Gianna Taryn

                     

Gianna Taryn looked up from sifting the potato patch for missed morsels to watch the squadron limping home. She would need to wash before milking the goats again, and checking the cheeses to see if any were fit to eat. She never got used to turnips and cheese, preferring potatoes, so she vigorously pumped the hoe, having learned to live mostly on hope.

Things were tight in the rural French village. The men were mostly gone; killed in the fighting or conscripted  by the occupational troops to work in the factories in Germany. Many families, sisters and moms did the laundry of the American fliers at Laon to the east, and offered other services as well, mending and trading. All the clean uniforms were neatly folded in tied paper, with the names, ranks and serial numbers face up alphabetically.

Maybe Roe Bear (Robert) would bring chocolates when he claimed his uniforms. He was her favorite; the family adopted him. Even grandpa adored him. He had his own clothes, slept in the barn on leave, earning his keep cutting wood and mending fences and passed for a local in trips to the local market, with quick ear for their Patois.

Gia counted the B-26s, fourteen, instead of the eighteen that had taken off three hours ago. Maybe Roe bear is missing, fear flooding her soul. The Americans, one at a time pealed off and flew nose down in an alarming speed to flare only at the last moment to puffs of smoke burned off the rubber tires. The big powerful engines spit and popped as the power was pulled back and the planes rumbled as they taxied to their revetments. One plane left... circled the field, crossing low over head with its nose wheel only partially extended, she could read the nose art. "Mag the Bag", Roe Bear's plane, was in trouble. Dropping the hoe, Gianna began "Our Fathers" and "Hail Mary's," clutching and kissing the small crucifix around her neck. Mag the Bag's front undercarriage straitened, and she gently touched down, bouncing back into the air for one more circuit. When she touched down again, she didn't slow like the others, the engines sang a different song, and running out of pierced steel plank runway sank in the soft soil beyond, tail higher in the air. The men jumped out of holes, and ran away, but she didn't burn. "Thank you, savior..." Gia breathed.

Roe Bear arrived with the sundown on a bicycle with a duffel bag strapped to the handlebars. He bounded up the steps, passing out parcels, canned spam, chocolates and silk from discarded old parachutes." Mag stubbed her toes pretty bad this time. While they repair her, we have a couple of days off. The lead navigator made a mistake, and brought us in over the synthetic fuel factory right over the worst flak. I lost both of my wing men. We counted over forty holes and lost the hydraulics ,and brakes, which kept us hand cranking down the wheels, and we could only slow by reversing the pitch of the propellers. An eighty eight went through the side nine inches from my head without detonating. I volunteered to climb out on the catwalk to crank the bomb bay doors closed without a parachute, which made the cranking impossible. The aerilon cable was cut by flak, and jammed forcing us into a dive. I had to jump back into the back of the plane, and hit my forehead on the foot of Gregory's turret. I almost broke my glasses, and I have a large bump."

"I saw your plane in trouble, and prayed for you. It frightens me to know you are in such danger..." Gianna replied.

"I know I am coming home. I am not afraid. God reassured me I would be able to take care of Virginia, my wife..."

  " All the excitement wore me out, and I think I'll turn in after dinner.  I thought I could raise the wall of the pig pen higher tomorrow. I need to collect my uniforms, the squadron is moving in a few days to be closer to the front.  I will miss all of you, my dear friends..."

Under the moon light Gianna crept out to the barn. She settled onto the hay to be near Roe Bear, and with fingertip began to trace his face. His nose and chin, eyebrows and lips. He awoke with a start, and asked, "What are you doing, Gia?"

" I want one more thing from you before you go. Someone to remember you by..."

"But Gia. I am married! I could never do such a thing!"

Please Roe Bear... It would bring me such joy..."

" It is not mine to give. And my name is Glen. I've told you before..."

"But your uniforms all say Robert!"

"They make us use our first names. I hate mine. I like my middle name- Glen."

"Please, I'll even call him Glen..."

"Gia, you are only eighteen. You have your whole life ahead of you. It will be hard enough as it comes. I don't think you thought this through."

"But Roe Bear, I did think about it. And it is not uncommon here."

When he was eighty, Roe Bear returned to the village. He asked if any knew Gianna Taryn, and found her stone house near the bakery. Second wife in tow, he knocked on the door. Gia answered the door with sadness. "You are too late... I am too old now..." Recognizing the face she once traced with her finger in the hay.