She ran her hand along the tail of the Comal 38, stopping over the gash that did indeed look like she had clipped another plane's wing. She knew it hadn't been there that morning before she took off—for she visually inspected her aircraft as thoroughly as anyone flying. As if trying to conjure up the memory of how it had happened by holding her hand there, she stood still and closed her eyes. Her other hand fished something from a pocket of her flight suit and held tightly to it. After a moment, she lifted whatever it was to her mouth and softly kissed it. It was at that point that Kerrigan saw tears in her eyes.
When she finally opened her eyes and began to breath again, Jason asked, hoping to spark some conversation from the woman who had been completely silent on their walk out to the flight line, "St. Christopher's medal?"
"What?" She looked down at her hand and showed him what she was holding. It was an old sheriff's badge. It was a little rusted and proclaimed that the wearer of it was the sheriff of Tyler, a town east of Dallas, Jason thought. He had rarely spent any time east of Dallas and knew little of what was over there. "It was my grandfather's. He used to be the sheriff in Tyler. When I told him I wanted to be a pilot, he gave it to me and said it had always protected him and maybe it would protect me."
"Seems like it did."
She nodded, then shook her head, "Wasn't the badge. Poppy died two years ago. I think he was up there with me today. I think he protected me."
"Maybe so." Jason looked at the bullet holes that laced across the fuselage but had by some miracle not hit anything vital and asked, "What did happen up there today?"
A mechanic came over just then and asked, "Ma'am, were you the pilot of this airplane?"
"Yes, Sergeant," she replied warily.
He motioned for her to come around to the other side of the plane and gestured toward the extra fuel tank. "Take a look at this, ma'am." He pointed to where a bullet had lodged—actually lodged—in the skin of the fuel tank. As her face was going white, the mechanic said, "Do you realize what the odds of that happening are? It's unimaginable. I mean, it was hot enough to practically weld itself into the fuel tank but didn't set the fuel on fire! If you don't mind me saying so, you're one lucky lady, ma'am. There's a floating craps game somewhere on this base. With your luck, you could really clean up."
She shrugged and replied, her voice as little hoarse, "On the other hand, I may have spent all my luck on that one throw."
The mechanic nodded and asked, "Would you like a rundown on what all we found when we went over your plane?"
"Maybe later. Could we sit down?" she asked Jason, then immediately started walking away like some sort of automaton. He patted the mechanic on the shoulder then caught up with her and they walked to some benches out on the parade ground. A mesquite tree almost provided shade from the almost setting sun, making it an almost less than sweltering place to sit.
She suddenly turned away from him and put her head between her knees as she threw up, just like Jason had done a few minutes before. He wasn't sure if he should, but he reached out a hand and patted her on the back in what he hoped was a comforting fashion.
When she had finished, she sat up and—still facing away from him—wiped her face with a handkerchief she had been carrying in her pocket. She finally turned to him and faked a smile as she said, "I'm really sorry about that."
"Don't be. I—um—I did the same thing about thirty minutes ago." He offered her a stick of the stale gum, which she took gratefully. Before she could begin talking, he said, "You just take it easy. Take as long as you want." What he was thinking in his mind was, "You don't have to say anything and I'd almost prefer it if you said nothing."
Almost as if in a trance, she started, "I was flying drag. I had just gotten off the ground and was getting set to form up with the rest of the squad when they came at us. Must've been in a cloud or back behind the Chisos or something. I'm not even sure which direction they came from. The first one I saw was coming from the . . . west. Yeah, west.
"Had to have been at least two full squadrons of fighters. I went into instinct and turned to see my wingman—Casey. I was going to see what he was going to do. Right, left, whatever. I saw him, just before the tracers cut through his cowling. I was close enough to see his blood splatter—splatter across the glass. I think I literally saw his—his brains smash up against the glass. The zero that hit him was going over him so I dove. They opened up on us and I saw three planes explode in midair. No time to eject or radio or anything. The only reason I can think that they didn't shoot me down is that my dive was so sudden they must've thought they hit me. But I was able to swing around and come up behind the killer and rake him. I don't know if I hit him in the body or if he was one of those suicide flyers but he didn't eject. Went into the floor at full speed so fast he didn't even flame. Just left this black crater. I chased his plane into the ground. Then I kind of woke up and tried to get back to the formation."
She looked at him with vacant eyes and said, "It was already gone. I broke radio silence and no one was there. All eleven were gone—and the zeros had already formed back up and were heading south. That was when I thought I saw a couple 'chutes. I wanted to fly in that direction to make sure but I didn't want to draw attention to them. So I took out after the trailing zeros and blasted one before I saw the bombers—with more zeros running escort. I knew I couldn't get to any of them before they got to Crockett, so I decided to try and get out of their radio range and call in some help. I think."
"You think?"
She shrugged and replied, "Maybe I'm just a coward. Maybe I just ran. Other than seeing Casey die—and watching that Jap plow into the floor, I don't remember any of it very clearly. It's like a dream. A really bad dream." She slammed her fist so hard against the bench Jason was surprised she didn't break something—either the bench or a bone—and said, "I ran. I'm the only survivor of the 187th not because I'm such a good pilot or anything but because I'm a coward!"
"You're alive because you could either live to fight another day or commit suicide this day. And you're right, that power dive you pulled probably threw them off."
"I—"
"I was there, Lieutenant. That squadron didn't care about you—but it would have if you had gone after the bombers. Their only mission was to erase Crockett from the map and the 187th got in the way. If you could've somehow stopped one bomber it wouldn't have made much difference. Avery and Carter tell me there were at least six bombers up there today. From what they did to the base, I'd say there had to be at least that many, maybe more. You know as well as I do that they fly two escorts to every bomber which means there were twelve more zeros up there. You couldn't have gotten through. You did what you had to do."
"I should have died with the rest of them. They were my squadron." She put her head down and wept. Through her sobs, she asked, "Do you know what it's like to live through something like that when no one else did?" Louder, with vitriol, she asked, "Do you know what it's like to live when someone that close to you has died and—and you think it should have been the other way around?"
As if realizing it for the first time, Kerrigan said, "My squadron was safely on the ground and only three of us are alive."
She turned her head to look at him and asked, "Who did make it? Off Crockett, I mean."
"With you, we have eleven for sure. Maybe two more if those really were 'chutes you saw."
She mouthed the word eleven as if she couldn't even say it. "Who?" He counted off to her who had survived and where they had been. He left out the story of Private Clark. She would hear that soon enough. He had a hard enough time talking about it himself. He didn't think he could tell someone else about it, yet.
She finally wiped a hand across her face, turning the tears into mud, and asked in disbelief, "Everyone else is gone? The General and . . . all of them? You're sure? You searched every building and everything?"
He nodded. There didn't seem to be much else that could be said.
After a long time of sil
ence, she finally said, "It must be worse for you."
He was awakened from thoughts that were a long way from Crockett and Marathon and could only reply, "Huh?"
She repeated, "It must be worse for you. You probably knew everybody there. I just knew my squad and the mechanics. Met a couple other people. But I wasn't really attached to anyone yet. You probably were. I’m sorry I assumed it was worse for me."
He shrugged and told her, "Maybe it hasn't registered on me, yet." He knew that was a lie, though, as he remembered what he had done just a few minutes before. Suddenly those images ran through his head again and he had to put his hand to his mouth. He didn't think she saw it—or knew why he was doing it. He also didn't know why he cared. Hadn't she just done the same thing?
"You ever lost anyone before?"
"Not a whole base at once," he quipped, trying to sound flippant. "But, uh, yeah. I've lost people before. Really—really close people."
"Yeah, me too." She looked down at her shoes and she traced patterns in the hard dirt below the bench. She made a "B", like she always did at such times, then rubbed it out with her other foot. Finally, she looked up at him and asked, "Does the pain ever go away?"
"Hasn't yet," he replied, looking at his watch. He stood up and said, "I called for a meeting of all the Crockett people at Whitey's. You want to come?"
"I'm one of the survivors," she answered as she stood up. "Where's Whitey's? Is that a bar near here? I've only ridden through Marathon before. Never stopped."
He started walking towards the hospital and said, "Whitey is the best mechanic on Crockett. Great scrounger, too. Right now he's in the hospital with a broken leg. So we're going to go meet around his bed. Kind of, um, kind of wanted a chance to talk to everyone before—"
"Before what?"
"Before they start shipping us to other places. Can't send us back to Crockett, obviously."
"Yeah, I guess not."
Everyone was already there when Kerrigan walked in with Lt. Dalmouth, much to the chagrin of the duty nurse. The nurse scowled at Kerrigan and said, "Captain, I know what you and your people have been through today, but I can't have you disrupting my ward."
Kerrigan nodded and told her, "We won't be in here long. I just wanted everyone together and I doubted you would let Carter and Whitey out of here. So this seemed like the only place we could get together. We'll try to keep it quiet."
"See that you do, sir. In my ward, I'm the ranking officer no matter what's on your collar."
"Yes ma'am," he smiled.
Everyone gathered around the area were Carter and Whitey had been placed side by side and greeted Kerrigan as if seeing an old friend. Kerrigan noticed that all of them had taken some time to clean up while he still looked like he'd just gotten up off the tarmac. He saluted them all at once then introduced, "I don't know if any of you know Lieutenant Dalmouth here. She was with the 187th."
Lt. Carter smiled and said, "They brought in a couple of your buddies about an hour ago."
"Really?" Bronwyn asked excitedly.
Carter nodded and told her, "I hear one of them's going to join our broken leg row here but the other's just fine. Knows how to make a chute jump, I guess."
Dalmouth started to turn and go but Kerrigan put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Stay for just a moment, please Lieutenant. Then you can take off. I'd—we'd like to have you here with us. You're one of us."
She seemed to bristle at the idea, but complied. Jason cleared his throat and said, "I just wanted to commend all of you on how well you did, today. I don't know why the good Lord spared the eleven of us—thirteen counting the other two members of the 187th—"
"Fourteen sir," Sergeant Davies injected. "Private Clark made it off Crockett with the rest of us."
"You're right—fourteen. But now we're already down to thirteen." He tried to smile, "The lucky thirteen. We now share a bond that I don't think will ever be broken. I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm assuming this has become a new battle front and they'll obviously need soldiers here so I'm putting in for a position here. I don't know if I'll get it, and I don't know where they'll send the rest of you. I don't know if they'll rebuild Crockett or just fight the battle from here. I just want you all to know that I saw extreme bravery from all of you today and—if we never get to serve together again—it has been a tremendous honor to have served with you today." He then saluted them each in turn.
When he was about to walk away, Major Sherman said, "Captain, I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you for getting us out of there." There were several nods and words of agreement.
Kerrigan nodded an acknowledgement of their thanks, then turned to Bronwyn and said, "You can go find the others now, if you like."
"Thank you, sir."
As she started to walk away, Major Sherman caught up with her and offered to help her find the other two pilots. As the group dispersed with hugs and handshakes to go find their temporary billets, Jason slumped into a chair near Whitey's bed and began to talk about their days growing up together in Haskell and the things they would do there if they ever got to go back.
Chapter Four
He woke up on a strange cot in a strange place with a strange voice saying, "Captain?"
Kerrigan was instantly awake and looked up to see a fresh-faced young corporal bent over him. "Captain?" the young man said again. "General McIntyre asked me to have you report to his office at oh-four-thirty hours. It's oh-three-thirty now if you would like to shower and shave first. He also asked me to provide you with a fresh change of clothes and toilet items, sir." With an earnest look on his face, he handed over the mentioned items.
"Thank you, Corporal. Do you know what this is about?"
"No sir."
Kerrigan dismissed the young man with a salute then went to find a shower. Normally very quick about his showers—and even though he had taken one just before bed the evening before—he decided to luxuriate in this shower. So once the young man had shown him where the shower was, he just stood under almost scalding water and looked up at the stars. The base was under a blackout order—as was the nearby town of Marathon—so there was no light pollution to diminish the twinkling of the million lights hanging above him in the desert air.
On the other side of the cinder-block wall, Bronwyn leaned face first against the bricks and let the hot water pound her back. She was never one for long showers, though, and this time was no different. After only moments, she was reaching for the knobs.
"I want to go home," she mumbled, not even aware she had said it aloud.
"What?" a voice said from over the wall.
The sound made her jump, which almost made her lose her footing on the soapy wet floor of the shower stall. She grabbed onto the handles to hold herself up and then the voice registered on her and she asked, "Captain?" She then remembered where she was and asked herself why she hadn't just kept her stupid mouth shut and hoped he would go away.
"Lieutenant?" the voice asked.
"Yessir," she replied meekly, as she hastily wrapped a towel around herself. He hadn't seemed like the type of person who would peek over the wall at her, but the very idea that she was talking to someone—especially a man—while standing naked had made her extremely uncomfortable.
"I didn't realize these things were coed," he said after a moment of silence—in which he, too, was hastily wrapping himself in a towel.
"I guess technically they're not. There’s a cinder-block between our side and yours," the lieutenant replied as she hastily got dressed—even though she had not yet dried her legs. Hoping to quickly change the subject, she asked, "Are you going to meet with Captain McIntyre?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Uh-huh. Did they tell you what we're meeting him about?"
"No. At first I was thinking he was going to tell us something bad, but I don't think he would have given us the opportunity to clean up for that. Now I can't imagine what he wants us for."
Thirty-five minutes later he was arri
ving at the General's office at the same time as Lieutenants Dalmouth and Avery. They all seemed to ask at once one variation or another of the question, "Any idea what this is about?" None of them did.
Both of the others were also dressed in sharply pressed new uniforms and seemed to have been given the same long shower privileges. Lieutenant Avery looked like his old imposing self, but Lieutenant Dalmouth looked like a different person. Perhaps not a beauty queen, she was certainly striking. And the uniform showed that she had quite a nice figure that had been unnoticeable beneath the flight suit of the day before. Her hair, redder now that it was clean, was in a smart ponytail that hung to just between her shoulder blades.
Suddenly, Kerrigan had a completely unbidden visual image of her as she might have looked moments before in the shower—just inches from where he had been standing. While an obviously attractive image, he was a firm believer that gentlemen did not think such things—especially about nice young women, and most especially about women they worked with. He closed his eyes briefly and put his hand to his forehead, as if trying to squeeze the images out of his head.
"Headache?" Bronwyn asked.
"Uh, no," he replied uncomfortably. He was unable to look at her for fear that she would know what he had been thinking. He knew that was ridiculous, but—like most men—he had had that feeling before. Finally, he was able to will himself to—if not dispose of the images—relegate them to the backmost part of his mind.
They were soon brought into the General's office. Right behind them entered another officer that Kerrigan recognized though didn't know particularly well, Captain Sean Mulchahey of the 187th. A stocky young man with a swarthy complexion, he, too, was immaculately clean. They all saluted the General and stood at attention before his desk.
General Andrew McIntyre was a sixty-year old black man who looked like he could still have taken Lt. Avery in an arm-wrestling championship. He sat down behind his desk—even though he didn't look like he was going to fit—and said, "At ease men." With a cough of embarrassment, he quickly added, "And woman." Looking at her, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still can't get used to the idea of women in combat. If I hadn't known it yesterday I found out just how good a woman can be in combat—but that's neither here nor there.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 3): Lost Time Page 5