Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  Gold telephoned Suzy as soon as Blaize left his office, told her that Blaize had given him the news, and asked her if she were free for lunch. She told him that she was busy packing up the apartment, but if he wanted to take a drive into Santa Monica, she could grab a bite with him at one of the lunch counters along the boardwalk.

  Gold left his office at noon. By quarter to one he and his daughter were strolling arm in arm past the pier’s huge, castle-like Ocean Park Bathhouse. Gold had left his suit jacket in his car. He had his sleeves rolled up, and had loosened his tie.

  He thought that Suzy looked wonderful. Her golden hair sparkled in the sunshine. Marriage was definitely agreeing with her, Gold decided as they stopped for fish and chips. They took their paper sacks of food down to the end of the pier, where they found a bench overlooking the water.

  “This is Blaize’s favorite meal,” Suzy confided as she nibbled at a french fry. “He says it reminds him of home. I think that’s why he insisted we live near the boardwalk, so he can get his ‘bleedn’ fish-’n’-chips whenever he has a craving.”

  “The English never did know how to eat,” Gold muttered, picking gloomily at his meal. “I think this fish has bones in it…”

  “Blaize does complain about one thing, however: he says the fish doesn’t taste right because it isn’t wrapped in newspapers.” She laughed. “He says the ink adds a certain je ne sais quoi. I suppose I’ll have to try it when I get there.”

  Gold put aside his lunch and turned to regard his daughter. “Speaking of you going to Britain, I’m wondering if it’s the right thing for you to do…”

  “Now, Daddy…” Suzy began.

  Gold held up his hand. “Just hear me out. Blaize and I both feel that you’d be so much better off staying here—”

  “I can’t stay here, Daddy,” Suzy said firmly. “My place is with my husband. It’d be different if Blaize were immediately being posted to the Mediterranean Front. But he’s going to be training at Croybridge for eight weeks, and that’s just a few few miles outside of London. We can be together at least some nights…”

  “Is that enough reason for you to put yourself in danger?” Gold asked. “Even Blaize wants you to reconsider.”

  “Daddy,” she said shyly. “There’s something else…” She looked away, blushing.

  “Well? What?” Gold began. “What else?—” He stopped short. “My God, am I going to be a grandfather?”

  She giggled. “No, not yet, anyway. But I’d like for you to be one. I’ve been trying to get pregnant for a while now, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Why? I mean, why haven’t you? There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  “No, Daddy. We’ve both been to the doctor about it, and we’re perfectly normal. Blaize and I just figure that it’s going to take practice to make perfect,” she said brightly.

  “I see,” Gold mumbled, looking away. Now it was his turn to blush.

  “But we can’t practice if Blaize is in Britain and I’m here, now can we?”

  “No, I suppose not…”

  “And you do want grandchildren, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course…”

  “There! Now that that’s all settled,” Suzy patted his hand, “tell me? What V.I.P. strings can you pull to arrange transportation for us overseas?…”

  (Two)

  Gold Household

  Bel-Air

  4 March 1942

  It was a Sunday afternoon, a couple of weeks after Steven had come home, when Gold went looking for his son, and found him in the garage. Steven had the hood up on Suzy’s Jag, and had most of the engine dismantled. The parts were on dropcloths spread across the cement floor.

  “Hi, Pop,” Steven said, wiping his greasy hands down the front of his white T-shirt. “I thought I’d give her a tune-up.”

  Gold laughed. “I hope there’s something left to tune by the time you’re finished.”

  “No problem, Pop. She’s a snap to work on. But she’s been getting lousy gas mileage. And with gas being rationed, I figured—”

  “Steven, I told you I can get as much gas as we need, no problem…”

  “I know that, Pop,” Steven sighed, turning away. “But I like to play by the same rules everybody else plays by…”

  “Yeah, sure, son,” Gold said quickly. He stared at Steven, feeling so distant from the boy, but not knowing how to bridge the gap. Gold had hoped that things would be all right between them once Steven was back at home, but his son was more of a stranger to him than ever. He’d let the days trickle by, hoping that somehow the problem would solve itself. It hadn’t, and Gold had reluctantly come to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to, unless he did something about it.

  Steven was looking at him out of the corners of his eyes. “I do appreciate the offer about the gas, Pop,” he said softly.

  “You don’t have to thank me, son…” Gold said quickly. “Anything you want you can have, just ask…”

  “Anyway,” his son grinned, “it’s a matter of personal pride that this Jag run smooth, now that I’ve inherited it from Suzy.”

  Gold nodded. Suzy and Blaize had departed for England last week. “Steven, you’ve been home a while now. I thought we could talk a little bit…”

  “We’ve talked, Pop,” Steven said, sounding uncomfortable. “I told you all about the A.V.G., and Rangoon, and shooting down those Japs…”

  Gold saw that he was smiling. It seemed to Gold that the only time his son did smile was when he was lost in memories of his time away from home.

  “I guess I just keep wanting to make sure that you’re not holding a grudge against me for pulling you home the way I did,” Gold said.

  “Pop, we’ve been all through that,” he said. “I’ve admitted that I was upset when it happened. But I’m not mad anymore. Hey! I forgot to tell you! I received a letter from Cappy Fitzpatrick yesterday.”

  “Fitzpatrick…,” Gold repeated, frowning.

  “My base commander at Rangoon,” Steven reminded him patiently.

  “Oh, sure!” Gold said brightly.

  “Well, Cappy writes that things have been going sour for the A.V.G. The Japs have pushed into Burma, and Stan Jenkins was killed in the fighting…”

  “A friend of yours?” Gold asked.

  “Kinda.” Steven shrugged, and turned away. He pretended to be engrossed with something beneath the Jag’s hood.

  “Well!” Gold said, trying to sound cheerful. “What else does Cappy have to say?”

  “That he’s planning on resigning from the A.V.G. He’s going back into the Army, as a fighter pilot.” Steven straightened up from beneath the hood to face Gold. “Cappy says he has some pull, and that if I enlist, he can pretty much see to it that I get a chance at flight school.” He shrugged. “I figure I’m going to do that, Pop. That is, when I turn eighteen, in a couple of months.”

  “But why?” Gold asked, helplessly.

  “Because I want to get back in the war!” he said passionately. “I want to do my part! I’m a good fighter pilot. At least I’ve got the makings of being a good one. I want to see what I’m capable of…”

  Gold stared at his son. His first impulse was to forbid him to do any such thing as enlist. He wanted to tell his son that he had the pull to keep him out of the draft. That he could arrange it so that his precious only son would be assigned safe, comfortable defense work deemed essential to the national interest, right here in California, at GAT.

  Steven was watching him closely, waiting to hear what else he had to say. Gold remembered how he used to promise to himself—promise God?—that if he ever did come home, he would treat his son like a man.

  “Army Air Force, huh?”

  “Yeah, Pop,” Steven replied defiantly, sounding ready for a fight.

  “Flight school… Well, if your buddy Cappy can’t get you in, I could pull a few strings…”

  Steven’s eyes went wide. “You… you’d do that for me?”

  “If that’s what you wan
t,” Gold said hoarsely, his eyes filling with tears. He moved quickly to embrace his son. “I’m sorry for everything,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you. It’s just that I’ve always been so afraid of losing you—”

  “It’s okay, Pop… It’s okay,” Steven murmured. He seemed too embarrassed to hug back, but he was tentatively, awkwardly, pressing his cheek against Gold’s.

  “I love you very much, Steven.”

  “I know that, Pop. I love you too,” Steven said quietly. He gingerly patted Gold’s back. “But don’t carry on so. Don’t worry about me, I’m going to be fine.”

  “Sure, sure you will,” Gold muttered fiercely, holding on to his son with everything he had.

  “Pop!” Steven laughed in embarrassment, trying vainly to wrestle free. “Come on, now. Let go!”

  Gold sadly chuckled. “It’s hard for me to let you go, Steven. It always has been.”

  “But I’ve been working on the car. You’re getting yourself all greasy.”

  “Nothing wrong with a little grease,” Gold murmured. “I started out with grease on my hands.”

  (Three)

  RAF Fighter Squadron 33

  Desert Air Force

  Near Buerat-el-Hsur, Libya

  27 December 1942

  Captain Blaize Greene was having his morning coffee in the mess tent when he overheard a couple of the other pilots swapping gossip.

  “Excuse me,” Greene called out, interrupting their conversation. “What do you mean we’re going to be busting tanks from now on?”

  One of the pilots shrugged. “That’s what I just heard from the major. Day after tomorrow we’re to take part in the Yanks’ air attack upon Rommel’s forces, dug in at Buerat. But we won’t be flying fighter escort for their bombers. We’ll be busting tanks—”

  Livid, Greene strode out of the mess, toward the operations tent which Major Bolten, the squadron’s commander, used as an office. On his way there he paused. Greene’s light-cotton khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt was sweat-soaked and caked with dust, and he hadn’t yet shaved. He briefly considered making a detour to his own tent, to clean up a bit, before making an official call on his commanding officer. To hell with that, he decided, he was was in too much of a hurry, and he was too angry.

  He’d arrived in Egypt at the end of June, in time to join the Squadron and take part in the fighting that ended in the Huns being stopped by the weary 8th Army at El Alamein. It was over El Alamein that Greene scored his first kill: a Stukka dive bomber.

  In August, General Montgomery arrived to take command. Things were relatively quiet through September and the first part of October as Monty reorganized his forces. During a late-afternoon patrol over the desert, Greene and his wingmate encountered a twin-engine Me-110 long-range fighter. The Me-110 was a tough nut to crack. It was fast, and had a fierce bite: the Me-110 carried four machine guns and two cannons in her nose, and had a rear-facing machine gunner. What Greene and his wingmate initially tried to do on that October afternoon was get beneath the Me-110 and shoot up at its unprotected belly. What the Hun pilot tried to do was skim the desert as he hightailed it for home. Greene’s wingmate gave up, but Greene, determined to get his second kill, bounced the low-flying Me-110, braving that rear machine gun’s spray. Greene’s Hurricane took a few hits, but he managed a lucky shot, evidently hitting the pilot. The Me-110 abruptly nosedived, to skid across the sand. Greene and his wingmate circled high overhead like vultures over the downed Hun fighter, until they saw the Me-110 explode in a bright crimson fireball, sending plumes of oily black smoke up from the sun-bleached yellow sands.

  Back at base that evening, Greene had his crew chief stencil a second tiny swastika on his Hurricane.

  On October 23, Monty unleashed Operation Lightfoot against Rommel’s Afrika Corps, intent upon driving the Germans out of El Alamein once and for all. The British Desert Air Force, along with a small United States Army Air Force contingent, flew air cover for the operation. On October 31, Greene shot down an Italian, Macchi 202 single-engine fighter over Kidney Ridge near Tell el Eisa.

  In November, General Eisenhower’s American forces invaded French Morocco and Algeria, and began moving against Rommel from the west, while Monty continued his eastward advance. The Huns, low on supplies, were now caught in a pincer, and began grudgingly retreating, scorching the earth as they went, laying mines and booby traps every foot of the way. The Huns dug in their heels at Fuka, sixty miles west of Alamein, were blasted out at great cost, and then fell back to Mersa Brega on the Gulf of Sirte, where the November rains bought them some time. In December, Monty’s 8th Army pressed on, and the Germans fell back once again, this time to Buerat-el-Hsur, on the Libyan coast, a couple of hundred miles east of Tripoli.

  By then Greene’s Fighter Squadron had gone mobile, and was bringing up the rear as the army secured Libyan territory. On the twenty-second, Greene, flying patrol, bagged a big, three-engined, Junkers 52 transport carrying reinforcements and supplies to Rommel’s beleaguered forces.

  That had been his fourth kill. Since then, Greene had been volunteering for extra patrols, anxious to get his all-important fifth kill, and become an ace.

  But he wasn’t going to get any more kills if he and his squadron were turned into tank busters. You could shoot up a dozen tanks and it wouldn’t make you an ace—

  The operations tent was a barracks-sized canvas structure with a rough-planked floor. A petrol generator supplied power to the bare bulbs hanging from the tent’s ridgepole, the light reflecting harshly off the drab-green canvas walls. Most of the tent was taken up with long, backless benches arranged before a raised platform. This was the operations area used for pilot briefings. Major Bolten’s office area was in the tent’s rear quarter, and was sparsely furnished with frayed throw rugs upon the raw planking, dark-green metal desks and file cabinets, and several folding tables loaded down with radio equipment.

  Greene barged into the tent, past Corporal Leonard, the radioman, who was seated at his equipment, his Sten submachine gun slung across the back of his canvas folding chair. The corporal glanced up smiling. “Morning, Captain—” he began.

  Greene ignored him, striding up to Major Bolten, who was seated behind his desk, reading a report. “What’s all this about us becoming boar hunters?” Greene fiercely demanded.

  Bolten looked up with a deadpan expression. He was in his fifties, tall and heavyset, and wore his thinning auburn hair slicked from his high, perpetually sunburned forehead. He had a pencil moustache, pale brown eyes, and exceedingly bad teeth. He also had an annoying habit of never seeming to sweat. Just now his long-sleeved, khaki shirt looked freshly pressed and dry as a bone.

  “So you’ve heard the latest?” Bolten asked.

  “Yes, I’ve heard! I’d like to know what the hell kind of nonsense—”

  “Calm down,” Bolten said sourly. He reached into his desk drawer and came out with a gun-metal gray cigarette case. He took a smoke for himself, and then offered the case to Greene, who declined. “Now, then, Blaize,” Bolten began, as he fitted his cigarette into an ivory holder. “I’m no happier about these recent developments than you. For what it might be worth to you, when the orders came down to transform our fighters into tank busters, I argued against it.” He paused to light his cigarette, and then exhaled a long, thin stream of blue smoke. “My arguing, needless to say, did absolutely no good. The day after tomorrow the Yanks’ B-17s based at Benghazi will fly across the Gulf of Sidra to conduct a bombing raid over Buerat—”

  “Major, those Flying Fortresses are going to need protection against Italian and German fighters—” Greene impatiently interrupted.

  “The Yanks are supplying their own fighter escort,” Bolten sharply replied, his eyes narrowing in response to Greene’s disrespectful attitude. “They’ve got P-38 Lightnings and P-60 BearClaws equipped with long-range drop tanks. Those fighters can fly higher and faster than our Hurricanes.”

  “The Hurricane is a bloody fine airplane,
Sir,” Greene protested.

  Bolten smiled faintly. “And you and the other lads have done well by her. But we’ve got to face facts: the Squadron is down to less than a dozen airworthy planes of an outmoded design. We’re simply not needed as fighters any longer. We are needed as tank busters, and we both know that Hurricanes fitted with cannons are well suited for that job. A lorry load of cannons and armor-piercing shells is on its way to us, right now, and should be here by this afternoon. The armorer assures me that he can have the planes refitted by tomorrow night. I was going to have you lead the attack on the day after.”

  “Major, I need only one more kill to become an ace,” Greene said, frustrated.

  “That’s enough,” Bolten snapped, growing pale with anger. “I advise you to get hold of yourself, Captain! I’ve been rather easygoing concerning discipline, considering that we’re a front-line outfit operating under adverse conditions. Perhaps I’ve been too easygoing. Do remember that you’re speaking to a superior officer.”

  “Yes, sir,” Greene said, coming to attention. “I beg the major’s pardon.”

  Bolten nodded, seeming somewhat mollified. “You might also remember that this war isn’t being conducted for your personal amusement. Now then, I’ve got work to do, Captain. You’re dismissed.”

  Greene saluted, turned on his heel, and began to leave the tent. He felt Bolten’s eyes upon him as he walked away.

  “Captain—”

  Greene turned. “Yes, Sir?”

  “Captain…” Bolten repeated, and then hesitated. “Blaize.” He smiled. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how is your missus?”

  “Sir?” Greene had never been that friendly with Bolten, and was a bit startled by the major’s sudden interest in the state of Suze’s health.

  “Well, I heard from some of the other fellows that your wife is pregnant. It’s your first child, isn’t it?”