Wingmen (9781310207280) (36 page)

“Yes,
sir
,” said
the first lieutenant.

“You may sit
down.” Jack turned back to the blackboard and continued his
lecture; he could almost feel the thick animosity that rose from
the seated pilots, but there were no more interruptions. He
finished the lecture and asked for questions. Not surprisingly
there were none. He dusted the chalk from his hands.

“Well,
Lieutenant Commander Hardigan.” It was the Major. “That was a fine
lecture. I’m sure we’ll all benefit greatly from it.” The room was
silent. No one had moved.

“Thank you,”
said Jack.

“But it seems
we’ve spent too much time lately on these little procedures and not
enough time on flying. If you feel like you’re man enough for it, I
think maybe my boys and myself could teach you a thing or two about
real flying. All in the spirit of learning, of course.” The seated
pilots stirred and nudged each other with their elbows,
smiling.

Jack looked
back at the Major. He could no more refuse this challenge than he
could swim back to Hawaii. “This afternoon all right?” he
asked.

“Fine with me,”
said the Major.

“Bring a
wingman.” Jack picked up his notes, stacked them neatly. “And no
water injection.”

“I won’t need
it,” said the Major.

Jack pushed
past him and left the ready room. Behind him he could hear the
laughs and hoots of the assembled marine pilots. It worried him.
Nothing good could come of it. But he would do it. Jack made his
way down to the hangar deck, found his Hellcat. The elevator
surface had been replaced and the entire aircraft waxed and
polished. That much pleased him. But there was something else he
could do. He went in search of a crew chief.

“This meeting
of the Saturday afternoon strategy conference will now come to
order.” The speaker was somewhere in the press of bodies around the
end of the bar at the Officer’s Club on Ford Island. Fred leaned on
the bar, sipping a Scotch on the rocks. The twenty or so listless
pilots there in the muted luxury of the lounge had been singularly
quiet. They were bored.

“Come on,
fellas,” said Duggin. He had been the one who called the meeting to
order. “What’re we gonna do tonight?”

“Hey,” said
Peckerly, “remember that time Fritzi brought that girl back to the
BOQ? And she could tie a knot in a cherry stem?”

Oh, no
, thought Fred,
it’s back to the
Trusty thing
.

“Yeah,” said
Heckman. “Trusty beat her by a minute and a half.”

“I don’t get
it,” said Patrick. “What are you guys talking about?”

“You had to be
there,” said Duggin. “It was something else.”

Now they’re going to ask
me
, thought Fred.

“Then Bracker
gave the girl to Trusty ’cause Fritzi was wiped out.”

“And it took
him seventeen minutes. Remember that?”

Fred pushed
away from the bar and looked at the assembled group. He was trying
unsuccessfully to remember the details of that night. The only man
he remembered being there had been Brogan, when he had leaned out
the door and said. “You’re all right.” Brogan could no longer
attend the Saturday afternoon strategy conferences.

“Come on,
Trusty, do it for us again.” Fred closed his eyes and tried to
think.

Frank
Hammerstein patted him on the back and said, “Come on, Fred, do it
for the guys.”

“I don’t have a
cherry,” Fred stalled.
I won’t do it
, he was thinking.
I just won’t do it
.

“Someone get
him a cherry.” Glasses were probed, and someone with a whiskey sour
gave a triumphant yell. The little round fruit was passed through
the crowd to Fred, arriving smashed and mangled. Fred held it by
the stem for a second. Silence fell. A single red drop of juice,
like blood, fell from the cherry and spotted the polished toe of
Fred’s shoe.

“I can’t do
it,” he said, He tossed the cherry on the bar.

“Why not?”

“Come on,
Trusty.”

“I can’t do it.
I promised the skipper the next time I did it he could see. He
isn’t here so I can’t do it.” That was good. And almost
correct.

“You can give
the skipper a private showing.” There was laughter.

Fred held up
his hands for silence. He had thought of something. And Brogan
would approve. “There
is
something I will do.” He paused for effect.

“Yeah?”

“Well?”

“I will.
Personally. Beat every man in this squadron at acey-deucy before we
sail again.”

The pilots
turned away, mumbling.

“Wait a
minute.” Fred pulled a small roll of bills from his pocket. “We’ll
make it interesting.”

Interest
quickly returned.

“Every time I
lose, I’ll pay the winner five bucks.” He peeled off a five spot
and held it aloft. “Every time I win, the loser pays me three
bucks. I’ll take each man and play until I beat him. What do you
say?”

More murmuring.
“What if someone doesn’t want to play?”

“Then that
counts as a win for me, only the loser doesn’t have to pay.” No one
came forward. “What’s the matter?” asked Fred. “Look at the odds
I’m giving you.”

That was enough
prodding. There was a taker. “You’re on, hotshot.” It was
Schuster.

“Anyone got a
board?” Fred picked up his drink and took a sip.
Okay, Brogan, you gotta help me pull
this off. You didn’t get the chance to finish it, but then you
never put it on a paying basis. Now we will. Because a man has to
accomplish something before he dies
.

The bartender
provided a board, markers, and dice cups, and the entire Saturday
afternoon strategy conference moved to a vacant booth in the rear
of the club. The first official acey-deucy championship of Fighting
Twenty began in earnest.

Jack was the
last to land that afternoon—right after the marine major. The major
was waiting for him as he shut down his engine, and stalked over to
stand by the wing root of Jack’s plane, to catch him as he climbed
down. Jack could see that the Major was livid with rage even before
he could make out his face clearly; the way he walked bespoke it
eloquently. Jack tarried in his cockpit and let the major stew for
two or three minutes. Then he casually hoisted himself up and
stepped onto the wing root. He dropped down in front of the
major.

“Well, Major,”
he said.

“You could have
spared me that.”

Both men had to
raise their voices to be heard over the rush of flight deck
wind.

“I told you to
bring a wingman, not half your squadron.”

Jack remembered
how seven or eight Corsairs had appeared on the scene, and how
their scrutiny had affected the Major’s abilities to the point
where it had been rather humiliating. The man had simply tried too
hard.

“Is this your
aircraft?” the major said.

“Nope. It
belongs to Uncle Sam.”

“You know what
I mean.”

“Yes. This is
the aircraft I generally fly.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone “tacka-tacka-tacka” so
much
, thought Jack,
every time I cornered him. Or maybe the triple victory roll
was a little too much
.

The major
pointed up, but did not look at, five small Japanese flags which
had only hours before been painted under the edge of the cockpit.
“Are those yours?” he demanded.

Jack became
very serious. “Yes,” he said. “I got every one.”

The major
thrust his face up close to Jack. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t
ask.”

“Hardigan.” An
index finger stabbed upward and hovered under Jack’s nose. “How
dare you. How dare you humiliate me in front of my pilots. These
boys are going into combat soon. They look to me. They look to me
for leadership. Confidence. Inspiration. If they don’t have
confidence some of them may die. How dare you—”

“Major,” broke
in Jack. He reached out and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder,
turned him around, and began to walk toward the island. “Major,
some of your boys are going to die no matter what you do, even if
they think you’re God’s Son returning.”

A pair of the
marine pilots who were standing near the island saw them
approaching and disappeared into a hatchway.

“Hardigan—”

“Did you lose
any in training yet?”

“No.”

“I did my
damndest, but I lost one, anyway. And two more last week over
Wake.” Jack thought of his squadron—of Brogan and Bigelow, of CAG
and Fred Trusteau—and suddenly wanted very much to be with them.
Just the thought of seeing Fred again caused a lonely, empty ache
to spring up surprisingly deep down inside of him.

The major
stopped walking and pulled his shoulder away from Jack’s hand.
“Don’t tell me how to run my squadron, Hardigan.”

Jack looked at
him, feeling the wind tousle his hair and flap the legs of his
flight suit. He wanted to leave so badly he could almost taste
it.

“I’m sorry
about your men. But don’t tell me how to run my squadron.” The
major pushed past Jack and disappeared into the island.

Jack sighed to
himself. Now things were really going to be bad.

But it was
something he didn’t have to endure very much longer. Before he
could reach his stateroom (hoping that the major wouldn’t be
there), a messenger from the bridge found him and informed him that
the captain sent his respects and wanted him there right away. Jack
thanked the seaman and left immediately, stopping only long enough
to pick up a garrison cap.

When he arrived
on the bridge, he found the captain of the ship, CAG, and the
major, who elaborately ignored him. When the four men were
together, the captain told them that the
Belleau Wood
was headed for Pearl
and Hardigan was forthwith detached, with the Marines, and would
fly off the ship in less than an hour.

Jack hurried
back to the stateroom. He and the major packed in icy formality.
Three hours later Jack landed at Ford Island, parked his Hellcat
among the familiar aircraft of Air Group Twenty, and caught the
first boat to the
Ironsides
.

It was a late
Saturday afternoon. After he had changed out of flight gear and
into working khakis, he learned from the duty section that CAG had
returned from the hospital and that the rest of the squadron was
encamped in the O Club, where a marathon contest was in progress.
Not wishing to talk to Jennings, Jack went back to his stateroom,
changed into tropical whites, and headed for the Officer’s
Club.

“That was a
very nice dinner,” said Eleanor. She leaned on the big, rounded
front fender of her car and looked out to sea.

“I didn’t cook
it,” said Duane Higgins, “or pick the place to go.” He stood beside
her, not touching her, marveling at the unreal beauty of swaying
palms, rising moon, and soft island breezes. He understood now how
men and women fell in love so easily under these skies, on these
beaches.