Two Blackbirds (19 page)
“If word gets around, there might be a few reporters at Richmond when we land.” Rollins rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Maybe we should make sure they
will
be there.” Linda nodded her head and smiled as if she'd just come up with a wonderful idea. “We'll provide the General with good press in return for the use of his aircraft. I mean, it's only fair, don't you think?”
Sharon felt a sudden wave of nausea. Her mouth filled with saliva. She turned her back on the two women, bent over, and promptly threw up onto the tarmac.
Linda rubbed Sharon's back with one hand and held her ponytail with the other. “Are you able to continue?”
“Are you pregnant?” Rollins asked.
Sharon straightened up, reached for a hanky, wiped her face, and blushed through her nausea.
“You are?” Linda asked.
“I think so.” Sharon looked at Rollins. “I'll be grounded if word of this gets out.”
Rollins shook her head. “Nobody will hear it from me. You feeling well enough to get us the rest of the way?”
“We'll get you there.” Linda rubbed Sharon's back. “Does Michael know?”
Sharon shook her head. “Not yet.”
The horn of an ambulance beeped. Sharon stuffed the hanky in her pocket. “Here comes Walter.”
The ambulance pulled up next to the cargo ramp. Walter stepped out and went to the back of the truck. He opened the door, lifted two boxes, balanced them on his right knee, and closed the door with his free hand. He walked up to the cab of the truck and nodded at the driver. The pink palm of a brown hand waved out the window of the ambulance as it drove away. Walter walked up the ramp and into the cabin.
Linda turned to Rollins. “Are you able to call anyone in Richmond who can alert the press that Eisenhower's plane is arriving in about five hours?”
Rollins looked at Sharon and frowned.
“If Linda has a plan,” Sharon said, “then she'll take care of things when we land. While you make the call, Linda and I can get ready for takeoff.” Sharon walked to the ramp, then up and into the cabin. Walter was setting the two boxes near the tail of the aircraft. He turned and faced Sharon.
“How did you manage that?” Sharon pointed at the medicine.
“You knocked at the front door. I knocked at the back. That's how it works sometimes. My friend asked for one box of penicillin and another of morphine on our return trip.” Walter looked around the cabin. “Where to next?”
“Richmond, Virginia. Apparently, there's a big veterans' hospital there.” Sharon looked up toward the cabin.
“Richmond? Maybe we'll have time for some home-style cooking. Man, I've been craving Virginia ham.” He studied Sharon's face. “You look a little pale.”
“Upset stomach. Thanks for getting the medicine. You probably saved the lives of a couple of our boys.” She nodded in the direction of the soldier with an
IV
in his arm and a bottle hanging above his bed.
Walter shrugged. “Glad to do it.”
They took off twenty minutes later and landed at Richmond in a little under five hours.
Sharon looked out the cockpit window and saw a clutch of photographers. She turned to Linda as they shut down the last engine. Linda nodded and undid her harness. “I need to take care of the reporters. Have you got this?”
Sharon nodded. She went through the final checks with Walter's help and followed Linda a few minutes later. The last two litters were being lifted off as the wounded boys were being eased toward the ramp. She stood next to the open cargo door and looked toward the gathering of reporters and photographers facing Linda.
“Don't you think it's wonderful that General Eisenhower made his aircraft available to bring wounded soldiers home? It just shows you that with Eisenhower, his men come first.” Linda lifted her chin as the bulbs began to flash.
“To hell with that!” The voice came from inside the aircraft.
Sharon turned. Once her eyes adjusted to the softer light, she saw Rollins leaning one arm against the fuselage of the aircraft. Sharon recognized the wounded soldier who had needed the penicillin to fight infection.
“We were out of penicillin,” Rollins said. “He managed to get some before we left Goose Bay. You're on the mend now. You wouldn't be without his help. You should thank him.”
Sharon stared at the top of the soldier's head. His black hair was uncombed and his nose was crooked from being broken. There were stumps under the blanket where feet should have been.
“You think I'm going to thank him? You got another think comin'!” The soldier shook his head for emphasis.
Sharon looked to her left and saw Walter there, backing away from Rollins and the soldier. Walter's face was a neutral mask, but the anger in his eyes gave him away. Sharon moved next to Rollins, put her hand on the nurse's shoulder, and said, “This woman saved your life!” She turned and pointed at Walter. “This man got the medicine for you!” She looked at the corpsmen holding either end of the litter. “Leave this son of a bitch where he is!” She pointed at the young man. “I'll fly him back to fucking England!”
Rollins took Sharon by the arm and pulled her to the front of the aircraft. She nodded at the corpsmen to carry the wounded soldier out of the aircraft, then pulled Sharon closer. “We do what we do to save their lives. We can't do anything about what's in their hearts.”
Walter stepped closer and said to Rollins, “You have to understand, she saw a man executed because he was black. He was our friend.”
Rollins turned to Walter.
“His name was Edgar Washington. An
MP
shot him outside a pub. We all went for dinner. There was a fight. Edgar was shot in the chest. The
MP
got away with murder. She â” Walter pointed at Sharon, “â tried to get the
MP
charged.”
“There's a war on.” Sharon watched the wounded soldier being carried down the ramp. “They told me that nothing would be done about Edgar's murder because there was a war on.”
“Sharon! Rollins! Walter! Come down!” Linda stood at the bottom of the ramp and winked. Men with cameras smiled up at them. “They want pictures!”
“I don't know if this is such a good idea,” Walter said to Sharon.
“Come on.” Rollins grabbed each by an elbow. She turned to Walter. “Just pull your cap down over your eyes.”
“You can tell them your name is Edgar Washington if you like.” Sharon had the odd feeling that her brain was becoming disconnected from her mouth.
Walter looked at her and smiled.
“After the photos, you're coming with me. I know where we can get some first-class grub,” Rollins said.
“Umm. . .,” Walter said.
Rollins said, “You're coming, Walter.”
“But. . .,” Walter said.
“After each trip, we go to Maybelle's on Carlisle Avenue. And there's no reason to worry. Come on, we've got a ride.” Flashbulbs caught them as they posed at the cargo door. More followed as they felt their way down the ramp. Linda met them at the bottom for another series of photographs. Rollins hustled nurses and crew toward a Deuce and a Half idling around the side of a hangar. “Now all we need is a driver. We've got a three-hour loan.”
Sharon smiled at Walter, who climbed into the cab. Rollins got in the passenger side, and the rest of them clambered into the canvas-topped back of the truck.
Sharon watched out the back of the Deuce. It was a warm day for winter, at least warmer than what they were used to, and she enjoyed the passing scenery, even though her mind was numb with fatigue.
The truck stopped in a residential area and parked out front of a white house. They had to walk half a block to a large red brick house on the corner. People in uniform and civilians came and went.
“Maybelle runs the place,” Rollins said. “She has the best food around. She has two sons in the service. She and her daughters keep this place going.”
They went around back to a one-storey building set in the middle of a half-acre of backyard. The restaurant had windows on all four sides, and the leafless trees were positioned so as to provide shade for the restaurant and the patio in the summertime.
Rollins opened the door and stepped inside. Sharon found herself salivating at aromas that were both familiar and new. A waitress with light brown skin waved them over to table she was clearing. The six of them sat down. Sharon looked around at a crowd of mixed colours who seemed unaware of their arrival and whose eyes remained focused instead on the food in front of them. Walter looked around, then looked at Sharon. She smiled. The smile became a yawn.
“Coffees?” the waitress asked.
Rollins nodded.
“Specials?” The waitress returned with cups and a carafe of coffee.
Rollins looked around the table. Linda asked, “What's the special?”
“Chicken, potatoes, grits, and gravy.” The waitress made her way around the table, filling coffee cups.
The nurses nodded and smiled. Linda said, “Sounds good to me.”
The conversation began to warm up. Rollins turned to Sharon. “What are you going to do after this mess is over?”
Sharon put her coffee down. She shrugged. “I've been. . .”
“She's been thinking about moving back to Canada,” said Linda, putting her hand on Sharon's arm. “I'd like to move there too, if that's okay with you.”
Sharon felt the renewed warmth of the connection between them and turned to her friend. “What about Honeysuckle?”
Linda leaned back as a steaming plate with half a chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and something resembling porridge appeared in front of her. “I think that she is warming to the idea.”
Sharon smiled as her plate arrived. She picked up her knife and fork, closed her eyes, then fell face-forward into her grits.
She was partially aware of a flurry of activity around her. A napkin wiped her face. A pair of hands held her by the shoulders.
“Be careful!” said Linda. “She's pregnant.”
Rollins said, “It's the middle of the night in England.”
“I need a nap after this,” said Sharon. She worked on finishing the chicken and mashed potatoes, then slept for fourteen hours.
“Linda Townsend!”
The man in the blue uniform and cap wore a white moustache which cut a straight line across his upper lip.
Linda sat up straighter. The evening light backlit her red hair. She was across from Sharon in the waiting area of Montreal's Dorval airport. “I'm Linda Townsend.”
Sharon shuddered as she recognized the uniform of a telegraph deliveryman. The telegraph man handed Linda a clipboard. “Sign here, please.” Linda signed. He handed her a telegram and walked away.
Sharon felt as if someone had opened a door somewhere and sucked all of the other sounds from the building. All that remained was the echo of the man's heels on the floor as he walked away.
Linda looked across at her friend, who stuck her thumbnail under the envelope flap and took time to breathe. The envelope opened. Linda pulled out the message and unfolded it.
Sharon watched Linda's eyes. Linda glanced at Sharon, then read the message again. Linda leaned forward and handed the telegram to Sharon. Linda bent at the waist, rested her elbows on her knees, and put her head in her hands.
DEAR LINDA,
MILTON CARDINAL ALIVE AND SAFE STOP
WAITING AT COTTAGE FOR YOUR RETURN STOP
MICHAEL
Sharon folded the telegram, got up, and sat down beside Linda, who was weeping and shaking. Sharon began to feel light-headed; then she remembered to breathe.
Linda fell asleep somewhere south of Iceland.
She was curled in a sleeping bag on a makeshift bed behind the Perspex nose of the Lancaster.
Walter sat next to Sharon in the cockpit of the bomber they'd ferried all the way from Montreal. They were on finals for their landing at Lossiemouth, Scotland. The sun was low in the west and at their backs. Sharon eased back on the controls. The heavy bomber was lighter on the controls now that it had burned off most of its fuel. The wheels skipped along the end of the runway. Sharon closed the throttles. The tail began a slow drop until the tail wheel thumped against the tarmac.
Ten minutes later, they clambered out of the rear side door after the long overseas flight that left them with unsteady legs and that old friend, fatigue. They would search first for a washroom, then hot food.
They stood next to the tail of the bomber. Sharon looked at the grey sky. Linda wiped sleep from her eyes.
Walter turned at the sound of an approaching truck. “What the hell?”
The driver's eyes caught Sharon's attention. They were wide and intense under a green wool cap. The passenger wore a
US
Army Air Corps brown crusher cap that looked like it had flown more than fifty missions. The truck stopped, the engine idled, and the passenger got out. He wore a sheepskin jacket and a khaki flight suit. His chin was square, his eyes were blue, and his voice boomed. “My orders are to fly the three of you back to London!” He jerked his thumb at the rear of the truck, indicating that they should climb in.
Sharon looked at Linda. Walter stepped forward to do as he was told.
“Who are you?” Sharon asked.
“Captain Markham,” the pilot said.
“We're hungry,” Sharon said.
“My orders are â” Markham began.
“We need a hot meal.” Sharon put her hands on her hips. Her stomach growled, she blushed but stood her ground.
“And I need to powder my nose,” Linda added.
Walter hesitated in the no man's land between Markham and Sharon.
Their first stop was the canteen near the washroom. Markham kept glancing at his watch as he drank coffee. He held his cup with both hands and sipped. Meanwhile, Sharon, Linda, and Walter chatted about the flight and the meal they'd eaten in Richmond.
