Recently, the German Luftwaffe had been sending bombers back to London. This Little Blitz had followed a three-year lull in major air raids since the Blitz.

Gene’s snoring competed with the siren, and Clay shook his friend’s shoulders. “Wake up. It’s an air raid.”

“Huh?” G. M. sat up. Wrinkles from the canvas pack crisscrossed one cheek.

“Air raid.” Clay grabbed his pack. “Big planes, big bombs, big booms. Let’s find a shelter.”

“You fellas must be new in town.” Three American airmen sat on the next bench in leather flight jackets and crush caps.

Clay’s breath caught, but Adler wasn’t among them. “Yes, sir.”

“Rookies,” the second airman said.

The first puffed out a plume of cigarette smoke. “Listen, pal. The Krauts do this ’most every night. Nothing to fuss about.”

Gene closed one eye, switched eyes, and his head slumped forward.

Clay could carry him in a pinch, but this wasn’t a pinch. He sat beside his buddy.

Curved girders arched high above him, with windows in a band along the top. Searchlight beams swung into view and out, brightening the cloudless sky.

Above the siren’s wail came a new sound, steady and insistent. Airplane engines.

The flyboys sat up straighter.

A whistling sound high above.

“Wake up, Gene. We’ve got to get down to the Tube.” He’d seen the stairs not far off. Rookie or no, it was time to move.

“I’m coming.”

More whistles, and the Rangers ran toward the stairs with the flyboys right behind them.

A sound like shattering glass, screeching metal, ripping earth. A force slammed into Clay’s back and knocked him to his hands and knees.

He cried out but couldn’t hear himself.

The sound receded. Glass tinkled in the distance.

Clay drew in a deep breath and assessed himself. Not even a scratch on his palms, thanks to his rope-climbing calluses.

Gene and the three airmen sat back on their heels, dazed but unharmed.

His ears ringing, Clay stood and turned around. Far down the tracks, smoke and dust rose and a gaping hole in the roof framed twisted girders. Thank goodness there were no trains or benches down that way. But what a lot of damage.

One bomb among thousands. One night among hundreds.

“This—this is why we’re here.”

27

TULLAHOMA
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1944

Leah caught her breath and looked at her watch. That contraction had arrived twelve minutes after the last one. Thank goodness Clay had sent her a wristwatch in February for her nineteenth birthday.

She pushed herself out of the rocking chair and surveyed her home. All was ready. Her morning chores were complete. Her suitcase had been packed for weeks, and every morning she added her toiletries and nightgown.