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‘So do I,’ she said.
For as tiny as she was, the fury in those brown eyes could fall trees.
‘Kathryn—’
‘Good day, gentlemen,’ she said, interrupting Norman. Then with a sideways nod, she said, ‘Give him his money back. Please.’
There was an odd plea in her eyes, one the old man recognised because he handed over the bills. ‘Thank you for stopping by and for the apology.’
Chapter Two (#u739ddb39-624e-5a33-b137-8be3ebbde695)
28th of April, 1942
Dear Diary,
London had been struck again. Buildings I’ve known my entire life are no longer standing, the beautiful city I called home is becoming little more than rubble. Norman received word from Father that he and Mother are safe, our home remains undamaged. I’m relieved to know that, but so very saddened by all that continues to happen.
I dare say the Americans have yet to help us save the day and I’m not holding my breath. Especially after meeting one. They are dreadful. Nearly hit me with an aeroplane. Yes, an aeroplane. They are arrogant, too, and far too handsome for their own good. They think all they need is a smile and a wallet full of money.
I’m proud to say they did not fool me with either. Andrew taught me a lesson that I will never forget. Of course, I didn’t realise that at the time. The war was just beginning then and I thought he wanted to marry me because he loved me, not because he thought marrying me would save him from serving. Mother was right in that sense, that he only wanted to marry me because of who Father is. I may not have before, but I now see the wisdom in her words. If I had married Andrew, I might have been living in one of the buildings that are now little more than rubble back in London. What I do know for certain is that I would never have met Charlotte and Norman and all the wonderful children in their care. I would never have discovered how much I truly enjoy taking care of the children. Of course, I knew nothing about that when I first arrived here. I knew nothing about so many things when I first arrived here, but I do now and I can say with certainty that I will never be fooled again. Not by a handsome smile or a uniform.
Kathryn’s nerves had been frazzled since the bicycle accident, but hearing the older boys, George and Edward, bickering as they walked up the road flared a bout of anger inside her. As did the buzz rumbling the skies. The boys had made a contest out of naming the American bomber planes and tallying the number of times they’d seen each one.
The children no longer grabbed their gas masks and ran for the bomb shelter built in the back garden every time they heard a plane—instead, they ran outside unafraid, looking up to see if they could see a pilot.
That was dangerous. There was no other word for it. From the onset of the war, children had been taught to hide from the planes, take shelter, that the rumbling of those large metal birds meant danger.
It still did. Even the American ones. As she’d discovered.
Pulling off her gloves, she left the front garden, making sure the gate was closed tightly, and walked down the cobblestone pathway to open the back garden gate for the children. There was no front garden left to speak of. With everyone doing their part, what had been the front garden now housed rows of vegetables. Having just been planted a short time ago, the green sprouts were tiny and hardly recognisable, but soon there would be potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, parsnips and a few other vegetables that could survive the daily rains and dreary skies of spring. It felt as if it had been years since the sun had shone bright and freely. Almost as if even the weather realised it was wartime.
‘Kathryn! Look what we have!’ Phillip said, holding something in his hand. ‘It’s sweets! Chewing gum! I have a piece for you, too.’
The youngest of the boys, Phillip ran towards her, his smile showing the opening left from losing a tooth last week. Despite her melancholy, she couldn’t help but smile.
‘Chewing gum? Who gave you that?’ Sweets of any sort were rare and the smile on all of the faces approaching the gate said Phillip wasn’t the only one with a prize.
There were nine children in total who lived with Norman and Charlotte and her. Each one as unique and adorable as the next and each an evacuee who had arrived at some point over the past two years. She’d been the first, arriving nearly three years before at the age of seventeen. Her father had delivered her himself. As an intelligence officer, Father hadn’t said if the bombing starts, he’d said when it starts, and he’d wanted her as far away from London as possible. Her mum had agreed, except for the faraway part. They’d settled for Norman’s small farm, little more than an hour outside London.
Since then scores of young people had been evacuated out of the city. And continued to be, finding a temporary and hopefully safe refuge from the war.
‘No,’ Little George said, arriving a step behind Phillip. They called him Little George because George was already here when Little George had arrived on the same evacuee train as Phillip, Patricia and Doreen. ‘A soldier gave it to us.’
A shiver raced up Kathryn’s spine. ‘A soldier?’
‘The one you met,’ Edward said.
‘Yes.’ Phillip thrust a wrapped stick of chewing gum towards her. ‘He gave me this one for you.’
‘He said his name was Sergeant Dale Johnson,’ Elizabeth said as she followed in the older boy’s wake.
Kathryn’s nerves stung. She didn’t want a name to put to the face that haunted her, and her fingers wrapped tighter around the gloves in her hand.
‘I bet he flies one of the planes we see every day,’ George said. ‘The one with the blue nose.’
‘No, he flies the one with the red nose,’ Edward disagreed. ‘I’ve seen the pilot in that one.’
‘You have not,’ George argued.
‘Have to!’ Edward said.
‘Boys,’ Kathryn said, putting a stop to their bickering. There was plenty more she’d like to say, but Elizabeth was handing over an envelope.
‘Besides the gum he gave Phillip for you, he asked me to give you this note.’ Elizabeth then asked, ‘Why didn’t you mention meeting him?’
‘Because it wasn’t worth mentioning,’ Kathryn said, taking the envelope, which burned her fingers at the thought of who’d touched it previously. ‘Go inside and have your tea, then complete your studies.’
‘We don’t have any evening studies,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The soldiers were at school all afternoon, talking to all the children about not going near any pieces of shrapnel, and if we see any, we are to report it right away. I have a letter to give to Charlotte and Norman about it.’
‘Is that what this is?’ Kathryn asked, ignoring a sense of disappointment.
‘I don’t think so,’ Elizabeth answered. ‘Sergeant Johnson asked the teacher which children lived with you and then asked if he could give me that note. That’s when he told me he’d met you.’
‘Run on in and have your tea,’ Kathryn said, turning the envelope over to see her name typed on the front.
‘Don’t you want your gum?’ Phillip asked, following the others through the open gate.
One extra piece was sure to cause a squabble, so she took it. ‘Thank you. Run inside now.’
Kathryn waited until each child passed through the front door, then she looked down at the envelope again. She didn’t want to be curious, but was. After slipping her gloves and the stick of gum in her pocket, she carefully slid a finger beneath the flap to release the seal and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
It was typed. She’d never received a typed letter before.
Dear Miss Harris,
The United States Air Force is presenting you with the enclosed payment for the loss of supplies resulting from a motor vehicle and bicycle incident on the High Wycombe Roadway during the mid-afternoon of April 27th, 1942.
She unfolded the bottom of the letter and trapped the money against the paper with her thumb while reading the rest of the letter.
If you have any questions, please contact Marilyn Miller, secretary for the United States Army Eighth Air Force South Hill Barracks.
Kathryn flipped the paper over, looking for...she wasn’t exactly sure what. Frowning, she turned it over again. The letter was signed by Marilyn Miller. Whoever that was.
Ire rippled her insides as she counted the money. It was the same amount Dale Johnson had attempted to give Norman, but had been converted into shillings and pence. American or English, she would not be keeping this money.
‘I really think you should let me drive you,’ Norman said a few minutes later while walking towards the barn beside her.
‘There’s no need to waste the petrol,’ Kathryn said. He and Charlotte were worried about the soldiers being in trouble for the mishap. She wasn’t. Her concern was more personal. Sergeant Johnson would not get his way. Not with her.
‘But after—’
‘I’ll be far more careful,’ she interrupted Norman’s response. Feeling guilty about being so discourteous, she added, ‘The letter is addressed to me, so I will to be the one to respond.’
* * *
‘Johnson,’ Sam Smith shouted from the doorway. ‘You got a visitor!’
Dale wiped his crescent wrench clean and placed it in the metal box among his other tools before tossing the rag aside and walking towards the doorway.
‘You’re getting to be awfully popular among the Janes.’ Smith wiggled both of his brush-black eyebrows. ‘The secretary this morning and now a local girl.’
Dale grinned. He’d expected a reaction from the letter he’d had Marilyn type up for him, but hadn’t thought it would be this quick. ‘Jealous?’
Smith laughed. ‘You know it.’
Dale slapped the other man’s shoulder as he walked out the door. ‘Get used to it, buddy.’
Laughing again, Smith nodded towards the concrete slab outside the main building. ‘Say hi for me, will you?’
‘Not on your life,’ Dale replied as he readjusted his hat.
Her bicycle was standing next to the bench she sat upon, back straight and hands folded in her lap. The base was a busy place, with men meandering in all directions, and every one of them was taking a second look at Kathryn. He couldn’t blame them. She was a looker, even with the red scarf hiding her shiny, thick black hair. He’d seen that hair flowing long and loose when she’d pulled a different scarf off her head after taking her tumble. She had on the same shoes as that day and sheer stockings. Riding a bike in those heels had to be close to impossible.
As he walked passed a group of GIs standing stationary longer than necessary, he waved an arm. ‘Move on, boys. You’re here to fight Germans, not dally with the locals.’
‘Ah, Sarge,’ one of them said. ‘We ain’t seen a German since we got here.’
‘You will,’ he said. ‘Now move along.’
They followed orders, heading in the opposite direction as him. A few steps later, he removed his hat prior to stopping in front of the metal bench. ‘Miss Harris.’
She lifted her chin as she stood and smoothed her knee-length, sandy-brown coat with one hand while holding out the other one. ‘I’m here to return this.’
That wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for.
Ironically the sun, which hadn’t let itself be known very often since he’d arrived, chose that moment to peek out from behind a sky full of grey clouds. ‘Would you care to take a walk?’ he asked, ignoring the envelope. The Major hadn’t learned about the incident and, if Dale had his way, Hilts never would.
Her brows knit together as she barely turned her head while glancing left and right. ‘A walk?’
‘I’ve been told there’s a garden around the east side of the building, with a walking pathway the entire length.’
‘I’m not here to—’
‘I know.’ He wasn’t one to act impulsively, but convincing her to keep the money would take a bit of finesse. Something that didn’t come to him naturally. He’d have to work on it. And her. ‘Just a short walk. I’ve wanted to see the garden but haven’t had a reason to walk over there yet.’
She glanced around, this time turning her head fully in each direction. When she faced him again, he wasn’t daft enough to think she nodded because of his charm. It was the dozens of other men looking their way.
‘I don’t have much time,’ she said while taking a step.
‘Neither do I,’ he said. ‘But a walk doesn’t need to take long.’
‘As I said, I’m here to return your money.’
‘It’s not my money.’ That wasn’t completely a lie. The money he’d given Marilyn to include with the letter had been American. The secretary had been the one to exchange it for local currency. So far, only he, Sanders and Marilyn knew exactly what had happened and he wanted to keep it that way. ‘I’m a farmer, Miss Harris. Or was until I became a soldier. My folks own a farm in North Dakota. Gathering eggs was my first chore. At least the first one I can remember.’ The memories floating back made him grin. ‘That and hauling wood, but my brother, Ralph, usually did that. He hated chickens and would haul my share of the wood if I gathered his share of the eggs.’
He bit the tip of his tongue to stop from sharing other things about himself. She didn’t need to hear his life story, nor want to. ‘What I meant to say is that I know how tough farming can be. How the loss of even a single egg is felt. Even more now that the world is at war.’
They’d rounded the building corner and rows of leafy green bushes, some he might have recognised if he took the time to look closer, edged the walking path on both sides.
‘I can’t deny the world is at war, Mr Johnson,’ she said smartly. ‘But I can assure you, we do not need your money. Norman and Charlotte would not have taken in so many if they did not have the means to provide for them.’
He’d heard about children being evacuated out of London and assumed some of the children living with her were part of that. Of the nine, only two looked similar, as if they might be siblings. ‘Are they all evacuees?’
‘Yes.’
Something in her tone, a sadness, had him asking, ‘But not you.’
She glanced his way, frowning slightly. ‘Yes, me, too.’
‘Then how do you have the same last name as Norman. Mr Harris?’
‘I don’t.’
Not one to usually make assumptions, he searched his mind to recall if one of the Fowler brothers had said she was Norman’s daughter. He’d been certain they had. Ed had. He was fairly sure of that.
‘You assumed I was Norman and Charlotte’s daughter,’ she said, with her heels snapping against the stone walkway. ‘Just as you assumed we needed to be repaid for the food that was damaged in the mishap. Both assumptions were wrong.’ She stopped walking and held out her hand containing the envelope. ‘Now if you’d kindly take this, I shall be on my way.’
He ignored the envelope again. ‘If it’s not Harris, what is your last name?’
She frowned slightly, then shook her head. ‘I don’t see how that matters one way or the other.’
‘It does to me.’ He couldn’t come up with a solid reason why, so he waved a hand at the trail continuing in front of them. ‘It’s just as far to walk all the way around as it is to go back the way we came.’ With a shrug, he added, ‘And once I know your last name, I won’t have to assume again.’
When it appeared she might not agree, he added an incentive, ‘The sun is shining, Kathryn, I hear that’s a rarity this time of year.’
‘Winslow,’ she said. ‘Miss Winslow.’
He’d figured using her first name would goad her into telling him. ‘Winslow. Kathryn Winslow. Well, that’s a fine name, Miss Winslow,’ he said while slowly starting to walk again. ‘A mighty fine name. Nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Ashamed of?’ She hurried to catch up with him. ‘I’m not ashamed of it.’
‘You’re not?’ He gave his head a thoughtful shake. ‘Well, I assumed since you didn’t want to tell me that—’
‘You said if I told you, you wouldn’t assume again.’
He nodded. ‘I did, didn’t I? Well, then, how about the sun? How often does it shine? Just so I don’t have to assume again.’
Her sideways glance said he wasn’t fooling her, but the hint of a smile she tried to hide gave him hope.
