Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  Lovett checked the strip's width several times alone; it came to a hundred and sixty feet, give or take a few. Stumps of fully mature trees, now chiefly visible as rotting waist-high lumps that fed jungle ferns, defined the limits of what the Japanese had carved out so many years ago. Even the Letoumeau couldn't bowl over giants like those, but it wouldn't have to. And because Reventio couldn't depend on having an airstrip to land on, he would most likely come floating down in something that could handle beach sand. Surely something like a Caribou, or a Pilatus with a whopping turbine.

  Surely... Night had fallen but, in the light of coconut-oil torches, the villagers continued to work because they knew better than to quit while Jean-Claude sat looking on. Adjusted for the vagaries of their pidgin, the President and his first minister discussed matters of state roughly as follows.

  "Pilau claims that he has cleverly convinced the whites to help transport logs more quickly," said Merizo, gnawing a chicken bone. "I gave permission, It was probably Pretty boy's idea. He spoke with the white youth late in the day."

  "Those people must be up to something," Jean-Claude replied, licking yarn paste from his fingers. "Are they digging any deep holes in my island? Dealing with the north village, you think?"

  "My watchers say not, though the whites have somehow beaten a great hole up on a cliff." His shrug conferred the notion that there was nothing especially curious about that. Outsiders did weird things; and holes were where you found them, or made them. "The giant machine has improved the road somewhat and they are stripping the jungle from that area where the aerocanoes once landed. I think they just want to make a better place for 01' Cris to land."

  "A new road, and a way to let traders fly in," Jean-Claude ruminated.

  "Fundabora will soon be a world power. But it is not like outsiders to work so hard without reward."

  "Their reward seems to be the old machines they find, and by agreement we will keep those in the shed that they have repaired," Merizo pointed out. "Who knows why they love old machines so? Perhaps they can sell them somewhere to islanders less advanced than Fundaborans. Or perhaps they are just crazy," he laughed in his bass rumble. "Let them be crazy, so long as they give us what we want."

  "I still want that woman," said Jean-Claude. "I mean to have her, and soon. I will make her love me," he said, with the confidence of a man who had bedded many women without understanding the least thing about any of them. "Ol' Cris would not love you. You would anger the very people who bring the other things you want?"

  "Not until I have them," the big man admitted.

  Merizo watched as a dozen villagers struggled to'drag a raft of lashed logs as far as the lagoon. "That may not happen until after the leadership games. A wise man would wait until 01' Cris has delivered our goods, and our roads are perfect, and someone like Pilau has learned to drive the giant machine."

  "And then I take the woman Jean-Claude persisted.

  "Perhaps. But first only as a captive.. Then we could make the whites do something they might never do otherwise."

  The big head of Jean-Claude swiveled to regard the smaller man. "And that is?"

  "With the aero canoe and Oll Cris to fi lit it, we would have a weapon that would make the north village yours," Merizo said, his rumble a near-whisper. "It could drop fire on their roofs, as we have seen in old pictures. You would become truly the President of all Fundabora."

  It had always pained Jean-Claude like a carbuncle in his groin that the north village-in fact the northern third of Fun'dabora-remained a blank smudge on his personal map. Fire on their roofs. The more Jean-Claude toyed with this mental image, the more he liked it. He did not think about peaceful trade being better than warfare, nor about destroying the things he already got in trade. He thought about tiny antlike figures streaming from flaming huts, howling in fear; and he liked that most of all. Those old foreigners who had built the north village were supposed to be long dead. Keikano had said as much. "This may be one of the best ideas I have eve@ had," Jean-Claude mused. "But it is not a thing we should speak of, when Pretty boy is around."

  "Until after we do it," Merizo said, torch lights reflecting from his eyes. "Then, we will not need that little snot."

  "You never liked him much," Jean-Claude grinned, well aware of Merizo's dislike for others who, like himself, lived by their wits. Wits were for those who needed them; with brawn, you could buy wits. "When that day comes, I give him to you."

  "He will furnish us much entertainment," Merizo said, and walked away on noiseless feet. He had noticed one of the young villagers nodding off from exhaustion while tying knots. A stick across his shins would wake him nicely.

  Lovett spent his night in the cave on schedule, familiarizing himself further with cockpits. The tiny flying bomb snugged against the bomber's belly was a miracle of simplicity, its cockpit reached from inside the Betty. Squatting in the bomb bay above it, shuddering at the very thought of climbing down into such a deadly little contraption, he saw that the pilot of an Ohka had few instruments, none at all for real navigation.

  What for? he asked himself When the poor bastard was dropped, he was already within sight of his target, and the ticket was strictly one way.

  To snug down in there without a chute it took someone of Chip's age and foolishness, brimful of misdirected patriotism and, to say the least, highly motivated beyond all rational limits. It was one of the ironies of war, Reventlo had said, that there were more of the little twin-tailed Ohkas in muse urns than of any other product of the Japanese war industry. Maybe they would just leave the Ohka on Fundabora. Hauling that thing off a barge in front of sharp-eyed longshoremen would vacate somebody's wharf like a niink in a henhouse.

  Such thoughts were depressing, and Lovett moved forward to the Betty's cockpit. Maybe, one day before they sold it back in the States, they might actually fly it. Cris Reventlo had once known how; it would be enough for Wade Lovett simply to make a few gentle banks, maybe a modest wingover. But not, he grinned to himself, with that god damned suicide machine shackled into the bomb bay.

  Rummaging among the workbench supplies he found that someone, probably old Ohtsu himself, had carefully laid in a supply of virtually everything needed to maintain those planes. To maintain rudders and ailerons covered with doped fabric, Ohtsu had a supply not only of fabric but of dope, sealed in wax, gurgling as if still usable. Nearby were sail maker's curved needles in oiled paper and what must have been a mile of heavy waxed thread. It looked like. the cotton and linen stuff Lovett had used when reconditioning old puddle jumpers, which gave the bleary-eyed Lovett an idea. He rigged lines across the possible entries and tied wrenches to the lines so that, when the line was disturbed, a wrench would scrape against a piece of flimsy aluminum sheeting. That racket, he decided, would certainly wake him-assuming that he fell asleep while sitting in the cockpit of a Tojo.

  It was one of his better assumptions. The clatter and skritch of metal on metal brought him fully awake only when Chip blundered into the cord the next morning bearing breakfast. Keikano stood outside the cave, unwilling to enter now without an invitation.

  By now the standard breakfast of a sentry had become the best and worst vittles available to the human race: a fat, ripe, multicolored mango and crackers from an MRE packet. Lovett found that the Letoumeau was already chugging into the clearing Benteen had made, Pilau and a half-dozen men piling out of the half-track to begin filling the Letoumeau's hopper with logs. The B.O.F. crew helped, wielding their machetes.

  As soon as Benteen headed for the village, the crew hauled remaining debris to one side of the clearing. Keikano tried to help Chip but chiefly succeeded only in getting in the way.

  What made the entire log-skimming operation so ludicrous was that, for purposes of clearing the airstrip, those trips of Benteen's to and from the village were sheer wasted time. Given a half-dozen strong young men for a few days, Benteen could have simply hauled those logs off fifty yards to one side for dumping. But willing as he was, strong as
he was, Chip alone could not make up for the fact that his partners comprised a woman and three aging duffers, one of them with a prosthetic leg. After all, Lovett complained, it was sad but literally true that the B.O.F.'s middle name was "old." Still, "It's happening," Coop said, arms akimbo as he surveyed the mess, "and faster than I figured." With a wary glance toward the little schoolteacher, he said, "I hope they can use all the logs we can give 'em."

  "And how many is that," Keikano asked.

  Coop took that up with Myles, Alaskan and Texan roommates amiably arguing out a rough estimate. "Upwards of two or three thousand," Coop said at last.

  "How many is that in hundreds," said Keikano.

  "I thought you taught school," Myles said, not unkindly.

  "Not numbers," was the crestfallen reply. "My honored grandparent helps me count with pebbles but-I think Pilau will be satisfied with ten loads like the one they have."

  "Oh, shit, that's not half of what we'll have, not even counting twice that many little skinny saplings," said Coop, jerking a thumb toward nearby foliage. Interspersed with the palms and ferns were many more small trees, some as twisted as pool cues in hell and all so slender they resembled selfsupporting vines with sparse broad leaves. They were no thicker than a man's wrist, yet they would have to come down.

  "He's trying to tell you we need Pilau to take maybe thirty loads,"

  Lovett put in, flashing him all ten fingers three times.

  Keikano's eyes grew large, his lips moving silently. "No way, Jos6," he said, Chip's jargon sounding comical from this willing linguist. "But this is something you need?"

  "if we want to clear this airstrip for Reventlo-grab those vines, will you, Vic?-we need everything taken away," Lovett said, working as he spoke.

  "That is far more than the village can possibly use," Keikano muttered.

  "Unless-let me think on it." A gentle smile began to play about his mouth. "No, they will not bum well. I thought maybe, but no."

  "All that stuff in the center of the village? Whoa, don't get yourself bonked on our account," Chip said, appalled.

  "I am always careful," Keikano protested, drawing himself up, the narrow shoulders straightening. "But thirty hundreds? No way," he said again.

  "Way," Chip insisted. "Somehow, way." And with that, they fell to work again.

  At the end of the day they had cleared away over five hundred logs, and by then Pilau was convinced that the entire idea had been his own. He even let Myles drive the half track, which was a great help in dragging brush away. The slender polelike stuff was ignored for the moment, too big to toss around with ease yet not bulky enough to be of interest to Pilau's crew. Pilau chose some of the smaller poles and spent a few minutes idly hurting them into the jungle, as a boy might skip stones for amusement. Before leaving for the council house the B.O.F. contingent simply stood and regarded this horrendous web of debris without much enthusiasm.

  "What I wouldn't give," Coop muttered, "for a battalion of Seabees."

  Chip brushed leafy bits from his hair. "Bees?"

  "World War B would'a turned out differently without lem," said Coop, the only man there who was old enough to have seen Seabees in the Aleutians.

  "Navy Construction Battalions-Seabees. Said 'C B' stood for 'confused bastards' but in these Parts, they built runways while under sniper fire, I shit you not. I hear even the Marine Corps put up signs in their honor-and gyrenes weren't known for their applause."

  "So what would five Seabees without bulldozers have done with all these fuckin' pickup sticks," Myles asked, combing his beard clean as he surveyed the clearing.

  "If I knew, I'd do it," said Coop, turning away. They worried at the problem all through the dinner meal.

  Coop, never very agile afoot, left the lobby buffet alone after dark and took a Cushman to the cave for his turn as sentry that evening. Keikano, whose job as fireworks technician was far from finished, said that he must work at night to make up for time lost.

  The schoolteacher was overjoyed when Vic Myles offered to help with it.

  "You expect to work with black powder at night by torchlight? You're out of your friggin' mind," said the Texan, grabbing a big flashlight.

  "I am always-" Keikano began.

  "Careful, yeah," Myles laughed. "Tell me that when you're passing over Manila as a loose assortment of pieces, kid."

  "That sounds almost responsible," Benteen said. "You never cease to amaze me, Victor."

  "Around a sizeable pile of that stuff, you're either responsible or unrecoverable," Myles replied. "What black powder lacks in efficiency, it makes up for in unpredictability. I've known some so-called expert powdennvn with hands missing, eye patches, big gouges outa their hides.

  Some experts! I See these?" He held up both hands, fingers spread.

  "Count em. Nothing missing, and that's how I mean to keep it."

  Chip, in tones Lovett recognized as far too casual, said, "I wou't mind watching, if nobody cares

  Lovett was tempted to object, but relented when Myles said, "Better ask your grandpa,"

  "Precious little I have to say about it," Lovett said wryly, knowing it was the only right answer. "See you later-preferably intact.

  "Well, if you don't mind," said Chip.

  "Aah. I'll stay here, sit around with Benteen and listen for a big bang."

  Benteen waited until the Cushmans fired up outside the council house.

  Then, "Hmm. Coop's away, Chip and Myles are playing with fireworks, and

  ' I believe that Drambuie is still hiding in my bag upstairs," she puffed.

  "I suppose," Lovett said judiciously, "we could listen for the big bang up there as well as anywhere."

  She pursed her lips in a smile loaded with prurience. "But as long as that damned audio circuit of Pelele's is working," she said, "let's not let him hear our little bang."

  "You're on," Lovett said, following.

  "I will be," she countered, hips rolling gently as she preceded him up the stairs.

  The next several days passed in flurries of success and frustration as the second-growth jungle was stripped away. Big wheels and tracked cleats compressed the earth enough to resemble something like a rough landing strip down the exact center of the old runway; a landing strip, that is, for any aircraft that could land in a clearing forty feet wide.

  Since this -was obviously a tactic for a lunatic, they continued to widen the strip daily with the Letoumeau and kept their radios handy, expecting Reventio at any time, knowing that expectation was asking too much. It was Coop Gunther's turn again as sentry the night they reminisced over the days when fireworks were part of the American experience.

  The Fundab6ran fireworks, Myles reported, were years old but as good as new and must have cost a small fortune-but since Jean-Claude liked them, a hut had been specially thatched to store them safe from moisture, near the dock facility beside the lagoon and across from the village.

  "Remember when you were a kid," Myles said that evening, packing his pipe on the veranda, "and you got a couple of bucks to squander on firecrackers?"

  "Yeah," Lovett said, -smiling into old memories. "You could get a funny little four-pack of Chinese crackers for a penny, wrapped in crinkly paper with a cover label that said, 'Black Cat' or 'Yan Kee Boy.' I wondered where Yan Kee was 'til a big kid said it meant us: yankee boys.

  A teenager would show off by setting one off while he held it between his thumb and forefinger. I tiled it. Once."

  Chip urged him on with, "So what happened?"

  "I was ten; I cried is what happened. Stung like hell and numbed my fingers," Lovett said with a sad little smile. "Big red firecrackers called 'baby giants' were two for a nickel, and they'd send a tin can halfway to Nebraska; nobody held those in their fingers. A cherry bomb cost more, but it'd unwrap that can like it was tinfoil. When you unrolled one of the little Yan Kee Boys that hadn't gone off, you could see it had been made from Chinese newspaper. All those little ideographs; we used to think it was secret co
de, like, 'help, I'm held prisoner in a Hong Kong fireworks factory.' "

  "The real secrets were in the complicated stuff," Myles confided. "Roman candles; rockets; those aerial salutes we called Dago bombs, especially the big ones, fat cardboard mortar tubes on wooden bases with big warnings, 'light fuse and GET AWAY FAST.' I used to collect the stuff that hadn't' gone off, spray it with water and then take it apart. Had a faint stink like a boiled egg'left in the sun too long. Hell, I even liked the way they smelled.

  "When I was twelve I could make the simple ones myself. Most fun I ever had, though, was with what was left of a big cardboard mortar tube after I knocked the wooden base off and tucked both ends closed. Ever hear of a Mills bomb? An early Brit grenade. I called mine the Myles bomb. It was a foot long, two inches in diameter. Still had the colored paper on it but it was empty; couldn't hurt you. But try telling that to a bunch of kids after you stuck a live fuse into -one end, lit it, and tossed it underfoot. They made more noise than a real grenade would've. I mean, it got their absolute undivided attention better'n a homet's nest.-Some big kids got to calling me Gonna-get-you Myles, but you know, somehow they never got around to it.,' Chip, admiringly: "Quick on your feet?"

  "It wasn't that; if they did get me, I think they worried that the next Myles bomb underfoot might not be empty," the Texan winked.

  "You should've been arrested," Benteen said.

  "I was. Got my butt warmed. But whatthehell, in one respect it was the safest firework in Texas. Kids got hurt every year, no question about it, so eventually a lot of do-gooders made fireworks illegal. Now every year on the fifth of July you read about all the kids that drowned, or fell off their motorcycles, the day before. Those were kids that would've been better off spending the Fourth with fireworks. Like these islanders."

  "How would you rate Keikano as a powder man," Lovett asked.

  "Careful," Myles said in grudging endorsement. "He's got enough common dynamite fuse to surround Fundabora. You know the stuff? Orange, thick as a pencil, waterproof. He cuts into it to link up a bunch of aerial salutes, so he can line up two dozen starburst mortars he's lashed on a raft and float it all in the lagoon. That's what some of the rafts are for. Seems the kids have games, too, and the winners get to swim out carrying little torches in one hand, and light the fuses."