Deadstick Landing
There were four things of which every Women’s Airforce Service Pilot was certain: that a good hard punch to a stuck altitude gauge would get it to work properly once again; that the boys coming back from the war would surely take away all of our flying time; that General Hap Arnold would probably never get us the military status we were fighting for; and finally, every WASP knew that if she wanted to secure her proper place in the afterlife, she should stay far, far away from Georgiana Cooper.
Georgie plopped down on my bunk, kicked her shoes off, and lay back with her hands behind her head. From head to foot, she barely fit. “I think she’s sweet on me,” she said.
“They’re all sweet on you, aren’t they, Georgie?” I folded my overseas cap and put it in my suitcase. “Hey, why you suppose they call these things overseas caps anyway?”
“She’s a nice girl, but as far as romantic dates go, she’s a real flat tire.”
“I guess they can’t all be perfect.” I placed a folded white blouse on top of my already packed clothing and shut the suitcase.
Georgie flipped over onto her stomach. “How long you going to be gone for?”
I carried my suitcase over to the door. “A day, I think. We’re just doing some A-24 target-towing over in New Mexico.”
“You and who?”
“None of your business.” I sat on the edge of my bed facing away from Georgie.
Georgie sprung up on her knees and said, “You’re flying with Buffy Tillman, aren’t you? You dirty dog, you.”
“Quiet down. What’s wrong with you?”
“Livie’s gonna get some lovin’ . . . Livie’s gonna get some lovin’,” Georgie sang.
I socked her on the thigh. “You’re insufferable.”
“But you’re excited, I can tell. The promise of a little fun does wonders for a girl’s complexion.”
I lay back on the bed, scooting Georgie over with my hip. “There’s no promise of a little fun,” I said. “Albuquerque doesn’t have a chaplain on duty.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I told you. Buffy won’t do nothing with me unless she can confess her sins before getting back onto the plane. She’s a good Catholic girl.”
Georgie jumped off the bed. She walked over to the mirror above my dresser and ran her hands over her short dark hair. She smiled at her reflection, apparently pleased with the boyishly handsome features staring back at her. “A good Catholic girl?” She picked up a baseball sitting on my dresser. “A good Catholic girl wouldn’t be lying down with you in the first place.” Georgie tossed the ball in the air and caught it. “You want to go toss the ball around for a while before you leave?”
I got up and took the ball from her. “Sure, but don’t go showing off in front of all the girls. You about darn near broke my hand the last time.”
She grabbed the ball back out of my hand. “See, that’s your problem, Shorty. Never will do well with the ladies if you keep acting like such a girl.”
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
Georgie was sitting on the wing of an A-24 when I found her on the flight line. Georgie’s massive height made the jump down from the plane’s wing look more like a single step. “Livie! You’re back.” She gave my shoulder a good whack. “How was New Mexico?”
“Dry.”
“No chaplain on duty, eh?” Georgie wiped her hands on a once-white towel.
“That’s not what I meant, Georgie.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“So, was there a chaplain on duty or not?” Georgie squinted in the bright sunlight.
“No.”
Georgie put her arm around me and said quietly, “Don’t worry, I got lucky enough for the both of us.”
I pushed her away from me as she laughed her unmistakable laugh, a mixture of machine gun and schoolgirl scream.
“Hey, I got you some presents.” She ran around the other side of the plane and came back with a B-4 bag full of chocks.
“Chocks?” I asked.
“Yeah . . . for the pedals. So you can reach.” Georgie took one of the wooden blocks out of the bag. “We can tie them to the pedals so you don’t have to sit so far forward.”
“Where did you get all these?”
Georgie laughed and looked around. It didn’t take long for me to realize what a quick look along the flight line confirmed, that she had removed the blocks from behind the wheels of each of the seven planes along the flight line.
A fly girl named Mabel headed towards us, dressed in her Santiago blue flying uniform minus the Eisenhower jacket. “Here comes my latest,” Georgie said. “Ready to watch a master gunner?”
Mabel smiled when she saw Georgie. Even in her oversized mechanics coveralls, Georgie had an appeal about her. “I didn’t expect to see you out here, Georgie,” Mabel said, ignoring me.
“I can’t trust those army mechanics to make sure my best girl is safe, now can I?” Georgie’s smile was wider than usual.
“You say that to all the girls, don’t you?” Mabel said.
Georgie climbed up on the wing and tapped on the overhead windshield. “Mabel, sweetheart,” she said, “this canopy latch is sticking. I simply cannot let you fly this plane until it gets fixed something proper.”
Mabel gave Georgie a sideways glance. “Nobody looks after me the way you do.”
I rolled my eyes. Georgie had a way with normal girls that couldn’t be believed if not witnessed with your own eyes. Marriage, engagement, even fervent righteousness didn’t stop the dames from seeing Georgie through the eyes of a lovesick girl. It was a gift Georgie was blessed with, a gift that made everything seem so natural.
Georgie winked at Mabel, and Mabel blushed.
Mabel plumped up her hair with her hands and leaned forward in a tease. “If I wait ‘til they get that latch fixed, Georgie, I may never see the sky again.”
“Are you gonna make me beg, Mabel?”
I cleared my throat. As interesting as it was to watch Georgie with the ladies, it was getting a little too uncomfortable for me just waiting for her to finish. Mabel was also bothered by my presence. “Livie, why don’t you run on back to the barracks and get Mabel’s jacket for her?” Georgie said.
Mabel adjusted her blouse. “Oh, it’s fine, really. I don’t need – ”
“Don’t worry, Mabel. Livie don’t mind, do ya, Liv?”
I glared at Georgie. I wasn’t so angry at being used as a retriever; what really angered me was how adeptly Georgie always managed to get the girls alone. I turned and ran for the barracks.
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
Shortly after Mabel’s take-off, Georgie and I were tossing the baseball around. “How long you been cavorting with Mabel?” I asked.
“We haven’t done nothing yet.” Georgie threw the ball. “I give it another week or so.”
The sun would soon be setting on Avenger Field and this was my favorite time of the day. I loved watching the sun sink below the flight line, the daily smell of sunbaked desert changing into something much more pleasant as the sun made its way to the other side of the world. The relentless Texas heat usually let up a little around now, and the field would buzz with girls coming out of the barracks for a little cool air. Georgie and I could often be found playing catch at this dusky hour. And a chorus line of girls would sneak a sly wink at Georgie as they each walked by. Georgie’s impeccably straight teeth added charm to the full smile she’d give each and every one of them girls in return.
Today, a girl I didn’t recognize walked up to Georgie. She looked me up and down. “Who’s the little girl?” she said.
“Polly, this is my friend Livie. She completed training a few months back.”
“She doesn’t look a day over thirteen,” Polly said.
Georgie was quick to tell the girl about my trouble reaching aircraft pedals, but a sight on the horizon just behind Georgie took my attention away from her teasing. A plane was rapidly approaching the flight line followed by a small trail of smoke. As it flew closer, the silence in the air signaled something terribly wrong. I pointed to it. Georgie turned.
Georgie’s friend said, “Is that a--?”
“Dead stick landing…incoming!” Georgie yelled.
The plane reached the runway and touched down, but the only noise was the faint sound of tires on concrete. We ran toward the plane. It was the A-24 that Mabel was flying. Smoke filled the cockpit, and as the plane came to a stop, we could hear Mabel screaming.
WASPs from all over the field rushed the plane. Georgie’s long legs got her there first. She leapt up on the plane’s wings and tried to undo the canopy latch. Mabel continued to scream as Georgie used all her strength to dislodge the lever. Georgie would stop every few seconds to shake her hands, an automatic reaction to the intense heat of the latch. Georgie used the towel in her pocket to wrap around the lever, yelling as she tried to push it back. Several other fly girls had descended on the canopy, all working frantically to free Mabel. Behind me, girls ran to the tower to get help.
The girls worked for several minutes, trying to free the latch and break the windows with whatever they could get their hands on. But these were combat planes. They were designed to protect their pilots. So while the girls worked, the fire in the cockpit grew more intense, and soon Mabel’s screams were replaced with the sounds of sirens blaring in the distance. In no time, the fresh smell of Avenger Field at dusk was replaced by the pungent and unforgettable smell of burning flesh.
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
The rays from the fierce Texas sun shined through the training room windows and sliced through the clouds of smoke coming from Lt. Rooney’s pipe. With a small wooden model airplane in his hand, he demonstrated how to fly the B-26 in the event of engine failure. “Let’s say you are down to just one engine,” Rooney said. “The thrust from a single engine is off-center, see, so it can cause the plane to yaw. What you gotta do is hit that rudder pedal and hit it hard.”
Sitting on top of one of the squadron tables with her back to the Lieutenant, Georgie used the index finger of her bandaged hand to draw spirals in the erased chalk lines that still clung to the blackboard. Every once in a while, her nail scratched the board causing a few of the fly girls to glance her way and rub their arms.
“Lieutenant?” Savannah Moore asked. “There’s a lot of talk around here that your boys never answered our request to get that canopy latch fixed on the A-24 that Mabel Hurley died in. She would have lived, you know, if she could have gotten out.”
Lt. Rooney sat silent for a moment. His soon-to-be gray hair was a little too thin for the buzz cut he wore. He took a long drag from his pipe and said, “Any other questions, ladies?”
Still with her back to Rooney, Georgie raised her hand. “I got one,” she said. All eleven girls in the room turned her way. “I’m finding the meat down here in Texas is just too darn dense. Is there any way we can see about getting some poultry or, better yet, a little pork?”
Rooney set the model B-26 on the table. He removed the pipe from his mouth and rubbed his eyes. “You’re all dismissed,” he said. He stood and walked out of the training room, not making eye contact with any of us as he left.
Everyone piled out of the room; some of the girls secretly batted their eyelashes at Georgie as they walked by. I approached Georgie who was still spiraling her finger on the chalkboard. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” I asked.
“I’m not a big fan of beef.”
“Seriously, Georgie. Why you wanna try and piss him off? He can kick you out of here just as fast as say grace.”
“He won’t.” Georgie clapped her hands together to rid them of the chalk. “We’re cheap and disposable. If we die in a crappy, poorly maintained plane, the only thing the country’s out is a huge chunk of metal.” She tightened the bandage on her hand. “Besides, I’ve logged more flight time than most of them boys overseas.” She jumped down off the table. “How’s he going to justify kicking me out for making a special dietary request?” She adjusted her ill-fitted poplin cap. “Damn, caps. Don’t fit worth a crap.”
Georgie picked up one of the model airplanes and flew it through the air before landing it gently on the table. “You know, I got fourteen hundred more flight hours than that yuck, Rooney.” She tossed the airplane onto the floor.
“You okay?” I asked. “I know Mabel was your friend.”
“My friend.” She sighed. I never thought of Georgie as a pretty girl, but at that moment, there was something soft and delicate about her. She turned so I wouldn’t see it. “Speaking of friends, guess what I did for you.” She was suddenly beaming. “Cochran asked me to ferry a B-17 over to Mather Air Force Base. Said to find two other WASPs to fly with me. Mather has a chaplain on duty at all times, so I requested you and Buffy Tillman. I’ll fly while you two have a little fun in the navigation bubble.”
“Shush, will ya?” I looked around the room then smacked Georgie in the stomach. “How many times I got to tell you? They’ll throw us out if you don’t shut your big trap.”
“Not a chance,” she said, rubbing her ribs. “They’re not going to kick us out. You and I are even more disposable than the others.”
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
There were miniature yellow roses growing outside the entrance of Mather Air Force Base’s chaplain’s office. I picked a few and arranged them in a bouquet, careful not to touch the thorns, but getting pricked anyway.
“What the hell is she confessing? We were up there for less than an hour.” Georgie picked up a rock and threw it. “Think she’s telling him everything?”
I shrugged. I hoped not.
Georgie threw another rock. “I hear there’s colored boys flying the planes over here.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying.”
I wouldn’t let Georgie know it, but I was worried about how long it was taking Buffy to confess her sins. Just how much did that chaplain need to know? I wondered what that man of the cloth was going to think if she told him about all that we did up there in that navigation bubble. About how our bodies felt pressed up against each other’s as we floated over the earth. Buffy’s white skin almost blended in with the clouds when we flew through a cloud cover. I told her I loved her. She told me she felt the same. There was nothing wrong with what we did up there – nothing wrong enough to have to tell some jealous man all about it.
I picked another rose. They didn’t smell very fragrant, but they looked perfect.
Buffy exited the chaplain’s quarters. She smiled at me. I handed her the bouquet of flowers that I picked for her. “You were in there a long time,” I said.
“I grew up with him. The chaplain here. Name’s Jimmy McIntyre. He’s a priest now. Grew up three doors down from me.” Buffy put the flowers to her nose. “Had the biggest crush on him when I was a kid.”
I didn’t like the thought of Buffy having a crush on a boy. I never had a crush on a boy back home. Buffy was my first crush. I tried not to let my jealousy show, but Georgie saw it and took it as a cue to change the mood.
“I had a crush on a boy, once,” Georgie said. “His name was Harry, and boy, was he ever.”
I giggled at Georgie’s joke, but Buffy didn’t seem to catch it. “So I didn’t get to confess, Livie. I just couldn’t tell Jimmy about what we did up there.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “You can confess back at Avenger.”
“You know I won’t go back up on a plane unless I can confess my sins.” She put the roses in the pocket of her flight suit. “What if it crashes?”
Georgie threw her arm around Buffy. “What are you saying, dear? That you doubt my flying ability? You know, I’ve got more flight hours than just about anyone at the field, save Miss Cochran.”
Buffy leaned into Georgie’s chest. “Who can doubt you, Georgie Cooper?”
Georgie smiled but then looked at me before quickly pushing Buffy away from her. “And with your girl, Livie here, in the navigation bubble, there ain’t no way we’re going to get lost.”
Buffy turned to me and touched my cheek. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind getting a little lost on the flight back home.”
“Then it’s all set. I’ll file the flight plan, while you two do the pre-flight checks.” Georgie pulled the flowers out of Buffy’s pocket. “Mind if I borrow these?” she said. “I want to pop in and see the base nurse before we head out.”
“Gross,” Buffy said. “The nurse out here is like sixty years old.”
Georgie socked Buffy gently on the arm. “You get to heaven in your way; I’ll get there in mine.”
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
The trumpet section of the Midnight Boogie Band swayed from side to side while the rhythm section snapped their fingers in time. I didn’t recognize the tune, but several people moved to the melody so I knew it was a popular one. Georgie fidgeted. When she wasn’t tugging on the top of her dress, she was glaring at me.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” she said.
I sipped my soda pop. “A bet’s a bet,” I said.
Two weeks earlier, Georgie bet that she could get the Lieutenant Colonel’s wife to kiss her out behind the main hangar after the new trainees’ graduation ceremony. The Lieutenant Colonel’s wife had to be the prettiest woman in a hundred-mile radius, and Georgie was sure she could win the lady’s heart. But as it turned out, there was at least one woman in the world who couldn’t be wooed by Georgiana Cooper.
In order to show Georgie a little mercy, I agreed that we would come out here to this dance hall instead of the one near the field. We hitched a ride with one of the flight instructors as he headed to his home a few miles further down the road. There wasn’t all that much in Sweetwater, Texas, so seeing this many people in this small dance hall, five miles outside the town, was surprising to me.
Georgie gulped the rest of her scotch and placed the glass on the table with a strong hand. “It’s not fair that you change a crucial definition after the handshake.”
“Georgie,” I said, “there is nobody within the sound of the English language who would agree with you that a touching of cheeks is called a kiss.”
“It is in Europe.” Georgie brushed her hand down the leg of her dress. “You know, wearing my coveralls would have been just as embarrassing.”
I chomped on an ice chip. “Nice try.” I watched the soda bubbles slide up the side of my glass. “Now, will you drop it? Your whining is unbecoming a woman of your stature.”
Georgie pulled on the hem of the dress trying to make it reach below her knees. “Talk about unbecoming. I can’t believe you own this thing.”
“It’s the dress I interviewed for the program in.”
“And they still accepted you?” She struggled with the positioning of her hands until she found a pose somewhere between Allied soldier and French pinup. “Say, you never did tell me any of the details about your time in the bubble with Buffy.”
“You’re right, I didn’t.” I ran my finger along the sweat on the outside of my glass. “It’s private. You know, some people like to keep things private.”
“Well, just so you know, even a four-engine bomber can’t drown out the sounds that come from that girl. My God, you keep with her, you’re gonna go deaf.”
“Just for that, I’m going to let the ice in my soda melt before I drink it.”
The deal was that we’d come to this dance hall and have one drink. Georgie was done with hers, so I had to take baby sips to make the time last a little longer. Just as I decided to drink the rest of it and put Georgie out of her misery, two women coming in the dance hall’s door caused me to stop.
Buffy and another fly girl, Savannah Moore, strolled into the dance hall on the arms of two GIs. Buffy looked beautiful. I hadn’t ever seen her in a real dress before. Her red hair was angelically styled in a peek-a-boo just like that lady from the silver screen, Veronica Lake. I knew every outline of her body, and yet, tonight, she looked so foreign to me.
There was no time for me to get Georgie out of there before they saw us. There was an obvious look of distress on Savannah’s face when she spotted us. I watched as the girls talked to their male companions, a little too closely, in my opinion, and then left the gentlemen’s sides. Buffy headed for the ladies’ room, and Savannah headed straight for us.
“I know all about you,” Savannah said as she approached the table. “Buffy told me all about your sinful nature. You two are sick…and disgusting…and perverted…and…and sick.”
“You already said sick,” Georgie said. “You said sick twice.”
“You shut your perverted mouth, Cooper. You hear me? The Lord is going to strike you down for being the way you are. And I hope I live to see the day that it happens.”
“Are you angry because I never fixed my sights on you? ‘Cause I can. It wouldn’t take much for me to get a little bothered for you.” Georgie winked, but in my ridiculous pink dress, she just looked like one of them ladies in a weekend comedy show.
“And as for you, Olive, Buffy doesn’t ever want to see you again. Do you understand? She never wants to see you again.”
Full of anger at Buffy for telling Savannah about us, I headed to the ladies’ room.
Inside the women’s lounge, Buffy sat on a couch with her face in her hands. I sat down next to her, putting my arm around her, but when she looked up and saw it was me, she moved away like I was some kind of leper.
“Don’t touch me, Livie,” Buffy said. “I’m through with all this…this…bad…stuff with you. Please. Don’t touch me.”
“What happened? Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re wrong. The Lord did something wrong with you. You’re not right. And I’m not like you.” She started to cry. “I don’t want to be like you.”
“You didn’t have to tell anyone, Buffy. We could have kept it all a secret.”
“But you can’t keep a secret from the Lord.” She wiped her eyes. “Oh, Livie, I should’ve never gotten mixed up with you.”
“I love you, Buffy. I swear to God, I love you.”
“Well, you can swear to God, Livie, but He won’t listen to you. God don’t listen to perverts.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed at her nose. “I don’t want to go to Hell, Livie. I don’t want to be a pervert.”
I sat for a moment hoping that this was some kind of cruel joke. Hoping that Buffy would burst out laughing and say ‘you should have seen your face.’ But there was no sign that this was a joke. Buffy was serious. She was done with me.
“I’ll leave you alone, but I want you to know that I can’t help the way I am. I don’t look at those boys the way I look at you. I’ve kissed a boy, and it didn’t feel nothing like when I kiss you. So, you don’t have to see me anymore, but don’t you hate me for something I can’t help.”
“You can help it, Livie. Just like I can help it. There’s a lot of things in this life that feel right that just aren’t.”
I left that ladies’ room without even saying goodbye. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, but I knew I wanted as far away from Buffy as possible. I would have run away from myself too, if that had been an option.
Georgie was standing just outside the powder room door. She handed me my coat and without a word, put her arm around my shoulder and walked me outside.
⸙ ⸙ ⸙
“She says she’s not like me,” I said to Georgie as we walked the long dirt road back to the field. If I wasn’t so full of thoughts about Buffy, I probably would have had a good chuckle at Georgie’s trouble with her girl shoes. Every once in a while, she’d stumble, fall over just enough that my dress would reveal a little too much thigh, and then she’d curse at me for thinking of such a good payoff for a bet.
“It happens,” she said. “Sometimes these girls are so excited with it all that they go and flap their lips to some bluenose who convinces them it’s all wrong. Don’t worry. One of two things will happen. She’ll either change her mind and come running back, or you’ll find someone new.”
“Maybe she’s right. Just ‘cause it feels right doesn’t mean it is. Maybe I should find me a nice boy and try that out for a while, see if I can be happy.”
“You won’t be.”
“I don’t want to go through this again, you know, with another girl.”
“It’s called a heartbreak, my dear. Nothing but a little old heartbreak.”
We walked for at least a mile before she spoke again. “You ever experience a dead stick landing?”
“Uh huh. Don’t want to neither.”
“They’re pretty scary. When you’re up in that plane and everything is dead, no power, no engine, no nothing, you got absolutely no control. The world is ahead of you and you are heading straight for it with nowhere else to go. You ain’t got no choice but to try your best to use what you got to get that plane down on the ground, but for a brief moment you think to yourself, ‘this wouldn’t be such a bad time to die.’ So you hold your breath, and you just do what you’ve been trained to do. No thoughts, just reflexes. Then before you know it, you’re either on the ground or dead.”
“I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, Georgie, but if you ask me, I’d rather die up in the air than live my life forever on the ground.”
The heel of Georgie’s shoe struck a rock, and Georgie fell to her knees, her dress flying up to reveal some baggy white cotton briefs. “Are you wearing boys’ underpants?” I asked.
“Shut up, Olive Sparks. You’re a mean little girl. You hear me? You just wait until we make another bet. I’m going to come up with something that makes Buffy dumping you feel like winning a medal of honor.”
Georgie’s anger only served as fuel for my laughter. We walked the remaining few miles back to the field with Georgie cursing, and me crying, partly from laughing so hard and partly from the pain of my first and only true heartbreak.
THE END