This is an alternate ending (and a whole lot more) to the episode "Last One For Hutch." The Black Sheep's base on Vella La Cava is the target of hit and run attacks by the Japanese. Planes are damaged, oil supplies are dwindling and Sergeant John "Hutch" Hutchinson is burning the candle at both ends keeping the squadron in the air. Colonel Lard is threatening – again – to take the unit down unless the raiders can be stopped. Now Greg Boyington, the Black Sheep's CO, wants Hutch to come up with a couple of spare planes so he can launch a plan to find the raiders' secret base. Spare planes? As if the ones the boys were flying weren't one set of plugs and points away from the bone yard already. He's working around the clock with barely time to eat and sleep when Navy Nursing Corps Lieutenant Victoria Bishop walks right into the middle of it. Like he needed one more thing on his mind.
Usual disclaimer - I own no rights to any of these characters and any errors or inaccuracies are completely my own fault. Read. Enjoy. Reviews welcome.
Prologue
Autumn 1939
Grosse Pointe, Mich.
"Darling, you can't be serious. Nursing school? Your diploma from Briarwood Academy is more than enough. Maybe you could do a couple of semesters at Wellesley or Vassar instead. You could study art, you've always loved to draw."
Portia Bishop gestured at the sketchpad open on her daughter's desk. A horse and rider clearing a brush jump on a cross-country course were depicted with skillful attention to detail. The horse's muscles sheened with sweat, the lines of the rider's body were taut with concentration.
Eighteen-year-old Victoria "Tori" Bishop sighed inwardly. A couple of semesters studying art? It was clear her mother didn't expect her to actually graduate. Tori loved her mother dearly but recently it had become clear they did not share the same world view. Portia looked mystified by her youngest daughter's insistence on further education.
"Besides, once you're married you'll have babies to keep you busy. Bishop women don't . . . work." Portia said the word like it left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Mother!" Tori resorted to the single frustrated word to express her emotions. She wasn't sure what bothered her more – the assumption that since she'd come of age she would submit to being auctioned off like a prize heifer to continue the family lineage or the assumption that the state of marriage would eliminate any desire on her part to serve as anything more than decorative.
She didn't know where this social conscience had come from but when Hitler invaded Poland, Tori began taking an active interest in the world beyond the Grosse Pointe Country Club. It had taken hold and there was no going back. Maybe, she told herself, some day she would be content to let the Bishop family name open doors wherever she went but right now, she wanted to do something – learn something, be something – of her own creation. She wanted to be a nurse. The human body fascinated her. The way it worked, the marvelous complexity of muscle and bone and tissue, nerves and blood and organ systems, all working together to create that incredible, fragile thing called life.
She watched her mother's immaculately manicured fingers as they stroked the pearls at her throat, a sure sign she was agitated but too well-bred to let it show. Tori had inherited those long, slender fingers, along with the willowy figure, porcelain skin, dark blue eyes and red-blonde hair.
She had not inherited the sense of entitlement that came with the country club membership, the closet full of designer fashions or house full of servants. In fact, Tori found the whole scene bothersome. That wasn't living. It was existing in a snow globe where no matter how many times you shook it, the snow always fell in the same perfectly picturesque way. There had to be more to life. There simply had to.
"I like helping people." She took a deep breath and grasped her mother's hands. "I've enrolled at St. Anne's School of Nursing. It's an accelerated program for girls like me who had exemplary grades in prep school. I start classes next week."
"What will people say?" Portia looked horrified. "Working is so . . . . common." Her mother's mouth was drawn into a genteel moue of distaste.
Tori ground her teeth. Her mother was a generous, loving woman but she spent entirely too much time worrying about what other people said. Forcing her face into pleasant lines, she smiled.
"They'll say, 'Oh look, Victoria Bishop is doing something besides throwing parties and spending money.' Besides, I was named after Great-grandmother Bishop, wasn't I?"
The tight line of her mother's lips compressed further. Tori's great-grandmother was indeed her namesake. She was also the family black sheep. At age 18, the original Victoria Bishop became a nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. Soon after, she became a spy and routinely crossed enemy lines to carry messages regarding troop movement. At age 19, she caught the eye of her future husband, Augustus Bishop, as he lay wounded and near death. Family legend had it she sat with him day and night, tending his wounds until he was out of danger. They married at the end of the war and began the family tree that grew into one of the pillars of the fledgling Detroit auto industry.
"Your Great-grandmother Bishop lived in different times," Portia said finally. "You certainly don't need to go to nursing school or become a spy. And you don't need to work. We've talked about this. You have certain family duties to uphold. Your sister Olivia –"
Tori clenched her teeth. Her sainted sister Olivia.
She loved Livvy, two years her senior, but they were as different as night and day. Olivia went to Vassar for a year before marrying well. Now she lived in Lansing with a husband who worshipped her. They'd just had their first baby. Tori wondered if her own parents had brought the wrong baby home from the hospital when she was born. Some days she didn't think she could possibly be their child.
Four years later
January 1943
"Dave Aldrich was killed at Guadalcanal," Tori said, lacing her fingers through her fiance's as they sat in his study, enjoying a drink after dinner. Firelight flickered off the room's polished oak paneling. Preston's hands were smooth, with neatly buffed nails, and she was sitting close enough to smell the expensive cologne she'd given him at Christmas.
"Aldrich. Aldrich?" Preston mused. "Do I know him?"
"He was Rose's steady. She's devastated."
"Who's Rose?"
"Rose Hanson! Honestly, darling, do you listen to anything I tell you? Rose and I work together at the hospital."
"Oh. That girl from Taylorville." It was clear Rose or any other resident of the downtrodden Detroit suburb of Taylorville didn't merit a great deal of Preston St. Clair the Third's time. "Don't worry, my dear. Michigan's youngest senator in the state's history isn't going to get drafted to go serve on some hellish jungle island. Your daddy made sure of that after he got me elected." He laughed smugly. "Having the Bishop name behind me brought the voters flocking in. The worst that thing that might happen to me at the statehouse is a paper cut." Preston loosened his tie and squeezed her hand. "Bring me another drink, won't you?"
Tori frowned as she rose from the arm of his chair.
"It's not all about you, you know," she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice but irritated at Preston's habit of turning every conversation back to himself. "Doesn't it bother you that boys from your district are dying on those jungle islands? Davey and Rose were going to be married when he came home."
"Victoria." Preston's voice was conciliatory and she felt the hair on the back of her neck go up. "Stop worrying. You'll give yourself wrinkles and you know you don't want that. When you're Mrs. Preston St. Clair the Third, you won't need to work at that hospital. You'll have plenty of other things to keep you busy. Leave the war to the men."
She bent to hand him a Scotch and soda and he kissed her forehead. "By the way, Mother is going to need help with the charity gala and another thing, did the cleaner return my navy blue suit? The double breasted one? I need it for the hearing tomorrow."
Tori erupted in an uncharacteristic fit of temper.
"How should I know where your suit is! And how can you think about charity galas when boys like Davey are dying every day and you're just sitting here on your backside worrying about what to wear? Heaven knows if Father hadn't backed your election, you'd be reporting to the draft board instead of a corner office in the capital."
He looked at her, amusement etched on his placid, handsome features.
"I'm not any happier than you are about this unpleasantness. God knows we can't even get decent wine out of France any more. But there's nothing you can do about it."
Tori fixed him with a glacial stare. Why had she ever thought he was attractive? He was handsome but in a perfectly two-dimensional way. It had taken her a year to figure it out but Preston St. Clair the Third was about as deep as two fingers of Scotch. Why in God's name had she ever said she'd marry him? And she must have been drunk to let him touch her in the bedroom.
"As a matter of fact, there is something I can do about it," she snapped. "I guess someone around here has to stand up and be counted."
Preston realized uneasily his future wife looked rather dangerous when she was angry. Once they were married and the babies came, he hoped she would settle down. He started to rise from his chair.
"No, don't get up, I'll see myself out." Her tone did not encourage argument.
She stormed out of the room and Preston realized – belatedly - if there was one thing he'd learned in the last year, it was if anyone told Victoria Bishop she couldn't do something, she'd do it twice and take pictures.
The very next day, Tori joined the Navy Nursing Corps.
The day after that, she returned Preston's engagement ring. Bluntly. And without tears.
XXX
Tori liked the Nursing Corps. She liked the orderliness of it. She liked the marching, the discipline, the routine. She liked the sense of service with purpose. Although it took some getting used to, she even liked the uniforms. The other girls told her with her figure, she could make a burlap sack look good.
When her training was completed, she liked her quiet posting at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C. It was sometimes quiet to the point of boredom but she had no intention of ever being posted overseas. You had to volunteer to go to Europe or the South Pacific and she was perfectly content to serve her enlistment in the States.
What she liked most was the anonymity. She was Junior Lieutenant Victoria Bishop from Michigan and not the daughter of the Edward Bishops from Grosse Pointe.
She liked that a lot.
Chapter 1: A Girl Like That
Summer 1943
Vella La Cava, VMF 214 HQ
The raids came without warning. They were fast, brutal and timed to allow no retaliation. The first one came while the Black Sheep were out on patrol. They returned to find bomb craters in their landing strip and the mess tent a charred ruin. A week later, the second raid caught them flat-footed with every plane on the flight line. When the smoke cleared, they had two planes, one generator and 200 gallons of engine oil less than they'd started with that morning. On Espritos Marcos, Colonel Thomas Lard stomped and fumed and yelled. Major Greg Boyington yelled back. And on Vella La Cava, the mechanics scrambled to pick up the pieces.
XXX
With the perversity of inanimate objects, the beer can flew off the tip of the metal shears, ricocheted back and forth between the low rafters of the mechanics' shed and after spraying its stale contents in an arc across the work bench, crashed to the ground. USMC Sergeant John "Hutch" Hutchinson swore under his breath as he bent to retrieve it. Thanks to that can and about four dozen more like it, this part of the base smelled worse than the Sheep Pen on the morning after one of the boys' blow-out parties.
He looked at the crate of empty cans he'd retrieved from that very building an hour ago and shook his head at the irony. The Black Sheep's unquenchable thirst in turn supplied the material he needed to repair the damage they sustained during the missions that created the need for alcohol-fueled escapes in the first place. It was one of the many catch-22's he'd learned not to think about out here.
Yeah, the Black Sheep drank a lot. It came with the territory. If he did what they did every day, he'd drink, too. Hell, his job kept his feet anchored securely on terra firma and he still joined them to let off steam now and then. It didn't matter that he was enlisted and they were officers. No one stood on ceremony out here. They knew the only thing between them and engine failure in the heat of a dogfight was his skill on the ground. Forget rank. It all evened out. The Black Sheep flew and fought and drank. Hutch repaired and rebuilt and drank when he had time.
When he had time. Those were the key words.
The crate of empties at his elbow was as close as he'd gotten to last night's bash. He'd worked under lights on the flight line until nearly dawn, hearing shouts and music drifting from the revelers in the base's social club. When the boys lifted off for a mission at 0700 – some of them in dubious shape - he'd showered and hit the rack. Now they were back on the ground and he was doing what he did best – putting VMF 214's fleet of battered Corsairs back in top shape. Or as close as it ever got around here.
He shook the rest of the beer out of the can and with a few deft cuts, opened it up to remove the top and bottom. He folded the rectangle of metal in half and ran it through the small press atop the workbench. He removed the compact, dual-layered patch, grinned at the Golden Ale logo, and tossed it into a bin with a dozen others. He wondered if the Japanese pilots ever got close enough to the Corsairs to see they were patched with beer cans. He was pretty sure Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington and his boys made it a point to not let that happen.
Hutched picked up another can and started the process again. The work was well suited to a sleepy tropical afternoon. The Black Sheep had been on a hot streak lately, putting holes in enemy planes without giving them many chances to return the favor. That was a good thing because the two recent air raids on the 214's base had torn up enough stuff without adding more to it.
Everyone was thinking about the raiders – where they were coming from, when they'd hit again – and everyone was a little edgy. Much more of this and the Japanese would destroy something that couldn't be fixed, then Colonel Lard would make good on his threats to disband the unit. Of course, he'd been threatening that since Greg put the Black Sheep together and it hadn't happened yet. It was enough to make anyone drink, no matter their job. In the meantime, Hutch kept doing what he did every day. Repaired. Rebuilt. Recycled.
Snip. Flatten. Fold. Press. Toss. The rhythm was hypnotic. He could have done it in his sleep. Come to think of it, he had done it in his sleep. He was good with his hands, always had been. He liked fixing things and had an instinct for diagnosing malfunctions in anything from a Chevy block to a Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine. On top of it all, he had an uncanny ability to make something out of nothing. He was in the right place for that, he thought, tossing another completed patch into the crate.
Nearby, a group of pilots was playing football. Their shouts carried through the afternoon air, typical squadron high jinks from boys who played as hard on the ground as they fought upstairs.
"Go deep, Anderson!"
"Hey, bet that's what Ellen said last night, wasn't it?"
"Shut up, Jerry. That's no way to talk about a lady."
"You gonna throw that ball or talk it to death?"
Scuffling, grunting, a resounding thud.
Either the game had resumed or Bob Anderson was punching Jerry Bragg. Wouldn't be the first time. Hutch shook his head. Snip. Flatten. Fold. Press. Toss. Wouldn't be the last, either.
Jerry picked a new target and started in again.
"Hey Frenchie, you and Carol have a good time on the beach last night?"
"None of your business, Bragg. How'd you know we were down there?"
"He was one dune over, enjoying the attentions of the luscious nurse Jeannie, right Bragg? Or was she just killing time with you while she tries to get Gutterman back?"
"Shut up, Boyle! You're just jealous – you ain't got laid since that little blonde threw you over for Wiley a month ago."
"I keep telling you, son, size matters. Women don't go for short stuff." Hutch recognized Jim Gutterman's Texas drawl.
Boyle was undaunted.
"You ain't gettin' any either, not with your girl stationed on another island, unless you figure on stepping out with Jeannie between times."
"I may be crazy but I ain't stupid." Jim had a steady girl but she was stationed with the Army in another part of the theatre. For the first time in his life, he found himself in a relationship with a girl who meant enough he wouldn't two-time her in spite of nurse Jeannie's obvious attractions. And willingness to share them.
Hutch chuckled. The Black Sheep were legend when it came to chasing skirts. A few of them had steady girls. Most of them played the field. It was easy come, easy go out here. A lot of easy come, easy go. A Marine fighter base in a front area wasn't the place for long term romance. Around here, a steady relationship was often little more than a matter of availability and convenience.
The solid thwack of a football being caught and subsequent grunts of crashing bodies indicated the game had resumed.
The sound took Hutch's thoughts back to his childhood. Playing football with his buddies in the back yard in the autumn twilight. His ma, calling him to supper. His two little sisters setting the kitchen table in his parents' big old American foursquare in Flint, Mich., where his dad worked as a line foreman at the General Motors plant. Summer trips to his grandparents' farm on the Upper Peninsula. They never had a lot but they had enough. A blue collar family in a neighborhood of blue collar families.
Hutch worked on the Cadillac assembly line for a year and a half after high school. It was satisfying work and he took pride in it but he was building cars he couldn't afford to buy and he didn't see himself doing that his whole life. He worked nights and weekends rebuilding auto engines with a buddy and doing auto-body repair jobs on the side. There wasn't much he couldn't fix. "Let Frank Hutchinson's boy take a look at that," his neighbors said to one another when they had car trouble. "He'll have you back on the road in no time."
Hutch and his dad talked about buying a little neighborhood garage and going into business together, Frank Hutchinson and Son, Repairs and Towing. They sat up nights around the kitchen table, pushing a pencil, doing calculations to take to the bank for a loan.
But that was in the summer of 1941. Before the world went mad overnight on the 7th of December.
His best friend from high school, Carl Stanerson, a big blonde kid with an offbeat sense of humor and the strength of an ox, enlisted in the Navy the same week Hutch started building Cadillacs. He'd been aboard the Arizona, moored on battleship row in Pearl Harbor. He was still there. Hutch went to the memorial service at St. John's Lutheran Church in Flint, watched as Reinhardt Stanerson wrapped his arm around his wife's trembling shoulders as she took the folded flag, tears streaming silently down her face.
He volunteered for the Marine Corps the next day. It was just as well. The auto assembly plants shut down in February of 1942. All the steel from the American foundries went to support Allied forces as the war machine chewed across Europe and the South Pacific. Now Frank Hutchinson oversaw the building of marine diesel engines in Flint while his son repaired 2,000 horsepower hogs in the Solomons. Dreams of the neighborhood garage seemed like something from another life.
Maybe someday, when the madness was over and he went home, he and his dad could sit around the kitchen table again, sketching out plans while his mom and sisters cleared away the supper dishes. Hutch sent most of his pay packet home, to save for the day when he'd be there, too. What else would he do with it out here? He played poker occasionally but he was an average talent and with the likes of Greg Boyington and Jim Gutterman ruling the table, he might as well throw his cash straight into the latrine and be done with it.
He didn't have much time for playing poker or chasing skirts or anything else, anyway. Keeping the 214's aircraft in whatever passed for working order consumed most of his waking hours. What he'd learned from instructors in the well-supplied, clean, orderly hangers at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, was a damn sight different from the reality of keeping the unit's battered birds in the air on this volcanic island just miles from enemy lines. There weren't any clean, orderly hangers. There weren't any hangers at all. And you could just forget about anything resembling a steady supply line. They never knew where the next shipment of parts was coming from. The Corsairs could and did take a beating and still make it home but it came at a price. Some days he felt like he was robbing Peter to pay Paul and he took it personally when one of the birds didn't make it back to the base.
Hutch wiped sweat off his forehead. It was time for a break. Tossing the last patch into the bin, he shifted a sheet of plywood over the top and hefted a cinder block on top of it. The base had been plagued lately by a pack of the little monkeys that inhabited the inland jungle. A few of the bolder ones had started darting into the mechanics' shed, grabbing whatever suited their fancy and making off with it. They particularly liked anything shiny.
"Hey, Sarge!" he yelled, pulling off his gloves. "I'll be back in 10."
When there was no reply, Hutch stuck his head around the corner of the shed. Line chief Sergeant Andy Micklin was sprawled in one of the battered jeep seats that passed for chairs, hat over his face, feet propped on an empty ammo crate, sound asleep in the shade.
Hutch shook his head. He wouldn't need to hurry back. Micklin's siestas were famous. He'd sleep through the heat of the day, then wake up and start barking orders that kept the mechanics working long into the night.
He crossed the airstrip toward the football game. It was on hiatus as one of the players was sprawled on the ground, clutching his head.
"Hey, Hutch!" Bob Anderson called in greeting. "Good timing, we need another player. We're one short to start with cuz Wiley's at the hospital getting stitched up and Greg and Casey went to Espritos to see Lard." He looked at the form on the ground. "And I think Gutterman just broke Boyle."
"Naw, I'm okay." Bobby Boyle climbed back to his feet, rubbing the back of his head. "Geez, Jim, next time just tap me on the arm."
Jim chuckled.
"Next time, get out of my way."
"You in?" Anderson persisted.
Hutch looked over his shoulder. The flight line dozed in the afternoon heat. There wasn't any reason to rush back.
"Whose team am I on?"
The boys shuffled awkwardly.
"You'll be with Bragg and Boyle against me, Gutterman and Anderson," said Don French.
Hutch did some quick calculations and crossed his arms.
"Uh-huh," he said drily. "Pilots who came back with kills this morning versus pilots who came back with lead in their tails?"
"If you put it that way," Jerry Bragg grumbled.
"I oughta make you guys pull the lead out of your own birds," Hutch said. "Then maybe you'd be a little more careful with my aircraft." He grinned as he said it. He knew the pilots would help maintain their planes only under extreme duress. Their skill with the big fighters evaporated the second they climbed out of the cockpit.
"Come on, Hutch," Boyle wheedled. "Jerry and I need somebody tall on our side. Those two Amazons – " he gestured at Jim and Bob, "- are pounding us."
"I keep telling ya, Bobby boy, size matters," Jim teased.
Hutch looked at Gutterman and Anderson, two of the unit's tallest members. He didn't think adding his own 6-foot frame to Bragg and Boyle's much shorter side was likely to change the outcome of the game but it would be a welcome break from the never-ending maintenance chores that awaited him on the line.
"All right." He took off his cap, stripped his sleeveless T-shirt over his head and tossed both under a tree. "What did Greg go to Espritos for?"
"Lard's pissed about those raiders," Jim said. "Wants to know why we can't get rid of 'em. Says he's worried about the hospital getting hit but I think he's more worried they'll break through and take out the beach cabanas on Espritos again."
Hutch grimaced. The battle between Greg and Colonel Lard was epic.
"Lard would complain if his ice cream was cold," he said. "What's the score?"
"On Espritos? I'd guess Pappy, 10, Lard, 0," French said.
"In this game? Too much to not enough," Boyle muttered. "And loser buys at the Sheep Pen tonight, just so you know what's at stake."
Hutch groaned inwardly. Only on Vella La Cava could a friendly game of pick-up football end up costing a guy a small fortune. Oh well, what else was he going to do with his money out here?
"Then let's get this game going, I've only got until Micklin wakes up and starts yelling," he said.
"Gimme the ball," Boyle ordered. He dropped into the quarterback's position as the other boys fanned out across the dirt. "Bragg, you block. Hutch, you take off and go like hell. You're the only one with a chance of outrunning Anderson."
In spite of Boyle's offensive plan, the score was 38 to 12 in the other team's favor when the drone of an engine heralded the arrival of the mid-week transport.
XXX
The promotion was a payoff and U.S. Navy Nursing Corps Lieutenant Tori Bishop knew it.
Her commander at Bethesda Naval Hospital knew it. Admiral Grier - that drunken bastard - knew it. And General Thomas Moore, who'd finessed the whole thing to keep what was left of Tori's reputation intact, knew it.
It had worked.
It bought her reluctant silence and let Admiral Grier retire without a blemish on a spectacular military record. The promotion and the subsequent transfer ensured Tori kept her mouth shut and got her out of the States without even a hint of scandal touching her family. How the admiral explained the gash on his temple was anybody's guess. In hindsight, Tori thought she was probably lucky she hadn't killed him. That would have been an even bigger scandal.
She didn't care. Her carefully orchestrated stateside nursing career had self-destructed that night but not a breath of impropriety tarnished her family name. That was all that counted in the end, wasn't it?
She'd stood with her back ramrod straight and her eyes forward as the bars were pinned to her collar and accepted her new assignment like the whole thing had been her idea.
Now she stood at the edge of the dirt airstrip on Vella La Cava and thought if she would have just married Preston St. Clair the Third like she was supposed to, she could have avoided this whole mess in the first place. She shaded her eyes with her hand and surveyed the cluster of shabby tents and buildings that comprised the base. If she'd deliberately set out to find the armpit of the war in the Southwest Pacific, she couldn't have done a better job.
It was absolutely perfect in that respect. Victoria Bishop might as well have dropped off the face of the earth. By the time anyone saw her again – providing she lived through this – someone in her parents' social circle would have committed something even more scandalous than what had happened to her. Not that anyone back home knew about it. It was behind her and she needed to let it go. That's why she was out here – to get a fresh start.
The base looked dirty and rough and disreputable, definitely not the Grosse Pointe Country Club. The hot breeze carried the scent of aviation fuel and mud. Her mother would have started giving orders for things to be cleaned two minutes after she got off the plane. Tori smiled at the thought of Portia Bishop setting foot in a place like this. If she smiled, she couldn't cry at the same time.
Tori and the other new arrivals gazed around awkwardly. They'd been assured someone from the hospital would meet them but the only personnel within shouting distance were half a dozen men throwing a football around. They seemed more interested in showing off than being useful.
"Do you think they forgot about us?" Doreen McGillicuddy smoothed her blonde curls and looked around apprehensively.
"No," Tori said with a confidence she didn't feel. "They have a hard time keeping nurses out here. We volunteered, remember? They aren't going to forget about us."
Volunteered. In a manner of speaking.
No matter the reason for coming here, she'd still expected someone to meet them. The C-47 had landed, the girls had deplaned, their luggage had been tossed onto the dirt and the pilot had spun back down the airstrip without a backward glance. Tori had been in the military long enough not to expect a red carpet welcome but she hadn't expected to be abandoned in quite this manner, either. Her orders were to report for duty at the Navy hospital on Vella La Cava but the hospital was nowhere in sight, just this ramshackle outpost of a base edging the airstrip that was its heart and soul.
Tents and planes and all the detritus that accompanied them.
And men.
She'd read the newspaper stories about the Black Sheep of VMF 214, the Marine Corps fighter squadron stationed on the same island as her new hospital assignment. The unit was getting extensive print coverage, thanks to an Associated Press correspondent stationed right there on the base. Tori followed K.C. Cameron's writing avidly while she was posted in the States. Cameron's stories about the Black Sheep's exploits in the air were fantastic and the nurses she talked to on Espritos during orientation had filled her in regarding the Black Sheep's behavior on the ground. Between the two, she knew enough to know her parents wouldn't approve of VMF 214 much beyond the generally accepted patriotic fervor. Tori thought it would be exciting to be posted on the same island as the legend-in-the-making squadron but in trying to evade one scandal, she may have landed herself right in the middle of another one.
It was too late to worry about that now.
The breeze tugged a copper-gold curl from under her cap. Tori shoved it behind her ear. In hindsight, having her wavy red-blonde mane cropped short before leaving the States may have been a little hasty but she'd been making a statement. Of course, by then her parents couldn't have been much more dismayed at the direction her life had taken. And they only knew the half of it.
Either way, Tori didn't think she was going to have to worry about seeing her name in the society pages again any time soon. That was fine with her. It would be nice to make a fresh start where she could be judged on her merits alone. She would practically guarantee no one on this rock would recognize the Bishop name. It followed her like a shadow back home but here, she was just another nurse in a khaki uniform.
A white bull terrier stood up from where it had been sprawled in the shade, apparently watching the football game, then stretched and trotted jauntily toward the girls. Tori watched the dog with interest. Of all the things she'd left behind, she thought she missed her sable and white Shetland sheepdog, Tapestry, the most.
"Look out!"
The urgency of the tone snapped her to attention and she spun toward the sound, reaching up reflexively as an object hurtled through the air toward her. The worn leather stung her hands as she caught the football a second before it smacked into her head. She stood, blinking at the suddenness of it. If she got hurt out here, she hadn't expected it to be a football-induced concussion on her first day.
"Boyle, you idiot! I was open!" a boy called. Jogging in her direction he added, "Sorry about that, ma'am, but nice catch! You want a spot on our team? You've got more talent than either of these yahoos and you're a damn sight nicer to look at."
Tori swallowed a smile. Everything the nurses on Espritos said about the Black Sheep was true. She'd been on the base less than five minutes and they were already turning on the charm.
Her admirer was tall and lean, shirtless, with faded fatigues riding low on his waist. His cheeks were covered with more than one day's stubble and his dark hair was longer than military protocol dictated but he was attractive in a rough sort of way. He smiled, white teeth flashing, and raised his arms in an invitation to return the ball. Tori felt her worries fade, at least for the moment. It was impossible to be on the receiving end of a smile like that and not return it. The base might be lacking in aesthetic value but its occupants weren't.
"Here you go!" She drew her arm back and sent a pass spiraling toward him. Years of tennis and golf lessons, not to mention the interminable ballroom dance lessons, plus the riding lessons and years with the hunt club, had given her well-established upper body strength and coordination. The ball sliced through the air toward its intended target, who caught it with a surprised "Ooof!" The other men hooted.
"What's the matter, Hutch? A girl giving you more than you can handle? You're out of practice, son!"
"Hey, Lieutenant, catch!" The boy tossed the ball back to her. She was ready this time and caught it neatly. Now what was she supposed to do?
"Throw it to French, same way you threw it to me, let's see how he likes it," he instructed, then added helpfully, "He's the one who looks like his razor broke."
Tori's eyes darted over the assembled men. Nearly all of them fit that description. Front area standards were clearly more relaxed than the starch and polish of the Navy base on Espritos. She had no trouble picking out French, a stout pilot with several days' growth of beard. He was laughing and holding his hands out in front of his face in pretend fear. She gripped the ball and was preparing to launch when a jeep drove between the women and the men.
"Damn it you guys, could you at least let them get settled in before you start hitting on them?"
A girl with dark hair and a look of resigned patience on her face pulled the vehicle to a stop. She wore an olive drab jumpsuit with medical insignia pinned to the collar. The boys welcomed her cheerfully but with a complete lack of anything resembling acknowledgement of rank. A tall boy with light brown hair and a freshly bandaged hand got out of the jeep's passenger side. He joined the group of men clustered under the shade of several scrubby palm trees. The football game had been abandoned, probably because she was still holding the ball, Tori thought.
"Aw, come on, Dee, we were just funnin'." A dark-haired boy with a self-assured smile jammed a battered cowboy hat on his head. "I think Hutch just recruited a ringer for our next scrimmage against ya'll at the hospital." He jerked his head at Tori who felt a moment's self-consciousness. Her hopes of fitting in here without drawing attention were quickly fading.
The girl stepped out of the jeep and brandished a clipboard.
"Out of my way, Gutterman, I don't have time for your crap today. I'm already late because your wingman showed up at the hospital and needed his hand stitched back together after another one of you gentlemen hit him with a beer bottle."
"It was an accident," another pilot muttered.
"That's not the point, Bragg – next time you boys have an accident, Greg's going to hear about it. You're lucky those stitches won't keep TJ off the flight roster. I'd advise you to work out your differences before he gets back. I don't need any more business from this base today."
Bragg looked mildly uncomfortable, apparently aware of his lapse of good sense, and Tori processed the exchange. Greg. That would be Major Greg Boyington, the squadron's CO. He was infamous for a leadership style that relied on fists to dispense the limited amount of discipline that could be found out here. She hadn't read that in the newspapers but it had been the topic of conversation at a neighboring table at the officer's club the previous evening. Tori wasn't above a little judicious eavesdropping.
The girl approached their huddle with a smile. She had a petite build but Tori noticed the boys backed off and gave her space in spite of their earlier bluster.
"Welcome to Vella La Cava, ladies. I'm Lieutenant Dee Ryan. Lieutenant Commander Delmonte sent me to pick you up. You'll report to her at the hospital for bunk assignments and shift rosters. And," she turned to glare at the boys, although Tori could see the corners of her mouth twitch, "a lecture regarding standards of conduct since we're expected to share the island with this bunch of renegades." She looked at Tori, who was still holding the football. "I see you've already met them."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't ma'am me," Lieutenant Ryan said dismissively. "Call me Dee, unless Delmonte is around. But you may want to give them their ball back or believe me, they'll come looking for it. Probably in the middle of the night."
Tori flexed her fingers and re-gripped the ball. Singling out French, she fired a hard pass straight at his chest. He caught it, eyes widening in surprise, and toppled over backwards.
Dee's eyebrows rose appreciatively.
"You're going to fit in here just fine," she said.
Tori doubted that but it didn't really matter.
XXX
Hutch leaned against the trunk of a palm and watched the girls as they clustered around Dee. The nurses made it bearable out here. He didn't have a steady girl but a guy would have to be dead not to appreciate them anyway. Their presence was a tonic. The curve of hip and breast, shapely legs in silk stockings and soft feminine laughter went a long way to lightening the 24/7 stress of living in a front area. If they were amenable to a little snuggling in the shadows, all the better. If that snuggling progressed to additional ways of expressing affection in a secluded spot of beach, better yet.
He'd seen first-hand how their soft sweetness was a veneer over steel resolve. They handled blood and trauma with the same unflappable skill they handled TJ's endless pick-up lines. It was good to know when the Black Sheep came back nearly as battered as their birds, the nurses knew their business.
He was content to enjoy the scenery. That would probably be as close as he got. Once they got acclimated, the nurses tended to be a randy bunch – as bad as any of the pilots – and generally willing to accommodate the boys in a variety of ways. But they always went for the pilots. The Black Sheep had that flyboy mystique the girls found irresistible while the mechanics and other ground crew watched from the sidelines and occasionally picked up the leftovers.
That didn't stop Hutch from flirting as much as any of the guys in the unit but it was usually for naught. Well. Not always. There'd been a few memorable occasions when he'd thoroughly enjoyed after hours company with the fairer sex, although when he thought about them, the degree of alcohol-clouded judgment and morning-after regret tended to negate whatever pleasure the encounters might have held. More than once he'd been relieved to sit in morning mess, letting coffee dissipate the fog of the night before, listening to the other boys' morning after stories and feeling grateful the girl he'd tumbled on the beach was unlikely to pursue any kind of lasting relationship.
It didn't work out. It never worked out. He hadn't met a girl yet who thought mechanics were as romantic as pilots. He reckoned it didn't matter. He'd left a girl back in the States when he signed up - Meredith Cocciola, dark haired and curvy, the daughter of Enrico and Elena Cocciola who ran the corner deli in his old neighborhood. She was still there but she hadn't exactly waited for him. Now she was Mrs. Meredith Hanover. Apparently she'd given marriage a lot more thought than he had. He always figured he'd get married some day and Meredith was exactly the kind of girl his parents would expect him to marry simply because she was exactly the kind of girl he appreciated – someone as down to earth and hard working as he was.
"Nice crop of new fillies," TJ said, cradling his bandaged hand. "Anything catch your eye, Hutch?"
"Hell, TJ, he ain't got time for the ladies," Jim interrupted. "He's too busy putting your bird back together."
TJ was undeterred.
"How about that tall strawberry blonde? She looks like a class act. Nice legs, lots of curves in all the right places." He nudged Hutch with his elbow. "Mmmm?"
Hutch pulled a wry face.
"Girls who look like that don't look twice at guys like me," he said pragmatically. "Gutterman's right, you'll snatch up all the good ones while I'm out there on the line, working like a slave to keep your butts in the air."
TJ rubbed his hands together as he watched Dee talking to the new girls.
"Gentlemen, this is what I call a target rich environment." He turned to Hutch. "Come to the Sheep Pen tonight – you know new nurses mean a party. A little social life wouldn't hurt you."
"You got enough social life for both of us. The girls will be all over you now anyway," Hutch said without malice, indicating TJ's bandaged hand. "The only thing they like better than a pilot is a wounded pilot. I could get half blown to pieces and they'd just slap a bandage on me and set me in the corner but let one of you boys get a scratch and they can't leave you alone."
He studied the girls as they talked to Dee. The strawberry blonde who'd caught the football was indeed a classy piece of work with sleek legs and sweet curves. She carried herself with poise that had finishing school and trust fund written all over it. He watched her as the girls sorted themselves into the jeep. Sculpted cheekbones. Full lower lip, curving now in a generous smile at something Dee said. Wavy red-blonde hair cut in a short bob that was rakishly out of line with the rest of her image. She wore the khaki uniform with an elegance that made it look like something off Fifth Avenue. Yeah. Girls like that never looked twice at guys like him. Girls with finishing school poise and trust funds didn't join the Nursing Corps, either. He wondered how in the world she'd ended up out here.
"Told you she was worth a second look." TJ's said in his ear and Hutched startled.
"Doesn't cost anything to look," he said. "See you boys later."
He headed back toward the flight line to log a couple more hours of work. He could hear the sound of approaching Corsairs and looked up, squinting as Greg and Casey lowered toward the strip. Their aircraft had come back in better shape than anyone else's after the morning's mission but that wasn't saying much. Even as they taxied to a halt, Hutch could hear the out of sync cylinder on Greg's plane and thought Casey's was trailing excessive exhaust. He'd take a look at those after he replaced the points in TJ's bird. Again. And checked the rudder cables Jim had been complaining about.
The maintenance chores were never-ending but if he got even close to catching up, he might stop by the Sheep Pen for a drink later. Just to be social. Not because Little Miss Finishing School would be there. And if she was, he was pretty sure she wouldn't give him the time of day. Girls like that never did.