Blue Skies Tomorrow (25 page)

Antioch
Tuesday, October 24, 1944

Connie Scala and Linda Jeffries sat cross-legged on the sidewalk, playing jacks, and Jay-Jay tugged Helen’s hand. “My watt.”

“Yes, you may watch, but only for a few minutes.” She was early for her meeting, and Ray’s letter called to her from her pocketbook. She scanned for her favorite part.

Last night at the party, my brothers and I discussed the ink spot you discovered on the piano and how it embodies our weaknesses—Walt’s for lying, Jack’s for manipulation, and mine for misguided peacemaking. Yes, Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, but he doesn’t want peace at the cost of truth. My primary goal shouldn’t be the absence of conflict but doing God’s will.

A pastor needs to stand up for truth in ways that may shatter the peace. I don’t know if I can do that. If I had known what Jim was doing to you, would I have had the guts to confront him?

Courage comes in many forms, but I don’t know if I have the right form.

Helen pressed her lips to the paper. “Oh, darling. I know you do.”

A little girl giggled, and Helen glanced down to Connie’s grinning face. Helen gave her short black braid a playful tug. “I’m sure you also talk to yourself at times. Come on, Jay-Jay. Mrs. Novak said she’d have cookies.”

“Cookie!” Jay-Jay scampered down Sixth Street and up the Novaks’ front walk.

Mrs. Novak greeted him with a hug and then ushered them into the parlor. “I’ll be right back with those cookies I promised. Look, I brought down my boys’ old tin soldiers.”

Jay-Jay flopped to his stomach on the hardwood floor. In his baby hands, two soldiers leaped to life and proceeded to kill each other.

Helen was drawn to the upright piano where she had spent romantic evenings with Ray, to the concealed ink spot, and to the portrait of Ray. She didn’t have a picture of him, so every time she came, she drank him in—the kind eyes under the service cap, the tilt of his smile, and the angle of his jaw. Her chest ached missing him. His tour would be up by the end of the year, and he’d be home, but not hers.

“I never thought I’d have all three boys in harm’s way. Not after Walt was discharged.” Mrs. Novak held a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. “At least I have a daughter in the house for the first time.”

“I’m so thankful you took me in.” Allie Novak walked in and set a tray on the coffee table. “Would you care for tea, Helen?”

“Yes, please.” Helen sat in a wing chair and forced a smile at her sister’s best friend. One of several. Betty always did like quiet little things who wouldn’t outshine her.

“Thank you for coming, Helen.” Mrs. Novak handed Jay-Jay a cookie and set a half-filled glass of milk on a coaster on the piano bench. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Helen opened the top notebook on her lap. “Oh yes. October’s almost over, and we need to plan the Christmas party for the servicemen’s children.”

Mrs. Novak sat on the couch and took the teacup Allie offered. “I had something else in mind.” She traced her finger around the china rim of the cup.

“The scrap metal drive? The blood drive?” Helen flipped through her notebooks.

“In a way, all of it.” She pursed her lips. “I’m concerned about you.”

“About me?”

“You seem tired lately, and I wondered if we could help. Allie has decided not to take a job with the baby coming, and she could lighten your load.”

“It’s not a load. I love this work. I do.”

“Please let me help.” Allie’s large eyes stretched wide. “For the past two years, I’ve had a purpose, first with the Red Cross in Riverside, then at Boeing. Walt wanted me here so I could be with family, but I feel useless. If I could help in any way . . .”

Helen stroked her notebook. How could she give up her heart’s work?

Jay-Jay lined up soldiers for an assault on the coffee table, and Helen’s heart crumpled. He needed more of her. The job with Vic took so much, and that wouldn’t change until she could move out. But how could she please the Lord without service?

She groaned softly. Just that morning she’d read Galatians 3:2–3: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”

Like the Galatians, was she trying to earn God’s love, earn grace, earn forgiveness for killing her husband?

“Helen? You don’t have to decide today.”

“Yes, I do.” Her voice came out ragged. “You’re right.”

The phone rang, and Mrs. Novak gave her an apologetic look. “Excuse me. I’m expecting a call.”

Allie lifted a shy smile. “I don’t have your talent for leadership, but I’d love to help.”

Helen transferred to the sofa and smiled, although she doubted how much a society girl could help. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“I can run errands, make phone calls, type, anything you need.”

Giving up any task would be like chopping off a finger, but Helen nodded and opened a notebook, her throat tight. If she was mistakenly relying on work to earn God’s favor, perhaps it would be best to chop off some fingers.

“Helen?” Mrs. Novak leaned into the parlor. “The call is for you. It’s Victor Llewellyn.”

“Victor?”

“Mrs. Carlisle told him you were here.”

Helen went to the hallway and picked up the shiny black receiver. “Vic?”

“I thought you’d want to know,” he said in a heavy voice. “The verdict came in.”

“Already? But you said they’d start deliberations today.”

“They did. They finished eighty minutes later.”

“Eighty? But—”

“Less than two minutes per defendant. But why deliberate if you’ve already made up your mind?”

Helen’s mind thickened like syrup. “You don’t mean—”

“Guilty. The court found all fifty of them guilty of mutiny. Fifteen years each. It’s a travesty. They don’t meet the legal definition of mutiny. No conspiracy. No attempt to overthrow officers. The Navy just wants to make an example of them so no one else considers insubordination. The trial was a farce, and they dragged us in and made fools of us.”

She leaned against the wall and untangled her finger from the phone cord. “All fifty? Not—”

“Even Carver.”

Helen pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Oh no. Poor Carver. Poor Esther.”

24

Bury St. Edmunds Airfield
Friday, November 10, 1944

Rubber squeaked on the tarmac, and Ray savored the sound after the intense flak they’d encountered over the Luftwaffe airfield at Wiesbaden.

His brand-new Pathfinder plane, an H2X radar-equipped B-17G, whizzed down the runway. Ray had named her
Ascalon
after the lance Saint George used to slay the dragon. With foot firm on the brakes, he flipped the levers on the center console to turn off the superchargers, while Goldman raised the wing flaps.

When the speed dropped to thirty miles per hour, Ray said, “Unlock tail wheel.”

Goldman leaned down to the floor and swung the bar over. “Tail wheel unlocked.”

Ray turned onto the perimeter track that circled the runways, and he joined the rumbling procession of silver B-17s, each tail fin bearing the 94th Bomb Group’s
A
on a black square. They’d taken damage, and four of the group’s thirty-eight bombers had slipped out of formation. At least France and Belgium were liberated, so a damaged plane had more places to put down.

When Ray reached the spoon-shaped hardstand for
Ascalon
, the ground crew motioned him in and showed him where to stop.

Ray and Goldman ran through the process of stopping the engines—idling them until cylinder temperature dropped and running at high rpm for thirty seconds before moving each mixture control lever to “engine off.”

The engines’ thunder died away for the first time in six hours. Ray tugged off his leather flight helmet. “Say, boys, do you know what’s playing at the base theater tonight?”

“
Cover Girl
with Rita Hayworth.” Goldman closed his eyes. “Mm, mm, mm. What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on that redhead.”

“Not if I saw her first.” Hewett wrestled the machine gun out of the top turret with the help of the armorer. “I sing better than Gene Kelly.” He broke into “Long Ago and Far Away.”

Maybe Ray wasn’t in the mood for a movie after all. He didn’t need a reminder of his failed date with Helen. Their romance was long ago, and she was far away.

While his crew escalated their argument over who could win the Hollywood bombshell, Ray turned off a legion of switches on the control panel.

Sometimes hope flickered that he stood a chance with Helen, like after her last letter. She believed in him. She believed he possessed courage for anything he faced, and her belief strengthened him. If only he could keep her by his side to squash his self-doubts.

And to squash hers as well. Her letters showed such growth. She had shoved off the self-blame Jim taught her, and righteous anger had taken its place. Someday Ray hoped to guide her to forgiveness and peace, but first she had to work through the anger and betrayal.

Ray swung his legs to the side, stepped over the passageway that led down to the nose compartment, and stood behind his seat. He raised fists to ear level and pressed his elbows back, as good a stretch as he could get in the cockpit, but boy, it felt good.

After he picked up the flak vest and steel flak helmet he’d tossed aside when they were over the Channel, he followed Goldman and Hewett through the bomb bay and the radio room.

In the waist compartment, one man remained behind—Lt. Sig Werner, the H2X radar operator. He caught Ray’s eye and waited for Goldman and Hewett to leave. “Say, Pops, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Sure, Sig, what’s up?”

Werner rubbed his close-cropped sandy hair. With his wide-set blue eyes and square jaw, he could blend in if they were shot down over Germany—if he could get the right uniform. “Thanks for talking to me last week. Sure, I was mad at you, but I needed to hear it.”

Ray smiled and unclamped his parachute harness. On the October 7 mission to an oil refinery at Bohlen, the 94th lost eight bombers, one of which held Werner’s former crew. He hit the bottle hard every night after that, which affected his work. “You’re doing well this week.”

“I haven’t had a drop since. I thought the pain would kill me if I didn’t drown it, but you made me see a man could also die by drowning.”

“I see a lot of that around here.” He also saw men try to slough off their sorrows in the arms of London prostitutes. Those men kept the base dispensary busy treating venereal disease.

Werner massaged the back of his neck, and his cheeks reddened. “I said some awful things to you.”

Yep. Things like “self-righteous, know-it-all Puritan.” Ray shrugged off his parachute harness. “No harm done.”

Werner fixed his light blue eyes on Ray. “You’re the only man around here with the guts to take me on. I owe you.”

Ray clapped him on the back. “How about a cup of coffee in the Officers’ Club?”

Werner strolled to the door, jumped out, and grinned at Ray. “
After
the movie. I’ll give up booze, but I won’t give up Rita.”

Ray laughed and hopped out. The tarmac jarred his feet, and a thought jarred his soul. Helen was right. He’d stirred up conflict with Werner to bring peace in the long run.

He ambled down the length of his plane and ran his hand down Saint George’s lance painted on the nose. Another dragon slain.

Naval Magazine, Port Chicago
Wednesday, November 15, 1944

Helen tapped her fingers on her desk, mimicking the rain on the roof of the repaired administration building. Now that his assignment for the trial was over, Vic had been reassigned to Port Chicago, his punishment for being on the wrong side, he insisted. But Helen knew he had a purpose. His presence had a soothing effect on the men, since they knew he fought for them.

With no surviving witnesses, the Naval Court of Inquiry couldn’t find a conclusive cause of the explosion but decided it was due to the presence of fused ammunition, rough handling, or the failure of a boom.

Helen had finished her typing and filing and had nothing to do until Vic returned from the clemency hearing with Admiral Wright. She hated to use work time for personal correspondence, but she couldn’t stare into space for an hour.

She slid open the bottom desk drawer and removed her letter to Ray. She scanned the page, puffed her cheeks full of air, then blew it out. If any letter would scare him away forever, this was it, but she had to get out the last ugly scrap of truth.

Both Madame Ivanova and Jim blamed me for their abuse. Madame said if I were a better dancer, she wouldn’t have to switch me. Jim said if I were a better wife, he wouldn’t have to beat me. In public he blamed my injuries on polio-induced clumsiness. Even my father believed my clumsiness was to blame. Well, not one of those injuries was my fault.