Close Combat

by W. E. B Griffin

  But then he realized that VMF-229 was no longer operating out of Henderson Field, and that he was at NAS Pensacola, where there were more than adequate supplies of flight suits and everything else. And after that, he recalled that VMF-229 was no longer his squadron…and that for all practical purposes it no longer existed.

  Colonel Porter already had the script for the aerial melodrama firmly set in his mind: First he and O’Fallon would fly off somewhere out of sight. And then they’d attack Corey Field (representing Henderson Field) in a strafing maneuver. Dunn and Pickering, on patrol, would defend Corey/Henderson.

  Since it would be impossible to actually shoot down Colonel Porter and Captain O’Fallon, they would next climb to 5,000 feet and get in a dogfight. (Pickering realized that he and Dunn would be allowed to win. How would it look to the student pilots if two heroic aces lost?)

  In order to make this bit of theater possible, the Wildcats had been equipped with “gun cameras.” These were 16mm motion picture cameras mounted in the wings. When the gun trigger was pulled, the camera operated. Colonel Porter’s intention was to have the gun camera film developed immediately so that it could be shown to everybody after lunch.

  Between the time they finished playing war and started lunch, Lieutenants Pickering and Dunn would be debriefed on the platform by an intelligence officer. Captain Mustache Carstairs would play that role.

  While they changed into the flight suits, the students were permitted to leave the bleachers and examine the Wildcats.

  But when it came time for him to examine it up close, Pickering was nearly as impressed with his Wildcat as any of them. As he went through the preflight and then climbed into the cockpit, he could find nothing at all wrong with it. The aircraft was perfect in every respect: There wasn’t a trace of dirt anywhere. The Plexiglas of the canopy and windscreen was clear and without cracks. Even the leather on the seat and headrest looked new. And, of course, everything worked the way it was designed to work; and there were no patched bullet holes on the skin of the wings or fuselage.

  After a time, the student pilots were ordered away from the aircraft. Then sailors in pressed and starched blue work uniforms appeared with fire extinguishers. Porter and Captain O’Fallon started their engines, warmed them up, and moved to the threshold of the active runway. One after the other they took off and disappeared from sight in the direction of Alabama.

  Ten minutes later, Bill Dunn looked over at Pickering and gave the wind-’em-up signal. Pickering followed him to the threshold of the active runway and stopped, to permit Dunn to take off first.

  “Do you ever remember taking off one at a time?” Dunn’s voice came metallically over the radio. “Come on.”

  Pick released the brakes and moved onto the runway beside him. Dunn looked over at him, smiled, and gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Corey, Cactus rolling,” Dunn told the tower, and shoved the throttle to TAKEOFF POWER. Pickering followed suit. They started down the runway together.

  Something is wrong! Something’s missing! Pick thought, and for a moment he felt fear.

  Shit, goddamn it, you goddamn fool! This is a paved runway. Paved runways don’t cause the goddamned gear to complain the way pierced steel planking and large rocks do.

  Life came into the controls. Twenty feet apart, the two Wildcats lifted off the ground.

  “Colonel,” Dunn’s voice came over the radio ten minutes later. “Sir, I’m sorry, I forgot your call sign.”

  “Cactus Leader,” Colonel Porter replied, “this is Red Leader. Over.”

  “Red Leader,” Dunn replied, “this is Cactus Leader. Colonel, I’m out of bullets. Or at least a red light comes on when I pull the trigger.”

  Pickering laughed and touched his mike button.

  “Cactus Leader, this is Cactus Two. I’m out of bullets, too.”

  “Cactus Leader, Red Leader,” Colonel Porter replied. “Break this off, and return to field.”

  “Roger, Red Leader.”

  “Cactus Leader, we will go first. Cactus Leader, there will be no, repeat no, unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers at any altitude in the vicinity of Corey Field. Acknowledge.”

  What the hell does that mean? Oh, Christ, he thinks we were planning on doing a victory barrel roll over the field. Why not? We really whipped their ass. I expected to win, but not that easily.

  “Red Leader, say again?”

  “Cactus Leader, you will land at Corey and you will not, repeat not, perform any aerobatic maneuvers of any kind. Acknowledge.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Dunn said. “Cactus Leader, out.”

  Dunn suddenly made a sharp, steep, diving turn to his right. This confused Pickering for a moment. He’d been flying on Dunn’s wing since they formed up again after what must have been the third or fourth time they shot Porter and O’Fallon down; and, confused or not, he followed him instinctively. Dunn straightened out heading west. Pickering could see Mobile Bay near the horizon.

  Now what, Billy Boy? Are you going to do a barrel roll over Ye Olde Family Manse?

  Lieutenant Dunn did precisely that, with Lieutenant Pickering repeating the maneuver on his tail.

  Then Dunn did more than confuse Pickering; he astonished him. After putting his Wildcat into a steep turn (permitting him to lower his gear utilizing centrifugal force, rather than having to crank it down), he lined himself up with an auxiliary field and landed.

  What the hell is that all about? Did he get a warning light?

  “Billy?”

  There was no reply.

  Pickering overflew the auxiliary field.

  It’s not in use. Otherwise, there’d be an ambulance and some other ground crew, in case a student pranged his Yellow Peril.

  Billy, you just about managed to run out of runway! What the hell is going on?

  Pickering picked up a little altitude and flew around the field. Then he put his Wildcat in a steep turn in order to release his gear in the usual (but specifically proscribed) manner. And then he made an approach and landing that he considered to be much safer than the one executed by Lieutenant Dunn.

  Christ, you’re not supposed to put a Wildcat down on one of these auxiliary fields at all!

  He stood on the brakes and pulled up beside Dunn’s Wildcat. The engine was still running. Dunn was a hundred yards away, walking toward an enormous live oak tree.

  Pickering unstrapped himself, climbed out of the cockpit, and trotted after Dunn. He had to wait to speak to him, however; for as he caught up with him, Dunn was having a hell of a time trying to close the zipper of his new flight suit after having urinated on the live oak.

  “You want to tell me what you’re doing?”

  “Officially, I had a hydraulic system failure warning light and made a precautionary landing. When you were unable to contact me by radio, you very courageously landed your aircraft to see what assistance you might be able to render. All in keeping with the honorable traditions of The Marine Corps. Semper Fi.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Actually, I am planning for the future,” Bill Dunn said, very seriously. “Fifty years from now…what’ll that be, 1992?…Colonel William C. Dunn—anybody who has ever worn a uniform in the Deep South gets to call himself ‘Colonel,’ you know…”

  “Billy…”

  “Colonel Dunn, a fine old silver-haired gentleman, is going to stand where you and I are standing. He will have a grandfatherly hand on the shoulder of his grandson, William C. Dunn…let me see, that’ll be William C. Dunn the Sixth…and he will say, ‘Grandson, during the Great War, your granddaddy was a fighter pilot, and he was over at Pensacola and out flying a Grumman Wildcat, which at the time was one hell of a fighter, and nature called. So he landed his airplane right here where this pecan orchard is now. That used to be a landing strip, boy. And he took out his talleywacker and pissed right up against this fine old live oak tree.’”

  “Jesus Christ, Billy!”

  “‘And the moral of that story, Grandson, is that
when you are up to your ears in bullshit, the only thing you can do is piss on it.’”

  “You’re insane.” Pick laughed.

  “You landed here when you knew goddamned well the strip wasn’t long enough for a Wildcat. You’re insane, too.”

  A sudden image came to Pick of Bill Dunn as a silver-haired seventy-odd year old with his hand on the shoulder of a blond-haired boy.

  And his mouth ran away with him.

  “You’re presuming you’re going to live through this war,” he said.

  Dunn met his eyes.

  “I considered that possibility, Pick,” he said. “Or improbability. But then I decided, if I do somehow manage to come through alive, and I didn’t land here and piss on the oak, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. So I put the wheels down. I certainly didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to follow me. This was supposed to be a private moment.”

  “Sorry to intrude.”

  “And then I realized, when I heard you coming, that I should have known better. If you are so inclined, Pick, you may piss on my live oak.”

  “I consider that a great honor, Billy.”

  As Pick was standing by the tree, Dunn said, “Under the circumstances, I don’t think we should even make a low-level pass over Corey Field, much less a barrel roll. Colonel Whatsisname would shit a brick, and I really don’t want to wind up in the backseat of a Yellow Peril.”

  “Yeah,” Pick said. “I guess he would.”

  “And the sonofabitch is probably right. It would set a bad example for those kids.”

  [TWO]

  Main Dining Room

  The Officers’ Club

  Main Side, U.S. Naval Air Station

  Pensacola, Florida

  1625 Hours 2 November 1942

  The gun camera footage proved interesting; but Pick had private doubts about how accurately it represented the flow of bullets.

  The cameras were apparently bore-sighted: They showed the view as you’d see it if you were looking down the machine gun’s barrel. But that made shooting and killing instantaneous. And .50 caliber bullets didn’t really fly that way. In combat, you didn’t aim where the enemy aircraft was, you aimed where it was going to be. Like shooting skeet, you lead the target.

  Somewhat immodestly, he wondered if the reason he never had any trouble with aerial gunnery, in training or in combat, was that he’d shot a hell of a lot of skeet. That was probably true, he concluded. And true of Billy, too. There was a wall full of shotguns in his house.

  Knocking little clay disks out of the air with a shotgun probably had a lot to do with me being here and in one piece, instead of dead. Or wrapped in two miles of white gauze, tied up like a goddamned mummy, like Dick.

  The lights came on.

  Colonel Porter stepped to the lectern and tapped the microphone with his fingernail.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have to confess—and I am sure that Captain O’Fallon shares my feeling—that it is somewhat embarrassing to have to stand here after everybody has seen proof of how Lieutenants Dunn and Pickering cleaned our clocks.”

  There came the expected laughter.

  “One final observation, gentlemen, and then we can begin our cocktail hour. I’m sure you all noticed how brief those film segments were. None of them lasted more than a couple of seconds. I hope you understand how that works. The cameras were activated only when the gun trigger was depressed. And Lieutenants Dunn and Pickering only fired when they were sure of their target, when they knew they were within range and were going to hit what they aimed at.”

  The students and some of the IPs looked at Dunn and Pickering. One of them started to applaud, and others joined in.

  I wonder if I look as uncomfortable as Grandpa Bill.

  “To the victor goes the spoils,” Colonel Porter said. “Tradition requires that the senior officer present is served first. But I think we can waive that tonight. Waiter, would you please serve Lieutenant Dunn and Lieutenant Pickering?”

  A white-jacketed waiter appeared. He was carrying a silver tray on which were two glasses filled with a dark liquid and ice cubes.

  Thank God! I can really use a drink!

  “A toast, Mr. Dunn, if you please,” Colonel Porter said.

  Bill Dunn raised his glass.

  “To The Corps,” he said.

  Pick took a sip.

  Jesus, what the hell is this?

  It’s tea, that’s what it is! I’ll be a sonofabitch!

  He looked at the lectern. Lieutenant Colonel J. Danner Porter, USMC, was smiling benignly at him.

  “I think,” Lieutenant Dunn said softly, “that that’s what is known as ‘inspired chickenshit.’”

  “I just hope it means we are forgiven,” Pick said.

  “You mean for getting drunk?”

  “We paid for that by being here. What I mean is for cleaning his clock.”

  Dunn laughed, and then his face changed.

  “I have just fallen in love again,” he said. “Will you look at that in the doorway?”

  Pick turned.

  “That one’s off-limits, Billy,” Pick said as Mrs. Martha Sayre Culhane started walking across the floor to him. She looked every bit as incredibly beautiful as he remembered her.

  “Lieutenant Pickering, how nice to see you,” she said. “It’s been some time, hasn’t it?”

  “Hello, Martha.”

  “I’m Bill Dunn, Ma’am.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Bill, Martha,” Pick said.

  “Do you suppose you could get me one of those?” Martha said, nodding at Pick’s tea with ice cubes.

  “It’s tea,” Pick said.

  Colonel Porter walked up.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Sayre,” he said.

  “It’s Mrs. Culhane,” Martha said.

  “Oh, God! Excuse me!”

  “My father sent me to ask when you’re going to be through with Lieutenant Pickering, Colonel. Anytime soon?”

  “Why, I think the Admiral could have him right now, Mrs. Culhane.”

  “Thank you,” Martha said. She turned to Bill Dunn. “You don’t have to worry about his getting home, Mr. Dunn. I’ll see that he gets there, either tonight or perhaps in the morning.”

  Pick looked at Colonel Porter.

  “By your leave, Sir?”

  “Certainly,” Porter said, and put out his hand. “Thank you very much, Pickering,” he said. “I hope you understand why what happened here today was worth all the effort, and your time?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good luck, Mr. Pickering,” Colonel Porter said, and then added, “Good evening, Mrs. Culhane. My compliments to your father.”

  “Thank you,” Martha said. She put her hand on Pick’s arm. “Ready, Mr. Pickering?”

  A dark-maroon 1940 Mercury convertible was parked just outside the front door of the Club. It was in a spot marked RESERVED FOR FLAG AND GENERAL OFFICERS.

  Martha had the driver’s door open before Pick could open it for her. He went around the rear of the car and got in the front. Martha ground the starter, but then put both of her hands on the top of the steering wheel and looked over at him.

  “I had to come see you,” she said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”

  “I’m here because I want to be,” he said. “And besides, I thought your father, your father and your mother, wanted to see me.”

  “I lied about that,” she said. “I lied to Colonel Porter. I told my father I was going to see…a friend of mine, and that I might stay over. I don’t think Colonel Porter knew I was lying; I’m sure my father did.”

  “What do you want to do, Martha?”

  “I want to get it settled between us, once and for all.”

  “I thought we’d…I was pretty sure you had…already done that.”

  “So did I, but here I am.”

  “I don’t think this is the place to have a conversation like this,” he said.

  “Neither do I,” Martha sa
id, and put the Mercury in reverse with a clash of gears.

  When they passed out of the gate onto Pensacola’s Navy Boulevard, Pick asked, “Where are we going?”

  “The San Carlos,” she said, without looking at him.

  “Well, at least I can get a drink. That was really tea Colonel Porter gave me.”

  “I’m going to drop you off in front,” Martha said. “You’re going to go in and get a room, and then meet me in the bar.”

  “Why doesn’t that sound like the schedule for an illicit assignation?”

  She laughed. “Because it isn’t. We’re going there to talk. You know, I’d forgotten that about you, that you’re really funny sometimes.”

  “We’re going to talk, right?”

  “I can’t think of anyplace else to go, and I want to look at you while we’re talking.”

  “Well, you could pull to the curb and turn the headlights on, and I could stand in front of the car.”

  She laughed again.

  “I’ve really missed you.”

  “I could tell by all the letters you didn’t answer.”

  “Four is not very many letters.”

  “It is, if none of them get a reply.”

  Martha dropped Pick off at the front of the white, rambling, Spanish-architecture San Carlos Hotel.* He walked into the lobby and looked up at the stained-glass arching overhead. All its pieces were intact. This was not always the case.

  Sometimes, exuberant Naval Aviators and/or their lady friends caused pieces of glass to be broken by bombing the lobby with beer bottles. The Navy bombed the Marines, or vice versa. And sometimes the Marines and the Navy bombed instructor pilots.

  He walked to the desk, and smiled when he recognized the man behind it, Chester Gayfer, the resident manager.

  “Well, look what the tide washed up,” Gayfer said. “When did you get back, Pick? It’s good to see you.”

  “How are you, Chet? Good to see you, too.”

  “Back for good? Or just passing through?”

  “Just passing through. I need a room.”

  “Your old ‘room’ just happens to be free, primarily because we don’t have much call for the Penthouse.”

  Jesus, I don’t want to go up there. Dick and I lived there. It would be haunted.