“So did you learn all about the RAF today?” Pru asked them with a wry grin. “Tell them to hurry the hell up. We need you in the air with us, and you won’t need all those protocols once you get up there. You know as much as we do, or you wouldn’t be here. And I hear your air evac training is hell on wheels.” They all laughed and agreed with her.

“It almost killed me,” Lizzie said, and Audrey nodded.

“Can we talk you into dinner at the pub, or are you in love with the fine cuisine in our mess hall?”

“It’s no worse than ours,” Alex answered generously, although they had all agreed after the night before that it quite possibly was worse, due to the rigors of rationing and food in short supply. The whole country was hungry and being short rationed.

“The pub sounds like a nice change,” Louise said politely, and Emma smiled.

“It’s all we’ve got if we don’t want the slop they serve here,” she said, and the others laughed. The six of them headed toward the pub a few minutes later. They were all happy to order a pint of ale or a glass of wine, and they ordered sausages and beans, and a wartime version of shepherd’s pie, which bore little resemblance to what it used to taste like before the war. But it was food, and the beer and wine raised their spirits after a long day.

“When do you start flying with us?” Emma asked them. She liked Lizzie and Louise and had talked to both of them. Audrey and Alex were talking to Pru. Emma decided Pru was right. They were nice women. She hoped they were good nurses too.

“They said next week,” Louise answered. “Or the others will. They’re assigning me to the hospital at first, and I have to do a rotation with the injured German POWs they have in a locked ward on the base.”

“Oh that.” Pru glanced at Emma knowingly, who nodded, and then Pru spoke to Louise to give her the straight scoop, in case no one had. “We don’t have segregation in our army the way you do in yours, but there are some ‘special assignments’ reserved for colored nurses, British nurses too, not just Americans. The German POWs are one of them. Just about all their nurses are colored, and they do a rotation at the hospital before they fly the transports with us. There’s no segregation in the dorms, you can room with whoever you want. And you can date whoever you want, but you get stuck with German POWs. I have no idea why. I guess no one else wants to manage them.”