Free Searching for Pemberley by Mary Lydon Simonsen Page B

wearing turbans, Aussies wearing bush hats, and West Indians, who were as black as the ace of spades, all mixed in with the local residents. The government encouraged the Brits to walk, so there would be more room on the buses for all the servicemen on leave in London.”
    Rob could have been describing wartime Washington, D.C. Because the hotels were filled to capacity and then some, many of the men simply walked around all day long until they were so tired that they curled up on a bench in Union Station or fell asleep onthe stairs leading to the different monuments. When they were awake, they were out looking for action and usually finding it. The newspapers reported that there were enough venereal disease cases in the city to overfill the 30,000-seat Griffith Stadium, and a few of my co-workers found themselves in a family way.
    Rob informed me with a straight face that Air Corps officers usually got the best looking girls. “I'm not kidding. We were envied or hated, depending on your point of view, because we were the glamour boys. There was more than one fight between a groundpounder and a flyboy. Because we had triangles on our faces, we were easy to pick out. Above 10,000 feet, you have to go on oxygen, and you might have to stay on it for several hours. Because of the cold air and the sweating, and believe me you can break out into a sweat, even at 25,000 feet, the mask leaves chafe marks around your nose and mouth, making us look like raccoons.
    “The British girls figured out pretty quickly that officers had more money to spend, and they'd get to go to nicer places. Remember, the Brits had been at war since '39, and for some girls, this was the best way to get a decent meal. Pat Monaghan, a bombardier and crew mate, and I went into London and hooked up with two swell girls, and we took them to see the play, The Man Who Came to Dinne r, and then to the Savoy Grill for dinner. The Savoy Hotel was a hangout for American reporters, and one of them interviewed us for the hometown papers. The Savoy had been hit several times during the Blitz, but even so, it was a real classy place.
    “Here I was, a guy from Flagstaff, a town of about 20,000 people. Even when the Air Corps was training me, I was stationed in rural areas. Except for a weekend pass in Chicago, I had never been to a big city with clubs, the theater, and girls falling all over you. Itwas a very strange existence. One day you were dancing at Covent Garden, and the next day you were dropping bombs on Germany.”
    The cab driver dropped us off in front of Rob's building. His flat was on the top floor of a four-story walk-up, and Ken and he shared a hallway bathroom with the two men living in the opposite flat. Their co-workers had warned them that it was in a dodgy neighborhood, but that was all they could get for the time being. Despite the drawbacks, rooms in London were so scarce that Rob was glad to have it even if it meant spending every spare minute he could out of it.
    As soon as we stepped inside the door of the building, Rob informed me that Ken had moved out and that we had the flat all to ourselves. We stood in the foyer facing each other and holding hands. It was understood that if we started going up the stairs, we would make love. What I had to decide was did I love this man, and, more importantly, did he love me. He had never said so.
    Rob was trying to help me along because he had unbuttoned my coat and had put his arms around me. If he started kissing me now, it was a done deal. We started kissing.
    I was so inexperienced that I didn't know what to do. I was just starting to think I might not be ready for this when I saw that Rob had placed a single red rose on the pillow. There was something so sweet in that gesture that I decided I did want to be with this man. We made love until the early hours of the morning when I had to go back to Mrs. Dawkins's house or risk my “good girl” status. Standing outside my front door, Rob said, “You do