Air Force Eagles (24 page)

He dropped off her and slept beside her for almost twenty minutes. Elsie stared at the ceiling, bemused that something she'd waited so long for could have been so disappointing. It had been a hard campaign, starting with a diet and exercise program she couldn't stick to. It took almost two years to get herself into shape to compete with Ginny—and Stan's reserve diminished her appetite for him. Yet the habit of conquest sustained her interest, and as part of the process, she saw to it that she and Ginny became "best friends." It had been easy—Ginny's vanity was as deep as her character was shallow. The better she knew Ginny, the more she wanted to screw Stan, just to show her. Elsie didn't just listen; she drew Ginny out like Stokowski drew out an orchestra, dropping just the gestures and the words to evoke an outpouring, never volunteering any of her own liberal views, content to let Ginny chatter on.

Discontented, she watched Stan snore, muttering to herself,

"What the hell does it all mean? What the hell am I doing here?" For the first time in her life she felt uneasy that she was involving herself with someone she didn't care for. She asked herself, "Ain't it enough that I've got Dick Baker to screw?"

"Baloney, Stan. Something happened. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. I really don't care." He must have walked in on Ginny while she was screwing somebody else. It happens.

She turned on her side, suddenly bored with the whole process. She felt a peculiar desire to be free of him, to be back in Dick Baker's trailer, not having to pretend about anything.

He put his hand on her shoulder and she turned, saying, "I'm getting too old for this."

"No, you're not, you're beautiful. I'm just a little tired and worn out."

Reflexively, she became the practiced courtesan, saying, "Honey, you just be quiet for a while. I'm going to talk a little French to Stan the Man here."

*

Los Angeles, California/April 10, 1952

After flying his 114th combat mission in F-84s, Marshall was sent home. Combat in Korea had been satisfying: dropping napalm, shooting up trucks and trains, and slinging bombs into tunnels. But there had been no more dogfights and no more victories. He knew he was an ace in his own mind, but the Air Force did not—could not—count the Egyptians as victories. His official score stood at three.

Despite his assignment as a flight commander with the 94th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Rickenbacker's old outfit, he immediately began applying for reassignment to combat in Korea.

He didn't tell Saundra that. Instead, he drove from George Air Force Base to Los Angeles each weekend, pleased-at first to spend time in the flat-roofed stucco crackerbox house she'd bought in Santa Monica. It was small, studded on a block with a dozen others as identical as the white dots of sugar on a licorice strip, but she loved it. At first they used to go down to Muscle Beach to buy hot dogs from the vendors and then eat them while watching the weight lifters. Afterward they'd stroll in the sand to admire the sunset—but day by day, week by week, she had less time for him.

Lack of time was only one of the disturbing changes in her. When he'd left, his wife had been frustrated with a failing little general store, struggling to sell her line of homemade cosmetics. When he came back, she was a business executive, running a small factory and building a sales organization. Strangest of all, she was a new woman in bed.

Their first night together had been remarkable, better than any of, his wartime fantasies. Saundra, always so shy in the past, was now as aggressive with her whole body as her tongue had once been, open to experimentation, eager to please. When they made love she quite literally took his breath away, kissing him so deeply that he gasped, "I need some oxygen, Babe. What's come over you?"

"Well, you just did, twice. And in a minute, I'm going to come over you."

"No, I'm serious. You're like a different woman. If I didn't know better, I'd say you had a lover while I was gone." Then, ruefully, "And a good one, too."

"You're lucky I know you're joking."

They lay quietly side by side, hands intertwined, his leg plopped over her thigh.

She yawned and stretched, then said, "But I
am
different now, in a lot of ways—I've had to be. The real world's taught me a lot."

"Maybe too much."

"Maybe. I guess the sad truth is I've gotten harder. Your sweet old Saundra has had her sweetness ground off in the tough business world."

She didn't have to tell him; he was sick of hearing her yammer about bad accounts, about people who paid late but took the 2 percent/10-day discounts anyway, boring stuff he never wanted to be involved with.

"The Air Force is pretty tough, too."

"I know, John, being shot at—"

"Christ Almighty"—the words shattered her; he'd never taken Jesus's name in vain with her before—"the combat was nothing. Try being snubbed by blond idiots like Stan Coleman. Try looking away and not saying anything when the other guys are talking about pretty girls—pretty
white
girls; try not hearing people tell nigger jokes, try not seeing them clam up when you come in."

"Well then, get out. Do what I'm doing, make some money ..."

The quarrel went on, but the marriage started to break down there, with the role reversal. He used to be the one who was preoccupied about making a living, who would quickly fall asleep after making love, and then wake up early, worrying. Now it was the other way around. One morning he had reached for her, to find a note saying only,
Early morning meeting
—
see you about six.

It had been past ten p.m. when she returned, tired and out of sorts, passive about their lovemaking. From then on it seemed to him they were only going through the motions of being married.

His own schedule at George was full. He had to get as much flying time as possible in the F-86 to bring his experience level up, and the CO. had saddled him—as the new guy—with all the boring, time-consuming extra duties—Form 5s, Awards and Decorations, stupid stuff. He could only get away on the weekends, when she was either bone-tired or frantically busy. For the first time in their marriage, they began to have serious, sustained quarrels that didn't end with a romp in bed. One Friday night she told them they were going to a cocktail party and dinner with some clients.

"Look, Saundra, I've only got forty-eight hours. I don't want to go to a stupid party with your clients—I want to stay home with you.

"John, these people put the beans on the table—I have to go. Why don't you find some way to get more time off?"

It was a rhetorical question—she knew that the Air Force was as demanding of his time as her business was of hers.

Marshall felt as if he'd stepped outside his body, watching the argument build toward a critical point. He wanted to beg her to stop, to give in to her, to agree with anything, and could not. Instead he said, "I'm going to get plenty of time off—from you. I'm going back to Korea."

"Oh, what a big surprise. I'd never have guessed. The truth is you'd rather have a chance at getting two more kills than be with me."

Frustrated, Marshall lunged at her, fists clenched, "I'll beat some sense into you."

She laughed and he backed away, apologizing for his idiocy. Yet a week later he had his orders—and she had decided to talk to a lawyer about a divorce.

*

K-13, Suwon, Korea/May 26, 1952

When he'd arrived with Dave Menard at K-13, Bones had pointed them to a rope dangling from the rear door of the transport.

"Number one Korean service."

Korea had three seasons: mud, blazing heat, and freezing cold. The battered old C-54 had settled into the black gumbo like a washerwoman into old shoes. There was no way to get out except by the rope, so they dumped their gear and shinnied down hand over hand.

Bones's perception of Korea, dimmed by the few months he'd spent in the States, came roaring back as he saw how truly desolate the country was. The monotonous landscape was sparsely studded with ruined villages, their little thatched-roof hovels hammered into the earth by the triple passage of war. And hanging over all like a rank caul, soiling the very wind, was the pervasive stink of human waste.

Young Second Lieutenant Menard, chunky and kitten-eager to please, had dropped down the rope to stand ankle-deep in the mud beside him, nose twitching, appalled.

"This is it?"

"This is it, Lieutenant, and it doesn't get any better."

They whirled to see the colonel stepping out of the classiest Jeep in the Orient. Francis Ostrowski had exercised his commander's privileges by equipping his Jeep with an aluminum top, a huge chromium-plated siren mounted on the left front fender, and a spotlight on the right. The whole Jeep had been painted fire-engine red, with a big white sign under the windshield that said the boss.

Menard had stiffened into a brace as Ostrowski grabbed Marshall's hand.

"Glad to see you, Captain Marshall. I
need
some veterans! Mostly they send me green beans like young Menard here." He flashed Menard a big grin and said, "Welcome aboard, son."

Loading their kit in the Jeep, they roared toward the flight line, the exuberant Ostrowski talking to them as he drove, waving his arms, his curly head popping back in laughter. He was huge in every way—head, nose, hands, personality, the very image of a warrior enjoying himself.

"Welcome to the 61st Fighter Interceptor Wing, the best damn outfit in Korea. I ought to know, because I just came over from the 4th, and it's pretty damn good, too."

Menard was hanging on to the edge of the Jeep, trying to believe his good luck. Ozzie Ostrowski was a legend, wild, rambunctious, and an ace in two wars—not many second Johns got a CO. like him.

Ostrowski and Marshall had hit it off with the mutual approval of two people who discover they own the same breed of dog or drive the same make of car.

"Bones, come on in the ops shack; you've got a couple of old buddies waiting for you."

Marshall glanced around the base, noting that things had improved since Taegu. They weren't working out of tents. Instead, the engineers had cast concrete pads and put up two-by-four shacks framed with tar paper. The runway was concrete, there were neat revetments made of sandbag pyramids, and there was even a scattering of Quonset huts around the periphery, suggesting that maintenance was getting a little protection from the elements. If the war lasted another two years, there'd be regulation hangars, plush O-clubs, theaters, the works. Americans enjoyed fighting in a foreign country if they could bring their creature comforts with them.

When the door opened, Coleman and Fitzpatrick were waiting for him. Fitzpatrick put out his hand, and Coleman stepped back. Marshall hesitated, and then shook Fitz's hand, nodding to Coleman. Ostrowski sensed the awkwardness, and boomed, "Sit down, everybody, I want to get these new guys up to speed.

"First, the good news. We've got the best damn airplanes in the world, North American F-86Es. We can whip the MiG's ass any time he'll fight. Now the bad news. The bastards rarely want to fight. They're using this war as playschool for the Russian Air Force."

He sipped from a coffee mug. "It ain't like they're outnumbered or anything. They've got beaucoup MiGs over there across the border. Last April I saw five hundred, count 'em, five hundred, goddamn MiGs sitting at Ta-Tung-Kou airfield. If they'd let us, we could have shot fifty of them up on the ground. But no, we can't cross the Yalu."

He winked at Coleman and said, "Can we, Stan?" and Coleman shook his head. After a twenty-minute briefing Ostrowski said, "You three guys run along—I want to have a private conversation with Bones, here."

When the door closed he said, "Captain Marshall, I'm going to ask you for a favor, a confidential one. We've got a problem in this wing I hate to admit. We're
not
the best wing in Korea, far from it. We're not getting enough kills because some—
most
—of the guys aren't aggressive enough. I figure only twenty percent of them are intent on mixing it up. About seventy percent get into the combat zone, but for some reason they don't engage. I need flight leaders who will force combat to happen."

Ostrowski took a long pull at his cup—Marshall suspected there was something besides coffee in it—and lowered his voice.

"Coleman's a great pilot, none better. I've hassled with him in mock dogfights, and I know he's good. But he's been here three months, and I don't know if he's unlucky, incompetent, or scared—but he's not killing any MiGs. I want you to watch him, and tell me what you think. If he's just unlucky, I'll give him a little more time. If it's anything else, I'm going to send his ass back to the States."

"Colonel—"

"Call me Ozzie."

"Ozzie, I can't do it. I hate Coleman's guts, and he hates mine. You must have picked up on that. I couldn't be unbiased."

Ostrowski reached over and squeezed his arm. "Bones, don't give me that bullshit. I've got the book on you from the guys in the 18th and the 27th, both. You're the fairest guy in the business, that's why I'm asking you. Check that. That's why I'm telling you."

*

MiG Alley/June 1, 1952

Ahead, sun glinting on its wings, Coleman's F-86 was turning again; the four F-86s had about exhausted their patrol time on station—if the MiGs were going to attack, they'd do it soon, knowing the Sabres would be short on fuel.

Marshall felt guilty about feeling so at home, but the bashful MiGs made the threat seem remote. The next best thing to making love to Saundra was flying an airplane that cost nearly half a million dollars and was such a contrast to the primitive country below. To leave that abject poverty and operate this magic carpet was a joy. With more than a hundred controls to operate, two dozen instruments and warning lights to watch, and a big General Electric jet behind him putting out more horsepower than three diesel engines, Marshall felt as powerful as Superman, as comfortable as if he were in his daddy's Nash. He snuggled down in the cockpit, grateful for the heating and pressurization systems staving off the outside sixty-degrees-below temperature, letting the hottest fighter in the world fit him like skin fits a catfish. He wasn't flying it, he was wearing it, soaring eight miles above the ground at .8 Mach.