"What do you mean? Didn't you give them this story?" demanded the Admiral, holding up the paper.
"Yessir. I gave it to them all right. And it's all true, every word of what I told them. And everybody who flew in this morning saw the same thing I saw; I gave them the story, but I didn't write the headline on it."
"Hah!" snorted Commander Cue. "I'll be gormswoggled with a rubber swab handle. May I see that paper again, Admiral?"
The Admiral handed him the paper. Commander Cue skimmed through the story hastily, with Parker looking over his shoulder. Then he said, "I'm sorry, Admiral. We've all just been had by this character."
"How do you mean?" asked the Admiral.
"All he saw was the sun. Matter of fact that's all it says he saw in the story here," said Curly.
"Yessir. That's right, sir," said Willy, "just the little old sun is all I saw. And I've got a tape recording here of exactly what I told the newspapers. Do you want to hear it, sir?"
"Yes. Lemme listen to it," said the Admiral.
Willy played it through. The Admiral looked at Curly and Parker and raised his eyebrows.
Curly said, "He's right, sir. It was a deliberate booby trap, but actually every word he said was the gospel truth."
"I agree," said Parker.
"So... what do we do now about that mob that's waiting outside for a press conference?"
"I'll handle 'em, sir," said Willy.
"And just how do you propose to do it?" asked the Admiral, who was beginning to get a bit leery for giving Ensign William Wigglesworth carte blanche to handle anything.
"Just tell them the whole truth," said Willy. "There isn't a thing they can do about it except get mad and kill the story. They won't even print a retraction because it would make them look too silly if they did. They'll just drop the story from the rest of the editions today and in a day or so it will go away."
"I think he's exactly right," said Parker. "They can't do anything else."
"All right," said the Admiral. "Let the lions and tigers come in."
The conferees crowded into the cabin and waited respectfully for the Admiral to start things going.
"Gentlemen," said the Admiral, "I won't beat around the bush with you. There has been a mistake and this whole business is much ado about nothing."
"What do you mean, sir?" asked several newsmen who had their pencils poised.
"I'll let Ensign Wigglesworth do his own explaining," said the Admiral.
"Gentlemen," said Willy, "all I saw on the way in was the sun."
There was a stunned silence for a moment, and then a reporter said, "Then why in the hell did you give us this story about flying saucers?"
"I didn't say a word about flying saucers," said Willy. "And even in your own story in the paper, the only mention of flying saucers is in the headline. I said I saw a saucer-shaped object. That's all I said and I've got a tape recording of my phone call to your editor if you want to hear it."
"Holy cow," said the Union reporter, "lemme out of here. I gotta get on the phone and kill this thing right away." He hustled out headed for the nearest phone booth on the dock.
"Anybody wanna hear a playback?" asked Willy.
Nobody did.
Finally the AP man said, "Well, why the hell didn't you say you thought this thing was the sun?"
"Nobody asked me what I thought it was."
"You're a smart little bastard, aren't you?" asked the reporter.
"I think the same about you," replied Willy, "except you're not very smart."
"Gentlemen," said the Admiral, "I suggest that if you wish to continue this conference any further, you adjourn to the alley behind the warehouse on the dock."
As the reporters filed out, Commander Cue said to Willy, "Wait for me outside, Ensign Wigglesworth."
A few minutes later, Curly emerged from the cabin and said, "Mr. Wigglesworth, I believe I told you yesterday evening you had a permanent job as PRO for this command?"
"Yessir," said Willy.
"Well, that was a slight exaggeration," said Curly. "You're fired."
"Aye aye, sir," said Willy.
At the San Diego airport that afternoon, Willy and Parker were having a drink at the bar as Parker waited for his plane back to New York.
"That saucer deal was a lowdown trick," said Parker, "but I must admit you were pretty cute about it."
"It couldn't miss," said Willy; "it was like swiping gin from your grandmother's medicine chest."
"I've read in some of the history books," said Parker, "about how Admiral Halsey had a 'dirty trick' department on his staff. Now that I've seen how you Navy guys work, I feel sorry for those poor Jap admirals. I don't blame them a bit for tearing up the Geneva Convention."
Chapter Eleven
WIRED FOR SOUND
Soon after this, Curly shoved off for Annapolis on two weeks' leave. The Commander had been a star football player in his Academy days and was planning to visit his classmate, Jumping Joe Sifton, Navy's great All-American quarterback, who was currently on duty at the trade school as backfield coach. Joe and Curly had been shipmates in the Enterprise during the war, as fighter pilots in VF Squadron 6.
On the plane going east Curly scanned the football scores in the Sunday paper and shook his head sadly. William & Mary 47 - Navy 3; Army 55 - Notre Dame 0. The Army-Navy game was only a month away, and it seemed that a naval disaster was impending that would rival the blowing up of the Maine. Army was well on its way to its second undefeated season in a row and was the unanimous choice of all the experts for the mythical national championship title. Navy's only claim to fame was that they had showed up on time for every game.
"I don't think Army's that good or Navy that bad," said Curly, showing the paper to the Lieutenant sitting next to him.
"Maybe not," said the Lieutenant; "but on the basis of comparative scores, I'd say that Army figures to have a slight edge in the odds at Philadelphia next month."
"You an Academy man?" demanded Curly.
"No, sir. But I often root for Navy anyway," said the Lieutenant.
"Of course, comparative scores don't mean a thing in an Army-Navy game," observed Curly. "The student bodies at both Academies get so hopped up that the teams don't play according to form, and it's never a pushover no matter what the past records show."
"Uh-huh," observed the Lieutenant.
"My first class year," said Curly, "we were national champs and had Sifton at quarterback. You've heard of him, haven't you?"
"Jumpin' Joe? Sure. Everybody's heard of him. All-American three years in a row."
"That's right," said Curly. "And Army was just an also-ran that year. But they gave us a hell of a scare and we were lucky to nose them out 17 to 14."
"Uh-huh," said the Lieutenant. "But Army has won 25 in a row so far, and I can hardly remember when Navy won its last one."
"Well, all right, young fella. I'm telling you there's always a chance in an Army-Navy game. And don't you forget it."
"Uh-huh," said the Lieutenant.
"You don't sound very convinced," said Curly.
"I'm not... and I don't think you are either, for that matter."
"Yeah. I guess you're right about that," admitted Curly. "But, like I say, you never can tell in an Army-Navy game."
In the bar of the officers' club at Annapolis next evening Curly, Jumpin' Joe, and one of the civilian coaches were hoisting a few when who should come strolling in but old Hawsepipe Smith. Hawsepipe had been a fighter director in Combat Information Center on the Enterprise, and whenever three old Enterprise sailors get together, there is always a lot of serious reminiscing to be done.
Fighter pilots are not allowed to reminisce in the bar of the officers' club at the Naval Academy because it wakes up the retired admirals in the library at the other end of the building, and also because bystanders are apt to be jostled and get elbows poked in their eyes when the boys start gesturing to show how they accomplish their feats of derring-do.
So
Curly, Jumpin' Joe, Hawsepipe, and the line coach adjourned to Joe's room on the next deck and hauled the planes out of the hangar. Pretty soon the air was full of weaving arms the way it always is when aviators are lying about their exploits. All the old battles had to be re-fought and explained, presumably for the benefit of the line coach. But even if he had gradually evaporated nobody would have noticed.
For the next couple of hours Curly, Hawsepipe, and Jumpin' Joe dived and zoomed all over the place, dogfighting with Japs that outnumbered them 10 to 1. They had been a great fighting team on the Enterprise, a hotshot outfit of sharp fliers and good gunners backed up by fighter directors who knew their stuff. Whenever they got their sights on a Jap, he came down in flames. And the Enterprise fighter directors down in Combat Information Center had been experts at putting the finger on the Japs for the pilots.
Old Hawsepipe would sit down there with a big cigar in his face and call the plays for them just as a quarterback does. He could spot a Jap when he was just a suspicion of a tiny blip on a radarscope and coach the boys in the air into position for a kill. They had all learned to depend on Hawsepipe and do exactly as he told them.
"I remember the first Zero I ever knocked down," said Curly. "I came at him out of the sun," he explained with his elbows cocked up and his palms extended one behind the other. "He never knew what hit him. He was just sitting there, fat, dumb, and happy, when I let him have it with all six fifty-calibers. Blew up right in my face, he did... I thought for a while I was going in the drink with him."
"I remember a Betty I shot down," said Jumpin' Joe. "Made three passes at him and riddled him every time. I'll never forget the little Jap tail gunner looking up at me the last time I bored in. His plane was just a big ball of flames, but he wasn't scared - just disillusioned. He couldn't believe it. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes were as big as horse apples."
"You remember the day of the Turkey Shoot?" asked Jumpin' Joe. (This was one of the major turning points of the war, known to naval historians as the First Battle of the Philippine Sea, but to all aviators as the Mariana Turkey Shoot.)
"I'll never forget it," said Curly. "Our squadron commander was Dave McDonald, and he was always raising hell with us about radio discipline and making reports in proper official language. If you didn't follow the book he would chew you out like a Marine sergeant. When we ran into the Jap air groups that day all he could say was 'Gawd Almighty, look at all the Japs.' CIC kept yelling at him asking how many? Where? What kind? What altitude? and he just kept saying, 'Gawd Almighty! There are a million of them!' And then finally, when asked to report on the progress of the battle, he said, "They're falling like autumn leaves.' And that's the way it was, too. Wherever you looked, the air was full of Zekes and Zeros and Bettys. We knocked 'em down like clay pigeons, but more kept coming. Toward the last I was only shooting one gun at a time to save ammunition. By the time it was over, there was blood, guts, and feathers all over the Pacific Ocean."
"Yeah," said Hawsepipe, "that's the way it was, all right. We knocked down over 450 Japs that day. The best pilots they had, too. And how about the next day, when we found the Jap fleet late in the afternoon and, you guys had to come aboard after dark?"
"That was the goddamnest rat race of the whole war," observed Curly. "We all knew by the time we found the Japs that we couldn't get back till long after dark, and some of us were too low on gas to make it all the way back anyway. But nobody was turning back that day! After the attack nobody bothered about trying to rendezvous with bis own outfit - we all just headed east and joined up with anybody we could see. Squadrons and air groups were strung out in a long line, with everybody throttled way back to save gas. When the sun went down we still had 150 miles to go, and some of the boys were beginning to go in the drink. The air was full of Maydays and ditching reports from then on, with everybody giving a rough estimate of how far west of the fleet they were just before they went in.
"It got darker than all hell after sunset," continued Curly, "and nobody really knew where we were going. Nobody was trying to navigate. We all just headed east and followed each other, glad to be among friends. About a half hour after dark we spotted searchlights sweeping up in the sky beyond the horizon, after Admiral Mitscher gave the order to turn on the lights. Prettiest sight I ever saw. I thought of the Bible story about the Promised Land. I never could see why the headline writers made such a big thing out of turning on the lights, and old Pete Mitscher couldn't either. Only thing he could do."
"But after he got back, that's when the fun began," said Jumpin' Joe, taking over the narrative. "Hardly anybody had ever made a night landing before, and it wasn't long before half the decks were fouled up with crashes. They were waving 'em off from one ship and telling them to go to another, but some of the boys were so low on gas they weren't taking a wave-off. They'd land anyway, and pile one crash on top of another. Nobody cared a damn about airplanes that night. If you couldn't taxi out of the gear right away, they just made you get the hell out of the plane and shoved it overboard to make room for the next guy. Before long it was everybody for himself and some of the boys even tried to land on the battleships with their wheels up."
"CIC was a madhouse that night," observed Hawsepipe. "We had 130 planes in the water, but only 76 people were lost... We sank three Jap carriers in those two days and they never recovered from it."
Then Curly spread his hands out and cocked up his elbows and said, "Remember the day when I hid in the clouds until those three Bettys came stooging along, and then I popped out and clobbered all three of them? Boy, was I on the beam that day!"
"Yeah," said Hawsepipe, "and who was it that put you in that cloud in the first place, kept you circling in there for ten minutes, and then told you just exactly how and when to bust out of it? I'll bet you've forgotten who that was - but I was there, too, that day, my intrepid friend. Try to remember that when you tell the story hereafter."
"That's right; so you were, pal. You were the quarterback of the team," conceded Curly.
"Now that we've shot all the Zeros down again," said Hawsepipe, "how about giving us the lowdown on this game we've got coming up with Army? How do our chances look, Joe?"
"There's only one word for it," replied Joe, " - grim. We've got good material for a change, this year - lads who can run, block, kick, and pass. But we've got nobody to run the team. I spend five days a week sweating it out with these kids, trying to teach them what I know about being a quarterback. But you can teach a lad only so much; the rest of it just has to be born in him."
"But golly, Joe," objected Hawsepipe, "I should think that this two-platoon system you could practically run the team from the bench. Why do we need quarterbacks on the field when we've got the best quarterback Navy ever produced sitting on the bench?"
"Sure, you can do a lot from the bench. But the big chances to bust a game wide open come and go too fast to do it from there. The boys on the field have to spot the break when it comes up, and cash in on it the next play, otherwise a smart coach on the other bench will be plugging that opening at the same time that you are sending word in to hit it. We've lost three games so far this year that we would have won if we could have checked signals on one play and called a new one from the bench. And our opponents have made touchdowns on plays that we had all figured out on the bench before the ball was snapped. It's the same as if you pilot characters on the Enterprise had no way to talk to us from the air unless Combat Information Center sent another plane up. It's too slow."
"How about Army?" asked Hawsepipe. "Are they as good as the sportswriters claim?"
"I can answer that in three words," said Joe, "yes and no. I've scouted every game they've played this fall. They've got a powerhouse of a team with some mighty fine backs, but they've also got some glaring weaknesses."
"Of course," observed Curly, "Army doesn't play the schedule we do. Half of their games are against girls' schools. You don't learn much from watching them, do you?"
"You'd be sur
prised how much you can learn. I know all their plays now just as well as I know our own, and most of the time I can tell where the ball is going and who will carry it the minute they start walking out of the huddle, I've spotted about a dozen dead giveaways by which their backs betray when they are going to carry the ball, and by which the passers and kickers tip off what they are going to do."
"No doubt you pass this dope on to the midshipmen when you think of it?" asked Hawsepipe.
"You bet your life I do. But there's a lot of things you just learn to size up as they happen, and you can't pass that kind of stuff on to anybody," said Jumpin' Joe. "If we are lucky and get the breaks, we might make a ball game out of it in Philadelphia for one quarter. We've got some good lads on our club; man for man, they're almost as good as Army. But they are inexperienced; they blow up under pressure. If we only had a seasoned quarterback to keep them on the beam we might take the Kaydets. Boy, I wish I could run that team from the sideline, the way you guys in CIC used to run the air battles."
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