Why You Should Read Girls in a World at War
Recognize the Dieticians’ Dedication: Witness how a group of dedicated dieticians worked together in a renovated barn, with German POWs as helpers, to nourish soldiers and heal wounds. Learn about their creativity with dehydrated foods and K rations during food shortages and rationing, and their efforts to feed starved patients recently liberated from Dachau.
Take a moment to immerse yourself in Chapter 12, where Vivienne’s bold spirit and the intricate relationships among the characters reveal themselves in a poignant, yet gripping scene. As Vivienne defies convention with her confident charm, the narrative delves into deeper themes of duty, loyalty, and the human cost of war. This chapter beautifully captures the complexities of the era, from casual conversations about picnics to the profound impact of a war that looms over their lives. Don’t miss out on this compelling excerpt!
Vivienne flipped back her red hair defiantly. “There’s nothing to dare. I go to the movies with whomever I please.”
Kathy wished she had thought of so nice a way to help. Easily Vivienne showed the Sarges and the paratroopers that she liked them. She cared for them with an inner strength that controlled any situation, yet put men at ease. She was right; Kathy had never heard anyone object to a girl’s dating an enlisted man. The separation of women officers from enlisted men seemed more from having separate mess and clubs than from regulations. The girls were willing to date the enlisted men, but few even asked. That was what made Vivienne’s invitation to Sarge so nice. She had broken this barrier so easily.
Vivienne patted her hair into place. “Then it is settled? Sarge and I lock up, and we will go to the show afterward. You two go on your picnic.”
Mathilda pulled out her pad of paper. “What shall we take?”
Kathy considered. “Sandwiches. Peanut butter? Tuna or cheese?”
“Hooch hates peanut butter. Maybe cheese. We don’t have apples or oranges. No cake, no fruit. Not much of a picnic.”
“Raisins. Dried fruit bars. A canteen of coffee. Wish we had Cokes.”
“Hooch would drink whiskey anyway.”
Vivienne opened her drawer and took out four wax-covered boxes. “K-rations with lemonade. Perfect for picnics.”
It was later than they intended when they finally finished their work and left. Hooch and Mathilda walked ahead, carrying their lunch basket, and Hooch swinging his inevitable bottle.
Charles, with a basket of lunch and a bottle of red wine, walked behind with Kathy. “How did we get into this?”
“It was Mathilda’s birthday, and maybe if we’re nice to Hooch we can help him,” answered Kathy.
“Hooch Novotny has been Hooch Novotny since he was ten years old, maybe since he was six. A nice picnic isn’t going to change him one bit. Does Mathilda really think she can reform him?”
“She’s trying. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But I don’t think it matters to her whether she reforms him or not. She’d do anything for him, just as he is.”
“Something ventured, something lost. Well, it’s her life.”
They walked along the river past white-blossomed pear trees, red-budded apple trees, and pink cherry trees. An old stone farmhouse was set peacefully among masses of honeysuckles and lilacs. Kathy took a deep breath. “It smells heavenly.”
Mathilda and Hooch stood by the stone wall, waiting for them. Mathilda commented disapprovingly. “Full of weeds. They should cultivate.”
“That’s part of the charm,” said Kathy.
Hooch spit into the dirt on the path. “It stinks.” He jerked his head to the wooden sway-roofed barn that looked ready to collapse. They looked beyond the stone wall to a pigsty of sickly pigs that did indeed stink.
Charles sat on the wall, settling there as though he would become part of the scene. “They are a real problem. This farmer doesn’t get his work done. He doesn’t get cultivating done. He doesn’t clean the place. He’s not really an old man, but he acts old and tired, and defeated. I hear he lost two sons fighting the Germans.”
Hooch pulled his head in, retreating into his shell. “He’s no problem of ours,” he coldly replied.
Charles shook his head. “But he is. Those pigs are diseased, and the drainage is from here toward the hospital. They could contaminate our wells. And now that the weather is warming, flies breed here and fly in our windows. We have no screens. We might get some made soon. The pig’s sickness can spread.”
“Can’t we help the poor man?” asked Kathy.
“We tried, but it’s tricky. We ran into international relations. I offered to run tests on the pigs to make a diagnosis. He insisted he could take care of his own pigs. I offered to send a gang of PWs over to scrub the barn and clean the pigsty. I thought maybe he’d accept German help as a kind of retribution. Instead, he was insulted that I thought his barn was dirty. Maybe I should have offered the PWs to help him cultivate, but his weeds won’t hurt us. His pigs really might.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” said Hooch. “Waste of time to help him. I never had any help, and I managed. I’ve managed for myself since I was six, when my mother ran off. No father gave me no college education or set me up in business. My old man kicked me out when I was eleven. I worked for what I have, I never asked for help, and no one ever gave me nothing, so why should I give any?”
Charles stood straight before him. “I was left an orphan, too. No one gave me a college education. I worked for it.”
Hooch took Mathilda’s arm and pulled her onto the path. “Come on. Let’s get out of this rotten place.”
Charles took a last searching look at the pigs. “I still think we must help that farmer. Someday I’ll get a better look at them.”
They followed Mathilda and Hooch to a tangled thicket of grapevines where a bird sang an uplifting melodious song. Kathy stopped, holding her hand up for everyone to be quiet and listen. “A nightingale,” she whispered.
“A mockingbird.” Hooch picked up a stone and threw it into the thicket. A small, reddish-brown, white-throated bird flew out and away.
“Nightingale,” said Kathy.
Hooch pulled Mathilda on along the path, while Kathy and Charles remained in the vineyard, waiting for the bird to sing again.
Kathy broke the dead wood from a grape vine. “These vines need pruning. My mother would be sad to see such neglect.”
Charles took a jack-knife from his pocket, pruned away the weaker shoots. “A vine can’t bear grapes if you let it waste its strength in unproductive branches. This vine should be a lesson to Hooch. He shoots off in the wrong directions, unkept and undisciplined. He needs trimming. He’s strong, intelligent, energetic. He could be productive. Actually, he must be brilliant. After all, he loses $500 a week at poker, yet no one can prove any black-marketeering.”
“Sounds stupid to me. If he loses, why keep on playing?”
“He is sharp, but not reasonable.” Charles worked with his knife, until a trunk emerged from the thicket, twisted and gnarled, with two strong green shoots. “I’d like to prune more, but the farmer would probably accuse me of wrecking his vines.” He folded his knife and put it in his pocket. “Vines make a good analogy. Mathilda is like a vine that has had all the shoots removed. She is completely enclosed in a trunk of fear. But vines were made to grow. Buds will pop out in unexpected places and grow into productive shoots.”
They followed the path along the river to where Mathilda was trying to unwrap the K-rations. Hooch was hampering her by putting his arms around her waist and pulling her down onto the sandy beach. “Oh, Hooch,” she giggled, “Don’t you want to eat?”
“K-rations? Hell no,” he said.
“A cheese sandwich? I made you a good sharp-cheese sandwich.” She reached for the basket. “Pickles or olives? What do you want?”
“Whiskey.” He tilted his bottle and put it to his mouth. He sucked it lovingly, then tossed the empty bottle away.
Mathilda picked up the bottle and put it in her basket. She unwrapped a K-ration package. “Have a fruit bar?” She held it out for him.
He grabbed her wrist and the dried fruit bar fell into the sand. He pulled her to him. He held her with one arm, and with the other hand pulled hairpins from her tight, neat bun, tossing the pins onto the sand behind him.
“Hooch, don’t! Hooch! Stop! My pins! My hair! Her long, shining hair cascaded over her shoulders, across her cheek and down her back. Hooch glanced at the last pin, and tossed it into the river.
Mathilda broke loose from him. She crawled on her hands and knees, feeling in the sand with her fingers for her lost hairpins. Hooch laughed, and pinched her bottom. Mathilda sat on the sand to offer no temptation to pinching. Her pale cheeks were flushed, her golden hair was silken and flowing around her face. She reached her arms up to brush back her hair. Mathilda, the dull, brittle Mathilda, was a glowing woman.
“Now you’ve done it, Hooch Novotny.” Mathilda was trying to sound cross, but happiness glowed in her eyes. You’ve lost my hairpins. I have no more. I can’t put up my hair up.”
“Good.”
“But Army regulations say...”
Hooch made a face. “That” he said as he snapped his fingers, “to an Army regulation. You’re a woman, not an Army.”
Mathilda looked up and saw Kathy standing with Charles, watching. “What can I do?”
“Didn’t you bring a six months’ supply of hairpins?”
“I never lose hairpins. Those would have lasted two years.”
“I’ll see Mrs. Duval. Certainly, here in France, the land of fashion, there are hairpins.”
They ate. The K-rations were good, and the red wine mellow. The river and Mathilda’s long hair reflected the shimmering red and yellow of the sunset. Arm in arm, Hooch and Mathilda walked away into a grove of golden willows. Charles and Kathy waited, listening to the babbling of the spring-swollen river. When it grew late, and Mathilda and Hooch didn’t return, they started for home without them.
They stopped again by the stone wall beside the lilacs and honeysuckle. The air, so fragrant, so charged with spring, and so filled with the nightingale’s song, that it was almost palpable, subtly pushing Kathy to Charles, and Charles to Kathy. They stood peacefully together, his lips touching her soft hair. His arms were around her, savoring the air, the fragrance, and the melody.
In the west where the sun had set, they heard a sound like buzzing bees getting louder and louder. They felt it before they saw it. It was the distant roar of airplanes that flew nightly, delivering bombs and destruction. They flew in a tight, strict formation, black against the silver sky. They zoomed towards them unswerving, then over above them.
Fifty, a hundred, then a thousand. Soon the entire sky was filled, from one horizon to the other. More planes flew than seemingly could have existed in the entire world, as if gushing forth from an underworld.
The air vibrated, shattering spring, the perfume, and the nightingale. Kathy cried, unheard, under the overpowering thunder of the planes. Warm tears soaked Charles’ shirt until he felt their wetness and gave her his handkerchief. Finally, the last plane had flown over the eastern horizon, and the sky went silent, except for the quiet babble of the river.
“They are going to Germany,” Charles said.
“More killing. More devastation. When will this bombing end? If the war is nearly over, why can’t they meet up in Switzerland and come up with a truce?”
“No, the Allies will not stop bombing.” Charles said. “The Allies are clearly winning the war now. It’s only a matter of time before the Russians take Berlin. Several German cities have been hammered incessantly and reduced to rubble. The Germans have been beat, but they refuse to put out white sheets and surrender. With their reign of terror, the millions of Jews massacred, their concentration camps, and so many of our soldiers lost—no, the Allies will not stop the bombing.
Silently they walked back to their base.
Kathy lay awake on her tear-soaked pillow a long time. She gave up trying to sleep, and lit a candle to read one of the books she had from the Red Cross library. She picked up the collection of poems, hoping for songs of flowers and love. She found a half-remembered poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “To what purpose, April, do you return again? It is not enough that yearly down this hill, April, comes, like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
Kathy blew out the candle and returned to her bed. Beauty is not enough. She must find something that was enough.
When she closed her eyes to sleep, the darkness closed in around her. She saw swarms of planes hovering above, shadows of Germans who shot off hands, and paratroopers clawing at her door. Reality was huge and incomprehensive. She wanted something to take hold of, something useful, a way to grapple with this reality. She lay awake, feeling inept and hopeless.
She couldn’t even find out if her true love was dead or alive, true or false. Where was Rocky?
Thank you for taking the time to read this excerpt from Chapter 12. Your support means the world to me! If you enjoyed this glimpse into the story, we encourage you to purchase the book and delve even deeper into the lives of these unforgettable characters. Your purchase not only brings the full tale to life but also supports the author’s journey in sharing stories that resonate. Thank you for your interest, and we hope you continue to enjoy the book!
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