The animal was rough and heavy with life. Jamie imagined the legs crumpling, the magnificent antlers lying in the grass like discarded pitchforks. He lowered the rifle. Reflexively, Caleb lifted his, accustomed to taking the shots others missed. “Don’t,” Jamie said.
The bull elk looked toward them, ears swiveling. Jamie jumped up, waving his arms. He shouted. The animal turned and ran, setting the cows galloping. Dull thunder as the herd streamed down the meadow, their cream-colored haunches flashing bright until the fog swallowed them.
England
August–November 1942
Just after Marian arrived in London
First Marian and the others were sent to Luton, north of London, for ground school and flight checks. Everyone, men and women, had to begin at the beginning, regardless of experience. “You might have two thousand hours,” the instructor said, “or you might have two, and you’ll still have to sit here and listen, and you’ll still have to pass the tests.” They wore civilian clothes （their uniforms were being made in London, at Austin Reed）， were issued big, amorphous Sidcot suits for flying.
Ground school Marian found very interesting as she’d never learned about aerodynamics except haphazardly and long ago in the Missoula library, and she’d never learned Morse code or studied, in a systematic way, navigation or meteorology. This was the school of her young dreams: rows of desks occupied by pilots, walls plastered with maps and charts and diagrams of engines and instruments. Safe, not brave. Their instructor repeated this often enough for it to be a kind of mantra. Their purpose was to safely and efficiently transport airplanes wherever they were needed, not to be heroes. The planes were to be undamaged, or at least not damaged further than they already were. Sometimes they’d be flying brand-new aircraft, sometimes battle-bruised ones. Sometimes they’d be taxiing each other home in tired old crates.
The ATA operated under what Marian considered a clever and audacious system. After completing flight school at Luton in light aircraft, mostly open biplanes, and logging enough cross-country flights, pilots were sent to headquarters at White Waltham, south of London, and were trained to fly single-engine fighters, known as Class II, which included Hawker Hurricanes and, after a proving period, the longed-for Spitfires. Once they’d proved themselves capable, pilots were posted to one of fourteen ferry pools: the northernmost was Lossiemouth in Scotland, the southernmost Hamble, near Southampton, where the Supermarine factory churned out Spitfires that needed clearing away before the Germans could bomb them.
Each pilot was issued a small book, bound at its top with two metal rings, FERRY PILOTS NOTES and FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY stamped in yellow on its blue canvas cover. This contained information on every plane they might fly; they would be expected to take off in unfamiliar models after only a quick perusal of the notes. If they did well with Class IIs, they would return to White Waltham to upgrade to Class III, light twin-engine planes, and so on up to Class V, the hulking four-engine heavy bombers. Class VI was flying boats, but women were not allowed to fly those, as they would need to be put among a male crew, an intrusion that could only result in chaos.
“Chief amongst your concerns,” said the instructor, “will be flying below the weather. If you can’t, stay on the ground. To avoid attracting attention, you won’t be using radios, and if your aircraft has guns, they won’t be loaded.” He hesitated. “That is, in theory. If you should happen to find yourself in an armed aircraft, under no circumstances are you to fire your weapons.” Here some of the pilots exchanged rebellious glances.
“You’ll be completely on your own. So remember: safe—”
“—not brave,” chorused the pilots.
“I’ll never understand why they won’t teach instruments,” Marian said to Ruth as they walked back to their billets, two little brick houses on the same street, occupied by families who happened to have spare rooms. Marian’s room belonged to a son gone to Canada for RAF training. A model of a Sopwith Camel biplane hung from the ceiling, and on her first night she had lain looking at the underside of the wings and wondering what had ever happened to the Brayfogles. She’d always thought more about Felix, but now she wondered about Trixie. She ought to have admired her.
“It’s not as though you can help it if weather closes in on you,” she continued to Ruth. “They say they don’t want to waste planes and pilots, but you’d think fewer would crash if they knew how to fly in cloud.”
“The bosses are cheap, plain and simple,” said Ruth. “And in a big old hurry.”