Crossings (58 page)

“But he must have known how you felt, Liane.”

“He did. He always said that he would play by my rules. And my rules were that I was going back to my husband. Some rules.” She looked disgusted at herself. She had tormented herself for months. “I don't want to talk about it anymore.” She looked away into a forgotten time when there had been two men she loved, and now there were none, or none that she would see again.

“I think you're wrong, Liane. I think Nick knows you better than you know yourself. He could help you through it.”

“He'll find someone else. And he has Johnny to come home to.”

“And you?” He worried about her a great deal. One of these days she was going to crack from the strain she put herself under.

“I'm happy as I am.”

“I don't believe that and neither do you.”

“I don't deserve anything else, Uncle George!”

“When are you going to come down off that cross?”

“When I've paid my dues.”

“And you don't think you have?” She shook her head. “You've lost a husband you think you betrayed, but you stuck by him till the end. You even gave up a man you loved, and you kept Armand's secret for all those years even though I badgered you to death, and you were practically run out of Washington, tarred and feathered. Don't you think that's enough? And now you spend your every living breath comforting those men in that surgical ward every day. What else do you want, a hair shirt? Sackcloth and ashes?”

She smiled. “I don't know, Uncle George. Maybe I'll feel better about the world again when the war is over.”

“We all will, Liane. These are damn hard times for us all. It's ugly to think about Jews being dragged out of their homes and put in camps, and children being killed in London, and Nazis shooting men like Armand, and ships being sunk, and … you could go on forever. But you still have to wake up in the morning with a smile and look out the window and thank God you're alive, and hold a hand out to the people you love.” He held a hand out to her and she took it and kissed his fingers.

“I love you, Uncle George.” She looked like a girl and he touched the silky blond hair.

“I love you too, Liane. And to tell you the truth, I love that boy. I'd like to see you with him one day. It would be good for you and the girls, and I'm not going to live forever.”

“Yes, you will.” She smiled again. “You'd better.”

“No, I won't. Think about what I said. You owe it to yourself. And to him.” But she didn't heed his words, she just went back to the hospital in Oakland every day, killing herself in the wards, and then she'd come home to give whatever she had left to him and her daughters.

And on October 15, the
Enterprise
headed back toward Guadalcanal, with Nick aboard, aching to reenter the battle. The two months in Hawaii had almost driven him crazy.

The
Enterprise
reached Guadalcanal on October 23, and she joined the
Hornet
, with Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid in charge now. There were four Japanese aircraft carriers in the area, and they were still attempting to reclaim what was by then Henderson Field, and the Americans were holding their ground.

On October 26, Admiral Halsey, the Naval Commander-in-Chief in the South Pacific, ordered them to attack the Japanese and they did. It was a horrendous fight and the Japanese were stronger than the American troops. They set the
Hornet
ablaze and crippled her until she sank, with thousands of men killed. But despite brutal blows, the
Enterprise
survived. She continued the fight, much to everyone's delight, and in the States everyone sat glued to their radios, listening to the news. And George found Liane sitting there, listening to it too, with a look of terror in her eyes.

“You think he's over there, don't you?”

“I don't know.” But her eyes said that she knew it.

He nodded his head grimly. “So do I.”

n the morning of October 27, the
Hornet
was still ablaze and sinking slowly, and the
Enterprise
had taken a series of ferocious hits, but she was still in action. Lieutenant Colonel Burnham was on the bridge watching the crew man the guns when the Japanese hit them with full force; a 550-pound bomb hit their flight deck and passed through the port side, spraying fragments in all directions. And suddenly there were fires everywhere and men were lying all over the deck, either dead or wounded.

“Jesus Christ, did you see that bomb!” The man standing next to him was gaping in disbelief, and Nick ran for the stairs in one leap.

“Never mind that, we're on fire. Get the hoses.” Troops from all over the ship were trying to fight the blaze while others manned the guns and continued to spray the Japanese as dive bombers zoomed toward them, dropping bombs. One Japanese pilot crashed on the deck, setting off a ferocious explosion. And then suddenly, as Nick stood holding the hose, he saw two men crawling toward him, and he dragged them out of the fire one by one, spraying water on their clothes to put out the fires that were devouring their flesh. And as he looked down into the face of the second one, there was suddenly an enormous explosion behind him. He had a sensation of sunlight and lightness in his limbs as he flew through the air, watching pieces of bodies. He had the oddest feeling that he was suddenly weightless … and as he thought of Liane he knew he was smiling.

he men continued to pour in from the battle of Guadalcanal all through November. Many of them had been kept at Hickam for a few days first, others had come straight through to Oakland. There were no longer facilities to care for them anywhere else. They had to be kept on ships until they returned to the States, and many of them died on the way. Liane watched them come in day by day, their bodies torn limb from limb, with hideous wounds and burns. And she heard the story of the 550-pound bomb over and over and over.

It was grim work watching them come in, and as she assisted the stretchers coming from the ships, she was once again reminded of the
Deauville
, but this was much worse than anything she'd ever seen then. The men were returning in pieces.

And once she had thought that someone was talking about Nick. The man had been half delirious and he was talking about his buddy who'd been killed beside him on the deck, but when she asked him about it later, the man's name had been Nick Freed. And he wasn't the Nick she knew. And the man died in her arms two days later.

It was the night of Thanksgiving when her uncle finally turned to her, unable to stand it any longer. “Why don't we call the War Office and find out?”

She shook her head. “If something happens to him, we'll read about it in the papers.” It would be worse to know where he was, she would be tempted to write to him and she was determined not to. And if he was wounded, sooner or later she'd know it. And if the head of Burnham Steel had been killed, the papers all over the country would carry items about it. “Let it go, Uncle George. He's all right.”

“You don't know that.”

“No, I don't.” But she had her hands full enough with the men that she knew weren't. She was working twelve-hour shifts now, right alongside the nurses.

“They ought to give you a goddamn medal when this bloody war is over.”

She bent and kissed his cheek, smiling, and then she stood up and looked at her watch. “I have to go, Uncle George.”

“Now? Where?” They had just finished Thanksgiving dinner and the girls had gone to bed a little while before. It was nine o'clock at night and she hadn't gone out in months.

“We're shorthanded at the base, and I said I'd go back.”

“I don't want you driving out there alone.”

“I'm a big girl, Uncle George.” She patted his arm.

“You're crazy.” Crazier than he knew, crazy with fear and longing and aching. Crazy from wondering if Nick was dead. Day after day she listened to the tales, wondering if the dead man beside the man she tended had been Nick, or if he'd even been there at all. There was a constant look of anguish in her eyes. And on Monday morning George Crockett took matters into his own hands and for the second time in a year he called Brett Williams.

“Look, I've got to know.”

“So do we.” Brett Williams wondered at the old man. He knew who he was or he wouldn't have taken the call. But he wondered why he wanted to know. Maybe he had been a close friend of old man Burnham's. “We haven't heard a thing.”

“But you can find out, for chrissake. Call the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, someone.”

“We have. It's such a mess over there that they have very inaccurate records. Men have drowned, gone down with the
Hornet
, they're in hospitals all over the place. They say it'll be another month or two before they know much more.”

“Well, I can't wait that long,” the old man growled.

“Why not?” Brett Williams had had enough and they were shouting at each other. For a month now he'd been a nervous wreck not knowing where the hell Nick was. And Johnny had called him too, almost every day. And there was nothing to say to the boy, or this old man on the West Coast. Hillary had even called. She was actually worried that Johnny would lose his father. She was ready to give his son back now. “If we're sitting here, chewing our nails, goddamn it, so can you.”

“My niece can't. She'll worry herself to death if we don't find out where he is.”

“Your niece?” Brett looked blank. “Who in hell is she?”

“Liane Crockett, that's who.” She hadn't been that in thirteen years, but in the heat of the moment he forgot that.

“But—” And then slowly he understood. “I didn't realize before he left. … He didn't say anything to me. …” He wondered if the old man was telling the truth, and yet knew he had to be. Otherwise, why would he be calling?

“Why the hell should he tell you? Anyway, she was married at the time, but she's a widow now—” He faltered, wondering why he was telling this man, but it was a relief to tell someone. It was killing him to watch Liane dying behind her walls. “Look, we've got to find him.” And then he grabbed a notepad and a pen. “Who have you called?” Williams reeled off a list of names. He was beginning to like the old man. He had guts and he obviously cared about his niece, and Nick Burnham. He began trying to think who they could call that they hadn't, and the old man made a number of invaluable suggestions. “Will you do it, or shall I?” He knew full well that it didn't matter. Burnham Steel and Crockett Shipping were equally important.