Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(65)

Strand and Rio turn back to see Jenou snapping a salute.

“Oh, Lord, I—” Rio says, blushing, and then salutes Strand, who now wears lieutenant’s bars.

“Yeah, that’s enough of that,” Strand says, returning the salutes. He taps his insignia of rank. “All this means is I’ve got a high school diploma. We have enlisted pilots, but they’re stuck flying transport, and well . . . the pay’s better.”

Strand guides Rio through the mass of men, up a set of steel steps and another to the lifeboat deck. Here the big lifeboats—enough for less than half the men aboard—hang on davits. The boats are covered with canvas tarps drawn tight with ropes passed through brass grommets. But the boat farthest aft has had its canvas covering loosened.

Strand shows her how to climb up and into the boat. Inside, four men, all flyers like Strand, lounge in the shade playing a desultory game of cards. There are cans of beer and a half-empty bottle of whiskey and makeshift ashtrays piled to overflowing with cigarette butts.

“Hey, guys, meet my girl. Rio, these are some of the boys. Lefty, Choke, Bandito. Not their real names, of course. We use nicknames so when we’re talking on radio we don’t confuse ourselves; we’ve already got two Smiths.”

“Hello,” Rio says uneasily. They’re all officers, but she’s pretty sure an officer lying shirtless with a bottle of beer in one hand and cards in the other does not require or want a salute.

“How come you get a girl and all I’ve got is a bottle?” Lefty demands.

“That’s not true,” the one named Bandito says. “You got your hand.”

“Hey, hey, come on,” Strand says sharply. “There’s a lady present.”

“Looks like a GI,” Bandito says, but adds, “Sorry, miss.”

“Bunch of savages,” Strand says, disapproving but not angry. He leads Rio to a plank seat as far from the game as they can get. It’s not privacy, but it’s the closest thing available on the ship.

“I was just going to write you tonight,” Rio says.

“How have you been?”

“About as well as can be expected,” Rio says, but then flashes a smile. “We were supposed to ship out weeks ago. The usual hurry up and wait. But I’m a whole lot better now.”

He reaches for her hand, and she takes his.

“Isn’t that cute?” Lefty says.

“Shut up, you apes. This is my girl. From back home. We grew up together.”

Bandito is on the verge of letting go with a crude line but thinks better of it and contents himself with looking at the gambling stakes, saying, “Okay, who hasn’t anted up?”

There’s “a girl,” and then there’s “a girl from back home,” a much more revered status.

Bandito says, “So is it true that Fish is captain of the football team, homecoming king, and all-around hero back in, where is it, Fish? Getwell Flails?”

“Gedwell Falls, smart-ass,” Strand says tolerantly. “Fish. That’s my call sign.”

When Rio looks baffled, Choke, the oldest of the men at twenty-six, says, “He dived into the river to . . . um . . . Anyway, we call him Fish. Miss.”

Rio is pretty sure there’s an off-color story behind the dive into a river.

“I fold. Come on, guys, let’s take a walk,” Lefty says. “Give Fish some privacy.” In a few seconds they are alone in a lifeboat beneath a canvas tarp, sitting on hard wooden planks.

“So. How’s air corps life, Lieutenant?” Rio asks.

“It’s fine,” he says. “How’s army life, Private?”

“Cramped and smelly,” Rio says.

“Couple more days until we get to England. Then we’ll have room.”

“Do you know where you’ll be stationed?”

He shakes his head. “Just somewhere in England. Then it’s more training while we wait for our planes to catch up. Then I suppose we’ll be escorting bombers over Hitlerville. You?”

She shrugs. “They don’t tell us much. But more training in England, for certain. Then who knows? I guess we’re not going to liberate France right away. Some people say we’ll head to Italy, others say no, we’re going to North Africa. Some think it’s all a clever ruse and we’re really going straight on around the bottom of Africa to kill Japs.”

He looks troubled. “So you’re going through with this?”

“Going through with what?”

“With playing soldier.”

Rio is struck dumb for a long minute. “I . . . I don’t think I’m playing, Strand.”

He leans toward her and now gathers both her hands in his. “Of course you’re not, you know what I mean. Come on, you must have noticed by now that this is not a game for girls.”

Her hands are limp and unresponsive in his. “Well, actually, I haven’t noticed that, no. At basic we had a lot of girls wash out as physically unfit, but I didn’t wash out and neither did Jenou or Cat.”

Strand releases his grip only to wave off her reply. “Rio, is this really what you want? I heard those GIs up there talking to you and Jenou.”

“Is that what they were doing? Talking?”

“Well, what do you expect? You’re a beautiful girl on a ship full of . . . of . . . rambunctious”—he sighs in relief at having found a safe word—“men and barely men.”