by George R. R.
After a sympathetic hesitation, Lillian continued. “What does he think about you flying?”
Em donned a grin. “I met him when we were both taking flying lessons before the war. He can’t argue about me flying. Besides, I have to do something to keep my mind off things.”
Lillian raised her bottle. “Here’s to the end of the war.”
They raised their glasses and the toasts were heartfelt.
The quiet moment gave Em her opening—time to start in on the difficult gossip, what she’d come here to learn. “What do you all know about Mary Keene’s crash last week?”
No one would look at her. Betsy bit a trembling lip and teared up, and Molly fidgeted with her glass. Lillian’s jaw went taut with a scowl. She ground her cigarette into the ashtray with enough force to destroy what was left of it.
“It happened fifty miles out,” Lillian said, her voice quiet. “Nobody saw anything, we just heard it when the fire truck left. All we know is a group of seven planes went out—BT-13s, all of ‘em—and an hour later six came back and nobody would tell us a thing. Just that Mary’d been killed. You knew her, I take it?”
“We were in the same class at Avenger,” Em said. “We were friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Lillian said. “She was only here a couple of days but we all liked her a lot.”
Molly handed Betsy a handkerchief; she dabbed her eyes with it.
“I was told the accident report was classified, and that doesn’t make any sense. Some guys who were here last week told me there was a collision.”
Lillian leaned close and spoke softly, like this was some kind of conspiracy. “That’s what we heard, and one of the planes came back with a wheel all busted up, but Burnett clamped down on talk so fast, our heads spun. Filed away all the paperwork and wouldn’t answer any questions. We don’t even know who else was flying that day.”
“He can’t do that,” Em said. “Couldn’t you go after him? Just keep pushing—”
“It’s Burnett,” Lillian said. “Guy’s a brick wall.”
“Then go over his head.”
“And get grounded? Get kicked out? That’s what he’s threatened us with, for going over his head,” Lillian said, and Em couldn’t argue. But technically, she wasn’t part of his squadron, and he couldn’t do anything to her. She could ask her questions.
Another group from the field came in then, flyboys by their leather jackets with silver wings pinned to the chest. Ferry Division, by the insignia. Not so different from the girls, who were wearing trousers and blouses, their jackets hanging off their chairs—a group gathered around a table, calling for beers and talking about the gossip, flying, and the war.
Pretty soon after their arrival, a couple of them went over to the jukebox and put in a few coins. A dance tune came up, something just fast enough to make you want to get out of your seat—Glenn Miller, “Little Brown Jug.” Lillian rolled her eyes and Molly hid a smile with her hand; they all knew what was coming next.
Sure enough, the guys sauntered over to their table. Em made sure the hand with her wedding band was out and visible. Not that that stopped some men. Just a dance, they’d say. But she didn’t want to, because it would make her think about Michael.
Lillian leaned back in her chair, chin up and shoulders squared, and met their gazes straight on. The others looked on like they were watching a show.
They weren’t bad looking, early thirties maybe. Slightly rumpled uniforms and nice smiles. “Would any of you ladies like a dance?”
The women glanced at each other—would any of them say yes?
Lillian, brow raised, blond curls falling over her ears so artfully she might have pinned them there, said, “What makes you boys think you could keep up with any of us?”
The guys glanced at each other, then smiled back at Lillian. Gauntlet accepted. “We’d sure like to give it a try.”
Nobody was making a move to stand, and Lillian again took the lead— breaking the boys’ hearts for fun. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the girls and I spent all day putting repaired AT-6s through their paces and we’re beat. We were looking forward to a nice, quiet evening.”
The guy standing at the first one’s shoulder huffed a little. “Lady pilots,” he might have muttered.
The first guy seemed a little daunted. “Well, maybe you’ll let us pull over a couple of chairs and buy you a round?”
Magic words, right there. Lillian sat up and made a space at the table. “That’ll be all right.”
Another round of beers arrived a moment later.
The men were nice enough, Ferry Division boys flying pursuits and bombers from the factories. Em asked questions—how many, what kind, where were they going, what was it like?—and ate up the answers. They seemed happy enough to humor her, even if they did come off on the condescending side—isn’t that cute, a girl who wants to fly fast planes.
The attitude was easy enough to ignore. Every WASP had a story about being chatted up by some flyboy at a bar, him bragging about piloting hotshot planes and ending with the “I ship out to Europe tomorrow, honey,” line; then seeing the look of shock on the guy’s face the next day when he spotted her on the flight line climbing into her own cockpit. That was funny every damn time.
Lillian leaned over to Jim, the guy who’d talked to them first, and said, “Do your friends want to come on over and join us? We could make a real party of it.”
A couple of the guys already had, but a few remained at the other table, talking quietly and nursing beers. They didn’t pay much attention to the other group, except for one guy, with a round face and slicked-back hair, who kept his jacket on even though the room had grown warm.
Grinning, Jim leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think you all make some of the boys nervous.”
Em smiled and ducked her gaze while the other women giggled.
Lillian almost purred. “We’re not flying now, I don’t see why they should be nervous. We’re not going to crash into them.” Em looked away at that. It was just a joke, she told herself.
Jim tilted his head to the sullen-looking pilot. “Frank there almost walked back out again when he saw you girls sitting here.”
“What, afraid of little old us?” Lillian said, and the others laughed. The sullen-looking pilot at the other table, Frank, seemed to sink into his jacket a little further.
Jim shrugged. “His loss, right?”
Em agreed. Anyone had an issue with women pilots, it was their problem, not hers.
* * * *
Em had to go at the mystery backwards. The accident report wasn’t available, so she dug through the flight logs to see who else was flying that day. Who else was in the air with Mary.
She made her way to ops, a big square prefab office building off the airstrip, around lunchtime the next day, when she was less likely to run into people. The move paid off—only a secretary, a woman in civilian clothes, was on duty. Em carried her logbook in hand, making her look more official than not, and made up some excuse about being new to the base and needing to log her next flight and where should she go? The secretary directed her to an adjoining room. There, Em found the setup familiar: maps pinned to the wall, chalkboards with instructions written on them, charts showing planes and schedules, and a wall of filing cabinets.
Every pilot taking off from the field was supposed to file a flight plan, which were kept in ops. Mary’s plan—and the plans of anyone else who was flying that day and might have collided with her—should be here. She rubbed her lucky pennies together and got to work.
The luck held: the files were marked by day and in order. Flipping through, Em found the pressboard folder containing the forms from that day. Taking the folder to an empty desk by the wall, she began studying, reconstructing in her mind what the flight line had looked like that day.
Mary had been part of a group ferrying seven BT-13 Valiants from Romulus to Dallas. She wasn’t originally part of the group; she’d been at Romulus overnight after ferrying
a different BT-13. But they had an extra plane, and like just about any WASP, she would fly anything she was checked out on, anything a commander asked her to fly Those were the bare facts. That was the starting point. Less than an hour after takeoff, Mary had crashed. A collision—which meant it must have been one of the other planes in the group.
WASP weren’t authorized for close-formation flying. When they did fly in groups, they flew loose, with enough distance between to prevent accidents—at least five hundred feet. Mary was the only WASP in the group, but the men should have followed the same procedure and maintained a safe distance. Just saying “collision” didn’t tell the story, because only one plane hit the ground, and only one pilot died.
The accident had eyewitnesses: the other six pilots in the group, who were flying with Mary when she crashed. She started jotting down names and the ID numbers of the planes they’d been flying.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, Em flinched and looked up to find a lanky man just past forty or so, his uniform starched and perfect, standing in the doorway, hands clenched, glaring. Silver eagles on his shoulders—this must be Colonel Burnett. Reflexively, she crumpled her page of notes and stuffed it in her pocket. The move was too obvious to hide. Gathering her thoughts, she stood with as much attention as she could muster—part of her mind was still on those six pilots.
She’d spent enough time in the Army Air Force to know how men like Burnett operated: they intimidated, they browbeat. They had their opinions and didn’t want to hear arguments. She just had to keep from letting herself get cowed.
“Filing a flight plan, sir.” She kept the lie short and simple, so he wouldn’t have anything to hold against her.
“I don’t think so,” he said, looking at the pages spread out on the desk.
They were in a standoff. She hadn’t finished, and wanted to get those last couple of names. Burnett didn’t look like he was going to leave.
“It’s true,” she bluffed. “BT-13 to Dallas.” Mary’s last flight plan; that might have been pushing it.
“You going to show me what’s in your pocket there?”
“Grocery list,” she said, deadpan.
He stepped closer, and Em had to work not to flinch away from the man.
“Those are papers from last week,” he said, pointing at the plans she’d been looking at.
“Yes, sir.”
His face reddened, and she thought he might start screaming at her, drill-sergeant style. “Who authorized you to look at these?”
Somebody had to speak up. Somebody had to find the truth. That allowed her to face him, chin up. “Sir, I believe the investigation into that crash ended prematurely, that all the information hasn’t been brought to light.”
“That report was filed. There’s nothing left to say. You need to get out of here, missy.”
Now he was just making her angry. He probably expected her to wilt— he probably yelled at all the women because he expected them to wilt. She stepped forward, feeling her own flush starting, her own temper rising. “Why was the report buried? I just want to know what really happened.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. You’re a civilian. You’re just a civilian.”
“What is there to explain, sir?”
“Unless you march out of here right now, I’ll have you arrested for spying. Don’t think the Army won’t shoot a woman for treason!”
Em expected a lot of threats—being grounded, getting kicked out of the WASP, just like Lillian said. But being shot for treason? What the hell was Burnett trying to hide?
Em was speechless, and didn’t have any fight left in her after that. She marched out with her logbook, just as Burnett told her to, head bowed, unable to look at him. Even though she really wanted to spit at him. In the corner of her gaze, she thought she saw him smile, like he thought he’d won some kind of victory over her. Bullying a woman, and he thought that made him tough. By the time she left the building, her eyes were watering. Angrily, she wiped the tears away.
Well away from the building, she stopped to catch her breath. Crossed her arms, waited for her blood to cool. Looked up into the sky, turning her face to the clouds. The day was overcast, the ceiling low, a biting wind smelling of snow. Terrible weather for flying. But she’d go up in a heartbeat, in whatever piece-of-junk trainer was available, just to get away from here.
* * * *
One of the lessons you learned early on: Make friends with the ground crew. When some of the trainers they flew had seen better days and took a lot of attention to keep running, sweet-talking a mechanic about what was wrong went further than complaining. Even if the wreckage from Mary’s plane was still around—it would have already been picked over for aluminum and parts—Em wouldn’t have been able to tell what had happened without seeing the crash site. She needed to talk to the recovery team.
Lillian told her that a Sergeant Bill Jacobs’s crew had been the one to recover Mary’s Valiant. He’d know a lot that hadn’t made it into the records, maybe even be able to tell her what happened. If she could sweet-talk him. She touched up her lipstick, repinned her hair, and tapped her lucky pennies.
On the walk to the hangar, she tried to pound out her bad mood, to work out her anger and put herself in a sweet-talking frame of mind. Hey there, mind telling me about a little ol’ plane crash that happened last week? She wasn’t so good at sweet-talking, not like Lillian was. Not like Mary had been.
The main door of the hangar was wide open to let in the afternoon light. In the doorway, she waited a moment to let her eyes adjust to the shadows. A B-24 was parked inside, two of its four engines open and half-dismantled. The couple of guys working on each one called a word to the other now and then, asking for a part or advice. A radio played Duke Ellington.
The hangar had a strangely homey feel to it, with its atmosphere of grease and hard work, the cheerful music playing and the friendly banter between the mechanics. This might have been any airport repair shop, if it weren’t for the fact they were working on a military bomber.
Em looked around for someone who might be in charge, someone who might be Jacobs. In the back corner, she saw the door to an office and headed there. Inside, she found what she was probably looking for: a wide desk stacked with papers and clipboards. Requisitions, repair records, inventories, and the like, she’d bet. Maybe a repair order for a BT-13 wounded in a collision last week?
She was about to start hunting when a man said, “Can I help you, miss?”
A man in Army coveralls and a cap stood at the doorway. Scraping together all the charm she could manage, she straightened and smiled. She must have made quite a silhouette in her trousers and jacket because he looked a bit stricken. He glanced at the insignia on her collar, the patches on her jacket, and knew what, if not who, she was.
“Sergeant Jacobs?” she said, smiling.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her smile widened. “Hi, I’m Emily Anderson, in from New Castle.” She gestured vaguely over her shoulder. “They told me you might be able to help me out.”
He relaxed, maybe thinking she was only going to ask for a little grease on a squeaky canopy.
She said, “The crash last week. The one the WASP died in. Can you tell me what happened?” Her smile had stiffened; her politeness was a mask.
Jacobs sidled past her in an effort to put himself between her and the desk—the vital paperwork. He began sorting through the mess on the desk, but his movements were random. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“You recovered the plane. You saw the crash site.”
“It was a mess. I can’t tell you what happened.”
“What about the other plane? How badly was it damaged?”
He looked at her. “How do you know there was another plane?”
“I heard there was a collision. Who was flying that other plane? Can you at least tell me that much?”
“I can’t help you, I’m sorry.” He shook his
head, like he was shaking off an annoying fly.
“Sergeant Jacobs, Mary Keene was my friend.”
When he looked at her, his gaze was tired, pitying. “Ma’am, please. Let it go. Digging this up isn’t going to fix anything.”
“I need to know what really happened.”
“The plane crashed, okay? It just crashed. Happens all the time, I hate to say it, but it’s so.”
Em shook her head. “Mary was a good pilot. Something had to have happened.”
Jacobs looked away. “She switched off the engine.”
“What?”
“She’d lost part of a wing—there was no way she could pull out of it. But before she hit the ground, she had time to turn off the engine so it wouldn’t catch fire. So the plane wouldn’t burn. She knew what was going to happen and she switched it off.”