Free The Secret of Raven Point by Jennifer Vanderbes

sign taped to the side of the tent: No politics before noon .
    “Then let’s talk about the Goumiers.”
    “Again?” sighed Glenda.
    “Maybe the new girl hasn’t heard the story. Juliet, may I call you Juliet? Juliet, do you know about the Goumiers? The Goumiers are from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Now you know we were stalled at Monte Cassino for months, but these men, these African climbing geniuses, scaled a five-thousand-foot peak in the Aurunci Mountains just south of Cassino to single-handedly break through the Gustav Line. What took the rest of the army months, they did in three days. Three. Chasing the Germans into the Liri Valley.”
    “Goumiers,” Juliet repeated vacantly, distracted by the fact that Private Barnaby had once been in Tuck’s squad. This was the closest she’d come to finding someone who might know her brother. She noisily scraped up the cold remains of her eggs, shoved them into her mouth, and stood.
    “I almost forgot,” said Glenda, grabbing Juliet’s wrist. “Did you see our poor ailing Father?”
    Lovelace palmed his forehead in exasperated disbelief. “Typhoid. Malaria. Chicken pox. The man claims to have everything.”
    “Well, he’s sick all right,” said Juliet. “So, I ran some tests.”
    “You mean he’s not goldbricking? Well, I’ll be darned.”
    “As it turns out,” Juliet said, “the chaplain has syphilis.”
    Dr. Lovelace set his fork decidedly on his plate. “Sometimes I just don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

    In her tent, Juliet resisted the urge to throw herself onto her bedroll and instead rummaged the depths of her musette bag. She’d brought every letter Tuck had sent, and now shuffled anxiously through the pages, scanning the names: David Rakowski, Dick English, Geronimo, Dudley (the Duke) Draper, John Kendall, Rex Appleyard, Glen Mooney, Sergeant Bruce McKnight.
    No Christopher Barnaby.
    She set down the letters. She lined them up and flattened them as though that might order her thoughts. Dr. Lovelace had said Barnaby was in Sergeant McKnight’s squad seven or eight months earlier—close to the time Tuck disappeared. Tuck, who’d made a point of writing about every man he served with, hadn’t once mentioned Barnaby. Was it possible, she wondered, that Lovelace was wrong about when Barnaby had been shot? Or was her luck so abominably rotten that she’d found a man who joined her brother’s squad just after Tuck’s disappearance?
    The thought struck her with a thud: Was Barnaby her brother’s replacement?
    Replacement .
    The word brought flashes of Barnaby’s ruined face. Bone, blood. The disgorged eye. If Tuck’s replacement had done that to himself, then . . . No. The possibility her imagination had let loosemade Juliet so uncomfortable that she stuffed the letters back in her bag.
    She sat very still. Thus far, she’d prevented her mind from wandering gory paths, and she wasn’t going to allow it to start now. Barnaby was a connection, a link, to Tuck, and she simply had to utilize that.
    Juliet took out a clean sheet of V-mail.
    Somewhere in Italy
    Dear Father & Pearl,
    My request for a transfer came through and I’m at a field hospital about five miles from the front. All the tents have big red crosses on them, so you can sleep peacefully. This hospital is much smaller than the one in Naples—only eighteen nurses for about 120 patients, though right now we have almost 200. The evacuation hospitals farther back are overflowing, so we just set the men on the ground and wait. The doctors have been performing about eighty operations a day and everyone shuffles around like sleepwalkers.
    Was it like this when you were in Belgium, Papa? Is this why you never spoke about it?
    I’m living in a pup tent with two other nurses: Glenda La Bouvier from Abilene, Texas, and Bernice Murchstone, an anesthetist from Iowa. Glenda is definitely the belle of the ball here; she can tap-dance and sing and knows the words to any song you can