The Sky Above Us

by Sarah Sundin

  Once on the ground, Adler flipped his goggles on top of his flight helmet and shook the crew chief’s hand. “I’m Adler Paxton. I didn’t catch your name before takeoff.”

  “Bill Beckenbauer. Call me Beck.”

  Unusual last name. Like the famous ace from the First World War, now a general high up in the US Eighth Air Force. “Beckenbauer? No relation, I reckon.”

  Beck chuckled. “You reckon wrong. He’s my older brother.”

  Adler felt the slam of it in his chest. The older brother—lauded and high ranking. The younger brother—anonymous and overlooked.

  Oralee had always said, “Adler’s never met a silence he can’t fill.” Well, not right now.

  “That’s how I got my start.” Beck circled the P-51 for his postflight check. “I was his mechanic in the last war.”

  And he was still a mechanic while his brother was a general.

  “Right nice to meet you.” Adler ducked his head to remove his flight equipment and to spare the crew chief from seeing his stunned expression.

  He kept his head down as he walked back to squadron headquarters. Wasn’t that always the way? Firstborn sons got everything, even in America, where merit was supposed to mean more than birth.

  Even when the firstborn despised his birthright. Esau selling his rights to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew. Wyatt paying Adler to meet with the truckers so he could stay in the office with his beloved account books.

  Adler would have been the better brother to run Paxton Trucking, but that job would be Wyatt’s. Just as well, since Adler could never show his face in Kerrville again.

  He set his jaw against the pain and set his mind on Raydon Airfield. Before Christmas, he’d allowed Nick’s questions to poke up memories that slashed open his soul. He’d had to do a lot of welding to seal it shut again.

  “Hola, Águila!” Luis Camacho jogged over.

  “Howdy, Cam.” The first time Camacho called him Águila, Adler had pretended not to know it meant eagle in Spanish, same as Adler meant eagle in German.

  “Shapiro called a squadron meeting at 1600.” Cam jogged on past. “Got to find Theo.”

  “Think he was landing right after me.”

  It was hard to feign ignorance when Camacho muttered things in Spanish—funny things. He couldn’t reveal that he was fluent in Spanish, or he’d hear more of it. And the sound recalled the savory smell of tamales and the tang of jalapeño on the tongue. Rollicking mariachi music and the cool feel of the trumpet on his lips, the tunes welling up from his belly and out to the heavens. And Wyatt and Clay beside him on the guitar and violin.

  Adler grunted. The welds were frail, and he didn’t dare push up against them.

  In the locker room, Adler turned in his flight gear. Then he entered the squadron pilots’ room. A dozen men lounged before the fireplace, reading magazines and chatting.

  Adler joined Nick on a sofa. “Good flight?” Nick asked.

  “The best.”

  Cam and Theo and Shapiro entered the room, Cam and Theo looking winded.

  “How’d it go, Shappy?” Riggs called out.

  Shapiro gave him a razor-sharp look to kill the nickname. “Escorted bombers, mixed it up with the Luftwaffe.”

  Murmurs circled the room, and Adler exchanged a glance with Nick. Wouldn’t that have been something? For the second time, senior officers from the 357th had flown with the 354th Fighter Group to gain experience.

  The 354th had flown the first American mission with Mustangs on December 1 and the first long-range escort into Germany later that month. One of their pilots had downed eight Messerschmitt Me 110s in a single day—and only five victories were required to make ace.

  Major Shapiro stood by the fireplace and raised a hand to silence the chatter. “I’m afraid we lost Captain Giltner, but someone saw a parachute. Let’s hope for the best.”

  Adler’s cheeks puffed full of air. The group had lost over a dozen men in training accidents back in the US, but this was their first combat loss.

  Shapiro tapped a cigarette into an ashtray on the mantel. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons from the men of the 354th. Lessons they learned the hard way. I’ll tell you all about it, but first I want to relay the latest orders from the Army Air Force.”

  Adler crossed his arms over his A-2 leather flight jacket. Orders meant change. Could be good. Could be bad.

  “As you know, the heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force took appalling losses on the missions to Regensburg and Schweinfurt last summer and fall—sixty bombers on each mission, ten men in each plane. They can’t take on the Luftwaffe without fighter escort.”

  “We’re in the Ninth Air Force,” Stan Mulroney said.

  Adler managed to avoid rolling his eyes. Leave it to Mulroney to state the obvious.

  “The Eighth only has P-38s and P-47s,” Shapiro said. “The Lightnings have mechanical problems at high altitude, and the Thunderbolts don’t have the legs for missions deep into Germany.”

  But the Mustang had both lungs and legs.

  “The Eighth will send some of its P-47 groups to the Ninth. The P-47 is more rugged than the P-51 and better suited for ground attack. In exchange, the Ninth will send P-51 groups to the Eighth. Including us.”

  Adler frowned. Would they encounter more enemy aircraft on escort missions or fewer?

  “What’s that mean for us?” Theo asked. “Besides new patches.”

  Adler glanced down to the winged “9” on the left shoulder of his flight jacket—soon to be a winged “8.”

  “I’ll tell you what it means,” Riggs said. “Means we’ll be babysitting a bunch of big, fat, slow bombers. We’ll be tied down like old married men, can’t chase the girls.”

  Adler’s shoulders tensed. That was what he feared.

  “First, your analogy stinks,” Shapiro said. “Unless you shoot down the girls you chase. In your case, it’s more likely they shoot you down.”

  All tension faded away. Adler roared in laughter, and he wasn’t alone.

  Shapiro held up his hands until the laughter died. “A month ago, you would have been right in principle. The fighters were required to stick with the bombers at all cost. But things have changed. General Jimmy Doolittle took command of the Eighth Air Force this month. He has orders to destroy the Luftwaffe in the factory, in the air, and on the ground. We’ll still be responsible for protecting the bombers, but we’ll have more freedom to engage the enemy.”

  “Good,” Adler muttered.

  “We do have to put our desire for personal victory beneath the needs of the bombers.” Shapiro took off his cap and ruffled his wavy black hair. “The Germans have been known to send up a handful of fighters to draw off the escort, then send in the main force to decimate the bombers. We must not let that happen.”

  It wasn’t so good after all, and Adler’s fingers dug into the sleeves of his jacket. Now he was shackled twofold—to the bombers and as a wingman. Not just second place. Last place.

  What was that Bible verse Violet Lindstrom had quoted? She’d spoken with such serene conviction, the cold Atlantic air twirling blonde hairs that had escaped her red scarf. “The last shall be first, and the first last.”

  If only there was truth in that Scripture.

  9

  Leiston, England

  Wednesday, January 26, 1944

  Mr. Edwards, the Minister of Food in Leiston, flipped through Violet’s paperwork with his right hand—his empty left sleeve was pinned up. Had he lost his arm in World War I? “All in order,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir.” Obtaining ration books was Kitty’s job, but she was in bed with an awful cold, so Violet was helping. “I apologize for taking food from the British when rationing is so tight here and our men are fed well at the mess.”

  “Nonsense, young lady.” Mr. Edwards fixed a crinkly-eyed smile on her. “Remember, a great amount of our food comes from the States through your Lend-Lease program. Without you Yanks, we might be starving.”

  Viole
t clutched her shoulder bag in her lap. “Still, it doesn’t seem right.”

  “Keep those boys fat and happy so they can knock down the Nasties and put an end to this beastly war. Few of us begrudge you. Those who do must answer to me.”

  “Thank you.” Perhaps the best way to help the British was to help the flyboys end the war. If that meant filling them with donuts and swing tunes, so be it.

  Yesterday she’d received another reason to embrace her job. Great-Aunt Violet had replied to her announcement that she was going overseas. She said if Violet excelled in the Red Cross, after the war a mission agency might be impressed enough to accept a single woman.

  Her new hope and dream.

  Mr. Edwards handed her some papers. “When the new group arrives, have the commander sign these forms. Since the number of men won’t change, this is a mere formality, but a necessary one. Do bring this back straightaway.”

  “Thank you. I will.” She shook the man’s hand and left the office.

  No one could give her specifics, but soon the 358th Fighter Group was going to switch airfields with another group.

  She descended the stairs to High Street. Would that be Adler Paxton’s group? It would be nice to have another gentleman on the base.

  Since Christmas, she’d made a point of looking at the men more objectively. Yes, there were some brutes, but most were polite and kind.

  On High Street, Violet savored the scene. Brick buildings lined the narrow road, some painted gray, white, or cream. Shops filled the ground floors of the two-story buildings. Down the block stood the darling half-timbered Leiston Picture House.

  Across the street, three of the local ladies hired by the American Red Cross loaded food from Banister’s Grocery into a GI truck from the air base motor pool.

  Sylvia Haywood waved her thin hand. “Hallo, Miss Lindstrom.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Haywood. Did you find what we needed?”

  “I’ll say.” Rosalind Weaver flipped back her ginger hair and hefted a box into the truck. “We bought a load of sausage meat for those Yankee hamburgers.”

  “Wonderful.” Violet inspected paper-wrapped bundles in the box. “Hamburger” was a euphemistic term for sausage made of oatmeal and meat of questionable origin, served on coarse National Wheatmeal bread, but the airmen gobbled them down.

  “Mustard and pickles too.” Millie Clark held up a tin of dry mustard. The sixteen-year-old had finished school but was too young to be required to take a war job, so the Red Cross snatched her up.

  The Minister of Labour had been less accommodating than sweet Mr. Edwards. The Red Cross could only hire British women too young or too old to be conscripted for war work, or mothers of young children—like Sylvia and Rosalind.

  A band of children chased each other down the street. School must have let out.

  Two blond children peeled off from the herd and ran to Sylvia—a boy of about ten and a girl about eight. “Hallo, Mummy!”

  Sylvia smoothed her daughter’s hair and introduced Violet to her children, Jimmy and Margie. “I told you two not to play with those ruffians.”

  Jimmy’s eyes widened. “They’re from London. I think they’re brilliant.”

  “Evacuees.” Sylvia wrinkled her nose.

  Margie lifted her little chin. “I told Jimmy not to play with them. They’re dirty.”

  Sylvia cupped her hand to Violet’s ear. “Some came from London without knickers. Some had lice. And none of them had ever seen a cow.”

  “Poor things.” Violet watched the kids playing tag in the street.

  “I feel sorry for the little blighters,” Rosalind said. “Their fathers at war or worse. Their mums in London, if they even survived the Blitz.”

  “Well, I don’t think they’re a good influence.” Sylvia put her arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and tugged him close. “But we all have to do our bit.”

  “Where do they stay?” Violet asked.

  “My mum took one in.” Millie twirled a light brown curl around her finger. “He’s a nice little chap, helps with the chores.”

  Violet’s heart went out to the waifs. Some were in caring homes, but some weren’t. And all were away from home and family at a young age.

  Here was the real need—with the lonely and forgotten. Not with healthy, strapping young men.

  Three of those men strutted down the street with their crush caps at rakish angles.

  The children cheered and ran to the pilots.

  Laughing, the Americans pulled out candy and gum and a baseball.

  Violet’s jaw drifted open, and an idea molded in her mind. She could serve the truly needy while serving the airmen and fulfilling her duty to the Red Cross.

  It was perfect.

  10

  Leiston Army Airfield

  Monday, January 31, 1944

  Leiston looked about the same as Raydon. Hangars, Nissen huts, and mud. Adler sat in the uncovered back of a truck crammed with men from his squadron.

  The group’s fifteen P-51s had been flown here, but the seventeen hundred men and all the equipment arrived in a long line of Army GMC trucks, clogging the base roads.

  The layout of each field was different, but the basics remained—a technical site, a headquarters site, a communal site, and several living sites dispersed around the airfield.

  Riggs groaned. “We could walk faster than this.”

  “I would sincerely hope so,” Tony Rosario said in a deadpan.

  Adler laughed. Since the truck had been idling for five minutes, even the mud moved faster.

  “Say, fellas!” The truck driver leaned out the window and addressed the pilots. “That’s the communal site. Go explore. I’ll drop your bags at your hut if we ever get in motion.”

  “You shouldn’t have to do that,” Nick said.

  The driver snorted. “Beats listening to the whining.”

  “I’ll take that as an order.” Adler vaulted out the back and shook out his stiff legs. “Come on, boys. Unless y’all like eating exhaust fumes.”

  The men followed, stretching and grumbling. They’d sat in that truck for three hours.

  “Speaking of eating, boy, am I hungry.” Theo rubbed his belly.

  Nick glanced at his watch. “Too late for lunch, but we could buy candy bars at the PX.”

  “Let’s go.” Adler led the way. Trucks were backed up to the buildings, and men hauled boxes inside. Moving a fighter group was no small feat.

  At the officers’ mess, Rosario rattled the doorknob in vain. “Feed me! Please? Please? Have mercy.”

  “Come on, Rosie.” Camacho pulled him away. “We’ll find you a Mars Bar.”

  Rosario pointed ahead. “Even better . . . a woman!”

  A brunette pushed a cart down the road. She wore the gray-blue jacket and skirt of the Red Cross.

  Adler’s breath caught, but Violet Lindstrom was somewhere else, helping children.

  “Red Cross!” Rosario staggered toward her, one arm stretched out. “Please . . . help . . . starving . . .”

  The girl laughed, then surveyed the squadron. “Say, didn’t you fellows come over on the Queen Elizabeth with us?”

  Yeah, she looked familiar, the girl who’d stayed by Violet’s side.

  Riggs sauntered up. “You wouldn’t give us donuts.”

  She looked right through him and smiled at the others. “Didn’t we say the donuts were on the other side of the Atlantic?” She whipped a napkin off a tray of—

  “Donuts!”

  She held the tray out to Adler. “Gentlemen first. I remember you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He’d argue with being called a gentleman, but not with a donut at stake.

  She passed the tray around, then addressed Riggs. “Since the Red Cross is neutral, we give aid to our enemies as well as our friends. You’ll get a donut, but after the others have had their fill.”

  Adler took a bite of fried heaven and rolled it slowly in his mouth. “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m going to take my s
weet time.”

  Camacho closed his eyes and moaned. “This is the best donut ever.”

  The men murmured, sighed, and waved their donuts in Riggs’s face.

  Riggs cussed and turned away.

  “Profanity will cost you another five minutes.” The Red Cross girl raised a smug smile. “So, would you like to see the Aeroclub?”

  “We’re officers, ma’am,” Nick said. “The Aeroclub is a haven for enlisted men.”

  She gave him an appreciative nod. “Yes, because you have your officers’ club. But the Aeroclub is officially open to all. The only rule—leave your rank at the door. Come see.”

  “Come on, boys.” Adler slipped around her and held open the door to a large Nissen hut.

  “My name’s Kitty Kelly. I’m the staff assistant.” She pushed her cart past Adler. “Violet! We have company.”

  Violet? Adler snapped his gaze inside. Not Violet Lindstrom!

  But yes. She stood at a snack bar, gazing over her shoulder at the men.

  What on earth? She’d said she was going to work with refugees. Or orphans.

  Not at an Aeroclub. Not on his air base. Not looking statuesque and willowy and gorgeous. When he’d seen her before, she’d been bundled up in an overcoat. Not now.

  Her gaze drifted over the airmen, landed on Adler, and she smiled, shy and sweet.

  His heart dropped as if he’d pulled a P-51 into a steep climb. Why hadn’t the 357th stayed at Raydon? And was it too late to learn to fly a P-47?

  “Welcome to our club,” Violet said. “Lieutenant Paxton, why don’t you shut the door before all the warm air goes out?”

  He closed his jaw and the door. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This is Violet Lindstrom, our club director.” Kitty shot an amused smile at Adler. “Some of you already know her.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled himself together.

  Kitty swept her arm to the left. “Here’s our snack bar, where we serve sandwiches, coffee, donuts, and something vaguely resembling a hamburger. Kitchen right behind it.”

  To the right sat a dozen tables with yellow-checkered tablecloths. The walls were painted sky blue, and yellow-checkered curtains framed the windows.