The nurses tended to stick together on the journey, standing at the rail and talking about where they’d been, where they came from, where they had been assigned in England. They would be briefed by the RAF about their procedures when they got there.

And as they stood at the rail in the morning sunshine, on a crystal clear cold day, they looked at the sea of men below them on the lower decks, and Lizzie wondered how many of them they would be transporting one day, after they were injured. It was a sobering thought. They were all traveling in uniform. A mass of thousands of khaki uniforms. The nurses were the only females on board.

A few of the nurses mingled secretly with the enlisted men, which was not allowed. It didn’t seem worth the risk to Audrey and the others, just to flirt with the men, so they stayed with the other nurses.

“And here, my mom was worried I’d never find a husband,” Alex commented, and the others laughed, as they stared at the soldiers below them. “Somehow I never counted on meeting a man while I’m in the army.” But others did, and found them, for a night, or longer.

“I don’t want to meet a guy,” Lizzie said. She hadn’t gotten over Will yet, even two years later. Every man she met paled in comparison to him.

“Maybe a nice English boy,” Audrey said. She hadn’t had a date, or time for one, while her mother was sick. She liked the idea of meeting a nice man one day, but she hadn’t had the opportunity in years.

“I’d rather wait til the war is over,” Louise said soberly, and her situation was more complicated.

None of them were desperate to find boyfriends. They had too much else on their minds.

The two nurses they were sharing their cabin with had looked startled when they saw Louise, but made no comment after a quick glance at each other. The others seemed nice enough, and they decided to ignore her.

The days on the ship dragged by and there were some tense moments, when the ship slowed, and they all suspected the lookouts had spotted something or the captain had been warned. Then their speed would pick up again. The captain was pushing the ship hard to get to England in a hurry. Ships just like theirs had been torpedoed and sunk by U-boats or attacked by the German Luftwaffe, but day followed day without incident. And finally, five days later, land came into sight. More than two thousand cheers rose from the ship as they all stood on deck. They had made the journey safely, and their next adventures awaited them.