by James Salter
“Just the same, I bet they get twelve hundred,” Harlan was saying. “They always get a lot of time. Maybe they don’t brief so much.”
All that morning there were scrambles, four or five at least. “B” Flight was in luck. There were days when the phone never rang. Wickenden, the “A” Flight commander, had drawn up a chart to show how his flight had had four days of bad weather since they’d been there and Grace’s flight none; they were getting all the time, he complained.
“It’ll average out,” Isbell told him.
“It never does,” Wickenden said. He had Phipps who’d joined at the same time as Godchaux and they’d come from flying school together. Godchaux now had almost a hundred hours more.
“Why is that?” Isbell said.
“He’s in Grace’s flight. Grace is like Pine. You know that.”
“I don’t think so,” Isbell said.
At midday, silvery and slow, the courier floated down the final approach and then skimmed for a long time near the ground getting ready to touch. Nose pointed high, it taxied in. Phipps went to meet it. He stood off to one side and watched it swing around, the grass quivering behind and pebble shooting off the concrete. When the engines died he walked up and waited for the door to open. There was mail, spare parts, and one passenger, a second lieutenant wearing an overcoat. His baggage was handed down. It turned out he was joining the squadron. “This is the 44th, right?”
“Yeah, this is it. Well, you’re lucky.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Phipps said. “It’s just what they told me.”
The new man’s name was Cassada. He was Phipps’s height with hair a little fairer and combed back, Anglo style. Phipps helped him carry his bags while being careful not to be too responsive to questions. Cassada was looking around as they walked. Were these their planes, he wanted to know? Were pilots assigned a plane? Were their names painted on them? Phipps answered yes.
“I’ll take you over to meet Captain Isbell,” he said.
“Is he the squadron commander?”
“Who, Captain Isbell? No, he’s ops.”
“Oh,” Cassada said.
He was just out of flying school but he’d served as an enlisted man for two years before. He didn’t look that old.
In the mess they found both the major and Isbell. Phipps presented the new man.
“Cassada,” the major repeated as if remembering the name.
“Yes, sir.” There were unfamiliar faces all around.
“That’s a pretty famous name,” Dunning said. “You don’t happen to have anyone in your family who’s been in the service?”
“Just my uncle, sir.”
Dunning stopped chewing. “Your uncle? That’s not the general, by any chance?”
“No, sir. He was only a private.”
“You’re no relation to the general?”
“No, sir. That’s QUE, I think. My name is spelled CASS.”
“CASS.”
“Cassada.”
Dunning resumed eating. “Did you just get in?”
“He just got in on the courier,” Phipps said.
“I was talking to Lieutenant Cassada, here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you had your lunch?”
“No, sir.”
“Go ahead through the line and then come on back,” Dunning said.
While Cassada was eating, Dunning asked him a number of questions, where he’d gone to flying school, how much time he had, where he was from, but in fact he listened carefully to only one or two of the answers. He was telling Cassada what an outstanding squadron he had joined, picking his teeth as he spoke. He seemed unobservant. He relied on strong instinct, deciding right off if a man could cut it or not. In the case of Cassada who had not said a lot, perhaps a dozen words, Dunning was not much impressed. He liked second lieutenants who reminded him of himself when he was one. Roaring. Full of hell, like Baysinger who had a wide gap between his front teeth and one night in the club, just as drunk as Dunning, got into a wrestling match with him and broke his leg. Baysinger had long since completed his tour and was gone, as were the crutches that Dunning hobbled around on for two months afterwards.
Dunning had on a wool shirt, a green tie, and a tweed jacket. Shaking some tonic on his hair, he combed it down. A damp towel hung at the foot of the bed. He took it and cleaned his shoes. He looked like a farmer, a corn-fed farmer on a Saturday night. As a final touch he stuffed a khaki handkerchief in his breast pocket and a thick wallet, folded double, into the back pocket of his pants.
“Might turn out to be a real whoop-de-do,” he commented to Isbell.
There was a drab gasthaus on the long road of trees that led to town. Dunning had gotten to know the woman who ran it well enough to slap her familiarly on the behind and tell her to bring whatever it was, a prima schnitzel or some good, none of that cheap stuff, wine. He knew a little German. He could say something tasted like rat poison, which always brought a laugh.
A cheer went up when he and Isbell entered. Everybody was there or had better be, even the armament and communications officers. All four flight commanders, not sitting together but sown among the rest, Wickenden, Grace, Reeves, and Cunati, who had false front teeth, their history unknown. Isbell sat down beside Harlan who was debunking something, as usual, in this case the war which had been over for a decade. He didn’t know that much about it, he admitted, picking at the wet label on a bottle, but he knew one thing: we should never of got involved. It was never our business. His pale blue eyes watched what his fingers were doing. It didn’t do us a bit of good.
Grace had a different view: it was all part of a bigger fight.
“What bigger fight?”
“Against communism. The Germans were really helping us.”
“You mean they were on our side?”
“In a way.”
“That’s news to me.”
“A lot of things are,” Grace said.
“Oh, yeah?” Harlan turned his head. “What do you say, Captain?”
“I think it’s about even.”
“What do you mean, even?”
“Neither of you know what you’re talking about.”
“Aw, don’t try to flatter us.”
“Gee, that’s a big word for you,” Grace said.
It was Friday night, the night for drinking. It would go on for hours. Isbell sat, not really listening, his gaze moving over the crowd, casual but searching, he was not sure for what. True comrades perhaps. Even friends.
Reeves, he thought, looking at him, unknowable, really. Wickenden. He hesitated there. Wickenden’s round head, hair cut close, shaved like a Russian’s, the scalp gleaming through. He was talking about something, the new velocities, the tremendous shocking power. Even a gut shot would bring them down now—shatter their nervous system. He didn’t approve of that. His mouth tightened. Too much power, it took the sport out of it. You ought to have to hit them in a spot the size of a plum. Right in the brainpan. The heart. Or lose them. “Give the beast a chance.”
It was a cold night. Across the dim field Isbell could make out some kind of animal moving. Then he could see it, a hirsch that hadn’t presented a very good target, drifting through the black woods, its fine head and antlers. There was a splintering frost. The hirsch was stepping slim-legged through it, unsteadily but with a matchless grace, stopping every couple of yards while his stomach filled with blood. The sides of his body were wet with it, heaving gently, and something was behind him, trailing him in the dark. This way! Something was crashing through stiff branches. The hirsch, feeling for the one time ever a terrible dizziness, begins to move faster, in panic. The twigs are exploding. Over here! This way!
Who among them, then, Isbell wondered, someone nearly overlooked, silent and reflective, or another, arguing and intense? Godchaux—he was what it was all about. Grace. The best pilots. Across the room, wedged between men he did not know, was the new one. Fair hair, eyebrows almos
t joined in the middle. Never trust a man when they come together, they say. As good a rule as any, and the new man, taking it all in, just beginning to select a few idols, Isbell could have picked them out himself, the false glitter.
He emptied his glass and raised a finger for another. It was curious. There were times when he could see them in an entirely different way, for what they were, full of simple courage and youth. Godchaux had a smile that even death would not erase. Dumfries, that idiot, smooth-cheeked and smiling, he had something, too, decent and admirable. There were times when Isbell trusted them all. They were bound together, all of them, he and Dunning too in a great orbit, coming deceptively close to the rest of life and then swinging away. At the extremities were North Africa where they went for gunnery once or twice a year and at the other end the skies of England where great mock battles were sometimes fought. The rest was at home in the Rhineland, rumor, routine, occasional deployments, Munich now and then. They toured the Western world together, stopping at Rome to refuel. Socked in? Divert to Naples—watch the olive trees if you land to the west. Something was usually beginning before the last thing ended. Isbell’s true task was biblical. It was the task of Moses—he would take them to within sight of what was promised, but no further. To the friezes of heaven, which nobody knew were there.
Dunning was drinking coffee and talking to a couple of the crew chiefs. Godchaux and Phipps sat down nearby. It was a cloudy morning. The last flights were landing.
When the crew chiefs had gone, Dunning turned. He examined Godchaux for a moment.
“Mighty sporty today, aren’t we?”
“Sir?”
“Just what are they,” Dunning asked looking towards Godchaux’s feet, “the new Air Force regulation?”
“What’s that, sir?”
“I was under the impression we’d all pretty well agreed on a color.”
“Oh, you mean these.” It was a pair of red socks. “I guess I wasn’t paying much attention. I figured the flying suit covered them anyway. I guess I should change them.”
“I would suggest that you do, Lieutenant.”
Phipps, looking towards Godchaux, was making a darting motion with his eyes.
“Right now, do you mean?” Godchaux asked Dunning.
“Just as soon as possible.”
Godchaux saw it then, the thin band of green and black argyle.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Well?” Dunning said. Godchaux hadn’t moved.
“Sir, can I borrow your jeep?”
“No.”
Godchaux stood up.
“Sit down,” Dunning said, not looking at him.
“I’ll change them when I go back at noon,” Godchaux said. “There’s just one thing . . .”
“What’s that?”
“Do you want me to bring you back a pair, too?”
Phipps smothered a laugh. Dunning stared disapprovingly at him, as at someone who had asked a stupid question. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing, sir,” Phipps said, still believing he was part of the fun. Then he lost confidence and changed his expression. He looked embarrassed. He rubbed the tip of his nose nervously. The commander’s moods were unpredictable, the burly figure who had led fighter-bomber missions in Korea, rail cuts far to the north, coming back afterwards, spent and dark with sweat. Dunning didn’t talk about it, he didn’t have to. It was part of his aura.
Cassada came along then, alone, wearing a flight jacket that was too large for him. The sleeves nearly touched his knuckles. He saw Dunning gesture and sat down. How was he making out? Dunning wanted to know. Fine, Cassada said.
“Has Captain Isbell assigned you to anybody for your checkout yet?”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Grace.”
“Good. You’ll be in good hands. How about a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you drink coffee?”
“No, sir.”
“I never heard of a fighter pilot who wouldn’t drink coffee. What is it, part of your religion or something?”
“It’s the caffeine, Major. I seem to be sensitive to the caffeine.”
“What do you drink?”
“Well, tea sometimes, sir.”
“Tea?”
Ferguson drank coffee. In fact his need for it was pressing. He had landed a few minutes before and had flown with a hangover. The lines imprinted from the oxygen mask were still on his face.
“Feeling all right there?” Dunning asked.
Ferguson was holding the cup in both, almost trembling, hands.
“You look a little pale,” Dunning went on.
“No, sir, Major. I feel fine.”
“Town last night?”
“No, sir, it’s just a little sinus up here,” he touched the bridge of his nose, “that’s all.”
“Maybe you need some tea.”
“Sir?”
“Tea,” the major said.
Ferguson, large and somewhat aimless, was puzzled. Something he had missed. “I don’t think so,” he said glancing around. There was something going on.
When Dunning had gone, Ferguson said, “What was all that about?”
“Ask Cassada.”
“I just said I didn’t drink coffee. The caffeine,” Cassada said.
“He never met a fighter pilot who didn’t drink coffee,” Phipps said.
“I hope you like beer,” Godchaux said.
In the darkness Cassada woke, cold German night outside. It was just past five. The day he had been waiting for was at hand. He wondered what the weather was; it had been clear the night before, stars in a strange heaven. He lay quietly, unable to sleep, going over various possibilities, those he might soon have to face.
He went to breakfast and sat with others but said nothing. He was still not accepted. This day would begin to change that. He was impatient for it. Afterwards things would be different.
Grace met him in operations. Their airplanes had already been assigned. Cassada’s eyes several times went to the numbers written in grease pencil on the scheduling board. Outside, the planes themselves, heavy black cables plugged into them, stood on the ramp.
They went over the emergency procedures: fire warning light, electrical failure, flameout. There was a power unit just outside making a racket. In the next room the operations clerks were using the adding machine. Godchaux and some others were playing hearts. “Smoke the old bitch,” they were crying. “Smoke her out.”
“What if both hydraulic systems go out?” Cassada wanted to know.
“That’s bad,” Grace said.
“Can you move the controls at all?”
Grace shook his head. He had a broad, smooth face and close-cropped hair.
“Not even using the trim?”
“No,” Grace said.
Hearts was the game of choice. It showed your true character. Godchaux had the lead, the last trick lay faceup in front of him. Two hearts had fallen in it, the ace and nine. It was Harlan’s ace. Ferguson was chanting, “Smoke, smoke.”
“Shooting?” Harlan asked.
“Yeah, sure I am,” Godchaux said. He tapped his fingers on the back of his cards.
“Well, is there anything else you can do?” Cassada wanted to know. He had confidence in Grace. He was in no position not to have, but still. “Can you do anything?”
“That’s what you carry a small screwdriver for,” Grace said. “You have one, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You’d better get one before we go up.”
“You mean you can do something in the cockpit?”
“That’s right. You unscrew the clock.”
“The clock?”
“For a souvenir. Just put it in your pocket and bail out.”
Cassada was uncertain whether or not to smile.
“Now, if something happens up there while we’re flying along,” Grace said, “and you hear me tell you: ‘Forget the clock,’ you know what that means.�
�
Cassada nodded numbly. He heard a puff of laughter from the hearts game. His face was already red.
“It means get out right now,” Grace said. “Don’t wait. Go without it.”
They began to review the mission card after that. Cassada had made up his mind about Grace. He admired him.
“I forget what’s been played, it’s been so long,” Harlan was complaining. As it happened, he had the spade queen. He never passed it unless there was no choice. He was hard to beat. He nearly always passed diamonds or the ace or king of spades.
Outside the sun was up and the sky pale blue. After he had inspected his own ship, Grace walked over to Cassada’s and stood partly on the wing to supervise the start. Cassada hit the start switch. The rising whine began and then the full flow of sound, solid, deeper, as the engine swelled to life.
“That’s good!” Grace shouted.
Cassada, intent on the instruments, watched the various needles that had suddenly, ominous as serpents, raised their heads. He felt a tap on his shoulder.
“That’s good!” Grace cried close to his ear. “I’m going to mine now.”
With that, he jumped down and went quickly to his plane. As he was strapping himself in he looked over at Cassada whose head was turned in his direction, like a dog told to stay. It was a beautiful morning, sunlight, good visibility. Grace started his engine. He motioned for the power cables to be pulled and on the radio said, “Fortify Black Lead.”
“Black Two,” came the prompt reply.
“Go ahead, call the tower.”
Cassada tried, but there was no answer. He tried a second time and a third. Then, as if uncertain, he waited.
“You might try them on tower frequency,” Grace said. He could see Cassada, after a moment’s hesitation, bend down to see what channel he was on.
“Black, go Channel One,” Cassada finally said.