Cassada (5 page)

“What does that mean?”

“She's too much for any of these boys.”

“Well, that rules you out.”

Dunning only smiled.

Marian Isbell, coming up behind him, was irritated. They had been away for a whole month, she complained, and when they finally got back some
fraulein
was all they were interested in.

“Tommy find that interesting?” Mayann said.

“You'd think they had more sense than to hire a girl like that.”

“I don't think they hired her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's with the band.”

“You should have seen Ferguson. He certainly was sitting up all of a sudden.”

Isbell joined them.

“Marian says she likes the singer,” Mayann said.

“Ferguson likes her.”

“Don't lay it all on Ferguson,” Marian said.

“He's apparently more interested in music than we knew.”

“Lieutenant Ferguson!” Dunning called. Ferguson had just come back in the room.

“All present, sir!”

“Come over here a minute.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I was just wondering . . . What do you think of this new singer?”

Ferguson made a sound like the growl of a cat.

“I thought so. What is it exactly you like?”

“The dress,” Ferguson said.

“What about it?”

“Do you think she's wearing anything under it?” he said.

“She couldn't be,” Mayann said.

“You think so?”

“There isn't any room.”

“I was under the impression you liked her voice,” Dunning went on.

“Oh, yes,” Ferguson said. “That, too.”

He was the first one to go back when the band struck up again. The club steward meanwhile opened a dividing curtain that had been drawn between the two rooms. Those sitting at the table could
now see. The singer, in a white dress with a little fringe at the bosom and hips, had walked up the three steps to the stage and its brilliant bath of light.

Godchaux, lingering behind, came to the bar.

“Enjoying yourself?” Mayann asked.

Godchaux gave a slight shrug. His face always wore a guileless expression.

“Do you want a drink?”

She called the bartender.

“Yes, Mrs. Dunning?” He was looking towards the stage. The singer was in the spotlight, her mouth near the microphone, the little fringe at the top trembling as she breathed.

“You're too old for that, Hans. Give us a couple of drinks,” Mayann said.

He reached down for the glasses. “She's
prima,
no?”

“Do you know where she's from?” Godchaux asked.

“What's that, Lieutenant?”

“Where's she from?”

“Munich,” Hans said.

“That figures.”

“What would you like to drink?”

“Bourbon.”

“With water?”

“On the rocks.”

“Mrs. Dunning?”

“Give me another of these.” She pushed forward her nearly empty glass, ignoring the one her husband had left for her. To Godchaux she said, “How come you're not in there with the rest of them straining your eyes?”

“Oh . . .”

“What is it, you already have a girlfriend?”

“Me?” Godchaux said. “Uh, not really. Not here. In Munich . . .”

“I see. So how do you handle it? Don't you get horny?”

The smile, always ready to appear on Godchaux's face, did, but it was embarrassed. He glanced at the floor.

“Well, don't you?”

“I, uh . . . To be honest, I'm not used to talking like this.”

“With a woman?”

“I guess so.”

“Your face is all red.”

Something was occurring, perhaps it was occurring. He knew he was in good favor with the squadron commander; he had never thought beyond that. They drank for a while in silence and watched the singer. After the set was over, Ferguson brought her back with him. She was no less impressive at close hand.

“They want me to be drunk,” she said to Mayann. She held up a glass dark with whiskey.

“Can't think what for,” Mayann said.

“Oh, ho,” the singer said, smiling.

Ferguson was on one side of her, Harlan on the other. They were asking her where in Munich she was from, what part? Someone started singing
In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus
and without much urging she joined in. Cassada had his glass raised high and was singing without knowing the words. He was watching their mouths and getting one every now and then.

“It's nice having them back, isn't it?” Jackie Grace said.

“What?”

“It's nice having them back.”

“I don't know,” Mayann said. “Sometimes I think I might like somebody else back.”

For a moment it was not understood. Then,

“Oh, Mayann. You!”

“Don't you ever feel that way?”

“Oh, Mayann. Goodness!”

Ferguson had jumped up to make room for a waiter with a trayful of glasses and German champagne. “Put it right here,” he said.

“What's all that for?” Harlan asked.

“Nothing,” Ferguson said. “Just champagne. A celebration.”

He was passing the bottles around to be opened. When the first cork popped there was a spurt that went across the table. Mayann jumped back.

“You idiot,” she said.

Cassada was holding a bottle by the neck, foam pouring over his hand. Standing up straight then, unsteady, “Oh, I'm sorry,” he said.

“What's the matter with you?” The front of her dress was wet. She was holding it away from herself.

Cassada had come around the table and offered her his handkerchief. “Here, use this, Mrs. Dunning.”

“You use it.”

With the handkerchief still folded in a square, he bent down and began stroking. Mayann held her dress taut.

“Just stick to the wet spots,” she said. She could see him blush. He looked up.

“I'm really sorry, Mrs. Dunning. Can I pay to have it cleaned?”

She disregarded this.

“Can I get you a glass of champagne?” he asked.

“Instead of just pouring it on me, you mean?”

He didn't know what to say. “I'm really sorry.”

He held the bottle in both hands while he poured, the bottom against his stomach. “Here you are,” he said politely.

The champagne made it a party. Lank-haired and whispering Ferguson was inviting the singer to ride into town with him on his motorcycle after the band finished. Harlan was talking to her, too. The gleam of her bare shoulders was drawing them to her, the white dress. The bachelors were in their glory. They were standing against the wall, singing and spilling champagne over themselves,
shaking the bottle with a thumb over the top and then spraying it around, faces wet as swimmers'. The singing got louder and cruder. The bar closed but nobody left. Finally the club officer came by.

“It's all right,” Dunning told him with a confident air.

“Certainly, Major,” the club officer said. He just wanted them to watch out for the furniture.

“We're not going to hurt it,” somebody said.

They were certainly spilling enough champagne, the club officer remarked.

“Ahh,” Cassada muttered, “so that's where it's going.”

Dunning, undisturbed by the incident of the champagne, put an arm around Cassada's shoulders. The singer was gone. She had sneaked out after the final number with a bandsman's coat around her. “Well, how do you like the squadron, son?”

“I guess I like it fine.”

“You
guess
? What the hell! Don't you know you are in the best goddamn squadron in the Air Force. You
guess
? Let me tell you something, people would kill to be in the spot you're in. The best squadron and the best planes. Captain Isbell!” he called. “Who the hell is this man?”

“He's a new lieutenant we've got.”

“Tell me his name again.”

“Lieutenant Cassada.”

“Is that your name?”

“Yes, sir,” Cassada said.

“Don't you know anything?” Dunning demanded and squeezed Cassada's shoulder as hard as he could, even grimacing as he did so.

In the November afternoon, deep blue, the clouds immaculate and tall, over the radio came a warning, first on tower frequency, then on that of each of the squadrons, repeated urgently, over and over,

“Attention, all 5th Group aircraft. Attention, all 5th Group aircraft. You are advised to return to base immediately. Return to base immediately.”

Snow showers had been reported moving in from Luxembourg. The field was expected to go down to five hundred and one—five-hundred-foot ceiling and one-mile visibility—within twenty minutes.

Cassada was flying with Dumfries. They were at altitude about thirty miles out, the ground only occasionally visible through the solid, white clouds. They were in spread formation and Dumfries, who was leading, did not turn homeward but seemed to ignore the call.

“Green Lead, did you hear that?” Cassada said.

“Uh, negative. I couldn't read it. My radio is cutting in and out.”

“They've ordered us to return to base. The weather's closing in.”

“Roger,” Dumfries said.

“They say it's going to five hundred and one within twenty minutes. Snow showers.”

“Close it up, Two,” Dumfries instructed.

Dumfries was completely without imagination, mechanical in his processes. Twenty minutes was to him an exact figure, a time when the ceiling would come down like the curtain in a theater. His nickname was Dum-dum, which he complained made no sense. “That's a kind of bullet,” he said.

When Cassada joined up on his wing, Dumfries said, “Go Channel Eight, Green.”

His own head went down as he looked to check that he had gone to the right channel, and almost at the same time he heard Cassada say, “Green Two.”

“Roger.”

They were at twenty-five thousand feet and began to let down. As they descended they could hear ships from the other squadrons entering traffic, calling on the break. From time to time the tower would block them out: “Attention, all 5th Group aircraft. Snow showers are reported north and west of the field, closing in. You are advised to return and land as soon as possible.”

Cassada, hearing it—the calls, the other formations inbound—still new to it, felt a kind of electric happiness, a surge of excitement. Their speed was building. The air was heavier and more dense as they came down, nearing the cloud tops, then skimming them. He was confident they would get back to the field and at the same time felt a nervousness; it was in his arms and legs. The radio was alive with voices. From all directions planes were coming home.

As if following an actual path, Dumfries banked this way and that between the clouds and soon they were in the shadowy zone beneath, the brightness gone.

“Green has two at ten o'clock,” Cassada called.

“I've got 'em.”

Ahead the field appeared and like this, part of the instreaming pairs and flights of four, they entered traffic aware they were being observed like all the others, broke hard—some damp days it was possible to pull streamers, long, snake streaks of vapor pouring from the wingtips—came around and landed.

Though they had done nothing more remarkable than return without delay to the field, the repeated ominous warnings from the tower, the solid advancing wall of snow already visible, the many planes, some of them close behind, others breaking at the last minute overhead—all of it made for a feeling of achievement. It was as if they were returning from an actual mission, Cassada thought, a combat mission. He had missed all that, the thing that gave the major, the flight commanders, Isbell, even some of the pilots a greater authenticity. To return and land smoothly, in triumph.

Canopies open they taxied back towards the squadron at the other end of the field. There was a wood and wire fence to the side most of the way and beyond it the wide fields broken into clods and dark with manure. The smell in the air was the cold though. The first flakes of snow were already falling. The wind was from behind and warm waves of exhaust were blown forward together with the thin whistle of engines idling. Halfway along the fence, two drably dressed boys were standing motionless, hands in their pockets, their white faces plain to see, even the blotched red of their cheeks. Great as limousines the planes passed by them, bumping slightly on the expansion joints in the concrete. Tentatively, as if it might be ignored, one of the farmboys waved and Cassada, a god, arm resting on the cockpit railing, raised it and waved back. He was at last all he had dreamed of. The wave, he knew, had been recognition. Both boys were waving now, their arms jerking wildly. Dumfries had not seen them.