“What?”
“Crank the stick like you’re mashing a big bowl of potatoes.” Liddy watched the altimeter drop and screamed at Bet, “Do it, Bet, and do it now or I will!”
Bet gripped the stick and swung it furiously around again and again.
Liddy’s pores leached sweat and heated as it bathed her fiery hot skin and the plane continued to fall. Suddenly, a jolt rocked the plane as it caught air and the stick began to respond. Bet leveled out and pulled back up to get some altitude.
Liddy collapsed back into the seat. “What do you know, thanks, Crik!”
Once on the ground, Bet snapped off her belt and flipped out of the cockpit like it was on fire. She didn’t wait for Liddy and bounded back to the bay. Liddy was double-timing it to keep up with Bet’s 5′ 2″ stride.
“You did great, Bet!”
Bet’s expressionless face was beet red. She ignored Liddy and stomped on. Liddy hopped out in front of her, but Bet sidestepped her.
“Hold up, would ya?” Liddy tried to catch Bet by the arm.
Bet pulled away from Liddy, stopped and faced her. “If you hadn’t been up there, I would have flown it straight. I was supposed to fly it straight.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have let us crash, you know that.”
“Crash, you wouldn’t have let us crash? Do you know what happened up there, because I don’t? I rolled it over slow. What happened?”
Bet burst into tears and collapsed against Liddy’s chest and Liddy held her.
“What happened?” Bet cried.
“I don’t know,” Liddy conceded.
Bet sobbed for a while then she pulled away from Liddy and ran back to the bays.
With so many trainees and all at different phases and points in their flight schedules, some information came a little later than needed, sometimes just a day late. The day after Bet and Liddy stalled during Bet’s night-fly, Captain Charles was covering spins and stalls in ground school, “…Another reason for an unintentional spin or stall could be added weight, which you need to compensate for during any rotation. This applies to cargo, passengers and night-fly equipment.”
Liddy looked over at Bet who returned a look of anger. She wasn’t sure if Bet would ever forgive her, and she didn’t know that she would ever forgive herself. Of all the people to put in that position, Bet didn’t need the negative experience in the air. Flying under the bridge at home was a risk she’d chosen, but she had never put anyone else at risk. Wanting to take back something you’ve done is such a heavy weight. Liddy knew she couldn’t turn back the clock, but she could fly by the book and she was determined that’s what she was going to do.
Louise and the girls sensed something had happened. But neither Bet nor Liddy talked about it, and the soul of the bay was fractured. When the next buddy flight rolled around, Bet Bailey had still not forgiven Liddy Hall.
Trainees were spread out on the floor of the ready room checking maps. Instructor Rick Strom entered and called out the drill, “Listen up. This buddy trip is an instrument flight. The lead is to follow the course that the buddy pilot lays out. You will not land until you get back to base. You will be graded on time and record of landmarks. Look around, trainees. Your class is getting smaller every week. Many of you are one U from packing your bags. Your next instrument flight will be an Army checkride, so use your time well today. Shoenfeld, Campbell fall-out. Bailey, Hall fall-out.”
Bet looked apprehensively from across the room in Liddy’s direction. Strom finished listing the assignments and Bet approached him. “Excuse me, Mr. Strom, about my buddy assignment?”
“Is there a problem, Bailey? You put in for these assignments two weeks ago. I believe this was your first choice.”
“Well, yes it was, it’s just that I—,” Bet stammered as she saw Liddy watching her.
“You just what, Bailey?”
“Nothing, sir. No problem, sir.”
Bet had the map out and only spoke to Liddy when she needed to give her a navigation lead. On the return leg of their flight, Liddy sat in the front pit listening to the report of the engine, and carefully reading the wind and the grayness of the clouds. She was going to do everything she could to make sure the flight went smoothly.
Bet watched the instruments in the rear pit. “Okay, now head… Oh, brother.”
“What is it?” Liddy asked.
“Look right, about three miles.”
Flames licked the roof at the corner of a ranch house in the distance. The pilots circled over and saw a woman, waving frantically, holding a baby and two small children were wrapped around her legs.
“We have to help,” Bet insisted.
“We’re not authorized for a landing until we get back to base. And what about the time? They’re tabbing us.”
“You can gun her and pick it up.”
“Bet, think about this.”
“I am, Liddy. Let’s get down there. We have to see if we can help.”
Liddy landed the plane and the two women burst from the cockpit and ran to the woman. She was frantic and Liddy and Bet ran inside and came out less than thirty seconds later with a toddler they found hiding under a bed. Just then two trucks pulled up and five men jumped out, grabbed a ladder from the bed and leaned it on the house. Liddy and Bet joined a bucket line that was formed from the well and the water was tossed on the roof.
“We might as well be pissin’ on it,” said one of the men, and then they started to break from the line in defeat.
Bet yelled at them, “We can’t just watch it burn.”
“Did you feel that?” Liddy asked.
Everyone looked up just as a canopy of clouds burst open and dumped on the land. Texas weather was as unpredictable as a roll of the dice and it rarely came quietly.
The help was encouraging and Liddy called to Bet, “Let’s go.”
Bet filled buckets and Liddy climbed the ladder to dump them. The men rejoined the effort, but the flames were defiant. A section of the roof collapsed inside itself and the ladder jolted forward.
“Liddy,” Bet screamed.
Liddy jumped off the ladder as it fell into the flames and she landed on her rear in the mud. Bet helped Liddy to her feet, and they stood back and watched the showers roll billows of smoke off the flames that shot from the broken structure.
Bet and Liddy cried with the woman as she stood with her children and watched her home disappear, as the rain clouds blew off into the distance as fast as they had appeared. The house was left in a smoldering black pile of mush. Mother and children were helped into a truck, and Bet and Liddy slopped back to the plane. It was surrounded by a mud bog.
“There’s no way we’re getting out of here without picking up a ton of mud. They’ll know we landed,” said Bet.
“Yes they will.”
“This is the end of us, Liddy.”
“Get in!”
“What are you thinking?”
“Do you want to get back to base and drag this muddy evidence all over the strip?”
“No, I can hear it now.” Bet tilted her chin forward and said in a low voice, “You’re not firemen, you’re pilots, dammit.”
“Trust me then?”
Bet gave her a nod and they climbed in.
Liddy got the plane back in the air and headed for the storm clouds that had flushed themselves on the fire. “Hang on!” she called to Bet. Liddy gunned it and sailed under the cloud taking a couple of slow rolls through the downpour. The shower rinsed the mud off the wheels and over the sides of the body and then Liddy pushed the nose up, topped over the storm and headed back to the base.