Wingmen (9781310207280) (17 page)

“It’s pretty
tough to get away by yourself on a ship,” said Jack, “especially a
carrier.” He laughed. “Look at us. We both come up here to be alone
and we keep running into each other. Before you know it, the whole
squadron’ll be up here with us.”

“God, I hope
not,” said Fred.

“Me, too.”
Again, nothing. “How’s the Diary coming along?”

“It’s no
problem. Half an hour a day, at the most.”

“You’re the
only man I know who ever volunteered to write the War Diary.”

“Does that make
me someone special?”

“I don’t know.
Maybe the others just never got up the nerve to ask.”
Somehow
, he thought,
I can’t picture
that.

“Pardon me,
sir, but somehow I just can’t picture that.”

He reads my thoughts
,
thought Jack.

They stood in
silence, no longer awkward.

“Well,” said
Jack finally, “I’ve got work to do.”

“I should be
turning in, but it’s kind of hard to sleep with twelve horny pilots
shooting the breeze in your room,” said Fred. Then they turned
together and crossed the expanse of the elevator.

“You flying
tomorrow morning?”

“First
CAP.”

“Okay,” said
Jack, as they stepped over the chain and entered the hangar, “tell
you what I’m going to do.” He put his arm around Fred’s shoulders
and pulled him closer. “I’ll do a lights-out on the whole
squadron.”

“That’d be
nice, Skipper, but—”

“Don’t worry.
You go in first. I’ll come through in five minutes and you’ll have
your stateroom back.”

“You’re
something else, Skipper,” said Fred as they descended into the warm
bosom of the ship.

Jack went
around to all the pilots’ staterooms and ordered them all to bed,
breaking up the raucous games of sex and manhood that only men at
war can play. He felt better when he was finished, and stayed up
most of the rest of the night to finish the training schedules.

“Goddamn, but you
wouldn’t catch me flying one of those crates.” Brogan leaned
against the edge of the flight deck and watched as a heavy
Helldiver turned ponderously into its final approach and lumbered
toward the carrier. Fred leaned against the flight deck as well, to
the right of Brogan, and watched the dancer-like motions of the LSO
who stood several feet to his right on the very corner of the
wooden deck.

“They say the
tail hook doesn’t hold up after a dozen or so landings,” said Fred,
talking loudly to overcome the rush of the wind.

“That makes
every landing a thrilling adventure,” said Brogan. All around them
clustered the flight deck crew in their colored jerseys, waiting
for the aircraft to land so they could ply their trade. The
Helldiver roared into the groove, cut his engine, and sank toward
the deck. The deck crew ducked as one, as the bomber struck the
deck, leaving Brogan and Fred the only ones still standing.

“Why do you
suppose they do that?” asked Fred, as the Helldiver caught an
arresting cable and plowed to a shuddering halt.

“Beats the shit
out of me,” said Brogan. He turned to talk to one of the enlisted
men, but they all scrambled out of the catwalk, loped across the
expanse of flight deck, and dove under the tail of the Helldiver to
release the hook. Brogan laughed. “They look like termites,” he
said. The two men watched for several more minutes as the plane
pushers took over, and the tail hook team came back to the catwalk.
Brogan caught one of them by the arm and pulled him aside. Fred
turned to look and saw that he was a young boy, all of maybe
seventeen years.

“Hey, sailor,”
asked Brogan, “how come you guys don’t watch the planes come
in?”

“We just want
to keep our haids,” said the sailor, speaking with a Midwest twang
that brought to mind a place hundreds of miles away from the
nearest ocean. “Don’t wanta end up like Randy Gillous did.”

“What the hell
happened to Randy Gillous?” asked Brogan.

“One of these
here wires busted right outta the hole when one of you aviators
came in, and I tell you, sir, it went switching round this here
deck just like a great big bullwhip, and it hit Randy and broke
every one of his ribs and one of his arms and almost took out his
eye, too, only they won’t know about that until he comes to.”

“I guess that
explains it,” said Fred. He saw that the next Helldiver was
beginning its final approach. The sailor left Brogan to rejoin the
tail hook team. All watched apprehensively as the plane came
in.

“You going to
duck?” asked Fred.

“And make the
crewmen think we’re chicken?” Brogan eyed the incoming plane and
thought for a second. “Few broken ribs isn’t too much to pay for
being off flight duty for a few weeks.”

“Speak for
yourself,” said Fred, and he ducked. The Helldiver roared in, the
giant propeller wind milling, the pilot waggling his wings to
correct his flight path. As he hit the deck and caught a wire,
there was a sound above the clamor of the engine of rending metal
and popping rivets, and the slender, dangling tail hook was torn
out of the tail of the plane. Small, heavy chunks of metal
scattered and bounded down the flight deck. The bomber raced along,
weaving and skidding as the pilot tried to brake to a stop. He
zoomed past the island, through desperately scattering flight deck
personnel, bumped over the flattened and useless crash barrier, and
plowed into the tail of the Helldiver that had just landed. The two
aircraft careened around like toys. The right landing gear of the
first plane collapsed, and the engine of the second ground to a
smoking halt. The pilot and crewman of the second bomber scrambled
from the wreck and dove for the safety of the catwalk.

“Jesus H.
Christ,” said Brogan.

“A thrilling
adventure,” said Fred. Alarm horns were sounding now, and
fire-fighting teams converged on the wrecks, dragging hoses and
long, metal nozzles. White foam began to smother the two smoldering
aircraft.

“Remind me to
check out my tail hook the next time we fly,” said Brogan.

“You bet,” said
Fred.

The two planes
were covered with foam now. The plane pushers arrived and began to
poke around cautiously between them. A blue-shirted mechanic
clambered into the cockpit of the second Helldiver and exited just
as quickly. The tail hook team formed a wide-spaced line across the
flight deck and started gathering up the remains of the defective
tail hook.

Brogan heaved
an audible sigh. “Doesn’t look like they’re going to burn.”

“Let’s get out
of here,” said Fred. “I’ve seen enough for one day.”

“And the
nearest bar is a thousand miles thataway.”

The two pilots
climbed down the ladder into the hangar deck and twisted their way
through the tangle of wings and tails, wheels and fuselages. On
their way down the ladders to officer’s country, they passed a pair
of grease-covered engine room sailors and caught part of their
conversation.

“Some ships
have it,” said one of the sailors, “and some don’t.”

“All this tub
has,” said the other, “is the fleet’s share of hard fucking
luck.”

“Hard fucking
luck?” queried Fred, when the two had disappeared above them.

“That doesn’t
mean a bad time with the girls,” said Brogan.

“What exactly
does it mean?”

“It means, my
son, that the next time you get all soaped up in the shower, they
cut off the water for twenty-four hours.”

They reached
the third deck and turned toward Brogan’s stateroom. When they
arrived there, they found it full of argumentative pilots.

“What the
hell’s a high-water casualty, anyway?” asked a young pilot from the
bomber squadron.

“That’s when
the crapper overflows.”

“You don’t know
shit, Charley.”

“Hey, Brogan,
you been on one of these boats before. What the hell’s a high-water
casualty?”

“It’s the
opposite of a low-water casualty.” Brogan forced his way to the
bunks opposite the door, with casual disregard for those he stepped
on in the process.

“Hell, he
doesn’t know.”

“Who’s got
one?” Brogan reached the bunks, grabbed an ensign by the leg and
pulled him off the upper bunk, making room for himself and
Fred.

“We do. Who
else?”

“Who says we
got a high-water casualty?” Brogan hauled Fred up beside him.

“Some engine
room flunky just came by.”

“Looked like he
was looking for his mama.”

“‘Oh, dear, we
have a high-water casualty.’”

Laughter filled
the room.

“Will someone
please tell me what a high-water casualty is?” asked Fred.

“You know what
a turbine is?” said Brogan. The compartment fell into silence to
hear him. “That’s one of the engines. And they heat the water in
the boiler and turn it into steam and shoot it into the turbine
blades, and that’s what turns the propeller shaft. Well, a
high-water casualty is when they get too much water in the boiler
and some of it goes with the steam into the turbine and tears the
guts out of the turbine blades. Makes the engineers shit in their
pants.” Some of the pilots laughed.

“Does that mean
we’ve lost one of the main engines?” asked Fred.

Brogan waited
for silence before continuing. “That depends on how soon they catch
it and shut down the boiler. If they get it before any damage is
done, all they have to do is wait a couple of hours to get the
boiler back on line. If they don’t catch it in time, some
engineering officer gets promoted to fireman recruit and the ship
gets a yard period.”

“Whooee
doggies,” said a torpedo pilot. “I could go in for a yard period
stateside.”

“Not a chance.
If the ship has to go in for a yard period, they’ll leave us in
Pearl and use us for replacement pilots.” Fred nearly stopped
breathing as the unpleasant prospect of going back to Deal’s Deadly
Dealers surfaced in his mind—and the thought of losing the
Skipper.

“Wouldn’t
bother me,” said the torpedo pilot. “I’ve been on better ships
before.”

“Seems like
every time you turn around, something’s getting screwed over on
this ship.”

“You think
things are bad now, wait till the day after tomorrow. We’re going
to launch a full deck load before sunup.”

“Who says?”

“It’s in the Op
Plan. Called a battle problem.”

Fred leaned
back into the bunk, listening to the bickering pilots, and
wondering what it would be like in a squadron without the skipper.
The afternoon wore on; just before the evening meal, word went
around that the high-water casualty had been caught in time and
there was no damage to the main engines. Fred breathed a very
private sigh of relief.

1 August 1943
: F4U
Corsair piloted by Lt. C. T. Schuster lost power on takeoff and
crashed into the sea off the port bow. Lt. Schuster was uninjured
and escaped from the craft in time to be picked up by destroyer
U.S.S.
Hardy.
Time of the crash was 0900 hours. Mr.
Schuster was returned by highline at 1600 hours.

2 August 1943
: At 0530
hours Ordnanceman 3rd Class Antony D’Aquilo walked under the
propeller of aircraft number 20-F-12 as engine was in the process
of being started by Chief Mechanic Rickles and was killed instantly
by decapitation. Petty Officer D’Aquilo had not been wearing red
goggles prior to entering the unlighted hangar deck. Chief Rickles
has been reprimanded for not adhering to established safety
principles for starting aircraft engines.

3 August 1943
: Air Group
Twenty today participated in Operation Scavenger, a full-scale
battle problem involving a predawn rendezvous, an attack on a
simulated enemy task force, and a return to the ship. Original
launch time of 0500 hours was delayed for fifteen minutes due to
inclement weather. The strike force consisted of twenty (20)
Hellcats of this squadron led by Lt. Comdr. Hardigan, twelve (12)
SBD Dauntlesses of VB-20, and eighteen (18) TBF Avengers of
VT-20.

Strike Force
launch was interrupted by inclement weather after approximately
one-half of the participating aircraft were launched but was
resumed after twenty minutes had passed. This interruption caused a
delay in rendezvous, and a number of aircraft became lost in
weather and darkness. Approximately one-half of participating
aircraft located the target and carried out simulated attacks. As
the return route was followed, it was discovered by members of this
squadron that ship course and speed had been given incorrectly
prior to launch. After unsuccessfully searching for the task force,
most aircraft had to resort to the use of YE homing gear. All
aircraft were aboard by 1300 hours. There were no losses. Flight
deck crew and air group performance in this exercise have been
rated unsatisfactory by the force commander.