Blackbirds (8 page)

Marmaduke turned and waited for Honeysuckle to allow him out the door. “I'd best be returning to our guests.”

Honeysuckle stepped into the room. Linda followed and closed the door.

Sharon could see that Honeysuckle had been crying.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Honeysuckle asked.

“I think so.” Sharon tried to erase the memory of the crushing weight of him and found she could not.

Linda said, “Did he hurt you?”

Sharon shook her head and found that she was crying. “I was about to bite his ear off.”

Honeysuckle's voice was a whisper. “When I realized you were inside and he was on the prowl, I rushed back in. I'm glad we were able to find you without too much delay.”

“On the prowl? He's done this before?” Sharon asked.

Linda nodded. “He has quite a reputation for it, actually.”

Sharon said, “What do I do?”

Honeysuckle put her hand on Sharon's cheek. “You do what we do in this type of circumstance.”

“What's that?” Sharon asked.

Honeysuckle winked. “When the opportunity presents itself, you get even with the smarmy bastard! Now, let's get those pies Anne was asking for.”

Linda opened the door and Sharon followed them into the kitchen.

“The guests are full of praise for the dinner.” Cornelia stood at the top of the stairs leading to the main part of the house.

To Sharon, it looked like her grandmother was wrapped in green curtains and white lace.

“I'm so glad to see you and Linda here,” Cornelia said to Sharon. “You must come and meet our guests.”

Sharon looked at her clothing. “Perhaps another time.”
Besides,
I couldn't face Uncle Marmaduke at the moment
.

“Nonsense.” Cornelia held out her hand.

Sharon nodded and found she was blushing.
Why do I feel ashamed?

Cornelia waited for Sharon to climb the steps and take her hand. Sharon's grandmother led the way down a hallway into a great room where guests stood, drank, and chatted after dinner. The room was filled with tuxedos, evening dresses, tobacco smoke, and faces turned to inspect the young woman being led into the room by Cornelia Lacey.

Sharon was led to one corner where Marmaduke stood next to a blonde with pronounced cheekbones and startling blue eyes. She wore a black dress, white pearls, and black gloves that reached her elbows.

“This is your Aunt Cecilia,” Cornelia said.

Cecilia held out her hand to Sharon. She squeezed Sharon's hand. “A very great pleasure.” Cecilia's tone said the exact opposite.

Sharon pulled her hand away from the painful, pinching grip on the knuckle of her index finger.

“And this is your Uncle Marmaduke,” Cornelia said.

Sharon looked at her uncle, remembering his hand between her legs. He offered his hand. She looked at it for a moment, then turned and walked out of the room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen.

It was well beyond midnight when Linda, Honeysuckle, and Sharon walked home.

“You're awfully quiet, Sharon.” Honeysuckle held onto her daughter's arm.

“I have a lot to think about.” Sharon was glad for the darkness.

“Are you crying?” Linda asked.

Oh, shut up!
Sharon thought.

“Don't you dare feel as though you're somehow responsible for what Marmaduke did to you, my dear,” Honeysuckle said.

At one thousand feet,
the Anson went into a right turn. Linda and Sharon sat one behind the other near the back door.

Sharon felt her emotions rising. They hit a pocket of rough air. The engines surged momentarily, then resumed their reassuring clatter.

“So what's troubling you?” Linda turned to face her friend.

“I traveled all this way in the middle of a war to find a family. It felt like I was half a person after my mother died. I thought that by coming here, I would feel like I belonged somewhere.” Sharon studied her friend's face to see if she understood.

“It hasn't worked out the way that you'd hoped?”

“My uncle makes improper advances. My grandmother appears to be totally unaware of what her son is actually like. My father knows I exist, but doesn't know me at all.”

“What were you expecting? Your mother traveled halfway around the earth to get away from her family, and she never returned.”

Sharon opened her mouth to reply and closed it.
What do I say
to that?

“Nobody's family is perfect.” Linda began to turn around.

“At least you've got a mother, a father, and a brother,” Sharon said.

Linda shook her head. “But for how long? Hitler's ready to kick down the door and march across England like he did in France. We'll see how many of us survive the summer.”

CHAPTER 6

Mother smiled as he said, “Here you go!”

Linda held their chits high. Today she wore her uniform slacks, white blouse with rolled-up sleeves, and tie. She smiled broadly. “Finally!”

Sharon stuffed the crust of a mutton sandwich into her mouth and tried to smile despite her full cheeks.

“We're both going to Castle Bromwich. I've got a Spitfire!” Linda grabbed her friend around the waist and squeezed.

Sharon swallowed, choked, and coughed.

Linda released her hold and swatted Sharon on the back.

After the coughing subsided, Sharon wiped her eyes, picked up her kit, and followed Linda to the air taxi. This time it was a Dragon Rapide, with its elegant nose, dragonfly wings, and twin engines.

Fifty minutes later, when they were on finals for Castle Bromwich, Sharon saw the rows of factory roofs and all of the frenetic activity outside, where brand-new aircraft were lined up under a clear sky.
A
perfect day
.

When they taxied to a stop, Linda was first outside the door.

Sharon had to wait in her seat as the pilot rushed past her, saying, “I've got to find some petrol.”

By the time Sharon had collected her gear and exited the aircraft, Linda was already in the cockpit of a Spitfire, having the controls explained to her by a smiling mechanic.

Sharon pulled her chit out of a pocket and walked toward the dispersal hut.

A Merlin engine crackled to life.

Sharon looked over at Linda, who leaned left and right to see around the Spitfire's long nose. The engine began to smooth itself into a hum when Linda added power. She stood on one rudder, then the other, as she zigzagged her way along the taxiway while checking to make sure that no one was in front of her.

Sharon waited for the takeoff run so she'd be able to describe it for Linda later. She watched Linda dutifully do her run-up. She taxied onto the end of the runway, lined herself up into the wind, and applied throttle. The engine emitted a throaty hum. It began to roll forward; the tail lifted, then the wheels kissed the ground once before the wings carried the fighter into the air.

Sharon frowned when she spotted a line of black smoke trailing the Spitfire. The smoke was thicker and blacker than what usually passed for exhaust.

“Christ!” The mechanic waved his arms and went running after Linda's Spitfire. “Bail out!”

“She's too low!” someone else said.

Linda turned left when she realized her aircraft was on fire. She completed her turn and headed back toward them.

Sharon heard the bell of the fire tender. Another alarm sounded as the ambulance rushed to follow.

They saw the Spitfire turn onto finals with its wheels and flaps down. Flames licked along the belly of the aircraft.

“Christ, hurry!” the mechanic said.

Sharon started to run.

Linda flared for a landing. The propeller windmilled, causing smoke to boil over the wing roots.

With the limited visibility, she misjudged her height. The wheels hit the ground and the Spitfire bounced back into the air.

It dropped harder the second time. One undercarriage leg buckled, and the Spitfire started a ground loop as the lowered wingtip gouged the grass. The other undercarriage leg collapsed.

The propeller chewed into the ground. Dirt and grass flew into the air. The propeller blades curled back on themselves.

A wing bent up at the tip. The Spitfire slid along the grass and halted, with flames licking its nose and along the fuselage.

Linda pulled back the canopy.

The fire truck pulled up next to the wreck. Sharon saw a fireman running along a wing toward the cockpit, where the fire rose up on either side of him. The images of Linda and her rescuer's silhouette shivered in the heat. He reached inside, cut her safety harness, and hauled her out. He pushed her ahead of him as they ran back over the wing and away from the wreck.

Sharon grabbed at the pain under her ribs and gasped for air as she reached her friend.

Linda was pulling off her flying helmet.

Sharon looked down and saw that the fabric on the knees and shins of Linda's slacks hung in black tatters.

Sharon took a closer look at how pale Linda's face was.

Sharon looked at the front of Linda's legs. It wasn't just tattered black fabric hanging from her knees and shins — it was skin. Sharon inhaled the now-familiar stink of charred flesh.

Again, Sharon experienced the clarity of mind that she'd discovered while under attack by the Messerschmitt pilots.

She looked behind her and saw that the petrol bowser was next to the air taxi that brought them to Castle Bromwich. She spied the ambulance attendants pulling a stretcher out of the back of the ambulance.

Someone said, “We need tannic acid!”

“NO!”

Everyone, including Linda, turned toward Sharon.

“Put her on that stretcher!” Sharon pointed at the ambulance. “She's going on that aircraft!” She pointed at the Dragon Rapide. It had just finished refueling.

Everyone stood looking at her.

“NOW! She's being transported to the burn unit at East Grinstead! MOVE!”

It was later, when she had time to think, that she decided she had her father to thank for the voice she'd found.

By the time the ambulance pulled up next to the air taxi, the pilot was about to climb inside the aircraft.

He turned.

“There's a slight change in plans. The three of us —” Sharon pointed at Linda on the stretcher “— are going to East Grinstead.”

“Where's your authorization?” the pilot asked.

Sharon lifted the blanket covering a shivering Linda. The lower half of both legs were blackened and blistered.

Sharon heard the pilot inhale. She knew he could smell the burned flesh. She took a breath and kept her voice low. “She's going into shock, and the hospital at East Grinstead treats burns. You're going to fly us there.”

The pilot hesitated.

“Otherwise, these men” — she pointed at the ambulance driver and his assistant — “are prepared to restrain you, then help me load up my friend. I'll fly her to the hospital myself.” Sharon prayed that no one would contradict her.

Linda moaned. The men unloaded the stretcher from the back of the ambulance and moved toward the Dragon Rapide.

“All right. Get her on board.” The pilot turned, climbed onto the aircraft's wing, and entered through the side door. Sharon followed and helped manoeuver Linda inside.

The flight took too long. But then, five minutes would have been too long.
It's better than going by road,
Sharon thought. Linda's teeth were chattering by the time they were halfway there, and her body was shivering uncontrollably when they landed in a field near the hospital.

After the engines shut down, Sharon said, “Thank you,” to the pilot who had radioed ahead to advise the hospital of their arrival. An ambulance was waiting, and the attendants helped her get a delirious Linda off the plane.

The younger of the two attendants said, “I suppose someone put tannic acid on her burns.”

“There's no tannic acid on her burns! Just get her to the hospital,”

Sharon said.