The men were quiet, looking at her. Shorty realized that he had never once seen his crewmates together and quiet, except at mission briefings right before wheels-up. It made him nervous.
Then Garrett said, “Still needs bigger tits.”
Lieutenant Broben took off his hat and rubbed his brush cut and sighed. He put an arm around Shorty and stood looking at the painting. “I apologize, ma’am,” Broben told the flying figure. “An angel could play the violin, and some guys would only hear a horse’s tail sawing on a piece of catgut.”
“Well what else is it?” asked Garrett.
Broben dropped his arm from Shorty and turned to Farley. “I got an idea,” he said. “Tomorrow, let’s just drop Garrett on Germany. The Nazis’ll be finished in a week.”
“I think it’d violate the Geneva Convention,” said Farley. “There are some things you just can’t do in a war. Even to Nazis.”
Broben sighed. “Bombs it is, then.”
“Like civilized men,” Farley agreed.
Martin shook his head. “I can’t keep up with you guys,” he said.
Boney pointed the stem of his pipe at the bomber. “Keep up in there,” he said.
Martin looked at the bombardier. Tall and skinny and very pale. Gaunt face impassive behind his fuming pipe. It was the first thing the man had said since Martin had arrived.
“Boney talks like he bombs,” Shorty told him. “He doesn’t drop one till he’s sure it’s gonna hit.”
Martin pointed to the lettering. “Fata Morgana?” he asked.
“Fay-tuh Mor-gon-uh,” Shorty corrected.
“What’s it mean?”
“Tell him what it means, Joseph,” said Broben.
“Yeah, tell him, cap,” said Garrett. “I want to hear it again, too.”
“Maybe it’ll sink in this time,” said Everett.
Garrett punched him on the shoulder.
“All right,” said Farley. He looked around self-consciously at his attentive crew, then nodded at his new belly gunner. “Fata morganas are a kind of mirage,” he said. “You see them under certain conditions in calm weather, when a layer of warm air sits on top of a layer of cold air. It acts like a lens. Sometimes they look like floating rocks just above the horizon.” Farley paused. “Or castles in the air.”
Broben waggled his eyebrows. “Castles,” he said. “In the air.”
“Say,” Shorty said in his best radio announcer voice, “you mean like a … flying fortress?”
“Why, yes, sergeant, I mean exactly like a Flying Fortress. Clever, no?”
“But why not call her Mirage?” asked Martin. “Everyone knows what a mirage is.”
“A fata morgana’s a special kind of mirage,” said Captain Farley. “Technically, it’s a complex superior mirage.”
“Ooh, you got the fancy flight school,” said Broben.
“The one for smart pilots,” Farley agreed.
“So where does the girl with the magic wand come in?” Martin persisted.
“She’s a girl,” said Everett. “You need a reason?”
“Morgan la Fay was a sorceress in King Arthur,” said Farley. “She was Arthur’s half sister.”
Broben hooked a thumb at Farley. “College boy,” he explained. He mimed drinking tea with his pinky extended. “Lih-tra-choor, dontchoo know.”
Farley nodded at the painting. “The Italians called her Fata Morgana. They named the mirages after her because they thought they were magic. Floating islands or castles that lured sailors to their death. Like the Sirens.”
“Yeah, the air-raid sirens,” said Garrett.
Martin squinted at the woman on the bomber. “So … she’s a sorceress … and a flying fortress … and a mirage?”
Farley nodded. “You’ve got it.”
Martin looked thoughtful as he rubbed near the hollow of his throat. His intensity made the men glance among themselves, but they said nothing. “The Lakota have Heyoka Winyan,” said Martin. “Thunder-Dreaming Woman. She carries lightning, and she’s a great healer. She speaks in a voice like thunder.”
“Well, this dame’s gonna yell all over Germany when we take her up,” said Broben.
“Fata Morgana,” Martin said again.
Shorty nodded. “We weren’t all that nuts about it at first,” he said. He ducked his head apologetically at Farley. “But after the captain explained it, it was kind of hard to picture calling her anything else.”
Martin nodded. “Names have power,” he said. He became aware that they were all looking at him and he spread his hands. “Hey, you don’t need my okay,” he protested. “I’m the new guy.”
“Tomorrow’s our first time with her, too,” said Boney.
“She’ll be a good ol girl,” said Wen.
“Lady,” Broben countered.
Garrett shrugged. “Girl, lady. I’m still gonna see how far I can get with her and still be friends.”
Broben shook his head. “Sergeant Garrett,” he said, “you’re a hell of gunner. But you are one hundred percent barbarian.”
Whatever Garrett replied was drowned out by the crew’s laughter.
TWO
Broben brought two mugs to the folding table and set one in front of Farley. “There you go,” he said as he sat down across from him. “Nice and warm like momma used to brew. Cheers.”
They clinked glasses and drank. The Boiler Room was full tonight, loud with chatter and thick with cigarette smoke. Kay Kyser played on the Armed Services Radio from the lone PA speaker on the wall. Beneath it were pinups. Beside Veronica Lake a well-lettered sign read keep ’em flying! Groups of men, few in uniform, sat at folding tables or stood in clusters at the bar, talking shop and gesturing. It might have been a dive bar near a college somewhere, except there were no women, and the gestures weren’t what you’d see in a college bar: One hand held level and the other diving under it, then the leveled hand slowly angling out to turn palm-up. Two hands struggling with an invisible control wheel. Two fists jerking in time as they swiveled an imaginary .50-caliber machine gun. Though technically it was an officers’ club, there were plenty of noncoms. A few men had beers, most drank warm soft drinks.
Farley realized he could tell who was ground crew and who was flight crew without having to think about it. The flyers simply looked older. Dark circles under their eyes and a haunted, hunted look. They were nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. Whatever boyhood they had carried with them into service had been shot, shaken, blasted, burned, belly-landed, and grieved completely out of them. The boy in them had bailed out somewhere over the English Channel on his first mission. He was missing and presumed dead.
Farley knew that he didn’t look any different.
Broben thumped his mug onto the table and wiped his upper lip and sighed. “Warm beer,” he mused. “I’m turning into a friggin Limey.”
“They’re not so bad. They’ve been around a lot longer than we have.”
“Yeah, yeah, they got socks older than us. I’ll admit they’re brave bastards.” Broben raised his mug. “Here’s to every milk-white one of ’em.”
They toasted.
“They can keep their damn weather, though,” Broben added.
“How in the world are you going to go back to driving a delivery truck after all this?” Farley asked.
“I ain’t no truck driver.”
“I thought that’s what you did before you joined up.”
“I’m more like a philosopher on wheels.”
Farley snorted. “You’re something on wheels, all right.”
They were quiet a moment. Now it was Jimmie Lunceford on the PA. Smells of tobacco and beer and sweat. Steady hubbub and coiled tension.