Wingmen (9781310207280) (57 page)

Jack sat on the
edge of Boom’s bunk and tried to think of an answer, but Boom
didn’t allow him the time for one.

“They’ve caused
more fuck-ups since we left Pearl than I remember seeing for six
months. They’re not just fuck-ups, Jack. They’re killers. They’re
flying like a bunch of goddamn trainees. What the hell is
wrong?”

“Well,” said
Jack carefully, “I wasn’t able to work with them very closely for
several weeks while CAG had me flying at night.” He was not even
satisfied with his own answer.

“That’s no
reason,” said Boom. He was finding his new job grindingly hard. It
seemed that the great pools of replacement pilots had lots of new,
young lads but there was nary a one experienced enough to take up
where Commander Jennings had left off. “Have you seen? Are you
aware there’s a problem?”

“Yes,” said
Jack quietly, “I’ve seen there’s a problem. I just don’t know where
the answer is right now.”

“Asper says he
hasn’t given this many wave-offs since October. It’s as if your
boys have forgotten how to fly.”

Jack sat still
and felt the vibration of the deck beneath his feet, a sensation
that was quite different from the ordinary feel of the ship
underway.
Constitution
was making a good twenty-eight knots
through heavy seas, hurrying toward an as of yet unannounced
rendezvous with the enemy, burning up three times the normal amount
of fuel and battering the hapless destroyers of the screen, forced
to keep up, with the pounding waves.

“Any word on
where we’re going yet?” he asked.

“Not a peep,”
said Boom. He sat astraddle the single chair in the room. “I hate
to say this, Jack, ’cause I know it makes me sound like my worthy
predecessor, but I think—”

“My men have
the wrong attitude,” Jack finished for him. He had been thinking
it, too. Since Kwajalein they were listless, careless—dangerous.
They needed motivation. Whose fault was all this? “I understand.
I’ll work on it.”

“Do it fast,
Jack,” Boom said seriously. “Wherever it is we’re going, we’ll be
there in a few days at the most.” He stood up and opened the door
to indicate the audience was over.

“Sure,” Jack
said, standing. He was slightly miffed. Boom hadn’t offered the
usual courtesy of a drink from the hidden bottle of Scotch. Rank
and position inevitably changed a man for the worse, Jack
reflected. He said good night and left.

It was just
past darken-ship time. The labyrinthine passageways of the carrier
were lighted dimly in red or not lighted at all. He wandered
through an area of pilot berthing, enjoying the nighttime sounds of
men left temporarily to their own devices. Many were asleep,
stretched out in three-deep bunks with the covers thrown off and
the doors open to try to keep the warm, stale air moving. More than
a few men appeared to be writing letters. There were no bull
sessions in progress, no loud, boasting, speculating pilots jammed
into staterooms. That was most unusual.

Jack passed
Higgins’ stateroom and stood in the open door. He would have put
money on the fact that Duane would not be there, and sure enough he
wasn’t. The lieutenant from the torpedo squadron was in the lower
bunk reading a letter. Without looking up, he said. “He isn’t here.
Big game going somewhere below.”

“Thanks,” said
Jack, not surprised. He continued his stroll, heading in the
general direction of Fred’s stateroom. The fact that Duane was in
another poker game didn’t really bother him. He was sure that the
uproar and the reprimand over the mission at Kwajalein had put the
fear of God in him and there would be no repeat of that fiasco.

Fiasco
, he thought.
Three men, one of
whom you know well, get killed, and you call it a fiasco
.
What would be a tragedy under any other circumstances was merely a
fiasco under the auspices of war.

Jack dodged a
steward hurrying in the opposite direction.
Why
, he asked himself,
did they design the passageways
to twist and turn this way? Why aren’t they straight?
He
pounded his fist against a bulkhead and tried to imagine what was
on the other side. He remembered a true story about another
Essex
-class
carrier where a fully equipped metal-turning workshop was
inadvertently walled off, and had gone undiscovered until six
months after commissioning.

He came to
Fred’s compartment, but it was empty. Fred’s bunk was tightly made.
The others were messy. Jack smiled to himself. That was how Fred
kept his life: orderly, well made.

He left the
small stateroom and headed topside, trying to arrive at a word for
how he felt about Fred.
All this time, all these things we’ve done together
,
he thought.
And
still it eludes me
.

The hangar deck
was dark and quiet, swept by the ocean air that found its way
through openings in the sides of the ship and eddied about the
propellers, wings, tails of the silent aircraft. Picking his way
through them, Jack found the deck edge elevator and stepped out
onto it. The wind was too strong there though. He retreated to a
sheltered spot near the forward part of the great square opening.
There in the shadows he gently collided with someone else.

“Fred.”

“Skipper.”

“Small ship,
isn’t it?”

“Gets smaller
every day.” The two men pulled back cautiously until no part of
them touched. Then both leaned back against the hard steel and
looked out at the blackness of ocean, the cold blaze of stars.

“It’s been a
while since I saw you here,” said Jack. Whenever they talked aboard
ship, now, he felt as if someone were listening to every word they
said. He noticed it this time, too.

“I haven’t been
up here for a while. It’s nice,” said Fred.

“Windy.”

“For sure.” The
conversation petered out. Jack reached out and, in the darkness,
placed the palm of his hand in the small of Fred’s back.

“Fred, you see
things differently from where you are.”

“Yes, I suppose
so.”

“What’s the
matter with the squadron?” Fred shifted uncomfortably. “How come
things look so sloppy?”

Fred didn’t
answer immediately.

“What do they
talk about?”

“They, uh,
don’t talk about much at all.” Fred sounded uncertain.

“Of course they
do. Come on, help me.”

“They talk
about Mister Higgins and the guys we lost at Kwaj.”

“Still on that
one?”

“They’re about
evenly divided. Half of them think you did the right thing. The
other half think he was unlucky and you were wrong.”

“That about
says it, huh?”

“They’re also
talking like they’ll never make it through the war. The way they
see it, the pilots do all the dangerous work. Sooner or later the
Japs’ll catch up with you. There’s no end to it.”

Jack withdrew
his hand and sighed audibly. He could depend on Fred to answer him
honestly, even if he didn’t want to hear the answer. It made sense,
unfortunately. He changed the subject. “I still haven’t decided who
I want to write the Diary. You have any ideas?”

“Sure,” said
Fred. “Me.”

“No, you’ve
done enough.”

“But I want to.
Makes me feel like I’m contributing something.”

“Why is it I
can never argue with you?”

“I’m still
thinking about your book,” said Fred.

Jack laughed.
“You think about it more than I do. It’ll probably never get off
the ground.”

“You mean out
of the water.”

“Whatever.”

Behind them,
from the depths of the hangar deck, the address system growled to
life and echoed hollowly around the great enclosed space. “Now hear
this. Now hear this.”

Jack nudged
Fred and the two men moved further into the shelter of the hangar
deck, out of the wind.

“What time is
it?” asked Jack.

Fred consulted
his watch. “8:15.”

“I wonder…”
said Jack, but he was cut off by the voice of the captain.

“This is the
Captain speaking. I want all hands to know that fifteen minutes ago
we received by radio broadcast the information we have all been
waiting for. I’m passing it along to you now because I’m tired of
hearing rumors that we’re headed for Tokyo again.” He paused as if
to let the laughter subside. “Our target is the island base at Truk
in the Caroline Islands approximately six hundred miles west of
Kwajalein. The day after tomorrow we will rendezvous with the rest
of Task Force Fifty-eight and head into the target on the morning
of the seventeenth. I have every confidence that when we leave the
area on the eighteenth the Japs will know they’ve been repaid for
Pearl Harbor. That is all. Carry on,” The address system gave a
final burst of static and clicked off.

Jack exhaled
the breath of air he had held since the captain had first said
“Truk.” He and Fred silently stepped to the edge of the
elevator.

“Truk,” said
Fred.

“Why not
Tokyo?” Jack sounded bitter. “Maybe what the guys are saying is
right. If they try hard enough, they just might manage to get all
of us killed.”

“We’re up to
it,” said Fred simply. “Like you said, if it’s not one Jap island,
it’s another.”

Jack stood
helplessly for a minute, feeling the wind search his face and
clothes. “I wish I had about a dozen more of you,” he said. Then,
“No. I don’t know what to do with one of you. What would I do with
more?”

“You’d have a
well-written War Diary.”

Jack laughed.
“I’m going to bed,” he said. “I’ve had enough for one day.” He
tousled Fred’s hair playfully, and the two left the elevator and
headed below.

Before they
parted, however, Jack asked Fred if he had the will in a safe
place, and Fred said that he did, but that he would never have to
open it. Humorlessly, Jack told him not to bet on that.

Duane screwed
up his courage one last time, knocked on the door of the squadron
office, and entered without waiting for an answer. Jack was at the
desk, writing with his fountain pen. He looked up to acknowledge
Duane, then continued to write. Duane seated himself and cleared
his throat, waiting for Jack to finish.

“Yes?” said
Jack evenly, still writing. “What can I do for you?”

“There’s
something we have to talk about,” said Duane.

The way he said
it made Jack stop writing and cap his pen. “And what would that
be?”

“A couple of
things.” Duane was sweating, not heavily, but enough for Jack to
notice. “First off, there’s something I have to clear with you.
It’s just a formality, really…”

“What is
it?”

“I’ve decided
to get married.”

Jack broke into
a sardonic smile and leaned back. “Is that right?” he said.

“That
is
correct;
isn’t it? I mean, you have to approve of it?”

“You were
right. For someone like you, it’s just a formality. I’ll pass it
along to Commander Bloomington and that’s as high as it goes.” Jack
continued to smile. “What made you decide to take the plunge?”

“Nothing in
particular. Just thought it was about time to do it.”

“And who’s the
lucky girl, if I might ask?”

“You sure can,”
said Duane. He had practiced saying this again and again, trying to
find the most effective way to get the point across. “Her name’s
Eleanor.” Jack’s eyebrows went up a notch. “Eleanor Hawkins.” They
went up another notch. Silence reigned for several seconds. “We’d
like to do it as soon as possible.” Jack’s expression remained
unchanged. “I mean as soon as we get back, or the first
opportunity…” He didn’t understand. Jack was supposed to be upset,
shocked, something. It wasn’t working right. Jack just sat there,
the beginnings of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“I’ve been seeing her for a couple of months now…”

Jack gave a
sound like a chuckle, only it came out derisive and hard. “Son of a
bitch,” he said.

“You have no
objections?”
Press
him
, thought Duane,
press him into admitting…

“I wish you
every happiness,” Jack said. He sat forward, uncapped his pen, and
began writing again.

Is that all there is?
Duane thought.
No
rantings, no ravings?
“Thank you,” he said formally. “You’re
invited to the wedding, of course.”

“Of course.”
Jack’s head bobbed slightly. “By the way,” he said, “I was just
working out the schedule for the strikes tomorrow. Tell me what you
think of it.”

Jack turned a
piece of paper around and Duane picked it up to read it. The
Ironsides
’
contribution to the first strike—a massive fighter sweep drawn from
seven carriers—was being led by Hardigan and wingman Trusteau. The
second strike, late in the morning, composed of bombers and
fighters, was being led by Lieutenant Schuster. Duane looked for
his name and found it; he was second division leader in the first
strike. He contemptuously sailed the single sheet of paper back on
the desk. Jack made no move to touch it.