by Janet Dailey
Somewhere down there was Kitty Hawk, the site of man’s first powered flight. Rachel looked, wondering which island hill had been the takeoff point for the Wright brothers’ flying machine.
The plane veered inland, flying over blacked-out settlements, and began a descent. “Camp Davis, just ahead,” one of the pilots in the cockpit shouted back to his passengers.
No runway lights were allowed on this coastal base, located near Cape Fear. Rachel could barely make out the airstrip. The big twin-engine flew in low, skimming over the cypress thickets of a swamp before dipping onto the runway.
“I guess this is it,” someone said.
Camp Davis was one of the oldest and largest training bases for antiaircraft artillery. Inland from Wrightsville Beach to the north of Cape Fear, it was almost surrounded by swamps; Holly Shelter and Angola Swamp to the north and east, Green Swamp to the west and southwest. Farther up the coast was Wolf Swamp.
Quartered in the nurses’ barracks, Marty awakened the next morning and sat on the edge of her cot, trying to shake the grogginess out of her head. Outside, the vibrating roar of an airplane engine came closer and closer until it was rattling the windows of the barracks. Marty charged out of the small private cubicle, certain the plane was going to crash into the building. It roared over the roof. A nurse looked at her wide-eyed expression and smiled in sympathetic understanding.
“You’ll get used to it,” she assured Marty.
“It sounded like it was taking off right over the barracks.”
“It was.” The nurse confirmed her suspicion. “We sit at the end of a runway.”
With their new quasi-officer status, the WASPs breakfasted in the officers’ mess, then reported to the flight line for duty. The male pilots in the ready room greeted them with looks of scorn and skepticism. Marty bristled at the barely veiled contempt they were shown.
The commander of the tow-target squadron to which they were assigned was a short, balding man with a thick-set body. Major Stevenson spoke with a heavy southern accent and his attitude revealed much of the southern view of women and their traditional roles. Mary Lynn doubted that his opinion of them as pilots was any better than what their male counterparts had shown them.
As they followed the commander down the flight line in the sunshine of a bright Carolina morning, he walked them past dive bombers, twin-engined bombers, and transports. When he reached the row of small Piper Cubs, he stopped and informed them that, after they had checked out in the L-4S and 5s, he might let them fly some administrative missions.
“He’s kidding,” Marty said in disbelief.
“I don’t think so,” Mary Lynn murmured.
“My God, doesn’t he know we’ve been flying AT-6s and twin-engined 17s?” Eden protested. “These are kiddie planes.”
“I think someone forgot to tell him the program,” Marty declared grimly and headed for the nearest Cub. Griping wouldn’t accomplish anything. It appeared they would have to prove all over again to another set of Army personnel that they could fly virtually anything with wings.
She felt a tug of nostalgia as she climbed into the cockpit of the Piper Cub. She hadn’t flown one since she’d gotten her license in the L-4 her brother David had owned. Aware that other WASPs were following suit, Marty taxied to the active runway and took off. After the fast, sleek Army trainers, the little plane seemed like a putt-putt. She stayed in the traffic pattern to circle the field and practice touch-and-gos.
When she came in for her first landing, Marty set her feet on the rudder pedals. A little warning bell rang in her mind, but the reason for it was vague. The instant the wheels touched the runway and Marty attempted to steer the plane with the rudder pedals, she remembered the unusual characteristics of this plane. The brakes, instead of being at the tops of the pedal shoes, as had been the case in all the Army trainers she’d flown for the last two hundred hours, were located at the base of them.
With the first screech, she corrected the mistake, steering with her toes and avoiding the heel brakes. Applying power, Marty lifted the plane off the runway again and went around. From the air, she watched her friends land their Cubs, unaware of this major difference. The planes jerked, bounced, and came close several times to nosing over. They unquestionably looked like the worst bunch of pilots ever given wings. Marty watched them and groaned, wishing she had remembered about the brakes in time to warn the others.
It was a subdued and chagrined collection of women who regrouped at the flight line. The male pilots were standing around, openly laughing at them. Most of the other WASPs were merely exasperated at their inability to show themselves well, but Marty was bitter, feeling they’d been tricked. Her teeth were clenched together and her fists were jammed into the pockets of her flight suit. The look in her gray-green eyes was as turbulent as the stormy Atlantic Ocean they resembled as she strode into the ready room with Mary Lynn and Eden.
“It looks like those Cubs turned out to be more than you girls could handle,” a freckle-faced pilot spoke up, a mere boy by Marty’s standards.
She stopped and leaned toward him, topping him by a good inch, to belligerently challenge him. “I can take any plane out there on that flight line and fly circles around you any day of the week.”
But he simply drew back in mock respect and laughed with his buddies. “We’ve got ourselves a hot pilot here.”
Struggling with that awful feeling of impotence, Marty turned away and muttered bitterly to Mary Lynn, “I wish I could haul off and hit him.”
Outside on the flight line, they saw more of their number buck-jumping the Piper Cubs on landing and struggling with the ignominy of not being able to master the little airplane. They had been expected to fail as pilots, and they had, but they were determined to conquer the plane and show the male pilots they were every bit as qualified. In the meantime, they had a peculiar gauntlet to run, a combination of wolf whistles and male jeers.
By the third day, Eden was just about ready to throw in the towel. This was not the reason she’d joined the WASPs, and she didn’t like being the object of ridicule. Another L-5 was taxiing toward the flight line, so Eden waited on the hot and muggy flight line, rather than enter the ready room alone and endure patronizing remarks from her male counterparts.
After the Cub had stopped neatly in line with the others, she watched the long-legged blonde emerging from the cockpit. “Nice job,” she complimented Rachel Goldman on her handling of the heel-braking airplane.
Rachel gave her a brief look of surprise before she lowered her head to shake a hand through her long hair, freed of its bandanna turban, and continued walking in the direction of the ready room, showing indifference when Eden fell in step with her.
“You should have seen me,” Eden said with a short exasperated sigh. “I did just fine, perfect in fact, right up to taxiing to the flight line until I had to stop the Cub. And I tried to brake with my damned toes. I had to circle the plane around and bring it back into line with the others.”
“That’s tough,” Rachel offered in vague sympathy.
Far off in the distance, they could hear the low rumble of artillery fire shooting at the muslin-sleeved targets towed by planes. It was a bitter reminder of the job they’d come to Camp Davis to do, before they had been relegated to flying Piper Cubs, just about the lowest rung on the ladder.
The roar of a powerful engine attracted their attention to the Beechcraft taxiing to the flight line. Eden thought she recognized the stagger-winged aircraft with its huge, churning propeller nearly grazing the ground, and paused. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she chewed thoughtfully on it, and watched for the pilot to climb out of the cockpit.
“If that’s who I think it is,” she murmured to Rachel, whose curiosity was more idle, “maybe they’ll make some changes around here.”
Sure enough, Jacqueline Cochran stepped from the plane. When she saw the two waiting female pilots, she walked over to greet them, her large brown eyes studying them with interest. H
er expression was aloof, but pleasant, warming slightly as she recognized Eden. “Hello. How are you getting along down here?” She plainly wasn’t prepared for Eden’s frank answer.
“We’re not.” The hardships of their previous training, the spartan living conditions of the Sweetwater barracks, and the lack of creature comforts there still had held a degree of glamour and adventure. But this situation had none. Eden found it humiliating and degrading, and she refused to be stripped of her pride.
“What do you mean?” the Director of Women Pilots demanded.
“Major Stevenson has us checking out in Piper Cubs.” At that moment an L-5 landed with a screech of grabbing brakes and jerked down the runway. “Here comes one of our group now,” Eden said dryly and observed the sharply interrogatory look from her superior. “None of the Army trainers have heel brakes.”
Their director’s lips came together in a grim line. “I’ll speak to him,” was all Jacqueline Cochran said before she turned away from them to stride toward the operations building.
“I think we’ll see some changes,” Eden mused.
A military transport truck came roaring and rattling by them. Its back end was loaded with GIs in uniform and full gear. When it skidded to a stop in front of the ready room, an officer hopped out of the cab and went inside. As Eden and Rachel approached, the whistling GIs hung out the open sides of the truck to ogle them with good-natured, if lascivious, interest.
None of the girls had quite gotten used to receiving so much attention from the tens of thousands of men on the base. The best course was to ignore it. Eden would have done the same this time, except one of the soldiers sparked a glimmer of recognition. She stared for a full second, then turned an amazed glance on Rachel.
“That guy in the truck looks just like the Army private you were with that night at the club. I’d almost swear it’s him,” she declared. “His name was Zach … something or other.”
“Zach Jordan. It can’t be him, because he was shipping out ov—” Rachel broke off her denial in midword. Zach was in the back of the truck.
Through the hiya-honeys and what-are-ya-doin’-tonight- babes, his voice pierced the jumble of remarks and whistles. “Rachel, what are you doing here?”
She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—answer him. At first, she simply felt betrayed. Then she realized she’d fallen for the oldest line in the Army. He had let her think he was going overseas, that she might never see him again. How could she have been so gullible?
As they passed the rear of the transport truck, Zach called to her again. “Hey, Rachel. Wait up.”
Rachel ignored him as best she could, conscious of the speculating look she was receiving from Eden. Inwardly, she kept berating herself for being so stupid. As they headed for the door to the ready room, there was a clatter of boots scrambling out of the truck and a thud as they landed on concrete.
“Rachel, I can explain.” Zach came running after her, catching her by the arm and making her stop to face him.
“Let go of my arm, soldier,” Rachel warned.
“Jordan!” An officer stepped out of the ready room, barking Zach’s name in sharp reprimand. “Get back in that truck.”
“In a minute, sir.” His dark gaze continued to probe Rachel’s face.
“Now, soldier.”
“Look, Lieutenant. She’s a friend from back home. Just give me a few minutes to explain something to her.”
“Not on the Army’s time, Private. Back on the truck before I put you on report.”
Rachel said nothing as Zach reluctantly backed away and moved toward the truck. Bitterly, she called herself a fool again. It was a hot August day, sticky and miserable. The burning humiliation and hurt only made the rest seem worse.
Chapter XV
COCHRAN’S VISIT TO Camp Davis achieved its objective. No more Piper Cubs. The WASPs were checked out in the Douglas Dauntless dive-bomber, the A-24. Eden’s ride had been less than instructive. The rear cockpit, which was actually the gunner’s seat, had no working instruments, so she could only guess at what the pilot was doing and when.
Her head was still sore where she’d hit it on the gunsight when the plane had been pulled up so abruptly an instant before landing. It throbbed as she sat in the cockpit, familiarizing herself with the position of the gauges and going over the operations manual for the Dauntless. The instructor had walked off and left her, without bothering to see if she had any questions.
Irritated, Eden looked around, but the only person passing by her aircraft was an Army mechanic in a pair of greasy fatigues. “Hey!” She whistled shrilly. “Come here a minute!”
He stopped, and looked uncertainly in her direction. “You talkin’ to me?” His voice was thick with a Texas twang, as he pointed to himself with a slightly skeptical expression.
“Yes, you,” Eden confirmed, her patience thinning. But it was difficult to be irritated with the tall, lanky Army sergeant who hopped onto the wing of her plane and walked up to the cockpit. Everything about him was wide—as wide as Texas—his jaw, his mouth, and his smile. Smile lines ran up his face to his eyes, like spreading ripples in a pond. And when he smiled, he put his whole heart into it. The result was decidedly likable.
“What can I do for ya, ma’am?” That warm politeness and respect was ingrained by his western upbringing. It had nothing to do with Army training.
“Can you tell me something about this plane?” She looked again at the panel of instruments, the corners of her mouth deepening in a kind of grim exasperation.
The lanky mechanic tried not to show his surprise that the question would be asked of him, but his nut-brown eyes looked at her askance while he explained. “The dive flaps act as a kind of brake. Ya see, the Dauntless was designed mainly for Navy use—to land quick and short on the flattops. When you’re comin’ in, ya aim that nose right at the runway, then pull up jest before the wheels touch.”
He showed her how the hydraulic flaps operated, extending from the trailing edge of the wings, and informed her about takeoff, landing and stalling airspeeds, and other pertinent information. His cooperative attitude prompted Eden to ask more questions about the idiosyncrasies of the Douglas Dauntless.
“Have you checked Form One on this plane?” the mechanic asked after Eden ran out questions.
“Form One?” At Avenger Field, the instructors had taught them to always check the form in the cockpit to verify the plane’s airworthiness and note any repairs recommended by the previous pilot and the subsequent work done. It was such a perfunctory thing Eden hadn’t given it a thought. It was hardly more than routine procedure, but for the mechanic’s benefit, she got it out.
“You’re in luck,” he drawled in mild amazement.
“Why?” Eden sensed something was wrong.
“This plane’s in pretty good condition. A lot of them here are red-lined.” When a plane was determined to be unfit to fly, a red X was marked on the airworthy form. But half an X, or diagonal red line, indicated the plane could have something wrong with it yet could still be flown. “Sometimes if the wings and tail are attached and the engine runs, that’s all it takes.” The mechanic grinned with his ear-to-ear smile.
“That’s just great.” Eden wasn’t sure whether she should believe him or not. It could be just an attempt to scare her a little. The men around here didn’t seem to be very receptive to the idea of women in cockpits.
“Is that it, ma’am?” He straightened, wiping his big hands on a greasy rag that had been sticking out of the pocket of his fatigues.
“Yes, I think so.” Then she remembered one other thing, and removed a plastic packet she’d found stowed in a side flap in the cockpit. “What is this for?”
“You don’t need that, ma’am.” He took it from her and stuffed it back in the pocket, so flustered he was actually blushing underneath his tan.
“But what is it?” Eden persisted.
“It’s a … it’s a pressure release valve,” the mechanic mumbled, scowling and uncomfor
table, and hopped off the wing before she could come up with any more questions. As he backed away from her plane, he called to her. “Land as easy as you can, ma’am. Those tires are gettin’ kinda worn.”
“Can’t you put on new ones?”
“Ma’am, there’s a war on,” he reminded her patiently. “Practically every rubber tire is bein’ shipped overseas to combat zones. We jest don’t have a surplus of them sittin’ around. It’s best ya be cautious with the tires on these planes.”
That night in the barracks, they sat around the common room and exchanged experiences, some of them harrowing. Eden had been lucky. Except for a rough-running engine, her flying had been without incident. Others had not been so lucky.
“My engine failed. It just coughed and quit. I barely had enough altitude to glide back to the runway and land.”
“I had just landed. There I was whipping down the runway when all of a sudden, it was as if somebody yanked the plane to the right. I braced myself away from the panel and jammed on the rudder pedal, but it just wouldn’t answer. There I went, tearing off the runway into the grass. I thought, This is it, I’ve had it now. But the plane finally stopped. When I crawled out, I saw I’d blown a tire. You wanta talk about somebody being scared shitless, that was me.”
“These planes aren’t safe,” Marty protested, sitting astraddle a chair facing the back. “I’m beginning to understand what the CO. meant when he said the planes were dispensable—and so are we. Hell, he didn’t want us here to begin with—and now he’s found a way to get rid of us.”
“The men have to fly these planes, too.” That was small consolation.
“There’s a shortage of spare parts and tires. The combat planes have the top priority on all that.” No one was impressed with that justification either.
“Speaking of parts,” Eden inserted, “did any of you figure out how that pressure release valve works?” None of them knew what she was talking about so Eden described the plastic packet.
