Silver Wings, Santiago Blue

by Janet Dailey

  By the conclusion of the first full week, a grueling pattern had begun to take shape. The new trainees attended five hours of ground school daily, the primary phase consisting of courses in mathematics, physics, aerodynamics, engine operations, and navigation. They also spent four hours daily on the flight line. And their spare time was taken up with a regimen of calisthenics, volleyball, or baseball.

  Exhaustion was dulling some of the shiny newness of the adventure, but their enthusiasm for flying was undampened. It was a quiet group that lounged about the bay preparing for an early night, their hangar-flying talk finished. The initial discomfort about undressing in front of each other was a thing of the past; Chicago pattered around the bay in her underclothes and bare feet, carrying the robe she had intended to put on and forgot. Mary Lynn was curled up on her cot, busy writing her nightly letter to her husband.

  Sitting cross-legged on her cot, Cappy was sectioning off strands of her silky brown hair and wrapping them around her finger into tight curls, then securing them to her head with one of the war-precious bobby pins she held clamped between her lips. Eden gathered up her towels and cosmetics case with its jars of creams and lotions, and headed for the bathroom for her nightly beauty routine.

  Marty observed her departure. “She’s so soft and squeaky clean, I don’t know how she stands the rest of us.” Her arm was hooked around her upraised knee, pulling it to her chest while she puffed on a cigarette. Then her thoughts drifted to another pet peeve. “I thought this was supposed to be a civilian organization, so what’s all this Army discipline about?” she grumbled, indirectly grousing about what was rapidly becoming known as Marty’s “damned demerits.” “We march here and we march there; it’s regulation this and regulation that. Orders, all the time.”

  “How else are they going to keep control without a punishment system?” Cap reasoned, removing the bobby pins from her mouth long enough to talk. “We’ve got them outnumbered. They need something to hold over our heads to keep us in line.”

  “I hate logic.” Marty, already in her pajamas, flopped backwards onto her pillow and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  There was a rustling of sound outside the window, soft scurrying and whispering. Marty sat up on her elbows to stare at the door, her head cocked at a listening angle. The others, too, had heard it and strained to identify it. There was a very faint, light tap on their door, a single knuckle knocking. Marty was on her feet in an instant, pulling on her robe as she strode to the door, the half-smoked cigarette dangling from one side of her mouth. With her hand on the knob, she leaned close to the door jamb.

  “Who is it?” she demanded in a low murmur.

  “Turn out the light and let us in,” came the roughly whispered response.

  “Lights out, everybody,” Marty warned before she plunged the bay into darkness. Aggie squealed in protest. “Shh,” she hissed, then carefully opened the door a crack. Three figures sprang out of the darkness and slipped in quick succession through the narrow opening.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?” Chicago demanded and pulled out her flashlight to shine it on the trio who had dropped down to hug the wall just inside the door.

  The beam illuminated the dirt-darkened faces of three grinning cadets, centering on the lean-faced ringleader with his shock of sun-bleached brown hair. “Don’t get scared, girls. We thought with all this training we ought to practice a little nighttime reconnoitering in case we find ourselves bailing out over enemy territory.”

  “Good thinking.” Amusement riddled Marty’s voice.

  “It’s lucky that we found friendlies straight off, wasn’t it?” His audacious smile broadened, creating parenthetical grooves in his lean cheeks. “I’m Colin Fletcher. The guy on the right is Art Grimsby, and the other one’s Morley Tyndall.”

  Their initial surprise over, the girls crowded around the door next to which the men squatted. There was a confusion of hand-shaking as they introduced themselves, talking over each other in a jumble of voices.

  “We raided the kitchen before coming here,” Colin said, and he produced a cloth-covered basket. “Since you couldn’t come over for drinks with us the other day, we thought we’d share this little snack with you.”

  The cloth was turned back and a warm smell drifted upwards. Chicago breathed it in. “Hamburgers,” she declared in a mock swoon.

  The basket was ceremoniously passed around for each to help herself. “Where did you get them?” Marty asked, taking the first bite.

  “Mom fixed them for us,” the dark-haired, pale-skinned Art Grimsby replied. “She’s a sweet old lady. Calls us her ‘boys.’”

  “A regular dear heart,” Morley agreed. “Even gave us some Cokes. I’m afraid we’ll have to drink it out of the bottles, though. She wouldn’t spring for any glasses.”

  “Here you go.” Colin opened one of them and handed it to Marty. His hazel eyes seemed to single her out from the others. It piqued her interest as she made a closer study of his face in the dim pool of light cast by the flashlight. A shock of wheatbrown hair fell across his high forehead, nearly hiding it. The straight bridge of his nose was long and narrow, matching the high ridges of his cheekbones. But she was more attracted by the devilish glint in his eyes than by his aristocratic features.

  “Do you do this sort of thing often?” Marty wondered if other bays had entertained these cadets.

  “We had no reason until you girls moved onto base,” he acknowledged. “We couldn’t believe our luck. How many cadets get to share an airfield’s facilities with female trainees?”

  “Right. We celebrated when we heard you were coming,” Art Grimsby asserted.

  They lapsed into a discussion of planes, flying techniques, instructors, and ground school courses, with the cadets warning the girls of the difficulties in the advanced stages of training. When their eagerness to share knowledge and show experience had passed, the conversation took a personal turn, delving into lives and backgrounds.

  “I’m from Pensacola,” Colin said in response to a question. “My parents still live there … in a big old house on the Gulf. That’s where I learned to fly. But you know the Army. They sent me over to England, had me on a ground crew, then decided maybe they could use my flying talents and sent me back here for training.”

  Mary Lynn spoke from the shadowed edge of the light pool. She leaned into view, her features subdued. “My husband is assigned to a squadron stationed at an airfield somewhere in England. He’s a bomber pilot. B-175.”

  “What’s his name?” His thoughtful look narrowed on the petite southern woman, a hint of compassion showing in its depths. “Maybe I know him.”

  “Beau. Beau Palmer.” In a breathless rush, she gave him the squadron group.

  He let it run through his mind, then slowly shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t think I met him.”

  All week Mary Lynn had seemed subdued, spending most of her time gazing at the photo of Beau. Of the whole lot, Mary Lynn was unquestionably the most lonely. But, then, she was the only one who had a husband far away. No one else in the group had a steady boy friend, except Eden, if Hamilton Steele could be called that.

  The connecting door to the bath opened, spilling light into the bay. The tall, shapely form of Eden van Valkenburg stood silhouetted in the opening, motionless at the blinding darkness of the room.

  “What is this? Who turned out the lights?” she demanded.

  “For godsake, keep your voice down.” Marty rasped the warning. “Hurry up and shut the door.”

  As soon as Eden shut out the light from the bathroom, Chicago directed the flashlight beam at her so she could see to cross the room and join the group. Her face was bare of any makeup and a turban was wrapped around her head, hiding her russet-red hair. Marty groused to herself over the way Eden could look so wretchedly perfect, so nakedly beautiful in her shimmering satin robe.

  “Well, well. Why didn’t someone tell me we had visitors?” Eden remarked, smiling vaguely as she sank gracefully onto the floor be
side an Army cot, using it as a back rest. Introductions were made, then apologies rendered since all the hamburgers and Coca-Colas had been consumed. Stories were reiterated, including Colin’s. “You were in England?” Eden remarked.

  Colin nodded. “Yes.”

  “I adore London.” When she took a pack of cigarettes from her cosmetic case, the three Army cadets scurried through their pockets in search of a match.

  “Have you been there?” Art Grimsby scored the victory, struck the match and suddenly illuminated the semidarkness.

  Eden bent her head to the flame, then straightened to blow aside the inhaled smoke. “Dozens of times. Not recently, of course. I think the last time”—she paused to recall—“was shortly after I almost eloped with Nicky, our chauffeur. I used to go to a great nightspot—some crazy pub on the waterfront along the Thames. It was called the Boar and Hound, or some such thing. Do you know it?” she asked Colin, a nostalgic gleam in her eye.

  “The one with the stuffed boar’s head behind the bar, a huge tusker?” At Eden’s affirmative nod, he said, “I believe it was called simply the Boar’s Head.”

  “What an incredible coincidence! You’ve actually been there, too!” she said with amazement. “I used to close that place nightly—”

  “Was called the Boar’s Head?” Marty picked up on Colin’s past tense usage and the solemnness of his expression. Eden paused to stare at him as the significance of Marty’s comment penetrated.

  “That whole section of the waterfront was bombed out by the Jerries,” he stated.

  The bay fell into silence. Eden suppressed a shiver at the icy cold finger that ran down her spine. The war suddenly had a reality beyond the headlines and the newsreel footage, or even her mother’s many war-related social activities. So many ecstatic memories had been wrapped up in that English pub. To learn it no longer existed, the entire block destroyed, never again to be visited, leaving only mental images which would eventually fade from the mind, was sobering. War killed—people, places, feelings.

  Colin looked at his watch. “It’s getting late.” He glanced at his buddies. “It’s time we were getting back.”

  “Yes, before they do a bed check and discover we’re missing.” Morley tried to inject some levity into an atmosphere that had grown heavy.

  Marty untangled her long legs and pushed to her feet. “Let me check and make sure it’s all clear.”

  They doused the flashlight as Marty opened the door and stuck her head outside. The sky was ashine with stars, thousands glittering on a velvet blue backdrop. The night’s silence had settled on the column of barracks. She looked up and down the long row of buildings that faced each other. The only visible signs of life were the yellow patches of light gleaming from the windows, isolated spots of brightness in the dark shadows of the covered walkways. Nothing stirred.

  Marty motioned for their forbidden male guests to join her at the door. With silent stealth, they came to her side and took their own cautious look out the door. One by one they squeezed through the narrow opening and immediately ducked down to hug the shadows. Colin was the last to leave. His narrow features were a blur in the darkness, but Marty sensed he was looking at her when he paused half in and half out of the doorway.

  “Be careful,” she urged in a hoarse whisper.

  “We’ll do that,” he murmured. “With your permission, we’ll pop over again some time.”

  His buddies were hissing at him to hurry. “Sure.” Marty gave him a little push out the door, then rejoined her quiet baymates still huddled on the floor. She eyed Eden curiously. “Were you serious about eloping with your chauffeur?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Her mouth curved with a faint smile. “I was going through what my father called my ‘plebeian’ phase.” Her self-mockery was so evident, it encouraged the others to smile along with her. “Luckily I realized that I was only marrying him to make an anti-money statement. But the more I thought about it, the more unwilling I became to give up my charge account at Saks … so I changed my mind about running away with him.”

  “What happened?” Aggie was all agog over this peek into Eden’s past.

  “Daddy found out and fired him.”

  “How insensitive can you get?” Marty demanded in mild outrage. “A man loses his bride and his job all in one blow.”

  “Anyway”—Eden lifted a shoulder in a dismissing shrug—“after that sobering experience, Daddy sent me off to Europe.”

  “Alone?” Chicago asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised he trusted you,” Marty murmured dryly.

  “We flew to London first—” Eden began.

  “Wait a minute,” Marty halted her. “You just said you went alone. Who is ‘we’?”

  “My maid and my secretary, of course,” she replied very matter-of-factly, as if it should have been obvious. A second later, Eden realized how very snobbish that sounded. “I always traveled with a small retinue … until I came here. I haven’t been very successful at getting you girls to wait on me.” She laughed at her own joke.

  “It isn’t all that funny,” Marty asserted when the others laughed with her. “Thanks to her, our bay hasn’t passed inspection yet, or have you forgotten? She’s always leaving things lying around somewhere, expecting one of us to pick up after her.”

  “Old habits die hard.” Her light response made a joke out of Marty’s criticism. “As I was saying, we flew to London, where I met Rinaldo, my expatriated Italian count. Three days later he proposed. It was another abortive engagement, however, but great fun while it lasted.”

  “You were engaged to a real count?” Again it was Aggie who asked, expressing a typically American awe at a title.

  “Yes. In this case, the tables were turned though. You see, Rinaldo’s properties and bank accounts had been confiscated by the Italian Fascist Government for some trumped-up reason. And he wanted to marry me so he could live in the style to which he had become accustomed.” Eden dropped the burning butt of her cigarette into a Coke bottle, hearing it sizzle when it encountered the scant liquid in the bottom.

  “That was a bit cheeky of him, wasn’t it?” Cappy suggested dryly.

  “The last I heard he was consort to one of Britain’s titled ladies, who shall remain nameless,” Eden jested.

  During the next week, Eden’s chauffeur arrived with her car, a canary-yellow roadster with a convertible top and white leather interior. Unfortunately they weren’t permitted off the field yet, so they couldn’t take it out for a ride. And the cadets made two more late-night visits to the bay, staying later each time. After the last, Mary Lynn stumbled to her cot, weak with fatigue.

  “The next time, tell your midnight Lotharios to come earlier,” she complained to Marty. “Some of us would like to get some sleep.”

  When reveille sounded the next morning, Mary Lynn pulled a pillow over her ears. It seemed as though only a few minutes had gone by before Cap cracked one eye open to look at the clock. She yelped the alarm as she sprang out of bed. But it was too late. All of them were late for formation.

  As far as Cappy was concerned, the day went downhill after that. She wasn’t prepared for the physics exam, which she was certain she failed. And there were no letters for her at mail call. Her mother had written once but that was all. It was a lonely feeling not to be remembered while others were exclaiming over their letters from home. But she didn’t let it show, and if anyone guessed, it was Eden. The two of them stood off to one side and smoked, listening while others read aloud snatches from their letters.

  Things seemed just as bleak when she took to the air. She was either using too much rudder in her chandelle maneuvers or not enough. She was not quick enough applying throttle in her stall recoveries. All she heard from Rex Sievers, her instructor, was criticism; never once did he raise his voice to her, but his grim tone of disapproval couldn’t have been more crushing. When he cut the session short and ordered her to make a full stop landing, Cappy knew her incompetence had final
ly exasperated him. Utterly dejected, she taxied to the hangar area.

  With the switch off, the spinning propeller blade slowed its revolutions to a stop. Cappy made slow work of going over the checklist to shut down the plane, dreading the moment when she had to literally face her instructor.

  When he walked up the wing to the forward cockpit she occupied, Cappy didn’t give him a chance to tell her what an abominable job she’d done. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said in self-disgust. “I can fly better than that.”

  “I know you can, Hayward,” he agreed. “And you’re going to have to do it, starting now.”

  “I know,” she murmured, her head still hanging low.

  “From this moment, Hayward,” he re-emphasized his last phrase.

  She lifted her head to stare at him, hardly daring to believe the implication. “Solo?” The smiling glitter in his eyes confirmed her guess. All the poise that usually protected her disintegrated to expose her insecurities.

  “You can do it, Hayward.” He winked and slapped the edge of the cockpit. “She’s all yours.”

  A wide smile broke across her face as she unconsciously snapped him a salute. “Yes, sir!”

  Minutes later, she was skimming through the skies in the sleek, low-wing trainer. The blood in her veins pounded with the roar of the engine as the singing wind rushed by the open cockpit. All alone with the clouds, Cappy was filled to bursting.

  It was like a dream. Right rudder down, stick back and eased to the right, the PT-19 soared into a steep climbing turn. At the top of it, when the wings grew heavy with a near-stall, Cappy gently straightened out of the turn and let the nose come down, and again, she and the plane were sliding effortlessly through the air. Chandelles. Lazy eights. Soaring and swooping in graceful turns like a leaf curling in the wind. Up here in the open-cockpit trainer, she was alone, completely alone with the wind and the sun on her face while she touched the sky. The solitude felt good and full, not lonely. An intimacy existed between her and the plane, the sleek trainer responding to her slightest touch. There was an ecstasy in it that could not be explained, only experienced.