The barbershop was incongruously like the one Fred had gone to in San Jose every two weeks for most of his life. There were three chairs and big mirrors and stacks of tattered magazines. The rows of little shelves over the sinks were filled with the same after-shave lotions, hairdressings, talcum powders. But for the occasional swooping feeling one had when the ship heeled over or took a heavy swell, the spacious shop could have been in landlocked Idaho or Nebraska, on some small main street where cars were parked in front and people stuck their heads through the door to say hello.
The big chair was comfortable, but the sheet the barber spread over Fred cut out more of the already meager supply of air and made him warm and sweaty. As the taciturn barber, who was a third class petty officer, clipped away slowly and carefully, Fred thumbed through a magazine which he only now discovered to be the same issue of the National Geographic that had been in the ready room back at the air station on Oahu. The pages were coming out of the binding. There was a picture of navy fliers in their ready room prior to the landings in North Africa, and someone had made them appear to be reciting a dirty limerick which began, “A clever young girl from Duluth,” by writing in the words with a ball-point pen. There wasn’t enough room on the page to complete the poem, however, and Fred had just turned the page to see if it was completed elsewhere when there was a commotion in the corridor outside. Two men came in. It was Jack and Duane Higgins.
The commanding officer of VF-20 entered first, taking off his hat. For a second he didn’t notice that the man in the end chair was his wingman. Duane came in behind him, and he did notice. Fred and Duane exchanged a long look. The barber stopped his work and impatiently stepped aside to clean his clippers as Fred turned his head and said loudly, “Welcome back, Skipper.” Jack stood quite still for a moment, caught in the act of tucking his garrison cap under his belt. He looked hard at the other pilot. “Thank you, Ensign,” he said.
The barber resumed his work, and Fred had to look back down at his magazine. He could think of nothing else to say.
There was only one other barber in the shop, a grim-faced Filipino steward. He had one customer, and two more officers were sitting and waiting in the only two chairs; now one of them stood and offered his chair to his senior, Lieutenant Commander Hardigan. Jack waved him back, though, and swung up into an unused barber chair. Fred watched it all through the corner of his eye, electrified by Jack’s presence. He tried to calm his nerves, slow his pounding heart, but was not successful.
“Any word yet on where we’re going?” Jack asked Higgins.
“Not officially,” said Duane, “but it has to be somewhere important. Six flattops,” he said. “We got six carriers with us this time.”
“I know,” said Jack. “I saw them on the way in. Any casualties since I left?”
“The airplanes are in good shape. Schuster had a blowout when he landed this morning but it’s all right now.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Nah. Hughes came down with appendicitis about a week ago. Doesn’t look like he’ll be ready for the strike if it’s within a week or ten days.” Higgins leaned against the bulkhead near the door and looked around as he talked. He had noticed immediately the unspoken tension that sprang up the instant Fred had seen him and Jack. He could draw no conclusions yet, but he did notice that the Skipper’s wingman couldn’t sit still now. His foot was twitching and his fingers drummed nervously on his magazine. “And we got a new LSO, too. Guy named Asper.”
“Experienced?” (The skipper was ignoring Fred purposely, with effort.)
“Nothing operational. Seems pretty good, though.”
“What happened to Harden?”
“Fell into the gallery deck and broke his ankle.” Higgins laughed. “Clumsy fool.”
“Has the first briefing been scheduled yet?” Jack concentrated on his executive officer, anxious to get back into the swing of command, eager to know what had happened since he had left. The presence of Trusteau in the same room caused him a momentary twinge, but on the long flight out to the task group he had prepared himself for this meeting by telling himself repeatedly that Fred was just another pilot—a valuably trained, highly motivated pilot, yes, but in the end, just another man with whom Jack could be friendly and perhaps close. It could go no farther. After all, Fred could be gone tomorrow, like so many others who had crossed Jack’s path.
“Tomorrow morning at nine, in the wardroom,” Duane was saying.
“The wardroom?”
“Yeah. The whole air group’s invited this time.”
“That’s good.”
The two barbers finished with their customers at the same time, both sweeping off the sheets with practiced flair and shaking the clippings to the deck. Fred climbed down first and started for the door, but he couldn’t avoid confronting the Skipper, who was heading for the chair Fred had just vacated. As they passed, Fred had to stop and move aside for the Skipper. Both were careful not to touch. In that short interlude, their eyes inevitably met and Fred said, simply, “Sir,” and nodded. Then he left as quickly as he could, relieved to see Jack again but anguished at being virtually ignored by him.
Duane watched the ensign leave and made a mental note to the effect that, yes, there was something odd between the Skipper and Fred. He moved over to lean against another bulkhead so he could talk to Jack. One of the other officers took the second chair; now both barbers were working again. “One of the crew chiefs missed movement,” Duane said to Jack.
“Which one?”
“Pullet. They’ll probably give him a special.”
“That’s too bad. He was a good man.” Just another pilot, Jack thought. Remember. Just another pilot.
“Come on,” said Brogan sharply, “get your mind on the game.” The backgammon board occupied the little desk in the cubicle used for combat debriefing, in the forward section of the ready room. Brogan had just thrown the final roll of the dice and moved his last two men home. Fred still had four markers on the board, two of them in the first table. “Some player you are,” said Brogan, “after all I taught you.” He gathered up the dice and swiftly moved the men on the board back to the starting positions. “Let’s try it again. Come on.”
Fred sat half in and half out of the debriefing cubicle. He was perplexed. Tomorrow was the first day of two days of strikes on the Japanese-held island of Wake. Tomorrow they were going into combat for the second time. And all Brogan could think about was how well he was teaching Fred to play acey-deucy. The ready room was crammed with men in flight gear and in regular uniform. A dozen conversations filled the compartment; the noise level ruled out careful meditation.
“Not another one?” sighed Fred.
“Come on,” said Brogan. “It’ll take your mind off things.”
“My mind isn’t on ‘things.’” Fred picked up the dice cup, shook it once, twice, then sat it back down on the table. He didn’t feel like playing another game.
“Aw, shit.” said Brogan, leaning back in his chair and pushing the board aside.
Fred could say nothing. In a curious sort of way, there wasn’t very much on his mind; the threat of combat held no fear right now. His thoughts, meager as they were, he thought wryly, swam through a sea of numbness and sank into nothing. He looked and saw his hand still holding the dice cup; he tried to move it and found he couldn’t. It just sat there as though welded to the table, immobilized. There was something hiding just below the conscious level of his mind; he knew it was unpleasant but for the moment it had been forgotten. What could it be?
He had felt this way since the day of the first briefing. All the pilots had gathered in the wardroom right after breakfast; the dishes had been cleared away save for coffee cups and ashtrays, the serving doors to the galley closed up, the stewards conspicuously absent. The male spirit of camaraderie in the face of impending danger was very much in evidence. Then the briefing officer and one of his aides had dramatically swept the cover off the great easel in front of them, and the pilots had leaned forward to see the map. It showed a single little atoll called Wake. The feeling that they were part of something great had gripped everyone, it seemed, but Fred. He had just felt numb; probably he would have felt the same had the map shown the island of Honshu.
Wake was something they could get their teeth into, the briefing officer had said; it was something the Japs had taken from us at the start of the war. As the vital statistics of the enemy base were reeled off (fighter strength, radars in operation, search patterns flown through the area, airfields, installations, guns, and on and on) Fred couldn’t help wondering if one day the map actually would show Honshu. And then he wondered if he would still be alive to see that day. And would anyone really care if he wasn’t?
“Look,” Brogan was saying, “you gonna play or not?” Then Fred heard his own voice saying, “No.” Simply “No,” with no explanations. Explanations were too hard to find right now. He let his mind slip further down, down toward the unpleasant something that lay submerged there.
“Listen up,” someone was saying. That voice. That was it. “Quiet,” it said, controlled and strong, deep and resonant. It was the skipper’s voice. Lieutenant Commander Jack E. Hardigan. “E” for Errol, as in Flynn, only without the pencil-thin mustache. It was going on, and he, Fred Trusteau, the skipper’s wingman and holder of the seventeen-minute record, had already missed part of the speech.
“…submarine. It’s official now. They just sent word. There will be a lifeguarding sub.” Other voices, indistinct and babbling, broke in, but the skipper’s voice swept them aside. “Hold it down.” A space of relative quiet. “The sub will be stationed to the southeast of Wake at a distance of about eight miles. That’s southeast, in the direction of the arrowhead. If you’re going down, follow the arrowhead of the island and get as far from the reef as you can. Stick together. Like glue. If you see someone else going in, mark the position on your map and get word back to home base. They can get word to the sub and he can be picked up. Okay?”
Fred found himself turning now, turning to get a look at the skipper standing in the front of the ready room, surrounded by rapt faces.
“We’ll go over all this in detail tomorrow morning at prelaunch. I’ll answer all your questions then. Till then, I want to see all you flyboys in the rack getting some sleep time. You’ll need it. Now get to it.”
He was a good man, the skipper was, thought Fred. Such a good man. He cares for his men like they were his own….
“Look, fella,” said Brogan. His voice had a cutting edge to it, and he reached over the table and grabbed Fred by the front of the shirt, pulling him over the playing board, close to his face. “I don’t know where you’re at right now, Trusty, and I don’t give a shit. If you’re worried about the next couple of days, you better drop it. I ain’t shitting you, Trusty. You drop it. Nothing’s gonna happen to you ’cause you fly wing on the old man and nothing happens to him. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to me ’cause I haven’t beaten every one of the suckers in this air group at acey-deucy, and by jolly Jesus I intend to before I buy it. Now wake up and play it, fella.”
He released Fred’s shirt and Fred sank back into his seat. He became aware again of the roar and rumble of voices in the ready room, and he knew no one had heard what was just said. He picked up the dice cup. “You’re wrong,” he said.
He saw Brogan open his mouth to speak but heard instead another voice. It was loud and insistent. “Come on, guys. We got everybody here now. It’ll only take a second.”
Fred put down the dice cup and looked.
“Jesus H. Christ,” said Brogan. He pushed back his chair and stood. “Come on, Trusty,” he said, all traces of toughness gone now from his voice. “Let’s do it for the suckers and get back to the game.” He pulled Fred up by the arm and they went to stand up against the wall with the other pilots.
“Where’s the skipper?” someone asked.
“You guys in front, down on one knee. That’s good.”
“Push it together. Push it together.”
“Let the skipper in. There you go. Okay, Trusty, here you go. Hold it up.” Fred found himself, not unwillingly but hardly aware of what he was doing, standing against the status board in the front of the ready room, holding a painted wooden plaque—next to Jack Hardigan. An arm reached around him and grasped his shoulder, pulled him close.
“That’s good, guys. Turn the plaque more this way, Trusty.” Fred looked down at the squadron insignia—the suitless Jack of hearts brandishing a sword, and the skipper’s name emblazoned on it. He glanced at the skipper, realizing that it was his arm that held him. He looked away. A flashbulb popped and brilliant colors danced in front of his eyes.
“Don’t move guys. Just one more.”
Again the flash, then the crowd of men pushed and broke apart and the arm left his shoulders. Without looking around him, Fred made his way back to the debriefing cubicle, laying the insignia on the table next to the backgammon board. He picked up the dice cup.
“Now you’re talking, fella,” said Brogan, sitting down and eagerly pulling up close to the board.
“Sure,” said Fred. Everything was perfectly clear to him now, as if it had all been illuminated by the exploding flashbulbs. To die tomorrow might be a good thing—a way out. He wanted to say something dramatic, like they did in the movies. Something like, “I just have a feeling about this one, Smitty,” or, “One of us isn’t going to make it back tomorrow.” But he knew Brogan would think him very foolish, so all he said was, “Roll them dice.” And he rolled them.
Jack glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of his ten fighters; beyond them, light on the horizon and the fading stars told him dawn had arrived. Looking back to the southwest, in the direction of flight, he searched hard for a sign of the target but saw nothing more than ocean and sky. He settled his mind once more into the routine of waiting for the action he knew would come.
The premission briefings meant so little now, Jack thought. The entire air group had gathered in the wardroom to hear a lieutenant commander point to a map of Wake Island and say: “Here is your target. Destroy it.” That was fine, Jack thought. A force of six carriers could certainly do a great deal of damage to a small island like Wake. But what then?
He remembered the stirring, shaky-knees speech that an admiral named Spruance had given prior to their epic mission at Midway: “You, gentlemen, are quite possibly all that stand between victory and defeat for the forces of our country…” And another, read over the address system by the captain of the Enterprise: “On August seventh, this force will recapture Tulagi and Guadalcanal Islands which are now in the hands of the enemy.” Apparently this mission to Wake was to be another Marcus Island operation—a raid and nothing more. It angered and confused Jack to think that in the coming clash (and he knew there would be opposition) aircraft and pilots might be lost just so that the brass back in Hawaii would have a better idea as to how many carriers could operate in a single task group. The entire affair sat wrong with Jack, even though he knew it was wrong to question orders, even to himself. A vindictive air group commander did not make things any better.
Jennings had chewed him out again the night before, catching him as he was taking off his pants, turning down his bunk. CAG could make him look so ridiculous, he thought, and for such little reason. This time it was haircuts. Jack had spotted Brogan leaving the wardroom a few hours earlier, and he obviously needed a haircut. Jack intended to mention it to him. Why did CAG have to bring it up then—the night before a strike launch—when Jack needed the sleep, the time to himself? The only reason Jack could fathom was hatred: The man hated him, probably wished him dead. What else could it be?
They had gone together then, through the darkened passageways of the carrier to Brogan’s stateroom to find him and inform him that he needed a haircut. And Jack had looked stupid again because he couldn’t find Brogan’s stateroom in the maze of passageways and compartments in the forward part of the ship. And when they finally did find it, Brogan of course wasn’t there and no one knew where he was. So CAG raised his voice in the corridor and informed Jack in front of pilots of his own and other squadrons of just exactly what he was to do about the situation. Jack found it enormously embarrassing. Just the thought of the air group commander stalking through the ship looking for pilots with long hair was harrowing.
Takeoff had not gone well, either. A rain squall swept in just as they began the launch, and the first aircraft, a Hellcat flown by Bigelow, had gone off the deck at an angle and exploded on contact with the water. Although he couldn’t be sure, the awful display of burning gasoline flaring quickly in the dark and passing rapidly astern virtually assured Jack that Bigelow was dead. He could only assume that one of the destroyers in the rear would make a search. He had been the third plane in the air and so had no idea how the rest of the strike had fared. Looking back now, he could make out the aircraft of Trusteau, Fitzsimmons, and Patrick—bulky shadows weaving and bumping around in the dark. He could see no others. For all he knew, they could be alone, heading for certain death at the hands of scores of savage Zeros.
The sky was turning a lighter shade of blue now, revealing piles of puffy clouds clinging close to the surface of the ocean—probably they wouldn’t be able to see the target until they were directly over it. Jack checked his instruments and his heading, satisfied that they would be there soon. It was almost comforting to be so close; the sooner they arrived, the sooner they could leave. But why did so many things have to clutter up his mind at a time like this?
Fred Trusteau hung off his right wing like an ever-present specter, reminding him of feelings he was unable to control. Just this morning, only minutes before launch, he had stepped into a head to relieve himself—a faithful prestrike ritual—and was confronted by a Dumb Dilbert training poster hanging over the urinal. The poster showed the fatuous trainee hopelessly lost over an empty ocean with a setting sun, pondering his navigation notes—“Was that 320 or 230?”—while his cartoon plane wept great tears. Jack immediately thought of Fred and the error he had discovered on the training cruise battle problem. Fred had probably saved a number of lives when he did that. That good, warm feeling had welled up and then been pushed back down, with great effort. Now Jack had a vague feeling that something was wrong. He looked out at Trusteau’s number thirteen and the indistinguishable figure that sat in its cockpit. It would go away, he was sure, in time. Everything would be all right.
Far ahead of them now, in the rapidly brightening sky, Jack caught a movement in the air. Tiny specks flared like burning matches and began a long slide toward the ocean, leaving barely visible streaks of delicate smoke in the sky. He knew at once that another squadron had arrived before them and that the surprise had been lost. He checked his radio. It was on the correct frequency. He pressed his throat mike. “Bogeys, twelve o’clock low,” he said, “close it up.”
He looked over his right shoulder, surprised at how light the sky had become, and saw quickly that all of his fighters were indeed there. They were strung out for at least a mile, badly out of formation. Even as he looked, though, they began to close it up. Trusteau’s Hellcat moved inward and locked itself below, and to the right of his wing. The helmeted, goggled figure in the cockpit looked up at him and waved slightly. Jack turned back and scanned the sky, the clouds, the ocean below. A movement below caught his eye and he quickly identified the white brush marks of surf on coral reefs. They had arrived.
Ahead of them, the smoke trails drifted in the winds. The planes from the other squadron had disappeared into the clouds below. Jack scanned quickly from left to right, low to high, seeing no aircraft. Below the formation, a triangular atoll appeared sporadically through the clouds. This was Wake. There was a small fire burning on the main island. Jack began a turn to the right to keep his flight over the target, and the other fighters dutifully followed.
“Tallyho. Three o’clock low.”
Jack recognized the voice of Lieutenant Bradley. He turned immediately and saw the rear division of four Hellcats begin a steep right turn and head in unison toward the clouds below. He touched his mike button. “Banger Two Three stay high. I’m heading down to take a look.”
“Roger one,” came the reply. Brogan’s voice. The man who needed a haircut. Jack pushed the stick to the right and forward, saw Trusteau and the other two aircraft follow, and felt his speed build. The first four Hellcats were tiny crosses against the cloudy backdrop as they pulled down and away.
“There,” came Bradley’s voice, “to the right. Three of ’em. Take the one on the right, Jimbo.” The voice had an intense, concentrated sound to it, a quality the radio could not mask. As Jack watched, two of the blue Hellcats peeled off to the right and vanished into the clouds.
“Watch it, Hermy. Stick in there.”
“Holy Christ, look at that bastard burn.”
Wispy shreds of ragged white began to whip past Jack’s cockpit; then the great mass of cumulus leaped up and engulfed his plane. He glanced for his wingman, saw only cloud. He flew for long seconds in the unreal, cotton-candy world of zero visibility; then suddenly they were in the clear again, bursting into bright sunshine, blue water sparkling a mile below them. Far ahead and below, a moving tangle of toylike airplanes twisted and turned. As he watched, one of them flamed brightly and fell like a stone toward the water.
“I can’t cover you, Brad.”
“Hey, Rube, come on down.” Bradley again. “There’s more here than we can handle.”
Jack watched the approaching dogfight, concerned with covering his rear. He was about to call for Brogan, but Trusteau’s voice interrupted. “Bandits, two o’clock high.”
Jack searched quickly, found three dark green, square-winged fighters plunging from the clouds, heading for the same fight he was. “Let’s take them, guys,” he said. “Two Three come on down. We need you.”
He corrected his course to the right to close the three enemy fighters—they were Hamps, he thought, clipped-wing Zeros—checking as he did so that his three wingmates were still with him. Trusteau clung there like a shadow, imitating his every move with tight precision. That was good, very good. Jack adjusted his goggles. His face was slippery with sweat. It was time to ply his chosen trade.
The dogfight off Wake was short but appallingly violent. To Fred it bore no resemblance to the stories of gallant, skillful fighter pilots jockeying for position and saluting the fallen vanquished. It was much more a question of who shot first and had someone upstairs to cover his tail. When he spotted the three Hamps diving toward Bradley’s division, he knew he would have a chance to score a kill. All the ugly thoughts of dying were gone; now he had a job to do, something he had been trained for. It was tremendously exciting to be doing it.
The three Hamps appeared not to notice the Hellcats closing on them from their own left and above, but Fred could see that they were rapidly walking up on the lower Hellcats led by Bradley. They flew in a small backwards V, as though it were standard practice for a wing leader to have two wingmen, unlike Fred’s service, where it was one for one. The lead Hamp had a wide orange band around his fuselage, forward of the tail. Fred caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Patrick and Fitzsimmons pulling away, moving to the right to trap the enemy fighters between them and Fred and the skipper. That was good. They had them now. A few more seconds…
The lead Hamp was firing; little flashes of light were jumping from his wing edges and smoke was trailing behind. The Hellcats in his sights began turning and diving frantically. And now the skipper was firing, too, although Fred felt sure they were still out of range. He looked through his gunsight, and yes, they were still far away, too small to fill the sight ring. The skipper’s tracers leaped across his field of vision, and suddenly the Hamps were turning, too, away from them, to the right. One of the wingmates was slow to turn and fell out of formation. The Hellcats ate up the distance and caught them on the water, when they could dive no more.
The first to die was the straggler who had fallen out of formation. Patrick and Fitzsimmons jumped him as he turned hard to the right, and the shells cut a swath through the water, then chopped the Hamp almost in two, knocking off a wing and sending the wreckage spinning crazily into the sea. The lead Hamp with the orange band continued straight, keeping temporarily out of range. But the remaining wingman turned as if panic-stricken, to the left. That allowed Fred and the skipper to catch him. Fred could see immediately what was happening. He opened the distance between him and Jack by swinging wide to the right.
It was a wise move. The Hamp, still turning to the left, saw the skipper and frantically went to the right. He entered Fred’s gunsight, and Fred squeezed the trigger, not really thinking he could make any hits. The shells tore into the water in front of the Hamp and he weaved back to the left, like a doomed sparrow, right into the skipper’s guns. The deadly concentration of gunfire hammered the little fighter into the sea. It struck the top of a wave like a skipped stone and bounced, scattering debris into the air, caught a wingtip in the water and cartwheeled in, throwing a geyser of spray into the air higher than Fred was flying. Fred dodged the geyser, looking for the third and last Hamp. He was rewarded by the sight of a burning, falling plane and two Hellcats circling above him.
“Whooee doggies.” It was Brogan. “The cavalry has arrived.”
Fred found the skipper climbing and circling, and latched himself onto his right wing. Brogan and his wingman disappeared below. Fred began to breathe easier and thought: So this is what it’s all about. He noticed an odd smell, a chilly sensation. His flight suit was absolutely drenched with sweat.
“All Banger aircraft rendezvous,” said Jack through his throat mike. He and Trusteau had climbed back to their original altitude well above the cloud cover over Wake. None of the other Hellcats of his squadron were in sight yet, but he knew they would show up soon. The rendezvous point and altitude had been chosen well in advance. He hoped passionately that all ten would make it back. He had seen aircraft going in, but only from a distance. Some of them might have been his. One, at least, he didn’t have to worry about: Trusteau had clung to his wing with professional tenacity all the way through the short tangle that had ended in the death of the three Hamps.
It was easier than he had anticipated. Even the enemy wing leader with the orange band had shown a fatal ignorance when he tried to escape by diving. And his two wingmen were obviously quite new, untrained. They hadn’t been nearly as good as his own wingman—and, goddamn, had he been good. He had executed the simple trap maneuver as if they had practiced it specifically for this mission. Jack vowed to himself that when they got back he would corner Fred and compliment him on his flying….
“That was terrific shooting there, Brad.”
“Jimbo got two of the bastards. You should’ve seen it.”
“You all right, Fritzi? I lost you in that last turn.”
The voices of his scattered pilots reached Jack’s earphones and he waited for a quiet moment. “All Banger aircraft rendezvous.” It irritated him to lose control over the squadron like this, but it appeared as if they had done the job they were supposed to do. No enemy planes were in sight. Jack checked his instruments, his fuel, decided they had maybe fifteen minutes of time remaining over the target. A mile or so away a pair of Hellcats climbed through the clouds and headed in their direction. Another one appeared by itself behind them. In ten minutes they could be headed back for the ship.
“Banger Leader, this is Turkey Trot, over.” The transmission surprised Jack somewhat as it was the first time home base had communicated with him since the launch nearly two hours ago.
“Turkey Trot, this is Banger Leader. Go ahead.”
“Banger Leader, we have a buddy down off the arrow head. Can you lend a hand?”
Jack looked around at his arriving pilots. Seven or eight had shown up. He knew they would have to postpone the rendezvous for a few minutes. The first pair of Hellcats were quite close now, and he recognized Brogan and Jacobs.
“That’s a Roger, Turkey Trot. On my way.”
“Very well, Banger. Give ’em hell.”
“Two Three, this is Banger Leader.” Jack waggled his wings.
“That you, Skipper?” Brogan circled in, joined up in a loose division formation.
“Follow me down, Two Three.”
“Roger Doger,” said Brogan.
Jack pushed his stick forward and the four fighters cut through the clouds.
The main island of Wake was churning with activity. Gnatlike aircraft swooped and circled; black spots of antiaircraft explosions dirtied the sky. Dense, billowing clouds of black smoke poured up from burning buildings and wrecked planes. Jack oriented himself, headed for the southeast corner of the island. As they drew close, what was happening there became apparent.
An Avenger was down several hundred yards from the beach, the tail assembly and one wing sticking crazily out of the water. Two survivors in tiny rafts were rowing away from the wreck, followed at a distance by a small, very Japanese, boat. Shells splashed in the sea; an occasional airburst splattered handfuls of shrapnel around them. Jack searched the beach and the foliage near the crash site and saw a puff of smoke and flame from a concealed gun. Seconds later a shell exploded in the air over the rafts. Jack took a deep breath. He hated attacking gun installations like this. But the poor guys down there needed the help. If they could get out of range of the beach, they might even be picked up.
“Stand by for a target,” Jack said.
“Ready when you are,” said Brogan.
The four fighters began a wide, sweeping turn out to sea. As they came around, Jack saw two Hellcats make a run on the Japanese boat; the splashes caused by their fifty-calibers washed over the small craft and nearly obscured it.
“Take the beach,” said Jack, “the first line of bushes there. Trusty and I will take the big gun.”
“Roger Doger,” said Brogan, and the two Hellcats pulled up loosely abreast of Jack and Fred. Ahead of them the two fighters which had strafed the boat circled out to sea; the boat was stopped. As they drew closer, Jack noticed small waves breaking over the sides. The little deck house was charred and blasted. Pulling his attention back to the beach, he lined up the area of undergrowth where he had spotted the muzzle blast of the gun. They were close. The breakers on the beach, then the line of undergrowth swept under them, and Jack opened fire.
The tracers disappeared into and were absorbed by the green, bushy trees. He had thought the island was covered with jungle, but from up close it was apparent that the foliage was not nearly so thick. Bare, sandy places showed through quite clearly, and Jack saw a dark pit nearly covered with sandbags and netting. The gun barrel protruded over the top edge of the sandbags. A clump of branches and leaves was fastened to the snout. The bullets from his guns churned the sand into a haze, tossed up bits of greenery and chunks of wood, sparkled like fireflies on the metal of the gun.
Then they were over it, crossing the surf and tearing back over the blue ocean. Jack pulled up slightly and began a turn to the left. Glancing back, he caught sight of the three Hellcats that had made the run with him, still in line abreast. Brogan and Jacobs were slightly ahead.
“You see who that was?” asked Brogan.
“What do you mean?”
“That Turkey down on the reef. Plane number double-oh. It’s the head honcho.”
Jack felt a strange feeling deep down in his body. “Sure it’s not from another group?”
“Sure as shooting, Banger Leader. It’s him all right.”
The four fighters completed a great circle and headed back toward the island. The gun they had attacked fired again, and the shell exploded out over the water. CAG or not, they still needed help. It was something they had to do.
“Go around one more time,” Jack said. “Break off into singles and go in one at a time. Get that gun. Trusty, you follow me.” They went around again, tighter this time, Jack feeling driven to get the job done. He knew without checking they could afford to spend only a few more minutes in the area before they had to head for home. This run would have to do the job. Jack watched Jacobs break off first and begin his run. Seconds later Brogan followed him. Then it was Jack’s turn; as he lined up the target once more, the first Hellcat was already shooting and pulling up.
They were crossing the island from the lagoon side this time and would sweep over the gun first, then the surf, and finally the Avenger. As he centered the gun in his sights, he noticed Brogan’s fighter swerve to the right sharply, gunsmoke trailing from the wings. Something was wrong.
“Holy Christ.” It was Brogan. “There’s another—”
A black puff of smoke burst under the right wing of the blue aircraft, then another burst just ahead of it. Before Jack could look away, the Hellcat flipped over on its back and dove into the beach with a sickening explosion of orange flame and smoke. Another gun. Jack watched the first target hurrying toward him and knew there wasn’t time to switch. He squeezed the trigger and thought, If there’s another, maybe it’ll get me, too. It’s too late to do anything about it.
Something jarred the Hellcat, pushing it up and to the left. Then he was over the surf. The Avenger passed below him. He looked back at the death site of Brogan. Then noticed vaguely that the end of his right wing was shredded and broken, but he was shocked and numbed by seeing Brogan going in; thinking was difficult. Almost automatically, he began a right turn that would allow Trusteau to catch up and also give him a better view of the beach. Below, the two tiny figures in the rafts were moving further out to sea, almost out of range of the gun. Their frantically flailing shapes might have been funny, but Jack could not laugh. Something bright, something wrong, fluttered through the edge of his vision. It was Trusteau. His aircraft was on fire.
The first explosion filled the cockpit with smoke and rattled Fred’s instruments the way heavy turbulence did. Before they could settle, there was another explosion, jarring the stick from his grip and heaving him against the straps. He suddenly realized that he couldn’t see very well; the smoke was too thick. Without thinking he reached up, unlatched the canopy, and slid it halfway open. The wind whipped the smoke away and he could see again. What he saw was that he was already past the island and heading out to sea. He tried to remember where he had seen the skipper’s plane last. He was beginning a right turn when the last explosion came.
The sound of it was a dull whump. It buffeted the Hellcat up and down and sent more smoke pouring into the cockpit from somewhere under his feet. When it was over, he straightened out and trimmed the aircraft, feeling carefully for any unusual responses in the controls. Everything seemed all right at first, but then Fred looked up and around, and then down, and saw the flames. They were coming from beneath his right wing and trailing out of his line of vision to the rear. Various things flashed through his mind: the skipper, the ship, the sub. He knew he would have to ditch—and do it quickly. Already the controls felt sluggish. He was momentarily glad he had trimmed the aircraft seconds before and was already so low to the water. He had time to look around him once, but he saw nothing, not even the island, before his sinking plane touched the crest of a wave. He fought to keep control, to keep the nose up, but was only partly successful. Before he was ready, the Hellcat hit again. This time it plunged to a stop and was deluged by sea water. Smoke and steam hissed up through the cockpit as Fred unlatched his straps. He left the parachute behind, grabbed the seat cushion, and stepped from the cockpit to the wing root.
The nose of the Hellcat was low in the water. The wings were beginning to go under as Fred walked to the end of one of them and stepped into the sea. It was quite warm at first, so he relaxed a little and pulled the ring on his Mae West. Reassuringly it fluffed into a bulky plastic vest, and he bobbed up like a cork. Then he found the controls on the seat cushion and inflated the life raft. It, too, blew itself up with a gratifying rush of compressed air. He struggled into it.
He looked around. Number thirteen was gone; not even a cloud of smoke remained to mark its passing.
The sound of distant engines caused Fred to look up. Two fighters circled high above him. As he watched, one peeled off and came closer, lowering flaps to slow down. It drifted directly overhead. It was the skipper. Fred raised his hand and waved. The Hellcat passed and began climbing. Soon it was out of sight. Fred felt moisture on his face and wonderingly removed his glove to wipe it away. It came from his eyes. He was crying.
Jack raised his flaps and increased throttle to take him and Jacobs up and away from the crash site. Seeing Fred climb from the sinking plane had been momentary but small comfort. He was still a hundred miles from the carrier. Jack signaled Jacobs to join up on him, and the two fighters circled in toward the beach where Brogan’s wreck burned and CAG paddled furiously toward the open sea. Jack’s mind was churning. He felt lightheaded, almost nauseous. He wanted to kill something.
Ignoring his temporary wingman, Jack wheeled and headed for the beach where CAG’s Avenger still protruded from the waves. He spotted the two rafts and their occupants below him and he passed over them at a scant hundred feet in altitude. The beach loomed in front of him, but the danger from the hidden enemy could not touch him. Halfway between the rafts and the beach he turned again without decreasing speed; it was a great up-and-over course reversal that pushed him against the straps first one way, then the other. He leveled out, found the rafts, swept down low, and centered them in his gunsight.
I could kill you now, you bastard, he thought. I could splatter your lousy guts for a hundred yards. His trigger finger hovered over the button. But he was moving too fast—and his mind could not let him kill an innocent man, as the crewman down there with CAG surely was. He hurtled over the waving, shouting figures, recognizing both. He was relieved and ashamed that he could think of killing them. But you’ve cost me two good pilots, he thought, and one was very important to me.
If you make it back and he doesn’t, I won’t forget it. By God, you bastard, I won’t forget it.
“Strip down to your skivvy shorts, Ensign.”
The doctor had his back to Fred and had not even turned around when he came in. He appeared to be writing in a personnel jacket, but Fred couldn’t be sure.
He began taking off his clothes—his crusty flight suit and soiled underwear. He laid it all on the end of the examination table. The compartment was small and crowded; there was a desk, a table, filing cabinets, and equipment lockers suspended from the overhead. A bright fluorescent lighted the space with a harsh, greenish glare. A little shakily, Fred took off his socks and placed them on top of his other clothes. He was still weak from the sleepless night spent aboard the submarine and the jarring, rough handling by the destroyer and breeches buoy. His ankle was swollen and very, very painful.
“You ditched, did you?” asked the doctor, still not looking at Fred.
“Yes, sir,” said Fred. He pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the examination table. He was so fatigued that he felt he would never get to sleep.
“What happened?” The doctor finished writing and slapped the personnel jacket closed. Stepping up to Fred, he pulled a small flashlight from a top pocket of his white lab coat and began to peer into one of Fred’s eyes.
“I caught fire. I crashed. Ditched. The sub picked me up.” He shut his eyes as a sudden, vivid picture of Brogan’s Hellcat smashing into the beach flooded his consciousness.
“Open your eyes,” the doctor ordered. There was a knock on the door and someone entered. The doctor glanced up briefly, then looked back at Fred’s eyes. He finished and put the flashlight back into his pocket. “Lay down,” he said.
Fred pulled his feet up onto the table and scooted down into a prone position. He looked up and saw who had entered. It was the skipper, standing opposite the table, leaning against the desk, his arms crossed in front of him. He said nothing.
The doctor gathered up Fred’s clothes and tossed them into a chair. He ignored Jack as though he were a piece of furniture and continued to work on Fred.
“Did this happen in the crash?” The doctor probed a large, bluish bruise on the outside of Fred’s left thigh.
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“And this?” He picked up Fred’s swollen ankle, squeezed it, rotated it, so that Fred sucked in his breath and clawed the table cover with pain.
“Climbing up the cargo net from the sub to the can. It was dark. I couldn’t see very well.” The doctor laid the ankle down.
“Tell me if anything hurts.” Starting with the feet and working up, the doctor bent or rotated each of Fred’s joints. Aside from the ankle, none of them hurt. As the doctor worked, Fred watched the skipper out of the corner of his eye. It was strange, lying there almost naked in front of the skipper. He thought he caught a glimpse of his face, imagined he saw the brow furrowed in deep thought (or perhaps consternation), but couldn’t really be sure. He couldn’t bring himself to look right at him.
“Tell me if anything hurts.” Now the doctor began to probe Fred’s abdomen and ribs with stiff fingers, pulled down his shorts to feel his testicles. Fred closed his eyes. A cold stethoscope came down on his chest, hesitated, moved to another spot, hesitated, moved again. “Breathe deeply.” Fred did so. “Roll over on your side.” Fred did, and the stethoscope moved between his shoulder blades. “Okay.” The doctor seemed satisfied. He turned to the desk, began writing in the personnel jacket. “You can get dressed now.” Fred sat up slowly and swung his legs down.
“Excuse me,” the doctor said to Jack, who moved so he could open a large drawer in the desk. He pulled out a bottle of liquor and a stack of paper cups, poured a cupful for Fred, and handed it to him. “Drink this, then get some rest.” He put the bottle away. Fred took a short sip of the liquor, a poor quality brandy, and shuddered.
“Drink up,” said the doctor. Turning to Jack, he said, “He’s grounded for a week. No flying, no calisthenics, light duty only as necessary.” Finished now, the doctor picked up the personnel jacket, placed the pen in his pocket beside the flashlight, and left the compartment. The door closed.
Jack and Fred were alone.
Fred spoke first. “Brogan…?”
Jack looked into Fred’s eyes. His own eyes softened. He shook his head, looked away.
Fred lifted the cup of brandy, drained it, and swallowed heavily. He set the empty cup beside him on the examination table and lowered himself carefully to the deck. “I guess I’ll turn in,” he said. He moved toward the chair where his clothes were, hobbling slightly.
“Can you make it?” asked Jack. He stood immobile at the desk.
“Yes, sir,” said Fred. He picked up his socks and sat down on top of his other things to pull them on. “I’ll be all right. I’m just tired.”
“Okay,” said Jack. He breathed deeply—it was almost a sigh—and turned to go. “You’re sure you don’t need any help?”
“Yes, sir.” Fred pulled a sock over the sprained ankle and tried to ignore the pain shooting up his leg.
“Okay.” Jack opened the door and left.
Fred stopped dressing for a moment, feeling the brandy begin its work on his empty stomach. Things were just as they had been before. Brogan was gone. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about anything now. He was just very tired.
He finished dressing, resolutely straightened his uniform, even laced and tied his boots. Then he painfully limped the length of the ship and one deck up to his stateroom, took his clothes off again, and passed out in his bunk.
6 October 1943: En route Pearl Harbor Naval Station. VF-20 has been officially credited with the destruction of seven enemy aircraft following two days of strikes on the island of Wake. Operational Missions on this the second, and last, day of strikes, were limited to high cover and ground attack roles, no enemy aerial activity being in evidence. Three strikes totaling twenty-six sorties were flown. No aircraft were lost, although aircraft number forty-one flown by Lt. (j.g.) Heckman has been classified as scrap after receiving severe engine and fuselage damage from enemy gunfire. Squadron effective strength on this date totals thirty pilots and thirty-one aircraft, including one pilot, Ensign Trusteau, temporarily grounded due to minor injuries suffered during ditching procedures on 5 October.
7 October 1943: VF-20 today flew sixteen sorties, all routine Combat Air Patrol with no unusual activity or losses. Inclement weather conditions forced cancellation of all flight operations after 1400 hours. At 1300 hours squadron members attended a short memorial service for those pilots and crewmen lost during the preceding days of action. VF-20 pilots officially listed as killed in action are Ensign David Bigelow and Lieutenant Hanson T. Brogan. Their loss is keenly felt by members of the squadron….
Duane Higgins stretched luxuriously and settled into his chair near the rear of the ready room, where he could watch the other pilots. They were unusually animated today, he thought, probably due to the bad weather, which was allowing them an unexpected day off from flying. Despite their two times in action, they were still an inexperienced lot. Duane thought about the first eighteen months of war, when the few carriers had operated for the most part independently, which had meant continuous CAP duty for the fighter squadrons embarked. Now, in a six-carrier force, CAP duty could be rotated from ship to ship, giving the other air groups a chance to catch up on much-needed rest and training. At Midway, he and Jack had flown one CAP on the morning of June fourth, then participated in the big strike which sank the three enemy carriers and lasted a marathon six hours of continuous flying. They had landed in the afternoon, flew the dusk CAP, slept like inanimate objects, and then did essentially the same thing the next day. Although he never bragged about it, Duane knew it was generally conceded that there was more experience between him and the Skipper than in the rest of the squadron put together. That made Duane feel good.
There was a commotion in the forward part of the compartment as three pilots came in. All were in nonflying uniform. Duane opened his eyes only enough to see who they were. Lieutenants Bradley and Schuster were leading one of the new men, Ensign Patrick, and talking earnestly about souvenirs. Duane listened in for a few seconds and knew immediately what they were up to.
“Wait till you see this, Patrick,” said Bradley.
“You won’t believe it,” said Schuster.
“What is it?” asked Patrick.
The three pilots reached the far corner of the room from Duane and rummaged in a pile of flight gear. Bradley came up with a leather flight helmet and put his hand inside. “You ought to send this to your girl friend back home,” he said. “Then she’ll get an idea of what we’re up against out here.”
“Yeah,” said Schuster. “Quite a man filled this baby.”
“What is it?” asked Patrick, leaning closer, eyes wide with wonder. Bradley was slowly pulling an enormous rubber condom from the helmet.
“Look,” said Schuster, “I got one of our own so you can compare the sizes.” He pulled another, smaller condom from his pocket and held it up beside the big one. The difference was striking. The big rubber was fourteen inches long and as big around as the business end of a baseball bat.
“Geez,” said Patrick. “Look at the size of that thing.” He touched it gingerly but Bradley quickly pushed it back into the helmet, looking around furtively and tucking the headpiece under his arm to hide it.
“Don’t want anyone else to know we got one of these.”
“Yeah,” said Schuster. “They’re pretty rare, you know.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Intelligence Officer who owed me a favor took it off the body of a Jap pilot they pulled from the drink the other day. One of the Emperor’s hand-picked boys.”
“That’s how they pick the pilots for the Emperor’s squadron,” said Schuster. “They gotta be good, you know, really top aces. And they gotta be really big men.”
“Not more than a dozen or so like this in the whole world,” said Bradley.
“Really?” Patrick was buying the story. Duane grinned to himself at the half-truth they were plying him with. The rubber had come off the body of a Japanese pilot, but all Japanese Army pilots carried them. Two or three each, in fact. They used the rubbers to protect survival equipment from saltwater, in the event of ditching. He guessed they would ask Patrick for at least twenty bucks for it. And Patrick would probably pay it.
“Thirty bucks,” said Bradley, “and it’s yours. That’s pretty cheap, you know, but you’re a member of the squadron and all. We try to take care of our own.”
“That’s kind of high,” said Patrick uncertainly.
“Yeah, but where else are you going to find one of these?”
Duane closed his eyes again, thinking that maybe they were taking the kid for a ride, but what the hell. It was taking the kid’s mind off the death of Bigelow, who had come aboard the same time he had. The two had been good friends. In this business, maybe it was better…
Duane opened his eyes. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Without moving his head he surveyed the compartment full of men and found who he was looking for. Trusteau was sitting at the debriefing table, working away with pen and paper.
The War Diary. Trusteau was writing something in the Diary, copying from what was probably a first draft of a long entry. As Duane watched, Trusteau stopped writing, put the pen down, folded his hands in front of him, and stared at the bulkhead opposite. His face was as blank as the bulkhead. Duane looked across the ready room and found the skipper.
Jack was sitting in one of the front row chairs, leafing through a stack of papers. His brow was furrowed in thought, even though he was flipping through the papers far too fast to be absorbing any of the information on them. Duane looked back at Trusteau.
Trusteau had stopped looking at the bulkhead. He was looking at the skipper. Not a casual glance. An unmoving, unblinking stare. Jack had to notice.
Duane’s eyes moved again, and yes, the skipper was looking back at Trusteau. All around them, the men of the squadron talked, got up, sat down, did the things men at ease do with each other. But the skipper and his wingman were off somewhere else, somewhere very private. They held the stare for at least half a minute. To Duane all the life in the room seemed to recede into the distance; all the sounds became muted. Then it ended, suddenly. Trusteau turned back to his book and his writing. The skipper, as if coming to some important decision, straightened the papers on his knees, stood, and strode from the room.
It’s none of my business, thought Higgins. He closed his eyes.
“Okay. Twenty-four bucks.” Bradley and Schuster closed the deal with Patrick, and the condom changed hands. It was all right, even if Patrick eventually found out what the rubber was really for. Bradley and Schuster would play innocent, saying that that was what the Intelligence people had told them, and Patrick would still have a hell of a souvenir to show the people back home. Some of the people, anyway.
Higgins opened his eyes. Trusteau was gone; the little desk was empty.
It’s none of my business, he thought. But I’ve got to find out.