by Tom Wilson
Benny had told her the bus was heading back to Takhli late in the afternoon and that a lot of them were on the schedule the next morning. He'd said they were flying a lot of missions, and his grim attitude indicated they were tough ones. He'd added that the Bear was getting another day off and didn't have to return until tomorrow afternoon.
"How about you?" she'd asked, careful not to press him.
"If you want, I'll stay."
"I want."
He'd looked pleased.
The Bear returned from visiting with the preacher, probably giving him his customary tip, and someone yelled it was time for the reception.
Reception?
They all went out and crawled onto the Air Force bus. The driver was the big one called Tiny and he wasn't allowed to drink, but the others had a case of cold beer they'd gotten from somewhere and started popping them open and partying. When they were all aboard, Tiny began to struggle through the traffic, amid the squeals and honks and clamor. He would glare hard at errant drivers and look mean, but the Thais ignored him and continued to squeal around in their small Japanese cars.
The one called Colonel Mack had given away the bride, insisting that, by God, Chief Wright's daughter was going to be treated properly. He'd shaken his head and said he didn't know what the world was coming to, what with a fine young flower like Julie being given over to the clutches of someone as depraved as the Bear, and if she needed someone's shoulder to lean on, she shouldn't hesitate to call on him.
He welcomed her back into the Air Force fold.
"As you know, we take care of our own, Julie," he said. "I don't suppose you remember my wife Alice from back in Spangdahlem, Germany."
Julie said she'd been pretty young then.
"Well, she remembers you. What were you, about fifteen, sixteen?"
"Yes, sir."
"She led the Sunday teen group Bible study."
Julie remembered.
"In her last letter, Alice said for you to write and tell her how you and your folks are doing. Benny told me about your dad, but you ought to write her and tell her about your mother."
The guys were drinking the cold beer, and Liz took one for herself. Benny, who had maneuvered to sit beside her, was talking to the one called Pudge about airplanes, and they were making flying motions with their hands.
It was all loud and boisterous and good fun.
Sloppy was sitting in the seat ahead of her, and he turned and tried to chat her up. A withering glare and curt word from Mal Bear caused him to quickly turn around and try with another stewardess, who was already being smooth-talked by a fighter pilot someone had called Swede.
They arrived at the Siam Intercontinental, a luxurious new hotel, and went to poolside, where Colonel Mack said one of the guys called Duffy had gone to set things up.
Duffy? It couldn't be! She remembered a night in Guam, and a guy she'd met by chance on Agana beach, just down from the hotel. A major, he'd said, on his way to fly combat. Unmarried but very innovative when they'd gone to her room. She had gone wild that one week of her life. It just couldn't be, she told herself again.
How many guys were named Duffy?
She had a sinking feeling as she followed the group, trying to casually answer questions that Benny Lewis had asked about things back home, thinking about the Duffy she had met. Please, God, don't let it be him.
Standing there, talking with a Thai bartender at a cabana bar they'd set up beside the pool, was Duffy. The Duffy. He turned and grinned at the approaching group, singled her out with his eyes, and did a double-take. He gave her a look of recognition and a pleasant nod.
Oh God! Had Benny seen?
He was the only Air Force person she'd adventured with except for Benny. And Mal Bear, but that didn't count because he wouldn't tell. Her world felt like it was about to collapse.
As the party got under way, she waited with leaden heart for Duffy Spencer to approach her.
Several chilled bottles of champagne, punch, and even a huge wedding cake were already set up in the cabana. Colonel Mack made another speech, telling them to drink up and enjoy, that it was all paid for out of their squadron party fund.
Benny stayed close by her side, because she was drinking too much. She laughed nervously when the men gathered around the Bear and grabbed him, then trundled him to poolside and tossed him in, tux and all. Julie clowned, leaning over at the poolside and shaking her finger at him. The Bear held his arms out to her. She laughed joyously and jumped in, came up sputtering, and they sank together, kissing. Next, a couple of the other stews went in, so Liz withdrew to safer ground. One at a time the guys were tossed in by friends.
Then, with Benny and everyone else except her and one other stew in the pool, Duffy Spencer stopped talking to the Thai bartender and came over to her.
"A good party, huh?"
Her heart was lodged in her throat. She nodded.
"You look good, Liz."
"Please?" she asked, feeling tearful. If she could only do it all over.
"I see you're with Benny. You guys serious?"
A "yes" was all she could get out.
He looked to the pool, where the exuberant group were splashing and dunking one another. "Benny Lewis? I wouldn't have guessed. He seems awfully tame for you."
She didn't comment.
"He's a good guy, and one hell of a good pilot, but I never figured him to be much of a hell-raiser."
"He's not. Don't tell him about us, please?"
"How about the guy off your crew who was in your room when I went back the next day?"
"He was our captain. He wanted to talk about the next leg of the flight."
"Hey, Liz. I saw him coming out of the shower with a limp dick, remember. Don't shit me, okay?"
She was quiet again, unable to suppress a quiver and a few tears.
"Maybe we can get together sometime here in Bangkok. Maybe in a couple of weeks?"
"No!"
Duffy Spencer grinned as if he knew better and walked away toward the pool. Then with a mighty leap, he jumped in to join his friends.
The cake cutting was next, and the bride and groom kept dripping water onto the icing. Finally Mal Bear did his chore, trying to be neat as he fed Julie. The fighter pilots walked up to the cake, disgusted with him. They each reached in and grabbed a handful of cake, frosting and all, and ate, licking their fingers. They cleaned up by throwing each other into the pool again.
Before the guys left in the Air Force bus, Colonel Mack presented the Bear with a key to the hotel's bridal suite, and said that had also been paid for out of the squadron party fund.
"Can't afford for any more of you characters to get married," he said, grinning.
Everyone hooted at the Bear, and Liz found herself giggling and forgetting about Duffy Spencer.
"Mal, if you need any help," said Sloppy as he climbed onto the bus, "just give me a yell."
The bus departed from the hotel, and left them—Mal Bear and Julie, Benny and herself, and the three stewardess friends—waving at the curbside. Liz was the only one who was still dry. The Bear and Julie mumbled apologies, grinning at each other like children about to get a treat, and walked toward the hotel. He held a possessive arm around her waist, and she had the same silly, glowing expression she'd worn in Bangkok.
Liz watched them go, unable to contain a smile of her own for Julie's happiness. She turned to Benny. "Where's your room?" she asked him innocently.
"I don't have one."
"Well, it so happens that I do. I'm over at the Princess Hotel. Come on along and we'll get you dried off."
Bear Stewart
They were in the suite.
"You're not showing yet," he said, looking her over at arm's length.
"A little. You haven't seen me with my clothes off yet."
"I was going to mention something about that."
She bit her lip. "Are you really sure about all this, Mal?"
"Having second thoughts?"
; "Of course not. I meant you."
"I've never been more sure of anything."
"Sometimes I feel like I trapped you. Not with the pregnancy, because you didn't know when you asked if I'd marry you."
"You're the one who ought to feel trapped. You heard Colonel Mack say I'm depraved."
She tilted her head. "You better feel depraved tonight, big fella. Ba, ba, ba, ba, boom!" She made sounds like strip-tease music and weaved back and forth, reached around for the catch at the back of the wedding gown.
"Let me do that," he said.
04/1030L—Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
B. J. Parker
Once a day over the course of a week, someone—either his 355th wing, or the wing at Korat, or the Navy A-6's—was tasked to return once again to Thai Nguyen to bomb the damn railroad siding and loading facility that had already been destroyed.
His 355th had rendered the facility unusable the first day they had gone there. Had done it well, with no loss of lives. Had pulverized the damned thing without doing any harm to the steel mill, just like the politicians and generals had wanted them to do.
He'd known they would be going back to prove a point to the North Vietnamese, but by the time they had gone back for the fifth and sixth times, he'd begun to wonder about the sanity of the whole thing. Every day someone went back to bomb it again, and the defenses were becoming formidable there.
B. J. went to the command post and called the Seventh Air Force deputy for operations, a two-star he'd known for a long while, on the scrambler telephone.
After beating around the bush for a while, he finally came out and asked the major general why they were having to go back, since they'd knocked out the target and it seemed like they should've gotten their point across to Hanoi.
Parker added, "The North Vietnamese have brought in about half the goddam guns they've got in the whole country. Another day or two, they'll have them all there."
"Don't second guess, B. J.," he was told on the wavering, squealing scrambler line. "This one's right from the big man himself. He's making a point with Hanoi."
So B. J. did not question further. He led that afternoon's mission, the wing's sixth trip to the Thai Nguyen rail siding.
04/1340L—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Sam Hall
Mack was away in Bangkok with a few of the squadron pilots, seeing the Bear married off to Chief Wright's daughter. Sam would have enjoyed going, but he'd encouraged Mack to take the time off and help the Bear do it right.
Colonel Parker, as mission commander, was flying as leader of the flak suppression chopper flight. Sam and Bud Lutz led the two 357th squadron flights, and today theirs would be the last strike flights on the target.
Dave Persons and his bear, Dutch Hansletter, were leading the Weasel flight, and Sam could hear them out front, trying to give the gomers hell by launching their Shrikes at the target area SAMs as they ingressed.
It sounded busy up there.
"Ford flight, we've got bogeys out at nine o'clock low," he heard Bud Lutz calling to his flight a few miles behind him. "Keep your energy up!"
"This is Red Dog. We count at least three SAM sites in the target area," called Dave Persons. Then in a more excited voice: "Valid launch, Red Dogs!"
"Ramblers, keep a good lookout for MiG's," Sam cautioned his own flight.
"Red Dog lead's hit!" called someone.
"Weeep, weeep, weeep!" came on distant beeper. Then a second one came over the radio, creating an awful cacophony. "Weeep-eep, weeep-eep, weeep-eep."
Sam switched off his emergency channel, to be able to hear other radio chatter.
Two strobes chattered on his radar warning gear, announcing the presence of guns and a SAM site.
Sam glanced out at three o'clock and nagged at his wingman, Rambler two, a sad-eyed lieutenant named John Radkovich, to move around more.
"Chevy three is down in the target area." It was Colonel Parker making the call.
Damn, thought Sam. So far the gomers had hammered a Wild Weasel crew and a member of the chopper flight, and those were the first two flights in the target area.
Sam's Rambler flight made it through to the target with no SAMs fired at them, but the flak over the railroad siding was thick.
Sam went into his pop-up by feinting right, then soaring up to his left toward the offset point.
"Rambler two, swing out wider," he snapped at Radkovich, who was following too close.
"Two."
Sam topped at 12,000 feet and peered down into the smoke and dust thick over the target. Damn, but it was hard to see anything there. He looked, floated, and finally spotted the rails where they snaked into the siding. He began to wing over.
Something bright flashed at his three o'clock, and he glanced over toward his wingman.
Radkovich's Thud had been hit, half the wing torn off by 85mm flak. The wounded Thud began a constant roll.
"Bail out, Rambler two!" Sam yelled.
The canopy came off and fluttered away in the wind as the bird began to plummet.
"Eject, Rambler two!" he called. Two more 85mm rounds went off close enough to rock Sam's aircraft.
Radkovich's Thud continued downward, but there was still no chute.
"Get out!" he yelled one more time, still circling.
A strobe chattered and the SAM light illuminated, followed by the familiar, red LAUNCH light.
Sam nosed his bird over and started his dive-bomb attack on the already destroyed railroad siding.
04/1755L—Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Sam had just finished with the debriefing when Col. B. J. Parker approached him.
"Sorry about your wingman, Sam."
Sam had never grown accustomed to losing a member of his flight. He never would.
"We've got a reporter on base, and I've got to make him happy. Seventh Air Force told him he could come out to the bases and get a story. Something about how our black officers are coping. I talked with him before we took off, but he wants to get it firsthand."
"It's not a good time, boss. Mack's gone and I'm in charge of the squadron." He also had to come down from the emotion of the combat mission.
"I know, and I told the reporter you had just landed, but he wants to get his story so he can get back to Saigon on the morning interbase flight."
Reporters were sent out to the bases every now and then by higher headquarters, and no one liked to talk with them. They kept looking for sensational stories that backed their own beliefs, and you had to stay wary and on your toes. They dealt in snapshots, quick judgments, and in quotes from "reputable sources," which was usually some enlisted clerk. Thus far Sam had avoided them.
Colonel Parker waited for his answer.
"Where is he, sir?" Sam finally growled.
"I sent him over to your squadron."
Sam left the command post and trudged back toward the 357th squadron building.
"The things a guy's gotta do for his country," he muttered.
Sam found him waiting in the pilots' lounge, which was otherwise deserted. He was a thin guy with hair down to his collar, and he wore a short-sleeved, mustard-colored outfit. The shirt had pleated pockets and military epaulets. He carried a writing pad in a weatherbeaten, brown leather cover. Sam wondered where they got their uniforms. There was probably some place in New York that sold them for outrageous prices. Either that or they bought them from Boy Scout outlets.
The guy was seated at one of the barstools in the empty room.
Sam sat down nearby. "Help you?"
The reporter glanced at his pad. "You are—ah—Marion S. Hall, the third?"
"Major Hall will suffice."
"Well, Major Hall it is then." He looked at his pad. "I see you flew a combat flight today."
"Yes."
"Is it tough?" he asked in a sympathetic voice.
"Is what tough?"
"Flying here as a black."
"It'd be tough flying here if I was pink, blue, or green."
"But it must be difficult. Your black brothers are demonstrating back in the United States, you know."
"Yeah. Some are."
"Are you saying you don't support what they're doing?"
"I didn't say that."
"Do you support them, Major Hall?"
Sam rubbed a sore spot on his cheek where the oxygen mask had chafed. "Sometimes. I'm for equality."
"But a black man here, flying for the white man's government? Isn't that difficult?"
"What are you doing? Trying to piss me off?"
"I assure you—"
"I'm a major in the United States Air Force. When I fly jets, I'm a very good fighter pilot. I'm here fighting for my country. If my country is a little screwed up about some things back home, then I'll help change it when I get there. But here I'll fight for it, because it's my country and it's at war. Something you don't ever want to do around me is poor-mouth my country. Now, is that all you've got?"
"I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I was trying to explore your perspective, that of a black officer in a white man's environment."
"I'm a major. I'm a fighter pilot. I'm an American. Forget I'm black, okay?"
The reporter read something from his notes.
"Do you believe we should mine Haiphong harbor?"
"Ask the generals," Sam snapped. "I just fly and fight."
"Surely you'd like to see changes in the way they're running the war."
"Sure. Have 'em lift the restrictions and let us fight."
The reporter was smiling and writing. "And who made those restrictions?"
"Got me. Some politician somewhere, I guess. And while you're at it, have 'em give us better targets. We'd win the war in a month or two and get to go home."
"What kind of targets would you like to bomb?"
"Airports, industry, the docks, the dikes, things like that."
The reporter nodded slyly, not writing that down. "And you're willing to drop bombs on your brown brothers in North Vietnam?"
Sam sighed, reached over and took the reporter's pad. He ripped out the top page, where the man had written his notes.
"I didn't mean to anger you, Major Hall," the reporter sputtered.
Sam stood slowly, dropped the pad back onto the bar minus the page, and forced a smile. "Is that all?"