“Are you serious?” She had thought he was kidding at first. She had just come in from a run to Las Vegas. It was hotter than hell. But when she got on the phone, Jackie Cochran said she wanted to meet with her if possible. She said she'd always admired her, and she asked her to come to New York to see her, if she could spare the time. “Sure,” Cassie agreed, jotting down the pertinent details. She had agreed to fly there two days later. She had nothing else to do, since it was her day off. And maybe she could even do a little shopping, since she had her money from the tour in the bank, and had never spent a penny. The funny thing was she had wanted to meet Jackie Cochran for ages, but once she got settled at home again, she got lazy and never did anything about it.
She was thinking about inviting her mother to come
And as it turned out, it was something that fascinated Cassie. She had admitted readily that she was bored at home, and eager for some more exciting flying. Eight months after she had been rescued in the Pacific, she was ready to spread her wings again and do something a little more exciting. And what Jackie Cochran had in mind was right up her alley.
Jackie wanted Cassie to take charge of forming a small group of experienced women pilots under the Army Air Force Flying Training Command, to ferry planes to wherever they were needed in the war, for the moment. The women involved would fly as civilian pilots but have uniforms and honorary rank. Cassie was to start as a captain. There was another women's air corps too, the WAFS, Women's Auxiliary Flying Squadron, if she preferred it, being organized for domestic ferrying by Nancy Harkness Love, another extraordinary female pilot. But Cassie liked the idea of ferrying planes into England right past the Germans. She knew her parents were going to be upset if she left home again, but this was something she believed in. It served a purpose, it wasn't frivolous or self-serving, like her Pacific tour, which just made money for a lot of greedy people. This was something she could do for her country, and if she died… she was prepared to accept that. So had Chris… so had Billy… sadly, so had Bobby Strong by then. He had been killed six weeks after he enlisted. Peggy was a widow again, with four children now. Life was never simple.
The WAFS would begin training in September, for eight weeks in New Jersey, but she could hardly wait. It was time for her to be challenged again and for the first time, she would be flying with other women. She had never had the opportunity to do that.
Jackie Cochran took her to dinner that night at ‘21’ and they talked about their plans. Cassie couldn't remember anything she had wanted to do more, not even the world tour when Desmond had first asked her. This was so different.
It was exactly what she wanted and what she'd been waiting for. For Cassie it was time to move on now. She was still smiling when she flew home the next day, thinking about it.
Her father was at the airport when she got in; he was singing to himself, and filing some papers in his office. She hated to ruin his mood, and she decided to wait and tell him after dinner.
“How was New York?”
“Great,” she beamed at him.
“Oh oh. Do I smell romance in the air?” He smelled happiness, but not romance. Airplanes, but not boys. She was right hack to where she'd been in the beginning. In love with flying.
“Nope. No romance,” she smiled mysteriously. She was twenty-three years old and divorced, and she felt free and independent. And she was about to do exactly what she wanted.
She could hardly contain herself until that night after dinner, and when she told her parents, they stared at her in disbelief.
“Here we go again,” fat looked angry even before she explained it. “You want to do what now?” She had been swimming upstream all her life. It was nothing new for them, or to Cassie.
“I want to join… I did join the Army's Flying Training Command,” she said happily, and then she explained it to them.
“Wait a minute. You're going to be flying bombers to England? Do you know how heavy and hard to manage those are?”
“I know, Dad.” She smiled. She'd flown just about every difficult plane in the sky, when she'd worked for Williams Aircraft. “I'd have a co-pilot.” She knew that would make him feel better.
“Probably another woman.”
“Sometimes.”
“You're crazy,” he said tersely, “patriotic, but crazy.”
She looked at him hard then. He had to understand. She was grown-up and she had a right to do this. But she had also put them through a lot, especially in the last year and she didn't want to hurt them. She would have preferred to do it with their approval, but her mother was already crying.
“You and your damn flying,” Oona said unhappily to her husband, and he patted her hand apologetically.
