CHAPTER 3
In the Moreno Valley, where Frank Parrish stood ankle-deep in yellowing grass, late autumn sunshine slanted across the barracks and mess halls of March Field. A dry wind fluttered the brim of his Stetson as he squinted into the afternoon glare to watch the JN-4, dubbed the Jenny, joyously carve the empty sky with turns and rolls and dives. Its double wings flashed in the sunlight, and he had the odd, poetic thought that the airplane seemed to be laughing.
The Jenny banked, angled toward the runway for a touch-and-go, then sailed up and over Frank’s head where he stood with Captain Carruthers. His ears thrummed with the sound of the engine, and the airplane was so close he could see the vibration of the struts between the double wings. The student in the front seat was grinning ear to ear. The instructor, in the back, waved to the men on the ground. Frank tipped his head up, one hand on his hat, but keeping a close eye on the undercarriage, the slight movement of the lower wing, the landing wheels spinning in the wind.
“What do they say about the stick?” Frank asked, after the noise of the plane’s motor died away. “Advantage over the wheel?” The Jenny had previously been controlled by a Deperdussin control wheel, but this version, sometimes called the Canuck because of the Canadians who had redesigned it, used a stick. Frank’s right hand twitched with the urge to know for himself what it felt like, to understand the connection between the control and the craft.
Carruthers said, “Depends who you ask. Some like it better. Some think the Jenny was fine the way it was.” He clapped Frank’s shoulder. “You can ask the pilot yourself.” The two men started across the field. The desiccated grass rustled under their feet, and the sun burned Frank’s shoulders through his jacket.
He had arrived just that afternoon, climbing off the train in Riverside to be met by one of Carruthers’s sergeants. The sergeant had installed him in bachelor officers’ quarters, then brought him to the airfield to meet the captain.
Captain Carruthers was exactly the sort of clear-eyed, broad-shouldered military man that a younger Frank Parrish had dreamed of becoming when he enlisted in the King’s army. He had been impatient to be in the show, to ride off in glory to fight the Hun. The British Army had snapped him up in a heartbeat, eager to commission a young officer with both engineering skills and a lifetime of horsemanship to recommend him. Frank thought he would be like Carruthers, career military, straight-backed, proud, with clarity of purpose and a taste for adventure.
He sometimes thought, now, that the greatest shock of his war experience was not even the loss of his left arm, which was misery enough. The worse shock, in many ways, was the profound shift in his perception of the world. He came home stunned by the carnage, the cruelty, and the excesses of war. He might, he supposed, have regained his commission once he was able to tolerate his prosthesis, but he could never have accepted it.
None of that dimmed his respect for Carruthers. The captain, and the others who labored here at March Field, had been essential to the ultimate victory of the Allies. Frank knew Carruthers by reputation, and the efficient operation he saw around him proved that the captain had earned it. Frank had saluted him in all sincerity, and shaken his hand, finding his grip as firm and friendly as he could have wished.
“The Boeing Company appreciates this access,” Frank told the captain.
Carruthers grinned, his face creasing in weathered lines. He looked every inch a flyer, Frank thought, with a twinge of envy. He looked to be a man as much at ease in the air as on the ground. Carruthers said, “Your company makes fine airplanes, Major Parrish, and has done wonders refitting some of the old ones. The army is happy to oblige Bill Boeing whenever possible.”
“I’d like to talk to all your pilots,” Frank said.
“You mean, the ones I have left?”
“Right.” Since the end of the war, operations at March Field were being gradually phased out. The same slowdown of operations that had cut Boeing’s army contracts in half had sharply reduced the number of pilots being trained. The Jennys were disappearing, one by one, mostly snapped up by barnstormers.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the flying business, Major,” Carruthers said. They reached the mess hall, and Frank, a little self-consciously, reached for the door with his left hand, his prosthetic one. He had found, in the year he’d had it, that he wanted to use it as much as possible, not just for the practice, but to prove he could. He felt the curious glances when people noticed it, but very few made any comment.
He didn’t blame anyone for looking. It was called the officer’s arm because it was the finest of its type, the best modern technology had to offer. Still, it hardly looked real. It looked like what it was, metal and leather and rubber, but Frank didn’t care about its appearance. He loved the thing. He felt as if it—and Margot—had given him back his life.
Thinking of Margot confused him just now. His feelings for her hadn’t changed, but it had been something of a relief when Boeing sent him here to study the JN-4. It gave him time to think about what had come between them. He was embarrassed, though, to realize how much he missed her. At the thought of her, his solar plexus ached with longing to see her tall figure striding toward him, shining dark hair ruffling in the breeze, clear dark eyes lighting as she saw him. Damn, Cowboy. You have to set this right. But he couldn’t think about it now. He had a job to do, and he was grateful for the distraction.
He and Carruthers poured coffee for themselves and sat at one of the long tables in the mess, their legs stretched out from the bench seats, a sheaf of blueprints between them. Carruthers tapped the papers. “There’s a lot of good work here,” he said. “Side benefit of war, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“You had a very different war from mine, Major.”
“Expect so.” There wasn’t much to say about it, Frank thought. Not that he ever had much to say. Carruthers had been part of the supreme American effort to match the Germans’ airpower. Frank figured that was probably more meaningful, and a hell of a lot more productive, than his own service with Allenby in the Judean hills. He tried, now that he had a functional hand and arm, not to think about the day he was wounded, but sometimes the memory caught him unawares, and he felt the horror and disgust of it all over again.
Carruthers didn’t press him. He seemed an affable enough fellow, career army, well past his youth. Frank had studied his record before he came, and he knew Carruthers had put up March Field, with its machine shop, hospital, supply depot, and aero repair building, in just sixty days. It was an impressive accomplishment.
Carruthers said, “So, Major. Your boss believes airpower is here to stay.”
“He thinks it’s going to transform the world.” Carruthers lifted his eyebrows, and Frank smiled. He was on sure ground on this topic. When it came to airplanes, and the Boeing Airplane Company, Frank could be more forthcoming, even talkative. He shared Bill Boeing’s passion for the possibilities and the opportunities available to the masters of the air. “We’re already carrying mail, a commercial enterprise. Building seaplanes, touring airplanes, the MB-3A pursuit fighters—there’s no limit. We’re going to build lighter airplanes, carry a heavier payload.”
“Douglas got ahead of you with the Cloudster.”
Frank chuckled. “That got under Mr. Boeing’s skin, I can promise you.”
“But now the war’s over. I wonder if there’s enough demand to keep all of you in business—Boeing and Douglas and Curtiss, too.”
“Mr. Boeing’s looking ahead, Captain. He’s got all his engineers working on the next step.”
“So he sent you here. He doesn’t mind that Curtiss built the Jenny?”
“Not at all. He figured a good close look will help us understand why the Jenny is so efficient and so stable. Is it the ailerons, you think?”
“Maybe. The Jenny’s slow, which is why the barnstormers like it. It won’t ever work as anything but a trainer.”
“We’ve heard the Canuck has a lighter interior. We’re interested in that.”
“Happy to help however we can.” Carruthers emptied his coffee cup. “I’ll give you a tour of the place, so you can look around on your own.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe, if you feel like it, you’d like to go up for a spin?”
Frank set down his coffee cup with a decisive click. “Oh, yes, Captain,” he said fervently. “There’s nothing I’d like better. If the United States Army would allow an ex–British Army man in one of their airplanes, I would very much like to go up.”