Wings (46 page)

He was still curled up in her arms, when she woke up the next morning. Her head ached, and her neck was stiff, and she knew she was slowly getting as sick as he was. Billy was already awake, she thought, he was lying very still and looking at her; and then she gave a small scream as she realized that his eyes were open, and he wasn't breathing. He had died in her arms in the night. She was alone now.

She sat there looking at him for a long time, huddled next to him, not knowing what to do, and not wanting him to leave her. She sat crying, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. She knew she had to do something with him, to’ take him away, or bury him, but she couldn't bear for him to leave her.

She pulled him slowly outside that afternoon, and dug a shallow grave with her hands, in the thicker sand near the rocks, and she laid him there. And all she could think of as she did was his telling her not long before that he wanted to end his life on an island. He had. But that all seemed so long ago. It was part of another life, in a place she would never see again. She knew that now. She knew she was going to die like Billy.

She kneeled down next to him, and looked at him, with his eyes closed, and his freckles so big on the thin face, and she touched his cheek for a last time, and stroked his hair.

“I love you, Billy,” she said as she had the night before. But this time he didn't answer, and she covered him gently with sand and left him.

She sat alone in the cave that night, hungry and cold and shaking. She hadn't eaten all day. She was too sick to eat, and too sad about Billy. And she hadn't drunk water either. And the next morning, she felt weak and confused and she kept thinking she heard her mother calling her. Whatever she had, it was killing her, just as it had killed Billy. She wondered how long it would take, or if it even mattered. There was nothing left to live for now. Chris was gone. Billy was gone. Nick was lost to her… her marriage was over… she had crashed Desmond's plane… she had let everyone down… she had failed them.

She staggered out to the beach and fell down several times, and she was too weak to go up to the rocks and get water. She didn't care anymore. It was too much trouble to stay alive. And there were so many people talking to her now. She saw the sun come out, and she heard them, and as she stood up again, she saw a ship on the horizon. It was a very big ship, and it was coming closer. But it didn't matter, because they would never see her.

The USS
Lexington
was in the area on maneuvers. It passed through these islands regularly, but it hadn't been there in a while, it had been assigned to other positions. But Cassie didn't bother with it, she went back into her cave and lay down. It was too cold outside… too cold… and there were too many voices…

The
Lexington
continued to cruise by, and there were two smaller ships with it. It was the lookout on the smaller one who spotted the burned hull of the
North Star
bobbing in the water half a mile off the island.

“What is that, sir?” he asked an officer next to him, who smiled. “It looks like a scarecrow,” It did, from that angle, in the distance. Part of it had gone down, but there was so little left that the skeleton managed to stay afloat, and with another look, the officer gave a series of rapid orders.

“Could it be the plane that O'Malley and Nolan were flying, sir?” the junior officer asked excitedly.

“I don't think so. They went down about five hundred miles from here, give or take a few miles. I don't know what that thing is. Let's take a closer look.”

They advanced slowly on it, and several more of the men focused binoculars on it, but when they got there, the skeleton eluded them, and dipped in and out of the water. But it was obvious now that it was part of a plane. Half the cockpit was still there, and one of the wings had been blown off. The other had burned down to the frame and melted.

“What does it say?” one of the men was shouting to the other.

“Get some men in the water now,” an officer commanded. “I want that brought aboard.” And half an hour later, they had the remains of Cassie's plane spread out on the deck around them. There wasn't much left, but there was one piece that told it all. They had found it. It was painted bright green and yellow. Those had been her colors, they all knew, and the script read

“Star.”
They called the captain down to examine what they'd found, and there was no question in his mind. They had found what was left of the
North Star
. It had been burned to a crisp, and it had obviously suffered a severe explosion. But there was no sign of life on it anywhere, or of human remains. They checked carefully. There was no sign of Cassie or Billy.

They radioed their companion ships, and still others in the vicinity, which by late afternoon were scouring the waters for bodies in life vests. They had radioed to shore as well, and there was a news bulletin in LA, which Desmond heard before anyone called him. Pieces of the plane had been found, but there was no sign of life anywhere. They had been lost for seven weeks now. It was unlikely they were alive, but not impossible. The search for O'Malley and Nolan had been reopened.

Landing parties were organized to search all the surrounding islands. There were three of them, two of them fairly good-sized, and one of them so small as to be unlikely. There wasn't enough vegetation to keep anyone alive for a week, let alone a month, they decided. But the officer in charge told them to search it anyway. There was nothing though. No sign of life, no scraps of clothing, or utensils.

And as Cassie listened, she heard noises again, and then more voices. She wondered if Billy had heard all the same things before he died. She had forgotten to ask him. There were whistles and bells and people calling, and then she realized she was about to die, when a bright light shone in her face. There were voices and people calling again, and that light right in her eyes. She drifted off to sleep again as she looked at it. It was just too much trouble to listen to them anymore. And then she felt them moving her. She was being carried somewhere, just as she had carried Billy…

“Sir! Sir!” The whistle shrilled sharply three times signaling for assistance, and four more men came running in the direction of the whistle. There was a small cave, and one of the men was standing there with tears streaming down his face.

“I found her, sir!… I found her…” She was barely conscious and babbling incoherently, and she kept calling Billy's name over and over. She was railthin, and desperately pale, but they all recognized the red hair and the flight suit.

“Oh, my God,” one of the officers said. She was filthy and smelled terrible, and she was obviously deathly ill, but she was alive, although barely. Her pulse was thready, her breathing was shallow, and he wasn't sure she was going to make it. He told the young ensign to signal for help. They put her in the boat quickly, and left three of the men to continue searching the island. They wanted to get her back to the ship as quickly as possible.

They were calling and shouting orders, and she was loaded onto the ship in a sling, and they signaled to the medical personnel on the
Lexington
to assist them. She wore an ID tag around her neck, which identified her correctly as Cassie O'Malley Williams. And within minutes, the Pentagon had the news, she'd been found, barely alive, but there was no sign of Billy Nolan.

But the search party left on the island took less than half an hour to find him. They took him back to the ship, and by then Cassie was already on the
Lexington
, though she was unaware of it. A team of two doctors and three medics were doing what they could to revive her. She was dehydrated and delirious and had an uncontrollable fever.

“How is she?” the captain asked the medical personnel that night.

“Nothing's sure
yet
“ the doctor said quietly, “but nothing's lost yet either.”

Her parents had just been called by the Department of the Navy. And Desmond was called shortly after that. It went out over the wire services that night. It was a miracle. The nation's prayers had been answered. Cassie O'Malley had been found, in a cave on an island in the Pacific, in critical condition. It wasn't known yet if she would survive. But
it
was already known that Billy Nolan hadn't. His father had already been called in San Francisco, and he was crushed to hear the news. Billy was a hero at twenty-six, but he was gone. He had died only a day or two before they found him, they believed, though Miss O'Malley had been unable to tell them anything yet. She was unconscious.

In the O'Malley house everything was still, as Oona and Fat sat staring at each other, unable to believe what they'd been told. Cassie was alive. And the
Lexington
was steaming toward Hawaii with her at that moment.

“Oh, Pat… It's like another chance,” Oona said breathlessly, “like a miracle…” She smiled through her tears, praying for Cassie silently, her rosary beads in her hand, and her husband patted her hand gently.

“Don't get your hopes up. We already lost her once. She may not make it, Oonie. She's been out there for a long time, and you don't know what kind of shape she was in when they crashed. She may have been pretty banged up then, and that was more than a month ago.” She'd been on the ground for seven weeks since they went down. It was a long time to live on rainwater and berries.

They had none of the details yet, and even Desmond had had a hard time prying anything out of them at the Pentagon. They just didn't know enough yet to reassure him.

But the news the next morning from the
Lexington
wasn't very hopeful. She was still unconscious, her fever hadn't gone down, and there were complications.

“What the hell does that mean?” Desmond shouted at them. “What kind of complications?”

‘They didn't tell me, sir,” the woman on the phone said to him politely.

Cassie's fever didn't respond to any of the medication, and she was dehydrated to the point of death. She was still delirious, and had violent dysentery, and she had started passing blood, which the medics told one of the men was a sure sign it was all over.

“Poor kid,” one of the midshipmen said. “She's the same age as my sister, and she can't even drive a car yet.”

“Looks like Cassie didn't drive so hot either,” one of the men joked, but he had tears in his eyes as he said it. The entire ship was talking about her, and praying for her, and so was the entire country, as well as the world.

In England, Nick had been called into his commander's office at Hornchurch. Word had gotten out eventually that he was extremely close to Cassie O'Malley, though no one knew the details. And he had been in rough shape since her disappearance in October. They'd sent him back to flying missions eventually, but he'd been hard on all his men, and dangerously willing to take unnatural risks for too long now.

“I wouldn't get my hopes up excessively, Major Galvin, but I thought you ought to know. We've just heard that they found her.”

“Found who?” Nick looked confused. He'd been asleep after flying two night missions over Germany back to back, when they'd told him to see the commander.

“I believe the O'Malley woman is a friend of yours, isn't she?” Gossip was everywhere in the Army, all the way to the commander's office.

“Cassie?” Nick looked as though he'd gotten an electric shock as he realized what the commander was telling him. “Cassie's alive? They found her?”

‘They found her. She's in critical condition on one of your warships in the Pacific. It sounds as though she might not make it, from what I've seen so far. But we'll keep you informed of any developments, if you like.”

“I'd appreciate that, sir,” Nick said, looking pale, as the commander watched him.

“You look like you need a break, Major. This might be the right time, depending on what happens.”

“I wouldn't know what to do with it, sir,” Nick said honestly. He was afraid to go home now. For him, there was nothing to go home to. Cassie would be with Desmond if she survived… and oh God, he hoped so… he would be willing to sacrifice his own life to make that happen. He would have been willing to do anything, if she just lived… even see her with Desmond Williams for the rest of her life. Anything was better than knowing she had died, or fearing it as he had for the past seven weeks. He had given up hope in the last month. It was just impossible that they'd still be alive somewhere in the Pacific. “Any word of her navigator?”

The commander nodded. They were all used to losing friends now, but this was a hard way to do it. “He didn't make it, they found him on the island with her. I'm afraid I don't know the details.”

‘Thank you, sir.” Nick stood up to leave, looking exhausted but hopeful. “Will you let me know if you hear anything else?”

“As soon as we do, Major. We'll call you at once.”

“Thank you, sir.” They saluted each other, and Nick walked slowly back to his barracks, thinking of Cassie. All he could think of, as he had a thousand times since May, was the night they'd spent at the airstrip in the moonlight. If only he'd held onto her, if only he'd been able to keep her from going… if only she'd live… for the first time in twenty years, he found himself praying, as tears rolled down his cheeks, and he went back to his barracks.

20

T
hree days after they had found Cassie in the cave, the
Lexington
steamed into Pearl Harbor. She had regained consciousness once, but lost it again. She was transferred to the naval hospital by ambulance. And when she got there, Desmond was waiting for her. He had flown over from
L.A
, leaving Nancy Firestone to control the members of the press who were waiting for her arrival in LA.

The doctors gave Desmond a report when they first saw her, and Desmond then explained to the reporters what had happened. But they had still heard none of it from Cassie.

“Will she be all right?” they asked with tears in their eyes, and Desmond's tears matched theirs. He was obviously deeply moved by his wife's condition.