“What’s the good word?” Horne asked while they were walking across the grass to the adjoining barracks.
“Since last week, not much. I got a letter from my father just before I checked out at Memphis, and he’s pretty worried about sabotage and subversive activities. It was a real long letter. He says some congressman says there are twenty-seven subversive books in the Library of Congress.”
“Is that a fact! Did he read them?”
“Who? My father? No, he mostly reads newspapers. That and detective magazines.”
“The congressman! The congressman, stupid.”
“Oh! I don’t know. My father didn’t say.”
“Subversive books! I’ll be damned,” Horne remarked with a thoughtful expression.
A formation of twin-engine bombers roared over the treetops through the warm September dusk.
“Lot of stuff down here,” Horne commented with satisfaction when the noise diminished. “New stuff, too. Couple of Hell-divers came in the other day, and Ostrowski saw a whole squadron of F6’s. He said he never saw anything so sweet.”
Melvin nodded. “I don’t doubt it, but you know, about the time we get through the engine syllabus it’s going to be time to start over and learn how to fly jets.”
Horne shook his head. “Those things’ll never replace propeller-driven planes, not in a million years. They’re fast, sure, nobody argues that, but they haven’t got either the range or the maneuverability. They’ll fade out of the picture, you watch.”
“What makes you so positive? For now, maybe you’re right, but the designers are going to improve them. They’ll stay up longer and maybe get more maneuverable.”
“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been a dreamer. You don’t belong in this outfit. You know that by now, don’t you?” He hesitated, as though he had meant to keep his opinion to himself, but then went on angrily. “Look, it’s none of my business, except that I think your old man is counting on you.”
“What am I supposed to do? Get the Navy Cross?”
“Just forget it,” Horne remarked. “I’m sorry I spoke.” He trotted briskly up the fire escape to his barracks and Melvin followed. It was not quite dark. The breeze was mild, and through the pine trees came the odor of the sea. The evening star was glowing. High overhead a plane steadily reflected the sun below the horizon. Melvin hesitated, reluctant to go inside; he sensed that Horne felt the same.
“You know, it’s queer,” Horne said. He unwrapped a cigar and fondled it. “People can tell we’re cadets.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” and with the cigar gripped in his teeth he straightened up and cinched in his belt, “like just the other day. Me and Elmer and Roska went to the beach. Now, you know Roska—he got drunk and passed out, so me and Elmer were lying there listening to a ball game on the radio when all of a sudden here come these two broads. I’m telling you, you should’ve seen them. They had one of these big striped umbrellas and they set it up, and pretty soon they started spreading this oil or lotion all over themselves. I swear to God”—he paused and frowned—“it’s enough to drive a man wild the way they do that. You know how they do it—they sit there squeezing themselves and rubbing each other. So, anyhow, Elmer was for opening shop right there and the hell with the shore patrol and frankly I wouldn’t of been one jump behind. But anyway—let’s see, I’m getting off the subject. Well, there they were, pretending they didn’t even know we were on the beach, though by this time we’re practically breathing down their necks. So—ah, well, we hadn’t been talking to them five minutes before one of them wanted to know if we’d come back to Mainside to get the bird.”
“Get what?”
“The bird. That’s what they call it down here—getting the commission. I don’t know how it started, maybe on account of the wings. Anyway, the point is: they knew we weren’t officers and they knew we weren’t swabbies. But how? We didn’t even have on GI swimsuits.”
“Maybe the dog tags.”
“Sure. Where does it say ‘cadet’ on your tags? It’s mysterious,” he continued, shaking his head. “We got some kind of a brand. Incidentally, over at the beach we can join the officers’ club if we want to.”
“That’s what I heard. Is it worth it?”
“I don’t figure it is. Most of our time in the area is going to be spent at auxiliary stations way the hell out in the woods. We won’t be around here much.”
“What’s Pensacola like? The town, I mean.”
“Me and Elmer went in the other night. There’s tailor shops all over and they actually come right out on the sidewalk and try to pull you inside to sign you up for later. And there’s some pretty fair restaurants. The bars are all jammed, you got to fight for a drink. And the streets are jammed. Everybody’s selling something—if it isn’t the Red Cross or the Salvation Army it’s some kind of a sticker or a flower. Let’s see—there’s plenty of beer joints scattered around the edge of town, except we can’t go in those, and the whole area is lousy with shore patrol. That’s about it.”
“How are the women?”
“I wondered when you were going to ask that. The area’s loaded, and no mistake, however the situation appears to be a little different from what we’ve been used to. These here look older, but—” He paused and pointed to a flight of planes breaking out of formation and spiraling down into the landing pattern. “You got a clear shot. Now, what are they?”
Melvin studied the planes until they settled behind the trees. “Those were either V’s or J’s. They look so much alike.”
“Those were J’s,” Horne said. “SNJ’s. That fin was just as triangular as could be. I honestly don’t know how you could miss it.”
Melvin leaned his arms on the rail of the fire escape and said, “Well, I honestly don’t know how you could see it. Incidentally, does anybody get washed out on recognition here?”
“Nope. You’re in luck. You don’t get washed out for anything at Pensacola. The skipper told us that all but three per cent would get their wings. What a change from primary, huh? They slaughtered us there.” He grinned. “Nope,” he continued, “all you got to worry about is getting killed. As a matter of fact, though, come to think of it, I did run into one of those three per centers just the other day. He was leaving for the Lakes. He washed out of VB2—that’s the land-based bomber squadron—and he was one sad sack. He was a Dilbert if I ever saw one. You can spot them. He just looked like one.”
“What did he do wrong?”
“Led a flight over restricted territory. But unless you really dope off and do something stupid like that you won’t get washed out here. All you got to worry about, like I say, is that you don’t crucify yourself. If you smack up one of these machines they collect you on a shovel.” He waved expansively and pounded himself on the chest. “I think, by Christ, we got it made!”
“Do you?”
“I do,” Horne affirmed cheerfully. “I do, Ensign Isaacs, I do! Come on inside and say hello.”
They stepped into the barracks and found everyone on the floor shooting dice.
A few days later they reported to Ellyson Field, the first of the auxiliary bases, where they would spend several weeks learning to fly the SNV, an intermediate trainer known as the Valiant. It was a loose, roomy airplane, comfortable to sit in, but under-powered, like a two-cylinder limousine; even so it flew faster than the Yellow Peril. The two cockpits were enclosed by a long glass canopy with sliding panels known as the greenhouse; there were retractable flaps on the wings, and a variable-pitch propeller that could produce a shattering roar.
The SNV had one unusual feature: the wheels were set wide apart. This meant there would be little chance of ground-looping, which came about when an airplane swerved instead of rolling straight ahead. If it swerved, a wing would dip while the plane traveled in an arc, drawn by centripetal force, with increasing swiftness, toward the center around which it had begun to revolve. The accident customarily ended when the wing dragged the gr
ound, since the friction was enough to stop the revolution. The pilot then found himself headed in approximately the opposite direction from which he had been going, with a scraped wing, in full view of the squadron tower and everybody on the flight line. It was not a dangerous accident, but it was humiliating; more than that, it was conclusive evidence that the pilot had lost control, and such was noted on his record.
Although it was theoretically possible to groundloop a take-off, this seldom happened. It was landing that caused the trouble, landing on gusty days, in a crosswind, and especially at night when the runways were invisible and the pilot was guided only by flares.
So it was that Melvin prayed for a bright, shining moon during his first night solo in the SNV; but on that night there was no moon at all, not even the stars could be seen. The sky was overcast, a brisk wind sprang up shortly after sunset, and the temperature dropped, which meant the possibility of ice forming in the carburetor; this, in turn, would mean a dead engine and a forced landing.
He stood just inside the hangar with a parachute slung across his shoulder and stared into the darkness of the field, which was lighted by a few flickering pots of oil. Hearing footsteps he turned around and saw his instructor, who, with false heartiness, slapped him on the back and asked how he was feeling. He answered that he felt all right, whereupon the instructor offered him a cigarette and remarked that, after all, this was not his first night flight; and Melvin, accepting the cigarette, agreed. He had been given a few hours of dual instruction in night flying at Memphis and the instructor knew it.
“Anything bothering you, Isaacs?” the officer inquired with a smile.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, for he had expected some additional instruction.
“Got the jumps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can handle it.”
“Yes, sir,” he repeated as he stared into the darkness.
“You can, can’t you?” the officer asked, looking at him closely.
“Yes, sir.”
They stood side by side, smoking and looking into the night, and at last the officer said, “You drew a black one, kid. I haven’t seen a night this dark in months.”
“It is, isn’t it, sir.”
“Isaacs, there are a couple of strands of high-tension wire on the downwind leg.”
“I know where they are,” Melvin said. “I know exactly where they are.”
On top of the squadron tower the beacon was rotating, the green and white course lights bolting wildly across the station. Soon the night flyers would take off. Already the engines were starting: sputtering, expelling hoarse, roaring barks like sea lions somewhere in the night, while propellers kicked stubbornly back and forth and acrid fumes came drifting toward the hangar. Navigation lights blinked on—red, green, white. The air seemed to vibrate.
The instructor touched Melvin on the arm, and called to him above the roar of the engines. Melvin could barely hear what he said, but he knew it was time to go. He nodded and stepped on the cigarette. Perspiration had begun to trickle down his face.
The instructor shouted, “Watch out for propwash!”
Melvin read his lips and nodded. There would be ten or twelve SNV’s circling the field to practice landings. They would follow each other closely and the air would be turbulent with their passage. He saluted, noticed how intently the officer was studying him, turned away, and began walking toward the flight line.
On the first landing as he was nearing the ground, banking cautiously over the high-tension wires, the left wing dropped. Instantly he pushed the throttle as far as it would go, saw the flares spiral toward him with a pitching motion as though he were on the prow of a ship; the wing flew up and the plane was momentarily level, rattling and howling. He thought it was going to crash; he expected to feel it twist away from him. It surged forward, the burning pots of oil flickered by like rubies beneath the wing, and he pulled up gradually into the circle and went around to try again.
By the time he had completed his final landing for the night he had been frightened so badly and so many times that he was no longer perspiring or trembling. His face was shocked and immobile. He climbed out of the airplane and wandered toward the hangar as though he had been struck on the head. He was not thinking of anything. He was aware that the flight was over; otherwise there was nothing at all on his mind.
The instructor was waiting. He had not been able to see the airplane except when it was on the runway rolling between the pots of oil, but he had followed it around the station by the navigation lights and by the flame of the exhaust. He had seen the lights tilt and dive toward the wires. He knew what had happened. It was nobody’s fault.
The officer attempted to laugh, and called out, “Here comes the luckiest man in the world!”
Melvin heard him and tried to speak, but could not. He approached the officer, saluted, and made an effort to smile, but this was not successful either—his expression remained unchanged. Then, with the officer staring at him, he touched his face, because it felt numb, as though he had been in a blizzard, and realized he had not yet taken off his helmet. It was buckled beneath his chin. He shrugged jerkily, hiccuped, and very slowly walked toward the parachute loft to check in the equipment.
Horne was at the barracks getting ready to take a shower. He had completed his flight an hour earlier.
“Pretty rough night,” he said when Melvin wandered into the room. “Must be a storm front bearing down. I thought I was on a goddam roily-coaster.”
Melvin didn’t speak.
8
The next night they went up again, and Horne was nearly killed when an unidentified plane circled the field in the wrong direction; he saw the lights approaching and dove beneath them just in time. In the barracks he made a joke of it. When Melvin asked if he had not been frightened Horne shouted, “What the hell am I supposed to do, sit around and think about it till I get the shakes? You ask the stupidest questions! Of course I was frightened!” He tried to calm himself, and continued, “I was so scared I wet my pants, but I got through—I’m alive—I’m going to forget it. I really am going to forget the whole thing,” he said, and pounded his fist on the desk.
“I wish I could forget that easily,” Melvin said.
“Do you mean to tell me you’re still hopped up about those high-tension wires? That was yesterday!”
Melvin was embarrassed. “I guess you’re right. It’s over.”
“You think you had a problem there, just wait till we get to Whiting. Cole was telling me about some cadet who got so nervous under the hood looking at all those instruments that he went off his rocker and was crying like a little girl when they landed. They couldn’t get him out of the plane—he wouldn’t let go of the stick. They had to pry him loose. Yes, sir!” Horne added with angry satisfaction. “You want something to sweat about, just wait till we hit that instrument squadron.”
In November they packed their duffel bags, climbed into a Navy truck, and went bouncing over a new gravel road through the pines to Whiting Field. A mood of expectancy, of anticipation, overhung this base, which had a temporary look, as though the trees had been cleared and the runways poured and the buildings erected in a few days. There were, in fact, chinks in the walls of the barracks so that during certain hours a streak of sunlight would enter a room and creep along the coarse gray Navy blankets stretched taut on the bunks, and across the newly varnished desks. And in the middle of the night, or in a quiet moment at high noon, a fragment of plaster might drop from the wall or the ceiling. Roaches crawled through the showers and through the desks and the lockers. The paths between the buildings were deep with a fine, white, heavy dust as stifling as lime, which muffled the sound of the marching platoons. The cadets were accustomed to marching across broad, hard parade grounds drenched with sunlight, or to the sound of their heels on concrete and gravel, but at Whiting Field their shoes flopped in the dust, their voices were lost among the trees.
Quite early each morning they went swimmin
g. The pool was outdoors. The water was so cold that after one length they were half paralyzed. It did not take them long to discover that no roll call was taken from the time they left the barracks until the time they returned, although an officer trailed the platoon from the barracks to the pool to make certain the cadets did not fade away into the forest. Once they arrived at the pool, however, this particular officer invariably seated himself on a bench, took out his pipe and a newspaper, and seldom looked around. So it happened that every once in a while as he lifted the newspaper to turn a page some cadet would draw himself swiftly from the freezing water and race to the fence. Over it he would go, like a monkey escaping from a circus, to be lost in the deep shadows of the pine forest. The officer was not ignorant of this, but he never said anything. He knew how cold the water was. So long as the entire platoon did not vault the fence he would not make life difficult.
Hours were spent in the Link trainer. A WAVE sat at a large desk beside each of these odd, stubby toys; she held a microphone and wore a headset to communicate with the cadet inside the Link. Jerkily, drunkenly, like horrible automatons, the machines veered and tilted. Across the desk a stylus moved, recording the pattern.
When they took off for actual instrument practice they climbed high in the air and stayed aloft for an hour or two, methodically executing the patterns in a brilliant windy sky. The flights were dual. An instructor taxied the plane to the end of the runway and made the take-off. Soon after leaving the ground he would order the cadet, who was riding in the back seat, to pull the hood over the cockpit; then in the sepia twilight, as though he sat inside a tent, suspended by the steadily throbbing machine, Melvin would examine the fluorescent lighted panel and wait for additional orders. Occasionally, as the instructor banked the airplane, the cockpit would grow faintly brighter or darker. Rarely, like the sun through a chink in the barracks, a slender stripe of daylight would find its way between the metal and the canvas. Except for this, and for the sound of the engine laboring or humming easily, there was no way to distinguish what was happening except by reading the instruments.
The Patriot Page 11