Wingmen (9781310207280) (20 page)

“We’re as ready
as we’ll ever be.” Jack thought for a moment. “Being ready, I
think, is more a matter of proper attitude at this point in the
game.”
CAG would
love to hear me say that
, he thought.
But what does CAG know about proper
attitudes?
“We’ve got the equipment. The training. It’ll all
come together when we need it.”

“I hope you’re
right, sir,” said Fred.
Why do we have to talk about the war?
he was
thinking.
We’ll
find out how we’ll do when the time comes.

“I know I’m
right,” said Jack, seriously. “I’ve been there.” He pushed his
chair all the way back against the bulkhead and propped his feet up
on the desk. “What’s your hometown?” he asked.

The question
caught Fred by surprise. “I was brought up in San Jose,” he said,
after a pause.

“You sound like
you’re not sure.”

“As a matter of
fact, I’m not. I was adopted when I was six and went to live in San
Jose. I was there the rest of my life. Until now.”

“I didn’t know.
Your real parents, they passed away?”

Fred shrugged.
“I don’t know that, either. My adopted mother never wanted to talk
about it. I can’t even tell you where I was born. It could have
been anywhere, I guess.”

“I didn’t mean
to pry,” said Jack, catching Fred’s eye for a moment.

“It doesn’t
bother me to talk about it. It’s just something you learn to live
with.”

“What’d your
father do?” asked Jack.

Before Fred
could answer, they were interrupted by the ship’s address system
booming into the small compartment: “The evening movie is now being
shown in the wardroom,”

“You want to
go?” he asked.

“I’ve seen it,”
said Fred.
“Sergeant York.
Once was enough.”

“I’ve got
better things to do, too. But you were talking about your
father.”

“He runs a
hardware store in San Jose. Wants me to take over someday.”

“You were going
to college, weren’t you?”

He’s read my jacket
,
thought Fred. “I was going to start at San Francisco State, but the
war came along.”

“You made the
right choice, coming into the Navy.”

“I always
admired the flyboys. Landing on a carrier seemed like a fantastic
thing to do. Now I’m not so sure.”

The skipper
laughed. He was enjoying talking to Fred. He was easy to talk
with.

“Now you know
my life story,” Fred said. “It isn’t what you’d call exciting.”

“Then I won’t
bore you with mine.”

“I’m sure it
wouldn’t be boring,” said Fred quickly.

Jack put his
hands behind his neck and looked at the overhead. “My father’s a
banker in Portland, Maine. My older brother is married and working
at my father’s bank. My older sister is married and having babies
in Leeds, Ohio. And my younger brother is with the Seventh Army in
Sicily.”

Fred was
counting up on his fingers. “Four children. A large family.”

“Five,” said
Jack. “One died as a baby.”

“To someone who
grew up in a family of three, it’s still quite a number.”

“My mother used
to whale the stuffings out of me with a birch rod. It was a right
typical upbringing, I would say.”

“I wonder what
our mothers would have thought if they’d known that their sons
would be flying airplanes around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
in 1943.”

“Disappointed,
no doubt. I’m sure both of them would have preferred a doctor or a
lawyer.”

“Or even a
banker,” said Fred.

“The crew’s
movie is now being shown on the hangar deck,” said the
loudspeaker.

“
Foreign Correspondent
.”
said Fred. “I’ve seen that one, too.” On an impulse he pulled out a
pack of cigarettes and offered one to Jack. He shook one out for
himself and searched for a match. He had none.

“Wait a sec,”
said Jack. He opened the drawer of the desk, rummaged briefly, and
came up with a chrome Zippo lighter. He lighted his cigarette, then
handed the lighter to Fred. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got another
one just like it.”

“Thank you,”
Fred managed to say. He looked at the lighter with a mixture of awe
and wonder, thrilled that the skipper would give him something
personal. On one side was the enameled insignia of an aircraft
carrier and the words, “U.S.S. Hornet, CV-8.” On the other side
were the initials, J.E.H. Fred thought for a moment that he should
return it, that something this personal probably meant a great deal
to the Skipper. But it meant even more to him. He polished the
initialed surface on his shirt front.

“What does the
‘E’ stand for?” he asked.

“Guess.”

“Edward?” Jack
shook his head. “Ernest?” Another shake. “Emilio?”

Jack laughed.
“Do I look Italian? It stands for Errol. As in Flynn.”

“Errol,” said
Fred. “That’s a good name.” As he said it he realized that he
hadn’t lighted his cigarette. He did so, then tucked the lighter
into his shirt pocket, and buttoned the flap.

“You’d think
with a name like that, I’d be a little more dashing. Have a
pencil-thin mustache, smoke cheroots.”

“
Thirty Seconds Over
Tokyo
,” said Fred, “starring Clark Gable and Errol
Hardigan.”

“Not bad. Has a
ring to it. Maybe after the war….” Jack considered the overhead for
several seconds, then suddenly dropped his feet to the floor and
scooted his chair up to the desk. “If I don’t finish this letter
soon,” he said, “I never will. There’s a mail plane leaving in the
morning, you know.”

“Yes, sir,”
said Fred. “I’ve already got a couple of letters finished.” He
moved to the door, reluctant to leave. Jack was already writing,
head bent over his desk, fountain pen scratching away. “Thanks for
the lighter, Skipper, and have a nice evening.” Fred opened the
door.

“Sure,” said
Jack. He didn’t look up. “See you in the morning.”

Fred closed the
door quietly and was gone. Jack looked now at the shadow on the
deck under the bottom of the door. The soles of Fred Trusteau’s
shoes stood there for almost a minute before moving away.

He looked back
at the letter to his mother and continued writing.

…Incidentally,
I’ve been thinking that you’ll probably see a lot more of me when
all this is over. What I mean is that the Navy has been good to me
up until now, but maybe it isn’t completely right for me after all.
It’s changed a lot since 1935.

I was just
talking to a young man named Fred Trusteau who grew up in San Jose,
California. That’s about as far from Portland, Maine, as you can
get and still be in the USA. He was in college when the war came
and left it all to join up. More than once now I’ve been glad he
did. Last week on a training exercise he discovered an error in our
navigational data and quite possibly saved a number of lives by
preventing us from being lost. Unfortunately he isn’t completely
typical of the kind of man I have working for me—I could use about
ten more of him. That’s just another way the Navy’s changed.

Write soon and
keep me up to date on what Robert is doing. He never writes,
probably he’s too taken up by those Sicilian women. I miss you
all.

Love, Jack

When he left
the skipper, Fred wasn’t sure where he wanted to go; he just knew
he had to be alone. He had thought before going into the office
that if he got to know the skipper better; if he talked to him more
that maybe, just maybe the feelings would go away and be replaced
by something simpler, like friendship. But it wasn’t working that
way.

He loved the
skipper. He would do anything for him without a second thought. But
the skipper would hate him if he knew what he was thinking. Fred
could never be to Jack Hardigan what Jack Hardigan was to Fred. It
just couldn’t happen. Fred touched the lighter through the pocket
and wondered for the thousandth time how this painful, dangerous
situation would work out.

12 August 1943
: Made
preparations for entering Pearl Harbor. All aircraft of this
squadron and the air group will be brought aboard prior to arrival
at Pearl Harbor, scheduled for tomorrow morning at approximately
1000 hours. They will remain aboard for the duration of the stay in
port, an unspecified length of time.

At 1800 hours
this date, aircraft flown by Lt. (j.g.) Heckman and Ensign Peckerly
participated in an attack on a suspected enemy submarine discovered
ten miles southwest of the task force. Other engaged aircraft
included on SBD bomber of VB-20. Results of the attack are
unknown.

Fred knocked
loudly and clearly three times just below the brass plate which
read “C. T. Berkey, U.S.N.” From inside a muffled voice bade him
enter. He opened the door and stepped through, surprised at the
spaciousness of the suite. Admiral Berkey was packing folded shirts
into a battered valise which lay open on a vinyl-covered couch that
stretched the length of one side of the compartment.

“Admiral
Berkey, sir,” Fred said. He swung the door shut and waited while
the Admiral pushed some shirts into the valise and turned to see
who had entered.

“Ensign
Frederick Trusteau,” the Admiral said, turning back and continuing
the packing. “Good to see you again. What’s on your mind?”

“I just wanted
to see you again before we anchored, sir.” Fred looked through the
uncovered porthole on the outside bulkhead. The green mass of land
was passing by the side of ship. “I wanted to say it’s been a
pleasure sailing with you this cruise and I hope we do it again
sometime.”

“Well, son,”
said the admiral, stuffing one last item into the valise and
slamming it closed. “I think that’s right thoughtful of you. Seeing
as how you’re the only one who’s seen fit to say good-by, come on
in and sit down.” He shoved the suitcase aside and indicated the
couch. Fred sat down and the admiral sat beside him, putting an arm
up behind Fred on the back of the couch.

“Yes, sir, that
was very nice of you to come up here. Tell me what you think of
this training cruise, now that it’s over.”

“I think it was
very instructive, but I wish we could have looked better.”

“I’ll tell you,
son, you pilots looked as good as any I’ve worked with, so don’t
you let that bother you.” The admiral ran a hand over the stubble
on his chin, and Fred noticed that the worried look was still in
his eyes.

“What’s really
going to matter is how we all look in this next operation.”

“The next
operation,” said Fred. “Everyone has his own ideas, but the truth
is, no one knows anything about it.”

“Well, Fred,”
said the admiral, looking across the room but leaning close to
Fred’s ear. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes, sir, I
can.”

“When we left
for this training cruise, I bet you didn’t even have time to say
good-by to your girl friend, now did you?”

Fred smiled.
“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Well, I’ll
give you a little head start this time. You better get all the
kissing and loving out of your system in about a week, ’cause after
that I can’t promise we won’t be leaving on very short notice.”

“A week, sir?”
I can’t
believe,
Fred thought
, that he’s actually given me the sailing
date.

“And as for
where we’ll be going, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, but I can
tell you something else.”

“What would
that be, sir?”

“Well, son, it
seems we’ve got all these new ships and airplanes, and we don’t
really know the best way to use them. I mean, we used to operate
each carrier in a task group of its own, and that was fine back
when all we had was two or three. Now, Fred, now we’ve got so many
flattops that if we did that, we’d plumb run out of destroyers and
cruisers after task group number six or seven. We’ve got to find a
way to put two or three, maybe even four carriers in each group and
not have them get in each other’s way when we operate. Do you
follow me so far?”