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her plate.
    Adele looked over and smiled.
     “Why those are grits,” she answered. Seeing that her response had not cleared the matter up for Adrienne she looked at her in surprise. “Ain't you ever eaten grits afore?”
    The redhead took a small amount onto her fork and lifted it towards her mouth. “Are you sure I should be eating them?” she asked before taking a small amount into her mouth. She swallowed the grits then shrugged. “They don't taste of much,” she remarked.
    “They taste o’ grits!” Adele laughed. “If you don't want ‘em I'll have ‘em,” she said grinning as Adrienne lifted her tray and scraped the offending item onto her tray.
    They ate in relative silence each woman silently assessing what their lives were going to be like from the brief view of life at Avenger Field that they had seen so far. After lunch, they were shown around the base taking in the administration buildings, the hangars including the ready room where their flight leathers and parachutes were packed and stored, and the observation deck, which gave them a three hundred and sixty view around the base and the runways.
    Following their orientation tour, they were standing in formation in one of the hangars when their commanding officer joined them.
    He stood in front of them his hands crossed at his back. “Welcome to Avenger Field. My name is Captain Hardy. I'm your base commander. Ladies you may be good civilian pilots. I believe amongst you that we have a lot of air hours and experience. Some of you will be used to crop dusting and I believe one amongst you was flying stunt planes in Hollywood, but this is army flying and by the end of your twenty-three weeks some of you will have returned home.”
    The women looked at each other trying to work out who flew stunt planes in Hollywood, trying to ignore the shadow of failure that hovered over each, and every, one of them. They returned their attention back towards the red-haired officer who was now striding up and down their lines.
    “You will be taken through army check flights by my instructors at each stage of your training. Fail any of these and you will be washed from the program. You will be expected to learn about the principles of flight and the mechanics of engines. You will learn navigation, weather, instrument flying and communications. Fail any of these and you will be washed from the program.”
    He finished his speech with a rousing, “Are we going to make army pilots of you?”
    He received an emphatic, “Sir. Yes. Sir.”
    Satisfied, he nodded towards Foster then left them to continue their tour of the facilities.
    The rest of their afternoon was spent filling out forms and being drilled on the rules and regulations that would be in place during their stay. Finally, after their evening meal they were enjoying their recreation time before they would return to their bay for lights out. The women were huddled in small groups; some reading the small gazettes produced by the WASP that filled them in on the activities around the base, others huddled around the radio listening for news from the war and enjoying the music programs.
    Lily sat beside Helen who was cussing under her breath as she tried to sew her WASP patch carrying the image of the Disney designed mascot Fifinella onto her A-2 leather flying jacket. She yelped and pulled her finger up into her mouth as she pricked herself for around the tenth time. Lily rolled her eyes and reached over pulling the jacket from Helen's lap, the blonde woman furrowed her brows as she sucked on her injured finger, “Wha ou doin?'“
    “Saving you from certain death,” Lily replied, picking up the needle and starting to sew the patch.
    “I pricked my finger, how am I going to die from that?” Helen asked looking at her finger as the blood started to bubble again from the small hole.
    Lily stilled her hands and looked up towards Helen who was still looking quizzically at her bleeding finger, “Because, if I have to