“What’s he complimenting?” Betty asked.
Fluff got a dreamy look on her face. “My eyes, for one. He said a person could drown in them if they weren’t careful.”
Daisy thought back to Walker’s comments on the various kinds of intelligence. While Daisy lacked in book smarts, Fluff clearly lacked in man smarts. Not that Daisy herself was any genius in that department, but when it boiled down to it, men were just animals, and she’d had some success with those.
“Nixon said we are not here to fraternize with the boys, and I’m pretty sure that includes Dunn,” Daisy said.
“He’s doing all the fraternizing. I’m just doing my job,” Fluff said, looking hurt.
“Keep it that way,” Betty said.
When they arrived home, Daisy went out back to collect the laundry on the line. Between the three of them, their clothes were as different as their personalities. Whimsical for Fluff, expensive and tailored for Betty, and practical for Daisy. She enjoyed the warm sun on her shoulders as she folded each item, and her thoughts once again went to Walker. She’d found it was easier to give in than to fight it, and allowed herself to imagine a ride on the beach. Only this time, it ended in a kiss. Once she had everything in the basket, she realized there were no bras and underwear. Inside, she hollered to Betty, “Where did you put all the undergarments?”
Betty poked her head out from the bathroom. “What do you mean? I hung them on the line.”
“Well, they aren’t there.”
“Hang on.”
Betty came out wrapped in a towel, another on her head, and they went out back. “Do you think Gwen or Florence might have taken them by mistake?”
Their houses backed up into the same weedy lawn, but each had its own rusted-pipe clothesline. Unless one of them was drunk in the middle of the night, it was highly unlikely.
“It would be peculiar if they had,” Daisy said.
“Maybe they blew off. Did you check the hedge over there?” Betty pointed at the mock orange.
Not a stitch of wind. There was no way they could have blown off and clear across the yard, but she checked anyway. She was down on her hands and knees when Fluff came out.
“Did you lose something?”
“My underwear.”
Fluff laughed. “Better not let Nixon hear you say that. But seriously, why are you looking in the hedge for them?”
“Actually, not just my underwear, but all of ours. Bras, too. I hung them all out this morning and now they’re gone,” Daisy said, standing up and brushing off the grass from her pants.
“I’ll go next door and ask,” Fluff said.
She was gone for all of two minutes and returned shaking her head. “Gwen said no, nor did she see anyone around. Did you check the washing machine? Maybe they’re still inside.”
Daisy trusted her memory. “I know I hung them up because I was specifically thinking how sad my underwear was compared to both of yours. And that it might be time for me to splurge on something prettier.”
Until now, there had been no reason. And no money.
“There has to be a reasonable explanation,” Betty said.
“Like what?”
“Maybe it’s against military regulations to hang your delicates in public?” Fluff said in all seriousness.
“That’s silly. And anyway, someone would have warned us,” Daisy said.
“What about the young guard that found you sleeping in the grass dreaming about Walker. What if he took them?” Fluff said.
Daisy ignored the Walker comment because technically, she had been dreaming about him. “Why on earth would he take them?”
“I’m just thinking out loud.”
Daisy was exhausted and went over to Blanche, who lay curled up in a pool of late-afternoon sun. One paw covered her eyes.
“He seemed harmless.”
“Regardless. I’ll question him when I see him. Remember, we don’t make assumptions,” Fluff said with her arms crossed over her chest for effect.
* * *
At some point in the blustery night, Daisy had to close the window because of a sideways rain blowing in through the window and onto her face. She tiptoed around until she found another blanket in a hall closet, and snuggled up under it. Fluff, who could sleep through just about anything, didn’t even stir. After a restless half hour or so, just when she had begun to drift off, a loud siren rattled all the windows and shook the floorboards. She bolted upright. Fluff moaned.
“Air raid!” Daisy yelled, as she jumped up and ran to the dresser to grab whatever she could find to slip on. “Get up!”
The darkness was nearly absolute, but she heard Fluff rustle around and open the closet door. A moment later, Betty came flying down the hallway. “Wake up, wake up! Air raid!”
“We’re up,” Daisy said.
Gas masks and helmets all hung by the front door and they banged into the table and fumbled around grasping for them. Betty held the door open, and the three of them huddled together under the front eave. It felt about forty degrees, but that was the least of their worries. Something about that undulating wail haunted Daisy to the core.
“Damn it to hell, why in the middle of the night and why in the pouring rain?” Betty yelled.
Behind the screen door, back in the house, they heard a meow.
“What about Blanche?” Daisy asked.
“What about her?” Betty said.
“We can’t leave her.”
She had already lost one animal to the war, and refused to leave another trapped in a house that could be bombed or strafed at any moment. Was there a rule that said a human life was more important than that of a cat? In just several short weeks, Blanche had become an indispensable part of their makeshift family.
“You think she’s going to let you just carry her to the shelter? In this rain?” Betty asked.
“I can try.”
The minute Daisy opened the door, a small shape darted out past them, blurring into the inky night. So much for bringing Blanche with them. But at least she wouldn’t be stuck inside. Fortunately, Betty had an umbrella and the three of them smashed together and made a dash for the shelter, which was just down the street carved into the edge of a hillside. By the time they got there, they were wet to the bone. Two others had already arrived.
“Watch your step, it’s muddy in here. And there’s bufos,” someone said just as Daisy’s shoe squished down.
Fluff shuddered. “Is that you, JoAnn?”
“Yes, and Tippy.”
As more girls filed in, the wooden structure creaked and groaned. Daisy, Betty and Fluff were pressed into the far corner, which slanted down at an unnatural angle. They hunkered together, shoulder to shoulder. Talk about being right in the thick of it. Visions of the dogfight overhead, and a sky full of planes, nailed Daisy to the bench. Her teeth began to chatter.
“Does anyone know details?” someone said.
“My guess is the enemy is retaliating for whatever our boys on the Enterprise have done to them,” Thelma said from across the way.
At Little Robert, Thelma spoke incessantly about Walker and his bravery and how she couldn’t wait to walk into those arms when he returned. So much so, that Daisy had begun to wonder if he had written Thelma a goodbye note, too. Could he be playing the both of them? The thought turned her stomach inside out.
Once everyone settled in, they strapped on helmets. The mood was dark as the moonless night. Daisy closed her eyes and worked on calming herself down. Lord, she wished she was at home and not trapped in this shoddy sardine-can shelter. She found it hard to breathe. Then Fluff screamed, jumped up and started stomping around, splattering mud everywhere.
“Get it off me!”
“Centipede!” someone yelled.
A new level of panic rippled through the cramped room. In Daisy’s eyes,
centipedes were nearly as terrifying as Japanese bombers. She’d had more bad bites than she could count; angry, swollen body parts and sleepless nights. When Fluff sat back down, she sought out Daisy’s hand and held on tight. Within a few minutes, her heart rate had slowed and she was able to think straight.
They listened for the sound of engines or explosions, but all they could hear was the splash of raindrops, an occasional bufo croaking and the sucking sounds of mud. After some time passed, small fires of conversation started up. I have my gun and will shoot to kill. Have you heard they’ve made military zones on the Mainland and are rounding up Japanese people? Which Japanese? Any. What do you think about Sergeant Washington? Can I have your recipe for lilikoi pie?
“Say, did you know the real reason for propellers on airplanes is to keep the pilots cool?” Fluff suddenly blurted out.
“Nonsense,” someone said.
“Yes indeed. When they stop spinning, the pilots start sweating,” she said. That got a laugh, and then jokes and funny stories began to circulate. Another hour passed with no attack and no all clear. Then someone said, “Wait, I hear something. Quiet.”
A hush fell.
Meow.
“It’s Blanche!” Daisy said.
They opened the door for the cat, but she refused to come inside. Daisy wove her way out, picked up the creature and brought her inside. Blanche settled on Daisy’s lap, kneading and purring and content as a baby. When the all clear sounded ten minutes later, Blanche was the only one not happy to leave.
15
THE NEWS
In recent weeks, the girls were informed that radar stations had been set up on Haleakal¯a on Maui, K¯oke‘e on Kaua‘i and in P¯ahoa and Kahuku ranch on Hawai‘i. Local women of all backgrounds except Japanese had been recruited, crash courses were being given and churches and family estates turned into Information Centers. On Kaua‘i, with a smaller population to draw from, even high school girls were accepted into the WARD. General Danielson and Major Hochman spent much of their time island hopping and getting everyone up to speed. Having sites clear across the main islands provided a much wider net of security, and Daisy slept better because of it.
On a clear afternoon in late February, air traffic picked up considerably and the telephones started ringing like popcorn. Daisy and the WARDs were putting pips on the board as fast as they could.
Lei said, “This reminds me of being on shift at the cannery. You have to move fast or you could lose your fingers or even a hand.”
Lei’s parents worked on the plantation, and they somehow landed her a job at the cannery after school and during summers. Savvy and industrious, she’d worked her way up to supervisor by the time she was twenty. George had spotted her at a work party and wasted no time in marrying her.
“If these aren’t American forces, we could lose a lot more than our fingers,” Daisy said.
Fluff, who was in charge of coded chits to identify flights, scribbled madly to keep up.
16 IS BOMBER! 39 IS UNIDENTIFIED! 43 IS UNIDENTIFIED!
Nixon and the officers on the balcony circled together and spoke in hushed tones. Daisy stood up and pretended to stretch, moving closer and straining to hear. Whatever it was, something big was coming their way. Soon, she heard the words surface craft. Her pulse quickened. Twenty minutes later, Rascals from Kaua‘i reported an aircraft carrier on its way across the channel.
Betty stood up and twirled around. “The Enterprise! They’re coming home!”
All eyes went to the naval liaison, Ralph Cole, who sat with the phone smashed to his ear. The man had the best poker face in town, but Daisy detected a softening of his body, and creasing around his eyes. The news had to be good. When he finally hung up, he pumped his fist and yelled, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a victory with a capital V! The Big E is a little scuffed up, and we had some losses, but enemy ships were sank, planes shot down and installations destroyed.” He swallowed hard, eyes glistening.
The whole room erupted with cheers and squeals and hugs. Betty pulled Daisy in for a tight squeeze. Her cheeks were damp and she spoke into Daisy’s hair. “I just know our men are okay.”
Our men.
When the shift ended, two hours later, the girls raced home. A convertible roadster was parked out front of their quarters in the shade of a plumeria tree. The car had been the envy of every soldier and sailor on base, and Daisy recognized it right away.
When Betty saw it, she stopped in her tracks, going pale as milk. “I wonder why Elaine is here,” she said, turning to Daisy and Fluff with a look of alarm moving over her face. Elaine was married to one of Chuck’s pilot buddies, Ed, also on the Enterprise, though in a different squadron. Betty took off running.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Fluff said.
“Me, too.”
Daisy thought about Walker, and how he could die, and no one would notify her. The idea nearly strangled her. She and Fluff picked up the pace and arrived to find Elaine sitting with an arm around Betty on the couch, heads together. In the kitchen, Rita Dogwood was filling a glass of water.
Daisy was afraid to ask, but had to know. “What is it?”
“Chuck was shot down,” Betty said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Shot did not mean dead, did it?
“Is he alive, honey?” Fluff asked.
Betty’s lip quivered and she nodded. “They don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t look good,” she said, gulping in air and folding over, sobbing.
The whole experience brought Daisy back to the day her father died. That sick feeling of knowing something was horribly wrong and your whole world was about to spin off its axis. And how the true agony of death was left to the living.
“What happened?” Fluff asked.
Elaine answered for her. “He was leading a division of dive bombers over an enemy airfield, bombing the crap out of them, and then he got taken down.”
Fluff’s face went pale. “Oh no!”
“Did he have time to bail out?” Daisy asked.
“Word is that he did, but in enemy territory.”
She tried to think of something useful to say. “From what you’ve told me, Chuck is a fighter. If he’s alive, he’ll get through it.”
Betty sat up with a faraway look in her eyes. “This can’t be real. My Chuck cannot be dead.”
Daisy had seen that look before on her own mother. It was the haunting face of loss. She squeezed in on the other side of Betty and wrapped her arm around her friend’s waist. Words were not enough. They sat like that for some time, with Betty alternating between rocking back and forth, wailing and asking, “Are they sure?”
“They’re sure,” Rita said, softly.
“One thing to be proud of is that everyone’s talking about how Chuck and his division wiped out an entire airfield on one of those islands—Roi, I think it was. Then on his second pass he encountered a pair of irate Japanese fighters intent on revenge,” Elaine said.
Betty tried to smile. “Sounds like my boy.”
“Were any others lost?” Fluff asked.
“There were others. I’m not sure how many.”
Daisy kept thinking about how for every man down—on either side—there were loved ones smacked with the brutal truth of war. She wished there was some way to help ease the pain, but time was the only remedy for that. And even then, it never left you completely. Betty had a long road ahead.
To add to the bleak afternoon, Daisy was worried about Walker. There had been no mention of him, and it wasn’t as though she could phone his house and say, “Hey, it’s me, Daisy Wilder, calling to see if Walker made it home okay.”
When it was time for bed, Daisy and Fluff pulled Betty’s mattress into their room and slid it in between their beds. The minute they had the sheets on, Blanche sauntered in and started making biscuits smack in the center, then curled up,
purring loud as a motor.
“Excuse me, young lady, you’re taking up the whole bed,” Fluff said.
Betty flopped down next to Blanche and curled her body around the cat. She was still wearing her uniform. “Let her stay. I want her here.” Blanche sniffed her hand and then licked it with her rough pink tongue.
Once they were all tucked in, the night seemed eerily quiet. Warm. Not a stitch of breeze. Somewhere just outside the window, a cricket buzzed. Daisy rolled to the edge of the bed and looked down at Betty’s dark outline. While she had been completely unequipped to help her mother grieve, she vowed to do whatever it took to see her friend through this. Not that she was an expert, but she knew that having someone by your side could make all the difference.
In a small voice, Betty said, “You never think it’s going to happen to you, you know? You fret like mad, but some corner of you always believes it will be someone else’s husband or father or brother. But no one is immune.”
Daisy reached down and rested her hand on Betty’s back, lightly stroking. Betty shivered under her touch. “I know it seems impossible right now, but you’re going to get through this,” Daisy said.
Betty whimpered. “I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. Why would I want to be in a world without Chuck? Tell me.”
Daisy had no answer.
* * *
The following day, Betty insisted on working her shift. Overnight, enough tears had been shed to fill a swimming pool. But in the morning, Betty disappeared into the shower and came out of the bathroom forty minutes later with her hair neatly pinned up and her face made.
“I’m going to work. Do not try to talk me out of it,” she announced.
Daisy admired her courage. She’d heard it said that grief came in a thousand shades, and this was clear evidence of that. While some people might collapse, others buckled up and marched on. Grief was akin to fingerprints, no two the same.
News had spread like wildfire about Chuck. When Daisy and Fluff and Betty walked in, the room fell into a hush. Then all the girls swarmed around Betty, hugging, squeezing and filling her with enough love to choke Daisy up. When the women had finished, Major Oscar and all the men took their turns. Even Nixon gave his condolences, and surprisingly, his hug was the longest.
Radar Girls Page 15