On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  But the softhearted Alpharetta had implored him to rescue the chick and put it in a wire coop, safe from the others. And he would never forget that afternoon several weeks later.

  “See, Ben Mark? It’s well again,” his fiancée had said, smiling. “And so fat.”

  “That’s because Eddie has been giving him preferential treatment—and the best mash to eat.”

  “Shall we see whether he’ll be accepted by the others?”

  “I’m not going to rescue him a second time, Alpharetta,” he warned. He walked to the coop, lifted the wire, and watched the spindly-legged chick rush toward the others. After an initial vicious peck, the chick was accepted by the rest of the brood.

  “Thank you, Ben Mark,” Alpharetta said, her green eyes shining with delight as they walked back to the house.

  The earlier scene latched itself on to Ben Mark’s mind, like a barnacle he was unable to scrape off. He turned to face the Messerschmitts honing in to blast the crippled plane out of the sky.

  Dow Pomeroy took off from the airstrip in a new Hawker Tempest and headed out to sea. Directly behind him were Reggie Minton and Freddie Mallory in a second plane, a de Havilland Mosquito Mk1.

  Their unofficial reconnaissance mission was to find some trace of the Avro Anson before darkness set in.

  Flying along the route that Alpharetta was to have taken, they braced against the strong brisk wind blowing toward land. Down below, the waves rolled in great troughs and one lone trawler listed in the angry sea.

  Twenty minutes later, Dow saw an oil slick, and he went into a dive to investigate. Remnants of wood were tossed upon the waves. A downed plane, the debris attesting to its recent demise. But Dow, satisfied that it was not Alpharetta’s plane, gained altitude and continued his flight pattern. And as he did so, he ran into the dogfight taking place on the other side of the cloud bank.

  He saw the crippled plane immediately, holes in its fuselage, one wing dipping dangerously to the right. And the other, an American bomber, fending off the two Messerchmitts in an uneven battle.

  Reggie, to even the odds in the dogfight, joined the American plane in attack of the enemy, while Dow flew alongside the Anson. In a strategic maneuver, Dow eased his own wing tip directly above the Anson’s and kept it there, the two planes locked into place to guide the crippled Anson home.

  As the great crags of Lochendall became visible in the last light of day, when the storm made its presence known on land in the howling of the wind across the lea, Dow deliberately gained altitude and speed to uncouple the two planes. He would have to leave the difficult part up to Alpharetta—to land the crippled plane with no help from anyone, not even the control tower. And Dow prayed that the plane would not catch fire as it hit the runway.

  Alpharetta, feeling a numbness gradually taking over her body, saw the objects around her assume a hazy, distorted shape. As she let down her landing gear, she shook her head to clear her vision.

  Inwardly she heard Gandy Malone’s voice shouting, “Lift your right wing, dammit.” But this time the plane had a mind of its own, no longer responsible to her as the pilot, for it had been dealt a mortal wound. She heard the sirens wailing, saw the fire trucks racing along the runway, and knew they were for her.

  There would be no second opportunity to approach the runway. The plane was done for. As the last engine sputtered and the gas gauge gave up the ghost, Alpharetta brought the wobbling plane to earth, the fiery rubber wheels protesting the uneven lurch, like some large, awkward seabird, forced off balance, and then skidding on wounded wing, to the sound of its own funeral dirge in siren wails.

  At the far end of the field, Dow landed in the Hawker Tempest. And Eckerd, in the Rolls-Royce, rushed to meet him as he started walking on foot toward the scene of the crash.

  “Have you seen her? Is she all right, Eckerd?”

  “They were just pulling her out of the plane, Sir Dow. I didn’t wait to see.”

  Sergeant Eckerd passed the plane that was now being sprayed with foam, and came to a stop a hundred yards farther down where an ambulance stood with men gathered around it.

  “Where is the pilot?” Dow demanded of the young airman closest to him.

  “Inside the ambulance, sir.”

  She lay on the stretcher, her eyes closed, her skin translucent, like a waxen doll.

  “Alpharetta?” Dow’s cry came from the depths of his heart, the anguish no longer that of a commanding officer.

  The bloodstain on her flight suit and helmet revealed that Alpharetta Beaumont had been hit.

  Chapter 22

  Hearing her name, Alpharetta opened her eyes. “Dow?”

  “Yes, darling, I’m here.” He held her hand while the medic examined her right arm, the wound laid bare with the sleeve of her flight suit cut away.

  “How bad is it?” Dow inquired of the medic.

  “She’s lucky. The wound on her forehead is superficial. And the arm looks worse than it really is. No bones broken, that I can tell. She’ll be a mite light-headed, because of the blood she’s lost,” he added, “but she’ll be all right.”

  “Thank God.”

  The medic took stitches to close the wound and then bandaged her arm. When he had finished, he turned to Dow who had been standing beside her the entire time. “She’ll need a tetanus shot and a change of bandages by tomorrow. Other than that, there’s not too much else to do except keep her quiet tonight, so the bleeding won’t start up again.”

  “You realize, Massey, that everything that’s happened today is top secret? That no one is to mention what has gone on?”

  “I understand, sir.”

  The de Havilland Mosquito came in for a landing, and by the time Alpharetta had been taken to the Rolls-Royce, Reggie and Freddie climbed out of their aircraft. Satisfied that they had made it back, Dow ordered Eckerd to drive on, leaving the two to come later in the staff car. As the Rolls drove out of the gate, there was no sign of the plane Alpharetta had ferried. It had been whisked away, its contents to be unloaded in secret.

  The rain began in soft, large drops and fog drifted in on the wind. Eckerd, driving slowly to avoid the bumps, leaned forward to see the road through the twilight mist.

  Dow, solicitous of the silent Alpharetta, inquired, “How do you feel?

  “Tired. Extremely tired.” She turned to him, to look into his hazel eyes. “Thank you, Sir Dow, for coming after me. I never would have made it alone.”

  Wincing at her new formality, he said, “The play isn’t over yet, Alpharetta. You’re still to call me Dow.”

  She looked so vulnerable, half-hidden under the plaid lap robe he had placed around her. He wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her, to let her know that Birdie had found the telegram. Instead, he announced, “I sent Belline back to London late this afternoon. Her taking your place was nothing but a disaster. Even Brewster was glad to see her go.”

  “I’m sorry. Belline can be quite charming.”

  “When it suits her,” Dow agreed.

  There was so much more that he wanted to tell her. But it was too soon. The honorable thing was to break off with Lady Margaret first, for he knew now that he could not marry her. He had never felt this way about a woman before, except perhaps the one in the portrait gallery. But she was the ghost of Harrington Hall, not flesh and blood like the woman seated beside him.

  Birdie Summerlin picked up the oversized black umbrella at the door as soon as she heard the car’s engine.

  The waiting had been no less painful for her, with Alpharetta out in the storm, and her commanding officer and Reggie and Freddie, too. Eckerd was the only one whose safety was assured—Eckerd and Lloyd, the batman who at the moment was building a fire in the upstairs bedroom belonging to Alpharetta, in anticipation of her arrival.

  Anxiously, Birdie watched the Rolls come to a stop. As soon as she recognized Sir Dow, with Alpharetta in his arms, she rushed into the walled yard and, holding the umbrella to shelter the two from the rain, followed them
into the house.

  For once, Claus Mueller was not watching. He was certain the Messerschmitts had taken care of the woman flyer.

  Dow carried Alpharetta up the stairs, into the bedroom adjacent to his own, with the blackout curtains hiding the warmth and flame of the hearth.

  “Birdie, you’ll have to help her,” he announced, placing her in the chair next to the fireside. “She’s weak from a loss of blood.”

  “What do you want me to do first, luv?” a sympathetic Birdie inquired.

  “May I have something to drink?”

  “Hot tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Birdie immediately left the room and went downstairs to the kitchen. A second car pulled into the courtyard, the staff car with Freddie and Reggie, pleased with their role in downing one of the Messerschmitts. They ran for shelter as a thunderous assault brought the storm to Lochendall, full force. And Dow, amid the static on the line to Mittie, relayed the message that the mission called Mercy had been successful.

  Several hours later, Alpharetta, helped into her gown by Birdie, lay in bed and listened to the wind and rain lashing the windowpanes. The fire on the hearth was dim and the house began to creak in its unending battle with the sea—slate and stone pitted against the onslaught of salt-encrusted spray.

  Dow, unable to sleep, also listened to the wind. A soft sound from within the house, on the other side of his door, alerted him that Alpharetta was awake, too. If he had not been attuned to the least movement, the least sound, perhaps he would have missed it, for the gentle crying was no match for the noise coming in from the sea. Yet it was not unexpected.

  He got up, put on his robe, and walked to the door that separated the two bedrooms.

  Sitting in the rocking chair before the hearth, Alpharetta held the tear-stained telegram that Birdie had slipped back underneath the blotter.

  “Conyer, Duluth.” Their names, unbidden, formed upon her trembling lips. Grief denied required its own retribution, coming like a thief, clawing at tender memories when the heart is weakest and, in the dark of night, demanding remembrance.

  No memory was exempt. Like a ragpicker, grief plucked at each one, tearing and ripping the memories that were a part of her childhood, before she’d gone to live with the St. Johns—the family cabin, in the shadow of Stone Mountain, the new dress she had been sewing the day the sheriff caught her father and brothers making moonshine, even the stone chimes that Conyer had carved to catch the sounds of the wind as it swept over the porch. She could see Duluth sitting quietly at the oak table in the new cabin, with the light of Ben Mark’s housewarming gift—the hurricane lamp--casting shadows on his lean, silent face as he ate his dinner.

  Suddenly she became homesick—for her father’s arms. But he was dead, too—like Conyer and Duluth. He had lived only a month after being put on parole for making his illicit brew. Conyer, Duluth, and she had buried him in the plot beside the cabin.

  Now only the mountain remained—that Georgia granite monolith far older than the Himalayas. And even the comfort of the mountains had been taken from her that night, for she realized that she could never bury Conyer and Duluth at the base of the mountain, with her father. The sea had claimed them, had taken them from her—far too soon.

  The wind blew open the window and the sound of the sea roared through the bedroom. Alpharetta cried out and Dow, on the other side of the door, opened it and rushed into the bedroom.

  “Alpharetta?”

  She stood, caught by the faintly burning embers. “The window. Close the window, Dow,” she pleaded. “The sea is coming in.”

  He attended to the window, closing it and twisting the latch. “It’s only the rain,” he soothed, walking back to the hearth where Alpharetta stood, shivering and gazing into the embers.

  “No, it’s the sea. And it’s taken Conyer and Duluth. They couldn’t even swim, Dow. They couldn’t even swim,” she repeated She sank to the hearth, her grief overwhelming her.

  “Oh, my dear, my dear one,” he said, kneeling beside her and taking her in his arms, to comfort her as he would a child, lost from the ones she loved.

  Far into the night, as the winds subsided and the sea became calm again, Alpharetta lay asleep in Dow’s arms before the hearth, the quilt pulled from the bed to rest on the floor in front of the fire.

  Dark dreams disturbed her sleep and Dow soothed her unintelligible sounds with his own, careful of the arm so recently bandaged, the small cut on her forehead where the shattered cockpit had left its mark.

  It was in this position that Birdie found them the next morning. Carefully, she closed the door and kept Lloyd downstairs, to give Sir Dow time to wake up and return to his own room before breakfast.

  The distant ringing of the telephone awoke Dow. He took one sleepy-eyed view of the time and, alarmed at the late hour, hurried back to his own room. He had no sooner walked into his room, than he heard a tap on his door.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir Nelson is on the telephone, Sir Dow,” Freddie’s voice informed him.

  “I’ll come at once.” He ran his hand through his hair and opened the door to walk down the hallway to his office.

  Picking up the telephone, the air vice-marshal hesitated. All at once he realized that Alpharetta’s mission was over and unless he did something about it, she would more than likely be leaving him to go back to her former assignment.

  “Pomeroy, here,” he finally announced.

  Mittie wasted no time after Dow identified himself. In sentences that only Dow could understand, he said, “Pom, you’ve got a bloody raven in your cornfield. And you’ve got to put up a scarecrow immediately. Do you understand?”

  “Last year’s, or this year’s? “he inquired.

  “Last year’s, but the scarecrow must wear gray trousers. The old dowager might loan you a pair.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. I’ll talk with you in a few days.”

  Dow stood looking at the telephone. So there was a spy somewhere in the village. And Mittie had ordered him to get Alpharetta out that night unobserved, and to hide her in the dower house until he contacted him again. Putting his hands into his bathrobe’s pockets, Dow returned to his room to shave and get ready for the day. He hoped that Alpharetta would feel like traveling as soon as it got dark again.

  Alpharetta remained in her room all morning and rested. She ate very little, even with Birdie tempting her with a milk pudding she had made especially for her. “I’m not really an invalid, Birdie,” she commented. “You don’t have to watch over me every minute of the day.”

  “And who’s to take care of you, if I don’t?”

  “I’m a grown woman, Birdie. I don’t need anyone else.”

  “Did you tell Sir Dow that last night?”

  “What do you mean, Birdie,” Alpharetta asked, for she had been puzzled to discover she had spent the entire night by the hearth. Surely Dow had not remained in her room, once she’d gone to sleep.

  Birdie did not reply to her question. Instead, she left the tray by the bed and walked softly out of the room.

  Claus Mueller finished his midday meal of sausage and cheese, drank his wine, and started toward the pharmacy where Hans Klieber worked.

  His elation was short-lived, for as soon as Hans Klieber closed the pharmacy for his own lunch hour and signaled him to go upstairs, Claus felt something was wrong. He could tell in the way Hans walked.

  As soon as they reached the apartment and Hans shut the door, he frowned and asked, “Have you seen the woman today?”

  What did he mean? Claus flinched at the question. Finally he recovered enough to ask, “What’s the matter? Did the pilots not shoot down her plane?”

  “The Messerchmitts vanished. No one knows.”

  “But the plane was unarmed. The woman couldn’t have gotten through. It was impossible.”

  “How many planes returned to base in the late afternoon?”

  “I—I didn’t notice. The fog closed in
and I thought she was already—”

  “Idiot. Start looking for the woman.”

  “Perhaps they shot her down first.”

  “Or she could have brought back the missile fragments. The Führer is much displeased.”

  Claus, feeling miserable, tasted the sausage in his throat. Why did Hans always have to ruin his meals? And how did Hans always know the Führer’s mind?

  Claus, alias Lewin McGonegal, slipped out of the pharmacy when no one was looking. Taking his bicycle from its hiding place, he jumped on it and rode toward the crofter’s cottage for his garden tools.

  An hour later, Claus propped his bicycle by the seawall at Lochendall and began the garden cleanup. The hedge needed little trimming, but luckily, the storm had strewn behind the debris of leaves and trash. While he worked, Claus listened and watched for some sign of the red-haired woman. But if he saw her, how could he tell which one was the right one-or the wrong one, since there were two of them? And he hadn’t been able to tell them apart.

  At Stanmore, Mittie held the intelligence report in his hands. So the Germans hadn’t been able to find out if the missile fragments had been delivered, or whether they had been shot down over the North Sea. Anxious to keep the Germans in suspense, Mittie determined to play the charade out to the end, or for the next several weeks, enough time for the scientists to make their investigation. Let the Germans worry for once, for the V-1 rockets landing in Buzz Bomb Alley had set up a vast chain of anxiety all over the United Kingdom.

  He was glad Alpharetta Beaumont hadn’t been injured seriously. She was a brave woman. But there were others equally as brave, doing their share. Any nation bombarded by the enemy had to call upon all its resources, male and female. Mittie was careful, though, not to share his philosophy in the joint planning sessions.

  At Lochendall, Lewin McGonegal lingered as long as he could in the garden. But he was finally sent on his way by Freddie Mallory. He had not been successful in seeing anyone except Eckerd outside, polishing the Rolls-Royce until its black exterior reflected the sun.