Flight of the Tiger Moth

by Mary Woodbury

  “No, Flo.” Jack’s mother had been running around the kitchen unpacking the groceries, putting on the kettle and getting tea things ready. She wiped her hands on her crisp apron and sat down at the kitchen table. “Why did you do that?”

  “I’m not like you, Mother. I can’t just stay here in Cairn, or even in Moose Jaw. Here, I’d stitch up accident victims, collect ration coupons and fold bandages.”

  “Don’t do this, Flo. You could be injured over there – or worse. Listen to your mother for a change.” Ivy got up and paced the floor. “Good girls don’t do this.”

  “Who told you that?” Flo’s voice was ­angry.

  “Who knows what kind of people you’ll be dealing with?” Ivy pulled a hankie out of her pocket and wiped her ­eyes.

  “Mom, someone has to take care of the wounded. I have friends who are nursing sisters and you couldn’t ask for any nicer girls.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of you risking your life. Leave it to the military men.” Jack’s mother wrapped her arms around herself as if she was being hit, still clutching the crumpled ­hankie.

  “The world is changing.” Flo glanced over at Jack. He was leaning against the wall, trying to stay out of it. “It’s time we women got involved in the tough stuff.”

  Jack shook his head. His sister was one determined ­lady.

  “Women are needed for their skills,” Flo said. “If Sandy is fighting for our freedom, the least I can do is join up and do my part. It’s not like I’m going into combat. I want to save lives.”

  Jack started down the hall to his room. The tension in the kitchen was more than he could bear. Maybe he should go and get his dad from the store. His dad, Bill, was a pretty ­peace-­loving guy. He might be able to calm things ­down.

  Instead, he stretched out on the crazy quilt on his bed and stared at all the airplane models he’d built, hanging on threads from the ­ceiling.

  He could still hear the loudest part of the argument. His mother was crying. Flo shouted about how Mom made her feel like a naughty child instead of respecting her decisions. Then a door slammed and there was silence. He figured his mother had gone to see his dad at the store. Flo had probably gone for a walk to cool ­down.

  He waited until the house was still, then walked over to the garage behind the store, where Sandy’s black ’36 Ford sat under a tarp. Jack pulled the sailcloth tarp off, folded it and put it on the workbench. Then he took the keys off the hook by the door and unlocked the door on the driver’s side. He got in and started the car. It started smoothly like it should. But then, it was oiled and in good ­condition.

  “While I’m away I want you to take care of old Bessie,” Sandy had said the day he left. “Can you do that? I bought her with my first batch of paycheques from the Royal Canadian Air Force. I don’t want you roaring around the countryside, frightening the wild life, though.”

  “No sir.”

  “Take her out for a spin every week or so. Change the oil. Check the battery, especially in the winter months.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Rotate the tires every six months or so. Hopefully I’ll be back before you have to do that too many times.”

  Sandy had stood there with his hands in his pockets. He seemed to be weighing his words. “If anything happens…” he paused. “If anything happens to me and I don’t make it…”

  “You’ll be fine,” Jack blurted. He wanted to close his ears so he wouldn’t hear what Sandy was saying. He didn’t want his mind going in that ­direction.

  “If I don’t make it home, Jack, I want you to have the car.”

  Jack didn’t know where to look or what to ­say.

  “However, my boy, if I come back, you better make sure there isn’t one scratch on this baby, you hear me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A couple of days later Sandy had climbed on the train going east and left. Flo and Ivy had cried. Bill and Jack had hurried back to the store in case there were customers. That way no one would see if either one of them had tears in his ­eyes.

  >>>

  Flo left in May to go east for speedy officer’s training and orientation to military life. She was being sent overseas to a military hospital in England. One of her former nursing instructors had asked for ­her.

  Jack stood on the platform beside his dad. Flo and his mother were ­talking.

  “I’ll write as often as I can.”

  “I will too.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

  Ivy nodded. “Me too. It was the shock of it.”

  “You’ve never liked change.” Flo said. “I love it – the challenge of it.”

  “We aren’t much alike. I’ll send parcels. I hear the food is awful over there.”

  The train whistle ­blew.

  “Don’t forget to feed Dad and Jack too. Hey, little brother, don’t get into any trouble while I’m away.”

  “Thank goodness, he’s too young to fly away too.” Bill laughed, gave Flo a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. “Some of us have to stay home and mind the store.”

  Jack gave his sister a hug. “I’ll miss you. Mom always made chocolate cake when you came home weekends.” While they stood close together, they ­whispered.

  “Is it me you’ll miss or the chocolate?” asked ­Flo.

  “You. If it hadn’t been for you, I never would have gotten to fly.”

  “Sandy says you’re a natural,” Flo whispered. “Keep flying, kiddo.”

  As the train started to roll, Flo jumped ­on.

  The last they saw of her, she was waving from an open window in the last car. Jack heaved a sigh and headed ­home.

  Chapter 3

  June ­1943

  Jack was mowing the grass after school when his mother came hurrying up the street from the post office carrying a ­familiar-­looking tan airmail letter. It could only be from ­Flo.

  His sister had written a lot since she’d left; but sometimes the letters came in bunches. This was just a single envelope. Ivy carried the unopened letter like it was one of her precious china ­plates.

  Some people might have opened the letter right in the middle of the main street. Not Ivy ­Waters.

  She sighed as she sat down on the striped canvas folding chair in the shade of the caragana hedge. She wore a freshly ironed, flowered cotton dress and no jewellery. She opened the letter carefully. Ivy did everything carefully, thought ­Jack.

  He pushed the mower into the garage and hurried over to her, anxious to hear from the “front.” With his sister nursing in a big hospital on some rich person’s estate and Sandy flying night missions somewhere, Jack paid attention to all the war news that could get through the censor. His dad read all the papers and reported daily as ­well.

  Ivy sat with the letter crumpled on her lap, her face paler than ever. She looked up as Jack came ­over.

  “Sandy’s missing in action.”

  Jack stopped ­mid-­stride. “When? How? Why didn’t we get notified?”

  “We’re not the next of kin.”

  “He can’t be missing. He’s a great flyer.” He’s going to marry my sister, he added to himself. He taught me to fly. He left his car for me to keep an eye ­on.

  “Go and tell your dad.”

  Jack sprinted along the road and down to the main street. Sandy couldn’t die. Jack needed him. He loved his mom and dad, but they were old and stodgy. Sandy had been a real blast of fresh ­air.

  The first Sunday Sandy drove Flo home and stayed for dinner, he’d regaled them with stories of learning to fly when he was only sixteen, in Red Deer, and how he’d signed up with the Air Force as soon as he could, only to end up being a flight instructor for the rcaf in Moose ­Jaw.

  Jack’s dad, Bill, sat on the front porch of their store with the Hobbs boys – as everyone called twins Melvin and Arnie Hobbs – veterans of the First World War. Both men were shorter and fatter than Jack’s dad, their round faces red from the sun and wind. Retired farmers, they spent t
heir days at the store, the post office or down the street at the Chinese ­restaurant.

  The three men glanced up as Jack came barrelling down the street. His dad, tucking his white shirt into his dark blue trousers, hurried down the steps. “Has something happened to Flo?”

  “Flo’s safe, Dad.”

  “Thank God.”

  “It’s Sandy. He’s missing in action.”

  The Hobbs twins blinked and their cheerful faces ­crumpled.

  “Damn war!” Arnie rubbed his bearded chin. Mel shook his head in ­sorrow.

  Dad flipped the sign in the front window from “Open” to “Closed.” “How’s your mother?”

  Jack looked back over his shoulder. “Really upset.”

  “I was afraid this would happen. Flying’s a dangerous business.”

  “But Sandy was an instructor.”

  “In a war anyone can be killed.” Dad ­sighed.

  “Uncle Jack came back safely.”

  “But he wasn’t the same man afterwards,” his dad replied. “Not the big brother I remembered.”

  Jack nodded. Flo’s dad had only lived for a year after the war. He was buried beside Grandpa and Grandma Waters in the Cairn ­cemetery.

  When they got home, they found Dr. McLeod, the United Church minister, and his wife Mary in the parlour with Ivy. They sat on either side of her on the sofa, Dr. McLeod’s arm gently touching Ivy’s. Their son Wes, Jack’s best friend, looked a bit uncomfortable sitting on the maroon upholstered chair with dainty white lace doilies on the arms. The sofa back also wore crocheted covers to keep stains off the upholstery. Only the family knew about the worn fabric beneath the ­frills.

  Jack felt better right away, seeing them there. Dr. Ian McLeod was balding, with ­greyish-­blond hair and ears that turned red when he preached. He still had a Scottish accent even though he’d immigrated as a young ­man.

  Wes was like his parents, tall and gangly, but where Dr. McLeod had light hair, Wes and his mom had red hair and blue eyes that made them stand out in any ­group.

  Mary hurried to bring them all cups of tea. Jack sipped his slowly. They talked about how wonderful young people like Sandy and Flo were. How brave and daring. Then they moved on to talking about the war in Europe and what they had heard or read or seen on the movie ­newsreels.

  Jack glanced over at Wes. He was clearly not happy sitting ­there.

  Ivy looked up at the two boys, her eyes filled with pain. Jack tried to find something to say that might ­help.

  “I was thinking,” he said. “Sandy might have gone down some place in France. He can land any plane, remember. And we know there are Resistance fighters in France.”

  “That’s true,” his dad said, “and Sandy speaks good French.”

  “The Resistance could be helping Sandy escape. Or if he’s wounded, they could be keeping him safe while he heals.”

  “That’s possible,” Ivy said, brightening a little. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Yes,” Mary said. “That’s a good thought, Jack.”

  “And we know what a resourceful fellow Sandy is,” Dr. McLeod ­added.

  Jack’s dad smiled at him. Jack didn’t always say the right thing, but this time he’d surprised himself. And helped his mother breathe a little ­easier.

  Jack nodded at Wes and they walked quietly down the hall to Jack’s ­room.

  “I’ll show you my new model,” Jack ­said.

  “Great,” Wes said. “You don’t have to tell me what it is.”

  Jack smiled. “Nope. It’s definitely a Moth.”

  Inside Jack’s room, the walls were covered with photographs of airplanes and diagrams of flying machines designed by Leonardo da Vinci. And Jack’s own drawings of aircraft wings, propellers and engines, all in painstaking detail. A tissue ­paper-­and-­matchstick model of a bomber hung from the light fixture in the middle of Jack’s room. It swung in the ­breeze.

  “Sorry to hear the news.” Wes picked up an old Superman comic and put it down. “I hate what war does to people. It’s not just soldiers who hurt. It’s all of us.”

  “I know.” Trust his best friend and favourite philosopher to try to say something deep. Good old Wes. “All we can do is hope. Want to help with the model?”

  The model parts were scattered on a small table. Without a lot of talk, Wes handed pieces to Jack as needed or helped hold two pieces together so Jack could glue them. As they worked, the plane began to take shape. Jack felt as if the clean lines of the aircraft comforted him as he sanded the lightweight balsa ­wood.

  Sandy and Jack had flown a ­full-­size version of this plane. It was a good plane and Sandy was a good flyer. The best. Jack imagined Sandy in a ­twin-­engine bomber or a sleek fighter plane. He could handle them ­all.

  Finally they were done and Jack hung the fragile model on a thread by the open ­window.

  “The top half of your room looks like the sky over Cairn, Jack.”

  “Thanks. But these planes will never crash. They’re protected by the threads that fix them to the ceiling.”

  His models were safe, but how did you protect the people you loved? There were no threads strong enough. Are we all as fragile as these flimsy toys? Jack ­wondered.

  Chapter ­4

  The next morning Jack slipped on khaki shorts, ­t-­shirt and runners and tiptoed down the hallway past his parents’ room. He grabbed an apple and a thick slab of bread which he slathered with butter and peanut butter, and snuck out the back door so as not to wake his mom and ­dad.

  The Waters family had had a hard day. All the neighbours had gathered. Gallons of tea had been drunk; plates of homemade squares and cookies brought and consumed. His father had been stuck with the clean-­up.

  Jack hadn’t slept well and decided to get an early start for work. His weekend job, at the Elementary Flight Training School two miles away, might keep his mind off Sandy and things he couldn’t control or change. Monday he’d be back at school. His parents were still asleep because their general store didn’t open until ten Saturdays, allowing them to stay open late so farmers could get into ­town.

  Jack stopped momentarily in the outhouse and then rinsed his hands under the pump in the backyard. The cold water from the cistern chilled his fingers. He wiped his already-tanned hands on the worn pink towel his mother had left hanging over the edge of the white enamel ­bucket.

  The town water truck lumbered by, making an early morning run to the public water station on the road to Mortlach, the next village, ten miles away across the prairie to the ­east.

  What a week it had been. Yesterday the bad news about Sandy had arrived, and only the day before that, he and his family had gone to the graduation ceremony of the latest batch of young Royal Air Force flyers trained at the base. The station band had played marches. People had sung “God Save the King” and the English co, the Commanding Officer, had ­spoken.

  There’d been a potluck supper afterwards at the church, and everyone in town had been there to say goodbye to the boys who had come into the village for treats, church, socials or dinners. He’d said farewell to the three flyers who had eaten at their Sunday dinner table the last few months. He’d been too busy at school and work to get to know them very ­well.

  He and his friend Wes had eaten scads of food at the ­potluck.

  At six feet, two inches, Wes had to duck when he entered or left the church basement. His reddish hair stuck up in unruly clumps despite hair cream and constant combing. Jack was barely five foot eight and wiry, but he could eat as much as Wes. They’d demolished a plate of fancy egg salad and salmon sandwiches all by ­themselves.

  “We’ll be seeing you, Jackie,” one of the flyers had said in his English accent, as he waved his new blue wedge cap. “Too bad you can’t fly. It’s wizard.”

  Jack had bitten his tongue to keep from telling the ­smart-­aleck Brit that he could fly. The young pilots would ship out to Halifax by train the next day. A ship would take them back to England where
they would train as bomber or fighter pilots, now that they had their wings, wings they had earned right here in ­Cairn.

  Jack wondered how many of them would make it through the war alive. They weren’t as well trained or experienced as Sandy. And Sandy was ­missing.

  Actually, you didn’t have to go all the way to Europe to die. A few students had already died in training accidents right here. Jack shuddered, ­remembering.

  >>>

  Jack climbed on his bike and pedalled through Cairn. His life and his small village had changed so much in the last two years. He turned onto the gravel road heading north out of town and put on the speed. Sweat trickled down his forehead. He wiped his ­brow.

  He whistled “You Are My Sunshine” to try and cheer himself up as he cycled toward the airfield. His job was to help the mechanics keep the airplanes in working order, and usually he did a lot of work cleaning them inside and out. Sometimes he got to work alongside the mechanics. He could manage oil changes and minor maintenance jobs as ­well.

  He’d watched the whole training base being built in the late fall of 1941, including the airfield, hangars, shops and ­h-­huts, and housing for the instructors and staff. Now, two years later, he felt much more ­mature.

  At first, raf maintenance people had done all the work on the base. Then Jack had made a place for himself – and lots of tips – delivering coffee, cigarettes and snacks from his dad’s store out to the construction workers. The money was in the bank in Moose Jaw. Jack was saving for university, although he did buy himself the occasional book or model plane, ­too.

  Finally the raf had sent all the maintenance and support staff home to work for the war effort in Britain and the station had started hiring local workers. Now Jack’s weekend job meant that at last he could get close to the planes, even if he didn’t get to fly ­them.

  Jack sped up. If he hurried, Mabel Turner, one of the instructors who managed the Link Trainer, might give him a turn. The flight simulator helped train the student flyers. The Link was fun, pitting Jack’s manoeuvring skills against a machine. It helped to keep his senses sharp, helped keep fresh what he’d learned flying with ­Sandy.