screwing everything up. I tried to get by on the shoulder of the narrow road, but the ground was wet and muddy, so I decided to wait. The GIs on the truck next to me broke out smokes and started to chatter.
“Hey,” one of them yelled. “Lookit Mrs. Roosevelt’s niggers over there! Don’t them boys know there’s no cotton in them fields!” More catcalls and insults followed, some of the men turning away and shaking their heads. The men of the 617th were too far away to know what was being said, but I saw them look in our direction. They didn’t need to hear the words; they knew what a truckload of whites screaming at them meant. There might have been a time when I would have ignored taunts like these, or thought of them as nothing but ignorant, but seeing Tree again reminded me of how hurtful they were, and how ashamed I felt, deep inside, when I heard them and did nothing.
“Can it!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “They’re helping to search for a missing girl. Which is a lot more than you’re doing right now.”
“Well, Captain, if there’s a missing white girl, the last thing I’d do is send a pack of niggers to look for her. They probably took her in the first place.” The loudmouth looked around for someone to join him, but an officer and a missing girl took the wind out of their sails.
“Sorry, Captain,” one of the men, a PFC who had been quiet, spoke up. “Some of us are still fighting the Civil War over here. Right, Bobby Lee?” Laughter broke the tension, and one of the men leaned over the side of the truck.
“Captain, is that the Tank Destroyer outfit, the one bivouacked in Hungerford?”
“Yeah, the Six-Seventeenth.”
“I’ll tell ya, if we run up against any Tiger tanks over in France, and we got one of them battalions backing us up, I won’t care much what color skin those gunners have, long as they stand their ground,” the PFC said.
“Niggers can’t fight,” the loudmouth said. “Everyone knows that.”
“I knew a guy in Boston,” I said. “A Negro who fought in the last war. You should tell the Frenchman who awarded him the Legion of Merit about that. Or maybe all the Germans he killed.”
The truck lurched ahead, taking their laughter, hatreds, and fears away. The line of men in the fields kept moving too, until they disappeared into the woods. Of the 617th, the paratroopers on the road, the GIs in the trucks, how many would be alive after we went into France? How many of them would even care about their petty prejudices and beliefs once bullets and steel flew in their direction? And afterwards, if the 617th and other colored units did get into the fight, would anything be different? The world had changed so much in the last few years, it seemed impossible for everything to go back to how it was. But what would it be like five or ten years from now? I had no idea. Finding Stuart Neville’s killer was hard enough.
Crossing the bridge, I saw the Dundas Arms where Payne was coordinating the search. Police vehicles and US Army trucks were parked in the field where men with walkie-talkies barked commands. Kintbury itself was nice enough, narrow streets with red brick structures built close to the road, a few shops and pubs, but that was it. I could see why Tree hadn’t wanted to trade Hungerford for this village when it came time for off-duty entertainment. I took a right on Hungerford Road, where a sparse run of shops and homes gave way to countryside. Fields with stubble from the autumn harvest stretched out on either side, and it was easy to spot the manor house the Channel Island girls called home. Trees lined the gravel drive, overgrown with weeds, but once likely spotless. The three-story house sported tall chimneys at the sides, high windows, and shrubs that had been halfheartedly trimmed. Unlike most of the buildings in Berkshire, this wasn’t built with brick, but rather granite reflecting a pinkish hue in the sunlight. A plaque on the wall read AVINGTON SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. I knocked at the front door, and was greeted by a girl of maybe nine or ten.
“Good day. May I help you, sir?” The words were obviously rehearsed.
“Yes, I’d like to speak to the headmistress, please.”
“All right,” she said, leading me down a hallway. “My name’s Nancy. Are you one of the Americans out looking for Sophia? Have you found her yet?”
“Not yet, Nancy. But an awful lot of soldiers are searching for her right now.”
“Good,” she said, and knocked on a door before opening it. “Miss Ross, there’s a Yank here to see you.”
“Thank you, Nancy. Would you run and tell Miss Jacobs that I will be with her shortly?”
“Captain Billy Boyle,” I said as Nancy raced off on her errand.
“Laurianne Ross,” she said, extending her hand. “Have you any news about Sophia?”
“No, I’m sorry. Only more questions.”
“Please, have a seat,” she said, returning to her desk. She was in her thirties, small, with longish dark hair and a look that said she was disappointed I didn’t bring good news.
“I wish I had something to tell you, Miss Ross, besides that the search is still going on.”
“It’s Mrs. Ross, actually. Miss Ross is just what the girls call me. My husband is in Burma. Or so he was two months ago when I last heard. Tell me, Captain Boyle, why are you here? I know the American army is helping with the search today, but is that your connection?”
I could tell I wasn’t about to pull the wool over this lady’s eyes. I decided to try something different and tell the truth. “I am working with Inspector Payne, but on another case. Did you hear about the murder in Newbury yesterday? Two days ago, to be precise.”
“No. Who was killed? Is the school involved in any way?”
“I don’t think so. A man named Stuart Neville, who worked at the Newbury Building Society. Are you familiar with it?”
“Of course I am, and so is anyone else who grew up in this area, as I did. Ask your question, Captain, I have my girls to look after.”
“Okay. In the past month or so, have any of the girls had a visit from a relative? Perhaps someone who escaped from the Channel Islands?”
“Captain, these girls are here precisely because they have no close relatives in England, none that would take them in. Their families are all trapped on Guernsey. There’s most of the English Channel to deal with, not to mention the Germans.”
“But some have escaped. A small boat could make the trip. You haven’t heard of such a thing?”
“No, sad to say. If I had, I might not tell you, since there could be reprisals if word got out. Better for the Germans to think a man was lost at sea, don’t you think?”
“Yes. But no one has come around?”
“No,” she said as she pulled her cardigan sweater tight. “I do wish the council chap would come by though. He promised more coal. Is there anything else?”
“No. Thank you for your time. Caring for the girls must be demanding,” I said as I rose to leave. I wished she had given me some hope for my theory of a relative from Guernsey. I wondered at her admission that she might have lied to me if it were true. It was honest, at least, but it led me to question everything else she had said.
“It keeps me busy. We have a teacher in during the day and a cook who lives here. But so many girls can be a handful, no matter how delightful they are.” She walked me to the front door, as a great sadness washed across her face.
“Sophia. Was she one of the delightful ones?” I winced at my use of the past tense, but it was too late.
“Yes. And one of the oldest. She was quite a help, actually. Then one day she was gone. She and some of the other girls had walked together to the sweet shop in town. They decided to take the long way back, along the canal path. There’s a lane off the main road that leads to a small stone bridge. It was a warm day, and they like playing by the bunkers.”
“Bunkers?”
“You’ll find them all along the canal, on the north side. This was to be the main defense line in case of invasion. They’re all abandoned now, of course. Inspector Payne searched them first, thinking Sophia might have fallen and been hurt, but there was no sign of her. She’d simply vanished while the girls were playing. They thought she’d come back here ahead of them, and thought nothing about it. Do you think they will find her? Alive, I mean.”
“If she is alive,” I said, deciding to stick with the truth, “she’s far away from this search.”
“Then someone took her. Either alternative is horrible. But tell me, Captain Boyle, why did you ask only about relatives in connection with your murder? I understand you would want to know about any suspicious
