"Robertson-WendyDarling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

"They don't want women for that either."

"Why not? The Russians have women pilots. Two princesses have already signed
up."

"What would you expect when the prime pastime is flogging the serfs? Makes
America seem civilized." Mother gave her the sweet mocking smile that reminded
Wendy of Peter, showing off the one kiss you could never get.

There was the usual riff in Parliament over the raid. The Minister of War
proudly announced, "not a single soldier had been killed." Not just a lie, but a
stupid one as well. The MP for the City of London wanted the bells of St. Paul
rung backwards in case of attack-- "So bank clerks would be warned to get the
money back in the vaults." Young Winston Churchill's prewar promise that enemy
aeroplanes would be met by a "swarm of hornets" was sarcastically recalled.
Wendy doubted any man in office cared a fig for the infants' class, until she
read a crack fighter squadron was to be brought back from the front. "The best
machines. The best pilots," she crowed. "To be based in Bekesbourne, between
London and Flanders, directly in the path of the attack. There's my billet.
Fliers straight from the front, probably in desperate need of mothering."

Mother raised an eyebrow. "We don't know the Royal Flying Corps wants young
women hanging about their aerodromes."

"Oh Mum, it would be a pilot's dream."

She took the train to Canterbury -- in cricket weather, a beautiful hot blue day
with hardly a cloud. Perfect bomber weather as well, with southeast England laid
out like a plate. Getting to the aerodrome was alarmingly easy. Fliers from
Fifty-sixth Squadron were roaming the streets of Canterbury, searching for
willing young women. She was swept up in a crowd of pretty barmaids and errant
school girls. By dinnertime Wendy was standing in an evening dress at the edge
of the field, sipping French champagne, while a pair of pilots stunted to
impress them. White tables glittered with silver and china.

The planes were like nothing Wendy had ever seen, brand new Scout Experimentals.
SE5 biplanes, bristling with machine guns, speed built into every line, their
long lean fuselages half taken up by Hispano racing engines. Climbing a thousand
feet a minute, they looped, rolled, and plunged into screaming dives-- all
without the least sign of coming apart in midair. And she never expected the
fliers to be so young. One of the stunters, Ryan Donnelly, was introduced as an
"old man" -- at it over two years -- a strapping young Irishman who had survived
the Fokker scare, the Battle of Somme, Bloody April, and the latest push in
Flanders. That spring he had turned nineteen. At twenty-two, Wendy felt twice
his age.

She danced with this pink-cheeked killer under a candle-lit marquee, while the
squadron band played brassy music -- "Pack up Your Troubles" and "Swanee River."
Ryan was able to say the most appalling things in a sweet Irish brogue. When she