Homefront Hero

“I’ll be fine, Mama, really. I’m excited. Don’t be sad.”

Mama’s hand touched Leanne’s cheek. “I’ll pray for you every day, darlin’. Every single day.”

Leanne took her mother’s hand in hers. Mama’s promise to cover her in prayer ignited the tiny spark of fear—the anxiety of God’s great big reach stretching her too far—that she’d swallowed all day. Her assignment in the reconstruction ward of the camp hospital, helping soldiers recover from their wounds, was so important, but a bit frightening at the same time. She swallowed her nerves for the thousandth time, willing them not to show one little bit. “I’d like that,” she said with all the confidence she could muster. “But I’ll be home for Thanksgiving before you know it. And I’ll write. I’m sure the Charleston Red Cross will keep you so busy you’ll barely have time to miss me.”

“I miss you already.” Mama’s voice broke, and Leanne gave a pleading look to her father. The Great Goodbye—as she’d called it in her mind all this week—had already taken an hour longer than she’d expected.

“We’ve lingered long enough, Maureen.” Papa took Mama’s hands from Leanne’s and tugged her mother’s resistant body toward the station platform. Leanne thought that if he waited even five more minutes, Mama might affix herself to a Columbia streetlamp and refuse to let go. “It’s high time we let our little girl do what she came to do.” He leaned in and kissed Leanne soundly on the cheek. “Be good, work hard.” It was the same goodbye he’d said every single morning of her school years. It helped to calm the tiny fearful spark, as if this was just another phase of her education instead of a life-altering adventure.

“I will.” Leanne blew a kiss to her mother, afraid that if she gave in to the impulse to run and hug Mama, Papa would have to peel them tearfully off each other.

“Write!” Mama called, the sniffles already starting as Papa guided her down the platform toward the waiting train. Leanne nodded, her own throat choking up at the sound of Mama’s impending tears. Papa had joked that he’d brought eleven handkerchiefs for the trip home and warned the county of the ensuing flood.

Leanne clutched the hanky he’d given her as she stood smiling and waving. As sad as she was to see them go, she couldn’t help but feel that this was a rite of passage, a necessary step in becoming her own woman. Childhood was over—she was a nurse now. Part of the Great War. Part of the great cause of the Red Cross and a new generation of women doing things women had never done before.

It is, she told herself as she turned toward the university auditorium where she’d promised to meet Ida, a very good sort of terrifying.

Chapter Three

It could have been any of the dozens of halls, churches, auditoriums and ballrooms John had been in over the past month. He paced the tiny cluttered backstage and tried to walk off the nerves and pain. He tried, as well, to walk off the boyish hope that his father had stayed for the presentation. Foolishness, for not one of these maladies—physical or mental—would ease with steps. He knew that, but it was better than sitting as he waited impatiently for his speech to start.

If only he could run. It would feel wonderful to run, the way he used to run for exercise and sheer pleasure. More foolishness to think of that, for it would be torture to run now. John’s uncooperative leg ignored his persistent craving to go fast. The fact that he went nowhere fast these days proved a continual frustration to his lifelong love of speed. He’d been aiming to drive those new race cars when the war broke out, and he’d heard some of the race-car drivers were trying to form a battalion of pilots. Airplanes, now there was the future—not just of warfare but of everything. Nothing went faster than those. When the army had hinted he’d have a chance at the Air Corps, he’d signed up as fast as he could.

And he did end up in the air.

On the slowest airship ever created.

John’s only chance at air travel came in the form of a diplomatic mission on a huge, sluggish navy dirigible—the furthest thing from what he’d had in mind. Still, as he was now about to tell in the most enthralling way possible, even that fluke of history had managed to catapult him into notoriety.

Pulling the thick red velvet curtain to the side, John couldn’t stop himself from scanning the sea of uniforms for the one he would not see: Colonel Oscar Gallows. Mother had surely pleaded, but even as a retired colonel Father wasn’t the kind of man who had time to watch his son “stump” for Uncle Sam. How often had the colonel scowled at John’s oratory skills, calling his son “a man of too many words”? And not enough action—Father had never actually said it, but the message came through loud and clear.

John consoled himself by scanning the audience for the scattered pockets of female students and army base nurses. Nearly all, as Nurse Sample had predicted, were knitting. He tried to seek her out, looking for that stunning gold hair and amber eyes that nearly scowled at his swagger. It was clear her friend Ida was taken with him—women often were, so that was no novelty. Leanne Sample, however, fascinated him by being indifferent, perhaps even unimpressed. He scanned the audience again, hoping to locate her seat so he could direct a part of his speech especially to her. Her kind were everywhere, a sea of women with clicking needles working the same drab trio of official colors—black, beige and that particularly tiresome shade of U.S. Army olive-green.

There she was. My, but she was pretty. Her thick fringe of blond lashes shielded her eyes as she bent over her work. She seemed delicate with all that light hair and pale skin, but the way she held her shoulders spoke of a wisp of defiance. He made it a personal goal to enthrall her to distraction. To draw those hazel eyes up off those drab colors and onto him.

In full dress, John knew he’d draw eyes, and easily stand out in this crowd. And if there was anything he did well, it was to stand out. Gallows men were supposed to stand out, after all. To distinguish themselves by courageous ambition. Ha! Even the colonel seemed to realize that John’s path to notoriety had only really been achieved by climbing up and falling down on a ship he should never have been on in the first place. This from a man who’d spent his life trying to stand out and go fast. His life had been turned on its ear in any number of ways since this whole messy business began.

The university president tapped John on the shoulder. “Are you ready, Captain Gallows?” John could hear the school band begin a rousing tune on the other side of the curtain.

He did what he always did: he dismissed the pain, shook off his nerves and applied the smile that had charmed hearts and reeled in recruits in ten American cities. “By all means, sir.” He left his cane leaning up against the backstage wall, tilted his hat just so and walked out into the myth of glory.

* * *

Proud.

Did Captain John Gallows earn such arrogance?

Yes, he was heroic, but the man’s self-importance seemed to know no bounds. As he told the harrowing tale of his brush with death, dangling from airship stay wires to effect a life-saving repair while the crew lay wounded and helpless, Leanne could feel the entire room swell with admiration. Women wanted to be near him, men wanted to be him. His eyes were such an astounding dark blue—rendered even more astounding against the crisp collar of his uniform—that one hardly even noticed his limp. He didn’t use his cane on stage, but Leanne reasoned that they’d arranged the stage in such a way as to afford him the shortest walk possible to the podium. The way he told the story, however, it was a wonder the audience didn’t break into applause at his very ability to walk upright. While his entanglement in the dirigible’s stay wires had saved his life, it had also shredded his right leg to near uselessness. He never said that outright, but Leanne could read between the lines of his crafted narrative. She guessed, just by how he phrased his descriptions and avoided certain words, that his leg still pained him significantly—both physically and emotionally. He did not seem a man to brook limitations of any kind.

“Now is the time to finish the job we’ve started,” he said, casting his keen eyes out across the audience. “Our enemy is close to defeated. Our cause is the most important one you will ever know.” Captain Gallows pointed out into the audience, and Leanne had no doubt every soul in the building felt as if he were pointing straight at them—she knew she did. “When you look your sons and daughters in the eye decades from now, as they enjoy a world of peace and prosperity, will you be able to say you did your part? Can you say you answered duty’s sacred call?”

Cheers began to swell up from the audience. The young students off to her left began to stand and clap. Next to her, Ida brandished her newly employed knitting needles as if she were Joan of Arc charging her troops into battle. Despite her resistance to Gallows, Leanne felt the echo of a “yes!” surge up in her own heart. Her work as a nurse, her aid to the troops and even her leisure hours spent knitting dozens of socks for soldiers answered her call. Homefront nurses were as essential to the cause as those serving overseas. She understood the need for combat, but wanted no part of it. Leanne longed to be part of the healing. And beyond her nursing, she was using her knitting, as well. She’d taught hospital staff how to knit the government-issued sock pattern, and she’d teach her first class of patients later this week. When those classes were off and stitching, she would teach more. For there was so very much to be done.

When someone behind her started up a chorus of last year’s popular war song “Over There,” Leanne stopped knitting and joined in. It felt important, gravely important, to be part of something so large and daunting. To be here, on her own, both serving and learning. The whole world was changing, and God had planted her on the crest of the incoming wave. While her grandmother had moaned that the war was “the worst time to be alive,” Leanne couldn’t help but feel that Nana was wrong. Despite all the hardship, this was indeed the best time to be young and alive.

If Captain Gallows wished to stir the crowd to the heights of patriotic frenzy, he had certainly succeeded. More than half the students in the room were now on their feet, cheering. Even Leanne had to admit Gallows was a compelling, charismatic spokesman for the cause. Perhaps she could be more gracious toward his very healthy ego than she had been earlier that day.

Captain Gallows made his way off the stage as the university chorus came onstage to lead in another song. She could see him “offstage” because of her vantage point far to the left, but he must have thought he was out of view for his limp became pronounced and he sank into a nearby chair. As the singing continued, she watched him, transfixed by the change in his stature. He picked his cane up from where it lay against the backstage wall. Instead of rising, as she expected him to do, he sat there, eventually leaning over the cane with his head resting on top of his hands. He looked as if he were in great pain. From the looks of it, his leg must have been agonizing him the entire speech. And surely no one would have thought one lick less of him had he used the cane.

Leanne watched him for a moment, surprised at the surge of sympathy she felt for this man she hardly knew and hadn’t much liked at first, until the dean of students approached Captain Gallows. Instantly his demeanor returned to the dashing hero, shooting upright as if he hadn’t a pain or care in the world. That was more in line with the behavior she expected of him. So which was the real John Gallows—the arrogant, larger-than-life hero—or the proud, wounded, struggling man she’d caught a glimpse of the moment before? There was no way for her to tell now. The captain and the dean walked off together, and Leanne remembered there was a reception of sorts for him afterward. As one of the Red Cross knitting teachers, she’d been invited. She hadn’t planned on going at first, for she hadn’t a taste for such things and it would be awkward since Ida hadn’t been asked. She’d go, now, if just to help make up her mind as to what kind of man he truly was.

“You know, I think I will go to that reception after all,” she said as casually as she could to Ida as they packed up their things to exit the hall.

“Well, now, who wouldn’t?” Ida didn’t seem the least bit slighted by her lack of an invitation. Some days Leanne wished for Ida’s confidence and, as Papa put it, “thick skin.” Instead of sulking, Ida only offered her an oversize wink. “Tell the good captain he can recruit me any day,” she whispered, visibly pleased at Leanne’s startled reaction.

“It’s a good thing I won’t and he can’t,” she replied, hoping no one else heard the scandalous remark.

“Says you.” Ida laughed, and sauntered away.

Yes, he was a hero. Yes, he was vital to the cause. Still, Leanne couldn’t see how even the most rousing of Gallows’s speeches could overcome her distaste for the man’s monumental air of self-importance.

Chapter Four

Leanne was just barely ten minutes into the reception, not yet even to the punch bowl, when Gallows swooped up behind her and took her by the elbow.

“Save me,” he whispered as he nodded to the library shelf to their left. “Pull a book off the shelf this very minute and save me from Professor Mosling, I implore you.” She couldn’t help but comply, for Leanne knew that calling Professor Mosling long-winded was an understatement. Mosling thought very highly of himself and his opinions, and shared them freely with unsuspecting victims. At great length and with considerable detail. Last month she’d been cornered for three quarters of an hour by the man as he shared his views on the use of domestic wool for socks. Mosling raised an arm with an all-too-hearty “There you are, Gallows!” Leanne snatched the largest book within reach and angled her shoulders away from the man.

“Really, Captain Gallows, there is much to be said for—” she realized in her haste she’d neglected to even scan the massive volume’s title “—Atlantic Shipping Records of the Cooper River. I find it a most fascinating subject,” she improvised, finding herself stumped.

“As do I,” replied Captain Gallows, his eyes filled with surprise and a healthy dose of amusement even though his voice was earnest. “Please, do go on.”

Go on? How on earth could she “go on”? “As I’m sure you know, the Cooper River runs right through Charleston, providing a major seaport thoroughfare…” It felt absurd; she was stringing together important-sounding words with almost no sense of their content. Still, Gallows’s eyes encouraged her, looking as if she was imparting the most vital knowledge imaginable.

“Do forgive me,” Gallows said to the professor, “but I simply cannot tear myself away from Miss Sample’s fascinating explanation.”

The ruse worked, for Mosling huffed a little, straightened his jacket and then seemed to find another suitable target within seconds. “Oh, yes, well, another time then.”

“Indeed,” said Captain Gallows, actually managing to sound sorry for the loss despite the relief she could see in his eyes. “Very soon.”

As soon as Mosling had left, Gallows took the huge text from her and began to laugh. “Atlantic Shipping Records? A most unfortunate choice. I could probably better explain these to you than the other way around.”

Leanne raised an eyebrow, not particularly pleased to be roped into such a scheme. “I was rather in a hurry and quite unprepared.”

“Perhaps I should have asked you to teach me knitting.” He looked as if he’d rather read Atlantic Shipping Records from cover to cover than take up the craft—as if he found it a frilly pastime better suited to grandmothers in rocking chairs.

“Many men have, you know. There was a time, centuries ago, when knitting was purely a man’s craft. And you can’t argue that every hand is needed. Perhaps we can arrange a lesson for you yet.” She couldn’t for the life of her say where such boldness had come from. Perhaps Ida was rubbing off on her.

“If anyone could…” The fact that he didn’t finish the sentence made it all the more daunting.