The Hunters (23 page)

“I knew it,” Colonel Imil affirmed. The news reached him at breakfast. “I knew it.”

“What's up?” Moncavage asked.

“They saw seven hundred MIGs up north this morning.”

“Holy fish! What's going on?”

“They're loading up. They've been tipped off somehow.”

“Tipped off to what?”

“I'll tell you later. Let's get down to the line.”

They hurried off to combat operations, firing volleys of conversation at each other in the jeep. When they arrived, Moncavage knew.

“Only the best people today,” Imil was saying as they strode in.

“All right.”

“I want the cream of the group. This is the one, Monk. I can feel it. Seven hundred of them, by God! They're going to fight.”

He was on the telephone direct to Fifth Air Force minutes later. It was not a good connection. His shouting into the mouthpiece could be heard all through the building.

“Listen, this is Imil. Our visual reccy flight just landed. What? Visual reccy. Yes, it just got back. They counted seven hundred MIGs up there. That's right. Yes. You goddamn well better. No, it's not here yet. Well, we'll be looking for it. Sure, sure, you bet. Sure.”

He hung up and sat there, looking at Moncavage.

“Seven-thirty,” he announced, consulting his watch. “They say the ops order will be here within two hours. A special courier is bringing it.”

Moncavage puffed at a cigarette.

“Maybe I'd better start calling the squadrons.”

“No,” Imil said, “not yet. Don't get them keyed up. There's plenty of time.”

“Do you want to wait in my office?”

“Let's wait right here. I want to open that envelope myself.”

By eight, the pilots in the mess were talking about it. A fever mounted on the field, ominously, like lead melting. There were clusters of men everywhere discussing it—in the latrines, along the road, and out on the line. Something big was coming up. The level of excitement was rising like flood waters. All missions had been called off until further notice. Nobody knew more than that for certain.

At 1130 Hunter came bursting into the room. He looked about quickly.

“Where's Cleve?”

“What have you heard?” Pell said.

“They want everybody down in the briefing room in fifteen minutes. The whole group.”

“Even the new sports?” He nodded toward Kiser and Schramm.

“Everybody, they said.”

“Do you know what it is yet?”

“No,” Hunter said. “Where's Cleve?”

“Who cares?” Pell stood up. “Let's go, men. You, too, Petti.”

Hunter stayed behind. He ran from room to room. They were empty. Everybody had gone. After what seemed like ten minutes, he located Cleve sunning himself behind the barracks. There was another wait while Cleve got dressed. It was a quarter to twelve before they left for operations. All the vehicles had gone already. They had to walk.

They arrived ten minutes late. The whole group was already there. The briefing room overflowed. There were not enough seats for all of them; pilots were standing up in the back of the room. Colonel Moncavage was prowling the center aisle checking for complete attendance. He looked toward them as they entered.

“Thanks for coming, Connell,” he said. Heads turned.

The room was baking hot. As the minutes dragged by, restlessness grew. There were coughs and the sound of matches being struck. Thickening smoke made the air even more unbreathable. At 1215 the colonels were still talking earnestly to each other in the front of the room. Cleve stood looking through the blue haze at the map forty feet away. He squinted his eyes but could not make out anything written on it. The schedule board, too, was blank. Nothing was up there except the familiar, laconic sign at top center of the wall: The Fighting Heart. With posed, disinterested expressions the pilots waited. Finally, Colonel Imil stood up and walked toward the low platform. He stepped up onto it.

“Well, boys,” he said. It became perfectly silent. “This is the one we've all been waiting for. This should be the biggest one of the war.”

He paused. Cleve could feel his heart beginning to pound. His thoughts leaped sickeningly. The biggest one. A strike against Antung. The fields north of the Yalu. That was the first thing that came to him.

“The joint chiefs in Washington,” Imil continued, “have finally given the green light. Today, we're going after the dam at Sui Ho.”

There was a hum of recognition. The target was on the Yalu itself.

“That's the fourth biggest one in the world, with the second greatest output of power,” Imil said. “We haven't touched it up until now. Too hot, I suppose; but it's finally been approved. Every fighter-bomber in Fifth Air Force is going up there today, right across the river from the MIGs. They'll be able to see the smoke from their fields, and they'll be coming up, too, all of them, to
stop us. You can count on that. I don't have to tell you who'll be leading them, either. You know as well as I do. He'll be there. You can bet your life on it. Our job is to get those fighter-bombers in and out, and that's what we're going to do. Every ship that can fly is going. Do you have the numbers from the squadrons yet, Monk?”

“Right here.”

“Read them off.”

Moncavage announced the totals for each squadron: twenty-two planes, eighteen, and twenty. He gave a list to one of the operations officers who copied it onto the scheduling board, number by number. Then each squadron supplied the names of the pilots who would go, and they, too, were written down. Cleve watched as the eighteen blanks for his squadron were filled. The squadron commander was leading the first flight, with Pell and Pettibone as his element. Gabriel and three from that flight were next; then the operations officer, Nolan, and three from his old flight. At the very bottom, posted beside the two ships that made up the odd element, Connell and Hunter. It took only a few minutes until the list for the entire group was complete. The takeoff times were being written in.

“All right,” Imil said. “Weather.”

Cleve listened lightly. The words went skimming across his consciousness. He could feel his palms sweating.

“. . . scattered cumulus,” the weather officer was saying, “with bases at about two thousand and tops five to six thousand. There may be occasional buildups higher than that late in the afternoon. At thirty-five thousand a thin deck of cirrus, nothing more than scattered. Visibility throughout the area, fifteen miles or better.”

He went on to give the winds aloft, the azimuth and elevation of the sun, the condition of the tides, temperatures of the air and water, and finally the runway in use at the time of takeoff.

“What about contrails?” Imil asked.

“I don't think you'll see cons today at any altitude.”

“Good,” Imil said. “Now here's the way we'll go in.”

He began outlining takeoff times for the flights and squadrons, then the patrol altitudes. He told which of the fighter-bomber groups were going in first, and from what direction. He warned of the many guns, heavy and light, in the target area. They were all marked on the wall behind him.

Cleve jotted notes down on his map. He and Hunter would be the last ones off. That didn't surprise him. He could feel warm beads running heavily down his back in the hollow between the shoulders and down his calves. It was unbearably hot in the room. They had been there for at least thirty minutes.

“Boys,” Imil was saying, “I kid you not. They'll be up there today. I wouldn't be surprised if there were five hundred of them. And they're going to be after those fighter-bombers down below us. Fine, I say. We'll be waiting for them.

“You flight leaders! Be aggressive. Don't waste your time on long shots. Get in close where you won't miss. And element leaders. I want you covering the flight leader as long as you can. Split up when you have to and not before. You wingmen. You've got the toughest job of all. Keep your eyes open. Keep your leader cleared. The air is going to be loaded with ships today, so don't be calling a break for some goddamned speck five miles behind you. Make sure that they're MIGs and that it's time to break. Everybody! Keep off the radio unless you've got something important to say. Don't clutter up the air with long conversations. If you
lose each other up there, go to another channel and work it out. Watch your fuel. Don't stay up there until you're down to just barely enough to make it home, because if you do and you get bounced on the way back, you'll never get there. When you're down to fifteen hundred pounds today, clear out. Don't make that one last sweep. Get going right then.

“This is one time when there'll be MIGs enough for everybody. When you see them, go after them; and when you get close, put that pipper on them and keep it there. Hold down that trigger as long as you're hitting them. I don't want to hear about any goddamned damages when we come back. I want to hear about kills. Nothing but kills. Remember that.” He paused. “You can take a look around you right now, because there'll probably be some empty seats here tomorrow. Just make sure it isn't you.

“All right. Let's get them!”

They were all on their feet and standing in place while the colonel stepped down from the platform and made his way between them toward the door at the rear of the room. Then came a general foot-shuffling movement as the pilots followed him out, jamming up at the door and waiting until they could funnel through. Cleve stood in the midst of them, carried along by the flow. He glanced at Hunter, who smiled cheerlessly. For some reason that defied isolation, Cleve had the feeling that he had flown this mission already, once before in days long past, and was now about to do it again.

“Feeling lucky, Gabe?” Imil said. He was out in the debriefing room calling to individuals in the crowd moving past him.

Gabriel nodded unthinkingly.

“How about you, Doctor? Are you going to get them?”

“You bet,” Pell said. He held up his small fist.

“That's the way,” Imil grinned.

He stood there, looking staunch for everybody. He was full of excitement and nervousness himself. Occasionally, he clapped his hand on a passing shoulder.

“This is the one, boy,” he would say.

He turned once, abruptly, and feinted as if to punch Moncavage in the stomach. He laughed.

“What do you say, Monk?”

“I'm ready,” Moncavage said, after having to clear his throat.

“So am I. So am I.”

The locker room was stuffy and filled with flies. It was too early to dress. Cleve had more than an hour to wait. He went outside with Hunter and sat on a bench partially shaded by one of the eaves. It was quiet there. They sat aimlessly, soundless drums beating within them.

“The last damned flight,” Hunter said. “What a place to be on a mission like this. It'll all be over by the time we get there.”

Cleve did not reply.

“One of your last missions and all, too. I think it's pretty rotten.”

“So do I.”

“I wish you'd said something.”

“Who to? The chaplain?”

“One of the colonels,” Hunter said. “The major. Anybody.”

Cleve laughed.

“That's it,” he said, “the true comic touch. I'd be better off praying.”

“You oughtn't to joke about that. I've prayed here more than once.”

“How'd you make out?”

“I mean it.”

“Well, I know. That's why I asked.”

“They haven't been answered yet,” Hunter said truthfully. “They will be, though.”

“It's always a possibility, I guess.”

Not much later, almost unexpectedly, there was the sound of the first ships starting their engines. Cleve looked toward it. The black ramp seemed to be melting in the heat. Upon it, like mirages, stood the baking aircraft. He could see the wash of curdled air that was the jet exhaust billowing up behind the starting ships. He walked inside with Hunter and dressed slowly.

He was bathed in sweat when he carried his equipment out to the ship. The sun lay on his shoulders and back with a weight almost equal to that of the parachute. He felt thirsty. His mouth and throat were dry.

They were still working on something on his airplane. He laid his things on the left wing and walked around to the nose to see what was being done. The armament man was having some trouble. A defective magazine had become jammed in the gun camera, and he could not remove it.

“It's stuck halfway in there,” he explained. “I can't get it in or out either one now.”

“Let me try,” Cleve said.

He reached into the narrow opening with his own hand and tried to force the film package to move. His fingers were slippery, and in the confined space a good purchase was difficult. He could not move it either.

“It's all right,” he said. “Leave it as it is. You can work on it when I get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked around the airplane, inspecting it, and then climbed into the cockpit and began strapping himself in. This occupied him for a while. When he was finished, he looked at his watch. Still several minutes remaining. He felt he had been waiting for hours. His thirst was very strong by now, and he seemed to be sitting in a pool of searing air. Every piece of metal about him was too hot to touch. He could feel the sweat going down his legs in hesitating streams. Finally, it was time. He started his engine.

It was even hotter taxiing out, but by that time a kind of transition had been completed. He was immersed in discomfort. He no longer noticed it. It was even satisfying to be so baptized. The interior of his oxygen mask was as slippery as fish, and the air he drew from it was warm and flatulent, but at last he was fully involved in the mission and far beyond any of the trivialities that went with it.