“I couldn’t think of anything more dangerous.”
Caravaggio gazed at him in stupefaction, momentarily confronted, as though they had come upon each other unexpectedly after wandering through a labyrinth of mirrors.
“Would you mind running through that again?” he asked.
So Melvin explained why he had chosen the most dangerous service he could imagine—piloting a night-fighting Corsair from a carrier. “You see, sir,” he concluded after several minutes of trying to clarify it, “even when there was no enemy it would still be frightening, so that way I could test myself.”
Caravaggio looked deliberately into his eyes, and asked, very slowly, “Are you trying to tell me that was what motivated you to enlist as a naval aviation cadet?”
Melvin grinned and nodded. He had lived with the idea for so long that it seemed quite normal and reasonable to him; he was puzzled by the consternation on the lieutenant’s face.
“Isaacs, by my immortal soul, it’s conceivable that you actually are mad,” said Caravaggio, gliding away through the mirrors. “Well!” he paused, squeezing his lip and frowning. “Where are we now? Really, Isaacs, I could skin you.”
“That Teitlebaum,” Melvin said, “he isn’t afraid of anything. He sure is one tough egg.”
“Now listen, my dear child,” Caravaggio said hastily, “you and I are surrounded by tough eggs. Naval and Marine pilots are merciless, expert killers. They are blasting the Japanese Air Force out of the sky and they are enjoying the work immensely. Your friend Teitlebaum is not a man; he is an executioner. He has come down to us from the Dark Ages. Furthermore, you live in a barracks filled with his apprentices. Your dear companion Horne is a perfect example. Now, let me see. Ah—hmm! Well, Isaacs, I’m sorry but you can’t have it. But here is what I will do for you: I’ll give you the best assignment of all. How would you like to be a primary instructor? Only four men in your entire graduating class drew that. It’s positively the juiciest thing we offer. I’ll give you one of those four positions. You spend perhaps two months at the instructors’ school in New Orleans, and then you teach cadets to fly the Yellow Peril. It’s marvelous! You don’t know what sort of life a primary instructor leads. This will interest you. He goes up for two or three hours a day and rides around in the back seat of a Stearman looking down at the scenery. He shouts through the gosport tube, ‘Keep your goddamn nose up!’ or, ‘What the hell are you trying to do? Kill us both?’ And then he comes down and he eats a lovely dinner of lamb at the BOQ and catches the bus to town. That’s what he does! Now how would you like that?” He tilted back, pulling at his hairy fingers one after another until the knuckles cracked, and studied the untidy desk as he rode around in the chair. All at once he unbuttoned his coat and began patting himself rhythmically on the belly.
“Our Navy needs you. In nineteen forty-one we suffered appalling casualties. We found ourselves in a most hazardous situation. To this call the youth of America gallantly responded. You are one of these brave youths. The grateful people of the United States will not ever forget what you did here, you and the others. I don’t suppose they’ll ever forget. Maybe they will. Oh, of course they will! Why should I try to deceive you?”
He brought his chair forward and stood up. There was not a sign of recognition on his sulky face. “Everybody has troubles. I wish I could do something, but unfortunately I can’t. Why should I feel sorry for you? Do you feel sorry for me? Of course not. You don’t even like me. Go on, get out. I’m unusually busy right now and I can’t help you about that resignation claptrap.” He pretended to study his wrist watch.
Melvin stood up and opened his mouth to speak.
“What!” Caravaggio shouted, placing his hands on his plump hips. “What did you say to me? You’re a cadet, so get out of here!” He hurried to the map on the wall, where he stood with his head going busily up and down to prove he was searching for something, but when Melvin did not leave the room he suddenly shrugged out of his coat, came around the desk with deceptive speed, and flung the coat over Melvin’s shoulders. His officer’s hat lay on top of a filing cabinet; he grabbed the hat and jammed it on Melvin’s head. “Magnificent,” he murmured, stepping backward with clasped hands. “Take it. Take it! It’s all I have in the world.”
Melvin laid the coat across the desk. The hat gave him some trouble, but finally he managed to pull it off and placed it on the coat.
“Oh, cut that out,” Caravaggio was saying. “If you ask me one more time for the forms to fill out, do you know what I’ll do? I’ll give them to you. You wouldn’t like that. You came here for sympathy. I know your type. You wouldn’t like being a sailor. Bell bott-om trousers and coats o’ Na-vy blue! You’ll climb the rig-ging like your dad-dy used to do! Not you, Isaacs. You’re like me. You want the best. Anyway, that’s how it goes, young man. You cadets are all alike. Because a man has a stripe or so, you’re positive he can be duped. I could tell you a few things, but never mind.” He blew through his lips with a weak, popping noise and collapsed into the creaking chair. He shuffled through a stack of papers on the desk and muttered, “The fun’s over.” Then, with a sigh, he dropped the papers and relapsed into a gloomy silence, twisting a gold thread that dangled from his sleeve.
Melvin gazed at him for a little while and then stumbled out of the room. He felt weak and sick. He thought he heard Caravaggio call to him as he walked along the corridor, but he did not stop. He could not understand what had happened, and when he emerged from the building it was as though he had wakened from a ridiculous but terrifying dream. I’ve thrown everything away, he said to himself; he knew this was true, but he could not explain why he had done it. It was as if he had been hypnotized, or drugged.
While he was crossing the station he saw two mechanics at work on an engine, and it occurred to him that before long he might be doing similar work. Hesitantly he wandered a little closer, studying their faded blue dungarees, the skivvy shirts, and the white caps perched on their heads. One mechanic was straddling the cowl while his partner was kneeling on the wing handing him tools.
“How’s it going?” Melvin inquired.
The mechanics glanced at each other. Neither of them spoke.
He understood that they regarded him as an officer; they assumed that in a few days, a week or so at most, he would be commissioned. Consequently they would volunteer nothing and would respond only if asked a direct question—which, in fact, he had asked, yet with such negligence and with such absence of authority that they did not feel obligated to reply.
“I’ve been washed out,” he remarked. He thought this would draw some kind of response.
The mechanic on the cowl quit work and studied him with no particular sympathy, but without the courteous exclusion of a moment before; he was neutral, lenient, mildly interested.
“Holy God, fellow,” he murmured. “That’s rough.”
The other mechanic had also paused and was watching Melvin, and he asked, “At this base? Here?”
Melvin grinned, and felt foolish, as though he had been boasting. Both the mechanics were surprised, he could tell that, and word would soon spread among the enlisted men that a Saufley cadet had actually been washed out; but he could see that at the same time, though he had given them a bit of news, they were not concerned. What was vitally significant to him did not affect them any more than if they had heard of some distant relative who had met with a catastrophe. Their eyes were fixed on him. They were thinking about him, and about what he had told them; he was dimly stirred by the realization that he was on the verge of communicating with them, as if, at this instant, he were infiltrating an intricate, mystical defense. He found that he was extremely anxious to tell them how it had all come about.
He took a step forward, looking at them eagerly, first one and then the other; but to his disappointment he could see them withdraw. “It was my own fault,” he explained. “It isn’t official yet.” And he went on hurriedly, hoping to hold their attention. “It’s confusing, but
I’ve made up my mind. I’m positive about this. Let me see if I can clarify what I’ve said.”
They retreated farther; they observed him from a vast distance. He did not know if they could hear him now even though he shouted.
He turned and wandered away, and heard the clink of a hammer as the mechanics resumed work. He thought of the family, the effect his decision would have on them. His parents would be puzzled and bitterly disappointed, especially his father, who would bring up the fact that he had served in the First World War. How many times Melvin had heard about the AEF and the first war with Germany he did not know, but he did not want to hear of it any more. It was an old war, without meaning. The battle of the Marne had been important, according to history books, but that was a generation ago. The shadows over Ypres and Verdun were as long as those cast on Kings Mountain or Shiloh. He reflected that soon this war, like other wars, like those of his father and of his grandfathers, and of their fathers before them, would pass equally into history. Before long there would be men who would think of Hitler and Mussolini as he himself thought of the Kaiser with the withered arm. And the bawdy marching songs would come to seem as quaint as Mademoiselle from Armentières. And they might hear from their grandfathers of Tokyo Rose. Nor would it be long till Rabaul and Salerno rang strangely on the ear, and Garand cartridges found their way into museums beside the corroding minie balls his father had dug from the earth at Lexington. He opened his fist, aware that he had been clutching something, and discovered the miniature enameled flag the lieutenant had given him.
When he returned to the barracks he found Roska in the room wearing the uniform of a Marine second lieutenant; he was studying himself in the mirror. Horne, stark naked, lay on the bunk munching an apple with his eyes screwed up as if the apple was sour. Melvin sat down at the desk with a despondent expression and tried to think of a way to occupy himself. It seemed to him there was nothing to do: there was no longer anything to worry about, nothing to anticipate. There were no plans to be made.
Roska, who could not get enough of looking at himself in the mirror, took a moment to glance at Melvin and asked if he had gotten some more demerits.
“You let Inscrutable One alone. He’s got problems, he has,” said Horne.
Melvin stood up and started for the door.
“Now just look what we did,” said Horne to Roska, and pitched the apple core into the wastebasket. “Come on, baby, talk to your old buddies. What’ve you done this time? You got the skipper’s wife in trouble?”
Melvin left the room without answering and went for a walk around the station. He could not get over a conviction that he had no more future. He was to be taken care of by the Navy; he would be fed at certain times, given clothing, a little money, and not much would be expected of him. The world had suddenly, inexplicably, grown socialistic.
He stopped at the recreation hall to drink some coffee, and while there he decided he ought to send a telegram to the family to let them know what he was going to do. This turned out to be more difficult than he had thought: after throwing away one telegram after another he wrote, simply, that he was resigning from the aviation program.
The WAVE at the desk, having read this message, briskly counted the words and informed him that he was entitled to five additional words at no extra charge. He thought he might as well make use of whatever he was entitled to, so he added, “This is a good base.”
The remainder of the afternoon he sat on a gasoline drum in the hangar; he sat on the drum and swung his feet and looked at the airplanes and the people passing by; he knew his father would call Saufley Field as soon as the telegram arrived and he did not feel like talking.
That evening after supper and a movie he reluctantly went back to the barracks and found a sheaf of telephone notices. There were also two identical telegrams from his father saying he would arrive in Pensacola the next afternoon.
14
In the morning he went to the hangar at the usual time, because there was nothing else to do, and found that he was scheduled to fly. He had assumed Caravaggio would notify whoever made out the schedules that he was quitting. It occurred to him, as he stood in front of the board, that he could accept this flight if he wanted it. Probably, because he had informed Caravaggio that he was resigning, to do so would constitute a violation of naval regulations; the longer he thought about this fact the more he felt like taking the flight. He looked around with a guilty expression. Nobody was paying any attention to him. He picked up a piece of chalk, drew a diagonal mark beside his name, and hurried off to get a parachute. Then, slightly puzzled that nobody had even questioned him, he changed into his coveralls, took his gloves and muffler from the knee pouch, and with the parachute slung across his shoulder started walking along the line of parked bombers, looking for the one which had been assigned to him.
A cool, salty wind was blowing from the Gulf, carrying a few clouds like puffs of cannon smoke. The wind blew through the pines and swept over the endless rows of rusty, blue-gray airplanes, the stumpy flat-bottomed SBD’s that had swarmed on the Japanese carriers at Midway and had sunk the Shoho in the Coral Sea. Now they were rusting away in the humid air of Pensacola.
At the eastern end of the field he found it. Even from a distance—when he could just make out the A-156 painted on the fin—he could tell it was one of the oldest planes on the field. As he came closer he saw a quadrangle of Japanese flags stenciled on the fuselage beside the cockpit and he wondered where the plane had fought. It might have been over Truk or the New Hebrides; it might have been a part of what was now a legend. It might well have flown over the jungles of Guadalcanal.
He climbed onto the wing and stood beside the cockpit as he put the parachute on, buckling the straps around his chest and thighs; then he straightened up, looking more closely at the plane: long metallic scratches glittered like strands of a spider web through the camouflage, and the wing was actually dented as though somebody had been dropping rocks on it. He noticed, too, that a spot of rust was eating away the white star beside the gunner’s ring. He stepped to the forward edge of the wing and looked at the battered, corroding cowl. He leaned over far enough to see one of the tires; it was worn smooth, and a network of white fabric was visible through the black rubber.
Melvin frowned, jumped off the wing, and walked around the disintegrating old Dauntless. There was a hole in the rudder. The tail wheel was almost deflated. Obviously this was one of the condemned planes which would soon be demolished for scrap; he knew he would be foolish to fly it. He did not even know if the engine would start; assuming it did, there was no way of telling if the plane had enough power to leave the ground. It was evident that somebody had made a mistake; the SBD was unsafe and should never have been assigned. He looked back along the line of parked planes and saw that no one else had come this far. He thought, then, he might have misread the number on the schedule board; in any event, it did not matter whether the mistake was his own or that of someone else, here was a situation in which a decision was required. The intelligent thing to do, assuming he did want to accept this flight, was to return to the schedule board and request another airplane. This SBD might catch fire when the engine was started, or, for that matter, perhaps there was no gas in it; and at this thought he felt relieved and went around to look into the tank. If the tank was empty the problem was solved; he could not possibly fly the plane. But the tank was full.
The Gulf wind ruffled his hair and pulled gently at the white silk muffler while he tried to decide what to do. He considered the clouds drifting high overhead and listened to the waving boughs of the pines nearby, and he became convinced that the wind and the sky and whatever godlike agent did exist—these were urging him to come and join them where they were, nodding and beckoning and summoning him.
Melvin found himself on the wing again, attempting to slide the hatch open, but the metal had oxidized. And when this happened—when he found himself locked out—he remembered how often he had wanted something and had been
denied. With both fists he pounded on the hatch, and because it continued to resist him he kicked at it with his heavy government shoes until he had broken the rust and at last was able to force the canopy backward far enough to squeeze inside.
He had no trouble with the engine: it started to cough and spit, the propeller blades jerked, and soon, with a roar of hoarse authority, the blades dissolved in a shimmering wheel. While he spoke to the engine in an encouraging way, as he was in the habit of doing, he listened with his entire body to the pulsation, and the sensation of oscillating life within the cylinders seemed convincing. If trouble developed it would probably be in the fatigued metal of the wings, or in the tail structure, or in the hydraulic system.
The radio had begun to warm up, filling the earphones with the drone and crackle of electricity, and from far away came a few melancholy notes of music: pressing the phones against his ears he heard and recognized a few Spanish words which told a story of love’s anguish, of meeting and fulfillment, and of a departure for some unknown land beyond the sea, and though he had no sense of being especially loved by anyone the lyrics were appropriate, for he was departing and did not know if he would come back.
He cranked the handle around in search of the Saufley squadron tower.
“. . . Zero. One. Zero,” came a voice through the sputtering void, and faded as he went beyond, but it had been so near as he went by, as though someone had spoken from the adjacent plane—and it had been a woman’s voice—that it could only have been the Saufley tower. He reversed the handle, cranked more slowly through the crackling droning emptiness and came gradually to the voice, saying, “North by northwest at—” and as it faded he again reversed the crank, reducing the arc each time until her voice came over the phones ungarbled and he could almost hear the people in the background.
He noticed, with more curiosity than alarm, that his hands were unsteady, and recalling how he had pounded on the canopy he began to wonder if he was somewhat out of his head. This idea was vaguely irritating. He had forced the airplane open; there was no reason he could not force himself to do whatever he wished. He placed his fingertips between his teeth and bit them until the pain was so intense that the trembling ceased; then he unhooked the microphone and asked the WAVE in the tower for permission to take off. She soon announced the runway number and wind velocity and granted take-off permission.
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