“It’s still better than what happens at home. My father didn’t want me to enlist because the army is notorious for how segregated it is. And there’s not a single Black nurse in the navy. So whatever happens here is an improvement. I’m glad they let me enlist in the air evac training, and I was the only woman of color in it. I don’t think they accept many.”

“You’re probably a damn good nurse, and they knew it,” Pru said fairly, and the others nodded. Louise was smart and dedicated. She had been a wonderful addition to their group, but they were well aware that in certain parts of the United States she would have been in an all-Black unit, and wouldn’t have been allowed to treat white patients. She was better off in England, from what Pru was saying. She hadn’t met any odd stares since they’d landed. And she could tell from the way men on the base had looked at her that they didn’t have the same taboos and prejudices here. They looked at her as they would have any other woman, not as an object of hatred, unbridled lust, or disdain. She felt like an ordinary person here, she could already tell. Although POW duty didn’t sound enticing, particularly caring for their enemies, and it wasn’t why she had come to England. She had come to fly on the air evacuation teams, but it sounded like she would get there eventually. She just had to go through some extra steps, which was still a better deal than she would have gotten in the States, where she would have been treated like a second-class citizen, or even subhuman, by some ignorant whites.

“Okay, so let’s get down to the important stuff,” Pru said after they ordered their second round of wine and ale. “Who has a boyfriend and who doesn’t?” They all laughed at the question.

“We’re a sorry lot,” Alex answered for them. “I don’t. I enlisted in order to avoid being married off to any dreary banker my parents considered socially desirable in New York. I bolted and went to nursing school, enlisted in the army after Pearl Harbor, and haven’t had a date since, or not one I cared about. My mother assures me that men hate women in ugly uniforms or with jobs. She says khaki’s not my color, and I look like hell in pants.” Pru and Emma laughed heartily at her blunt honesty, which was Alex’s usual style.