He did essentially the same thing when he gave Pickering his two hours, except that he devoted the last hour to touch-and-goes, and the last fifteen minutes of that to having Pickering actually make the landings and takeoffs.
But when the two hours were up, and he had permitted Pickering to taxi the Yellow Peril from the runway to the parking ramp himself, instead of ordering him to shut it down, he climbed out of the forward cockpit, knelt on the wing root beside the rear cockpit, and looked intently into Pickering's face.
"I can't think of any reason why you shouldn't take it up yourself, Pickering, can you?"
Pickering smiled. "No, sir," he said.
"Then do so, Lieutenant," Minter ordered, and got off the wing root.
Pickering had some trouble, Minter saw, taxiing the Yellow Peril back to the runway. And for a moment he really thought Pickering was about to collide with another Yellow Peril on the center line of the runway.
Just enough trouble to give Minter pause to consider that maybe he had done the wrong thing, that just maybe Pickering really didn't have any experience, and that he should not be sending him up to solo with the absolute minimum of five hours' instruction.
But then the tower flashed the green lamp at Pickering's Yellow Peril, giving him permission to take off. The Yellow Peril began to move down the runway. The tail wheel came off the ground smoothly and when it should have, and a moment later, very smoothly, the Yellow Peril was airborne.
And Pickering followed the orders he had been given for his first solo flight: Take off, enter the landing pattern, and land. That's all.
Except when he was in the line of Yellow Perils waiting for their turn to land, he swung the Yellow Peril from side to side. Just once. It was a gesture of joy and exuberance. Minter decided that he would not mention it once Pickering was back on the ground, as he was now ninety-five percent sure he soon would safely be.
The landing was as smooth as Minter expected it to be. But what surprised him was the look on Pickering's face when he taxied to the parking ramp and shut the Yellow Peril down. It was the same look-mingled awe, relief, pride, and even a little disbelief-that Minter had learned to expect from other young then who had really just made their first solo flight.
And when he'd climbed down from the Yellow Peril he looked at Minter and said, "Jesus Christ, that's something, isn't it?"
"That really was your first time, wasn't it?" Minter blurted.
"Yes, sir," Pickering said. The question obviously confused him.
"Don't let it go to your head, Pickering," Minter said. "The University of California did a study that proved conclusively that any high-level moron can be taught to fly."
(Two)
Gayfer's Department Store
Pensacola, Florida
20 February 1942
Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, could see Martha Sayre Culhane two aisles away. She was standing before triple full-length mirrors as she held a black dress to her body and examined her reflection thoughtfully.
Martha wore a light brown sweater and a brown tweed skirt. A single coil of pearls around her neck had shifted so that it curled around her left breast. And she was wearing loafers and bobby socks.
She was, Pick thought, the most exquisitely feminine creature he had ever seen. Just looking at her made his throat tight and dry, and his heart change its beat.
She was across a two-aisle no-man's land of ladies' lingerie-glass counters stacked high with underpants and brassieres and girdles and slips. Headless-torso dummies had been placed here and there on the counters, dressed in more or less translucent brassieres and pants.
The intimate feminine apparel made Pick uncomfortable. And so did being where he was, and why. Without being aware that he was doing it, he closed his eyes and shook his head.
Martha nodded, as if making a decision, and then stepped away from the triple mirror and out of Pick's sight.
He moved an aisle away and saw her enter a dressing room and close its curtain. "May I help you, Lieutenant?" a female voice said, behind him, startling him.
"No," he said. "No, thank you. Just browsing."
He looked at the counters immediately around him. He had moved to the expectant-mother section. The dummies here displayed nursing brassieres.
She must think I'm crazy! Obviously, I am.
The hem of the curtain over Martha's dressing room was eighteen inches off the floor. He saw Martha's tweed skirt drop to the floor. Then she stepped out of it and scooped it up. And then, over the top of the curtain, he could see her hands and arms as she pulled the sweater off over her head.
He could imagine her now, in his mind's eye, standing behind the curtain wearing nothing but her string of pearls and her brassiere and her underpants.
He closed his eyes and shook his head again, and when he opened them he could see her hands as she stepped into the black dress and pulled it up.
And then a moment later, she came out and went back to the triple minors and looked at herself again. She had not zipped up the black dress, and he could see the strap of her brassiere stretched taut over her back.
And then he walked toward her, taking long, purposeful strides that shortened and grew hesitant as he came close.
"Surprise, surprise," he said, as jovially as he could manage. "Fancy running into you here!"
"I don't know why you're surprised, Pick," Martha said, looking directly at him. "You followed me from the air station."
He felt his face color.
"I soloed today," he blurted. "A couple of hours ago."
"Good for you," she said.
"Christ!" he said, furious and humiliated.
"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," Martha said. "Congratulations, Pick. Really. I know what it means, and I'm happy for you."
"I want to celebrate," Pick said.
"You should," Martha said. "It's a bona fide cause for celebration."
"I mean, with you," Pick blurted.
"I was afraid of that," she said.
"I thought maybe dinner, and then…"
She shook her head, and held up her left hand with her wedding and engagement rings on it.
"It sometimes may not look like it, Pick, but I'm in mourning."
"You go out with Captain Mustache," Pick blurted.
She laughed a delightful peal of laughter.
"Is that what you call him?" Martha said. "Marvelous! You better pray he doesn't hear you. Jimmy is very proud of his mustache."
"You go out with him," Pick persisted.
"That's different," Martha said. "He's a friend."
"And I can't be your friend?"
"You know what I mean," Martha said. "Jimmy was our friend. He was best man at the wedding."
"I'll settle for being your friend," Pick said.
"You don't take no for an answer, do you?" Martha said.
"Usually, I take anything less than 'oh, how wonderful' for no," Pick said.
"Well, Mr. Pickering," Martha said, "I'm truly sorry to disappoint you, but not only will I not go out with you, but I would consider it a personal favor if you would stop following me around and staring at me like a lovesick calf."
"Jesus!"
"I'm a widow, for God's sake," Martha went on furiously. "I'm just not interested, understand? I don't know what you're thinking-"
She stopped in mid-sentence, for Second Lieutenant Pickering had turned and fled down the aisle.
Martha told herself that there was really no reason for her to be ashamed of herself for jumping on him that way, or to be sorry that she had so obviously and so deeply hurt his feelings.
She was a widow, for God's sake.
Greg, my wonderful Greg, was killed only two months and twelve days ago. Only a real bitch and a slut would start thinking about another man only two months and twelve days after her husband, whom she had loved as much as life itself, had been killed. And if that handsome, arrogant sonofabitch was any kind of a gentleman he would understand that.