Fly Boy (8 page)

I pushed the yoke back and the pitch decreased until I was “flying” level. So far, this had been pretty easy.

“I want you to bank left!”

I depressed the left pedal—left rudder—and at the same time turned the yoke slightly to the left, causing the left aileron to drop and the right one to rise. The simulator dipped to the side as if I really were turning the plane!

“Harder bank! Tighter turn!” he yelled.

I pushed harder on the pedal, more rudder.

“Watch your yaw!” the instructor bellowed. “You’re starting to skid!”

Right, I was applying too much rudder and not using enough aileron! I gave it more and the little plane banked harder. It tilted even farther until my left side was pressed against the wall of the cockpit.

“Good, good, now level it out!” he called.

Slowly I did the opposite of what I’d done to get into
the bank. I pushed down on the right pedal to create right rudder and turned the yoke to the right, this time doing it harder to try to avoid a skid in the other direction, and the plane responded.

“Watch your pitch!” he yelled.

In turning the yoke, I’d pulled it toward me as well, and I hadn’t noticed that I’d started to climb. I pushed it back a few degrees and felt the difference as the nose dipped.

“Climbing while turning can produce a stall if you don’t increase the throttle at the same time!” the instructor called out.

I hadn’t even thought about the throttle or the airspeed. I looked down and around. The throttle was just off to the right, and beside it was my airspeed indicator. Apparently I was flying at just under 180 miles per hour.

“Time to bring her in for a landing,” he called out.

I was already running level—no pitch, no yaw, and no bank. I slowly pushed the yoke forward, and the front end of the plane tilted downward the way it was supposed to. This was all going very well.

“Enemy aircraft coming up behind you at five o’clock!” the instructor screamed as loudly as he could. “Take evasive action, quick, quick, quick!”

I pushed down hard on the right pedal and cranked the wheel to the right, while at the same time pushing the yoke forward to dive and pick up airspeed to escape! The little plane rocked and banked violently to the right as it responded to the controls.

“Well, that does it!” the instructor said. “Turn it off!”

There was a pause, and then the simulator hissed and sagged and levelled itself off, no longer responding to my
attempts to control it. I reluctantly let go of the yoke. It had felt good in my hands.

“Let’s give McWilliams a little round of applause!”

I climbed out, feeling elated and embarrassed.

“That was a very successful flight,” he said. “At least until he crashed the plane.”

I
what
? I turned to him, looking for an explanation.

“Did you think to look at the altimeter at any time during that flight?” he asked loudly.

I hadn’t. I’d been so busy with the other controls that I hadn’t even looked for it!

“When you decided to avoid that enemy attack by diving, you were certainly able to gain airspeed … at least until you slammed into the ground. You started that dive at less than three hundred feet. That would have been a superb move at three or four thousand feet. Now, who’s next?”

I climbed off the wing and dropped down to the ground as others raised their hands, each wanting his turn at the controls.

“You did well,” Jim said to me under his breath.

“I crashed.”

“Of course you crashed. He wasn’t going to let you land without crashing, no matter what you did,” he whispered.

“Do you really think so?”

“He wanted to make you an example. The next time will be different. You’ll see.”

“I hope so … And thanks.”

I sat on my bunk, my back against the wall, holding a flight instruction manual workbook. To anybody watching, and there were a couple dozen of the guys all around, it looked as though I was studying. But behind the manual, hidden from prying eyes, was the pad I was going to use to write a letter to my mother.

It wasn’t like I was ashamed or embarrassed to be writing to her; people wrote letters home all time. It was just that if anybody saw the letter, I wouldn’t be able to explain why I was writing about things that were happening at my boarding school.

These letters were necessary, but not necessarily easy. I felt bad lying to Mom, which seemed strange since my entire life these days was nothing but one big lie that I was keeping from her. Somehow, though, it seemed worse when I had to put it all down in writing. But there was no choice: in order to keep the big lie away from her, I had to keep up all the little ones.

October 15, 1943

Dear Mumsy
,

I’d like to start off by apologizing for how short this letter is going to be. I’m neck-deep in work, and you’ll be happy to know
that I’m taking my studies more seriously than I ever have in my entire life!

That certainly wasn’t a lie. My teachers had always accused me of not “applying” myself. Nobody was saying that here.

My marks, particularly in all of the mathematics areas, have been top of the class. My instructors have been using me as an example to motivate the other students
.

Again, I was just telling the truth. My marks were also tops in navigation, orientation, and general aircraft flight dynamics, but I wasn’t about to tell her that or try to explain it.

Given my newly discovered aptitude with numbers, I’m beginning to think that I might want to pursue accountancy, or something in the financial field, at university. Perhaps I could become a banker. Never bad to be around money!

As well, while I wasn’t truly thinking much about accounting, I was starting to figure out an excuse for why I wouldn’t be coming home in June.

If my mathematics marks continue at this level, I’ve been assured that I can enrol directly in an accounting class upon graduation this year. I know that it would mean not coming home for the summer, but I have been given reason to believe that I might even warrant a full scholarship for the program! That would simply be too good an opportunity to pass up, and it would help prepare me for university!

“Anybody for a little craps?” Johnnie asked.

I looked up, surprised to see him standing there. I’d been so lost in the letter that I hadn’t noticed him coming. He was shaking a pair of dice in his left hand.

“I think I’ll pass,” I said.

“You can’t still be studying,” he said, shaking his head, a look of utter disgust on his face.

“I want to know where everything is the next time I get into the trainer, so I can be a better pilot.”

“Didn’t you see me up there?” he said. “I was the class ace.”

“You were pretty good,” I admitted.

It had been reassuring to me to watch as the instructor forced recruit after recruit to crash the simulator. After the third or fourth crash, it became clear that he wasn’t letting anybody get out alive the first time. Clearly his greatest worry wasn’t that we’d lose confidence but that we’d be too cocky.

Some had crashed almost immediately, while he’d had to work hard to make some of the others burst into flames. One of the hardest was Johnnie. Somehow his lack of interest in the classroom, theoretical part of flight hadn’t hindered him in his handling of the simulator. We’d heard instructors talk about “natural pilots,” and I was beginning to think that Johnnie was one of those—assuming he didn’t wash out tomorrow by flunking another test or getting caught coming back in through the barracks window at four in the morning.

“And do you know the reason why I was so good?” Johnnie boasted.

“I was thinking blind, dumb luck?” Jim said. He got up from the lower bunk, where he’d been lying down, and the whole bed shook.

“I wouldn’t rule that out completely,” Johnnie replied. “But I think it has to do with all the craps I play.”

“What?” I said.

“I gotta hear this,” Jim said. “Explain.”

“Well, if you think about it, flying is all about hand-to-eye coordination. And in shooting craps, everything depends on coordination in the wrist movement.” He shook the dice in his hand and then mimed throwing them.

Jim and I cracked up at that, but it didn’t seem to bother Johnnie at all, because he had a grin a mile wide.

“That’s priceless, Johnnie. Next you’ll be telling us that having a good belt of whisky makes you a better pilot too,” Jim taunted him.

“Maybe it does. Good pilots are relaxed pilots, and maybe a shot or two relaxes me.”

“And chasing the local ladies? Are you going to explain how that makes you better at flying?”

“That one’s easy. My pursuit of the honeys has resulted in me having to take evasive action on more than one occasion.” He paused and pointed to his eye. “Not to mention that it’s given me combat experience!”

Both Jim and I—and everyone else listening to Johnnie’s routine—broke into laughter again.

“You’re wasting your time becoming a pilot,” Jim said. “You should be on the radio with Jack Benny and the other comedians.”

“I guess there’d be more money in that, but I’m in this for King and Country. At the rate I’m training, and with all these sacrifices I’m making to become a good pilot, I might become the greatest Canadian air ace since Billy Bishop!” he trumpeted, and there was even more laughter. “Well, how
else can you explain it? You certainly can’t think it comes from any book!” Johnnie exclaimed.

Before I could react, he reached up and snatched my book, letter and all, out of my hands. The book he took away, but the letter fluttered to the ground.

“Give me that!” I screamed.

Before I could even think to react, he grabbed the letter from the ground. “Let’s see who Davie here is writing to! Maybe the ladies’ man has got himself a girlfriend!” he said as he danced away.

I jumped down to the ground and tried to take the letter, but he fended me off with one arm and started to read.

“‘Dear Mumsy’ … Mumsy? … Shoot, he’s writing to his
mother
.”

Before Johnnie could get any further, Jim reached over and swiped the letter back and handed it to me. Thank goodness.

“Might as well let him have his letter back,” Jim said, “especially seeing as we’re not sure you can actually read.”

Johnnie just laughed. “Well, fellas, while you’re wasting your time writing letters and studying books,” he said, slapping the workbook with his free hand, “I’m putting mine to good use to become a better pilot, according to my own patented training system. Now, are you interested in playing, yes or no?”

“I’ll pass. When I finish my letter, I’m going to study,” I replied.

“I think I’ll play some craps,” Jim said. “He might just have something there. No other reason I can think of for him to be any good in the air.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Johnnie chirped. He tossed
the book to me and I caught it. “As for you, don’t wear your eyes out studying, and send your mother our
love
!”

“Yeah, right.”

I climbed back up onto my bunk. I smoothed out the paper, which had gotten a little crinkled in the exchange. The very bottom of the sheet had also been ripped. I thought about starting over, but that seemed like too much effort. It was best just to continue with this one.

Of course, with things going the way they are in the war, even though I’m eager to begin training as an accountant, university will probably have to wait a little longer
.

There was no need to say any more, because we’d argued about it often enough. She also knew that by summer, she wouldn’t be able to stop me from enlisting. Besides, I really couldn’t let her sidetrack me. My only hope of all of this
never
being discovered was to continue to write to her from overseas next year, after telling her I’d enlisted on my eighteenth birthday. She wouldn’t have to know that I’d really enlisted a whole eleven months earlier. And even though by then I’d be flying in combat, I’d just pretend that I was still in basic training. And on the bright side, she’d be less worried thinking I was still in training and not yet flying missions. So, in a strange way, I was lying to make it easier for her. That was how I had to think about it.

Back to the correspondence. A letter from Chip had arrived and it contained the sort of tidbits that would keep the boarding school illusion alive. Even better, his letter contained correspondence that my mother had sent to me at school, so I was able to work some realistic details into my letter to her.

I don’t know if you had a bad storm last week, but we certainly had one in Toronto. A couple of trees on the school grounds were hit. One was split right down the middle as if it had been struck by a giant with an axe. The lightning and thunder were so bad that it practically shook me out of bed
.

I was so sad to hear about Mrs. Henderson. She led a long life and I know she’ll be remembered fondly by all who knew her. Please send on my condolences and my regrets at not being able to attend the funeral
.

I said a silent thanks to Chip.

He’d also written to tell me that he was slogging away in school and getting the best marks of his life. Maybe what our teachers had always said was right: we were a bad influence on each other. He also promised, though, that come early December, he’d stir up enough to keep himself stuck in the mailroom.