Paper Doll Read Online Free PDF Page B

intricate. Snowberry regarded the process, then Hirsch, with interest. Lewis said, “Lieutenant, maybe you can answer a question Strawberry here is having trouble with. You’ve seen us in action as a crew. Think we have a chance of getting through the doors of the mess without hurting ourselves? What do you think of what we got here? A wop at one of the waist guns, this Long Islander in the top turret, and Strawberry, who should be thirteen next April, in the belly.”
    â€œRhode Island,” Bryant said.
    Hirsch gave the matter some thought. “Seems an all right group,” he said. He sounded wary.
    â€œAnd then the lieutenant here,” Lewis said.
    Hirsch gave him a tight smile. “I have to go,” he said.
    Bryant watched him leave. “What’d you do that for?” he asked.
    Lewis said, “Bryant, sometimes you are so rock stupid that it makes us want to sit down and cry for the Army.”
    â€œWhat? What’d I do?” Bryant asked.
    Lewis repeated his question, adding a little more whine. The effect was not flattering. He said to Bryant, “Remember you said you wanted advice before, from an old hand? Well, here’s the advice: Don’t make plans.” He repocketed his string and left with Snowberry without issuing an invitation to follow. Bryant straightened his belt and tried to appear as though he had a reason for standing alone where he was, feeling like someone just in from overseas, without a buddy in the world.
    He sulked the balance of the afternoon. He sat near the hedges on the perimeter, under the overhang of a small house which served as an information booth and guard hut. The mist glazed his boots and the dry area beneath the overhang resembled a small beach. He had more mail, from Robin, so the sulking was easier to pull off. As far as he could make out, though, he was unnoticed where he was, and his irritation in all likelihood remained unrecorded. Half the squadron was up practicing assembly and cooperation with escort fighters, and the rumble above the cloud cover was constant and exciting.
    Robin was Robin Lea, an Englishwoman who lived with her mother two villages over. She was in training as a Civil Defense clerk. They’d seen each other four times and she’d charmed and fascinated Bryant each time. She had spoken to him persuasively about the failures of appeasement and the sorts of insects they’d find, were they to dig up the earth ridging the hedgerows. She was kind and patient with what he felt to be his stupidity. He had confided to her his fears of inadequacy and she had assured him that many of his friends, Lewis included, probably felt that way too, and that it was most likely a reflection of his growing knowledge. He had danced with her the third time they’d been together and she’d worn a green silk dress that had flexed and shimmered with light. He thought she was very beautiful.
    Lewis and Snowberry were mainly interested before meeting her in finding out if she had what it took. He’d done his best to describe her and had finally settled on comparisons and had left them with the suggestion that she was a “heavier Gene Tierney.” It had gotten a big laugh. They’d never forgotten, and Lewis’s adoption of Gene Tierney as his pin-up love afterwards had not been a coincidence.
    Bryant had protested their laughter, and Lewis had responded that he didn’t like the sound of that “heavier.” “You can tell us,” he had said mildly, with paternal sympathy. “Is she a lard-ass? Is that the problem?”
    â€œIn England, the term is ‘overlarge,’” Snowberry said. “As in, ‘That freight car is overlarge.’”
    â€œAw, the hell with that,” Lewis had said, wrapping an arm around him. “Looks aren’t important.”
    Snowberry and Piacenti had hooted and wondered aloud if Lewis liked boys.
    Lewis said, “What we need to know