by Ella Carey
“Sounds like Rita and Bea are doing grand,” Helena said.
“It does from what was not cut out,” Eva said. She felt a sudden compulsion to get up in the air, even if it was flying around and around with no destination in sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE COMMITTEE: Jacqueline Cochran knew that the WASP program was an experiment, Mrs. Forrest. Which is why she did not push for military recognition.
EVA FORREST: Jacqueline Cochran did put her foot down in the end, after waiting for Congress to militarize us while we all got on with the job. But by the time she did so, the war was winding down. There was not such a great need for pilots. In fact, the army was starting to draft out our trained male military pilots as ground crew because that was the need. But these trained men wanted to fly, so they said that they could be better used doing the ferrying, target towing, and testing jobs that the WASP were doing. After a battle with Jacqueline, some strong support for the male pilots, and derision for Jacqueline Cochran from our newspapers, the loudest voice being Drew Pearson of the Washington Times-Herald, Congress deactivated the WASP. And Jacqueline Cochran lost her opportunity to fight for military recognition again. That is why we are here now.
THE COMMITTEE: And so ended the issue of women flying for the military.
EVA FORREST: Only temporarily.
On her first day back flying, Nina tucked into her lunch like a girl who’d not eaten for months. Outside, light rain fell. Eva’s zoot suit was wet, her hair was damp, and the air in the hall was humid and close.
“I can’t tell you how much I want to get up there and really fly.” Nina sipped at her mug of steaming tea. “Take a plane for a spin. Floating around, stuck in that darned drone this morning was worse than being held captive in the Link Trainer. I swear I was sweating ships. Eva, I was hoping you’d make a real mistake so that I could at least get to operate the controls. You have no idea what it was like to have someone else fly your plane while you just sit there like a dummy.”
It was clear from the outset that Nina had not appreciated her first assignment, being chosen as a small girl to “fly” one of the air force’s bright-red drones while it was controlled by a twin-engine mother ship, a C-78. A trainee beep pilot had flown the C-78 while Nina had sat in the experimental drone. She was allowed to operate the tiny craft only if the trainee pilot messed up her controls in the aircraft, making a mistake or getting into trouble. Officer Grant had been watching Nina’s every move.
Eva blinked as they left the mess hall and stepped into the sudden sunlight that saturated the base now that the rain had stopped. The trees in the surrounding jungle swamp glistened.
“Nina?” Eva stopped at the edge of the tarmac. “I wasn’t going to suggest this, because I wasn’t sure if you were well enough and all, but Officer Grant’s allowing us a free flight this afternoon. He wants us to practice our cross-country skills. I’m up for it, but I didn’t want to push you. What do you think?”
Helena stretched next to them. “I’m going back to write letters home.” She patted Nina on the arm and moved off.
A Curtiss A-25 dive-bomber sat at the ready on the tarmac, ground crew milling around.
Eva stared at the great airplane. The A-25 was a Helldiver. It was fitted with a large bomber bay. Suddenly, she was filled with a yearning for Harry. She hated to think of how they’d parted ways, and he’d not written to her since he left home. There’d been nothing other than the letter from his mom.
It seemed impossible to know what to write to him now.
“Evie, you have no idea how much I’d like to take that airplane up for a long spin. You can’t imagine how dull it’s been, stuck in that infirmary and not being able to fly.”
“Let’s go.” Eva grabbed Nina’s arm, and they made their way to the great aircraft. The ground crew moved around with them, carrying out inspections on the same plane that she was so worried about Harry flying out in the Pacific.
Once they were done, Nina gripped Eva on the arm. “Evie, I’ve got an idea.”
“Love your ideas, always have, always will.”
“Why don’t we hug the coast, travel north? The Atlantic will be glistening today. Why don’t we go all the way up to Kitty Hawk? There’s a carrier based up there.”
“Kitty Hawk? Near where the Wright brothers made their first flight?”
“The very place. I feel like a bit of adventure given it’s my first day up in the air again. It’s a celebration, us flying back to one of the places aviation began.” Nina’s eyes shone. “I feel like it would be grand to go visit the boys on the carrier.”
“You want to land this thing on the carrier, Nina?”
Nina pulled on her helmet. “I need to do something that makes me feel alive again. I need to celebrate being well.”
“You sure you’re well enough for that, though?”
“I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed.”
Eva went to the wing. “Well, I’ll do it with you, then. Not letting you do this on your own.”
In unspoken agreement, Nina hopped into the front cockpit. “Gonna sit on the parachute so’s I can reach the pedals, Evie.”
Eva strapped herself into the back cockpit. “I’m so relieved you’re better, honey.”
Nina called out the window to the ground crew to request they remove the chocks. Next, she leaned out and called for them to clear the prop. Nina asked for permission to taxi, and Eva could have bottled the thrill in her best friend’s voice. Nina taxied the huge airplane out to the holding point, increased the throttle, and asked for permission to take off.
They flew up the coast, over the inlets and the ocean, toward Kitty Hawk, and the whole way there, Nina sang at the top of her voice “Zoot Suits and Parachutes,” “Buckle Down, Fifinella,” and “I’m a Flying Wreck.” Eva joined in, and the world spread below them, the rain giving way to sunshine.
“This is Delta Thirty-Five. Permission to land on the carrier.”
Eva saw the telltale way her friend’s shoulders shook with laughter.
“From Camp Davis,” Nina said, keeping her tone mighty sound.
“Permission granted,” the male voice crackled through the radio.
“No other aircraft in sight,” she confirmed. She continued downwind, her little hands gripping the control stick on the huge plane.
Nina slowed, lowering the flaps. Eva’s eyes scanned the narrow landing opportunity below. But Nina brought the bomber in perfectly. She turned off the engines. Eva slid back the canopy, unbuckled, and climbed out.
The linesmen coming to check them in stopped dead in their tracks.
“Girls?” one of them shouted. He turned to his companion, his hands in the air.
“What can we do for you, ladies?” The other one moved toward them, eyes brimming with mirth.
“What a pleasant change from Camp Davis.” Nina spoke almost under her breath.
“You bet.” Eva adjusted her zoot suit.
The men took in the size of Nina and then stared at the huge bomber.
“Well.” The taller of the two boys reached out to shake their hands. “I’ll be darned. Welcome to Kitty Hawk!”
“We’d like some fuel, please,” Nina said, grinning up at the two boys. “So this is where the navy pilots practice carrier landings.”
“For sure.” The shorter boy led them to the office.
Nina and Eva signed in, and the officer in charge looked at the girls and then out at the plane and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “How come you’re flying the navy A-24?”
“They are air force versions.” Nina stood to her full height and spoke proudly. “Without the folding wings the navy needs.”
The officer insisted on taking them on a tour of the base. Afterward, the linesmen took them back to their great lumbering bear of a plane and shouted to Nina and Eva, “Come back again!”
Nina gave them one of her most winning smiles, her flight goggles and helmet over her two swinging braids. “One
day, we’ll see you again, boys!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE COMMITTEE: Mrs. Forrest, while the committee acknowledges your personal reasons for coming to Washington, and while you give a stirring argument for Mrs. Cochran’s hopes that this group of civil women aviators might one day be militarized in 1944, the fact is we do not have any proof that the WASP were a de facto military organization. The fact remains that you were simply civilians called in to help. There was nothing military about it.
EVA FORREST: But what about the fact that I was given a full military discharge by my commanding officer at Camp Davis when I left in ’44? Is that not proof that, even then, we were seen as part of the military by our superiors, even if the government did not see us that way?
THE COMMITTEE: You were given a full military discharge? Why would that be, Mrs. Forrest?
EVA FORREST: Because I believe that the officer concerned recognized my contribution and the circumstances under which I left to be equal to that of any man on the base.
The following afternoon, deep-gray clouds bruised with purple framed Officer Grant through the window in the WASP anteroom. Eva drew her leather flying jacket around her. It was going to be freezing flying out there as the afternoon gave way to darkness. The entire WASP cohort sat listening to him. Eva had become hardened to his cast-iron tone.
“You’ll be undertaking searchlight missions this evening. The exercise is scheduled to run for four hours from nineteen hundred hours until twenty-three hundred hours. Understood?”
Nina was pale and exhausted next to Eva, and Helena sat forward, frowning in concentration at his words. Eva worried that they’d pushed things too hard flying up to Kitty Hawk the preceding afternoon, and now, Nina had to fly again tonight.
“You’ll be flying a racetrack pattern up there. You’ll fly at different altitudes while the artillery men follow you with their searchlights. It’s essentially instrument flying. If you look outside, with all the searchlights trained on you, you’ll lose your vision and won’t even be able to read the instruments. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” The women spoke in unison.
“Very good. Report back here after dinner.”
Nina collapsed on her bed back in the barracks, not even bothering to take off her flying suit. From the shower, the sound of Helena singing a lilting version of “As Time Goes By” rang through the otherwise quiet bay. The wind rattled at the flimsy doors and shook the windowpanes. A crack of thunder sounded somewhere out at sea. Eva lay down on her bed and closed her eyes.
Helena gently woke her, dressed in her zoot suit, with her goggles and flying helmet tucked under one arm.
“Time to go to the mess hall,” she said. “Nina was starving. She’s already left.”
Eva rubbed her eyes. “I’ll follow you.”
Helena opened the door, and a shot of freezing air burst into the room. Sand blew in horizontal patterns in the light cast by the hurricane lamp outside the bay.
Eva picked up her goggles and leather jacket and went out into the gathering storm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE COMMITTEE: Are you telling the committee that you honestly believe your contribution to the war effort was equal to any man’s in the war and so you were worthy of a full military release?
EVA FORREST: We women were not allowed to enter into full combat duties. If we could have, we would have done so. I believe that I stepped up to serve my country just as any man did. I completed full military-style training; I lived in military-style conditions on a military base; I risked my life for my country day after day and lost two sister pilots. Clearly, we were more than civilians, and at least one officer recognized this and gave me a full military release after the accident.
Jagged cracks slashed the cream paint on the ceiling above Eva’s head. She lay staring at it, flickers of recognition filtering into place only to dance out again. Her eyes opened and closed, and she did not seem to have any control over them. Not anymore. It was the smell in here that reminded her of something, or someone. Nina. Nina had spent days in here too. And now, Eva was here instead.
Eva tried to raise herself up, but her head pounded, the sweep of searchlights flashed into her vision, and the rattle of an engine was obliterated by the roar of thunder somewhere. She tried to turn, but her side burned and her head pulsed hot and thick. Her cheeks stung, and pain raced up her arm to her neck.
A hazy face loomed in and out of focus. A white coat.
A cool hand rested on her temple.
“Nurse!” A man’s voice.
Everything swooned.
“Miss Scott?”
She fought to stay awake but felt her eyes drooping. Blackness engulfed her again.
Bright light this time. An elderly man in an ill-fitting tweed suit with a shock of white hair stood by the bed. A deep crease indented the skin between his rheumy eyes. A nurse hovered beside him. A watch was pinned to her breast.
“Ah,” the man said. “I see we are awake, Miss Scott.”
Eva tried to open her mouth, but her eyes fell closed again. Heavy. She managed to flicker them open, but only with huge effort.
“There we are,” the nurse said. “Are you thirsty?”
The back of Eva’s throat was parched. With every ounce of her strength, she tried to nod her head.
“Meperidine, Nurse. Can you swallow something, Miss Scott?”
Eva tried to raise one wrist, but pain soared gloriously up her arm.
She shook her head, her eyes a pair of wide pools.
Eva felt the leaden pull of darkness again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE COMMITTEE: Mrs. Forrest, do you know of any other WASP who were given military discharge other than yourself?
EVA FORREST: I don’t know if any other WASP were given a military discharge, but mine was recognition from the military that the WASP had contributed in a way that did the air force proud.
The gray blanket wrapped around her knees was thick and scratchy. She’d been placed in a wheelchair by a window. The light that came in from outside obliterated the blackness for sporadic, spectacular seconds before she dived back down into her own endless night.
A plane swooped to land outside. A bomber. They’d placed her so she could look out at the runway. Her arm was bandaged up, and her side still burned with pain. The infirmary shook as the huge plane swept by.
“How are we today?” The doctor crouched down next to her, the collar of his blue shirt peeping above his white coat.
She looked up at him, entreating him for news of Helena. “Please, tell me, where are my friends? Where is Helena? Helena Cartwright. We flew together on a searchlight mission, but all I can remember is leaving the bay. Has my friend Nina Rogers been to visit?”
“Miss Scott, why do you think you are here?” His voice seemed to come from nowhere.
Eva winced.
The roar of another plane shot into the room. “No!” She reached out and gripped the doctor’s arm, her five fingers wrapping around his feeble old joints. “Stop!”
“Nurse.” His voice hardened.
Eva felt the sting of an injection, and her breathing started to come in shallow puffs.
Eva tried to focus on the face in front of her, but the features were blurred and strange. With heroic effort, she forced herself to pry her eyes open. And felt a jolt of shock in her chest. Had she lost her mind?
“I’m going to take you home as soon as I can,” he said.
Jack.
“Where is Helena? We were going flying together. I want to speak to her, to Nina. Please, for goodness’ sake. Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Shh now,” he said. “We’ll get you home safely and soon.”
The nurse came, her footsteps soft and now familiar in this hellfire of a place, and Eva felt sleep drift over her again.
The sympathy card from her parents sat by her bed, and when she woke up, she stared at her mother’s loopy handwriting, her dad’s n
eat script. Jack sat next to her in a plastic chair; every now and then, he offered to get her a glass of water or fix her some juice. Eva eased herself up a little, pressing her hands into the rough cotton sheets.
“Jack? Please tell me what’s going on.”
He reached out a hand, looking up at her over the page he was reading. A script, Eva supposed. She’d seen him sitting there next to her before. Usually, she drifted back off to sleep before she could talk to him.
“What is it, honey?”
She searched his face. “How long have you been here?”
He pulled off his black-framed glasses and ran a hand over his chin. Tiny lines spread from the edges of his eyes, which were rimmed red with tiredness. “A couple weeks. I don’t know.” He turned to her. “How are you feeling today?”
“Helena, Jack. And where is Nina? Is she still here, are they not allowed to visit?”
Jack’s eyes darted to the nurses’ station. He rolled up his wad of paper and tapped it on the side of the bed.
“Jack?”
“Eva . . .”
“Is Helena okay? I’m having trouble remembering details, Jack. Something is wrong with my memory.”
“You need to rest.”
She lay back. And then, the nurse.
“Must not be worried, Mr. Forrest. She’ll get agitated.” The nurse’s words seemed familiar somehow.
Sleep was familiar too. She felt her eyes closing, dull.
A few days later, or maybe it was the same afternoon, Jack placed a jar of daffodils on the small table beside her bed, the yellow blooms too bright for her eyes. Outside, the sound of planes droned in the sky.
“Jack, I need to know about Helena. Is she okay? Please.”
Jack clasped his hands between his knees and stared down at the floor, his dark brow furrowed.
Eva moved slightly, adjusting her sore side carefully on the pillows.
“And I want to see Nina. If there’s some restriction on who is allowed in here, then please tell them Nina is an exception.”