ALLIANCES: Chapter One

THE BELLY OF A FLYING FORTRESS wasn’t the kind of accommodation Nora had in mind for her first trip to Europe. An outside stateroom on the Normandie was more like it, but the French ship keeled over in New York harbor soon after the war started. The other big liners now crossed the Atlantic as troop transports. No matter what the girls back home said, being among a handful of women stranded with a few thousand guys in midocean wasn’t the kind of fun she liked. And she was eager to start the overseas job. The camp-out at Mitchell Field waiting for a quick ride over seemed like a better idea until somewhere off Newfoundland when the pilot said their destination was Scotland. By then it was too late to head for the docks.

Now a train swayed her toward London, but the feel of the bomber lingered. Nora eased away from the seat, rubbing back muscles knotted by hours propped against a parachute wedged between the bomber’s metal ribs. Daylight brightened outside the train window but left the gray fields and sky a monochrome landscape. Leftover vibrations from the plane’s engines still drummed through her head, and although the train’s heat came on at dawn, the cheek propped in her hand was cold. Slipping to the floor, she lifted her duffel bag across the seat, legs stretched out the length of the bench as she settled back against the canvas bag.

Glancing at the woman and boy across the compartment, she found them watching her. The woman quickly looked away. Nora’s glance held the boy, his eyes round with amazement at waking to find a stranger sharing his journey. An audible stomach growl unleashed a hot flush of embarrassment.

“Will the train stop long enough for me to grab a bite?”

The woman started, looking puzzled. British reserve was no joke. Nora almost gave up hope for an answer until the woman shook her head.

“I shouldn’t think so. The tearooms are seldom open.”

If the best this railroad could offer was a tearoom, who cared if it was closed? Hot black American coffee was what she needed. Coffee fueled her train trips. Crossing the country as a national writer for International Press made her an expert in railroad coffee. Dining cars on the Challenger to San Francisco served a weak brew. Maybe the lousy coffee should have warned her the desk in New York would butcher the stories on Jap internment. But that system didn’t hold up because the coffee on the train to Key West was terrific, especially after the crews changed in New Orleans. And those stories bombed, too. Luck brought her to the navy base the day a training sub sank during depth-charge practice. The censors killed that story. She got used to it.

The whistle blew as Nora trotted down the corridor, working the cramps out of her legs. She dropped to her knees, bracing her arms against the swaying walls as the train sped through a crossing. A young girl straddled her bike behind the gate and waved a red cap when the whistle tweeted again.

English railroads sounded like toy trains to someone used to the mournful horn of freights heading for the Chicago stockyards. The countryside wasn’t really all that different from Illinois. More trees but the meadows crept up to the edges of English villages like the grain fields ringing her hometown. Maybe the girl at the crossing sent her imagination down the tracks, too.

Hard times hit when Nora was in high school, and her father put her to work on the soda fountain after school. Between customers she’d read Chicago papers until her fingertips were permanently smudged with ink. As things got worse and the customers griped more often about tough times, the papers became more attractive, especially the scandal sheets. A small part of her wanted to know why she could never buy a new dress and how farmers with acres of ripening wheat became poor men. Mostly, she escaped from the daily monotony of serving the same rotten coffee to the same worn people with the same old complaints.

From the tabloids Nora knew that some people were having good times. Gossipmongers telling that story filled their columns with each rich detail. Although it wasn’t a world she could inhabit, a newspaperwoman could see it firsthand. And it wasn’t just the big shots, either. Gangsters fascinated her. So did the Cubs at Wrigley Field and even the clowns at City Hall. Chicago seemed wonderfully alive to a young girl trapped in a hick town where hope was dying and dreams were already dead. Each afternoon Nora waited impatiently for the thump of evening papers landing on the sidewalk outside the drugstore. People probably waited like that for the next installment of old-time magazine serials. But the papers were better than fiction because the stories were true and the people were real.

Racketing wheels smothered the sound of the porter’s footsteps until he was right behind her. “Is something amiss?” Pipe smoke washed over her when he reached down to help her to her feet. A smoke would do nicely right now.

“I thought the whistle might mean a station.”

“A wee one. You’re a Yank? Best keep your eyes east for Hadrian’s Wall. It’s along here soon.”

Nora heard voices inside the compartment but they stopped talking when she opened the door. She dug through her duffel for her last Hershey bar. When Nora slid onto the vacant bench just before dawn, the woman was sleeping upright with the kid’s head on her lap, their faces pale ovals in the dim blackout lighting. After a night on the train, the woman’s blouse was still as crisply starched as her posture, hands folded in her lap and ankles crossed. Nora knew a day and a night on a bomber and a train had wilted her right down to the rugged army getup she wore. She felt like a dishrag but hoped it didn’t show.

The boy looked about eight. Only his darting eyes reminded her of American kids. She hadn’t seen a boy in short pants at home for years. What was it about her that fascinated him? His eyes rarely left her. Searching down the length of her legs, Nora understood. It was the uniform, especially the trousers. Good thing she had the hips to wear pants. The kid was too young for that to count for much. Slouching along the bench probably made her even more foreign. And if she looked the least bit like she felt Nora figured she could substitute for Bela Lugosi in one of his horror movies. No wonder a boy with that mannequin for a mother found her so strange. She caught his eye and smiled. He grinned back.

Unwrapping the chocolate, she saw the boy’s eyes track her hands. All little boys loved chocolate, but the Hershey bar was breakfast. At the rate this milk train moved, she might have to make it do for lunch, too. His eyes begged her.

“Okay, kid, I’ll split it with you.”

Nora broke the bar in half, glancing to his mother for approval.

“Chocolate is such a rare treat for Teddy. Thank you.”

Nora forced herself to slow down after gobbling the first creamy chunk. Hershey bars were best when melted smooth over the tongue. Teddy settled back with a sigh, licking the squares in his fist. His legs swung in rhythm with the train, too thin between wool socks and shorts.

Last time Nora had seen a kid wearing short pants was in Chicago, and he was crying. She’d beaten him to the alley by grabbing a ride in a cop car. Despite the dead man’s respectable blue suit, the police left him uncovered. Pooling blood buzzed with the summer’s flies. Her inexperience composed the scene as a waxwork tableau until a keening woman fell to her knees and gathered the dead man into her arms. The boy in short pants joined his mother amid the rotting garbage, and the scene took life for Nora. She turned away and was sick. The cops snickered. When she called the story in, the rewriteman laughed too.

“Don’t call us with spade stories, Seymour.” Stomach churning at his indifference, she’d snapped back. A man was dead. A doctor, for God’s sake, in a slum that needed him.

“Take it easy. You sound like Mrs. Roosevelt. Some people don’t count. Better get used to it.”

Weeks later the city broiled under the worst heat in memory. Social workers at Hull House said it was killing weather. In cramped tenements the heat took a deadly toll of the very old and the very young. Processions of hearses jammed streets in some neighborhoods. The editors loved that story. Nora believed that one would atone for the paper’s earlier indifference. Hope died when her first page-one byline ran off the press under a headline screaming “How Babies Are Baked.” Those in charge fashioned a vitriolic crusade to pump up circulation. It worked and Nora’s star rose.

The train’s clatter slowed like a Victrola running down. Maybe Teddy’s mother was wrong about the restaurant. She needed the air, anyway. His candy was gone, and he trailed her into the station. The tearoom was shuttered, but a farm woman had a basket of apples rubbed bright and smelling of autumn mornings in the country. Nora took half a dozen and handed over an unfamiliar bill. She recognized King George. The coins that came back weren’t pennies or nickels or dimes, but she slipped them into her pocket. English money had as much value to her as the pretend bills in a Monopoly game. Spotting Teddy nearby, she held out an apple.

“Are you a soldier?”

She laughed, pointing to the patch on her sleeve. “I’m a reporter, but they make us wear the uniform, anyhow. You know how far it is to London?”

The boy shook his head, mouth filled with the crisp apple pulp. He swallowed. “Mummy says we’ll be in Piccadilly for luncheon.”

Mummy finished her toilette before they returned to the compartment. No color highlighted her lips, and her hair still coiled in a tight knot at her nape. A string of pearls now dressed up her gray suit, and the air smelled faintly of lavender. Nora hated the scent. Four bottles of her own perfume stuffed in the duffel were the last of a stockpile hoarded when she’d heard about the fall of France. Even with today’s twenty-percent luxury tax, buying perfume was worth it. Sources often forgot she was a reporter when they got a whiff of her Chanel. Maybe four bottles could see her all the way to Paris.

Thrown forward by the train’s sudden jerk, Nora cheeked her watch as she slid down the seat to the window. Past noon, but in England lunch might be later. The train stopped again. Maybe staying on when Teddy had left with his mother was a mistake. No one would meet her, anyway. IP’s cable to Will Davies in the bureau said she’d arrive by air. The woman’s unexpected offer of help getting into the city had caught Nora by surprise, and she automatically refused. They were probably digging into lunch in Piccadilly by now.

The porter stuck his head into the compartment and waggled the pipe in his fist. “Won’t be long now, miss.”

She asked what was holding them up. He waved toward the window, but all Nora could see was a tall brick wall.

“The Jerries dropped a few calling cards last night, and a bit of wall collapsed across the tracks. It’s cleared off now, I expect.”

“I thought the bombing was over.”

“Oh, it is. It mostly is. A few planes come over but don’t do much damage. At least in London. The worst is over now, miss. Now that you Yanks are helping us finish the job.”

So he thought the Yanks were helping. Back in the States, everyone thought the English were doing the helping. A foolish thing to argue about but the stories got big play. Columnists crowed when Eisenhower got the top job. Reading a few London newspapers proved they were miffed over here. That kind of petty squabbling made her avoid the political beat. Assignment to London meant writing similar stuff, mostly from dull briefings or press releases. She’d be off the streets and trapped in routine, but that was the price of her shot at a special correspondency.

Getting bombed wasn’t part of her plan. No story was worth dying for. Leading the charge with the soldiers wasn’t what she had in mind, even if the army decided to let women near the fighting. Ernie Pyle had sewed up the foot-soldier market, and of the brass, only Patton’s name was page-one magic. For good play every day, Ike’s headquarters was the place and that’s where Nora meant to be.

The porter disappeared when the train pulled into the station. Nora wrestled the duffel a bit before abandoning attempts to heave it into her arms. Backing down the narrow corridor dragging the bag, she winced as it bumped along and hoped the perfume bottles wouldn’t smash. Footsteps clanged across the vestibule floor. Before she could straighten or turn, a brisk spank stung her buttocks and arms closed around her.

“Still got the best bottom at IP, Seymour. The pants really show it off.”

Nora relaxed in Will Davies’s embrace, freeing herself as she twisted around to return his hug. A tremor ran through the arms and bony shoulders under her hands. Leaning back, she saw deep grooves in his thin gray face.

“My God, what’s happened to you?”

The grin was familiar as he shook her off and grabbed the duffel. Two tries raised it to his shoulder, but he slung it to the ground as soon as they reached the platform.

“What the Christ is wrong? You look like you’re ready for an undertaker.”

A listless hand brushed dull graying hair from his eyes. “I’ve just spent two years in Russia.”

“Doesn’t Stalin feed American correspondents? We’re sending boatloads of Spam.”

“We got the Spam. But there’s not enough of anything in Russia these days. We were always a little hungry or tired or cold. And damned little news.”

A translucent hand weakly gripped her elbow as Will craned his head around. “Closest we got to Stalingrad was sixty miles and just another Red Army communiqué for our trouble.”

“Maybe Ike will make it up to you and let you be the first reporter back in Europe.”

Something unfamiliar flickered through Will’s eyes. Nora was too busy taking in the scrawny stranger masquerading as her friend to wonder about it.

“Where’s that GI driver? Last I saw, he’d spotted a cute little Limey and was tailing her, juggling a couple of oranges. Wait here.”

A splotch of moisture hit her cheek and Nora looked up. Jagged fingers of glass strained to close an expanse of smashed skylight. A moment’s unease drained off when she saw no anxiety on the faces of other travelers crowding the famous old station. Reassured of safety, Nora dragged her duffel to the closest pillar and waited for Will. No use standing in the drizzle.

A pimply kid in uniform carried her bag to a jeep parked outside next to a small pyramid of sandbags. The rain-washed air was good. Nora wanted to walk once Will promised a tour. Exploring on foot was the way to see any city for the first time. They swung out along the sidewalk, strides matched in the way of old friends used to walking together.

“I’ll fill you in on our way to Norfolk House. That’s where a lot of the brass work.”

Walking loosened the knots in Nora’s back, and Will’s words sparked excitement as he explained IP’s reporting strategy. She kept glancing up at the clouds to reassure herself that no bombers were sneaking in, but finally the parade of dress blues and fatigues, regimentals and khaki overwhelmed her apprehension.

When Will started in on censorship, Nora hardly listened. The rules weren’t tough to figure—keep it general and make it upbeat because the customers at home weren’t in the market for bad news. What she wanted to know was where all the civilians were hiding, especially the women? London’s order of the day seemed to call for a masculine city in military garb. The double-time pace quickened her pulse.

This was definitely the place. It had the serious feel of Wall Street or the State Department. Doing the right kind of work here could give her a special correspondency and all that meant. She wanted respect from colleagues, freedom from routine and orders to concentrate on big stories, the kind that rattle the powerful. Freedom to choose the biggest in politics, business or diplomacy, and all the time she needed to get the story, was the reward she sought. The daily challenge of meeting a deadline was gone, and the subjects were too stiff to be much fun. But Nora didn’t mind. Special correspondent was the pinnacle for a wire service reporter who hated editing. Once she finished with the war, special correspondent was the only writing job left.

Will turned off a busy street, and in a few blocks the civilian city emerged battered and gray. A line of people snaked away from a bakery that pumped out tempting aromas of hot breads each time a customer entered under the tinkling bell. The cellar next door sprouted winter-killed weeds and a blackened chimney freed of supporting walls.

“I thought the bombing was over.”

“You’ll hear the sirens but no one gets up anymore. The worst was over in ’42, although rumor says Hitler’s got a secret weapon. No one seems too worried, though.”

That explained why Englishmen passed through wrecked streets without a sideways glance. Londoners were probably used to threadbare sleeves and patched elbows. Paint peeling unheeded on elaborate Georgian doorways in affluent squares was a familiar and unremarkable sight. But not to Nora. At home outmoded fashions were tossed and the houses got a new coat of paint when the jobs came back with the war. Men sacrificed the cuffs on their pants, but they had new suits. Women jealously guarded their hose, but stockings could be had.

A tide of bicycles splashing down the road stopped them at a corner. There weren’t enough cars on the streets to drown the sound of splattering water thrown from the puddles as bicycles passed. The city din of motors and horns was missing except for the silly tinkling ring from the handlebar bells. Nora reached back to smooth her skirt and instead found the unfamiliar cloth of government-issue slacks under her fingers. Pants had it all over skirts for hitching a ride on a Flying Fortress. No fussing to straighten seams, either. But why bother even thinking about stockings? By the looks of it, clothes wouldn’t be a problem in England.

The thought killed her elation. London was grim, and she was tired of the war. A return to hard times would give no respite from the conflict that had already dominated her working life every day for two years. Leaving the war at the office was easy in New York. There pockets bulged with war-work dollars ready to buy good times and forgetting at a Stork Club floor show or Toots Shor’s dinner. Here it might be difficult to escape just for a blessed minute. She might be able to ignore the uniforms, even her own. But as soon as you hit the streets, the sandbags and olive-drab trucks and shattered buildings would bring it back in a glance. All she wanted was a momentary letup, but that didn’t look likely.

“It’s damned depressing.”

Will shrugged. “War’s depressing.”

“Yeah, sure. But I didn’t expect this. In France, yes. But not England.”

“You’re right. We haven’t done much on the people since the blitz. New York wants it, so I’m giving it to you.”

Nora grabbed his arm. “Come off it, Will. I’ve been doing more substantial stuff. I’m off features. I want a piece of the hard news, the brass.”

“Sorry, kid, it’s your beat. You’ll get enough of the generals to be ready when the invasion comes. In the meantime, buck up the alliance with a few tearjerkers and some purple prose.”

He reached into his raincoat pocket and dragged out a crumpled cable. “New York’s already messaged the members with a promo. They’re calling it “The Home Front,” and your share is three pieces a week. You can start with your trip over.”

Nora scanned the cable, eyes racing through each demand to STOP. It wasn’t so bad. At least she’d get noticed in New York if the columns were picked up by a lot of member newspapers. She’d make sure they got good play. And a few exclusives out of the brass would shake her editors up. IP knew better than to waste someone with good sources on sidebars and color stories. Any decent wordsmith could write that stuff. Only a real pro working all the angles scored major beats.

Smoothed out and folded once, the cable fit neatly into the notebook she pulled from her pocket. Nora saw a girl eyeing the lone pair of dancing slippers displayed in a shoe store window. Her blonde head dipped forward as the girl frowned down at her darned woolen stockings. Was there a column in it?

Copyright 1987 © by Elizabeth Quinn Barnard of text and 2010 by Straight Up Press of design and photos.  All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.