A double-decker London bus had been driven onto the field to transport the arriving passengers to SHAEF Billeting. There they would be given a two- hour orientation lecture, known as the “Be Kind to Our English Cousins speech. “The trouble with Americans, in the opinion of many Englishmen, was that they were “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.”
The purpose of the orientation lecture was to remind the newly arrived Americans that England had been at war for more than three years; that there was a’ration scheme’ for practically everything the English needed to live; and that the British quite naturally resented the relative luxury in which the American taxpayer was supporting its citizens in the United Kingdom.
The lecture, Capt. Dancy decided, seemed to have been prepared with Miss Charity Hoche in mind. But she would not hear it.
Capt. Dancy showed her identification card to the guard and walked out of the terminal building and intercepted Charity Hoche as she was being escorted to the bus.
“Miss Hoche?” she said.
“I’m Capt. Dancy. Will you come with me, please?”
The pudgy lieutenant colonel who was carrying Charity’s makeup kit looked crushed.
Capt. Dancy happened to meet Charity Hoche’s eyes and found herself being examined very carefully by very intelligent eyes.
“My luggage?” Charity asked.
“It’ll be taken care of,” Capt. Dancy said.
Charity said good-bye to the two officers and followed Capt. Dancy into the terminal, then to the Ford staff car.
“Where are we going?” Charity asked when she was in the car, and then, without waiting for a reply, “Is it hard to drive one of our cars on the wrong side of the road?”
“The ‘other’ side of the road is the way I think of it,” Capt. Dancy said.
“And the answer is ‘no, you have to be careful, but you soon get used to it.”” “How did I get off on the wrong foot with you so soon, Captain?” Charity challenged.
Because you’re young and spectacularly beautiful and look and act as if a serious thought and a cold drink of water would kill you.
“If I gave that impression, Miss Hoche, I’m sorry,” Capt. Dancy said.
“Where we’re going is to my billet. There, we’re going to put your hair up, take some of that makeup off, and do whatever else is necessary to make you credible as a WAC officer.”
Charity Hoche seemed oblivious to the reproof.
“Captain Douglass thought you might want to put me in a WAC uniform, but he wasn’t sure. I’ve got the insignia and AGO card of a first lieutenant in my purse.”
Dancy looked at her in surprise.
“So, all we’ll have to do, then,” Charity said sweetly, “is pin on the insignia, put my hair up, and take some of the makeup off, right?”
She gave Capt. Dancy a dazzling smile.
“But before we do that,” Charity went on, just as sweetly,”I think we should go by Berkeley Square. Not only do I have three “Eyes Only’ for Mr. Bruce, but I have crossed the Atlantic with a Colt “Banker’s Special’ hanging from my bra strap. It hurts like hell, and I want to get rid of it.”
“I’ll be damned,” Capt. Helene Dancy said.
“Won’t we all be, sooner or later?” Charity asked.
“Apparently, I was wrong about you,” Capt. Dancy said.
“I don’t know about that,” Charity said, “but you were wrong about Colonel Stevens. You should have known he wouldn’t have let me come over here if I was a complete fool.”
[ FIVE ]
David Bruce, Chief of London Station, was surprised to sense his office door being quietly opened, and when he looked up, to see the face of Capt. Helene Dancy waiting to catch his attention.
“Sorry to disturb you, Sir,” Capt. Dancy said.
Bruce’s eyebrows rose in question.
“Miss Hoche is here,” Capt. Dancy said.
Bruce frowned. He didn’t want to see Charity Hoche. He wanted, in fact, to nip in the bud any idea of hers that she would enjoy with him the same close personal relationship she was supposed to have with Bill Donovan.
He had directed that Helene Dancy pick the girl up at Croydon and take her directly to Whithey House in one of the station’s 1941 olive-drab Ford staff cars. En route, Helene was supposed to relay his orders to her to make herself useful wherever Lieutenant Robert Jamison felt she would fit in.