Flygirl (21 page)

“Terrific.” I fold my hands in my lap. They're getting cold at this high altitude. One thing at a time, Ida Mae. “First, we've got to pull this mission off.”

“You worried?” Patsy asks.

“Why should she be? Ida's the best navigator in the flight,” Lily says.

“Not worried,” I admit. “Just ready. I want to graduate so badly I can taste it. Just to say, look at me. Look at all of us. Look at what we've done.”

“Amen,” Patsy says.

“Good luck to all of us.” Lily shakes our hands with such solemnity that we all start to laugh. The flight to Philadelphia is a long one. We settle in and try to get as much rest as we can. No more energy spent on personal demons. The flight to California will be long and strictly solo. Just a girl and her machine.

 

The Valiant is an everyman plane, a basic trainer every WASP checks out on as an intermediate. Flying one of these across country will be like making the trip with an old friend. Twelve planes are lined up in the hangar at Boeing's Pennsylvania factory, just outside of Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is just a smudge in the distance across the ice-crusted river. I'd have liked a chance to see the Liberty Bell, but I'll get plenty of sightseeing from the cockpit over the next few days.

“California, here we come,” Patsy says.

“I can't wait!” Lily exclaims. Neither can I. It'll be warm in California.

We've got our baggy flight suits on under fleece-lined leather coats, with our maps strapped to our right thighs. Flying in February isn't exactly a warm proposition, even with an engine-heated cockpit. A quick briefing with the commanding officer at the plant confirms our orders. These planes are due in California at the Long Beach base by Wednesday. It's Friday morning. The plan is simple—fly as fast and far as you safely can, taking whatever pit stops you need. We'll meet up at designated sleep points along the way, but this isn't a conga line. It's every woman for herself, as long as we're all there by twelve o'clock Wednesday afternoon. And if I know these ladies, we will be.

I do my flight check twice, annoying the engineer.

“Lady, just get on with it. It's a new plane,” he says.

“I know that, mister. And I don't care. This is my first real ferrying job. I'm not going to mess it up just because some 4-F flyboy didn't fuel her up right.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The engineer glares at me. Some of these boys wanted to be pilots and didn't cut the mustard. It must burn him up to see women behind the sticks of these planes. The colored parlor maid inside me wants to duck her head and apologize immediately, and I almost do, but the pilot part of me wins. I know I'm right. I'm following procedure. I take a deep breath. Being colored, female, or both—none of that's going to help me fly this plane safely to California. We finish the rest of the flight check in near silence. As it turns out, the plane is in perfect order. But now we both know it's true.

I take a last trip to the restroom. There won't be another bathroom break until Ohio, tonight. My mouth is dry, but a sip of water now could cost me a whole hour down the line.

“Maybe I'll see you girls at the pit stop in Cleveland,” I say to everyone.

“Cleveland?” Patsy calls from her own cockpit. “I'll be in Gary, Indiana, by the time you make Cleveland.”

I check my fuel gauge. It's full to the top. “You're on.”

Patsy laughs. I pull my goggles on and taxi out onto the runway.

I never do get to see the Liberty Bell. Up here, above the airfield, I'm still too far away from the city to see anything properly except for my own frozen breath, let alone a bell in some building. But I don't mind the cold or missing the city sights. There's plenty enough to see from where I'm sitting. I circle the airstrip and test my wings. This bird is one sweet plane. With a last look back, I see the other WASP trainees taking off, one by one, like silver geese into the sky, and we fly west, away from the rising sun.

 

“BT-13 to base, BT-13 to base. Permission to land.”

The Cleveland tower controller's voice crackles over my radio. “BT-13? Base to BT-13, where are you?”

I waggle my wings. “Southwest of the tower, Base. Over.”

The fellow on the other end of the line sounds exasperated. “Base to BT-13. Sorry, but that's a military name and all I see is a military plane. Are you in trouble? Over.”

I have to stop myself from laughing. Our squadron leader, Audrey, warned us this could happen. “No, sir. I
am
that military aircraft. WASP trainee Ida Mae Jones, requesting permission to land. I need to use the facilities.”

“A dame?” The controller does nothing to hide his surprise. “We've heard about you girls. Sure, come on down! I mean . . . permission to land granted. Take runway three, just north of you.”

I come into a landing smooth as ice cream and hardly wait for the wheels to stop rolling before I throw back the cockpit hood. Cleveland is my first pit stop, after all. I land with barely enough time to run to the first toilet I can find. Flying in layers of clothing to keep warm has its disadvantages.

“Excuse me. Where's the ladies' room?”

The three soldiers that greet me on the tarmac blink in astonishment. “It really is a girl,” one of them says.

“Yes, a girl that needs to use the latrine. Where is it?” Funny how having to go makes you lose your manners.

“Over there,” the second soldier says, pointing to a Quonset hut a few yards away. He hesitates. “But it's not a ladies' room. I mean, we don't have a place for girls.”

I stare at him. “Then it will just have to do.”

It turns out, except for decor and cleanliness, men's toilets work just the same as women's. I wash my hands as quickly as I can, resisting the urge to splash some water on my lips. Patsy's probably having a steak dinner in Indiana by now.

“Thanks, boys.” I wave as I run past my three soldiers and climb back into my plane.

“Permission to take off,” I radio to the tower.

“It's that dame again,” I hear the radio controller whisper. “Yes, BT-13. Permission to taxi. Have a safe trip.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I take off into the blue sky again.

 

Two days later, weather and wind have blown the twelve of us as far as Nebraska.

I look at my charts for the umpteenth time. “We fly through the night, stop once to fuel, and we can still make it on time.”

The other girls stare at me.

“It's the only way we're going to make it.”

“Like hell,” one of the girls says. Her name is Mandy, a brunette with short curly hair and a pixie smile. She's not smiling now. “At least truckers have caffeine. We can't even risk a cup of coffee in these boats.”

“And that, ladies, is how the army will get rid of us,” Patsy says. “Men will always be able to fly farther than women.”

“Stupid relief tubes,” Lily says with a frown. Relief tubes are just what they sound like, tubes equipped for men to allow them to “relieve” themselves in mid-flight. They don't exactly work for women. And so we stretch our bladders, go thirsty, and make do the best we can. Rumor has it that somewhere around Avenger Field, there's a map of every ladies' room from sea to shining sea. Top secret, of course. Those are the first places they'll look if a WASP ever goes missing.

We all laugh, and the tension of the last few days ebbs just a little. Patsy puts her map away and salutes the group of us. “Saddle up, girls. It's time to stick it to them, right in the relief tube.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Be good, Jonesy.”

“You too, Pats. I'll see you in Long Beach.” She smiles and waves goodbye. Steely-eyed as the dawn, we climb into our planes, ready to do our best.

They tell you all kinds of things about night flying when you're training in the Link. They tell you about star navigation if your instruments should fail and how to find your landmarks in the dark. They talk about the disorientation of the few minutes just before sunrise and sunset, when you don't know how the light of the sun will hit you. It can be blinding and deadly.

What they don't tell you is how to fight your body's natural urge to shut down as the day closes. They don't tell you how to keep from going stir-crazy with nothing but you and the occasional burst of radio information to keep you company. My mind drifts back to different things—our upcoming graduation, which commission to request. Thomas.

Mama risked the trip out to Sweetwater to tell me he'd gone missing. He could be dead or worse. Stories coming out of Europe tell me it can all be a lot worse than I ever imagined the world could be. I can't stand to think of it, knowing there's nothing I can do. Maybe I should have gone home with Mama right then and there. But if I finish this mission, I'll be sending Thomas one more plane to fight for him in the Pacific. I cast around the sky but see no sign of the other WASP. Even if I'm the only one on schedule, this is one plane that will get to him on time.

My thoughts turn to my mother and little Abel, Grandy and his tractor parts, Jolene and her dancing shoes. I miss them terribly when I think of them, so I try not to. It's a mistake, I know. Lily invited me to her wedding after the war. But right now the war seems like it will never end. We're losing ground overseas, and the enemy is gaining. Then again, if it all ends tomorrow, so does my reason for passing. Like Cinderella after midnight, I go back to being colored. And
that
Ida Mae Jones, the real Ida Mae Jones, could never go to Lily's wedding as anything other than a serving maid. I'll never have another dance with Walt Jenkins. I'll never know what it's like to be more than just his trainee. I won't even be able to tell people back home I was in the WASP. Or I could make the other choice and stay white. No home, no family. Simple as that.

It makes me wonder what we are fighting for. But then I have to shake my head to clear it and remember. Thomas. I am fighting to bring Thomas home.

The sun rises behind me, lighting up the California landscape as I come in over the San Gabriel Mountains. The phrase “purple mountain majesties” takes on new meaning for me. It's beautiful. As the morning grows bright and warm, I feel the cobwebs of worry clear from my mind.

“California.” My voice sounds funny, my throat and tongue are too dry. But the word is sweet. “California. California. Woo!” I let out a whoop that cracks before it's over, but it is a whoop nonetheless. I've made it. I've made it. Wednesday morning dawns clear but windy. I don't care. I rub my eyes and take a closer look at my maps, pointing the way to Long Beach.

I land to little fanfare. I am the first of the WASP to arrive. The commanding officer sends for me, and we exchange the paperwork for the airplane.

“These will be camouflaged, packed up, and shipped overseas within the week,” the CO tells me with the pride of a man who loves his operation.

“It's been nice doing business with you.” We shake hands, and I return to the tarmac to see the arrival of the rest of the girls.

Lily and Mandy land an hour later, almost at the same time. “We both got lost over Arizona,” Lily tells me. “I saw Mandy circling and caught up to her. We'd still be out there if not for each other.”

Three more girls come in, then five. Eventually, everyone is accounted for, except for Patsy.

“It's almost twelve o'clock,” I say. “Another few minutes and she'll be officially overdue.”

“Well, that doesn't affect the rest of us, does it?” Mandy asks. “It's not a group grade. Is it?”

Lily frowns. “I'd be more worried about our classmate, if I were you,” she says angrily.

I
am
worried. “Where could she be?”

“Anywhere between here and Nebraska,” Lily says. She starts to pull out her map and stops.

“Remember how late she was on her flight test with Martin?”

I do remember. How worried we had been and for nothing. “You're right. She's always got a reason. We should just relax and wait.” But this time, Happy Martin's not riding shotgun with Patsy, slowing her down. Anxiously, we wait on the bench outside the ready room, scanning the sky for any sign of her.

At exactly one minute to noon, a silver BT-13 appears in the sky over the control tower.

I wave up to the plane, unsure if Patsy can see us. The wind has picked up since we've been here. Patsy's Valiant buffets a little in the wind.

She waggles her wings. By the looks of it, her permission to land is granted. Patsy circles the base in her beautiful machine and comes in for a landing.

As the wheels touch down, a spray of fluid arcs out from the plane, catching the sun in a rainbow of fuel and engine oil. The plane skips back into the air, up, then down, hard. The fuselage smashes against the asphalt ground, showering sparks into the sky like angry fireflies.

“Patsy!” We shout her name and run toward the crumpled plane, still skidding full tilt down the airstrip.

A siren starts whining in the distance and a bell signals the arrival of a fire truck. I pray that it won't be needed.

Patsy never stops. Her plane skids right to the end of the runway, where it collides with a lone outbuilding and bursts into flames.

I feel the heat of the explosion on my face. This shouldn't be happening. It can't be.

The fire trucks are there. I can't run any closer. The flames are too hot, too high. Lily's hand is on my shoulder, and we stop and stare, watching Patsy's plane burn.