Wingmen (9781310207280) (38 page)

The commander
shuffled through a stack of papers at the end of the table. From
where he sat, Jack could see the red, rubber-stamped words “Top
Secret” adorning most of the pages. He remembered the Marcus strike
and the lost page. It made him want to smile. He looked around. A
number of his pilots had indeed used the break to take out another
cigarette and light up; Fred sat opposite him and Jack caught a
glimpse of the Hornet Zippo lighter he had given him. It flashed
briefly in the light, then disappeared quickly into Fred’s shirt
pocket. It seemed like years ago when they had sat together in the
squadron office and he had given the lighter to Fred in a
spur-of-the-moment gesture of friendship. He was glad now that he
had.

“Everyone lit
up? Good. I want to tell you boys that this time we got not only
the first string on the field, but we got the second string and the
third string and the water boys and the coaches. We got the whole
team on the field this time. As I’m sure you’ve seen, here in this
group we got the
Big E
, the
Ironsides
here, the
Monty
, and the
Wood
. and we are headed
right—here.” (He pointed to a patch of ocean midway between Makin
and Tarawa.) “What you don’t see is another group of three more
flattops and other heavies north of us and they are headed here.”
(He indicated the Marshall Islands and circled the pointer to take
them all in.) “Their job is to attack the Jap airfields on Mili and
Jaluit and Maloelap and keep the Nips from sending in
reinforcements to help out on Makin and Tarawa. Our job will be to
make the first strikes on both of the target islands and then just
hang back and wait for the Emperor’s fleet to show itself, at which
time we will promptly give it its one-half of the ocean: the bottom
half.”

He waited a
second for the nervous, polite laughter to subside, then pressed
on.

“But we are not
alone. No, sir. Because coming up from the New Hebrides from the
south we got, count them, not one, but two more task groups with a
total of five carriers and assorted heavies to help out—if we leave
them anything to shoot at. Now the jarheads are coming from two
places: The northern force came right behind us from Pearl, and is
headed for Makin. The southern force came out of the New Hebrides
and is headed for Tarawa. We expect it’ll take ’em one—maybe
two—days to close the real estate deals and turn the deeds over to
Uncle Sam, and they’ve got jeep carriers for close air cover, too.
What we’d like to see is the Imperial Navy, so we can teach them a
thing or two about flying. Okay.” He stopped talking and scanned
the pilots. “Any questions?”

Jack had plenty
of questions, not the least of which was where the Navy had dug up
twelve fast carriers. That fact alone was astounding. The old days
are gone for good, he thought. The Navy’s here to stay.

“Opposition:
Here’s what we expect to find when we get there. The Jap doesn’t
know we’re coming, so the first planes we’re gonna run into will be
Army. Bettys and Nells most likely. The fighters will be Zekes and
Hamps and maybe Tojos. They’ll be flying from the fields here in
the Marshalls and from both Makin and Tarawa. So you fighter boys
will have your work cut out for you. As for you bomber jockeys,
there’s good news for you guys, too. Intelligence says there’s lots
of shipping around the islands—merchants and escorts most
likely—but you never know what else will turn up. And we have to
plaster those islands like they’ve never been hit before. When
we’re through, all the gyrenes’ll have to do is walk ashore and
count the dead Japs, and that’s no joke. Now, some miscellaneous
info before we break up into groups and go into the details.

“We are badly
in need of destroyers, so there’ll be some mighty lengthy ASW
patrols for you bomber pilots. We want to get there without being
seen, and in the process put any Jap sub that crosses our path on
the bottom where it belongs. When we get within five hundred miles
of the target area, we will institute a reinforced CAP, so don’t
you flying aces think you’re getting off easy. More on this later.
Unfortunately, we will not cross zero degrees latitude so you
pollywogs will have it easy this cruise. But you wait. We’ll get
you before long.”

“How about that
guy?” asked Boom Bloomington. He was stretched out on Jack’s bunk
with his feet on the blanket at the foot and his hands behind his
head.

“You mean the
commander who did the prebriefing?” Woody Heywood sat on the bed
near Boom’s feet and leafed through a much-handled magazine.

“Yeah,” said
Boom. “A real comic.”

“He can afford
to be,” said Jack, sitting at the little fold-down desk. “He
doesn’t have to drop the bombs.”

“He makes it
sound like a goddamn practice exercise,” said Boom. “Like those
fleet problems they used to have back before the war. ‘Now you guys
are the blue fleet and those guys are the orange fleet,’” he
sing-songed.

“‘And your
aircraft carrier just got sunk by that battleship that snuck up
behind you and shot the hell out of you with its big guns.’”

“There’s only
one thing I don’t understand,” said Jack.

“What’s that?”
asked Woody.

“Twelve
carriers. How did they come up with twelve carriers?”

“General Motors
builds them, just like Oldsmobiles.”

“Last March
they brought in that old British carrier because all we had
available was the
Enterprise
. Remember that?”

“I was too busy
trying to teach these lads how not to crash,” said Boom.

“Now we’ve got
twelve of our own.”

“Maybe so,”
said Boom, “but I wouldn’t put any money on us being home for
Christmas.”

“Me, neither.”
said Woody. He dropped the magazine to the deck with a plop. “Jesus
Christ,” he said. “They can put twelve carriers to sea in the space
of six months, but they can’t get a newer magazine than December
’42 out to the boys in blue.”

“Aluminum
drives,” said Jack.

“Aluminum
drives?”

“When I was
stateside, they were having an aluminum drive. They take a big
truck around the neighborhood and ask everyone to bring out their
pots and pans.”

“That explains
it,” said Boom.

“What?” asked
Woody.

“Where they got
the twelve carriers.” Boom pounded his fist against the bulkhead.
“Somebody’s Aunt Maude gave her all for this ship.”

Jack laughed.
“My right gear strut was probably a bumper on a Chevrolet.”

“I knew there
was a reason why they didn’t put partitions between the stools in
the head.”

“Yeah,” said
Boom. “You can only do so much with spare pots and pans.”

“As it is,”
said Woody, “there’s a community pissoff in the head every
morning.”

All three
laughed a little, then fell silent.

Boom turned
over and raised himself on one elbow. “You know,” he said
seriously, “we’re heading into a goddamn hornet’s nest of Jap
airfields. We’ll be in range for days at a time. And not just one
or two little strips. More like seven or eight.”

“Like the man
said,” Jack said, “we got our work cut out for us.”

“What do you
think our chances are?” asked Woody.

“Of what?”
asked Jack.

“Oh, say of
coming through alive.”

“I don’t have
the slightest idea. I try not to think about it.”

“I don’t think
I like this war business anymore.” Boom rolled onto his back.

“I never did,”
said Jack.

“Say,” said
Woody. “Have you guys noticed any difference in the old man
lately?”

“Jennings?”
asked Jack.

“Yeah,” said
Boom, rolling over again and propping himself on one elbow. “Yeah,
I noticed it.”

“I haven’t even
talked to him since he got back from the hospital,” said Jack.

“Exactly,” said
Woody. “He hasn’t had anyone on the carpet since they fished him
out of the drink.”

“Actually,”
said Boom, “I think I made an excellent temporary air group
commander.”

“No, really,”
said Woody. “I think he’s mellowed.”

“Mellowed,”
said Jack. “No. I don’t believe it.”

“You’ll see,”
said Woody. “Mark my word.”

“I want to know
something else,” said Boom. “Word has it that your own Ensign
Trusteau is a child prodigy at acey-deucy. What do you know about
that, Fighter Leader Hardigan?”

Jack shrugged.
“The squadron champ. That’s all.”

“Ah, yes. But
he made a few bucks doing it; Think he could use a manager? Say 10
percent of the gross, and I’ll arrange the matches?”

“Sorry,” said
Jack. “He’s all mine.”

“He sounds like
a real go-getter,” said Woody.

“Pretty good at
bridge, too,” said Jack.

“And
navigating.”

“And a few
other things that officers and gentlemen do not discuss in polite
conversation.” Boom laughed. “An all-around man, that’s what he is.
He’s what the Navy’s coming to.”

“Sure,” said
Jack. “The new Navy.”

“You know,”
said Woody. “The one with twelve carriers.”

“Twelve
carriers,” said Jack, “the new Navy.”

“Aw, write a
book on it.”

“I think I
will,” said Jack. “I think I will.”

“So this is the
so-called acey-deucy champ of the
Ironsides
.”

Fred was
hanging up his Mae West and flight helmet on a hook on the side
bulkhead of the ready room. He glanced over his shoulder at the big
man in the officer’s uniform. He was very tired.

“What’s the
matter, kid,” said the man heartily, and he clapped a hand on
Fred’s shoulder, tried to turn him around. Fred resisted until he
finished hanging his things, then allowed himself to be turned. He
studied the man through aching, bloodshot eyes, and only then
realized that the officer was a full commander, with the little
gold leaf clusters of rank on either collar.

“I’m sorry,
sir,” he said. “I didn’t see—”

“You brought me
all the way down here to talk to an ensign?” The Commander talked
over his shoulder to another pilot, whom Fred recognized in the dim
red light as Schuster. “Hell,” said the commander, “I ain’t had an
ensign for dinner in ages.”

“Do I know
you?” asked Fred, trying not to sound impolite. He had just come
off the last CAP of the evening, landing just as it was getting
dark. He had been awake since three that morning and wanted nothing
more right now than to fall unconscious into his bunk.

“Hell,” said
the commander. “Do I
know
him? Schute, you scroungy son of a bitch.”

“That’s the
one,” said Schuster. “Shellacked everyone in the squadron, and
nearly everyone else in the air group.”

“Well, well,
well,” said the commander, turning back to Fred and looking him up
and down. “A hotshot shavetail. The things they drag out of OCS
these days.”

Fred tried to
feel offended but was too tired. “If you’ll excuse me, sir,” he
said. “I have to turn in.” He tried to pass the burly roadblock,
but it had other ideas.

“Hold on just a
damn minute there, son,” he said. “Don’t get all hot and bothered.”
The commander turned and winked broadly at Schuster. “I was just
funnin’ you.”

“Sure,” said
Fred.

“I hear you
play a pretty mean game of acey-deucy.”

“I…win
sometimes.”
Please
, Fred was thinking.
Not tonight. Please
.

“He
wins
sometimes.” The commander found this uproariously funny.

“Do you play,
sir?”

Again the
booming laughter. “Do I play? Hell, son, I invented the fucking
game.”

“That’s nice,”
said Fred. “It’s a great game.” He tried again to leave.

“Hell, son,
ain’t you even going to ask me if I want to play a game or
two?”

“No, sir, I
don’t think I will. I mean, not tonight.”