When We Had Wings

by Ariel Lawhon

The late-afternoon air was thick with their excitement but also with humidity that rivaled anything Eleanor had felt back home on a Minnesota midsummer’s day.

“What about my trunk?” Eleanor held tight to her hat as a breeze kicked up. “It will be brought up from the hold and taken to the Yard.” He referred to the Cavite Naval Yard the way all the sailors and naval officers had during her days aboard the ship.

“The ANC is the Army Navy Club.” “A club?” “For officers of the U.S. Armed Forces, active and retired, and for service nurses too. And a few carefully screened American businessmen living here. It’s a pretty popular place. Big. Ballrooms, bars, a tearoom, a couple restaurants, hotel rooms. Very nice. And not far.”

Everything she’d heard about Manila being a paradise assignment had proven true.