Or Even Eagle Flew Page 6

  Hot tea (A.E. would rather have had coffee, but what could you do?) and greasy food helped the aspirins blunt her hangover. Amy also looked more lifelike when she walked out to the Lysander. “This was more interesting than I thought it would be when I landed here,” she said, scrambling up into the cockpit.

  “I don’t know what you could mean,” A.E. answered, deadpan. They both laughed. If A.E.’s chuckles sounded self-conscious in her own ears, she had good enough reason for that. She hadn’t looked for what had happened to happen, either. It didn’t feel sinful, the way she’d half wondered if it would—more just one of the crazy things war could bring on. She continued, “When the Germans let up, if they ever do, we’ll go into London and browbeat the RAF.”

  “If you want to. You don’t have to.” Amy was less inclined to rock the boat than A.E. was. Maybe that was the difference between England and the USA.

  “I want to,” A.E. said firmly. If I’m still alive went through her head. She gave a kind of mental shrug. She worried about that much less than she’d ever thought she would. You couldn’t brood. You’d buy a plot for sure if you did.

  “Back to business as usual for now. Stand well clear of the prop, if you please—you know the drill,” Amy said before closing the cockpit. A.E. nodded and stepped away. She did know the drill, and knew a spinning prop would take your head off like a guillotine.

  The Lysander’s engine rumbled to life. It was a half-pint next to a Spitfire’s powerplant, but plenty noisy enough for all ordinary use. Just before Amy started taxiing away, she blew A.E. a kiss. A.E. returned it. That was probably against regulations, too, unless it hadn’t occurred to the regulation writers that two flyers might do such a thing.

  After a sedate takeoff run, the Army co-op plane hopped into the air and buzzed away. A.E. watched it go for a little while, then looked around. The base at Middle Wallop seemed duller than it had before.

  As she slowly walked back to her tent, Andy Mamedoff came up to her and said, “Boy, you know all kinds of interesting people, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I know you, for instance.” A.E. looked him up and down.

  “Ha!” he snorted. “I mean people who’ve done stuff, people other people’ve heard of. You know—people like you.”

  “Oh, cut it out. The only thing I want to do is shoot down more Germans and not let them get me.”

  “Amen! You listening, God? You better be listening!” Andy raised his eyes to the heavens, as if to see whether God was paying attention.

  A.E. didn’t quite get shot down that afternoon, but her Spit got shot up. As Andy had before her, she came to appreciate the virtues of an armored seat back. Hers stopped machine-gun rounds, not cannon shells, so she didn’t get anywhere near so badly bruised as he had. Even so, she knew she’d fly a different plane tomorrow. This one needed some patching up.

  So did 609 Squadron. One of the other pilots had less luck or skill than she did, which meant the squadron had another slot to fill. Flight Lieutenant Darley held his head in his hands at dinner that evening. “I hate writing these letters of condolence,” he said to no one in particular. “‘So sorry, my dear, but you’ll never see your husband again. He was clever, he was brave, he’s dead.’ Ralph had only been married six months. His wife is expecting, I think.”

  Again, A.E. wondered whether the RAF or the Luftwaffe would run out of fighter pilots first. That was the only thing that mattered in the war right now. If the RAF ran out, the Luftwaffe would knock London flat and the Wehrmacht would invade. If the Luftwaffe couldn’t stand the gaff … England had some kind of chance, anyhow.

  The Germans kept trying to smash London and take the RAF out of the fight till the fifteenth. Then, grudgingly, their daylight attacks tapered off. A.E. noticed more slowly than it happened. She noticed much more that she was weary unto death and half stunned at having survived when so many didn’t.

  Sometime toward the end of the month, she sent Amy Johnson a wire suggesting they meet in London to beard the RAF in its den. The reply took a couple of days to reach her. She wondered how far around the country her telegram had chased Amy before finally catching her.

  They needed some more finagling after the agreement, too. Finding a day when they could both get off duty wasn’t easy. Easy or not, they managed. “Yes, you can go,” Darley told A.E. “You ask for so little, it sometimes worries me.”

  “There’s a war on, sir,” she said.

  He managed a laugh of sorts. “Yes, I’d noticed. Go on, before anything happens that really reminds me of it.”

  She’d been in London before the Blitz began. Stepping off the train now was like stepping into another world, or perhaps into one of the shabbier parts of hell. Piles of bricks where buildings had been, empty lots where buildings had been, buildings with chunks bitten out of them, the stink of sour smoke, the fainter but unmistakable stink of death some time past but not yet uncovered and cleaned up … The greatest city the world had ever known had taken the greatest pounding the world had ever seen.

  And the Londoners remained cheekily defiant. “’E’ll ’ave to do better than that if ’e wants to knock us off-kilter,” A.E. heard one cloth-capped workman tell another on her bus ride to RAF headquarters.

  Amy waited outside. A.E. was in trousers; Amy wore a skirt. Their uniforms had other differences that marked one of them as the genuine article and the other as that lukewarm thing, an auxiliary.

  “We’ll get in trouble,” Amy said as they walked into the not too battered building.

  “The Germans want to kill me. What can the RAF do that’s worse?” A.E. asked.

  All Amy said was, “You’ll find out.”

  The first thing the RAF tried to do was throw her out without listening to her. She said no. She kept saying no. The flunkies trying to get rid of her were underofficers. She had on her pilot officer’s uniform, with her pilot’s wings prominently displayed. The sergeant-bureaucrats finally booted her up to a flight lieutenant.

  “You’re being unreasonable,” he said.

  “No, sir,” she said. “I’ve shot down two German fighters, probably damaged some others, and certainly scared bombers away. Amy Johnson is at least as good a pilot as I am. She’s younger and likely faster. Why shouldn’t she have a chance to defend her country?”

  “She’s a woman,” he said, as if to an idiot.

  “So am I … sir. Planes don’t care who flies them. Bullets don’t care who shoots them. It’s not about men and women. It’s about good pilots and bad ones. Amy Johnson’s as good as you’re gonna get. Years ago, in Los Angeles, I made a speech where I said women ought to be called up to serve alongside men. I still think so.”

  “You’re an American. You don’t understand how these things work.”

  “You’re here. We’re here. Hitler’s over there.” A.E. pointed south, past the English Channel toward France. “Amy can help keep him over there and not let him come over here. What else do I need to understand?”

  He turned red. Then he picked up a telephone. When he put it down again, he said, “I’m sending you to Air Marshal Douglas’s office, on the third floor. If he wants to listen to you, he will. If he wants to clap you in irons, he’ll do that.” By the way he sounded, he hoped the air marshal would.

  A.E. saluted. “Thank you, sir.” She ignored his tone.

  As they went up the stairs, Amy said, “You’re wonderful. You’re quite insane, but you’re wonderful.”

  “You say the sweetest things,” A.E. answered. They both laughed.

  They had to cool their heels in Sholto Douglas’s outer office before being ushered into his presence. He was nearing fifty, a bit fleshy, but with a crack fighter pilot’s deadly stare. The first thing he said was, “I can give you five minutes.” The next was, “I don’t like Americans one bit. You’re an undisciplined lot, and you revel in it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” A.E. said again, which made him blink. Then she told him the same thing she’d told the flight lieutenant downsta
irs.

  He let her finish. Then he said, “No. Get out.”

  She saluted again and left, Amy following in her wake. As soon as the door closed behind them, Amy said, “I told you that would happen.”

  “Yeah, you did,” A.E. agreed cheerfully. “Now we go talk to the newspapers.”

  Amy looked worried. “He really may clap us in irons for that.”

  “How can he? He never ordered us not to do it.”

  “Only because he never in a million years dreamt we would.”

  “How about that?” A.E. grinned. She’d left instead of arguing with Sholto Douglas or warning him what she had in mind precisely so he wouldn’t think to command her to keep her mouth shut.

  Fleet Street had taken bomb damage. A.E. wondered if there was any part of London that hadn’t. It was a big, big city, but the Germans had dropped a lot of explosives on it. The papers were very much in business despite everything. Some of the reporters were women, too, taking the place of men who’d put on one uniform or another. They seemed most interested in the story A.E. and Amy Johnson told.

  “If I can get this past my editor, it’ll make a headline,” one of them told A.E. “You may end up in hot water, though.”

  She shrugged. “Some Jerry may have shot me down by then, too. Next to that, what have I got to worry about? And all Amy’s asking for is the chance to let the Germans shoot at her.”

  “Are all Americans barking mad?” the reporter asked.

  “Nah.” A.E. shook her head. “Just most of us.”

  Before she headed off to the train station from which she’d go back to Middle Wallop, she squeezed Amy. Anyone seeing them on the street would think they were two friends saying goodbye. Which they were, but …

  “Be careful,” Amy said, and then, knowing that was foolish, “Be as careful as you can.”

  “I’d still be in Indiana if I did that. And now you’re the one who wants to volunteer for the chance to get killed.”

  “It’s my country, at least,” Amy said.

  “Right this minute, honey, it’s everybody’s country.”

  Chapter Eleven

  She flew again the next day. The Germans kept coming, though not in such numbers as before. The bomber pilots were getting leery; sometimes they’d order their loads of death dropped and scoot for France as soon as they saw RAF planes. Not all of them were such Aryan supermen that they didn’t want to live.

  When she landed after her second sortie, she found Flight Lieutenant Darley standing on the grass waiting for her. As soon as she climbed out of her Spit, he waved her over to him. “What have you done to get Marshal Douglas’s knickers in a twist?” he demanded.

  “Sir, I told him woman pilots like Amy Johnson might make better combat flyers than men without their training and experience.”

  “And how did he take that?”

  “Not real well, sir.”

  “And did you just tell him this and then trot straight back here to Middle Wallop?”

  A.E. hesitated. She hated to lie, but found herself tempted this time. In the end, she didn’t. “No, sir. I told a few reporters the same thing.”

  Darley raised an eyebrow an eighth of an inch. An American officer would have been jumping up and down and screaming. The Englishman contented himself with murmuring, “You do like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

  “Sir, I’m flying a Spitfire. How many more chances can I take?”

  “A point. Well, you’re about to find out. You’re ordered into London tomorrow. I wish you weren’t. We’re also going to lose our other three Yanks to 71 Squadron; the Eagles are finally going to fly together in squadron strength. I thought you’d be going along with them.”

  “So did I, sir.” A.E. bit down hard on the inside of her lower lip. She’d got as close to Andy and Shorty and Red as you could in a few months’ time. She wanted to stay with them. But she’d done what she’d done for Amy … and now she might have to pay the price.

  The Americans had a farewell bash that night. The men got snockered. A.E. didn’t. She’d need her wits about her in the morning. Red said, “If Amy can fly the way you do, the Jerries better worry.” Word got around fast—or maybe they’d seen some of the London papers. A.E. had by then. No wonder Sholto Douglas was annoyed at her. Some of them accused him of being next thing to a traitor.

  She rode the train into the capital, then made her way to RAF HQ. This time, she didn’t have to convince a sniffy flight lieutenant she deserved to see a senior officer. As soon as she gave her name, she was whisked up to Air Marshal Douglas’s office, not quite under armed guard but not far from it.

  When the aide who brought her in left, he closed the door behind him. Whatever Sholto Douglas had to say to her, he’d say it in privacy. He fixed her with a glare no doubt meant to put her in fear. She’d seen it done better. “Who gave you leave to blather to the newspapers?” he barked.

  “No one, sir,” A.E. said. “But nobody told me I couldn’t, either.”

  “When you fly a mission, does your squadron commander order you not to shoot down the planes on your own side? You’re assumed to have some small amount of sense on your own, you know.”

  A.E. stood mute.

  When the air marshal realized she wasn’t going to say anything, he clapped a dramatic hand to his forehead. Again, A.E. had seen better renditions. He went on, “Have you any notion how much trouble you’ve caused me these past two days? Any notion at all?”

  “I was trying to help, sir,” she said, which was true … up to a point.

  Douglas rolled his eyes. “God save us all if you take it in your mind to harm! I’ve had reporters calling. I’ve had female-rights personages calling. I’ve had MPs calling, including that Robertson crackpot who’s responsible for sneaking so many foreigners into the RAF.”

  He didn’t say so many stinking foreigners, but his tone did the job for him. “Amy Johnson is as English as anyone, sir,” A.E. replied. “She’s a better pilot than almost anybody, too. Will you run her through OTU and let her help her country?”

  “I’ve been ordered to do so, with her and certain other female pilots.” Douglas spat out the words one by one, as if they tasted bad. He fixed her with another glare. “Which brings me to you. I have not been given any orders in your particular case, but allowed to use my own discretion.”

  “Sir.” A.E. stood at attention—stood to attention, they said over here. No matter what he did, no matter how much it hurt, she was damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of showing anything.

  “You are a bloody fool of a woman. You are a bloody fool of a Yank. You are bloody undisciplined and bloody insubordinate. And I am going to do the worst thing in the world I can think of to do to you.”

  “Sir,” she repeated woodenly.

  “I am not going to send you home and let you be a martyr. I am not going to waste time and effort court-martialing you. You’ve already cost the RAF far too much bad publicity. Oh, no! I’m going to do much worse than that.”

  “Sir?” A.E. said yet again. This time, though, she couldn’t keep a bit of curiosity from her voice.

  Sholto Douglas took what sounded like savage satisfaction in explaining, “I am ordering you to 71 Squadron. You bloody Yanks can have your bloody Eagle Squadron. Bound to be best any way one looks at it. At least we’ll know all of you hooligans are in one place.”

  “Yes, sir.” The air marshal would have known something was wrong had A.E. shrieked laughter in his face. Fool that he was, he’d given her exactly what she wanted. She wondered what he would have said if she’d come back with Please don’t throw me in the briar patch, sir! It likely would have flown straight over his head. The Uncle Remus stories were much too American for the likes of him.

  “Your transfer order and travel requisition will be waiting for you downstairs. Get the devil out of here,” Douglas said.

  A.E. saluted and left, still working not to laugh.

  By the time she got to RAF Church Fenton, up in t
he West Riding of Yorkshire, she’d begun to believe Air Marshal Douglas really had done the worst thing he could to her. It was only 150 miles north of London, but it seemed like 1,500.

  The train stopped at Selby, which was still several miles away. Church Fenton was too small to boast a train station. A.E.’s uniform and ten shillings let her hire a bicycle to get her the rest of the way. She wondered whether a car had waited in Selby for Andy, Red, and Shorty.

  Church Fenton, when she finally reached it, might have held a thousand people or might not. She had to ask directions to the air base. She barely understood the local dialect, though the people seemed to follow her well enough. They would have heard American accents in the movies, but broad Yorkshire was almost a foreign language to her.

  At the air base, which lay northeast of the hamlet, she spotted Red Tobin at once. He was walking across bare grass; A.E. saw no airplanes. His face, which had been gloomy, lit up when he spied her pedaling his way. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  She shrugged. “Air Marshal Douglas sent me here.”

  “Boy, he really must hate your guts.”

  “As a matter of fact, he does.”

  Red waved at the empty airstrip. “Here we are, the famous Eagle Squadron. Only thing is, where I come from the eagles have wings. Is it the same with you?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes,” A.E. said. “What are we supposed to be doing here, anyway?”

  He got down on hands and knees and mimed cropping grass like a sheep. A.E. giggled. Red was always up for doing something crazy. As he bounced to his feet again, he pointed east. “The mouth of the Humber’s that way, where it goes into the North Sea. Lots of shipping coming in and going out. Lots of shipping up and down the coast, too. We’re here to drive off the Jerries if they make trouble. And if we ever get planes, of course.”

  “Of course,” she echoed in a hollow voice. Here was Sholto Douglas’s Eagle Squadron, chock full of Americans, stuck in the north end of nowhere to do nothing. “I wish they’d just left us where we were before.”