'What were you doing alone in the Kasbah, Doctor? You know we were told not to go there alone,' Gloria said. She was patting his hand and her soft southern voice had a singsong lilt to it, as if she was reminding a small child to look both ways before crossing. Dunbar was eating it up.
'I was lucky Boyle showed up when he did. Those two hoodlums took my wallet, my shoes, my hat Who knows what else they would have done to me!'
He was so amazed at his own luck that he forgot to thank me. He looked to Gloria for some more warm sympathy as Rita caught my eye and pulled the tape tightly across his bruised ribs. He gasped.
'Ow! What are you doing, trying to kill me?' Dunbar demanded.
'Don't worry, Doctor,' Rita said, 'Billy is here to protect you.'
Gloria turned her head, too much the senior officer and Southern belle to laugh at a doctor's discomfort. Rita didn't even crack a smile. I did, for all of us.
'I've had enough of your snotty comments!' Dunbar yelled, jumping up and grimacing as his ribs failed to cooperate. Still, he took a step toward Rita and she instinctively pulled back This guy could turn mean in a heartbeat, and I wasn't surprised that he took it out on the weakest one in the room. I half turned to get between them.
'You sure you don't need some morphine, Doc?' I asked 'You must be in a lot of pain.' He looked panic- stricken, stepped back, and regained the little self-control he had left.
'We don't prescribe morphine for minor injuries, and don't call me doc.'
He grabbed his jacket and walked out of the examining room. A little stiffly, but with all the grace of a Harvard man. A shoeless, thieving, broken-ribbed Harvard man.
'Poor fellow,' Gloria said.
'Yeah, I guess he's just too trusting to be let out on his own.'
'If I didn't know better, I'd say you didn't like our young Doctor Dunbar, Billy,' Gloria said, drilling me with those killer eyes.
'Oh, he's swell. I'm just a Townie, that's all. We never get along with the Harvard guys.'
'But you seem to be the kind of fellow who gets along with everyone, Billy. People around here could learn something from you.'
'Thank you, Captain. I'm sure I could learn from them, too.' About theft, smuggling, corruption, and murder.
Gloria walked out, throwing a look over her shoulder that said she'd be thinking of nobody but me until we met again. She was good. She was so good that she seemed to draw all attention to herself, and it was only when she was gone that I noticed Rita was still here, cleaning up bandages, tape, and gauze left over from patching Dunbar.
'She's meeting your Major Harding, you know,' Rita said.
'I'm not surprised. Apparently they used to be an item back in the States. Does Gloria… the captain, I mean, have anyone special here?'
'First, don't worry about the military courtesies here. We're a pretty loose outfit. First names are fine, unless it's Dunbar or Colonel Walton.'
'And second?'
'Secondly, Gloria likes to get her way with men. She can twist them around her Utile finger, in case you haven't noticed. But she hasn't gotten tied down with anyone since I've known her.'
'How long has that been?'
'Since we formed up in the States. I was in the first group of nurses assigned to the 21st.'
'So you were at the base outside of Blackpool?'
'Sure. We had it easy there. No casualties, occasionally a few patients, leave now and then. It was great.'
'Did you know the original supply sergeant, the one before Casselli?'
'Freddie? He was a nice guy. No one could understand why he took off like that.'
'What was his full name?'
'Frederick Hotchkiss. Why?'
'Do you think there's anything suspicious about two supply sergeants being taken out of the picture?'
'But Freddie deserted!' She frowned as she tossed the waste into a trashcan.
'How do you know that?'
'Gloria saw him drive out the main gate. He never came back. His personal gear was missing, so it seemed clear that he was gone for good.'
'Maybe Gloria was mistaken. Did anybody else see him leave?'
'No. It was late, after lights out.'
'No sentry at the gate?'
'No, we're a hospital, not a top secret military unit. People come and go all the time.' She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and touched her sleeve to her forehead, leaving little damp sweat spots on the soft green material. She looked tired.
'What was Gloria doing out that night?'
'I don't know, I don't keep tabs on her. You're a suspicious fellow, aren't you?'
'Goes with the job. How about you? Did you kill both sergeants?'
'No, I take care of patients. Doctors kill them.' She picked up a tray of instruments, turned, and walked out, giving me an imitation over-the-shoulder look like Gloria's, fluttering her eyelashes.
'Tell that cute friend of yours to come back so I can change his bandages. He's not married or anything, is he?'
'Kaz? No, not married. Or anything.'
She gave a little happy laugh as she left. I wondered if people understood how lucky they were when they could just be with someone they cared about. It sounded so easy. I started to think about Diana and suddenly realized that I was alone in the examining room for no good reason. Alone. It scared me. Stuck in a room alone, never able to move on and find the woman I love. It felt like a dream, a real bad dream. Like Kaz, waking up every day to the memory of loss, and the impossibility of ever having anything like the life he had once had. Or Vincent, sitting alone at a bar, sipping mint tea in an Arab bazaar, his homeland more memory than anything else, the dust of Algiers more familiar now than the streets of Warsaw. I looked at the four walls and shuddered a bit. I walked out without looking back over my shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
I was right on time, Johnny-on-the-spot, with a jeep to take Harding and me east, up the coast to the British Motor Torpedo Boat base. He’d drive back by himself. I thought about that return trip, with Harding alone at the wheel, and I felt as empty as the passenger seat beside him. Feelings of loneliness and fear still had me by the^ throat. I tried to shake off the willies and looked at my watch and the front entrance to the hospital, again. No Harding. I killed the engine and the sudden silence sprang out at me. I jumped a bit, sat back, then took a deep breath, trying to imagine what lay ahead, on the other side of Harding's solo return trip.
Villard's destination was known to the commander of the Vichy French supply depot at Bone. I'd be there tomorrow, and I had to hope he was the kind of CO who would stay at his post and not retire when the British Commandos on a couple of destroyers crashed the docks. I also hoped he was the kind of guy who would spill the beans about^ Villard's next stop. Of course, the best bet for a snitch wouldn't be a guy who'd stay at his post when things got hot and heavy. I'd have to get to the depot quickly, ahead of the Commandos, and do some fast talking, courtesy of the French-speaking British officer they were sending in with me.
I looked at my watch again. Harding was late, which wasn't like him. Was he sneaking in some time with his old girlfriend? Come to think of it, that wasn't like him either. That was like me. I was becoming irritated. There wasn't much to count on in this war, but Harding had been a consistent hard-ass West Pointer since I'd first met him in England. Now he was showing signs of being a normal guy, a Buy-you-a-drink-buddy? kinda guy. I didn't like it. I preferred my bosses predictable, so I could rely on them, one way or the other. It only meant trouble for me if
