Across a War-Tossed Sea Read Free Page B

instance. The Nazis had blockaded Leningrad for more than three years. And nobody knew when the Allies would attempt a land invasion of occupied France. American and British pilots were flying near-suicide missions over Europe to bomb Nazi ammunition factories to “loosen things up” before a beach landing of ground troops could be dared. The air forces were losing planes right and left. Patsy’s sweetheart, Henry, had written that flyers averaged only fifteen missions before their planes were shot down.
    It was beginning to feel like the war would go on forever, that evacuating “for the duration” meant he and Wesley might be permanently stranded in the States. He wasn’t sure he could stand that. Even though he and Bobby were good mates and he was enjoying high school, Charles was antsy to return to England and do his part. Several of his old school chums had become nighttime air raid wardens. Charles feared some of them called him a coward for evacuating to the U.S.
    He reached over to the dresser he shared with Wesley to pick up his souvenir lump of shrapnel. He tossed it back and forth between his hands like a ball as he mulled things over. Back home, after air raids, he and his mates had emerged from their backyard Anderson shelters and searched for smoldering bits of flak from London’s antiaircraft cannon. Charles even had a shard of a Nazi warplane, a knife-sized piece of red metal—probably part of the Nazi Iron Cross painted on Luftwaffe planes. He’d found it down the street from his house after a horrible night of bombs and fires, a tiny remnant of one of the few Nazi raiders the London ack-ack antiaircraft guns had stopped.
    For a moment his mind flew home, wondering what his street looked like now. He tried to walk it in his memory, replanting all the rosebushes that had been charred, rebricking the fences that had tumbled down, to make the lane peaceful again. Charles felt his throat tighten and shook his head to rid himself of the image of destruction.
    â€œYes, a big if ,” he repeated, going back to his analysis of Allied strategy of trying to surround Hitler’s strongholds. “Unlike the Yanks, we know firsthand how big a fight the Nazis will put up, don’t we, Wes,” he murmured.
    â€œWhat did you say, Charles?”
    Charles turned away from the map to look at his brother, about to repeat his worries loudly enough for Wesley to hear. But he stopped himself. Wesley’s mop of blond curls and peaches-and-cream complexion gave him a typical British appearance but also emphasized how young he was, reminding Charles that as much as he needed to talk out his concerns, his younger brother wasn’t emotionally ready to hear Charles’s worries that the Allies might fail.
    â€œOh, nothing.” Charles put the blackened lump down. “Say, don’t you have lessons to learn?”
    Wesley sighed. “Yes. I have to memorize the forty-eight states and their capitals, although it won’t be much use when I get home. I worry about not knowing my British geography.”
    â€œI know,” said Charles. “I should have finished translating Virgil by now, and this high school doesn’t even offer Latin. Their one teacher of it is off with the navy. How the deuce does Dad expect me to win entrance to Cambridge?”
    He gestured for Wesley’s homework. “Here, want me to test you?”
    â€œReally? You don’t mind?”
    â€œNot at all. The only reading I have is for English Literature and I’ve already studied all the books on the syllabus.”
    â€œSmashing!” Wesley handed Charles a list he’d written out for homework. “See how far I can recite. I need to spell them correctly, too.”
    â€œRight-o.” Charles stretched out on his bed in the stream of the fan.
    â€œAlabama, Montgomery. A-l-a-b-a-m-a, M-o-n-t-g-o-m-e-r-y.”
    Charles nodded, thinking back on the capitals