Here I go again. After using them in supporting roles through "Front Page News," "Autumn 1945" and "Scotch And Fire," I decided Larry Casey and Dee Ryan deserved their own story. This one is set in the early days of the Black Sheep, shortly after the squadron was formed.
I am not a nurse. I have no medical training (other than a few random ER visits for self-inflicted stupidity) and since I never intended these stories to reflect Ph.D. thesis-level research, please be so kind as to overlook any technical errors and just roll with it. I am not a pilot or an expert on anything military or World War II - just a fan of the Black Sheep who enjoys creating the stories of the girls who were part of their world.
XXX
Between the missions and non-stop black market dealing, Larry Casey already had more than he'd bargained for when he signed on with the Black Sheep. He didn't need an outspoken – and attractive – Navy nurse complicating things. Chasing skirts was fine for the other guys but his high school sweetheart would be waiting for him at the altar when he got home.
Chapter 1 – In the beginning
1943
Somewhere off the coast of Bougainville
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord -"
Lieutenant Larry Casey wasn't a terribly religious guy but the words of the Apostle's Creed flashed unbidden through his mind, along with scenes from the first 21 years of his life.
He'd been raised Lutheran and like so many, had drifted away from the church before the ink was dry on his confirmation certificate. Now, however, seemed like a really good time for him to get reacquainted with the Man Upstairs, preferably before he met Him on terms that were not his own. The odds of that seemed to be increasing by the minute. He was already upstairs so at least he wouldn't have far to go.
Casey thought this had been a good idea when it started. Such a simple notion, little more than an exchange of paperwork. What could go wrong with that?
After all, he hadn't thought he had any business processing dispositions of court martial for the entire Southwest Pacific theater and Major Greg Boyington had been happy to take them off his hands. Casey had gotten a stack of supply forms in exchange and thought he was much more qualified to handle those.
Somewhere along the line it had turned into a completely hair-brained scheme that was going to get him killed. How had he let Greg talk him into this? Yeah, he was a fighter pilot and yeah, he wanted to fly with a real combat squadron, but this was insanity. This screwball collection of Marine Corps rejects was no more combat ready than his aunt Mabel.
The silver white wings of a Japanese Zero caught the sun as they flashed by his more powerful, but slower, Vought F4U Corsair, separating him further from the rest of the squadron. As he looked up through his canopy and saw the first Zero start to climb, Casey felt a rash of 20 mm rounds bite into his plane's starboard wing, puncturing metal with brutal efficiency. Damnit, now a second enemy plane was chewing on him.
He rolled in a desperate attempt to get away but the Zeke stuck on him. He was a skilled enough pilot and had held his own for most of the air battle over the Japanese-held airstrip at Bougainville but collateral damage was starting to take a toll on his bird. He had no doubt if this pair of pilots cat and moused him much longer, he'd be going swimming. Beneath him, the dark green waters of the Solomon Slot sparkled in the morning sunlight. He wondered if he ought to start climbing for altitude now, so when the inevitable happened, he'd be high enough to bail. If he even got a chance to bail.
" . . was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day He rose again from the dead . . ."
He had no idea where his wingman was. He barely knew who his wingman was. He'd only flown with Jerry Bragg a couple of times in training and once on a simple patrol, not a real mission. No one had been trying to kill them then.
That had all changed in a hurry when Greg launched this eight ball idea to prove a point to Colonel Lard. Lard wasn't going to give the 214 any missions because he had it in for Greg. So Greg had created his own mission, just like he'd created his own squadron. The man firmly believed if you wanted something done right, you did it yourself.
Casey knew the major was no fool. He'd been flying for General Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group in China while Casey was still back home, coaxing his high school sweetheart into giving up her virginity. Greg knew exactly what he was doing, although Casey thought he might have over-estimated the squadron's combat ready status just a little bit.
They'd lured the Japanese fighters up by masquerading as a bomber wing. It had worked just fine. Casey had flamed two Zeroes in the early stages of the dog fight, blasting one just as the pilot had Don French level in his sights, then sending another diving in a trail of fatal smoke. Casey had been trying to draw the pressure off TJ Wiley – hoping to keep the kid alive long enough that Jim Gutterman didn't have to find a new wingman so soon – when these two had neatly cut him out and began their deadly game.
" . . .the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen."
He juked hard to right but the Zero clung stubbornly and Casey heard the now familiar thwack-thwack-thwack of lead stitching into metal. A glance down at his gauges told him the only thing he had going for him was his fuel level. Temp and oil pressure were running high and low, respectively. If he could just limp back to Vella La Cava now, without anyone trying to put more holes in him, he might be able to set his bird down in one piece. The odds of that weren't looking good. If he got the chance to bail out and if the drop into the ocean didn't kill him, he might still end up as shark bait.
He wondered what Iris would say when they told her.
Static crackled in his headset.
"Hey Lawrence, are you in need of assistance?" It was Bob Anderson's casually formal voice.
Casey sagged with relief and keyed his throat mike. "If you boys don't already have a full dance card, that sure would be fine."
"Son of a bitch, Wiley, get out of the way. He don't need anyone else shooting at him!" Casey recognized Jim's trademark snarl.
"On my mark, Casey, break left," Greg's voice was cool. "Three, two, one, now!"
Casey banked his plane over hard to port. He could hear the pounding of the two approaching Corsairs' 50 mm guns as they dove on the Japanese pilots. He circled his damaged aircraft out of the way, watching as one of the Zekes spiraled toward the water, then disappeared amidst a plume of foam. The second exploded mid-air and he watched the pursuing American plane's wings cut through the fireball as it burst into the clear.
"Cutting it a little close, aren't you Jim?" Greg said drily.
"Got a little cooked but I'm fine," Jim replied. "I ain't on fire, am I?"
"The rest of 'em have turned tail," Anderson reported. "Looks like they had enough."
"Thanks, guys!" Casey's relief was palpable. He might live through this day after all.
"Form up on me, we're headed home," Greg ordered. "Let's hear a damage report."
One by one, the Black Sheep called out their kills as well as their birds' flight status. Several of the planes, including Casey's, were in questionable shape but the pilots had tallied 18 air victories in their second engagement as a squadron. The teamwork Casey had questioned had risen to the occasion. Maybe the whole really was better than the sum of the parts. This would make Lard sit up and take notice, although he wasn't convinced that was really a good thing.
So this was what it felt like to fly with a real combat squadron, he thought as he nursed his plane back to the base. The gauges were slipping into red-line as he set it down on Vella La Cava's packed dirt airstrip. Now if he could just stay alive long enough to enjoy it, that would be a bonus.
XXX
Several weeks later
Espritos Marcos, Allied Command Rear Area
U.S. Navy Nursing Corps Lieutenant Dee Ryan lay on her bunk in the nurses' barracks, a forearm flung over her face, and wondered why she hadn't done something sensible like get married right out of high school. Lots of her classmates had. Get married and get pregnant. That would have been sensible. She could have at least three kids by now and her biggest problem would be having enough clean diapers to go around and putting dinner on the table for her husband when he came home from the office. She liked babies well enough. It wouldn't have been a bad choice.
She stared at the orders laying on her nightstand. Orders sending her someplace she'd never heard of. Again. This was not sensible.
She didn't regret choosing a career in nursing but the recent turn it had taken made her question why she had ever decided to join the Navy. Her grandfather had served in World War I and after an influenza outbreak claimed both of Dee's parents while she was in nursing school, it seemed like a loyal, patriotic choice. Her family was gone. What else was she going to do? That was before Pearl Harbor. Pearl had changed everything and her dreams of serving in a quiet hospital on a stateside base, then moving into a private practice, flew right out the window.
She'd welcomed the transfer to the South Pacific a month ago. It got her out of London and she was just fine with that. She'd had enough of Hitler's bombs falling on her head. Espritos Marcos in the Solomons chain was nice enough for a backwater rear area. Not much happened here, at least in terms of being routinely bombed. She could focus on her job, which she really did love. She was a good nurse and she knew it.
Plus, Espritos was relatively civilized, at least for this corner of the war. The officers' club was lovely, the food was good, the accommodations were comfortable. The beach was a delight and there was even a small movie theater. The movies were six months out of date by the time they got here but it had been that way in the small town where she grew up so she was used to it.
Now she'd been transferred again. This time she was headed to a hospital on some little front area island she'd never heard of. Vella La Something. Some place that got attacked routinely by the Japanese.
Just great. She rolled onto her stomach and wrapped her arms around her pillow.
No wonder they were looking for nurses who were willing to commit to serving there for the long haul, not the usual six-week in-and-out rotation. The promotion they'd dangled in front of her should have made her think twice but she'd jumped at the chance for lieutenant's bars. Now hindsight had her wondering if she'd just leaped out of the frying pan into a bomb crater.
Vella La Whatever was directly in the Empire of Japan's gun sights. She doubted there would be much in the line of linen tablecloths or dancing at the officers' club. She doubted they even had an officers' club. She was pretty sure they wouldn't have linen anything. Dee guessed she was all right with that. She was a North Dakota farm girl and while there was a lot to be said for creature comforts, if push came to shove she could make do without them.
The hospital she'd been reassigned to was smaller than the one on Espritos. Most of the patients were men from nearby island bases and the fighter pilots from the squadron that shared the island.
She'd heard plenty about those pilots - VMF 214, the Black Sheep. Their reputation preceded them and that was saying something, since they'd been formed for less than a month.
The new 214, anyway. The old 214 had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, something to do with a malaria scare that no one could quite pin down and once they did, it was too late because those pilots had all been reassigned. The new CO on Vella La Wherever, Major Greg Boyington, had moved his boys in and started laying waste to the Imperial Air Force within days.
Boyington was a law unto himself and even the formidable Colonel Thomas Lard was helpless to control the Black Sheep, especially since they had General Thomas Moore backing them up. She knew Colonel Lard on a professional basis. He had a wicked stomach ulcer and came to the clinic when it flared up. Funny, she'd seen him there a lot more in the last few weeks.
From what she'd heard, the only thing standing between Boyington and the court martial of him and every single man in the squadron was an impressive kill record and the intercession of General Moore. She'd met General Moore, too, and thought he was sensible enough. At least sensible enough not to take down a squadron that did what it was supposed to do, not just sit around swatting mosquitoes. The Black Sheep appeared to be very, very good at what they did.
Apparently, they were working their way through the nursing staff at the hospital on Vella La Someplace with the same single-minded efficiency. She'd talked to one of the nurses who had been rotated out from there just last week. Skirt-chasing, booze-swilling and arrogant were a few of the nicer descriptions she'd heard. And it wasn't just one or two of them Annie Franklin had assured her. It was the whole squadron, up to and including their CO. The whole lot of them were trouble.
Dee hoped the promotion was worth it.
XXX
The C-47 transport landed on the Vella La Cava airstrip, disgorged its contents without fanfare and took off again, leaving Dee standing alone amidst the mud puddles. A hot breeze teased at her hair, pulling tendrils from the carefully pinned twist at the back of her neck. She absently pushed the loose hair behind one ear and looked around. She hadn't expected a welcoming committee, which was good, since she obviously wasn't going to get one. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and started walking toward the collection of tents and ramshackle buildings that constituted the fighter base.
She knew the hospital was on the other end of the island and hoped she wasn't expected to hoof it the entire way there, especially in a skirt and pumps. Apparently no one from the hospital was expecting her. Or maybe they were, but expected her to get to the facility without anyone coming to fetch her. She sighed and adjusted her bag. She'd always been the self-reliant type and since joining the Navy, it had become second nature. She'd been posted as both a triage and surgical nurse at St. Thomas Hospital in London and after dealing with Hitler's handiwork for more than a year, Dee had developed a rather cavalier attitude toward the lesser inconveniences of life.
Things could be worse than a walk on a sunny afternoon. And she might be young but she wasn't stupid. Nice legs and big brown eyes could get you almost anywhere you wanted to go on a base full of flyboys. If half the things she'd heard about the Black Sheep were true, she was confident she wouldn't have to walk very far before one of the men who called the base home would offer her a ride.
She studied the olive drab canvas tents strung along the muddy central track. She'd already passed the flight line with its collection of battered Corsairs, the favored warbirds of the theatre. The thumping and yelling that echoed back and forth indicated mechanics hard at work. Just ahead, a low pitched building with palm fronds thatching the roof seemed a likely place to find someone who would give her a ride. A sign on the front of the building read "The Sheep Pen."
The Sheep Pen?
She was still contemplating this when the door to the building opened and three officers stepped out, deep in conversation. Two of the men were tall and lean, the third one shorter with a hard, muscled build. The latter was saying, "What Lard doesn't know won't hurt him. As long as we keep making him look good, he'll stay off our case. In the meantime - "
All three of them noticed her at once and stopped. Target acquired. Dee rolled her eyes mentally. Pilots were all the same. Europe. The Pacific. It didn't matter. She prepared to offer just enough flirt to get a ride but not so much they thought she was actually interested. She didn't know any of them well enough to know if she was interested. She liked men as much as the next girl, possibly more, but she wasn't about to give them any ideas. Pilots tended to have enough ideas already.
As they approached, she realized with a little jolt there wasn't a bad looking one in the bunch. Two with dark hair and a tow-head. All three were smiling. She recognized the look – the self-assured smugness of men who are used to having women find them irresistible. At least the dark-haired ones looked that way. The light-haired boy just looked perfectly friendly, which probably meant he was the one to watch out for, she thought.
Her mind was processing this when the wail of an air raid siren shattered the tropical afternoon. Dee froze. She hadn't heard an air raid siren since leaving London three months ago. Since then, she'd managed to put them, and the nightmare horrors that accompanied them, out of her mind. The drone of incoming aircraft followed. She looked up and could make out two, no, four, dark images coming in fast against the clear blue sky.
The trio of men bolted toward her, then past.
"Come on! This way!" the light haired boy yelled. He grabbed her elbow without slowing. Not having much choice, she dropped her bag and stumbled after him. Ahead, the first two men leaped into a foxhole without breaking stride. There was something about the efficiency of their movements that made Dee think they'd had a lot of practice. She gathered herself as the boy holding her arm followed suit and they both leaped into thin air. She landed with an ungraceful thud at the bottom of the foxhole as the first enemy plane came into view.
"Get down!" someone yelled unnecessarily. The guy who'd grabbed her elbow – he still hadn't let go, she noticed – wrapped his arms around her and pulled her solidly against him. She was about to protest this sudden familiarity when two planes came in side by side, laying down a rain of hot lead.
The impact of the rounds sent dirt and pebbles spraying into the foxhole, stinging the exposed skin on her arms. Dee felt her stomach clench. Above them, she heard the sharp twang of ammunition chewing through wood and metal. A second duo of planes swept over the camp in a low strafing run.
This was not what I signed up for, she thought as the arms of her protector tightened and she pressed her face against his chest. She'd given up pride a long time ago and the arms around her gave at least the illusion of protection. She'd survived the Blitz, sometimes in an underground tube station, sometimes above ground on a hospital ward, her choice to stay with patients who couldn't be moved. She was a firm believer in any port in a storm.
Something very solid landed with a resounding thump on her legs and Dee let out an unladylike ooof! She pulled her head back far enough to see a white bull terrier smiling at her as it crawled into her lap.
"Meatball! You damned fool!" one of the men swore. "Get off of her!"
"It's all right," Dee started to say, but was cut short as the planes came around for another pass. She wrapped an arm around the dog and pulled it close. The dog buried its muzzle against her chest with obvious delight. Anti-aircraft fire rattled from one of the nearby foxholes.
And then the marauders were gone. The four of them sat in silence for a moment, the sky above them once again a serene blue. The men climbed out of the hole. When they turned to help her out, she scooped up the dog – Meatball, who names a dog Meatball? - who was heavier than he looked, and shoved him awkwardly upward. Then she grasped the proffered hands and let them pull her out in an undignified scramble that completed the ruination of her stockings.
The tow-headed boy let go of her hand and stepped back. She shoved her hat out of her face. He was her age, tall and spare, with blue-eyed good looks that could have walked off a recruiting poster. He held out his hand and smiled apologetically.
"Larry Casey. Sorry about that. I usually don't grab girls and throw them in holes before I know their name."
She shook his hand.
"Dee Ryan. Under the circumstances, I'll overlook the lapse in etiquette. It would have been bad if my first day here was my last. Thanks, Larry."
"Casey. Just Casey. No one around here calls me Larry. You're new to the hospital?"
"I took a permanent assignment here in trade for a promotion," Dee said, looking around at the ensuing chaos as personnel scrambled to do damage control. "Starting to wonder how smart that was. Do you guys get shot up like this on a regular basis?"
"Um, lately, yeah," Casey said.
"Are you all right, Lieutenant?" The shorter of the two dark-haired men addressed her. He had stunning blue eyes in a handsome face. His smile took in her disheveled countenance with a sweeping glance that was appreciative without being offensive. The tall officer behind him let his dark eyes walk over her like a physical touch. She wanted to slap him for it even though he was kind of cute. If these three were a representative sample, this unit appeared to be staffed with very good-looking men, she thought.
She looked down. Her clothing was streaked with dirt and her stockings were beyond repair. There were muddy paw prints on her skirt.
"I'm in one piece, I think that's what matters. If Lar – Casey – hadn't grabbed me, I might not have been so lucky."
"I'm Major Greg Boyington, these are my executive officers, Captain Jim Gutterman and you've met Casey. That's Private Meatball. Thanks for putting up with him, he has a thing for women. Welcome to Vella La Cava, Lieutenant."
Dee blinked. These were the infamous Black Sheep? Aside from the way the tall, dark and obnoxious one was still looking at her, they'd been complete gentlemen. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Of course, she hadn't expected to be drug into a foxhole within five minutes of landing here, either. She tried not to take it personally.
Greg looked around at the base and scrubbed a hand over his face. A nearby jeep was a smoking ruin. Men were scrambling to put out a fire near the flight line. The support structure of the nearest tent had been damaged badly enough the whole thing was listing to one side. As they watched, it collapsed with elephantine grace.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered. "Casey, find a jeep that's not on fire and take Lieutenant Ryan to the hospital before Delmonte accuses us of kidnapping another one of her girls." Dee's eyebrows shot up but the major didn't seem inclined to elaborate. "Jim, you come with me. I'm going to Espritos and have a heart-to-heart with Colonel Lard. That's the third time in two weeks those raiders have hit us. I don't want to tell Lard how to run this war but apparently somebody needs to."
Casey turned to Dee.
"Sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine, really." She reached out and gripped his forearm. "But it looks like a bit of debris caught you." She stretched and swiped at blood welling from a small cut on his cheekbone. "You should clean that and – "
"Pappy!" A man's voice yelled. They turned as a group. A stout fellow in a football jersey – a football jersey? - ran up and slid to a halt. "Boyle got hit. They got him on that last pass."
"Is it serious?"
"He's bleeding bad. It won't stop."
Dee stepped forward.
"Show me where he is."
The boy noticed her for the first time, took in the nursing corps insignia on her hat. A look of relief washed over his face.
"This way, ma'am!" He took off in a sprint, covering the ground with considerable speed for someone that hefty. Dee was right behind him, followed by the others.
Two boys were huddled around a third on the ground outside a nearby tent. Dee could see the scarlet stain on his thigh. Bright crimson. Arterial blood. Shit. She went down on her knees beside him.
"Boyle caught a round on that last run. He was moving the Scotch out of the jeep into the supply tent," one of the men said.
"Scotch? Really? He got shot over a case of Scotch?" Greg gave him a disbelieving look, then shrugged. "There might be hope for him yet."
"It's the stuff we're trading with the Seabees on Rendova for the generator to trade with the Navy on New Caledonia for the beer cooler. We couldn't let it get blown up," another added helpfully.
Dee did a fast evaluation.
"A direct hit from a 20 mm round would have torn his leg apart," she said. "More like he caught a ricochet or some shrapnel when that jeep got hit." She indicated the smoking ruin of the nearby vehicle.
She realized the men were staring at her with open mouths.
"You've seen combat injuries before?" Greg asked.
"Ten months at St. Thomas' in London, before Hitler blew it up." Dee didn't look up. Using both hands, she grabbed the torn trousers and ripped the fabric open to expose the deep wound on the boy's inner thigh. Dear God. It must have nicked the femoral artery. That was the only way to explain the obscene amounts of blood. Boyle groaned.
She pointed at Casey. He looked cleaner than any of the present company.
"Give me your shirt."
He didn't hesitate but peeled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it to her. She fashioned it into a quick pad, placed it over the wound and looked around.
"You, what's your name?" She pointed at the husky fellow.
"Bragg, ma'am. Jerry Bragg."
"Jerry, I need you to put direct pressure on this bandage. Use both hands."
She turned to the pilot standing nearest. Jim? "You - down here." He dropped to his knees beside her. She grabbed his hand and slapped it onto Boyle's groin. She adjusted his fingers slightly and pressed them down. "Pressure point. Keep your hand there. Don't move it. Trust me, he'll live to thank you for it later and then you can make him buy you dinner."
She unknotted her tie and yanked it off.
"I need to make a tourniquet. I'm afraid he'll bleed out before we can get to this hospital of yours. Can someone bring a – " she stopped short when a jeep pulled up, nearly running over the unfortunate Boyle's feet. Casey ran to assist the driver as he grabbed a stretcher out of the back.
"Perfect." She looked back at Greg. "Get someone on the horn to the hospital and tell them to expect a male patient, early 20s, trauma to the upper thigh, he's shocky and I don't know how much blood he's lost but he's going to need at least a couple of units."
"TJ, you're up," Greg said. "Go."
A tall, sandy-haired pilot loped off in the opposite direction.
"Lift him so I can wrap this around his leg," Dee said, brandishing her tie. "And find me something to tighten it down with."
With Jerry holding the bandage in place and Jim keeping a wary hand on the pressure point, Greg and Casey rolled Boyle onto his side. Dee slipped her tie around his leg, above the bloody hole in his trousers. A wrench appeared over her shoulder and she took it without looking back, thanking her unseen provider as she slid it into the tourniquet and tied it in place with a square knot.
"Now, lift him onto the stretcher on three – one, two, three." She looked up and shoved dark hair behind her ear. "Any of you boys oh-negative?"
Casey and Greg both nodded.
"Good. Get the stretcher on the jeep, then you're coming to the hospital with me to give blood. Jerry, Jim, you can let go now. Thank you for your help. Major?" She looked up. Greg was studying her with a kind of quiet amusement in spite of the seriousness of the situation. "Drive."
She climbed into the jeep and wedged herself between the seats, holding the tourniquet tight with one hand and keeping pressure on the wound with the other. It might be overkill she thought, but it was going to look really bad if the first patient she treated died on the way to the hospital. Casey balanced backward in the front seat, stabilizing the stretcher. Greg put the jeep in gear and they took off.
If the men had found it odd to be taking orders from a woman they'd just met, none of them had said a word.