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  Praise for The Victory Club

  "Veteran Christian fiction author Hatcher weaves epistolary elements with third-person omniscient narration in this moving novel about a year in the life of four Idaho women working at a Boise air field during WWII … This novel embraces complexity rather than eschewing it. A well-paced and genuinely suspenseful plot plus Hatcher's pleasingly smooth prose make this novel a delight."

  — Publisher's Weekly

  "The Victory Club captured me from the first chapter and brought this time in our country's history vividly to life. A beautiful reminder of the sacrifices that were made for the freedoms we enjoy, and of the rich heritage of faith we share as a nation."

  — DEBORAH RANEY, author of Over the Waters and A Nest of Sparrows

  "Sweet Victory! This book transported me back to 1943. Robin Lee Hatcher has again proven why she is a fiction mainstay! A fabulous read that takes you through a roller coaster of emotions! I highly recommend The Victory Club."

  — KRISTIN BILLERBECK, author of With This Ring, I'm Confused

  "The Victory Club takes readers on a heartfelt journey into the lives of World War Two's forgotten freedom fighters—the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and wives of soldiers battling overseas. These women gave their hands, their hearts, and their prayers, facing numerous struggles themselves. V stands for the victorious liberation that Christ brings, not only to the physical battles we face, but the spiritual and emotional ones also. I laughed, cried, and rejoiced with these women. I can't wait to share this story with my friends!"

  — TRICIA GOYER, author of the acclaimed World War II novels From Dust and Ashes and Night Song

  "As an avid reader of Robin Lee Hatcher's books, I highly recommend The Victory Club. She has woven an intriguing story of love and war set in turbulent times. While their men fight on the battlefields of World War II, women at home fight emotional battles of fear, loneliness, and temptation. Robin Lee, in her unique masterful way, touches the heart and presents the source of peace and the ultimate victory."

  — YVONNE LEHMAN, author of 40 novels including Coffee Rings

  "An exquisite portrait of sisterhood at its most touching, The Victory Club tells the stories of four women who wait for their loved ones to return from war while they fight their own battles on the home front. Robin Lee Hatcher captures the indomitable spirit that united this country during WWII while offering fresh hope as our country again faces war on foreign soil."

  — TAMERA ALEXANDER, bestselling author

  "Emotionally wrenching characters and situations drench the pages of this story of bittersweet victory and hope in spite of human failure. Hatcher proves herself among the leading ladies of women's fiction."

  — RT Bookclub

  The Victory Club

  A Novel

  Robin Lee Hatcher

  Copyright © 2005 by Robin Lee Hatcher

  First RobinSong Inc. ebook edition, 2019

  Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Contents

  I. February 1943

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  V-MAIL

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  V-MAIL

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  V-Mail

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  V-Mail

  Chapter 13

  II. March 1943

  Chapter 14

  V-Mail

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  V-Mail

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  V-Mail

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  V-Mail

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  V-Mail

  III. April 1943

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  V-Mail

  Chapter 32

  V-Mail

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Letter

  Chapter 37

  IV. May 1943

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  V-Mail

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  V-Mail

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  V-Mail

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  V. June & July 1943

  Letter

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Letter

  Letter

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  VI. August 1943

  Western Union

  Chapter 55

  V-Mail

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  V-Mail

  Chapter 58

  Letter

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  V-Mail

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  VII. October 1943

  Letter

  VIII. November 1943

  Western Union

  IX. December 1943

  Chapter 66

  X. February 1944

  Diary Entry

  A Note to Readers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Robin Lee Hatcher

  To Tammy, who kept me focused on the Victory.

  How I thank God, who gives us victory

  over sin and death through Jesus Christ

  our Lord! So, my dear sister, be strong

  and steady, always enthusiastic about

  the Lord's work, for you know that

  nothing you do for the Lord

  is ever useless.

  The Lord is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things!

  PSALM 118:14-15

  Part I

  February 1943

  Chapter 1

  Jeb Pratt shifted into second as the lumbering bus began its ascent of the final hill. The whine of the engine sounded anything but healthy. He hoped the old girl wouldn't break down today. It was colder than all git out this morning. He didn't figure the thermostat would see twenty-five degrees. Not with this wind.

  "Come on, Bessie," he muttered to the bus. "Gotta get everybody to work on time."

  Jeb might not be able to serve his country in the army or the navy, being he was approaching sixty-five years of age, but he figured he
was doing his part since his route included transporting civilian employees to and from the air base south of Boise.

  He glanced into his rearview mirror at his four remaining passengers. These ladies were his Gowen Field regulars, and over the last few months, he felt like he'd come to know them. Not because he chatted much with them himself. No, sir. That would've been frowned upon by his superiors. His job was to pay attention to the road, especially in weather like this. But he couldn't help listening in on their conversations.

  Take Margo King, for instance. Nice enough looking woman—mid-forties, trim figure, her brown hair worn in a short, no-nonsense style—but she was mighty reserved. Rigid, even. Rarely had he seen her smile in all the months she'd ridden his bus. She didn't wear a wedding ring, and he'd never heard her mention a husband. However, Jeb knew there must have been a Mr. King at some point because Margo had a son serving in the African campaign and the gal beside her was her daughter.

  Dottie King, not yet twenty from what Jeb had gathered, bore only a slight resemblance to her mother. Her brown hair was curly instead of straight, and she wore it shoulder length. Pretty as the day was long, Dottie also had a Hollywood pinup-girl figure. If he couldn't see it for himself, he'd have known from the wolf whistles he often heard when she got off the bus. But she paid them no never-mind. She had a boyfriend, a soldier who'd shipped out to Europe not all that long ago. She was always talking about him, and she didn't try to hide how much she loved and missed him.

  Ah, young love. Jeb remembered what that was like. For that matter, he couldn't see that love changed much with age, except for deepening—assuming, of course, a man was smart enough to marry the right woman. He still felt a warm glow when he looked at Martha, his wife of forty-three years.

  Speaking of love, his romantic heart just about broke for Lucy Anderson, who sat across the aisle from Margo and Dottie. Lucy had celebrated her wedding day on December 6, 1941, and awakened the next morning to find the world at war. Less than a month later, her husband enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was gone soon after. She hadn't seen him in nearly a year. Even when she smiled, Lucy couldn't conceal the sadness in her light blue eyes. Must be hard for her, Jeb thought, working as a secretary at the base, hearing the news of different campaigns and wondering if her husband might be involved.

  That was one thing Jeb's last passenger didn't have to worry about. Penelope Maxfield's husband was safe and secure right here in Boise. A back injury had kept him from enlisting, and he was still unable to work. With all the bad war news they'd had over the past year, Jeb would've thought Penelope would act happier that her husband was not in the military. But from what he could tell, there wasn't much that made her happy. Most of the time, she sounded more angry than anything else. But maybe Jeb was wrong. Maybe he just expected anger from the fiery-looking redhead.

  The stone pillars to the entrance to Gowen Field came into view. Jeb downshifted once again, then stepped on the brake and brought the bus to a halt.

  "Do you suppose we'll get to meet him sometime?" Dottie asked her mother in the sudden silence. "Wouldn't that be something if we did?"

  "I wouldn't count on it, dear," Margo King replied.

  After a quick verification, the guards at the gate waved the bus through. Jeb touched the brim of his cap in a semi-salute to the nearest airman before stepping on the gas.

  "But he's Greg's favorite actor. If I could catch him on the way to mess, maybe I could get his autograph to send to—"

  "Dottie, don't you even think of it. You could lose your job. You leave Mr. Stewart in peace."

  Jeb shook his head. All this fuss over a movie actor. Seemed like everywhere a fellow went in this town, folks were buzzing about Jimmy Stewart's arrival at Gowen Field. Stewart wasn't any more important than the thousands of other young men on the base who were training to fly dangerous missions, was he? Not that Jeb didn't like Jimmy Stewart's movies. He did. Still, all the excitement seemed like a bunch of nonsense to him.

  The bus finished its long trek from the gate to the bus stop, and Jeb braked to a final halt. He reached for the lever that opened the door, letting in a blast of icy air.

  Margo stood and stepped toward the exit. "Thank you, Mr. Pratt."

  "See you tonight," he answered as he watched her descend the steps.

  The other three women quickly followed, bidding him a pleasant day as they went.

  Jeb figured if the war news wasn't particularly bad today he'd have that pleasant day. Long as he could keep warm, that is.

  Chapter 2

  Lucy waved to her friends as they left the bus stop and headed in four different directions.

  As was her habit each weekday morning, she prayed silently as she walked toward the building where she worked as a civilian secretary for the Army Air Corps. She prayed first for her husband, 1st Lieutenant Richard Anderson, a pilot serving in the European theater. Then she prayed for the Allied armed forces, from the president to the generals and admirals and on down to the lowest foot soldiers and sailors. She prayed for the innocent civilians on the ground, on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific. By the time she whispered her soft, "Amen," she had arrived at her desk.

  She returned the greetings of several coworkers while she hung her coat on a nearby rack.

  "Any letters this weekend?" Alice Franks inquired.

  "No. Not yet."

  How Lucy hated those three little words. It seemed she was forced to say them far too often. Letters from Richard often came in bunches, and the waiting in-between was horrid.

  Waiting. Waiting. Always waiting. Waiting for Richard's letters. Waiting for Richard to come home. She tried not to complain—not to the Lord, not to others. But sometimes it seemed as if she'd been waiting for him for her entire adult life.

  Orphaned at eighteen by a train accident and alone in the world—she had no grandparents, no aunts or uncles, no cousins—Lucy had longed for marriage and children so she could be part of a family again. She was twenty-seven when a friend had introduced her to Richard Anderson. Tall and handsome, kind and funny, a man of both strong faith and absolute integrity, he was everything she had dreamed of and more. She couldn't have helped loving him, even if she'd wanted to. She hadn't wanted to. When she and Richard were married fourteen months earlier, two years after their first date, she'd known she must be the happiest woman on earth.

  If not for this war …

  Lucy sighed as she removed the dustcover from her typewriter, then looked through the stack of papers waiting in the file basket on the side of her desk. It was going to be a busy morning, from the look of things.

  * * *

  Dottie pulled the collar of her wool coat up around her neck and leaned into the bitter wind as she hurried toward the supply depot. Most days she was thankful for her job. It was hectic and physical and it kept her from thinking about Greg too much. But this morning, she had an upset stomach and a headache—again. All she'd wanted was to stay in bed, hidden beneath the warm comforter. If not for her worrywart mother, she might have done just that.

  She entered the corrugated metal building that housed the supply depot.

  "Good morning, Dottie," Harriett Lewis called from behind the counter.

  "Morning, Harriett." She unbuttoned her coat. "Cold enough for you?"

  "Cold enough."

  Dottie hung her coat on a hook on the wall. "How long have you been here? I think our bus was running late." She turned and headed toward the counter.

  "Not very long."

  Some days, when she wasn't careful about the direction of her thoughts, Dottie envied her coworker. Harriett drove her own car to work each day. No standing out in the cold at the bus stop for her.

  "Anything wrong, Dottie?"

  "No," she lied. "Why do you ask?"

  "I don't know. You look a bit peaked, I guess."

  As if on cue, Dottie's stomach churned. She feared she would be sick, right there on the concrete floor. She turned away from Harriett and pretended to
rifle through the requisition papers on the counter. Somehow she managed to quell the nausea that roiled through her.

  Please, God. Don't let me be sick. We can't afford for me to miss work right now. Money's tight.