Page 27

Stepping off the plane into the humid, pine-scented air of Camp Davis took Vivian right back to Hahira. “Wow,” said George. “It’s hot.”

“Wait until August,” said Vivian. A group of male pilots stood on the tarmac. Lieutenants, captains, majors—Vivian had the insignia down now. But no colonel. The CO must be busy.

The men escorted them to their barracks, helped them hang blinds on the windows and tack up aircraft diagrams on the bare walls.

A few introduced themselves, but mostly they worked silently while the women unpacked.

Elliot tried to goose things along, suggesting that they all head to the Officers’ Club for a beer—“and maybe some dancing.” The men shot uncomfortable glances at one another, mumbled excuses, and slinked away.

“What’s that about?” demanded Elliot.

“That,” said an unknown female voice—its feathery pitch unmistakably civilian—“is an exemplification of gentlemanliness. Beer and dancing at the Officers’ Club, my word!

” Vivian turned toward the voice and found its owner: a woman wearing a loose floral dress with tatting at the collar and sleeves.

She fluttered a church fan that her red face and wilting hair wave indicated was no match for the sticky heat.

“They promised me air-conditioning,” she said, the first of many times she’d voice this complaint.

Vivian laughed. “Welcome to the armed forces, ma’am.”

“Oh, but I am the one welcoming you, dear.” Vivian cut her eyes at George. Their first day at Camp Davis wasn’t turning out as expected. There’d been no tour of the base, no welcome speech by the CO, and now, no beer and dancing.

“You’ll want to go into Wilmington and get some nice things. Dust ruffles for the beds, some floor mats. I have the bus schedule in my room.” The woman looked as if her postdebutante days hadn’t panned out quite as she’d expected.

“You have a room here?” Elliot was the only one of them with a functioning tongue. The rest just stared, mouths slightly agape, as a trickle of sweat carved a trail through the woman’s face powder.

“Of course I do,” said the woman. Then her eyes snapped in awareness. “Oh, you have not been informed. I am Mrs. Mellon.” And when this didn’t alter their perplexed expressions: “Your housemother.”

“It’s Cochran’s convent all over again,” Vivian whispered to George, who cursed under her breath.

“Now, I may not be able to fly airplanes, but I can help you get this place spruced up. And I think you’ll find I’m not a terrible stickler when it comes to the rules. But don’t tell Colonel Stephenson!”

“Rules?” said Elliot.

“Well, I can see they’ve told you nothing. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering the mix-up with the air-conditioning. The rules. Two main ones, really, and they make a little rhyme, so they’re easy to remember: Lights-out at ten, no fraternizing with men. ”

Colonel Stephenson needn’t have bothered with his rule, thought Vivian.

The men must have been under orders to move them into their barracks.

After that, they wanted nothing to do with the female pilots.

At the airfield, they edged the women out of the ready room.

When the CO bothered to make an appearance, he either ignored them or made a point of saying they should go home and knit for the troops.

Worse, he assigned them to dull, low tracking missions in light aircraft.

When the women groused, he told them he wasn’t about to risk his better planes to the inferior capabilities of substandard pilots.

Vivian still showed up at the field every morning, hoping to draw a decent plane, but some of the other pilots from Sweetwater stopped bothering. George included.

“Come on, George. You’ll be late.” Vivian rocked her friend’s shoulder.

George groaned and pulled the blanket over her head. “What’s the point?”

“The point is to get out there and fly. Come on.”

George hauled herself upright and swung her feet over the edge of her bunk. “This isn’t flying. We’re just being sent to our corner to play with toys.” They’d both been assigned to PT-19s all week, the same models they’d flown early on during training.

“For now,” said Vivian. “Besides, what are you going to do otherwise? Sit here and chat with Mrs. Mellon all day?”

George groaned again and flopped backward across the bed.

“Well, I’m going.” Vivian couldn’t see how avoiding the airfield would win them any points in the long run.

The CO was delighted to let the women stay in the barracks; if they didn’t show up to fly, he’d have a legitimate reason to send them home.

Vivian didn’t feel like she had a home to go back to.

She couldn’t recall the last letter she’d gotten from her sister.

Her mother never wrote, and her father hadn’t spoken to her since she ran off with Louis.

George’s parents wrote her all the time. They’d be thrilled to have her back.

Fine for George, thought Vivian as she stalked toward the hangar.

But everything was fine for George. She had nice parents.

She had nice clothes. She was beautiful.

Despite talk of their resemblance, George was much prettier than Vivian would ever be.

And, Vivian reminded herself, George was kind.

She never acted like having money mattered, but she never pretended it didn’t, a difficult balance to strike.

But nowhere near as difficult as being poor.

Inside the hangar, the cicada scritching of socket wrenches relaxed her. She checked the assignment board, saw Shaw V on it, and immediately perked up. She’d drawn an A-24. Wait until she told George. That would get her out of bed.

Unless it was a joke.

She surveyed the men nearby for signs of laughter.

But the pilots were inspecting the planes they’d been assigned, the mechanics were engaged in repair work, and no one paid her any mind.

She scanned the hangar again and saw a familiar face: Quigley squinting through his wire-rimmed glasses at the hydraulics on a BT-13.

She’d known it was only a matter of time before she ran into Louis or Durham or Quigley.

This, she’d learned early on at Avenger Field, was one of the more interesting aspects of military life: it jumbled everyone up so that you were bound to run into people from your past. She was glad it was Quigley and not Louis or Durham.

But would he be glad to see her? He might begrudge the barnstorming money she’d taken from the cashbox.

He might, like so many of the other men in the hangar, feel she was trespassing into male territory.

May as well find out now, she thought. “If I remember correctly,” she said to his sweat-damp back, “you said you were done with the South.”

He turned with a smile. “Aw, well, you know ... Met a girl ...”

“That happens,” said Vivian. “Or so I hear.”

“V. Shaw. I hoped it was you when I saw the board this morning. Look at you!”

Vivian straightened and saluted.

“Nice uniforms they give you girls.”

“Beats the men’s extra-large flight suits we trained in, that’s for sure.”

She didn’t want to get him in trouble—she felt the eyes of the other pilots on them. “Let me buy you a beer later at the O Club,” she offered.

“Nah, not a member of that club.” He pointed to the staff sergeant stripes on his sleeve. “But there’s a place just off base. The Knotty Pine.”

“This isn’t the sort of place you should come on your own,” said Quigley, as if Vivian couldn’t tell that just from walking in the door.

She was hesitant to be there even with a man.

Several victory girls paused their trolling for soldiers to glare at her.

“The pilots keep mostly to the O Club, and the other mechanics to the NCO Club, so this seemed like a good place to catch up.”

He’d been on leave her first week at the base, seeing his girl, and hadn’t heard from Louis or any of the barnstorming crew since the start of the war.

He assumed they were all flying, doing their part, just as he was doing his.

She could tell it rankled that he couldn’t serve as a pilot.

His limp and nearsightedness doomed him to dealing with planes on the ground.

“Thanks for not ratting me out,” she said. “When I left. Sorry about the cashbox.”

Quigley shrugged. “Figured you’d earned it. I know how Louis is when it comes to girls.” He asked her about her WASP training and how she found Camp Davis so far. “It’s a shame the way they’ve shut you girls out.”

She told him which planes they were used to flying, and he whistled.

“But listen,” he said, “it’s not some superstitious fear of women messing up the planes—well, for a few of them, maybe it is.

It’s that these guys, the older ones anyway, they didn’t get the plum jobs overseas.

These target-towing runs are all they’ve got left.

They’re worried you girls are going to replace them and they’ll be reassigned to infantry.

A lot of them have asked the colonel for transfers out. ”

“More flight time for us, then,” she said.

“They’ll come around,” said Quigley. “Some of them anyway.”