“Mary Lou, it was the other way around. I didn’t recognize her.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“The woman in the Bluebonnet Hotel wasn’t . . . Lavinia Grier.”
In no more than a whisper, Brandon croaked, “You mean the major was with another woman last Saturday night? He wasn’t with his wife?”
“Evidently not.”
Mary Lou whooped with laughter. “Here we’ve both been in agony for the past week—afraid you’d be found out at any moment—”
Her laughter was infectious. Alpharetta joined in until a sobering thought caused her to stop. “Who do you think it could have been—at the hotel?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it, just as long as it wasn’t his wife.”
“I expect it matters to Mrs. Grier.”
“Who’s going to tell her? She certainly won’t find out from us.” Mary Lou, with a feeling of lightheartedness, said. “Come on, Beaumont. Let’s go somewhere to celebrate.”
“I’m staying on base,” Alpharetta replied, “to soak my foot. The air marshal stepped on it twice.”
Fourteen days before graduation, ten women out of forty were selected for specialized bomber training. Agnes Cavanaugh and Mary Lou Brandon had been selected without restriction, with Alpharetta Beaumont also, if she could remove the waiver from her physical examination. Otherwise, she would be sent to Davis Field.
“But maybe you don’t want to fly the bomber,” Happy said one evening while sitting on her cot and painting her nails with a clear enamel. “I hear they’re called widow-makers.”
“That’s the nicer name for them.” Flossie spoke up with a laugh. “They’re better known as Flying Prostitutes.”
“Because of their small wings. No visible means of support.”
When the laughter subsided, Alpharetta said, “Of course I want to fly them. But 120 pounds! How in the world am I going to gain ten pounds in the next two weeks”
“Easy. We’ll just stuff you with ice cream,” Brandon responded, since you love it so much. You’ll have ice cream for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner.”
“And I’ll give you my bread,” Cavanaugh offered.
“You’ll be the prize goose, Beaumont, stuffed for the fair.”
The diet began with the entire bay as conspirators. Several days later, Alpharetta shook her head at a second helping of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow topping.
“I don’t want any more. Last night I even dreamed I was a banana split.”
“You’ll never gain the weight, Beaumont, if you don’t keep on eating,” Brandon advised.
“It’s the calisthenics,” Lark argued. “No matter how much we eat, the calories get burned up in all that exercise.”
“Maybe you can claim you’ve hurt your knee,” Happy suggested. “And get out of the exercise.”
“If I did that, they might put me on the sick list. Then I wouldn’t graduate with the rest of you. No, Happy. Just hand me the ice cream.” Alpharetta picked up her spoon and forced herself to eat. “You realize, of course, that you’re destroying my love for my favorite dessert?”
“Maybe you should switch to bagels—the ones with cream cheese,” Flossie said with a sparkle in her hazel eyes.
During the two weeks, Alpharetta secretly monitored her weight, but all attempts to gain the necessary ten pounds failed. On the day before her official weigh-in, she was eight short of her goal.
The next day, as a dejected Alpharetta came off aerial duty in the late afternoon, Mary Lou Brandon was waiting for her with the message to report to the flight surgeon’s office.
“It’s no use. I might as well not go.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll pass the weight test.”
“How? By putting lead in my shoes?”
“Don’t be a smart-mouth, Beaumont.”
“Sorry.”
“Just tell me—you really want to fly the B-26s?”
“You know I do.”
Mary Lou Brandon smiled. “Then Mama Brandon is going to fix you up. Come inside the hangar with me.”
Alpharetta walked into the empty hangar with Mary Lou. From her shoulder bag, Brandon withdrew a small, smooth rock and dropped it into one of the pockets of Alpharetta’s coveralls.
“Now for one on the opposite side, so you won’t list when you walk.” She put one in another pocket. Six rocks in all were deposited into various pockets.
“Now let me see you walk, Beaumont.”
Speechless during the entire procedure, Alpharetta began to move gingerly toward the opening of the hangar.
“You walk just like you have rocks in your pockets,” Brandon accused. “Try it again, and please see if you can look a little more natural.”
Up and down the hangar Alpharetta practiced, until Brandon was satisfied. “Now let’s go.”
They began to walk slowly across the field with Mary Lou Brandon shortening her steps to accommodate the rock-burdened Alpharetta. And with every few steps Alpharetta lamented, “I should have stayed in Atlanta. I never should have come to Texas. Just think of the disgrace when I’m shipped home . . .”
“Shut up, Beaumont. And try not to clunk as you walk.”
When they reached the flight surgeon’s office, Mary Lou turned to Alpharetta and said, “Go sit down and I’ll check you in.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll do it myself.”
“All right. But be careful.”
Along the wall a double row of wooden chairs faced each other. In the first chair rested a cadet with her ankle strapped in Ace bandages and her crutches propped up alongside her.
Mary Lou nodded, took her place down the row, and waited. Soon she saw Alpharetta walking slowly toward them.
As Alpharetta passed by the seated cadet, the woman inquired, “Calisthenics too much for you, too?”
“Oh, no. I’m just coming to be weighed in.”
Alpharetta negotiated the space warily as the cadet watched. Leaving a vacant chair between them, she sat down near Mary Lou. The dull thud of a rock hitting against the wood of the chair reverberated down the row at the same time a nurse appeared from around the corner. The cadet, reaching for her crutches, lost her grip and one slid to the floor, making even more noise than Alpharetta. Not daring to look at either cadet or the nurse, Air Cadet Beaumont suddenly found an interesting view outside the window.
“Maybelle Tyson,” the nurse called. The injured cadet smiled and hobbled down the hall with the nurse.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Alpharetta whispered.
“At least she didn’t blow the whistle on you.”
“Alpharetta Bumont?” The medic mispronounced her name, but she did not correct him.
“Yes?”
“Come with me. We need to put you on the scales.”
In the formless mechanic’s coveralls, Alpharetta stepped on the scales. The medic adjusted the first weight—one hundred pounds. And then he began the important maneuvering of the second weight.
Standing there, Alpharetta had a terrifying thought. What if she weighed too much? The medic pushed the weight back, and then she watched it balance at one hundred twenty and one-half pounds.
In a matter-of-fact voice, the medic said, “Well, Beaumont, looks like you passed.”
“Is that—all?”
“Yes. I’ll send an official notice to the C.O. this afternoon.”
Alpharetta stepped down from the scales. “Thank you,” she said and walked slowly back to where Mary Lou was waiting.
“Did you pass?”
“Yes. With a half pound over.”
In a smug voice loud enough for the medic to overhear, Mary Lou commented, “I told you the ice cream would do it.”
Out the door of the infirmary the two pilots went. And Alpharetta whispered, “Let’s hurry someplace, Brandon, where I can get rid of these rocks. I feel like a moving Gibraltar.”
“How about an ice cream sundae—to celebrate?”
“Never again.”
On the afternoon of graduation, the women dressed in their slacks and white shirts, and stood at attention as the commanding officer pinned their wings on each uniform. At the head of the line stood the women from the first bay—Anderson, Aronson, Beaumont, Brandon, Cavanaugh, and Dennison. At the end of the stands stood the tactical officers and civilian instructors.
Avery Canfield had no need to hide the pride he felt at their success. He smiled, in contrast to the frowning Gandy Malone, unable to show his feelings. For at the rear of the stands sat the new group of women who’d arrived on the cattle wagon that very afternoon. He’d have to start from scratch again.
When the ceremony was over, friends and relatives of the women who had just received their wings walked onto the field—small groups gathering together, intimate families laughing. Feeling a momentary loneliness, Alpharetta began to walk away when she heard someone calling her name.
“Alpharetta!”
The voice, familiar, loving, caused her to stop and turn around. Walking toward her were her guardians, Reed and Anna Clare St. John.
For a moment, Alpharetta stood, unable to respond. Then she found her voice. “Anna Clare. Reed. What are you doing here? In Texas?”
“The major invited us,” Reed answered. “We’re awfully proud of you, Alpharetta.”
“Proud? For . . . for running away? Without even saying good-buy?”
“We understand, dear,” Anna Clare said. With a pleased expression she said, “And I think you’ll be happy to hear the news from home.”
“Is . . . Ben Mark all right?” Alpharetta bit her lip as the name slipped out.
“Yes. He’s fine. Rennie, his mother, had a letter from him last week.”
Smoothing over the awkwardness, Reed said in a jovial voice, “Well, let’s not stand in the hot sun. Let’s go back to the hotel to celebrate.”
He reached out and touched Alpharetta on the shoulder. His gesture, so natural, so unrehearsed, unleashed a sudden love in Alpharetta’s heart.
“I’m glad you came,” she admitted.
“So are we,” Anna Clare agreed. “We wouldn’t have missed seeing you get your wings.”
“We’re staying at the Bluebonnet Hotel. I suppose you’re familiar with it?” Reed asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“They really have very good food in the dining room,” Anna Clare offered. “And such a nice waitress.”
“Maria,” Alpharetta supplied the name as she walked toward the parked car.
By the time they reached the hotel, the dining room was full. Even the bar stools at the U-shaped counter were taken. While the three waited for a table to be cleared, Alpharetta saw Maria in her black uniform with the frilly white apron and cap. As she rushed back and forth to the kitchen to fill orders, Alpharetta remembered that frantic Saturday evening before she’d finished her training. Yet it seemed a lifetime away.
Toward the end of the luncheon, as they waited for dessert, Reed cleared his throat. “Alpharetta, there’s another reason we came out to Texas to see you—besides watching you get your wings.”
“Oh?”
“We know the real reason you left Atlanta so suddenly.”
Alpharetta looked down at her skirt and smoothed a wrinkle with her hand. “Then you’ve met my . . . mother.”
“Merely the woman who pretended to be your mother.”
“Your own mother died five years ago—in Birmingham,” Reed informed her. “The woman who bilked you out of your savings was a con artist who once knew your mother.”
“You mean my mother was alive? All that time? Why didn’t my father ever tell me?”
“He probably thought it was best for you not to know that she’d abandoned you,” Reed replied.
Alpharetta nodded. “He was a proud man, you know. I guess it was easier for him just to pretend she’d died.” And with a hesitation in her voice, she inquired, “Do you know anything about her?”
“Only that she married again. But the man was an alcoholic.”
“Did she . . .” Alpharetta swallowed and began again. “Did she have any other children?”
“No. You and your brothers were the only children.”
“The woman who posed as my mother must have known her well. She knew things about me. About my father … my brothers . . .”
“You should have come to me when she first approached you,” Reed admonished.
Anna Clare, who had remained silent, suddenly spoke up. “ But the woman won’t ever bother you again. Reed has seen to that. And now that’s settled, you can come home with us. Ben Mark still loves you. I know. And I’ll be happy when you two patch things up between you.”
The smile vanished on Alpharetta’s lips. “I can’t go back with you. I still have a job to do.”
“But surely you’re not thinking of staying in the flying service,” Anna Clare argued. “It’s entirely too dangerous, ferrying those huge planes all across the United States. If you want me to, I’ll write Ben Mark and explain—”
“No, Anna Clare. I can’t let you do that for me.”
“Alpharetta’s right,” Reed agreed. “She’s the only one who can put things right between her and Ben Mark.”
“Well, then, will you promise to write him?”
“I don’t even know where he is.”
“He’s stationed in England,” Reed informed her.
“And Belline is, too,” Anna Clare added, “with the USO. She left shortly after you did.”
At that information, the light went out of Alpharetta’s eyes. Then, disguising her mixed feelings, she smiled, the warmth of her smile reaching out to encompass Reed and Anna Clare and even Maria, the waitress, who at that moment brought the bill.
Watching Reed dig into his pockets for the money, Alpharetta began to make plans. She had heard that some of the Americans were ferrying planes with the British women in Air Transport Auxiliary, on the various routes across England to a base in Scotland. As soon as her stint with the B26s was over, she would apply for transfer, for it was impossible to explain things in a letter. Far better to see Ben Mark face to face in England. Unbelievably happy, a grateful Alpharetta quickly followed Reed and Anna Clare St. John out of the dining room in the Bluebonnet Hotel.
With Reed and Anna Clare returning to Atlanta, Alpharetta left for Kansas to begin training with the widow-maker B-26s. And in Tunis, high-ranking air officers in Allied Command began to reassess the role of paratroopers in an invasion, as the air officers in Kansas began to reassess the role of the planes no one wanted to fly.
Wing Commander Sir Dow Pomeroy sat at the planning table as the discussion began. From their experiences in Sicily and Italy, the command realized that if men so specially trained were to be used effectively, then a method of dropping them closer to target would have to be found. Dow could not forget the disasters that had plagued both British and American paratroopers.
“Pathfinders—that’s what we need. An advance group going in first. To light flares on the ground for others to follow.”
“Isn’t that awfully risky?” a cautious officer questioned.
Hank Lawton, becoming excited at Dow’s suggestion, responded, “It’s a hell of a lot safer than having an entire division dropped in the wrong area—like Sicily.”
“How many are you talking about—in the pathfinder group?”
“No more than eight or ten. One officer, a sergeant, and the rest enlisted men.”
“It might have possibilities,” a grudging voice acceded.
“We can try it. If the concept doesn’t work, we’ll have to come up with something else.”
“Does anyone have a better suggestion?”
No one spoke.
The action taken that day directly affected Lieutenant Marsh Wexford and seven other survivors who’d received their initial taste of war at a Sicilian villa. For as soon as Marsh volunteered to form one of the pathfinder units, Gig, Laroche, and Giraldo, and the other four immediately signed up with him. So the close
ly-knit team began its training for Operation Overlord, the projected invasion of the European continent.
Chapter 10
As the airfield at Prestwick, Scotland came into view, Alpharetta glanced at her watch. It was now eleven o’clock, double summer British time. She was thankful to be arriving only forty-five minutes behind schedule, for it had been a rough, turbulent trip.
The plane had been in the air for over twenty hours and she was tired. Alpharetta arched her back in the copilot’s seat and reached for the radio transmitter to request clearance for landing. It gave her a special pleasure to be able to do so.
As she spoke, her voice was met with an incredulous silence from the tower. She repeated her message, “F-4236, Firebrand, requesting approach clearance. Over.”
The air controller recovered quickly. “F-4236, Firebrand, you are cleared for approach to Runway 5. The winds are variable from east to west at twelve knots.” Then, in a soft Bogey voice, he added, “Sweetheart, do you read me?”
The copilot grinned at Alpharetta as she made a face. But he remained silent, watching her prepare for landing. Alpharetta realized that was a momentous occasion, for even Jackie Cochran, with all her hours in the air, had not been allowed to land a mere two years back. She’d had to give the controls over to the male copilot, even though she had flown the entire way across the ocean. But Cochran had made it possible for Alpharetta to be at the controls today. She didn’t care that she wasn’t listed as an official pilot. It was enough that she’d flown all the way from Air Transport Command’s base in Montreal and was getting ready to land on foreign soil.
The smudge pots of the runway suddenly changed from tiny points to lantern size. Alpharetta brought the fighter down as smoothly as a goose skimming over water. With the engines still running, the plane followed the waving flags to a holding destination along the tarmac, to be sandwiched in between other fighters under the camouflage netting.
As far as she could see, planes were lined up on every available inch of space. And from that, she knew something was going to happen soon. There was an electricity in the air, for the frantic race to fill the entire British Isles with men, tanks, planes, and supplies for the European invasion had begun.
On Wings of Fire Page 8
