"Thanks for nothing!".
Coleman put down the microphone and stepped outside the tent to the duckboard sidewalk. An airman from the orderly room brought him a tin dixie of coffee, and he walked back and forth.
He didn't see how he could be criticized; the mission had to go, and both men were qualified. Marshall should never have made the second pass; he knew better. And if it was anyone else but Fitz up there, he'd be worried, but Fitz was an old pro.
He thought it over very carefully; Marshall was almost certainly down. Well, it was war, and better him than a white man.
As he turned, thinking that as CO. he really ought to be a lieutenant colonel instead of just a newly promoted major, there was a flash and an explosion of fire at the end of the runway. A moment later another one erupted. Coleman saw Tommy Daniels, Marshall's crew chief, walking back from the fires.
"What's going on, Sarge?"
"I just set waste oil on fire in two fifty-five-gallon drums. Captain Marshall is coming back, and I wanted to give him something to shoot for."
Coleman's shutter-quick smile flashed. "Good man; it might be just what he needs."
It was.
As the derelict fighter groaned back over the waves Marshall saw the flames rear up like a waving flag, columns of black smoke merging with the overcast. He smiled to himself. "Old Coleman's all right, after all. He's expecting me."
The engine was bucking like an asphalt tamper, sending necklaces of blue-yellow flame backfiring from the exhaust stacks. The coolant temperature was off the peg, and he had no idea if the gear and flaps would lower—and he didn't care. Just the sight of the burning oil had fanned his hopes, sending adrenalin charging through him like a hormonal Paul Revere. He had a sudden irrational rush of sentiment, thinking of his battered foot locker, his tent home, safety.
With sensitive hands, he coaxed the crippled Mustang around in a sweeping curve that would give him a short final approach to the runway.
Marshall debated making a belly landing; it was probably the smarter move. If he dropped the gear and it didn't come all the way down, he'd be in more trouble, and he sure couldn't go around. But he knew that Coleman would criticize him if he damaged an airplane he could have saved.
He was lined up on the approach, just bumping under the cloud ceiling when he dropped the gear. He felt it grind to a halt midway, the red warning lights shining. There were no alternatives now.
Cinching up his belt and harness, Marshall added power to keep his speed up, afraid of a stall, thinking, I'll spike it on the end of the runway and pray.
Zero Hero hit just past the two barrels of burning oil, snapping off the gear and spinning the airplane to the right, no longer a flying machine but just metal thrashing in agony. His wing snagged a strip of PSP from the runway, cartwheeling him wingtip over wingtip until the Mustang flopped forward on its nose, poised there for an agonizing moment, then crashed over on its back.
Dazed with pain, Marshall hung upside down in the cockpit, the canopy crushed in over his head, mud oozing in through the holes from the flak. At touchdown, he had automatically cut the magneto and battery switches. It was strange to reach up to push the fuel selector off. There was no fire yet, but he could hear the ominous drip of fuel sizzling on hot metal as the fire trucks pulled up.
Chest aching, he gingerly checked his limbs for broken bones. When he reached to rub his sore back, he felt moisture. Blood, he thought, then realized his fingers were tingling cool, and he knew it was gasoline. He would have preferred blood, which did not burn.
Looking up and out, he could see Daniels digging ferociously with a shovel to get room to break the canopy away. Another man was shoving a brace under the fuselage to keep it from slipping.
Brave guys. One spark and we're all three barbecue.
The fire trucks began spraying foam as other men joined them. It took endless minutes of digging in relays, short chopping strokes, to keep ahead of the sliding mud and make room to break the canopy away. Marshall kept himself balled into a knot as they slammed the sledgehammer against the Plexiglas. When the hole was big enough, he released his seat belt and fell on his head, the helmet levering his chin into his neck, stretching and bending his neck. Daniels pulled him out bodily, and they hustled him off to the medics—and the waiting Major Coleman.
It was all anticlimactic. Coleman had questioned the doctor closely about the extent of Marshall's injuries. He'd been very lucky to survive the gunfire, weather, and crash and wind up only with some cracked ribs, a strained back, and a neck injury that demanded treatment in Japan.
Coleman looked at him with contempt.
"Marshall, I'm glad you survived this. But you should never have made that second pass. It makes me question your judgment. I'm relieving you as operations officer."
He spun around and left the room without another word.
Marshall looked up at the arched ceiling of the Quonset hut. Coleman had done a job on him. But, as his daddy always said, what goes around comes around. Coleman would get his.
*
Las Vegas, Nevada/September 5, 1950
Both Lyra and Ulrich had blossomed physically. It would have been difficult for them to do otherwise. Patty had insisted on their living with them in the big house in Salinas, and she showered them with attention. In the early days, Lyra would surreptitiously take food from the table, wrapping it in her handkerchief to eat later. It was weeks until she could free herself of the idea of permanent hunger and imminent starvation. The boy had grown, too, the rich whole milk and fruit acting like a tonic to his system. Still very quiet for his age, wary as a wild animal, he enjoyed playing alone on the grass-covered hills around the farm, seeming to come alive only when Riley visited.
They had been dating ever since the ill-starred meeting when Bandy had introduced them in Cleveland the year before. Uncomfortable because he knew Helmut, Bear had been miffed when he felt Lyra shudder as they shook hands. Yet Lyra's air of mystery intrigued him. She did not seem strong, and he began a patient pursuit. Over the next few months, he flew or drove to Salinas to court her, always being careful to have some present for Ulrich that made it difficult for her to refuse to see him. More than patient, the hospitable Bandfields conspired with him, believing that Lyra desperately needed a man in her life. And despite her reservations about pilots, Lyra was drawn more and more to Riley's quiet, persistent pursuit.
She had been talking about European casinos one evening, and Bear had jestingly invited her to go to Las Vegas. Lyra surprised him by accepting immediately; they had not yet been intimate, and he had really expected her to be offended. Riley decided to pull out the stops, renting a nine-dollar hotel room at the Flamingo and making reservations for the biggest shows. It was a sumptuary extravagance for an ill-paid Air Force captain used to hanging out in BOQs, but he knew it was now or never. His orders had just come in for transfer to a SAC F-84 outfit in Bergstrom, Texas, and he knew he had to make his move with Lyra now.
The drive up had been pleasant, but at lunch in Reno he decided to ask about something that had always bothered him.
"Lyra, when we were introduced in Cleveland, you seemed bothered when we shook hands. Why?"
Lyra put down her knife and fork and stared at him. "Ven ve met"—she paused, to control her accent—"when we met in Cleveland it was right after your race. Your flying suit stank of jet fuel, just as my husband's did. It was the shock of that smell, not you, that made me ill. But the truth is I don't like military men, and I don't like pilots."
"I don't know whether that makes me feel better or not. And I might as well tell you something else." Unconsciously, he looked around and lowered his voice, as if he were passing on state secrets.
"I haven't told you this before, but I know Helmut."
She stopped chewing, her face suddenly glazed over with fear. "Lieber Gott. How?"
"I worked with him during the Berlin Airlift. He did a good job, and the men liked him."
"Was he well?"
"He was still recovering from surgery, but he was getting stronger all the time. He showed me a picture of the three of you, when Ulrich was just a baby."
"Yes, I know the one. Ulrich was two weeks old."
Then, abruptly, "Do you know where he is now?"
"Yes. The U.S. government owed him a great deal—and so do I. We tried to repay him in part by getting him a job at McNaughton Aircraft."
Her hand covered her mouth.
"He's in America?"
"I'm afraid so."
She slumped in a chair. "Dear God, I can't believe they let him in this country. That's why I came here, to be away from him. Now he'll come for Ulrich. What am I going to do?"
"Lyra, I'll protect you. Don't worry about him."
She initially wanted to return to Salinas at once, worrying that Helmut might be on his way already. Riley finally persuaded her to rest in the room while he went down to the casinos to gamble, persuading her that the Bandfields would not let anything happen to Ulrich. After calling to warn Patty, Lyra finally agreed.
By evening she had realized that if Helmut had not come yet he was not likely to come that very night and let herself be overwhelmed by the neon extravaganza of the Las Vegas Strip. She didn't feel like eating yet, and they prowled the Strip, taking in the people and the players. They stopped for drinks while she told about the blackouts and the bombing in Berlin. He held her hands as the words tumbled out about being trapped in the crowded bomb shelters, about the hunger.
"You don't understand how precious this cup of coffee is! In Berlin, an ounce of real coffee was more valuable than an ounce of gold."
Her stories went on and on until she grew too sad and he realized it was time to go to see Jack Benny playing at the Last Frontier. She pretended to like it, but he could see that she didn't appreciate Benny's understated, self-deprecatory humor. They left in the middle of his act—it was like the scene in his film To Be or Not To Be—to go back to the Flamingo to listen to the Vagabonds. When they went in to eat, Riley shamelessly plied her with California champagne, enjoying her European style of eating. He tried working his fork and knife as he thought she did, making her laugh openly and without reservation for the first time. Later she had egged him on as he successfully lost money at blackjack, roulette, and the craps table. But it wasn't until she hit a jackpot on the quarter slots that she really glowed—and then suggested that they go back to the room "to put the money away and to talk things over."
Even at nine dollars, it was not a large room. She had them sit at the small table on two straight-back chairs, as far from the bed as they could get, saying, "Let me tell you why I've been so distant with you. It's not that I don't feel attracted."
He nodded; he'd waited months, he could wait some more.
"My husband and I were lovers for a long time before we married. Such things were probably more customary then in Europe than in America even now."
He nodded again, wondering why she was telling him something that absolutely did not matter, then taking her hand as fear filled her eyes.
"I thought I could escape him by coming to America. I never thought that they would let someone so involved in using slave labor come to this country."
He waited and she went on. "It's ominous that he hasn't called me. If he didn't intend us harm, he surely would have called." She looked deep into Riley's eyes. "Wouldn't he?"
"I don't know, Lyra. Perhaps he has no intention of seeing you, perhaps he's ashamed to."
She looked away, nodding as if she wanted to believe. Then, shaking herself as if she were literally shedding Helmut from her shoulders, she looked him in the eye and said, "And I have had other lovers, too. I was in the German resistance—God knows there were few enough of us—and I became one of Joseph Goebbels's many conquests. I hated it, but he gave me much useful information. And I think he might have saved my life, late in the war."
Riley was touched, knowing how much this cost her.
Lyra was close to tears. "In my own way, I'm as scarred as Helmut. Let me tell you why I have this problem of washing my hands. A group of us were on a train to Dachau. It was in the last month of the war, and the Nazis were using all sorts of people in their military. We were guarded by two members of the Volksturm—an old man and a young boy with a crippled leg."
She stopped, her lips working as if she wanted to say more, then she ran into the bathroom. There was the sound of running water, and then she returned, obviously embarrassed by giving in to her compulsion even as she was talking of it. She stood beside him. "I knew we would be killed when the train got to Dachau, so I made sexual advances to the older man. When he accepted, I manipulated him with my hand to excite him. As he became more excited, I was able to take his knife and . . . kill him. He bled all over my hands. I killed the young guard as well. Then, a little later, the train stopped when it was attacked by your"—the word sounded like a criminal charge—"fighters, and most of us were able to get away. But ever since then, I've been cursed with this foolish handwashing habit."
He rose and extended his arms slightly. "Do you think it might do well for you to see a psychiatrist?"
She reddened in anger. "You think I'm crazy? I'm not crazy; I'm washing my hands because they were soiled with the blood and semen of that filthy guard."
He reached out to her, and she slumped gratefully in his arms.
"Lyra, I don't have a lot to offer you, and I know how you feel about pilots. But I've been reassigned. I'll be going to Texas. I love you and I love Ulrich, too. I want you to marry me; I want to take care of you both, forever."
She nestled her face in his shoulder, crying softly. "Bear, I see how it is with Patty and Bandy. He's never home. I don't want to marry someone who won't be around."
He kissed her, and she stirred, pressing herself into him. Finally she whispered, "Let's forget about everything else; just make love to me now."
*
Itazuke Air Force Base, Japan/October 18,1950
The two long months in the military hospital had given Marshall too much time to think about Saundra, Coleman, and his own career. He was determined to get back into combat, to win his job back as operations officer. As soon as they released him from the hospital he went to the assignment officer in personnel, a balding sympathetic major who genuinely seemed to want to help.
"Captain Marshall, you're right. The 76th is short of pilots. But I'm going to level with you." As he said it, Major Rosa shifted uneasily in his seat. "Look, Captain, I've never seen this before, but your old CO. has specifically requested that you don't come back to his unit. It's just as well, because I've got a priority job that needs filling here at Itazuke, and you're perfect for it." "I don't want a job in Japan—I want back in combat." Rosa shook his head wearily. "I don't want a job in Japan either, I want to go back to the States. But I'm here and you're here, and that's how it's going to be. But I'll tell you what. You take what I give you for a few months, and I'll try to get you assigned to another fighter outfit as soon as I can."
Bowled over by Coleman's veto of his return, Marshall reluctantly took a job at Itazuke as an engineering officer, making test flights on all the planes that were in for maintenance—fighters, bombers, trainers, everything in the inventory. Working hard, he turned the maintenance unit from a job-lot concept, geared to peacetime base activity, to an industrial facility capable of doing maintenance on a mass-production basis. The system worked so well it got a name, REMCO, for Rear Echelon Maintenance Combined Operations, and Marshall got a "well-done" letter from Earle Partridge, the Fifth Air Force's commanding general.
Even working eighteen hours a day, the base was comfortable compared to Korea, and the job was satisfying, but there was no combat in Japan, no chance to kill some MiGs.
Then, in mid-November, Bear Riley showed up in the 27th Fighter-Escort Wing, transferring from Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas. The 27th was a Strategic Air Command outfit, flying Republic F-84E Thunderjets. The airplanes had been brought ov
er on the carrier U.S.S. Bataan and were badly corroded from the salt spray.
"How did you ever wind up SACumsized, Bear?"
"Old Curt LeMay wanted some fighters for himself, and what Curt wants, Curt gets."
"You'll wind up flailing a bomber around; I never thought you'd be one of those multi-motored guys."
Riley was reflective. "I tell you, pal, that might not be a bad thing. I'm trying to get Lyra to marry me, and she hates the way I've been bouncing around, says I'm just like Bandy. Maybe being a SAC bomber pilot wouldn't be too bad; they stay pretty much in place. Lyra might be able to get used to that."
"That's great, Bear, you and Lyra would be a great pair. But I don't think they'll ever get you in bombers."
Riley introduced me to the CO. of the 27th, Colonel Blakeslee, a hard-drinking World War II ace. When Blakeslee saw the REMCO operation Marshall had set up, and how quickly his F-84s were being put in shape, he got him transferred to his wing. Bones was already checked out in the F-84 and took over the maintenance officer job in the 522nd—the "Fireball Squadron," where Riley was the operations officer.
*
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base/ November 15, 1950
The base's tempo was offbeat, hesitant, not like the charging hell-bent-for-leather days of World War II, not yet like the somnolent prewar years. Instead it was slowly, inexpertly lurching toward the pace the new war in Korea required. Roget walked down the Area C flight line, drinking in the proliferation of aircraft types. There were still hangovers from 1945, plenty of C-47s, C-54s, and Mustangs, but there were all the new types, too—F-86s, two B-47s, a fleet of B-45s, stuff he'd, give his right arm to fly. Yet the thing that really amazed him was the sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. After years of starving to death, losing competitions for contracts with the government, he'd been handed a $20 million order on a platter, No competing, no argument, just take the money and run!
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