take more than three or four weeks here for me to finish healing up. Maybe two if that brute of a therapist has me doing any more exercises. I’m grateful for the chance to toot the army’s horn, but with all due respect, I’d rather be back in France.”
The general steepled his hands. “Much as I’d like to appease your father, or you, your doctors haven’t cleared you for duty.”
He didn’t say “yet.” John didn’t like the omission one bit. Father probably caught that one as well, which may have been why he’d skipped the rally. Wounded out of the service wouldn’t play well with Oscar Gallows.
It didn’t play well with him, either. He’d throw the cane away tomorrow and grit his teeth until they fell out before he’d listen to any doctor tell him he couldn’t go back up and finish what he’d started. He had no intention of being left behind among the wounded, even if others thought him a hero. His heroism was unfinished business, as far as John was concerned. He needed to be back in the fight, not sitting over here spouting rousing tales while his battalion earned a victory. “They will soon enough. Sooner on your recommendation, sir.”
“I won’t say you haven’t been valuable overseas, but you’re of no value at all if that leg fails you when you need it most. I admire your eager spirit, John—” Barnes knew what he was doing when he intentionally used his given name like a friend of the family would— “but don’t let your impatience get you killed. You’ll go back when you’re ready, and I’m of no mind to send you off a minute before.”
It was the closest thing to a promise he’d had yet; John wasn’t going to let this “friend of the family” go at a mere hint. “But you’ll send me? When I’m ready?” He was ready now.
“I imagine I will, yes.” He spoke like a true commander—leaving himself the tiniest of escapes just in case.
He may never get another chance like this. The colonel had obviously asked for it. He’d asked for it. He’d just given the army several weeks of record-breaking recruitment speeches. John stood, without his cane. He extended his hand. “I’d like your word on it, sir. I’ll give speeches until I’m blue in the face, I’ll rouse up recruits out of the sand, but I want to know you’ll send me back when I’m ready.”
Barnes hesitated for a moment, John’s message of “I will hold you to this” coming through loud and clear. “Very well,” he said after an insufferable pause. They shook on it. John had his guarantee. He wouldn’t end the war as a campaign poster. He’d go back where he belonged and make a name for himself on the battlefield, where it really mattered. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’d say you’re welcome, Captain, but I’m not so sure.”
John allowed himself the luxury of picking his cane back up, even though it shot pain like a bolt of lightning through his hip to bend over so far. “I’m sure enough for the both of us,” he said when he was upright again, making sure none of the strain showed in his voice.
“You should know it would help, Gallows, if I could have your cooperation on a—shall we say an unconventional little campaign of ours.”
Now it came out. Give and get, push and pull. Why was he surprised the general had a trick up his striped sleeve? “Anything you need, sir.”
“Don’t be so agreeable, son, until you’ve heard what it is the Red Cross has in mind.”
John sat back down again, the ache in his leg now matched by a lump in his throat.
Chapter Five
A few days after the rally, Leanne sat in the hospital meeting room helping an older nurse struggle through her first cumbersome knitting stitches. “Yes—” she smiled at the confused grimaces given by many of the women around her “—it does feel funny at first. Give it a few days, and you’ll be amazed how quickly you take to it.”
Another nurse held up the yarn Leanne had distributed at the beginning of class. “It’s drab stuff, don’t you think? I’d rather go to war in red socks. Or blue.”
“As long as they’re warm and dry, we don’t much care what color they are,” came a voice from behind Leanne’s shoulder. She turned to find Captain Gallows poking his head into the room.
“Captain Gallows, have you decided to take up knitting?”
“Well, since my job is to encourage, I thought I shouldn’t stop at soldiers.” He stepped into the room and leaned against the doorway. Leanne suspected he was well aware of the fine figure he cut standing in such a cavalier manner. Around her, stitching ground to a halt. The young woman Leanne was currently sitting next to actually sighed and dropped her knitting to her lap. “Knit as if our lives depended upon it, ladies,” Gallows said with a gallant flair, “for I dare say they do. An army fights on its feet, you know.”
“Y’all sound like the Red Cross poster,” a hospital cook to Leanne’s left remarked, holding up the very beginning of a sock.
“Good for me.” He grinned. “That means I’ve gotten it right. It seems I am your poster boy. Or will be, next week.”
“How very fortunate.” Ida, who had stopped into the class to have Leanne correct a mistake on her current pair of socks, nearly purred her approval. “How so?”
Gallows sat down, and for the first time Leanne noticed how a shred of annoyance clipped his words. “I’m your new student.” There was the tiniest edge to the way he bit off the t in the last word.
“You?”
“Under orders, it seems.” He looked at the yarn as though it would infect him on contact.
Leanne dropped a stitch—something she never did. “Am I to understand that you’ve been ordered to learn how to knit?” She tried not to laugh, but the very thought of gallant Captain Gallows struggling with the turn of a sock heel was just too amusing an image, especially after the way he’d acted earlier. He may have long, elegant fingers, but they’d tangle mercilessly under so fine a task. Not only had he been dismissive, but Leanne was sure the captain hadn’t nearly the patience for it. He’d make a ghastly student.
Her assessment must have shown on her face, for his look darkened. Even though this was very obviously not his idea, he didn’t take to being doubted or dismissed. Oh, others might be fooled by his very good show, but Leanne could tell he wasn’t the least bit happy at the prospect of…whatever it was he’d been ordered to do. Which, actually, she wasn’t quite sure of yet. “You’re to knit Red Cross socks?”
“More precisely, I’m to be photographed learning how to knit Red Cross socks. I suppose as long as the rascals get the shot they want, whether or not I actually master the thing is beside the point.”
“Not to me,” Leanne countered. No set of cameras was going to turn her beloved craft and service into a three-ring circus. No, sir, not with this soldier.
“Leanne’s never failed yet—every student she’s had has managed at least one pair of socks,” said the woman to Leanne’s right with an enormous grin.
“If not dozens,” Ida added, her grin even wider. “I doubt she’ll let you be her first failure. Especially not on—did you say camera? Photographs?”
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