Velva Jean Learns to Fly (36 page)

THIRTY-NINE

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quarter past two on Friday, March 30, General Hap Arnold arrived at Camp Davis with Jackie Cochran and a group of men who stepped onto the airfield looking very important. One hour later, Helen and I were in the B-29 hangar with Harry Lawson, Bob Keene, and Major Blackburn when General Arnold and Miss Cochran came bustling in, followed by the five men. Everyone shook hands all around while Miss Cochran made the introductions: World War I fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker; two army air force officers from Washington, D.C.; radio news reporter H. V. Kaltenborn; Lieutenant Bruce Arnold; and his daddy, General Hap Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces.

Eddie Rickenbacker was tall with white hair and the blackest eyebrows you ever saw. He carried a cane, but he didn’t seem to need it. He said, “I want to see inside this thing. Let’s see how different it is from the planes I flew in the first war.”

Harry Lawson said, “By all means.”

The men crowded into the fuselage. Harry pointed out the pilot’s control stand, the copilot’s control stand, the aisle stand between them, the engineer’s switch panel and instrument board, the radio operator’s table, and the hydraulic-panel access door.

General Arnold was studying the engineer’s switch panel. He was wearing a uniform with lots of medals. He said to Harry Lawson, “What do you do with this tugboat in case of an emergency takeoff?”

Eddie Rickenbacker said, “Tugboat is right. This is a different ship from the ones we took up in ’18.”

Before Harry Lawson could say anything, Bob Keene started talking about wing flaps and cowl flaps and crew inspection and then he explained how to make an emergency landing—only most everything he said was wrong.

Miss Cochran, General Arnold, the officers, the radio reporter, and Eddie Rickenbacker all stared at Bob Keene. Harry Lawson stood watching him like he was a skunk that had just wandered into his house.

General Arnold barked out, “Dammit, son. I’m not asking about the landing. I want to know about emergency takeoff. How in God’s name do we expect these little girls to get this monster off the ground if conditions aren’t favorable?”

Eddie Rickenbacker said, “The thing must weigh a hundred thousand pounds.”

Bob Keene said, “Seventy thousand pounds, empty.” But I don’t think anyone heard him because by this point they were grumbling.

I cleared my throat and said, “I’m sorry.” The men turned to look at me. I smiled my sweetest smile at Bob Keene and said, “The officers are always wanting us to prove how much we know. I think Lieutenant Keene might rather one of us explain it.”

Bob Keene was giving me a look so cold I nearly shivered. I said, “If an emergency takeoff is necessary before the engines are warmed up, you need to dilute the oil to lower its viscosity to a point where there’s no danger of the hose connections being blown loose. Then you check all flight controls, check that the fuel boost pumps are on, and the mixture controls are set to Auto-Rich. You set the turbocharger to 8 and the propellers at 2,600 miles per hour.”

The men were staring at me like I’d started speaking in tongues. Miss Cochran beamed. Just days ago, Senators Joseph Hill of Alabama and Harold Burton of Ohio made a proposal to the United States Senate that female pilots be officially recognized as part of the Army Air Forces. If Senate Resolution 1810 went through, it would mean her dream of turning the WASP from a civilian group into a military group would finally come true.

General Arnold said, “What if the engine fails during takeoff?”

I put my hand in my pocket and felt Ty’s compass. Every day I picked a different talisman to carry around with me. I said, “Then you need to feather the propeller right away and shut off the fuel valve and mixture control. You retract the landing gear as soon as possible and use the trim tabs to make up for unbalanced conditions.”

General Arnold crossed his arms and said, “What if the engine fails during flight?” His mouth was serious but his eyes were smiling.

I thought: Go ahead and challenge me, old man. I will answer any question you have. I said, “In that case, you turn the AFCE master switch off, close the throttle and cowl flaps, and shut the booster pump controls for the engine that failed. You need to feather the propeller and trim ship to correct any unbalance, and then you can turn the AFCE switch back on.”

General Arnold opened and closed his mouth without saying anything.

I said, “You just have to make sure you don’t attempt to feather more than one propeller at a time because it uses too much current.”

General Arnold leaned over and shook Jackie Cochran’s hand. The radio reporter said, “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Velva Jean Hart, sir.”

The reporter said, “You girls are WAVES?”

“WASP,” Helen said.

“WASP. Right.” The reporter made a note. He said, “Impressive program, General, Mrs. Cochran. Good work. Too bad your male pilots aren’t as knowledgeable. But then maybe that’s why you need women to fly this plane.”

Eddie Rickenbacker said, “We’re only as strong as our weakest link,” and smacked the floor with his cane. “Maybe somebody needs a demotion.”

General Arnold frowned at Bob Keene, and then turned to the reporter. “This just goes to prove what Mrs. Cochran and I believe about the WASP: our best pilots are pilots first, without regard to gender. The aircraft doesn’t know whether there’s a man or a woman at the helm. Women can fly our big planes with the same skill and savvy as men, if they have the talent, the training, and the will—and Miss Hart is one of our best pilots.”

I felt my face go red. Everyone was looking right at me, and Jackie Cochran was smiling at me so wide and bright that it was just like the sun. I thought: It’s hard to believe there was ever a time in my life when I went to the sewing circle and canned jars of preserves and made care baskets for the heathens with Berletta Snow and Sister Gladdy Harriday and cleaned Harley Bright’s house while I waited for him to come home from church and notice me.

I didn’t always let myself stop to think how far I’d traveled, but when I did stop to think about it I figured I was about as far away from Devil’s Kitchen as a person could get.

An hour later I left the hangar. Helen stopped to talk to Harry Lawson, and I walked out into the sunlight and straight into Bob Keene.

I said, “Lieutenant.”

He said, “Fifinella.”

I looked around, but we were alone. I kind of nodded at him and then started walking toward the bay, hoping he wouldn’t follow me.

He caught up quickly, falling into step beside me. He said, “You know, there’s a mine in the mountains west of the Salton Sea in California that contains the only available source of this calcite crystal needed to make the Norden bombsight.” His hands were shoved into his pockets just like he was out for a stroll in the sunshine. I thought again that he looked like Oliver Hardy or Fatty Arbuckle, but not as friendly because the smile he wore was a baiting kind of smile, the kind that always set me on edge.

I could see Janie up ahead with some of the other girls, heading to the mess hall. I waved but she didn’t notice me.

Bob Keene said, “It’s called Iceland spar because the first place they ever found it was in the cavities of solidified lava, which is what Iceland is made of. It’s one of the rarest materials on earth.”

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say, so I said, “How interesting.” I shivered. There was something about the ocean damp and the wind always blowing in from the water that chilled me deep in my bones, even with the sun beating down.

He said, “You think you’re like that, don’t you? Like Iceland spar.”

A voice behind us said, “Lieutenant Keene.”

General Arnold was heading for us, his face as red as a tomato. He was followed by Eddie Rickenbacker, the army air force officers from Washington, D.C., and his son.

Bob Keene’s eyes went dark and he wasn’t smiling. He leaned in close to me and said, “Don’t ever try to show me up again.” And then he said, “Coming, sir,” and walked away.

That night I had a dream I was up flying in the AT-6, just like the ones I used to fly at Avenger Field. It was a black, moonless midnight, and I was out over the ocean, so far over it that I couldn’t see land anywhere. I thought I was alone in the cockpit, alone in the sky, and then I looked at the seat next to me, and Harley was there. I said, “Harley? Where did you come from?” But he didn’t say anything. I said, “Harley?” He just sat there, staring out the window, out into the dark nothingness of the night and the water. “Harley? Harley? Harley?”

Suddenly I knew what I had to do. I undid my safety belt and checked my parachute and kicked open the cockpit door and jumped. I fell fast and hard and started counting, “One . . . two . . . three . . .” I pulled my rip cord and for one minute I didn’t think my parachute would open. I was free-falling toward the water. Above me the plane disappeared. I pulled my cord again and this time the chute opened. I started floating then, just like a cloud, just like a leaf spinning its way down from a tree in fall. I was a foot above the ocean when I closed my eyes and sucked in my breath, ready to go under. I hit the water and went down, down, down.

I woke up kicking off the sheets like they were a parachute. For some reason, I couldn’t breathe. I started coughing. From her bed, Sally said, “Hartsie? What is that?” She was coughing too. I pulled myself out of bed, lungs heavy, eyes heavy, and flipped on the light.

There was smoke sneaking under our door, curling up into the room and spreading out around us. At first I thought it was fire, but then my eyes started tearing and my stomach started lurching and I knew by the smell that it was tear gas. I said, “Grab your gas mask.”

I threw open my footlocker and pulled mine out. Sally opened the windows and I opened the door, and there was a brown metal canister right outside, gas pouring out of it. Sally threw me my gloves, and I picked up the can and ran outside with it. I was sick and dizzy, and tears were streaming down my cheeks. I ran with it right over to the edge of the runway, to the swamp, and threw it into the muck. I watched it sink, my eyes stinging, my stomach cramping into a ball.

I thanked Jesus that it wasn’t mustard gas or nerve gas. Mustard gas blistered the skin and sometimes caused pneumonia, and nerve gas attacked the body’s nervous system. There were different types of nerve gas but the worst was soman. After you inhaled it, you only had a couple of seconds before you went into convulsions. According to our army manual, a victim of soman would die within two minutes.

Colonel Wells was in New York for the week, which meant that Sally and I met with Major Blackburn in his office the next morning to report the tear gas incident. My eyes were still watering so much that I looked like I was crying. Sally kept dabbing at her nose and eyes with a handkerchief. The major sat behind his desk, frowning, looking more like a bad-tempered bear than an officer in the Army Air Forces. He listened to every word we had to say and then he asked us to fill out a report.

He said, “You did the right thing to come to me. I’ll pass your report through the proper channels. And I’ll post a guard outside your barracks to see it doesn’t happen again.” He stood up then and marched to the door.

I felt my heart sink like a stone to the very bottom of my chest. Major Blackburn laid his hand on the doorknob and frowned at us. He pushed open the door and waited till we walked out before closing it.

After lunch Sally and I fell into marching formation with the other pilots and officers outside. It was her first day back on the flight line after being grounded by Jackie Cochran. Bob Keene was on one side of me and Zeke Bodine was on the other. We marched from the mess hall to the runway. The only sound was Captain Grossman counting us off, until Bob Keene said, “How’d you sleep last night, Fifi?”

I turned my head to look at him, just enough so Captain Grossman yelled at me. Bob Keene stared straight ahead like he’d never said anything at all.

That night a young cadet was stationed outside our door, gun at his hip. He was big and broad and looked as serious as Mrs. Garland Welch trying to save her soul at camp meeting. He nodded to us as we walked up, and after we showed him our IDs he let us into our room, where we climbed into our beds without brushing our teeth. Sally didn’t even take off her shoes. In minutes, she was asleep. I lay there listening to her snore and thought that maybe one day I’d write a song about two girls, one from North Carolina and the other from Indiana, who wanted to fly even though everyone tried to stop them.