Cynthia Cartier - Wings

“Excuse me, Major Trent?”

Trent walked behind his desk and turned around. He looked at her with that blank look but said nothing.

“Instructor Gant was out of line today. I was just—”

“Lift level and land—that was your ride, Hall.” He lifted a folder from his desk and walked toward a file cabinet and opened it.

“And I did that.”

He calmly flipped through the tabs, slipped the file in its place and then turned around.

“My assignment here is to make sure every pilot that graduates from this base can fly safely, without risking the plane, themselves, or others. And that means learning to follow orders.”

“I didn’t do anything I couldn’t do safely.”

“Hear me, Hall. If you do not follow orders, I will pink slip you. Is that clear?” Trent’s neck reddened, but his face was relaxed and his voice level. “I have flown with the best pilots in the world—strong, well-trained men who sometimes can’t do the job. Good pilots, that’s what I care about. If you can do the job—”

“I can do the job.”

“You clearly know how to dance a plane around, but will you be able to make a tough decision that will keep you and the plane in one piece if you’re backed into a corner? This wasn’t just my decision. You didn’t leave many choices here.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“This is the Army, Miss Hall.”

“I just wanted you to know why I did what I did.”

“I don’t care why.”

“I can see that.”

“Orders are given for a reason. I will pink slip you if you don’t follow them. Is that understood?”

Liddy wasn’t sure how long they stood there without speaking. She locked her jaw and wanted to shake all the calm, or was it smugness, out of the man. But this was the Army and she’d better get used to it.

She hated that he looked at her so blankly. Finally she answered, “Yes, it’s understood.” She spun around and left. Walking down the hall, she heard a loud bang come from the Major’s office. A grin tipped Liddy’s mouth. It sounded like his file cabinet slamming shut and she thought to herself, Good.

When Liddy walked into the bay, the gals all looked up and waited.

“All clear,” she announced and put on her best, ‘who cares’ face.

A communal sigh of relief escaped into the room. Louise was propped up in bed writing a letter and Marina was touching up her nails. Joy Lynn, Bet and Calli were playing cards.

“Deal me in,” Liddy ordered.

“I don’t know if I can take another day like today. The yelling, the language makes me a nervous wreck.” Bet laid her hand down. “Gin.”

“You can and you will,” Liddy commanded.

“Just pretend it’s a foreign language,” Calli said.

“Another one?” Bet scrunched up her face and let her head fall back.

“That’s what I do. My Father likes to drink. And when he does… so colorful are his words, you can see them chug from his mouth like a circus train.” Calli finished shuffling and began to deal.

Marina tilted a dreamy look to the ceiling. “Give me more days like today and I may choose to never graduate. Who would have ever guessed a man with a name like Homer Nash could be so dreamy. What a looker and he could not have been more of a gentleman. If the cockpit had a door, he would have rushed ahead and opened it for me.”

“Instructor Paxton asked me if I knew where the throttle was. Gosh, how does he think I’ve flown up till now?” Calli complained.

“I know. It was like pilot kindergarten. He gave me a complete tour of the cockpit. Explained everything, ‘til he got to the pee tube,” said Joy Lynn.

“Eww—classy.” Marina looked at Joy Lynn with disapproval.

“That’s what it’s for. Then he realized that was an unnecessary item in my case, and stammered a bit. The tour ended right quick after that. I wanted to tell him, ‘this is Miss HP you’re talkin to here’—”

“HP?” Bet questioned.

“Hot Pilot,” Liddy translated for her.

“But he seemed so proud to introduce me to his little world of flyin’, I just didn’t have the heart to stop him.” Joy Lynn whistled as she arranged her cards in her hand. “Ooo wee! Nice hand, Calli Duncan. Thank you, ma’am.”

Doubt walked in the room and sat down on the bed next to Liddy. She hadn’t seen him for hours and tried to keep the others from knowing he was there. He kept asking, Why did you come to this place? He said, You’re just an air clown. There are real pilots here, and you can’t rate against them. He mocked her for the ache she felt when she thought about Major Reid Trent, a man she barely knew who obviously believed she was—and that’s where Liddy cut Doubt off. She laughed and teased with her roommates and snubbed the unwelcome naysayer for the rest of the night.

“It’s almost ten. Lights out, first full day tomorrow,” Louise said.

Bet gathered up the cards and put them in her locker. The others set about putting their things in order and getting ready to turn in.

“Reveille at zero six hundred hours,” Louise reminded.

Bet looked inquisitively at Liddy.

“Six a.m.,” Liddy translated.

Once they were in bed and the lights were off, Bet’s mind raced. “If 0 one hundred hours is one p.m., then what’s twelve noon?”

“Twelve hundred hours,” Liddy said sleepily.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t it start at the first a.m. time, twelve a.m.?” Calli joined the inquisition.

“It does, zero hundred hours,” Louise tried to help out.

“That’s twelve a.m.?” asked Bet.

“Yes,” said Liddy.

“I heard a trainee say, ‘twelve mid-hundred hours,” said Calli.

“It can be either,” Louise clarified.

“Either, only for twelve?” Bet asked.

“Only for twelve a.m.,” Liddy answered.

“So what’s one p.m.?” Calli asked.

Liddy buried her head under her pillow and pleaded, “Sleep, children, sleep.”

“I have the military time down but all of this, PT, AT, RON talk is driving me batty,” said Joy Lynn.

“Primary Trainer, Advanced Trainer, Rest Over Night,” Louise clarified.

The voices of Bet and Calli rose in the darkness in unison, “Rest where?”

Liddy and Louise sat up and pelted them with their pillows.

Five foot nothing and belting out morning reveille, the trumpeting trainee was silhouetted against the sunrise. The notes reverberated through the barracks and gave the future WASP their first military wakening.

Bet sat straight up. “What was that?”

“Your wake-up call, missy,” Louise said as she flipped off her covers and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Thank goodness. I thought there was a stampede of horny cows comin’,” Joy Lynn quipped.

“Again, real classy, Georgia,” said Marina.

“Clearly, you’ve never heard a horny cow.”

“I haven’t lived.”

The women got out of bed reluctantly, donned their PT shorts and marched to calisthenics. Then they returned to their bays and zooted up.

Training days would always include marching and no talking was allowed when they did it. First to calisthenics, then to change, then to breakfast they marched. Trainees would then march, without talking, to the line where they were coached or bashed by their flight instructor, then they marched to lunch without talking, marched to shower without talking, and on to the classroom, which of course they marched to also without talking. The order would be reversed for half the class as they were split into two sections.

Marching to the flight line that first morning, the new trainees passed Major Trent and Jenna Law at the flight boards. Liddy saw Trent tilt his head as he chuckled. She wasn’t close enough to see, but she just knew that he looked at the woman with that boyish grin and she was jealous. And it wouldn’t be the last time. Liddy couldn’t remember ever having been jealous over anything but now it set up shop inside of her. It seemed every time she turned around Major Trent and Jenna Law—Jenna Law and Major Trent were together.

Lowering herself into the cockpit calmed her, and the reasons she came to Avenger Field returned. Liddy could always count on a plane to lift her spirits, but for some of the women, the flight line became a place of love and dread. Flying the Army way was full of precision and regulations that didn’t look much like the joy rides they had known. Although a few of the women had been instructors and test pilots, most were not professional flyers, and flying in the program was serious fare.

Their match to an instructor also colored a trainee’s experience in the air. Homer Nash politely helped Marina onto the wing of the plane and into the cockpit, something some women would detest in that environment.

Joy Lynn and Carl Paxton established a rhythm as he loved to praise, and she bloomed when affirmation was showered upon her. She sailed in and greased a landing and Paxton gave her a thumbs-up.

Bet was up with Gant for the second time. When she made a sharp turn that knocked him hard against the side of the pit, she braced herself for the fireworks. Gant’s face lit up, but he held his fury and the attack never came. Liddy flew by the book that day, and to calm Gant’s nerves she found herself making small talk.

After lunch the task of twelve women showering with two shower heads in ten minutes became a group project. Modesty had no place, and no trainee ever washed-out for being tardy, so the women apparently gave up every modest bone in their bodies.

They were still dripping when the call came to line up and march to ground school. Captain Ellis Charles was one of the main instructors for the book work and he made it pleasant, for the most part. Any man dressed in a military uniform at once becomes the boy next door, but Captain Charles was the real deal. He became the charming big brother to the trainees. If they stepped out of line he would come down with firm correction, but he guided and protected them with an unbroken commitment. He took it on as his individual responsibility to make sure each trainee was well prepared.