In the Company of Women

by Kate Christie

After a moment, Brady smiled across the table at her. “Thanks for tonight. And thanks for being patient this week. I’ve been missing you, more than you know.”

  “I’ve been missing you too.”

  Maybe she’d imagined Brady’s brief flash of insecurity. Lord knew she had misinterpreted plenty since joining the WAC. Nothing like casting yourself into a river whose current you had no idea how to navigate.

  “Tomorrow is Monitor night,” Brady added, making a face, “but after that I’m yours. What do you say?”

  “I say it’s a date.”

  “Good.”

  Smiling into Brady’s eyes, she couldn’t help but think of the hotel room awaiting them on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Christmas couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The flight board at the Balloon Hangar usually filled up Monday morning with the week’s anticipated duties, but there were always last-minute missions requested by the AA officers or bigwigs who needed a ride here or there. When CJ heard on Tuesday afternoon that an extra searchlight mission had been added for that evening, she wasn’t surprised. The unexpected part was seeing her name on the board next to Nell’s.

  “Hold on,” she said, catching Whimpy’s arm. “Why is my name up there?”

  “Your pilot requested to have you aboard as the tow operator.” His eyebrows rose. “Do you have a problem with the assignment, Private?”

  “No, sir. Absolutely not.”

  Flying at night would be a whole new experience. Her brother Alec’s crew was part of a night bomber squadron, and while he had never been much of a poet, his letters during advanced training had been filled with the unimaginable beauty and strangeness of the world at night from twenty thousand feet.

  She checked the board again. They would be towing targets for the boys on the ground to locate first with radar, then with searchlights and finally with fifty-caliber antiaircraft machine guns. At two thousand feet, they wouldn’t need oxygen like on some missions. That was probably why Nell had added her—for a night flight, this one required minimal extra preparation or precautions. The image of a split tow cable popped into her mind, but she pushed it away. She had been at Biggs for two months now, and she hadn’t heard of a single incident of friendly fire.

  Although that was exactly what she might face at the mess hall, she reflected as she caught a ride back to the WAC compound with the rest of her squad. Brady was waiting outside her barracks when she arrived, as they’d previously arranged. The plan was that CJ would get cleaned up and they would grab a bite to eat at the club before heading out to a movie on main post.

  “Howdy, soldier,” Brady said, coming to meet her as she jumped out of the truck.

  “Hey.”

  Sarah, Toby and Reggie patted CJ on the back and then smiled nervously at Brady before ducking around her to scurry into the barracks. Brady glanced from their retreating backs to CJ, her eyes narrowing.

  “What’s going on? Don’t tell me you’re breaking our date.”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “Let me guess—you have the chance to go up on a hop and you don’t want to miss it.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because you have that look you get when flying is involved.” She paused. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No more than any other mission,” CJ said, deciding on the spot that Brady probably didn’t need to know that gunners would be firing forty-millimeter shells and fifty-caliber rounds in their general vicinity.

  “Fine. But you better not make me a war widow, got it?”

  “I won’t.” CJ pulled Brady into a rare public hug. “Thanks for understanding. I knew I loved you for a reason.”

  “Uh-huh. If you hadn’t sprung the whole Grand Canyon bit on me, I’m not sure I would be quite so forgiving.”

  She read magazines in the day room while CJ scrubbed grease from under her fingernails. Then they walked to the mess hall together, chatting about their holiday plans. Brady’s pass had been approved, which meant the Grand Canyon trip was a definite go. Now they had to figure out how to get there without wasting most of their time traveling.

  “I’ll ask Nell tonight,” CJ said. “I bet she’ll know how to fly standby on a holiday weekend.”

  Beside her, Brady slowed. “You’re going up with Nell tonight?” Before CJ could respond, she added, “No, of course you are. Who else would it be?”

  So she hadn’t imagined it the other night. CJ paused outside the mess hall and waited until a trio of Wacs had passed them. “Wait, you’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you even realize how much you’ve talked about her lately?”

  “I’ve talked about going up in an airplane with her. And yes, I have been getting to know her. We have a lot in common. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Is she gay?”

  “I don’t know.” CJ looked away, remembering the flirty smiles Nell had leveled at her, the comment about Brady being a lucky woman. “Maybe.”

  “Does she know you have a girlfriend?”

  “Not in so many words, but I have mentioned you.”

  Brady folded her arms across her chest. “I know you have this Pollyanna approach to everything, but how can you not see what’s right in front of you?”

  “You’ve never even met her. Why do you have to think the worst of people?”

  “Because I’m usually right. Can you honestly say she hasn’t given you any signals?”

  CJ hesitated. “She flirts a little, but it’s harmless. Anyway, you do it all the time.”

  “The difference is,” Brady said, lowering her voice as a contingent of Admin Wacs approached, “I don’t flirt with anyone I’m interested in.”

  “I’m with you, Brady. You know how I feel about you.”

  At that, she sighed. “I know. You’re right. Go. Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Just be careful.”

  She touched CJ’s arm briefly, and then she spun and waved at the women from her company, smiling the smile that CJ suspected most people didn’t know was fake. Janice, however, wasn’t most people.

  “I thought you were going to the club?” she heard Janice say.

  Brady’s response was muffled as she looped her arm through Janice’s and turned into the mess hall.

  After a minute, CJ followed. She couldn’t very well stand in line behind them, though, so instead she went to grab a cup of coffee. The caffeine would come in handy later, no doubt. By the time she got in line, there were at least a dozen women between her and Brady’s crowd. The distance didn’t stop Janice from turning around and sending her a look. So much for the ceasefire.

  When she slid in at her usual table with a tray of spam and eggs and hot cakes, the kitchen staff’s idea of a nutritious weeknight meal, Sarah whistled.

  “Went that well, huh?”

  CJ shook her head.

  Beside her, Toby and Kate were being their usual adorable selves, kidding each other about a letter Kate had received from her mother inviting Toby home on Kate’s next leave. How did they do it? How did they make navigating the potential quagmire of a secret gay relationship in the US Army look so effortless? Apparently they trusted each other.

  Must be nice, CJ thought, glancing across the mess to where Brady sat with her friends, her PRO smile firmly in place.

  * * *

  She should have listened to her gut, she realized a couple of hours later as live shells burst in different-colored puffs directly ahead of the B-26, making a soft, cushiony-looking pattern that belied its deadly purpose. The AA troops weren’t shooting at the target—they were shooting at the plane. She’d had a feeling that going up tonight would be a mistake, but she’d managed to convince herself she was uneasy about her conversation with Brady. Now, as Nell shoved the stick forward, increasing the Marauder’s air speed in an attempt to evade the exploding shells raining deadly shrapnel all around them, CJ held tight to her copi
lot’s seat and tried to keep supper where it belonged—inside her belly, not sprayed all over the instrument panel.

  A dozen different ways of dying flashed into her mind: flak that pierced the plane’s armor and struck a major blood vessel; a cockpit fire; an electrical failure that left the airplane flying blind; a direct hit to the gas tank. Or what if flak killed Nell or left her unconscious and CJ somehow had to try to fly the plane? A twin-engine Beech trainer was a far cry from a medium bomber that routinely stalled and crashed on landing if it dropped below one hundred fifty miles per hour during approach.

  Don’t make me a war widow. Brady’s comment now seemed eerily prescient.

  As they climbed higher, Nell radioed back to base with their position. With a live-fire exercise there shouldn’t be a lot of other aircraft out in the area, but that wasn’t the issue.

  “We’re heading home,” she told the tower. “Find us a runway, will you?”

  “Negative. Your orders have you flying in pattern until twenty two hundred hours,” the disembodied voice came back.

  “I’m aware of that,” Nell said, her hands clenched on the controls as the Marauder out-paced the antiaircraft artillery. “The thing is, the boys down there apparently can’t tell the difference between a target and a plane, so I’m revising the orders.”

  There was silence at the other end. Then CJ heard muffled orders being shouted in the background. Soon the same voice came back, almost apologetic now, and asked, “Are you hit?”

  “Not for lack of trying. I’ll have my on-board engineer give her a look.” She signed off and glanced at CJ, her voice losing its hard edge. “You okay over there?”

  CJ nodded, hoping she didn’t look as green as she felt. “Other than tasting my supper twice.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re out of range by now. Do you feel up to making a visual check while I take us home?”

  “I’m on it.”

  CJ unbuckled her safety restraint and began to walk the bird from nose to tail, checking for any sign of damage. It was a relief to have something to do. Nell must have understood that she needed motion to distract her from reliving that first awful flash of recognition that at any second a live shell could tear through the plane—and both of them. At the rear, she cranked the target back in, unsurprised to find the cloth sleeve untouched.

  The firing range was twenty-five air miles from Biggs. In no time, Nell was lowering the landing gear and asking her to buckle back in for the final approach. CJ held her breath as the massive plane roared down and kissed the runway, bounced once and settled groaning onto the landing gear. Then she breathed out her terror, willing away the tears that for some reason saw fit to sting her eyes now that they were safe.

  “It’s okay,” Nell said, taxiing the B-26 toward the Balloon Hangar at the far end of the field. “It’s completely normal to cry after a close call.”

  CJ tried to clear her tight throat. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

  “Not friendly fire. But once, before the war, I got caught in a whiteout. It was all I could do to find my way to a nearby field and wait out the storm. For a while, I thought I might never go up again.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  And to think she had passed on a date with Brady for the chance to get shot at by their own troops. What she wouldn’t have given to be in a dark theater with her now, watching Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dance across the screen.

  “Give it some time,” Nell said. “The beginning was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?”

  CJ couldn’t argue. Night flying under the stars and the still mostly full moon, which had seemed enormous rising over the Sacramento Mountains, had more than lived up to her expectations. Everything had been so clear: the moonlight sparkling off White Sands and the snowy peaks of the Organ Mountains, the lights of El Paso twinkling far in the distance. If the moon hadn’t been so bright, Nell had told her, they would have been able to see the Milky Way. But as it was, she would have to settle for the sense that the moon was nearly close enough to fly to, if only they had enough gas.

  A Jeep zipped up beside them as they were unloading their gear from the belly, and two men raced toward them.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the first one asked, trying to take Nell’s parachute bag from her.

  “Not so fast,” she said. “I can schlep my own gear.”

  “What about you, miss—uh, Private?” the other boy asked.

  They got shot at and suddenly became damsels in distress? CJ stiffened her spine, hoping the remnants of her tears didn’t show in the shadows. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Five men emerged from the hangar and hurried in their direction—the Sixth’s night engineering crew. Fortunately, they only had eyes for the squadron’s lone Marauder.

  “Don’t worry,” Nell said, “she’s in fine shape. Lucky for us the boys in the 197th need a little polishing.”

  Major Pederson was waiting in the ready room for them, along with a WAC private secretary who looked distinctly unimpressed with their brush with AA fire.

  “How are you, Charles?” the major asked. Then he seemed to notice CJ and coughed a little. “And you, Private…?”

  “Jamieson, sir.” She saluted.

  “At ease. Now tell me, what happened up there?”

  As the major and Nell discussed heading, position, tow cable length and radio communications, CJ watched the Wac record notes in neat shorthand in a wire-rimmed notebook. Maybe she should have picked an Admin MOS too. With a college degree, she could have had her pick. It would certainly be easier than her current work. But while being a secretary or other type of clerk would probably have kept her from getting shot at, it wouldn’t have given her the chance to watch the moon from mid-air rising over distant mountains.

  After fifteen minutes, the major let them go with a final caution not to discuss the evening’s incident with anyone. Military accidents were considered top secret.

  “But it wasn’t a real accident,” CJ commented to Nell after the major and his assistant left. “Surely we can tell our friends.”

  “Technically, we can’t. I’m a civilian, though, so I can probably have a little latitude. You, however, are Regular Army, and that was a direct order from a superior.”

  So was not kissing girls, and clearly she had found a way to justify her transgressions on that front. Still, this situation was different. Morale was tricky, and she didn’t want to be the cause of a loss of it among any of the AA units about to ship out.

  The first two boys, control tower technicians, were waiting outside the hangar when they finally emerged.

  “Can we give you girls a ride back to your quarters?” one asked.

  “Sure. How about a lift to WASP BOQ?” Nell answered. As CJ started to protest, she added, “We have a tradition—anytime one of us survives a near-miss, we get together and share a bottle of single-malt Scotch. You may not be a WASP, but I think tonight qualifies you for honorary membership.”

  This sounded so much like a line that CJ could almost hear Brady’s disgusted snort. But she had to admit, a glass of Scotch sounded good. Maybe the booze would help her work out how to get around the orders that officially barred her from telling Brady about the mission.

  The two boys chatted them up as they drove the three miles back to WASP BOQ. Surprisingly, CJ found herself following Nell’s lead and flirting a little along the way. They were clearly enamored with the idea of female pilots, and Nell encouraged the adulation by sharing brief stories about her prewar flying life. The driver asked her out on a date as the Jeep rolled to a stop at her quarters. Nell thanked him and told him it was against regulation, but wasn’t he sweet.

  As the Jeep pulled away with a friendly horn beep, CJ said, “It’s not against regulation, is it?”

  “No, but they don’t know that.”

  Inside, several members of their squadron stared at them in surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” Pinkie asked, checking her wr
istwatch. “Mechanical problems?”

  “Nope.” Nell paused dramatically. “It’s Glenfiddich time, ladies.”

  There was a mix of gasps and cheers around them, and then Pinkie disappeared into the downstairs kitchen and returned with the Scotch. Nell handed CJ a glass and turned to the gathered pilots.

  “To faulty radar and inexperienced AA troops,” she said, lifting her own glass. Then she knocked back her drink.

  Quickly CJ did the same, barely keeping herself from coughing as the liquor hit her throat hot and hard. Almost immediately she felt some of the shakiness she’d been carrying since the flight fade. She pictured Brady sitting cross-legged on their bed at the Hilton shortly after they’d made love for the first time, feeding her supper in bed and explaining how champagne gets into the bloodstream faster than other drinks.

  A pang of loneliness hit her harder than the Scotch had, and she closed her eyes, trying to tune out the murmur of voices around her. Brady had barely nodded at her when she left the mess after supper. What would she think if she found out that CJ had survived a friendly fire incident and, instead of looking for her, gone back to WASP BOQ to have a drink with Nell?

  She opened her eyes and set her glass down. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. Catching Nell’s eye, she gave a little wave and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Nell asked. “The party’s just beginning.”

  “Not for me.” She touched Nell’s arm. “I don’t think I said this earlier, but thank you for getting us down in one piece.”

  Nell hesitated, and her eyes seemed to darken as she stared at CJ. “I didn’t say it either, but I’m sorry for putting you in that position. Sometimes I forget that not everyone signed up for the life and death part of the job.”

  CJ smiled, trying to lighten the moment. “It wasn’t like anyone forced me to take a night flight. Honestly, I was more afraid of you getting hurt and me being stuck trying to land the notorious Widowmaker.”

  “You probably would have set her down perfectly on the first try. I mean it, not everyone is as naturally talented in the air as you are.”