“Why does he have to make everything so complicated?”
“I wish Pastor Wilder was still here. There was a man who knew how to preach! A nice message on forgiveness and the love of God, something on stewardship once a year at pledge time, and you could go home and enjoy a nice Sunday dinner. Now I not only can’t digest my supper, but I’m awake half the night trying to figure out what he said. Makes me feel unsettled, and that’s not why I come to church, I can tell you.”
“Well, I just don’t understand a word of it.”
And at the time, neither had I, but now I was beginning to.
Sitting under the thin protection of my parachute shelter just a fiery sun was setting on the horizon, I raised my hand in a pledge, reaching toward the sky, trying to grasp with my fingertips that place in which I was most truly myself, and declared aloud to God and the empty world, “With your help, it will stop with me. I promise. If I get off this island, I’m not going to hide anymore. It’s going to stop with me.”
I watched the last fingers of light fade from the sky before I crawled to the center of the lean-to and lay down on the sand. I slept peacefully, my mind more at ease than it had been in a long time.
Just before dropping off I thought, Tomorrow. I’ve accomplished what I was sent here to do. The lesson is learned. Surely my rescue will come tomorrow.
That was four days ago.
There were two aspirin left in my survival kit. I’d saved them and the last of my water for as long as I could. Now, with the sun almost directly overhead, I couldn’t wait any longer. I rolled on to my side, twisted open the metal lid of the canteen, and put the aspirin in my mouth. I swallowed once, twice, and finished the last of the warm water with the third swallow. I tipped the canteen as high as I could and was rewarded with a few more precious drops of liquid, but that was all. My water was gone. I was burning with fever, and the pain radiating from my foot up my leg was excruciating. Unless a rescue plane came soon, I’d be dead by morning.
“And since you haven’t seen a single aircraft, neither friend or foe, in a week, I wouldn’t start holding your breath on that score, Morgan. They’ve given up looking by now. And wherever the hell it is you are, it’s way out of the area where they’d expect to find you,” I said. Talking out loud helped take my mind off the agony of my foot, at least a little, but the effort was draining.
I thought about Mama. When I’d last seen her, that morning in San Diego, I’d admitted my fear of dying, as my friends had, in combat. Now that kind of death, fast and final, seemed ultimately preferable to the slow, dripping away of life that I was facing. Mama. I was glad she’d come. Glad I’d been able to see her again, to see her with Paul, both happy at last. But it had taken so long. Why should that be?
And I thought of Georgia. Georgia laughing, her eyes liquid, dark and delicious like melted chocolate. Georgia concentrating and strong-minded, leaning over the open fuselage of an airplane, whistling a sharp breath through pursed lips, blowing stray strands of hair out of her eyes, her hands busy and determined, searching the depths of the blocked wing tank. Georgia confident and vibrant, her gaze focused straight ahead as she looked over the instrument panel, poised and calm as she prepared to land, setting that big cargo plane down on the runway as gently as if it had been a sparrow coming to rest on a tree branch. Georgia lovely in every light, unforgettable even in my moment of deepest despair. Why had I waited?
I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep; the pain was too much. I thought about crawling to the edge of the beach so I could dip my discarded shirt into the surf and then lay it on my burning skin, to get a little relief from the heat, but I couldn’t summon the energy to move. I had nothing left.
I closed my eyes and listened to the constant roar of the waves, waiting for it to be over, praying it wouldn’t be long. Strange images floated in and out of my fevered, delirious mind, a disconnected jumble of memories and imaginings.
I saw myself sitting on the tractor, the first time Papaw had let me drive it alone, waving to Mama as she stood on the porch beaming, watching me plow a crooked furrow.
I saw Georgia. Georgia lying on my bed, flushed and beautiful and tearful. Saw myself walking across the room, closing the distance between us and lying down next to her, pressing myself as close as breathing, reaching out to trace her cheek with my finger and capturing one sparkling teardrop on the tip, regretting everything and promising everything, and meaning it, holding my breath, waiting to hear her speak.
Then I was back at the farm again, home in Dillon. Leaning on a fence, looking at a green field of unripe wheat, waiting, anxious, uncertain about what I was to do. Then hearing the hum in the distance, feeling it first in my fingertips, then through my whole body as the hum expanded and swirled around me, making the ground shake and the wire strands stretched between the fenceposts vibrate like strummed guitar strings. The roar of a plane filled my ears and mouth and eyes, pouring into every empty cavern of my soul, a salve against uncertainty. I looked up to see a magnificent biplane, painted candy-apple red, with a complex web of wire stretched between wings four times as long as a man, descending from the clouds like an enormous and elegant bird of prey. Lindbergh was at the controls. The green stalks of wheat bowed as he came lower, lying prostrate at his approach. He circled the field, leaning over the side of the open cockpit and waving to me. “Sorry, I’m late!” he shouted over the howl of the engine. “Are you ready? Morgan? Morgan, are you ready? Look up! Let’s go!”
“Yes,” I croaked through cracked, bleeding lips. “I’m ready.”
“Then look up, Morgan! Open your eyes!”
I did, and the wind blew hard, pushing against the billowing fabric of the red parachute, exposing my face and eyes to the open sky and the circling ballet of the search plane flying overhead.
34
Morgan
Port Mooresby, New Guinea—July 1944
I’m in the hospital. Impressions of reality, disparate perceptions of consciousness pierce the walls of delirium and then retreat, never quite melding into full awareness; slanting columns of dust-moted light shafting through venetian blinds, cool sheets, the steady whoosh of an electric fan, efficient padding of rubber-soled shoes on linoleum as a white-capped nurse checks the tubes running into my arm, throbbing pain coming from the fat gauze bandage on my foot, sharp smells of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant, and finally, a pair of eyes that I’ve seen before, but where? Oh, yes. I remember now—in my own mirror. Eyes exactly like my own, but not my own, more cautious than mine, more acquainted with loss, watching me with raw concern, moving closer, flickering relief when I stir under the ironed sheet.
Getting up from his vigil on the straight-backed, metal visitors’ chair, he stands by the bed and leans over the metal rail. He smiles, but barely, and laying his hand on top of the sheet, he whispers hoarsely, “Well done, son. Well done. Everything’s going to be all right now.”
I can’t summon the strength to say I believe him. Instead, I lift my hand to cover my father’s and drift back into sleep.
He comes again the next day, when I’m fully awake. He enters my room on Colonel MacDonald’s right flank, a disinterested step behind the officer, making sure I see him hanging back so I’ll know not to give our relationship away to the colonel. He is Charles Lindbergh again, a kind friend visiting a fellow member of the flying fraternity
I’m a little disappointed when I see how nervously his eyes dart around the room, wondering if I’ll give him away, but of course I knew it would be this way. He can’t go around shouting news of his bastard son to the world, and I really wouldn’t want him to. Coming to see me at all, signaling his personal interest in one injured pilot among the many, was risky, but he’d come. It was good to see him. I wanted to say so, but I just nodded, waiting for the colonel to speak first.
“How are you feeling, Lieutenant? I brought you a visitor.”
“I’m fine. Thank you, sir. Mr. Lindbergh,” I acknowledge him formally, “it’s nice of y
ou to drop by.”
“My pleasure. Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
“Glennon, you owe your life to Mr. Lindbergh, do you know that? We sent search planes to fly over every island we thought you could possibly have made it to, but with no luck. After a couple of days I was ready to call off the search, but Mr. Lindbergh talked me out of it. He assured me that using the new fuel-stretching techniques he’d taught you, you could be hundreds of miles farther out than we’d figured. He was very persuasive and very persistent. In fact”—the colonel chuckled—“he basically refused to leave my office until I agreed to widen the search area and try again. Hell! I only did it to get him out of my hair! Didn’t think we’d have a chance in the world of finding you, but I’m sure glad I was wrong.”
“Me too, sir. And thank you, Mr. Lindbergh, not just for keeping after the colonel, but also for teaching me how to get those extra miles out of my fuel tank. I’d have died about four times that day if you hadn’t.”
Lindbergh shrugged off my thanks. “You’re a fine pilot—the kind of fellow that keeps a cool head in every situation. I knew you’d remember what you’d learned and use it. All I did was remind the colonel of that.”
“Very forcefully. Well, I’m just glad everything worked out in the end. You’re a good man, Glennon. I’d have hated to lose you.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Excuse me, Colonel, but do you have any idea how long it will be before I can report for duty? I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible.”
The colonel’s smile faded. Clearly, he was discomforted by my question. “Morgan, didn’t you ... hasn’t the doctor spoken to you yet?”
“Yes,” I answered slowly, wondering what the colonel was getting at. “He came to see me this morning and told me all about the operation, that they’d had to amputate two of the toes on my infected foot.” The doctor had smiled and complimented me on taking the news so well, but why wouldn’t I? Only a few days before I’d been lying on a beach, delirious, dehydrated, and resigned to the fact of my own death. Losing a couple of toes seemed a small price to pay for waking in the land of the living. “Why? What’s wrong, sir? I asked the doctor if I could fly again, and he said yes, that I’d need to have some physical therapy and such, but after that I’d definitely be able to fly again.”
The colonel took a breath and let it out slowly. “But not for the military, I’m afraid.” He looked at Lindbergh, then back to me. “I’m sorry, Morgan, but without a whole limb, you’re categorized as 4-F. That’s what we came to tell you. You’re going home, son.”
35
Georgia
Liberal, Kansas—October 1944
It took every ounce of self-control I had to gently close the door to Hemingway’s office and exit with my head held high and my dignity intact. What I really wanted to do was tell him, in the kind of language generally reserved for loading docks and locker rooms, exactly what I thought of him, then spit in his eyes and slam the door on my way out. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how hurt I was. And no matter what, I wasn’t going to cry. At least not where anyone could see me.
Instead, I walked into the outer office and nodded to Anders, Hemingway’s lapdog aide, before going back to my classroom. The smug look on his face told me that he already knew why his boss had called me into the office.
I was fired. And not just me—all the WASP. The program was being dismantled. Smiling, Hemingway read me a letter from headquarters stating that as of December 20th the WASP would cease to exist. Finished, he slid his reading glasses down to the end of his nose and peered at me over the rims.
“The war is nearly won, and there are plenty of more suitable pilots, male pilots,” he said archly, “to fill these positions. This should have happened months ago. It was just ridiculous, you girls taking away jobs from the men! If you’d had an ounce of decency or patriotism, you’d have resigned and stepped aside long ago.” He shook his head in disgust. “I can’t imagine what General Arnold was thinking of starting this nonsense in the first place. If it had been me in charge, the first memo hitting my desk suggesting women be allowed to fly for the military would have been tossed into the wastebasket before you could say Jack Robinson.”
Squaring my shoulders and keeping my eyes focused on a spot just over the colonel’s head, I said, “Given the fact that more than twelve thousand aircraft have been safely delivered by WASP pilots over the last couple of years, I suppose it is fortunate for the country that you weren’t in charge.” It was folly to speak, I knew that, but I couldn’t help it. I had put up with this wingless wonder of a base commander for as long as I could.
His already thin lips became even thinner. “Your replacement will arrive in a few weeks. You’ll stay on to train him until the twentieth. I want you off my base on that date by seventeen hundred hours.” He pushed his glasses back up off his nose and started pretending to read a memorandum, not deigning to look up as he dismissed me. “That is all.”
36
Morgan
Dillon, Oklahoma—October 1944
Mama was watching, and so was Paul, but I didn’t care. I opened my arms and embraced the Jenny, laying my arms and cheek against the smooth body of my sleek little plane, whispering to her like she was a living thing. “You look good, old girl. I missed you.” And it was true, I’d flown a dozen other planes since I’d left three years before, bigger planes with more horsepower, speed, and range, but none of them had ever looked as fine to me as the Jenny did that day. She might not have all the fancy gadgetry and gizmos of a modern military flying machine, but those planes were just that—machines, cold collections of metal and motor designed to do a job. The Jenny was so much more. She was my poem to freedom, designed for delight, to help mortals do what the ancients imagined only the gods could—walk the wind and touch the bounds of heaven.
Behind me, I could hear a scrape-thump, scrape-thump as Mama limped along with the more even sound of Paul’s footsteps. They stopped a respectful distance behind me, wanting to give me a moment. I think they understood what this meant to me.
I’d been in the States, recovering at the hospital in San Diego for weeks but had only gotten back to Dillon three days before. My train was met by Mama, Paul, Grandma, Ruby, and about half the town, all of them waving little American flags. There was to be an official “welcome home” reception in the church basement after Sunday services, but even so the house had been so filled with visitors and well-wishers that Mama and I had hardly found a minute to talk. It was all very touching, but I couldn’t wait to get away. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I was truly, finally home.
Collecting myself, I patted the Jenny like she was a good horse and said to no one in particular, “Whitey did a good job taking care of her, don’t you think? She looks as good as the day I left.”
“He did,” Paul agreed. He helped me crank the propeller and get the engine started. She turned over so easily that I could probably have done it on my own, but I still needed the one crutch to get around, more for balance than anything, so I welcomed Paul’s assistance.
Mama was worried. I had a crate set up that would act as a step for her, and Paul would give her a boost into the cockpit. Even with the bum foot, I could get in on my own if she’d let me steady myself on her shoulder so I could climb up.
The whirl of the propeller was loud, and Mama had to yell to make herself heard over the noise. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Morgan? We’ve hardly got one good set of legs between us. Maybe we should wait until you’re stronger.”
“Mama, I’ve waited three years, and I’m not waiting any longer! I feel better than ever!” I shouted as I settled myself in the cockpit, and it was true. “I’m young, I’m strong, and the wind’s behind me! Look up there, Mama!” I shouted joyously, raising my arm high over my head. “This is my sky! I own it! Now get up here, old woman, or I’m taking off without you!”
It is the strangest thing. Every time I taxi down
that runway, I’m half hopeful and half doubtful. I ask myself, Will it work this time? Will we really take off?—and then, when we actually do, I am amazed. I’ve done it hundreds of times, but it is always a miracle, astonishing and utterly new. And yet, as I rise higher and higher, then finally level off to gaze out over the generous, breathtakingly beautiful land below, the scene below is just as I knew it would be, constant and comforting as it always is, always was. Waiting silently, like a painting commissioned for me and my familiars at the beginning of days. Flying, I am newborn and ancient all at once. I remember the promise that someday there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and I wonder if the words mean what people think they do. Will there indeed be a new heaven and earth or instead, will we finally have new eyes so we can see it all properly, as it was meant to be seen from the first? I wonder.
But today it is enough for me to be here, back where I belong, and to share it with Mama. I have wanted her to see it for so long, to know by sight that which her mind imagined and her fingers fashioned. She is in front of me, sitting in the passenger seat, the wind toying with the stray ends of hair that escape from under her leather flight helmet. Fearless, she lifts her hand out straight and spreads her fingers wide, trying to catch hold of the wind.
And suddenly, in that one simple, familiar, self-possessed gesture—I know. This is not just my homecoming. It is hers, too. She has been here before, with him. And I smile. There is not much all three of us have shared, Mama, Lindbergh, and I. Not home, or bread, or even name—but this! This undeniable calling, these hungry eyes that have seen and long to see again the new heaven and new earth, this is our common blood. This is what bound us from the very beginning.
On Wings Of The Morning Page 28
