Radar Girls

by Sara Ackerman

  Cheerio, however, could not take his eyes off Fluff. “My buddy and I had a bet going that we’d know who was who. So far, I’ve been wrong. But as soon as I saw you across the lawn, I had a feeling it was you. Only you’re prettier than I imagined.”

  Fluff swallowed hard. Everyone at Lizard had a secret crush on Cheerio, mainly because he was so darn cheery. But he was also funny and smart and thoughtful. And now, they discovered, handsome. Shorter than Daisy, he filled out his uniform well. His features were all points and angles, with a sharp nose that perfectly fit his face. The overall effect was pleasing, and it was obvious Fluff thought so, too.

  Her dimples deepened. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “I’m serious.”

  There was something about a compliment coming from the right person that magnified it tenfold. Daisy had experienced the same thing with Walker.

  “Just calling it like I see it,” he said.

  Right off the bat, he began asking them questions about their lives, especially Fluff. Where are you ladies from? What do y’all do in your spare time? Are you married? Where’s your favorite beach? From the conversation, it appeared he already knew a fair amount about Fluff. Though chatting was discouraged between Oscars and Rascals, they found it nearly impossible not to. Some days, there was nothing more comforting than the sound of a human voice, warm and familiar.

  Twenty minutes later, Cheerio was leading Fluff onto the grassy dance floor. Betty and Daisy found a table with Lei and a few other gals and sat and took it all in. The night was perfect. Gentle winds stirring up the smell of mock orange and salt water. Mosquitoes buzzed along with the music and someone had lit the lanterns and covered them in blue cloth.

  Something about the way Cheerio held his hand across Fluff’s waist, protective and tender, made Daisy feel like weeping. Fluff had endured so many jerks, she deserved someone who looked at her exactly as Cheerio was now.

  “I have a good feeling about them,” she said.

  Soon, a couple of pilots came over and asked Betty and Daisy to dance. Daisy felt like declining, but then thought the better of it. After putting their lives on the line day in and day out, sharing a dance was the least she could do. Betty was game, too. Felipe and Charles were their names. Felipe swung and dipped Daisy around as though she weighed no more than a doll, while Charles, bless his heart, kept stepping on Betty’s feet. They danced a few songs, until the musicians took a break.

  Uncle T set down his guitar and came over to say hello, then said, “Can we talk for a minute? You, too,” he said to Daisy.

  “Sure, Uncle,” Fluff said.

  He nodded toward the back of the house. “Over there.” They followed him to a rock wall that bordered the back porch. “You remember Archie, the old paniolo at the racetrack?” he asked.

  Daisy and Fluff both nodded.

  “Archie told me he heard something that may be related to your missing horse. There were two men in suits standing outside one of the stalls talking the other day, and words have a way of traveling in there. Thin walls, you know? Anyway, one of the men used the words horse and Montgomery in the same sentence. When they lowered their voices, he got curious and moseyed on up to the wall on the other side of the stall. They were arguing about a boat in June and how to get the horse on board. But here’s the kicker. He swore one mentioned something about painting over the brand with tar.”

  Daisy’s skin prickled. “Did he hear the name of the boat or a specific date in June?”

  “No, but he’s gonna do a little more reconnaissance. Archie might be crotchety, but he honest to God loves those animals more than anyone I know. Stealing a horse does not sit well with him.” His big brown eyes locked onto Daisy. “And whatever you did made an impression on him because he seems more than eager to help you. Not his usual.”

  “Thank him for me. I love that horse, too,” she said.

  She thought back to that morning in December. It seemed like years ago, with Moon and his gentle nudges on her arm as she put his bridle on, of his long dark lashes and his particular musky smell. Finding him would fill a big gash in her heart.

  As the full moon rose higher, the party kicked up several notches. Silver light on the water. Voices in the air. And the rustling of love in the surrounding milo trees. Fluff and Cheerio weren’t the only ones who suddenly found themselves magnetically drawn together. As Daisy meandered around, she spotted Thelma, Rosie, Gladys, Helen and Fran all captivated by their very own sailor or soldier or flyboy. And at the tables, groups were drinking and laughing and making the most of a beautiful night. Who knew what tomorrow would bring.

  But wasn’t that just life?

  Daisy took a lantern out to the fishpond and watched for the eels. Two spotted ones poked their heads out of holes, but none came out entirely. She missed the eels out front of her house. She missed the smell of the ironwood trees, missed Walker. Every time a shadow flickered, she turned in hopes to see him walking toward her. Eventually, she did hear footsteps in the grass. But it was Peg standing there in moonlight, not Walker. Daisy had seen Peg throughout the night, but purposefully steered clear. Her presence alone meant that her brother was alive, and that was enough.

  “He’s not coming, you know,” Peg said.

  Daisy was caught off guard by her bluntness. “What makes you think I’m waiting for him?”

  “It’s pretty obvious. You’ve had your eye on the entrance the whole night.”

  “Why are you watching me? Or maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe I should ask why you hate me so much. You’d think it would be the other way around,” Daisy said, sick of feeling this way around Peg. Always watched, always judged.

  A fish jumped in the pond, making a small plop.

  Peg looked a bit stunned, and before she could answer, they were interrupted by a peculiar sound. Daisy held a finger to her lips. They listened. A few seconds later, just beyond the pond, a groan. It sounded human. Peg and Daisy looked at each other in bewilderment. No one else had come out this way. Though now that she thought about it, the faint smell of cigarette smoke had floated past a few times.

  “Hello?” Daisy called into the dark.

  Another groan. And then a cough.

  “Who’s there?” Peg said.

  A female voice slurred back, “Mayday, mayday...”

  Daisy and Peg both rushed around a short hedge, through a clump of coconut trees and into a grassy clearing. In the center of the clearing, a lone figure sat in the grass. Daisy knelt down on one side, Peg on the other. The woman was cross-legged with her dress bunched up around her hips. Moonlight spilled in, illuminating her red dress and dark hair.

  “Is that you, Vivian?” Daisy said.

  A tall glass lay on its side next to her. “I came out to watch for bogeys, but the sky won’t stay still and I don’t feel so hot.”

  Peg grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s get you some water.”

  Vivian yanked her hand away, lay back and burst into tears. “I want my Donny to come home, and I’ll just sleep here until he does,” she wailed.

  Don Dupont was an SBD Dauntless pilot on the Yorktown, and had been gone for some time now, but was expected back any day. “He’ll be home soon, I know it,” Daisy said.

  “Everyone always says that, and you know what? It’s bullshit, horse shit, cow shit, fish shit—you name it, it’s just shit. No one knows who is coming back and who isn’t until the carrier has pulled in and unloaded its precious cargo,” Vivian said, alcohol vapors strong on her breath.

  Peg sighed. “The two of us have been in your shoes, Viv. And living with this uncertainty never gets easier.”

  The words reminded Daisy just how much Peg loved her brother. And how they were all in this together. “You’re right, Vivian, I shouldn’t have said I know he’ll be home. I ap
ologize. I don’t know, but I do hope, and hope goes a long way.”

  “Hope and prayer. They’re all we have,” Peg agreed.

  “Come on, Viv, you need water,” Daisy pressed.

  “Coffee. I need coffee, and I need my man,” Vivian slurred.

  Peg and Daisy each took an arm and hoisted her up. They brought her through the back door to the kitchen and set her up at the breakfast nook with water and a plate of saloon pilot crackers. Peg brewed a pot of coffee. Vivian was a mess—smudged mascara, smeared lipstick and a trickle of dried vomit on her chin. Daisy found a rag and helped her wipe her face.

  “I love you ladies, you know that?” Vivian said.

  Peg winked at Daisy. “We love you too. Now eat up.”

  Daisy went to rinse out the rag in the sink, and when she turned back, Vivian had her head down on the table and was snoring lightly.

  Peg remained sitting quietly for a moment, then said in a soft tone, “I don’t hate you, Daisy. I never have.”

  Daisy felt blindsided. “I don’t understand.”

  “To be honest, I think I resented the whole accident and the rift it caused in our family. Between my mom and my dad, and my dad and Walker. I always felt invisible, at school, at home, everywhere. When you don’t know who to blame, sometimes that blame takes on a life of its own.”

  The words hung between them, ripe with feeling.

  Peg continued. “And my brother is keen on you. No woman has ever gotten under his skin the way you have. He was a mess when you told him to leave you alone. As brooding and miserable as I’ve ever seen him.”

  Daisy couldn’t help herself. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why is he not coming tonight?”

  “Nimitz wanted to recognize some of the pilots on the Enterprise. Walker was one of them.”

  Pride swelled in her chest. “I’m not surprised.”

  Peg smiled. “Me neither.”

  Music drifted in through the open windows. Daisy thought what a strange triangle they made. Two women, one man and a tragedy that linked them all together. Maybe in a strange way, they could all help each other heal.

  Daisy offered her a crumb. “I changed my mind, you know. About seeing Walker. But he left before I could tell him.”

  “It sounds like they won’t be staying home long this time. I hope you get a chance to tell him,” Peg said.

  “Do you know anything else?”

  “Only that something big is brewing.”

  27

  THE REAL DEAL

  Daisy walked into Lizard on shaky legs. Too little sleep and too much dancing. But a lot of others were in far worse shape. Over half the girls had called in for replacements for their shift today, claiming sudden illness, and Lei had literally dragged Daisy and Betty out of bed. Fluff had slept at Jackie’s and been spared.

  Halfway into the morning, Nixon announced a mandatory meeting at noon for all WARDs. “I don’t care if they need to bring a sick bag in or come in a wheelchair, get ’em in here,” he told Lei.

  At about 1145, WARDs began showing up in varying degrees of disarray. Wrinkled uniform, smooshed hat, bleary eyes. They assembled in a large meeting room down an unused corridor. Even more than usual, the mountain above seemed to press in on them. Cool, dense air tickled the hair on Daisy’s arm. General Danielson, Major General Tinder, the commander of the Hawaiian Air Force, and Major Ernest Moore strode in wearing their pinks. Everyone fell silent.

  Tinder went first. “Ladies, you’ve done a fine job so far in stepping in and taking control of our airspace. I commend you for that. As you know, we’ve had a few scares, a few snafus, in a period of relative calm. That is all about to change.”

  He paused, taking his time to scan the room and make eye contact with as many WARDs as possible. “You’ve heard talk about a major encounter, and we’ve been scrambling trying to figure out where the Japanese are planning their assault. Now, we have our answer. We’re certain it’s Midway.”

  Tall and dark, Tinder could have walked in off a film set. This whole affair almost felt like a movie, but Daisy had only to think about the charred and twisted remains of hangars and ships, or close her eyes and relive Walker’s dogfight overhead, to remind herself that it was real. Tinder informed them of preparations being made, B-17s that were being readied and what kind of flight patterns to expect in the coming week. “All women and children living between Punchbowl and Liliha Street have been ordered to evacuate and stay elsewhere. You folks will be the only females in the area.”

  Murmurs echoed off the stark white walls.

  Betty raised her hand. “If you’re so sure it’s Midway, what’s the big danger here?”

  “We have a lot of reasons for concern. One, with all of our forces fifteen hundred miles away, we’re going to be sitting ducks. And two, there could be spillover here. Especially if the Japanese Navy comes out ahead. Hawai‘i is the next stepping-stone to the Mainland. So you ladies need to be prepared,” he said, glancing over at Danielson.

  Danielson stepped forward, as stone-faced as Daisy had ever seen him. “From now on, helmet and gas masks are with you at all times. Hell, even in the bathroom. You ladies are going to be on your own. I repeat, there will be no assistance in case of an attack. I expect an order to be given shortly that no one is to leave Shafter.”

  At that moment, the back door opened with a loud click. Daisy turned to see Fluff slink in and sit in the back row. Daisy thought she detected the faint smell of coconut oil.

  He went on. “You may be required to stay on posts for extended periods of time, in which case, it might be wise to bring your C rations to the tunnel.”

  While he spoke, his hands went in and out of his pockets no less than eighteen times, and his usual smooth voice caught on words. The explosions from Pearl Harbor were still fresh in everyone’s minds. Daisy was quite sure there was no more powerless feeling than standing on the ground while enemy planes—whose main goal was to blow you to smithereens—flew overhead.

  As if they weren’t anxious enough, Moore then went into detail about litter-bearing and firefighting and where spare ladders and buckets could be found, and about a new yellow powder called Sulfanilamide to use in case of severe injuries. “It’s the best thing we’ve seen yet for infection,” he told them.

  Important as this all was, Daisy checked her watch. She was antsy to leave Lizard and go find Walker, even if that meant marching down to the docks and hollering out his name. She’d drag one of the girls along for moral support. But in the next instant, her hopes were dashed when Tinder announced, “Operationally, aside from the B-17s coming and going, the Enterprise is leaving as we speak, and the Yorktown once she’s patched up, hopefully in a day or two.”

  Without even raising her hand, Daisy said, “But they just arrived, sir.”

  He shrugged. “War waits for no one.”

  The anticipation of seeing Walker again, and hopes of telling him that she’d made a mistake, was rudely stamped out.

  “Isn’t the Yorktown badly damaged?” someone else asked.

  “Nimitz has ordered that she sail in forty-eight hours. And you saw what those boys in the navy yard did with the Pennsylvania and the Maryland. We have God on our side.”

  A small cheer went up.

  * * *

  The first of June, all overnight passes were canceled and those with telephones were prohibited from using them. As promised, the B-17s left in the morning and came back in the afternoon. Radio silence was strictly enforced, so the balcony was crammed with military liaisons who knew every flight going in and out. A seaplane raid on O‘ahu was still expected by some, so the shifts were double-stacked with WARDs.

  “It’s not as though we can go anywhere or do anything, so we might as well be at Lizard,” Fluff said.

  On June 3, Nixon called everyone into the main room. �
��CINCPAC just got a bulletin from NAS Midway. One of our PBYs spotted three different Japanese fleets seven hundred miles south of Midway. Main body is bearing 262, speed 19. Eleven ships,” he said.

  You could have heard a tear drop.

  Fluff, who had developed a keen interest in picking up bits and pieces of intel from the Dungeon, the top-secret room where codebreaking took place, said, “But Hypo says the IJN will be coming from the northwest at 315 degrees, so this can’t be the striking force.”

  Nixon frowned. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I make it my business to be as informed as possible. Knowledge is power, sir,” Fluff said.

  Daisy swore the edge of his lip went up.

  “And what else do you know?” he asked.

  Fluff looked around, realizing that all eyes were on her. She smiled sweetly and said, “I know that tomorrow is when the carriers are supposed to arrive at Midway.”

  He nodded. “You may be right about that. We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, B-17s have been dispatched to bomb the crap out of them.”

  It was beginning.

  * * *

  That evening, Fluff flitted about the house like a sparrow, her whole being abloom. She had spent the previous night counting stars and kissing Cheerio until the sun came up, and apparently missed him already.

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?” she said to no one in particular as she stared out the window at a blood-red sky.

  Daisy corrected her. “Wasn’t it love at first sound?”

  Fluff shrugged. “You know how Betty always says when you know, you know? Well, I know. And boy can that man kiss, let me tell you—”

  “No wonder you look like you put your lipstick on wrong,” Betty said, walking out from the kitchen with a pitcher of fresh-squeezed lilikoi juice.