The rest of the girls are back at the barracks sunning themselves or writing letters home. Better to be in the water, though, than out in the sun, where my skin will only get darker. Light as I am, I tan deeper than any white girl I’ve ever seen, and then claiming Spanish blood might not keep everyone from figuring me out.
Eventually I’m holding on just by my very tense fingertips. “See, Ida, that’s not so bad.”
“If you say so.” She’s right, of course. It’s almost soothing, rocking in the cool water, but that’s until I look down the pool to the shadowy deep end. Then it’s Lake Pontchartrain all over again, and I can see my doom staring back at me.
“Really, Ida, if you’re going to be so melodramatic, maybe we should skip this altogether.”
I blush. “Am I that bad?”
“Yes, you are,” she tells me. “You don’t have to do this.”
I consider it for a minute. She’s right. I could climb out of the water right now and never get back in again and it won’t matter. If I crash at sea, I’m dead, anyway.
Right?
I take a deep breath. “What’s next?”
“Well, you put your face in, of course. And I’ll teach you how to breathe.”
I grin in spite of myself, in spite of the dread I feel. “Shoot, Lily, I thought that was the one thing I already knew.”
Swim lessons are soon eclipsed by homework from our navigation class. Every single one of us knows how to fly places we’ve been before, and we’re getting good at plotting our course on maps, but up until now, we’ve only flown maneuvers over the auxiliary landing fields. Next week, we’ll be flying by the map, from Sweetwater to Baker’s Pond, a town about thirty miles away, and back. We’re expected to make the round trip in under an hour. Getting lost won’t exactly look good with the instructor in the backseat.
If we do well, we’re up for our first solo flights. That means an end to basic training, a test by an army pilot, and on to bigger and better planes. Audrey says a few girls usually wash out on the solo. I, for one, plan to pass.
Today, Instructor Martin teaches us about railroads. “They are simply the easiest guides to set your course by.” He hands out the train schedule for the region. We pass the little paper pamphlets around the room.
“Study these, ladies. Notice the maps you plot on indicate train tracks with little hatch markings, like crisscrossed sticks. You may think you know where you are headed, and that’s fine. But remember, landmarks like barns and water towers are a dime a dozen out here. Train tracks, on the other hand, are always the same and they’re always there. Unlike a barn or a water tower, train tracks don’t burn down, and they don’t pull them up too often. They’re as permanent as it gets.
“If you get lost in the clouds, bad weather, what have you, drop below cloud level and look for the tracks. Use your eyes. Understand? Use. Your. Eyes.”
“Yessir,” we say as one. Instructor Martin is a real pain in the neck most of the time, but he’s an instructor for a reason. He’s got plenty to teach us, besides which, I think he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. He never forgot or forgave Patsy for her stunt that first day. If he can pass us on the basic test, we’ll be out of his hair for good. No more antics from Patsy and no more griping from the rest of us. The day we leave his class will be a red-letter day for Mr. Martin.
“Now, today is Wednesday. On Friday, you’ll be quizzed on what you’ve learned. Walter Jenkins, who instructs the intermediates, will join me in testing you. Each of you will have the honor of ferrying either Mr. Jenkins or myself out to Baker’s Pond and back again. It’s a lovely little hamlet out in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding it. I expect to see plotted courses tomorrow and weather charts the morning of the flight.”
He looks down at his papers and busies himself with shuffling them about. We wait, sitting at attention. This has become a routine with us. The only way he can exert a little power over our rowdy bunch. He stands there behind his desk, humming some old Al Jolson tune, then with a huge sigh that would do a martyr proud, he says, “Class dismissed.”
We grab our maps and charts in both arms and race out of there like Friday is a mean old dog that’s right on our heels. “I still can’t find Baker’s Pond on my map,” Patsy groans. “Heck, for all I know, we might’ve done an air show there, but I wasn’t exactly doing the driving.”
We’re sitting in the ready room, trying to finish our homework in peace. There’s a study lounge we could use, but right now it’s full of intermediates getting ready for their first instrument-only test. And the cots are full of everyone who’s too exhausted to keep studying. Patsy came up with the idea of the ready room as being the perfect place to chart our flights.
Lily has spread her map out on the floor and is standing on it. “A bird’s-eye view always helps me,” she explains. Then she frowns. “But not today. Maybe it’s like that mystical place Shangri-La, and it only shows up to those who are worthy.”
“So that means every WASP before us was worthy, but we’re trash?” Patsy asks, raising an eyebrow.
“That sounds about right, ladies.” We all look up. It’s Audrey Hill, our squadron leader. She walks in with the kind of confidence I’m starting to wish I could buy at the dime store. She breaks into a big grin. “Poor kids. From the sound of it, I’d say old Hap’s got you flying to Baker’s Pond.”
“Leave it to Hap,” Patsy says with a sarcastic smile. “All these lakes and reservoirs to choose from, and he has to pick the one that doesn’t exist.”
I’m stretched out on a table, scanning my map with a magnifying glass. “We’ve been here a whole month and you still haven’t gotten a taste for small-town irony?”
Patsy looks at me, befuddled. I sigh. “You got one thing right—it’s likely it doesn’t exist. Not the way we’ve been thinking of it, that is. Look at your map. These lakes are huge. The reservoirs, too. But we’re looking for something smaller. As dry as it’s been out here, Baker’s Pond is probably nothing but a shriveled up watering hole.”
Audrey nods at me. “Listen to her, girls. She’s on to something.”
“But then why’s it called Baker’s Pond?” Lily asks.
“Why is it called ‘Sweetwater’?” I counter. “We’re thirteen miles from the nearest lake.”
Patsy frowns. “Hey, I think she’s right. This place has been drier than Prohibition.”
“It’s like wishful thinking, isn’t it?” Lily says. Her cheeks flush with excitement. “Like when you meet a big man nicknamed Tiny. Or Greenland, which is really icy, and Iceland, which is actually quite green.”
Patsy and I exchange smiles. “Okay. Now I think she’s crazy, but you might be right, Ida.”
Audrey gives us a little nod and waves goodbye. We turn back to our charts. My smile breaks into a grin.
“Ladies, remember the last thing Martin said to us about navigation?”
“Follow the train tracks,” Lily chimes in.
“Precisely.” I open my train schedule and search the list of destinations.
“Now, we know the flight has to be less than an hour, so . . .” I take a compass and draw a circle with a forty-minute flight radius around Avenger Field, in case headwinds adjust the travel time. “Baker’s Pond isn’t on the list of train stops, but it must be near a track somewhere. These are the towns with train stations no more than an hour away.” I circle the towns on my list.
Lily and Patsy have come to stand beside me now. I feel like I’m the instructor and I like it. This must be what Patsy meant by a chance to pay Lily back.
“Now, scan the chart. We’re looking for train tracks and a smooth blank spot on the map, near these towns. No hills, no lines. That’ll be our dry lake bed.” The topographical pictures on our own maps show lakes as blue puddles against crinkled pale green backgrounds. I scan my circle for the hatchmarks indicating train tracks. There. I put my finger down and follow it toward the north. No puddles, no towns. I go in the oth
er direction, and head south. The train tracks stop in a town called Buckhorn and curve around to the east. Just about that curve, just east of Buckhorn, sits a plain brown dot. Below, printed for some unknown reason in green ink that is only slightly darker than the surrounding fields, is Baker’s Pond.
“Bingo.”
“Where?” Lily and Patsy lean forward, squinting.
“Son of a—” Patsy breaks off.
“Ida Mae, you’re a genius!” Lily exclaims.
“Way to go, Jonesy.” Patsy grins at me. “One for all and all for one. You’re a regular musketeer.”
She pats my shoulder and it feels good. Lily sighs. “Well, now the rest of the work begins,” she says. We all turn back to our own maps and begin working on our flight and weather charts. But I can still feel the glow from their congratulations, and it keeps me working hard all night.
Friday morning dawns with a few fat clouds high in the sky. Cumulus clouds, the kind that look like scoops of mashed potatoes or ice cream, so white they almost hurt to look at. Everyone in our barracks is ready before roll call. There are some nervous grins, but mostly we’re just excited. Lily smiles at me as she calls roll.
“Good luck, Flight One. I’ll see you in intermediates,” she ends the morning announcements. We all march to breakfast singing “Zoot Suits and Parachutes.” I eat a slice of toast, but I’m too excited to eat anything else. Patsy, on the other hand, has two sunny-side-up eggs and a ham steak.
“You’ve got an iron stomach,” I tell her.
Patsy just smiles and mops up the broken yolks with a corner of toast. “Girl’s got to keep her energy up,” she says.
Next to me, Lily drinks a cup of warm milk. She takes a sip, puts her mug down carefully, and counts backward from ten.
“Are you okay, Lily?”
“Fine.” She smiles nervously, her face turning a little green, and takes another sip of her milk. “I just . . . I just need to remember to breathe.”
I put a hand on her back. “You’ll do fine.”
Patsy speaks around a mouthful of ham. “Just don’t forget how to fly.”
We all laugh, but I can hear Lily’s counting turn into something that sounds more like a prayer. The words are foreign, but the tone is familiar. Patsy and I share a look.
“I guess we could all use some of that,” I say.
Lily looks up, cheeks red. “Sorry. I was just . . .”
“No,” I say, and take her hand. Patsy puts down her fork and toast to pick up Lily’s other hand in her own.
“Rabbi,” she says with a smile.
Lily blushes and fumbles for a moment. I squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.
“Oh, Lord,” she says in a trembling voice. “Lord God, hear our prayer. Give us strength . . .” She falters.
“Protect us,” I add.
“Pass us, Jesus,” Patsy says.
“Bless our flight.”
We sit there over our warm milk and toast, Patsy’s cooling eggs, and think our own thoughts.
“Amen,” we say almost in unison. I feel good. I feel better. When we leave the mess hall, every single one of us is ready to fly.
“Fuel line.”
“Check.”
“Wing?”
“Check.”
“Propeller.”
“Check.”
It’s windy at the auxiliary landing airstrip. Those fat cumulus clouds are skidding lazily across the sky. I stop in the middle of my flight checklist to look at the wind sock floating atop the hangar that serves as storage, classroom, and control tower in one. The orange cone of fabric wafts to the south-east. Good. I’ll have a tailwind into Baker’s Pond. Every extra minute I gain is more time to fix any flubs in my navigation.
Instructor Martin is off and flying with Lily. I’m going up with Inspector Jenkins, the flight instructor for intermediate WASP. He’s a big man, the kind that played football in high school and never lost the broad shoulders or the wide neck. His hair is prematurely turning silver, and his eyes are bright and warm. As Jolene would say, “Not bad, for a white man.” I chuckle just thinking about her.
Inspector Jenkins reads out the preflight checklist to me, steadily ticking off each item. He has a nice voice to boot. I smile at him when he finishes the list, and he smiles right back. “All systems go,” I announce, and climb into the plane.
I strap my map to my leg with surgical tape. The course I’ve plotted is charted in red. Instructor Jenkins has a copy in the backseat of the plane. He looks it over silently, determined not to give me a hint whether or not I’ve done it all right.
We get the all clear over the radio, and I taxi out onto the runway. After that first week of flying with Martin, we’ve been allowed to handle takeoff and landing by ourselves. I start to grin as we head down the tarmac.
“Watch yourself, Jones,” Jenkins says to me through the speaking tube by the throttle. I hesitate and do a mental check, but I’m not doing anything wrong.
“Pardon, sir?” I shout into the tube.
“That grin of yours, you don’t want to get any bugs in your teeth.”
I laugh. I think I’m going to like intermediate training. I just have to pass basic first. We lift off into the blue sky and I smile even wider, but this time with my lips closed tight.
Being a WASP is all about being in the air. When we graduate from here, we will be assigned to bases across the country to do everything from ferrying newly made planes from factories to the coast—where they will be shipped off to our boys overseas—to towing targets for artillery practice. Some of the first WASP have already logged over a thousand flight hours. There’s even a story going around that Nancy Love and her Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, the original twenty-eight women that eventually became the WASP, once ferried a shipment of planes all the way across country in less than three days.
As Inspector Jenkins and I fly over the train tracks toward Buckhorn, I can’t imagine anything finer than seeing the whole country this way. We reach Buckhorn, and I tilt the wings to search for the riverbed I know will take us to Baker’s Pond.
It’s not there.
Overgrown with brush or just blown away in these darn Texas winds, my landmark has gone AWOL.
Don’t panic, I tell myself. We made good time. I just need to be patient. I circle Buckhorn and get my bearings. Baker’s Pond should be dead east from here. I look at the sun, at the town, the tracks, the map and say a little prayer.
“Everything okay, Jones?” Instructor Jenkins asks over the tube.
“Roger wilco,” I say. “A-OK.” I just hope I’m right.
We fly for twenty minutes straight and I’m starting to feel those old butterflies again, slapping against my stomach, when the most beautiful sight in the world comes into view. Three buildings are huddled dead ahead of me, on the edge of a big brown sinkhole. I let out a whoop that would do a Hollywood Indian proud.
“Welcome to Baker’s Pond, sir,” I shout into the speaking tube.
“Well done, Jones. And not a moment too soon,” Jenkins says.
We fly over what passes for a town and I can see the fifteen residents of Baker’s Pond sitting at the edge of their dried-up swimming hole, on top of their old cars and pickup trucks. Watching the WASP fly overhead is cause for a picnic in this town.
Some of the kids stand in the truck beds and wave.
“Permission to waggle the wings, sir.” I can’t see Jenkins’s face, but I can tell he’s smiling. I like this man.
“Permission granted.”
We fly low over the pond bed and I tip my wings left, then right in salute to the fine people of Baker’s Pond. With another Hollywood whoop, I change course and we head back to Sweetwater.
Chapter 13
“Howdja do?” Lily asks as I climb out of the plane. I take my time undoing my turban and wait for the instructor to join us.
“Well, Mr. Jenkins?”
Jenkins smiles and waves his clipboard. “A-plus, Miss Jones. You’ve passe
d. I look forward to seeing you in Intermediates.”
“Thank you, sir.” I shake his hand, cool as November, and leave him to his next test subject. At least I think I’m cool. Lily nudges me as we head back to the ready room.
“Ida Mae Jones, you’re blushing!”
“I am not,” I insist. “It must be windburn.”
“Right,” she says. “It must be Instructor ‘Windburn.’ I don’t blame you, though. He’s a thousand times better looking than old mealymouthed Martin!”
“Lily!”
“It’s true!” We’ve reached the reading room. Lily drops down onto a bench. “Thank goodness that’s over!” she exclaims. “I thought for sure Martin was going to fail me, or demerit me, or I don’t know what.”
I slap my thigh where the course map is still strapped to my pant leg. “Trust your map. No matter what old Martin says.”
“Amen to that!” Lily grabs my hand. “And thank you, Ida, so very much, for figuring it all out. If it weren’t for you, I’d have flown that plane straight home to New York before I knew I was off course.”
I smile and sit down beside her. “What was it Patsy said? One for all and all for one.”
“Hear, hear.”
I look around the ready room. “Where is Patsy, anyway? I thought she was due to go up with Martin right after you.” We look at the clock simultaneously. It’s already half-past fourteen hundred hours.
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be here any minute,” Lily says, but she doesn’t sound so sure.
We sit together in nervous silence. Most of the other girls who’ve passed their flight tests have gone back to the barracks or the mess hall. Lily and I are dismissed for the day, but we promised to wait for Patsy.
Flygirl Page 10
