Just into the new year, Walter Churchill got promoted to wing commander and sent to a new post. A Yank, an ex-Navy man turned RAF flight leader named William Taylor, took over for him. 71 Squadron was all-American at last. Taylor was a much tougher disciplinarian than Churchill had been, so not all the Eagles were thrilled with the change.
They lost a pilot in early February. Combat had nothing to do with it. He made a mistake flying low and hit the ground before he could correct it. Back in the States, the news would make winter even colder for his family.
A week later, a section from 71 Squadron scrambled in response to something out on the North Sea. It wasn’t A.E.’s section, so she didn’t worry about what it was. They’d do whatever needed doing or they’d find out it was a false alarm, then they’d fly back.
Only one of them didn’t. Shorty Keough wasn’t at the mess table that night.
“He and another guy dove into a cloudbank,” one of the other pilots said glumly. “I don’t think he pulled out of it. Straight into the drink, fast as a Hurricane can go. He never knew what hit him, that’s for goddamn sure.”
A.E. didn’t know what had hit her. She and Shorty had been part of this mad venture together since the very first day, in the hotel at Montreal. Andy and Red looked poleaxed, too. You didn’t want to believe, you couldn’t make yourself believe, it could happen to somebody with whom you’d been through so much.
Robert Ripley’s words tolled in her head like the mourning bell in a church steeple. Believe It or Not.
Shorty’d made people notice him. There wasn’t much of him, but what there was was full of life. Nobody wanted to think he’d died so pointlessly. But then the Coast Guard found wreckage off the coast. Floating on the cold, merciless sea were, among other things, a pair of size five flying boots. Shorty might have been the only pilot in the RAF to wear boots so small. No doubt could be left.
Everyone got very drunk, A.E. with the rest of the Eagles. Red and Andy, in particular, were stunned the same way she was. “He could have been my brother,” Red kept saying over and over.
“Life’s a bastard,” Andy said. “You go up in a crate, you have to pray everything works just the way it’s supposed to. If it doesn’t, you ain’t coming back.”
“Life’s a bastard,” A.E. said. “Leave it right there.”
“Yeah.” Mamedoff shook his head. “Shorty and his stupid cushions. You’d see him in the cockpit with just the top of his head poking up and you’d want to bust a gut laughing, but he could fly.”
“He could fly,” A.E. agreed. That was the best epitaph Shorty Keough was likely to get. She admired Andy for summing him up so perfectly in three words. She put an arm around him about the same time he put an arm around her.
“I’m gonna go outside and have a cigarette,” he said, though the air in the officers’ mess was blue with smoke. “Wanna come out with me and we can talk for a little bit?”
“Sure,” she said.
It was chilly out there, and damp with the threat of rain. In the blackout, the brief flare of his match seemed like a flashbulb. He took two fierce drags on the Woodbine, then threw it down and stepped on it. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Nothing’s any goddamn good anymore.”
“I know,” A.E. said softly.
He reached for her then. She squeezed him back. They were about the same height; they fit together well. His mouth tasted of whiskey and tobacco. When they separated, he whispered, “Let’s find somewhere.”
“What about Penny?”
“What about her? She doesn’t know Shorty. She’s met him, but she doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know about any of … this. She’s lucky.”
A.E. understood exactly what he meant. She slipped away from the Nissen hut with him. It was more a catharsis than a rapture, but catharsis was what they both needed. Afterwards, she said, “You’re squashing me.”
“Sorry,” he replied, and took his weight on knees and elbows. He started putting himself back together with what seemed to A.E. like practiced ease. A little more slowly, she followed suit. He said, “Maybe we should go on to the barracks instead of back to the bash. Then nobody’ll be able to pin anything on us for sure.”
“Good idea,” she said, running fingers through her hair to make sure she had no leaves stuck in it. She added, “I bet Shorty’s laughing, wherever he is.”
“Funny—I was thinking the same thing.” Andy hesitated, then said, “You’re all right, you know? Not ’cause you’re famous or anything, I mean. Because you’re you.”
“Thanks.” A.E. wondered if she’d ever heard anything she was more grateful for. Her fame was a big part of what had driven George to her; she’d understood that right from the start. Its starting to slip was a big part of why he’d lost interest, too. Being valued for who she was, not what she was, made her happy in a way very different from Andy’s gentle roughness moments before.
She let him lead the way to the barracks, and went in a couple of minutes after he did. She found her cot and fell asleep with a smile on her face.