Letters From Home. Kristina McMorris

forgotten? Surely she would have remembered a guy like this. Crud, she hated when a fella had the upper hand.

      “You were one of the singers,” he added. The connection seemed to end there.

      “You’ve got quite a memory . . .” She drew out the last word, a prompt for him to volunteer his name.

      “J.T.,” he said. “And you’re Betty.”

      “How did you—” she began, then glanced down at her name tag. “Oh. Right.”

      “Pleased to finally meet you.”

      “Likewise.” The feel of something sticky between her fingers prevented her from extending her hand. As a cover, she yanked the pencil from her ear and notepad out of her pocket, posed them in order-taking position.

      “Well, Betty, I think you got a fan club started by some of the guys in our office.”

      “The office?” she asked, milking the compliment.

      “Army recruitment, down off Jackson.” He reclined in his seat, one arm draped across the top of the neighboring chair, as if accustomed to claiming ownership and space at will. His posture launched a wave of arrogance stronger than his spicy cologne. “You should come by sometime. We could use a smart, beautiful woman like you in the Women’s Army Corps.”

      A giggle bubbled through her. “You see me in the WAC? Marching around all day in khaki?”

      J.T. gave her figure a brief scan, no doubt picturing her out of a uniform rather than in one. “Just think about it, sweetheart. You could help out our soldiers by doing more than singing to ’em.” The implication might have been offensive had he not continued so smoothly. “Besides, you seem like the kinda girl who’d like to travel, see the world. Sydney, London, Rome. Maybe Hawaii? White sandy beaches, luscious palm trees. Water so blue and clear you could spot a dime at the bottom.”

      His pitch sounded as rehearsed as that of a Fuller Brush salesman, but the vision towed Betty’s mind into a drift regardless. Life could certainly be worse than living in a tropical haven. Too bad military enlistment was a requirement. She’d sooner become a lumber jack than run around playing soldier. Why, for the love of Mike, some women tried so hard to swap roles with men, she had no idea.

      “I said order up!” the chef bellowed.

      She pushed out a sweetly appeasing voice. “Coming,” she answered, abruptly reminded of her unglamorous servitude. The chef’s call should have taken priority, given his grumpiness tonight, but she couldn’t bow to another command before enlightening someone, anyone, of her overflowing potential.

      Posture lifted, she peered down at the sergeant. “Thanks for the offer, but I already got plans,” she stated, as though he should have expected as much. “I’ll be traveling with the USO, soon as a spot in a touring group opens up. So I’m sure I’ll be stopping in all those places you mentioned.” She added with a wink, “Even drop you a postcard if I have time.” In reality, all the Hedy Lamarrs and Marlene Dietrichs took overseas priority. But the possibility of joining the tour was the main reason Betty had auditioned for the USO, and she wasn’t about to give up the chance at a better job—a better life—no matter how slim.

      “Well, if things don’t work out,” he said, “come on by and see me. Or, even if you wanted to chat about other things, besides the military . . .” He trailed off, inviting her to fill in the blanks.

      “Wessel, there you are!” A GI appeared at the front door beside two rather refined-looking girls. To top it off, they were knockouts, which J.T. seemed to note in less than a blink. “We’re hittin’ O’Toole’s. Ya comin’, or what?”

      The girls whispered to each other, then giggled, a sound that drew the sergeant from his seat like a snake to a flute. Not until reaching the exit did he rotate back, as though suddenly recalling Betty was there. “Like I said, you oughta come by.”

      She layered on a smile. “Yeah, sure.” In your dreams, her mind added. Jerks like this reminded her why she’d be better off with a real gentleman—like Morgan, that soldier from the dance. Because mysterious and chivalrous deserved to beat out suave and dreamy every time.

      Not that they always did, of course.

      As J.T. and his gang strolled gaily past the diner windows, Betty tried to imagine a hundred ways to put the nitwit in his place if given the chance. But before she could come up with a solitary one, a gruff warning from the chef took another stomp at her pride.

      Chapter 6

       Late August 1944 France

      “Charlie! Where are you?” Morgan screamed, pain grinding his throat. He rubbed his eyelids with the back of his hand and strained to focus. The gray smoke of mortar explosions burned his nostrils.

      “Charlie!” His voice melted into the bursting of artillery shells and hammering of machine guns. He fought off a cough. The taste of tar coated his tongue. He spat and missed the water, hitting the sleeve of his fatigues. Black, grainy liquid.

      Waves were riding him mid-thigh. Ocean waves. But he couldn’t feel the chill. Too numb, too filled with terror. Too confused by how he and Charlie had ended up separated.

      He clutched his M1 rifle to his chest and plodded through the bloody sea, the water like a flood of molasses. Leaning every pound of his body forward, he pushed toward the hazy beachhead. German bullets zipped past his ears. He ducked his face away, grasping his net-covered helmet. Behind him, miles of Allied ships, now tattered floating tombs, dappled the ocean. Infantry hung like soiled rags off bow ramps. Uniformed corpses plugged jagged holes in landing craft.

      Morgan refocused and resumed his march, until something bumped his knee. He gasped at the sight. A swarm of dead bodies hovered beneath the surface of the water. Their unseeing stares reached for him, pleading for help too late. Boys, all of them, too young to be soldiers. Still, here they were, cut down by machinegun fire. Drowned by the weight of their own field packs.

      Staggering from dizziness, he trudged onward. He searched for pillboxes camouflaged in the trees overlooking the shore. Not a bunker in view, but he knew they were there, preserving the merciless rage of Wehrmacht troops awaiting his approach.

      Once at water of knee-high depth, he hurdled the waves with his weighted boots. The suction of wet sand suddenly yielded. He stumbled out of the ocean and onto a quilt of fatigues covering every inch of the beach. Was he the only GI left standing?

      The question retreated as he plowed through the patchwork of helmets and weapons, of crumpled bodies lying facedown in the gritty sand. A mortician’s waiting room for fallen heroes.

      He dropped to his knees in a bucket-sized gap, tossing his rifle aside. He yanked back on jacket collars for a glimpse of their faces. Blood trickled from their gaped mouths. Gashes, bullet holes, missing pieces. The stench of death seared his senses, folded his stomach in quarters. And their eyes, their glassy eyes, shining hollow, like tinted doors entrapping their souls.

      “Morgan. . . .” A hoarse whisper seemed to cry out from the heavens.

      He flew back on his knees. “Charlie?”

      “Morgan. . . .” The voice drew nearer, echoing as if spoken from the base of a well.

      “Charlie!” he shrieked, searching, searching. “Where are you?”

      A fatigue-clad arm shot up from the pile of bodies. The sandy hand grabbed hold of his shoulder and shook him.

      “Morgan, wake up.”

      The unexpected words jolted him back to their French campsite. From the milky light of the moon, he could see his brother, wrapped in a blanket an arm’s length away.

      “You okay?” Charlie asked groggily.

      Yeah, Morgan mouthed without sound. The terror of his dream tapering, he forced a dry swallow and nodded.

      Charlie yawned as he