“Happy landings,” the others repeated their voices thick with emotion.
***
Foster watched the five remaining Bay Four women leave the memorial service in the Sweetwater church.
“How are they?”
She turned to the source of the enquiry, flashing a quick smile at Captain Hardy.
“It's only been a couple of days, they're holding up Sir,” she replied, watching as the women huddled together, their blank faces masking their emotions.
“Do you think they'll walk?” Hardy asked, returning the salutes from women walking past.
Foster tipped her head to the side and frowned, “What? Leave the program?”
Hardy rested his gaze on the slight woman, “They're civilians, they're free to go anytime. What I'm asking you is do you think that their friend’s death is enough to make them walk from the program?”
Frowning Foster looked over towards the five women and regarded each one of them. Playing through her head what she knew of each, slowly she shook her head, “No. No, I don't think they'll walk.”
Taking a deep breath Hardy nodded, “Good, their training cost twenty thousand dollars and that bay has some of the most talented flyers we've had through the program. I've already lost one brilliant pilot in this accident, I don't want to lose more because of it,” he looked over towards the women. “Do whatever you need to do to make sure that they come back from this,” he gave a solemn nod of the head then turned and walked to his waiting car.
Foster watched his departure. “You're all heart Captain Hardy, all heart,” she said to herself, before moving to round up the women to return to the base.
***
The bay was quiet as they lay on their beds staring at the ceiling, lost in their own thoughts. In the days that had passed no one had much energy to speak, their focus had been solely on putting one foot in front of the other and supporting each other during the period. Lily rose from her cot and walked wordlessly to the bathroom, waiting a few moments Helen rose and followed her.
“You okay?” she asked as she closed the door behind her.
Lily looked up from the edge of the tub where she had perched herself and nodded slowly.
Helen walked over and positioned herself between Lily's legs, looping her arms loosely around her lover’s neck. Lily gave a sad smile at the action and wound her arms around Helen's waist pulling the other woman close to her. She snuggled against Helen's chest, listening to her steady heartbeat.
“I just keep thinking that could have been any of us and it just seems so random so…” she brought her shoulders up taking a breath as she struggled to find the words.
“Such a waste?” Helen said, expressing her own thoughts on Adele's death.
Lily moved her head, resting her chin on Helen so she could see her face.
“Such a horrible waste,” she agreed. Helen nodded and lowered her head pressing her lips against Lily's for a slow comforting kiss.
Despite her grief Lily felt her body start to respond to the kiss, worried that someone might come in and find them kissing, she reluctantly pulled away. “I feel a bit better now,” she smiled, a hint of life sparkling in her eyes.
Taking a deep breath Helen looked down at Lily’s lap. “I love you,” she said quietly. “I don’t need you to say it back. I just needed to tell you so you knew in case…”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Lily interrupted. She smiled and ducked her head so that she could see into Helen’s eyes, “I love you too.”
Lily felt a weight lift at the admission, she had known for a while that the depth of her feelings went beyond friendship but finally saying it out loud, suddenly she felt like throwing open the window and yelling it across the base.
Helen grinned briefly before her features returned to a somber expression, “I feel bad that I’m so happy right now.”
Reaching up to brush blonde locks from her forehead Lily soothed, “Sssh, me too. But Adele wouldn't want us to mope around forever. She had too much life in that small body of hers to want us to waste ours. Come on, let’s go back in.”
Helen pulled away from Lily, dropping her hand down and taking Lily's, leading her gently back into the main section of the bay. They dropped their hands as they walked in, surprised to see Foster standing in the doorway of the bay, their friends looking at her suspiciously.
“Hi, I...” she made a small growl like noise. “I wanted to come make sure that you're okay, actually I wanted more than that.” She stepped in and closed the door behind her, “I'm part Irish and when we have a death, after the funeral there's usually a hoolie that goes on, where we stop mourning the death and celebrate the life.” She hesitated as she realized that her speech had sounded more rousing in her head when she had practiced it walking over and it was not having that effect now, “Anyway, I thought that maybe you should have a small wake in the bay and celebrate Adele's life.” She dug her hand into her leather jacket and pulled out a whiskey bottle, “Now I know that Nolan County is dry and we're not allowed alcohol on the base.” Adrienne avoided eye contact at that comment. “But given the circumstances I thought that you could use it. Although if you get caught with it at bay check, I'll deny knowledge,” she grinned.
“Who's doing bay check tonight?” Lucy asked.
Foster smiled broadly, “Me, but I'll still deny it.” She held the bottle out, there was a brief hesitancy before Adrienne rose from her bed and walked over.
Taking the bottle, she saluted Foster. “Thank you,” she smiled. “And I'm sorry about what I said.”
“I have no idea what you're taking about Rosecroft,” Foster smiled and gave the rest of the bay a quick nod before turning and leaving.
Adrienne stood facing the door and let out an audible sigh. “Best go get some glasses girls,” she said turning round, a small smile on her face.
An hour later and the mood in the bay had lifted, there were tears rolling down their faces. However, this time, it was tears of laughter as they each recounted their favorite moment with Adele during their training.
“Oh God, remember the time when she fell in, in the morning and she still was wearing slippers!” Adrienne laughed wiping a tear from her face. “I thought Foster's face on the first day with my high heels was a picture but when she caught sight of Adele's furry feet, I thought the vein in her head was going to pop,” she exploded with laughter at the memory. As the laughter died down Helen started to chuckle to herself.
“What is it Hollywood?” Adrienne demanded.
“I'm just thinking about the times that she would lift you up over the ‘chin up’ bar, I'm surprised Lt Latham didn't spot you suddenly shooting up in the air.”
Adrienne picked up her towel and tossed it at Helen, who shot a hand up and plucked it from the air.
Marjorie stood up and walked over to Lily's bed, the other woman looked up in surprise as Marjorie brought out Lily's violin.
“Play something for us Lily. Something that Stotty taught you.”
Lily placed her glass on the floor and took the violin from Marjorie's outstretched hands. She put the case down on her bed and opened the catches, picking the instrument out of its padding. She plucked the strings and twisted the pegs to tune the instrument before slipping it under her neck and picking her bow to check the tuning properly. She drew her bow across the A string checking the pitch before playing the other strings.
“Y'all ready for this?” Lily said in her best approximation of Adele's Tennessee drawl. “Well get up and get ready to dance like she taught you.” She used her bow to poke Helen's leg, spurring her to get up.
They quickly pushed their beds back out of the way to create more space then Adrienne, Marjorie, Lucy and Helen stood facing each other holding hands. Lily nestled her chin against the violin then started to pick out the fast notes of a song that Adele had taught her to play. The other women bowed and curtseyed to each other before setting off at lightning pace. Skipping sideways down the extended pathway between their beds, before returning up the length of the room. They performed a series of steps that Adele had tried to teach them; each correcting the other when they went wrong, laughing as they remembered Adele’s frustration as she had tried to co-ordinate them before eventually giving up exasperated, shouting that it was a miracle that they could fly, since none of them seemed to know their right from their left. As the song drew to a close they dropped laughing, and out of breath, onto the cots.
Lily put her violin down and collected their glasses passing them to the breathless women; she raised her glass up.
“To Stotty!”
The others sat up and clinked their glasses together.
“To Stotty!” they repeated.
***
Life returned to normal the next day, they rose early went to breakfast, completed their Ground School classes and headed out to the flight line. It was getting close to sun down and their class was still out using every ounce of sunlight they could to fly to build up their airtime before graduation. Foster watched the class coming in to land, ticking off the planes and pilots in her head as she counted her girls back in like a mother hen. She stamped her frozen feet on the hard ground, lightly dusted with snow that had appeared overnight, her breath frosting in front of her face.
“They all in?” Captain Hardy asked coming up behind her.
“We don't usually see you down on the flight line sir,” Foster remarked as the red-haired man rubbed his gloved hands together. “All in bar the Bay Four girls,” she watched the sky nervously for any sight of their planes.
“I wanted to check that they went up okay, it's their first day back in the air,” Hardy said softly. “And despite what you might think Foster, there is a heart beating in this chest.”
Foster smirked looking at the captain out of the corner of her eye, “Yes Sir, it just that sometimes I think the medals on your chest make it hard to hear it beating.”
Hardy guffawed at her comment.
“I will take that on board. Thank you,” he smiled shaking his head slightly.
The hum of engines in the distance stopped further conversation. Squinting into the sky Foster sighed as she spotted five dots in the distance.
“They're flying formation,” Hardy remarked noting the positioning of the planes.
Nodding Foster smiled at him, “I think they're about to say a final goodbye.”
They looked up at the low flying planes overhead, the plane at the lead of the formation pulled up and out of the arrangement peeling off west. Foster and Hardy saluted watching the plane fly into the fading sunset.
Chapter Nine
December 1943 – Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas
Their last weeks on base were a frenzy of activity as they crammed for exams and flew every spare second they had. They had received with much excitement their newly approved Santiago blue uniforms that they would wear during their graduation.
Taps had just been played and the lights of their bay snapped off, plunging them into darkness.
“I wonder where we'll be based?” Lucy mused aloud studying the shadows on the ceiling.
“We'll find out in a few days, they usually post the orders a couple of days before graduation,” Marjorie replied.
Adrienne snuggled deeper under her blankets for warmth, “Well, wherever we get put, we have to stay in touch.”
Lily felt her chest tighten, she felt foolish. In all of the activity and focus on graduation, the thought that they would split up after graduation had not occurred to her. She spoke quietly her eyes seeking Helen, “We only have a few more days together.”
“Which is why we have to stay in touch,” Adrienne repeated.
The bay quieted as the women drifted off to sleep one by one, the sound of steady breathing and soft snores soon filled the room that had been their home for five months.
Still thinking about the separation that could soon be forced upon them, Lily lay unable to sleep. She pulled her blankets from her bed and as she had done countless times before she rose and slipped into the cot beside Helen. The blonde stirred and sleepily whispered, “Was I having a nightmare?”
“Shh, no. I just wanted to hold you,” Lily whispered in her ear.
Helen smiled and sighed happily. Her eyes sprang open as she felt a warm hand start to wander beneath her pajama top.
“What are you doing?” she hissed quietly as she felt fingers graze her breast.
Lily gave a soft chuckle against her ear, “Checking your wobble pump.”
Any protest that Helen was about to mutter was stilled as she felt Lily's hand trail down her stomach and underneath the waistband of her bottoms.
“You need to be really quiet,” Lily whispered. “I need you and we might not have a lot of time left,” she started to dot kisses beneath Helen's ear as she felt the blonde woman push her body further into hers, writhing against her touch.
Helen closed her eyes and concentrated on Lily's caresses, as Lily's rhythm increased she felt the pressure build within her and, conscious of making any noise, she turned her face into her pillow burying into it to muffle the sound that she was unable to stop from leaving her lips as her body shuddered into a climax.
***
Two days before their graduation, they were sitting around the wishing well discussing how their Morse Code examination had gone, when Foster came up carrying envelopes.
“Ladies, I have your orders,” she smiled, waving the wad of papers she had in her hand.
They stood up nervously waiting to see what duty they had been assigned to. She handed them their envelopes, which they tore open quickly like children at Christmas. Adrienne gave a quick fist pump as she read the contents of her envelope.
“Fleet Command,” she said. “In Romulus, Michigan.”
Marjorie grinned, “They always put the tall ones in Fleet Command. I got Engineering Command, Bainbridge, Georgia.”
Lucy sighed disappointed, “I'm going to Bryan, Texas. Engineering too.”
Lily opened her papers, “Fleet, Las Vegas.”
She looked hopefully at Helen, her hope falling as she saw the look in Helen's eyes.