“Do what?” Ed entered the conversation. He’d been talking to Charlie Burns about going up to London on the weekend. Someone had told him about a jazz club that was a great place to meet women, and he wanted Charlie to come too.

“We’re talking about medical school,” Pru filled him in, and he looked immediately interested.

“I couldn’t afford to go before the war, but there should be educational opportunities for veterans after the war. My mom needed my help with my brothers and sisters, so I took a lot of jobs to help her out. But they’ll all be old enough to work by the end of the war. I still have my dream about becoming a doctor.”

“You’re lucky,” Lizzie said quietly. “My father wouldn’t let me go.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a woman.”

“So? How many women do you know willing to jump out of an airplane with a parachute or take on a job like this?” he asked, and she smiled.

“No one I can think of who would be crazy enough.”

“Exactly. So I think you could handle being a doctor. That’s pretty tame, if you can stand the years of studying. Were you a good student?”

“Good enough,” she answered. She liked him. He was direct and easy to talk to, and he thought the same thing about her. He didn’t know anything about her history, but he thought she was a very pretty woman.

“Where are you from?” he asked as they leveled off, heading for the battle lines on the border of France.

“Boston,” she said, and he smiled.

“I have a cousin there, a crazy guy, he owns a fish restaurant. He’s been there for years, and he’s 4-F, so he’s still there, doing a booming business while we’re here risking our asses with the damn Germans. Why are you here, by the way?”

“It made sense. I was stationed in San Francisco before this, and I didn’t feel like I was doing enough, so I signed up for air evac transport in the air forces.”

“Good girl.” He nodded as his eyes searched the sky for oncoming fighter planes. “I had the same idea. I lost my fiancée in the first year they bombed London. Driving an ambulance didn’t seem good enough after that.”

“I lost someone too,” she said softly, “at Pearl Harbor.” He nodded, and neither of them spoke for a few minutes after that. The pilot had just warned them that they were ten minutes from their destination. Both corpsmen left their seats and checked the beds and supplies again. They were ready. They started their descent a few minutes later, and the pilot warned them that getting in might be tricky, and getting out even more so. They were close to the German lines.