The Spitfire Girls(91)

The nurse had told her it was a miracle he was still alive, and she wanted to believe that he’d waited for her, that he wanted to be with her one last time before he passed.

‘Daddy?’ she whispered.

His eyes opened, and she smiled at him, blinking through her tears. Her father was a big, strong man, but now he looked a shell of his former self.

‘Lizzie,’ he rasped, barely audible.

‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘Don’t think you can leave without saying goodbye to me.’

Then Jackson leaned forward. ‘Sir, I just want to say what an honour it is to meet you,’ he said, as her father’s eyes seemed to search his. ‘I want you to know that I’ll always look after your Elizabeth. She’s a wonderful woman and I will always be there for her.’

Lizzie sobbed as her father slowly blinked, as if acknowledging Jackson’s words.

‘I’ll be sure to tell my own father, Lieutenant David Montgomery, that I had the great fortune to meet you, sir. I know he holds you in very high regard.’ He cleared his throat and dropped a kiss onto Lizzie’s hair before moving quietly away.

Her mother came forward then and placed something in her father’s hands, and Lizzie watched as he slowly pushed it towards her.

‘For,’ he murmured, ‘you.’

Lizzie glanced at her mother.

‘He wanted you to have it. He made me promise to give it to you, and tell you he was so proud of you,’ her mother said, coming to sit with her and placing an arm around her shoulders. ‘We’re both so proud of what you’ve achieved.’

Lizzie reached for his hand, opening his palm and sobbing when she saw his Distinguished Service Cross. She traced her fingertips over it, touching the eagle in the centre and then the two words.

‘For Valour,’ she whispered.

‘He was in the middle of writing to you when the pain started in his chest,’ her mother continued, handing her a letter. ‘I’ll leave you both for a moment so you can read it.’

Lizzie put the medal on the bed beside her father and unfolded the paper, glancing at her daddy, seeing that his eyes were still open, searching for her still.

She cleared her throat and quietly started to read aloud.

‘To my darling Elizabeth,

I’m so very proud of everything you’ve achieved. I can hardly believe that my little girl is commanding an entire squadron of pilots, and women at that!’

She smiled, reaching for his hand.

‘You always believed in yourself, and without that confidence we may never have seen women in the sky during this war. When I was a pilot, we would have laughed at the idea that women could help us the way you’re helping us now. But look at you, doing this for the war, being the leader of a team, just as I was. We’re nothing without our squadron, and . . .’

The words abruptly stopped, and Lizzie looked up, wanting to know what else he was going to say.

‘Daddy?’ she said, bending forward. His eyes were open, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Daddy?’

She shook his hand, but received no response. Then she gently squeezed his shoulder as a cold sensation passed through her.

‘Fly high, Daddy,’ she whispered through her tears, the letter slipping from her fingers as she dropped over him and gave him one last hug. ‘Fly high.’





PART THREE





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

TEXAS, 1944

LIZZIE

‘No!’ Lizzie screamed, anger thumping through her as she hastily read the letter from Hap. Her hands shook as she balled it up and threw it across the room.

She ran out of her office and into the open, gulping in breaths of warm air as she tried to come to terms with what she’d just read. It couldn’t be true, could it? Could this really be the end? The sun was beating down, sending her temperature soaring. First her daddy and now this?

She saw her pilots, some milling about in groups, some walking on their own. She saw planes lined up, looked skyward and saw aircraft in the sky.

‘Liz?’ Jackson’s big, warm hand covered her shoulder.

‘It’s over,’ she choked. ‘We’re done.’

‘What do you mean, we’re done?’ he asked.

She pointed towards her office, not wanting to go back in there. She didn’t want to read it again, didn’t want to acknowledge that her threat had led to the end of the WASPs. Maybe Hap was simply too busy to worry about a group of women; he was directing the war in the air over Europe, after all. But without them, without the WASPs, they wouldn’t have had the necessary support at home, they wouldn’t have . . . She pushed her thoughts away and walked down to the barracks, taking in the pilots sunning themselves, wooden chairs tipped upside down so they could lean back and sunbathe.

When she finally returned to her office, she found Jackson sitting in her chair, holding the crumpled paper in one hand. He looked up when she entered, but his gaze said it all. She marched over and took the letter from his hands, needing to see it again to make sure she hadn’t dreamt it up; but it was very much reality.

‘I am proud of you young women,’ Lizzie read, clearing her throat and skipping down a bit further. ‘When we needed you, you came through and have served most commendably under very difficult circumstances.’