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Authors: Thomas Fleming

BOOK: Conquerors of the Sky
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“I guess I should start worrying. She's writing to me too. Threatening me
with all sorts of exotic punishments. Like strapping me to the propellers of an Excalibur and starting the motor.”
Buzz did not even try to smile. He took Califia seriously. “Can't security find that dame?” Dick said. In a corner of his mind he was still worried she might be Cassie.
“She's smart as hell,” Buzz said. “Mails the stuff from different boxes all over L.A.”
“Getting back to the real world—will you talk to Frank?” Adrian said.
Buzz stubbed out his cigarette. “I'll talk to him. Not for your sake or my sake. Those kids flying World War Two crates over Korea are gonna need some new planes.”
Buzz strode out, slamming the door. It echoed through the empty building as if a bomb had exploded. Adrian Van Ness gazed after him with undisguised hatred on his face. It took him a full minute to control himself. “Get to work, young fellow,” he said with a forced smile. “I'm sorry to ruin your evening. Were you involved in something pleasant?”
“I would have been if you'd called ten minutes later,” Dick said.
Adrian stared at the door Buzz had just slammed. “We don't have room for sentiment in this business,” he said. “I can be as sporty as Buzz at betting the company. But I don't think we should do it if we have a safer choice. Don't you agree?”
This time Adrian was unquestionably reaching out to him, claiming him in some subtle and totally unexpected way. Dick let him know he was not accepting the offer. “I'll get to work,” he said.
Four hours later, a weary Dick Stone knocked on Adrian Van Ness's door. Buchanan's president was walking up and down the office, listening to a mul-tiband shortwave radio on his desk. “This is Mercury Two confirming a red alert,” a deep voice said. “All leaves are canceled. Pilots will report to their duty bases.” The radio added instructions for Air National Guard and Air Force reserve units.
“It's a real war all right,” Adrian said. “Truman's sending in a division of infantry. We've already started bombing North Korea. What do the figures tell us?”
“Assuming Buzz's data is correct we can produce two hundred transports at five hundred thousand a copy. We can make as much money on that plane as we could make on the Talus.”
Dick's cold monotone made it clear he was still on Frank Buchanan's side. “Put in an expense chit for five hundred dollars for the night's work,” Adrian Van Ness said.
Dick drove back down the coast highway in the cool final hour of the night, the war news crackling out of the radio like slivers of steel. There were still a fair number of cars and strollers along the ocean in Santa Monica and Venice. In the Villa Hermosa compound in Manhattan Beach, a volleyball game was going strong in the shallow end of the pool, girls against boys. He looked at
the tanned lunging bodies, the laughing faces and wondered how many of the men might soon be dying on Korean hillsides, how many of the women might be weeping in lonely apartments.
In his bedroom, he found Cassie prowling up and down like a caged panther, listening to the radio. “Our guys are gettin' creamed,” she said. She was wearing his dark blue bathrobe, a wedding present from his mother.
Dick flipped off the radio. “The hell with it.”
Cassie eyed him warily. “You feel like it?”
He nodded. He needed her. He needed the touch of a woman's flesh to defeat the way the new war was restoring the old one to memory. “I'm sorry about what I said in the car. I understand about Joe and Billy. I'm glad you told me.”
“It's the war. I feel bad about it too,” Cassie said, slipping out of the bathrobe and wrapping her long arms around him.
Suddenly Dick was kissing his ex-wife, remembering what she had meant: life, pleasure, the future, all the things he had consigned to oblivion in order to fly those forty-nine missions without coming apart. He had finally obeyed Colonel Atwood's injunction to think of himself as a dead man. But it had been a hard order.
Now he finally understood. Nancy Pesin had been the resurrection of Richard Stone. Perhaps first he had needed to be reborn as a Jew before he could resume his American journey. Perhaps he had been too cruel in achieving the second birth. But birth, life was full of pain, some of it necessary.
Oh, woman woman woman. He kissed the tears on Cassie's tan cheeks, he plunged his hands deep in her thick auburn hair. She was clinging to him, murmuring: “Dick, Dick, I think I love you. Will you let me love you? Will you try to love me? I'll quit the club. I'll think about goin' to college.”
“Good, good,” he said, unable to respond with love. Was he clinging to his California freedom? He was beginning to think it was an illusion.
As Dick came he saw Adrian Van Ness standing in a dark corner of his mind, smiling at them. Did those hooded eyes contain some sort of supernatural knowledge or power?
No. He was smiling because the war was going to make Buchanan Aircraft prosperous again. From even deeper darkness, a voice whispered this was wrong. It wounded the intensity of Dick's coming, his taking of Cassie Trainor in the name of many loves. The voice, perhaps also the sum of many voices, wondered if he deserved happiness as long as he worked for the Buchanan Aircraft Company.
Frank Buchanan stood beside the single waterlogged bomb-pitted concrete runway that constituted Suwon Airfield, his eyes obsessively scanning the icy blue Korean sky. The runway stood in the middle of a sea of mud. Snow and mud intermingled on the hills sloping down to the field. He felt like a man simultaneously living two bad dreams.
One was his own life, full of anguished yearning for Amanda—and snarling hatred for Adrian Van Ness. Buzz McCall and this new war had lured him back to Buchanan Aircraft. But nothing could persuade Frank to talk to Adrian. That partly explained his inability to deal with the rest of this bad dream—the fear that Amanda was drifting into madness. He knew she was the source of Califia's letters. But he did not know what to do about it. The day before he left for Korea, he had telephoned her. His voice triggered an explosion of rage that left him bewildered and appalled. She seemed to hate him and Adrian with equal ferocity.
The other bad dream was the war in Korea. Unlike the global brawl with Germany and Japan, this was a war about which most of America seemed indifferent. No one gave the men who were risking their lives any glittering slogans, like making the world safe for democracy or fighting for the Four Freedoms. Few reporters got enthusiastic about a struggle that had turned into a stalemate.
Twenty-five miles away, in the front lines along the border of North Korea, a half-million American infantrymen were confronting a million Chinese. Only America's control of the air had enabled the infantry to survive the enemy's overwhelming numerical superiority. Relentless pounding by light and heavy bombers had reduced Chinese supplies to a trickle, leaving them incapable of mounting an offensive.
Most of the planes fighting this crucial part of the war were propeller-driven B-29s and B-26s from World War II. But the decisive struggle for air superiority was taking place far away, along the Yalu River border between Russia and North Korea. Billy McCall was up there now, leading eight F-86 North American Sabrejets from the 337th Squadron into unequal combat with Russian-built MIG-15s. The jet engine was on its way to transforming air warfare—and the entire world of flight.
Each day, the American pilots took off from Suwon and other fields and flew over the desolate mountains and valleys of North Korea to the Yalu. From there, they could look down on hundreds of MIG-15s, parked in gleaming rows beside 7,200-foot-long runways on their airfields across the river. But the Americans could not bomb or strafe them. That might bring on a wider war with Communist China, the politicians in Washington said. As if a million men trying
to kill Americans was not a war about as wide as wars could get.
Frank returned to the 337th operations room to listen to Billy and his friends discussing the situation. First came Billy's voice: “This is Black Leader. Thirty-six lining up at Antung.”
“Hell, only twenty-four takin' off at Tatungkou,” drawled another voice, a Floridian who was Blue Leader, head of another squadron.
“It'll be at least three for everybody,” grunted the nasal New England voice of White Leader. “I count fifty at Takushan.”
Antung, Tatungkou, Takushan were three of the sacrosanct Chinese airfields. They placed the MIG-15s only minutes away from attacking the B-29s and B-26s pounding the Communist supply lines in Korea. If the MIGs got at these World War II planes, it was no contest. Their gunners could not deal with planes flying at 684 miles an hour, armed with .23- and .37-millimeter cannon. It was up to the American jet pilots to keep the MIGs out of North Korea.
Flying from bases two hundred miles away, the Americans never had more than thirty minutes of fuel on which to fight. In all of Korea, they only had fifty Sabrejets to confront an estimated five hundred Chinese MIG-15s. In almost every fight, the Americans were outnumbered four or five to one.
Minutes later, the radio erupted with battle language. “Honchos at six o'clock,” Billy said. Honchos were MIG pilots who wanted to fight. Everyone was sure they were Russians. Two days ago, Billy had shot one down and proved it. When the pilot ejected, he lost his helmet and his blond hair streamed in the wind.
Then came the fragmented cries and shouts of combat.
“Break left, Black Leader. Honcho on your tail.”
“Break right. I got him. I got him.”
“Reverse and pick us up at three o'clock!”
Frank was in the swerving, diving, twisting Sabrejet with Billy, feeling the terrific force of 5g turns that can wipe out a man's mind like a blow on the head, swiveling his neck 360 degrees to see MIGs diving on them at seven-hundred miles an hour, cursing the Sabrejets' inability to outclimb a MIG or outturn him above 25,000 feet. Tormented by the exhaustion of taking this high-speed punishment day after day, while the Communists had enough pilots to send fresh teams into the air.
For Frank, worst of all was the knowledge that he could have given Billy a better plane if he had not thrown his heart and soul and the entire Buchanan design department into the dream of the flying wing. He denounced himself as a self-indulgent poseur. He was here to make amends, to find out from the pilots themselves what they needed to restore American superiority in the air.
Frank listened, hungry for the sound of Billy's voice, as the dogfight ended as abruptly as it began. The overall commander for the day's operations reported: “Flights reforming and returning—all MIGs chased across the Yalu.” Then Billy came on reporting a rough engine. “I think I've got part of a MIG in there,” he said. “He blew up only about two hundred yards ahead of me and I flew right through the debris.”
With calm efficiency, he climbed to 40,000 feet and told everyone to relax. He was only eighty miles from the base now and could glide in if the engine flamed out.
Frank hurried to the control tower to watch the squadron land. Billy's wingman, a twenty-two year old from Georgia, did an exultant victory roll before getting into the landing pattern—announcing he had gotten his fourth MIG. Billy had shot down eleven. In a few minutes Billy appeared overhead, coasting serenely, a silver sliver against the blue sky. Behind him came two other pilots making deadstick landings. In five minutes everyone was on the ground, heading for the operations room for a debriefing.
Frank limped after them on his bad leg and listened as Billy described a new MIG tactic. Usually the Communist pilots stayed high to take advantage of the MIG's superiority above 25,000 feet. The Americans had grown used to looking for contrails left by jet engines in the thin upper air. Today the Communists had positioned another squadron well below the contrail height to pounce on the Americans while they were watching the higher trails.
“From now on we've got to keep some sections low,” Billy said.
“Does that mean we get one day off every fifth week instead of every fourth week?” his wingman asked.
“It means you're getting up tomorrow to run three miles instead of two.”
The pilots ran every day. Like prizefighters, they had to stay in shape to handle the pounding of the g forces. Billy's wingman was notoriously reluctant to take any exercise.
The briefing over, the celebration began. They had downed four more MIGs today. Billy's victory raised his score to twelve—one of the highest of the war. They piled into jeeps and headed for the Korean capital of Seoul, twenty miles away. Frank rode beside Billy, remembering Buzz driving at the same reckless speed to the bars and brothels of Toul in World War I. Planes changed but pilots remained pilots.
Two hours later, in a smoky nightclub known as the Mocambo, Frank heard far more about the Sabrejet and air-to-air combat than he could get in an official briefing. “We need a plane that can let us hunt them instead of the other way around,” Billy said.
“We can build one—but it'll be tough to fly,” Frank said. “The wings will have to be even thinner than a MIG's. It'll be a flying gun platform, pure and simple, like the MIG.”
“Why don't we have one right now? I thought that's what we were trying to put together in the White Lightning.”
“We were—but the Air Force wasn't enthusiastic. Americans are always trying to combine everything in one plane. An interceptor close support attack heavy bomber that can fly around the world without refueling.”
“Where the hell did those Russian meatheads get that beautiful MIG airframe, Pops?”
“The same place we got the design for the Sabrejet—from the Germans.
They're the ones who proved you needed a swept wing to get a plane above five hundred miles an hour.”
“What about the engine?” Billy's wingman asked. “I thought we made the best engines in the world. But those MIGs can just run away from us anytime they feel like it.”
“The British make the best engines,” Frank said. “The MIG has a Rolls Royce Nene. The Labour government sold fifty-five of them to the Russians in 1946.”
“That wasn't too smart, was it,” Billy said.
“The British are in a state of mental and spiritual collapse,” Frank said. “They've canceled one brilliant airplane after another since World War II ended. They didn't have a plane to put the engine into.”
Korean bar girls swarmed around them. The wingman was telling one how he shot down his fourth MIG. She smiled and ordered champagne for both of them. Everyone but Billy had a girl. He glowered at the wingman, who was using both hands to demonstrate the way he dove, upped his flaps and got his MIG as it roared past him.
“I've lost two wingmen so far. I'm gonna lose him too. He doesn't take it seriously up there. Sometimes I think flying these jets should be limited to old crocks like me, Pops. The goddamn things are so fast, they respond to the slightest touch. And there's no sound. The noise is all going the other way. You start to think you're indestructible, like Superman.”
“Maybe it would help to have a plane that makes the pilot concentrate on staying alive.”
Billy nodded. “I like that idea. Then we got to figure out what to stay alive for. The land of the free and the home of the brave? Seems to me nobody back home gives a shit whether we're living or dying out here.”
“Some of us do, Billy. More than you'd think, from the newspapers.”
Billy pondered their images in the bar's cracked mirror. He and Frank both looked shattered into a hundred pieces. “How can this be happening, Pops? Explain to me why we're out here with fifty planes fighting the other guys with five hundred and fifty?”
“It's an old American tradition, to disarm after every war we fight.”
Billy looked saturnine. He was no longer a boy. He was still a flier, still convinced flying was the only worthwhile thing a man could do. But fighting this war had turned him into a man who was angry at his country. That was a far more dangerous anger than the anger at God that had occasionally flared in his soul in New Guinea. Frank felt the same anger permeating his own soul, inflaming his mind, clouding his judgment.
“If I get through this thing in one piece, I'm gonna do everything I can to make damn sure this doesn't happen again,” Billy said. “I'm not gonna salute and say yes, sir to the politicians. I'm gonna say fuck you, sir. I'm not the only pilot who thinks that way.”
“Maybe we can team up. If we can design some guts into Adrian Van Ness.”
“How are things back at the Honeycomb Club?”
“Not the same since Madeleine quit. They've got a new manager—a dyke who bullies the girls. They don't stay long enough to get to know them. Doc Willoughby's campaigning to close it. He says it's wrecking half the marriages in the company. Where did Madeleine go, anyway?”
Billy ordered another Scotch. It was rotgut stuff, made in Japan. “Good old Madeleine,” he said. “She was something.”
“Where did she go?”
“You really want to know?”
“Why shouldn't I?”
“Makes me look like a heel, Pops.”
“Why?”
Billy called for a pen and scribbled an address. “Go ask her.”
Frank hailed a pedicab and the grunting driver dragged him along the freezing avenues to a narrow alley near the city's central market. Frank knocked. The door opened and there stood Madeleine. But it was not the smiling glossy-haired glowing woman who used to greet him at the Honeycomb Club. This Madeleine wore a face dulled by alcohol and unhappiness. “Frank!” she said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Trying to help win this stupid war.” He held up the scrap of paper. “Billy gave me your address.”
She invited him into a tiny apartment, barely warmed by two laboring space heaters. Moisture oozed from the walls. Dirty dishes and pots filled the sink. “I followed him out here,” Madeleine said. “I love him. I thought he loved me. Instead he gave me a thousand dollars and told me to go back on the next plane. I haven't done it. But the money's running out.”
She started to weep. “What's wrong with him, Frank? He made me so happy. I thought I made him happy.”

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