Flight of the Tiger Moth Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Book & Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Quotation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Historical Notes

  The De Havilland Moth

  Nursing Sisters in the Second World War

  Personal Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  © Mary Woodbury, 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Edited by Barbara Sapergia

  Cover design and photo montage by Duncan Campbell

  Cover painting by Dawn Pearcy, "Close-up Of a Pilot Smiling" by Superstock

  Book design by Karen Steadman

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Woodbury, Mary, 1935-

  Flight of the Tiger Moth / Mary Woodbury.

  ISBN 978-1-55050-364-7

  1. World War, 1939-1945–Canada–Juvenile fiction.  2. Tiger Moth

  (Training plane)–Juvenile fiction.  I. Title.

  PS8595.O644F58 2007      jC813'.54      C2007-901731-2

  Available from

  Coteau Books

  2517 Victoria Avenue, Regina, Saskatchewan Canada S4P 0T2

  www.coteaubooks.com

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by: the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program BPIDP), Association for the Export of Canadian Books and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

  To Clair, David, Robert, Ian, Peter and Sean,

  who gave me the inspiration and courage to write

  about young men learning to ­fly.

  ­Once you have tasted ­flight

  You will forever walk the ­earth

  With your eyes turned skyward,

  For there you have been, and ­there

  You will always long to ­return.

  —Leonardo da ­Vinci

  Chapter 1

  APRIL­ 1943

  Jack Waters sat crammed into the front cockpit of the Tiger Moth, the motor in front of him roaring as they rolled down the runway gaining ­speed.

  “Hold on tight!” Sandy hollered through the Gosport, the speaker slung around Jack’s ­neck.

  The bright yellow biplane bumped along the runway, then suddenly lifted. They were airborne! Jack’s stomach felt like it was plastered to his throat. Sweat trickled down his neck and back. It was hotter than blazes in the flying suit, helmet and goggles. Sandy had warned him that it was plenty cold when you got up in the air. He was uncomfortable, but he felt like a real ­flyer.

  “Look down!” Sandy ­shouted.

  Jack turned his head and risked a glance. The city of Moose Jaw lay beneath them, its houses on the grid of streets like houses in a model train set, its cars as small as Matchbox ­toys.

  Jack gulped air like a diver to clear his ears and the roar of the engine rushed ­back.

  Ahead of them stretched the prairie. In the distance Jack spotted grain elevators alongside railway tracks. A miniature train moved across the wide expanse of grain and hay fields. Farmhouses dotted the prairie landscape like spilled sugar ­cubes.

  Jack was flying. Really flying! His mother had finally agreed to let Sandy take him up and it felt fantastic! Sandy, his sister Flo’s fiancé, was a flight instructor at the Moose Jaw air base, twenty miles east of Jack’s village of ­Cairn.

  From the ground the air looked blue, but when you were travelling in a plane it had no colour. No shape. The propeller turned so quickly that all Jack could see was a whirr and a blur. The solid wooden prop on the ­flimsy-­looking metal, wood and cloth airplane moved so fast it was transparent. He’d been on a Ferris wheel at the local fair, but this was fifty times more ­exciting.

  Soaring over the endless prairie, far from the city, Sandy put the plane through its paces. He banked, rolled and looped the Tiger Moth. Jack couldn’t help grinning, even

  though the metal seat bit into his ­skin.

  Suddenly Sandy pulled the plane into a ­heart-­stopping stall. He dived, banked, rose and did a complete roll. Jack’s stomach lurched. The seat belt dug into his shoulders. Sandy laughed, straightened the plane and flew in a circle, heading down and skimming over the ­fields.

  “Do you want to try it?” he ­asked.

  “Sure,” Jack gulped. “But not if I have to do fancy manoeuvres.”

  “Not yet,” Sandy said. “Just try keeping her on course.”

  Jack’s mouth dried. Sandy had drilled him on the basics over the last couple of weeks. Jack had even sat up in bed reading the flight manual late at night. But he was still getting used to the pitch and wobble, the shaking and the noise. He spent most of his time with his feet on the ground or on the pedals of his bike or the family­ car.

  “It’s a lot to remember, sport. But I’m here to take over at a moment’s notice.”

  Jack breathed as if he was running a marathon. Nothing, but nothing, in his whole life had been this thrilling, this scary. “I’ll take it,” he said. He took over the controls, with Sandy prompting him from ­behind.

  He concentrated on trying to keep the Moth straight and level. But as soon as he got the rudder centred and stopped the plane from yawing, the nose crept too high. The ­rate-­of-­climb indicator reared up and the wings tilted. The black ball in the ­turn-­and-­bank indicator rolled to the side of the ­dial.

  “We’re ­side-­slipping!” Sandy called. “Make the corrections.”

  Jack’s toes were scrunched up in his shoes in an effort to nail his feet to the floorboards. His hand on the stick was stiff, his heart raced. His innards ­cramped.

  But he felt ­terrific.

  “Let’s try that again,” said Sandy. And so it went. Instead of the short flight Jack had been promised, the one his mother, Ivy, had only grudgingly agreed to, he spent the whole morning in the ­air.

  >>>

  Jack climbed out of the cockpit after the first two hours in the Tiger Moth, feeling as if he’d been pummelled by his arch-enemy, Jimmy Boyle. Sweat trickled down his face and he wiped it off with a freshly ironed ­handkerchief.

  He grinned at Sandy. “That was swell.”

  “If you’re up for it, we’ll go again this afternoon.”

  “Sure thing.” Jack felt pulled apart physically and mentally, frightened and exhilarated at the same ­time.

  “Might as well make hay while the sun shines, as my dad always said.” Sand
y, his tall, muscular frame released from the cockpit, loped across the tarmac to the ­lounge.

  Jack wobbled after him. His legs felt like a sailor’s on shore leave. He wasn’t sure his body would cooperate if they did much more of ­this.

  The pilots’ lounge at the flying school in Moose Jaw was filled with shabby but comfortable furniture. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke and dust. Jack threw himself down on an old brown couch without waiting to be invited. A couple of guys playing cribbage looked up and ­laughed.

  “First flight, eh?” one of them asked. He tugged at his red ­moustache.

  “You must be Flo’s little brother,” the other one said. “You’re from Cairn, eh?” Jack ­nodded.

  “This is Jackie, all right,” Sandy said. “Jackie, this is Walter here with the red hair and freckles and the poor devil about to be skunked is Bertie.” Both men nodded in Jack’s ­direction.

  “He just saw the village of Cairn from a whole new angle. His mother won’t hear about that part, though.”

  “Mums always worry too much,” Walter ­said.

  “Yeah,” Bertie agreed. “A man needs to learn new things. Builds confidence.”

  Jack grinned at the word “man.” He knew he didn’t qualify yet, but he was getting closer. And he liked the ­sound.

  “A little bird tells me you’re expecting the call any day, Sandy,” Bertie went on. “All of us instructors would love the chance to get to go.” Bertie sighed, looking sadly at Jack. “The rcaf keeps us here training the youngsters.” He shook his ­head.

  “Are you going overseas?” Jack felt the world shift again, the way he’d felt when the plane rolled. “When?”

  “Could be soon.” Sandy put his finger to his lips. “But keep it to yourself. I haven’t told Flo yet.”

  His sister wouldn’t be too happy about this ­news.

  >>>

  After lunch in the airfield cafeteria, Jack and Sandy went up again. At one point Jack looked down and saw the Cairn grain elevator in the distance, the clapboard bungalow where he lived with his parents, the untidy caragana hedge and the gravel lane behind it. He chuckled, wishing he could fly low and wave to his dad, sitting on the front porch of the family’s main street business, the Waters General ­Store.

  If his dad could only see him now. Jack felt a year older than when Sandy had picked him up early that morning. He had even had the thrill of taking off on this last test flight. He was more in control of the plane and he was more confident too. He could fly this crate. Looking below at his village and the surrounding countryside, Jack felt his chest expand with pride. It was going to be really hard not telling his ­parents.

  >>>

  Sandy and Flo took Jack to the movies that evening in the city of Moose Jaw and after that the three of them went to a small restaurant. Jack had buttermilk, a hot beef sandwich and a piece of apple pie à la mode. À la mode meant with ice cream. The pie didn’t taste as good as his mother’s, but he needed to eat after starving himself most of the day. He hadn’t wanted to throw up in the cockpit. Now he was more tired than he could ever ­remember.

  “How do you like flying, Jackie?” Flo asked. “Ready to sign up?”

  “Wish I could.”

  His ­half-­sister looked extra pretty tonight. Her dark bobbed hair shone under the soft lights in the café and her forest green sweater brought out the dark of her eyes. She sat close to Sandy, across from Jack. Flo and Sandy had met at a dance when several of Flo’s nurse buddies from the Moose Jaw hospital they all worked in had dragged her out of her ­room.

  At ­twenty-­six, Sandy was a couple of years older than Flo, but they’d hit it off right ­away.

  Just then a gang of Canadians, rcaf student flyers and their girlfriends, came in, the men nodding at Sandy as they passed. Jack knew they were students by the white flash on their wedge caps. One of the students came over to pay his ­respects.

  “Evening, sir. We missed you today.”

  “Evening, Marsden.”

  “Heard a rumour you’re going overseas, sir.”

  Flo lifted startled eyes. “Have you heard something?”

  Sandy glared at Marsden, who hadn’t realized he was letting the cat out of the bag. He mumbled something and left quickly. Probably scared he’d wash out on his next flight with Joseph “Sandy” ­Sanderson.

  “I was going to tell you tonight.” Sandy looked sheepish. “Sounds like I’m being shipped out to England soon. But you can’t say anything.”

  Flo’s hands gripped the edge of the wooden ­tabletop.

  Sandy dug his cigarettes out of his pocket and shook one out of the package. “I didn’t dare hope. I thought if I said anything too soon…”

  “It wouldn’t happen.” Flo let out a sigh as long as a freight train. “What am I going to do? I don’t want to sit here twiddling my thumbs in the hospital in Moose Jaw, living alone in a dinky flat, with the war going on thousands of miles away. I’ve got a couple of friends who are serving overseas as nursing sisters. Maybe they’d put in a good word for me.”

  “There’s lots of work for nurses right here in Canada,” said Sandy. “Somebody has to patch up all the student pilots who crash in training.”

  “There’s lots of work in hospitals overseas too.”

  “I don’t want you risking your life.” A frown creased Sandy’s broad ­forehead.

  “It’s all right for you to risk yours?” Jack heard a sting in Flo’s ­voice.

  “That’s different,” said Sandy a bit ­stiffly.

  “Is it?” Flo asked. “Well, you don’t need to think I’m going to sit here being the ‘little woman’ at home.”

  “But Flo –”

  Jack excused himself and headed to the washroom. Sometimes he felt like a third wheel on a bicycle around these two. He wondered if Sandy knew how determined Flo could be. Even if they were engaged, Sandy hadn’t lived with her for sixteen years the way Jack had. He admired her spunk. He knew it drove their mother crazy having a daughter so outspoken and ­independent.

  When he returned, Flo and Sandy had obviously made up because they were holding hands and gazing into each other’s ­eyes.

  “Your mom and dad have been swell to me,” Sandy said to Jack as he joined them. “I’m going to miss you all. So promise you’ll keep an eye on things.”

  “I will. Thanks for the flying lessons.”

  “You better not tell Mom. She’d have a fit. Or Dad,” said Flo. “He’d be sure to let it slip or tell the whole village.”

  “Keeping secrets is hard work, Jackie. No sense worrying your mother needlessly, though. In wartime, kids have to take responsibility for their own decisions,” Sandy said. “It’s hard, but that’s the way it is.”

  “Mom has her reasons, you know,” Flo said. “She’s been especially protective of us kids because my dad came home a hero and died the way he did.” She sounded almost ­angry.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack. He knew very little about his ­half-­sister’s father, the World War I veteran and ­flyer.

  “He was your dad’s older brother, right?” Sandy turned to ­Jack.

  The family didn’t talk about Uncle Jack, not even Dad, and he usually told stories about everything. There seemed to be a cloak of silence around his uncle’s life and ­death.

  “No one’s ever told me the whole story.” Jack ­sighed.

  “I’ll tell you sometime, kiddo. Not tonight.” Flo shook her ­head.

  Jack was puzzled, but he knew better than to pursue ­it.

  “Time we took you home,” Flo said. “Mom will be worried and Dad will want to know about the flight.”

  “Better not tell him too much,” laughed ­Sandy.

  “Don’t worry.” Jack drew a zipper across his face. But he knew he’d tell his best friend Wes McLeod. He had to share the news with ­someone.

  Jack Waters, boy ­flyer.

  Chapter 2

  MAY ­1943

  A few weeks later Sandy was sent to Bournemouth, E
ngland, where he paraded with thousands of others in front of the king and queen. Flo got ­tissue-­paper- thin military envelopes that unfolded and worked as letters too. There were photos in the newspaper. Word filtered back through Sandy’s friends on the air base in Moose Jaw that he had joined an active Canadian squadron, the 418th, and begun flying night missions over Europe somewhere, with ­anti-­aircraft weapons ready to shoot them ­down.

  Shortly after Sandy left, Flo came home for the weekend from Moose ­Jaw.

  “Wish me luck, little brother.” She carried a small suitcase into her old bedroom, now the official guest ­room.

  “Why do you need luck?” Jack followed her to the door of the small room. It still had most of her school pennants and photographs on the walls. The quilt on her single bed was a ­pink-­and-­white pattern. A fluffy stuffed bear sat on the ­pillow.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” Flo hummed as she hung up her skirt and blouse and tucked her pyjamas under the ­pillow.

  “Flo, what brings you home on a Friday?” Ivy Waters burst through the back door with a bag of groceries. Jack’s mother was a compact woman with pale skin and neat black hair hinting of grey at the temples. “You should have phoned. I haven’t anything special made.”

  “I got a ride with a student minister – a friend of mine is dating him. He was coming out to see Dr. McLeod.” Flo, her dark bob slightly untidy from the journey, came out and stood in the centre of the kitchen. She wore a pale blue linen dress with plain black ­pumps.

  “I hope he’s a safe driver.”

  “Oh, Mom, you worry too much.”

  “I wish you could take a job at the infirmary at our own aerodrome two miles away. You could move home.”

  Flo had lived in Moose Jaw for the past five years, first while she was in residence training as a nurse, and after she graduated, in a rooming house near the hospital with several of her ­friends.

  “Listen, Mom, I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve joined the wd, the Women’s Division of the rcaf. As a nursing sister, I could be called up any day. I’ve come to say goodbye.”