Conquerors of the Sky by Thomas Fleming Page B

“That is an absolutely absurd idea,” Clarissa said.
    Before Adrian could begin to think of an answer, Clarissa outlined her plan for Adrian’s life. “I want you to become a man of substance, Adrian. You can’t do that growing oranges in southern California. You also can’t do it with a woman like Amanda for your wife. A man of substance needs a wife who glories in his success as her success, who understands his ambition and defers to it.”

    Defer? Adrian raged behind his impassive expression. Is that what you did to my father? Is that what you call it?
    â€œYour little California friend will never defer because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have a worldly mind, Adrian. I daresay no one in southern California does. One acquires worldliness painfully, through disappointment, yes, through pain. Through an awareness that there are winters as well as summers in every life, cold and snow and icy rain as well as sunshine.”
    â€œShe knows pain now,” Adrian said. “We both know it. We know what it means to lose a father.”
    Adrian’s reply suggested more than the loss inflicted by death. It evoked the several ways he had lost Robert Van Ness. The implied accusation aroused his mother to fury. “Go to California if you want to. But you’ll go without a cent of my money.”
    Adrian was stunned. For some reason—perhaps the unstinting way his mother had always given him money—it never occurred to him that she would invoke this ultimate weapon. He stalked out of the house and spent the next month in an agony of indecision. A letter from Amanda reported nothing but chaos and despair at Casa Felicidad. Her mother was having a nervous breakdown. Her overbearing older brother had taken charge of the orange groves and the household. She begged Adrian to join her as soon as possible.
    Adrian spent a week composing a reply.

    Dearest One:
    Your letter tore at my heart. I wish I could rush to your side. But my mother is absolutely opposed to our marriage and has vowed to disinherit me if we go through with it. This leaves me in an impossible position. I can only see one solution: to submit and get my degree so that I can make my way in the world—which will, I hope, lead me with all possible speed to your side. Until that day, you have my undying love. Tell me I have yours.

    Adrian showed the letter to his mother before he mailed it. It was a gesture of defiance but Clarissa chose to ignore it. She put her hands on Adrian’s shoulders. “That is a manly letter. And a wise one,” she said. “But I hope you don’t mean that last sentence about undying love.”
    â€œI do.”
    With a stifled cry she threw her arms around him. Adrian remained rigid, his arms at his side, refusing to return the embrace.
    Clarissa kissed him on the forehead and let him go. Adrian retreated to the bathroom and wiped off the kiss with a cold washcloth. He knew it was an infantile gesture. But it had symbolic power.
    Idealism thundered in Adrian’s soul. He was too young to fight to make the world safe for democracy. But he could and would make love and honor his guiding principles. He would marry Amanda Cadwallader and teach her to be the wife of a man of substance. He would acquire enough of that substance to defy Clarissa Ames Van Ness forever.

THE LAST PATROL
    From ten thousand feet in the cloudless blue sky of November 1918, the Argonne battlefield was a crazy quilt of green fields and toy farmhouses and the dun gouged earth of no-man’s-land. Beside Lieutenant Frank Buchanan flew his wingmate and best friend, Captain Buzz McCall, who had painted death’s heads inside the red, white, and blue circles on his wings. They had transferred from the Lafayette Escadrille to the American Air Service when the United States entered the war in 1917.
    Around them droned a half-dozen other planes in loose formation. They were finally flying