Wingmen (9781310207280) (26 page)

Fred bent down
again and looked closer. It was really quite attractive. Peters was
adding black highlights to the wings and feathers of the silver
eagle. Sometime after he had produced the original drawing, the
coat-of-arms shield had been broadened, and the single word had
been changed from script to an Old English style and placed in the
dividing bar between the Jack of hearts and Navy insignia. It was
looking nice, very nice indeed.

“They look good
on the planes, too,” said Fred.

“They’d better.
I was up forty-eight hours straight to get the goddamn things done.
Whoever designed this nightmare ought to have one tattooed on his
butt.” Peters finished with the eagle, switched to another brush,
and began to touch up the Jack’s colorful uniform.

“Maybe he
already does,” said Fred.

“You think so?”
asked Peters. He stopped painting and looked up at Fred. “Oh,” he
said, “I didn’t know it was you, sir.”

“I have to get
in,” said Fred distinctly. He put his hand on the doorknob to
emphasize the point.

“Okay, okay,”
said Peters. He scooted his chair back. “Just be careful and don’t
touch it.”

Fred opened the
door, went through, and closed it behind him. On the other side of
the door was a large sign reading, DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR. He
chuckled. Sweeney, the yeoman, was hunched over the typewriter,
pecking away at the keys.

“What’s the
good word, Sweeney?” Fred asked, laying the Diary down on the edge
of the desk.

“Nothing,” said
Sweeney. “There aren’t any good words anymore.”

“Sorry I
asked,” said Fred. Now he almost hated to ask Sweeney what he had
to ask him.

“That’s all
right, sir,” said the yeoman, punching savagely at the typewriter.
“It isn’t your fault.”

“How do you
know it isn’t?” said Fred. Sweeney looked up suspiciously, and Fred
said quickly, “I need a little help.”

“What kind of
help?”

“I need CAP
rosters for the last couple of days.”

“What for?”

“The War
Diary,” said Fred. He leaned over the typewriter to look at what
the yeoman was typing and saw the words, “Ammunition Expenditure
Report.” Squadron leader business.

“Don’t you know
where to find them yet, sir?” asked Sweeney, managing to sound
mortally offended.

“If I did,
would I ask you?” Fred glanced down at the papers Sweeney was
copying and caught a glimpse of something red several sheets down.
“Every time I need them I find you’ve moved them somewhere else.”
He came around the desk where he could read better and fished with
one finger for the red-marked sheet.

“Don’t mess
things up,” said Sweeney. He pushed his chair back, opened the
filing cabinet behind him, took out a single folder (without
looking), slammed the drawer explosively, and tossed the folder to
the empty side of the desk. He started typing again, but Fred
stopped him.

“Where’d you
get this?” Fred asked. He was holding a single page of
blue-mimeographed type. Across the top of the page was
rubber-stamped, in blood-red: “Top Secret.”

“Get what?”
Sweeney strained to look, half-standing, half-sitting.

“You’re not
supposed to have this.” Fred read through the first sentences,
realizing immediately what he had. Under the “Top Secret” was a
little block of words: “Operation FASTFOOT, CINCPAC INST
020844-1342Z.” In the upper right hand corner was another
rubber-stamped block which read: “PAGE___OF___ COPY___OF___
CUST___” The first two blanks were inked in with the numbers “15,”
the third with “9,” the fourth with “11.” Beside the “CUST” blank
were the initials “JEH” and the date “24 Aug 43.” Fred now knew he
held the fifteenth and last page of the ninth of eleven copies of a
Top Secret instruction which the skipper had signed for only
yesterday.

“What is it?
What is it?” whined Sweeney.

“Where did you
get this?” asked Fred again. “It was in these papers here.”

“I got it off
the skipper’s desk, in his stateroom.”

“Did he give
them to you himself?”

“He was there
when I took them, getting ready for the briefing.”

“
The
briefing?”

“He’s in it
now. With the other two skippers and CAG and some big shots from
the
Yorktown
.” Sweeney was sitting back in his chair,
looking somewhat frightened. “You mean it’s something
important?”

Fred ignored
the question and continued reading. The body of the material on the
page began with paragraph 34-(c), and had the heading, “Wireless
Procedures: Target Area (cont.).” The paragraph described
transmission times for the submarines operating in the area.
Beneath paragraph 34-(c) was paragraph 34-(d) with the title “Call
Signs,” and there followed a list of call signs. He found VF-20’s,
Banger,
under that of the bomber squadron,
Red Rocket
. There were at least twenty
more, but he didn’t stop to count them.

What interested
him most was the final paragraph, entitled, “Cancellation.” He read
it carefully.

“35-(a)
Cancellation. This instruction is canceled in its entirety 2 Sep 43
2400Z. All pages of all copies in custody of Air Group Commanders
and below will be visually accounted for following command level
briefing 25 Aug 43 by briefing officers involved.” Fred gave a low,
ominous whistle. That was the briefing the Skipper was at right
now. Somehow the last page of the op plan he had signed for had
come unattached and found its way to the squadron office in
Sweeney’s work. When the briefing was finished, or maybe when it
was begun, the Skipper’s copy would be collected and inspected. If
they found a page missing, all hell would break loose. Fred thought
fast. “Get me an envelope,” he said. “A big one.”

“Did I do
something wrong?” Sweeney asked.

“Not yet,” said
Fred. He tore a piece of paper from a pad and scribbled a hasty
note. He snatched the envelope that Sweeney had produced from a
drawer in the desk and stuffed the page and note in it.

“Where’d you
say the briefing was?”

“In flag
country, somewhere. The admiral’s quarters, I think.”

Fred was
already at the door. “Don’t say a thing about this,” he said, “and
someday you’ll make first class.” Fred jerked open the door,
forgetting that Peters was still outside. He rushed past him,
nearly bowling him over. The outstretched paintbrush left a little
red smear on Fred’s cloth belt, but he didn’t notice it.

He found flag
country in the island with remarkable ease, and found the briefing
compartment just as easily—it was the door with the armed Marine
standing rigidly outside. The Marine, colorful in his full-dress
uniform, sprang to attention as Fred stopped in front of him.

“I’m looking
for Lieutenant Commander Hardigan,” said Fred, almost prancing with
anxiety.

“I’m sorry,
sir, but you are not cleared to go in there.” The Marine stared at
a spot on the far bulkhead as if Fred wasn’t even there.

“I have an
important message for him,” said Fred. “
Really
important.”

“My
instructions were to let no one pass,” said the Marine. Fred
noticed that he wore a corporal’s chevrons and that he had the look
of a man who followed orders, come hell or high water. He tried
another tack.

“Can you give
this to him?” he asked. He held out the sealed envelope.

“I…” said the
Marine. This was obviously not in his instructions. “I, uh…”

“Sure you can,”
said Fred. “Just step in and hand it to Lieutenant Commander
Hardigan.”

“I don’t…”

“He’s the tall
man with black hair? Good-looking, sideburns?”

“I know which
one…”

“Good. Just
hand it to him. See? It has his name on it.” Fred shoved the
envelope into the marine’s hands, stepped back quickly.

“Well,” said
the Marine.

“Come on,” Fred
cajoled. “It’ll only take a second.”

The Marine took
a deep breath, released it; then, as if his mind were made up
completely and there were no longer any questions, he resolutely
opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.

Fred ran the
back of his hand across his brow and thought,
I sure hope it was in
time
.

“We’ve given a
lot of thought to composite strike composition,” said the
lieutenant commander from CINCPAC Operations, “just as we’ve given
a lot of thought to the hows and whys of operating four carriers in
a single group, as we have here now. We don’t really care how you
represent this info on composite strikes to your own men, but the
real reason is simply this: We wish to establish patterns and
procedures in this strike that can be developed into guidelines
that we can follow in later strikes, and what it boils down to is
that we don’t want to ever lose a lot of aircraft from any single
squadron. Therefore, the bombers for each strike will be drawn from
all three engaged air groups, as will the fighters.
Independence
, as
specified earlier, will provide force CAP and ASW searches and not
participate in any of the strikes.”

Jack sat and
listened and was chilled by the casual manner the briefing officer
used when referring to aircraft losses. It was as though the
aircraft flew themselves, unaided by human hands; it was as though
men were not involved at all. The briefing officer was a
paper-shuffling war technician—cold, impersonal, calculating. He
didn’t have to fly the planes out to the enemy-held island of
Marcus.

“Approach will
be made during the night of the thirtieth to the north of the
island. We will then turn and launch from the northwest and be over
the target by dawn. Flight time for strike aircraft should be
forty-five or fifty minutes. I know the targets we’ve assigned are
sort of general, but we feel as if we’ve covered all the
possibilities.”

Jack moved
uncomfortably in his seat. He was glad the briefing was nearing its
end. He was having serious misgivings about the entire affair.
Marcus Island was isolated for sure, isolated deep in
enemy-controlled waters. Midway Island was fifteen hundred miles to
the east, Tokyo barely a thousand to the northwest. Strong enemy
bases existed less than four hundred miles away in the Bonins and
Marianas. This briefing told them what they had to do, but not why.
The lieutenant commander had spent the greater part of the lecture
explaining cruising formations for the four carriers, rotation of
ASW searches, and expected weather conditions between Pearl and the
target. The only picture Jack had seen of Marcus Island was vintage
1942, February to be exact, taken when Admiral Halsey hit the atoll
with the single carrier
Enterprise
. Jack had seen that photograph months and
months before.

“You still
don’t have any information as to fighter wings based there?” asked
Woody Heywood. He had asked the same question before but hadn’t
received a satisfactory answer. Jack could see that he felt the
same way he did about the operation—that they were risking four
new, inexperienced carriers with their air groups on an
underplanned foray far into enemy territory for one day of strikes
against an island with no strategic value whatever.

“We don’t know
for sure. We do know that they’ve expended hundreds of aircraft and
crews in the Solomons during the last nine months, so the isolated
island garrisons may be entirely stripped.”

“Or they may
have strong wings.”

“That’s why
we’re sending the fighters in first.”

“You lucky dog,
you,” said Boom Bloomington to Jack, then withstood a withering
glare from Buster Jennings for his lapse of discipline at such a
serious moment.

Jack flipped
through his copy of the attack instruction. It typified the entire
affair: It was a grand total of fifteen pages, saying less about
the true nature of the strike than the briefing officer had. He’d
seen longer instructions for off-loading ammunition in
peacetime.

He reached the
back pages of the plan. With a stomach-turning wrench, he realized
that the last page was missing. He went back through it quickly
page by page, remembering how he had signed every one in the
presence of the briefing officer. Every one had been there then.
Trying to appear calm, he checked through all his papers and his
notes. He even looked surreptitiously under the table.

“Okay,
gentlemen,” said the lieutenant commander, “Bill here will take
your copies of the instruction. Please be sure to destroy any notes
you’ve taken after your own briefings. I guess that’s it….”

A grimly
efficient-looking lieutenant with a crew cut and black-rimmed
glasses, came to the table and took up Buster Jennings’ copy. He
checked its number against a list he carried on a clipboard, then
flipped quickly through the pages from front to rear, checking them
all. Jack felt doomed. The lieutenant finished with CAG’s copy and
took Woody Heywood’s. Jack stacked all his notes together with the
copy of the instruction and stood, prepared to look surprised when
the lieutenant found the page missing.