Silver Wings, Santiago Blue

by Janet Dailey

  Shortly after the last graduate landed, a stagger-winged Beechcraft came shooting down the runway. Eden recognized it and nudged the others. “That’s Jacqueline Cochran.”

  After the women’s director of flying climbed out of her aircraft, she headed toward the operations building. This time she was accompanied by another woman, her French-speaking maid, as the group later learned. Almost instantly she was engulfed in the wave of Houston graduates who gathered around her to pay homage. Eden shook her head in mild amusement at another spectacular entrance.

  The “cattle trucks” arrived to transport the Houston group into Sweetwater for a night’s stay at the Bluebonnet Hotel. And the flurry of excitement passed.

  The graduation ceremonies for the Houston class gave all the Avenger trainees a chance to wear their new regulation dress uniforms and to show off the marching skills they had practiced for the generals who had never come. A flag-carrier and two flight lieutenants led the long, straight columns past the reviewing stand. Behind them, the Big Spring Bombardier School Band played with drum-pounding exuberance.

  Since the graduates weren’t officially Army, regulation wings couldn’t be presented to them. A pilot without wings was unthinkable, so bombardier’s “sweetheart” wings were redesigned. A shield and ribbon, engraved with the squadron and class designation 43-W-2, were soldered to the middle of the “sweetheart” wings.

  Elated and high-spirited, the Inseparables swept into their bay, all of them talking at once, filling the room with their impressions of the ceremony. The graduation exercises had reaffirmed the sense of importance of their flight training, ennobling it with duty and honor and pride. Men were needed on the war fronts and they would be performing a vital service by relieving them of the home duties so they could go fight.

  With continuing chatter back and forth, they began changing out of their uniforms of tan slacks and short-sleeved white shirts. Dawdling in various stages of undress, some in bra and slacks and some bottomless in shirts, they roamed the bay.

  “You can bet there’ll be an article in the Sweetwater Reporter tomorrow.”

  “Do you suppose they’ll have pictures, too? I know I was in one of them. The photographer was right there in front of me when he snapped it.”

  “It depends on the background. They can’t publish a photograph if there are more than two planes in the picture. The censors won’t allow it. No mention can be made of the base, where it’s located, or how many trainees are here.”

  “I’m sure the enemy is anxious to learn all about us female flyers. We’re such a threat.”

  Laughing along with the others at the thought, Mary Lynn bent a bare knee to the floor in front of her footlocker and opened it to take out a change of clothes. Lying on top, Beau’s smiling face looked back at her from the gilt-framed photograph. It jolted her. The smile, the laughter, died. Mary Lynn slowly reached to pick up the photo, then carried it to her cot, where she sat silently staring at it, indifferent to the continuing barrage of voices behind her.

  “Has anybody looked inside Eden’s locker?” Marty stopped beside the opened footlocker, and saw the rumpled clothes and underwear tumbling over the sides. “It’s worse than Fibber McGee’s closet. Don’t you ever fold your clothes before you toss them in there?”

  “Butt out, Rogers.” Eden shouldered her out of the way and bent to dig through the mess for a change of clothes, further disheveling the contents.

  “What’s the matter, Miss van Valkenburg?” Marty razzed. “Are you jealous ‘cause Cochran gets to bring her maid along and you don’t?” Laughing, she ambled back to her cot. “God, Mary Lynn, you should take a look at her footlocker.” The lack of response, the absence of any sign her comment had been heard, drew Marty’s full attention. She tipped her head to the side, trying to get a glimpse of the brunette’s downcast face. “Hey, Mary Lynn, is something wrong?” The more direct question seemed to pierce through Mary Lynn’s absorption with the photograph of her husband.

  Her expression was troubled and her eyes were dark with near panic. “All this talk about Army censors and the enemy—we joke about it and none of it is funny. There’s a war on. Men are fighting and dying.”

  “Nobody meant anything by it,” Marty hastened to assure her, at a loss for the right words to comfort and reassure her friend. She sat beside her on the cot, awkwardly touching Mary Lynn’s small-boned shoulder.

  The others, including the tall, sleek Rachel Goldman, noticed the changed tenor of the conversation and glanced curiously at the huddled pair, discreetly listening in.

  “Beau is over there.” Mary Lynn stared at the photograph. “What if something happens to him? What if he’s hurt or killed? What would I do without him? He’s got to come back to me, Marty. I’ll die without him.” She was scared for him and frightened by the thought of a future without him. The loneliness was awful now, but at least she could look forward to his letters and the distant tomorrow when he’d come home. “I should be with him. I don’t belong here.”

  “That isn’t true,” Rachel inserted. Usually there was minor resistance to any inclusion of her in their conversations. Marty stiffened at her unexpected participation, wary of Rachel yet willing to let her speak as long as she said the right things. “We are at war, and your husband is over there fighting to protect all the things we believe in. At a time like this, we all have to make sacrifices—put aside our personal wants and do what is right.”

  Mary Lynn raised her head, drawn by the forceful argument being put forth. The militance in Rachel’s expression convinced her of the blonde’s sincerity.

  “Hitler and his Fascist armies have to be destroyed. We all have to fight in the ways that we can to protect our homes and the ones we love,” Rachel declared. “You can do it by flying, by freeing a male pilot for combat and maybe to fly fighter escort for your husband’s bomber. We are at war and this is where you belong—for his sake and everyone else’s.”

  For long seconds her words lingered, ringing in their minds. The rationalization, the justification was the assurance Mary Lynn needed.

  “Thanks,” she murmured to Rachel, who was already self-conscious about her impassioned outburst.

  Later, with the half-light of night coming through the barracks’ windows, Mary Lynn lay on her cot, listening to the even breathing of her sleeping baymates. An awful, aching loneliness knifed through her as she strained to recall those nights of marital closeness with Beau.

  Her lips could almost feel the pressure of his kiss. She closed her eyes, trying to make the ghostlike sensation more real. Months had passed since he had held her. She rubbed her arms, seeking to remember the feel of his muscles, flexed and hard. It had been so long. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, biting down on it while she tried to keep the wanting at bay.

  She trembled with longing. Beau. She mouthed his name as her hand slid to the underside of her breast, feeling its rounded firmness. The sensation stimulated a driving ache. She turned her face into the pillow to smother any sound she might inadvertently make. Doubled into a fist, her hand pushed its way between her legs where her thighs clamped themselves on her wrist to hold it there.

  Long-ago childhood memories came rushing back. She could hear her mother’s voice again, so strident and condemning. “Mary Lynn, what are you doing? You get your hand out of your panties this instant!” The censure and the stinging slaps for a wrong she didn’t understand. “Nice little girls don’t do such things. Don’t ever let me catch you doing that again.” Words that drove her to secrecy—in the darkness of night and the hiding cover of blankets—and the ultimate easing of that terrible tension.

  “Beau,” she whispered in near apology as her body sagged in relief against the thin mattressed cot.

  Check-ride time came around for the basic training stage of their flying program. Those who passed civilian rides with their instructors went for their Army check rides. When it was over, the ranks of the trainee class were thinned considerably. Chicago was am
ong the group who washed out.

  The mattress of her empty cot was rolled up, and all her personal belongings had been removed from the premises.

  “Do you suppose she’s gone already?” Mary Lynn wondered.

  “Yes,” Cappy replied.

  “I bet she was out of here within a couple of hours. They don’t let them hang around long once they’re out of the program.” By the ubiquitous they, Marty meant the command staff at Avenger.

  “I suppose she failed the instrument flying.” Eden sank onto her cot and drew a knee up to her chest.

  “I suppose.” Cappy shrugged an agreement, aware they would never know for sure.

  Some of the military inspectors had been known to wash out a student for no more cause than the check pilot’s decision that the trainee wasn’t strong enough to handle a plane in difficulty. Even being female was reason enough for some.

  “Remember when they caught those two girls in bed together?” Marty recalled. “They were packed up and off the base within an hour.”

  There was a nod from Eden, but no one said anything. The Inseparables were no more. The empty cot was a mute testimony of that.

  The hot Texas summer found the combined Houston and Sweetwater class of 43-W-3 just entering the advanced phase of training, cut almost in half. This was the final stage.

  No more BT-13s; instead they were flying the AT-6, known as the “Texan,” built by North American Aviation. The advanced trainer had 150 more horses in its engine than the 450-horsepower BT-13. For the first time, the girls had to deal with retractable landing gear, which not only gave the single-engined plane, with its pushed-in nose, a very sleek look on takeoffs but also gave the aircraft a cruising speed of 145 miles an hour.

  The training concentrated on long-distance navigation, crosscountry trips that would be invaluable experience for future ferry pilots. Many lessons were learned the hard way, as attested by red-faced pilots who knocked at the doors of ranch houses after running out of gas and making forced landings in someone’s pasture or cotton field.

  A triangle that went from Sweetwater to Odessa to Big Spring and back to Sweetwater was flown countless times by the trainees, both solo and with their instructors. After a while, most of them swore they could fly it blindfolded.

  With the summer sun sending temperatures soaring into the hundreds regularly, any chance to crawl into a Texan AT-6 and climb into the sky was welcomed. For every thousand feet of altitude, the temperature dropped three and a half degrees. The air blowing through the plane’s ventilators was about as refreshing as a fan blowing across a block of ice.

  Rachel leveled her advanced trainer off at eight thousand feet and adjusted the trim tab for straight and level flight. The rush of cool air was directed squarely at her, ruffling the map she tried to study. In a break from the usual routine, she had elected to fly a different cross-country route, going to San Angelo, then to Abilene and back to Sweetwater.

  The flight leg from Sweetwater to San Angelo had been fairly routine. After Rachel had turned north to Abilene, she’d had trouble locating her first few checkpoints. Taking out her little round-wheeled flight calculator, she refigured her airspeed and flying time to approximate the distance, then plotted it on the map. The wind velocity would affect her groundspeed, but, even allowing for that variance, Abilene should have been in sight.

  Craning her neck, Rachel strained to see out the front of the mullioned canopy. There was no sign of a town on the hazy horizon. She tipped the plane on its wing to look below and behind, in case she’d overflown it. Nothing.

  Without a radio frequency to turn to, she couldn’t crosscheck her position. Her uneasiness grew as she considered the possibility she was off course. It was too soon to panic. The winds aloft might be stronger than she’d been told. It would be silly to turn back, especially if her destination was just ahead. Rachel decided to fly her heading a while longer.

  Another twenty minutes in the air and she knew something had gone wrong. Somehow she had missed Abilene and she was lost. Below her, there was nothing but mesquite brush covering the dark red earth. Then she spied the iron tracks of a railroad leading into a small town. Immediately, Rachel angled the AT-6 into a steep descent and buzzed the train depot. FREDERICK, the sign on it read.

  Not knowing the frequency, she was unable to call the control tower as she entered the traffic pattern on the downwind leg. A combination of nervousness over her situation and limited experience with this faster and more powerful ship caused her to land the AT-6 about twenty miles an hour faster than the recommended speed. It was a “hot” landing, the kind usually made by highly experienced fighter pilots.

  Her confidence was being chipped away—first, because she strayed off course, second because this airfield wasn’t shown on her maps, and third because the power-on landing made her question her mechanical flying skills. Men in uniforms were hurrying out of the operations building to meet her as Rachel taxied her plane to the flight line.

  The searing heat of the afternoon hit her as she crawled out of the cockpit and stepped onto the wing. The looks on the faces of waiting soldiers weren’t too friendly. Rachel took a deep, silent breath and walked down the edge of the wing, shaking her long pale blond hair loose.

  Their expressions took on a stunned look when she hopped onto the ground in front of them. The officer, a captain, stepped forward to eye her with wary and angry suspicion. “Just who the hell are you? And what are you doing with that plane?”

  Rachel retaliated in self-protection. “Since I’m the pilot, I guess I’m flying it.”

  Just about then, a jeepload of MPs came charging onto the scene. It suddenly hit her that they really had no idea who she was. They were probably ready to believe she was some kind of saboteur, a possibility that was reinforced when the MPs crowded around her and the plane with their rifles at the ready.

  “That’s an Army plane you’ve got,” the captain pointed out.

  There she was, standing beside the AT-6, her six feet making her the tallest one present, a striking blonde with sloe eyes, and surrounded by armed men. This was no time to react in kind.

  “Yes, sir.” Rachel schooled her voice to answer with terse calm. “I’m Rachel Goldman, a trainee with the 319th Army Air Force Flight Training Detachment at Avenger Field in Sweetwater.”

  “You surely don’t expect me to believe that?” He challenged her harshly. “The Army doesn’t have any women flying planes.”

  “Excuse me, but you are wrong, sir. As a matter of fact, there are a couple hundred of us at Avenger Field—and we all fly Army planes.

  “If you would just tell me where I am …” Rachel struggled to hold her temper. “I’m a little confused because my map doesn’t show an air base outside of Frederick, Texas—”

  “That’s because you’re in Frederick, Oklahoma.”

  It was all she could do to keep her mouth from falling open. More than off course, she had been lost. She didn’t even have maps that went this far.

  “Now you know why the Army doesn’t have any women flying its planes,” the captain jeered. “A woman has no business behind the wheel of a car, let alone at the controls of a plane.” He waved a hand at the military police. “Check out the plane.” Then he turned to the young officer next to him. “Get a hold of the C.O., Crawford, and let him know about this. And you”—he faced Rachel and reached for her arm—“are coming with me.”

  She yanked her arm out of his hold. “Listen, Captain.” She managed to put a wealth of sarcasm in the reference to his rank and resisted the urge to call him a sawed-off little punk. “All you have to do is call Avenger Field in Sweetwater and they can verify who I am.”

  “I’ll call them,” he promised her, certain he was calling her bluff as well.

  “Don’t you think we ought to see if she’s armed?” one of the MPs suggested. “There’s no telling what she might be concealing in the baggy suit she’s wearing.”

  “You’re right.” The captain nodded.
>
  Protest screamed through her nerves, but Rachel gritted her teeth and said nothing. Unmoving as a statue, she stood there submitting herself to the indignity of a physical search. All the while the hands were unzipping her flight suit, sliding under her arms, down her waist and hips, and brushing her tautly held breasts, she glared at the captain.

  “Nothing, sir,” the MP concluded.

  “This will be reported, Captain,” Rachel assured him with icy stiffness. Yet she knew that in the face of his belief that she was some kind of enemy agent, he was probably following the proper military procedure.

  She was escorted to his office in the operations building where she was again questioned and her story challenged. Her repeated efforts to have him call Avenger were brushed aside. Everything was being checked, he told her.

  Half an hour had passed since she’d taxied her plane up to the building. Rachel was beginning to think they’d lock her in the guardhouse next when the phone on the captain’s desk rang. Evidently, the call was from his commanding officer, judging by his almost subservient manner. Rachel caught a glimmer of displeasure in his expression when the conversation ended.

  “It seems there is some sort of training program for female pilots at Avenger Field,” he acknowledged reluctantly as he pushed himself out of his chair. “You are free to go, trainee Goldman. May I suggest the next time you keep your mind on flying instead of daydreaming and you’ll be less likely to get lost.”

  There were no apologies, and no attempt to hide his contempt for her sex in the cockpit of a plane. It required all her self-control not to tell the captain precisely what her opinion of him was.