Trophy for Eagles

by Boyne, Walter J.

  "You were just adequate on this mission. I'm tired of your talking about a transfer, about flying I-16s, about joining a Russian unit. If you don't start getting some victories in the air, I'll have you transferred to coastal patrol, flying Breguets."

  Bandfield stiffened into a position of attention. Lacalle went on. "Now you lead this attack. The weather's breaking, and we can expect to see some action." He paused, then reached out and grabbed Bandy's shoulder. "I expect to see some action from you, or I will shoot you down myself."

  The American had no doubt that the Spaniard was serious.

  Bandy led the takeoff, the other four Chatos quivering in formation just off his wings. They began a standing patrol over the line of white cloth the infantry had laid out to mark its farthest advance. He climbed to six thousand feet, grateful that the first bright sun in weeks had elbowed the clouds out of the way, adding to the warmth of his leather flying suit. Without the bombs, the little fighter felt like a different airplane. Lacalle suddenly slid over into the lead position, signaling with a machine-gun burst. He pointed down and to the north.

  Six Junkers Ju-52s, slow trimotor bombers, were coming in V-formation, two flights of three. Above them a squadron of Fiats circled like hornets. Bandy laughed in excitement. The Fiats, CR-32s, were from the La Cucaracha Squadron—what a name to call yourself! Lacalle began an immediate climbing turn to the left, gaining an additional altitude advantage and positioning the flight between the bombers and the front line. Lacalle glanced across at Bandy, pointed to the enemy, and sliced his finger across his neck, a clear message to produce or die. Then he waggled his wings and dove, the other Chatos stringing out behind him.

  The five airplanes plunged through the Fiats and toward the bombers. Bandy caught the Junkers in his sights. It was a curious airplane, with corrugated metal surfaces like the Ford Tri-motor, but with its engines mounted wall-eyed on the low-set wings. They moved into view slowly, the details making them somehow less real than when they were dots in the distance. He fastened his sights on one, huge, ponderous, death-laden yet dancing lightly on the wind. The camouflage was distinctive, an earth gray-green covering the center section of wings and fuselage, followed by a band of beige. The tail and wings were chopped up in diagonal colors, with an all-white rudder marked by the huge black X. At one hundred yards, he began to fire, stitching a line of bullets through the fuselage and into the cockpit. A burst of smoke came from the center engine, and with a dreamlike grace the Junkers slowly peeled up and out of formation, its arc like the hand of an opera diva taking a final bow. Two men jumped from the rear, their parachutes opening immediately, jerking them alone to a halt in an otherwise constantly moving universe. From the front, a third tumbled, his clothes on fire. A Chato, probably Hopper, sliced across, firing at the men in the parachutes.

  He was watching the slow tumbling of the bomber when his instrument panel disintegrated, spraying glass and wood splinters instantaneously past him. Scorching hot wind-driven oil burned his face as he kicked the rudder and shoved the stick into the opposite corner. The Chato snapped and the Fiat followed, pumping 12.7mm bullets into him. Anger superseded fear as the Italian pilot pursued him through every maneuver, cooly firing snap shots as if he were on a target range: a tough fighting cockroach. Bandfield knew he had only seconds to live. He looked back and saw Lacalle on the Fiat's tail; there was an explosion and the Fiat disappeared into a thousand pieces. Lacalle had saved his life.

  He turned and caught sight of the remaining bombers, four of them, pressing their attack. There were no instruments left to check, but the engine was running and a quick burst showed that the machine guns still worked.

  He put the Chato's nose down and dove below the bombers, pulling up sharply under the lead aircraft. A gunner, suspended below the fuselage in the ridiculous garbage-can open turret, fired at him. The war was suddenly personal. He could see the gunner plainly, his face covered by goggles and scarf, shoulders hunched to force the machine gun against the slipstream. It seemed strange that he was aiming at Bandy, shooting, trying to kill him. Indignant at the hostility, Bandy kept the Junkers in his sights and walked his rudder back and forth, spraying bullets across the wing center section. Orange-red flames poured out as an explosion tore the right wing away. The airplane rolled rapidly to the right. He wondered if the gunner could bail out of his suspended bucket, now whirling around the axis of the falling Junker's flight.

  Above him a Fiat, engine smoking, was gliding down. Its pilot stood in the cockpit and pulled the ripcord of his parachute; the billowing chute jerked him backward and out, like toast out of a toaster. He saw three Chatos descending in a fast glide, and the Fiats were forming up in a loose formation as they departed. God, they could maneuver. The Italians in the air were apparently far different from the Italians on the ground.

  He glanced around his airplane, saw the fabric flapping, thought he could hear the wind whistling through the bullet holes in his windscreen. The engine was running rough, but he knew it would get him back. When he turned his head forward again, he saw Lacalle's airplane boxed in by three Fiats. Lacalle was turning but not firing—his guns were jammed or he was out of ammunition. Bandfield dove headlong, pulled in behind the lead Fiat, and hosed it with a long shattering burst that sawed the Italian pilot in half.

  Bandfield turned left to get on the tail of the next Fiat, which went inverted, diving away in a split S that might or might not clear the ground. He turned right and pressed his firing buttons, only to hear the pneumatic chargers hammering away. He was out of ammunition. The remaining Fiat hung in behind Lacalle, firing short bursts.

  Bandfield could see the pieces flying from Lacalle's airplane. Almost without thinking he hurled his Chato at the Fiat, felt a crump as his gear tore through the enemy's wings. The Italian pilot sheered off, quickly establishing a gentle descent, obviously trying just to stay airborne in one piece.

  Bandfield tucked his wing next to Lacalle's, and they flew back in formation. En route, Lacalle signaled that Bandfield's right gear was damaged. He brought the Chato in on its left wheel, letting it slow almost to a halt before the broken right wheel touched down and spun it in a sharp circle.

  Lacalle came running over.

  "Bandy, forgive me! You saved my life. That dago bastard was a good shot—another minute and he'd have had me."

  Lacalle embraced him and took him inside while he got headquarters on the field phone and demanded a decoration for Bandfield.

  Bandfield was happy, almost for the first time since being in Spain. He had fought and killed and they had turned the bomber attack back. Even better, he had saved a patriot's life, a life worth saving.

  The fight transformed Lacalle's attitude. He was now as friendly to Bandy as he'd been distant before, and in the next few weeks, Bandfield felt closer to Lacalle than he did to any man except Hadley Roget. More important, Lacalle took him aside for long talks, and into the air for mock dogfights, passing on to him all of his experience. It didn't make sense in instructional terms; much of what he passed on would have been more helpful when Bandy started flying combat. Yet he was indebted, for Lacalle was a master flyer, and expert in the airplane.

  He taught Bandy some things he thought he already knew, but which seemed richly different when explained by Lacalle. The mode of attack in the Chato was "always from above—rarely from the level—and never, never from below," he said.

  "The Fiat has a better ceiling than we do and is more maneuverable, so we have to attack them when we can dive, shoot, and run." Lacalle's hands flashed in mimic combat, his eyes deadly serious.

  Bandy thought he'd been flying the Chato well enough, but the insight Lacalle brought from his own experience could easily have made the difference between life and death. Lacalle advocated always cruising in the combat area with the mixture slightly rich. If combat occurred suddenly, you could apply full power, advancing the throttle and the mixture simultaneously, without risking a momentary cut-out. It cost a little more fue
l, but Lacalle insisted that the flights back to the base be conducted with maximum fuel economy, no stunting, no flat-hatting, and this more than made up for it.

  "That engine is your great mother's tit, and when it comes time to suck on it, you want it to be ready." He called the Chato the "good communist God's gift to Spain," and said he wouldn't trade it for anything on the Nationalist side. Bandy didn't believe him, but it raised his morale to hear it said.

  Lacalle took him as a protege, called him his companero, and Bandfield began to believe that he'd survive the war.

  *

  Luke Field, Hawaii/March 20, 1937

  The only thing missing in the poster-perfect scenery was Ukulele Ike. Everything else—the soft morning light, the song of brightly plumed birds, an invigorating ocean breeze—called for relaxation and romance. She wished Bandy were there—or that she were with him, wherever he was.

  Patty watched Amelia Earhart lower herself into a distinctly different, unforgiving environment. Her metal seat was covered by a hard leather pad, and she was surrounded by hundreds of gallons of gasoline in an aircraft that seemed totally hostile to her.

  Amelia Earhart had almost mastered the Vega; she felt different in the Electra. It seemed to her malevolent, with twice as many engines, throttles, props, rudders, everything. She hated it, sensing a lurking evil that promised to reach out and get her.

  Patty reached down and helped Earhart with her straps.

  "Feeling okay?"

  "No." Earhart hesitated. "You know how I'm always quoting Hamlet, saying he wouldn't have been a good pilot because he worried too much?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, I'm afraid I'm being the Hamlet on this one. I'm worried about everything. I wish you were coming along. I'm sorry it wasn't possible."

  "Me too."

  The wan look on Amelia's face prompted Patty to say more than she would have.

  "Look, you've had plenty of instruction. You've done well! Don't let this takeoff spook you—it's no different from those we practiced in California."

  Patty hoped her voice carried conviction that she didn't feel. Takeoffs were critical, with the weight of the fuel pressing the Lockheed's landing gear oleo struts down, flattening the tires, slowing the acceleration that would pour a blast of air back to give control authority to the rudders. She had made Amelia practice the initial seconds of the takeoff roll time and again, insisting that she bring the power up gradually, keeping the aircraft straight with differential throttle, and not using the brakes. Time after time she had said, "The brakes will just slow you down, get you in trouble! Control it with the throttles."

  Patty had shown her how the brakes induced a twisting movement that could shear the gear, while the engine power gave the rudders something to bite on. The problem was that Amelia felt that the reaction of the brakes was positive, instantaneous; to use the throttle and rudder, you had to anticipate, to begin the corrections almost before a problem developed.

  But it was difficult for Amelia, almost as if she were reluctant to really learn, as if she were reaching out a hand to Patty, calling for help, not for flying, but for life. She bitterly regretted that fate had intervened, that Patty was not going to be able to make the flight with her. She had finally convinced her husband that it was safer to share the flight with Patty, even if it meant sharing the credit. Then, in the end, Patty couldn't go. Instead of a capable pilot, there were two navigators, Fred Noonan and Harry Manning.

  All of the formalities were over; Manning and Noonan were aboard and waiting. Patty knew by the way they had checked the quick-release pins on the safety hatches that they were nervous about Amelia's ability.

  Patty moved back to the edge of the runway and gave Amelia the thumbs-up sign. Mutely, she responded, her face drained of emotion, and pushed the throttles forward, the serenity of the Hawaiian breeze broken by the burbling sounds of the two engines.

  Amelia was anxious to be off, to have it over with. As the Electra gathered speed, it began an implacable drift to the side of the runway. Earhart glanced blankly at the throttles, trying to decide which one to pull back to counter the turn; when she looked up the edge of the runway was coming close and she jammed on the brakes to counteract the drift.

  The airplane began to turn rapidly, twisting on the inner wheel, flattening the tire further, the outer wing rising and throwing more weight on the tortured landing gear. Shuddering, metal screaming, Noonan and Manning yelling, the Electra whirled in a ground loop. Earhart gripped the wheel tightly, standing on the brakes, letting the engines run wild until, with a snap like a broken limb, the gear folded. There was a shrill knife-sharpener scream as the propellers smacked the ground and the airplane halted in a twisted heap. Sick with fear and relief, Earhart switched off the magneto switches and threw the hatch open. She could hear Manning and Noonan scrambling out behind her.

  At the edge of the runway, Patty closed her eyes, praying the airplane would not explode.

  *

  Alcala de Henares, Spain/April 2, 1937

  The new Russian squadron commander, Kosokov, taught Bandy in three days all he needed to know about the Russians, personally demolishing the idealized vision his father had provided him. Kosokov was as hard and treacherous as a rusted saw, totally pragmatic, and ruthless in a way that made Bruno Hafner seem like Florence Nightingale.

  Now the blond six-footer stood perfectly erect, surveying his pilot-victims. His eyes were slits watching with the expectant cruelty of a savage chow, blinking back the smoke from the cigarette that always dangled from his mouth. Kosokov ran the squadron with an iron fist. When the Popular Army beer wagon first pulled up, its sides decorated with signs saying "Bar" and "Free Service," he had driven it away with a burst of fire from his rifle. He permitted no drinking on the field at any time; woe betide any pilot who smelled of liquor before a flight. Even Lacalle was deferential to him.

  Lacalle's squadron had been moved nearer to Madrid during the early part of April, coming under the Russian's command. Kosokov insisted on flying with each pilot to check his skills, including Lacalle. It was a calculated insult, administered in front of the squadron, that the proud Spaniard could never forgive.

  Bandfield was glad that his victories, and shooting the Fiats off Lacalle's tail, had induced Lacalle to be his friend. The Spaniard was now deeply depressed, and needed someone to talk to. Not only was the tide of battle shifting against the Loyalists, but the communists were becoming more and more powerful. Lacalle took Bandy into the village, got a bottle of rough red wine, and told him about how his people had hated the bourgeois, how cruel the landowners had been. "When the Marxists took power, they forced collectivization, put all the land to work. I thought it was a good idea, that the rich wouldn't live off the workingman's labor. The harvests were all going to be centralized and distributed fairly."

  They were sitting in a peasant's hut, a rough wooden table between them. Lacalle drank from his tin cup, poured again.

  "Now it was the communist committee men who stole the harvest; the workers wound up exactly as before, with barely enough to live on through the winter."

  "If you are disillusioned, if you don't believe, why do you keep on fighting?"

  "Simple. As bad as the communists are, the fascists are worse. And I think the communists are less efficient. If they win the war, the people will be able, someday, to get out from under them. If the fascists win, we will live under Franco's thumb for life."

  Bandfield's heart went out to him; Lacalle would have been a leader in any air force in the world, and he was forced to fly and fight for a cause he didn't believe in.

  "There are other reasons, too."

  Bandfield was silent, waiting.

  "The fascists have killed two of my brothers, and one of my sisters. Thank God my father and mother were already dead."

  The next few days brought news that sunk Lacalle deeper into his depression. The war was going very badly in the north. The Loyalist territory was shrinking daily, meter by mete
r. Contact had already been cut off with France, and there were no means to reinforce the Loyalist forces from the South. Lacalle could no longer learn what was happening to his wife and two children at his home in Bilboa, a garden city gradually being reduced to rubble by the daily bombing.

  Bandfield was depressed too, despite his victories. He had shot down four airplanes; he wondered if they would pay him in dollars, as they had promised. He couldn't believe they would.

  He was doubly glad now to be Lacalle's friend. It would have been a bad thing to be in a squadron where your immediate supervisor didn't like you and the squadron commander, Kosokov, didn't like your immediate supervisor.

  Any doubts that he might have had about Kosokov were dispelled in their first encounter. The Russian took Bandfield in his turn on a checkout flight, thoroughly besting him in a mock dogfight. But the real lesson came afterward. They had been shooting landings when Kosokov whipped away in a violent bank, sideslipping in to land at the far end of the field. Bandy flew at three hundred feet as the Russian walked over to where a sentry was lying. The American, circling with the left wing of his Chato pointed at the pair, saw Kosokov kick the apparently sleeping sentry. There was no response. The Russian pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the head, and went back to his airplane. When they landed back at the operational end of the field, he took the measure of Bandy's expression.

  "Drunk on duty. Kaputt."

  Bandy made up his mind not to drink on duty.

  The following day Kosokov led nine Chatos into a fight over the Brihuega-Valdesor-Pajares sector. Three Savoia-Marchetti trimotor bombers, pretty fabric-covered airplanes with a distinctive humpbacked look, were scooting in, escorted by a flight of five Fiat CR-32 biplanes. It was a beautiful sight, the eight aircraft and their shadows leaping like dolphins among the marshmallow clouds.