Minds of Men

by Kacey Ezell

  Logan took up the story again.

  “When I find them, I see one guy down, having some kind of seizure or something while Evie stands over him. She looked...Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but you looked like an avenging angel with a broken heart. I didn’t know whether to cry or hit him for you.”

  Evelyn let out a tiny, soft bark of bitter laughter.

  “Then I saw Mary, you know Mary, Evie’s friend?” Carl nodded. Everyone knew the pretty Mary. “This other f...guy had her up against the wall. Evie turned to him, and then he flinched, started to retch, like he was going to throw up. He musta loosened his hold ‘cause Mary hauls off and knees him in the face, really good like, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes. Then I’m pulling Mary off him and just trying to get the girls back to the damn train. Sorry, Evie.”

  “I didn’t know, I swear, sir, I didn’t know she was hurting so badly. She looked fine on the train, where poor Mary was a mess. Guy had his hands all over her.” Logan looked up at Carl, his aircraft commander. Through the net, they could all feel that Logan felt responsible, in so many ways. Not the least of which was that he hadn’t recognized that Evie, too, was traumatized, maybe more so, even, than Mary.

  I didn’t want you to know, Evelyn whispered through the net to all of them. What I did was monstrous. I can’t...I couldn’t let you see that.

  “Bullshit,” a new voice spoke up, ringing loud and angry through the small space. It was Abram Portman, their navigator. He leaned forward, his round face looking remarkably bulldog-like with his heavy brows drawn downward in fury straight from the heart of Brooklyn.

  “What they tried to do was monstrous. You defended yourself, Evie. And what I want to know is why in the hell aren’t we tracking these pieces of human trash down?” He didn’t say what he wanted to do once he’d tracked them down, but he didn’t really need to. They could all feel the violence simmering in his intent.

  “They won’t survive long enough for you to find them,” Evelyn said weakly. “That’s part of what’s so wrong with what I did. I didn’t just penetrate their mental defenses. I stripped them. Permanently. They’re wide open to every stimulus. They’ll go mad in a few hours and be dead within days.”

  She closed her eyes, unwilling to see the looks of horror that she expected on her crew’s faces.

  Stop it, Evie. The thought came from Paul and whipped through the net, scathing her with its sharpness. You’re feeling sorry for yourself, and you’re not giving us enough credit.

  You don’t understand...she started to protest but found the net saturated with the combined denials of all of her crewmen.

  We understand very well, Evie, Paul thought to her. His mind-tone took on a gentler feel, but she could sense the implacability behind his gentle touch. We feel what you feel, sweetheart. Your net is that deep; you know that. We fully understand everything that you did in your own defense, and in defense of your friend. We understand, and we approve, don’t we, boys?

  The wordless affirmative that came roaring into her mind struck her, made her physically flinch from its vehemence.

  We just wish we could have been there to protect you. But we weren’t. And so you protected yourself. You don’t need to feel guilt over that. You did what you had to do. Paul reached out to take hold of one of her hands. One by one, the other members of the crew reached out, too, until every one of them was touching her. The contact reinforced the net, as it always did. The men poured their various flavors of support down those wide open channels.

  Take this, Paul said, pressing something into her palm and curling her fingers around it. It’s not much, but in case you ever need it. We should have gotten you one before now.

  Evelyn opened her hand and looked down to see a folding knife. Tears filled her eyes again, but this time they were tears of healing and gratitude. She wept, safe in the arms of her crew, until she felt wrung out, hollow, and finally clean.

  “There’s going to be a mission the day after tomorrow,” Carl said lowly, breaking the silence they’d held while Evelyn cried. “We’re not supposed to know about it, but I do. Evelyn, can you fly? If we told Colonel Rizer that you’d been attacked...”

  “No,” Evelyn said. Her voice was soft, but resolute. “It happened, and it’s over. We’re at war, and I have a job to do. I can’t feel sorry for myself any longer,” she said with a glance at Paul. He smiled briefly and sent a pulse of approval down the net. “I think flying will actually probably be good for me,” she said.

  Carl nodded. He understood that. They all did. Flying was so all-encompassing that one had to focus entirely on one’s job. Even during the drone out and back. By now, Evelyn had been flying long enough that she knew the moment one let one’s mind wander, that’s when things were going to start to go wrong in the air. Come what may on the ground, flying was a terrific distraction.

  “Then we should all get to bed,” he said. “Otherwise we will be answering questions about what we’re all doing this late.”

  The men insisted on walking Evelyn all the way to the WAC barracks. Carl also made her promise to leave the net in place until she fell asleep so that they could help her if she suddenly needed it. She agreed, although her training nagged at her. Truth be told, she was too tired to resist. The net wanted to be in place. Let it.

  Evelyn crept into the darkened barracks and eased into her bunk. She could hear Mary’s even breathing above her. The sound reassured her since it was evidence Mary had calmed down and would eventually be all right. Evelyn let her own eyes drift closed and felt herself slip into sleep.

  * * *

  “Good morning, ladies! Get yourselves up and dressed! Inspection in ten minutes!”

  Captain Ledoux’s voice with its cheerful Louisiana lilt grated in Evelyn’s ears. Her mouth felt as if it had recently been full of the sand that seemed to have migrated to her eyes. She ached all along her body, and the ever-present fatigue pulled at the edge of her psyche. Without a conscious decision to do so, Evelyn reached out and re-established the net that had gotten her through the night before.

  She should have resisted. But she was too tired and mentally drained to care. The minds of her crewmen were just waking as well, for the most part. They, one and all, welcomed her touch in their own individual style.

  “A fine morning, isn’t it, Technician Adamsen?” Captain Ledoux asked in a sweetly venomous tone as she “accidentally” kicked the bottom of Evelyn’s bunk. Above her, Mary muttered something likely quite profane under her breath.

  She’s a bitch. Sorry, Evie, Les thought, his thought sleepy.

  Also an officer, Bob reminded the gunner. The copilot was obviously trying to emulate what he thought Carl would have said. The aircraft commander, however, was conspicuously silent on the matter.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Evelyn replied as she sat up and began to dress. A second or two later, Mary hopped down from her top bunk.

  “Are you all right?” Evelyn whispered to her friend. Mary looked pale and drawn, but that could just have been lack of sleep. Evelyn was certain she looked no better.

  “As I can be,” Mary whispered back. Her blue eyes were troubled, but she had no problems throwing a scowl in the direction of Ledoux’s retreating back. Evelyn felt a thread of relief. Mary’s spitfire nature seemed to be reasserting itself. She’d be fine.

  The inspection dragged painfully on, and Ledoux made a number of nasty comments about Evelyn’s appearance not being quite up to her exacting standards. But it eventually came to an end, and the WACs found themselves released to go get breakfast. Evelyn fell in beside Mary for the walk to the chow hall.

  “I’m glad that’s over,” the brunette said to her friend.

  “Ledoux gets more and more useless by the day. She’d do better to stop having so many ‘inspections’ and start flying more missions. Rizer’s going to notice that she’s not pulling her weight and replace her,” Mary said with a derisive snort.

  “With whom?” Evelyn asked in a dry tone. That got another sn
ort out of Mary, this time one of acknowledgement. Evelyn smiled, just a little. Mary’s snorts were very expressive.

  “Are you all right?” Mary asked in a soft voice a few moments later. Evelyn felt her smile drop away.

  “I wasn’t,” she admitted. “But my crew came and got me. They got me through it.” They’re still getting me through it, she thought, but didn’t say. After a moment, though, Evelyn asked softly, “So...you know?”

  “What you did? Yes. I know,” Mary said. The sick tone of her voice said without words that she, too, was horrified by Evelyn’s actions. “I know, and I can’t believe you did it. But then, I can’t believe I didn’t.”

  Evelyn turned to Mary, tears filling her eyes.

  “Evie, I’m so sorry! I should have done something...”

  Evelyn wasn’t much for initiating casual touch. Mary was usually the one to throw exuberant arms around someone, but in this case, the brunette couldn’t think what else to do. She wrapped Mary up in a hug and held her tightly.

  “What could you do? They took us both by surprise. I know what I did was horrible, but I couldn’t...I didn’t want them to hurt you. Or me, for that matter,” she added, when her words sounded a little too self-sacrificing to her own ear.

  “No,” Mary said, laughing weakly through her tears. “I didn’t want them to hurt either of us either. I’m just...I’m so sorry you had to do that, Evie. And I’m sorry I was such a mess I couldn’t support you afterward.”

  “Mary, you’d just survived a violent attack. You had every right to fall apart.”

  “So did you, and you didn’t!”

  “Oh, yes I did,” Evelyn said lowly. “I’m just quieter about it. But my crew knew, and they helped me understand it wasn’t my fault any more than it was yours. I did only what I had to do to keep us safe.”

  Mary gave her a long, searching look. “I can’t believe you’re so calm about it,” she said softly.

  Evelyn let out a short, bitter bark of a laugh. “I’m not,” she said. “Believe me, I’m not. But I will be. Eventually. Come on, let’s get some food.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the knock came early, as Evelyn had known it would. Once more, she and the other women rose and dressed in the pre-dawn gloom, and they shivered as they hustled to get to breakfast and then out to the flightline to meet their crews.

  Evelyn linked with her crew again as soon as she woke. They’d spent all of the day prior linked in the net, and none of them wanted to even try and go without that connection. At this point, there didn’t seem to be much sense in it. Especially not when it made their net tighter for the mission. Evelyn knew she should protest. Everything she’d been taught warned her against what she was doing, but she found that she felt a curious kind of defiance. She and her men needed the net. Who was anyone to tell them they couldn’t have it? This was war, and they all did what they needed to do to survive.

  The preflight inspection went smoothly, if a little more silently than usual, and before long, they were droning over the Channel. Once again, they flew the aircraft nicknamed Pretty Cass. Evelyn hoped that was a good sign. The roar of the Cyclone engines vibrated through Evelyn’s body, making her teeth ache as she put her head back and concentrated on holding her net steady.

  This mission was to attack a munitions factory in western Germany, near the Belgian border. As always, Evelyn linked their crew into a larger formation net, in order to facilitate communication between the aircraft and to allow the pilots to fly tighter formation. So when the fighter escort waggled their wings in the traditional gesture of “farewell, and good luck” and turned back for home, Evelyn once again felt the zing of anxiety as it ricocheted through the stacked layers of Flying Fortresses.

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. The thought came from Abram as he bent over his navigator’s table, double-checking their course.

  The net was silent for a moment before Logan transmitted a sense of snickering mirth from his ball turret. Begging your pardon, sir, but what the hell does that mean? For us uneducated, sweaty types?

  The laughter of the rest of the crew rippled down the lines of the net.

  It’s Shakespeare, you apes, Abram shot back through the net, and even his mental tone had a feel of Brooklyn about it. Henry V. Look it up sometime. It means “here we go again.” We’re crossing into Germany.

  Fighters twelve o’clock! Sean called out. Here comes the welcoming committee! Evelyn felt the recoil as he rocked backward with each shot that flung a stream of lead into the face of the attacking Messerschmitts.

  Evelyn reached out along her formation net, checking in with the other girls as they held their crews steady through the rain of oncoming metal.

  Along with the fighters came the flak rising up from the ground below. No matter how many times someone told her, no matter how many times she looked at the statistics, flak always scared Evelyn far worse than the fighters ever did. At least one could shoot back at the fighters. Flak just bounced them around like so many sardines in their flying tin can.

  The flight seemed endless, punctuated by the pop-pop-pop of the gunners’ weapons and the rattling booms of the flak. Evelyn had learned not to think about the aircraft they lost. As long as they stayed tightly in formation, the Forts were mostly safely covered by the gunners’ crossing fire. But sometimes a fighter would score a lucky hit on one of the mighty Cyclone engines, and the wounded Fort wouldn’t be able to keep up. They’d drop back, and then the fighters would swarm them. Most of the time, at that point, it was just a battle to stay alive long enough for most of the crew to bail out. No one knew why none of the psychics ever made it out of the injured birds. No one liked to think about it.

  Starting the bomb run, Paul. Autopilot on. You’ve got her, Carl said as he went through his ritual of toggling on the autopilot controls and resting his fingertips on the yoke.

  Roger, Paul replied tersely. Evelyn reached out to the rest of the psychics in the formation and felt the links between them tighten. It had become routine to bring up the bombardier’s channel so that they could make as near-simultaneous a drop as possible. Even the aircraft without psychics on board tended to drop more precisely. Evelyn supposed it made sense. It had to be hard to see and focus on the lead bird to the exclusion of all others. With more than one Fort dropping bombs at once, it had to be easier to see the signal and respond with one’s own drop.

  Bomb drop in thirty seconds. The call came from Pearl Silvers in lead, and her touch was reassuringly steady. Evelyn pushed the call down her net to Paul, who acknowledged with a pulse of awareness.

  Fighters, twelve o’clock high, ten o’clock high! Sean called out, already firing. Abram echoed him with the .30 caliber machine guns in the nose compartment. As they pushed in closer, Les opened up with his left waist gun, followed moments later by Logan in the ball turret. Through it all, Paul stayed tightly focused on his Norden bombsight. Evelyn felt him slip into that zone of pinpoint intensity, where all other stimuli fell away, became irrelevant, and all that mattered was the target and his drop.

  The gunners continued to fill the air with lead as the fighters kept coming. Paul opened the bomb bay doors in preparation for the drop, and Evelyn felt the change in pressure and sound that accompanied that action. A rumbling vibration sang through the airframe, followed by a whine she’d never heard before. Les, Logan, Sean, even Rico on the tail opened up for all they were worth as a trio of Messerschmitts zoomed by.

  Shit! It was Carl, in the cockpit. They got both engines on the left! We’re on fire! Cutting fuel!

  Wait! Paul’s thought whip-cracked through the net. Ten seconds to drop, let ‘em burn! We’re still producing power enough to stay in formation. Shut ‘em down after!

  I don’t like it! Carl thought.

  Five seconds! I don’t care! Paul flung the thought back, savagely. Better to crash without a bay full of ordnance!

  Drop, Drop, Drop! Pearl’s call came down through the formation net, an
d Evelyn pushed it along to Paul. He released his bombs right on the third “Drop,” and they fell in perfect concert with lead’s bomb load. Once again, death and destruction fell on the buildings and inhabitants below.

  We’re hit! Evelyn sent back to Pearl as she felt Carl’s hands flying over the switches in the cockpit. He worked feverishly to shut down the fuel flow to the two left engines. The thick black smoke that had been trailing off of their left wing thinned but didn’t entirely dissipate. The props slowed, the pitch of their ever-present hum quieting, and Evelyn felt both Bob and Carl straining on the rudder pedals to keep the nose straight. Slowly, inexorably, their aircraft began to fall away from her sister ships as two engines proved inadequate to maintain the required altitude and airspeed.

  Crew, prepare for bailout, Carl sent, his mind tone calm and devoid of the anxiety of moments before. He was back in control of the aircraft, Evelyn realized, and that meant he was back in control, period.

  Carl, I’m sorry, Paul sent as he and Abram began to shrug into their parachutes.

  I know. It was the right call, Carl said. Bob and I will steer together until I get us over that patch of forest here to the west, he continued. I don’t want to bail out over the town we just bombed if I can help it.

  A sick feeling pierced Evelyn’s gut at that thought. They were going to bail out. Right over enemy territory. Enemy territory that they’d just attacked with several thousand pounds of bombs.

  We’ll keep you safe, Evie, Sean thought to her. Just get your parachute on like I showed you. You and I will bailout together, he said. Evelyn swallowed hard and nodded, then got up and started clipping into her harness. Her half-frozen hands shook, and it took several tries to get herself situated, but eventually, she was there.