“Whose idea was this?” Lizzie said feeling miserable, looking at her three cohorts. “Take me back to San Francisco.” Audrey had actually held up better than the others and surprised herself.
They were allowed to go back to their barracks after that, and were ordered to go to bed. They were told they’d have calisthenics the next morning at four a.m.
As Louise walked past the sergeant, the short, tough-looking woman spoke to her under her breath.
“You think you’re special, don’t you? Is your mama white?”
“No, she’s Ethiopian,” Louise said coolly.
“Smart-ass me, and you’ll wind up in solitary.”
“In the real world, Sergeant,” Louise said quietly as the others listened, worried for her, “I outrank you.”
“This isn’t the real world. This is my world, and don’t you forget it.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Louise said, and walked to her bed. But she had said what she needed to, and the sergeant left a few minutes later.
“I think they’re just trying to prepare us for combat,” Lizzie said nervously. She hadn’t run into anyone like the nasty little sergeant before.
“I’m used to it,” Louise said softly. “I deal with that in some form every day.” It shocked the others, who hadn’t been exposed to it. But Louise looked undisturbed when they went to the bathroom together a few minutes later to brush their teeth, dry their hair with towels, and get ready for bed. It was the first time she had lived among white women.
“Why in God’s name do we have to get up at four a.m.?” Alex complained as she got into bed.
“Just to prove they can make us do it,” Audrey answered, and Lizzie agreed. “Eventually, we’ll start classes, and it should get easier after that.”
It didn’t get easier for the nurses in the air evac training program for several weeks. The classes were fascinating and intense. The simulated enemy attack was terrifying, with blanks, which they were told were real bullets, whizzing past them and over their heads. The physical challenges were constant and exhausting. They learned field survival, ditching and crash procedures, how to use their parachutes, and what to do if they got lost behind enemy lines. They assumed that their medical skills were adequate for the job they had to do, but their military abilities had to be equally so, in the air and on the ground.
By the time they’d been there for a month, they had been prepared for almost every situation. And for the last two weeks of the course, they had to wear heavy combat airmen’s flight gear everywhere, to get used to it and make things even more difficult.
All the women in the class felt as though they had been to hell and back, and they were proud of themselves for finishing the course. No one had dropped out or failed. At the end of the six weeks, they were as ready as they were ever going to be. They were told that they were leaving to ship out in five days. They had been given no time off during the training, which had been a relief to Louise, since she knew she would have run into rude comments and hostility by the locals in Kentucky, which was a Southern state.
They were being sent to England on a troop ship, which would be dangerous. And they were being given a three-day leave before they left. None of the four friends had boyfriends they were leaving behind, but Lizzie, Alex, and Louise had promised to visit their parents for a last time to say goodbye. Audrey declined Lizzie’s offer to go to Boston with her and decided to stay on the base. She was going to rest and do some reading before they shipped out. She didn’t want to intrude on Lizzie’s last days with her parents.
The others left as soon as they were able. It was a short trip to New York for Alex, which she undertook with trepidation. Lizzie and Louise had farther to go. They were all dreading emotional farewells with their parents, which seemed inevitable. Audrey was one of the very few who stayed at the base. The others had men or families to go to, but she had neither, and was grateful for the downtime after the intense six-week course.
* * *
—
Alex’s parents were at home having dinner when she walked into the apartment in her uniform and dropped her duffel bag in the front hall. She met them in the dining room and they were surprised to see her. She hadn’t had time to call to tell them about her leave before she came.
“I’m not here for an argument,” she warned them as she walked into the dining room. “I came to say goodbye. I’m shipping out in a few days.” She wasn’t supposed to say exactly when or to where. But she and the other nurses knew she was going to England to become one of the flying nurses in the Medical Air Evacuation Transport unit, rescuing injured men from the front.