“When the motor of her plane failed several hundred feet above Squantum Airport, Miss Nancy Harkness was sent to earth in a forced landing. Neither she nor her companion, Joseph H. Choate, 3rd, Harvard freshman, was injured. The pair had taken off from East Boston airport with Miss Harkness as pilot. Young Choate learned to fly last summer.”
—April 16, 1931 (newspaper)
April 1932—Vassar College, Boston
“What if you’re bad luck?” Nancy asked, leaning against the smooth body of the plane she was about to take up. It was a two-seater, single-engine, Great Lakes-303Y biplane.
Joseph Choate’s dark hair blew in the breeze as he propped his hand alongside the plane, facing Nancy. “We had one bad flight, a year ago.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she said, “and then I was banned from flying.”
“Because of the stunt you did with your brother, not because of flying with me.” Joseph winked and stepped closer. “Our motor failed, and that only earned a little notice.”
“That’s because a newspaper literally reported on our forced landing.”
“Right,” he said. “Those darn journalists. How’s your bother, by the way?”
“Completely respectable now. Married, with a baby on the way.”
Joseph flashed that smile that got all the girls talking. He was a Harvard student, studying law, and Nancy had been flattered by his attention last year. But now she realized she’d only really gravitated toward him because he liked to fly too.
“You’re still a legend, you know, at Milton,” he said.
Nancy lifted a shoulder. “Maybe we can fly another time. I’ve got a lesson coming up with Johnny.”
“Miller?” Joseph’s brows shot up.
“That’s the one. You know, Jack’s boss.”
Joseph lifted his hands, his easy grin appearing. “How is it that you’re connected with all the great flyers? You casually drop John Miller’s and Jack Ray’s names as if they come to your house for Sunday dinner.”
“Well, they don’t do that. My mother probably wouldn’t like those men at her table.” Nancy wrinkled her nose. Jack Ray was the assistant manager of the Poughkeepsie Airport. He was also her main instructor as she worked on her limited commercial license now that she was attending Vassar College. John Miller ran the airport as well as Giro Flyers Ltd. that operated out of the hangar. “They’re just pilots, Joe. More seasoned, sure, but men are men.”
His laugh was warm. “You’re different, you know that, Harkness? No other girl I know would be out here wearing breeches, goggles hanging off her neck, strapped up in a parachute, waiting for her flying instructor.”
Nancy shrugged. “Don’t forget I ferry passengers to pay for those lessons.”
“That too.” Joseph pushed off from the plane; his angular frame towered over her. “If you won’t go flying with me, maybe we can go to dinner?”
“Can’t.” Nancy smiled up at him. He really was handsome, but nothing inside her twirled at the sight of him. “Don’t have time for a boyfriend, Joe.”
The edge of his mouth lifted. “So you’ve told me. Just wondered if you’d changed your mind.”
“I haven’t.”
His gaze held hers for a couple of heartbeats. Joseph was a swell guy, but she wasn’t interested in the intensity she saw in his eyes—those of a young man who knew where he was going and what he wanted—right now. She liked her life as it was, and she was focused on her own goals, ones she didn’t want to get approval for.
“Be careful with those eyes, Joseph.”
He studied her for another handful of seconds. “Safe travels, Nancy,” he murmured, then turned and strode across the airfield.
Nancy watched him walk away—that confident walk of his masking her rejection. He’d find someone else to moon over him one day.
Joe paused when John Miller came out of the hangar. The two men greeted each other, but she had no idea what they said. Miller headed toward her.
“All checked out?” he asked with a friendly grin on his clean-shaven face.
“All checked out.”
“Plane’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Miller strapped on his helmet. He handed her up to the front seat of the Great Lakes, then took the rear pilot seat. “Come on, Harkness, let me show you how we fly in the Marine Corps.”
Yes, Miller was a former Marine, and Nancy wanted to learn from the best, but he was also a former barnstormer and the first person to make a US transcontinental flight in a rotorcraft, beating Amelia Earhart’s effort to become the first. Nancy liked his easy-going nature and friendly laugh. Nothing really seemed to faze him, and that was a good quality in a pilot, she decided.
From the first few minutes, Nancy knew she was in the hands of an expert pilot. He handled the plane effortlessly. She listened to every word of his instructions, committing them all to memory.
Right before it was time to land, he said, “Let’s try a stall, then we’ll land her.”
Miller cut the engine, pulled the nose up, and watched the airspeed drop. When the stall horn started to blare, the aircraft stalled, making the right wing fall. He pushed forward on the stick, pointing the nose down, then stepped on the left rudder and applied full power.
Nancy’s heart flipped so hard she was sure it had switched places with her stomach. But the grin on her face wasn’t leaving anytime soon. She was no daredevil, but flying with Miller was spectacular.
“Once you see the airspeed come back up, you can level with the horizon,” Miller said. “Let’s get ’er down, and we’ll switch places.”
A thrill ran all the way to Nancy’s toes as she thought about checking out on the Great Lakes machine.
But the sound of the engine restarting didn’t happen.
Miller cussed.
“What’s wrong?” Nancy twisted to look back at him.
“The engine won’t fire up,” Miller muttered, an edge to his voice. He swore again.
This wasn’t good, not good at all. “Parachute?” Nancy suggested, her throat turning sour.
“We’re too close to the ground for that,” Miller replied tightly. “Prepare yourself for a crash landing.”
But there was nothing to do to prepare herself. The cockpit was open, so there wasn’t any latch to release the hatch.
Should they jump? Before she could ask that, the plane tipped backward and plunged straight toward the ground.
Time seemed to slow as her stomach turned inside out. The sky above was robin-egg blue, the sun a golden sphere, and the wind had reversed, blowing bits of hair against her neck and cheek.
The churning in her stomach turned into a roil, and her head felt like she’d stuck it into a pond of cold water.
She heard the crash of the plane slamming into the ground almost before she felt it. Her body buzzed, her head buzzed, and her limbs felt like they were weighted down.
Someone asked if she was all right. Miller? Had he spoken? She couldn’t tell.
Her fingers, of their own accord, worked at the seat belt. All she knew was that she was upside down, and she had to get out. What if the plane caught on fire? What if Miller was seriously injured?
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she whispered to herself as she released the seat belt.
Then she was falling . . . out of the plane she’d been strapped into. She flailed her arms, trying to break her fall, but her head did that for her, against a stone wall. The same wall that the plane had apparently crashed into.
Pain reverberated through every single bone.
Why had she done that? She should have waited for help . . . Was it coming?
She tasted the rusty tang of blood in her mouth—she must have bitten her tongue. She groaned as she moved to right herself, grasping the wall to keep herself from falling off it.
“Miller?” she rasped, trying to search for him even though her eyes weren’t completely focused. “Where are you?”
She spotted his body not far from where she sat.
“Miller?” she whispered.
The man’s face was bleeding, but he was moving, breathing.
“Miller?” she said again. “Are you all right?”
Slowly, his gaze swung to hers. “Yes.”
But he didn’t look all right. Blood streamed down his face, the livid red pooling at the collar of his shirt, and his complexion reflecting the gray in the stone wall.
“I think we . . . hit . . . a tree,” he mumbled, but it was hard to understand him.
They had hit a tree, and maybe the branches had helped cushion the crash before the wall? Nancy wasn’t sure, and her head was throbbing too much to think about it. Motion caught her attention. A car was heading toward them—was Jack Ray driving it?
Yes, that was him.
Another car followed, and soon, people were helping them both off the wall. Asking questions. Nancy didn’t have any answers except to say the engine didn’t restart after their fall. Miller would have to fill in the rest, but he was already being loaded into one of the cars to be taken to the hospital.
Nancy appeared to be fine. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding, just a searing headache. She’d been lucky, she knew, although she didn’t feel lucky. This had been her third forced landing. Maybe three times would be her limit.
Jack broke away from where he was speaking to a couple of mechanics looking over the plane.
“How are you doing, Harkness?”
“Just take me back to Vassar,” she told him.
Concern in his features, he scanned her face. “Are you sure? We can have a doctor check you out at the—”
“No,” Nancy cut in, even as the pain in her head throbbed out a crescendo. “I want to rest.”
On the return drive to Vassar, Jack talked about the plane and how the engine was found in the field east of Vassar Road. “You were both lucky, that’s what. And Miller will be fine. Banged up is all. The mechanic thinks the plane can be repaired and made as good as new.”
Nancy comprehended the words through her head pain, and she supposed it was good news that the plane could be repaired—she’d decide for sure after she’d had some rest.
Jack delivered her back to her residence hall, and after assuring him she’d be fine, she headed inside.
Her plan was to take a nap and sleep off the accident. But first, she’d phone her parents and then the airfield to ask after Miller.
Cradling her head, she dialed her parents’ number from the phone in the lobby of the residence hall. “Mother?” she said when her mother answered.
“Nancy? Is everything all right?”
Her voice must have given something away. “I’m fine.” She paused. Sucked in a breath. “But my instructor crashed our plane today.”
“What?”
Nancy gave her mother a quick rundown, and while they were talking, her father came onto the phone. The minute she heard her father’s voice, tears sprang to her eyes, and her next words came out choked.
“We’ll come pick you up, my dear,” Father said in his gentle way.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m tired, that’s all. I don’t want to miss classes.”
Father chuckled. “You must have hit your head pretty hard to want to stay in school instead of coming home for a bit.”
Nancy would have smiled, but the pain was slicing like a hot knife finding its mark over and over. “I’ll let you know how I’m feeling tomorrow.”
“Nancy, we’re on our way,” Mother said, determined. “You don’t have to return with us, but we want to make sure everything is fine.”
Mother’s tone wasn’t one to argue with.
“I might be asleep.”
“That’s okay. We’ll see you when we get there.”
Nancy took a steadying breath after hanging up with her parents, then she called the nearest hospital, guessing that was where John Miller had ended up. When she was connected to the room, Jack answered instead.
“Calling to check on John,” Nancy said. “Is it bad?”
“He’ll survive,” Jack said. “They stitched up the cuts on his face. Lost a tooth. The doctors are worried about the sight in one of his eyes, but his bruises will all heal. How are you feeling?”
Nancy frowned, hoping that John’s eye would be fine. “I can’t complain. Sounds like John got the brunt of it. But we survived, and the plane can be repaired, right?”
“Correct.”
They talked for another few seconds, but Nancy was having trouble focusing with the constant throbbing in her head. When they finished the call, she headed to her bedroom. She lay on her bed, but before closing her eyes, she wrote in her logbook, John cracked Great Lakes-303Y.
He’d been so proud to fly the plane and eager to show it off. His words echoed through her mind: “Come on, Harkness, let me show you how we fly in the Marine Corps.”
Nancy closed her eyes. She didn’t know how much faith she had in Marine pilots at the moment.
She fell asleep, her dreams invaded by different scenarios of flying with John Miller. Sometimes he was the pilot, other times she sat in the pilot seat. But they kept going through the same crash. Over and over. She woke with a start, her head aching anew. Her mind wouldn’t shut off, and she found herself staring at the changing colors of the window, from slate gray to pale violet. Finally, she climbed out of bed and crossed to her desk as the dawn lightened her room to a rosy glow.
The mechanics would figure out whatever had happened to the plane, but she’d not trust anyone’s precheck again. Even if he were a Marine. Taking out one of her notebooks, she began writing down her own precheck list in the stillness of the predawn. The list was more extensive than she’d been taught. One that would cover more than the usual issues.
Her parents would be arriving soon, and she guessed one or both of them would try to talk her into taking a few days off school. Or even giving up flying. She might be only eighteen, but she was determined not to let this be a setback. Her headache would fade, Miller would recover, and she had only a couple of weeks left of training before earning her commercial license.