Wingmen (9781310207280) (9 page)

When he was
alone like this, Jack rarely thought about his job. To him, flying
was the best way to escape the harassments of being commanding
officer. Up here, they couldn’t touch him. He thought about the
coming weekend party at Mrs. Hawkins’ place and decided he didn’t
really want to go but that it would be a ghastly social insult to
refuse. Mrs. Hawkins was the widow of a former shipmate killed at
Guadalcanal. He had been a search pilot on the cruiser
Vincennes,
the loss of
which had gone unmentioned in the newspapers and radio programs. He
wondered if Mrs. Hawkins was fully aware of the circumstances of
her husband’s death. She certainly never mentioned him anymore.

Jack turned
right, paralleling the coast, which brought him to the vicinity of
a training area his squadron often used. There were no other
aircraft visible, no chatter from the radio. He felt completely
alone—a good and rare feeling. He began to think about the
Japanese, the war, himself. They were all tied together somehow,
and that was important, if only for the reason that he had never
thought about himself before the war came along.

He knew, almost
from instinct, that he didn’t personally hate the Japanese. A sort
of professional hatred was a part of the job of fighting, but that
didn’t mitigate the respect he felt for their pilots. Without
exception, they were professional and devoted and fought with a
tenacity of purpose that he hoped his own pilots would display. He
remembered the two Vals he had killed at Santa Cruz. One had flamed
immediately, but the pilot had held his course toward the
Hornet
and
the rear seat gunner had made no move to parachute. The other Val,
on the wing of the first, flew on as though nothing had happened,
holding its place in the formation despite the other plane’s being
slashed from the sky. That one had finally exploded into small
pieces after a short burst. As Jack and Duane Higgins had circled
outside the range of the flak while the Vals attacked
Hornet,
a damaged,
smoking Zero had tried an attack from above and had been destroyed
by Higgins. Jack would never forget those hours of combat.

He reached the
limit of the practice area and turned inland. To the north the
afternoon thunderstorms were gathering; it was time to head back.
He checked his fuel and instruments and found nothing amiss.

His thoughts on
the Japanese pilots forced him to think about his own pilots.
Somehow he always felt lonely when he was among them. They were
thin-skinned, loud-mouthed, shallow individuals. More and more he
felt out of place in their company. He wondered if the training
program as it existed picked individuals who were thin-skinned,
loud-mouthed, and shallow, or if they became that way after they
became Naval Aviators. The question was moot. They were all he had
to work with and there was little chance to change them.

When he reached
the airfield, Jack requested permission to land and was told to
wait for a flight of Hellcats to take off. He circled to the north
and watched four of his fighters take to the air; when they
switched to their operating frequencies he recognized the voices of
Duane Higgins and Ensign Hodges, Lt. (j.g.) Fitzsimmons and Ensign
Trusteau. Higgins was calling himself “Banger Leader.”

“Banger
Leader,” said Jack, “this is Banger Leader Leader.”

“Skipper,” said
Higgins, “that you?”

“Roger, Banger
Leader.”

“Didn’t know
you were up here, Skipper.”

“Take care of
my boys, now, you hear?”

“Sure thing,
Banger Leader Leader. See you on the ground.”

Jack turned
into his final approach and lowered his landing gear. The four
Hellcats joined into a finger-four formation and disappeared into
the clouds.
Why did
I say that?
he thought.
Did I really mean it?
He brought his
Hellcat down to the ground—now it was back to fitness reports,
missing pilots, rape cases, and CAG.

Fred heard the
skipper’s voice talking with the Exec and a strange, wonderful,
surging feeling washed over him. He wished the skipper would stay
up there with them and maybe come out with them to the firing
range. Fred could show him how well he flew, what a good shot he
was. He felt that if the skipper asked him to take on the whole
Japanese air fleet, he would do it single-handedly and without
hesitation. He would do anything for Jack Hardigan. But before he
forced his mind back to the serious business at hand, Fred wondered
if the skipper felt anything at all for him. He couldn’t answer the
question, and a sad, lonely feeling clung to him all afternoon.

“I’m glad you could
make it this time,” Jack Hardigan said. He poured Scotch into two
old-fashioned glasses, added soda and ice, and handed one to Duane
Higgins.

“Thought it
might be a nice change of pace,” Duane said and accepted the drink.
He looked across the room at his date, a bosomy, bleached blonde,
about thirty years old, who was inching her way closer and closer
to the man next to her on the couch. She was the relatively
well-off, widowed owner of a sugar cane farm, and Duane had asked
her because he thought she would display some degree of class. Now
it appeared she couldn’t keep her hands off the other pilots. What
was especially galling, though, was that she was getting very
friendly with Lieutenant Brogan.

Jack turned
around and leaned back on the padded bar. The two men surveyed the
room. It was abnormally large, with a giant living-rock wall down
the long side. A cluster of plush sofas and chairs, accented with
potted trees and floor lamps, stood near glass doors leading to a
veranda with a magnificent view of a tropical valley. Opposite the
bar, near the rock wall, was a dark, polished grand piano with a
golden candelabra above the keyboard. One of the guests, a bomber
pilot from the same air group, sat at the piano with his date,
tinkling out nice melodies.

“Nice bunch of
people you picked,” said Jack.

“I tried to be
selective,” Duane said. “I knew you figured on a high-class
affair.”

“Mrs. Hawkins
likes pilots. She doesn’t really care how classy they are.” Jack
was a little irritated at Duane for choosing three of the other six
couples from outside the squadron; he liked to meet his pilots on a
social basis occasionally, and this was a perfect chance for some
intermingling. But Duane had picked his own friends, including the
commanding officer of a bombing squadron who had flown fighters
first but had transferred because he thought he could do a better
job than the current crop of dive bomber pilots. Jack thought him
an annoying blowhard.

“Excuse me,
Skipper,” said Higgins, and he headed for the sofa where his date
was linking arms with Lieutenant Brogan. Jack thought it humorous
that Duane could trust neither of them. He watched the Exec flop
into the couch beside the girl, pull her head over to him, and
plant a kiss on her lips. Brogan lost interest at once and began
fondling the knee of another woman in the chair next to the
couch.

“You find them
amusing, too.” Eleanor Hawkins glided up from behind Jack and
slipped her arm around his waist. She was an attractive woman of
about thirty-five, wearing a frilly, pale yellow dress with
transparent sleeves and knee-length skirt. Jack put down his drink
and placed his arm around her shoulders.

“They’re like
little kids sometimes,” he said, “fighting over the toys.”

“And you’re the
responsible father trying to keep peace in the family.”

“They don’t
call me the old man for nothing.” Jack took his arm away and looked
at the wall above the bar. A look of concern came over Eleanor’s
face and she leaned on the bar, close to him.

“What’s the
matter, Jack? Aren’t you having a good time?”

“Sure,” he said
automatically, but his voice showed a decided lack of
enthusiasm.

“Come on,” she
said, “I’ve seen happier faces at a funeral.”

Jack thought
for a moment. “I was thinking about the war.”

“The war
touches everybody at one time or another.”

“I was thinking
that we’ve been going at them for a year and a half and there’s no
end in sight. I have the funny feeling things are just starting to
get interesting.”

“That’s a
strange way of putting it.”

“I guess I’m a
strange man.”

“I’ll say. I
put on the sexiest dress I could find and you haven’t made a pass
all evening.”

Jack looked at
Eleanor closely, a little surprised. He had had no idea she
expected him to make a pass. “I didn’t know we were playing
football,” he said.

She smiled. “I
love all kinds of sports,” she said. She stirred her drink with a
swizzle stick, then suddenly dropped the little glass rod on the
bar. “Come on,” she said. “We’re ignoring our guests.” She tugged
at his arm and he followed, vaguely aware of her using the word
“our.” They crossed the room and sank into a love seat. The skipper
of the bombing squadron was relating his story of how he had
decided to become a dive bomber pilot.

“I’m telling
you I was there,” he was saying. “They couldn’t find anything else
to go after so they went down on this Jap can. Fourteen flying
jarheads. I had a division, and we were flying cover at twenty
thousand. They had fourteen shots at that can, and then we went
down to strafe and she wasn’t even scratched. Fourteen misses. Just
like that. Then we get back to Henderson and these clowns were
claiming four hits and a bunch of near-misses and saying they had
sunk a light cruiser. Made me sick. I said to myself, I can do a
damn sight better than that, and the next day I took one of those
orange crates up the Slot, and I swear to God I got one of those
transports on my first run. That was last November. Jack was
there.”

Everyone turned
to look at Jack for confirmation. Jack shrugged. He had been in
Norfolk, Virginia at the time, but felt no need to refute the man’s
story.

“Anyway, I been
teaching these buzzards how to fly ever since.” The man leaned
forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “And I’ll tell you
something else. When I get through with them, they’re going to do
as well as the Japs did at Santa Cruz. Four of the bastards,” he
held up four fingers, “four of them Val babies got through and two
made hits. And those Kates. Three of them got through and two made
hits. I tell you, if we could guarantee that kind of hit
percentage, this war would be over in six months.”

“If the
Japanese are that good,” said one of the women, “why didn’t they
win the war in six months?”

“Is it true,”
asked another, “that they lock their pilots in their airplanes so
they can’t get out when they’re sent on a mission?”

“I heard that
if they miss when they try to drop bombs on one of our ships,
they’re supposed to crash into it and sink it.”

“What was that
Marine’s name who crashed that Jap battleship at Midway?”

“Henderson?”

“Fleming, and
it was only a cruiser.”

“Whatever it
was, you sure wouldn’t catch me pulling a Jap stunt like that.”

Jack smoked and
listened to the pilots and their dates discuss the war and the
enemy and the Navy. Frequently, he disagreed but he never pressed
the point. Shallow, pushy individuals, he thought, saying things
just to hear themselves talk. And these are the men burdened with
the weightiest responsibilities. Eleanor Hawkins, holding his hand,
closed her eyes and let her head rest on his shoulder. The evening
drifted to an uncertain close.

“Well,” said
Duane, stretching expansively and looking at his watch, “I guess I
should be getting you back.” He stood and pulled his date up from
the sofa.

“Guess that
means us, too.” Lieutenant Schuster gently dislodged the head of
the woman dozing on his shoulder and they stood to go. Eleanor sat
up and let loose of Jack’s hand.

“Brogan?” asked
Duane. “You coming?”

“Sure,” said
Brogan. “ Everybody got a ride?” All the couples were standing,
trying to work out without words who was to drive back with whom;
one of the two cars they had used to get out here could not be left
behind for the skipper to drive back later.

“That’s all
right,” said Eleanor. “I’ll drive Jack to the base a little later.”
She smiled up at him.

“That settles
it.” Higgins looked at Jack with a knowing smile and winked. “We
had a nice time, Eleanor.”

“We enjoyed
having you.”

There’s that “we” again
,
thought Jack. Eleanor walked the guests to the front door and Jack
lowered himself back into the love seat, not knowing whether he
wanted to stay there with Eleanor or head back to the BOQ and his
bothersome pilots. But the matter had evidently been decided
without his consultation, for better or for worse. He lit a
cigarette and tried to get comfortable. He felt sleepy.