especially when Da couldn’t get work because ‘No Irish Need Apply.’ We’ve worked hard to build something for you here, and we’re not going to let this war with the Japs and Germans take it away from you. It’s not our war. No one attacked Boston or Ireland. So we’re going to find a way to keep you safe. We don’t want you to get killed, like Frank.”
“Especially not fighting for the fucking English, Billy, you remember that,” Uncle Dan chimed in. Like any good IRA man, he hated the English. It had galled him to fight on the same side as the English in his war, and he didn’t want me to do the same in mine. Unfortunately, their plan didn’t go any farther than deciding I shouldn’t get killed, which sounded fine to me. We drank some more, and went home. Dad got yelled at. I went to sleep.
In the morning we went to Mass. That always calmed Mom down, and she was nice to Dad as we walked home from church. That’s when she got the idea. Her second cousin, one of the Doud clan that had moved to Colorado, was married to a general who worked at the War Plans Division of the War Department in Washington, D.C. Maybe he’d give me some sort of job there. I’d seen him last at a family wedding a few years ago. Since he was an older guy I called him “Uncle.” Uncle Ike.
The Boyle family put the wheels into motion. Dad called our congressman, Teddy McCarrick, who owed him for certain favors granted during the election. Teddy was glad to oblige, knowing there was always another election around the corner. Not only did I get an immediate qualification for Officer Candidate School, but he called a week later and told Dad that my uncle had asked Army Personnel to assign me to his staff as soon as I graduated OCS. Well, all right! On my uncle’s staff in the nation’s capital, where the women outnumbered the men ten to one and I’d be an officer and a gentleman. Not bad for an Irish kid from Boston. A lot better than a grave in France, according to Uncle Dan.
We only forgot one thing. The part of OCS that stood for “School.” I did fine in basic training. I’d always played sports and kept in shape. I knew firearms, which is more than I can say about the other guys in boot camp. I figured it was more dangerous around the firing range there than anyplace I’d ever see in this war. But then we went to school. Never liked it, never will. It wasn’t the kind of school where you could bullshit your way out of trouble, like I’d done many times back home. They really expected you to learn this stuff: map reading, tactics, command, logistics. It gave me a headache. I kept hoping that I’d find the exam answers slipped under my door, but this wasn’t Boston, and the noncoms were all Southern boys. Not an Irish guy among them.
Somehow, I made it. Rock bottom out of my company, but I made it. Before we got our bars my drill instructor told me I was the dumbest Irish Mick he had ever seen, and that was saying something. I thanked him for the compliment and thought, Imagine how surprised he’ll be tomorrow when we get our orders, and I go off to the War Plans Division. Ha! I’ll show him!
We got our orders all right, and Sarge really was surprised. So was I. I wasn’t going to D.C. I was going to London goddamn England, to the headquarters of the U.S. Army European Theater of Operations, General Dwight David Eisenhower commanding. Uncle Ike. In charge of the whole shooting match. Why, I had not a clue. I love my mom, but I had to think that maybe this was not one of her best ideas.
The plane stopped rocking and lurching. The storm had calmed down, and so did my stomach. The sun rose, or we caught up with it, and things started improving. We descended through white clouds, and when I went up to the cockpit I actually enjoyed the view. I was the only passenger, not because I was special, but because a Flying Fortress bomber was not meant to be a passenger plane. I had AAA travel priority, so I had been put on the first flight out of the States headed for England. This was it, or at least for a lowly lieutenant, this was it. I had never flown before-hell, I had never been out of Massachusetts before the Army-and the sight of England from the air was beautiful. So green and lush, small fields marked off by stone walls and clumps of houses at intersections, huddled together like storybook villages. I closed my eyes, mentally apologized to Uncle Dan, and then opened them to admire the greenness unfolding below me as we descended lower and lower.
We landed at a military airfield. I climbed down the metal steps to the runway, stiff from sitting so long on a hard seat. One of the crew threw down my duffel bag and waved so long. I caught it and waved back, wondering what the hell was going to happen now. I walked past the wing of the Fortress and stood on the wet tarmac. Rows of aircraft lined the field. At the end of the runway, off to the side, a twisted black hulk scarred the orderly landscape, its tail fin pointing up to the sky like a cross. A real confidence builder.
A jeep pulled out from a nearby hangar and stopped next to me. It was misting slightly, and the officer driving it had his trench-coat collar turned up and his service-cap visor pulled down. My own trench coat was rumpled from the long trip, and my tie was undone. Scarf. I had to remember they called ties “scarves” in the army, just to confuse honest civilians. I saw the officer, a major, look down at my shoes with a grimace of distaste. I looked down, too. They were flecked with dried vomit.
“You must be Lieutenant William Boyle. Get in.”
In my wisest decision since I arrived in England, I kept my mouth shut, and got in.
CHAPTER TWO
The ride into London was damp and chilly, and it wasn’t just the weather. It was almost July, but it felt like a cold April day back home, even when the mist let up and rays of sun peeked out between the clouds. Outside the base we drove past fields of thick, wet grass dotted by sheep that ignored the aircraft roaring above them as fighter engines revved and flaps lowered. We put the base behind us, and houses began to appear along the road, then a village, then rows of houses and shops as we reached the edge of London. The mist began again and I turned up the collar of my trench coat, cold hands fumbling with the button at the neck. I shivered. A combination of dampness and lack of sleep sent a chill through my body. The cool moisture felt good on my face.
Major Samuel Harding didn’t do much to warm things up in the way of conversation. He introduced himself without shaking hands, and made it clear he wasn’t picking me up in order to be a nice guy, in case I was too dumb to figure that out. Maybe that sergeant from OCS had talked to him.
“Ike asked me to get you settled in. I’ll drop you at the Dorchester Hotel. We’ve got a number of officers billeted there, and it’s just a few blocks from headquarters. HQ is at 20 Grosvenor Square. Get cleaned up. I’ll expect you at 1100 hours.”
“OK.”
“The proper response is ‘Yes, sir,’ Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Having demonstrated the fact that I was a real quick learner, I searched for another way to impress him. Nothing came to mind, so I kept my yap zipped. He returned the favor, a tight-lipped grimace telling me he wasn’t happy being chauffeur to Ike’s nephew.
The road was narrow and I had to draw in my elbow when vehicles came the other way. It was strange sitting in the passenger’s seat as Harding drove on the left-hand side of the road. Every car and truck seemed to come within inches of us, and there was nowhere to pull over. Hedges ran along both sides of the road, and where there were buildings they came right up to the edge. Why the hell did the Brits have to drive on the wrong side? And why these skinny roads? We drove on into London, the road widening a bit but still not enough for two trucks to pass each other with more than inches to spare. Lorries. That’s what they’d told us the Brits called trucks. We had been briefed in OCS on language differences and how to make nice with the Brits. Don’t flash your money around, GIs are paid more than British officers, stuff like that. Me, I couldn’t have cared less. The English had had their time in the sun when they conquered Ireland and ran it like their private preserve, killing and starving out my ancestors. If I hurt a few feelings waving around a sawbuck or two, big deal.
Harding didn’t point out the sights on the way to the hotel. Some of those sights were piles of rubble where apartment houses and office buildings used to be. The Blitz hadn’t been as bad as it had been the previous year, but the place was still a target. As we passed by a row of white-painted brick houses with a gap like a missing front tooth in a wide grin, I caught sight of a river that I figured was the Thames. A pile of blackened rubble covered the ground between the houses, weeds creeping over the remains of the unlucky home. We turned a corner and had to stop as workers in blue coveralls hauled bricks away from a smoldering pile of debris that had slid out into the street. People going to work walked around the mess, carrying their newspapers, umbrellas, and briefcases as if it were completely normal to walk past bomb-damaged buildings. Shops across the street had OPEN FOR BUSINESS painted on wood planks nailed over shattered windows.
