Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

Stafford, Rio chides herself, not Jack. Private Stafford.

She arrives at the air base to find more MPs, and these are not quite so easily dealt with. So she gives her name at the gate, and Strand’s name, and after a phone call they decide she’s not likely to be a German saboteur or spy and wave her through.

The airfield is a vast expanse of torn-up grass and mud distantly ringed by trees on two sides, farm fields on one side, and the road itself. Rio pulls over to look, taking it in. She can see a handful of low buildings, a stubby control tower with a fitful windsock, a bristling antiaircraft gun emplacement, the usual cluster of jeeps and trucks and low-slung tractors, and beyond them, the great behemoth planes, the B-17s. She counts six but suspects there are more out of view.

She pulls up to the parking area and spots a tall, young officer trotting toward her. He looks serious until he notices that she is watching him and then breaks out a big grin.

Strand Braxton throws his arms around Rio, lifts her off her feet, and swings her around. They kiss once, quickly, then a second time more slowly.

Yes, Rio notes, I do still like that.

“Gosh it’s great to see you!” Strand says. “The MPs called me from the gate, and I thought they were pulling my leg.”

“Sorry I didn’t give you any warning, but a pass came up and I grabbed it.”

“How long can you stay?”

“Well, I have temporary possession of a major’s jeep, so I’ve promised to have it back to his driver within twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four hours! But . . . but we’re on.”

The phrase confuses Rio for a moment. “You’ve got a mission?”

He nods, and for a moment his smile crumbles before being replaced with some effort by a less-convincing smile. “Probably a milk run. We haven’t been briefed yet. Come on, I’ll get you a cup of tea and you can meet some of the boys.”

“I thought you fly-boys spent all your spare time drinking and carousing,” Rio teases as they walk arm in arm, taking exaggeratedly long, synchronized strides.

“I don’t know where that idea got started,” Strand says, shaking his head. “No one would want to be hungover. Or even low on sleep. Now, once you get past the Channel and the Messerschmitts start coming up . . .” He laughs, but the laugh is as off as his smile. “Well, then you might want a drink.”

Rio looks at his profile but can’t read anything in particular, beyond the fact that Strand looks tired. Tired and older.

I suppose I do too.

“Hey, are you taking me to officer country?” Rio asks, hesitating at the door to what is labeled Officers Dining Club and Dance Emporium. The sign is in official block letters, but is also obviously not the official army designation. Below it a second, smaller, hand-lettered sign, God’s Waiting Room.

Strand waves off her concern. “We don’t stand on ceremony much. And we sure don’t get enough pretty girls dropping by to push one away!”

Inside Rio finds a long, rectangular room with a grab bag of chairs ranging from stern metal office chairs to plush parlor chairs and a scattering of low tables. The room smells of tea—a habit some flyers have picked up from the RAF, the Royal Air Force—as well as the usual coffee and the inevitable smoke. Perhaps two dozen flyers are present, sprawled or sitting upright, many with books in their hands and attentive expressions on their faces. A radio plays Glenn Miller’s “Sunrise Serenade.”

“We just came from briefing,” Strand says apologetically. “We’ll be heading off soon.”

A very pretty redheaded pilot gives Rio a nod. Recognition? Comradeship?

Guilt?

“I know I should have waited till we had a time set, but you know how it is,” Rio says. “Bad timing. But your letter did say as soon as possible.”

“Well, I was hoping we’d have a few days in London,” he says. Addressing the room in a loud voice, he says, “Boys, this is Rio, my girl, so watch your language and keep the wolf whistles to yourselves.”

Rio doubts that she is worth a wolf whistle. She hasn’t worn makeup or fingernail polish in a very long time. She’s dressed in a uniform that does not leave a lot of possibilities for showing leg, and her hair is the now-regulation two inches long.

And then there’s her koummya, which she should certainly have left with Jenou. But the koummya, a curved ceremonial-but-quite-functional dagger she’d picked up in the Tunis bazaar, has become something more than just a knife; it has acquired the status of talisman. It is her lucky rabbit’s foot. She knows it’s superstitious, but without it she feels vulnerable. Even in camp, where she shares a tent with three other NCOs, she keeps it by her cot, always within reach.

Many eyes in the room go straight to the koummya, but then they move on, checking out her face and her figure, neither of which Rio thinks likely to please anyone, but smiles break out, and waves and nods.

And one wolf whistle.

“How long do you have?”