But did she really want to become an officer of the WACs? She did not know.
After that the days glided by. Drill was not all there was to their training. Far from that. The Articles of War were read to them. They studied long hours learning what it meant to be a soldier. They studied military regulations. They took gas mask drill, first aid, and a score of other activities that were likely to fall to the lot of any WAC.
From time to time each girl was assigned to K. P.—Kitchen Police—peeling potatoes, washing dishes, scrubbing floors, dishing up food.
Betty, who was a real student, hated this, for on that day they were excused from study. But Millie, who found study difficult, wished that K. P. came five times a week.
Though Norma had sworn that the spy complex should not tempt her again, strange things happened, and always her mystery-loving mind would ask, “Why? Why?”
There was the time she went with the little Italian girl, Rosa, to visit the airport on their day off. Then, too, Betty more than once tempted her to start spy hunting all over again.
“I won’t!” she told herself. “I won’t! I just won’t!” Positive as she was at the time, Norma did not succeed long in keeping this resolution.
It was really Rosa’s strange and mysterious adventure at the airport that got her going all over again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Saturday that Norma and Rosa went to visit the airfield they doffed their uniforms and put on their civies.
“All the same,” Norma said, “we’ll take along our identification cards, just in case—”
Airplanes, especially those flown by the Army Air Forces, had always interested Norma, so she was more than delighted when shortly after their arrival at the field, a flight of small, sleek fighter planes came winging in out of the blue.
“Look, Rosa!” Norma exclaimed. “Aren’t they wonderful! Like a flock of beautiful white pigeons!”
There was no need to say “Look” to the little Italian WAC. As if in a hypnotic trance, she stood with eyes glued on the flight of planes.
“See how they circle!” Norma herself was entranced. “This is like war. This is how they will come sweeping in after escorting a bomber squadron in Africa, or China, or who knows where. That’s the way they’ll look when we watch them beyond the seas.”