by Ella Carey
Eva felt the stirrings of a giggle. She pressed her lips together. The look on Helena’s face was priceless.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Rita, because I think we should be extra careful on our first morning. If we can get demerit points for not making our beds properly, the last thing I want to do is lose one of you girls over things that we can avoid . . . now that I’ve only just found you all.” Helena’s voice held a lilt of something wistful now.
Eva sat up and pushed her curls away from her face. She watched Helena continuing to wake girls up.
“Helena’s right.” Bea hopped out of bed, her blue cotton nightie plain and practical and her short hair sitting neat and tidy around her round face. “I for one am thankful for the extra fifteen minutes. And I’m looking forward to breakfast and my first day flying.”
Helena was back at the sleeping Nina’s side.
“Good luck.” Eva pushed back her covers and stretched her arms above her head. “She’s impossible to wake once she’s out. I swear she stays up all night being quirky Nina. I used to think she was a fairy sprite when we were little.”
Helena looked up, pushing a strand of her long auburn hair back from her beautiful face. “You girls have been friends for that long?”
“You bet. Since grade school.”
That sad look passed across Helena’s face again.
Eva leaned down and poked Nina on the arm.
The sound of Bea in the shower rang through the bay.
“Oh my, she’s a singer,” Rita said. She looked up from her wardrobe.
The sound of Bea belting out “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree” competed with the running water, and Rita started singing along.
“I’m next.” Rita hurried to the shower room. “I can’t fly without feeling human, girls.”
Gently, Eva patted Nina on the shoulder. She looked all of twelve years old with her freckles and her hair spreading all over her pillow. She opened one eye finally.
“Time to get up,” Eva said.
Right then, there was a knock at the door. “Girls, breakfast in half an hour!”
It was Deedee. And it was six o’clock.
“Yes, ma’am,” Helena called back, and then looked at Eva with huge eyes. “Is that what we call her?”
“Sounds good to me,” Eva said.
Helena nodded. “Remember, girls, three-minute showers each.”
“Three minutes?” Nina threw off her bedclothes with a flourish.
“She’s right, Nina. Mess hall in thirty minutes, and the next-door bay is going to wake up and be waiting in line for showers any second now.”
Eva’s hands flew through her wardrobe, grabbing a summer dress and laying it on her bed. Then she took it off the bed again, placing it on her locker in a flurry, and started making her bed in her nightie. She kept an eye on the line to the shower. She’d have to wash last this morning. She’d race to get her bed tidy first.
At 6:25, they were all breathless. Helena checked every bed with a ruler.
“Goodness, how are we going to do this every morning?” Nina’s face creased into a mighty frown.
Eva wiped a hand over her brow. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and already it was boiling.
“Nancy, you’re an inch out on your measurements,” Helena said. “You’d best fix it, and fast.”
The sounds of screen doors in other bays slamming and Deedee giving instructions on how to get into formation to march to breakfast at the mess hall sent Nancy into a panic.
“Oh my,” she said, scuttling off to her bed. “I’m sorry, girls. You leave me. Go get in line.”
She ripped her bed apart, sheets flying in the air like sails on a boat.
“Not a chance, Nancy, we’ll help.” Rita rushed over to start pulling her bed into shape.
In a flash, everyone was tucking and tidying. Once they were done, Helena stepped in and measured Nancy’s bed with her ruler.
Silently, Helena nodded.
Rita let out a whoop, and the girls rushed outside into the semidarkness, nearly falling out the door.
“Well, good morning bay thirty-seven,” Deedee said, her hair and makeup looking as immaculate as it had yesterday. Today she was wearing a pair of navy trousers with her dress jacket in the Santiago blue that the WASP would get once they did their first solo night flight.
Eva came to a shuddering stop behind Nina, almost falling into her shorter friend and knocking her flat. The sight of Deedee was again inspirational, and yet somehow intimidating. Would she and her bay mates ever reach such high standards in their dress, attitude, and demeanor once they were fully trained as WASP?
“You all might want to make sure you allow plenty of time in the mornings,” Deedee said. “I’ll make allowances since it’s your first day today and all, but be careful.”
Head down, Eva followed her bay to the formation.
“Right, split into two groups, girls,” Deedee said.
The girls divided in a flurry.
They started to march across the lawn in silence.
But as they progressed toward the hangars, one of the girls started to sing in a clear alto voice, “Yankee Doodle Pilots.” And after she’d sung a verse on her own, the rest of the group started taking up the tune. Soon they were marching and singing in time. Didn’t seem to be that hard.
And out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw the glisten of planes on the airfield, and the sun rose up in the glorious wide Texan sky, bathing the lawn in fresh light.
Eva took a risk. She reached out and grabbed Nina’s hand.
CHAPTER TEN
THE COMMITTEE: It seems that the WASP not being military did not deter women from joining.
EVA FORREST: The fact that we were not militarized at the time did not stop us from joining. It simply did not occur to us that we wouldn’t be militarized. However, as civilians, we WASP had no insurance, no burial and death benefits, no military rank, and no veterans’ benefits. Men doing the exact same flying jobs alongside us were militarized and received all the benefits that brought. Men doing clerical jobs in the armed forces were militarized, sir.
THE COMMITTEE: Did you view the program as discriminatory against women at the time?
EVA FORREST: No, I viewed it as an opportunity. I was not aware that our pay would be lower than men’s for exactly the same work. I did not know that women pilots who were applying for WASP were expected to have logged over twice as many hours as male pilots.
Eva marched back to the bay with her group, singing a grand rendition of “We Were Only Fooling,” another WASP song that the girls had caught on to. While she picked up the tune and sang along with her classmates, Eva felt the stirrings of a chuckle over the fact that they’d been told they could have their scrambled eggs with brains. The mess hall staff were mighty cheerful, but Nina had turned green at the suggestion of eating sheep brains, and Helena had blanched at her plate of powdered eggs. But still, they’d all pulled together and made the most of the powdered eggs and tinned Spam, rather than brains. Bea had said she couldn’t wait to write home and tell her folks how she thought she might come to like Spam.
“Twenty minutes to get changed, girls.” Deedee turned on her heels and walked off.
“Jeepers, all this marching is doing me in already,” Rita said. She pushed the door open. “But I love the singing. Now let’s see how these babies fit. You know, I adore fashion. And the one thing I like about flying is having a good-looking flight suit. Lookin’ forward to seeing some real flyboys once we’re outta here.” Rita held up the shapeless flight suit and let out a groan. “But these things look like somethin’ a clown would wear in a circus! Goodness, I’m not puttin’ this on!”
“Well, look!” Nancy had her flight suit out of its bag and held it up over her compact frame. “Size forty-four? How are we supposed to fly in these?”
Nina did the same thing. And was hidden like a little girl behind a huge oak tree.
“Nina!” Eva brought her hand up to her fac
e and exploded into giggles. She bustled around with her package, pulling out a huge men’s-issue suit and a long turban that was going to be foul in this weather over her curls.
“Zoot suits. That’s what they call them.” Bea stood helpless, the legs in her suit dragging halfway across the floor. “Air force can’t be fussed issuing the right sizes for women. So we get the men’s standard issues.”
Nina had hers on. She waved her arms in the air, fabric flapping everywhere. “Evie, I’m in a swimming pool. Or more likely a giant swamp.”
Eva bustled over to her friend. “Here, quick.” She did what she could without a needle, rolling up the legs and the sleeves.
“If only we could wear a belt.” Rita turned, frowning at her slender body encased in the voluminous thing.
Once Nina was done, looking like anything other than a pilot, Eva knelt down and fixed her own legs. Then Nina helped with her sleeves.
Helena was at the door. “Time to go, girls.” She turned to them, her head wrapped in her turban, looking elegant even in this heat.
“My, you’re a stylish girl,” Rita said. She tried to wind her turban around her head and ended up in an awful mess.
“So glad we’re moving to slimmer skirts to save fabric in wartime. Well, we can see where all the fabric’s gone to,” Bea said, her suit pooling around her small, sturdy frame. “Men’s flight suits.”
“Marching for your vaccinations, girls! Quick smart,” Deedee called from outside.
Rita held up a pair of beautiful, shining black Texan boots. “I’m going to wear them with my zoot suit while I have my shots.”
“Oh, so very elegant.” Nina giggled.
“Those boots are somethin’ terrific,” Nancy said. “They’ll help with the injections, I’m sure!”
Eva tripped on the way to the door, her shoes caught in the trousers.
They marched to the infirmary, and this time, someone started up a song that had them all roused up until the last verse, “Gee, Mom, I Want to Go Home.” The last line gave Eva confidence for her vaccinations because they proudly sang to their mas that they were not going home. Once they were lined up at the infirmary for their shots for tetanus, yellow fever, smallpox, and typhoid, Rita started to turn a little green.
“Heck, the cowboy boots aren’t doing the trick like I thought they would. Could someone stand in and have them twice for me?”
“You’ll be fine. Think of something real nice, and don’t look at the needle.” Nancy rested a hand on Rita’s shaking shoulder.
“Oh my!” Rita mocked a swoon. “I don’t even have a decent beau back home to think about while I suffer this. What’m I gonna do?”
Eva’s left sleeve was rolled up, ready for a needle that probably would feel extra sharp in the gathering heat. Rita pulled up the sleeve of her zoot suit, had her first shot, and fell flat to the ground in a dead faint.
Eva knelt down next to her along with Nancy and Nina.
“Rita?” Nina asked, but the tall blond girl’s eyes remained closed, and traces of sweat bloomed above her white lips.
“Poor darling’s gone and died with her boots on,” Nancy said.
Rita lay quite still, her beautiful, shining boots sticking straight out in front of her and her toes pointing up to the sky.
Once they’d marched to the airfield, Rita pale and determined and insisting no one alert Deedee to her unseemly swoon, they moved into the two groups as they’d been directed, one for flight school, the other half for ground school. Eva filed with her bay mates into one of the tin hangars that overlooked the airfields.
Their flight instructor stood in front of the half class of girls. Eva eyed him. She, too, was nervous about the instructors. The stories that filtered around the mess hall were all about men who did not want to teach women.
Intense heat burned in the hangar. Eva’s zoot suit was as useful as a fur coat on a bed of hot coals, and beads of sweat gathered at the edges of her turban. She was of a mind right now not to care that the instructors had insisted on turbans to wrap their hair under their helmets because the men were tired of the way the girls’ hair flew out behind them, sometimes buffeting the instructors’ faces when they were flying in open cockpits.
“Good morning, class. I’m Instructor Reg Tilley. I’m a civilian flight instructor.”
Instructor Tilley swiped a gaze around the group. Reg’s features were pointed and sharp. His movements as he marched across the room to his blackboard were quick and sure. Eva sensed that he would not suffer fools in the sky. She only hoped he was fair.
“Five flying periods a day. Five students assigned to an instructor, with each student flying an hour at a time. You’ll march out in formation, and you must stay in the ready room or the flight line while you’re waiting your turn to go up. Use the time for writing and studying. Once you start ground school this afternoon, there will always be work to do.”
Eva looked out through the hangar’s wide-open doors. The planes shimmered, hovering above the brown dust that hung in a light haze over the ground.
“You’re going to start today with your pre-solo-training phase in our primary trainer, the PT-19A, in the tandem open cockpit with me behind you,” he said. “Current WASP graduate pilots are delivering these planes all over the country, so it’s important that you familiarize yourself with them here in Texas. Once I am confident that you are all ready, we’ll move to a BT-13 Vultee Vibrator and then the AT-6.”
Next to Eva, Nina let out a contented sigh.
“We want to get you flying in all conditions, and used to them as soon as possible. Over the next five months at Avenger Field, you’ll experience flying in the intense heat of summer, and the blizzards and snowstorms that attack the plains in winter. The weather out here can change from morning to lunchtime and be completely different in the evenings. It is the best training place we can give you. A storm is predicted for today. There’s no protection when flying in Texas.”
“Fine by us,” Rita said.
“Most of the time, you’ll be flying with an instructor, only later on by yourself.” He lowered his voice a little. “To be honest, I know that many of you have a lot of flying hours. I know that some of you could probably outfly your instructors. I want you to know that I believe women can fly as well as men.”
Something shifted in the room—the girls stirred, and some of them put down their pens. An attitude like his was the last thing they had been led to expect. Bea sat up a little, eyes narrowing. Reg Tilley had just earned himself a new respect.
He moved to a large black fan and turned it on, sending a welcome flurry of air into the already stifling hangar. Eva thanked him silently. She felt her nerves relax a little. Instructor Tilley had already proven he’d be a good teacher.
Half an hour later, Eva looked down at her pages of notes about the specifics of the little PT-19A. Black clouds shifted across the ominous sky outside. The whole atmosphere out there had darkened. It seemed charged. Heat swirled, but the sky was octane.
The group made its way outside after the talk was done. Streaks of yellow sun broke through the gathering clouds, sending eerie patterns onto the airstrip.
Instructor Tilley divided the girls into flight groups. Eva was with Rita, Helena, Nancy, and Nina.
“Excuse me?” Rita put up her hand.
The flight instructor looked at her.
“What do we call you?”
“Sir,” he said. “Or if you prefer, Mr. Tilley is fine.”
Rita nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The girls were quiet and attentive, boding well for their flight group.
A little primary trainer sat ready on the runway. Its blue fuselage and yellow propeller and wings looked uncanny, the colors almost electric in the strange light that hung over the Texan plains.
Reg moved toward Helena first. He handed her an inspection sheet, watching while she moved around the low-winged open Fairchild airplane to carry out her preflight inspection.
Eva frowned tow
ard the horizon. The clouds seemed loaded, about to explode. But in spite of the weather, Reg climbed onto the plane’s wing, settling himself in the rear seat while Helena climbed, in turn, up onto the wing and into the front cockpit. Helena called out to the ground crew to remove the chocks, then told them to clear the props.
Helena taxied the little Fairchild out to the holding point, increased her throttle, and executed a perfect takeoff down the runway. Eva stood with the rest of her flight group on the ground in the gathering wind and watched, craning her head upward while the plane went into a slow roll. But when they were inverted, everyone gasped, and Eva reached out to clutch Nina’s arm.
Because the moment the primary trainer was flipped upside down, Helena was hanging out of the airplane.
Helena was holding on to the windshield, and her feet were sticking straight out behind her. Eva brought her hand up to cover her mouth. Reg clearly took control of the plane and let it keep rolling in the thunderous black clouds until Helena was back in her seat.
“My dears, did she forget to buckle her seat belt?” Nina gasped.
Nancy shielded her eyes with her freckled hand.
And Eva knew they were all thinking the same thing. Was he going to wash out Helena?
“Dear goodness,” Rita muttered. “What was that girl doin’ up there, and why?”
The little airplane came in for a neat landing. Reg was first out. Once Helena was on the ground, they talked for a moment. Eva’s heart was full of feeling for Helena. She watched them walk back to the group, hardly wanting to hear the outcome, desperate to know at once.
Helena was a flight instructor. Helena had ten times Eva’s experience in a plane.
Helena and Reg came to an abrupt stop in front of their flight line.
“Despite our detailed checks, the mechanics failed to secure the front seat belt exactly and properly to the seat.” Reg turned to Helena with respect. “Due to Helena’s ingenuity in quickly realizing she had to hang on to the front of the cockpit and keep her balance, rather than losing her head, she’s standing alive with us today. We are bringing another airplane across for the rest of you.” He frowned up at the ferocious black clouds. “I’m still looking forward to taking you all up.”