His Very Own Girl (29 page)

No wonder Joe prefers jumping to flying.

Lulu gripped her fold-down seat on the C-47 and stared at a rivet on the ceiling as the big two-engine transport rumbled down the airstrip. Every dip and bump of the wheels along frozen ground created a picture in her mind’s eye: the pitted runway narrowing to nothing, the nose of the plane lifting, the throttle in her hands as she pulled, pulled, prayed.

But she was a passenger. It was either accept a U.S. Army ambulance flight back to London or spend another three days in France. Staying wouldn’t have been an issue at the start of the year, but Lulu was tired and homesick. She missed her friends and her bed. She missed chocolate bars and the sweet, manic anticipation of mail call. After more than six weeks ferrying aircraft around Europe, it was time to go home.

Three U.S. Army nurses sat in the seats across from Lulu. The senior nurse, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a bun, offered a calming smile. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you.” Lulu clenched the lap harness. An aching tension coiled in her muscles.

She hadn’t flown as a passenger in much other than an Anson taxi or a training aircraft—not for years. And never with a pilot who wasn’t ATA. Why, it could be anyone flying! Rather than invigorating her with the thrill of flight, the whirling, steady pulse of the engines and their obliterating noise made her limbs weak.

Breathe. Calm down.
Surely addlepates wouldn’t be in charge of ferrying the wounded.

The transport rolled westward along the airstrip. Across the cargo bay, another nurse—this one young, tense, and as pale as a sterile bandage—crossed herself.

Say one for me, too
.

The groan of those massive engines rumbled beneath Lulu’s ribs. She closed her eyes upon that gut-wrenching moment of weightlessness, never before feeling it so keenly. They were airborne.

She glanced down the converted cargo hold to where fourteen stretchers were crisscrossed by support ropes and intravenous lines. All of them were critical evacuations from within a mile of the Siegfried Line. She wondered if any of them knew Joe, or if any had been treated by Joe. Being near the wounded was actually uplifting, rather than tempting her toward dark thoughts. At least they lived and breathed. They still had a chance. With luck and dedication, they’d pull through.

Once the fat transport leveled off, the nurses unfastened their lap belts and began tending patients. They moved with smooth efficiency. Soft hands touched fevered brows, but their murmurs were drowned out by twin-engine drone. Conscious boys perked up and smiled at the pretty nurses. Expressions of pain and bewilderment briefly eased into gratitude, relief, hope. Lulu had to look away, so powerfully did their emotions affect her.

She was tired. Bone tired. With a pack full of souvenirs and a brain stuffed to the gills with memories, she was happy to be returning to London. How amazing to think there was life—thriving, smiling life—beyond the island shores of her home. In Rhodesia she’d seen tribal men and women who’d appeared as unaffected by the war as God’s angels.

But in Russia she’d spoken to soldiers whose entire families had gone missing. Kat had been with her, copiloting while Lulu flew her first Skymaster from Cairo to St. Petersburg, where a delegation would use it to return to Washington, D.C. At the stories of Jews rounded up and hauled away by boxcar, Kat had cried helplessly in Lulu’s arms. Surely the Russians’ stories couldn’t have been true. In her heart, however, Lulu had known.

Maybe that was why she’d finally wanted to go home. Despite the sacrifices and terrors of her personal war—her parents, Robbie, the Blitz, and now Joe—at least she’d become accustomed to that particular brand of suffering. After all, the German army had never set foot on British soil. The horrible truths of invasion and occupation were too foreign and frightening. Her mind had stopped appreciating the wonder and novelty of what awaited beyond Britain’s watery border. Now she was a homing pigeon with her sights set on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Hence her unfamiliar status as a passenger.

But never again. She was a pilot, not a girl who clung to her seat cushion.

A string of high-pitched curses whipped out of the cockpit. The plane veered left, followed by more curses and the titter of approaching gunfire. Then came a man’s sharp bellow. The plane rocked. Nurses stumbled, then righted themselves to check fluid lines and stretcher straps. Another jolt to the side.

They were under attack.

Lulu unbuckled, scooted down the narrow walkway, and yanked open the forward cabin door.

To her right a swarthy young radio operator sat at his built-in metal desk. He frantically repeated their position into the transceiver. “We’ve got 109s over Laon. Air support, ASAP!”

Instead of sitting at his own desk, the navigator was in the copilot’s seat, just inside the secondary doorway that led to the cockpit. He turned, revealing sergeant’s chevrons and a face the color of chalk. “Are you a pilot? We need a pilot.”

Without waiting for an answer, he threw up on his own shirtfront. Lulu strode forward—and stopped. Whether she lived another sixty seconds or sixty years, she’d never forget what she saw inside the cockpit. Bullet holes riddled the forward windows. Sprawled motionless on the floor, the pilot was missing his face. Glass had taken apart his head. The cockpit was painted in gruesome shades of milky oxblood.

An animal part of Lulu’s mind took over. No thought. Only muscle memory and long habit. “I’m on it.”

With the pilot’s seat vacated, she slid into place and pulled on the yoke. The nose of the plane lifted.

The navigator was retching again, this time into his forage cap.

“Nurse!” Lulu called. “Get up here!”

Don’t look at him,
she told herself. But she couldn’t help it. A quick glance toward the pilot provided more than enough detail. His face had collapsed like a fallen soufflé.

The youngest of the three nurses came forward. “He’s dead,” the woman said breathlessly. Needlessly.

More machine gun fire pulled her attention back out the forward window. A pair of Messerschmitts zigzagged in and out of view.

“It’s a flock of Kraut geese,” the radio operator shouted. “They’re on us!”

The nurse’s wide blue eyes begged for promises. “You can get us home, can’t you?”

“I’m not trained for dogfighting.” An occasional vertical eight in a Spitfire on a clear day, just for the five-second thrill of it, wasn’t even close. “But I’ll do my level best. It’s going to be rough. Go strap in. Leave the pilot here—no sense scaring the wounded.” As the nurse hurried back toward the cabin, Lulu pulled a spare headset off its hook and tugged it on. “What’s your name?” she asked the radio operator.

“Cpl. Ramis.”

“Why don’t you have a copilot?”

“Shorthanded.”

“That’s what the ATA’s for, you fools!” She wiped her brow, wishing she’d worn gloves. Her hands were slippery. “Why are they attacking an ambulance?”

“We aren’t wearing any Red Cross markings,” Ramis said. “It’s an all-purpose transport.”

“Get on the horn and find a squadron. Yanks, Brits—I don’t care. You,” she said, glaring at the sergeant, “just hold on and help me keep her level.”

She returned her gaze to the slate gray sky beyond the punctured window. Cold February air blew against her face. She sucked it into her seared lungs. She would never be able to forget that blasted smell. Wet copper, so sticky sweet. The dead captain had worn hair tonic; its cedarwood scent competed with the gore.

Her stomach pumped and flipped, a pantomime of the plane she rolled to the right. Her shoulders hunched involuntarily as she fought her gag reflex. With a whole world full of luck, she’d be able to outfly the Germans, but she might need to be sick all over the controls.

Oddly enough, she thought about Joe’s voice. He always hit just the right primal timbre to raise goose bumps with words alone. Warm. Deliberate. Calm. That calm probably helped his patients.

As much as she wanted to stay with thoughts of Joe, she pushed them aside. And although her responsibility to the wounded soldiers and nurses banged against her senses, she blocked them out, too. Her hands cramped. One at a time she wiped them along her trousers. Every instinct narrowed on a single goal: survival.

Two more Messerschmitts jumped out of the thick winter clouds and sideswiped the plane. Four in all. Gunfire sprayed just off starboard. There was no logical reason for them to fly over this region of liberated France. Maybe just a little revenge before the Reich fell.

They’re bloody toying with me.

Lulu jerked the controls back to the left, but the C-47 wasn’t designed for fast maneuvers. She worked hard to rein in the adrenaline whipping through her veins, but she still wound up shouting into the headset. “Cpl. Ramis, I need an ETA on our backup.”

“Spitfires from the 122nd Squadron, RAF, will be here in twelve minutes. They’re scrambling to intercept.”

“We’ll be smoldering in a field with the cowpats by then. Do you want that?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Nor I. Sergeant, back to your station.”

He staggered back to his desk and slumped into the metal chair bolted to the floor. Headset on, checked in. “Set, ma’am.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sgt. Peterson, ma’am.”

“Please consult your lovely maps. I need to get to the nearest antiaircraft battery.”

“We’re not authorized to fly outside this lane,” Peterson said. “We’ll get in the way of eastbound flights.”

“Should I see anyone, I’ll be sure to get the hell out of their way—which is what I’m trying to do with these Jerries. If you don’t fancy your chances with me, I suggest you find your chute. Either jump or use the silk to shut your blimmin’ mouth.”

“Amiens,” Peterson replied quickly. “The nearest battery is at Amiens.”

He relayed the coordinates, which guided her west along the River Somme. If they reached the Allied railroad, they’d have antiaircraft protection all the way to the Channel.

Lulu narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on the vibrating yoke. “C’mon, old girl. Let’s show them.”

She cut the throttle to the slowest she could safely manage, although every impulse demanded speed. The four fighters buzzed past, close enough to see the German pilots’ smirking faces—like birds of prey looking for a quick meal. But designed for dogfights, the Messerschmitts’ small wings and blazing speeds overshot her much slower transport. To manage, she needed to risk stalling out entirely.

She had another twenty seconds before they recuperated and circled back. If she let her hand slacken, they’d fall from the sky. Only two hundred feet to the unforgiving earth. Power mingled with terror.

Her brain swam in a thick fog. Part fear. Part fatigue from her long weeks of travel. Unbidden, memories of her near miss with the Hurricane returned with as much potent force as when she’d barreled toward the ground. She remembered the image of a lone man, a medic, running to where her plane was certain to skid into the earth.

Joe. He’d been there.

More panicked thoughts pushed him aside. Her mother and father had died in a plane crash. How had they felt in those final few moments together? Had they held hands? Had they mourned the loss of the years they’d never spend together? Of the daughter they would never see grow into a woman?

Lulu stared at the altimeter. She saw it, but suddenly she didn’t understand it.

What had Joe written in his letter?
Maybe I was just hurting still.

He might as well have carved it on her skin, so durably had his words stayed with Lulu. She’d been taking endless chances because she never expected to live longer than her parents. She’d always believed she was supposed to die like they had, an insidious legacy that permeated every notion of purpose and identity. They’d left no saner example, no lasting map to happiness other than duty and country and dying in service to their obsession. Her reflexes and thirst for daring were her inheritance.

The engine groaned, and the buzzing, panicked voices in her headset began to make sense once again. And Joe. Joe made sense.

Lulu kissed her ring. “I’ll get back. And God help me, I won’t let him go.”

chapter twenty-six

The Messerschmitts were back.

Lulu dipped low enough to kiss the treetops. All four fighters descended at a sharp angle and chased her. Their machine guns sliced the rudder to ribbons. Bullets perforated the left engine. But if the pilots didn’t pull out of their steep dive soon, they’d say
Guten Tag
to the frozen fields of northern France. Lulu was playing chicken with them as much as with the turf.

The Germans relented. All four leveled off and climbed into the dense clouds. Lulu exhaled, forcing dizziness and terror into the back of her brain. Blessed reflex had taken over.

“Are they gone?” came Cpl. Ramis’s voice over the headset.

“Wouldn’t bet my pearls.”

“Did we just lose our rudder?”

“Yes.”

“And the left engine?”

“Not entirely.”

“So we shouldn’t be worried?” asked Peterson.

“Not until I give the word,” Lulu said, surprised at how chipper she sounded. “My mum could do this blindfolded. How far to Amiens?”

“You should see it starboard,” he said.

“Affirmative.”

Even at that reduced speed, stripped fields and flashes of dull blue from the Somme blurred past. Lulu checked the altimeter and swore. So low! Only a bit farther now.

The electrical circuit board snapped and hissed a tiny flame. She yelped, then kicked the panel with the sole of her boot. A whiff of singed wires and melted metal replaced the fire.

The fighters descended from the clouds, heading straight for her in a two-atop-two formation. Then, not three hundred feet ahead, one of them exploded.

Allied guns!

Relief blasted through her body like a shudder in a blizzard. But she had to keep climbing or be pegged by friendly fire. She made a quick check of the horizon line. “Peterson, get up here. Everyone hold on!”

She accelerated the old bird into a steep climb. The navigator practically jumped into the copilot’s seat and grabbed his yoke. With the rudder a mess, steering became akin to trudging through mud—no responsiveness, no precision. The left engine sputtered as if choking on a spanner. Muscles strained. She grunted with the effort.

“Bank right!”

Nothing.

No! This can’t be it. Can’t be it. Can’t—

But so slowly, screaming over every hard-fought degree, the plane began to respond. Momentum carried it into an impossibly wide bank until Lulu and her impromptu copilot guided it high above Amiens.

Her lungs and throat were as singed as the circuit board. Breathless, she looked out the port glazing. No deadly lick of blue flame sizzled out of the left engine, but dense charcoal-colored smoke belched from the casing. The starboard engine still whirled and sang in perfect pitch. It would get them home safely.

Cpl. Ramis’s voice crackled over the comm. “I have radio contact with the Spitfires. They’re incoming!”

A half dozen planes appeared on the northwest horizon.

“I see them,” Lulu said. “Ten o’clock.”

Within seconds the British fighters shrieked into the fray and double-teamed the Jerries. Lulu hooted as another Messerschmitt took a hit. Cheers erupted from the hold. The other two enemy planes did an about-face and zipped eastward. With the infantry moving as quickly as they did these days, Lulu hoped the German line was a good couple miles farther away by now.

“Wow,” said Peterson. “Good show, lady. Not a lot of dames could’ve done what you did.”

“Not a lot of men, either, Sergeant.”

He laughed appreciatively. “You’re right. Crack flying.”

Frosty air streamed in through the bullet holes. A headache pressed against her temples, as it always did when the danger passed. She tapped her toes and heels in a jerky rhythm. Shock, Joe would say.

Breathe. Relax and breathe.

“Captain, the Spitfire commander wants a word,” said Cpl. Ramis. “Should I patch him through?”

“By all means.”

“This is Flight Lt. Roberts of the 122nd Squadron, RAF. Identify.”

“ATA First Officer Louise Davies.”

“Status?”

“Our U.S. Army pilot is dead.” She kept her eyes forward rather than chance another look at the beheaded pilot. “Rudder inoperable. Port engine damaged but serviceable. How do the skies look?”

“All the better now that we’re here, eh, duchess?”

“The hell you yell. I’d bow and scrape had you been here ten minutes ago. We’re an ambulance transport with a civilian pilot! Where the bloody hell was our air support?”

The pilot speaking in her ear sputtered, then started again. “We arrived as quickly as we could, Captain Davies.”

“That sounded near enough to an apology for me to accept it. Now where can we put down?”

Two weeks after her run-in with the Messerschmitts, Lulu had lunch with Betsy and her husband, Howie, at a little fish-and-chip shop near White Waltham. Man and wife would be venturing to Manhattan in three weeks, after Betsy completed her ATA contract. Howie’s contract had been up since just before Christmas. That he hadn’t been coerced into renewing his service showed just how near they were to the end of combat. Instead he’d accepted a position training commercial airline pilots. Betsy had insisted on flying to White Waltham to say good-bye.

It was late February, and momentum pulled every thought toward victory. They all said
not long now,
like a song’s refrain.

Lulu had little else to occupy her time. After the Messerschmitt incident, both the Accidents Committee and the U.S. Army required her testimony before she’d be allowed to fly again. Not that she could if she wanted to. Not yet. Her nerves were shot and her concentration had taken a steep dive toward nonexistent.

After their meal, while Howie paid the bill, Betsy took Lulu’s arm and asked, “Have you heard from Joe?”

Lulu smiled softly. “You always were blunt. I’m going to miss that, you know. You and the other Americans will leave, and we Brits will have to go back to euphemism and sarcasm.”

“Be serious, dear.”

Lulu wouldn’t have minded so much if she’d had any news to share. Upon returning from her overseas ordeal, she’d slipped a five-pound note to the undertaker and grabbed her mail—fourteen letters total, only one of which had been from Joe.

11 January 1945

Dear Lulu,

I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far. The last few weeks have been—never mind. I can’t do it justice without giving the censors too much work. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to describe what’s happened here. Then again I managed to tell you about Smitty. Be patient with me.

How was your Christmas? Everybody misses home so much. It’s a wet blanket over the whole company. But we’re being refitted, which means mail, smokes, rations, and coffee. Life is good tonight. Maybe it’s just the new year, but I feel closer to you now than I have in a long time.

My new year’s resolutions: Live through the war. Get warm. Eat real food. Hold you again. Live happily ever after.

You have to admit I’m getting the hang of this pretending.

Love,

Your Joe

That was all. Six weeks had passed, at a time when six weeks was an eternity.

“I haven’t heard from him,” Lulu said quietly. “Would they even know to write to me if the worst happened?”

“My cousin, the one in the Marines, says they have ways of tracking folks down. The boys talk among themselves. If a fella has a girl, one of his buddies will know her name and how to get in touch.” Betsy squeezed Lulu’s hand, then kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sure he’s fine. They’re making such progress overland. Supply lines are thin, no matter how many mail flights the ATA has picked up.”

“Of course.” Lulu’s insides felt liquefied and exposed. “You’ll write to me once you’re home, won’t you?”

“You bet. I can’t wait to read how your story with Joe ends.”

“Surely it’s not so dramatic as that.”

Betsy shrugged, then smoothed a lock of dark hair away from her eyes. “I have no desire for drama, dear. I’ve had my fill. I’m going to settle down with Howie and watch our babies grow up.”

“Was all that talk about equal pay and opportunity just because of the war?”

“Oh, no!” she said with a laugh. “I haven’t told Howie yet, but I’m going to college. Reading all these magazines and wireless broadcasts . . . that’s what I want to do now. Study journalism.”

“So when I say ‘I’ll see you in the papers,’ I can mean it?”

“Absolutely.”

Howie joined them, and they shared a cab back to the airfield. Before husband and wife boarded an Oxford headed back to Mersley, they exchanged hugs with Lulu. This was part of war’s dwindling strength she hadn’t anticipated: saying good-bye to far-flung friends who’d happily return home to forge new lives.

“Take care,” Lulu said, sniffing back tears.

Betsy’s eyes were misted over, too. “Let’s not get sentimental.”

“Easier said than done.”

“True. Fly safe, Elizabeth.”

“You, too, Louise.”

After one more hug, Betsy taxied the Oxford and departed. Lulu waved as the light two-engine craft disappeared. She walked slowly back to the hangar, her greatcoat tugged snugly around her shoulders. She’d never experienced a colder winter.