Jim Shepard - Paper Doll

Lois’s name and job had been circled and an arrow had been drawn to her head in the photo.

Hi! Surprise! We’ve moved down to Groton and yours truly is now a Rosie! Can you believe it? I was scared at first but I’m really getting the hang of things and making new friends. I’m making thirty-five dollars a week! And I’m saving nearly everything, what with the rationing anyway. I’ve been pitching in at the USO, too. I haven’t got a minute to myself, it seems. I’m also plane spotting. Can you believe it? Naomi and I sit there with our little radio and work the graveyard shift Tuesdays and Saturdays. We haven’t seen too many planes. I keep waiting to see your B-17F. With its distinctive tail assembly I can tell it from a B-24 or B-25, so I’ll know it when I see it.

Everyone here is following the war the best they can. The newspapers leave so much out. I guess they have to. It sounds like things are really starting to go well for the Air Corps. Even though I know how terrible this war is, there is such an excitement in the air! I lie on my bed after a fourteen-hour day and I look over at my old Sonja Henie doll and I feel like it must have been a thousand years ago.

Bryant stroked the page with some fondness, trying to put a finger on a certain part of her.

Some of the servicemen throw notes out of the train windows or leave notes near the coffee machines at the USO. They’re not mash notes or anything; they say things like “Girls please write,” and then the name and address. I’ve starting writing a few — one in Fort Ord, California — and they’ve been perfect gentlemen. One even wished you all the luck in the world.

That’s all for now. I’m so tired my hand is wiggling. I miss you. Write when you are able.

All my love ,

Lois.

“Let’s go, spruce up,” Gabriel told him. “The crew of Paper Doll is going to be interviewed by Impact magazine.”

Gabriel was circling the base collecting everyone and left Hirsch and Bryant in the day room.

Hirsch winced. “Great title, isn’t it?”

“Don’t wander off,” Gabriel called from the door. “And try not to have something hanging out of your nose when the guy’s talking to you.”

They sat down opposite one another. The silence was awkward. Bryant had an impulse to talk about the night before at The Hoops but stopped himself.

Hirsch pulled over the current copy of Impact and leafed through it. “‘11th AF Reconnoiters, Bombs, Strafes in Attu Action,’” he read. He showed Bryant the photo, a double-pager displaying nothing but snow-covered mountains with unappetizing black rock showing through on the slopes.

“What’re we looking at?” Bryant asked.

Hirsch leaned closer. “‘Reconnaissance photo located position of a unit of our scouts (see arrow) which came overland from Blind Cove on May 11.’”

He pointed to the arrow, which indicated a white expanse.

Bryant peered closely at it. “Those are the scouts, huh?”

“‘They were to join the attack at Massacre Bay, but are shown here turning left too soon.’”

“I’ll say,” Bryant said.

Hirsch sat back, bored. “Maybe they’re tunneling,” he said.

Bryant sneezed. “I guess they’re attacking that white area over there,” he said.

Hirsch shrugged. “Or this white area over here.” He shook his head. “Imagine fighting in a place like that?”

They nodded soberly together at their good fortune.

Hirsch ran a fingertip lightly back and forth over his eyebrow, an unobtrusive nervous habit. “‘Sousse Study Shows What Bombs Accomplish,’” he read.

Bryant waited. “What’s that?” he finally said.

Hirsch read silently for a moment. Then he said, “I guess we just captured this, and now they’re looking at what our bombing really did, instead of just high-altitude photo interpretation.”

Bryant brought his chair around and together they studied the photos. The images were largely unintelligible and they relied on the captions.

Damage to 300-400-ton ship is confined to bridge superstructure , one read.

Bomb damage negligible but a direct hit on the starboard side of this ship aft of the funnel set fire to its oil cargo. Bulkhead prevented flooding. Rudder and propellers were undamaged .

Crater 6 × 30 ft. caused by direct hit on this phosphates shed. The roof is out but note there is no damage to the concrete kiln walls.

Hirsch rubbed his chin. “Encouraging, isn’t it?”

“Well, they’re not hiding anything,” Bryant said. “I guess you could look at it that way.”

Lewis poked his head in, hesitated, and then came over to the table and sat down. “Gabriel said everyone was here,” he complained. He took the Impact from Hirsch and paged back and forth through it. “Who reads this rag?” he asked.

He held up for Bryant a photo of a dorsal turret with its front Plexiglas panel blown out. “How much you think they found of him?” Lewis asked. Bryant smiled, some pressure low in his throat. Lewis pointed to another photo, a B-17 with its entire nose missing.

“Flak,” he said. “No more Eddy. No more Hirsch. And we come home with a six-hundred-mile-an-hour slipstream through the plane. Gabriel and Cooper’s toes are like little rows of ice cubes.”

“Any tail pictures like that?” Hirsch asked.

“None,” Lewis said. “Hey, here’s a shot of Rabbi Rascal on her bombing run.”

“You know, you haven’t quite made being an asshole an art,” Hirsch said. “But I got to admire your dedication.”

“Hey, fuck you, pal,” Lewis said.

Hirsch was quiet, apparently considering the best way to respond. He was not one of the crew’s more aggressive second lieutenants.

“‘They Live to Fight Another Day Despite Damage,’” Lewis read.

“I guess the ‘They’ means the planes,” Bryant said.

“‘Rugged airframes can take it,’” Lewis continued, “‘because of special triple support construction.’” He held up a pencil. “Here’s your triple support construction,” he said. “Plane.” He indicated the pencil. He held up his other hand beside it, and made a rapid series of fists. “Flak,” he said. He brought the two together, and broke the pencil.

“Knock it off,” Hirsch said.

Lewis flopped the magazine in his direction and Hirsch looked at him malevolently.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Lewis said. “Fucking ninety-day-wonder Jew second looey.”

Hirsch got up and left.

Bryant pulled the magazine over and read silently while they sat and waited, not talking. Lewis drummed “Sing Sing Sing” on the table with his palms.

Gabriel came in with a sloppy and overweight captain and Bean, Snowberry, Cooper, and Eddy in tow. “This is Captain Ciervanski,” he announced. “I trust you’ll give him your full cooperation.”

Captain Ciervanski set a pad and some sharpened pencils down neatly on the table. He wished them a good afternoon.

“No one’s seen Ball or Piacenti?” Gabriel asked glumly. Bryant shook his head. “Now where’s Hirsch?”

“He said he didn’t want any part of this, sir,” Lewis said. “He said he didn’t care what you thought.”

“That’s not really true,” Bryant said.

“Well, we’ll go on with what we have here,” Captain Ciervanski said crisply.

“Sir?” Lewis said. “I didn’t know Impact did interviews.”

“They don’t,” Ciervanski said. “There’s no guarantee this’ll run, either. It’s a pet idea of mine. It’s really up to you guys.”

Snowberry gave Bryant an exaggerated shrug. He was Paper Doll ’s lowest-ranking crew member, a tech three, so it wasn’t his place to comment.