Winter in June by Kathryn Miller Haines Page B

to the tent poles, and at our eye level nails stuck out every which way. Ace hadn’t lied; the tent had a concrete floor that immediately reignited every knee injury I’d ever done to myself. Someone had recently swept the floor, leaving a broom and dustpan full of island detritus leaning against one of the walls. The driver who’d brought Gilda and the other girls pulled a string dangling from the ceiling and illuminated a twenty-watt bulb that didn’t do much more than tease us into remembering what real light looked like.
    On the bright side, Violet had to be pleased to see that Gilda wasn’t getting special treatment.
    â€œWhere are the closets?” asked Gilda.
    â€œWhere are the bathrooms?” asked Jayne.
    â€œWhere’s the bar?” asked Violet.
    Their driver made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a guffaw. Whatever it was, he spit when he made it. “Those nails there are your closets. The latrine is out that flap and to the right. As for the bar—the U.S. Navy’s been dry since 1914.”
    â€œThen it sounds like I’ll be hanging out with the army, air force, and marines,” said Violet.
    Dotty tipped his cap at her and smiled. “Don’t you worry. You’ll never go thirsty here. The men who get a ration are always happy to share. And rumor has it that the men who don’t have figured out how to make their own brew, though I wouldn’t recommend drinking it.”
    Jayne nudged me with her elbow. “What’s a latrine?”
    â€œThe bathroom,” I said.
    â€œA shared bathroom,” said Violet.
    I wanted to kick her. Jayne could take only so much bad news at once.
    In the corner of our tent was a barrel turned on its side with a faucet sticking out of it. The top of it had been cut open, and this exposed portion reached beyond the tent, where it could catch the water whenever it rained.
    â€œWhat’s that?” asked Gilda.
    â€œThat’s your sink,” said Dotty. “And you’re one of the only tents that has one. The men rigged it up for you special.” He gestured for her to move close to it and took a picture of her posing, unenthusiastically, beside it.
    We looked at the barrel warily. It was like no sink I’d ever seen before, but now that we knew it was an honor to have access to it, we felt obligated to use it.
    Dotty disappeared to help the drivers with our luggage, while the five of us slowly took in what we’d gotten ourselves into. I won’t lie—when I’d thought about what awaited me in the South Pacific, I hadn’t pictured anything quite so…bleak. In my imagination, there was a veranda, palm fronds, ample booze, and a hammock that swayed gently in the island breezes. The word latrine hadn’t entered my vocabulary.
    But then I’d also kidded myself into believing that I would be able to find Jack. Clearly, I was batting a thousand when it came to realistic fantasies.
    Gilda clapped her hands together. “Well, girls, I know it doesn’t look like much, but we’re not going to be here very often anyway. And I think that between the five of us, we can make this place quite homey.”
    A siren sounded somewhere on the island. A loudspeaker crackled, but my ears couldn’t discern what was being said.
    â€œGilda’s right,” I said. “We just need to use our imaginations.”
    â€œWell, my imagination just saw a rat duck under one of the cots,” said Violet.
    The four women screamed and climbed onto the furniture. I decided to be more proactive and grabbed the broom. I poked it beneath the bed, flushing out something that was at least two feet long and one foot wide. If that was a rat, I was a monkey’s uncle.
    The men returned with our trunks and hurriedly piled them on the floor. “Sorry, ladies, but you’re on your own for a while,” said Dotty. Ace passed out what looked like large green steel