But with the harbor in front of her, the nondescript buildings behind her quickly faded from her mind, replaced by her own thoughts and memories.
They were overwhelming.
Eugene hadn’t said a word to her in reproach, but she had plenty of that for herself. It had all seemed like such an interesting game to her, hadn’t it, playing at being at war? And for a while, she’d been able to pretend she wasn’t just a selfish princess. Because what kind of princess would ever get her hands dirty fixing greasy, busted engines?
But that hadn’t been war, Lottie realized now. War wasn’t being the only woman in a workshop full of men. It was the absence of all those men who had once crowded her shop. It was not knowing when many of them would ever come back, and knowing some of them never would. It was Eugene, trying to smile through the pain of a wound that would never heal, no matter how long he waited.
And Luke. What if she’d made it harder for him to do his job, instead of easier? What if she’d been a distraction, instead of a help? The sickening question of which plane he’d been in when it went down came to her. Had it been one she worked on? Was she sure her work had been good? What if she was part of the reason he was gone? What if she had cost the lives of any other men, men whose names she didn’t even know?
She looked out at the sparkling water, wishing she could cry, but although her heart twisted in her chest and she found it hard to take a full breath, her eyes were bone dry.
Something in her tugged her back to Eugene: the part that always wanted to return to the familiarity of their long friendship. But even though her thoughts were raw and fractured, she knew that wasn’t the answer. He’d be kind to her, and he’d talk with her as long as she wanted. But in the end, nothing he’d said would change. She knew him well enough to know that. She even knew that he was right. She couldn’t give him her heart, because she didn’t even know it herself.
What she wanted to go back to, she realized, was something that was gone forever now—the life she had left behind when she walked out her door on the morning before their wedding. She wanted to go back to a world where he still had both of his legs. She wanted to go back to a world where he was the best and safest person she had ever known.
Even more than that, she wanted to go back to a world where she hadn’t lost or hurt them—not Luke, not Eugene, not anyone else.
She couldn’t turn time back and take back everything she’d said and done, she thought. But she could at least quit now, before she hurt anyone else.
And all the dreams she’d had, all that fire in her belly about wanting to change the world or be part of something—it all sounded just like nonsense to her now, a child’s wish that didn’t mean anything in the cold light of day, against the harsh backdrop of war.
Her mind flashed back on the time that Luke had tried to tell her about the realities of war and the ways it might change her. She’d thought she was helping him remember the good in life, helping him somehow by reminding him they couldn’t give up the fight. But now she realized she was the one who should have been listening to him all along. Nobody could change any of this. And anyone who tried would just end up like her—worn down and lost.
God, she prayed as the waves danced toward the horizon and splashed against the concrete she stood on. Please forgive me for everything. Please forgive me for my arrogance, my vanity. There’s so much I thought I knew about the world, but I’m learning that there’s so much I don’t understand. Please keep me from doing any more harm. Please help me.
Tears began to run down her face. Gratefully, she wiped them away, feeling some of the tightness in her shoulders and pressure in her chest leak out of her along with them.
And when they were gone, her decision became clear.
I’m going home.
She started back toward the women’s barracks. As she passed the turnoff to the repair hangar, her thoughts flitted briefly to the men, who should all already have been there.
They might wonder where she was for a few minutes. But that wouldn’t stop them from diving into the work. Who was she to have believed anyone needed her?
When she got back to the women’s barracks, it was deserted. Everyone else was already out, at their posts.
Lottie pulled her bag out from under her bed and began to pack. It didn’t take long; most of her personal effects were already stored neatly in her Navy-issue satchel.
When she was finished, she slung the bag over her shoulder and looked around at the rows of empty beds.
Maybe the Navy would come after her if she went AWOL. Or maybe no one would even notice.
She only knew one thing: she had to get out of here before she did any more harm—to herself or anyone else.
But as she walked down the aisle, to the exit door, someone threw it open. The bright Hawaii morning light that poured inside was so strong that Lottie actually threw up her arm to shield her eyes.
Then the door thudded shut, and Lottie lifted her chin again, planning to give whoever it was a quick nod before she passed her by and made her escape.
“Where are you going?” Maggie demanded.
As the sting of the sun left Lottie’s eyes, they focused enough to recognize that Maggie’s eyes were full of tears.
With all they’d been through together, even the tough days at basic training, she’d almost never seen Maggie shed a tear. In fact, Maggie had been the one who told Lottie not to let her own tears show.
Lottie’s heart grew even heavier at the sight. Had she already hurt another one of the people she cared about, before she even managed to get herself off the base?
A host of explanations and excuses leapt into her head, a jumble of words to make Maggie understand that it wasn’t her fault and that Lottie had to do what she was doing, even if it would be hard to go and be separated from her.
But before she could say any of them, Maggie broke out in a sob and wrapped Lottie in a hug.
Startled, Lottie leaned in and returned the hug.
“I can’t do it,” Maggie said as she shuddered with tears. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much. I just can’t.”
Slowly, it dawned on Lottie that Maggie didn’t know anything about what Lottie was about to do. Something had happened to Maggie. Something that, judging from Maggie’s reaction, sounded awful.
“Maggie,” Lottie said. “What happened?”
Maggie pulled away from Lottie, but she didn’t do anything to stop the tears rolling down her face, and her voice was still high and tight with emotion.
“Those men,” she said.
Lottie felt a burst of protective ire rise up in her. If someone had been bothering Maggie so badly they’d reduced her to this point, they were going to hear about it from Lottie.
But as Maggie went on, it became clear that she was worried about the men she was talking about, whoever they were—not angry at them.
“It’s too awful,” Maggie said. “Everything about this war has been awful, but this is too awful. Those poor men. They did so much—and—”
She dissolved into tears again as Lottie led her to a nearby bed, where the two of them sat down, with Lottie’s arm around Maggie.
“I don’t understand,” Lottie said gently.
Maggie took a deep breath.
“There are men from the battle at Iwo Jima lost at sea,” she said. “I just got the word of it in the comms office. We’ve been getting updates ever since I went in this morning. And they’re awful.”
“What happened?” Lottie asked, steeling herself for the worst.
“They were captured in the fighting, but they managed to escape,” Maggie said. “I think they must have been shot down, but when they got free, they found a Japanese boat that had been damaged in the fight and took it over. They managed to get back into US waters, living on the rations on board. But now the engine’s died, and they’ve been drifting for days. All the food’s gone, and they’re almost out of water. But the radio’s still working. They’ve been signaling ever
since they took the boat last week, and they just finally caught an Allied pilot on a flyover.”
“But that’s good,” Lottie said. “They survived.”
Maggie shook her head, tears filling her eyes again. “But they won’t,” she said. “They’ve drifted too far. They’re too far from our ships. It’ll be days before anyone can reach them by sea. And we can’t do a rescue by air that far out to sea.
“The pilot kept circling so he could stay in touch with them,” she said, her face crumpling. “But he couldn’t land. And they’re so far out that eventually he had to head back to base, so he didn’t run out of fuel himself.”
Lottie took a deep breath as the horror of the situation sank in for her: Men who had survived so much and fought so hard to do it. The joy of finally raising a friendly voice on the radio. And then the bitter disappointment that, for some of them, help still couldn’t come in time.
“Some of them are wounded,” Maggie said. “Bad. Without food, without water—who knows if they’ll even be alive tonight?”
She squeezed Lottie’s hand.
“They came so far,” she said before dissolving into tears. Lottie gently put her hand on Maggie’s back and rubbed it comfortingly.
Then Maggie looked up, and a thought that hadn’t yet crossed her mind finally surfaced.
“Lottie,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
But Lottie shook her head.
Because all of a sudden, she wasn’t leaving anymore.
Maggie couldn’t see any way to save those stranded men.
But Lottie did.
Twenty-Nine
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Lottie asked.
Cunningham squinted up at the wings of the plane they were both standing under.
They weren’t in the shop. They weren’t even in one of the standard hangars, where planes that were already in good shape waited to be deployed.
The two of them were standing out behind the repair hangar, amid the piles of twisted metal and parts that the men sometimes came out to during the course of the day, either to find a piece of metal big enough to hammer or solder into some shape they needed, or to drop off some part that was too busted to work on whatever bird they were currently repairing.
The plane they were looking up at was the only whole one out there, a PBY Catalina flying boat. Legend had it that it had been pulled out of Pearl Harbor near the mouth of the freshwater Aiea Stream after the attack. Lottie had always figured that was a tall tale they told her since she was the new girl, hoping she’d be dumb enough to repeat it to someone else as truth.
But now that she looked at it more closely, she started to wonder. She’d seen the paint on planes damaged by a lot of things—bullets, impact, heat, and actual fire. But she’d never seen a finish that looked quite like this—still smooth, but with all the sheen gone, almost as if it were a piece of beach glass. And were those barnacles on the tips of the wings?
None of that mattered, though, as much as the base of the Catalina. Under the hold, the belly of the plane was curved: the aquatic landing apparatus of the flying boat.
“We got her so she fired up once,” Cunningham said. “But we never put her back in working order. There weren’t much call for her. Too small to do much good.”
“How many men do you think she’ll hold?” Lottie asked.
Cunningham squinted. “Plenty,” he said.
“Do you think it could take ten?”
Now Cunningham squinted at her.
“What are you up to, Palmer?” he said.
Quickly, Palmer brought him up to speed.
Cunningham’s stoic face didn’t flicker, but she could see his eyes narrow in concentration. He peered up at the plane, then gave a quick nod. “She can fit ten, eleven,” he said. “If that’s what it takes.”
“Well,” Lottie said, glancing up at the cockpit, “what are you waiting for?”
“You think it’ll start?” Cunningham asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Lottie said, nodding up at the plane.
Cunningham took that as an order. He swung up into the cockpit and a minute later was flicking at the controls.
Lottie took at deep breath, waiting for any sign of life to cough out of the engine.
But before she even really had a chance to hold it in, the engine didn’t just cough—it roared.
She could hear Cunningham’s yelp of laughter even over the growl of the engine. “Hot damn!” he called. “She’s alive!”
Ten minutes later, they’d wheeled the water bird around the back of the hangar and in through the main bay.
As the men around the shop looked up, Lottie hopped on a stool and waved them all over. Quickly, she explained the story Maggie had told her less than an hour ago. As she did, the faces of the men grew serious but determined.
“She runs,” Lottie said, slapping the side of the plane. “So that’s something. But I’m not going to put a pilot up in this thing without a full inspection. And she’s only got a range of a thousand miles as built. So we’re gonna want to find a solution for the fuel.”
“I thought you said the men were only eight hundred miles out from Hawaii,” Pickman said.
“That’s right,” Lottie told him. “But there’s not going to be a fuel depot in the middle of the Pacific for the pilot to refuel before he brings those men back.”
She slapped the side of the plane again, then gave orders for each man to take responsibility for doing a full check of the various systems: structural integrity, fuel, engine, controls.
“Every minute counts,” she said as they scrambled to get their tools.
Then she turned to Cunningham. “Now we just need a pilot,” she said.
For a long moment, the two of them looked at each other. Lottie knew what he was thinking, because she was thinking it herself. She’d proved herself to the men in this shop. But if she went to command asking for a pilot, especially for a scheme like this, there was a good chance she’d get laughed out of the place before she even began.
A man might get laughed at, too. But he wouldn’t face the same trouble Lottie would. Nobody there would think he shouldn’t even be in the room. And with lives on the line, it was no time to gamble.
“It’s a crazy idea,” Cunningham said carefully. “But I could talk to someone.”
“Go,” Lottie said. “Get me a pilot. I’ll have a plane by the time you have one.”
The months-long saltwater bath the plane had taken might not have had the magic rejuvenating properties advertised by some of the more ambitious local Hawaii hotels, but it didn’t seem to have done nearly as much damage as Lottie would have thought, either.
“It’s not the water that does the damage,” Pickman told her. “It’s the air.”
Whatever the case, with all the men crawling over the Catalina, working as fast as they could, they made short work of her. To give the plane more range, they patched together a daisy chain of fuel tanks. A choke in the engine, which Lottie initially thought might mean a busted gear—or one that had rusted into oblivion—turned out to be fixed by nothing more than a bit of oil and the removal of a large clump of seaweed from the engine block. Pistons were greased, filters were changed, a bit of damage on the wingtip was soldered back into place.
By the time Cunningham returned, about an hour later, the engine of the old seaplane was humming, and one of the guys was climbing around on the roof, trying to clean off the thick film of dirt that had accumulated on the windshield after months of disuse.
Lottie was glad to see Cunningham had actually gotten someone from command to come to the hangar. He could have easily returned by himself, and told her their plan was turned down, sight unseen.
But that was about all Lottie liked about the look of the guy who walked in with Cunningham.
He was a big, bluff officer, a good ten years older than Lottie, in full Navy blues, and he didn’t even take off his sunglasses when he stepped deep into the shadows of the hangar.
At the sight of him, the men from the shop scrambled into place and offered a series of clumsy salutes, the pride in the incredible work they’d just done clear on their faces.
But the officer, whose name tag read Hoyt, barely glanced at the plane.
Instead he gave Lottie a full once-over, looking her up and down as if she were the main attraction at some seedy dance hall.
Then he looked up at the plane, his lip curled.
“Cunningham here insisted I come down and get a look at this,” Hoyt said. He shook his head. “You really got her running?”
Lottie nodded at one of the nearby mechanics, who jumped into the cockpit. A moment later, the engine purred to life.
At the trace of a smile that passed over Hoyt’s lips, Lottie’s heart leapt. But then he looked back at Cunningham.
“I’m sorry, Cunningham,” he said. “We appreciate the effort, but I can’t send a pilot up in this bird. There’s no way she’s ready for flight.”
“She’s ready, sir,” Lottie broke in.
Hoyt raised his eyebrows, obviously annoyed by her interruption. Then he turned to her with all the condescension of a superior officer putting a lackey who’d stepped out of line back in place.
“I think Cunningham and I can handle this, miss,” he said, not even meeting her eyes.
“Palmer is second-in-command here,” Cunningham said quietly. “Sir.”
It wasn’t clear if Hoyt didn’t hear him or just chose to ignore him. But in any case, Hoyt didn’t look at anyone in particular when he made his next announcement.
“I’ve been on Navy boats for over a decade,” Hoyt said. “And I’ve never even let a rowboat set sail with so little time for inspection.”
“With respect, sir,” Lottie said, “boats and planes are different. And I stand behind this inspection. I’d go up in her myself.”
For Love and Country Page 20
