Twenty-Nine

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Lottie asked.

Cunningham squinted up at the wings of the plane they were both standing under.

They weren’t in the shop. They weren’t even in one of the standard hangars, where planes that were already in good shape waited to be deployed.

The two of them were standing out behind the repair hangar, amid the piles of twisted metal and parts that the men sometimes came out to during the course of the day, either to find a piece of metal big enough to hammer or solder into some shape they needed, or to drop off some part that was too busted to work on whatever bird they were currently repairing.

The plane they were looking up at was the only whole one out there, a PBY Catalina flying boat. Legend had it that it had been pulled out of Pearl Harbor near the mouth of the freshwater Aiea Stream after the attack. Lottie had always figured that was a tall tale they told her since she was the new girl, hoping she’d be dumb enough to repeat it to someone else as truth.

But now that she looked at it more closely, she started to wonder. She’d seen the paint on planes damaged by a lot of things—bullets, impact, heat, and actual fire. But she’d never seen a finish that looked quite like this—still smooth, but with all the sheen gone, almost as if it were a piece of beach glass. And were those barnacles on the tips of the wings?

None of that mattered, though, as much as the base of the Catalina. Under the hold, the belly of the plane was curved: the aquatic landing apparatus of the flying boat.

“We got her so she fired up once,” Cunningham said. “But we never put her back in working order. There weren’t much call for her. Too small to do much good.”

“How many men do you think she’ll hold?” Lottie asked.

Cunningham squinted. “Plenty,” he said.

“Do you think it could take ten?”

Now Cunningham squinted at her.

“What are you up to, Palmer?” he said.

Quickly, Palmer brought him up to speed.

Cunningham’s stoic face didn’t flicker, but she could see his eyes narrow in concentration. He peered up at the plane, then gave a quick nod. “She can fit ten, eleven,” he said. “If that’s what it takes.”

“Well,” Lottie said, glancing up at the cockpit, “what are you waiting for?”

“You think it’ll start?” Cunningham asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Lottie said, nodding up at the plane.

Cunningham took that as an order. He swung up into the cockpit and a minute later was flicking at the controls.

Lottie took at deep breath, waiting for any sign of life to cough out of the engine.

But before she even really had a chance to hold it in, the engine didn’t just cough—it roared.

She could hear Cunningham’s yelp of laughter even over the growl of the engine. “Hot damn!” he called. “She’s alive!”

Ten minutes later, they’d wheeled the water bird around the back of the hangar and in through the main bay.

As the men around the shop looked up, Lottie hopped on a stool and waved them all over. Quickly, she explained the story Maggie had told her less than an hour ago. As she did, the faces of the men grew serious but determined.

“She runs,” Lottie said, slapping the side of the plane. “So that’s something. But I’m not going to put a pilot up in this thing without a full inspection. And she’s only got a range of a thousand miles as built. So we’re gonna want to find a solution for the fuel.”

“I thought you said the men were only eight hundred miles out from Hawaii,” Pickman said.

“That’s right,” Lottie told him. “But there’s not going to be a fuel depot in the middle of the Pacific for the pilot to refuel before he brings those men back.”

She slapped the side of the plane again, then gave orders for each man to take responsibility for doing a full check of the various systems: structural integrity, fuel, engine, controls.

“Every minute counts,” she said as they scrambled to get their tools.

Then she turned to Cunningham. “Now we just need a pilot,” she said.

For a long moment, the two of them looked at each other. Lottie knew what he was thinking, because she was thinking it herself. She’d proved herself to the men in this shop. But if she went to command asking for a pilot, especially for a scheme like this, there was a good chance she’d get laughed out of the place before she even began.

A man might get laughed at, too. But he wouldn’t face the same trouble Lottie would. Nobody there would think he shouldn’t even be in the room. And with lives on the line, it was no time to gamble.

“It’s a crazy idea,” Cunningham said carefully. “But I could talk to someone.”

“Go,” Lottie said. “Get me a pilot. I’ll have a plane by the time you have one.”

The months-long saltwater bath the plane had taken might not have had the magic rejuvenating properties advertised by some of the more ambitious local Hawaii hotels, but it didn’t seem to have done nearly as much damage as Lottie would have thought, either.

“It’s not the water that does the damage,” Pickman told her. “It’s the air.”

Whatever the case, with all the men crawling over the Catalina, working as fast as they could, they made short work of her. To give the plane more range, they patched together a daisy chain of fuel tanks. A choke in the engine, which Lottie initially thought might mean a busted gear—or one that had rusted into oblivion—turned out to be fixed by nothing more than a bit of oil and the removal of a large clump of seaweed from the engine block. Pistons were greased, filters were changed, a bit of damage on the wingtip was soldered back into place.

By the time Cunningham returned, about an hour later, the engine of the old seaplane was humming, and one of the guys was climbing around on the roof, trying to clean off the thick film of dirt that had accumulated on the windshield after months of disuse.

Lottie was glad to see Cunningham had actually gotten someone from command to come to the hangar. He could have easily returned by himself, and told her their plan was turned down, sight unseen.

But that was about all Lottie liked about the look of the guy who walked in with Cunningham.

He was a big, bluff officer, a good ten years older than Lottie, in full Navy blues, and he didn’t even take off his sunglasses when he stepped deep into the shadows of the hangar.

At the sight of him, the men from the shop scrambled into place and offered a series of clumsy salutes, the pride in the incredible work they’d just done clear on their faces.

But the officer, whose name tag read Hoyt, barely glanced at the plane.

Instead he gave Lottie a full once-over, looking her up and down as if she were the main attraction at some seedy dance hall.

Then he looked up at the plane, his lip curled.

“Cunningham here insisted I come down and get a look at this,” Hoyt said. He shook his head. “You really got her running?”

Lottie nodded at one of the nearby mechanics, who jumped into the cockpit. A moment later, the engine purred to life.

At the trace of a smile that passed over Hoyt’s lips, Lottie’s heart leapt. But then he looked back at Cunningham.

“I’m sorry, Cunningham,” he said. “We appreciate the effort, but I can’t send a pilot up in this bird. There’s no way she’s ready for flight.”

“She’s ready, sir,” Lottie broke in.

Hoyt raised his eyebrows, obviously annoyed by her interruption. Then he turned to her with all the condescension of a superior officer putting a lackey who’d stepped out of line back in place.

“I think Cunningham and I can handle this, miss,” he said, not even meeting her eyes.

“Palmer is second-in-command here,” Cunningham said quietly. “Sir.”

It wasn’t clear if Hoyt didn’t hear him or just chose to ignore him. But in any case, Hoyt didn’t look at anyone in particular when he made his next announcement.

“I’ve been on Navy boats for over a decade,” Hoyt said. “And I’ve never even let a rowboat set sail with so little time for inspection.”

“With respect, sir,” Lottie said, “boats and planes are different. And I stand behind this inspection. I’d go up in her myself.”

Hoyt’s lip curled, as if he were briefly relishing the thought of dispensing with Lottie by sending her up in a faulty plane.

But then he shook his head. “This is a matter of life or death,” he said. “We just can’t risk it.”

“It is a matter of life or death,” Lottie broke in. “For those men out there. And there are at least ten of them. Isn’t it worth risking one life if we could save all of them?”

Hoyt’s eyes narrowed. “None of my pilots are at risk now,” he said. “And those men out there on the water—” For the first time since he’d walked into the hangar, Lottie thought she saw a flicker of humanity in his gaze. “We don’t know any of them are still alive. Or that they still will be when they get there, even if they are now. I can’t risk my men’s life on the chance.”

“But—” Lottie protested.

Hoyt held up his hand. “These are the realities of war, miss,” he said, with an emphasis on the miss. “I don’t expect you to understand. But this plane won’t be flying today. You can continue with whatever work this unit was supposed to be doing, before someone came up with this crackpot plan.”

“Sir—” Cunningham tried, but Hoyt was already striding out of the hangar.

Lottie felt hot tears come to her eyes, but at the same time, the eyes of every man in the place now turned to her. She couldn’t even blink them back without their seeing how upset she was. So instead, she raised her chin and took a deep breath.

Then Cunningham cleared his throat.

“You know,” he said. “I flew in the last war.”

Lottie turned to him, openmouthed. “You did?” she asked.

Cunningham nodded. “They say I’m too old for active duty now,” he said. “But that don’t mean I forgot how to fly a plane.”

Pickman whooped. “Johnson,” he called. “Fuel her up!”

“You think you can get your friend to give you the coordinates of those men out there?” Cunningham asked.

Lottie nodded and picked up the hangar phone.

“I’m gonna go find us a pair of jumpsuits,” Cunningham said.

“Wait,” Lottie said. “What do you mean ‘us’?”

Cunningham grinned. “You think I’m going to make a flight like that without the best engineer in this shop?” he asked.