No Quarter Given. Lindsay McKenna

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       Chapter Three

      Griff was in his office the next morning at 0600. His conscience had kept him awake most of the night. Yeoman Johnson had wisely made coffee early when he saw Griff stalk into the building, and had it on Griff’s desk ten minutes later. After taking a gulp of the scalding hot brew, Griff ordered Johnson to call sick bay.

      “You want to talk to Dr. Collins?”

      Griff refused to look up from his paperwork. Collins was the flight surgeon. “Yes.”

      “To look at Ensign Coulter’s eye?”

      Frowning, Griff nodded. It was amazing how Johnson seemed able to read his mind. “When Coulter arrives at the station, have her report to Dr. Collins. Tell him I want to know whether she can be put on flight status.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Griff looked up at the smile he could swear he heard in Johnson’s voice. The yeoman had already turned and was heading out the door. At least his conscience had stopped needling him, Griff thought. Collins would probably put Dana on flight waivers for at least three or four days. Her black eye was serious, and he knew it would interfere with her flying.

      Angry at himself, he slammed the pen down on the papers and glared around his small office. Dana. Why couldn’t he think of her as Coulter? Last names were generic, less intimate. She was a woman. And women meant nothing but trouble in his book. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to wind up like Toby—dying in the rear seat of a cockpit because a woman screwed up on a flight. No way.

      * * *

      Dana couldn’t contain her surprise when the corps Wave at the dispensary picked up an order with her name already on it.

      “Lieutenant Turcotte has ordered you to see Dr. Collins, the flight surgeon. He has concern that your left eye will interfere with your ability to fly, ma’am.”

      Nodding, Dana took a seat in the crowded dispensary, waiting her turn. So Griff had ordered her to see Collins. As she sat, hands clasped in her lap, she wrestled with her feelings. Why hadn’t he sent her over here yesterday? With a sigh, Dana realized that even if Griff had an impersonal hatred of her because she was a woman, he had a streak of decency, too. Another part of her worried that being put on flight waivers upon her arrival at Whiting might look bad on her record.

      Looking around, she studied the other waiting student pilots. They all looked frightened. Some moved around nervously, crossing and uncrossing their legs. Others wiped sweat from their faces. Others sat stoically, their eyes dark with fear. Fear, Dana wondered, of what? Flying? Possibly failing? Maggie had told her last night that the big illness going around Whiting Field was gastroenteritis— a stomachache. She’d heard from a tenth-week student that the dispensary was always filled to capacity early in the morning with students who were afraid to face their instructors or a grueling flight test.

      Well, it wasn’t going to happen to her, Dana decided. As soon as she saw Dr. Collins, she’d be sitting on the Turk’s doorstep, letting him know she wasn’t afraid of him, of that trainer or of flying with him. This was only the first skirmish in a long six-week war, as far as Dana was concerned. And she wasn’t going to let him win round one.

      * * *

      Griff heard a firm knock at his office door. He’d just gotten off the phone with Dr. Collins, who had put Dana on flight waivers for an entire week. Part of him was relieved. He had to admit that another part of him wanted to see her; but that was a stupid and immature reaction.

      “Enter,” he growled. His next student, Ted Dunlop, wasn’t scheduled until 1030. He had the whole morning to catch up on the unending paper chase that crossed his desk daily.

      Dana СКАЧАТЬ