On Wings Of The Morning (29 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: On Wings Of The Morning
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“Really? That must be interesting. What is it you do there?”
“I'm a member of the Women's Air Service Pilots, a WASP.”
“So you fly for the military?”
I took a sip of my Coke before answering. “Not as much as I used to. Before this, I was a ferrying pilot. But now I'm a flight instructor, so most of my air time is spent in the passenger seat.”
“With white knuckles, no doubt, hanging on for dear life and hoping your students were paying attention to their lessons.” He raised his eyebrows and made a face of mock terror.
“Not too often,” I smiled. “They are pretty well versed in the basics before I get them. I teach navigation, mostly. I'm not as worried about them crashing as getting lost and having to talk them through the finer points of cow-pasture landings,” I joked, thinking how nice it was to have someone to talk to. I'd been working so hard for so long, I'd nearly forgotten how pleasant it was just to sit and chat with another person.
I was about to tell him the story of the student who, unlike Bugs Bunny, actually had taken that left turn at Albuquerque and was ten minutes from entering Mexican airspace before he realized his mistake when Irma showed up with my cheeseburger and French fries. She gave me my food, topped off the pastor's coffee, and scurried off to tend to her other customers.
“Looks good,” the Reverend Van Dyver said, nodding toward my plate.
“Well, Irma assured me that the grease in the fryer was fresh, so I bet it is.” I took a bite. “Mmmm. Irma was telling the truth,” I confirmed. “It's been so long since I've had a hamburger. What about you?” I asked, glancing at his plate. “That's a big piece of pie, but surely that's not all you're having for dinner.”
“Oh, no.” He shook his head and took a swallow of coffee. “I was over at the hospital for visitation. One of our church members just had a baby and another is in with a case of gout. I'll have dinner at home with my family. This is sort of an appetizer, just to tide me over.” He took another bite of pie, which he was clearly enjoying.
“And you?” he asked. “Do you have dinner here very often?”
“No. In fact, this is the first time I've been here. Tonight, I just ...” I hesitated, not sure how much of my personal life I wanted to share with a stranger. Besides, he'd already put in a full day's work listening to other people's problems. I ate a French fry and let the subject drop.
“Is something wrong? Is there some way I can help you?” He tilted his head slightly as he spoke and leaned closer. It was a question he'd asked a thousand times, I was sure, with just the same sympathetic inflection in his voice, but his eyes were kind and sincere.
I couldn't help but compare him to the pastor of the little church I'd so briefly attended in Texas, where the minister stood at the door after the service, waiting to collect compliments on the sermon and glad-hand the congregation as they exited. He'd said, “Good morning. How are you today?” with just the same tilt to his head as Reverend Van Dyver had, but his eyes, though bright and smiling, were already looking past you to the next congregant as you grasped his outstretched hand and murmured the required “Fine. Thank you.” No matter how untrue that was, you'd answer, “Fine. Thank you,” because that was the expected answer. It was your line, and you delivered it automatically. Saying anything else would have confused everyone.
Still, the hours I'd spent on my knees searching for answers to questions I wasn't even sure how to ask, singing the hymns that always brought tears to my eyes though I didn't know why, reading the heavy, black Bible with those soaring words that made me want to keep reading, had convinced me that there was something to God. When it came to religion, I was less persuaded. But the man sitting in front of me, with the steady gaze and honest face, patiently waiting for an answer, made me wonder if I'd been too hasty in my judgment. The minister in Texas had been playing the part of pastor. This man was different—he
was
a pastor; he wasn't playacting. Suddenly the words I'd read in the book, words that described what I'd thought church ought to be, came to my mind, “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
I put down the French fry I'd been holding and turned to the minister. I did want to talk. “I had some bad news today. A friend of mine, another pilot, is missing.” For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of pain in his eyes, as if he knew exactly what I was going through and laboring under the same load of worry I carried, but he cleared his throat and spoke before I could say anything.
“One of your girlfriends?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He's a combat pilot. I really haven't known him for very long. We quarreled when I last saw him, and I haven't heard from him since. I told myself that was fine with me, that I didn't really care for him and that even if I had, I was much too busy to get myself entangled in something as silly as a ...” I paused a minute, not certain I wanted to discuss matters of the heart with a clergyman, but he didn't seem fazed or embarrassed, so I went on. “Wartime romance, is the way people put it, I guess. But today I got a letter saying my friend was missing, and I realized that I really do care for him. I've tried so hard to push him out of my mind, but it hasn't worked. He's always there.” I swallowed hard and dabbed my eyes with a paper napkin. The last thing I wanted to do was start crying, not in front of a restaurant full of people.
“I wish I'd written to him or ... something. I don't know. But it's too late now. No one knows where he is or what has happened to him, and even though I try to tell myself that he's fine and they'll find him, I can't help but imagine the worst.” My eyes started to well up again, and, to my surprise, so did Reverend Van Dyver's.
“And you feel so helpless,” the minister said, as if he could read my mind. “You want to do something, anything, but all you can really do is wait.”
“Yes.”
“I understand,” he said quietly. “But there is something you can do. Two things, really.” I blinked back tears and looked at him, interested to hear his suggestion. “You can resolve that, if he is found, you will be honest with him and with yourself, that you will tell him the truth about your feelings.” I nodded ever so slightly as he spoke, agreeing even though I knew it wouldn't be as easy as he made it sound. “And you can pray. We can pray. Right now.”
“You mean here? Right now, with all these people around?”
A hint of a smile played at his lips. “There's no time like the present,” he said. “Our Lord said that where two or three are gathered together in his name, he would be in the midst of them. So you see, we shall be in the very best of company.” Seeing my hesitancy, he went on, “Trust me, everyone is much too absorbed in their burgers and tuna melts to notice. Even if they do, there's a war on; people pray a lot more than they used to, and in some of the most unlikely places.” Without waiting for my assent, he bowed his head and started praying quietly in the middle of the noisy café with the clatter of silverware and the shouted announcements of orders up for accompaniment. I did likewise.
“Dear Lord, one of your sheep is hidden from our eyes, but not from yours. You know where he is, and we are grateful. Please, remain with him, protect him, and return him to his family and loved ones unharmed. And for ourselves, we ask for strength and courage to bear up under the heavy load of worry that we are carrying today. We pray this full of confidence in your power and your mercy and according to your will. Amen.”
“Amen,” I echoed. Looking up, I asked him, “Do you think it worked?”
This time he didn't bother trying to conceal his smile. “Oh, yes,” he assured me. “It worked. We prayed sincerely, and God heard us. Does that mean that your friend will be found? I don't know that.”
I frowned, dissatisfied with the answer.
“Georgia,” the minister said kindly, “prayer isn't some magical means of getting what we want, when we want it. God isn't a kind of celestial Santa Claus, handing out presents to the nice and lumps of coal to the naughty. God says that we are to pray confidently and according to His will. Prayer is how we begin to align our will with God's. If it is within God's will for your friend to be found, then I promise that he will be.”
“And if it isn't?”
“Then, if you rely on Him, God will give you the strength to bear the loss.”
I looked away, trying to understand everything the pastor was saying, but I knew there was truth in it. After Roger died, there'd been a time when I thought I would die, too—when I almost wanted to. Yet, slowly, I had rediscovered moments of joy and sweetness in life. But it hadn't been easy or painless. Life isn't like that, and I knew it. Even if I didn't like the pastor's message, I appreciated his honesty.
“Thank you. It's kind of you to take the time to talk with a stranger. I feel a lot better. When I read that letter, I was frantic. I ran out of my apartment without any idea where I was going, without my coat or my ... Oh my gosh!” I cried.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“My purse! I left it at home, and I didn't bring any money with me. I don't have a way to pay for this!”
I searched my pockets frantically, hoping to find a spare dollar, but Reverend Van Dyver just laughed.
In the end he not only paid for my dinner, he drove me home. He said to forget about it, that it was his pleasure to buy my dinner, but I insisted that he wait while I ran upstairs to find the money I owed him.
Before I went to sleep that night I said a little prayer thanking God for sending me an angel in the form of the kindly minister and asking Him again to take care of Morgan, wherever he was.
33
Morgan
The Pacific—July 1944
 
T
he light of dawn shone warm through the thin fabric of my parachute shelter, waking me from a night that had been far too short. I laid my arm over my eyes to block out the light, hoping to be able to go back to sleep, but it was no good. Every muscle in my body was aching, but the searing pain that radiated from my foot was nearly unbearable. I'd injured it when I bailed out.
A couple of bones were broken, and I'd gotten a pretty deep cut, but it hadn't seemed that bad at first. Before wrapping the foot with strips I'd torn from my undershirt, I'd washed the wound out with seawater. The salt water stung so badly that I'd cried out, but I hoped that it would clean out the gash and fight off infection. By the fourth day it was clear that my attempts at first aid hadn't worked. The foot was swollen, flaming red, pulsing with pain, and the fever that raged through my body made the tropical heat feel even more intense.
Seven days before, when I running out of daylight, fuel, and hope, this island had looked like paradise, but in truth, I could hardly have chosen a less hospitable spot in which to find myself marooned. The island was small and had almost no vegetation, just a few scrubby bushes that provided little shade or protection from the elements. There was no fresh water and nothing to eat.
Initially, in spite of the pain from my foot, I'd tried to keep my spirits up and my mind busy by using the survival techniques I'd learned during basic training. Tying one side of the parachute to some of the taller bushes and then piling rocks on the other side to secure it, I'd built a lean-to, spreading my parachute out as wide as possible to make it easier for rescue planes to spot from the air. Out here, wherever that was, an enemy aircraft could spot me as easily as an ally, but it was a risk I had to take. The gear I'd grabbed before ditching had a few rations, but they weren't going to last for long. I made a crude spear by lashing my survival knife to the end of a branch I'd stripped from one of the bushes and securing the ends of the lashing with the rubber bands I'd taken from the cockpit. It actually made a fairly formidable weapon. But there was no wildlife on the island, and the burning pain of salt water on my open wound made it impossible to stand in the water long enough to spear any fish. Fortunately, the fever diminished my appetite. Too bad it hadn't done the same for my thirst. Water was my big problem.
My canteens were nearly empty, though I'd tried my best to limit my water ration. But it wasn't easy. The ravaging fever doubled my thirst. My tongue was swollen, and when I swallowed it felt like my throat was lined with sandpaper.
The day before I'd seen clouds on the horizon. Desperate to capture a little rainwater, I'd laid out my helmet, my canteen, my waterproof map, even my boots, anything I could think of that might serve as a catch basin, then sat for hours watching the horizon, willing the storm clouds to come my way, only to see them blow off to the south. Since the moment I'd crawled up on the beach and surveyed the unforgiving landscape of the island, fear had been crouching at the edge of my consciousness. But when that quenching veil of clouds teased me with hope and then passed me by, fear moved to center stage in my mind.
What is it going to be like,
I wondered,
to die of thirst, alone on an island somewhere in the Pacific? Why is this happening? I want to go home—to make things right. What a waste.
When you're stranded on a desert island, you've got plenty of time, time to think, regret, resolve, to make plans for the future and bargains with God. In those seven days, I thought more about my life and how I'd lived it than I ever had before. And I didn't like what I saw.
When I'd told Charles Lindbergh, my father ... it was still hard to get my mind around that ... when I'd told my father to get out of my quarters, I was angrier than I'd ever been in my life. How could he have done it? Left my mother to raise me alone, to face the hardships and shame of living as the mother of a bastard in a town as small as Dillon, where there was nowhere to hide and everyone sticks their nose in everybody's business? And then, having done it, how could he find the nerve to just show up out of nowhere and say, “Hello. I'm your father. Nice to meet you”? What had he expected me to say? Was I supposed to be happy? Grateful that to learn, after a lifetime of fending for myself, that I was the son of the famous Charles Lindbergh? Well, to hell with him!
But at least he
had
told me the truth—a lot later than I'd deserved to hear it, but he'd done it. I hadn't spent much time with him, hardly knew him, but I could see that he wasn't the cowardly, egocentric jerk I was making him out to be. But what kind of man was my father? Maybe just exactly what he'd said, a man who'd made mistakes and was trying to make up for them as best he could. But surely he'd known that there was no way, no way in the world to make up for it. And then I realized that, yes, he had known it. He'd known he couldn't wipe out the past, that there was no apology eloquent enough, no penance harsh enough to make up for all that he'd done and not done. He hadn't tried to pretend there was, hadn't demanded forgiveness or understanding. He'd just decided to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. He'd done what he could. He'd been honest. That was more than I could say for a lot of people.
How many people, people I loved and who said they loved me, had been in on the secret? Ruby and Grandma probably. Paul possibly. And my grandfather. On that day when he caught me at the pump, washing the blood from my shirt, I realized that Papaw knew who my father was, but he wouldn't tell me. It was too big a secret. It was
the
secret, and we'd all played our part in keeping it that way, even me. I hadn't pushed for an answer, or been courageous enough to demand the truth. I'd made up my own truth, stories that, if not more believable, were at least more palatable—a legitimate pilot father who'd died bravely and was waiting for us in heaven, an unwary step onto a farm rake that innocently blacked my eye, a perfect son—happy, studious, obedient, pure of body and mind—who'd flown off to college and then to war, not to escape the secrets but to make his family proud and his country safe. What a cool liar I was. What a skilled and trustworthy keeper of secrets. And why wouldn't I be? I'd learned from the best—Mama.
Sitting on the beach waiting for a rescue that seemed increasingly unlikely, it seemed the time for honesty had finally come. I had unleashed my rage on Lindbergh, but Mama was the one I was truly angry with. Biology aside, Lindbergh was a stranger to me, but Mama had my trust and my heart. She should have been the one to tell me, years ago. Why didn't she? It wasn't from lack of love. I knew that. However angry I might be with her, however she had disappointed me or hurt me, I knew that Mama loved me. And I loved her. Whatever she had done, and however wrongly she had done it, her motivation had been love.
On that last day in San Diego, we'd pretended, like we always did, that everything was fine. With all my heart, I had wanted to say something true, something honest to her before I left, and I did, but it wasn't easy. I was so practiced at hiding the truth. I had learned that from Mama. And where had she learned it? From Grandma? From Papaw? Both? And them—who had instructed them in the fine art of secrecy?
Years ago, when I was just a teenager, I remembered Paul preaching a sermon that no one had liked. He talked about King David and how, even though he was beloved of God and had been showered with everything he needed for life and happiness, David had coveted another man's wife, taken her into his bed, and then had the woman's husband murdered. And when David's son, Solomon, had come to the throne, he too had been foolish about women, and it had cost him dearly, and the same with his sons and their sons for generations.
“The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons for four generations,” Paul intoned ominously from the pulpit, while farmers shifted uncomfortably in their pews, reflecting, no doubt, on their own failings and wondering why they'd polished their shoes and gotten themselves into town early just to be made to feel bad by some foreign preacher who'd never sown an acre of wheat in his life. Paul went on to posit that perhaps the text wasn't warning as much about divine punishment as the need for us to be on guard about the legacy of sin we could be passing onto the next generation, that the individual choices of one person could easily become the habitual, ingrained character flaws that pass through an entire family line. However, he stated, ending on a more hopeful note, it was possible for every person present to break the chains of generational sin. He urged those assembled to examine their own lives carefully, to see what errant inheritance they might have received from their ancestors, and to firmly resolve to break the cycle of sin in their lifetime, thereby rescuing future generations. “It will not be easy,” Paul said. “It will require honesty, daily resolve, as well as powerful and divine intervention. But do not be afraid, for with God all things are possible.” When he finished, the church was quieter than usual and people seemed to struggle to their feet for the closing hymn. After the service, in the vestibule, I could hear them whispering complaints to one another.
“Why does he have to make everything so complicated?”
“I wish Pastor Wilder was still here. There was a man who knew how to preach! A nice message on forgiveness and the love of God, something on stewardship once a year at pledge time, and you could go home and enjoy a nice Sunday dinner. Now I not only can't digest my supper, but I'm awake half the night trying to figure out what he said. Makes me feel unsettled, and that's not why I come to church, I can tell you.”
“Well, I just don't understand a word of it.”
And at the time, neither had I, but now I was beginning to.
Sitting under the thin protection of my parachute shelter just a fiery sun was setting on the horizon, I raised my hand in a pledge, reaching toward the sky, trying to grasp with my fingertips that place in which I was most truly myself, and declared aloud to God and the empty world, “With your help, it will stop with me. I promise. If I get off this island, I'm not going to hide anymore. It's going to stop with me.”
I watched the last fingers of light fade from the sky before I crawled to the center of the lean-to and lay down on the sand. I slept peacefully, my mind more at ease than it had been in a long time.
Just before dropping off I thought,
Tomorrow. I've accomplished what I was sent here to do. The lesson is learned. Surely my rescue will come tomorrow.
That was four days ago.
 
There were two aspirin left in my survival kit. I'd saved them and the last of my water for as long as I could. Now, with the sun almost directly overhead, I couldn't wait any longer. I rolled on to my side, twisted open the metal lid of the canteen, and put the aspirin in my mouth. I swallowed once, twice, and finished the last of the warm water with the third swallow. I tipped the canteen as high as I could and was rewarded with a few more precious drops of liquid, but that was all. My water was gone. I was burning with fever, and the pain radiating from my foot up my leg was excruciating. Unless a rescue plane came soon, I'd be dead by morning.
“And since you haven't seen a single aircraft, neither friend or foe, in a week, I wouldn't start holding your breath on that score, Morgan. They've given up looking by now. And wherever the hell it is you are, it's way out of the area where they'd expect to find you,” I said. Talking out loud helped take my mind off the agony of my foot, at least a little, but the effort was draining.
I thought about Mama. When I'd last seen her, that morning in San Diego, I'd admitted my fear of dying, as my friends had, in combat. Now that kind of death, fast and final, seemed ultimately preferable to the slow, dripping away of life that I was facing. Mama. I was glad she'd come. Glad I'd been able to see her again, to see her with Paul, both happy at last. But it had taken so long. Why should that be?
And I thought of Georgia. Georgia laughing, her eyes liquid, dark and delicious like melted chocolate. Georgia concentrating and strong-minded, leaning over the open fuselage of an airplane, whistling a sharp breath through pursed lips, blowing stray strands of hair out of her eyes, her hands busy and determined, searching the depths of the blocked wing tank. Georgia confident and vibrant, her gaze focused straight ahead as she looked over the instrument panel, poised and calm as she prepared to land, setting that big cargo plane down on the runway as gently as if it had been a sparrow coming to rest on a tree branch. Georgia lovely in every light, unforgettable even in my moment of deepest despair. Why had I waited?
I was tired, but I couldn't sleep; the pain was too much. I thought about crawling to the edge of the beach so I could dip my discarded shirt into the surf and then lay it on my burning skin, to get a little relief from the heat, but I couldn't summon the energy to move. I had nothing left.
I closed my eyes and listened to the constant roar of the waves, waiting for it to be over, praying it wouldn't be long. Strange images floated in and out of my fevered, delirious mind, a disconnected jumble of memories and imaginings.
I saw myself sitting on the tractor, the first time Papaw had let me drive it alone, waving to Mama as she stood on the porch beaming, watching me plow a crooked furrow.

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