She breathed deeply. ‘Yes. But . . .’
‘No buts,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if I’m lying in this bed during our ceremony – I want to be married to you.’
Ruby felt a quiet thrill of joy. Their circumstances might have completely changed, but they were going to carry out their plan. She would marry her Tom after all.
‘Just because I’m your wife, you can’t tell me to give up flying,’ she murmured, hating that it was the first thing that came to mind, but needing to say it anyway. ‘You can’t go back to being all bossy about my choices as a pilot, Tom.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said.
‘Oh, but I dream,’ she confessed. ‘I dream of us both walking away and finding a little house somewhere, being safe and just raising a family together. I think of it all the time. Even when I thought you were gone, I couldn’t stop imagining it.’
‘We all do that, Ruby. We need that dream to help us do what we do, to know that we’re fighting for the freedom to build that life. To survive this bloody never-ending war.’
Ruby shut her eyes again, imagining they were there already. There was an emptiness inside of her, knowing that she’d been growing a little life that had been extinguished so fast; it was almost as if it had never been there at all. But it had, and she wasn’t going to give up on that dream of having a baby and creating a home with Tom.
‘Do you think this war will ever end?’ she asked him. ‘Will we win it?’
‘If it doesn’t end, all of this, everything we’ve lost, will be for nothing, and I can’t accept that.’
She wanted to ask him how he’d survived, wanted every little detail so she could piece together what had happened, but something was holding her back. Tom was clinging on to her like his lifeline, and just as she didn’t want to relive the moment she’d miscarried, she doubted he’d want to revisit the excruciating moments he’d endured in order to live.
‘Can I have my senior commander as witness, if she can make it?’ Ruby asked. ‘And my friend Polly?’
‘Of course.’
Two days later, Ruby glanced at May and Polly standing beside her, proud to have them by her side. They didn’t have long – May had come to get her en route to collecting the second batch of Spitfires and Polly was having to pick up a large aircraft to ferry a group of them back from Colerne – but it was long enough.
‘You look beautiful,’ May whispered to her.
Ruby looked down at her uniform, something she was so proud to wear, but wished that today she’d had a dress; that she could have been the radiant bride wearing lace and silk.
‘You do, Ruby. You’re absolutely radiant,’ Polly said.
‘Thank you,’ she said honestly, knowing how special it was to be wearing the uniform at all.
‘She’s right, you do look beautiful,’ Tom added, as a man approached them. ‘And here’s our ticket to wedded bliss.’
The captain who was marrying them hurried over, a big smile on his face as he arrived, slightly out of breath. Ruby fought a childish giggle as he smoothed two fingers across his thick moustache before speaking.
‘Ah, our lovely couple. What an honour it is to marry two such accomplished pilots.’
Ruby beamed, so proud of what they’d both achieved. It would be weeks if not months before Tom was able to fly again, but fly he would, and soon they’d both be back in the sky.
May and Polly both stood to her side in the garden as she held hands with Tom, and they spoke their vows. Within minutes he was carefully circling his arms around her as she gently held him back. She slipped her hands around his waist as he tipped her back, and she kissed him through laughter as enormous drops of rain started to pelt them, striking her face and slowly soaking her hair as they stayed wrapped in one another’s arms.
‘No!’ she moaned. ‘Not today!’
Tom grabbed her hand, and she leaned in to him one more time, kissing him full on the lips with everything she had. ‘I love you,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘I love you so much, Tom, with all my heart.’
The poor man was still limping, and she knew how much it must hurt him to even attempt to run, but they moved as fast as they could back towards the makeshift hospital that was to be his convalescing home for the coming weeks. It was a house that had been requisitioned in Yorkshire, and the wide verandas provided the perfect shelter from the mid-morning storm.
Once they were in the dry, she touched her hair, dismayed that the beautiful up-do had been ruined in the space of minutes. But then Tom held her tight and she soaked up the feel of his warm body, the light in his eyes as he stared down at her, and the musky, male scent of him.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, lovebirds,’ May started, clearing her throat from behind them. ‘But it’s time to go.’
‘Already?’ Tom groaned. ‘Can’t I have her for another few minutes?’
‘Sorry, Romeo, you’ll have to consummate your marriage another day,’ Polly said with a giggle.
All four of them laughed, until Tom slipped a hand around Ruby’s neck and leaned in for a last kiss.
‘You keep her safe,’ he murmured, his gaze fixed on May.
May shook her head. ‘You know that’s a promise I can’t keep, but your girl is one hell of a pilot.’
Ruby hugged him and committed every inch of her new husband to memory. Her love for him and her love of flying threatened to tear her in two, but she had a job to do.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said. ‘Stay safe.’
Tom held up a hand as she backed away then ran through the rain after May and Polly. It was her wedding day, and instead of a blissful afternoon with her husband, she was going to be flying a Spitfire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SWEETWATER AIRFIELD, TEXAS,
OCTOBER 1942
LIZZIE
‘Dunlop.’
She looked up and saw Captain Montgomery striding towards her. Trust him to be the first person she laid eyes on as she walked outside for fresh air. Lizzie held up a hand to shield her face from the sun, irritated by his presence.
‘Good to have you back,’ he said briskly.
‘I much prefer Texas to Washington,’ she replied. ‘Four days of meetings there and I’m pleased to be back.’ She’d been visiting her family before that, too, so it had been a week since she’d been on base.
He made a sort of grunting noise. ‘Well, we’re pleased to have you. You’re good for morale.’
She stifled a laugh. Good for morale? She certainly hoped she was good for more than just that!
‘We’re going to be sending our best graduates to specialised training centres from here,’ she told him. ‘I’ve received confirmation from General Arnold that they want our WASPs to be able to deliver as many planes as possible. It looks like we’re going to be kept busy – they’re preparing for the Europe invasion.’
Montgomery nodded. ‘Good call. They’ll be delivering planes to every port and base in the country, so it makes sense. And it’s great news that women are now permitted to fly in military planes with men. I’m thinking your time in Washington might have given rise to this new decision?’
Lizzie gave a wry smile. ‘It seems women aren’t such a terrible distraction after all.’ She couldn’t help the sarcasm; the rule had been ridiculous and she was pleased it had finally been scrapped.
‘Oh, I’m sure they all think you females are a terrible distraction, but it makes sense for women to catch a ride when they can. But don’t think they were trying to placate you – I’d say it’s simply someone higher up trying to save time and money on buses, trains and commercial aircraft to get women back to base.’
Lizzie had to agree. Honestly, she wanted to shake the men making the decisions in the army most of the time!
‘Walk with me?’ she asked the captain, hoping she wouldn’t regret it; he seemed to rub her up the wrong way at every step. But something about him kept drawing her back, and she had to remind herself that it had been Jackson
who’d picked her up and pulled her through her darkest hours after losing the bomber flight, and him once again who’d broken the news of her father’s heart attack. Perhaps she’d been too hard on him when she’d first arrived home, and not given him enough credit.
‘How is the new intake coming along?’ she asked as they passed the Link Trainer, which was a faux-type plane that never left the ground. ‘Has their instrument training progressed well this week?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, they’re all doing well, although it does take some of them time to get used to listening for instructions through the headpiece rather than looking through the cockpit window.’
She nodded. ‘It’s a useful skill. The women I flew with in England would pass with flying colours.’
‘I don’t know how they haven’t lost any women over there,’ he said. ‘Flying without instruments and radio is unheard of.’
‘And terrifying!’ she replied. ‘They have their instincts to follow in bad conditions and nothing else. I can’t believe May didn’t push harder for something to be done, but whenever she tried they just reminded her of her excellent wastage rate.’
‘It’s an awful term, wastage rate,’ he said. ‘But they were an incredible bunch of women.’
She smiled, not sure whether he was including her in that praise. ‘They most certainly were.’
They passed a classroom, windows open, so they could hear the instructor talking inside. Lizzie was so proud of their training facilities, and she only wished she could somehow show May and Ruby how everything looked and what was going on. There was only so much she could convey in letters.
‘Are you happy with the training schedule or are there any changes you’d like to make?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘The programme you’ve designed for them is solid. The only thing I’d like to do more of is stalling mid-air. It’s one thing to know what to do in a controlled environment, and another altogether in an emergency.’
She nodded. ‘Done. So they’ll start with emergency landings and lazy-eights, slow rolls and so forth, and then we’ll go straight into stalling mid-air and spins. It’ll scare them silly to begin with, but if they do it every day for a couple of weeks, spinning toward the ground and then having to get out of it without crashing, they’ll be prepared for anything and it’ll become second nature.’
Jackson nodded, then laughed.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘See the well there?’ he asked.
She looked over, and could hardly miss the stone wall. ‘What about it?’
‘The girls have taken to throwing one another in after their first solo flight. Apparently it’s a way to cool off a hot pilot.’
She coughed. ‘They what?’
His smile gave her a hint of the man beneath, and for the first time she didn’t feel quite such dislike towards him. ‘I tried to punish them, but they couldn’t stop giggling and I ended up leaving them to it. Honestly.’ He chuckled. ‘The short sheeting tricks on their beds I reprimanded them for, but they’ve all adapted so well, I let them have one little win.’
‘I wholeheartedly approve then, and I’m a little surprised at how soft you’ve become,’ she said, teasing. She turned back towards her office. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon, Captain. I have admin to do before I get back to training my girls.’
‘Or you could show the girls exactly why you’re so respected as a pilot,’ he said quietly. ‘I think they need to see what they could be capable of one day.’
She turned and met his gaze. ‘Did I hear you correctly? You actually want me to show off?’
He laughed. ‘Yes.’
‘Fine. Have a plane ready for me after lunch.’ She turned sharply on her heel. ‘And make it something decent!’
Lizzie chuckled to herself. Jackson was right; it would be good to give the girls an air show. She just hadn’t expected him to suggest it.
At noon, Lizzie strode up to Jackson, walking tall with a hum of excitement surging through her body that she hadn’t felt in months. When she’d taken over the controls of the Halifax for the first time, becoming the second girl in England to be given leave to fly one, the thrill had been enormous. And, right now, she had the same kind of feeling.
‘Jackson, what do you say we skip lunch and hit the sky together instead?’ she asked.
There was no one else around, just the two of them, and she was tired of being grounded when all she wanted to do was fly. She was going to do the flight he’d suggested to show their recruits what the planes were capable of after lunch, but right now she wanted to have some fun.
He folded his arms across his chest and smiled. ‘You’re joking,’ he said.
‘Come on, you can still remember how to fly, can’t you, Captain?’ she asked sweetly, trying not to laugh. ‘Weren’t you some whizz in the air before you were stationed here to babysit me?’
‘You’re challenging me to some sort of flying duel?’ he asked. ‘Or are we just going to run through some training drills?’
‘We’re just going to have fun,’ she replied. ‘Don’t you miss the actual flying part of our jobs? I thought we could fly together, just this once, as a reward for all our hard work.’ Lizzie grinned. ‘This isn’t about me proving I’m better than you, in case that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘I know you think you’re the best pilot this side of the Atlantic, Dunlop, but it sure as hell doesn’t mean you’re better than me.’
She laughed. ‘Come on, what do you say?’
‘This is just for fun?’
She beckoned towards the runway. ‘Yes. Just you, me and the sky.’
As much as she wanted to show him she was the better pilot, she’d grown a lot since her time in England, and this was as much about flexing her flying muscles as it was showing Jackson that they could get along well. They both loved the same thing, and she was itching to get back behind the controls.
She headed to the closest aircraft, pleased to see that there were two AT-6 Texans, silver with a single white star, available. They would be perfectly matched in identical aircraft, and the 600-horsepower plane would be more than adequate.
She climbed in, waited for Montgomery to do the same, and then fired up the engine. The trainees would be flying these sleek aircraft eventually, so it was good for her to fly one before she resumed teaching later that afternoon. It had been a while since she’d flown anything similar herself.
The flight engineer waved her off and she signalled to Montgomery before taxiing towards the runway. She hurtled down the tarmac, her stomach leaping as it always did when she was wheels-up and away. Lizzie circled and gave her rival plenty of space to take off and join her, and soon he’d fallen in beside her. She wondered what it would feel like to be flying in formation with him, preparing for war and going into combat, knowing that he was protecting her and she him. She waved at him before putting some space between them and doing a slow roll. She looked over and saw him repeat the same trick, only he followed it up with a lazy-eight.
Lizzie laughed. This was definitely fun. Her body hummed, her mind quiet and content as she followed her instincts and glided through the sky.
She crossed over and fell into the space to Montgomery’s left; he deftly dropped lower and put himself back on the left-hand side, as if he were trying to prove that she wasn’t the boss. Lizzie wasn’t going to have him out-play her, so she forced her plane into a spin well away from him, her heart thudding as she worked the controls fast to get the plane on course again. She barrelled lower through the air and her engine stalled, but she quickly righted herself and got it going again, soaring back up and taking her place to his left.
Lizzie saw the look on his face through his cockpit window, and knew he was having as much fun as she was. Soon they were both doing rolls and then racing; her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, loving every minute of their silly antics.
When they finally came in to land, Lizzie was breathless and high on adrenaline. She leapt out of the
cockpit and strode towards the captain as he climbed down from his Texan. She didn’t remember ever feeling so alive!
‘Truce?’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I think it’s easy to argue and forget that we’re firmly on the same side.’
‘Truce,’ he agreed, clasping her palm, his smile as wide as hers.
‘That was the most fun I’ve had in months,’ she declared. ‘I actually think we’re perfect sparring partners. We should do that again some time, if you’re up for it? We need to keep our own flying hours up.’
He nodded, running his fingers through his blond hair. ‘I’d actually forgotten what it was like to just fly like that,’ he admitted. ‘Whenever you want to take to the sky, I’ll be ready. No more barbs, Lizzie. Let’s just agree we’re both damn good at what we do and enjoy the flights we get.’
Lizzie grinned in response and strode over to find her trainees, ready to empower them, to tell them how exhilarating it was to take command like that and know in your heart that anything was possible. She couldn’t wait to fly for them that afternoon, to see their faces and understand how exciting it was to watch someone and believe that you could do it too. She’d felt the same when standing as a little girl with her father, hand up to block out the bright sun, her stomach leaping cartwheels with every trick in the air: the day she’d proudly told her daddy that she was going to be a pilot herself.
She looked over at Montgomery and his blue eyes twinkled back at her with what she hoped might be admiration. Maybe he wasn’t quite the villain that she’d thought. Maybe she’d been far too hard on him when he was only trying to do his job; maybe he was actually a teddy bear beneath his fierce, commanding exterior. She laughed. Maybe he wasn’t so different to her, after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
COLERNE, WILTSHIRE,
OCTOBER 1942
MAY
May couldn’t help but smile as she followed Ruby in the air. Only hours earlier they’d been standing together in Yorkshire as Ruby and Tom were married, and now she was following her newly wedded friend in a Spitfire, watching her zigzag all over the place as they headed for Colerne. If only they had radios, May would frighten the life out of her by barking at her to fly straight. Ruby was notorious for powdering her face and putting on her lipstick before landing, and her beauty was probably half the reason she’d received so much press coverage as a pilot.
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