On Distant Shores Read online

  Hutch shrugged off his pack, held it over his head, and sloshed through the warm turquoise water. Once on shore, soaked to the waist, he pulled a one-ounce glass medication bottle from his trouser pocket and filled it with Sicilian sand. He’d label it later and add it to his collection—Oahu, Northern Ireland, England, Algeria, now Gela, Sicily.

  How many more vials would he fill?

  2

  Foch Field, Tunis, Tunisia

  July 14, 1943

  “Yerrrrr out!” Lt. Clint Peters tackled Rose Danilovich around the waist, and they both fell to the ground.

  Georgie nudged Mellie Blake as they sat in batting order on the edge of the airfield’s makeshift baseball diamond. “Since when is tackling allowed in this game?”

  Mellie’s dark eyes gleamed. “She isn’t complaining. You arrange the best birthday parties.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Georgie winked at her friend. Rose loved Clint and baseball, and the officers of the 64th Troop Carrier Group were more than happy to join a game with the ladies of the 802nd. What could be better for Rose’s birthday?

  Rose got to her feet and brushed dirt from her dark blonde hair. Still a tomboy, even though Georgie had tried to make a lady out of her since first grade. About as successful as Rose trying to make a tomboy out of Georgie.

  “Kay, you’re up.” Grant Klein, a C-47 pilot and one of Kay Jobson’s many boyfriends, handed the redhead a bat. “You know how to use it?”

  “Why don’t you show me?”

  Oh brother. Georgie managed not to roll her eyes, but only because brassy Kay and shy Mellie had formed the oddest of friendships lately.

  “This was such a good idea.” Mellie held back her thick black hair from a sudden gust of wind. “It’s taking everyone’s minds off Sicily.”

  It was until Mellie brought it up again. “Yes, well, I’m glad they didn’t send us over there on that hospital ship yesterday. It would have messed up my party plans.”

  “The party’s our only consolation.” Mellie’s wide mouth settled into a hard line. “We should be there. Did you hear? They’re flying patients from Sicily to Tunisia without nursing care.”

  Georgie clucked her tongue. “That’s a shame.” Did her voice sound convincing?

  “This would be a great opportunity for us to show what we can do. We were trained to fly close to the front. Why won’t they let us?”

  Thank goodness they hadn’t. Georgie scrambled to her feet. “I’m up.”

  Mellie laughed. “Kay’s at bat. She only has one strike, one ball.”

  Georgie wrinkled her nose. Why couldn’t Kay hurry up and strike out and end this conversation?

  Mellie sighed, and her gaze roamed the airfield as it always did.

  “Is he here?” Georgie asked.

  “I doubt it. I think he’s in Sicily.”

  Mellie had fallen in love with her anonymous pen pal, an Army engineer. A few months ago she’d met him and figured out his identity, but he hadn’t solved the puzzle. Mellie thought that was best, since she was convinced he didn’t find her attractive. Just as well. He was the son and namesake of notorious murderer Tom MacGilliver. Who wanted to be saddled with a name like that for life?

  A loud crack, and Georgie jumped.

  Kay stood at the plate, the bat cocked over her shoulder in a practiced way. The men craned their necks to the sky. Somewhere up there, a little white ball soared.

  With a satisfied smile, Kay jogged around the bases, hips swinging. How could she do that even when running?

  Clint pointed to the ball and whistled. “Good thing our ships aren’t around. They’d shoot that down too.”

  Grim laughter circled the field, but Georgie shuddered. Two days before, a flock of C-47s flew to Sicily loaded with paratroopers, but word never reached the US Navy. The cargo planes passed over the fleet right on the heels of a German Luftwaffe attack. Twenty-three C-47s fell to American guns.

  Georgie crossed her arms over her stomach and trembled despite the oppressive midday heat. They wanted the nurses to fly over there too?

  “Georgie!” Rose held out the bat. Her amused smile said this wasn’t the first time she’d called.

  “Just planning my batting strategy.” She turned and almost stepped on someone.

  Lt. Cora Lambert, chief nurse of the squadron, sat close enough to hear the conversation. Lambert gave Georgie a long, curious gaze. A penetrating gaze.

  Goodness, was Georgie that transparent? Were her fears visible?

  “Sorry, Lieutenant.” Georgie mustered her perkiest smile. “Did you know Kay was a baseball star? I sure didn’t.”

  The gaze softened. “Who would have known?”

  “Certainly not me.” Georgie headed to the plate. “What do you think, Rose? Should I try for a touchdown or a field goal?”

  “For heaven’s sake.” Rose pressed the bat into Georgie’s hand. “Just try not to kill anyone.”

  “I couldn’t if I tried.”

  Her friend’s freckled face scrunched into a familiar fond, teasing smile.

  “Ready?” the pitcher called.

  On the baseball field, men and women relaxed from wartime stress, and her best friend basked in her element.

  Georgie settled the bat onto her shoulder and stared down the pitcher in a comical way. If only flight nursing was as easy as throwing a party.

  Gela, Sicily

  July 15, 1943

  Hutch slid the lid off another case and sighed in relief. Everything was intact. He lifted a bottle of magnesium sulfate powder and inspected it for damage. None, thank goodness.

  In the first case, several containers of ethanol had shattered, and the tent reeked of booze. How long would it take to get replacement supplies?

  Dominic Bruno and Ralph O’Shea, the pharmacy technicians, set medications on the counter and dumped sawdust from the case into a crate. They’d need it someday when they relocated. Hutch placed a case upright as shelving and arranged the meds inside.

  He stepped back and put his hands on his hips. A trickle of sweat ran down his bare chest.

  Pharmacy and laboratory shared a long ward tent, with a canvas flap dividing them. Boxes and bulk bottles rested in open shelving beneath the pharmacy counter, and the cases perched on top for smaller bottles. The clean lines of the steel casing and the neat rows of bottles with their labels lined up just so—something about it felt right and good.

  “The scales, Hutch.” Ralph bowed and held out the wooden box, as if presenting a gift to a king. His bright green eyes glittered. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

  He smiled at the teasing and took the box. Dad had taught him reverence for the tools of the profession while Hutch did his homework behind the drugstore prescription counter. “Treat your equipment well, and it’ll never fail you.”

  Ralph scratched his head of red hair. “I don’t know, Dom. Has he ever said that before?”

  “Nope. He usually says, ‘Take care of your equipment, and it’ll never fail you.’”

  “Ah, that’s it. Good, because ‘treat it well’ makes it sound like I’ve got to take it to dinner and a movie.”

  Dom pointed a finger at Ralph. “Don’t you dare kiss it on the first date.”

  “Watch me.” Hutch laid a smooch on the wooden box.

  From the tent entrance, someone clucked his tongue. “What would Phyllis say?”

  Bergie. Hutch gave him a sheepish smile. “She’d probably say I can’t be trusted.”

  Bergie’s eyes bulged, and he broke out in laughter. “What? You? Absence makes the heart grow weirder. You’ve only had two girlfriends, and I had to set you up with both.”

  Hutch opened the wooden box and set up the scales. “You’re here. That’s the problem.”

  “So it’s me she doesn’t trust.” Bergie crossed his arms over his stocky chest and pushed out his lower lip. “I’m going to cry.”

  The last time Hutch had seen his friend cry was in ’35 when the Philadelphia Athletics erected the Spite F
ence around Shibe Park to block the free view from the street.

  Bergie set his foot on the sawdust crate, his face suddenly serious. “Hey, buddy, she knows you’re rock-steady faithful.”

  “More important, I know it.”

  Ralph broke out in a fake coughing fit.

  “I smell coffee,” Dom said in a pointed voice.

  Bergie gave Hutch a quizzical look.

  “Lieutenant Kazokov. Cough. Coffee.” Hutch grabbed his khaki shirt and slipped it on.

  Bergie glanced down at his own unbuttoned shirt. “Should I worry?”

  “Nah, you outrank him.” Hutch did up a button or two.

  “Hutchinson! Bruno! O’Shea!” Kazokov shouted.

  Hutch snapped to attention. Ridiculous. This was a hospital, not an infantry unit.

  Kazokov gripped his hands behind his back, making his portly middle-aged belly protrude. He strode around the pharmacy and stopped in front of Hutch. He glanced at Bergie, then back to Hutch. “Did I hear you fraternizing with an officer?”

  He gazed down into the man’s little dark eyes. Kazokov accepted only two replies, and Hutch had to be honest. “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s okay. I’m supervising. Ordering him around.” Bergie clapped a hand on Kazokov’s shoulder and flicked his chin at Hutch. “That shelf is crooked.”

  Hutch swallowed a laugh and straightened the perfectly straight shelf. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Anyone who attacked Hutch received a full frontal humor assault from Bergie, but Kazokov wasn’t armed for defense.

  “This is my command. I have it under control.” Kazokov’s round face turned blotchy.

  “Yes, sir.” Hutch gave him a reassuring smile. “Ber—Captain Bergstrom is my oldest friend from Philadelphia.”

  His gaze shifted to Bergie. “But he’s an enlisted man.”

  Bergie’s lips twisted. “When we met in first grade, he failed to mention that fact.”

  Hutch stood tall and rigid as a tin soldier. “I apologize, Captain Bergstrom, sir. Please write me up for insubordination.”

  “You can count on that.”

  Kazokov’s face turned completely red. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “We haven’t been formally introduced.” Bergie stuck out his hand, all congeniality again. “I’m Capt. Nels Bergstrom.”

  “Lt. Humphrey Kazokov.” He shook Bergie’s hand.

  “Swell name. They call you Kaz?”

  “I should hope not.”

  Bergie nodded, his eyes lively, his lips pressed together.

  Hutch returned to work. If he laughed, Bergie would lose all control.

  “So, Lieutenant, what did you do in civilian life?” Bergie sounded interested in the man, but Hutch knew better. He just wanted to mine for more nuggets.

  Kazokov sucked in his stomach. “My father and I own the finest florist shop in Kalamazoo.”

  Hutch shot Bergie a warning glance so he wouldn’t break into “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.”

  Bergie wiped a hand across his mouth. “So you’re from the Kalamazoo Kazokovs?”

  Hutch clamped his lips together, but across the tent, Ralph gulped back a laugh and covered it with another fake coughing fit.

  “You’ve heard of our shop?” Kazokov’s voice brightened.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure. How did you get from floral work to hospital work?”

  “Simple. I majored in business so we could expand throughout the county. When I was drafted, my degree enabled me to attend Officer Candidate School. After my three months’ training and commission, I was assigned here.”

  A “Ninety-Day Wonder.” No experience in health care whatsoever. Hutch set the bottle of salicylic acid down too hard on the counter. Bottles rattled.

  Kazokov scowled. “Be careful with my medications, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hutch’s fingers tightened on the bottle. The man didn’t know the difference between salicylic acid and sulfuric acid.

  He swallowed his indignation. This was why he came. Without him, the patients of the 93rd would be under the care of Kaz, Dom, and Ralph, with nine months’ training between them. Few mobile hospitals had a pharmacist on staff, and Hutch hoped to have a hand in changing that.

  In the civilian world, only pharmacists were allowed to fill prescriptions, but the military believed technicians could do the same job. They couldn’t, and the pharmacy profession had gathered volumes of stories of compromised patient safety, some of the stories provided by Hutch.

  “Are you almost set up, Sergeant?” Kaz said.

  “Yes, sir. This is the last case.”

  “Good.” He poked the sawdust crate with his foot. “Put that away, out of sight.”

  “Yes, sir.” That was the plan.

  “My work is done here. I’ll report to Colonel Currier.” Kazokov extended his hand to Bergie. “A pleasure meeting you, Captain.”

  “Oh, the pleasure’s mine. All mine.” Bergie’s head swiveled to follow Kazokov out of the tent, but his gaze strayed back to Hutch, and one side of his mouth crept up.

  “Don’t.” Hutch pointed one warning finger at his friend.

  “Ohhhhhh.” Bergie stamped his foot over and over like a dog getting his ears scratched. “It would be so easy.”

  “Too easy. Where’s the sport?”

  “You’re ruining my fun again.”

  “That’s why we’re friends. I keep you out of trouble.”

  Bergie’s grin lit up his tanned face. “And I get you into it.”

  How many times had they said that? Both Hutch’s mom and Bergie’s said they were good for each other, balanced each other. Hutch needed that balance.

  3

  Ponte Olivo Airfield, Sicily

  July 17, 1943

  In the pressing heat of the tent, Georgie set up the mosquito bar so the netting on its boxy frame encased her cot. As long as she tucked the bottom edge under her bedroll, she’d be protected from mosquitoes and malaria while she slept. She smiled at the four other women in the tent. “Tell yourselves you’re sleeping in a romantic Victorian canopy bed.”

  “Looks like a coffin to me.” Vera Viviani shook back her dark hair.

  Rose wiggled her fingers near Vera’s face. “At least it keeps the Sicilian bugs off.”

  Alice Olson shuddered and ran her fingers up into her pale blonde hair as if insects had invaded. “Please stop talking about bugs.”

  Georgie opened her little canvas musette bag and set her photos and mementos on an upturned crate. Thank goodness she’d been raised on a horse farm and felt comfortable with dirt and bugs and the great outdoors.

  Kay Jobson picked up the framed photo of Virginia Ham, Georgie’s horse. “Mellie and I are taking guesses on how long it’ll take you to sew curtains for this place.”

  Georgie tapped her finger on her chin and grinned. “Do you suppose they’ll let me cut out windows?”

  A trio of thumps in the distance sent shivers through her shoes. Artillery, and not far away. Her fingers itched for needle and thread and fabric and something, anything, to do.

  Lieutenant Lambert poked her head into the tent, letting in a swirl of a breeze. “Ladies, we have evac flights. I need you down at the airstrip immediately.”

  Georgie’s heart flipped like an egg over-easy. She stuffed her mementos back into her musette bag. Wherever she went, her family and Ward and Hammie went with her.

  “Georgie . . .” Lambert gave her a slight frown and a patting motion, telling her to sit.

  She had nowhere to sit. She sent the chief nurse a curious look.

  Lambert repeated the patting motion. “Where’s Mellie?”

  “She went out a few minutes ago, looking for—” Georgie shut her mouth tight. Looking for her engineer, but no one was supposed to know about him except Georgie and Rose and Kay. “Looking around. You know how adventurous she is.”

  “Now isn’t the time for adventure.” The chief nurse leaned out of the tent and looked around. “There she is. Lieutenant B
lake! Hurry up! Get to the plane. We’ve got an evac flight.”

  Rose, Kay, Vera, and Alice stepped outside, knotting neckties, adjusting garrison caps, and chattering in excitement.

  Georgie could work up some chatter. That was her specialty.

  Lambert extended her hand back into the tent like a traffic cop telling Georgie to stop. “Head on down, ladies. Captain Maxwell will brief you. Georgie and I have a special project.”

  A special project? She shifted the mosquito netting so she could sit on the cot.

  Lambert came back inside.

  “What’s our project?” Georgie gave her a big smile.

  The chief nurse crossed her arms, gazed toward the tent entrance, and tapped one long finger on her upper arm, ticking, ticking, ticking.

  Time to get busy. Georgie unpacked her musette bag and set her photographs in an attractive arch, Ward on the left, Ham on the right, and in the middle Mama and Daddy and her sisters, Freddie and Bertie. In front, she set her sewing kit and the windup alarm clock from Daddy.

  “You seem jittery today.”

  “Pardon?”

  Lambert inclined her head, her brown eyes kind. “Are you all right?”

  “Goodness, yes. I’m excited to be in Sicily, and I can’t wait to fly.”

  Lambert’s mouth pursed, and her gaze meandered over Georgie’s face. “Not today.”

  Could she see through the smile? Georgie let out a disappointed sigh. “Too bad.”

  Lieutenant Lambert headed out of the tent and motioned for Georgie to follow. “You and I are taking this jeep to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital, just over that rise there. I need to talk with the physicians about the criteria for selecting patients for air evacuation. We could walk, but we have a few crates of meds for pharmacy that came with us from Tunisia. That’s your project.”

  Lambert didn’t need Georgie to haul crates. She needed a burly medic. But that wasn’t the point. At home, whenever Georgie was nervous or afraid, Mama put her to work in the kitchen or on the sewing machine. Lambert must have suspected Georgie needed busywork to keep her occupied.