Gwen perused the paper. It announced a “Meeting of Likes” that took place in the evenings of the first and third Saturdays of the month when not in port. She looked at the girl quizzically.
Polly shrugged. ‘I can see you’re still not comfortable with what you feel for Kitty. This is a group that we run for men and women like us.’
‘I don’t think...’
Gwen shook her head, about to refuse, but the girl cut her off. ‘It will help you to see that we’re just normal people and that there’s nothing shameful in loving who you love.’
‘I...’
Again the girl cut her off. ‘Just think about it. Take the leaflet with you and discuss it with Kitty. It’s more of a party than a meeting. Occasionally there are speakers and lectures, but mostly it’s an excuse to eat and drink informally, surrounded by like-minded people.’
‘Likes?’
The girl grinned. ‘That’s a kind of codeword. It’s what people like us call ourselves when we don’t want anybody knowing.’
Gwen blushed. ‘Kitty told you about that?’
‘She did, sorry.’ The girl reached out and put her hand on Gwen’s arm. ‘It’s very cute, but it’s also very normal. We all went through the same thing as you at some point or other, but most of us didn’t have an established community to help us or were lucky enough to fall in love with someone who thought the same way as us and was able to guide us.’
There was a brief flash of pain in the girl’s eyes, but it was instantly gone as she drew back, replaced by her customary smile. ‘Come on, let’s get you home!’
They walked with the girl in companionable silence along a few more corridors and only a few minutes later found themselves at the door to the rooms assigned to the Misfits.
Gwen hesitated before turning the handle. ‘Um... Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?’
Polly smiled her thanks, but shook her head regretfully. ‘I would really love to, but I go on duty in half an hour and I need to get ready. Perhaps another time?’
Gwen smiled. ‘I look forward to it.’
‘So do I and I’ll see you tonight at the meeting!’
Before Gwen could say anything the girl beamed and skipped away. She greeted somebody she knew among the strolling sailors and fell into step with them, but glanced over her shoulder to give Gwen one last smile before disappearing around a bend in the corridor.
Gwen shook her head, exasperated as much at herself as at Polly’s confidence that she would go to the meeting; she couldn’t think of anything more uncomfortable or less British than talking about sexuality, especially one’s own. For some reason, though, she found that she actually wanted to go.
She turned to go through the door, but stopped when she realised she still had the leaflet in her hand. She hastily hid it in a pocket of her work coveralls before entering the room, not particularly wanting any of her fellow pilots to see it and ask questions she didn’t have an answer for.
The rooms were deserted, though, and silent except for the sound of heavy snoring coming from the men’s dormitory.
Since he had been released the day after they had set sail, Mac had been spending a lot of time in bed. He had somehow managed to smuggle several bottles of vodka aboard from Vaenga and was very quickly working his way through them, something that had him unconscious much of the time and irritable the rest. The pilots were giving him a fair amount of leeway because of his injury and the death of his Muscovite girlfriend, but his behaviour was beginning to wear on nerves which were already frayed by the destruction of Murmansk and that the bad weather was only making worse.
Gwen didn’t even consider disturbing him and just turned and went back out. She crossed the corridor, dodging around a group of wandering lieutenants, then went through the heavy bulkhead door into the stairwell and up to the hangar where she knew she would find the rest of her squadron.
Chapter 4
While Gwen had been on bed rest, the other Misfits had been working in the hangar, repairing their aircraft.
Not a single machine from A or B flight had escaped damage, but with stores running low at Vaenga, only those repairs essential to keeping the machines in the air had been done, so they were all in a very sorry state indeed. Every aircraft had at least one dull grey panel showing where a Duralumin panel had been replaced, but most also sported holes that hadn’t been patched and what remained of their once pristine paintwork was scratched and pitted. Even Dragonfly, which had come through the battle over Britain completely unscathed, was looking the worse for wear and in the last desperate battle had gotten hit in the wing by a cannon round, which had torn a jagged hole through it, destroying one of her guns in the process.
With the storm looking to last until they were at least into the North Sea, there was no hurry to have the aircraft back in perfect condition, but the pilots were loath to leave them as they were and so had spent as much time as they could in the hangar. It wasn’t so much a case of being ready to fly and fight if necessary, but rather, like Polly had rather astutely put it, that the aircraft were a part of their pilot - seeing them damaged or anything less than perfect hurt.
When Gwen came through the bulkhead door, her eyes automatically went to the bow end of the hangar, towards where Wasp had sat during the journey north, but of course her beloved aircraft wasn’t there; she was lying in pieces at the bottom of the river that ran past Murmansk, along with hundreds of Prussian machines. She grimaced; no matter how many times she was reminded of the fact, or how recently, it still shot a sharp pain straight to her gut.
She put the lost aircraft out of her mind as best she could and picked her way carefully across the cavernous, but crowded space towards the three remaining A flight machines at the far end, making her way past the disassembled Dreadnought and B flight aircraft.
Each aircraft was surrounded by a group of people, some dressed in the dark blue work clothes of the Navy and some in the slighter lighter blue of the RAC fitters and pilots. The naval mechanics had been delighted to pitch in and help with the repairs, donating time that would otherwise have been passed idly, seeing as the two Navy Martinet fighters were grounded by the storm and didn’t need working on.
Dreadnought was nearest to where she entered, at the rear of the hangar. She had been the most damaged of all the aircraft and had the most men and women swarming over her vast, disassembled structure. More than half of her Duralumin panels had already been stripped off of her frame and laid to one side and almost all of them would need to be replaced, but thankfully the Arturo carried more than enough spares in its stores to do so.
Beyond the immense aircraft was Dove, Chastity’s white aircraft. She was a beautiful machine, twin-springed, with wings whose trailing edges curved gently and hadn’t taken as much of a battering as many of the rest of the aircraft of B flight, mostly due to her pilot’s brilliance.
Chastity had come to the squadron with very little in the way of mechanical know-how, unlike the rest of the pilots, but had pitched in with the repairs to Dreadnought on the journey to Murmansk, learning enough that she could at least carry out basic repairs on Dove and she was doing so now.
Next to Dove was Jaguar, her pilot conspicuously absent from the team working on her. Beyond her Derek was staring at the rear of Swift’s fuselage, scratching his head over a large missing chunk of her horizontal stabiliser, which had only just been entirely replaced.
The last of the B flight machines, Hawk, was next to Swift and Kitty was straddling one of the two booms, wielding a paint brush. Somehow she sensed Gwen’s presence and lifted her head to smile, giving her an enthusiastic wave and not noticing when she sprayed paint over the fitters surrounding the machine. Gwen laughed and waved back, but didn’t stop to speak to her.
Hummingbird was the only one of the assembled machines that was still completely intact and only had one person working on her, Scarlet, who was greasing her rotors and applying wax to her paintwork.
More than anything els
e it had been Scarlet’s heroism in carrying out a daring, dangerous, but hilarious, raid on the Crimson Baron’s airfield, destroying almost the entire Prussian complement of fighters, that had allowed the Misfits to do so much to hold back the enemy ground forces.
The storm had let up slightly the day before, allowing signals to get through and among the messages received had been one from St Petersburg. It informed the squadron that the Order of Tolstoy, the highest honour that could be bestowed on someone who wasn’t a Muscovite combatant, had been awarded to four members of the squadron - Abby as the commander and top-scorer, Wendy, for the destruction she had wrought among the ground forces, Lord Drake, posthumously, for his valour and work training the Wolfpack pilots, and Scarlet for precisely that raid.
Just past Hummingbird were the three surviving turn fighters of A flight, lined up nose to tail. There were far more men and women working on them than any other machine, aside from Dreadnought, not because they were any more damaged, but rather so as to get them in full fighting form as soon as possible in case they were needed to defend the convoy.
Bruce and Monty were standing between their two identically-designed aircraft, deep in discussion, and Gwen nodded at them in passing, but kept going towards the last in line, Dragonfly, where Abby was supervising a team of fitters putting a freshly-shaped Duralumin panel in place on the wing.
She looked up as Gwen approached and smiled. ‘You look like the Pied Piper.’
Gwen frowned, not understanding, but then, when Abby pointedly looked behind her, she turned and found that every single one of the Misfit pilots had followed her accompanied by most of the chief fitters and a few curious naval mechanics with nothing better to do.
Gwen blinked at them with wide eyes. ‘What on earth do you all want?’
She tried to feign surprise and confusion, but the pilots weren’t having any of it
‘Look, you, we’ve been trying to look like we’re working all morning, but really we’ve just been standing around waiting for you. It was taking you so long we were getting worried you’d fallen overboard, but now you’re here just get the damn plans out!’ Owen’s comment brought a few laughs, but most of the men and women just stood silently, expectantly.
‘Well... I’m not sure...’
‘If you don’t get those blueprints out right this second I’ll throw you overboard myself.’
Abby’s voice from right behind her made Gwen turn.
The woman had taken advantage of Gwen’s attention being directed elsewhere to wheel over an empty tool bench, which just happened to be at hand for her to spread her papers out on. She positioned it between Gwen and the other pilots then went to stand with them, leaving her on her own, facing them as if a jury.
Gwen chuckled then popped the top off the tube and carefully pulled a large piece of paper out of it. She spread it out on the bench and, as one, the pilots and fitters moved forwards, craning their necks to get a better view. They said nothing, though; it was Abby’s prerogative to ask the questions and she so after only a single glance. ‘A gull wing? Interesting, but why?’
Gwen smiled at Abby’s puzzlement. ‘It’s a good enough shape for the characteristics that we’re looking for, but more importantly - look at the propeller.’
Abby frowned then looked back down at the plans. ‘How the hell did I miss that? It’s huge!’
‘That’s what she said...’
Bruce’s quip earned him a guffaw from Scarlet and an elbow in the ribs from Owen and Gwen grinned at him before explaining herself. ‘The gull wing puts the front of the fuselage higher off the ground, which allows for longer blades, so she’ll be able to use the power of these new springs a bit better. It also means she’ll be able to cope with better Ozzys or the Phoenix-type springs, whenever we get them.’
Abby nodded appreciatively. ‘So she’ll be damn fast and I can see she’s manoeuvrable. What’s this, though?’ She tapped where the wings bent, angling gently upwards from the downwards sloping wing roots. There was some kind of mechanism between the two sections.
‘Well, the wings are almost as large as Dove’s so I reckoned that, if we’re going to be travelling a bit and most likely on carriers, then I should do something to make her a bit more portable. I took advantage of the design to add a little bit of convenience - the wings fold upwards for storage.’
‘That’s a smart bet and a good solution.’
Abby looked around the members of her squadron, meeting their eyes, inviting them to comment, but none of them spoke, they just nodded one after another, so she turned back to Gwen. ‘Well, the group approves and so do I. What are you going to call her?
‘Excalibur.’
Abby frowned. ‘Are you back to naming aircraft as weapons?’
Gwen shook her head with a smile. ‘No, don’t worry; I was just throwing a bit of a tantrum when I did that. Excalibur has always been a symbol for the British and it seemed quite apt; I conceived and designed it here, so in a way Gwenevere is borrowing Arthur’s sword from him to wield in battle. It’s also a good way to honour our friends here on the Arturo for getting us to Muscovy and back in safety.’
Approving murmurs sounded from around them at Gwen’s words and proud smiles appeared on the faces of the naval fitters working nearby, who had clearly been eavesdropping.
Abby saw and raised her voice slightly, making sure that they could hear her. ‘Well, we’re not home yet and I’m not sure they deserve it, after trying to drown us on the way here...’ She glared at them in mock anger and they hastily made their faces blank, pretending to be absorbed in their work, even as a couple of them nonchalantly wandered away to spread the news. She grinned, then turned back to Gwen. ‘It’s a very good name. I like it. However, I am worried about one thing.’
Gwen frowned and peered down at the plans, scanning them for something that she might have gotten wrong, even though she was sure there couldn’t be anything. Finding nothing, she anxiously lifted her gaze back up to Abby. ‘What?’
‘Exactly how pink is she going to be?’
The pilots and crew laughed as Gwen sagged in relief and she grinned at them. ‘Actually, I was thinking the same grey as the Arturo on top, with a black belly and only the wingtips in pink.’
‘Good, then you won’t have to do anything silly next time you decide to go gallivanting around at night.’
There were more chuckles at that; the bright pink of Wasp had almost gotten Gwen killed on a night interception, the moonlight reflecting off her paint and giving away her position. She had gotten over the problem by flying the aircraft upside down.
‘Right then.’ Abby clapped her hands and looked around at the group. ‘It looks like we have a project to work on as soon as we get back. Now, if nobody has anything else to say?’
‘Actually, before you all go.’ Gwen spoke out. ‘I’d like you to see something else.’ She removed a second sheet of paper from the tube and laid it on top of the blueprints for Excalibur. ‘While I was down in the design room I did this, too.’
Abby frowned at the second drawing. ‘When you said you had ideas to improve Dragonfly, I wasn’t expecting this... This is a major change.’
Gwen shook her head. ‘Only the wings need to be completely replaced, the other changes are relatively minor, apart from the fuselage, but even that’s only a case of extending the frame by six inches. The modifications shouldn’t take more than five hundred man hours to complete. For a good team that’s less than a week’s work.’
‘But she’s almost unrecognisable!’ Abby protested.
It was easy to see why she was upset with the changes Gwen wanted to make. Gone were the characteristic flared wings that made Dragonfly so distinctive and gave her the aspect of her namesake and in their place were something akin to gently swept bat wings. It was almost as if she were a whole new aircraft.
Gwen smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, but this feels right to me. Without starting from scratch, like with Excalibur, Sable or Raptor, I think t
his is the best way to keep Dragonfly ahead of the curve.’
Abby stared down at the plans, absorbing them.
Gwen and the other pilots watched her, collectively holding their breath, waiting to see what she would say and do.
Eventually she sighed. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’ She looked up at Gwen. There was moisture in her eyes, but she still smiled. ‘The design is brilliant, thank you.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Sergeant Potter, come see what you make of these, please.’
Abby’s chief fitter, Henry Potter, stepped out of the crowd and moved to Abby side. He peered down at the paper through his round glasses, scratching at the scar on his forehead from the head wound he’d suffered during the Prussian bombing of Badger Base a few months before.
He took a few moments to peruse them then looked up at his pilot. ‘No problem, ma’am. We can do all that in a few days with the facilities here on the ship.’ Mirroring Abby’s gesture from before he glanced over his shoulder. ‘Jack, come take a gander.’
The mechanic in charge of the hangar, Jack MacTavish, a grizzled man in his fifties who Gwen recognised as one of the tattoo artists who had given the crew their marks for crossing into the Arctic Circle on the voyage north, came forwards. He scratched his cheek while he peered at the plans thoughtfully, making a rasping noise that was audible even over the sounds of steam-powered tools and hammering coming from all around.
He almost immediately nodded. ‘Aye, this’ll be a cinch. Six days tops. Less if we get the boys and gals from the machine shop to give it priority.’
Both mechanics looked at Abby and she took a deep breath before nodding. ‘One thing first, do you have a pencil, Gwen?’
Gwen handed her a drafting pencils and Abby bent over the blueprints. She made a few quick lines, then straightened up again. ‘There we go.’
A Misfit Midwinter Page 3