Revel in a Woman’s Endurance: In the end, learn about the strong beliefs one woman clings to when her health falters, her morality wanes, and her daddy’s money proves useless in the face of war’s challenges.
CHAPTER 27
HEADING HOME
A truck carried the WACs and Kathy back to Le Havre. They drove by piles of rubble. They passed by Frenchmen still tediously picking out bricks, one at a time, just as they had 14 months ago. Remnants of shipwrecks in the shallow water still stood, with barren metal rising from the dark water. Clanging bells marked sunken ships.
They finally arrived at Camp Home Run, just outside of Le Havre. Kathy turned the WACs over to an officer. Kathy went on to her own staging area. At the headquarters hut, she signed in and talked with the harried WAC Captain in charge.
“This is the Army,” complained the WAC, “250 women officers sit idle in Quonset huts, while I struggle to house, feed, process and get you all on board a ship to go home.”
Kathy offered to help her, which was gratefully accepted. She would supervise and serve as interpreter for the French civilian workers in the area. Kathy would begin the next day.
Kathy asked if Chaplain Kirkemo was here in Le Havre. His last letter had been sent from Camp Home Run. The WAC said he was, and directed her to the Chaplain’s hut. She also pointed out the Quonset huts for female officers on top of a high ridge.
Kathy dumped her gear on a lower bunk in her quarters in the end hut, and walked outside. She stood on the edge of the bluff overlooking the harbor. The sky was gray, not blue. The land was black and brown, not green. Trees that should have bloomed were blackened stumps. A few ships threaded their way through a channel marked by buoys, past submerged ships, some with tilted smokestacks.
This was depressing. She wanted a friend. She slid down the rocky bluff to the beach that would lead to the Chaplain’s office. On the sand, amidst the wreckage and dead fish, were tarnished brass ammunition shells. She kicked over a snail shell, a pink shell in a gray world, and watched a pink hermit crab run for cover. She found a red rectangular stone that she rubbed between her fingers, revealing a carved cross.
Where was the cross from? Up and down the beach, it was impossible to recognize what might have been a church. She looked up the bluff where nothing was left. She saw, instead, under a ledge, a cave. She remembered hearing that the Germans had defended the harbor here at Le Havre from a cave.
She walked and soon found the Chaplain’s Quonset hut.
Chaplain Kirkemo stood to greet her warmly when he saw her standing in his office doorway. “It’s good to see you, Kathy. I’ve remembered you in my prayers.” His handshake was as vigorous as ever. His cheeks as rosy and his eyes as full of goodwill mixed with concern. “You’re looking tanned and healthy.”
“The sun shone every day in Biarritz in Southern France. It’s hard to imagine that here.”
“Nice of you to come visit an old man.”
She didn’t think of him as old. His eyes were young. Yet his hair was white, and the smile wrinkles around his eyes were deeply etched. “You’ve seen this war, and you haven’t hardened. How have you withstood it?”
He smiled gently, “I believe in God.”
That was all he said. He seemed to think that was as all he needed to say.
“Would you like to see my chapel? Did I write you about it?” He put on his trench coat and pulled on his four-buckle overshoes. “You may have noticed, it’s muddy here.”
They climbed the bluff to the cave. Kathy wondered, “You built a chapel in this cave?”
“Christianity in a cave? Why not? Christianity was begun in a cave.” Chaplain Kirkemo folded back the cotton black-out curtain from the opening, and tied it back, inviting Kathy’s entrance.
The cave was cold and damp with a hard stone floor. The walls were rough planes of chiseled rock. At the back of the cave, on a small box, was a plain wooden cross made of two crossed boards.
“Simple, isn’t it? Christianity is simple.” The Chaplain knelt.
Kathy knelt beside him, feeling reverence and awe. She wanted to pray, yet didn’t know what to say. She was empty, with an emptiness that had nothing to offer. She was alone, with an aloneness to which no one spoke.
“Your chapel is magnificent,” Kathy said. “But I must get back to my duties.” Chaplain Kirkemo again thanked her for coming, and said he would continue to pray for her.
Kathy worked long hours for a month. She was assigned to ship after ship, five in total, but each time she was pulled off at the last minute. She noticed that nurses who had arrived after her had already left.
Kathy enjoyed the work and the chance to know the French workers and their families. They continued to be cold and hungry, but no longer freezing and starving. She heard of their wartime struggles when she visited them in bomb-shattered remnants of houses.
The work was a diversion from the waiting lives the nurses lived. They were awaiting their return to the States. They were waiting in line to wash their faces in the latrine, waiting in line three times a day for chow, waiting in line to turn in their gas masks, waiting to sign papers. They were waiting at the end of a war, hoping and waiting to begin another life.
One gray April afternoon Lt. Hill came in and announced. “Kathy, I have your orders.” Kathy had worked frequently with him, a nice-looking boy, in the headquarters office during the last month. She was to be an Interpreter on the Zebulon B Vance.
Kathy read the orders. “What kind of ship?” she asked.
“The Zebulon B. Vance is a bride ship. You will be with 452 French mademoiselles that will be joining their new American husbands, along with 173 children. Starting new lives in the States. Some call it ‘Operation Diaper Run.’”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Always an interpreter, never a bride she thought. Always a midwife, never a mother.
“The Colonel worried about a French war bride that decided to have a baby. I said you were a good interpreter, so there you are. I thought you’d like that. You’re always seeking new experiences.”
“Thanks,” Kathy said.
“Now, would you do something for me?” He grinned appealingly. “Come with me to the party tonight?”
Kathy had lost interest in parties and men. She didn’t want to drink, and she didn’t want a man to touch her. “No thanks.”
“This is a station party. You know most of us.”
“I like you. I just don’t want any more parties.”
Lt. Hill’s grin faded to a sad look. “What fun is a party without a girl?”
She felt sympathy for his loneliness. “All right. I’ll come.”
“Can you get some of the nurses to come?” he asked. “A party together should be merrier for all of us.”
At each of the five Quonset huts, Kathy stood inside the doorway and asked the girls, lounging on their bunk beds, if they’d like to help the station have a happy party. The girls looked up from their cards, paused only a moment, and didn’t bother to answer.
In the fifth hut, one USO girl agreed to go. With a towel over her shoulder, and bottles of shampoo and hair dye in hand, the USO girl sauntered out to wash her hair.
The nurse on the bunk by the door disdainfully looked after the USO girl. She said, “She’ll come back with a camera, or radio, or jewelry.”
“How does she do it?” asked Kathy. “No one gives me expensive presents.”
Thank you for reading the excerpts from Chapters 26. I hope you found them engaging and thought-provoking. I appreciate your interest and support. If you’ve enjoyed the story, I’d be grateful if you could leave a review and share your thoughts.
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