Wingmen (9781310207280) (23 page)

“Yes, sir,”
said Fred. “Just a little nosebleed.”

Jack glanced
briefly at the other two pilots. Brogan was quiet now, standing on
his own. Jack turned to go. “You three are restricted to your
staterooms until tomorrow morning. Be at the squadron office at
0700.” And he left.

Fred looked
once at the OOD, who was standing stiffly at the head of the
ladder, long glass under his arm, white-gloved hands clasped behind
his back. “You son of a bitch,” Fred said quietly. Then the three
pilots wove their way through the planes in the hangar deck, the
ladders and pipes and labyrinthine passageways, to officer’s
country and their staterooms.

I wonder why he saved me for
last
, thought Fred. He was leaning against the bulkhead
outside of the squadron office, suffering from a brutal hangover.
He and Schuster had waited while the skipper talked to Brogan; then
Brogan had walked out of the office without a word, and Schuster
had gone in. Fred didn’t feel as if he had done anything wrong, but
he was still apprehensive about facing the skipper. He figured he
must have looked pretty bad the night before, held at bay by the
Marines and bleeding like a stuck pig. He was wondering how to get
blood out of dress khakis when Schuster came out. “Could have been
worse,” he muttered under his breath. Then Fred entered and closed
the door behind him.

“Sit down,
Fred,” said the skipper. He was sitting at the desk, writing on a
tablet in front of him. As usual, he was using his fat fountain
pen. When Fred sat down, he remembered how the skipper had given
him the lighter that other time. He waited politely for the other
man to speak.

“I’m not even
going to ask you for your version of what happened,” Jack said
without looking up. He stopped writing and capped the pen. Fred
wanted to speak but couldn’t make his thoughts coherent. So he
remained silent.

“What I find
surprising is how you managed to get hooked up with those other
two. If I were your father, I would tell you that they have an
unwholesome influence on people like yourself.”

For some
reason, the reference to “father” sent a surprising, uncontrollable
shiver down Fred’s spine.

“But since I
can’t dictate what you do with your spare time, I won’t lecture you
on who you should keep company with. I will tell you that, despite
the fact Lieutenant Brogan is a fine pilot and good officer, he
doesn’t at all times display the best of judgment, and he gets
himself into trouble.” Fred looked right into Jack’s eyes while he
spoke. He didn’t want to show how badly he felt. The skipper
continued: “I don’t think you had anything to do with that scuffle
last night, despite what Lieutenant Overstreet says. I have the
feeling Mister Overstreet overreacted.” Fred let the faintest touch
of a smile cross his face. “However, regulations require that
punishment be administered to all concerned. Mister Brogan, Mister
Schuster, and yourself are all restricted to the ship for a period
of one week, beginning today.”

Fred broke his
gaze and looked down at the deck. The restriction wasn’t that much
of a shock; he could find numerous ways in which to amuse himself
aboard ship. And the skipper spent a great deal of time there, too,
so it might not be so bad at all.

“Do you have
anything to say about all this?”

Fred looked up.
“I’m just sorry if I made the squadron look bad, sir.”

The skipper
returned his stare for several seconds without blinking, then
smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry about what the squadron looks like.
In the eyes of some people aboard this ship, you were only meeting
their expectations.”

Fred smiled
back, then stood to go. “Will there be anything else, Skipper?”

“No, I think
that’ll be all.”

“Thank you,
sir.”

When Fred was
gone, Jack uncapped his fountain pen and continued writing. He was
working on an official reprimand for the men involved, which would
be typed up by Sweeney and entered into their jackets. That bastard
Overstreet had seen to that by going to the air group commander and
the ship’s executive officer as soon as he got off watch. Both had
ordered Jack to see them before six o’clock that morning. The only
real man among them had been the executive officer, who wanted
everyone to forget about it after a short restriction. But Jennings
had seen in the incident another chance to harass the fighter
squadron and insisted that notes of reprimand go into their
jackets. Jack finished the rough draft of the small note, then
copied it carefully two more times, inserting one name on each.
When he was finished, he clipped them together with a note of
instruction and dropped them into his “Out” basket. Then he sat and
thought, wondering why he had told Brogan and Schuster about the
reprimand but not Fred. It was a strange oversight.

Before Sweeney
came to pick up the morning’s work, Jack took the three reprimands
out of the basket, removed the one for Fred Trusteau, and dropped
the other two back. He folded it in half and inserted it in his
folder marked “Hold.” There would be time later, he decided, to
judge Ensign Trusteau. Plenty of time.

Jacks. It had to be
one of the Jacks.

Fred Trusteau
was alone in his stateroom, lying on his back in the upper bunk and
shuffling through a deck of playing cards. He extracted all the
Kings and all the Jacks and laid them out on his chest, where he
could see them. It had to be a Jack, but Jacks didn’t carry swords
the way Kings did. Well, almost all the Kings did, anyway. The King
of diamonds had a battle-axe behind his head but held out an empty
hand as if he were saying, “Hi there, neighbor.” For his purposes,
though, maybe he could modify one of the Jacks to hold a sword,
unmistakably an instrument of war. Now which Jack would it be?

A club could be
construed as an instrument of war, but the Jack of clubs was all
wrong. It had a rather feminine face. For the same reason, the Jack
of diamonds was also out. Very well, it would be a one-eyed Jack.
They had something else going for them, too: a pencil-thin
mustache, like Errol Flynn. The Jack of spades was fine but was
looking to the right. The only one left was the Jack of hearts, who
was perfect, except for the fact that he was holding onto a
ridiculous, limp-looking leaf. But the leaf could be changed to a
sword and the suit might be interpreted as one of mercy, but it
could also mean guts. And the guy sure had a mean look about him.
Besides, by the time Fred was finished, the suit wouldn’t show, and
unless someone decided to take out a deck of cards the suit of
hearts would remain a hidden statement on kindness in war. So be
it.

Fred gathered
up all the cards except his chosen one and replaced them in the
pack, then checked his watch. It was almost eleven, and he hadn’t
even shaved yet. Such was a Sunday morning on a carrier anchored in
Pearl Harbor. Holiday routine was in force and one-third of the
crew was ashore. That, of course, included most of the pilots,
since they could do nothing to help get the ship underway. Flight
ops were out of the question with the ship at anchor and the planes
aboard.

Fred stretched
long and hard and rolled out of bed, dropping the five feet to the
deck with practiced ease. Opening one of the three steel lockers
that were shared by the six pilots in the stateroom he pulled out a
shirt and a pair of trousers. He put on the trousers, buckled his
belt, and stepped into his shoes; then he stood in front of the
small metal sink. He studied himself briefly in the tiny mirror
over the sink and was none too pleased with his appearance. Then he
opened the medicine chest for his shaving goods.

Stupid slobs
, he
thought. All his razor blades were gone except for the one in his
razor, the toothpaste tube was squeezed empty and left uncapped,
and Brylcreem from a mangled tube covered everything. That was the
last time he’d suggest they pool their supplies. While he searched
the cabinet for the Burma Shave, the door to the stateroom opened
and Jacobs entered.

“Hi, Trusty,”
Jacobs said, walking across the compartment and sitting on the edge
of a freshly made bunk.

“Hi, Dave,”
said Fred, looking at Jacobs in the mirror. He wasn’t all that fond
of Jacobs. He was a nice kid, but he was very young. And he did
such dumb things.
More than dumb
, thought Fred.
I do dumb things; he does stupid
things
. He found the can of shaving lather and began to soap
his face.

“Whatcha
doing?” asked Jacobs.

“Shaving,” said
Fred. He put the plug into the drain and began to fill the sink.
The tap made a noise like a split air hose, and water splattered
down the front of Fred’s trousers.

“You always got
something funny to say,” said Jacobs, laughing a little.

“What are you
doing aboard this morning?” asked Fred. He cupped his hand around
the tap’s mouth and directed the water into the sink.

“Nothing much,”
said Jacobs. He leaned back into the bunk and watched Fred
shave.

“I hear there’s
a big party at the O Club on base with all the girls provided. How
come you’re not there?”

“Yeah, I know.
I was going to go, but I changed my mind.”

“Even with
girls there?” Fred trimmed a sideburn (lowered to where the skipper
had his) and dragged the dull blade across his cheek. It was so
worn that it hurt. He unscrewed the head of the razor, turned the
blade over, and tried again. It was not much of an improvement.

“My girl was
going to be there. She’s probably there now,” said Jacobs.

“You asked her
to come, and then you decided not to?”

“Yeah.”

“You stood her
up?”

“It’s all
right. There’s lots of other guys there….”

Fred thought
about the skipper, who was at that party right now, maybe meeting
Jacobs’ girl and dancing and buying her a drink. It was not a
pleasant thought, and Fred forced his mind back to Jacobs. “Why did
you do that?”

“I just didn’t
want to see her again.”

“Why?”

“Well—” Jacobs
fidgeted on the bunk. “She’s really a nice girl and we were, l mean
I was seeing her for about a month now, she’s with the USO
downtown, and I couldn’t get her to, uh, you know, to…”

“Go to bed with
you.” Fred reached his chin, where the whiskers were the toughest,
and decided that it was time to take some action. He opened the
chest, found one of his roommate’s razors, and switched the blades.
There was a noticeable improvement.

“Yeah, that.
Well, you know, I sort of told her that, uh, that, uh…”

“Dave.” With
his face still rimmed with lather. Fred set his razor down on the
edge of the sink and turned to face the other pilot. “Dave. Did you
tell her that you would marry her if she went to bed with you?”
Jacobs almost started squirming. Fred didn’t really care what Dave
Jacobs told his girl friend. Their affairs didn’t interest him in
the least. But he did like to see Jacobs squirm.

“Well, I didn’t
really come right out and tell her that; I mean she sort of jumped
to conclusions….”

“Dave.” Fred
turned back to the mirror to shave his upper lip. This was the real
test of a razor blade, and Fred ignored Dave Jacobs while he found
another pilot’s razor and switched blades again. “Dave,” he said
finally, “that was a goddamn rotten thing to do.”

“Well, hell,”
said Jacobs defensively, “it wasn’t my fault.”

“It was still a
rotten thing to do.”

“You know how
it is. I mean, you get sort of crazy, you’ll say anything….”

“Yeah,” Fred
lied, “I know.” He finished shaving, rinsed the razor, and pulled
the plug. When he tried to clean out the sink, he got more water
down the front of his trousers. “Besides,” he said suddenly, “you
couldn’t get married anyway.”