Wingmen (9781310207280) (7 page)

Fred Trusteau had
learned by the age of ten, and by necessity, that intelligence can
compensate for a lack of brute strength and a bully mentality, both
of which uncannily occurred in all those people who were bigger
than he. His own unstated Law of the Jungle told him it was best to
simply avoid these unpleasant people as much as possible, to become
instead more intelligent, and if possible to reveal his superior
mentality only when it wouldn’t incite the bullies to retaliation.
Usually, though, Fred would not reveal it in front of those to whom
it mattered the most—his teachers.

He had had this
problem quite recently. The teacher was an instructor in Primary
Flight Training, in which Fred received eighty hours of flight time
in that classic craft known lovingly as the Ryan Yellow Peril. He
had wanted almost desperately to be closer to the man, but the
teacher had other students as well and hardly noticed Fred. When he
was off duty, he drove home to a wife and three kids, leaving Fred
in a barracks full of noisy flight students, many of them bullies,
who spent their spare time telling dirty, untrue stories and gaping
at poorly composed pictures of girls with cleavage showing. Fred
had survived that lonely period with flying colors by being smarter
than almost all the other students. That, at least, was
gratifying.

Fred had picked
up on bridge in January of 1942, when most of the war news—after
you scraped aside the stories about all-American heroes fighting
against overwhelming odds and taking half the enemy fleet down with
them—was bad. He had just entered the world of flying at the level
known as Flight Preparatory Training, a college-campus affair with
classes in physics, aerodynamics, air navigation, and Naval
Orientation at San Francisco State College. (“The aircraft carrier
is a supporting vessel designed to provide assistance to the
capital ships of the fleet in the areas of scouting and
reconnaissance and possibly protection from enemy submarines,” said
the Naval Orientation instructor, a doddering, retired captain who
would have failed Fred had Fred spoken what was on his mind. Always
full of discretion, he put it instead into the required term paper
on sea power: “The Japanese failed at Pearl Harbor because the
planes which did the scouting were unable to force the American
battleships into the open sea, where the resulting engagement may
have been disastrous to them.”)

Bridge gave the
intelligent player limitless opportunities to triumph over the big
guys; only, alas, the big guys never played the game. The hottest
thing for the other fliers in spare-time activities, aside from
female conquest, was acey-deucy, a cup-pounding, dice-flying,
pure-chance derivation of backgammon which Fred learned in ten
minutes but never seemed to win. He searched around wherever he
went for other bridge players. They were few and far between, so he
was looking forward to the game with the skipper and Levi and
Bagley with more than a little anticipation. He even showered and
shaved before going.

Fred showed up
early at the skipper’s private room and tried to be at ease with
his commanding officer while the older man put on his shirt and
combed his hair. Fred glanced around at the slightly cluttered
space, mildly embarrassed about catching the Skipper in what
amounted to a condition of undress. Jack appeared not to
notice.

“You finish up
at Pensacola?” asked Jack from the door of the small bathroom,
where he was combing his hair.

“No, sir,
Corpus Christi.” Fred was looking at a heavy volume on a small
coffee table. The book was entitled “VF-20 War Diary.” He wondered
if it would be too nosy to open it and see what was inside.

“Texas?”

“Yes, sir, on
the Gulf coast. I flew through Pensacola once, though, on my way to
carquals in Lake Michigan.”

“Lake
Michigan?” Jack was half-amused that a revolution in
flight-training procedures had taken place since he went through
the program. This young man was a result of that upheaval.

“There was
never anything to do there,” said Fred, overcoming his hesitation
and hefting the big volume into his lap. He opened the book.

“Where?” asked
Jack, turning his back to Fred as he undid his trousers and tucked
in his shirttails.

“Corpus
Christi. The town’s five miles from the air station and all it’s
got is a filling station and a hardware store.”

Jack laughed.
“Sounds like Pensacola in 1935.” He came into the room looking his
usual fresh and dapper self. “Find that interesting?” he asked,
indicating the War Diary on Fred’s lap. He reached behind the open
bathroom door and pulled out a card table.

“Yes,” said
Fred, “yes, sir, I sure do.”

The first entry
read: “
2 March
1943
: This unit activated as part of Air Group Twenty this
date during ceremonies at North Island Naval Air Station, NavBase,
San Diego, California. Lieutenant Commander Arthur E. Blasshill
commanding.”

Meanwhile Jack
had sprung the legs of the table open and set it upright in the
middle of the room.

“This is a new
squadron,” said Fred.

“Almost new,”
said Jack. He slid the table over to the edge of the bed and
reached for a chair from in front of a small desk. “But it’s old
enough to have its share of organizational problems.” The skipper
eased himself down into the chair.

“What kinds of
problems?” asked Fred; then he was sorry he had. He was intruding
on the skipper’s private domain.

Jack laughed.
“We don’t have anybody to write the War Diary.” He began snapping
and ruffling a deck of cards. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get our
signals down.”

Fred put the
War Diary on the coffee table and sat on the bed, swinging his legs
around and under the card table. The table was low but not
especially uncomfortable. And there was something exciting about
sitting where the skipper slept.

Jack dealt out
a sample hand, and they began practicing their bidding
sequences.

Bagley and Levi
arrived ten minutes late, each carrying a chair. Bagley brought a
bottle of Scotch, and Levi had a radio crystal set in a wooden
case. It reminded Fred of the one his adopted father would listen
to, back when FDR first became president. Levi set it up on the
dresser and tuned in a Hawaiian station. The lilting, dreamy music
filled the room. They dealt the first hand.

“Well, Trusty,”
said Bagley, “what’s it going to be this hand?”

“Trusty?” asked
Jack.

“Ol’
Seventeen-minute Trusteau,” said Levi.

“Seventeen
minute?” asked the skipper.

“Hey,” said
Fred, slightly embarrassed, “we came here to play cards, okay?”

“Skipper,” said
Bagley, “did you know Trusty here can tie a knot in a cherry stem
without using his fingers?”

The skipper’s
eyes glanced once around the table, resting for a split second on
Fred’s face. In that brief moment Jack caught and understood
hesitation, defensiveness. “No,” he said. “I didn’t, and I don’t
really care. At the moment I’m only interested in what he can do
with a bridge hand.” His eyes jumped back to Fred and he saw
relief.
Interesting
, he thought.

Fred and Jack
won the first rubber handily, but no one made mention of a change
in partners. The second rubber was started with the same teams, but
not before the skipper left the table and went into the bathroom,
closing the door behind him. The three pilots began sorting their
hands.

“He was at
Midway, you know,” said Levi, a little smugly.

“The skipper?”
asked Fred.

“And the
’Canal. They say he’s got three or four Jap planes to his
credit.”

“I never knew
that,” said Fred.

“The skipper
doesn’t talk about his victories much,” said Bagley.

The bathroom
door opened and Jack returned, carrying two small shot glasses and
a pair of water glasses, which he distributed around the table.
Bagley poured from the bottle of Scotch, and they began the second
rubber. It proceeded like the first, while the radio quietly gave
out soothing music, and the coolness of the night came in through
the open window. But Fred was playing with a new partner: The
Skipper seemed a different person now, a man with a history of
dangerous and laudatory acts to his credit. Fred felt himself
privileged to be playing cards with a man who had been at Midway, a
man who was obviously better than he.

At 11:30, still
in the same teams, they finished the third rubber and decided to
call it quits for the evening. Fred glowed from the Skipper’s
company as much as from the Scotch. Bagley and Levi took their
chairs and the radio and departed, but Fred hung back for a moment.
When they were alone, Fred asked again about the War Diary. He
wasn’t that great a writer; he felt like a school kid trying to
impress a glamorous teacher.

“What about the
War Diary?” asked Jack.

“You said you
didn’t have anyone to write it.”

“The guy under
house arrest was handling it before now.”

“I wouldn’t
mind doing it. I mean if you don’t have someone else picked…”

Jack walked
over to the coffee table and came back with the Diary. He handed it
to Fred and said, “Here. Look it over tonight and see me in the
morning when you get a chance.”

“Sure,” said
Fred. “Well, sir, see you in the morning.” He didn’t really want to
leave. He enjoyed being in the Skipper’s company.

“That’s
classified material. Don’t let just anyone see it.”

“Yes, sir,”
said Fred. He stepped through the open door.

“Night,
Trusty,” said the skipper, and he started to close the door.

“Please,” said
Fred, “I prefer Fred.”

“Seventeen-minute Fred,” said the skipper, and he laughed and
closed the door. Fred sighed with pleasure, feeling the bulk of the
War Diary in his arms. But there was a confused sort of sadness,
too. He headed for his room.

When he was
alone, Jack carried the empty glasses into the bathroom and left
them on the sink. He went back into the room and collapsed the card
table. Then he realized that he’d really had a very nice time this
evening. He was a much too private person, he decided. He didn’t
open up to people and enjoy life often enough. But still, there was
something different about tonight.

Stowing the
card table behind the door, Jack went over and turned down the bed.
He began to undress.

It was the new
kid. Only he couldn’t call him a kid. Trusteau had an awareness, a
maturity that belied his twenty-one years. He carried a surface
polish that had already earned him nicknames and complete
acceptance in the squadron—an accomplishment few could claim. But
underneath, he was more complex, Jack decided, and he didn’t reveal
that complexity to everybody.

Jack folded his
trousers and hung them on a hanger in the small closet. He draped
his shirt over the back of a chair and smoothed a rag over the
shine on his shoes; they looked good enough for another day’s wear
without repolishing.

At one time or
another, Jack had, of course, passed judgment on every pilot in his
squadron. Many of his decisions had been merely to wait and see
until combat could prove the worth and abilities of each. It was
something he had to do regardless of his personal feelings toward
any of the men. Now, brushing his teeth, Jack decided that he was
comfortable with Fred Trusteau, and that the squadron would benefit
from having him as a member. That was as far as it would go. All
his instincts told him that he couldn’t come to form anything more
than a professional attachment for any of his pilots.

Turning the
light off in the bathroom, Jack pulled a briefcase from under the
bed and removed a clothbound training manual entitled, “Flight
Manual: Flying the Chance Vought Corsair.” He propped himself up in
bed to read about a new carrier-borne fighter that supposedly
outfought anything in the air but landed like a pogo stick. It was
after one o’clock when he turned out the lights and went quickly to
sleep.