by Janet Dailey
With the review of the WASPs completed, the short, squatty Major Stevenson slapped the last girl in line on her bottom and whispered, in good male fun, “Get!” And they were dismissed.
As they broke ranks to be descended on by the reporters and photographers in attendance, Eden muttered to Mary Lynn, “If he’d done that to me, I’d have punched him in the face.”
Articles about these “brave” women pilots ran in newspapers across the country for weeks afterward. But the next morning when Mary Lynn and Eden reported to the flight line for their first mission, the WASP Nest no longer existed. The sign had been removed, as well as the tables and chairs.
Feeling used and bitter, Eden walked to her plane and with a barely controlled fury made her groundcheck of the craft. The parachute pack, strapped to her back, and her coveralls made a shapeless figure of her tall body.
The pudgy enlisted man who acted as her tow-target operator hadn’t arrived to take his position in the gunner’s seat. Eden wished she had a cigarette, but smoking was forbidden on the flight line, with all the high-octane gasoline around. She felt brittle and angry. Not even the sight of Bubba’s long, familiar shape approaching made her feel better.
“Good morning. You look to be in fine fettle this morning.” He grinned at the snap of temper in her dark eyes.
But Eden wouldn’t be cajoled out of her mood. “What did you find when you checked out this plane?”
“The usual,” Bubba answered, watching her closely. “The radio keeps breaking up and the engine’s using oil so you might want to keep an eye on the pressure gauge. The flap handle’s broken, but it’s operational.”
“Wonderful,” she offered caustically.
“You’re as cranky as a cow with a twisted tail,” he observed, unamused. “What is it?”
Her hesitation didn’t last long, as her complaint exploded. “It’s Stevenson and his cheap publicity stunt. I’m sick of being treated like this. I’m sick of flying worn-out planes.” Unconsciously she dug her fingers into the flesh of her arms, trembling with the force of her anger. “I don’t have to take this kind of abuse and I’m not! I’m putting in for a transfer.”
His broad features took on a closed-in look, all emotion pulled deep inside. “If that’s the way you feel, I reckon it’s what you ought to do.”
She was struck by the realization that a transfer would take her away from Bubba. It drained the anger from her. After that day on the beach, they no longer met accidentally, although his noncommissioned status forced them to be circumspect in their choice of meeting places. While Eden might concede that the touch of the forbidden added some spice to their affair, it was nothing at all like the silly fling she’d had with her chauffeur. Her desire to be with Bubba wasn’t based on any rebellion against money or class. And while the passion might match what she’d experienced with that impoverished count, Bubba was not shallow and selfish. He was strong and wonderful; more than that, he loved her—the person that she was—and her money and social position meant nothing to him.
“It won’t change anything.” She was stiff in her attempt to convince him of that. She didn’t want to lose him, not when they’d just found each other.
“If you say so, ma’am.”
“Stop it, Bubba.” Eden was irritated with his formality when they’d gone so far beyond it.
His hazel eyes bored into her, letting some raw, exposed feeling be seen in his expression. “I don’t think you know what you mean to me.” There was a wealth of emotion in the simple words. His feelings couldn’t have been expressed more clearly.
“Half of all the couples in this country have been separated by the war. Why should you and I be any different?” The flight line was much too public a place for their feelings to be declared, with ground crew all around, engines revving, and pilots in their cockpits, yet their eyes locked. Their bodies strained toward one another as their emotions found a third level of communication. “You make me feel alive, Bubba.” Stripped of all its flowery description, what she felt for him was love, passion-deep and basic.
A sexually charged tension electrified the air as Eden gazed at him, standing so close to her. She wanted to touch him, to be inside the circle of his arms, to taste the earthy flavor of his kiss.
“I wish we were somewhere else.” All his attention was on her lips.
“Can’t you get a weekend pass?” Eden urged. “We’ll go somewhere—far from the Army’s frowning eyes. A friend of mine has a mountain cabin. I know he’ll let us use it.”
He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“We can meet in town and take my car.” She was already making plans.
“In town.” He drew back, caution flaring in his eyes. “There’d be hell to pay if we were seen together.”
“To hell with the Army and what they think,” Eden retorted impatiently.
“That’s easy for you to say. You aren’t the one who’d be facing a possible court-martial.”
Eden doubted if he’d receive any more than a stern reprimand if they should be seen, which wasn’t likely. “It’s a chance to spend an entire weekend together. Don’t you want that?”
“You know I do.” A muscle jumped along his wide jaw.
“Should I arrange to use the cabin?” she challenged, hurt that he hadn’t jumped at the opportunity. “Or are you going to let the Army tell you whom you are permitted to see and what you can do?”
“I’ll get the pass and you get the cabin,” Bubba agreed.
Her pudgy tow-target operator came trotting up to the plane, ready for the morning’s mission. His curiosity was aroused by the silence that suddenly fell between the sergeant and the red-haired pilot. He was used to hearing a free-flowing banter, a warmth and friendliness that knew no rank. But he didn’t ask any questions, and simply climbed into the rear cockpit.
The sergeant helped the pilot get snugged into the front cockpit, then waited on the ground while the engine warmed. He was still standing there, watching them as the A-24 taxied to the runway.
Chapter XXI
HAMILTON STEELE LEANED closer to the telephone, unable to subdue his pleasure at the sound of the voice coming through the receiver. “I’m delighted to hear from you. How are you?”
“Fine.” The long-distance connection crackled into Eden’s voice. “Ham, darling. I have a favor to ask you.”
“I didn’t think you called just because you missed me,” he said with a dry smile, some of the eager light fading from his eyes as his well-schooled patience came into play again. “You have only to ask, Eden. You know that.”
“It’s your mountain hideaway. You said I could use it any time I wanted. How about next weekend?” The ring of her voice brought her image vividly to his mind. Eden was a woman of passions and spirit. Her temperament, well reined through practice, was always present, its aliveness radiating from her being. “We thought we’d slip away from the war for a couple days.”
“I’ll wire the groundskeeper in the morning so he can have it stocked and ready for you,” he assured her, and settled back in his chair. “As a matter of fact, I just may join you.”
There was a small silence on the other end of the line, followed by a throaty laugh. “Please don’t, Ham. It might prove awkward.”
Beneath that playful mockery, Hamilton recognized a trace of protectiveness. “Ah.” He concealed a heavy sigh, having been through all this before. “I thought perhaps you and a few of your female flying friends were planning this getaway. Obviously, your companion is a male. May I inquire as to your friend? Is he a pilot too?”
“Bubba is an aircraft mechanic.”
“Bubba,” he repeated with mild disbelief.
“Ham, darling, you are sounding like a snob,” she chided. She didn’t want to hear him make fun of her lover.
But Hamilton had heard more than she realized. Her voice had contained a small, possessive inflection when she said Bubba’s name. It was all too familiar to him, and he breathed out a weary sound that r
esembled a laugh.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“I’m half tempted to gamble away all my money on the stock market and buy myself a little farm in Pennsylvania with the few pennies I’d keep back,” he declared.
“You? A farmer?” Eden laughed at the ludicrous picture of her conservative dark-suit-and-vested Hamilton Steele in a pair of bibbed overalls. “Why on earth would you ever wish such a thing?”
“It seems … that you invariably fall for the impoverished or the plebeian.” His mildly mocking voice was gentle, but a sadness—which she wasn’t able to see—was in his eyes.
“It’s a fatal flaw in my character, I’m afraid,” she admitted and juggled the phone while she shook a cigarette from her pack of Lucky Strike Greens. “And stop making it sound as if I always pick losers. Bubba is different.” But it seemed kinder not to discuss it with him. “How’s New York?”
“It’s turning colder.”
“I had a letter from Cappy. She flew some colonel to New England last week. She said the autumn colors were spectacular this year.”
“Indeed.”
The conversation sparkled for another minute in that same false vein. Finally, Eden reaffirmed that she would use his mountain lodge the following weekend and Hamilton gave her instructions on where to obtain the key.
A November chill frosted the early morning air with its cool breath. Dressed in what had become regulation clothes for Cappy, the improvised uniform of khaki gabardine slacks, white shirt, and a flight jacket, she inched the zipper closure up a little higher and stepped out of the operations building at Boiling Field to proceed to the DC-3 parked on the ramp, the passenger version of the Army cargo C-47.
“How many passengers will we have this morning?” she asked her copilot, a brash man in his early twenties who couldn’t quite conceal his resentment at flying second seat to a female.
“Ten.” He looked at the flight sheet. “A light colonel’s heading the group. His name’s Hayward, the same as yours.” A wondering inflection entered his voice as he gave her a speculative look.
“Really.” She was struggling to conceal her dismay while wishing she’d looked at the flight orders first. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that her father would be among the passengers on this flight to Republic Aviation’s modification plant in Evansville, Indiana.
“I’ll make the ground check,” her copilot, Lieutenant Franklin, volunteered.
The insistence that she would handle her own preflight of the aircraft died on her lips. She could hear the little triphammer beat of her pulse thudding in her ear as she watched Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hayward climb out of the Army vehicle stopped on the flight line. She hadn’t seen him since that wintry day ten months earlier when she’d walked out of his Georgetown house.
“Go ahead.” She nodded permission to the copilot to make the ground preflight check.
One thing she had learned since being assigned here and repeatedly given check rides in multiengine planes was that any slacking of duty was duly noted, regardless of the reason. Every time she went up, it seemed she had to prove herself all over again to some new officer who didn’t think a female was capable of piloting him anywhere.
Cappy doubted that she’d have a stiffer test than the one she’d get today from her father. She watched him approach in his Army brown jacket and tan pants, the officer’s cap sitting squarely on his head, militarily precise. As he came closer, that familiar rigid-backed bearing, that face she’d known all her life, prompted a smile to start across her lips. But Cappy noticed too his coldly aloof demeanor, and her smile never got past its first beginnings.
“I’ve learned you are to be our pilot.” No greeting, no personal recognition.
“Yes, sir.” Cappy followed his lead, swinging around to escort him and his group to the transport. “Lieutenant Franklin is finishing the ground check now. If you have any baggage you want stowed, the lieutenant will see to it.” She became all business, slipping into the role with ease, yet conscious of his still physically trim figure marching beside her. “The latest forecasts indicate we should have good weather all the way.”
“Good.”
The ground time was eaten up with the usual delays involved in getting everything and everyone on board. Cappy was strapped into the pilot’s seat and ready to begin the checklist when her father entered the cockpit.
“Sir?” She waited for him to explain his presence, a faint glitter of irritation showing in her china-blue eyes.
He tapped her copilot on the shoulder and motioned for him to move. “I’ll fly the right seat. You can ride in back and have yourself a nap.”
No lieutenant in his right mind argued with a lieutenant colonel. Franklin was disgruntled by the loss of logging flight time, but he complied. On the way out, he gave Cappy a look which seemed to blame her for the change.
No doubt she was the cause of it. She wished her father was joining her in the cockpit for the sake of old times and all the hours they’d flown together in the past, but she suspected it was a lack of faith in her ability to handle the big twin-engined plane.
After Lieutenant Colonel Hayward was all buckled into the right seat, Cappy made sure she had her maps and charts in order, then gave him the checklist to read off. The steady sound of his voice and the teamwork involved in the plane’s start-up gave Cappy a renewed sense of nostalgia.
Unconsciously she asked, “Ready, Dad?” before advancing the throttle to initiate a taxi roll.
“Let’s keep it formal, WASP Hayward,” he replied curtly.
“Very well, sir.” Rebuffed, she silently vowed not to let her tongue slip again.
After takeoff, Cappy executed a climbing turn to put the plane on course to Wright Field in Dayton, where they’d refuel. When they had achieved the desired altitude, she trimmed the DC-3 for straight and level flight. The clouds were few and widely scattered. Below, the thinning fall colors painted the spiny ridges and slopes of the Appalachian Mountains with rusty shades of gold and orange.
Gazing out her window, she admired the burnished hills and the irregular patchwork of farm fields cut out of their elongated valleys, interspersed with small coal towns and the black taluses of mines. She didn’t venture a comment on the beauty below them. With any passenger other than her father, Cappy would have drawn attention to it, but his grim-lipped silence didn’t invite idle pleasantries. She had the feeling this was going to turn into a long flight.
“Aren’t you going to ask how your mother is?” he inquired challengingly.
“How is she?” Cappy obliged. “I imagine she’s quite active in the Gray Ladies now.”
“Maybe if you’d call once in a while, you’d know for yourself.”
“I do call,” she retorted with a touch of anger. “She probably just doesn’t tell you.”
“I’ve heard you’ve attended some parties on the Hill with Mitch Ryan. Is it serious between you?”
“No.”
Conversation disintegrated totally after that brief combative attempt. The next hours were taken up solely with the business of flying.
In preparation for entering the traffic pattern at Wright Field, Cappy called the tower operator for landing instructions. When she received no response, she tried again—with the same results. After verifying the frequency and fiddling with the radio, she called again. In the back of her mind, she was becoming concerned that her radio was malfunctioning.
On her fourth try, a disgruntled tower operator came back, “Will you please stay off the air, lady? This base is restricted to military personnel, and we’ve got some brass due to arrive any time.”
“This is a military flight, Wright tower,” she replied. “Lieutenant Colonel Hay ward and his staff are passengers. I would like landing instructions, please.” Her clipped voice demanded a response. She knew all about throwing military weight around.
“Sure, and I’ve got Ike’s staff up here in the tower with me,” came the scoffing reply. “Listen, missy—”<
br />
Her father broke into the talk. “Wright tower, this is Lieutenant Colonel Hayward. I suggest you comply with my pilot’s request.”
“Yes, sir!” The surprise in the man’s voice was evident.
After he had related the pertinent data to Cappy—the wind’s direction and velocity, the active runway number, the barometer setting, and her landing sequence—she acknowledged the information. All her attention was devoted to locating her traffic and setting up for a landing. Once on the ground, she taxied to the flight line. Her father’s stern directive kept running through her mind, the words “my pilot” echoing with an increasingly proud sound. It softened her.
“Thanks,” she said to him.
“For what?” He started reading through the shut-down list.
As he called them off to her, Cappy switched off systems and double-checked others. In between, she managed to say, “For straightening out the tower.”
“What do you expect? Women don’t belong in military planes.” It was a flat statement of opinion, one that hadn’t changed in nearly a year.
Cappy clamped her teeth shut and said no more, biting down hard on the waves of disappointment. Her father was Army-mule stubborn. It had been foolish to think his opinion might have changed, that a little gray might have entered the blackness of his opinion.
As soon as the aircraft was fueled, they took off again. This time Lieutenant Franklin occupied the copilot’s seat and her father rejoined his group in the rear passenger seats, evidently assured of her competence at the controls. Franklin kept up a steady run of patter. Oddly, Cappy found herself wishing for her father’s silence.
Upon arrival at the aircraft plant at Evansville, Cappy and her copilot were taken to the cafeteria for lunch by one of the plant managers. Her father and his group of staff officers went off with one of the company heads.
That afternoon, they were given a tour of the facilities. A large percentage of the workers, Cappy noticed, were women. They were doing everything from welding to assembling parts. Cappy watched them with a sense of affinity. They all were performing jobs that had been previously regarded as a strictly male domain—and doing them well. The war was lowering many barriers that had always been raised against them. When the afternoon break signal sounded, a young woman about Cappy’s age finished her weld before she turned off her torch and removed the protective goggles she wore. Cappy said something to her about the job she was doing. The woman looked at her and shrugged.