Wingmen (9781310207280) (39 page)

“Hell, Schute,
this here ain’t no champ. Look son, if you don’t play me a game
tonight, you won’t be the champ no more.”

“Couldn’t we do
this another time, sir? I’ve got to fly early tomorrow and I really
think—”

“No, we can’t.
Tomorrow I got to fly back to the
Yorktown
and dig up some more crazy islands
to bomb. Tonight, son.”

Fred looked
around and saw no courteous way to escape. Maybe one game wouldn’t
take too long. “One game, sir. Then I have to turn in.”

“That’s more
like it. Come on up to my cabin. You, too, Schute, you ugly
bastard, and let’s have a go at it.”

Fred followed
the man up to flag country and one of the spare staterooms intended
for use of embarked admirals’ staffs. There he took a seat at a
little table bolted snugly to the deck. The commander took out a
game board and placed it over a haphazard pile of papers on the
table. The top one was a closed manila folder with the words
“Galvanic—Top Secret” on it.

Fred played the
best his tired mind would allow. Fifteen minutes later he had
another victory under his belt. The commander was disturbed and
showed it.

“That was the
most chickenshit way of playing I’ve ever seen,” he bellowed.

“Well, if
that’s all, sir,” said Fred, starting to rise.

“Like hell it
is. You sit your ass down there and play it again, or I’ll get you
transferred to a honey barge in the Aleutians.”

Although he
wasn’t particularly worried about the man’s threat, Fred was now
somewhat more awake. He decided to humor the man. They played
another game. Fred won again.

The commander
glowered across the board with such a vengeful look that Fred was
afraid to get up. The silence hung thickly for a moment; then the
older man spoke. “Son,” he said, “who taught you how to play this
game?”

“Brogan, sir.
Lieutenant Brogan.”

“Didn’t I tell
you,” said Schuster.

“Shut up,
Schute. Let the man tell me himself.”

“You knew
Brogan?” asked Fred.

“Taught him
every fucking thing he knew about the game. Picked it up real quick
and then never let me win another game. I must’ve lost a thousand
goddamn bucks to that mangy, good-for-nothing—”

“Hey,” said
Fred, looking up and catching the commander’s eye. “Don’t say that.
He was a…” Fred looked down at the deck between his feet and tried
to think of one word to describe Brogan, could only come up with
“…a good man.”

The commander
looked surprised at Fred’s outburst. His face softened. “Don’t
listen to me, son. Sometimes I say things kind of funny.”

“I guess I’d
better go,” said Fred.

“Yeah. You’ll
need the sleep.” The commander saw Fred to the door, but followed
him into the black shadows. Red pools of light marked the
passageway.

“Good night,
sir,” said Fred, and he started to leave.

The commander
stopped him. “Don’t go yet,” he said. When Fred faced him again, he
said. “It’s a mean damn game.”

“What?” said
Fred, maybe a little too sharply. “Acey-deucy?”

“That,” said
the commander, “and all this.” He indicated the carrier with an
eloquent roll of his eyes. Fred felt something tugging, hurting,
inside his chest.

“He called it a
man’s game.”

“He was never
wrong.” The commander took Fred by the arm and pulled him up close,
so close that Fred could smell the tobacco on his breath as he
spoke. “Did you see when…” he began. “When he…” He couldn’t finish.
Fred nodded. “I miss that good-for-nothing, little—” and he stopped
again. Fred thought he could see his eyes glistening.

“I do, too,” he
said.

“You’re all
right,” said the commander. Fred could almost hear Brogan saying
the same words. “You take care of yourself up there, son.”

Almost gently,
Fred said, “I don’t intend to leave until I beat every sucker on
this ship.”

And the
commander reached out and clumsily patted Fred on the side of the
face, his hand stopping for an immeasurably brief time to let his
thumb brush the cheek. “You do that,” he said.

Fred left him
then, not happily, looking back once. He saw the big man push a
wadded handkerchief into his hip pocket, then reenter the
stateroom. And when Fred had undressed and climbed into his bunk,
he realized just before falling asleep that at least one other
person in the world mourned for Brogan.

It was horrible yet
spectacular; it was at once gruesome and fascinating. Duane Higgins
circled at five thousand feet with the three Hellcats of his
division and four more from another, and watched the invasion of
Betio Island in the atoll named Tarawa. The eight fighters had been
there for an hour. They had made a single strafing run on an island
named Bairiki at the request of a nameless air controller. Now they
waited for another assignment and watched the spectacle below
them.

Tarawa lay on
the surface of the ocean like a dazzling string of beads on a bed
of coral. Betio Island lay at the southwest corner of the squarish
arrangement of islands. All the other islands were almost
mythically beautiful with swaying palms and bright sandy beaches
bordering a deep blue lagoon. Betio was an unreal panorama from the
depths of hell.

When the trade
winds shifted and parted the smoke to reveal the tortured little
island, Duane thought that the surface of the moon was probably
more hospitable. Every square foot of land was blasted and
cratered. Shattered palm trees stood bedraggled and headless,
occasionally blown into the air to topple, in seeming slow-motion,
to the ground. Huge rolling clouds of greasy black smoke rose from
a dozen locations, drifting across the lagoon, sometimes obscuring
the clumps of small boats that churned in frantic circles there,
forming into lines abreast and heading for the beach. Shells
splashed amidst them.

On the ocean
side of the atoll a fleet of transports and warships covered miles
and miles of water. Duane counted more than a dozen transports.
Three bulky, bristling vessels that he assumed were battleships
prowled up and down the length of the island, loosing massive
broadsides of flame and smoke every so often, which would terminate
on the island in towering, earth-shaking explosions.

The reef
stretched several hundred yards out from the beach. The water was a
lighter shade of green there, and the approaching landing craft
inevitably stopped at its edge, lowered prows and disgorged groups
of men, who struggled through the knee-deep surf to the beach. When
they strafed the island of Bairiki, Duane led his aircraft down and
along that same beach toward which the Marines were struggling.
From that altitude, he could see what had been invisible from
higher up: All along the reef and up to the beach were scores—no,
hundreds—of bodies, dark, huddled masses of them, face down in the
water or piled in groups along the beach. Even as he crossed
overhead, a line of twenty or so Marines, slogging through the
water, heads down, was cut down like tenpins and dropped in a neat
line. They didn’t get up. It was unbelievable.

As they waited
for another assignment, Duane couldn’t help but remember the
briefing officer’s remark that the Marines would walk ashore and
count the dead Japs. And this was the second day of the assault.
They were supposed to have completed the “occupation” by this
evening. It was sickening. Duane knew he would never forget those
piles of bodies, those suddenly-dead Marines dropping in the
water.

“Scarlet One to
Banger Flight, over.” It was the air controller.

Duane went to
his throat mike. “This is Banger Leader, over.”

“Are you on
station, Banger Leader?”

“That’s
affirmative, Scarlet One, eight VF orbiting the lagoon at this
time.”

“Roger, Banger
Leader. Stand by for target.” Duane signaled his wingman, Bracker,
then glanced over his shoulder at the other section of Hellcats.
Both waggled their wings expectantly, pulled in closer to the
leading aircraft.

“Banger Leader,
your target: Beached freighter west of long pier, that is freighter
beached on reef two five zero yards from beach and west—that is
west—of long pier. Six VB will precede your flight with bombs,
attack time approximately ten, one zero, minutes. Landing craft are
clearing the area at this time. Make your approach from west to
east, that is west to east. Report when you are attacking.
Acknowledge please, over.”

Duane looked
and found the pier, and then the freighter. It was indeed aground,
keeled over on its side, with water lapping across the main deck.
It looked deserted, but since they were using valuable bombs on it,
there had to be Japanese causing trouble there. “Target
acknowledged, Scarlet One. Beached freighter by itself west of long
pier on the lagoon side.”

He noticed now
that the waves of landing craft, like legions of disciplined water
bugs, were giving the ship a wide berth. “We will attack after
flight of six VB in about ten minutes.” Duane listened for a return
acknowledgment from the controller, but he had already started
talking to a unit called Ginger Baby, asking it to scout the
southern beach and look for friendly troops. Duane looked around
for the bombers, certain they would be Dauntlesses. Six of the
Ironsides
dive bombers had been there earlier, but they had been called on to
targets on the island almost immediately and, their bombs expended,
had headed back for the roost.

“Scarlet One,
this is Sparrow Flight. We are commencing bombing run at this
time.”

“Roger, Sparrow
Leader. Hit ’em with gusto.”

Duane looked
again. The first of six dive bombers began its run on the
freighter. Duane signaled his seven fighters and they circled
around to the west, to be in position to attack when the bombers
were through. Presently, they arrived off the western end of Betio,
over the transports, and watched the first of six bombs explode
near the freighter. The second went off, then a third. They were
all misses and threw huge columns of water harmlessly into the air.
Four and five detonated. They, too, were misses.

Duane peeled
off and began his run. He went to his throat mike.

“Scarlet One,
this is Banger Leader. We are beginning our attack at this
time.”

The sixth and
last bomb exploded near the freighter. It was no more effective
than the previous five.

“Roger, Banger
Leader. Can you observe results of Sparrow Flight’s attack?”

“Affirmative,
Scarlet. Sorry. They missed.”

“Very well,
Banger. Give ’em hell.”

“You got it,
Scarlet.” Duane watched the island grow in size and detail as he
gathered speed. “Banger Flight, this is Banger Leader. Keep speed
down to one eight zero, fellas, and let’s do a better job than the
buzzard boys.” His altitude fell sharply and Duane leveled off over
the reef. He was closer this time, closer to the death and
destruction that littered the island. There were more bodies in the
shallows by now—many more—but Duane kept his eyes on the target
looming in his gunsight. He squeezed the trigger.

His bullets cut
a swath through the water and fell on the wreck. Keeping his nose
down and deftly using his rudder, Duane hosed a stream of missiles
over all the portions of the ship above water. They sparkled on the
steel plating and ricocheted wildly about. His speed was low and he
kept the target under fire for a few strangely prolonged seconds,
then the target passed below him, and he pulled back on the stick
to go back up. Sweeping out over the lagoon, Duane passed over a
landing craft filled with wounded Marines. Corpsmen bent over the
prone figures. His low-flying Hellcat attracted no attention
whatsoever.

Looking back,
he watched the second division execute their firing runs. The
concentrations of fifty-caliber gunfire tore up small pieces of
decking and tossed the debris high into the air. A tiny fire sprang
up near the bow, but the target was far from being destroyed.

He began
climbing to their orbiting station and called the controller again.
“Scarlet, this is Banger Leader, over.”

“Go ahead,
Banger Leader.”

“We have
completed our runs. I didn’t see anybody aboard that tub. You want
us to go around again?” The controller didn’t answer at once, and
the scattered Hellcats began to pull back into their cruising
formation.

“That’s a
negative on your last, Banger Flight.” said the controller finally.
“We’re going to let the big boys handle this one.”

Somewhat
rankled at the implication that they couldn’t handle the job, Duane
checked his fuel and figured they could spend maybe ten more
minutes over the target. Since the “big boys”—whoever they
were—thought they could do a better job, maybe the ten minutes
could be spent more profitably heading back to the ship. He had a
berth in the poker game waiting for him, anyway.

“Scarlet One,
this is Banger Leader, over.”

“Go ahead,
Banger.”

“We’re getting
kind of low on go juice. Request permission to return to base.”
Scarlet One was slow to answer again, and the eight Hellcats made a
great circuit of the lagoon. Duane was about to ask again when he
got his reply.

“Banger Leader,
this is Scarlet One. Permission granted on your last, and happy
landings.”

“We’ll try,
Scarlet. Banger Leader out.”

“Y’all come
back now, y’hear?”

Duane decided
not to answer that one, and on their last pass over the little
lagoon, he was able to see who the “big boys” were. The
battleships—two of them—were firing over the island and demolishing
the wreck. The big guns blasted out (although he couldn’t hear them
over the roar of his engine), rippling the sea around their own
hulls in great concentric circles. Seconds later came the salvo—six
or eight shells at a time—a forest of splashes that was first over,
then directly on target. For a few seconds the freighter was
totally obscured by the explosions. Then the explosions stopped
abruptly. When the last geyser had subsided, the freighter was
gone.