On each flight, as soon as the hood was drawn, he began to count the instruments. He did not know precisely how many there were, but if one included all the switches, knobs, pumps, primers, lamps, ventilators—whatever could be twisted, pushed, adjusted, or pulled—each of which had its own purpose and meaning, he estimated there must be something like ninety or one hundred. Counting them kept him occupied; it helped to control his anxiety. He never got everything counted; a few minutes after the plane was airborne the headphones would crackle and hum and he would hear the instructor ask if he was ready to take over. Then he would unhook the tiny black microphone, no bigger than a silver dollar, from its box and say, with dread and reluctance, that he was ready. Then the control stick wobbled, he took hold of it, and the lesson commenced.
Following instructions from the front seat he banked to the left—the gyro compass turned smoothly with him while the magnetic compass dipped and swung sluggishly, crazily, in the amber fluid—pressed the stick forward, and knew he must be entering a dive because the tachometer reading increased and the air speed increased and he could hear the wind rattling the canopy and flapping the taut borders of the hood; yet, despite these proofs, his body insisted he was going up, not down. Or not down so steeply. Or was the plane level?
After a while his kinesthetic sense stopped functioning altogether: his body could not even estimate whether it was right side up, upside down, or sideways. He sometimes glanced at the safety belt to see if it was taut or slack; he trusted the belt, convinced it would not deceive him. But as for the instruments, he was not so sure; there was something malignant and unnerving in the absolute assurance of the dials.
He did rely, however, on one large dial in the upper right-hand corner of the panel: it was called the artificial horizon and consisted of two white horizontal bars, the shorter one representing the airplane, the longer one representing the horizon. When he was flying straight ahead, and level, there appeared to be only one bar, but the moment the plane began to deviate from this course—diving, climbing, or turning—the bars drifted apart: the horizon rose above the wing, or sank below it, or inclined precisely as the surface of the earth was inclined. If there had been nothing to do but fly the plane on an even keel one could do it with this instrument alone, but there were patterns.
The simplest pattern was called Able. Then came Baker. Then came Charlie, and so on. Charlie required about ten minutes. It included various turns, from 270 degrees to 450 degrees, at different speeds. It required gains and losses of altitude at predetermined headings within a specified number of seconds and at a particular speed. Melvin was continually busy, for no sooner did he correct one deviation than he discovered another. He scanned the panel anxiously, finding that a turn was poorly coordinated because he was heavy on the rudder, that the air speed was dropping, had already fallen two knots; now he was four degrees off heading. Time was running out: three seconds late at the beginning of the second leg. The tachometer was rising; he was banking at 35 degrees instead of 30, and now the plane was skidding. And he knew that all this time the instructor in the front seat was skeptically watching an identical panel of instruments. Often he could hear a clicking noise in the headset, caused by the instructor fingering the microphone button, which meant that the pattern was going badly and that the instructor was on the verge of telling him to quit and start over. Finally, completing the pattern, he was back where he had started ten minutes ago, an eternity ago.
Usually the instructor had no comment, or if he did speak it was only to criticize. At best he would remark that it was not as bad as yesterday. Then another pattern would commence.
On the way home the instructor released the hood. The canvas was attached to a spring and snapped backward so quickly that Melvin always jumped. The instructor in the front seat could feel him jump, and every day after this happened Melvin would see the instructor shaking with laughter.
In the barracks he discussed the patterns with Sam Horne and they analyzed the mistakes they had made, because, as always, when the syllabus had been completed they must convince a check pilot that they were qualified to continue.
McCampbell and Roska were the first to finish the syllabus and take the check ride. Both of them passed. Horne was scheduled for his last flight that same afternoon, and when he came down he was given a choice of flying the check immediately or waiting till the next day. He did not even stop for a cup of coffee. He went up again and returned to the hangar two hours later, saying the check was easy.
Elmer Free was the next to go up, and as soon as they saw him returning to the hangar they knew he had failed. The next morning he flew another check ride, and again failed. This meant he must appear before a board of review to request additional instruction. If the board refused to grant his request he would be washed out and sent to Great Lakes as an apprentice seaman.
So, with three of their acquaintances having completed the course and the fourth one about to be washed out, Melvin and Pat Cole wished each other luck. They were going up at the same time.
Melvin’s check pilot was a lanky, taciturn lieutenant named Kennedy who had a bad reputation. Melvin found him sprawled on a row of gasoline drums in the shade of the schedule board. He was munching peanuts and flipping the shells toward a helicopter that had just landed. Melvin approached, came to attention, and saluted. Kennedy did not bother to return the salute; in fact he did not even look up. A pair of brogan shoes was in his line of vision, so he knew a cadet was standing there. He slipped another peanut between his teeth and absently said, “Where the Christ have you been?”
Melvin answered respectfully that he didn’t know he was late.
“You bet you’re late!” Kennedy snapped, holding up one arm so that Melvin could see his wristwatch. It was eight minutes before the hour. Cadets were expected to report to the schedule board ten minutes early.
“Well?” Kennedy demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Kennedy spat out the remains of a peanut and languidly got to his feet. His coveralls were rotten with grease and perspiration. His eyeballs protruded. He breathed thickly into Melvin’s face, glaring at him with impersonal hostility.
“You cadets,” he said, and leaning down he grabbed a parachute by one strap and slung it across his shoulder. Without a word he snatched a piece of yellow chalk from the WAVE at the board, drew a diagonal mark in the box beside his name, tossed the chalk to her, and went slouching toward the flight line. Melvin hurried after him, keeping half a step behind.
The only thing the lieutenant said before they left the ground was, “You better be good.”
At two thousand feet he turned over the controls to Melvin and ordered him to start at the beginning and go through everything he had learned.
It was a poor day for precision flying because the sky was filled with convection currents; the plane hit them with sudden jarring thumps. Some of the bumps were so hard that to Melvin, locked inside the canvas hood, they felt like solid objects in the center of the sky, like the bodies of birds, or ruts in a country road. He struggled with the patterns, but no sooner did he have everything organized than a current would destroy the heading, or the plane would abruptly drop fifteen or twenty feet and then bounce upward. In the front seat Kennedy was smoking; Melvin could not see him but he could smell the cigarette. Only once did the lieutenant speak. He slurred his words; it sounded as though he were holding the microphone too close to his lips:
“. . . think you’re doing?” he demanded. He was obviously exasperated.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“. . . accelerate?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t hear you!” Melvin answered with a feeling of desperation.
“I said, why the Christ did you accelerate?”
“I don’t know, sir. I thought I was supposed to.”
“. . . not! Fly . . . second leg at normal cruise.”
“Shall I try it again?”
“No!”
Melvin w
ent on with the maneuvers but Kennedy had taken the heart out of him. The plane struck another wild current and floated; he sucked the throttle back and carefully lowered the nose, but the altimeter continued to rise. Then he felt Kennedy touch the controls. Within a second or so the plane was again on course. The heading was perfect, the wings were level, the air speed no longer fluctuated. There was nothing to do but sit with his hands folded helplessly in his lap and admire the coordination of the instruments.
Presently they struck another column of air; the plane scarcely wavered. Kennedy completed the pattern and then the plane barrel-rolled. No sooner were they right side up than the throttle slid forward. Melvin knew something else was about to happen. He took hold of the braces beside the seat and waited. The air speed increased, the plane snapped over on its back.
They flew along upside down while he dangled uncomfortably from the belt and gripped the braces. His cheeks felt flabby and his brain was turning scarlet. The plane entered a dive upside down. He studied the instruments and was impressed to realize that the lieutenant was making inverted turns without skidding or slipping. He noticed, about this time, that they were getting rather low. He wondered how far above the trees they were; he wished the lieutenant would pop the hood so he could look out. He felt an attack of vertigo coming on, and soon, annoyed because he knew he was wrong, he became convinced that the plane was no longer inverted; his body told him it was in a leisurely, spiraling climb. An instant later he leaned to the right because he thought the plane was banking in that direction. All at once the hood flew open, flooding the cockpit with light. Melvin lifted his head, which was packed hard and heavily with blood, and discerned what he thought was a solid, bluish-gray bank of clouds lying dead ahead. The plane was diving toward it, oscillating slightly, like a projectile. The clouds were curiously flecked with white, and he was struck, too, by the recollection that the sky had been clear half an hour before, and it was then he realized he was staring not at a bank of clouds but into the Gulf of Mexico.
Just as they were about to dive through the surface the lieutenant pressed the controls; the plane rolled right side up and flashed over the waves.
They skimmed across the Gulf for about fifteen minutes. Kennedy never said a word. Melvin remained absolutely motionless in the rear cockpit, arms folded, watching the spray flit over the wings; he was aware that he and the officer might be killed at any instant, but this thought did not worry him, partly because he did not think the officer would make a mistake but also because, if there was an accident, the officer, rather than himself, would be responsible. He knew that if they struck a wave they would never be found; the wreckage would sink in a minute and the Navy would never learn what had become of them, and, actually, would be apt to assume that the cadet had been the cause of whatever had happened. Yet this would not be the truth and he felt oddly secure in the knowledge that he was blameless.
He thought it might very well come to pass that they would crash, for he perceived that they were still closer to the water than before; it must be that the officer, for whatever reason, was seeking the ultimate risk. Once, in fact, he felt a bump as they raced over the crest of a high breaking wave and he saw Kennedy’s head turn, ever so slightly. Melvin was dryly amused by this, and thought to himself that it might be just as well if the next wave caught them, for it seemed that the long months of work had been in vain. And it seemed to him, too, that the officer had not given him a fair chance—the air had been so turbulent. But he knew there was no appeal; he had failed, and now there was nothing to do but hope that somehow he would not be washed out. Discouraged and deeply resentful, he glanced into the mirror and met the lieutenant’s acute, protruding, raisin-colored eye.
A moment later the plane arched steeply up, and up, rolled over and over again, and emerged on a straight and level course. Dead ahead lay the Florida coast. Kennedy wiggled the stick and mumbled into the microphone. Melvin accepted the controls and flew toward the base while the officer ate peanuts.
As they were approaching the traffic circle Kennedy took over again, cut into the pattern, landed, taxied swiftly to the parking line, and turned off the switches. He jumped out of the cockpit and started for the schedule board. Melvin expected him to say something, anything, but Kennedy slouched along, the parachute slung across his shoulder. He looked half asleep. Melvin walked not quite abreast of him and stared at the ground. They had not used the full amount of time; they were returning to the station almost forty minutes early.
When they reached the board Kennedy refused the chalk a WAVE held out to him; he picked up a stub that was lying on the concrete and crossed the diagonal with another to form an X showing the flight had been completed. Then, next to “Isaacs,” he drew an arrow, tossed away the chalk, and began to feel around in the pockets of his filthy coveralls.
Melvin gazed at the arrow, which should have pointed down, not up.
“Any questions?” the officer inquired. He had split a match on his thumbnail and was picking his teeth.
“Questions?” Melvin said, unable to stop looking at the arrow.
“It was a rough afternoon. You made some nice recoveries.”
“You mean you’re not giving me a down?”
“You rather have a down?”
Melvin shook his head and continued to look at the arrow.
“That was a good flight,” Kennedy said. “All you need is confidence.”
The arrow was still there, pointing to the sky. It promised that he would fly again. It seemed to promise that he would be flying forever.
“You cadets,” the lieutenant mumbled and slouched away.
Melvin hurried to the barracks to let everybody know he had passed, and there he learned that Elmer had appeared before the board of review and after a long interrogation had been granted two hours of extra instruction. Pat Cole had not yet returned, so Melvin sat on the front steps to wait for him, and in a little while he appeared and mentioned as he strolled by that the check pilot had told him his flight grades were going to be among the highest ever recorded at the instrument squadron.
Melvin was impressed.
Cole hesitated, gave him a tentative smile, and said, “You’re a nice kid, Isaacs. Too bad this is no place for kids.”
The next morning Elmer began his additional instruction and on the following Wednesday he took another check ride. He was scheduled with Kennedy. He was up a long time and afterward was detained at the board while Kennedy talked to him. Evidently it had been a poor flight. At any of the previous bases he would have been washed out, but finally the lieutenant passed him. They were at Pensacola and for the first time the Navy was giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Before leaving Whiting Field they were allowed to order officers’ uniforms. They had studiously ignored, out of jealousy, the fittings which went on every Tuesday in the barracks lounge, but now it was their turn, and while they talked with the different salesmen and read the slick paper brochures and wandered around fingering samples of cloth, trying on hats and gloves, studying themselves in the mirror, feeling the gold braid on the resplendent dummies, they were conscious that they were being scrutinized enviously and surreptitiously by cadets of the companies behind them.
Horne and Melvin planned to buy their uniforms from the same firm, but after visiting the display they were not able to agree on which firm should get the business. They borrowed some samples and went upstairs to their room for a private discussion.
“This is the stuff,” Horne repeated patiently, holding a swatch up to the light. “Right here. This is it. This is Hazlitt and Lausch’s stuff and there’s no comparison. Feel it. Just feel it, that’s all I ask.”
Melvin felt the material and shrugged.
“You like Pettigrew,” Horne went on. “What’s Pettigrew got to offer? They got a fat little salesman with a waxed mustache. They got gold braid that’ll fray and tarnish in a month. What’s the matter with you? This is the stuff, I’m telling you!”
“G
o ahead and buy it, I’m not stopping you.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Horne exclaimed. “You got one of your obstinate days again. Here! Hold this up to the light! Look at that weave! Just tell me in complete honesty what you think, that’s all I ask.”
“It’s fair. So-so. Nothing to get excited about.”
They went downstairs after a while, not speaking to each other. Melvin placed his order with Pettigrew; Horne placed his with Hazlitt and Lausch.
Tuesday afternoons in the barracks lounge they stood motionless and erect while the nimble-fingered tailors crept around inserting pins, tugging at folds, marking with chalk, patting and smoothing. It was odd to find themselves in this position, to know they were so far along.
9
Shortly before Christmas the company was assigned to Barin Field for instruction in gunnery, strafing, and dive bombing. During the previous few months there had been so many accidents on this station that it had come to be known as “Bloody Barin.” It was said that one week the mortality rate at Barin had been higher than that of any squadron in the Pacific.
Most of the rooms were for four men, but there were a few small rooms for two. Sam Horne, who was still the company commander, used his influence to obtain a two-man room for himself and Melvin. It was on the third floor at the rear of the building and gave a fine view of the water tank, the hangars and machine shops, the squadron tower with its tinted windows and revolving beacon, and the long rows of parked airplanes. But because it was at the opposite end of the corridor from the lounge where the pool table was located Melvin complained, and asked Horne why he had not chosen a room close to the lounge. Horne pointed out that there was a commissioned officer living in each of the barracks whose quarters were on the first floor in the front; their room, consequently, was as far away from him as possible.
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