Winter in June by Kathryn Miller Haines Read Free Book Online

flowing. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a white capsule. “It’ll put you to sleep. You’ll lose a night, but the nausea won’t bother you.”
    â€œThanks.”
    She patted my leg. “Feel better.”
    In fact, after I took the pill, I felt nothing at all, which was almost the same thing.

CHAPTER 4
What’s in a Name?
    By morning I was on the mend. Not well enough to eat but at least capable of remaining vertical for more than ten minutes. The other girls left me to sleep while they grabbed chow, so I took my time waking up and went for a walk on the deck, trying to get my sea legs. We were in the middle of nowhere without a sign of land to be found. We weren’t alone though. There was another ship in front of us and one behind, both of which were U.S. Navy vessels.
    The briny salt air was strange and refreshing, counteracting the bounce of the ship and setting my stomach at ease. I leaned over the rail and watched dolphins bob out of the water. They seemed to be attempting to keep pace with the boat, as though they were our guides on this long passage. Every once in a while a bird flew overhead, and I marveled at how seagulls could be in the middle of nowhere without any place to land. Weren’t they tired? Didn’t they need to rest? Or were they like warplanes, loaded with enough fuel to take them from one destination to another? From my vantagepoint, I could see guns that had been retrofitted on the sides of the ship. While we may not have been prepared for battle, our mode of transportation was.
    Despite the roar of the ship’s engines and the tinkle of music playing through the loudspeakers, the ocean seemed quiet and peaceful. I was moved by the sheer size of it, by how no matter how far I looked in any direction, we appeared to be alone. As amazed as I was to discover that there were still places in this world where people didn’t knock elbow to elbow, it was intimidating too. We were completely vulnerable out here. If catastrophe struck, there was no one to fish us out of the bay with a hook.
    With no land to shield us and no clouds to protect us, the sun beat down on the deck until I could feel my skin prickling from the heat. If I stayed out there too long, I was going to look like a tomato. I left the deck and went below, where the offices we’d seen the day before were stowed. A few men who weren’t at breakfast greeted me with wide grins that made it clear they weren’t used to seeing women. I returned their smiles and tried to keep out of their way as they gave in to the rhythm of their tasks. To pass the time, I grabbed that day’s edition of the ship’s newsletter and positioned myself on a lounge chair outside the mess hall. A group of soldiers marched past, their eyes set forward, as they practiced some drill that could be essential to their survival on land but seemed pretty useless on a ship in the middle of the Pacific.
    The newsletter was abuzz about the body from the day before. More information had come down the wireless, and the writer had done a fine job putting together as many pieces of the story as he had access to.
    Body Found at Port of San Francisco Identified as Former WAAC
    The body found yesterday at 1300 hours floating in the water off the Port of San Francisco has been identified as former WAAC Captain Irene Zinn, originally from Gary,Indiana. Identification was possible because of dog tags found around Miss Zinn’s neck.
    Miss Zinn, who had been stationed in the Solomon Islands for the past year, resigned from her post in January and returned to civilian life in Los Angeles. Thus far there is no indication as to why she was in San Francisco nor her reason for being in the vicinity of navy ships.
    Military police searched all ships at port following the discovery of Miss Zinn’s body and were unable to apprehend a suspect. Although the port was