Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  “Just how much experience have you had, Lieutenant? How many bomb raids have you participated in? Over.”

  “Counting this one?” Feldman began. “One.”

  “Oh Christ,” Greene muttered to himself. He’d thought the lieutenant had sounded young. It was one hell of a spot for a green pilot to be in. He keyed his throat mike. “Lieutenant, I’m running low on fuel. I suggest you follow me to my base camp. It’s a hell of a lot closer than Benghazi.”

  “Sounds good, Captain. Lead the way. We sure ‘preciate the hospitality. I guess our luck changed when we ran into you. Talk about a knight in shining armor… Over.”

  What a charming thing to say, Greene thought, smiling as he maneuvered his Hurricane into position just slightly ahead of the crippled bomber, on its port side. “If I may say so, Lieutenant, your accent sounds familiar. Might you be from California? Over.”

  “Hey, yeah—” Greene could hear the pleasure in the young lieutenant’s voice. “I’m from Anaheim. How’d’cha know that, Captain? I mean, no offense, but you being English, and all. Over.”

  “I’ve spent some time in California. My wife’s from Los Angeles. Over.”

  Feldman’s laughter bubbled in Greene’s earpieces. “California girls are somethin’, aren’t they? Bet your wife is blonde, right, Captain? Over.”

  “As a matter of fact, she is.” Greene laughed. “Tell me, are you married, Lieutenant? Over.”

  Feldman sighed. “Sometimes I think I was born married, Captain. I got me a wife, all right, and two little kids waiting for me back in California. Sure do wish I was home. Over.”

  “So do I, Lieutenant. So do I.” Greene realized that when he thought of home he didn’t picture London, but that flat he’d had in Santa Monica, and Suze, tanned and lovely in a bathing suit, frolicking on a California Beach. “I’ll be going back to California, after the war. Over.”

  “I’m relieved to think that I might make it back to California, and that my whole crew might live to see home, thanks to you. Over.”

  “I’m glad to be of service to you. Say, have you ever eaten at Donde’s near Santa Monica Pier? Over.”

  “I love Donde’s,” Feldman exclaimed. “You ever have the abalone sautéed in oil and garlic? Over.”

  “That’s all my wife and I have ever ordered there.” Greene laughed. “Over.”

  “God, just talking about it makes my mouth water—” Feldman began, but then stopped abruptly. “My copilot thinks he saw the sun glinting off something coming up fast on the starboard side. He’s not sure, but—Shit, yes! There it is. Oh, shit—”

  Greene turned to look, in time to see an Me-109 swing past, and then seem to abruptly waver in the air as its surprised pilot evidently spotted the Hurricane.

  “Captain, you’ve got to get that fucker!” Feldman cried out, panicked. “If he zeroes in on our tail with those 20-millimeter cannons, we’re dead ducks! Over.”

  “I’m going after him, Lieutenant,” Greene said calmly, banking to pursue the fighter. Of course, I’m running on fumes as it is, about all I’ve got left to throw at him is spit, Greene thought as he opened up the throttle to climb up onto the still dumbfounded Hun pilot’s tail. He centered the Messerschmitt in his sights and fired. His rounds were striking home, but his two .30-caliber Brownings were just not enough to knock the fighter down. His guns clicked empty as the Me-109 rolled away.

  “You had him, and you let him go, Captain! What happened? Over.”

  Greene watched ruefully as the Messerschmitt began circling around to take up an attack position on the bomber’s tail. “I’m out of ammo. Over.”

  “Then we’re out of luck,” Feldman said softly. “Fuck it, Captain. You tried, now save your ass, while you still got the gas left to do it. Go on, get out of here. Over.”

  “I’m not going to leave ten men to that goddamned German bastard,” Greene said angrily. “I’ll go after him again. Maybe I can bluff him, or at the very least, decoy him away from you. Over.”

  Greene came around to make a passing dive at the Hun pilot, who totally ignored him. Evidently the German had realized that the Hurricane was out of ammo, and harmless. Nor was the German about to be decoyed into chasing after a skinny little fighter when he had a big, juicy, Yank bomber to chew on.

  The Me-109 was just opening fire on the bomber when Greene swooped past again. This time he gritted his teeth, and came in so close that the Hun pilot had to break off his attack and take evasive maneuvers for fear of a collision. The German seemed to lose his temper and began to chase after Greene, but then he seemed to regain control of himself. The Me-109 broke off its pursuit, returning its attentions to the bomber.

  Greene turned as well, locking onto the Messerschmitt’s tail, hoping to once again distract the German—

  Not a chance. The Hun pilot had clearly caught on. Greene angrily thumbed his useless triggers as he watched the silvery Messerschmitt insolently take its time rolling past his gun sights on its way back to the limping bomber. The bloody Hun! If only he had some ammo! But he didn’t. All he had was his airplane…

  He keyed his throat mike. “Listen to me, Lieutenant,” he began evenly. “Here’s the coordinates and radio frequency of my base.” Greene quickly ran through the information. “Take it slow and easy and you’ll make it okay. Over.”

  “What are you going to do?” the Yank pilot demanded. “Over.”

  “Do what I get paid to do,” Greene said. “Knock down enemy fighters. Over.” He pulled back on his stick to climb high above the Messerschmitt that was angling down onto the low-flying bomber’s tail.

  “You haven’t got any ammo—”

  “Tell you what, Lieutenant, when you get back to California, you go to Donde’s and have some abalone for me—”

  “Goddammit, Captain—”

  Greene had to smile. The poor lad sounded close to tears. “And give my love to the wife and kiddies. Right, lad?” He thought about Suze. His heart began to pound and his mouth was suddenly bone dry. “All of your crew,” he stammered hoarsely. “Tell all of them to give my love to their wives and kids…”

  “Captain—”

  “Over and out, Lieutenant,” Greene said, and switched off his radio. Down below was the Me-109, locking onto the bomber’s tail. As Greene watched, the Hun’s cannons began to wink fire—

  He pushed the stick forward and began to dive on the Messerschmitt, taking great care to line the enemy fighter up in his sights.

  It was really quite simple, Greene told himself. It was a matter of mathematics. One man’s life to save ten. His altimeter was unwinding so fast that it was hissing. The Me-109 was looming ever-larger in Greene’s gun sight. The Hun pilot was flying steady as a rock. He wasn’t going to go into evasive maneuvers. Why should he? He knew the Hurricane was out of ammo.

  Greene realized that he was crying. No shame in that, he decided. Just good sense—

  Suze, I love you very much, he thought, to take his mind off the fact that all he had to do was jerk the stick to fly away from this; fly home to Suze—

  One life for ten, he reminded himself. Simple mathematics. Can’t argue with the numbers.

  The German had stopped firing at the bomber. Greene imagined the Hun glancing up at the diving Hurricane and wondering…

  As the Hurricane fell like a flame-singed moth toward the Messerschmitt, Greene wondered if Suze was right, if his child inside her was indeed a boy. He decided it was.

  An instant before his Hurricane slammed into the Messerschmitt, Greene realized that this was his fifth kill, and that he was going to be an ace after all. Just like him to have to do everything the hard way.

  Suze—

  (Six)

  Russell Square

  A shriek seemed to echo inside Suzy’s skull. The book of poems fell out of her hands as thunder, followed by an orange ball of fiery pain, engulfed her. She slumped sideways, falling off the bench.

  “I say, Miss—”

  It was the gent in the de
rby speaking. As Suzy writhed on the cold, damp grass, her eyes were level with his polished black brogues. She managed to look up at him.

  “I say—” He was looking around wildly. “Hello! Somebody! Over here! A pregnant woman!”

  Suzy felt an agony, like drops of acid, in her belly. “My baby,” Suzy groaned, and her eyes squeezed shut. “My baby—”

  “Steady now, Miss, help’s on the way,” the gent soothed, stooping over her. “You there!” he shouted. “Do hurry!”

  She felt gentle hands lifting her up. “My baby—” she moaned. Her eyes were still shut, but orange and black tendrils of fire and smoke were curling against her eyelids.

  “Yes, luv. You’re having your baby,” a woman suddenly said. In the distance, a siren had begun to wail. “There’s the ambulance for you now. You and your baby are going to be quite all right.”

  Suzy felt herself drifting off into a faint. My baby, she’d wanted to say, but the pain inside had never let her. My baby is crying inside me.

  “I wonder where her husband is,” somebody was asking.

  “My husband is dead,” Suzy heard herself murmur, before blacking out.

  Chapter 19

  * * *

  (One)

  United States Army Air Force 320th Fighter Squadron

  Henderson Field

  Guadalcanal

  21 April 1943

  Second Lieutenant Steven Gold received the letter from his father telling him about Blaize Greene’s death only a few minutes before he was scheduled to take off on patrol. He was in the ready room, changing into his flight overalls, when one of the orderlies brought him the letter, apologizing for the snafu that had prevented it being delivered during the morning’s mail call. Steven had torn the envelope open, figuring to quickly skim the letter and then reread it later, but he never got past the opening sentences concerning how Blaize had died.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” asked Cappy Fitzpatrick. Cappy’s curly hair was cropped short, and he was clean-shaven, now that he was a major and squadron commander in the Air Force. “You get a Dear John letter?” He chuckled.

  “It’s about my brother-in-law. He was an RAF fighter pilot in North Africa. He was killed in action, saving an American bomber from a German fighter.”

  Cappy frowned. “Tough break, kid.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Hey, we’ve got to go. You all right to fly?”

  “Huh?” Steven looked up, and then smiled weakly. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.” Just a few days ago fighters from the 339th had shot down the Mitsubishi bomber carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the Jap who’d planned the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of that, rumor had it that today the Jap Zeros would be out in force, like pissed-off hornets from a busted nest, and Steven didn’t want to miss this chance to rack up some kills. He stuffed the letter into the pocket of his khaki coveralls, grabbed the rest of his flight gear, and followed Cappy out of the ready room.

  Steven squinted against the sunshine as they hurried through the palms, past the sandbag machine gun emplacements, to the hangars. As they reached the muddy ready line Steven saw that the rest of the patrol were already in their silver and green Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters equipped with auxiliary fuel drop tanks.

  His squadron had been one of the first to get the twin-engined, swallow-tailed Lightnings. Some of the guys didn’t like them, claiming they weren’t all that agile in a dogfight, but Steven was happy with the plane. Equipped with drop tanks, the P-38 had the extended range to take the fight to the northern end of the Solomon Islands chain, where the Japs were still dug in. The Lightning was fast and could outclimb and outdive anything the Japs had, and with its single twenty-millimeter cannon and four fifty-caliber machine guns clustered in its nose the Lightning packed one hell of a knockout punch. With it Steven had already racked up three victories against Jap Zeros in the two months he’d been here.

  Steven hoisted himself up onto the Lightning’s wing and then into the cockpit. He buckled in, called out “Clear!” to the ground crew, and started his liquid-cooled Allison engines. Steven lowered his canopy and began to roll forward, following Cappy onto the runway. Once all four airplanes were airborne, the patrol banked out over the immense, sparkling blue Pacific.

  Steven had entered the Army last spring. Boot camp had been grueling, but once those initial six weeks of hell were behind him, things got considerably easier. The toughest thing about Aviation School was keeping himself from showing off. After all, he already was an experienced fighter pilot and combat veteran.

  Upon receiving his wings and his second lieutenant’s single gold bar, he’d requested duty with Cappy’s squadron. Cappy had called in some old favors to get Steven assigned to the squadron. His father, who had made good on his promise to help get Steven into flight school, had also used his influence to get Steven his choice of duty assignment.

  Steven smiled to himself as he looked down at the green dot in the blue and silver ocean that was Savo Island. His father still hadn’t stopped grumbling over the fact that he was pulling strings to get his son into combat. Too bad he hadn’t been willing to do the same for Blaize. Weird how the world worked: if his dad had been willing, Blaize would have entered combat months earlier, would have been assigned to a different unit, and might still be alive.

  Steven, lost in brooding reveries concerning Blaize, was startled by Cappy’s voice crackling over the radio.

  “Rat-a-tat, kid. You’re dead—”

  Steven craned his neck to look behind him. Cappy was sitting on his tail.

  “At least you’d be dead if I were a Jap,” Cappy added. “What’s your story, Steven? It’s not like you to let anybody sneak up on you like this. You still thinking about that letter from home? Over.”

  “I guess I am. Over,” Steven said.

  “Kid, a man measures himself in combat not just by how he confronts the possibility of his own death, but also by how he deals with the deaths of other people. People he cares about. Over.”

  Steven thought about it as the patrol approached Russell Island’s thick jungle coastline. He keyed his throat mike. “You know something, Cappy? War sucks, over.”

  “MacArthur will be so pleased to hear that you agree with him.” Cappy chuckled.

  “Hey, you guys, we’ve got company, heading east,” one of the other pilots cut in.

  Steven looked and saw sunlight glinting off a swarm of specks heading toward the Jap air base on Rabaul.

  “I don’t think they’ve seen us. All right, everyone. Drop your auxiliary tanks and let’s get some altitude on those babies,” Cappy said. “Let’s go, cowboys! Steven, you’re my wingman.”

  The patrol split into two pairs as Steven pulled back on his stick to follow Cappy. They leveled off and increased their speed, gradually overtaking the Japs.

  They were Zekes: Mitsubishi-built Zero-Sen single-engine fighters. There were six of them, flying in two rows of three abreast. Their red rising sun insignia shimmered like blood blisters on their burnished silver wings.

  “Steven and I go first,” Cappy said, pushing his Lightning over into a whistling attack dive toward the rear trio of Zeros. Steven followed him down, picking out a target as the Jap formation spotted them and split apart. Cappy’s guns caught one of the Zeros before he could decide which way to go.

  That was always a bad mistake, Steven thought as he watched the enemy fighter leak smoke and fall toward the sea. It was better to just go when somebody bounced you. Decide which way later.

  Steven went after his own Zero, which was twisting like a hooked trout, trying to get away. Steven stayed on the Jap’s tail, and each time the enemy plane appeared in his sights Steven blipped his triggers. His fifty-caliber tracer rounds were raising sparks off the Zero’s fuselage, and then his cannon shells caught the Zero’s cockpit. Steven saw shards from the Plexiglas canopy go spinning away, sparkling in the sunlight. His target abruptly seemed to stand on its tail, and then slide sideways, going into a spin. There was no smoke and no fire. Watc
hing the Zero splash down, Steven figured that he must have hit the pilot.

  Four kills, Steven thought. Just one more, and I’m an ace—

  He looked up and around and saw that the other two Lightnings were each accounting for an enemy plane. Steven was banking his own Lightning, prior to climbing for altitude to get back into the battle, when Cappy’s voice filled his cockpit.

  “Jesus Christ, Steven! Look alive! You’ve got one on your tail!”

  Steven didn’t look to see where the Jap was, he just wrenched his stick hard to the left, hoping like hell that he was making the right choice. As the Lightning slipped sideways he felt it being pelted and saw sparks like fireflies lifting off his own wings. His starboard engine began smoking. The Zero was chewing him up!

  “Get him off me, someone!” Steven yelled as Jap tracers slid past his canopy like fiery worms. The Plexiglas splintered, and he felt white heat slicing into his left thigh. His leg went numb.

  “I’m hit, I’m hit,” he announced, feeling strangely calm as his lap began filling with blood.

  He looked behind him and saw the Zero that had gotten him break off its attack. He watched the Jap veer past in a shallow dive, and then bank to the right in preparation for climbing to look for another target.

  “You want to be an ace, too, is that it, buddy?” Steven murmured to the Jap. “You’re in too much of a hurry, pal. You shouldn’t let a little smoke fool you like that.”

  Steven grimaced with pain as he worked his rudder pedals. He wondered how bad his leg was. He sure didn’t want to lose it. Look on the bright side, he thought to himself. You probably aren’t going to live long enough for them to amputate.

  The Lightning’s controls were sluggish and his smoking engine was sputtering, but the blessing of a twin-engined fighter was that its second engine gave you a second chance. Steven managed to bring the plane around in a gradual banking turn that put him on an approach to the Zero’s tail. Now if he could only close the gap before the Jap started to climb.