Part 8 (1/2)

She went to his law school graduation after hers, which was understandably quite small. But it was very dignified, and she was happy for him. She had gotten him to agree to wait until the summer to discuss marriage with her again. And to Kate, it felt like a reprieve.

But once he left on his trip in June, she found that she missed him more than she would have thought, and she was relieved to find that she actually had feelings for him. She was never sure exactly what she felt for him, and she knew that it was because of Joe. The power of her emotions still felt dim, as though all the power had been turned off in her. But it was slowly coming back. And she was grateful for Andy's kindness to her, and his patience. She knew she had given him a hard time, and by the end of June, she was actually anxious for him to come back. He called her as often as he could, and sent her postcards from everywhere. He was heading for the Grand Tetons and eventually Lake Louise. He had friends in Was.h.i.+ngton State, then he was going to San Francisco on the way back. And from what he was telling her, he was having a great time, but he missed her a lot. And she was surprised to see how much she missed him. Kate found herself actually thinking about getting engaged to him in the fall, and maybe getting married the following June. But she knew that, if nothing else, she needed another year. And she was working full time for the Red Cross again.

There were hordes of young men coming in from Europe every day, and hospital s.h.i.+ps bringing the wounded in. She had just been a.s.signed to working on the docks, helping the medical personnel wade through the men who came off the s.h.i.+p, and sending them off to hospitals where they would spend the next several months, or even years. Kate had never seen people so happy to be home, no matter how damaged they were. They knelt down and kissed the ground, they kissed her, and anyone near at hand if their mothers and sweethearts were not there. But although it was exhausting work, in a way it was a happy job. Many had injuries that were horrifying, yet all of them still looked so young, until you saw their eyes. They had all seen too much. But they were thrilled to be home. Just watching them limp off the s.h.i.+p or embrace their loved ones constantly brought Kate to tears.

Kate spent hours with them, holding hands, smoothing brows, taking notes for men who had lost their sight. She got them into ambulances and on military trucks. She came home filthy and tired every day, but at least she felt she was doing something useful with her time.

She came home very late one night, after a long day working in a packed hospital ward. Because she was so late, she knew her parents would be concerned. But the moment she walked in and saw her father's face, she knew something was terribly wrong. Her mother was sitting on the couch next to him, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Kate didn't know who, but she suspected instantly that someone had died. She felt a chill run down her spine.

”What's wrong, Dad?” she asked quietly as she walked further into the room.

”Nothing, Kate. Come and sit down.” She did as she was told, and smoothed her uniform. There were stains all over it, and her cap was askew. It had been an incredibly long day, and she was hot and tired.

”Are you okay, Mom?” she asked gently, and her mother nodded, but didn't say a word. ”What happened?” She looked from one to the other, and there was an interminable pause. She had no living grandparents, no uncles or aunts, so she knew it had to be one of their friends, or maybe one of their friends' sons. Some of the wounded hadn't survived the trip home.

”I got a call from Was.h.i.+ngton today,” her father said, and it meant nothing to Kate now. All her bad news had come and gone. It gave her great compa.s.sion in the work she did. She knew what it was like to lose the person you loved most. She was watching her father's eyes for a clue to what had upset them so much, as her father hesitated and went on. ”They found Joe, Kate. He's alive.” She was so stunned that his words. .h.i.t her like a rock, and she couldn't make a sound.

”What?” It was all she could say. Her face had gone dead white. ”I don't understand.” She felt as though she were going into shock. It reminded her of the night she had lost their child. ”What do you mean, Dad?” Even after hoping for so long, it no longer seemed possible to her. Kate had finally come to believe Joe was dead. And now, hearing the words she had given up hope of ever hearing, her mind reeled, and she was completely confused.

”He was shot down just west of Berlin,” her father said, as tears rolled down his cheeks. ”He had a problem with his parachute and badly damaged both his legs. He was hidden by a farmer, and then eventually tried to make his way to the border, but he was caught and taken to Colditz Castle Prison near Leipzig. He had no way of contacting anyone before that, and from what the War Office told us before, we know he was carrying identification with a false name. They were afraid to let him fly over Germany with papers showing his correct name, because it would have been even more dangerous for him,” her father said, wiping away his tears, as Kate stared at him. It was almost beyond her comprehension, as she tried to concentrate on what was being said. She felt as though she herself were being brought back from the dead, not just Joe. ”He was kept in solitary confinement, and for some reason the Germans did not report him on their list of prisoners, even under the alias he had used. No one knows why, they may have suspected the name he was using was in fact not correct, and they tried to torture any information he had out of him. He was in Colditz for seven months, and then finally escaped. He had been in Germany for nearly a year by then. And this time, he made it all the way into Sweden and was trying to board a freighter when he was caught again. He was shot that time, and very badly injured. They think he was either delirious or unconscious for several months, and then put in Colditz again. He had been using false Swedish papers, which is why he didn't turn up on the list of American prisoners again. I'm not sure they even knew who he was. They found him in solitary confinement in Colditz weeks ago, but he wasn't able to tell them who he was until yesterday. He's in a military hospital in Berlin now. And Kate...,” her father's voice drifted off for a minute as he tried to control his voice, ”he seems to be in pretty bad shape. They said he was barely alive when they took him out. But somehow, G.o.d bless him, he's managed to hold on till now. They think he'll make it, barring any complications. He has managed to stay alive and unidentified for all this time. His legs are still badly damaged, and had been broken again. He still had bullet wounds in his legs and arms. He's been in h.e.l.l for all this time. And if they can get him well enough to travel, they're going to put him on a hospital s.h.i.+p in two weeks and bring him home. He should be here sometime in July.”

Kate still hadn't said a word and, like her father, all she could do was cry. Her mother was looking at her in despair. She knew, without being told, that Kate's life was about to alter radically. Andy Scott and everything he had to offer her had just vanished in a puff of smoke. And no matter how much Kate loved Joe, her mother was sure that because of it, he would destroy her life. But it was obvious to both of them how much he meant to her, it had been impossible to overlook for the past two years. All her father wanted for her was her happiness, whatever it took, and whatever that meant to her. He had always had a deep respect for Joe.

”Can I talk to him?” she asked finally, her voice barely more than a croak, but her father doubted that she could call. He had written down the name of the hospital for her, but communications with Germany were worse than sketchy these days.

She tried calling late that night, but the operator said it was impossible to get through. She sat in her room instead, looking out at the moonlit night and thinking of him. All she could remember now was how sure she had been for so long that he was still alive. It was only in the past few months that she had actually begun to believe he was dead.

She felt as though she were moving underwater for the next few weeks. She went to work on the docks every day, and in the Red Cross facility between s.h.i.+ps. She went to visit men in hospitals, wrote letters for them, helped them eat and sit up and drink. She listened to a thousand painful tales. And when Andy called, she sounded vague when she talked to him. She didn't want to tell him on the phone that Joe was alive, and she didn't know what to say. She had tried so hard to talk herself into loving him, and she might have one day, but in the face of Joe coming home, she could barely talk to Andy anymore. But it didn't seem fair to ruin his trip by telling him while he was away.

She went to work at five in the morning the day Joe's s.h.i.+p was due in. She knew they were expected at six o'clock when they came in with the high tide. They had been just offsh.o.r.e the night before, and had radioed in. She wore a clean uniform and her cap, and her hands were shaking when she pinned it on. She couldn't even imagine seeing him. It was all beginning to seem like a very strange dream.

She took the streetcar to the docks, reported in to her supervisor, and checked their supplies. There were seven hundred wounded men on the s.h.i.+p, and it was one of the first from Germany. The others had been coming in from England and France. There were ambulances and military transport vehicles lined up all along the docks, and they would be sending the men to military hospitals over a range of several hundred miles. She had no idea where they were going to be sending Joe. But wherever it was, she was going to be there with him as much as she could. She had never been able to get to him by phone in Germany in the past few weeks, and she'd been told that even a letter wouldn't make it in time. They had had no contact at all since October, nearly two years before.

The s.h.i.+p steamed slowly in, and the decks were lined with men, on crutches, wearing bandages, and you could hear them shouting and screaming and whistling and see them wave long before the s.h.i.+p reached the dock. It was a scene she had seen often by then, and it always brought tears to her eyes. But this time, she stood watching them, straining her eyes, scouring the decks for him, but she doubted if he was in any condition to be standing up. From the sound of it he would be one of the men on stretchers lying flat on the deck. And she had already spoken to her supervisor about going on board.

”Anyone you know?” Usually, the volunteers waited for the men to be unloaded on the dock, but now and then they went on board to lend a hand. But the retired nurse in charge of the volunteers could see how anxious Kate was. With her dark red hair framing her face, she had never seen anyone as pale and still standing up.

”I... my... my fiance is on board,” she said finally. It was too complicated to explain what he meant to her and where he had been for two years. It was easier to just tell her a diplomatic lie.

”How long has it been since you've seen him?” she asked Kate, as they watched the s.h.i.+p come in. She had already given Kate permission to go aboard.

”Twenty-one months.” And then she looked at the young woman with her enormous dark blue eyes. ”We thought he was dead until three weeks ago.” The woman could only imagine what that must have been like for her. She had lived through her own private h.e.l.l, she was a widow and had lost three sons.

”Where did they find him?” she asked, more to distract Kate. The poor girl looked like she was about to break in half.

”In Germany. In prison,” she said simply. The nurse could only guess at the kind of damage that had been done. ”He was shot down on a bombing raid,” Kate still had no idea what kind of injuries he'd had. She was just grateful he was alive.

It took them over an hour to berth the s.h.i.+p, and then one by one the men came down the gangways to land. People were cheering and crying and there were countless tearful scenes being played out on the dock. But this time, Kate wasn't crying for them, she was crying for Joe, as tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched. It was another two hours before she could get on the s.h.i.+p. They were ready to unload the stretcher cases by then, and she went up with a group of orderlies who were going up to take them off. She had to fight to control herself, and not shove her way past them, and she had no idea where to find him on the huge s.h.i.+p. She saw quickly that the orderlies on the s.h.i.+p and the crew were bringing out men on litters and laying them on the upper deck. And she carefully threaded her way amongst wounded and dying men. There was the stench of sick and sweating bodies heavy in the air, and she had to struggle not to gag.

Some of them reached out to her, tried to grab her hands, and touch her legs. And she had to stop every few feet to talk to them. No matter what she felt, she couldn't just walk by. She had been walking a cautious path among them, careful not to step on anyone, and she stopped for what must have been the hundredth time when a man with no legs reached up and took her hand. He had lost half his face, and she could see from the way he turned his head, that his remaining eye was blind. He just wanted to talk to her and tell her how glad he was to be home, and she could tell from his accent that he was from the Deep South. She was still bending down talking to him, when a hand behind her gently touched her arm. She finished talking to the southern man, and then turned to see what she could do for the man who had touched her arm, and he was lying there, looking up at her with a broad smile. His face was thin and pale, and there were small scars from beatings he had sustained from the Germans, but in spite of that she knew who he was. She fell to her knees next to him, and he sat up and took her in his arms. There were tears rolling down his cheeks, as they mingled with hers. It was Joe.

”Oh my G.o.d...” It was all she could say.

”h.e.l.lo, Kate,” he said quietly in a shaking but nonetheless familiar voice. ”I told you I had a hundred lives.” She was crying so hard she couldn't talk to him, and he gently wiped the tears from her face with a roughened hand. He had lost an incredible amount of weight, and she could see as she sat back and looked at him that both his legs were in casts, they had reset them in Germany, but the doctors weren't sure yet if he would walk again. His captors had broken them during interrogations and shot him in both legs when he tried to escape. He had hung on to the merest thread of life, and he had come back to her. Kate couldn't even imagine the condition he'd been in, it was hard to believe that it could have been worse than what she saw now, but she knew that it had.

”I never thought I'd see you again,” he said softly, as the orderlies carried his stretcher off the s.h.i.+p, and Kate walked beside him, holding his hand, as he used the other one to wipe his eyes.

”Neither did I,” she said, as her supervisor spotted them, she had been crying silently as she watched them reach the dock. It was a scene they had all seen now a thousand times, but this one touched her particularly because she liked Kate so much. Someone deserved to win in all this, she told herself. There had been enough tragedy in the past four years.

”I see you got your guy. Welcome home, son,” the woman said, and patted his arm. He had a death grip on Kate's hand. ”Do you want to ride in the ambulance with him, Kate?” They were sending him to a VA hospital just outside of Boston, and it would be an easy commute for her to visit him. The tides of fortune had finally turned. And Kate knew that, whatever else happened to them, she would be grateful forever for the gift of Joe's life.

She got in the ambulance, and sat on the floor next to him. She had brought a bar of chocolate for him in her purse and she handed it to him as the ambulance pulled out. There were three other men riding with them, and she divided up another bar of chocolate among the three of them, and one of them started to cry.

They had all been in Germany, two of them had been in prisoner of war camps, and the fourth man had been caught trying to escape into Switzerland. He had been tortured for four months and then left to die. They had all gotten nightmarish treatment while in German hands, but in each case, civilians had saved their lives, except for Joe, who had been hidden by a farmer at first, but then had simply hung on to life while in prison, until he was found.

”Are you okay?” Joe was looking her over like a mother hen. He had never seen a sight as beautiful as her hair and her skin and her eyes, and the other three men riding with them couldn't take their eyes off her. They just lay on their litters and stared at her, while Joe held her hand.

”I'm fine. I always thought you were alive,” she said in a whisper as she sat close to him. ”I just knew you weren't dead, in spite of what everyone said.”

”You're not married or anything, I hope,” he laughed and she shook her head. But if he had taken much longer, it might have been a close call. ”Did you finish school?” He wanted to know everything. He had thought of her a million times, and fell asleep thinking of her at night, and wondering if he'd ever see her again. For her sake, and his own, he had refused to die.

”I graduated in June,” she filled him in, but after all this time, there was too much to say. There were eighteen months to fill in, and it would take time. ”I'm working for the Red Cross as a volunteer.”

”No kidding,” he laughed through painfully cracked lips that she had already kissed several times, and he knew with utter certainty that there was nothing in life as sweet. ”I thought you were just a friendly nurse.” He couldn't believe it when he saw her standing next to him on the s.h.i.+p. He hadn't even been able to contact her before they sailed. And it was fortunate that they had s.h.i.+pped him to Boston and not New York. At least here she could visit him every day.

She stayed with him while they settled him in the hospital, but after that she had to ride back to the dock with the ambulance and finish work.

”I'll come back tonight,” she promised him. And by the time she got back to her parents' house after work, and borrowed their car, it was after six o'clock. It was nearly seven when she got to him, all clean and neatly tucked into clean sheets by then, he was sound asleep. She sat next to him, without disturbing him, and she was surprised when, two hours later, he stirred. He turned, grimacing painfully, and then sensed her watching him, and opened his eyes.

”Am I dreaming? Or am I in Heaven?” he said with a sleepy smile. ”That can't be you sitting there, Kate.... I never did anything in my life to deserve this.”

”Yes, you did.” She gently kissed his cheeks and then his lips. ”I'm the lucky one. My mother was afraid I'd be an old maid.”

”I figured you'd have married that kid Andy by now, the one you always said was just a friend. Guys like that always wind up with the girl when the hero dies.”

”Guess not,” she said cryptically, ”the hero didn't die.”

”No,” Joe said, rolling on his back with a sigh. His legs were encased in heavy plaster casts. ”I never thought I'd get out of that prison again. I was sure they were going to kill me every day. I guess they were having too much fun to let me die.” They had tortured him mercilessly. She couldn't even imagine eighteen months in the h.e.l.l he had known, or how he had survived, but thank G.o.d he had.

She stayed with him until after ten o'clock, and then finally went home, more because she could see how tired he was than because she wanted to leave. And they were going to give him medication for the pain in his legs. He was dozing off again when she left, and she stood for a minute, looking at the strong, distinct face that she had dreamed of a million times.

And when she got home, her father was waiting up for her.

”How is he, Kate?” he asked, looking concerned. He'd still been at the office when she came to pick up the car.

”He's alive,” she beamed, ”and in surprisingly good shape. His legs are in casts, and his face is a mess.” He'd had hair to his waist when they fished him out, but they had cut it at the hospital in Germany. Joe said he had looked a lot worse then. ”It's really a miracle he's with us, Dad.” He smiled at the look on his daughter's face. It had been years since he'd seen her smile like that. It warmed his heart to see her happy again.