Colonel Stecker was aware that he had just done something he rarely did, let his emotions show.
"What can I do for you, McCoy?" he asked.
"That's my question, Sir. General Pickering told me to look you up and see what he could do for you. Or what I could."
"That's very kind of the General..." Stecker said, and then paused. "We were in France together, in the last war, did you know that?"
"Yes, Sir."
"I was a buck sergeant, and he was a corporal. We were as close as Pick and my son Dick are."
"Yes, Sir. He told me."
"So please tell him, McCoy, that I appreciate the gesture, but I can't think of a damned thing I need."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"When are you going to Pearl?"
"We were supposed to go today, but when the R4D pilots came in from Espiritu Santo, they found something wrong with the airplane. They're fixing it now, so I guess in the morning."
Stecker put out his hand.
"It was good to see you, McCoy. And thank you. But now I have to get back to my battalion."
"Could I tag along with you, Sir?"
"Why would you want to do that?"
"I feel like a feather merchant just hanging around waiting to be flown out of here," McCoy said simply. "Maybe I could be useful."
"I don't think anyone thinks of you as a feather merchant, McCoy," Stecker said. "But come along, if you like."
[FIVE]
VMF-229
Henderson Field
0930 Hours 13 October 1942
"Well, look who's come home," First Lieutenant William C. Dunn, USMCR, said to First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR. When he walked into the tent, Dunn found Pickering sitting on his bunk.
Pickering reached around and picked up from the bunk a small cloth bundle tied with string. With both hands, he shot it like a basketball at Dunn.
"Don't say I never gave you anything," Pickering said.
The package was heavier than it looked; Dunn almost dropped it.
"Bribery of superior officers is encouraged," Dunn said. "What is it?"
"Royal Australian Air Force Rompers and booze," Pickering said.
"From Port Moresby."
Dunn took a K-Bar knife from a sheath and slit the cord. Then he carefully removed a pair of quart bottles of Johnny Walker scotch from the two cotton flying suits they were wrapped in and put them in the Japanese shipping crate that served as his bedside table.
"Thanks, Pick," Dunn said.
"I figured even an unreconstructed Rebel like you would rather drink scotch than not drink at all," Pick said.
"Kicking the gift horse right in the teeth, what I really need is underpants," Dunn said. "I don't suppose there's..."
"Shit, I didn't even think of skivvies," Pickering said. "When I saw the booze and the flight suits..."
"All contributions gratefully received," Dunn said. He proved it by stripping out of the sweat-soaked flight suit he was wearing; and then, standing naked except for his held-together-with-a-safety-pin shorts, he began tearing off the labels from one of the flying suits.
He looked at Pickering.
"So tell me all about the great secret mission."
"Not much to tell. It went like clockwork."
"Where did you learn to fly an R4D?"
"On the way to New Guinea," Pick replied.
Dunn looked at him curiously, then saw he was serious.
"Then how come... ?"
"I was about to go over the edge," Pick said. "Galloway saw it and took me along, just to work the radios, to get me out of here."
"Because of Dick Stecker?" Dunn asked quietly.
"I was about to turn in my wings of gold for a rifle," Pick said.
"Same thing happened yesterday as happened to Dick. Or nearly the same thing. Ted Knowles ran out of gas and crashed. Did you get to meet him before you left?"
Pickering shook his head, no.
"He was making a dead-stick approach. According to Oblensky, he tried to stretch his glide and didn't make it. He rolled it end over end. When I went to see him, all you could see was gauze."
"Did he come through it?"
Dunn shook his head, no. "Nice guy. My fault. I didn't check the flight about remaining fuel, and he didn't want to look like he was anything less than a heroic Marine Aviator, so he tried to fly it on the fumes."
"That's not your fault," Pickering said.
"So Colonel Dawkins says," Dunn said as he started pulling on the new flight suit. "Personally, your notion about turning in the wings for a rifle seems tempting."
"You don't mean that."
"I don't know if I do or not," Dunn said. "Galloway talked you out of it?"
"No. I talked myself out of it. I'd make a lousy platoon leader. And so would you. But we do know how to fly airplanes. Ye old round pegs in ye olde round holes, so to speak."
Dunn zipped the zipper of the new flying suit up and down, and admired himself.
"Thanks, Pick," he said, and started to transfer the contents of the discarded flying suit into the new one.
Captain Charles M. Galloway entered the tent. He saw Dunn's new RAAF flight suit.
"Where'd you get that?"
"They had many too many flight suits at Moresby," Pickering said. "They probably won't even miss the ones I stole."
"And what if you have to go back there?"
"What if I don't?" Pickering replied.
Galloway shook his head in resignation.
"Oblensky redlined the R4D for a fuel-transfer pump," Galloway said. "They're going to have to fly it up from Espiritu Santo. It'll be tomorrow before your pal The Killer and his friends can leave, in other words."
"His pal 'The Killer'?" Dunn said. "That sounds interesting."
"He's a very interesting guy, as a matter of fact," Galloway said, and then looked directly at Pickering. "You feel up to flying?" he asked. When there was no immediate response, he went on: "The Skipper wants a search of the Southeast."
"And you volunteered me?"
"I volunteered me," Galloway said. "You want to go along with me? Or do you want to go to Espiritu Santo?"
"I told you on the airplane I'm a fighter pilot, not a truck driver," Pickering said. "Or are you having second thoughts?"
"Just checking, Mr. Pickering, just checking. Five minutes."
He turned and left the tent.
"What was that 'do you want to go to Espiritu Santo' remark about?" Dunn asked.
"We had some time to kill in Port Moresby. Galloway put me in the left seat of the R4D and I shot a dozen touch-and-goes. Since he is an R4D IP, he signed me off on it. I am now officially a dual-engine-qualified Naval Aviator checked out in the R4D. They're easy to fly; a very forgiving airplane."
"That's not what I asked, Pick."
"He said I could go to Espiritu Santo and fly R4Ds for them, if I wanted."
"I think I would have gone."
"You weren't listening, Mr. Dunn, Sir. I am a fighter pilot, Sir, not a truck driver," Pickering said, and pushed himself off the bunk and walked out of the tent.
[SIX]
28,000 Feet above Savo Island
Solomon Islands
1135 Hours 13 October 1942
Pick Pickering was more than a little embarrassed when he saw that he was flying just off Charley Galloway's right wing. He was supposed to be at least a hundred feet to his rear and a hundred feet above him.
You have been woolgathering, again, Pickering! he thought.
That put him back in boarding school: Mr. Whatsisname, the shriveled little guy with the bow ties and the ragged-sleeved tweed jackets, used to bring him back to the here and now by slamming a book on his desk. Obviously guilty as charged, presuming one understood that woolgathering meant not paying attention, daydreaming.
But what the hell was woolgathering? Where did that come from? You cut the wool off live, kicking sheep. If you didn't pay attention to what you were doing, you 'd either lose your finge
rs or the sheep.
He was cold. Despite the horsehide Jacket, Leather, Aviators, with the fur collar up and snapped in place, and the fine calfskin Gloves, Aviators, it was cold at 28,000 feet. And the cold was made worse because the sweat-soaked flight suit was still moist and clammy.
The oxygen mask irritated his face-he needed a shave-and the oxygen itself seemed colder than normal.
When he glanced again at Galloway, he saw that Galloway, his features hidden behind his oxygen mask, was looking at him.
You have been caught woolgathering, Mr. Pickering. You will be chastised for not paying attention and for not being where you are supposed to be.
Both of Galloway's hands, held palm upward, appeared in the canopy.
Christ, he thinks I crept up to him on purpose, to subtly remind him we are running a little low on fuel: Perhaps, Captain, Sir, you will consider returning to the base before we have to swim back?
Or perhaps I should try to stretch the glide of a dead-stick landing, and do an end-over-end down the runway like Dick and that guy of Dunn's that I didn't know?
A gesture of helplessness, of futility, the palms-up business. The Japanese having elected not to come out and fight, or at least not to come out where we can see them.
Pickering held up both of his hands in the same gesture. Galloway's left hand disappeared from sight, presumably to return to the stick. His right gloved hand, index finger extended, signaled that they should start their descent. Pickering nodded, exaggeratedly, signaling his understanding.
Galloway's Wildcat's nose dropped a couple of degrees and he entered a wide, shallow descending turn. Pickering retarded his throttle, so that as he followed him he would be on Galloway's wing, where he knew Galloway expected him to be.
That lasted almost precisely two minutes, Captain Galloway being highly skilled in making very accurate, two-minute 360-degree turns.
Or, for that matter, one-minute 360-degree turns. Or, for that matter, any-time, any-degree turns. The sonofabitch can really fly an airplane.
Oh, shit! Where did they come from?
There were airplanes down there, a lot of airplanes, Kates and Vals. A dozen of each.
Kates were Nakajima B5N1 torpedo bombers, single-engine, low-wing monoplanes. They could carry bombs or torpedoes. Now obviously bombs, since you can't torpedo an airfield.
Vals were Aichi D3A1 Navy Type 99 carrier bombers, probably not today flying off a carrier, but from the Japanese base at Rabaul. Vals had fixed landing gear, the wheels covered with pants. They looked old-fashioned, but they were good, tough airplanes.
How the hell could we have missed them?
And where Kates and Vals are found, so almost certainly there are Zeroes.
Where the hell are the Zeroes? Above us, for Christ's sake?
Pickering touched the throttle and started to pull alongside Galloway again, but that didn't happen. Galloway came out of the turn and pushed the nose of his Wildcat down.
Pickering followed him. His eyes dropped to the instrument panel and he made the calculation mentally.
I have thirty, thirty-five minutes' fuel remaining. Galloway probably has another five minutes over that; he can coax extra minutes of fuel from an engine. Cut that time considerably by running it at full throttle, or Emergency Military Power.
We're going to have time for one pass, that's all. Knock down what we can in one pass and then head for the barn.
Where the hell is the rest of the Cactus Air Force? They were supposed to take off at 11:15. Earlier, obviously, if there had been a warning from Buka, or from another Coastwatcher station, or even from the radar. As close as these Japanese are to Henderson, they should have spotted them with the radar.
Jesus Christ! Did we break our ass to make sure Buka stayed on the air and now something has happened to them?
An alert Kate tail gunner spotted them and opened fire. His tracers made an arc in the air before they burned out.
At too great a distance, you stupid bastard!
But as they grew closer, they came in range, and other tail gunners opened fire. And now the tracers were closer and there were a hell of a lot more of them.
Pickering depressed the trigger on the stick.
Jesus Christ, what's the matter with me, I'm not even close to him?
He edged back on the stick, and then again.
The tracer stream moved into the fuselage of the Kate, just forward of the horizontal stabilizer, and then, as if with a mind of its own, seemed to walk up the fuselage toward the engine.
There goes a piece of the cowling!
And then smoke suddenly appeared, and the Kate fell off to the left. Before it flashed out of sight, the smoke burst into an orange glow.
Got him! Where the hell is Galloway?
He saw Galloway already below the formation of Kates, almost into the formation of Vals. There was a Zero on his tail, gaining rapidly as Galloway decreased the angle of his dive.
Sonofabitch!
Pickering grabbed the microphone.
"Charley, behind you!"
Pickering threw the stick to the left and shoved the throttle to FULL EMERGENCY POWER. It didn't seem to be working; it took forever to get behind the Zero, and by then he was firing at Galloway.
Pickering depressed his trigger.
Galloway turned sharply to the right, increasing the angle of his dive.
The Zero, trying to follow him, flew into Pickering's tracer stream. He came apart.
There was smoke coming from Galloway's engine.
Oh, shit! No!
Galloway continued his dive toward the sea. Pickering followed him.
The Cactus Air Force-whatever airplanes could get into the air- appeared, climbing toward the Japanese.
Too goddamn late!
The Japanese were over Henderson.
Galloway's engine was no longer smoking.
Jesus Christ, what did he do, shut it down?
Pickering looked behind him. He could see bombs falling from the Vals.
Galloway was almost on the deck.
Oh, shit, he's going in!
Galloway leveled off at no more than 200 feet over the sea and began a straight-in approach to Henderson.
As Pickering started to level off to follow him, he saw bombs landing on the dirt fighter strip. He looked at his gas gauge. He had five, six minutes remaining.
He moved the landing-gear switch to LOWER and pulled the Wildcat up sharply. The crank spun furiously as gravity pulled the gear down.
Twenty seconds later, his wheels touched down. Five seconds later, he felt the Wildcat lurch to the right.
Oh, not that! God, I don't want to die that way!
It straightened out a little, and then he went off the runway into a section of pierced steel planking and spun around, once, twice... The gear collapsed in the turns. The propeller hit the dirt, and the engine screamed and stopped.
Am I still moving?
No. This sonofabitch isn't going anywhere....
He unfastened his harness and scrambled as quickly as he could out of the cockpit. He ran twenty-five yards and then threw himself down on the ground, waiting for the Wildcat to explode.
It didn't.
There were explosions, but those were bombs landing on the airfield.
He raised his head to look at the field. There was a huge orange glow and dense black smoke. The Japanese had put at least one bomb in the fuel dump.
He saw a jeep coming across the field to him through the smoke and the detonations of the Japanese bombs.
It slid to a stop beside him. A Corpsman jumped out.
"You OK?" the Corpsman asked.
"I'm fine," Pickering replied.
The Corpsman lay down beside him.
"I think we're better staying where we are," he said matter-of-factly. "Look at that fucking gasoline burn!"
CHAPTER FOUR
[ONE]
=SECRET=
FROM: COM GEN 1ST MAR DIV 1305 13OCT42
&nbs
p; SUBJECT: AFTER-ACTION REPORT
TO: COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, PACIFIC, PEARL HARBOR INFO: SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA, BRISBANE
THE CORPS VI - CLOSE COMBAT Page 8