The Great Santini (65 page)

To Bull it was always extraordinary how the two strangers would speak to each other in disembodied voices, passing vital information back and forth that could mean the difference between life and death and yet Bull had never met one of these unnamed men who coaxed him homeward toward earth. He was a number and the voice that answered him was a tower. In the jet now, time never moved. Time was motionless, even nonexistent. When Bull Meecham vaulted continents and oceans Time did not move a single inch, nor did it change, grow, or diminish. Man on earth had a shotglass of time allotted to him, but the pilot approaching the speed of sound was a conqueror of time measured and time lost. He could gain hours, lose hours, or in a single day fly from winter to summer, to spring or fall. A flower was always in his grasp, as was a glacier, or a glimpse of the southern cross.

As Bull turned his plane slightly out toward the sea, sliding down now, dropping in altitude, and preparing to land, his eye suddenly filled with another eye watching him. Mutely appraising him was the red warning light that sat high on the cockpit panel to his left. Like all the instruments on the panel, it relayed a specific message. This warning light meant fire.

"Ravenel Approach, this is Marine 657. I have a fire warning light. Request penetration and vector for expedited landing. Over."

Bull slid his finger between his cheek and his oxygen mask and sniffed for smoke. The smoke he hunted was not visible but he knew the nose could tell of presences in the cockpit of which the eye was unaware.

"Roger. Turn right to 330, begin descent to 2000 feet."

At 20,000 feet Bull began his turn toward the air station, his eye affixed to the warning light as to the face of a new lover, and every sense he possessed tuned to changes in pitch, vibration, and the handling of the plane. His flesh could sense the steel that enveloped it was in a kind of trouble, an augmented desperation. His ear focused on the howl of the aircraft and an unformed prayer arose in him that this engine retain its demon whine, its savage articulation.

He called the tower again and said," Approach Control, Marine 657 out of penetration at 17 miles. Request Ground Control Approach pickup. No indications of fire other than warning light. Request the tops of overcast. Over."

"Marine 657," the voice replied immediately, "tops of overcast at 12,000 feet. Out."

Bull had started down the slope now, his boards out, and he was descending, alive, alive, adrenaline reinforcing every platelet, every blood cell, and his mind radiating with its response to danger. Then the plane, already in the overcast, entered into the sightless suspended world that had enveloped Ravenel. But he was close now and coming fast toward the safety of runways and the smell of hangars. The red light controlled his eye like a mucilage. Then, in his bones, Bull felt the nature of the emergency change; even before he had proof or corroboration of what his viscera told him, he felt a change in his aircraft, and a change in himself as he went to the radio once more and called out words he had never used before:

"Mayday. Mayday. Six-five-seven. I'm in the soup at 2000. Have severe engine vibration and over-temp. Am going to guard channel and squawking emergency. Out."

Bull switched the button to 243.0 and he went immediately to guard channel. Now, all along the east coast, on every radar screen, the eyes of radarmen that Bull Meecham would never see or never know sighted in on a large, abnormal blip that exploded suddenly on their screens. The eyes watched and those many-towered men knew that a plane was in agony and a pilot was trying to bring that plane home at his own peril.

In the control at Ravenel, Staff Sergeant Alexander Brown began to sweat and fidget as he awaited the next communication from Marine 657, from the voice of the aviator whose panel was screaming" Fire" in a theater of one. He waited, tense, water bleeding out from his forehead and underarms. Then the voice came again.

"Six-five-seven is out of 5000 feet at ten miles. Unable to contact GCA. Request a straight-in approach. Give me full lights. Losing power and engine vibration severe. Will try to bring it in due to proximity of populated areas. Out."

Populated areas. The phrase meant something to Bull. That was where people lived and slept, where families slept. Families like my family, wives like my wife, sons like my sons, and daughters like my daughters. He was now bulldogging a fatally stricken F-8 that was beginning to break up inside itself, beginning to destroy its own vitals. He needed sight and he needed it badly. His every resource as a pilot now came into play as he held the stick that fought the convulsions of a maimed craft shuddering downward like a kind of ruin. Then he heard something that made him reach for the radio in a panic.

Sergeant Brown tensed as the voice came again. "Tower. Engine explosion! Cockpit lights out. Am commencing starboard turn to avoid populated area. Will attempt to punch out when wings are level. Wish me luck. Over."

"Marine 657. Good luck. Crash crew alerted and ready."

But even as Sergeant Brown spoke the radar screen no longer bore witness to the presence or the existence of Bull Meecham. The FAA controller in the radar room called up frantically to Brown. "I've lost your boy, Sarge. I've lost him. I've lost your boy."

"Any fires near the runway?" Sergeant Brown called into a phone.

"Negative," replied the Ground Control Vehicles.

Sergeant Brown grabbed for the emergency phone. "Angel 5! Angel 5!" he said," plane down in area approximately ten miles east of runway in the Combahee Island area!"

In less than two minutes, the rescue helicopter was airborne toward the area where Bull Meecham had disappeared from the screen.

It was growing colder, unseasonably cold for the middle of May, and the fog, though not heavy, was rising off the water, thickening imperceptibly, and obscuring the lowcountry in its passage across the land.

But a rumor was born in that instant and began to assault those hangars and duty shacks where Marines who kept the base alive and functional at night congregated: Bull Meecham, lieutenant colonel, commanding officer of 367, war hero, fighter pilot, Bull Meecham was down.

Ben slid out of his hammock and made his way quickly to his mother's room. He knocked on the door, then opened it. Lillian rolled over on her back, rubbed her eyes, and said," Good morning, sugah. Why are you up so early?"

"I think something's happened to Daddy," Ben said.

"Why, darling? What makes you think that?"

"Colonel Varney and Chaplain Poindexter are at the front door."

"He may be all right, Lillian. We might be laughing about this over a drink tonight. He went down about ten miles east of here. We don't know if he punched out or what. He was trying to fly his bird away from the town. He could be hitchhiking back to town for all we know. But we don't know anything and the fog is hindering the rescue operation. I wanted to get the word to you before someone called."

"Thank you, Joe," Lillian said. "You think there's a chance Bull might be all right?"

"There's a chance," Colonel Varney answered, walking Lillian into the house with his arm around her protectively, "there's always a chance. Let's hope for the best until we have a reason to think otherwise."

"All we can do is pray," Chaplain Poindexter said.

"Beth is on her way over here. She's contacting the wives of 367," Varney said.

Ben was standing on the bottom step listening to this news, trying to absorb it, but feeling it rejected like a transplanted organ. His body fevered and froze in alternating currents of temperature. Lillian saw him, straightened herself, dried her eyes, and gathered herself into a woman in control of events. During her whole existence as a Marine wife she had prepared her psyche for the possibility of a crash. There was a strength derived from living with the possibility of disaster and it was a source of energy that could be used when it had to be. Like her husband she had her duties.

"Ben, sugah. Go wake the children and have them gather in my room. I want to tell them about their daddy."

"Yes, ma'am," Ben said.

"I'm going to make these gentlemen some coffee."

"God bless them all!" the doctor exclaimed. "Where's the fire, Helen?"

"The colonel went down over near Combahee, Doc. They can't find his plane in the fog and the Marine Corps has asked civilians to help in the search. All the boys are in the river."

The wives began coming as soon as the word was passed. They swarmed into the house, furiously cleaning the kitchen, preparing meals, and taking phone calls with the efficiency born of experience and instinct. The children hung back, not knowing what to say to any of the ladies except Paige, but they wanted to get Paige away from the others where she could tell them how to act and how to feel. The children wanted to take Paige upstairs, isolate her, and have her speak to them with the directness and the concealed softness about the chances of their father being alive. She would not mention prayer or God. She would tell them whether she thought Bull Meecham was alive or dead. But Paige knew where her duty lay; she monitored the energies of the women who walked through the door to be with Lillian. She assumed the position of commander as more and more cars pulled into the Meecham yard and began to park on the edge of the Lawn. Ben and Mary Anne found themselves in an upstairs room alone and free from the stares and sympathies of the wives. They looked at each other but had nothing to say. At this moment, they were strangers.