And You Will Find Love

In between ferrying flights, Barbara found England much changed from just two years earlier. Some 3.5 million men were then under arms in Britain, a million of them Americans, and London seemed like one big armed camp as preparations began for the invasion of Europe.

While they were welcome as fighting Allies, the Americans were nonetheless regarded with some skepticism socially, ruefully called "overpaid, oversexed, and over here." GIs were resented because they earned three times more than their British counterparts.

Americans also found no shortage of female companionship because they could spend more on girls and offer trinkets such as chewing gum, chocolate bars, and nylons they could use or barter with. Londoners liked the black GIs, however, who made up about seven percent of the American forces in England, finding them more mannered and polite.

"What did you do to your hair?"

Barbara had just returned from flying a B-29 bomber to an RAF airfield near Portsmouth in the south of England on an afternoon in mid-April. She had nearly lost her way in a heavy rain without radio communication and overshot the base. She was flying out over the English Channel, when friendly searchlights below alerted her to turn around.

Having become almost British after only two months back in England, she needed a cup of tea badly on the late afternoon of a typically foggy day after returning to London town. About to enter a tea shop near Piccadilly, a familiar voice from behind startled her. Turning, she saw someone whom by then she hadn't expected to ever see again.

"Stephen? My God! What are you doing over here?"

Waiting for Stephen Collier's reply, still unable to believe her eyes, Barbara drank in his mature good looks.

He's still gorgeous, she assessed, and even more-so in his Army captain's uniform.

She's even more beautiful than ever, he thought, in her pilot's uniform. But her hair is so short! Yet, it's actually becoming. I never thought she could look more desirable, but she does!

Resisting a strong urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, Stephen took her gently by an arm and, in answer to her question, chuckled.

"You'll laugh when I tell you why. But first, let's have a cup of tea inside, and you tell me about your hair and how you got here."

Sitting at a small table by a cafe-curtained window facing the busy street, right away he asked about Tim. She liked his concern for her son.

"He's fine, and almost eight now. His letters are full of questions about you... where are you and are you safe. He says what you told him about not 'bouncing' in the saddle worked."