Aces (60 page)

Greene barged into the tent, past Corporal Leonard, the radioman, who was seated at his equipment, his Sten submachine gun
slung across the back of his canvas folding chair. The corporal glanced up smiling. “Morning, Captain—” he began.

Greene ignored him, striding up to Major Bolten, who was seated behind his desk, reading a report. “What’s all this about
us becoming boar hunters?” Greene fiercely demanded.

Bolten looked up with a deadpan expression. He was in his fifties, tall and heavyset, and wore his thinning auburn hair slicked
from his high, perpetually sunburned forehead. He had a pencil moustache, pale brown eyes, and exceedingly bad teeth. He also
had an annoying habit of never seeming to sweat. Just now his long-sleeved, khaki shirt looked freshly pressed and dry as
a bone.

“So you’ve heard the latest?” Bolten asked.

“Yes, I’ve heard! I’d like to know what the hell kind of nonsense—”

“Calm down,” Bolten said sourly. He reached into his desk drawer and came out with a gun-metal gray cigarette case. He took
a smoke for himself, and then offered the case to Greene, who declined. “Now, then, Blaize,” Bolten began, as he fitted his
cigarette into an ivory holder. “I’m no happier about these recent developments than you. For what it might be worth to you,
when the orders came down to transform our fighters into tank busters, I argued against it.” He paused to light his cigarette,
and then exhaled a long, thin stream of blue smoke. “My arguing, needless to say, did absolutely no good. The day after tomorrow
the Yanks’ B-17s based at Benghazi will fly across the Gulf of Sidra to conduct a bombing raid over Buerat—”

“Major, those Flying Fortresses are going to need protection against Italian and German fighters—” Greene impatiently interrupted.

“The Yanks are supplying their own fighter escort,” Bolten sharply replied, his eyes narrowing in response to Greene’s disrespectful
attitude. “They’ve got P-38 Lightnings and P-60 BearClaws equipped with long-range drop tanks. Those fighters can fly higher
and faster than our Hurricanes.”

“The Hurricane is a bloody fine airplane, Sir,” Greene protested.

Bolten smiled faintly. “And you and the other lads have done well by her. But we’ve got to face facts: the Squadron is down
to less than a dozen airworthy planes of an outmoded design. We’re simply not needed as fighters any longer. We are needed
as tank busters, and we both know that Hurricanes fitted with cannons are well suited for that job. A lorry load of cannons
and armor-piercing shells is on its way to us, right now, and should be here by this afternoon. The armorer assures me that
he can have the planes refitted by tomorrow night. I was going to have you lead the attack on the day after.”

“Major, I need only one more kill to become an ace,” Greene said, frustrated.

“That’s enough,” Bolten snapped, growing pale with anger. “I advise you to get hold of yourself, Captain! I’ve been rather
easygoing concerning discipline, considering that we’re a front-line outfit operating under adverse conditions. Perhaps I’ve
been
too
easygoing. Do remember that you’re speaking to a superior officer.”

“Yes, sir,” Greene said, coming to attention. “I beg the major’s pardon.”

Bolten nodded, seeming somewhat mollified. “You might also remember that this war isn’t being conducted for your personal
amusement. Now then, I’ve got work to do, Captain. You’re dismissed.”

Greene saluted, turned on his heel, and began to leave the tent. He felt Bolten’s eyes upon him as he walked away.

“Captain—”

Greene turned. “Yes, Sir?”

“Captain…” Bolten repeated, and then hesitated. “Blaize.” He smiled. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how is your missus?”

“Sir?” Greene had never been that friendly with Bolten, and was a bit startled by the major’s sudden interest in the state
of Suze’s health.

“Well, I heard from some of the other fellows that your wife is pregnant. It’s your first child, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Greene said. He realized that Bolten was waiting for him to say something more. “Her due date is sometime in the
middle of January.”

“Splendid, splendid,” Bolten murmured. He looked uncomfortable. “I say, Blaize, I was wondering, with your wife due to deliver
in just a couple of weeks, perhaps you’d rather I removed you from the flying roster for a while?”

“Whatever for, Major?”

“Well, some chaps get a bit…” Bolten hesitated. “Wobbly in the knees; superstitious, shall we say, at such times. I thought,
perhaps, that was why you’re acting so… peculiarly.”

“Major, I do appreciate your concern,” Greene said coolly, but there are plenty of RAF chaps with wives and kiddies to fret
about just now flying in combat. Nobody’s taking them off the flight roster, now, are they?”

Bolten seemed to flinch at Greene’s tone. “Suit yourself, then, Captain,” he muttered.

Greene, sensing that he’d hurt Bolten’s feelings, realized that he was behaving like a cad. He’d been taking out his frustrations
on a superior officer who was only relaying orders that had come down from on high. “Sir, I apologize for my behavior. I do
appreciate your offer. It’s just that I feel bad enough as it is, losing out on any opportunity of becoming an ace. I’d much
rather be flying with the rest of the squadron, even if we have been reduced to tank busting.”

“Which is risky enough,” Bolten pointed out. “And taking into account our area of operations, even more valuable to the war
effort than shooting enemy fighters.”

“Maybe,” Greene sighed.

Bolten rolled his eyes. “Off with you, then.”

On December 29, the Squadron’s ten airworthy Hawker Hurricanes sat like drab butterflies, drying their wings in the sun, as
Greene and the other pilots made their way to the ready line. The Hurricanes wore desert camouflage colors: mottled brown
and tan on top, sky blue on the bottom, with British roundels on the fuselages’ rear quarters, and the wings. Normally, the
Hurricanes were armed with eight Browning .30-caliber machine guns, but to equip the fighters for their tank-busting duties,
six of those guns had been stripped away, replaced by a pair of 40-millimeter cannons. Each cannon, its long barrel jutting
out like a bayonet from its pod nestled beneath the wing, was loaded with twelve armor-piercing shells.

The Hurricane was a big plane. Its cockpit was about ten feet off the ground. Greene, wearing his soft canvas helmet and goggles,
burdened down with his parachute, and a Web-ley .38-caliber revolver in a canvas flap holster strapped around his waist, needed
a stepladder, and the assistance of the ground crew, to climb into the cockpit. He strapped himself in and tested his radio.

“Your flight’s cleared, Captain,” Corporal Leonard’s voice came in over the earpieces built into Greene’s helmet. “Best of
luck.”

“Thank you, Corporal,” Greene said into his throat mike. He slid forward the Hurricane’s canopy and locked it into place,
and then started his engine. As he began taxiing across the sandy airfield, he checked his watch. It was just noon. With any
luck he and the boys could go Hun hog-bashing and be back in time for tea. Greene hoped that would be the case. He had a letter
he wanted to finish writing to Suze.

It was a little after ten in the morning when Suzy Greene, peering out the bay windows of the parlor-floor flat, decided that
it was now or never if she were going to go for a walk. The sky was a blustery gray, threatening rain, and it did look chilly
from the way that people were hurrying by all bundled up. Still, her doctor had told her to get at least a little exercise
each day.

She moved slowly through the flat to the hall closet. These days, slow was the only way she could move. Her stomach was hugely
swollen. She couldn’t believe that she still had a month to go until her due date. From the way the boy—she was certain that
it was a boy—had been kicking all morning, she felt as if any moment he was going to punt his way through her belly.

She pulled on a couple of Blaize’s sweaters, and his old tweed overcoat: his were the only garments she had that could make
it around her middle. She’d gone shopping for maternity clothes a while ago, but with the war shortages there hadn’t been
much to choose from in the shops. She wrapped a scarf around her throat, pulled on her mittens and earmuffs, and left the
flat.

She shivered, turning up her coat collar against the wind as she waddled as quickly as she could past the red-brick rowhouses
that lined Hubert Place. Folklore had it that pregnant women weren’t supposed to get cold, but she guessed that didn’t hold
true for pregnant women transplanted to gloomy Britain from balmy California. Growing up in Los Angeles must have thinned
her blood, or else it had to do with the lack of central heating in England. Whatever it was, she hadn’t been truly warm since
she’d set foot here, she thought, as she passed by the British Museum.

The truth of it was that she’d never really felt all that comfortable here in Britain. It hadn’t been that bad back in the
spring, when the weather was balmy, the gardens freshly green and vibrant with flowers; and Blaize had been with her. Blaize
had been so happy to be home, so anxious to show her London, that somehow she’d seen it all through his eyes, and never felt
like a stranger.

But once Blaize had graduated from fighter training school—so handsome in his blue uniform, his white-silk pilot’s wings stitched
above the breast pocket—he had to go off to the front, and leave her all alone in the Hubert Place flat. His going seemed
to take the light and life out of London for Suzy. The cold, damp, lonely nights seemed to last forever, and the shadowy,
bombed-out buildings seemed to leer at her like skulls. Blaize’s friends tried to make her feel comfortable, but Suzy couldn’t
shake the feeling that nobody here really knew her or cared about her. A few times she’d been on the verge of wiring her parents
and asking them to arrange her transportation home. She hadn’t, because her husband was an Englishman, and as his wife, she
felt, she should loyally reside in the country he was risking his life to defend. It wasn’t much, but it was
something
she could do to demonstrate her love.

For all of that, she was very thankful that Blaize had said that he was willing to move back to California once the war was
over. Suzy couldn’t wait to see palm trees, and to experience a day without rain, and to have something decent to eat again.

She also couldn’t wait to have this baby. It hadn’t been an easy pregnancy. Of course, she was grateful to
be
pregnant. God, it had seemed as if they’d been trying forever. Not that it hadn’t been
fun
trying…

She just wanted her body back, thanks very much.

At the corner of Montague Street, she paused, wondering how far she should press on. She decided to stroll a bit through the
manicured greenery of Russell Square. It turned out that her spirit was willing, but her ankles were weak. Halfway through
the park she had to sit down on a bench to catch her breath.

An elderly man, wearing a derby and a velvet-collared gray chesterfield overcoat, carrying a newspaper tucked under his arm,
came along and sat down beside her. He had pink cheeks and a white, walrus moustache, just like the English gents in the
Esquire
magazine cartoons. Suzy tried not to giggle. He nodded to her, and then hid his face behind his copy of his
London Times
.

She’d rest just a bit longer, she thought, and then head back to the flat for a nice hot cup of tea, and some cookies…

She shoved her mittened hands into the pockets of the overcoat and felt something hard that had slid through a hole in the
left pocket, to become caught in the coat’s lining. She carefully worked it free and pulled it out of the pocket. It was a
slender, leather-bound volume; a book of poems, by Yeats. She’d never seen it before. When she opened it she was delighted
to see that many of the poems had been annotated by Blaize. She began to read—first a poem, and then Blaize’s comments—and
quickly lost track of the time. As she read his inked notations she could hear his voice in her mind. Discovering the book
was like being treated to a visit with Blaize, and, a teeny bit, served to assuage her loneliness.

Greene led his flight along the Via Balbia coast road. Off his starboard wing was the brilliant blue Mediterranean, the molten
African sun casting glittering diamonds across the waves. To his left was the limitless desert, the ochre dunes stubbled with
green and brown tangles of brush, and the purple hills shimmering in the heat. There was no substantial cover down there,
no decent place for men and machines to hide. To the American bombers, the Huns infesting the dunes and ravines would look
like military miniatures arranged on a yellow-tablecloth battlefield. The Germans would fight back with flak guns, tank fire,
and heavy machine guns, but would mostly count on their fighters for protection.

“Look sharp, now, lads,” Greene said into his throat mike. “We’ve left our lines behind.”

The formation of ten planes broke apart, spreading out inland and flying low, hoping to flush out their armored quarry.

The objective was to destroy the Afrika Corps’ tanks patrolling the perimeters of the Hun’s Buerat position. Hopefully, any
enemy fighters in the area would have been drawn off to intercept the Yanks’ bombers and their fighter escort just now on
their way across the Gulf. The refitted Hurricanes were not armed for dogfighting.

As Greene watched the desert terrain rushing by beneath him, he thought about what Major Bolten had said about the Hawker
Hurricane being outmoded. The more he pondered how Bolten had maligned the Hurricane, the angrier he got. Part of his indignation
stemmed from guilt, of course. He himself had been awfully disappointed when he found out that the 33rd was equipped with
Hurricanes instead of Spitfires or Supersharks. He’d been even more upset when he learned that the filters fitted onto the
Hurricanes’ Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to protect against sand and dust further decreased the planes’ performance capabilities.
But after a few weeks spent flying his Hurricane, Greene had found himself grown quite fond of her. She was easy to land,
easy to repair, and a stable gun platform. Most important, her rather old-fashioned metal and wood frame, covered over with
fabric, allowed enemy fire to pass through her without doing the terrible damage that bullets did to the newer fighters of
monocoque metal skin construction.