pain in the ass.

Yessirree, it had been a very interesting day.

Justice and Other Mysteries: November, Nuremberg

BY November, the Farben Trial had been in session since May and was proceeding toward the verdict. Everybody was tired, the questions of guilt and innocence ever tangled, with the Justices later admitting to terrific struggles of conscience over the differences between “war guilt” and “crimes against peace.” In the first trial Albert Speer himself had been spared the hangman’s noose, and given twenty years imprisonment, for his defense that he had not assisted with the development of industries in Nazi Germany with the of waging war…which people believed, one journalist groused, because of them all, Speer seemed the only one apologetic.

Deliberate intention and business as usual did not equate. After all, business was business…and how could Farben defendants be judged guilty pursuing ordinary business activities? Pundits, meaning no disrespect to victims of Farben’s industries and mines, pointed out that convicting Farben of doing business would kind of convict all countries with capitalistic tendencies, including the United States …whose own war industry helped crush the opposition and promote the nation to number one power in the world…. Round and round it went.

Stovall, Rosenthal, and Boleslawski usually united for drinks at least twice a week in the pub…where their chief topic of conversation was justice…and how elusive it was. Bo, once hot-damn ready to incinerate the 22 defendants, was now frankly puzzled about the meanings of several words, including “aggression,” “compulsion,” and “cooperation.” “Man,” he said, after his second scotch, “how can we prove that they didn’t have doubts about what they were doing? If I had Nazi shitheads breathing down my neck, I might have ignored my moral sense as well.”

“But shouldn’t we prosecute a lack of moral fortitude? That factors into robbery, unless the culprit is three years old or clearly out of their heads. No,” Harvey maintained, “they had moral latitude to refuse…but refusal may have led them to violence, or violence to their families. It may have been necessary for them to comply.”

Rosenthal, meditatively smoking a pipe, gave his thoughts. “Accepting a defense of ‘necessity’ would lead to a conclusion that Hitler, since all roads led to him, alone was responsible for the major war crimes committed during his regime.”

“And the man…is so conveniently dead,” said Bo. “Damn. Dammit, this should not be so difficult.”

“If it weren’t,” said Harvey, “then this would be a kangaroo court.”

“A lot of people think it is,” said Rosie. Like Harvey, he had his doubts but remained philosophical about affair…for one, there was consensus that the Farben defendants would not hang. He relighted his pipe. “I understand through the grapevine that one of the justices who was thrilled to be invited at this Tribunal, wished he hadn’t come.”

“Better than being a hanging judge,” Bo admitted. “This Justice…Hebert?—think he’ll spare the rod?”

“No idea.”

“Doesn’t matter,” enunciated a civilian lawyer tuning in on their conversation. A half-full glass of wine in his hand, he was quiet and sober, but his words were startling: “The Russians will be overrunning this place in weeks. So, it scarcely matters.”

Harvey excused himself at 8:00, not only tired, not only facing a busy day in the morning, but he had been called to take a phone call from General Phil Doud at 8:15 pm. Emerging from the smoked out pub, he strode down corridors, took elevators, all the while trying to shake off the smell of smoke which lingered on him like those difficult questions that they were mulling over, and the Justices were too. During the year, many more American jurists were turning against the Trials, citing believe it or not that inhumanity of the trial…And then, some godforsaken congressman complained on the floor of Congress that a “racial minority, two and a half years after the war ended are in Nuremberg not only hanging German soldiers, but trying German businessmen in the name of the United States.”

Harvey was revolted by that remark. Rosie, who was always pretty calm, fired off a letter…

The War Department, looking into the future, could see that if the Farben charges stuck, then couldn’t similar trial be leveraged against them? Plus, the de-Nazification program in Germany, which had started with such determination, had softened and in some places given up as the Russian Bear rose on its hindquarters and the Germans had to be cultivated for support, friendship. In other words, the Trials were becoming an obstacle.

How will history judge this, he wondered…the elevator doors opened and he went to his cubicle to take the call…several minutes of waiting, the phone rang...”Hello?” Staticking crackle, periods of silence…and then with a bump, Phil Doud’s voice came over the line. “Well, how’s it going, you old war horse?”

“You mean legal pony,” Harvey responded. “Good to hear your voice General.” After a moment, he said, “What can I do for you sir?”

Doud was phoning with not exactly a personal request for Lt. Col. Stovall to return to England and take up duties in JAG again. To Harvey, the request felt like a lifesaver being thrown to him…and a perfect symbol of temptation. He could, with honor, leave Nuremberg, for honorable duty as a JAG lawyer. Reasons were excellent: increasing demand for racial equality in training and opportunities—marriage—had caused severe incidents. There were white soldiers being prosecuted for racial attacks; there were Negro soldiers who were prosecuted on a variety of charges, a lot of them trumped up. Feeling that he was running away, taking off, like a deserter Harvey asked if he could finish out the Farben trial, which was ending soon. “I could request transfer for January,” he offered. The Trials were not rushing to conclusion, but clearly they would be finished by Christmas.

“You’re on, Harvey. Give my regards to your lovely wife.” Harvey could not help but feel delight at the idea of being with Maeve...and not just once in a while. These Trials needed to finish, and he, with others, were delivering summations, and Harvey had prepared his carefully.

The courtroom the morning of November 28, was of course, was not quiet: everybody was tired; the defendants looked like figures made of powder…they were, they claimed later, willing to accept any ruling just to finish.

Harvey spoke, loudly and carefully and slowly, waiting, as everybody did, for the translators to do their work. He concluded: “The exploitation of prisoners’ labor was not a new development ‘discovered’ by the I.G. Farben group during World War II. However, never before had such a brutal reality of man’s inhumanity been shown. The Farben case displays a cynical scenario of greed and depravity. They built an enormous factory in the most notorious camp of extermination. That fact remains-- Farben conspiracy with the German war machine.”

More summations followed, and Harvey and Rosie—and Bo—by now were highly unsure of the outcome, but desired justice, whatever that might be, could be, should be...

By December 2, the case rested, and on December 3 and 4, the Tribune returned its verdict: all 22 defendants were acquitted of one and five…and so on. Ten of the defendants were acquitted completely. The thirteen defendants found guilty of count three were sentenced on December 4, receiving prison terms ranging from one and a half years to eight years in prison, including time already served.

Satisfactory? No.

Merciful? Yes.

Which was better, Harvey reflected as he prepared to go home. His request for transfer had been expedited remarkably quickly. All he could know at this time was that international politics had really rolled over the Trials, as the Soviets became the enemy, and Germany increasingly a victim.

Harvey was feted to dinner at the Grand Hotel by his friends and associates; even Telford Taylor came for coffee, and personally shook his hand in thanks for his work.

Bo had decided to stay, hoping—knowing—the doctors’ trials were next, and would surely be less fouled up by politics, money, yells of derision. “Though I kinda feel like the dragon’s getting in his licks against St. George,” he said. Nonetheless, he had interesting thoughts about his future when saying good bye to Harvey—“You know, when I get home—rather than schmoozing the law firms I’m gonna take a crack at being a public defender.” That got Harvey to thinking about his future as well. Would he stay in the Army, in JAG? In England?

The night before he departed, Harvey and Rosie took a walk in the damp freezing cold for old time’s sake…out on Fuerther Street, and down to the river, absorbing once more the ugly fact that Germany had destroyed itself and had to pay, but the payment…there could never be equal payment…so where did it end?

Then a familiar figure, wrapped in a tailored trench coat, crossed the swept street to say “I need to talk with you, Colonel.”

Trixie Nye. She had come and gone during the last few months of the Farben trial, several times, never bothering Harvey. Rosie looked at them both, knowing they weren’t lovers...but wondering. Yet, he gave Harvey his privacy, and started walking back to the Palace.

She stared at him, her face crossed with difficult lines. “Do you know where David McGraw is?”

“Madam, I do not. Why should I?”

“Leads,” she snapped.

“From who?”

“Of course, I would tell you that…Colonel, I could wreck your career, and you know it.”

Harvey said, quite unrudely, “I doubt it.”

She drew two manuscripts from the bosom of her coat. “One praises you, one destroys you.”

Harvey actually laughed. “Over what?” he demanded. “Madam, really, over what?”

Her face...collapsed. Clearly, he had called her bluff and what a desperate one it was. But vipers might play possum. She then pulled her face back together and asked, simply, “You could find out about McGraw.”

“Miss Nye,” Harvey said patiently, “if General McGraw has disappeared as you say, he is probably on orders.”

She stared at him until he stared her down. More gently, he said, “If you are worried about him—“

“I’m not worried! He owes me—“

Like a movie—a bad one—Trixie shut her mouth as two figures drew up to them. They could be anyone, as there were other strollers, heading for the few dismal lights further on that spelled out the Christmas season in Nuremberg. She simply turned and walked away. They walked on.

Harvey immediately contacted Merriwether over this somewhat disturbing incident. Not only did Merriwether said he would follow up, he offered congratulations for work and for leaving…and asked if they—he—could take him to the airport the next day. Rosenthal, soon on his way back to the States for the holiday season, grabbed Harvey in the massive entrance hall and shook his hand. “Someday, may we meet in court—prosecution, defense—who cares. You’ll be a worthy opponent.” They gave each other brief hugs. “Don’t give up the fight” was in both their eyes.

Two days after Christmas, Sgt. Terry Cahill drove him and Merriwether in a sedan down wet gray streets to the airport. Merriwether shook his hand after saluting him, and Terry saluted and asked if he would accept a kiss. He did.

When climbing the steps of the DC-3 that would finally take him permanently back to England, Harvey looked back and saw them on the terrace—arms around each other’s waist, and waving. It was good memory to leave Nuremberg on, though Harvey never recalled the great old city without a sense of despair over the meaning and pursuit of justice—but absolutely adamant in that the pursuit should never never end...

Crosswinds: Thanksgiving, somewhere west of Ipswich, Suffolk, England

THE evening of November 27, 1947 found Joe and Juliette on the homeward leg of their trek to France, Germany and Suffolk and back to London. The last few days had them touring various vacated hardened German holdings which were sites of special bomb drop tests by the US and UK. The underground U-boat shipyard at Farge on the Weser River, code name “Valentin” had been built by forced laborers. Watten in France was home to Hitler’s rockets that rained terror down on England. The sub pens and launch facilities had been the bane of the 8th Air Force throughout the war primarily due to their ability to withstand whatever the allies dropped on them. The AAF and RAF set out to correct such deficiencies and developed so-called “bunker buster” bombs. France, having been on the receiving end of 8th Air Force tonnage during the war, was no longer inclined to have B-17s and B-29s dropping ultra-high powered ordinance on their territory. Luckily, the geology of Orford Ness on the east coast of Suffolk was similar enough to the former German fortifications to allow comparable testing with much less political hassles.

Strangely enough, one of the biggest issues Joe and Juliette faced on this tour had absolutely nothing to do with bombs. It had to do with beds... The logistics of where a male brigadier general and his female first lieutenant aide were going to sleep raised eyebrows across three countries and many were quick to paint Joe and Juliette with the same brush as Ike and Kay Somersby during the war. Nonetheless, accommodations at Watten and Farge went fairly smoothly with Joe and Juliette staying in separate bedrooms at local inns. However, the quarters situation at the air force base in Suffolk went awry. The billeting office wrongly listed General Gallagher’s aide as “Lt. Julius Lovelady” and had made ready two adjoining bedrooms that shared a common toilet and shower. The base CO was mortified about the mistake but Joe and Juliette, having faced a similar situation back in April at Joe’s flat, took it all in stride. What didn’t go over so well, was being socked in at Suffolk. They, and the other members of their small delegation, had flown to Watten, Farge and then to Suffolk in a twin engine VIP transport plane, slightly larger than the Altair which awaited Joe and Rigel back at Long Island.

Unfortunately, at the conclusion of the Orford Ness business, a nasty late autumn front rolled in, the whole of southern England and East Anglia was blanketed by thick fog and an order came down from HQ grounding all planes. Joe put in a call to his good friend and meteorology expert Major Pat Smythe-Beckworth at her office in London, thinking that she might have an alternate interpretation of the sky. On the contrary, Pat confirmed the weather warning, and did so in no uncertain terms.

“I put out the bulletin to all bases--no flying in this weather. Joe, don’t be a damned fool,” Pat advised in her own inimitable way. “If you’re hell bent on getting out of Suffolk, you’ll have to hoof it…now…or you’ll get marooned at Orford Ness for a least a week.” Joe had trusted Pat’s judgment with the lives of the 918th during the war and he’d trust her now. Flying was out. And why was Joe in such a hell hot hurry to get back to London? It’s not like he had a big date pending. He had invitations to Thanksgiving dinner with Frank and Phyllis Bailey, Phil Doud had also asked him to join him for drinks and the embassy was serving up a traditional dinner, too, at least as close as could be cobbled together in a country that was still healing from the ravages of war. The hard cold truth of the matter was that Joe didn’t want to go to anything that remotely reminded him of the 1945 Thanksgiving with Rigel in the Goodge Street flat. That had been a wonderful day spent basking in the warm comradery of good friends. They were going to announce that Rigel was pregnant…but then found out she was not…then found out that she was…and then wasn’t again. Since his split with Rigel, Joe had thrown himself into his work, glad for the distractions that multiple complex projects brought to his mind and body. They kept him from thinking about Rigel and feeling emotions that he didn’t want to deal with. So, when the Project Ruby junket slopped over into Thanksgiving, Joe welcomed it. But, another week away from his in-box only meant less work to fill Joe’s days and more time to ruminate over things he had been trying to avoid.

Since nothing was airborne in this pea soup, Joe decided to take Pat’s sage advice. There were no trains or buses from Orford Ness to London so, betting on Gallagher’s “Luck of the Irish,” Joe decided to chance the drive home. With the advent of the late afternoon sunset, the day’s misty fog changed over to freezing rain, deepening cold temperatures and Pat’s predicted snow would soon follow. Juliette secured a staff car and ensured it was well gassed up and provisioned for the journey home. She had a dinner date scheduled for tomorrow with RAF jet pilot Squadron Leader Ross Lynwell Parke-Townsend whom she’d met a few weeks prior at demonstration of the RAF’s new “Meteor” jet fighter. A hero of the Battle of Britain, Ross was handsome, intelligent, charming…not unlike the other man in Juliette’s life, Joe Gallagher.

In a switch of their formal duties, Joe was behind the wheel of the heated staff car while Juliette rode in the front passenger seat and served as navigator. The one hundred or so miles between Orford Ness and the outskirts of London was slow going on the old country roads even in dry daylight. Precipitation and darkness made things worse. The windshield wipers weren’t much benefit and intermittently froze up. Every few miles, Joe would pull over to the side of the road, Juliette would scurry out of the car, quickly scrape the front, back and side windows and scamper back inside. The car’s headlights only penetrated a few yards ahead of the vehicle and the swirling whips of snow further impaired visibility. The interior of the sedan wasn’t much warmer than the outside but at least Joe and Juliette were sheltered from the biting wind, ice and snow.

Somewhere south of Chelmsford the “Luck of the Irish” petered out and so did the heater. Then catastrophe struck when a cluster of deer darted out onto the road. Joe slammed on the brakes and cranked hard on the steering wheel in a valiant effort to avoid hitting them but to no avail. The largest one ran smackdab into the right front quarter of the car sending the vehicle into a spin. It careened over the shoulder of the road, finally coming to rest in a roadside ditch. The incident reminded Joe of the evening he and Rigel were bounced around in his Jeep thanks to Bed Check Charlie, Jr.

“Are you all right Juliette?” Joe asked when the jostling stopped.

“Yes, sir. I’m okay. Are you?” Her voice was calm.

“Yep,” Joe replied. “Let’s see if we can get this bucket of bolts back on the road. I’m gonna push from the rear and see if I can move the car a little. Give her some gas then I say to….”

Juliette sat in the driver’s seat, turned the steering wheel to the right, to the left, gunned the motor, but nothing worked. Joe tried his hand behind the wheel, rocking the sedan back and forth by quickly shifting from forward to reverse. Try as they might, the car sank deeper into the muck with Joe’s efforts only succeeding in aggravating his neck, leg and shoulder problems.

“Well, Lieutenant, looks like we’re stuck,” Joe pronounced with finality. “We’ll have to hunker down until morning and then hoof it on down the road to the next village come sun up.”

“Yessir, but we don’t need to be stuck…here…” Juliette said pointing to the car, “…when we can be stuck… there…” She was pointing to someplace behind Joe, the headlights’ beams barely illuminating a shadowy form across the field. It was the remains of an old building, possibly a small shed or barn.

“It’s not the Langham but it’s better than the car,” Joe said.

“Yep. I’ll get the emergency bag,” replied the lieutenant.

“Emergency bag?” Leave it to Juliette to be prepared, Joe thought to himself.

“Yessir. I took the liberty of putting together some stuff… just in case,” Juliette said as she opened up the trunk. “You take our B-4 bags and I’ll get the one with the goodies.”

“Goodies?” Joe asked, a bit more curious than surprised.

“Yessir, goodies, ya know like…water, matches, flashlight, chocolate bars, blankets, toilet tissue, mess kit, food, coffee….” Juliette rummaged through the bag, found the flashlight and switched it on, held it in her right hand and hoisted the large canvas emergency bag over her left shoulder. She looked like a diminutive Santa Claus in a GI trench coat. Joe turned off the car’s battery, conserving it, in case that they needed the horn to signal for help. He thought of sounding it now in the hope of summoning aid, but in the hours since they had been on the road, they’d only passed a handful of other intrepid souls who’d likewise ventured out on the dark slippery pike.

An inquisitive grin spread over Joe’s face as he and Juliette trekked toward their destination. “How’d you get all this stuff, Lieutenant?”

“Easy, I just asked for it…and promised the supply officer I’d have dinner with him if he ever made it to London,” Juliette joked back as they trudged across the muddy field toward the shed. Joe was impressed with the resourcefulness of his aide. “You should know, sir, before he left, Lieutenant Komansky and I had a long talk.”

“Oh? About what?” Joe asked, his interest piqued.

“Care and feeding of a general,” Juliette quipped back. “Sandy told me that the damp weather makes your shoulder and leg hurt. He always kept aspirin in his inside breast pocket, in case you needed some…and matches and one emergency cigarette, too.”

“Have you got any now?” Joe asked.

“Got what? aspirin, matches, cigarettes?” Juliette replied.

“All of ‘em!”

“Aspirin and matches, yes, cigarettes, no. Major O’Ryan’ll have my head if…” Juliette broke off her sentence after the words escaped and Joe let it drop, too. Since that notorious April day in Joe’s flat, the topic of Rigel and the state of Joe’s marriage to her were off limits. The letter in July reinforced that, too.

By now they had reached their abode for the night. The flashlight’s faint beacon revealed it to be a small sheep shed, minus the sheep, but at least it had an intact roof and three and a half intact walls, dry dirt floor and dry hay. Joe plunked their B-4 bags down, arched his back, flexed his left leg, rubbed his neck and stretched his left shoulder. Sandy was right…and Juliette took notice.

“Shall I ring for room service, General?” quipped Juliette as she dropped the duffle on the ground. She was tired, hungry and cold and gave into a slight shiver though she tried to hide it from her boss, not wanting to appear like she couldn’t pull her own weight.

“Have ‘em send up two brandies, Lieutenant,” Joe replied and yes, he was cold, too. He took of his leather fleece lined gloves, warmed his cold hands with his breath then regloved.

Juliette dug around in the large canvas bag as Joe unzipped their luggage, producing extra clothing that would help them stay warm through the night.

“Don’t tell me you have brandy in there, do you?” Joe asked, half hoping that she did as he shone the flashlight at Juliette.

“No, sir. Somethin’ better…this!” Juliette replied, grandly holding up a large Thermos. She unscrewed the top and felt warm vapor rise from the opening. “Hot coffee! Mmm….that’s soooo good,” Juliette crooned as steam warmed her face.

“Save it for later. Let’s get bedding made first. That hay will make good insulation…and we can layer our clothes over it.” Joe said.

“Our clothes?” Juliette asked.

“From our luggage, Lieutenant,” Joe clarified quickly.

“I have something else that will help,” Juliette said matter-of-factly, once more going to the bag of plenty and this time bringing out two gray wool GI blankets. Joe held the flashlight in one hand as he helped Juliette spread the covers out over the layered padding.

“Now for tonight’s main course, dinner by candlelight…” As Juliette spoke, Joe shone the beam on her hands. She dug into the sack again and retrieved two Hershey bars, two white stubby candles, a box of crackers, a jar of GI peanut butter and an aluminum mess kit.

“Any matches? We can use the candles and save the flashlight batteries,” Joe inquired as he gingerly lowered himself down onto the blankets and hay. Juliette casually sat down next to Joe with her shoulders lightly touching his. It was a simple act but a significant one; Joe had let Juliette into his personal space.

“Got em’…” Juliette replied patting her chest over her heart. She reached inside her uniform jacket and extracted a matchbox from an inner pocket. “Got these, too.” It was a small pillbox containing aspirin which she handed to Joe.

“You noticed, huh?” Joe said sheepishly then swallowed a couple pills with a swig of coffee.

“Yessir, I noticed.”

“And I noticed you shivering,” Joe said, protectively pulling up one of the blankets around Juliette. He opened the metal mess kit, took out the utensils, struck a match and lighted one of the candles. Next, Joe dripped candle wax on to the kit’s aluminum plate then planted the candle base into the cooling wax. Luckily, it stuck. They ate peanut buttered crackers, drank some of the coffee but decided to save the chocolate bars and remaining coffee for breakfast. Juliette nabbed the flashlight and the roll of TP and was the first to answer nature’s call. When she returned, she handed over the flashlight and roll to Joe who likewise visited the great outdoors. Upon Joe’s return, they decided to spare the flashlight batteries and let the candle, safely contained in the kit, burn on. Its golden glow softly illuminated their home for the night.

Dinner and personal necessities tended to, there was only one thing left to do…go to sleep. Joe propped the lighted flashlight up against his B-4 bag and it dimly illuminated the shed while he collected his wool blanket. As he did so, Juliette picked up the other blanket and wrapped it around herself. “Well, sir, good night…” she said as she reclined on the hay bed and curled up in a ball trying to stay warm. It wasn’t working and Juliette uncomfortably tossed and turned and shivered but no way in hell was she going to admit to Joe that she was damned cold. No way.

Joe knelt down next to her. “Lieutenant, your teeth chattering.”

“You noticed?” she mumbled, angry at herself for not being able to control

“I noticed,” Joe said.

“Take off your clothes,” Joe instructed matter-of-factly as he started to peel off layers of garments. Off went his trench coat.

“What?” Juliette eked out in nervous disbelief.

“Sharing body heat. Works better with less between us,” Joe explained. Off went the uniform jacket.

“Uh…um…” Juliette stammered as Joe removed his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and took off his shoes and trouser.

“C’mon, Lieutenant, shuck out of your stuff,” Joe said.

“Is that an order, sir?” Her voice quivered as she spoke.

“Do I have to make it one?” Joe queried.

“No, sir,” Juliette replied. Off went her trench coat, jacket, trousers and shoes. She unbuttoned her shirt, too.

They laid their shed garments down on the hay for extra insulation. Joe darted out from under the gray wool GI bedding, quickly tossed more hay over the top sheet, and then scurried back under it all.

There they were, just the two of them, somewhere in Suffolk, in a sheep shed, at night, in their underwear, lying next to each other trying to stay warm…. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

In the year since she’d been Joe’s aide, Juliette had more than once wondered what it would be like to do what she was now doing--sleeping, more or less--with Joe. Her heart raced and her breathing quickened as Joe eased himself closer to but not touching her. She lay stiff as a board with a good eight inches between her and Joe.

“Lieutenant…get closer…you’re wasting body heat,” Joe instructed.

She skootched nearer but not near enough.

“Gotta get closer,” Joe said. He slid his left arm around Juliette’s shoulders and pulled her toward him. She hesitantly laid her head on left his shoulder.

“Am I hurting you, sir?” Juliette asked, cognizant of Joe’s old injury.

“Nope but you’ve got to get closer, Juliette,” Joe said without a hint of embarrassment.

Complying, Juliette turned on to her right side, stretched her left arm across Joe’s chest and let her body relax onto Joe’s. Juliette could hear his heart beating and she felt small, safe and warm next to Joe.

Joe could feel the rise and fall of Juliette’s chest against him and caught the captivating chypre scent of her “Miss Dior” perfume in her hair.

“Warmer?” Joe asked.

“Yessir, a lot warmer…except for my hands,” Juliette said nervously.

“Put ‘em on my chest…skin to skin,” Joe instructed.

Juliette slipped her hands under Joe’s t-shirt and she placed them, as directed, against his warm skin. In doing so, her fingers inadvertently brushed against the gold neckpiece from Rigel and Joe’s dog tags which held his Claddagh ring. The two items were very real signals to Juliette that, despite this current imbroglio, Joe was still very married.

With the touch of Juliette’s icy digits, Joe reflexively sucked in a deep breath. “Dammit, your hands really are cold!” For a second or two, his memory flashed back to that night in 1944 when Rigel’s cool hands wrapped his injured ribs….

“Sorry, sorry, sorry…” Juliette replied awkwardly.

“What’s got you so uptight, Lieutenant?” Joe asked calmly. It wasn’t like Juliette to be so skittish around him.

“Well, sir, I was just thinking about that day in April at your flat, the rain, the bathrobe…combat conditions,” Juliette said, recalling how Joe told her to think about the situation.

“Combat conditions then and combat conditions now,” reassured Joe.

“Wearing your wife’s robe is one thing but now we’re…we’re…well…like this…” Juliette stammered. She swallowed hard to choke back her tension.

“You mean alone in our underwear under blankets and hay?” Joe said nonchalantly, insightfully scoring a direct hit on the source of Juliette’s uneasiness.

“Bingo!” Juliette confessed. “I bet you never had anything this weird happen to you and Lieutenant Komansky,” Juliette opined.

“Actually I have…and even weirder stuff,” Joe said. Joe mulled over in his mind exactly how much to tell Juliette and when…like about the blue-green lights, foo-fighters, and the triangle mark on his forearm…

“You were pretty close to Sandy, weren’t you, sir?” Juliette asked.

“We went through some serious shit together,” Joe replied somberly.

“Permission to speak freely sir?” Juliette tensed a bit as she spoke.

“Sure.”

“Am I as good as him…Sandy?” It was a straight forward question, one that she’d wanted to ask for months. Komansky was a hard act to follow and she knew it from the beginning. Juliette lifted her head up from Joe’s shoulder and looked him squarely in his gray-hazel eyes.

Joe’s gaze examined his aide’s face with the amber candlelight accentuating its youthful oval shape. “No,” was Joe’s honest answer.

Juliette closed her eyes tightly, clenched her jaws and physically deflated upon hearing that two letter word.

“You’re better,” Joe replied earnestly, and he had to admit to himself that she was.

Surprised by his candor, Juliette looked up at Joe and smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“I mean it, Juliette. You’re excellent. As for Sandy, he started out as my flight engineer and how he ended up typing reports in my office is one of the great mysteries of life, I guess.”

Juliette resnuggled closer to Joe to stay warm. The body heat sharing was working.

“And speaking of mysteries, sir, how is that a B-17 group commander ended up on bomb testing, photo mapping, I.G. investigations, training programs and B-29 projects?”

“It’s a long story but it boiled down to two things: Mission creep and Mac LeRoy’s ego. Ole Mac really got royally pissed off about me getting the B-29 liaison assignment with the RAF,” Joe said.

“It is a bit odd since you’ve never flown a B-29 until your OJT by Colonel Bailey.”

“LeRoy’s persona non grata with the RAF and he threw a temper tantrum at the Pentagon from what Dad told me. Mom wasn’t happy about letters to the editor that he wrote either but she had her newspapers publish them anyway. He’s a brilliant strategist but he’s trigger happy, thinks every disagreement can be and should be solved by bombs.”

“I’m glad you don’t see it that way, sir. And speaking of Colonel Bailey, is he pretty much out of the woods about those racial incidents at Archbury?”

“He’s taken responsibility for what happened, made changes and done an outstanding job implementing the special training program. Frank’s one of the few commanders who’ll sign off on allowing his Negro airmen to marry English women and Phil Doud backed him up. That got a lot of people pissed off at both Frank and Phil.”

“I’ve read some articles in the London newspapers about the children of the Negro men and the English women. They’re called ‘brown babies’ and neither government seems to want anything to do with them. That’s not right,” Juliette said earnestly.

“I agree, Juliette. Maybe we can do something about that,” Joe said. Harvey and Maeve were already involved.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that job got assigned to you, too, sir,” Juliette said.

Joe cracked his crooked smile. “Just look at this way Lieutenant, all of these odd jobs of mine have taken you to only the best places with the most luxurious accommodations. How many of your friends get to traipse through bombed out rocket pads and sub pens and spend Thanksgiving night in a sheep shed?”

By the candle’s light, Juliette could see the dimples that bracketed Joe’s lips and the laugh lines that crinkled at the outer corners of his eyes when he smiled. He had a handsome face and she resisted the urge to kiss him.

“As you always say, sir, why be normal, it’s boring,” Juliette replied good-naturedly. “Honestly, I’d rather be here than at Watten. That place gave me the willies.”

“Oh, how so?” Joe asked.

“The way it looked for one thing, like some malevolent Stonehenge, and it made me feel lightheaded and my skin crawl…and this strange buzzing sound in my ears…But everything cleared up after we left. Did you feel anything like that sir?” She shook her head a bit at the eerie memories of the place.

“Yep, sure did. It reminded me of one other place…” And it made the triangle on his forearm burn and itch, too.

“You mean that henge in Yugoslavia? I read your report on it.” Joe nodded in agreement. Since he had high level clearance, Juliette had to have it, too.

“The experts attributed the symptoms to leakage of old rocket fuel tanks nearby and swamp gas mixing together at the site,” Joe said.

“So what are your recommendations going to be about the super bombs? Will Truman use them instead of the A-bomb?” Juliette asked.

“From what we’ve seen so far they’re not very effective against hardened targets. The best one was the rocket powered Disney. As for dropping another atom bomb, I hope our world never has to see that again.” Joe grew solemn at the thought of that. He knew that plans were afoot to send atom bomb capable B-29s to England as a show of force to Joe Stalin and the Kremlin. He also knew, through discussions with Eoghain St. John-Keighley and Royston Smythe-Beckworth, that the British government had mixed feelings about American nuclear weapons deployed on British soil. That would continue to a sore point in British-American relations for decades.

Juliette yawned as fatigue drew her down. She nestled snugly against Joe’s body.

“Sleepy?” Joe asked softly.

“Yessir, I’m finally warm enough,” Julie said in a voice that was relaxed…and she was relaxed enough to tell Joe something that had been nagging her conscience.

“Good, I’m glad. Toldya that skin to skin contact generated the most body heat,” Joe replied reassuringly.

Braving the cold ambient air, Juliette raised up on her right arm and looked at Joe. “Sir, I have a confession to make…and it’s not easy to do.” She mulled this over and over in her mind for months…to say something or not…And tonight seemed to be the right time to speak.

“Try me.”

Juliette could feel her heart pounding and her mouth turn dry as cotton. “Last summer, when you got that letter from Rigel…I read it...and since July you rarely wear wedding ring anymore…”

Joe said nothing but Juliette recognized the familiar clench of his jaw which let her know that she’d touched on a delicate subject.

“…and I’ve come to care a lot about you…and I get the feeling that you care about me, too….”

Joe didn’t answer, just confirmed her feeling with a nod.

“It’s possible to love two people at the same time?” Juliette was asking herself as much as she was asking Joe.

Joe brushed a straw of hay from Juliette’s hair and momentarily let his right hand touch her right cheek. Juliette took Joe’s right hand in her left one and placed a kiss on his palm. She had no idea of the significance of this action to Joe, garnering a smile from him. After the kiss, Juliette held Joe’s hand in hers--and he let it remain there.

“It’s risky and someone’s bound to get hurt.” Joe’s face and voice reflected the affection that he had for Juliette. He couldn’t promise her anything and he wasn’t going to mislead Juliette.

“So then it’s better not to risk it?” Juliette asked pointedly.

“I didn’t say that,” Joe replied. With his marriage to Rigel still stuck in limbo, Joe was truly torn.

“Then where do we go from here, Joe?” Juliette asked. It was the first time that she ever called him by his first name.

Joe gently pulled Juliette to him, she reclaimed her place at his side and put his arm around her.

“We go to sleep,” Joe said softly. And that’s all they did, nothing more, all night long.

Crosswinds: December 1947, London

A week later on a Friday afternoon, Joe sat at his desk drafting reports in longhand. Juliette approached his desk and handed over papers for him to sign. Their relationship had been on tenterhooks since that frigid night in the sheep shed. What had once been an easy an enjoyable relationship was now strained and neither of them liked what had happened.

“These need your signature now, sir,” Juliette said rather coolly. She didn’t look Joe in the eyes but instead focused her gaze out the window behind his desk.

Joe tried to defuse the situation with small talk as he quickly scanned the papers. “I see you want to take some leave. We’ve been working pretty hard lately. Going any place special?” He perfunctorily signed off on the request form and handed it back to Juliette. She didn’t bite.

“The other one needs your signature now, too, sir,” Juliette said, again with the same arctic tone in her voice and tense expression on her face.

Joe took the papers in his hands and Juliette could see his eyes tracking over the sentences. Taken aback, Joe dropped the forms on his desk and looked up at Juliette, his eyes wide in surprise.

“Why do you want a transfer, Juliette?” Joe asked with a blend of disbelief, betrayal, hurt, and guilt.

“You know why.” Juliette’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Joe nodded in wordless acknowledgment and instead let actions say what he did not speak. Joe loosened his tie, opened his collar, and lifted his dog tags up and over his head. He looked at the Claddagh ring and silently fingered it.

Juliette stood in front of Joe’s desk, composed, but eyes welling up with tears. She reached forward and gently tapped Joe’s left hand third finger. For the second time, she called him by his first name. “Put the ring back where it belongs, Joe.” And he did.

Reluctantly, Joe signed his aide’s transfer request. “I’ve come to rely on you, trust you. I value your judgment and opinions and frankly I don’t want to work with someone else. I wish you’d would reconsider.”

Juliette said nothing, just extended her hand to receive the documents; her mind was sent. Joe gave over the forms to Juliette and felt a knot building in the pit of his stomach. What a royal cluster fuck this had devolved into and a shitty way to end the week...and a friendship.

Monday morning, Joe came in to work as usual and for the first time in over a year Juliette was not at her desk. He’d grown accustomed to her being there before him and having a fresh pot of coffee made. Not so today.

He entered his office, peeled off his trench coat, hung it and his hat on the coat-tree behind the door. Turning toward his desk, Joe spied his old chipped coffee cup on the corner, right where he’d left it Friday afternoon. He crossed over to his desk and picked up the white mug. It still held Friday’s brew. Juliette would have seen to it that the cup had been emptied and washed out. She excelled at attention to details and taking the initiative on tasks.

Joe pitched the three day old coffee in the trash can next to his desk and proceeded to the supply cabinet behind Juliette’s work area where she kept the coffee pot and ground beans. Opening the coffee can, Joe discovered that it was empty… another reminder that Juliette was gone.

“Dammit!” Joe barked in frustration, slamming the empty can down on the table. Joe finally had to admit to himself that he missed Juliette, just like he missed Sandy when he left for the states. First, he lost Sandy and now he’d lost Juliette, too.

“Sorry I’m late General,” spoke a feminine voice. Joe turned on his heel to see Juliette in uniform, carrying a Thermos in her right hand with a familiar old biscuit tin and large can of coffee wedged in the crook of her left arm. “We ran out of coffee on Friday...so stopped at the grocery to get some grounds on the way in. I made some at home and baked some oatmeal raisin walnut cookies, too.” The Thermos and the tin backed up Juliette’s words.

Joe was never so glad to see his aide and the smile on his face told her so. He drew alongside Juliette and she handed him the large gray Thermos and cookie box.

Joe unscrewed the lid and smelled the delicious aroma and did the same with the can of baked goods. He said nothing but returned to the small battered GI desk that served as a makeshift coffee bar and poured two cups of coffee into white GI mugs, picked up two cookies and returned to Juliette. The general smiled as he handed a steaming cup and a pastry to his lieutenant.

Silently, Juliette took them and for a moment they stood there, mute, looking at each other. Juliette took a sip of the coffee, judged it to be satisfactory then walked over to her desk. She doffed her trench coat and cap, hanging them on the coat tree in the corner of her office. Next, as was her morning routine, she opened her bottom right hand desk drawer and deposited her brown leather regulation purse into it. Taking her seat at her orderly desk, Juliette flipped open the calendar book with her right index finger. Joe noticed her manicured, graceful long fingers with red fingernail polish pointing to her neatly handwritten notes.

Juliette crisply spoke: “You have a 1200 meeting with Air Commodore Smythe-Beckworth about the B-29 accommodations and then a 1400 meeting with General Doud to go over Casey Jones and Ruby. I’ll order some sandwiches for you and the Air Commodore and I’ll send Sergeant Leary over to your flat and get your flying gear so you can leave right from here.”

“Leave from here? Why?” Joe asked.

“You’re night flying with Colonel Bailey, wheels up at 2100. Test on the bold face in the manual, too,” the young lieutenant said, touching her right index fingertip to the specific notation in her calendar book.

“That’s tonight?” Joe asked. It had completely skipped his mind.

“Yessir, tonight, you’ve already put it off twice,” Juliette said giving Joe a stern look. She continued her instructions to Joe. “I’ll call Edgar and ask him to work you in as soon as possible this morning. You need a haircut before you see General Doud.”

“I do?” Joe says as he ran his left hand over his hair.

“Yes, sir, you do. I can’t have you going to your boss looking like Hypatia blowing in the wind. And sir, one more thing...”

“What’s that?”

“You need this today, I can tell already.” Juliette opened her bottom right hand desk drawer again, extracted a nylon stocking and held it in her left hand. “Here, put it on,” she said matter-of-factly. She extended her arm toward Joe and he took the hosiery from her.

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant,” Joe said casually. He looked down at his aide and added, “I’m glad your back.” Joe finally realized just how much he depended on Juliette’s efficiency and organization. They had come to work together like a well-oiled machine.

Juliette looked up at Joe. “Glad to be back, sir. Now if you don’t mind General, I’ve got a lot of work to do...”

“WE…Lieutenant,” Joe accented the pronoun as he pointed his left index finger back and forth between Juliette and himself indicating that they were indeed a team. “WE have a lot of work to do.”

“I’m glad we got everything straightened out, sir,” Juliette replied in her usual warm and unruffled manner. This time, she did look Joe in his gray-hazel eyes and he understood the double meaning of her words.

“Me too.” Joe smiled and raised his coffee cup in tribute to First Lieutenant Juliette Lovelady. She returned the gesture to Joe then resumed her duties.

For the first time since they’d returned from the sheep shed fiasco, Joe noticed he and Juliette were smiling. Yessirree, it was going to be an interesting day.

Crosswinds: Mid-December, Bryncote

ONE crisp clear Saturday, Joe waited patiently on the flight line at the small airfield midway between London and Archbury that the Little Lily called home. He hadn’t spent as much time with Lily as he’d like, getting out to fly her once a month at best, partly because he was just too damned busy and, if Joe was truly honest with himself, Little Lily reminded him too much of Rigel. He still had strong memories of Rigel making that crappy cross wind landing in Lily - - although she’d done it lots of times before flawlessly--and when she brought the plane to a halt, got out even before the props stopped and promptly puked her guts out on the main landing gear wheels. That was the first time Joe suspected Rigel was pregnant with his—their--child. As the marriage grew more strained after the loss of Brynn, their once pleasurable weekend flights in Little Lily dropped off, too. At one point in April, after Rigel left, Joe seriously thought about selling Lily but he could never bring himself to do that. It would be disloyal and cruel. If he were honest with himself once again, he’d also have to admit that Little Lily helped him through many turbulent times in the last six months. When the shit was hitting the fan because of work, Rigel, Juliette, Anson and sundry other irritations large and small, Joe sought solace with Lily and after flying with her he always felt better. Joe was reminded of a saying Jeff liked, one that had been passed down from their maternal grandmother: “The spirit that soars highest has strong wings for the wind.” Lily lifted him up and away into the sky on her strong wings, escaping the earth and leaving all of his troubles far below. Joe was at peace when he was with Lily. Alone with her, he’d watch the golden disc of the sun deepen into a lava red orb as it dipped below the curvature of the earth at sunset. He and Lily would chase the Man in Moon sometimes and marvel at the cosmic beauty of the Milky Way together. There were times when Joe elected to silently glide on Lily’s sturdy wings. Hanging there, suspended between sky and earth, Joe’s spirit was truly free and he saw the world and humanity for what it could be, all one. It was during those moments that Joe knew that he, Jeff, the clouds, the earth and Lily were inseparable, all connected, all made of the same stuff… stardust.

A couple of toots from Percy’s sedan brought Joe back to the mission at hand: fulfilling a promise he made to Kiwi and Jonathan during one of his visits to see the boys at Bryncote over the past few months. After meeting Kiwi in July, Joe’s heart went out to the lad and to Jonathan, too. In fact, when Joe next visited the boys, he gave Jonathan one of his own command pilot wings to wear so Jonathan wouldn’t feel slighted. Kiwi had asked Joe if the “nice lady with you” - - meaning Juliette--was coming on the flight, too. Joe relayed Kiwi’s request to Juliette and she gladly agreed to come along, delaying a date with Squadron Leader Ross Lynwell Parke-Townsend, until that evening. Juliette and Joe’s relationship, having survived the emotional fallout from the night in the sheep shed, was back to being an easy one, based on mutual respect and friendship.

As soon as Ethan Archer parked the school’s sedan next to base ops, the boys bolted out the rear doors and ran out to Joe and Juliette standing next to Little Lily on the tarmac. His arms wide open, Joe collected both boys in a bear hug which was repeated by Juliette.

“I’ve been so excited about flying with you today, Joe, I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” Kiwi said happily, his piercing glacier blue eyes alight with anticipation.

“Me neither!” Jonathan added, the twinkle in his expressive eyes matching that of Kiwi.

“I’ve been looking forward to it too, boys,” Juliette told them and she meant it. She and Joe talked about the boys and the other children at Sydney’s school on the drive up from London. Joe had written Ursa and Irene about the school and about the plight of the “brown babies,” too. Both Ursa and Irene were well connected and ardent about helping the children, whether that meant financially supporting foster homes for the time being, funding adoptions or making politicians see the light and feel the heat. Once Ursa and Irene committed to a cause, there was no power on earth that could derail them.

By now, Sydney and Ethan had caught up with the boys and were greeted warmly with hugs and handshakes from Joe and Juliette. They looked happy and relaxed and it was obvious that marriage agreed with them.

“That’s quite right about them not sleeping. Finally, after some warm milk with nutmeg they drifted off,” Sydney reported rather maternally.

“The whole way here, the boys kept asking ‘Are we there yet?’” Ethan said breezily as his put his arm around Sydney’s shoulders.

“Well, are you two pilots ready to do the preflight inspection?” Joe asked the youngsters.

“Yes sir!” the boys exclaimed cheerfully.

“I see that you both have your wings on, that’s important,” Joe said, pointing to the pins on the boys’ jackets. Joe extended his hands to the boys--Kiwi on the right, Jonathan on the left--and he took them around the plane pointing out all of the things to check for. That having been completed, Joe announced, “OK, everybody, let’s fly!” The passengers clambered in and seated themselves leaving Joe momentarily outside, alone, with Lily. He lovingly placed a hand on her strong wing. “Let’s make some kids happy today, Lily,” he said softly to her. She agreed.

Yessirree, it was a memorable day.

Turbulence: November and December, Australia

NOVEMBER was a busy month with medical missions ranging from mining cave ins, military ordinance explosions, train wrecks, and polio cases in the outback needing transport to urban hospitals for care. There were some strictly “schmooze” assignments, too, which included a parade through downtown Melbourne. A mock up fuselage used by the RAAF for air evacuation training was pulled along on a specially constructed flatbed trailer, replete with smiling and waving “flying sisters,” who, like their American counterparts, were considered rather daring and avant garde. Coincidentally, it was a plane built by O’Ryan Aviation and was the same model as the airliner that had crashed in September.

Another “schmooze job” was visit to the Dutch colonial island country of Ternate. The Sultan, who had studied in Australia before the war and learned to fly there too, had a strong affinity for the RAAF. One of the islands in his small empire had been a POW camp and he was especially impressed by the flying sisters who airlifted the prisoners home to Australia. The Sultan, his extended family and the islanders had supported the allies during the war and now it was payback time, not in money but in a show of support for the monarchy which was facing an uncertain future in the modern post-war world. Each year since the end of the war, the Sultan got what he wanted on his birthday: a parade with music, dancers, marching bands, a float populated with smiling and waving “flying sisters” and a flyover of RAAF planes. After the parade, the Australian contingent, which included Rigel, was invited to a fete at the sultan’s palace. Chief Matron Bullwinkel introduced Rigel to Sultan Iskandar, who greeted her a snappy British style salute and in perfect English. Dinner consisted of papeda, a dish made from cassava flour soaked in hot water and served with fish and gravy. Lalampa, a snack made of fish, crab and spices was tucked into a roll of rice, wrapped in banana leaves then barbecued. Yellow rice, seasoned and dyed with turmeric was another side dish. All in all, the Sultan reminded Rigel of the King of Siam who struggled mightily between old traditions, modernization and doing what was best for his people.

December saw more hard work caring for victims sustaining injuries not unlike those Rigel had encountered during the war. She and the other sisters flew to locations near and far, to outbreaks of brush fires that burned private homes, factories, lumber mills, a shelter for homeless men; to two coal mine explosions; to train derailments and mine cave ins; and the worst domestic military disaster to date in Australia, an explosion at an munitions storage facility. The duty took a different bent when the RAAF was called in to evacuate pregnant women, children, infants and a set of premature twins from tiny Norfolk Island off Australia’s east coast prior to it being hit by a typhoon. Other missions included flying early model “iron lungs” to the western regions where polio was raising its ugly head again and transporting the patients, many of whom were children, to hospitals in large coastal cities. Those missions reminded Rigel of Mara and her children whom she airlifted out of Yugoslavia with Joe at the controls along with Captain Adam Blake, Joe’s former copilot in the Leper Colony. And then shit really hit the fan in British Malaya. Communist insurgents turned from fighting the Japanese to disruption of businesses by labor strikes, murders and abductions. By late 1947, the British colony of Malaya saw an uptick in violence promulgated by the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the armed wing of the Malayan Communist Party. The Communist guerillas, battle hardened by years of combat against the Japanese, began attacking rubber plantations, tin mines, police stations, government buildings, trains, and murdering those who spoke out against them. At great personal risk to himself and his monarchy, the Sultan of Ternate permitted the RAAF to use the main island’s small world war two airfield as a staging area for flights into and out of Malaya. The air evac flights were not without dangers themselves, with Lark and Rigel’s plane drawing fire from the guerillas as they landed, executed “engine running on-loads” with bullets whizzing by. Rigel’s plane narrowly made it to Ternate on one engine with the other trailing smoke. The “casevac” flights continued right through Christmas, finally letting up at the year’s end.

By now, Rigel had earned some down time and happily agreed to spend a few days with Lark’s family in Cooktown in Queensland, in northeast Australia. The burg traced its name back to 1770 when explorer James Cook beached his ship, the “Endeavor,” for repairs. In later years, it was a bustling supply port for the gold fields further inland. Lark’s father, Seamus, was a science teacher in the public school and her mother, Abigail, was Matron in charge of nurses in the small hospital. The McLarkins’ residence in town reminded Rigel of her home back on Long Island. Set on broad green lot with mature shade trees, the edifice was a red brick and white stucco Federation bungalow style home which was cross between the frilliness of Queen Anne homes and the simpler and smaller scales of American craftsmen architecture. The McLarkins also owned a cattle station inland from the city which was managed by their trusted foreman, Mr. Waters. A few years younger than Lark, Len Waters had been the first and only Aboriginal fighter pilot in the RAAF. After the war ended, Waters tried to start a small airline that would link Australia’s vast outback with its coastal cities. Although Waters was a decorated war hero and an accomplished pilot, the prevailing social structure and restrictions blocked him from funding his dream. Hence, he resorted to his pre-war employment of sheep shearing and raising cattle.

While on leave with the McLarkins, a couple of unusual occurrences happened, the first was when Rigel was introduced to Lark’s twin brother, Niall, an Australian Army engineer, who came home on leave for the holidays, too.

“Hey, anybody home?” called out a young strong masculine voice from the quaint and comfortable home’s entry foyer.

Upon hearing that familiar sound, Lark, her parents and Rigel, all of whom had been having tea on the back porch, came inside to greet the newcomer. Lark rushed forward and gave her twin brother a hug, which was followed in turn by hugs from Seamus and Abigail. The reunion of siblings reminded Rigel of her own with Hunter at Bryncote last year. With embraces concluded, Lark turned to introductions.

“Niall, I’d like you to meet…” Her words were quickly interrupted by her brother’s.

“Ohmygawd, it’s YOU!” Niall announced, flabbergasted, and staring at Rigel as though she were a ghost.

The family looked at each other, equally flummoxed, as was Rigel.

Niall walked up to Rigel and locked onto her face with his eyes. “I remember you,” he said fervently.

“I’m sorry but I don’t remember you,” Rigel replied, a bit embarrassed.

Niall turned toward his parents, and clarified the situation. “Mum, Dad, she’s the one I wrote to you about.”

“You mean…North Africa?” Abigail inquired.

“Yes,” Niall answered confidently.

“Then we need to celebrate with something stronger than tea!” Seamus announced, motioning with his right hand for the group to move to the comfort of the den to hear the rest of the story rather than standing in the hallway.

Abigail politely asked Rigel, “Do you enjoy a wee drop of the craythur, Major O’Ryan?”

“I’m Rigel…and yes, I do!” Rigel replied genially.

They all took seats in comfortable chairs and sofa while Abigail poured craythur in snifters and Seamus distributed them to Lark, Niall, and Rigel.

“I apologize for my rather rude welcome, Rigel,” Niall said as he leaned forward in his easy chair across a low mahogany coffee table from Rigel, “but I never thought I’d ever see you again.”

“How….when…did we meet?” Rigel asked.

“Magadar…May 1943,” Niall said softly. All eyes focused on Niall as he recounted what happened. “I was laying on a stretcher waiting to be put inside your plane when German fighters attacked the runway. I thought I was going to die. I closed my eyes and then I felt a body on top of me… I looked up…right into the face of a woman with dark auburn hair and unforgettable green eyes…Next thing I knew, I was inside the Dakota…with you.”

“Magadar…I remember….” Rigel whispered and nodded.

“Yeah, Magadar,” he replied.

Decades later, the descendants of James Riordan and Niall McLarkin would make startling discoveries that would change history.

“I propose a toast,” Seamus said raising his glass. “To Rigel O’Ryan, who saved my son’s life, may yours be a long and happy one!”

One round of drinks turned into another and the happy group shared stories as they all pitched in to prepare dinner. Plans were hatched for Lark to take Rigel out to the cattle station the next day…. which would bring more surprises.

The cattle station land was mostly flat grass land dotted with thin trees. One of its boundaries abutted a sharp uprising, Black Mountain, a formation of dark gigantic boulders that looked like they had been dropped from the sky by giants’ hands. The site had long been associated with bizarre unexplained phenomenon.

Early in the morning, the women drove out in the old ranch truck and parked it at the foot of the mountain. They brought along flashlights, water canteens and biscuits and eagerly entered one of the larger caves which provided respite from the hot, humid north Australian December. Illuminated by the flashlight beams, Lark explained the folklore behind the carved and painted images on the cave walls. “The local people say that the Star Father and Star Mother came down from the sky on blue green balls of light. Star Mother gave birth to the first people and Star Father gave them fire.”

Rigel looked closely at the images on the wall. They were eerily familiar. “These look just like the Sky People,” she opined.

“Who?” Lark asked.

“The Sky People…drawings in a cave back where my husband’s from. They have a similar story about Sky Fire.” As Rigel ran her hands over the glyphs and graphs on the stone walls, a great blast of wind rushed into the cave and the air rumbled with thunder. It was one of those fast rising storms that Lark had told Rigel about when she met her at the Melbourne airport.

“Dammit, we left the windows down in the truck!” Lark exclaimed. The women hurried to the mouth of cave and then halted at what they saw. The crystal clear morning sky was gone, replaced with ominous churning dark purplish green clouds. The wind kicked up more violently, the clouds dipped down to the ground and emitted blue green balls of light. “Let’s make a dash to the truck!” Lark yelled over the sound of the wind and thunder. And they did, or so they thought.

Hours later, Lark and Rigel drove up to the front porch of the ranch house and were met by Mr. Waters who greeted them with obvious concern. “Are you alright? You didn’t come by for dinner.” Waters open the front screen door for the two tired women and all three made their way to the tidy and well stocked kitchen for something to cool to drink. The station house was more rustic than the home in town, and definitely more Spartan than the Gallaghers’ Failte on Sky Fire Lake, but it had electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. Lark opened the refrigerator door and extracted three bottles of chilled Coca-Cola and handed one to Rigel and to Mr. Waters. Rigel pressed the bottle against her cheeks and its cool glass felt refreshing.

“What time is it? My watch stopped,” Lark asked rather sheepishly after she took a swig of the Coke. She tapped the watch on her left wrist and then subconsciously started to rub her left forearm.

“Mine too,” Rigel added, looking down at her GI wrist watch. “Right when the storm hit. I guess we must have just lost track of time in the cave.” They compared watches and strangely enough, both were frozen at the same time. Unconsciously, Rigel, rubbed her left forearm; it simultaneously burned and itched.

Waters watched both women with a knowing countenance. “There was no storm here, Miss Narrandera,” Water stated.

“Well there sure was a helluva weird one at the cave, purple sky, blue green balls of light from the clouds, strong winds, too,” Rigel reported. Come to think of it, didn’t something like this happen at St. Laurent Sur Mer, she thought to herself. The day was getting weirder…

“Miss Narrandera, please let me see your arm. You have blood on your sleeve.” Lark obliged and rolled up the cloth and inspected her skin. Puzzled, she told Waters, “I don’t know how I got this.”

Waters said nothing but furrowed his brow. He turned his large dark expressive eyes toward Rigel. “You have blood on your shirt too, miss,” he said, pointing his right index finger at Rigel’s left arm.

Rigel rolled up her sleeve and saw a fresh bleeding triangular cut in her skin. “How’n the hell did I get that? Must have scraped it in the cave somehow,” she wondered out loud to Lark and Waters.

Waters spoke solemnly to the two women. “You have been marked by Star Father and Star Mother. You are destined for danger but they always protect their Marked Ones.”

“Oh, c’mon, Waters,” Lark said in disbelief. “That’s just an old superstition.”

“It’s the truth, Miss,” Waters reinforced. He then rolled up his right sleeve, bared his forearm which carried a triangle shaped scar. “My brother and I were fishing out on the river one day when a strange storm hit. Purple clouds, blue green mist, with balls of light rolling around in it. A strong wind came up fast, a powerful, changing wind…it rocked our small boat so hard that my brother fell overboard. I remember him thrashing about in the water and screaming for help and so I dove in to get him. Then next thing I remember is waking up on the beach with my brother and finding the mark on my arm. He had one, too.”

Lark and Rigel exchanged questioning looks. Mr. Waters’ story sounded a bit like theirs. Rigel had to admit that it also had a lot in common with accounts of similar events that Joe had related to her, one involving him and Jeff as children on Sky Fire Lake and the other when Joe and Sandy were adrift in the Atlantic.

“Why do you say that Marked Ones are protected?” Lark asked. She didn’t buy into all of the local superstitions but she respected the deep reverence that the indigenous people had for the earth and the cosmos.

“Star Father and Star Mother watch over the Marked Ones as their special children. They watch us and protect us. This happened to me and my brother during the war. I was out with my squadron on a raid to a munitions depot.” Mr. Waters clenched his jaw and swallowed hard, the painful memories of that event evident in his pained expression. “I was the only one who survived.” He paused to collect himself then continued. “My brother was in the infantry on Bougainville. His unit was hit by artillery… all the others, dead, killed. All but him.” Waters grew silent and rubbed the triangle on his right forearm. “My family has many generations of Marked Ones and it’s been the same for all of us. And so it will be for you, too.” Waters’ words would herald a sea change for Rigel both personal and professional.

New Year’s day found Lark and Rigel back at Point Cook…and a rendezvous with history that would long be remembered at the air station. The dozen “flying sisters” dared to challenge the status quo, and inspired by Rigel’s victories in the “Battle of the Skirts” at Bowman Field and North Africa, they entered the officers club en masse for dinner, uninvited by men, sans their hats, along with the hatless Rigel…and the room fell silent. Chief Matron Bullwinkel, wearing her uniform hat, was dining at a table with several other senior officers, all of whom were men. She held a gold rimmed bone china tea cup in her right hand, genteelly took a sip of her Earl Grey, and gracefully placed the cup into its saucer and placed it on the white linen-covered table. The men exchanged curious glances as they wondered how Chief Matron would react. The living legend remained seated, looked over her right shoulder at the women, silently raised her left eye brow, paused for a moment, then gracefully raised her right hand to her head, removed her own hat, and place it on her lap. She met the astonished gazes of her tablemates with a cool and calm statement. “Gentleman, it is far more important what’s in a woman head than what she wears on it.” She turned once again toward the hatless nurses, gave a slight nod of her head, then turned her attention back to the members of the table and continued with dining as if nothing had interrupted it in the first place. The nurses moved through the buffet line, much to the astonishment of the caterers who served them, then sat down at vacant tables, ate and chatted as usual, though some of the men cast curious and surprised glances their way. Granted, the “The New Year’s Day Rebellion” was a small victory but an important one and became part of Point Cook’s lore.

After dinner, Rigel returned to the nurses’ quarters to put finishing touches on a draft proposal that Chief Matron Bullwinkel intended to put forward regarding expanding the training course for sisters and the medical orderlies. Rigel, dressed casually in comfortable in blue jeans and one of Magnus’s old shirts, pecked away on a typewriter scrounged up for her by Sergeant Donegal. Three brisk knocks on her door revealed Sergeant Donegal come to call.

“Miss Bullwinkel wants to see you,” Donegal said. The expression on her face indicated that this was serious.

“About the thing at the officers’ mess today?” Rigel asked.

“She didn’t say Major. I was told to collect you and bring you ‘round to her office straight away.”

Rigel readied herself for an ass chewing and prepared to take full blame for instigating the insurrection at the officers’ mess.

She didn’t get an ass chewing; it was something far worse.

“Major, please be seated,” Bullwinkel said as Rigel entered her well-appointed office. Bullwinkel rose up from behind her desk and sat down in the chair next to Rigel’s. Her face was tense and Rigel could tell by the look on Chief Matron’s face that something was wrong. Very wrong.

“I received communiques from Eoghain and Ganymede in London…”

“Is it Joe?” Rigel asked as her stomach began to knot up.

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong?” She could feel the metallic taste of fear rising up the back of her throat.

“Your husband’s been very badly injured and he’s been asking for you,” Bullwinkel said softly.

Rigel fought to maintain her composure but the news knocked the wind out her as if she’d been slugged in the gut.

Then Chief Matron Bullwinkel did something even more unexpected--she put her arm around Rigel’s shoulders in a comforting gesture.

“What happened?” Rigel asked, her eyes searching the elder woman’s face for answers.

“Apparently someone tried to kill him.”

Table of Contents

Foreword

Changing Winds

Joe and Rigel: Crosswinds

Rigel: Turbulence

Sandy Komansky: Books Were Opened

Justice and Other Mysteries: Archbury and Nuremberg

Crosswinds: Early May, London, Joe and Juliette

Books Were Opened: April, Los Angeles

Crosswinds: Mid-August 1947, Joe’s office, London

Justice and Other Mysteries: Troyroys, near Archbury

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London and Archbury

Troyroys, later that day

Books were Opened: June through August, Los Angeles

Call to Glory: Mid-August 1947, C-47 airborne over the Adriatic

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Florina, Macedonia, northern Greece

Call to Glory: Mid-August, London, the New Theater

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Scotland, war games

Call to Glory: Mid-August, Albanian rescue mission

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London, two days later, Joe’s office

Crosswinds: Mid-August, London, General Phil Doud’s office that same evening

Crosswinds: Joe’s office later that same evening, with Preston

Call to Glory: Late August, Fort Upstatt

Crosswinds: late August, the Gallagher townhouse, Georgetown Washington DC

Turbulence: Early September, Randolph Field, San Antonio

Books Were Opened: Autumn, Los Angeles

Turbulence: September, Australia

Crosswinds: October, B-17 over Norway

Justice and Other Mysteries: November, Nuremberg

Crosswinds: Thanksgiving, somewhere west of Ipswich, Suffolk, England

Crosswinds: December 1947, London

Crosswinds: Mid-December, Bryncote

Turbulence: November and December, Australia