THE PENTHOUSE
Days began to blend into each other in a blur of coordinates and conditions and tracks and plots. The Women’s Air Raid Defense—WARD for short, as they had decided to call themselves—was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Danielson had originally suggested Women’s Air Defense, but no one wanted WAD for an acronym. Zero Zeroes had become the motto. By the end of the first week, they sounded like seasoned professionals when answering the Oscars’ practice calls.
On the drives in, Walker was either lost in the dark corners of his mind, or asking Daisy questions no one had ever bothered to ask before. Being with him stirred a place inside she hadn’t even known existed.
“If you could be anything, what would it be?” he said one morning.
“But I can’t be anything,” she answered.
He was clearly in a good mood today, head bobbing along to the radio. “But what if you could? Humor me.”
She felt silly telling him. “I want to have my own little ranch and train horses.”
“I should have guessed.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“Not at all. You have the talent, skill and smarts.”
But not the money or connections, she could hear him thinking.
Daisy did not want to talk about herself. “What about you, did you always know you wanted to fly?”
“Always. The business and the ranch were my dad’s dreams, not mine.”
“I’ve never been in an airplane,” Daisy volunteered.
He laughed. “Are you kidding me?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, looking out the window at the endless rows of pineapple.
“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
The smile spread across his whole face, forming those crowfeet she’d begun to look forward to seeing. “Now that you mention it, I could see you up there flying your own bird. You bear a keen resemblance to Amelia Earhart, you know that? Short hair, sporty, gorgeous.”
That last word hit her like a wall of whitewater. Yet she did her best to appear unaffected. “I saw her when she was here. She started my fascination with airplanes, but more than that, I was taken with her fearlessness and the way she encouraged women to follow their dreams.”
“You ever think of going to flight school?”
She shook her head. “It was purely a fantasy. My true love will always be the horses. Plus, I had to take care of my mom.”
Walker tensed up. She could feel it clear across the car. “I’m sorry. That must have been rough on you.”
Everyone in town knew about Louise, so it was no secret, but she doubted he knew the extent of it. No one did.
She shrugged. “The day my father died, my mother and I switched roles. I did what I had to, as would anyone,” she said.
Walker focused all his attention on the road in front. He grew quiet.
Daisy sensed he had something else to say, but she wanted to keep things light. “Maybe one day you can take me for a spin up there.”
She imagined him flying across oceans and far continents, ice-cold air coming through the cracks and the smell of gasoline on his hands.
“I still can’t believe you’ve never flown before,” he said.
“When would I have? I’ve been working six days a week since I was sixteen. And plane tickets are not cheap.”
The gap in their upbringings stood between them, wide and glaring. Not that she was trying to rub it in. It just was.
“That’s another thing I admire about you. You’ve always busted your ‘ˉokole and never once complained about it. Not even when my dad made you brand the foals. It was pretty clear that was hard for you, but you did it anyway. Without a word.”
She looked at him. “You remember that?”
“I remember a lot of things.”
“What else?”
He drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Hmm, let me think.”
Daisy turned to see a burst of sun slipping through the clouds and lighting up Mount Ka‘ala. These rides were turning out to be a lot like that sunshine, and making her feel close to Walker in a way she could not explain.
“This is from a long time ago, but it was the day my dad was trying to impress the mayor and took him and his wife out for a ride. But her horse bolted before we even got started and made a beeline for the beach.”
He chuckled at the thought. “She was holding on to her hat with one hand and screaming loud enough for folks in Honolulu to hear. Everyone just stood in shock, but you jumped on Peanut and took off like a slingshot and somehow managed to stop ’em just before Kona launched her into the water. He was famous for doing that, remember?”
Daisy laughed. “He was a rascal, that one. And how could I forget? That woman had no right stepping foot on a horse. She was too high-strung.”
“And you were so cool about it all.”
“How old were we anyway?”
“It was before I left, so you were probably seventeen or so. In a way you seemed so much older than me, more mature I guess, but in another way so much younger,” he said. “Our lives were different.”
“Depends on how you look at it. They were also a lot alike.”
For a while, she thought about all the small moments over the years that involved Walker. Not that they were ever doing things together per se, but both had been there, living, working, riding. Shared memories.
Walker said, “So back to the flying, once it’s safe, I’m your man. Hell, I’ll even teach you to fly if you want,” he said. “We could start off right here at Mokul¯e‘ia airfield and take a scenic tour up around the island, hugging the cliffs. You’re going to fall in love, I promise.”
Being in an airplane with Walker sounded too good to be true. “Now, if the war will only cooperate,” she said as casually as she could, though her insides were buzzing louder than a whole formation of bombers.
Falling in love was a frightening possibility—and not just with the airplane.
Daisy had managed to get herself scheduled on the first shift on the first day at Little Robert. She thought it might have to do with her test score and the fact that she memorized all the code names on the grid in one day.
With gas masks and helmets draped over their shoulders, the group piled into the back of a covered truck outside the Palace. They all wore their smart new uniforms and ID badges. As much as Daisy did not care for dresses, she had to admit she enjoyed feeling so official. So part of a team. And most of the girls had bold red lips. Fluff, never without her lipstick tube, had convinced many of the girls to wear their best fire-engine reds.
“We need to make a statement. It’s our patriotic duty,” she had told them, handing the shiny gold tube to Betty.
Her reasoning was that Adolf Hitler had banned lipstick in Germany, and in response, American women from coast to coast had begun wearing it in solidarity.
“Female power at its finest,” Betty said, opening her compact and applying the red in generous strokes.
Daisy appreciated their fervor, but could not bring herself to wear it. “None for me, thanks.” She hated lipstick. The plastic taste, the way it smeared whenever she touched her mouth, and how she felt like a clown when she wore it.
“This goes beyond the individual. What about doing it for your country? Or for us, your friends,” Fluff said.
Daisy could not imagine walking around all day with bright red lips. Especially the first day on the job. “I think I’m doing my part as a WARD here, so you’ll have to take me as I am.”
“Fine. But I’ll win you over one of these days.”
A cold wind whipped through the banyan leaves and up their skirts, making sure everyone knew it was January. As if they could have forgotten. Rain for weeks. Closed flaps kept anyone from seeing them, or them from seeing out. Along with Betty and Fluff, Lei, Thelma and JoAnn were there, and Tippy, who would be shift supervisor. Major Hochman rode up front. “What kind of name is Little Robert, anyway?” Betty said, over the rattle of the engine.
“For some reason it makes me think of Peeping Tom. It sounds like a creepy man who is trying to pass himself off as innocent,” Jo Ann said.
“Who knows where the name originated, but it sounds rather harmless, don’t you think?” Daisy said.
Fifteen minutes later, the truck skidded to a stop, hurling everyone into one another. Betty landed in Daisy’s lap, Lei smashed her face into Thelma’s shoulder, and Fluff fell onto the floor in a pile of limbs and blue material. “Now I know what it’s like for those poor cattle on their way to the ships,” she said.
They hopped out with a hand from Major Hochman, and stood in a line on the pavement beside the truck. Daisy looked around for anything that resembled a command center, but saw only a concrete warehouse with a two-story wooden building sitting on top of it. A few kiawe trees stood out among the rocky and muddy terrain, with a shed here and a warehouse there. The whole place had an abandoned feel, but maybe that was how they wanted it.
“Where’s Little Robert?” Betty asked.
Major Hochman pointed to the structure. “Welcome to the Shafter Mudflats, gals. This here is known affectionately as the Penthouse. Now, be careful not to step off of the wood or you’ll be in up to your teeth.”
“That is the Information and Control Center for the whole Pacific?” Thelma said.
Hochman checked his buttons, smoothed his red hair. “For now. Come on, Colonel Nixon is waiting for us. Trust me, we don’t want to keep him.”
Daisy wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but this ramshackle building was not it. The moment they set foot on the walkway, the sky opened up, pouring out raindrops the size of alfalfa pellets. There was no way to hurry, so they carefully navigated the thin, slippery planks of wood for what felt like a mile, then up a short flight of stairs. By the time they reached the door, everyone was soaked, well-styled hair now plastered to heads, mascara running down faces. Daisy finally felt at an advantage with none of that to worry about.
A heavy blanket hung across the entrance and they ducked under it and walked down a dark passageway, then out through another blanket. Daisy brought up the rear, and when she entered was faced with an unexpected scene. The insides of the building were as modern and shiny as the outside was ugly. They were in a room with a big table covered with a giant map of the Hawaiian Islands, this one much larger than the one used for training. A grid covered the whole thing. Plotting stations were set up around the table, with four chairs on the short sides and eight on the long. Each spot had its own headset and mini-switchboard to connect the plotters to Oscars around the island.
Captain Burgess stood on a raised section with a bulldog of a man looking down on the table. He waved but the other man did not. Uniformed men of all shapes and sizes manned the stations and telephones. They stopped what they were doing and gaped at the women. A troupe of monkeys may as well have waltzed in wearing tutus and party hats. Someone in front of Daisy mumbled softly, “Have they never seen a woman before?”
Major Hochman touched his hat in a salute to the bulldog man. “Nixon, I’ve got your next shift here.”
Nixon glanced at the clock on the wall behind him, then said, “God help us, boys, we have a truck full of Bettys here to take over for you. Brief them on your current plots. You’re relieved of duty.”
Technically, there was only one Betty, but no one was about to correct him.
“Highly trained and ready for work, sir,” Major Hochman said.
The men stood and pushed out chairs, took off their headphones. One young fellow saluted the women, then motioned them over. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen and had an angry field of pimples on his cheeks, but he bounced around with enough cockiness for them all.
He pointed to a marker on the map, north of Ka‘a‘awa. “This here is a transport, bearing West at 250 knots, bound for Kˉan‘eohe. Confirmed friend. Any of you hotshots want to take it on?”
Fluff stepped forward and reached for his poker. “I will.” The blue uniform suited her, conforming to her tiny waist, and enhancing the sea blue of her eyes. Her confidence caught Daisy off guard, and apparently it did the same to Colonel Nixon, who was suddenly standing next to them.
“What kind of aircraft is she?” he asked Fluff.
“Um. Let’s see. I guess it depends on what you are transporting—”
Fluff looked up toward a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling and twirled a lock of hair around her finger, obviously stalling. If only he had asked her a question about William Shakespeare or Walt Whitman.
“Flying Fortress, sir,” Daisy said, unable to help herself.
Nixon looked her up and down, his eyes level with her mouth. “Was I asking you?”
“No, sir.”
“How did you arrive at that, Miss...?”
“Wilder. Daisy Wilder. Because those are the transports that have been landing here. And because of her speed.”
He spoke coldly. “You happen to be correct, but you are also out of line.” Then, so all could hear, “Ladies, a few ground rules will keep you out of trouble. First, if you don’t know the answer to something, the proper answer is ‘I don’t know, sir, but I’ll find out.’ Second, don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking to someone. And third but not last, if you think like a man, speak like a man and act like a man, you should do fine.”
Fluff rolled her eyes and looked to be fighting a laugh. Daisy gave her a stern look. She was familiar with Nixon’s type, and you didn’t want to cross them. In her experience at the ranch, there were two kinds of men: those who liked women and those who didn’t. No amount of smarts or competence could change that fact.
“Oh, and one more thing—don’t touch my coffeepot.” He then motioned for a few other men to come down from the balcony. “This is Captain Owens, our pursuit officer. He handles the intercepts when we can’t identify a flight as friend. And this is our signal corps radar officer, or who we call Major Oscar. He’s in charge of keeping our radar coverage optimal and coordinates with all the Oscars out there. And Lieutenant Dunn here is my second-in-command. These are my right-hand guys. Now get to work.”
Major Oscar, a.k.a. Major Judd, was all arms and legs with hunched shoulders, but his smile lit up the room. “Any radar questions, direct them my way.”
The women scattered like buckshot around the table. Other men in the room offered a mix of welcome and this is my territory and flirtation. One in particular did not budge from his seat until Major Oscar stood behind him and coughed. “Joe, I know this is tough, but we have to give these ladies a chance,” he said.
Joe set down his stick and slowly stood. As he passed by, Daisy heard him mutter damn skirts. It was men like him who made her want to excel at this gig. Private Beers didn’t appear to share his disdain, and pleasantly showed them how to adjust their headphones. He began to explain the grids and codenames, but Major Hochman said, “Thank you, Private, but these ladies know the drill.”
The room smelled like fresh-cut timber, burnt coffee and chalk. Phones rang off the hook. It was somewhat dingy, with all the windows boarded up, but at least they had a little more space to move around in. And although the room was unfamiliar, the table was just a larger version of their training table. Daisy swapped places with a private named Reed, who had a marker off the coast of Wai‘anae.
“This is a squadron of fighters. F4F Wildcats. They go out several times a day for training when they’re at Pearl,” he said.
“Navy?” she asked.
He nodded.
It might be Walker. Strange that she could know his exact position in space and time. She pictured him up there in his suit and leather helmet, eyes scanning the horizon for any signs of the enemy. Those eyes. They undid her in a way that felt very dangerous. “Ma’am?”
She snapped out of it. “Yes?”
“There’s a call coming in. Would you like to be the first to answer?” he said.
Where at all possible, wire lines were used over radio. And it had been explained to them that it depended on their position around the plotting table, and if they were idle or not, who would take an incoming call.
All eyes were on her.
She picked up. “Army, go ahead, please.”
“Flash—Rascal, this is Oscar. Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Oscar.”
A whistle came through the line. “Now, wait a minute. Who is this speaking?”
Apparently not all the Oscars had been informed.
“This is Signal Corps Command Center and you’re speaking with Rascal badge number twenty-two. I’m ready to take your reading.”
He must have placed his hand over the mouthpiece, but Daisy could hear him anyway. “What the dickens, Jim, there’s a female on the other end of the line. What do I do?”
Another voice said, “These are the new recruits they stuck us with. Be a gentleman and give her the info.”
“Here we go, Rascal, I hope you’re ready for this. 1–bimotor–5–very low—seen—Opana station—N–2–W.”
Daisy quickly translated in her head, One bimotor plane was seen flying very low five miles north of Opana observation post heading west.
And so it began.
The WARDs worked in six-hour shifts at Little Robert around the clock. If the Oscars sounded surprised when women first answered, they soon adjusted. Most of them, at least. A loud-talking one with a funny accent refused to give Fluff coordinates.
“Look, lady, lemme talk to your boss. This bird is out of pattern and I got a bad feeling,” he’d said.
“Call me Rascal, and I am perfectly capable of handling the situation. We’ve been trained thoroughly,” Fluff responded.
“I want to talk to a man.”
“You’re out of luck, then, because right now, I’m all you’ve got.”
He hung up and promptly called back on another line. This time Lei got him. “Oscar, you can call back as many times as you want. We are all women here. Sorry to disappoint you.”
He finally gave in, but not happily.
Soon, though, the calls became business as usual. Plotting air and surface craft accurately was everyone’s first priority. The longer time passed without an invasion, the tenser people became. Frayed nerves could be seen everywhere, from the band of men with rifles combing the streets in Waialua to the talk that all of the local Japanese families in Hawai‘i would be rounded up and shipped off to Moloka‘i. Walker, who had grown up with Japanese neighbors and classmates, said, “That’s the dumbest, most ignorant thing I’ve heard so far. These people are Americans.”
Moloka‘i already had the burden of housing the leper colony on Kalaupapa, and now this. On such a small island, where would they all go? Never mind the fact that most of them were loyal American citizens.
“I guess that’s what happens when you have people making decisions from halfway around the world,” Daisy answered.
Walker was back flying again, and his schedule had him on night duty, so the Montgomerys’ butler, Mr. Bautista, drove her and Peg in most of the week—part of the Montgomery contribution to the war effort. Though Peg was out again today with another bout of asthma, poor thing. It had become clear that the woman was either on top of the world, or with one foot in the grave. No in between. A little bit like Daisy’s mother. She was tempted to bring it up with Walker, but didn’t dare.
Mr. Bautista had been working for the Montgomerys as long as she could remember. He spoke with a heavy Filipino accent and had a contagious laugh. He spent half the ride grilling her about the war, asking questions about her work that she couldn’t answer and the other half telling stories about his time on the sugar plantation. With Peg not around, his whole demeanor changed and he seemed far more relaxed.
“Miss Peg says you do important work.”
How much had Peg told him?
“All military work is important,” she said.
“You flying planes, like the mister?”
“No, I’m afraid it’s not that exciting.”
“Driving submarines?”
She laughed.
“Maybe breaking Japanese code?”
“Mr. Bautista, we do clerical work in an office, mainly answering phones. That’s all I can say. Can we change the subject, please?”
He grinned. “You girls are up to something, I know it. Miss Peg, she walk around like she big lady in town now.”
Surely Peg knew better, but Daisy could just imagine her, feeling even more important than she already did.
“Just doing our small part.”
Daisy and Fluff both found themselves a half hour early at the Palace. Skies had cleared and morning light brushed the horizon with lazy strokes of pink. They went for a walk around the block to pass the time. Fresh air and sunshine had never felt so good.
“What do you think about Colonel Nixon?” Fluff asked.
“At first I thought he was going to make our lives miserable, but he hasn’t been that bad. How about you?”
Fluff picked a yellow plumeria and stuck it behind her right ear. “He’s hard to read. I was certain he hated me that first day, but now I’m not so sure. It’s Lieutenant Dunn who’s interesting. Though his confidence can be a bit much. I catch him watching me a lot, and he makes no effort to hide it.”
“That’s no good.”
“He’s probably just not used to having so many gals around all the time.”
“Still, he shouldn’t be—”
Her words were obliterated by the wail of an air-raid siren, loud enough to send vibrations running up the backs of her legs and through her spine. They both covered their ears and ducked into the closest doorway, which happened to be the YWCA on Richards Street. Fluff clutched Daisy’s arm and looked into her eyes with pale terror. “Is this it?”
The next instant, a dark sedan pulled to stop and the door swung open. “Get in!” said Lieutenant Farrow, one of the nice young officers who had been helping drive them to Little Robert each day.
They followed orders and he tore off before Daisy even had her foot in the door. At King Street, he made a right without even slowing down.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Fluff yelled.
“Air-raid sirens. That means air raid.”
Obviously.
“I mean do you have any insider information?”
“No, ma’am.”
Daisy scanned the skies. Coconut trees and clouds. A flock of pigeons. No Japanese planes in sight—yet. She wasn’t sure what would be worse. An air raid or an invasion. Probably an invasion because then you would be face-to-face with the enemy, hear their voices, taste their spit. Lieutenant Farrow began to swerve like mad through Chinatown, nearly taking out a few pedestrians.
Pretty soon, Fluff had her eyes squeezed shut.
“Watch out!” Daisy screamed, as they narrowly missed an old woman carrying a bunch of bananas.
They careened over the bridge in Kalihi. Beads of perspiration covered the back of his neck. He seemed intent on getting them killed before the Japanese did. Fluff held Daisy’s hand and they rode in silence, too scared to speak. Eventually, they made it to Fort Shafter and the moment they stepped out of the car, the sirens stopped.
Just a scare.
Fluff looked ready to collapse. “Lord, that was a doozy.”
“Where did you learn to drive like that?” Daisy asked as she shut the door.
He smiled as though nothing had happened. “A moving target is harder to hit. Remember that.”
It did not take long for the women to discover how true that statement was, because many of them could not even hit a stationary target. General Danielson thought that every WARD ought to know how to fire a .45-caliber pistol and arranged for shooting practice in the hills up behind Shafter.
On a rare sunny morning, the women arrived at a large field at the base of the Ko‘olau mountain range, flanked by a rocky hillside on the left, and a forest on the right. From the sound of it, only a couple of gals knew anything about guns. Daisy being one of them. Four hay bales each painted with a big X were lined up as targets.
Fluff frowned. “I’m worried I might shoot my foot off.”
“Don’t aim at your foot, then,” Daisy told her.
A couple of marines had been designated as teachers, and the main one, a stern-faced man named Sergeant Guthrie, showed them—in minute detail—every nook and cranny of the weapon. When he passed it around, Thelma reached out first to grab it, and her arm dropped under the weight.
“It feels like a bowling ball,” she said, using both hands to hand it over to Peg, who could also barely lift it.
“There’s a huge amount of pressure that happens when you fire, so the gun needs to be heavy enough to contain that,” Guthrie said, spitting out a wad of chewing tobacco.
He then proceeded to show them how to stand, hold, aim and fire. With every shot, he hit the center of the X.
“He makes it look easy,” Lei said.
When it got to be their turn, Peg, Betty, Vivian and Fluff went first. The targets seemed awfully far away, and now the trade winds were kicking up a bit. On the first round, Vivian ended up on her rear end in the grass. A little dazed but laughing, she brushed herself off and stood right back up and tried again.
“My hands are shaking so badly, I can’t even aim,” Fluff said.
“Relax those elbows,” Guthrie barked.
By the end of the round, only Betty and Vivian had even come close to the X, and only once each. Next up were Daisy, Thelma, Lei and Rita. And though Daisy felt fairly comfortable with a shotgun, the pistol turned out to be an entirely different beast. Without a shoulder to press the gun against, aiming was a whole lot more challenging. But at least she was able to keep her arms steady. On their first shots, she and Rita hit the hay bale, but missed the mark.
Guthrie nodded. “Good job, ladies. Now make sure those front and back sights are aligned.”
A couple of more tries, and Rita hit the bull’s-eye. “Like I said on day one, I’m a crack shot with a rifle. Just needed a little getting used to this little guy,” she said with a shrug.
Thelma and Lei were not so lucky and their bullets kept whizzing past the hay bales.
“I hope there aren’t any unsuspecting pigs in the bushes back there,” Fluff said from the sidelines.
Or people, Daisy thought. She lined up another try.
Moments later, a billow of dust erupted from the rocky hillside. Suddenly, Thelma was rolling around on the ground clutching her thigh.
“I’ve been shot,” she screamed.
Daisy, who was closest, ran over and moved Thelma’s hand aside. A large red welt had formed, with purple spreading out from the center.
“The bullet must have ricocheted off the rocks. It’s just a bruise, no skin broken,” Daisy said, in her best horse-soothing voice.
By the time Guthrie made it over to inspect the damage, Thelma was sitting up and had calmed down. Even still, she refused to look Daisy in the eye. The rest of the girls were all crowded around, peering down at her with concern.
“Whose bullet was it that hit me?” Thelma said, looking directly at Daisy.
“I think it was yours,” Daisy said, though she couldn’t be sure.
“I’d hate to think it was someone else’s.”
Fluff put her hands on her hips. “That bullet was definitely your own. I saw it.”
A few others nodded in agreement and Thelma had no choice but to back off. But it was clear that Daisy would have to watch her back at every step. Some of these women she could trust, and some she couldn’t.