by Sarah Sundin
“Watch out, boys,” Nick called out over the clamor for coal in stockings. “Paxton’s going to take that P-51 for himself.”
“Not a P-51, a Mustang III.” Adler stroked the wing, hearing the roar and clank of factory equipment in his mind. “The Mustang III has a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine built here in England. The P-51B—the plane we’ll fly—has a Merlin built by Packard in the US.”
Luis Camacho slapped Adler on the back. “How’d you get a pilot’s manual?”
“Didn’t. Used to build these beauties. Well, the Mustang I and II, the P-51A. This model didn’t go into production until after I enlisted.” Working in the factory was the only good part of the darkest year of his life. As the repetitive work pounded the memories into submission, he helped these beautiful birds come into being. Life from death, structure from chaos.
“You worked at North American Aviation?” Nick asked.
“Inglewood, California. The assembly line.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Adler’s eye twitched. He’d ripped another hole, hadn’t he?
“Don’t worry, fellows.” Maj. Morty Shapiro caressed the Mustang’s white nose. “Colonel Chickering says more of these birds are coming. We’ll all get flight time, starting with the senior officers.”
Adler’s hand clamped around the aileron flap. As a wingman, he’d be relegated to the bottom half of the fighter group, although he was easily in the top quarter.
The seventy-five pilots of the 357th began to disperse. A lot of potential aces. Nick and Shapiro, of course, as well as “Kit” Carson, “Bud” Anderson, Tommy Hayes, Don Bochkay, Chuck Yeager, Jim Browning, Bob Becker, and several others. Strong competition.
“Ready to return to quarters?” Nick asked.
“Sure.” He grabbed a bicycle from the stack against the control tower, and he and Nick pedaled through the technical site, past workshops and offices.
“Interesting that you worked the assembly line.”
“Good work.” Adler swerved to avoid a sergeant pedaling the other way.
“Unusual for a man with a college degree.”
“I don’t have a degree.”
“Oh? I thought you’d mentioned college.”
Adler checked for potholes in the road and in his story. “Two years at the University of Texas was enough for me.”
Nick turned onto a tree-lined road toward their living site. “How long were you at North American?”
“Almost a year. Then I decided I’d rather fly planes than build them.” Time to deflect. “What made you join up?”
Nick studied the tree branches. “Saw how things were going with Hitler in Germany, with the Japanese. I wanted to be ready. I joined in 1940, the day after college graduation.”
“Surprised your wife let you.”
Nick chuckled. “I wasn’t married. Met her at training school.”
“She’s a pilot too?” Adler dropped a wink.
“Met her at church in town.” Nick shook his head and grinned. “As for being a pilot, don’t put it past her. If it weren’t for the baby, Peggy might have joined the WASPs.”
“Sounds like quite a woman.”
“She is.” Nick slowed down for a line of bicycles turning onto the road to the mess site. “I’m surprised you don’t have a girl.”
Prickles rose. “I told you about my fiancée.”
“How long ago?”
“Two and a half years.” He winced. Those prickles poked a second hole, a dangerous one.
“Hmm. The way you talk, I thought it was more recent.”
“If Peggy died, how long would it take to get over her?” That came out sharper than intended.
Nick’s face grew pensive. “Don’t know if I ever would.”
“Exactly.”
“How long were you together?”
Something about Nick’s voice made Adler soften, made him want to remember the woman he’d loved. She wasn’t responsible for everything that happened. “Seven years.”
“Seven!” Nick’s front wheel wobbled. “That’s a long time to date.”
“No kidding. Her daddy didn’t trust me. Thought I was a cocky young fool—not that he was wrong.”
His friend chuckled. “Made you wait, huh?”
“Three years for us to finish high school. Another two years while I worked for my dad—to prove I could support her. Another two years while I was away at college—to prove I could stay faithful. We were supposed to get married that summer.” His vision clouded. She’d died wearing his ring. Was she buried with it? He’d fled before her funeral. His heart seized.
“You earned her father’s trust. That must mean a lot to you.”
Adler swallowed hard and focused on the road. “Yeah.” He’d been faithful to her.
Until . . .
No! He tried to shove that memory back through the holes, but there it was—heated, fumbling, foggy kisses.
No, that didn’t count. That was after Oralee died.
Only hours after she died.
His brother Clay’s rage roared through the pinpricks in his shell.
Yes, it counted. It counted very much.
“Seven years.”
Adler looked up, panting, his upper lip tingling. “Huh?”
“Seven years.” Nick turned onto the path to their living site. “Like Jacob working for Rachel in the Bible.”
“Only I never got my Rachel.” His voice ground out hard, and he pedaled harder, right up to their Nissen hut. He let the bike clatter to the ground and stomped inside.
“Mail came.” Riggs, the only man in the hut, sorted envelopes by his cot. “Package for Santa from Mrs. Claus. Nothing for Paxton again.”
Adler grabbed a Zane Grey from the crate by his cot. “Want to make something of it?”
“Lay off him, Riggs,” Nick said.
“Fine.” Riggs sauntered out. “I’m getting a drink at the officers’ club before dinner.”
Adler sat on the cot, leaned back against the iron headboard, and drew up his knees. Zane Grey would help. In his free time in Inglewood, Adler had watched Westerns, read Westerns, and numbed the memories.
Nick pulled stuff out of the box. He tossed something onto Adler’s cot. “For you.”
A long flat box wrapped in green paper. “For me?”
“From my wife. I told her you were estranged from your family.”
Adler couldn’t stop staring. He hadn’t received a gift for . . .
“How long has it been?”
“Two and a half years.” A third hole, too close to the others.
“About the same time your fiancée died.” Nick’s dark eyes narrowed in thought. “About the same time you left college and went to California.”
Adler’s life shred open in a long gash between the three holes. Connected. Connected forever, and Nick saw it. No deflection shot would do the job this time.
His breath came faster, harder. “My brothers and I—we had a big blowup that night, the night Oralee died. I had to leave.”
A blowup? Two blowups.
Through the gash a scene flashed. Wyatt crouching by the ravine where Oralee had fallen, blood trickling down his cheek from the rock Adler had hurled at him. Adler towering over him with a bigger rock, ready to bash Wyatt’s brains in.
Then a second scene, hazier, murkier, darker. Adler crouching on the cold garage floor. Clay towering over him with a tire iron, ready to bash Adler’s brains in.
“What happened?” Nick asked.
Adler bolted to his feet. The book and package thumped to the floor. He held up one hand to Nick and marched out of the hut.
Outside, he kept marching, sucking in cold air, but it wasn’t cold enough to freeze the memories, to numb the pain.
Where had he gone wrong?
The flow of cold air reminded him. The Queen Elizabeth. Violet Lindstrom’s soft blue eyes. Her innocent questions. He’d told himself it was harmless to talk to her.
How wrong he was.
Leiston Army Airfield
Friday, December 24, 1943
Violet didn’t mind a cappella Christmas carols. The Aeroclub hadn’t received a piano yet, and it could have been reminiscent of caroling. She didn’t mind off-key voices. After all, not one Lindstrom had a good singing voice, but their Christmas songfests were the sweetest memories.
But she cringed at the precious tunes bellowed out in drunken, slurring, guffawing voices. Somehow she kept her Red Cross smile in place as she pushed her cart of empty cups and glasses from the lounge to the kitchen.
Through the mass of men in olive drab and the local girls in their best dresses, Mr. Rufus Tate weaved down the hallway toward Violet.
A frown accentuated the Red Cross field director’s heavy jowls. “This is disappointing.”
“I’ll say.” Violet glanced back at the drunken carolers.
“I hoped you’d throw a better Christmas party, especially for the grand opening.”
Violet clenched the cart handle. “Sir, we’ve only been here fourteen days. The Minister of Labour has only allowed us to hire half a dozen women so far. If the local church ladies hadn’t volunteered, we couldn’t have thrown a party at all.”
He gestured into the barren lounge. “Construction is incomplete, there’s hardly any furniture, and where are the womanly touches? The boys deserve a homey atmosphere.”
Although she bristled, Violet kept her expression soft. “Sir, we’re a low priority with the base supply officer and with the Minister of Works. They’ve given us a bookshelf here, a table there, a few chairs. And we’re still waiting on our recreational equipment from the Red Cross.”
Mr. Tate straightened the lapels of his gray uniform jacket. “The other Aeroclubs manage.”
“In time, we will too.”
“At least you brought in enough girls for dancing.” In the game room couples jitterbugged to tunes on a phonograph Kitty had borrowed from the officers’ club. Since almost every young woman in Suffolk wanted to meet the Yanks, recruitment had been easy.
“I expect to see an improvement when I return after the holidays.” Mr. Tate wished her a merry Christmas and departed.
His meaning was clear. He’d take the holidays off, but Violet and Kitty wouldn’t. Granted, the men of the 358th Fighter Group didn’t get days off either.
She continued on her way. On the phonograph Bing Crosby crooned “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” and Violet’s jaw quivered.
Nonsense. The men wouldn’t be home for Christmas either. How selfish to feel homesick in time of war.
The group had flown four missions so far. They hadn’t earned any victories, but they hadn’t taken any losses either. They had a right to a party. They had a right to dance.
A sergeant danced with an English girl, his hand far below the girl’s waist. He didn’t have a right to that. If Violet let the men carry on, the villagers wouldn’t let their daughters come to dances. It was her job to foster good relations between the Americans and the British.
Violet left her cart in the hall and tapped the man on the shoulder. “Sir, please behave like a gentleman.”
He snapped his gaze up to her, and his eyebrows sprang.
Once again, Violet felt her height. “These ladies are our guests, and we’re guests in their country. Please treat them with respect.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He shifted his hand up to the girl’s waist.
But the girl gave Violet a saucy look. “I can handle myself.”
“If you let men handle you, you’ll soon find you can no longer handle them.” She sounded just like Mom.
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl flushed and glanced away.
Violet returned to her cart. Now she felt washed-up as well as gigantic.
She passed what would be the library when they actually received books. Men milled around, chatting, smoking, and drinking.
“Next weekend, I’m going down to London,” a man said to his buddy. “Heard the girls in Piccadilly will give you everything for a buck.”
Violet clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Yeah?” his buddy said. “They’ll give you VD—that’s what they’ll give you.”
Head down, face flaming, Violet dashed toward the kitchen. Knowing such coarseness existed and seeing it firsthand were two separate things.
What would her friends from college think? The college where she and Dennis Reeves had run the mission society.
They’d met there. They worked together so well that they decided to turn their partnership into a lifetime commitment. Until Dennis and Preston became roommates. Preston with his fancy car and wads of cash. Preston with the job offer for Dennis from his father. Dennis took it without even informing Violet beforehand.
So she broke their engagement.
The mission agency had refused to send Violet overseas without a husband.
“Boys destroy indeed,” she muttered.
In the kitchen, Violet unloaded the dirty dishes into the sink.
“Thank you.” Sylvia Haywood brushed a wisp of pale hair from her face, gave Violet a wry smile, and dipped her hands into the dishwater. As a mother of schoolchildren, she was exempt from war work. Her husband’s British army salary was so low, she’d taken the Red Cross job to make ends meet.
The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind Violet’s eyes, and she groaned.
“What’s the matter?” Kitty stirred a bowl of donut mixture.
Violet leaned back against the icebox and pressed her palms to her forehead. “It’s Christmas Eve, and these men are drinking and cussing and groping the girls and talking about prostitutes and venereal disease.”
Kitty chuckled. “Not much like Christmas with the Kellys.”
“Or the Lindstroms. These men are brutes.” Why couldn’t there be a man like Adler Paxton at Leiston?
“Now, now. Don’t focus on the bad eggs. There are some fine men in this group.”
“I suppose so.” Good people did tend to be overshadowed.
Kitty whirled around, set one fist on her hip, and winked at her. “Besides, I thought you wanted to be a missionary. There you go. The biggest pack of heathens you’ll ever meet.”
Violet laughed for Kitty’s sake. “Thanks, but spreading the gospel isn’t part of the Red Cross’s mission.”
“Mercy, a listening ear, and wholesome fun.” Kitty’s trilling falsetto mimicked Mrs. Farnsworth, one of their instructors at Washington headquarters.
A burst of raucous laughter invaded the kitchen. Nothing wholesome about it.
8
Raydon Army Airfield
Monday, January 24, 1944
No doubt about it, the P-51 was the sweetest airplane Adler had ever flown—sleek, fast, and light on the controls. His half-hour training flight was almost up, but he had time for a loop.
With his right hand on the stick and his left on the throttle, he eased the stick forward into a shallow dive to gain speed. At 395 miles per hour, he pulled the stick back. After the P-51 began to climb, he pushed the throttle forward to gain power. Up he went, his stomach pressed to his backbone. He threw his head back and watched the horizon through the canopy.
Pull the nose well over the top of the loop, he’d been told, and that’s what he did, his weight straining the shoulder harness. When the plane nosed downward and the green patchwork appeared below him, he eased off the throttle.
The horizon came back into view, the cloudy sky. His stomach made contact with his throat, and he whooped. After he came out of the loop, he turned back for Raydon.
Half an hour wasn’t enough, but the 357th had only fifteen Mustangs, so everyone took turns when the weather cooperated. Adler had only had two flights, but the P-51 was easy to fly.
After Adler spotted the control tower for Raydon, he pushed the microphone button on top of the throttle knob to get permission to land.
He adjusted the fuel mixture controls and propeller speed, and then entered the rectangular landing pattern
around the airfield.
Three runways intersected, with the perimeter track in a rough circle around them. A couple of aircraft sat on the perimeter track, waiting to take off, but the main runway was clear. Another Mustang circled to the east waiting to land, probably Theo Christopher.
Adler made his first turn. When his speed fell below 170, he pushed down the landing gear lever to his left. The gear snapped down into position, and he set the safety lock.
His controls and instruments looked fine. One of the boys had made a spectacularly bad landing the other day by coming down with his brakes locked. The plane rode up onto her nose, shearing off the propeller. The pilot was lucky to be alive.
Adler made the final turn and lowered the flaps. Speed down to 115, nose lined up with the runway, wings level, altitude dropping. Right before he reached the runway, he eased the stick back for the roundout, lifting the nose so the plane would land on all three wheels at once.
And she did, smooth and silky. He savored the rush and rumble down the runway and the knowledge that he’d added another perfect landing to his record.
At the end of the runway, he turned onto the perimeter track. Adler unlocked his side windows and slid them open so he could see around his nose for taxiing. Cool, damp air replaced the fumy air in the cockpit.
A ground crewman hopped onto Adler’s wing to help. Adler lifted his hand in greeting, even though he could manage by taxiing in an S pattern with his head out the window.
When they reached the hardstand, the plane’s crew chief motioned him onto the spoon-shaped parking place.
Adler turned off the engines, and the noise and vibrations died. He set the parking brake, locked the controls, and turned off the generator, battery, and radio. After unlocking the canopy, he flopped the left section out and down and the overhead panel up and to the right.
The crew chief hoisted himself onto the left wing and leaned over the cockpit. Gray-streaked hair peeked under his cap, and a smile sent wrinkles fanning out around his eyes. “How was she?”
Adler unplugged his headset and unfastened his lap belt and shoulder harness. “Sweeter than honey washed down with molasses.”
“She is, isn’t she?” He helped Adler climb out of the cramped cockpit.