In Perfect Time (10 page)

His gaze hopped between the gauges, the landscape, the Zero closing in. Pain stabbed his taut eardrums.

“Now!” Elroy shoved his column forward.

So did Roger. Bright tracer fire streaked past the windshield, and he instinctively hunched low in his seat. A series of thuds shook the plane down its length. “Check the gauges.”

“He passed us again. Making another turn,” Whitaker said.

“All right.” Sweat dribbled down his temples. He aimed the plane over the ridge, toward the valley. More like a canyon. Oh, swell. This could be his stupidest idea ever. Or his last.
Lord,
stop
me
if
you’ve
got
a
better
idea.

“Manifold pressure, hydraulic fluid pressure, oil pressure—
all normal.” Elroy wiped his hand on his trouser leg, then back to the controls. “Looks like we didn’t take any damage.”

Yet.

The canyon ahead, below. No more than half a mile across. His ears popped, sound rushed into the void, and he sighed in relief.

“He’s coming! Eight o’clock high.”

From the left. Roger plunged over the ridge, down another hundred feet, banked to the left.

Elroy cried out, and Roger bit his tongue, tasted blood. He leveled off, the wings wobbling. What on earth was he doing? Flying in a valley? Wooded hills whooshed by on both sides.

A bend—Roger slipped to the right. “Whitaker! Where is he?”

Choice cuss words singed the interphone. “Knocked me over, you numbskull.”

“Where is he?”

Three pops along the top of the fuselage, muffled screams from the back. Roger zigged to one side, zagged to the other.

More cussing from Whitaker. “Passed over us. He’s coming down behind us, into the canyon. We’ve got wounded in the back.”

“That has to wait. First we have to get out of this alive.” That would require fancy flying.

He followed the narrow river below.

“He’s closing in, opening fire.”

“All right. Hold on.” Roger wiggled the control column back and forth, making the plane hop, worked the rudder pedals to make her slip side to side.

“Watch the right!” Elroy cried.

Roger skidded away, but a shimmy ran through the right wing.

“Lost the wingtip.”

His breath jerked around more than the plane. He’d lose
a lot more than a wingtip if the Zero didn’t break off the attack. How far were they from British territory?

Roger mixed up his pattern. Up, right, down, left, right, left, up, down. Had to throw off the pilot’s aim, had to avoid the hills, had to follow the river.

A cliff rose before him. The canyon was narrowing. He couldn’t make the turn.

“Everyone hold on tight. I’m pulling up.” Roger’s fingers kneaded the control wheel. If only he could wipe off the sweat. He focused hard on the cliff. Timing had to be just right.

“Cooper . . .” Elroy’s voice came out in a low, warning growl.

“Ready?” It loomed closer, closer, rocks and vines and skinny waterfalls. “Now!”

Roger yanked the control wheel to his chest. The engines whined. Something screeched along the undercarriage. More screams in the back.

“One, two, three. Level off.” He pushed the control column forward, found himself a good hundred feet above the treetops. The plane shuddered in protest at the rough treatment.

Where was the thunderous collision behind him? If he were in a movie, the Zero would have slammed into the cliff. “Where is—”

A kick to the rear. Metal scraped on metal. The C-47 tipped forward.

Roger cried out, pulled back on the controls. They shook in his hands, fought him hard. Trees reached up to him, branches whacked the wings, the undercarriage. “Lord, help me!”

The land sloped away beneath. He gained some altitude, edged over the next hill, and mowed off another treetop.

Roger gave the plane more throttle. “Whitaker? What happened?”

“Whitaker got knocked out,” Pettas said, “when the Zero hit us.”

“The Zero? He hit us? Where is he?”

“Can’t see him. Turn a bit, let me see.”

“Turn?” Toward the enemy?

“Yeah. I’m looking through the astrodome, don’t see nothing. Wait. There’s smoke. Go back, Coop. Go back.”

Smoke? Roger exchanged a glance with Elroy. “Let’s have a look.”

Mom always said curiosity would kill him. Today she might be right. He turned the wheel to the right and applied right rudder pressure. The plane tipped in the correct direction but slipped to the inside of the turn. “Uh-oh. We lost rudder control.”

“Or we lost the rudder.”

Roger puffed out a ragged breath. The Zero must have sheared off part of the vertical stabilizer on the tail. At least he still had elevator control. If the horizontal stabilizers had been hit, he might not have been able to pull up after the collision.

“Holy smoke!” Elroy pointed, then let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry about the pun.”

Roger peered past his copilot. It might not be holy but it was certainly smoke, a gray plume drifting up from the jungle behind them. “He must have crashed.”

A slow smile cracked Elroy’s round face. “I think we’re the first cargo plane in history to down an enemy fighter.”

Roger laughed, a strangled sound. “Might be right.”

“Let’s go home.”

“I agree. Pettas, you got a heading for us?”

“Not yet. Got wounded back here.”

Roger clamped his lips together. “Okay. Get us a heading, would you? Elroy, head southwest in the meantime. I’ll check on the passengers.”

He unfastened his seat belt and stood. His knees felt loose, and his hands shook. After he drew a deep breath, he headed to the radio room. Pettas leaned over charts on his desk, and
Whitaker sat on the floor, holding a bandage to his bloody head.

“You okay, Whit?”

He grimaced. “Hurts, but I’m alive.”

Roger patted him on the shoulder and went through the doorway into the cabin. Some of the passengers were out of their seats, helping others. “How many are hurt?”

“Six.” A blond officer pressed a dressing to a wound on another man’s shoulder. “None seriously. We located the medical kit.”

“Good.”

A thin captain wrapped a dressing around his calf. “I say, that was quite a show, Lef-tenant.” Why on earth did the Brits insert an
F
into
lieutenant
?

Roger knelt to assist him with the bandage. “You know us Yanks. Always showing off.”

“We need to instruct you in geography. This is India, not the Wild West.”

Mischief turned up the corners of Roger’s mouth. “India. That’s why we were playing cowboys and Indians.”

One dark eyebrow rose. “I see your navigator studied with Columbus and confused the East and the West Indies.”

Roger laughed, tucked in the tail of the bandage, and went to check on the next patient.

What he wouldn’t give right now for an evac team’s big medical chest, full of medications and supplies. And what he wouldn’t give for a flight nurse, full of expertise and cheer. Maybe a green-eyed redhead.

Roger grimaced and returned to the cockpit, since the able-bodied passengers had the first aid under control.

Pettas looked up as Roger passed through the radio room. “Got our coordinates, our heading, relayed them to Mike.”

“Good work.” Roger clapped him on the back, then settled into his seat, replaced his headset, and took the controls.

Once again, Kay’s face flashed through his mind. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her today? Even after the ordeal he’d gone through, the urge to pray for her swelled inside him.

He obeyed.

12

Pomigliano Airfield

“Stop fussing over me.” Kay pushed down the blanket Georgie was trying to tuck under her chin. She didn’t want to go to bed, even after today’s drama. Thank goodness a military policeman had been stationed in the village near the beach grotto. He’d arrested Hal, taken statements, and called in Major Guilford, the commanding officer of the 802nd MAETS.

Georgie spun away to her own cot and pulled a box from underneath. “Mama and Daddy sent a Hershey bar in my last package. They’d want you to have it.”

“And the tea’s almost ready.” Mellie peered at the tin pot on the little cylindrical Coleman stove.

Kay threw off the blanket and sat up cross-legged in her pajamas. “Stop fussing and listen to me.”

Georgie pressed the chocolate bar into her bandaged hand. “We’re nurses. Fussing is what we do. After what you went through this morning, you deserve some fussing.”

“I can’t believe they won’t press charges.” Mellie swirled the pot. “Hal can get away with what he did because there weren’t any witnesses, but a fine man like Hutch isn’t allowed to fraternize with Georgie because he’s a noncommissioned
officer—and I’m so glad you two are back together, by the way.”

“So am I.” Georgie peeled open the Hershey bar in Kay’s hand. “But that Hal. He should at least be charged with conduct unbecoming an officer.”

Kay didn’t care about the charges. Hal had been reprimanded, scared out of his sleazy skull, and thoroughly warned by Major Guilford. He’d never bother her again.

“Here you go, honey.” Mellie held out a tin cup of tea.

Kay’s sigh came all the way up from her bandaged feet. “No chocolate. No tea. All I want is the truth.”

“The truth?” Mellie glanced at Georgie, then back to Kay. “Do you think we’ve been lying to—”

“No.” This morning, recklessness flung her into Hal’s groping hands, and now a burning, driving recklessness propelled her. “Tell me the truth about God. Right now.”

Mellie sank onto Georgie’s cot. “About . . .”

“God?” Georgie sat beside the brunette.

“Yes, and I want the truth. No more lies. I’m sick of lies.”

“Lies?” Mellie turned the cup of tea in her hands.

Kay thrust her jaw forward. Receiving the truth meant divulging the truth. “I read Job.”

“Job? In the Bible?” Georgie’s blue eyes widened.

Her past wriggled inside her, desperate to stay in the dark, desperate to come to light. She fixed a hard stare on her friends. “I’m only telling you this so you’ll understand. I don’t want pity, only the truth.”

“Okay.” Mellie leaned a bit closer, and her eyebrows inched together.

Kay tossed aside the chocolate bar, pulled her musette bag from under her cot, and slid out Roger’s Bible. “My father’s a preacher. One of those charlatan traveling tent preachers who cons everyone out of money then skedaddles to the next town.”

“Oh my. I—”

“He considers himself a modern-day Job, with a past full of suffering and a present full of blessings because he’s so righteous.” Kay used the ribbon to open the Bible. “Like Job, he has three daughters, Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch. I’m Kezia. Bet you didn’t know that.”

One corner of Mellie’s mouth tilted up. “I’m the last person to comment on unusual names.”

“Is that right, Philomela?” Kay allowed a quick smile.

“Go on.” Georgie leaned forward on her knees.

She smoothed open the Bible with her good hand, her fingers brushing Roger’s handwritten notes. “They sing for the tent meetings, the whole family. Beautiful voices all of them, except me. Father said I was cursed because I was evil.”

“Heavens!”

Kay glared at Georgie. “I said no pity.”

She held up both hands. “All right. No pity. None at all.”

“That’s better.” Kay hated the thickness in her throat. If her friends dissolved, she’d dissolve too, and that wouldn’t do. “Father said if I were good, God would redeem me and make me able to sing. But no matter how hard I tried to be good, I still couldn’t sing. Father said I was irredeemable, evil, God hated me.”

“Oh, honey, no.” Georgie’s eyes glistened. “God loves you.”

Kay jabbed her finger on the page. “Father never let us read the Bible, said we couldn’t understand it. Now I know why. Because he lied. All those verses he quoted—they’re not from the Lord, they’re from Job’s friends and they’re lies.”

“Oh.” Mellie covered her mouth. “No wonder you didn’t want anything to do with God.”

“I want the truth.” She riffled the pages. “But it’s too much. It’s too thick. I don’t know where to start.”

Georgie scooted over to Kay’s cot and flipped toward the New Testament. “Let’s start with—”

“Wait.” Mellie’s dark eyes scrutinized. “What exactly do you want to know?”

The swelling in Kay’s throat rose, froze her tongue, and stung her eyes. She swallowed it down. “Is it true?” Her voice came out disgustingly watery. “Is it true anyone can be redeemed? Even someone like me?”

Georgie rested her hand on Kay’s arm. “It’s true. Jesus died for you.”

“That’s impossible. Father—” She scrunched up her mouth. Father lied. He lied. “My father said Jesus only died for the good people, not people like me.”

Georgie turned the pages.

“Romans 5:8,” Mellie said.

“That’s where I’m going.” Georgie flicked a finger under her eye and wiped it on her skirt.

Oh, swell. Now her friends were crying? How on earth could Kay keep it together? “What’s it say?”

“I can quote it,” Mellie said. “But I want you to see it with your own eyes.”

“Here.” Georgie pointed. “Read this out loud.”

Kay found the verse. It must have been one of Roger’s favorites. Tons of notes in especially small handwriting filled the margin. “ ‘God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ ”

“Do you see, honey?”

The words swam in her mind. While we were yet sinners? Christ died for—for the sinners as well as the good? Anger loosened her throat. “This was in here all along? Why didn’t he tell me? Why’d he lie to me?”

“I don’t know.” Mellie’s voice was soft. “But I do know it breaks God’s heart. Did you read all of Job? Did you see God’s anger toward Job’s friends? That’s how he feels about your father’s lies.”

Georgie put her arm around Kay’s shoulders. “God loves you, honey. He wants you to come to him.”

“But I’m not . . .” Her thoughts swirled into a mess. Roger said he’d been a sinner, really bad, and God redeemed him. Was it true? Could she be redeemed? “I’m not good enough.”