Wingmen (9781310207280) (42 page)

Duane Higgins
eased his way into the press of bodies and found a place against
the bulkhead where no one would notice him. Ten minutes’ of fuel.
He remembered an earlier flight with Trusteau when he had been
worried about half-an-hour’s fuel. It was so long, so long ago.

The two pilots
continued talking, with the FDO occasionally interrupting to ask
about position and fuel and altitude. After several minutes, at the
FDO’s insistence, Trusteau blinked his landing lights and the two
fighters joined up. They had just assumed a new heading which would
bring them to the
Constitution
when Trusteau cursed and said that all
his panel lights had just gone out; he couldn’t see any of his
instruments. Then Jack Hardigan said he had been counting on Fred
to lead them in because his canopy was smeared with enemy oil.
Duane listened to the two men calmly discussing their chances of
reaching safety and realized that he was sweating like a pig. And
praying for the skipper to make it down.

It was fully
dark—the depths of night—when Fred found the Skipper. They had been
coached into each other’s vicinity by the FDO on board
Ironsides
, making the
final linkup when Fred blinked his landing lights. Above the two
groping fighters the Milky Way blazed gloriously and the
constellations of the southern and northern hemispheres mingled
almost indistinguishably with millions of dimmer stars. But the
stars gave very little light and the moon was barely past the new
stage. Fred forgot about the three kills he had just earned and
concentrated on the fact that the coming landing would be perilous
in the extreme. Surprisingly, the fact that the skipper was with
him did little to lessen his fear.

They had joined
up into their standard formation and turned to what the FDO said
was the downwind leg when Fred noticed the smell of burning wire,
It was very faint, and it came and went with the eddies of air
coming in through the hole in the upper panel. But it was there and
couldn’t be ignored. When they passed over the outer escorts of the
task group, the panel lights, normally a dim green, blinked twice
and went out.

“Oh, hell,” he
said. “I got another problem, Skipper.” He hoped his voice didn’t
convey the panic welling up in him.

“What is it?”
asked the Skipper.

“Panel lights
just went out. Must be a short somewhere. I can smell it.”

“Have you tried
the dimmer rheostat?”

“That’s
affirmative, Skipper. No go.”

“Well, that’s
all right. Just keep close to me. I was kind of hoping you’d take
me down, though. Seems I’ve got oil all over the screen.”

“You got one,
Skipper?”

“Shucks.
’Tweren’t nothing.”

“Gentlemen,
suggest we discuss box scores when you’re back at the roost. One
Four, suggest you try the flashlight on your life jacket for
illumination. Let us know if it works.” Keeping an eye on the dark
shadow that was Jack’s Hellcat, Fred groped for the little one-cell
light. He found it with his left hand and unpinned it.

“That,
incidentally, was suggested by Mister Higgins, who is here with us
now.”

“And the XO
said, ‘Let there be light,’” said Jack.

“And there
was…” Fred worked at the switch, clumsy with his left hand, flicked
it on. “…light.” His heart seemed to fill his throat. His fuel
gauges were both on empty. “Suggest we speed things up a little,
Rooster Base,” he said. “I’m on fumes now.”

“Very well, One
Four. Continue on present course, gents. Cruiser on our port bow
will show single red truck light. Rooster Base will show single
white truck light during approach and hooded landing lights for
touchdown. We’d appreciate one approach each, so make it a good
one.”

“You got it,”
said Jack.

“Roger,” said
Fred. One approach was probably all he had time for. “I’ll make the
first one,” he volunteered. There was a moment’s silence on the
circuit, during which the red truck light of the cruiser flared and
they passed over it.

“That’s a
negative, One Four. Banger Leader will make the first pass. Please
acknowledge.”

There was
another moment of silence. The truck light of
Constitution
appeared to the
left of Fred’s field of vision, and the dark bulk of the carrier
and its white wake were suddenly visible. Fred understood what they
were doing. Hardigan was the more experienced, and more valuable,
flyer. He was less likely to crash on the approach and foul the
deck. Fred imagined he heard a sigh from the skipper.

“That’s
affirmative.” The older man’s voice sounded flat and dry.

“Roger,” said
Fred. The two Hellcats turned across the wake but Fred kept going,
crossing it as the skipper dipped away and disappeared into the
gloom.

The next five
minutes were the longest of Fred Trusteau’s life. He made the
single orbit of
Constitution
with wheels and flaps up to lessen drag
and the fuel mixture leaned to the maximum. The tiny, dim survival
light burned away steadily, showing a set of fuel gauges whose
needles had stopped moving downward and sat below the “E” for
empty.

Again the red
light of the cruiser guided him on the final leg, again the single
light of the carrier beckoned him, and he brought it in on the
first pass. The row of landing lights seemed all too short and the
dark deck appeared to leap up at him before he was ready. As he sat
in the fighter waiting for the hook crew to release him and the
deck officer to direct him forward, his engine sputtered and died,
and he was still sitting in the cockpit, strapped in, when Jack
pulled himself up to his side to help him out.

The muted
voices of deck officer, helmsman and lee helmsman, messengers,
staff officers murmured in the dark, on the bridge. Jack and Fred
stood for a moment on the port wing and let their eyes adjust to
the dark. But even after several minutes all they could see was the
dark forms of people; faces were impossible to make out.

“Come on,” said
Jack. He pulled at Fred’s arm and Fred followed. “Can someone tell
me where the captain is?” he asked loudly. Silence fell and Fred
could feel, rather than see, that many eyes were on them.

“Silence on the
bridge,” said a voice, sternly. A dark form hurried over to them.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“We were asked
here by the captain,” said Jack. “If you could just point him out
for us….”

“What are your
names?” Fred thought he could make out the shape of binoculars
hanging around the man’s neck and figured that he was the officer
of the deck. He had heard before that they were pretty strict about
who entered the bridge. Consequently, he had never been there
before. It was even more forbidding at night, and he was glad the
Skipper was with him.

“Lieutenant
Commander Jack Hardigan. Ensign Trusteau. The captain asked to see
us when we got down.”

“
You
were just up there?”
asked the officer. “
You
got those Jap planes?”

“That was us,”
said Jack. “Now please, we don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“On the
starboard wing,” said the OOD. His tone of voice had changed
considerably. “Follow me.” He led them past the great brass wheel
that gleamed dully in the dark, past two talkers with bulky
headsets.

“Captain, you
asked to see the two pilots,” the OOD said to a shadowy mass that
leaned against the steel retaining wall marking the edge of the
bridge. Fred thought for a moment that the captain was impossibly
tall, then discovered that he was sitting on a pedestal chair that
raised his head a foot over theirs.

“Oh, yes,” said
the captain. “Mister Hardigan. Mister Trusteau.” The OOD had
vanished in the gloom and they were alone with the captain, in the
stifling, windy darkness. “Come on over a little closer so I can
see you.” Fred grabbed Jack’s arm and they moved closer. Fred
kicked his toe painfully against some unseen projection on the
deck.

“Yes, sir,”
said Jack.

“Are you there,
too, Ensign?”

“Right here,
Captain.”

“Well, now that
I’ve got the two of you here together, I just want to say that I’ve
seen some flying in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like what
I saw a little while ago.”

“Thank you,
sir,” said Jack.

Fred said
nothing until Jack elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

“Yes, sir,” he
said, “thank you.”

“Well, tell me
about it,” said the captain. He had turned in his chair to face the
pilots, but his face was still unreadable.

“I guess there
isn’t much to say,” Jack said. “We weren’t together when I found
the three Kates. I think they were Kates. It was sort of dark. I
got two of them. I’m sorry, but one got away.”

“One got away,”
said the captain. “What about the rest?”

“What rest,
sir?”

“Mister
Hardigan, I and about fifty other people up here saw five planes go
into the drink.”

“Oh,” said
Fred. “I guess that was me. I only saw one at first and I went
after him. That’s when I lost the skipper.”

“I only got
two,” said Jack, wonderingly.

“I got three,”
said Fred. “The second one almost pulled me in with him. The third
had a tail gunner. Put a slug through the canopy. That may have
been what caused the short that killed my panel lights.”

“Three?” said
Jack. “You got three Kates up there just now?”

“They were all
together. I think I got two on my first burst. I still can’t
believe—”

“Mine were in a
sort of slanted echelon formation…”

“Left to right,
one on the left in the lead.”

“Exactly.”

“And they were
dropping altitude pretty fast, toward the ships. Only I didn’t know
that until that second one went in—”

“Captain.” The
OOD had returned. “Coming to one eight three in one minute.”

“Very well,”
said the captain. “Kentworth.” Another man materialized out of the
gloom at the captain’s elbow. Fred jumped.

“Yes, sir,” he
said.

“Mister
Kentworth, I am recommending both Mister Hardigan and Mister
Trusteau for air medals. Draw up the necessary paperwork, would you
please?”

“Really,
Captain,” said Jack. “I don’t think…”

“Mister
Hardigan, Mister Trusteau, see me in my cabin tomorrow when you get
a chance. The morning would be a good time. Can’t talk worth a damn
in the dark like this.”

“Yes, sir,”
said Jack. “Is that all, sir?”

“Trusty,” said
the captain. “Is that what they call you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“An appropriate
title. I’m glad you’re on our side, killer.” The captain
laughed.

Fred and Jack
groped their way off the dark bridge and down the red-lighted
passageways and ladders until they were on the hangar deck. There
Jack stopped. “You got three kills in one mission,” he said, still
amazed.

“You got
two.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me?”

“I guess we
were just too busy trying to get back down.”

Jack laughed.
“I think this is one for the record books.”

“It sure rates
an entry in the War Diary,” said Fred.

“I should say
it does.” Jack grabbed Fred by the shoulder, roughed him up
playfully. “Got a cigarette?” he asked.

“Sure,” said
Fred, “if they’re not all soaked with sweat.” He shook a cigarette
out of the flattened pack. Jack struck a flame with his lighter,
lighting Fred’s first. Fred cupped his hands around the skipper’s
as the flame flared in his eyes.

“Hey,” said
Jack. He closed the lighter, extinguishing it. Taking Fred by the
shoulders he pushed him into the passageway they had just left,
which was lighted by a single feeble light. Jack held Fred up
against the bulkhead under the light and looked anxiously into his
face. “You’re bleeding.”