Flight of the Tiger Moth (10 page)

Mr. Wong shrugged. “It’s hard to get good beans.” He took the money from Wes, rang the cash register and tossed the change into a small rubber ­tray.

“Sounds like you’ve got
grounds
for complaining,” Jack ­giggled.

“Don’t be a
drip
, Jack.” Wes pocketed the change and headed for the door. “We better get
percolating
down the street if we want to get any dinner before choir practice.”

“Puns are the lowest form of humour, little brother.”

“We can’t be serious all the time, Cathy.”

“Have you noticed,” Arnie spoke loudly as the kids headed for the door, “how kids have to stop eating snacks so they can eat supper? If I did that, I’d weigh a ton.”

“As I recall, when you were their age you could eat a horse and have room for dessert,” laughed ­Melvin.

“That was then,” Arnie ­said.

The three young people sauntered down the street. When they rounded the corner, a fierce gust of wind roared in their direction. Dark clouds gathered in the north. Jack lifted the front of his ­t-­shirt to cover his face and keep the dust out of his mouth and eyes. Gravel stung his exposed ­flesh.

“Will the flyers be able to get to town if this wind keeps up?” asked ­Cathy.

Wes glanced at his sister. “They have an old jalopy they bought off the last bunch of lacs. Anyway, why are you so interested?”

“Don’t you have a boyfriend in Regina?” Jack tried to keep his question ­casual.

“None of your business, Jackie Waters,” said Cathy. “I just wanted to know if we would have a ­good-­sized choir at rehearsal.”

“Sure, Cathy.” Wes chuckled. “You’re just interested in the choir.”

“We believe you,” added Jack. Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted Cathy meeting Basil and ­Trevor.

When they reached Jack’s back porch, it had started to rain. Wes and Cathy followed Jack inside. It was so dark he turned the lights ­on.

“Where’s your mom?” Cathy glanced around the unusually quiet ­house.

“Ever since Dad threw his back out, she’s been running the store. He sits on a couch with weights on his left foot – supervising.” Jack shrugged. “I’m learning how to cook.”

“You’ll make some girl a wonderful husband,” laughed ­Wes.

“There’s nothing the matter with a man learning to cook.” Cathy started putting away the dishes left in the dish drainer by the sink. “Dad cooks. Mind you, I hate it myself. But I admire men who aren’t afraid of doing ‘women’s work.’” She gave Jack a big ­smile.

Jack discovered that for some reason his heart was beating fast. He looked at the table and spotted some crumbs from his lunch. He quickly wiped them off the oilcloth with a damp rag and hung the rag over the pump handle by the ­sink.

Cathy headed into the living room, or the parlour as some people still called it. She sat down at the piano and played “Chopsticks.” Wes took the lower octaves and played the second part. Jack turned on the brass banker’s lamp that stood on top of the piano, a faint smell of Cathy’s lily of the valley cologne tickling his ­nose.

Wind rattled the window. Spritzes of fine dust sifted through the cracks around the frames and under the door. No one would be flying ­today.

Suddenly the lights went out. Cathy and Wes paused in their playing for a moment, then laughed and carried on their duet in the darkened room. Jack went to the kitchen and opened the drawer that held the candles and matches. The Waters family were always prepared, Mom made sure of ­that.

He lit a candle and carried it into the living room and put it on the top of the piano. Wes and Cathy had moved on to more complicated pieces, the tumbling notes fighting against the fury of the ­storm.

The wind howled around the house. Rain pinged against the window like nails in a galvanized steel bucket. The lights didn’t come ­on.

“That’s quite the storm,” commented ­Cathy.

Wes glanced out the window. “Too bad Mom can’t hear us practicing. She’d be pleased.”

Jack envied them their relaxed attitude. His mother hated lightning. She’d always wake him up when there was a bad storm. He remembered as a small boy sitting in the kitchen sipping hot cocoa, wearing his cowboy pyjamas and wrapped in a Hudson’s Bay blanket. If the wind really howled, they went down into the small dirt basement that smelled of mildew and ­mice.

Dad wouldn’t do it. He could sleep through anything and refused to worry about things he couldn’t ­change.

Jack stared at a yellow moth flitting around the candle. It dove, rolled and flew closer and closer to the flame, like a tiny airplane. Jack had never seen a moth so large and colourful. Its wings, like a ­dew-­covered spiderweb, shone with flecks of gold. Jack was transfixed by the orange flame flickering in the gloom and the bright moth in its curious dance. He raised his hand, ready to blow the candle out or pinch the flame, but he was too ­late.

With a flash of yellow and blue and a soft hiss the delicate body dropped onto the polished wooden surface of the ­piano.

Jack shivered. He felt as if, as his mother put it, “someone just walked over my grave.”

“What if there’s a tornado?” asked Jack. “We should go to the basement, just in case.”

“Come on, Jack, it’s a storm not a catastrophe!” Wes peered out through the glass in the unused front door. “But wait, what do I see on the horizon – it’s a tornado and this is Kansas and we’ll all be twirled away to Oz.”

“Okay, and I’m the Cowardly Lion,” sighed Jack. “But I’d feel safer in the basement.”

“Sis, let’s leave our ungracious host and run for home. Mom will probably serve cookies to us survivors.” Wes headed for the back ­door.

“Are you coming with us?” Cathy ­asked.

“No, I’ll see you later at choir practice.” Jack took some carrots out to peel for ­supper.

“What a cautious fellow you are.”

Jack blushed. “Mom and Dad will be home soon. I’m supposed to start supper.”

As Cathy stood by the door, tying a scarf around her blond hair, Jack wished he could impress her. But it wasn’t going to happen today. In a moment Cathy and Wes were out the door, leaving him in the kitchen working on the ­carrots.

>>>

The storm had passed
long before choir practice, thank goodness. Jack and his parents had supper. Then Ivy headed over to the church. Bill headed to the couch with his
Reader’s ­Digest
.

“So tonight the flyers join the choir,” said his dad. “Your mother is sure pleased about that.”

“And Cathy’s back from Normal School,” sighed ­Jack.

“Maybe she’ll fall for one of the flyers,” Bill laughed. “In spring a young person’s fancy turns to love.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” whispered Jack so his dad couldn’t hear him. “I’m going now,” he called out as he headed for the door. “See you later.”

Jack sprinted along the gravel street. Up ahead he spotted the jalopy parked in front of the church already. Cathy and Basil were shaking hands and laughing about something. Trevor was climbing out of the driver’s seat and Wes stood by the side of the car, hands in his pockets, watching the whole scene. Some friend he ­was.

Jack kicked a loose pile of tiny stones so hard he stubbed his big ­toe. He thought back to Cathy and Wes standing in his kitchen earlier, laughing at the storm. He wondered how he looked to them, and suddenly he saw those nights long ago, sitting in the kitchen with his mother, in a new way. He’d always thought she did it to comfort him. Now, he wasn’t sure. Who had been comforting whom?

Chapter ­14

With school over, Jack worked every day
at the air base. They’d had no further news of Sandy, but Flo had written several times, talking about the long hours she worked nursing wounded ­fliers.

She missed Sandy a lot and worried about him but said she had quite a few friends. Some of the other nurses had boyfriends they hadn’t heard from. Flo got to go to dances because the nearby bases would send a bus for the nurses to come for the evening. They danced to live bands and orchestras. Sometimes entertainers put on variety shows for the troops. Jack was glad it wasn’t all ­work.

She had hinted that she might be moved. She couldn’t say where to or when but she had written a strange sentence or two in her last letter. He didn’t think his mother had figured out what Flo was trying to tell ­them.

“I’m looking forward to taking a hike with friends soon down the winding road leading from this hospital to a much smaller one. Around the bend are fields with farmers clearing crops. It’s pretty rustic but the scenery will be ­different.

“How did school go, Jack? Did you excel in French and English?”

“Flo knows French and English aren’t your best subjects,” Dad said after reading the letter and passing it on to him. “What’s she talking about?”

“She’s probably forgotten he’s our Math whiz kid,” said his mother. “I’m glad she’s getting out with friends her own age. Flo is better at this than I would ever be. I worry more than she does.”

Dad had leaned across the table and given her a peck on the cheek. “We all do the best we can, Ivy.”

After Jack had read the letter twice, he’d decided that Flo was being shipped out to a field hospital somewhere near the front, probably in France. He was proud of her – and a tad worried. Were field hospitals ­safe?

Jack’s own life had settled into a comfortable routine, revolving around his job at the base, the choir and hanging out with Trevor, Basil, Cathy, Cheese and Dexter. Wes had gone off to be a counsellor at a church camp but would be back soon. Jack missed him. Wes could be pretty serious but he was a lot of fun ­too.

There’d been a couple of minor accidents at the base but nothing really bad. Jack was working hard, cycling out to the airfield every morning at ­eight-­thirty to find Harold and Angus already at ­work.

One morning in ­mid-­July Jack heard a loud shout from the hangar as he pulled into the service yard. The old ­half-­ton shot out of the hangar. Harold was driving and Angus slumped in the passenger seat. Harold spotted Jack and ­stopped.

“Come here, Jackie.”

Jack jumped up on the running board of the ­truck.

“Get in beside him and press this against his side where he’s bleeding.” Harold handed Jack a large gauze compress from the ­first-­aid ­kit.

Jack opened the door and squeezed in beside Angus, whose face was white as flour. Blood oozed from his left side through the shredded fabric of his coveralls. Jack placed the compress against the spot with his left hand and managed to close the door with his ­right.

“Just keep it pressed down,” Harold said as he took off for the infirmary. “Might slow the bleeding.”

“What happened?” Jack switched to holding the compress with his right hand stretched across Angus’s body, trying not to touch his stomach and make things ­worse.

“Propeller,” Harold said. “He was supposed to have all the switches off, and –”

“They were off,” Angus said, his head still bent. “I’m sure they were.”

“I came along in time to see him give the prop a good swing and all of a sudden the engine bursts into life and the prop rips through his coveralls.”

Angus ­moaned.

“Hang on, man, we’re there.” Harold stopped the ­half-­ton right in front of the doors and leaned on the horn. A startled orderly grabbed a stretcher and yelled for help. In a moment two guys sprinted to the truck as Jack and Harold helped Angus out of the cab. In another moment they had him settled on the stretcher and whisked him inside. Harold followed to explain what ­happened.

Jack shuddered. His hand was covered in blood and he tried to clean it off on the corner of the compress, which had fallen to the ground. He hoped Angus wasn’t cut up too badly, hoped he’d soon be out of pain. He could easily have been sliced to pieces by the propeller, but Jack didn’t think it would be that bad. Angus had still been ­conscious.

There had to be a better way of designing a plane. A guy shouldn’t have to spin the propeller to get it going. He thought about the diagrams of the engine and propeller he’d studied in books and tried to see them in his mind. His fingers itched to hold a pencil and paper. He was sure he could think of something. Jack needed to learn a lot more, he knew that. Maybe he could work on that at university. Maybe he could come up with a new design and no one would ever have an accident like this one ­again.

Finally Harold came out the front door. “He’s all right. Got some deep gashes that will need stitches and he’ll have spectacular bruises, but they don’t think there are any internal injuries. They’re going to keep him in a couple of days till he starts to mend. Then he’ll have to take it easy at home for a week or so.”

Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Angus would be okay. There wouldn’t be a new grave in the Cairn ­cemetery.

Chapter ­15

The next Tuesday Wes and Jack tossed a baseball
back and forth in front of the manse and the tidy white church. Jack told Wes what he had missed being away. He described Angus’s ­accident.

“Could have been you, Jack.”

“I know.” Jack caught a fastball. “I’m not going to tell Mom.”

“Meanwhile I just had to deal with homesick campers, skunks under the cabin and telling kids about God all week. That was a challenge.”