"What distinguished visitors, Joe!" said Gloria, smiling at me as if I were the guest of honor at a fancy dinner party. "And that reminds me, Joe, we have another visitor on his way. Lieutenant Phillipe Mathenet, from the Gardes Mobiles." She glanced at me. "That's the local French police, Billy."
"I've heard of them."
"Well anyway, Joe, Lieutenant Mathenet is on his way to talk to the locals in Ward C. I'd like you to meet him at the front entrance and escort him."
"Locals?" I asked.
"Yes, mostly young French boys. They got mixed up in this coup attempt and were wounded in a fight with the French troops and police. We have about twenty or so in a separate ward. Lieutenant Mathenet is here to find out if any are well enough to be released into his custody." She took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and shook one out. Casselli and I each slapped our pockets looking for a pack of matches, like two beaus competing for her favors. I won. I still had that blue matchbook in my pocket.
"I'd like to see them myself," I said, striking a match and holding it for her.
"How come, Lieutenant?" asked Casselli.
Gloria broke in before I could answer. "Joe, be a dear and go wait for Lieutenant Mathenet. He's late and I don't want him wandering around getting in the way."
"Whatever you say, Captain." He nodded at me, and left. Gloria watched him go.
"Joe is a great guy," she said, and from her tone I knew there was a "but" coming. "But he thinks he runs the place and has to know everything. Forgive him if he asked too many questions. He means well."
"I've noticed sergeants usually run most things in the Army."
"You may be right. So what do you do at Allied Forces HQ Billy?" she asked in a semi-serious tone. It was almost as if she didn't believe me. I get a lot of that.
"Whatever Major Harding wants," I answered, staying vague.
"That wouldn't be Sam Harding, would it?"
"His first name is Samuel," I admitted although, if I had ever thought about it before, I would have said his first name was "Major." "West Point, regular Army kind of guy."
"Yes, that's Sam!" she said. "You might be surprised to learn I'm regular Army too, Billy, although things are a lot more informal in a medical unit than you'd find in a headquarters staff. Especially one with Sam Harding on it."
"Wouldn't be hard," I said. "So you served with him before the war?"
"We were on the same base back in the States for a while," she said. She turned away from me. Something had changed; we weren't going to discuss her relationship with Major Harding. "Sam." Then she smiled again, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a dark cloud.
"When did you come ashore?" I asked, trying to get the conversation going. "I didn't realize there'd be nurses here this soon."
"My nurses and I came ashore with the first wave, Billy, climbing down the cargo nets just like the infantry. We came ashore at Beer White and set up an aid station. As soon as the beach was clear, we headed here. This place had been selected as our main hospital facility because it's near the main road and the rail line. The local hospitals aren't worthy of the name, so we've started one here, from scratch."
"I'm impressed," I said, and I was. I didn't know army nurses had come along on the invasion.
"I wish the army was a little more impressed by us," she said. "We don't have any uniforms of our own, did you know that? We have to find the smallest men's fatigues we can and roll up the sleeves and pants." She stuck out her leg and I saw that the cuffs of the coverall she was wearing were rolled up tight. "And don't even ask about shoes. I have to wear three pairs of socks just to keep these from falling off my feet."
"But what about back in the States? Didn't you have uniforms there?"
"Sure, standard whites, complete with white stockings and white shoes. Not the most appropriate wear for climbing down cargo nets, cleaning floors, and doing laundry."
"Laundry, floors?"
"A woman's work is never done, Billy," she said as she sipped her coffee. "When we got here, the first thing we had to do was clean out and scrub down the rooms. After duty hours, we have to launder all the linens so our patients won't have to lie on dirty sheets."
"But you're all officers, aren't you? I never heard of officers scrubbing anything."
"I'm regular Army, Medical Corps. But all the other nurses are Army Nurse Corps. They're lieutenants, but the army came up with something called relative rank."
"What's that?"
"With relative rank you get half the pay of a man, and no salutes. It wouldn't do for an enlisted man to salute an officer while she's scrubbing the floor or emptying a bedpan, so no salutes for nurses."
"You must be pretty sore at the army."
"I love the army, Billy. It gives me a chance to serve at the front, and every woman here is proud to do what she can. But I'd like some clothes that fit." She smiled that warm smile again, and all the complaints just vanished.
"Tell me, Billy, why do you want to talk to our French patients? They don't need any unnecessary stress while they're recuperating."
"Don't you think the Gardes Mobiles and their SOL pals are a pretty stressful bunch? Do you have any idea what they do to kids like these?"
"What's the SOL?" she asked.
"Service d'Order Legionnaire, fascist militia… and you're avoiding the question."
"You're right. And so are you."
How could I answer her question? Tell her I want to talk to the French rebels because one of them might know Diana and have an idea where she is? Oh, and by the way, she's a spy and I'm Uncle Ike's secret agent when I'm not working for your old boyfriend Sam. Then I remembered. Georgie said he had a kid brother in with the rebels.
"I met a French officer the day we came ashore. He told me his brother was a university student and involved in the coup attempt. I'd like to find out if he's among the wounded."
"All right, Billy. I'll take you to Ward C. Why don't you contact this officer and bring him over here?"
"I can't. The Gardes Mobiles killed him. He was murdered by a Captain Luc Villard."
Gloria looked stunned. She opened her mouth to say something but I couldn't hear it over a high-pitched wail that started out slow and then became a shrill sound that felt like an icepick in the ear.
"Air raid!" someone shouted and then everybody jumped up and made for the door.
Chapter Nine
We dove into a slit trench behind the main building and stared up into the blue sky, swiveling our heads, straining to see any sign of enemy aircraft. The sirens were wailing, the shrill sound mixing with the voices of nurses, doctors, and GIs as they tumbled out of the building and made for the newly dug trenches that littered the area. They were yelling to or at each other in high-pitched nervous voices, excited and scared at the same time, trying to sound like they were in charge, still in control of things. Several more people jammed themselves into our trench, one nurse laughing as if this was school recess, another trying not to cry, her hand held to her mouth.
"They wouldn't bomb a hospital, would they?" she asked, the quivering of her lower lip just visible.
Gloria reached over at patted her arm. "Don't you worry, honey. They're probably ours and it's a false alarm."
The sirens wound down and stopped, and another strange sound took its place. The air filled with a low, dull, throb that seemed to come from all around us. The yelling stopped as this new sound enveloped us, growing stronger each second. It took on a nasty, buzzing quality that reminded me of hornets or yellow jackets. People started popping up from the trenches, twisting their necks, looking for the source of the droning, ever-increasing noise. I knew that it might be too late once they saw it.
"Get down!" I yelled. "Get your heads down!" I threw my arm around Gloria, yanking her down, nearly burying our heads in gravelly dirt at the bottom of the trench. As the smell of damp, chalky soil hit my nostrils, I had to force myself to keep my face in it. The sound grew. I didn't know if anyone had heard or listened to me, but I didn't really care right then. They had fair warning. Only a fool goes sightseeing in an air raid.