Chapter Twelve
February 1944, Dodge City Army Air Base, Dodge City, Kansas
Helen thumped a pile of papers down on the desk, in the four weeks since her arrival at Dodge, the nearest she'd got to flying was when she jumped down the remaining stairs from the observation tower. She had realized that this might not be the prime posting that Foster had tried to sell it as, almost as soon as she'd arrived at the gate and had a half hour long conversation with the guard about her reasons for being there.
“Are you a nurse?” the guard asked for the fourth time.
Helen frowned pointing at her uniform, “No, I'm a WASP.”
“No idea what that is, Ma'am,” he shook his head and turned to walk away from her.
“Wait, I've been posted here, I have orders,” Helen pulled her papers from her purse and flapped them around. “I have orders to report to Major Chiswell.”
The guard had taken the orders and reviewed them with a suspicious look on his face, he moved back into the guardhouse taking her papers with him. Helen waited kicking her toe idly against the rubber of her motorcycle’s front wheel. Ten minutes later he reappeared shaking his head. She walked back towards him.
“Says here you're a pilot. That right?” he asked, handing the papers back.
Helen practically snatched the papers from his hand annoyed at his condescending tone, “That's right, I'm a pilot.”
He gave a chuckle, “That's about the most insane thing I think I've heard. I wouldn't get in a car with my wife driving it never mind up in a plane with a woman flying it.”
Helen glowered at him. “Do I have clearance?” she asked not bothering to disguise her anger in her tone.
“What? Oh yes,” he waved a dismissive hand. “Third building on the right.”
Helen stuffed her papers back into her bag, stomped over to her cycle, and remounted, her frustration swelling as the cycle refused to start on her first kick. She gave it another attempt, catching the smirk on the guard’s face as she struggled with the starter. Finally, the engine submitted to her demands and spluttered into life. She rode the bike the short distance to the guard and stopped the bike in front of him.
“I'm sorry was it the second building?” she asked innocently, planting her feet firmly at either side of the cycle.
The guard rolled his eyes and sighed. “Third. The third building,” he corrected.
Helen nodded and thanked him; keeping her feet on the ground, she pressed on the brakes and pulled the throttle back hard causing the back wheel to spin and skid back and forth, dirt kicked up and hit the guard, smoke surrounded them. After a second, Helen released the throttle and the smoke subsided. She turned and looked at the guard, now covered in a fine layer of dirt and dust.
“Oops sorry,” she sang. “Stupid machines, being a woman I'm not really sure what I'm doing.” She gave him a dimpled smile as she sat down on the motorcycle and rode into the base, laughing to herself.
Her conversation with the major had not given her much more confidence, she was the first WASP to be placed at Dodge and they weren't set up to have her on the base. She spent her first night in a local hotel, until hastily arranged accommodation in the nurse's quarters was available. She moved in her seat picking up another manila folder, the rustle of paper in her pocket made her forget her frustration at her current situation and think of Lily. She pulled the letter that she had received that morning from her pocket and read it for the third time.
Dearest Helen
It was lovely to get your letter. I'm practically hounding the office when it's mail time to see whether I have a letter from you.
I've still not adjusted to the temperature change here; the weather in Las Vegas couldn't be more different to our time in New York. Although there were some hot moments in NYC I guess!
I am loving the planes here, I did a delivery last week. It was a lovely flight…looong though. I got there around dusk and I was really tired and I guess the guy on the ground was too, ‘cause when I passed him my papers he handed me a box. I didn't really think much about it and headed to my hotel. When I opened the box it was a prophylactic! Guess we know what the guys get up to when they go there. (It's in my locker…unused!) I was back there a couple days ago with another plane and the same guy was working, he could barely look me in the eye. He apologized for giving me the kit though.
Did you get a letter from the other girls? I got one yesterday, sounds like they've settled in well to their bases.
There's so much that I want to say…
IWU
Yours
Liliana
Helen sighed reading the letter. She was happy for Lily that she was enjoying her posting, but couldn't help but feel a tad jealous that her own experience wasn't as positive. She trailed her fingers across Lily's cursive handwriting, her fingertips following the flowing IWU, smiling at the hidden message within the three letters. Knowing that their correspondence would not be private, they had agreed to use the letters as their own personal ‘I love you’, referring to Helen's Morse Code mix up. Feeling her anger rise again at the waste of her skills Helen folded the letter and placed it back in the pocket of her blue uniform slacks.
She selected a cigarette out of her silver carry case and placed it between her lips before striking a match. While inhaling deeply she shook her right hand to extinguish the small flame, tossing the spent stick into the ashtray sitting beside the typewriter on her desk. She needed this, because she knew that what she was about to do could get her in a whole heap of trouble. She let her head fall back and exhaled slowly watching the smoke swirl around her head. Her thumb flicked against the tip of the cigarette as she contemplated her approach. Having completed her mental pep talk, she ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and stood up, tugging the hem of her short Eisenhower jacket.
Helen lifted her beret and positioned it on her head, then turned and strode across the office and rapped her knuckles brightly against the door.
“Come in.”
She reached for the door handle, tugged down on it sharply and strode into the room.
“Sir.”
Marching swiftly into the center of the room, her footsteps echoed loudly off the tiled floor. She saluted the Major and waited for his acknowledgement.
Major Chiswell looked up, quickly saluting back. “At ease WASP,” he barked. He was uncomfortable with a woman saluting him and even more so when he knew that the woman was the daughter of a three star Army Airforce General. “Richmond?” he asked picking his pen back up and holding it poised above his paper.
“Sir, I'm seeking permission to utilize my skills fully, Sir. I have been here for four weeks and I'm yet to fly, Sir.” Helen felt the rage in her start to flow, overriding her usual respect for authority figures, particularly authority figures in uniform with bars on their shoulders. “I trained for six months to serve my country, doing the same training as the men here, Sir, and I would like to put that training to use,” Helen let out her breath in a rush.
The Major put his pen down and stood up; Helen puffed her chest up and lifted her chin up defiantly. “What do you see here?” he asked pointing towards the gold oak leaf on his shoulder.
“Your rank insignia, Sir,” Helen answered, facing forward unflinching.
“And that is?”
“Major, Sir.”
Chiswell walked around the desk to loom over Helen standing in her personal space. “That's right, WASP. Major. So I make the decisions. I give the orders and if I decide that you're going to fly, you'll fly or if I think that you'll serve your country better by getting my coffee then that's what you'll do,” his voice was a steady snarl. “Have I made myself clear?”
Helen's eyes flashed upwards catching sight of the flushed face above her, “Sir. Yes. Sir.”
“Dismissed Richmond,” he stated.
Helen saluted, spun on her heel, and marched quickly out of the room. As she carefully closed the door behind her, she slumped against it.
“Well, that went well,” she muttered under her breath. She lifted her cigarette case and matches and left the office walking out into the cool air.
She stood at the side of the hangar smoking, her hands shaking with adrenaline following her encounter with the Major. The office door opened and the major strode out towards a waiting jeep. He saluted the driver and climbed into the passenger seat. Recalling what he had said to her, an image of Adele flashed into her mind. Her friend had died training to do this job and how could she hold her head up and honor that sacrifice if he wouldn't let her, something within Helen snapped. She threw her cigarette on the ground and crushed it under her heel, pushing herself off the wall she jogged towards the stand.
“Stewie, is this fuelled?” she shouted pointing as she ran towards the Mustang plane sitting on the stand.
The tall engineer's thick eyebrows raised as Helen ran towards him. He wiped his hands on a rag and nodded, “Just filled her up.”
Helen grinned, “Great.” She climbed up the wing walkway, opened the canopy, and jumped into the cockpit, pulling the canopy closed in one swift action. Quickly, she went through her preflight checks, and primed the engine. Stewie realizing what she was about to do, dove under the plane and removed the wheel chalks just before the propeller started to spin. The plane started to move slowly from the stand towards the runway. Adjusting the microphone Helen called into the tower.
“Control, this is Hollywood. Permission for take-off. Over.”
“Helen, what are you doing?” a female voice in her ear asked.
“Betty, just give me clearance,” Helen barked into the radio, hoping the civilian air traffic controller wouldn't ask too many questions.
Betty stood up and looked out of the window that circled the tower; she spotted the Mustang taxiing along and smirked to herself. She'd seen the mounting impatience in the blonde since her arrival and wasn't surprised at the feisty response to her grounding, “Proceed Hollywood. Fly safe. Over.”
Helen smiled turning her head to look up towards the tower she spotted Betty watching her, she held up a thumb, grinned and sped up towards the runway.
***
Chiswell was sitting in the open Jeep when the buzz of an engine distracted him from the conversation he was having with his driver, he looked over his shoulder and into the air. The source of the noise was apparent, above him was a Mustang, performing a series of rolls, the spins finished and the plane pulled upwards, completing a flawless inverted loop. The plane pulled around until it was flying directly behind the Jeep following the line of the road below. Chiswell watched as it spun one eighty and stayed there, flying upside down. As it flew overhead Chiswell's eyes never wavered from the canopy, spotting blonde hair flowing as Helen flew over him.
“I will kill her,” he muttered as the plane flipped back over and peeled off back towards the base. “Turn the Jeep around,” he shouted smacking the dashboard.
Helen whooped as she pulled the plane back towards the base.
“Make your own damn coffee!” she shouted, bouncing up and down in the seat.
***
Chiswell threw the office door open, Helen shot to her feet behind her desk, standing automatically to attention.
“Office now,” he barked not looking at her and marched into his office, he yanked his hat from his head and threw it angrily onto his desk, rubbing his hand over the close-cropped hair at the back of this head. “Give me one reason not to have you arrested or thrown off the base?” he yelled spinning round to look at Helen. “That has to be the worst demonstration of insubordination I have seen in all my years in this man’s army, do you have anything, anything to say Richmond?”
Helen pleaded with her body not to betray her as she faced the major’s wrath; she remained silent hoping that she could keep her face neutral against the assault.
“Well, do you?” the major repeated, his face incandescent with rage his nose practically pressed against Helen’s. “I'm not surprised you have nothing to say. You not only disregarded orders, you flagrantly disobeyed them. That little stunt of yours has got you confined to barracks for the next six weeks; any leave you hoped to get has been cancelled as of now.” He stepped back and put his desk between them. Helen stood and swallowed, praying that he would dismiss her so that she could get out of there.
“Now go make yourself useful, report to Lewis and tell him to get your name on the flight schedule for tomorrow. Dismissed,” he sat down heavily on his seat, the rage having left him. Realization dawned on Helen that the major was letting her fly, she bit at her lip to stop smiling as she fell out and walked towards the door, her hand reached for the door handle when she heard the major say her name, she turned to face him, nervous that he would change his mind.
“Richmond, if I ever see you flying without a parachute again, I'll have you put in the stockade.”
She nodded quickly and shot out the room. The major sat back on his chair and shook his head chuckling to himself, “That woman has balls.”
***
March 1944 – Las Vegas Army Air Field, Las Vegas, Nevada
Lily let out a long breath, pulling the soft leather helmet from her head and running a hand through her hair. She had only been away from the base for three days but she could feel the change in temperature already, spring was coming. She finished her paperwork then unfastened her harness and pulled herself out of the seat.
Walking over the flight line towards the office Lily waved at Rita, a fellow WASP. Rita jogged up and took Lily's overnight case from her.