‘‘You’re more than just ‘of’ CAMCO, aren’t you?’’ Canidy asked, shaking the offered hand. ‘‘Vice president, right?’’
‘‘Yeah, and at the moment in charge of making a studied guess about why that goddamned wheel won’t go up,’’ Aldwood said modestly, gesturing at the jacked-up airplane.
‘‘Ed Bitter,’’ Bitter said, and he and Aldwood shook hands.
‘‘How much time do you have in one of these?’’ Aldwood asked almost idly.
‘‘I read the dash-one real carefully,’’ Canidy said wryly.
‘‘I figured as much,’’ Aldwood said. He looked at Bitter.
‘‘I’ve never seen one before, sir,’’ Ed Bitter said.
‘‘Well, then, you’re both about eight hours behind me,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘And more than a little ahead of me. You’re a hell of a lot younger, and Dolan approves of you.’’
‘‘And he doesn’t approve of you?’’ Canidy replied.
‘‘Not after I told him there’s no way I was going to let him fly.’’
‘‘Why not?’’ Canidy asked. ‘‘I understand he’s got a hell of a lot of time.’’
‘‘Yeah, and some hard hours on his heart, too,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘Why did you think they took him off flight status? I’m surprised the Navy didn’t pension him off years ago.’’
‘‘I suppose,’’ Canidy said, ‘‘before we start test-flying these things, somebody’s going to have to check us out in them.’’
‘‘I’ll show you around the cockpit,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘And since you’ve already read the dash-one, that’s it, I’m afraid. There’s no ground school, unless Claire . . . Chennault . . . is starting one at Toungoo.’’
‘‘And what if I bend the bird?’’ Canidy asked.
‘‘Please don’t,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘We’ve already wrecked two, and all we’ve got and are going to get is an even hundred. ’’
‘‘Are they all here?’’
‘‘Sixty-two. God only knows when we’ll get the rest. We’ve been putting them together at the rate of one every day and a half. We hope to get that up to two a day, maybe three,’’ Aldwood said. He climbed onto the wing root and motioned Canidy and Bitter up on the other side.
Aldwood gave them a detailed tour of the aircraft’s controls and told them what he knew of its flight peculiarities. He didn’t rush through it, but he was finished thirty-five minutes later.
‘‘You want to wait until you’ve been off the ship another night?’’ he asked, finally. ‘‘Or—?’’
‘‘I’m not going to be any better tomorrow,’’ Canidy said.
Ten minutes later, wearing an Army Air Corps leather helmet and goggles, and a Switlick parachute marked PROPERTY USN, Dick Canidy looked out both sides of the cockpit, called ‘‘Clear!’’ and put his hand on the starter switch. It took him a long time to get the engine to even cough, and even when he had it running, it ran roughly and there was a peculiar oily smell he hadn’t smelled before. There was also, barely visible in the propeller blast, a faint grayish smoke coming from the engine, obviously not the blue smoke from a too-rich mixture or the nearly black smoke from an oil leak.
It disappeared shortly after the needles moved off their pegs and started to creep up to the strips of green tape indicating the safe operating zones for pressures and temperatures. He then realized what caused the smoke: preserving oil and greases being burned off what was almost a brand-new engine.
Canidy looked at Aldwood, gestured toward the instrument panel, and made an OK sign. Aldwood nodded and gave him a thumbs-up signal.
Canidy put the microphone to his lips. ‘‘Mingaladon Tower. CAMCO sixteen by the CAMCO hangars. Taxi and takeoff.’’
The control-tower operator came back immediately. A crisp British voice gave him the time, the barometer, the altitude, the winds, and cleared him to the active runway as number one to take off. Canidy released the brake and advanced the throttle. Too much. He had more than a thousand horsepower under his hand. The last time he had flown, he had less power, and in a much heavier aircraft. And the last time he had flown, he thought, had been more than three months ago.
Taxiing the P40-B was difficult. The seat was in a full-down position, putting him low in the cockpit. And the P40-B’s nose was high, so it was difficult to see out. Because he had to taxi by looking to either side of the taxiway, he immediately saw that controlling the plane on the ground by use of the rudder was a skill he would have to acquire by a lot of practice.
He reached the threshold of the runway and stopped. He ran the engine up, checked the dynamos, moved the stick and the rudder pedals through their movement arcs, and then pulled the goggles down over his eyes. He picked up the microphone.
‘‘Mingaladon Tower, CAMCO sixteen rolling,’’ he said, and then advanced the throttle and turned forward, and moved the fuel-mixture lever to the full-rich indent. The plane began to move. He felt himself pressed back against his parachute. The P40-B lifted off its tailwheel without any action on Canidy’s part. The slipstream was screaming past his ears, and he remembered only then that he hadn’t slid the canopy forward to close it. To hell with it.
Very carefully, he ruddered the ship to the center of the runway, and waited for the stick to come alive. And then, all of a sudden, it was. He inched back, and the wheels left the ground. Almost immediately, as he reached his hand out for the wheel-retraction control, his right wing dipped and the ship turned right. He corrected, wondering if that had been torque or gyroscopic procession, and knowing—as he felt the sweat of terror soak his khakis—that he would never forget to be ready for that again.
The wheels came up, more slowly than he would have expected, and unevenly, so that he had to correct for the difference in drag until they were both in their wells. He’d been holding the same elevator position, and the angle of climb increased. But the airspeed was holding.
He thought, pleased: The sonofabitch climbs like a goddamned rocket!
He took it to three thousand feet before pulling the throttle back to cruise. Then he leveled off, trimmed it up, and flew it for a couple of seconds with his hands and feet off the controls. After that he put it into a gentle climb.
He played, swinging the stick from side to side, using the rudder to make it crab through the air, getting the feel of it, until he had reached five thousand feet. He leveled off there and finally slid the canopy closed. The shrill whistle of the windstream was gone, and what filled the cockpit now was the dull roar of the thousand or so horses turning the three-blade prop in front of him.
A little later he pulled the stick back and climbed until he ran out of power and speed, and it stalled. It really shook when it stalled. He fell straight through it, pushed the stick forward, and waited for life to come back into it. The needle on the airspeed indicator pointed to 300, then 320, then 330, and then came to the red line at 340. He pulled back on the stick, and felt his stomach sink to his knees. There was a moment’s sensation of everything turning red, and then that passed, and he was flying level with the needle right on the red line.
‘‘Goddamn!’’ he said aloud, absolutely delighted. He took a quick look at the instrument panel to make sure all the needles were where they were supposed to be, and then put the ship first into a loop and when he came out of the loop a barrel roll, and when he still had all the airspeed he needed after that, into an Immelmann turn.
After what he thought was about ten minutes he reluctantly decided that he’d better get it back on the ground. He had been flying visually, keeping himself aware of the position of the gleaming, gold-covered Shwe Dagon Pagoda. If he could see that, he could easily find the field.
He flew to it, put it under his left wingtip at six thousand feet, and made a gentle circle descent to three thousand feet, for the first time looking at the ground with more than idle interest. He saw Rangoon sprawling to the south of the pagoda, and the river, stretching to the Gulf of Martaban. And he saw the thick, lush, deep gre
en jungle.
It was beautiful. Burma was beautiful. The day was beautiful. The P40-B was beautiful. It was, he was sure, one of the best days of his life.
He called the tower and got permission to land.
The sonofabitch came in a lot faster than he thought it would, even with the flaps and wheels down, and he was much farther down the runway than he intended before he felt the bounce and heard the chirp when the wheels touched. And it took longer than he thought it would to get the tailwheel on the ground, too. The sonofabitch wanted to stand on its nose. He would have to remember that, too.
Bitter trotted over to the plane when he taxied it in line beside the others.
‘‘What happened?’’ Bitter asked, concerned. ‘‘We were about to go looking for you.’’
‘‘I was only gone ten, fifteen minutes,’’ Canidy said.
‘‘You were gone an hour and fifteen minutes,’’ Bitter said.
‘‘That’s one hell of an airplane, Eddie,’’ Canidy said.
SIX
1
Atlanta, Georgia October 15, 1941
Brandon Chambers’s secretary put her head into his office in the Atlanta Courier-Journal building and held her hand up, palm outward, her signal that what she had to say was important.
‘‘Hold it a minute,’’ Brandon Chambers said to the managing editor of the Courier-Journal.
‘‘They just called from the lobby,’’ she said. ‘‘Ann’s on her way up.’’
Brandon Chambers made a hmmphing sound. ‘‘I wonder what my lovely, impulsive, willful little girl wants now?’’ he asked. Then he signaled that Ann was to be shown in when she arrived, and resumed his conversation.
Ann Chambers was wearing hose, high heels, a blue polka-dot dress, and a small hat, perched jauntily on her head. The hat had a veil, and beneath it her face was powdered and rouged and her lips were a brilliant scarlet streak.
Brandon Chambers didn’t pay all that much attention to what women wore, unless it was uncommonly revealing, but he noticed the way his daughter dressed. She almost never wore anything fancier than a pleated skirt, a loose sweater, and loafers.
‘‘To what do I owe this honor?’’ he asked pointedly, expecting the worst.
‘‘Can I get you something, Ann?’’ her father’s secretary said.
‘‘I’d love a cup of coffee, Mrs. Gregg,’’ Ann said, ‘‘if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.’’
‘‘Is something wrong?’’ he asked.
‘‘No. Nothing’s wrong with me. I was hoping I was going to dazzle you with the way I’m dressed. No comment?’’
‘‘It’s one hell of an improvement, I’ll happily tell you that.’’
‘‘There was a piece in College Woman that said that when women are going for a job interview, they should dress businesslike. I gave a lot of thought to what I’m wearing. I’m here seeking honest employment,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ll take whatever’s offered, no questions asked.’’
‘‘Is that so?’’ he said, smiling.
‘‘That’s so,’’ she said. ‘‘And now that you’re dazzled with my businesslike appearance, let’s get right on to that. I seek employment on the Memphis Daily Advocate. Anything but the women’s section.’’
‘‘How about managing editor?’’
‘‘I’m serious, Daddy,’’ she said.
‘‘I was afraid you would be,’’ he said. ‘‘What about school?’’
‘‘I am bored out of my mind in school,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m finished.’’
‘‘You have three years to go, counting this year.’’
‘‘I’ve already withdrawn,’’ she said.
‘‘You can’t do that without my permission,’’ he said.
"Can’ I?" Ann asked. ‘‘What do they do, drag me back in handcuffs?"
‘‘Does your mother know about this?’’ he asked.
‘‘I suppose she will by late this afternoon.’’
‘‘And she’s going to be both hurt and furious,’’ he said.
‘‘I’m not so sure,’’ Ann said, ‘‘and neither are you.’’
‘‘Was there something specific at Bryn Mawr? Or was it just general boredom?’’
She didn’t answer the question. She asked one of her own: ‘‘Aren’t you going to ask why the Advocate? Instead of here?’’
‘‘OK,’’ he said. ‘‘You’ve been asked.’’
‘‘Because you spend most of your time here, and that would be awkward for both of us.’’
‘‘That’s ‘why not here,’ ’’ he said, ‘‘not ‘why the Advocate .’ ’’
‘‘Because the Advocate is a medium-size paper where I already have some friends. I’ve worked there before.’’
‘‘Just a couple of months,’’ he said.
‘‘I worked there a month last summer,’’ she replied. ‘‘And two months after I graduated from St. Margaret’s.’’
‘‘That’s three months,’’ he said.
‘‘I’d hate it,’’ she said, rushing on, negotiating, ‘‘but I’ll even take the women’s section. Temporarily.’’
‘‘You’ve already considered, I suppose, that you’re throwing away the chance at a good education?’’
‘‘You don’t believe that nonsense any more than I do,’’ she said. ‘‘College is where women are sent to keep them off the streets until they find a husband.’’
‘‘I don’t believe that either,’’ he said. ‘‘And what if I say no, Annie? Then what?’’
‘‘Then I don’t know,’’ she said. ‘‘I do know I’m not going back to Bryn Mawr, or any college, period.’’
‘‘I’ll see what Orrin Fox has to say,’’ he said.
Ann walked to his desk and pushed down on the intercom TALK switch. ‘‘Mrs. Gregg, would you get Mr. Fox of the Advocate for Daddy, please?’’ she said.
When he didn’t cancel the call, Ann knew that she had gotten her way. Orrin Fox, the managing editor of the Advocate, would probably have given her a job even if her father didn’t own the newspaper.
And she was right. Orrin was even willing to start her out city-side, covering hospitals and funerals, which was more than she thought she’d get.
‘‘Thank you, Daddy,’’ she said, beaming, and kissed him.
‘‘Don’t look so smug,’’ he said, trying to sound stern— but she couldn’t help notice the approval and the pride in his voice. ‘‘There’s still your mother to consider. She hasn’t heard about you quitting college, much less about wanting to go live by yourself in Memphis. I wouldn’t think of entering that argument.’’
‘‘I can handle Mother,’’ Ann Chambers said, ‘‘and with a little bit of help from my generous daddy, I can find a nice little apartment. Until the paper pays me enough to support myself.’’
‘‘I’m serious, Annie,’’ he said. ‘‘She’s not going to like the idea of you living alone in an apartment in Memphis.’’
‘‘I won’t be living alone,’’ Ann said. ‘‘Sarah Child will share an apartment with me.’’
He didn’t know what to make of that.
‘‘And why,’’ he asked finally, ‘‘would Sarah Child want to drop out of college and go live with you in Memphis, Tennessee?’’
‘‘Because she’s pregnant,’’ Ann said. ‘‘And not married. ’’
‘‘Christ Jesus!’’ he boomed. ‘‘So the crazy little bitch got herself knocked up!’’
‘‘Dad!’’ Ann cried.
‘‘I didn’t think she had it in her.’’
‘‘Dad!’’ she screamed. ‘‘That’s cruel! And it’s crude! And it’s unfair! And Sarah is my friend. She needs help and she needs me.’’
‘‘So that’s it. She’s it,’’ he said, angry. ‘‘She’s why you’re quitting school.’’
‘‘I was ready to quit anyway,’’ Ann said. ‘‘But I have to help her. She might as well have no family. Her father’s too busy taking care of his bank to take care of her; and her moth
er’s crazy, you know. A certified loony.’’
‘‘And Sarah can’t take care of herself?’’ He paused to let that sink in. ‘‘Or else you may be aware—even as virginal as you are—that these things have now and again been handled successfully with the help of what has come to be called marriage.’’
‘‘Don’t be sarcastic, Daddy.’’ She was crying. So he softened and let up on her.
‘‘I’m sorry, sweetheart; but I’m upset too. I just don’t want the kid I love to throw away her education so she can mother a knocked-up little girl. And besides, what about the father?’’
‘‘He’s in China,’’ she said, holding in her sobs.
‘‘China? Who does little Sarah know in China?’’ Then he remembered. ‘‘Oh my God! My God, do you mean it happened at The Lodge when you were all down there in the spring?’’ Ann nodded. ‘‘Canidy!’’ he blared. ‘‘Christ!’’
‘‘Wrong,’’ Ann said. ‘‘It was Cousin Eddie.’’
‘‘Ed? You’re kidding.’’
‘‘It was Cousin Eddie, Dad, but if you tell anyone, I’ll never forgive you. I gave her my word, and you’re the only other person who knows.’’
Brandon Chambers shook his massive head and exhaled audibly. She was going to win this one, he knew. He might as well accept the inevitability of it. Ann was going to Memphis to take care of the little girl. So that was that.
‘‘And what has Ed got to say?’’
‘‘Eddie doesn’t know,’’ Ann said. ‘‘She won’t tell him, and she made me give my word that I wouldn’t tell him either.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘She said because she believes what happened is her fault, not his—’’
‘‘It takes two,’’ he flared up, but only halfheartedly.
‘‘But what I think it is is that she’s a Jew.’’
‘‘That wouldn’t make a difference to Ed,’’ her father said.
‘‘Wouldn’t it?’’ Ann asked her father. ‘‘Would you bet big money on that, Daddy? What would Aunt Helen think?’’
The Last Heroes Page 17