new address, with people who care for you.”
Leah followed her friend upstairs, but a swirl of nausea filled her belly. She’d have to tell Clay why she’d moved. She’d have to tell him about Darlene’s accusations and Mrs. Perry’s verdict and her own past. Never once had she told Clay she used to steal.
She clamped one hand on the banister for balance. Clay had been the victim of theft. What would he think to learn his wife was a thief?
“Lord, no,” she whispered. She was preparing to lose him in battle, but to lose his respect and regard as well?
How could she bear it?
20
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1943
Clay whistled at the sight of the massive gray ship rising before him. “Y’all can’t say the Army isn’t good to us. We’re taking a cruise on Britain’s finest ocean liner.”
Behind him in line, Bob Holman snorted. “Something tells me we ain’t getting staterooms.”
Nope, they’d cram some fifteen thousand troops onto the HMT Queen Elizabeth.
Clay stepped forward in line, his M1 steel helmet heavy on his head, his field pack on his back, his rifle on his shoulder, and his duffel bag in hand.
A Red Cross lady stood beside a stack of boxes. “Everyone take a book. There are thirty titles, so you can share on board.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Clay took Walter Lippmann’s U.S. Foreign Policy—one of the new paperback Armed Services Editions.
“I got The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Bob Holman said. “How about you, Ruby?”
“Hopalong Cassidy Serves a Writ.”
Something for every taste, and Clay grinned. Wouldn’t Leah like to see?
An officer stood at the foot of the gangplank with a roster. “Paxton!”
“Clay!” He took a blue card from the officer and headed up the gangplank. The card read “Keep this card. Sleeping quarters: Room M 21.” M had to be for the main deck, and the card’s color designated their shift for eating at the mess.
The steep gangplank clanged below Clay’s feet. They’d spent the past week and a half at Camp Shanks, outside New York City. Since the crack of dawn, they’d been marching and riding in trucks.
Higher and higher, until a sailor admitted them inside and motioned toward the stern of the ship. They jostled down passageways designed for genteel passengers, not grungy Rangers.
Clay opened door M 21. A nicer sign below read “Second-class lounge.”
A large room filled floor to ceiling with four-tiered canvas bunks. No room for lounging, that was for sure.
McKillop pointed. “Hey, look! A bar.”
“Yeah, like they’d leave us any booze,” Holman grumbled.
Clay set his gear on a bunk and slipped on his garrison cap. “Let’s explore, y’all.”
His squad followed. Soon they’d be restricted to the blue section of the ship at the stern, with other enlisted men in the red section at the bow and officers in the white section amidships.
For some reason, the Rangers had been allowed to board early and had the run of the ship.
Clay climbed a staircase with brass banisters. The ship hadn’t been fitted out in her ocean liner finery before the war broke out, but he could imagine how swanky she could have been.
He headed out onto the sundeck, but there was nothing sunny about Manhattan in November.
Under lifeboats suspended from davits, Clay stood at the railing and looked down the river, packed with warships, freighters, and tugboats. Skyscrapers poked toward the clouds, but he couldn’t spot the Statue of Liberty.
Gene leaned his elbows on the railing. “Say good-bye to the USA, boys. Next time we see her, the war will be over.”
Sid Rubenstein lit a cigarette. “Won’t be long, now that the Rangers are coming.”
“Reckon the invasion won’t come till spring though,” Clay said.
McKillop leaned toward Ruby’s Zippo lighter and lit his own cigarette. “Hope they send us on raids first, so we can shake up the Jerries and get some licks in.”
Raids. Chilly air stilled in Clay’s lungs. He’d always pictured dying in a big battle, but what if he died in a raid? That could come long before spring.
If only it could wait until after the baby was born. Not yet, Lord. Please.
HMT QUEEN ELIZABETH
NORTH ATLANTIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1943
Clay stood with his rifle at “right shoulder arms” inside a door amidships, guarding the sundeck from any enlisted men foolish enough to venture into officers’ country.
The 2nd Ranger Battalion had been allowed aboard first because they had military police duty, which they hated.
Clay’s stomach rumbled. The passing officers kept grumbling about the ship’s British crew serving pork for Thanksgiving, but Clay was too hungry to