So why should he find it impossible to kill them?
He was still lying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling when he heard the door open, and some of the crewmen come in. They were laughing and joking as they threaded their way past empty bunks, and the sound irritated Hal. How could they be so unconcerned, so damned happy, when it was their job to kill people?
He got up and went out the back door and walked across the crisp, curling grass toward squadron headquarters, avoiding the road where O’Reilly, Fox, and Cossel would probably be walking back from chow.
Corporal Weems was inside the orderly room, sitting behind the desk with his chair leaning against the wall, his feet braced on the desk. When he saw Hal, he put down his comic book and said, “Hi, ya, lieutenant. What c’n I do for ya?”
“I’m supposed to see the major.”
“He ain’t back from chow yet.”
“Oh.” Hal hesitated. “Okay if I wait in his office?”
Weems waved airily. “Sure. Be my guest.”
Hal went through the open door and sat on one of the hard chairs and looked at Luke’s desk. The wood was battered and scarred from hard use and gouged with pencil marks as though its owner wielded a pencil like a chisel. The desktop was littered with papers, clips, pencils, and ashes, and the floor was a mess of grayed ends of cigars and cigarettes that had missed the wastebasket. The scarred desk and the bare, hard room were like Luke: grim, battered, and functional, with nothing extra to get in the way.
He heard the Jeep stop in front, and the engine die. A moment later, Luke strode in without pausing in the orderly room and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Well, God-damn-it,” he said around a cigar butt in his mouth, “you sure as hell stepped in shit this time.”
He went around his desk and sat down. He struck a match and applied it to the dead-end of the cigar stub. “Now, what’s this crap about you crapping out again?”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
“Yeah? O’Reilly said he had to kick the load out. What the hell happened?”
Hal groped for words that would explain to Luke why he had been unable to drop the bombs. Was it possible to explain a thing like that to a man like Luke? With Luke, it was lay it on the line, black or white, you do, or you don’t, no excuse, sir. “You wouldn’t understand,” he finally said.
Luke clamped down on the cigar and smacked the desktop hard with the flat of his hand. Then he said in a tight voice, “So, I’m stupid. Tell me anyway.”
Hal took a deep breath. Was it possible that Luke was trying to understand? “I can’t say exactly when it began,” he said. “Maybe it was when I first started to fly . . . maybe before that.”
“Don’t give me that head-shrinker horse shit,” Luke said. “Just tell me about the mission.”
“I am telling you,” Hal snapped. “I can’t rattle it off like a machine. Maybe that’s the trouble,” he added, his voice suddenly reflective. “Maybe we should all be machines.”
“If you were, you’d be a damn tinker toy,” Luke said. He sat down and took his hat off. He ran his fingers through his hair, and Hal noticed that it was dark with sweat. “All right,” Luke said. “It started when I beat the crap out of you for gettin’ thrown off ol’ Blue. You’ve been trying to get even ever since.”
Hal remembered, and with the memory came familiar anger. Ol’ Blue had been a riding pony they had kept in their spacious back yard in Fairview. As a child, he had been afraid to ride Blue, although he loved to pat the big horse and feel the warm softness of his nose nuzzling his hand for a lump of sugar. When he was six years old, Luke had insisted that he ride, and when he had fallen off, Luke had beaten him until he climbed back aboard and clung, sobbing and shaking, while the big horse trotted down the dusty street.
Luke was right about one thing: he had begun to hate his brother at that time.
Then he shook his head. “This is nothing like that. It’s got nothing to do with you. I just can’t kill people.”
Luke took the cigar from his mouth and looked intently at him. “You figure you’re not going up again?”
Hal nodded. “That’s right. I’m not flying anymore.”
Luke stood up and leaned across the desk; his eyes mean. “You refuse to fly?”
“That’s not quite it,” Hal said, and he raised his head to look squarely at Luke. “I refuse to drop any more bombs where people will be killed.”
“You think those bastards aren’t killing us? They cost us thirteen ships today. Ten men to a ship. That’s a hundred-thirty men.”
“I’d stop that, too, if I could.”
“God-damn-it, you think we want this war? You think we started this? We’re ready to stop any time they are, an’ you know that as well as I do.”
“I’m not talking about the rest of the war. I know I can’t do anything about that. I’m only speaking for myself.”
Luke straightened. “Just like that? You’re quitting? What the hell do you think this is? A bank? Buddy, you better get it through that cute little head, you can’t quit. You’re in, boy. The only way out is under canvas.”
Hal licked his dry lips. “A lot of men have refused to carry arms.”
Luke’s head jerked up as though he had been slapped. “Conscientious objector? Is that what you mean?”
Hal nodded. “Something like that.”
Luke, surprisingly, was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It won’t work. I’ll see to that.”
“I can refuse to fly. Every flier has that right.”
“Oh, no, they don’t.” Luke began softly, and his voice climbed. “Oh, no, they sure as God made little green apples don’t. Not when their brother is head of the friggin’ squadron and stuck his neck out ten feet to get them on a lead crew, they damned well don’t.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“You’re friggin’ A it doesn’t. What the hell do you think the colonel is gonna do to me if you pull somethin’ like this?”
Hal was silent. He knew what the colonel would do.
“He’ll have my ass in a sling twenty feet high,” Luke continued. “Jesus H. Christ! I won’t be able to command a posthole brigade.”
“You’ve got a good record,” Hal said. “They won’t take it out on you.”
“The hell they won’t? The colonel raised hell when I moved you up to lead. I told him I’d be responsible. You think he’ll forget that? He knows I want his job. This is just the excuse he needs to kick my butt.” He moved around to stand squarely in front of Hal and tapped him on the shoulder with a stiff forefinger. “And that is not going to happen.”
“You just won’t see my side of it, will you?”
“Sure, I see your side of it. I see it, and it makes me puke. You’re gutless. You can talk all you want about not wanting to kill nobody, but you’re not kidding me. You’re yellow! You always have been!”
“That isn’t true,” Hal said, but his voice was a whisper.
“You saw a couple of ships go down, and you lost your God-damned nerve. What little you had.”
“That had nothing to do . . .”
“It God damned well did! You saw a couple of guys get clobbered, and you dropped your guts. Well, forget ’em. They’re gone. They never existed.” Punctuating his words with a stiff forefinger, he added, “They . . . never . . . existed.”
“I can’t see it that way.”
“You’ve got to.” Luke turned away, and his voice lowered. “You’ve got to.”
“And what about me, Luke? Would it matter if I were killed?”
“You? What the Christ kind of a . . .” Luke turned and slowly wiped a hand across his mouth. He looked at Hal, and his voice softened a little. “Sure, it would, kid. What the hell . . . you’re my brother.” He moved in a step, a
nd his voice stayed soft, but his eyes betrayed him. “That’s why you’ve got to see this my way. You know this means a lot to me. The colonel is leaving pretty soon, and I’m next in line for C.O. That means lieutenant colonel for sure, and after that . . .” He shrugged. “But if you pull this God-damned stunt . . . you can see how it’ll look.”
Luke leaned back against the edge of the desk and stared at Hal as though he could will him into changing his mind. Hal sat in the oppressive silence for a moment, then forced himself to look at his brother. “Luke . . . have you ever been scared?”
Luke laughed shortly. “Of what? Gettin’ killed? Christ, no. I don’t even think about it. And if you get hurt, they give you medals. And with medals, you get promoted faster.”
“I don’t mean afraid of being hurt or killed. I mean, afraid of what the war is doing to you, afraid of what you’re doing to other people.”
“Don’t blame the war. You’d have been gutless anywhere.”
Hal stood up and took a step toward the door. “I can’t talk to you.”
Luke moved forward quickly and grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting Hal around to face him. “You think you can step out of it just like that?”
“You can’t force me to fly.”
“All right. Maybe I can’t make you fly, but I swear to God when I finish with you, you’ll wish you had. You think I’m going to give you a transfer to a plush desk job somewhere out of sight. Oh, no, you Son-of-a-bitch; I’m keeping you right here where everybody can look at you. They’ll know what you are. And when they finish with you, you’re gonna need more guts to stay on the ground than you will to fly, even if you know you’ll get your head shot off. You’ll fly, buddy. You’ll Goddamned well fly!”
CHAPTER 19
At 0230 the next morning, Hal was surprised when he was awakened along with O’Reilly, Fox, and Cossel.
“You weren’t supposed to call me,” Hal whispered to Spellman. “Didn’t the major tell you.”
“He told me to wake up you and Schultz.”
Schultz? Why Schultz? As Sergeant Spellman moved to a nearby bunk and shook Reese awake. Hal considered the reasons. Reese was a deputy lead bombardier and slated to stand down for this mission.
“What the hell is going on?” O’Reilly asked.
“Bailey’s orders,” Spellman said with a shrug. “Maybe he wants to get the war over in a hurry.”
Then it struck Hal, and he sighed with relief. Schultz was going to take his place. He would not have to confront Luke again.
So why had Luke ordered Spellman to wake him up with the rest of the crew? Luke had said he would make Hal’s life such a hell that he would be glad to fly. Maybe making him attend the crew briefing was the beginning of his psychological attack.
When O’Reilly and his crew entered the dimly lit Operations Room, the other lead crews and briefing officers were already there, along with Luke, Major Deering, and Colonel Sutton. Luke stepped forward and motioned them to one side.
“Schultz,” he said quietly, “you’ll take the mission on O’Reilly’s crew. Bailey, you’ll give the weather briefing.”
No one said a word. The only sounds were low murmurs from the crewmen across the room and the muted rumble of Major Deering’s voice as he puzzled through the mission TWX. Luke let the tension build, soundless and grim. They were all waiting for O’Reilly.
“What the hell is going on?” O’Reilly asked.
When Luke answered, his voice was flat. “Bailey’s refused to fly. Conscientious objector . . .” There was a split-second pause before he added, “. . . he says.”
Hal looked at his brother’s face and saw that Luke measured the effect of his words on O’Reilly and Fox and Cossel. They were the ones who could apply the pressure if anyone could.
Fox was the first to look at Hal. “Well, well,” he said, his lips curling. “A conscie. A no-guts, screw-off conscie.”
“Now, Lieutenant Fox,” O’Reilly said. “Don’t be too harsh on the lad. Think of how this cruel, cruel struggle must prey on that young, impressionable mind. Think how the horrors of seeing the enemy fall beneath the power of his bloody hands must shrivel his guts. Judge not lest you too turn into a gutless wonder.”
Reese and Cossel were silent, although the disgust was plain on Reese’s face. Cossel stared at Hal with an expression that was at once accusing and understanding.
“I always figured you for yellow,” Fox continued. “One time, you get shot at, and you fold up like a ruptured accordion.”
“It wasn’t that . . .” Hal started to say, but Fox cut him off abruptly.
“What the hell was it then? The birds and bees?”
O’Reilly answered for Hal. “It was everything. Don’t you understand, Fox? It wasn’t just the flak, or the fighters, or the flying. Lieutenant Bailey here has phobophobia.”
“Phobo what?” said Fox.
“Fear of being afraid. Isn’t that right, Bailey?”
“Yeah,” Fox said, and he put a big hand on Hal’s shoulder and began to squeeze slow and hard, his face thrust forward close to Hal’s. “Yeah. I’ll bet you’re even afraid of a poke in the nose. Is that right, conscie?” He poked Hal’s belt buckle with the knuckles of his free hand, hard enough to be felt but not hard enough to hurt. “I’ll bet one little poke down here, right in that bowl of mush, would really fold you. How about that, chicken? You got any guts down here?”
Hal wanted to tell him to go to hell, but he was unable to talk. His throat was dry and raw, and his stomach fluttered sickeningly. He didn’t want to fight the big copilot, and it was plain for all to see. Luke turned away in disgust.
“Let him alone, Fox,” Cossel said. “We don’t need him.”
“That’s right,” Fox agreed. “That’s right! We got to have somebody who won’t shoot us in the back. Somebody with some guts. Ain’t that right, chicken?” He squeezed harder on Hal’s shoulder, and Hal winced with pain. “Answer me, cutie pie. You’re gutless, aren’t you?”
That was all he could take. Without thinking, Hal lashed out with his fist and felt it strike something solid. The pain was suddenly gone from his shoulder, and the face in front of him vanished.
His rage passed, and his eyes focused on Fox, who was standing in a half-crouch, one hand rubbing his cheekbone. The surprise disappeared from Fox’s eyes to be replaced by a look of cunning.
Fox smiled with his mouth. “Yeah, yeah. Now we got it. Now we got it good.” He doubled his hands into fists and took a step forward, and Hal backed toward the wall. There were a dozen men between him and the door, and they had all frozen in a startled tableau.
Fox put his left hand flat on Hal’s chest and was bringing his right fist back when the colonel’s voice cracked through the room: “Fox! Hold it!”
Colonel Sutton crossed to them and looked from Hal to Fox. “What the hell is this?”
“Nothing, sir,” Fox said. “Just goofing around. Isn’t that right, Bailey?”
Hal swallowed with difficulty. “Yes, that’s right, sir.”
The colonel was not fooled, but he chose to let it ride. He turned to Luke, who was watching with a faint smile.
“Bailey, I told you that if there was any trouble . . .”
“There won’t be, sir,” Luke said quickly. “Fox, take it easy. We’ve got enough problems.”
“You’ve got a problem,” Fox corrected. “Not me.” He turned and walked away.
O’Reilly laughed shortly. “Well, Colonel Sutton, sir. How does it feel to be the daddy of such a nice happy family?”
Colonel Sutton was not amused. “Major,” he said, turning to Luke, “this had better not get out of hand.”
“It won’t,” Luke answered. “I’ll keep an eye on Fox.”
“See that you do.” Colonel Sutton glanced at Hal, contempt in h
is face, then walked away.
Luke turned to Hal and said with a tight smile, “Just like I told you. And this is just the start. Remember that.”
They moved away, all of them, even Cossel. The navigator started to say something, then turned and drifted away with the others.
The news of Hal’s refusal to fly had flashed around the room, and as Hal threaded his way toward Major Deering, the silent men moved aside to let him pass as though they were afraid to touch him. Deering, with the ‘frag’ orders still in his hand, watched him approach, and he waited so that Hal had to speak first.
“I . . . I guess I’m supposed to work with you, sir.”
Deering nodded. “We’ve got the weather chart pretty well made up. If you’re going to give the briefing, you’d better have a look at it.”
Hal and the weather officer went over the weather situation thoroughly, impersonally, and they kept at it after all the leads’ crews had left, correcting the isobar lines and temperatures and shifting weather fronts as more news came in over the Teletype.
When it was time to gather up the material and go to the main briefing room, Hal noticed that his hands had begun to tremble.
“I’ll go over and post the weather fronts on the wall map for you,” the weather officer said. “You bring this stuff. I’ll see you over there.”
Left alone beneath the circle of light, Hal found that he was trembling. Luke had been right. It was starting. He dreaded facing the men in the briefing room. Right now, at this moment, he would rather be in the air; he would rather face the flak and the bodiless, anguished faces of the people below.
But, remembering those faces, he gathered up his papers and walked out into the night.
The short walk to the briefing room gave him time to control the tremors, and as he approached the double doors, he willed his mind into a state of acceptance for whatever waited on the other side.
Hal was a third of the way down the aisle between the rows of combat crewmen when all the voices, as though by some signal, trailed off into silence. It was a stark, hostile silence, and his steps sounded hollowly on the wooden flooring. Deering was already seated near the dais, and so were Luke and the other squadron leaders, staring straight ahead.
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