by Brown, T. J.
His tone changed from teasing to brisk. “I’m actually going to need you to make several runs in a very short amount of time. You’ll get Christmas and the day after off, of course. But we’re going to be running you nonstop after that.”
She straightened. “Where to?”
“Here.”
Her eyes flew open. “What? I’m confused.”
“The German’s have been putting a great deal of pressure on our transport ships. They’ve sunk two in the last several weeks—both were transporting aeroplanes to France. We’re bringing aeroplanes from our western naval bases back here and then flying them to France. As you know, pilots are in short supply so I am going to need to step up your schedule.”
She nodded, excitement running through her. “Of course. When will I be taking them across the Channel? When we have them all assembled here?”
He shook his head. “No, lass. I’m not sending you into France. The crossing is too dangerous.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean it’s too dangerous? I’m one of the most experienced pilots you have left.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point? You’re always saying adapt or die—”
“It won’t do you any good to use my words against me! I’m not about to risk your life.”
“But you’ll risk the life of other pilots? And you know very well I’m risking my life every time I fly.”
He shook his head, and Rowena’s chest hollowed with disappointment. “I’ll not do it. I believe in women’s suffrage more than most men and you know it, but I’m drawing the line and there’s nothing you can say.”
She knew there was no use in arguing. He wasn’t going to let her cross the Channel. Even though she knew it was childish, she crossed her arms and glared. She couldn’t help it. She’d proven her worth and her skill, and yet she was still being held back because of her sex. She’d never been as militant about suffrage as Victoria, but for the first time she had a real grasp on where the anger stemmed from.
Rowena knew she could cross the Channel. She’d even flown over Ben Nevis once. The air currents of the Channel couldn’t be any trickier than those of that mountain, for God’s sake.
“I’m going to have Albert pilot you to Liverpool. It’ll be faster than driving. Of course, you won’t be able to sleep much this way . . .”
His voice held a question and she nodded firmly. “I’ll be fine.”
He sent her to their navigation man, who already had the flight charted for her. “You shouldn’t have a problem as long as the weather holds,” he said in a thick cockney accent. “Be careful crossing the Central Plains. The wind could get tricky.”
She nodded and joined Albert, who was preparing for their flight.
“You got everything?” he asked.
She nodded and tucked her hair back into her flight jacket before putting on her leather helmet and goggles. He helped her up into the plane, touching her no more than necessary, reminding her of those fools back at the barn who had given her such a hard time. She’d never told anyone how they’d treated her. Somehow the entire incident shamed her, as if it were her fault, even though logically she knew it wasn’t. It just seemed best if she tried to put it out of her mind.
The aeroplane took off smoothly, and Rowena found herself relaxing in a way she couldn’t when she was doing the flying. Albert turned the nose of the aeroplane in the direction they would be going for almost four hours. The iciness of the wind took her breath away, and she was doubly glad for the thick wool that lined her leather jacket and the scarf she had wrapped securely around her neck. Rowena wasn’t often in the front of the aeroplane as a passenger, and she settled back to enjoy the novelty of flying without responsibility.
Albert kept below cloud cover for quite some time, so Rowena watched as the artificial shapes of London gradually changed to a patchwork quilt of fallow fields, farms, and villages. When a strong wind caused the aeroplane to pitch, Albert climbed upward, and Rowena’s view of the world turned gray and misty. Her anticipation built as they climbed, and when the mist began to sparkle and clear, she wanted to cry out in exultation. She would never tire of the miraculous moment of clearing the cloud cover into the wide-open blue. The experience reinforced why she loved to fly.
The rest of the flight passed quickly, and she was soon getting ready for her own flight back. She’d never been to the Liverpool Naval Base before, so Albert stuck close to her, and no one gave her any trouble. She was both grateful for and annoyed by his presence—grateful that no one dared to question handing a valuable BE2 over to a woman and annoyed that she needed a man by her side to do a job she was fully qualified for.
Rowena did a quick inspection of the BE2 and nodded at the soldiers helping her. Albert had just taken off and she didn’t want to linger. If the weather was going to change, it would do so in the late afternoon, and she wished to be as close to Kent as possible. She didn’t want to be out after dark anyway. She’d done it once before, but didn’t much like it. Landing almost blind was dangerous.
By the time she finally got the aeroplane in the air, Albert was a speck in the sky. She shrugged. Fine, if he wanted to race so badly, she would just let him win; she wasn’t used to the BE2 but she liked the way it felt. The wing warping gave it positive control, but its response time was a bit slower than that of the SPAD. But what it lacked in acrobatic prowess, it more than made up for in solid grace.
She hoped the winds would remain calm. Flying a new aeroplane through a storm would be perilous, even for her.
The first leg of the trip went smoothly. She kept the aeroplane low, unsure as to how it would perform at higher altitudes and unwilling to take a chance with the weather so erratic.
The wind picked up over the Central Plains, and worry knotted in the center of Rowena’s stomach. By her calculations, she wasn’t even halfway to Kent and the sun was sinking fast. Either that or the clouds that had blown up were obscuring it. It began to sprinkle, and soon the rain was whipping her face. She was going to have to land somewhere soon. . . . She kept wiping her goggles, but still had trouble seeing. It looked much as it did when she would go bathing at the shore as a child. She had to land immediately.
Afraid that she was going to run into a hill if she flew straight along the ground, she kept the aeroplane going in smaller and smaller circles until she wound her way to the ground. Her visibility increased and she breathed a sigh of relief. She could see no trees.
The wind was worse the closer she was to the ground, and it buffeted her aeroplane back and forth. She fought to keep the machine from overturning. This close to the ground, if she caught the wind under a wing wrong, she could be slammed into the earth. Sweat trickled down her forehead in spite of the chill creeping through her body and numbing her fingers and toes.
Rowena had always known in the back of her mind that flying was dangerous. Aeroplane crashes were common, though in many cases the pilot was able to glide the machine close enough to the ground so as to avoid sustaining life-threatening injury.
But not always.
The largest threat came from hitting obstacles as one landed, such as trees or buildings. Suddenly, for the first time since she’d first installed herself in a cockpit, that threat felt all too immediate.
But she couldn’t let her confidence waver. She had to get the aeroplane safely to its destination. Dirkes was, for the most part, a modern man, but he wouldn’t hesitate to take her off the roster if she wrecked an aeroplane, Rowena reminded herself. Not only was it a valuable piece of machinery bought and paid for by the Crown, but his sense of protective chivalry would kick in and he would ground her for her protection. She’d be damned if she was going to lose everything now. Not after she had worked so hard to win the respect of Mr. Dirkes and the men in his employ, and especially not after she’d achieved a level of self-respect that buoyed her spirits. She could never return to her old life now that she’d experienced what it was like to have a real purp
ose, to rise to a challenge and face it head-on, to awake in the morning ready for tasks infinitely more consequential than dressing for luncheon.
The ground had never before rushed up to meet her so quickly. Her stomach flew up into her throat, and the landing jarred her so badly she cried out and bit her tongue. Hard. The taste of fear and blood filled her mouth as she brought the aeroplane to an abrupt halt. She sat in the cockpit, battered by the wind and rain, her heart pounding in her ears.
As she slowly caught her breath, relieved to be on the ground despite how harsh a landing it had been, it dawned on her that she was still in danger and could die of exposure if she didn’t find some kind of shelter.
She looked around but saw only empty space. No trees or rocks to huddle under, thankfully. Had there been a tree . . . she shuddered to think about it. Briefly she thought about seeking shelter under the plane, but quickly discarded that idea. An idea came to her and she grabbed her valise and left the cockpit and made her treacherous way to the passenger pit. It was directly under the upper wings and therefore more protected against the elements.
Taking her long driving coat out of the valise, she scooted as far down onto the floor as she could and draped the coat over the top of the pit. The material wasn’t waterproof, but it was heavy and would hopefully keep her dry for a bit.
Not that she could be considered dry by any definition. Keeping the coat from blowing off with one hand, she pulled her wet goggles off with the other. She dropped the goggles to the floor, but left her leather cap on to help keep her warm. Still holding her driving coat in place with one hand she felt into her valise until she found her change of clothes. She wiped her face with her linen blouse, then stuffed it down the front of her leather jacket to help insulate her body.
Reaching back into the valise, she then took the extra skirt and wadded it up to make a pillow. Tucking one side of the coat under the pillow, she laid her head against it to keep it in place. With one coat arm tied around one of the rigging wires, it kept out the wind and the rain.
At first she shook with cold and fear as she thought about how close she had come to crashing the aeroplane. Soon, however, her body heated the small space and she was, if not warm, at least not quite so chilled. As she subtly rocked herself back and forth to keep warm, she couldn’t help but let a troubling thought creep into her mind: What would Victoria do if I died? It was just the two of them now that their father had died. They had Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Conrad, of course, but just as Summerset, no matter how beloved, could never replace their Mayfair home, their uncle’s family could never replace their own little family. She, Victoria, and Prudence were the only ones left that remembered what a happy house they had been raised in.
Prudence.
Rowena’s heart ached and her cheeks heated with shame as she once again thought of how she had treated Prudence and how she was still taking the coward’s way out by avoiding her. She knew Prudence was angry, but wasn’t facing the conflict and being yelled at better than losing her sister? She resolved to go to Prudence the next time she was in London and beg her forgiveness. Prudence might never absolve her, but at least she would have tried.
Rowena felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she settled herself more comfortably against the seat and waited for the storm to pass.
chapter
thirteen
Prudence went about her morning chores, her heart as heavy as her steps. Instead of spending the holidays with a loving husband, she was alone, wondering if her husband still loved her or would ever forgive her. Muriel and Katie had invited her to spend the holiday with them, and rather reluctantly she’d agreed. She almost felt that she should stay home alone, that she should be punished for what she had done—as if not hearing from her husband for weeks now wasn’t punishment enough.
But finally she decided to join Katie, Muriel, and their borders for a festive, albeit feminine, Christmas. She planned on going over as soon as she finished the washing. No one else in the building would be doing their clothes on Christmas, and she would have the basement to herself.
As always, the dank basement gave her chills, and doing the wash drove her wild with impatience. She couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like to add nappies. She prayed that before she had too many more children they would be able to hire some help.
Her stomach tightened. If her husband returned from the war.
She pored over the newspaper obituaries with the morbid fascination of a hypochondriac studying a pharmacopoeia. She cringed whenever she read the names of young men she had known growing up. She wondered if they had married and what their deaths would mean to their families.
Pushing her morbid thoughts from her mind, she rinsed the wash and ran it through the wringer. She consoled herself with the knowledge that at least Andrew wasn’t on the front. He was as safe as he could possibly be, given the circumstances. Prudence rolled the items into small wet packets and put them all in her laundry basket. Going up and down two flights of stairs took a lot more of her energy than it used to.
She climbed the stairs, mindful of her steps. She wasn’t too large yet, though it did look rather as if she had a rugby ball under her skirt, but her balance was off and the last thing she wanted was to take a tumble down the stairs.
Once back in her flat, she strung the line across their small living area and added a bit more coal to the fire. Prudence was to bring a plum pud for dinner, but knowing her rudimentary cooking skills, Muriel had instructed her to buy the pudding premade and simply boil it at home. After checking to make sure plenty of water was in the pot, she walked to the window and stared down at the street. Occasionally, a motorcar would pass, probably taking its occupants to a family holiday feast somewhere.
Restlessly, she drummed her fingers against the cold glass, wondering why she felt so jittery. She blew on the window, watching it fog up and then disappear as the room grew warmer. Even though she’d originally been relieved to have somewhere to go for Christmas, now she found herself wishing she could just stay home.
You’re just being contrary, she chided herself. The pregnancy was doing it to her. She looked down. “Stop it, Horace,” she told her rugby ball. “You’re not even born and you’re making your poor mama cranky.” She caressed her stomach lovingly. “I’m sorry, Horace.” She sighed. “None of this is your fault.”
A posh motorcar rolled up in front of the greengrocer below her flat, and she watched it curiously. Surely the driver knew that stores were all closed today?
A woman stepped out and Prudence gave a small, joyous cry. She’d know Victoria’s diminutive figure anywhere. She was about to turn away from the window when a wash of cold swept over her as if she’d been caught in an ice storm. She knew something was wrong by the way Victoria’s fine head tilted to look up at her window. Prudence swallowed and raised a hand before turning toward the door.
What was Victoria doing here? Last she’d heard, Victoria was going to be spending the holidays in a hospital in France. Had she returned early? If so, why wasn’t she at Summerset with the rest of the family?
Rowena.
Prudence’s stomach dropped. Rowena had probably crashed in one of those stupid aeroplanes she was always flying about in. Why had such reckless folly even been allowed? But more important . . . why had Prudence been so hard-hearted? What if she never had the chance to tell Rowena that she loved her, in spite of being so angry with her? Because she did love her, of course she did.
She reached the door just as Victoria stepped onto the landing. Panic tightened Prudence’s throat at the sight of Victoria’s white face and worried blue eyes.
Prudence’s hand fluttered to her throat. “Is it Rowena?” she asked in a whisper.
Victoria shook her head. “Oh, my dear, you are going to have to be strong.”
Prudence clutched at the doorjamb, not wanting to hear whatever was going to come out of Victoria’s mouth next.
“It’s Andrew, he�
�s—”
Prudence screamed and black spots erupted in front of her eyes.
“No!” Victoria cried out, grabbing hold of Prudence.
Prudence let Victoria lead her to the chair next to the stove. Clutching Prudence’s hand, Victoria said urgently, “Don’t panic, Pru. He’s alive, but just barely. He’ll be all right . . . eventually.”
Prudence collapsed into the chair and closed her eyes as she clung to Victoria’s hand. He was alive. That was all that mattered. “You said eventually. What is wrong? Where is he? This wasn’t supposed to happen! Not in the remount depot.” She looked at Victoria, begging her to say differently.
“I’m so sorry. He volunteered to take a string of mules to an encampment near the front. An enemy scouting group must have stumbled right over him.”
Prudence’s heart chilled as she imagined the scene in her head. “He was shot?”
Victoria nodded. “Several times.”
Prudence whimpered. “How badly?”
Victoria didn’t mince words. “It’s bad. He was shot in the side, but the bullet went straight through, thank God. It was the other wound that almost killed him.”
Prudence strangled Victoria’s hand with her own and waited.
“Be strong, Prudence.” Prudence breathed in deeply. “Andrew lost his leg.”
Dizziness overcame her and she shut her eyes, strangling a scream about to erupt once again. If she started screaming, she didn’t know if she would ever stop. Everything they had worked so hard for was gone. How could he be a veterinarian with only one leg? Teach Horace how to play ball? He’d lose his job at the docks, at the very least, although she realized that there had never been a guarantee it would be waiting for him when he came back from the war.
She put her hands over her face and wept. Her fault. All her fault. She had interfered and look what had happened. She had manipulated fate. This was God’s way of punishing her, and poor Andrew had to suffer for it. “Where is he now?”