The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (32 page)

At least he’d had a chance to decompress back in Bisque. Jack had flown directly from Idlewild to
Pensacola, just in time to fly one of his last few remaining flights before starting to learn how to land that big-ass T-28 on a carrier. Better him than me, Rick thought, clearing his head as he stepped over the
Receiving
Center’s threshold at 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). As he did, a gust of frigid wind jerked the door from his hand, slapping it hard against the building’s clapboard wall and lifting most of the papers from the desk nearest the door. “Hey! Get ahold of that fuckin’ thing, you goddam idiot-  uh-  Sir.” 

Having dived in the direction of the cloud of flying paper, the Specialist Third Class on duty had, presumably, not realized that the cause of his grief was an officer, albeit a specimen of what group jargon dubbed a DSSL-  a Dumb Shit Second Lieutenant. “Sorry, sir,” the Specialist said, grimly squaring the edges of what had been a half dozen neat piles into one fat one that would take him an hour to resort, “What can we do for you?”

“Reporting for duty, Specialist. Second Lieutenant Terrell, Richard B.,” Rick said, handing the Specialist his original orders, plus the customary fat manila envelope containing his personnel, pay and health records, which the Specialist took from him, hefting, holding as gingerly as if he held an equal weight of nitroglycerin, while his brain crawled into top gear. The boss, Major Tomlinson, hated second lieutenants; now that 2nd Lt. Terrell, Richard B., had exhibited the bad judgment to show up for check-in, it was slowly dawning on the Specialist that here in the drab-ass Carolina winter was a chance for a bit of sickish fun.

Scanning the orders, the Specialist feigned surprise. “Well, Lieutenant, the orders say what they say. According to them, you’re in the right place and on time. Orders to report for duty to this organization on this day. But something’s bad wrong here, Sir. Truth of the matter is, you couldn’t possibly have orders to this unit. Might I suggest that the Lieutenant take these orders over to 82nd Airborne Division personnel, that way just about 150 feet from here on the other side of the road, where this strange mistake might be cleared up. Thanks for dropping in, Lieutenant,” the Specialist said, thrusting Rick’s papers at him.

The Specialist’s message, however, didn’t register with Lieutenant Terrell. “Orders,  Specialist, are just that,” he said, “Just point me to Officers’ Reception so they can chew through this paperwork and get me headed toward the BOQ.”

Capitulating with a faint shrug, the Specialist responded with a deferential “Anything to oblige, sir,” and directed the Lieutenant with some precision to Major Tomlinson’s quarters, advising him that, in his absence, it was the Major’s wish for new officers to feel at home, and that Mrs. Tomlinson was, if possible, even more dedicated to this objective. A matter of several weeks would go by before the concussion waves of Major Tomlinson’s reaction at coming home to find Rick, and several other Dumb-Shit-Second-Lieutenants (all of whom would soon answer to the acronym, DSSL) arrayed around his quarters, swilling his booze with the delighted collaboration of the buxom and bibulous Frau Tomlinson.

22 WINGS & THINGS

3 June 1960

My Dear Dogface,

Sorry for the pun/cliché, but time does in fact fly when you’re having fun. Seems like about day before yesterday we were playing musical twats in NYC, which, you’d think, would be enough fun for awhile. Twats simply have no peer, and formation flying and air-to-air gunnery can wait till later. I write you now to report on the penultimate human delight; I’m now carrier-qualified!

A little over a month ago, I left Whiting Field to return to what now seem to be the days of my youth at Saufley Field. This time, my fellow CQ students and I would get to know the T-28 up close and personal, which is to say by flying it in a landing pattern in “dirty” configuration (gear down, flaps down, cowl flaps agape) at a scant 3 knots above the speed at which it falls out of the air, i.e. 75 knots. This happens at Barin Field, hard by metropolitan
Foley,
Alabama, not where you’d like to draw your last breath (but where would that be?). Surprisingly, I only thought of the late Dave Evans, the guy whose gear I inventoried after he and his instructor flew into the water last year, just every now and then. Like every one of my FCLP (Field Carrier Landing Practice) hops, hanging on the prop, chasing the “meatball” (the reflected-light glide slope indicator that replaced the Landing Signal Officer’s paddles a couple of years back), and every little upsweep/downdraft of early-summer-scalded air seems intent on denying you flying speed and/or altitude. As you’ve guessed by now, none of them did, and after thirteen (!) of these episodes, I got to feel pretty much at home with all the slow-flight shenanigans.

Time, then, to “Hit the Boat.”  Now we were the objects of envy, looking down-  way down, and ever-cool-  on the primary training students in their improbably tiny T-34’s, as they’re advised by ground control to “hold short at the throat for outbound T-28’s,”  and the USS Antietam (CVS-36) out there, slicing tracks in the Gulf and waiting for us. We kicked in to buy two jugs of Jack Black, one for our Landing Signal Officer, Major Craddock, and one for whomever would be the first of us to be carqualled. With that in mind, we cut cards for spots in the flight. Now we waited for
Antietam
to send the squadron a “Charlie” time (ETA overhead) for our flight.

Runup, takeoff and rendezvous were uneventful; we then began giving serious thought to making this the most perfect formation flight of our fledgling careers, having had the concept of “looking good at the boat” drilled into us from every source of authority in the squadron. It was not at all unusual, they said, for bad formation flying to result in a “down” (failing grade) for an entire flight. The flight leader checked us in with the
Antietam
over UHF. I was third in the flight of four, giving me a quick opportunity to look down. Buddy, there’s no feeling like looking down at a Fleet aircraft carrier under way, and knowing that you’re going to slap wheels on that deck very, very soon; serious business for a guy with slightly over a hundred hours in this Peterbilt of the air.

PriFly (primary flight control) put us in the Delta pattern, a circular orbit 5000 feet above the boat. As I recall, we only made a few orbits-  five at the very most-  before they called Flight Lead to send us down to the pattern. Letting down, we paralleled the ship’s course and flew up its starboard side. As the lead aircraft passed the bow, he executed a snappy break, turning downwind to join the landing pattern. I watched #2 do the same after the mandatory 10 count, and following my own count of 10 broke downwind, cut the throttle, dropped gear and flaps, opened the cowl flaps and pulled the lever to open the canopy. Slowing to 90 knots, I took interval on #2 and checked my position abeam the carrier. Everything looked good; I was in my now-familiar posture of hanging on the prop, the big Wright Cyclone lambasting me with 1,425 horsepower’s worth of nine-cylinder noise.

 Calling the LSO (whose callsign is still “Paddles,” and I imagine always will be) at the abeam position, I gave my side number, fuel state and name, and reduced throttle once again to set up the standard Navy semicircular approach, which dispenses with anything resembling a “base leg.” Designed who-knows-when by who-knows-whom, obviously in the interest of recovering as many aircraft as possible in the shortest time possible, it’s another bit of airmanship that distinguishes a Naval Aviator from all others. As my altitude bled away, the ship did its part by moving ahead, giving me the room I needed to pick up the meatball, establish my final rate of descent and get lined up and wings level, hoping to see the row of green lights that Paddles would flash to signal a “cut.” The meatball obliged me by appearing just a second or two after I’d reached my “90,” ninety degrees away from final lineup with the flight deck, descending steadily. This landing would be the first of two “touch-and-go’s,” so my tailhook was still in its retracted position. When I called “meatball” this time, I felt it down to my shoes. Barin Field was never like this!

“Roger, 176,” Paddles’ voice crackled in my earphones. “Nice rate of descent, looking good. Check your lineup.”  Nothing left but to drive it in, watching my airspeed like a hawk, ready to catch any sinking tendency with a decisive hit of throttle. Green lights! I chopped the throttle, switching my gaze from the mirror to the flight deck, dropping in pretty close to dead center of the arresting gear wires. I roared with delight, and my engine joined me as I pushed the throttle forward, airborne again. The next touch-and-go went just as well; on climb-out, Paddles advised me to drop my tailhook. Adding “hook down” to my abeam report, I willed myself into workmanlike mentality, suppressing the joy that welled up inside me as I came around to make my first arrested landing.

Checklist, one more time. Shoulder harness locked, FOR SURE. Meatball. Lineup. Airspeed. Blessed green cut lights. Throttle back. OOF! I was down, 78 knots to zero, in a couple of plane-lengths; everything stopped but my eyeballs, which had ideas of their own. Training suppressed the urge to raise my face shield and push them back in, and I looked for the yellow-shirted taxi director as I pulled up my hook. Stationed precisely where our briefing said he would be, he directed me through a shallow right turn and forward to a point where he stopped me with a crossed-arms signal. Pointing to another yellow shirt, the Launch Officer, he handed me off with a brisk salute. Time’s at a terrific premium when launching and recovering aircraft, and the Launch Officer wasted none giving me the runup signal with his right hand, clenched left fist overhead ensuring that I hadn’t released the brakes. As directed in our briefing, I nodded to him when my manifold pressure gauge hit 30 inches. Returning the nod, he continued to listen to the engine for a few seconds while I struggled to hold the brakes. Then his left arm dropped, his right arm pointed down the deck, I released the brakes and was off like a shot, easing in more power, the newest Tailhooker in the Navy. And I got to do it five more times (but I didn’t get the booze)!

Next week the other shoe drops, when we’ll find out what our destinies for advanced training will be. Like three out of four students (maybe more than that), I’ve requested the jet pipeline. Trying not to get my hopes up, as I know only about one in four gets it. So hold a good thought for me, Ranger Dogface, and I’ll let you know how that particular cookie crumbles. Hope all’s well with you, buddy...

Later

Jack

At
3:15
on a muggy Tuesday afternoon, Pete nosed the Buick into a parking space about a block north of
Norman’s. He sat, motor running, for about a minute and a half before the Briefer opened the front passenger door. Appropriately enough, the Briefer carried a briefcase. Acknowledging his presence with a quick nod and noncommittal smile, Pete slipped the transmission into reverse and looked for an interval in traffic that would accommodate the big car. Turning right at his first opportunity, he headed west. Coconut Grove was well behind them before the Briefer spoke. “Ever hear of
Navas
Bay?”

“Can’t say as I have. What’s it close to?”

“It’s between
Baracoa
and Moa on the north coast. Beautiful little bay, circular, about 400 yards across. The mouth’s nearly half that wide, so you won’t have a problem getting in or turned around. You’re ETA’s 0550, day after tomorrow. Winds are forecast to be what they typically are at that time of the morning, light and variable, so you should be able to land on a heading of 180 True just outside the bay, holding that heading as you taxi in. Look for a red light off your port bow; it’ll flash three times every 10 seconds until you acknowledge it with the same signal. You’ll have five passengers, two men, a woman and two small children. Bring them back to Tamiami; a car’ll be waiting for them.”

Pete pulled the car off the road and into a gas station, parking well away from the building. Taking the envelope that the Briefer held out to him, Pete opened it and shook the contents out onto the seat beside him. There was a WAC chart of
Cuba’s northeast coast, a sheet of plain white bond paper folded horizontally in half, and a #10 envelope containing what Pete knew would be $15,000 in well-used $100 bills. Looking at
Navas
Bay
on the chart, he smiled. “Coast looks steep around that bay; guess that’s why there’s not much development.”

“No approach to the water except a few footpaths,” the Briefer said, his impatience beginning to encroach on his studied professional detachment. “Anything else?”

“Jets on the runway at Gitmo?”

“You’ll have a CAP on this one; 10 miles north at Angels 10.”

He slipped the car into gear and headed out of the gas station’s lot, turning left to retrace their route back into Coconut Grove. Glancing at the Briefer, he said, “So, can we look forward to having this CAP arrangement in the future?”

Looking out the window at a flock of low-flying gulls, the Briefer said, “I’d say it’d depend a lot on your payload.”

“So what’s in the briefcase?”

“Present for you. Hope you won’t need it, but it might help you out of a tight spot somewhere along the line. It’s called a MAC-10; compact little rascal, even with a 30-round magazine. Makes no noise to speak of. You’ll need to pick up some 9mm Parabellum ammo. Two extra magazines in the case.”