Wingmen (9781310207280) (5 page)

Duane was a
dedicated skipper watcher. He figured he felt as deeply for Jack
Hardigan as he did for any man or woman alive. He never considered
using the word “love” to describe the emotion—love being what
mothers felt for sons and vice versa, what occasionally fathers
felt for sons, and what infrequently and with great caution one
felt toward a younger member of the opposite sex. The last thing he
remembered loving was a dog, when he was twelve or thirteen, and he
had come to realize it only after the animal was hit by a car and
left to die in the street.

Ahead on the
taxi strip the last of the three Dauntlesses moved onto the
airstrip and roared off. The plump Avenger (
not of our air group
, Higgins
thought, wondering why he was here) rolled to the holding line and
braked to a stop. Trusteau pulled up close behind him. The
controller was ordering the Avenger to hold, and then Duane saw
why: one of the Dauntlesses was coming back down with a smoking,
sputtering engine to the strip it had just left.
A goddamn deathtrap
, Higgins
thought. It was a wonder there hadn’t been more accidents. With a
sort of left-handed logic, Duane wished they were back at sea where
minor emergencies were a hundred times more deadly. At least there
he felt at home, regardless of the danger.

Duane Higgins
and Jack Hardigan had been together since the last part of 1941,
when the younger man, then an ensign, was first assigned to the
Hornet
’s air
group and flew wing on division leader Hardigan. Incredibly, during
those first twelve months of war, when the few available air groups
were shifted around like pawns, split up, reassigned, worked over
by the enemy, and fragmented all over the South Pacific, the two
had managed to hang together like husband and wife, or more
accurately, like twin brothers. When the
Hornet
, like twenty or so of her
sister ships and hundreds of aircraft and crews, was sacrificed for
the stinking little island of Guadalcanal, Jack and Duane had
finally been separated. Duane went to the
Enterprise
as a replacement pilot.
Jack went to the States, the lucky stiff, to help form a new air
group.

Despite the
closeness between these two, they had not corresponded while they
were apart. Attachment for another man is not something two grown
men easily admit, so Duane was flabbergasted and secretly overjoyed
when the orders came for his transfer to Jack’s squadron. Though
they had never talked about it, Duane was somehow sure Jack had
arranged it. Regardless, he was now Executive Officer of Fighting
Twenty, well qualified for the job, and having the time of his
life.

“Avenger Five
Seven, you are cleared for takeoff.”

“Roger,
Control. Five Seven out.”

“Control, this
is Banger One Three, F6 at the hold line. Request clearance for
takeoff.”

“Wait one,
Banger One Three.”

Ahead of the
two Hellcats, the Avenger, obviously heavily loaded, roared down
the runway and struggled into the air. Duane applied a little
throttle, released his brakes, and pulled up behind Trusteau. He
wished the skipper was in the other plane—they had had such good
times together when they were wingmen. Everyone knew the skipper
hadn’t been in the air enough since the new aircraft
arrived—everyone but CAG, who was a jerk anyway, who didn’t know
his ass from a hole in the ground, and who would one day depend on
Jack Hardigan for his life and wish like hell he had let him spend
more time in the air when it really mattered….

“Banger One
Three, you are cleared to roll. Banger Seven, move to the hold
line.”

“Roger,
Control.” Fred released his brakes and added a touch of throttle;
then he pulled onto the end of the runway and turned left to make
his run. Still moving, he scanned his instruments quickly and
rolled his head once to check for low flyers. (“Never trust the
control tower,” his first instructor had said, “check for
yourself.”) Then he smoothly pushed the throttle all the way
forward and the rubber-marked concrete runway slid under the nose
of the Hellcat with increasing speed. Fred relaxed his body and let
the acceleration press him into the seat. These first few moments
before takeoff were the most thrilling. Being so close to the
ground, moving so fast with so much power at your fingertips, with
the danger of destruction so immediate—it never failed to take his
breath away and fill him with exhilaration. With half the runway
still before him, Fred drew back the stick and hopped the fighter
into the air, easing back slightly on the throttle and pushing the
landing gear lever into the “up” position. Gaining altitude
quickly, he rubbernecked once more for encroaching aircraft and
began the turn which would take him in five minutes to the
rendezvous point over the beach.

Duane’s first
impressions of the new pilot were almost uniformly good. Having
been around planes and pilots for a number of years, he could size
up a flyer in a short time with a fair amount of accuracy. New
pilots were generally unpredictable, though. A short period of time
with combat-experienced pilots could turn an uncertain, young kid
into a topnotch pilot, or a promising flyer into a complete bust.
Still, there were things about Fred Trusteau that he liked to see
in the men who flew with him: non heroic self-assurance, a calm
attitude, the promise of being able to handle whatever came along
without a lot of bullshit.

Higgins watched
the leading Hellcat take to the air and begin its right turn, then
he began his run. First impressions were one thing, actual ability
something entirely different. He smiled as he pulled his Hellcat
into the air, recalling the stories already circulating in the
squadron regarding Trusteau’s first Saturday night “strategy
conference.” Some of the guys were calling him “Trusty” now.

Duane started a
right turn and headed for the rendezvous point. He hoped that
Trusty Trusteau’s flying abilities were as well developed as his
screwing abilities.

Fred reached
the rendezvous point over the beach and went into a gentle
right-hand turn at ten thousand feet. The weather this morning was
excellent: scattered cumulus below eight thousand feet, ceiling and
visibility unlimited above. It was a common tropical condition
which aviators lyrically referred to as “scat-cum-cavu.” Below, the
lush green jungle crowded a white beach that was brushed by long
foaming combers. The deep blue Pacific stretched away into
infinity. Fred switched to the operating frequency on the radio and
waited, enjoying the view.

“Banger One
Three, this is Banger Leader, radio check.”

Fred touched
his throat mike and replied, “Banger Leader, this is Banger One
Three, loud and clear.” It sounded like the Exec was just off his
wing, but there was no sign of the other fighter. Fred circled once
more, straining to see in the direction he had flown from, but
still saw no other aircraft. Checking his clock, he determined that
fifteen minutes had passed since he left the airfield and that the
Exec was now five minutes or more overdue. Fred knew exactly what
was going on. Lieutenant Commander Deal had tried the same thing
barely four weeks ago. He wasn’t about to get caught twice.

Fred pushed the
throttle all the way forward and headed up, directly into the
morning sun. He hoped he wasn’t too late. When he reached fifteen
thousand feet, he leveled off, throttled back, and began searching
for Banger Leader’s blue Hellcat.

“Banger One
Three, this is Banger Leader. Sorry for the delay, got held up at
the strip. Are you still at the rendezvous point?”

“That’s
affirmative. Estimate your time of arrival.”

“Five minutes
or so, One Three. Hold your horses.”

“Roger, Banger
Leader. Nice day for flying, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s a firm
worm, One Three. Just dandy.” Fred knew he was in time but went up
another thousand feet just in case. The rendezvous point was below
him now, directly down sun, a mile closer to the earth. And now,
Fred deduced, Banger Leader would say something like—

“One Three,
I’ll explain what we’re going to do when I get there. I’m going to
make a few runs on you, and you’re going to try to get away and get
on my tail. Got that, One Three?”

Fred smiled to
himself. “Roger, Banger Leader. I’m ready when you are.” And then
Fred spotted the Exec’s plane. It was circling in from the ocean
side, at maybe twelve thousand feet. Gotcha, thought Fred.

“I don’t see
you yet, Banger Leader,” lied Fred, and he pushed the stick over to
begin his run. If he was lucky, he could make one pass and get away
below into the clouds. He could no more outfight the Exec in a
matched dogfight than he could run a four-minute mile, but he would
at least have the satisfaction of knowing he had bounced the better
pilot.

“Just stay
where you are, One Three, I’ll find you.” The Exec was making a
shallow dive through the rendezvous area; his speed was high, but
he was still in a position to jump anything that appeared in front
of him. Fred watched his altimeter unwind through thirteen thousand
and checked his gun switches to make sure they were off. The square
wingtips and round nose of Banger Leader’s Hellcat grew in his
gunsight, and Fred corrected a little to the right to keep him on
target. He was suddenly aware of a pounding sensation; it was his
heart. He wondered briefly what he would say as he passed. The
target filled the gunsight ring. Fred squeezed the trigger on the
cap of the stick and held the Exec’s fighter in the gunsight for
four more long seconds.

“Bang, you’re
dead,” he said, and in the fraction of a second when the two
aircraft passed, he saw the other plane flip into a violent
right-hand wingover and head down.

Then he heard a
startled voice say: “Shit!”

Duane had his
first indication that something was wrong when he came up to the
rendezvous point in a fast shallow dive and found nothing. Still,
the new pilot could have wandered off, and Duane took his fighter
into a gentle right-hand turn for a last look around before he
headed up and away. He had just completed his turn and had his hand
on the throat mike to call the errant wingman when that chilly
little voice went “Bang, you’re dead.” Then he knew he’d been
bounced like a goddamn trainee, and his flying and fighting
instincts took over.

When the little
black dots quit dancing before his eyes and he was back in the
clear, with Trusteau somewhere below him, Higgins realized with a
touch of grudging admiration that Fred had used the same tactic on
him that he and Jack had used on the Zeros at Guadalcanal: It was a
fast attack out of the sun from above that gave their slower
fighters’ weight a speed advantage, and a break away below before
the more skillful Japanese pilots could force them into a
dogfight.

“Good run, One
Three,” Higgins said, scanning the tops of the clouds for
Trusteau’s plane.

“Thank you,
Banger Leader,” came the reply.

“Let that be
your first lesson, One Three. Never assume your enemy’s going to be
where you want him to be.”

“Roger, Banger
Leader.” Higgins caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark form dodging
through the clouds below and rolled into his first attack. Now he’d
show the little bastard what real flying was.