Wingmen (9781310207280) (29 page)

Around noon,
the teletype in the forward part of the ready room came to life and
began clattering out information on the second strike. The bombers
had just destroyed what looked like an ammo dump. One of them was
down on the reef. Then the teletype said that a four-plane section
of the
Independence
CAP had destroyed a four-engine
Japanese search plane north of the force, which started the pilots
talking about retaliation from Japanese subs and fleet units, which
of course was only speculation and would never materialize. Finally
the teletype printed one last story and fell silent. It said that
Ensign Trusteau was alive and well on the
Essex.
His shot-up plane was being
patched together again. And Jack almost started crying, which his
pilots interpreted as meaning that the old man really cared about
his pilots.

The
Constitution
’s final wave against Marcus went off as
scheduled, at 1330 hours, with Jack Hardigan leading the same two
divisions (with Ensign Jacobs flying wing on him) and escorting six
SBDs and six Avengers. By this time, the little island was so
battered that the airstrips were the only visible sign of human
habitation. The aircraft didn’t spend more than five minutes over
the target. When they got back to the carrier, the task force was
already headed back to Pearl, and the strike on Marcus passed into
history.

Step on a crack and
break your mother’s back. For no particular reason, the childhood
ditty popped into Fred’s mind as he and the skipper trudged up and
down the vast expanse of wood planks known as the flight deck. The
cracks were rows of tie down cleats, recessed into strips of steel
slightly lower than deck level. There were no aircraft topside this
evening, perhaps in expectation of heavy weather. There were lots
of other people, though, enjoying the aircraft carrier’s peculiar
advantage over other warships when it came to recreational room.
Some ran. But Fred felt that it was the continuous hissing of the
wind and the privacy it afforded that brought everyone up here as
the sun sank and night lowered around them.

“I don’t mind
telling you,” said the skipper, “that we thought for a while
yesterday we had really lost you.” He kept his hands in his pockets
and his head down, but his voice carried clearly.

“I thought you
had, too, Skipper, for a while there,” said Fred. He was thinking
how great it was to be back among friends, especially the skipper.
The
Essex
had been the first carrier he had come to. He hadn’t even looked
for
Ironsides
. The two carriers were identical in their
major points of construction, but the ready room, the wardroom, the
people, were uncomfortably different. It was like being a kid
transferred to a new school.

“I guess it
just goes to show you how fast things can happen when you’re over a
target. One second things are all right, and the next….” The
skipper didn’t complete the sentence.

“On the way
back I kept thinking how big this ocean is,” Fred said, “and how
they’d never find me. But old number thirteen just kept on
running.” He remembered the sweat, and the pounding heart that
wouldn’t quiet, as the minutes stretched into an hour, and still
the hot, rough engine ran and back-fired, coughed and shook, losing
oil steadily. And the great waiting Pacific passed unhurriedly
below him as he checked his parachute pack, first-aid kit, raft,
pistol. He knew that he was making himself ready to put down in the
middle of an enemy ocean but also knew that no one is ever ready
for a slow death.

“Makes you feel
better when you know how well they build these birds.”

“Maybe I’ll
write them a letter when I get the chance,” Fred replied.

“Do that. I’m
sure they’d be glad to get it.”

“I wouldn’t
think they get many complaints.”

Jack smiled to
himself as he realized the similarity of Fred’s remark to the old,
well-known joke about what to do when your parachute doesn’t
work.

“Admiral Berkey
was over there,” said Fred.

“Where?”

“On the
Essex.
They
didn’t have any spare staterooms so he got me set up with one of
his staff officers.”

Jack felt a
stab of jealousy. Ensigns don’t hobnob with admirals and they sure
as hell don’t—sleep with them either. Jack realized with a jolt
what he’d been thinking. “That was generous of him,” he said.

“He’s a good
person,” said Fred.

An officer in
shorts and T-shirt jogged past them. Fred remembered the previous
night—a sleepless affair since the lieutenant commander in the rack
below talked to his wife in his sleep. In the morning, he’d move
around the stateroom with a very noticeable erection.

They walked
with the wind at their backs, in a spot of silence that stretched
into a minute, then two. Fred was inwardly reveling at this private
moment with the Skipper; he was still intoxicated with the thrill
of being alive to enjoy it. They were abreast of the island and
virtually alone when the Skipper suddenly stopped. Fred stopped and
turned to look at him. He couldn’t see his face, but he felt that
something was wrong.

“Are you all
right, Skipper?” Fred asked involuntarily.

The words
almost didn’t penetrate Jack’s consciousness. He was deep in a
mental turmoil triggered by the ridiculous picture of Fred Trusteau
sleeping with Admiral Berkey. It had been replaced in Jack’s mind
with the next logical step: Fred Trusteau should have been here,
sleeping with Jack Hardigan. The thought that it would be a nice,
pleasant thing to do was disturbing. Immediately, he tried to
reject the idea. When Fred spoke, Jack found that he was standing
still in the middle of the flight deck looking at the man he wanted
to—sleep with. He started walking again, struggling to control his
thoughts.

“I just thought
of something,” he said, after a moment. Fred had fallen into step
beside him. They walked on in silence again.

“Must have been
pretty important,” said Fred, wondering what it had been.

“No,” said
Jack. “No, it was very unimportant.” He turned abruptly and headed
for the hatch in the island that Fred had entered on his first day
aboard, now so many weeks ago.

Fred went after
him like a perplexed little dog following his master.

They reached
the rounded entrance; Jack entered first, without ceremony and
without waiting for Fred to close the heavy steel door and catch up
with him.

Fred caught up
with him on the hangar deck. “I guess I’ll be turning in, sir,”
said Fred.

“That’s fine,”
said Jack. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,”
said Fred. “Good night.”

The skipper’s
back vanished into the darkness. Fred waited for several minutes to
make sure Jack had gone ahead before he started for his stateroom.
He was vaguely upset; he wondered if he had said or done something
to disturb the skipper. It bothered him for several hours that
night before he was able to fall asleep.

TO: LT COMDR J
HARDIGAN USN USS CONSTITUTION FPO SF

FROM: M
HARDIGAN PORTLAND MAINE

DAD NEAR DEATH
STOP MOM BAD OFF STOP

PLEASE COME IF
ABLE STOP

MONTY

6 September 1943
: Air
Group Twenty debarked this date U.S.S.
Constitution
for Naval Air Station,
Ford Island, Oahu, arriving 1300 hours without incident. Upon
arrival, Lt. Comdr. Jack Hardigan, USN, Commanding Officer VF-20,
was detached for emergency leave to commence immediately.
Lieutenant Duane Higgins, Executive Officer, has assumed command
responsibilities until further notice.

Duane Higgins pulled
hard on his scotch and soda and pondered his restless pilots
gathered at the bar. His pilots. It felt good to be thinking of
them that way, even though in reality they belonged to Jack
Hardigan, or the Navy, or nobody. Regardless, he could divide them
nicely into two mutually exclusive groups, just as they themselves
were quite unconsciously—though accurately—doing right now. It was
Saturday night at the Officer’s Club of the Ford Island Naval Air
Station. It was a natural for pilots because line officers
frequented the club on the naval station across the harbor.

The first group
was the hell-raisers. Brogan seemed to be the natural leader of
this group. It was characterized by heavy drinking, easy brawling,
and probably an abundance of venereal disease. Their idea of a good
time was not complete until someone got arrested or rolled, which
for them were sources of exciting, postliberty sea stories. They
were big talkers, sure enough, but they usually backed up their
boasts with plenty of action.

The other group
was composed of big talkers, too, but it was easy to see that the
similarity ended there. When a hell-raiser begged one of this group
to hit this or that whorehouse, whose specialty was the oriental
basket job, he would bow out with the excuse that he had a date
with a very nice girl who had her own car and apartment. They would
be going to dinner and a movie; then they would go back to her
apartment—for who knows what? They were usually in bed—alone—before
midnight, after an evening movie with a couple of the guys, or
maybe a few drinks at the O Club. Duane had seen several of them a
couple of months back, coming out of a museum of Hawaiian history
in downtown Honolulu when it closed at nine o’clock. Some of this
second group were married and very, very sober. But then some of
the hell-raisers were married, too. Membership in either group was
determined by other, more subtle, distinctions.

Duane was in a
quandary this Saturday night. His pilots were dividing themselves
up and leaving in groups of three and four, laughing and singing,
until their voices faded out of hearing in the cool tropical
twilight. The problem was his temporary status as skipper. He was
traditionally a hell-raiser, but out of respect for Jack Hardigan
and a left-handed logic which said that skippers don’t do the
things hell-raisers do, he found himself marooned and alone with
the meek and sober. It was, thank God, not a permanent situation.
And, yes, he did know this nice girl who drove her own car and had
her own apartment and for whom he had a grudging respect because
she hadn’t gone to bed with him yet. Maybe I’ll give her a call, he
thought, and see if she’s free tonight. A last group of VF-20
pilots left the bar. Duane finished off his scotch and soda—his
usual was straight scotch; the soda was a concession—and turned to
go. In the entrance to the bar he ran into Fred Trusteau.

Fred’s
appearance forced Duane to reevaluate his two-group theory. He
instantly concluded that this ensign didn’t fit well into either
group. There had been something about him the past several days
that made a man uncomfortable to be around him. Duane had been
unable exactly to put his finger on what it was.

“Trusty,” said
Higgins, as they stopped together just inside the door of the bar.
Duane had made an effort since the skipper left to learn everyone’s
first name or nickname and to use it whenever possible, even if he
hated to be personal. This was such a moment.

“Mister
Higgins,” said Fred, without enthusiasm. “Buy you a drink?”

Maybe that was
it: Trusteau lacked his usual enthusiasm. But that was too simple.
To be more precise, he carried gloom like a dark cloud over his
head wherever he went.

“Pleasure,”
said Duane. The nice girl could wait, he decided, until he found
out what was bugging the skipper’s wingman.

“Scotch,” said
Fred to the barkeep.

“Scotch and
soda,” ordered Duane. A moment of silence descended on the two men.
“Well,” said Duane, leaning an elbow on the bar and facing Fred,
“hitting the beach tonight?”

Fred shifted
his weight and lighted a cigarette. “No, don’t think so.” His drink
arrived and he took an immediate slug, wincing slightly at the bite
of the liquor.

Duane thought,
I’ve seen more
cheerful faces at a funeral
. “How come?”

Duane’s drink
arrived, and he held it up in a short toast which Fred reluctantly
returned.

“I don’t know,”
Fred replied. “Just don’t feel like doing much tonight.”

“Flying too
hard these days?”

“No.” Fred
looked down to avoid the executive officer’s eyes.

“You’re not
going to waste one of our few precious Saturday nights, I
hope?”

“Waste?” said
Fred.

“Tell you
what,” said Higgins. He tapped Fred’s arm lightly. “Let’s you and
me hit the beach tonight, you know, take in a few places, maybe
meet a couple of young ladies…”

“Not tonight,”
said Fred. He finished his Scotch and signaled for another. He was
thinking that Duane Higgins had never been so friendly before and
wondering if he was after something. “I don’t feel that hot. I
think I’ll hit the sack early.”

“Maybe you
ought to talk with the Flight Surgeon Monday morning.”

“It isn’t that
bad, really.”
He’s
pushing me
, thought Fred.
Why?

“Well, look. I
want my pilots in top form all the time. If you don’t feel well
then you ought to see the Doc. Right?”

Fred sat down
his drink and faced Duane squarely. “Look, Mister Higgins, I’m not
sick. I just don’t feel up to hitting the beach tonight, with you
or anyone else. Maybe I’m just a little let down after the mission
and all, and to tell the truth I just want to be alone for a while,
and Saturday night is as good a time for that as I can think of. So
don’t worry about me, and if you’ve got something lined up for
tonight, go ahead and enjoy it.” He tried to soften his voice a
bit. “I’ll be just fine.” A second of silence, and then he added:
“Really.”