Silver Wings, Santiago Blue Read online

  “It doesn’t make any difference to me,” Marty said and the others nodded their agreement. “Lead on, Cappy,” she declared, then shivered. “And get us out of this damned wind.”

  “You’re going to have to start watching your language,” Cappy advised her. “They start issuing demerits tomorrow.”

  The barracks were new, hastily constructed frame buildings, covered with cheap clapboard siding, and roofed with asphalt shingles, painted a dingy Army gray. Red dust clung to every groove, evidence of the pervasiveness of the dry Texas soil. A narrow, roofed walkway fronted the long buildings, pairs of double-hung windows alternating with bay doors.

  As they neared the end of a long walkway, Cappy opened the door to an empty bay and the others trooped in behind her. They stopped inside and stared at the austere quarters. The plasterboard walls had received a coat of white paint, but gouges, scuff marks, and telltale yellow water stains warning of a leaky roof took away any sense of newness, although every building on the field, except for one hangar, had been constructed within the last year.

  Six narrow Army cots roughly three feet apart stood one end against the wall in a long line. A thin mattress covered with blue-and-white-striped ticking lay atop each metal-framed bed together with a lumpy-looking pillow in the same material. At the foot of each was a large-sized footlocker, taking up more room on the bare wood floor. A wall switch by the door turned on the overhead light, housed in a dark green metal shade. The windows also sported green window shades, but no curtains.

  “Be it ever so humble”—Marty walked to the cot nearest the end wall to dump her linen on it and set her suitcase on the floor—“there’s no place like home sweet home.”

  Cappy made no response as she chose a cot of her own, taking the next-to-last on the other end. She laid her things on it in advance of settling in. The other three followed suit more slowly.

  “These cots aren’t even as wide as the studio couch in my apartment back home,” Chicago offered in a distant voice.

  “You hadn’t better roll over in your sleep at night or you’ll wind up on the floor,” Aggie predicted. All of them could feel the grittiness of the floor beneath their shoes, that fine dust pulverized into the boards.

  “Mighty little Mary Lynn is the lucky one,” Marty surmised. “These cots are just her size.”

  “I’m not that small,” she protested, claiming the second cot, next to Marty’s.

  But Marty was already investigating the footlocker that would serve as closet and bureau, and paid no attention to the reply. A raspy laugh came from her throat, a brief burst of humor. “Can you imagine that van Valkenburg dame trying to fit her two trunks of clothes into this?”

  Her question was met with faint smiles as each tried to adjust to her spartan environment. All five of them came from different parts of the country, different backgrounds. Yet, the fact that they were at Avenger Field meant it was likely they had all enjoyed a measure of affluence in their lives or they never would have been able to attain a pilot’s license nor accumulate the number of hours necessary to meet the requirements. Flying was an expensive hobby. Few women had the desire to fly and even fewer had the opportunity.

  Choosing to explore her new surroundings rather than unpack, Marty closed her locker and straightened to look around the room. A door was at the other end.

  “Where does that lead?” she asked, already heading down the length of the room to find out.

  “It’s probably the bathroom,” Cappy guessed and followed to see if she was right.

  Marty entered and came to an abrupt stop, startled by the sight of a strange female washing her hands at one of the two white porcelain sinks protruding from the wall, their pipes exposed below. “Sorry, I—” she started to apologize.

  “No problem. I’m finished.” The girl shook the excess water from her hands and reached for a towel to dry them.

  Besides the two sinks, the small, communal lavatory contained two showers and two stalls, lighted again by a ceiling fixture with a green-painted metal disc. Marty noticed the second door and frowned. “I thought this was our bathroom.”

  “It looks as if we have to share it with the girls in the next bay,” Cappy said.

  “That’s what we were told.” The gangly brunette finished drying her hands and cast a wry glance at the limited facilities.

  “You’re kidding!” Marty protested. “Twelve girls sharing one bathroom—and one mirror?”

  “It’s absurd, isn’t it?” the other girl said in a commiserating tone as she walked through the door to the adjoining bay.

  “Absurd isn’t going to be the word for it when tomorrow morning comes and we’re all trying to get in here at the same time.” Marty foresaw the room would become a battleground with each girl fighting for her turn. Cappy didn’t disagree as they re-entered their bay. “Better set your clocks early if you want a crack at the bathroom before the stampede starts in the morning,” she warned the others.

  They were all busy unpacking or getting their beds made, but Marty didn’t feel like tackling hers yet. She sat on her cot and spread her fingers across the blue-striped mattress to test its softness. Mary Lynn Palmer had taken the cot next to hers. Her suitcase lay open atop it while Mary Lynn transferred her clothes to the footlocker. Marty spied the framed photograph lying among some lingerie.

  “Who’s the picture of—your fella?” she asked.

  “You could say that.” Mary Lynn lifted it out to show Marty the photograph. “It’s my husband.”

  Belatedly, Marty noticed the gold wedding band on Mary Lynn’s left hand. The gold-edged frame held a photo of an Army pilot, an officer’s cap sitting jauntily on his head, thick dark hair waving close to his ears. He had on a fleece-lined leather flying jacket, unzipped at the throat, and dark, smiling eyes stared at Marty from a lean, handsome face.

  “Is he ever damned good-looking.” Marty read the inscription scrawled across the bottom of the picture: “To my darling wife, Mary Lynn, All my love always, Your adoring husband, Beau,” then passed the picture back to Mary Lynn. “He flies, too,” she observed.

  “Beau is a B-17 pilot—stationed in England.” She spoke in a very low and soft voice that managed to convey the strength of a deep emotion. “He flies the big four-engine bombers they call the Big Friend.”

  “Lucky guy. I’d love to crawl into the cockpit of one of those someday.” Marty rested her hands on the edge of the cot and casually leaned forward, noticing the caressing way Mary Lynn touched the photograph.

  “Flying is how I met him.” She laughed softly and corrected herself. “Well, that isn’t exactly how I met him. A big air show was held at a field outside of Mobile and my daddy took me to see it. That’s where I saw Beau for the first time and found out he was a flying instructor. I persuaded my daddy to let me take lessons so I could meet him. You have no idea how hard it was to fly an airplane when he was talking in my ear.” Her laughter invited Marty to join in. “After we were married, Beau used to tease me that it was the flying bug that bit me—not cupid’s arrows.”

  “How long have you two been married?” Marty guessed they had to be newly weds since Mary Lynn hadn’t lost that dreamy-eyed look. Sooner or later she’d wake up, Marty knew. With the war on, it was likely to be later, though.

  “Ten years.”

  “Ten … Wait a minute. How old are you?” Stunned, Marty frowned in disbelief. “Were you a child bride or something?”

  “No. I was seventeen when Beau and I were married.” Mary Lynn smiled at Marty’s reaction and set the free-standing frame upright on the footlocker. “But I knew from the start he was the only man for me.”

  “It must be nice to know you belong like that to somebody.” Long ago Marty had become resigned to her single state. She’d been born without the nesting instinct, lacking homemaking skills and the yen for a settled existence. She craved action and excitement too much. Once, during her early college years, she’d let a man try to tame her wild streak and show he
r a sample of domestic bliss. The only part that hadn’t bored her was the bedroom. Within a week they were at each other’s throats, he insisting that she settle down and stop carousing and Marty refusing to change her nature. After they split up, she had joked to her friends that she should have known it would never work. Even as a child, she had enjoyed playing doctor, but hated playing house.

  So Marty had fun. Looking at Mary Lynn, Marty knew she could never be like her. Petite, dark-haired and softly feminine, she was the type men wanted, not Marty.

  “I miss him.” Mary Lynn traced a finger across his picture. “When Beau was sent overseas I couldn’t stand being in the house without him, and I moved back home with my parents. That was a mistake, I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t get along with your parents either?”

  “It isn’t that exactly. I mean, my daddy is a sweetheart. He insisted on driving me to the train station in his car when I could have taken the bus and saved him precious gallons of gasoline. And he knew I had to pay my own fare here to Sweetwater, so he slipped me five dollars to be sure I had spending money on the train. He spoils me.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It is.” Her dark, lively eyes sparkled with the admission, a smile highlighting her cherub-round cheeks.

  “Then what was your problem living at home?” Marty asked curiously.

  “My mother and I had trouble getting along. I guess I’d lived away for too long. I didn’t always do things the way she wanted them done.” Her shoulders lifted in a vague shrug. “And I was restless. I wanted to do something—to contribute in some small way to the war effort—to do my part. Outside of being a wife, the only skill I had was flying. I knew how badly they needed pilots … so I decided that if they’d take me, I’d go. Mother thinks I’m foolish.”

  “Why?” Marty demanded.

  “She felt I could contribute a lot more by going to work at one of the defense plants and get paid better for it too.” Sometimes Mary Lynn felt her mother hadn’t wanted her to leave because she didn’t want to lose the money Mary Lynn paid for her share of the household expenses. She knew what a struggle financially it was for her parents and she felt bad for having such mean thoughts about her mother. “She couldn’t understand that flying makes me feel close to Beau. When I’m up in a plane, I feel that I’m near him.”

  “What does Beau think of all this?” Marty wanted to know.

  “He’s in favor of it,” Mary Lynn assured her. “He knows how much the Army needs good pilots, and naturally he knows I am one since he taught me. He feels as I do—” Her drawling voice took on an earnest tone, catching Chicago’s attention in the next cot. “We all must do what we can to shorten the war and bring our men home sooner.”

  “That’s true,” Chicago inserted while Aggie, in the adjacent cot, listened in. “The more women we can put in the air, the more men can be sent overseas and the more planes can be sent over Germany. What we’re doing here is vital.”

  “I know all this is important to the war effort.” Tall, gangly Aggie glanced at her fellow baymates somewhat hesitantly, unsure of her welcome in the conversation. “But for me, it’s the flying—the chance to do something I really love. Up there, with the sky and the clouds—the exhilaration—the sense of power—it’s like nothing else.” She became caught up in the struggle to express her feelings. “There’s nothing to hold you back. You’re free, totally free. It’s a kind of delirious joy and awe all mixed up together. Flying is a physical, emotional, and spiritual experience.” When she paused, she noticed the silence and the way everyone was staring at her. Her chin dropped quickly in a self-conscious gesture. “I guess I sound crazy.”

  It was a moment before anyone spoke. “No, you don’t,” Mary Lynn said quietly. “I think we all share those feelings you just described. But some of us have never heard another woman say them.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think Aggie did get a little carried away,” Marty suggested wryly. “She’s made flying sound better than kissing.”

  The atmosphere immediately lightened as smiles spread across their faces. “You’re right, Marty,” Chicago agreed. “It’s the next best thing, maybe, but not better.”

  They laughed dutifully at Chicago’s small joke, but underneath her soft laugh, Mary Lynn felt a twinge of guilt. No matter how much she justified her decision to enlist in the training program the underlying reason was the same as Aggie’s—she loved to fly. How a blue sky beckoned to her, tugged at her soul and urged her to come away and experience the ecstasy of its heights. She knew the power of its call, that wild sense of freedom that was so exhilarating, and the feeling that Beau was with her—right beside her, flying through the same clouds. When she was up in that sky, nothing else existed—not the war, not her fears for Beau, her parents’ problems—nothing. She could leave them behind when she flew, but they were always waiting for her when she came back down on the ground.

  Next to the end of the row of bunks, Cappy Hayward stood up. “Let’s get unpacked and the beds made,” she said, prompting the others to return to their tasks, then she went back to the opened suitcase lying on her cot. The precisely folded clothes were arranged in an orderly fashion. She’d had ample experience at packing in her lifetime.

  Cap. There was such irony in the nickname she’d been given. But, of course, the others didn’t know of her abhorrence for the military, its cold impersonality and demand for unquestioning obedience. Never would she live the life her mother had. She had hated it, never having any sense of roots, any friends, or any control over her existence. Perhaps the latter was what had addicted her to flying. In an airplane, she possessed that control. And Aggie was right—there was no sensation like it.

  The hard rap of a hand rattled the bay door in its frame. Aggie made a start toward it, then glanced at Cappy. “There are some guys in uniform out there. I noticed them a minute ago through the window. Do you want to get the door, Cap?”

  Cappy’s hesitation lasted only a split second as the knock sounded again. “Sure.” She replaced the folded blouse on the pile of clothes still in the suitcase and crossed the room to the door. She scanned the khaki uniform of the man standing outside, noting the chevrons on his sleeves. “Yes, Sergeant?” Standing to one side of the door, out of sight of the others, was the tall redhead in the leopard coat. One steamer trunk was sitting on the walkway while a second soldier waited by it, his breath clouding in steamy vapors.

  “Is there room in this bay for another occupant?” The sergeant’s broad, flat features wore a thin-lipped expression that suggested his patience had been tested. The redhead didn’t appear to be in a much better mood.

  “We have an empty cot.” It was the last one in line, next to hers and closest to the bathroom, a dubious advantage since it was like sleeping next to an elevator. The barracks’ thin partitions did little to mask the sound of clanging water pipes, flushing toilets, or chattering occupants. Just as Cappy started to move out of the doorway so they could enter, Marty Rogers shouldered her way in.

  “What does he want, Cap?” A second after she asked the question, Marty noticed the auburn-haired female huddled deep in the warm fur of her coat.

  “If you’ll hold the door open, we’ll carry this trunk inside.” The sergeant ignored her question as he signaled the waiting soldier to pick up his end of the trunk.

  Eden van Valkenburg’s hands, gloved in expensive black leather, bunched the collar of the leopard-skin coat tightly around her neck as she took one look at Marty Rogers and turned to the sergeant. “I want to check another … bay.” It took her a second to recall the proper terminology.

  “The accommodations are the same in everyone, miss.” Exasperation threaded the sergeant’s voice as he picked up an end of the trunk.

  “I think it’s the company, not the accommodations, that she wants to change,” Marty suggested wryly.

  The sergeant wasn’t interested in their clash of personalities. “Please move out of the way, ladies.” There was a str
ained politeness in the order as he backed toward the doorway lugging his end of the trunk. Marty had no choice but to move out of his way or be bowled over.

  With a grudging acceptance of her fate, Eden followed the trunk-toting men into the barracks. Her dark challenging gaze made a sweep of the other faces in the room, making it clear that she liked the idea of sharing the quarters with them no more than they did. Cappy could empathize with that feeling of alienation, of being an outsider, unwanted and unwelcomed. How many new school classrooms had she entered, looking at cold-faced strangers who stared back? Too many.

  The two men deposited the large trunk on the floor next to the empty cot. As they turned to leave, Cappy noticed the van Valkenburg woman open her purse and riffle through the contents. When the sergeant walked past her, she stopped him and pressed something into his hand. “Thank you,” she said, snapping her purse shut, missing the man’s initial start of surprise at the folded bill he held.

  “Keep your money, miss.” He pushed it back into her hand with a look of vague disgust. “This isn’t a suite at the Waldorf.”

  He was shaking his head as he walked out the door. A flush darkened her cheeks with hot embarrassment. Cappy could well imagine that the wealthy socialite was so accustomed to tipping bellboys and porters for carrying her luggage that she had passed the money to the sergeant out of habit. While the enlisted man might have accepted it, the sergeant appeared to have had a bellyful of high-toned females.

  When the door shut behind the sergeant, a heavy silence overtook the room. The staccato click of Eden’s heels seemed to punctuate it as she walked briskly to the trunk, peeling off her leather gloves, finger by finger.

  “What happened to your other trunk?” Marty made a sauntering foray over to the vicinity of her Army cot.

  “I made arrangements to have it shipped home.” She swept the hat off her titian hair and lifted the ends with a push of her fingers, not bothering to look at Marty. “It seems there were a great many items that I regarded as necessities which weren’t required here.”