Cynthia Cartier - Wings

As the temperatures climbed, heads bobbed and eyelids drooped during ground school. Surprise examinations became the norm but they still somehow caught the gals off guard, especially Liddy, who found so much of the information useless. She hadn’t needed it up till now and couldn’t imagine what would possibly change that.

With every ambush Captain Charles would say the same thing, “Hope you reviewed the material that was presented yesterday because you’re being tested on it today. Have fun, ladies.”

Liddy didn’t really think she needed to know when and how the first plane was built. She knew how it worked and that, she thought, was what mattered. But with each day she was introduced to instruments, weather patterns, or some other new territory and realized she had better try and make some connections. What she did know, which was a great deal, she found difficult to pull from her intuition and put down on paper. Ground school took flying from Liddy’s heart and worked it through her brain like a clothes wringer.

Liddy knew more about the engines than some of the mechanics on the field—Crik had taught her well. Word spread through the Avenger underground that Liddy had some skill with a wrench. When a particularly stubborn problem plagued one of the engine jocks, he might quietly seek Liddy out and ask her a question or two.

Ground school also included time in the Link Trainer, which was also more difficult in the heat of the summer. The Link was essentially a wood box with wings and a tail that had been outfitted with a control panel and was mounted on a swivel. Forerunner to the flight simulator, it was used in a classroom to work on instruments and navigation skills. A trainee would be shut up inside the enclosed chamber and then spun and rocked at the instructor’s discretion.

It was after Marina’s first work in the enclosed trainer that she rushed back to the bay and put her beauty bag at the bottom of her locker. When she climbed out of the box that day, her hair hung like vines, and her make-up had melted and was sliding off her face. She passed Homer Nash in the hall and was devastated. Even though they couldn’t date the men, there was no reason to frighten them.

Surprisingly, marching was one of the greatest challenges. It was quite a jumble, and became the source for group humiliation. One afternoon the new trainees marched past the senior class who stepped in meticulous unison as they sang to the tune, Swinging on a Star.

“Would you like to loop round a star, ferry ATs home from afar, and be better off than you are. Or would you rather be a WAVE?…”

The younglings craned their necks to take in the show, until their jumble became a tumble and most of them ended up on the ground entangled with one another.

The senior class enjoyed the spectacle and continued on, “… A WAVE may be an ensign or a seaman first class. Her uniform of navy blue will pass. As the Navy says her weight in gold she’s worth, but who could want to be confined to earth? As for me, she can keep all of those things—I’d rather have my silver wings.”

Liddy was still on the ground when she looked up and saw Jenna Law marching past her. Jenna grinned down at her and snapped a salute. That was not Liddy’s best day.

Following the other classes to Avenger did have its advantages though. Previous trainees had figured out how to keep cool at night by dragging the beds outside. They passed on their knowledge of what the town of Sweetwater had for them to do on Saturday nights, which wasn’t much. And they discovered that when turned upside down onto a towel or an army blanket, the chairs from their rooms made great lounges for sun bathing or for just lounging against while shooting the breeze.

The first weeks of training were tough. But despite the flying, marching and studying, the women did find time to relax, or rather, to collapse. The night air had begun to cool, but the day’s air was still trapped inside the bays. Texas had let loose its summer balm early, and the trainees were outside reclined against their makeshift lounges.

Louise and Calli sat under the funnel of the yellow porch light beam writing letters, while the others just sat. Gosport, the base cat, prowled around and between the women until he flopped onto Liddy’s lap. His tabby fur bristled as he rolled over so she could rub his belly.

Joy Lynn puffed on a cigarette and blew smoke rings past Marina’s face.

“Watch it, Georgia. You may not care if your hands and teeth turn yellow, but I don’t want that stuff anywhere near me. Please, keep your nasty habit over there.”

“Excuse me, Uptown. Maybe I should move myself to the runway?”

“Great idea.” Marina shoved Joy Lynn with her feet.

“You can’t washout because you’re the marching equivalent of circus elephants, can you?” Calli asked the others.

“You mean drunk circus elephants, don’t you?” Liddy twisted her mouth and looked at Calli cross-eyed.

“Maybe not washout, but you could expire from pure humiliation.” Joy Lynn reached off the side of the porch and crushed her cigarette into the ground.

Louise looked up from her writing. “That cannot happen again, ladies.”

“And what about when the senior class moves out? We have to march in review at their graduation,” said Marina.

“And we need a song,” said Bet. “If we can’t talk and march, it would be nice to at least sing.”

“I heard one today,” Joy Lynn straightened her posture to deliver the tune.

“No you don’t, Georgia! That song is cruder than even you are.” Marina covered Joy Lynn’s mouth with the cup of her hand, but the songstress pulled away and belted, “We’re hot and not just—” Marina tackled her and Joy Lynn rolled away. “Come on sing it with me, Uptown.” And then she continued, “bet your tight cockpit sittin’—”

“Come on,” Liddy interrupted as she laid Gosport on the blanket and stood up.

It was pushing lights out when the baymates gathered their class together behind the mess hall. Liddy and Louise led them as they practiced marching in rank. Navigating by scattered flashlight beams, they accidentally guided the troop into the wall where they crushed each other. After that, they had to convince the women to fall back in and continue, but they did.

Then, for the next week all their free time was used to practice marching and to write their song. Grub was eaten on the run and they marched while they chomped and swallowed their meals.

The flight line was Liddy’s refuge, but the classroom was another story. Her test scores were not going to keep her in the program, and she resigned herself to studying, which it seemed to her she was doing more of than anyone else. All the trainees had to have a high school diploma to be accepted into the program. Liddy had one, but just barely. Jack had never put much importance on schooling. To him, Liddy’s time in the air was just as valuable, or more so. So once Edda was gone, Liddy attended school at her leisure. She was somewhat of a wild child, with a wild daddy. Although there was talk, people looked the other way. Loss of a wife and mother had to be considered. Liddy was regretting her days of hooky now.

Some of the women had a college degree too, and most of them were much younger than Liddy. Bet, college degree or not, was smart as a whip. She may have been the last one to get a joke, but she was the first one to work out a navigational calculation or to memorize a check-list. She wasn’t the only quick study, and it seemed to Liddy that the other trainees just decided to know something, and they did. She had to carefully wrap the information in and out of the corners and recesses of her brain to make it stick, and then to know where to look for it when she needed it. But wrap she did and her grades rose with her spirits, and the studying continued.

Marching in time drives home an air of conviction and purpose that can unite minds and hearts. The day the new trainees debuted their song and sent it into the airways above their perfectly timed step, was truly a day of conviction and purpose. The women were convinced that they were the class of all classes and their purpose was to let everyone know it. Marching to the mess hall that afternoon, they chimed out with a swell that could be heard across Texas, “We’re the HPs of Avenger Field. Wings of silver will be our shield. Watch us fly you’ll know it’s true. We’re the queens of the open blue…”

The senior class was posted and taking instruction as the underclass passed. The pompous cadence soared through the confined ranks and it was abrasive, “… So take note all you recruits. If you wanna be tops follow suit. Then you’ll be an HP of Avenger Field. Wings of silver will be your shield. At the end of the war, you’ll be part of the great WASP lore. We’re the HPs of Avenger Field. Wings of silver will be our shield.”

They were sure no class had ever looked so smart in zoot suits, and no sight or sound was ever so grand. It was a day that set some things straight, and honor had been restored.

Weekends meant some free time. If their flight schedules were up to date, those two days every week belonged to the trainees, and they could do as they pleased, as long as it wasn’t with any of the staff at the base and the lights were out by ten, eleven on Saturday night. Liddy was perched on a table in the rec hall studying, not doing as she pleased, but doing as she must. Bet and Joy Lynn were bickering over the last point in their game of ping pong.

“I’m not giving you that point, Bailey. Your serve skimmed the net.”