Jess stared at him, bewildered by the swift shift of the conversation.

“Good work, Stone,” another PRO said approvingly as he passed.

“Thank you, Sir,” Warren replied obsequiously, falling into step with his superior and following him out of the lobby.

Jess gathered her belongings and sat down to wait for Major Hallworth, riled by everything Stone had said, but trying not to be.

Thankfully Dan soon arrived and greeted her cordially as she seated herself in the jeep. He introduced her to the two men in the back, Private Sparrow and Private Jennings—one blond and tall, the other red-headed and short—and both as green as her. “They’re replacements,” Dan said.

Jess winced at everything the term implied.

The two men gaped at her, then Sparrow, obviously the bolder of the two, gave her a suggestive hello and started to ask, “Say, aren’t you…” before Dan quashed the flirtation with a look.

As they pulled out onto the road, Jess asked, “Shouldn’t they be driving you? Don’t majors get drivers?”

“As you found out in Italy, just because someone’s driving a jeep, it doesn’t mean they know where they’re going. Those two haven’t a clue.” Dan lowered his voice when he said it and she knew he didn’t mean they were unsure of the route, but that they wouldn’t be able to conceive of what awaited them in Italy.

She turned back to the two privates and gave them a smile; it was all she had to offer. Jennings looked like the kind of man she didn’t realize still existed: innocent, a newly baptized babe who blushed furiously at her. Sparrow, on the other hand, took the smile as if it were his due, leaning back in the seat, arm casually outflung, but then a car backfired nearby and she could have sworn she saw him jump and whiten. He immediately reached for a cigarette, no longer meeting her eye.

Jess returned her attention to Dan and decided to risk asking a few questions. “You were a captain. Now you’re the major of a…what? And are you infantry?” She tried to see his division patch. “I’m still coming to terms with army structures and ranks and, at the risk of sounding stupid, I need some education.”

“It’s not stupid,” Dan said. “The U.S. Army is a world unto itself. I’m a paratrooper. Airborne division.” He pointed to the AA on his sleeve. “In charge of a company.”

A paratrooper. The Italian campaign was the first time paratroopers had ever been used, an elite squad of men trained within an inch of their lives to be dropped by plane behind enemy lines to wreak havoc and provide land support to an amphibious assault, such as that at Sicily. Jess was impressed but she only asked, “What were you doing in London? I don’t imagine you came all the way here just for me.”

“My company had been in combat for sixty-nine days. Mightn’t sound like a lot but in those conditions it’s too much. We got leave and I didn’t have the patience to jitterbug around the dance floor at the Orange Club in Naples, which is crawling with VD anyway…” It was his turn to wince. “Sorry,” he said.