The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(4)

As Faye ran she didn’t feel her age or the alcohol, she felt needed.

When she arrived at the edge of the airstrip, out of breath, the smoking plane had swung around, dropped its landing gear, and was rapidly descending on an open runway.

Lois caught up and swayed next to her as a crowd of mechanics and pilots gathered, some praying, some cursing. Faye had seen this before, damaged planes making emergency landings anywhere they could, clipping treetops or crashing into nearby hangars. The last airman to attempt an emergency landing at Kunming died for his efforts, his body burned beyond recognition.

Faye took Lois’s hand as the pilot shut off the engine on descent.

“It’s going to be okay,” Faye told Lois. Her words felt like a wish as the nose of the aircraft pitched upward to slow its silent approach. She watched the smoking plane glide above the ground for a breathless moment before its landing gear kissed the surface of the runway. The men around her erupted into cheers.

The plane was still smoking and the front of the fuselage was black with soot, the cockpit a web of broken glass. There were so many bullet holes, Faye wondered how the pilot had managed to survive, let alone land. When he threw back the canopy she saw his face, covered in blood. The young pilot climbed out, his flight suit slick with oil, and his wet boots squished on the runway as he limped toward them. Faye felt the crowd surge forward. She became a rock in a stream of people flowing past her, everyone laughing, cheering, until the cockpit burst into flames. The plane exploded, sending a billowing cloud of debris into the air that made a tinkling sound as hot metal rained down around them. The wounded pilot looked at her, dazed, as .30-and .50-caliber rounds from the plane’s mounted guns began cooking off in the flames, shooting in all directions. The crowd dispersed in a frenzy, shouting, ducking, running. Faye heard the chirping sound of bullets piercing the air. She froze as the young man waved at her amid the mayhem, staggering in her direction. Faye could see his bloody, oil-soaked flight suit, the flammable grime that blackened his hands. She could smell the petroleum as he approached and could feel the heat of the burning wreckage. She watched in horror as the pilot tucked a crumpled cigarette into the corner of his mouth and fished out a Zippo lighter. Faye dashed toward the wounded stranger as Lois called her name, as men screamed, “Get down!”

She heard the pilot striking his lighter again and again and again, until a curl of fire flickered on the breeze, a wagging finger, orange and blue. Faye snatched his wrist and blew out the flame as the cigarette dangled from the pilot’s mouth. His face lit up with a quivering smile as their eyes met. He looked like he was trying to fight through the pain, unsteady, his mouth moving as though he were about to speak.

Then he collapsed in her arms.

Faye felt the weight of his body, the warmth of his blood, the stickiness of oil on her skin as she held on tight, yelling for a stretcher.



* * *



For a nurse, Faye surprisingly hated the smell of ether. But Lois, who was still learning, seemed to relish the sickly sweet aroma. Faye caught a glimpse of the recruit’s eyes and knew she was grinning from ear to ear beneath her surgical mask. Faye tried to remember if she was ever that enthusiastic during her own training. If she had been, seeing the cost of war, paid in the currency of young bodies, had tempered her zeal.

“That was quite a thing you did out there, Miss Moy,” Dr. Gentry said, without looking up from the pilot’s abdomen that had been cut open. Lois gently pulled back folds of muscle and soft tissue with a retractor while Faye handed the doctor a pair of forceps. “I heard all about it. You saved this man’s life.”

Faye always felt uncomfortable whenever someone called her miss, though it was only slightly less awkward than being called Mrs. Moy, leaving her to explain that she was unmarried. She watched as Dr. Gentry used the forceps to retrieve another bullet fragment from the man’s gut. The doctor dropped it into a tin pan, pinging as it joined a growing collection of jagged metal.

“It was nothing,” Faye said with a shrug. “You’re the one saving his life, Doctor.”

“She’s being overly modest,” Lois said. “There were bullets flying everywhere. You should have seen it, doc. We’re all running and screaming, diving for cover. And here he comes, walking straight toward her, and she meets him halfway.”

“I had my uniform on. He was in shock and saw a nurse.”

“Okay, so he was limping like a dead man on his feet,” Lois said. “But you—you just went right out there, calm as can be. What were you thinking?”

Faye paused. She remembered the blood that ran down the pilot’s face. How he felt in her arms. That she didn’t feel panicked or scared. “I wasn’t thinking.”

She handed the doctor a scalpel.

“Well, everyone’s been talking,” Dr. Gentry said as he kept working, searching for more fragments. “You saved this young man, giving me a chance to try to undo all the trouble he got himself into. Now he just has to make it through post-op. Either way, after what you did out there, I think it’s only right that I recommend you for the Distinguished Service Medal. It’s the best I can do for a civilian contractor. You deserve it. You did what needed to be done when everyone else ran. Just don’t go rushing toward the bullets anymore. I need you here, on your feet, not on my table.”

Faye nodded. She looked down at the pilot and realized she was holding his hand, which felt cold. The doctor had given him curare.