“But we have orders to be here.”
“Don’t follow them,” Jimmie said. “Pretend that you’re sick. Go to the latrine and don’t come back. Find any means possible to get up top.”
Horace folded his arms. “I don’t know, Jimmie. It’s different for you—you’re an officer. The members of the ground crew are lower rank and were ordered to the hull by the command of the RAF in France. I doubt that our men will want to risk getting reprimanded, especially for disobeying a directive from top brass.”
“There’s about forty ground crew in the Seventy-Three. They won’t be missed in a hull with eight hundred others.”
A nearby group of men glanced at them, then resumed playing their game of cards.
Jimmie stepped close and spoke in a low tone. “Take a look around. How will you get out of here if a torpedo blasts a hole in this hull?”
Horace glanced at a steel, watertight door, and lines formed on his face.
“Leaving here might get you a reprimand, but it could also ensure that you make it home to Daisy and your baby, Olive.”
Horace rubbed his jowl.
“The choice is yours. What’s it going to be?”
“All right,” Horace said. “Let’s talk with the others.”
Jimmie relaxed his shoulders and nodded.
They made their way through the hull, stepping around scores of soldiers. As Jimmie passed through a bulkhead door into another compartment, the eyes of the Seventy-Three Squadron’s ground crew fell upon him.
“Jimmie!” a man shouted.
Crewmen scrambled to their feet, surrounded him, and gave him pats on the back.
Jimmie, feeling elated, shook hands and hugged the ground crew members of his squadron. But his joy evaporated when the ship’s engine rumbled to life, sending a vibration through the steel under their feet.
“Hurrah!” a man shouted. “We’re going home!”
Another man kneeled and kissed the floor.
Cheers from hundreds of ground crewmen boomed through the hull compartments. And Jimmie worried that it might be impossible to convince the men of his squadron, who were overjoyed and feeling secure, to disobey orders and follow him topside.
CHAPTER 42
SAINT-NAZAIRE, FRANCE—JUNE 17, 1940
Anxiety flooded through Ruth as exhaust smoke thickened above the Lancastria’s funnel. He’s been gone too long and the ship is preparing to depart. She turned away from soldiers, who were cheering and clapping, and looked out over the sea that led to the harbor, approximately eight kilometers away. Dozens of small craft—packed with evacuees—continued to make their way to large vessels anchored far from shore. High above the estuary, three French fighter planes patrolled the sky.
A tugboat, filled with French soldiers, pulled alongside the ship. But sailors of the Lancastria began to pull up the cargo nets that led to the boarding hold.
The Frenchmen on the tug cried out and waved their arms.
“We’re overcapacity!” a naval officer called through a loud-hailer.
Ruth felt sick to her stomach.
“Turn back!” the naval officer shouted. “We’re overfull!”
The side doors on the Lancastria closed, provoking an eruption of profanity and hand gestures from French soldiers on the deck of the tug.
Ruth’s heart sank as the boat pulled away, and she hoped that the men would find another ship with room for them to board.
In the time that Jimmie had been gone, there were several sightings of Luftwaffe aircraft flying overhead. Sporadic explosions and machine gun fire echoed over the coastline, and word soon spread through passengers on the main deck that another ocean liner, anchored near the estuary, had been attacked by a German dive bomber. The mood of the soldiers on the Lancastria remained ebullient, despite a looming threat of air raids. The immense ocean liner, Ruth believed, provided the evacuees with a sense of security, and some of the BEF soldiers behaved as if they’d already reached the British shore.
Minutes passed and the ship had yet to weigh anchor. Ruth scanned the crowded deck in search of Jimmie.
A soldier standing near Ruth approached a seaman who was peering through binoculars over the estuary. “Why aren’t we leaving?”
“The captain wants to wait for a destroyer escort,” the seaman said, holding the binoculars to his eyes.
Hairs rose on the back of Ruth’s neck.
“How long?” the soldier asked.
“I don’t know.” The seaman lowered his binoculars and made his way toward the stern of the ship.
An ache grew in Ruth’s stomach. With little to do but wait, she sat on her life jacket as a cushion, and hugged her bag to her chest. Unable to rest, her mind drifted to Lucette and Aline. They should have reached a port in England by now. She prayed that Lucette was recovering in a hospital, and that a British refugee agency was providing proper care for Aline. It sickened her to think that Aline, who was already heartbroken from the loss of her maman and grandpapa, might be alone and scared in an orphanage or asylum camp. She glanced at a group of haggard French soldiers, and she wished for Aline’s papa as well as Lucette’s fiancé to be two of the lucky ones who survived the battlefront.
Ruth pressed her bag to her chest, and she turned her thoughts to Jimmie and their night together. I never met a man like him before. He’s tender, sweet, and kind. She yearned for when there would no longer be a war between them, and she imagined what it would be like to be married to Jimmie, have children with him, and grow old together. She supposed that it might be a bit foolish, or perhaps selfish, to plan her life with a man while Europe was at war, but deep down she knew that her passion for him would never fade.
Ruth, desiring to be close to him, opened her bag and slipped out his flight jacket. She pressed it to her cheek and drew a deep breath, taking in his scent. An image of their bare bodies, entwined in an embrace, appeared in her brain. A warmth spread through her, and her concern of an unknown future dissolved.
Ruth lowered the jacket and her eyes were drawn to his good luck charm, peeking from a pocket. She removed Piglet and ran a finger over his worn, floppy ears and smiled. “No wonder he refused to ditch the bag,” she whispered to herself.
