Wingmen (9781310207280) (19 page)

“—lead angle’s
all wrong, Two Four—”

“—on your tail,
Jimbo—”

The pilots’
voices were a scrambled mishmash saying nothing of importance and
depriving home base of an accurate picture of what was happening
over the target.
They’ll get their asses chewed for this breakdown
,
Duane thought.
But
what the hell.
Battle problems were flown for this reason,
to let everyone see how badly things could get screwed up when
fifty-odd aircraft tried to fly through the same square mile of air
space. If they thought this was difficult, they should see it when
the ships belong to the Japanese and are throwing up enough flak to
walk on, and the Zeros are competing for the same square mile. He
remembered how a similar scene had been enacted over the
Hornet
at
Santa Cruz: The attacking planes had rising suns on their wings and
the bombs were real, and they were falling on the ship he had to
land on when his fuel ran low. He and Jack had circled nervously
outside the range of the flak, watching
Hornet
disgorge a huge pall of
black smoke, and then he had shot down the damaged Zero who had the
guts to attack with a smoking engine. During these moments, his
future had seemed chancy, very chancy indeed. Yet here he was
today.

“All Banger
aircraft rendezvous.” It was the skipper slipping a message into a
moment of relative quiet. Duane waved at Bracker, who was flying
the loose wing position on him, then patted his head in the “follow
me” signal. The two fighters crossed over the circling ships and
headed south, looking for the main body of the squadron. Below them
a flight of Avengers struggled for altitude, one by itself hovering
high over the rest, circling and obviously observing. Duane knew it
was the air group commander, damn his soul—a petty, disagreeable
man with an undisguised dislike for any pilot who flew a Hellcat.
Then he caught sight of the gnatlike, black specks of circling
aircraft. He increased power to catch up. Now the short trip back
to the carrier, and once again the permanent poker game could be
picked up where it had been left off in its trail of broken
straights and endless pots.

The poker game
had begun about a day after the
Constitution
sailed from Pearl and hadn’t
stopped since, except for the frequent general quarters alarms and
other shipboard developments that required most of the participants
to leave temporarily. The players changed constantly—even Duane
Higgins had to eat and sleep occasionally—but on the whole it was
limited to about a dozen top-ranking chief petty officers and
lieutenants, and a single lieutenant commander. Duane had
recognized one of the chiefs as an enlisted cook, another as the
head steward. Most of the rest were from the aircraft maintenance
departments, although a wrinkled boatswainsmate was also a regular.
The officers were drawn in equal numbers from the air group and the
force commander’s staff, except for the lieutenant commander.
Conveniently enough, he worked in the disbursing office and could
help out when a big winner needed to change a stack of bills into
larger denominations. None of the officers held a direct
supervisory role over any of the chiefs, so the mixture of officers
and enlisted men had never struck Duane as unusual. The common
denominator was simply professional competence: An ensign, even if
he had lots of money, would never have fit in. The location of the
game, of course, varied greatly for the sake of security, although
it was fast becoming universally known and achieving an almost
legendary quality.

Duane
recognized the circling, disorganized gaggle up ahead as Hellcats.
As he and Bracker approached, it was easy to spot the Skipper and
his wingman Trusteau. They were the only pair flying with any sense
of direction. He tried to count the number of fighters there, but
the milling about prevented it, so he settled back and waited for
the skipper to head for home so they could join up. It was a simple
matter. So long as they circled, forming into a squadron echelon
was relatively difficult. As soon as the leading division, the
skipper’s, was complete and they set course for the carrier, the
rest of the divisions could fall into place as necessary.

Duane relaxed
but tried to stay alert. Situations like this, he knew from
experience, were potentially dangerous. A sort of post-strike
letdown would be gripping the newer pilots, making them careless,
forgetful. Duane checked his instruments and tried to keep out of
the way. His fuel indicator showed a little more than half a load
remaining, plenty for the trip back. They had spent an interminable
length of time over the target as the bombers set up their attacks
and went in. Had it been the real thing, the attack would have been
made so that the pullout would be on the course back to the
carrier. There would be damaged planes that couldn’t take the time
to get into perfect formations, and there would be downed pilots
who would be easier to find by rescue craft if they were somewhere
along the return route….
I’m starting to think like a squadron commander
,
thought Higgins,
or
heaven help me, a group skipper.

The swamped
radio circuit was beginning to clear now, as the excitement of the
attack receded and the missing pilots found the rendezvous point.
The skipper finally decided that everyone was present, and he and
Trusteau straightened out and settled onto the course that would
take them to Point Option, the location of the carrier.
Immediately, the other divisions began to fall into place. Duane
increased throttle and climbed slightly so that he and Bracker
could catch up. He spotted their place in line and headed for
it.

“Leader to One
Three. That was pretty fancy flying back there.” It was the skipper
talking to Fred Trusteau.

“Thanks,
Skipper. Just doing what comes naturally.”

Duane felt a
twinge of animosity for Trusteau. He had flown wing on Jack
Hardigan for a lot longer than the ensign, and in situations of
danger the younger man couldn’t possibly comprehend. He hoped
Trusteau appreciated the privilege of flying wing on a veteran like
the skipper. Then he realized he was yearning for the good old days
of the Wildcats and the
Hornet,
when he and Jack had shared a stateroom and
hit the beach together in Pearl and San Diego, Auckland and
Noumea.

“Banger Leader
to One Seven. Any stragglers you know about, One Seven?”

“One Seven.
Hard to tell Skipper, but I didn’t hear anyone in trouble.”

“Roger, One
Seven. Division leaders report any latecomers.”

There was
silence on the circuit for perhaps a minute, then Duane spoke. “See
there, Banger Leader? Nary a casualty. We got this strike business
down pat.”

“Roger, One
Seven. Keep up the good work.”

Duane smiled to
himself and instinctively patted the fat bulge under his flight
suit, a roll of bills amounting to almost a thousand dollars. He
had trimmed eight hundred of it from the chiefs in a single evening
of play; that was the night he couldn’t go wrong and every hand was
a winner. He hoped this cruise would wind up sometime soon now,
because he was anxious to get back to Pearl and deposit the money
in the bank. Courtesy dictated that he stay in the game and give
the losers another crack at their money, but if he had anything to
say about it, he was going to bring most of it back to Pearl with
him, and put it into the savings account which already had over two
thousand dollars in it. He knew it would surprise most people if
they knew he had saved so much dough. He had always carried on like
a carefree, big-spending bachelor. But he had learned long ago that
images could be carefully and adequately constructed.

He wasn’t quite
sure what to do with the money. His upbringing in a houseful of
brothers and sisters in financially tough times made him want to
save every penny. The urgency of the war, the danger of being
killed, and the raise-hell attitudes of the men he ran with made
him want to blow it all on a good time. But upbringing won out and
some got saved, although the fire in the cockpit he had had while
on CAP had reminded him that his life was temporary and could end
on very short notice.

Below them, the
Pacific Ocean was its most beautiful white-flecked royal blue,
occasionally spotted by the shadows of clouds drifting above like
cotton puffs through the bright sunshine. Duane glanced around and
saw that the squadron was pulling into place quite nicely. They
weren’t the flawless, all-or-nothing men who had held the line from
Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, but they were damn good, he thought.
Good enough to carry this war on to a successful if distant
conclusion. Duane fought back the feeling that he was just a small,
insignificant part of a much bigger process, then reluctantly gave
in to it. It was true. The war was picking up now. Dozens of new
ships crowded Pearl. Hundreds of new pilots with new aircraft were
forming into competent air groups to man those ships. Soon, he was
absolutely positive, the
Constitution
would join those new carriers and
battlewagons and sail for the enemy somewhere in the reaches of the
vast Pacific.
Where
will I be a year from now?
he wondered.

“Banger Leader
to One Three. Any navigation snafus this time?”

“Everything
looks all right to me, Banger Leader.” It was Trusteau.

“Let’s take ’em
home then.”

“Roger, Banger
Leader.”

Duane snorted
to himself, annoyed that the skipper could be so chummy with a boot
ensign. Trusteau was a hotshot, never-wrong-always-right sort of
guy. He wasn’t exactly the John Wayne of the skies, but he always
managed to be in the right place at the right time and volunteered
for things and got close to the skipper in a way that was just this
side of brown-nosing.

Duane was aware
that he didn’t really like Fred Trusteau, but he couldn’t put his
finger on the exact reason why. After all, the Skipper had to have
a wingman, and if it couldn’t be Duane Higgins, it might as well be
Trusteau. Still, there was something there that ruffled the surface
of Duane’s otherwise calm temperament. He put it down to the war,
and tried to forget about it.

The flight back
to
Ironsides
was uneventful, even boring. The recovery was flawless, but the
quiet feelings of accomplishment that should have followed the
completion of a near-perfect battle problem were lost in the
symphony of rumors that swept the ship that afternoon. Scuttlebutt
said that for sure the task group was heading for Pearl, and that a
combat cruise was forthcoming. The fact that the Pacific was such a
big place and most of it was still in Japanese hands provided for a
stimulating diversity of speculation, but still it made Duane
secretly glad. He had now only to last in the poker game for
several more days at the most and thus would retain most of his
winnings. Also, he was tired of training. Like warriors through the
ages, Duane felt that his training should not be wasted. The war
should be prosecuted with dispatch, if only to allow him to go home
when it was over and find something to do with his savings.

“Ah,” said Fred
Trusteau, stepping into the squadron office, “there you are,
Skipper.” Jack stopped writing and looked up.

“Come in,” he
said, genuine warmth in his voice.

“I’m not
disturbing you or anything, am I, sir?”

“Just writing a
letter home. What’s on your mind?”

“The War Diary.
I was wondering if you had finished looking it over so I could get
today’s entry in.” Fred closed the door to the small office and sat
in the only other chair, a folding steel-tube type in front of the
desk. Jack put the cap on his fountain pen and reached under the
desk. He came up with the Diary.

“Finished up a
little while ago. It’s excellent.” He handed it across to Fred. “I
want to compliment you on the effort you’ve put into it.”

“Thank you,”
said Fred. He stood up. “Guess I’ll get to it.”

“Why don’t you
stay awhile?” asked Jack. He leaned back and stretched. “There’s no
big hurry on today’s entry, is there?” Fred dropped back into the
folding chair and lay the Diary across his lap.

“Not a bit,” he
said. A tiny chill ran through him. The skipper wanted to pass the
time with him.

“I suppose by
now you’ve heard the news,” said Jack.

“Yes, sir, I
sure have. How long do you think we’ll be in Pearl?”

“I’m willing to
bet it won’t be very long. They’ve cut short the training cruise,
and I know they don’t like to keep a lot of ships sitting around
Pearl for months doing nothing. I’d say we sail in two, maybe three
weeks from the day we get there.”

“I guess this
is it, then,” said Fred. “I sure hope we’re ready.”