Conquerors of the Sky

by Thomas Fleming

  “It’s a great way to build morale, General,” Billy said. “I’ll be glad to teach it to the whole bomb group.”

  “There’s not a hell of a lot left of the group,” Kenney said.

  Three of the six planes Billy had led into the air that morning were at the bottom of the sea. Losses in other squadrons were equally heavy. Low-level bombing was murderously effective—Kenney had proved that. But it was also murderously dangerous.

  “I hate to ask these kids to keep doing it,” Kenney said that night in his tent. “But Bupp Halsey’s got it right. He said you can’t win a war without losing ships and you can’t do it without losing planes either.”

  Frank said nothing. He knew Kenney was talking more to himself than to him, agonizing over a decision he could not retract.

  “You lost a lot of your planes to Zeros, George,” Frank said. “What you need is a good long-range fighter. I’ve got some ideas for one. They could use it in Europe to protect the B—Seventeens too.”

  He began sketching a plane with a pointed snout and thin square-tipped wings. “Those wings will make her hot to handle on takeoffs and landings,” he said. “But they’ll let a pilot do wild things in the sky.” Next came a long lean fuselage that would have room for twice as much fuel as the average fighter. The cruciform tail rode high above the body. “We’ve learned a lot in our wind tunnel,” he said. “Putting the tail up there solves the flutter problem with this size fuselage.”

  “If I knew you had that plane in your head I would have court-martialed myself for letting you go up in that bomber!” Kenney said. “Go home and get to work on it.”

  Later that night Frank sat on the beach with Billy, getting drunk beneath the starry Pacific sky, with the Southern Cross blazing in the center of the constellations. “Tell me the truth man to man, Pops,” Billy said. “What happened to my mother? How did she die? I asked Buzz a hundred times and all he’d say was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”

  Frank told him, leaving out his own anguish, though it was probably audible in his voice. “Buzz loved her, Billy. That’s why he can’t talk about it. He blames himself for it.”

  Billy was not interested in Frank’s defense of Buzz. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it? No more sense than poor old Patch gettin’ creamed by that five-inch shell this afternoon while I make it back in one piece. What’d he do to deserve that, Pops? Why’d I make it back?”

  “I don’t know, Billy. War makes you realize how mysterious life is. How each of us is working out a destiny—how little we control it.”

  “I don’t like it. Whoever’s running the show is doing a lousy job.”

  Billy sprang to his feet and raised his fist at the dark glowing sky. “Do you hear me up there? Are you listening, you fucking assholes? Tell the head asshole he’s doing a lousy job!”

  Frank staggered to his feet, appalled by Billy’s blasphemy. This was Sammy’s son, the boy she had insisted on baptizing as a symbol of her repentance, her yearning to escape from her dark driven wildness to a life of caring love. With his dual nature, Frank understood it was not simply God Billy was cursing, it was all his failed fathers.

  Frank saw he had to give Billy something more than the comradeship of terror and danger they had shared in the cockpit. That was Craig’s love, older brother’s love, a substitute at best for fathering love. In his desperation Frank offered his deepest and purest gift, his talent.

  “Billy,” he said. “You’re a great pilot. After the war you’ll fly planes that will go ten times faster and higher and farther than these crates. They’re flying in my head now. I’ll build them for you. I promise you.”

  With that pledge Frank knew he was abandoning Amanda, Eden, love in Topanga’s green silence. He was accepting the warriors’ dark code, their love of danger, their fascination with war and death. He was offering them his talent in Billy’s name, for Sammy’s sake.

  “I won’t forget that, Pops,” Billy said.

  They clung to each other there in the New Guinea darkness, fabricating fatherhood and sonship, their only shield against the misshapen world men and their gods had created.

  MAN OF SUBSTANCE

  Down the half—mile long assembly line Adrian Van Ness strolled, smiling at his workers. He stopped to talk to a woman riveter in slacks, her hair tied back by a bandana. “How’s it going, Muriel?” he asked.

  “Pretty good, Mr. Van Ness. But we’re gettin’ kinda tired. The overtime pay is great but after six months of twelve-hour days—”

  “I know. It’s even tougher on the night shift. But we’re winning the war.”

  Muriel gave him a V for victory sign. “Anything that gets my husband home faster is okay with me.”

  The Fox Movietone news announcer took over the narration. “The human touch,” he said. “That’s how Adrian Van Ness and his company, Buchanan Aircraft, are setting records in airplane production. Van Ness knows an amazing number of his workers by their first names. When he isn’t on a plane to Washington, D.C. to confer with generals or admirals or at an air base where his latest planes are being tested, he walks these assembly lines, keeping in touch with his people and their problems. This year Buchanan will turn out an astonishing six thousand fighters and bombers, planes that have proven they can outfly anything the Nazis and the Nips can put in the air.”

  Tama Morris flipped off the projector and pulled up the blinds on the big window overlooking the airfield. “Not bad?” she said, virtually uncoiling as she strolled across Adrian Van Ness’s office. Her face, her figure were still remarkably youthful. A tight blouse accentuated the full breasts. Her legs deserved the black-market nylons Adrian bought for her in the east.

  “You’re a wonder,” Adrian said, as she sat down beside his desk.

  She was a wonder, in her own way. Not only did she get Buchanan reams of good publicity like the Movietone News feature, she also helped them sell planes in a less visible, more direct way. When generals, admirals, civilian bureaucrats, and congressmen began visiting Buchanan Aircraft with millions of dollars to spend, Tama reorganized the casual prewar dating service she had created to entertain visiting airline executives. She compiled a master list of women employees who were willing to keep these new VIPs happy in California. She also made sure her volunteers were rewarded with nylons, dresses, extra gas and ration coupons, if the visitor turned out to be too cheap or insensitive to leave a gift behind. Buzz McCall liked to say Frank Buchanan might design the best planes in the world, but Tama’s volunteers sold them.

  “We’ve got a problem with General Slade,” Tama said.

  Newton Slade was in charge of procurement for the Army Air Force’s tactical branch. He had ordered a thousand copies of the long-range fighter Frank Buchanan had designed after visiting Billy McCall in the South Pacific. It was winning the air war in the skies over Hitler’s collapsing Third Reich. Slade was about to order another five hundred, modified as fighter bombers.

  “He needs a hundred thousand dollars to invest in some real estate in Santa Monica.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He says North American has a fighter bomber almost as good as ours.”

  “Why did he tell you all this? Is he afraid to come to me?”

  Tama’s eyes glowed with dark light. “We’ve gotten very friendly.”

  “What does Buzz think about that?”

  “He couldn’t care less. He’s too busy screwing the whole assembly line.”

  “Oh? I didn’t realize he was that ambitious.”

  “I’m not complaining. He doesn’t care what I do, I don’t care what he does. That was the deal I bought when we got married.” She frowned and lit a cigarette. “One of these days I’m going to tell him to forget it.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Buzz doesn’t let any woman walk away from him. I’m afraid he’d get me fired.”

  “That’s a superfluous worry, as long as I’m around.”

  Adrian was certain Tama was not really worried abou
t getting fired. She knew a man was stirred by having a woman ask for his protection. Adrian, a lifetime student of the feminine psyche, enjoyed the mating dance he and Tama were conducting.

  For a year Adrian had mourned Beryl Suydam’s death by working twelve-and eighteen-hour days. Gradually the pain had ebbed into regret. He began to see women as desirable again. But the pressures of his job and the fear of another wound made it a game he played mostly in his mind. In recent months he had begun to see Tama as the solution.

  Her sultry reputation attracted him. But she was Buzz McCall’s wife. What if Buzz suddenly played outraged husband? Even he stayed away from the wives of his fellow executives. On the other hand it would be a small step toward evening the score for Beryl. It might also deflate Buzz’s ego, which had swelled to enormous proportions since the war began. He took credit for the avalanche of contracts from the U.S. Army Air Forces.

  “How’s Cliff?” Adrian asked.

  “Still flying. I almost had a heart attack when he volunteered for another twenty-five missions.”

  “It was a remarkable thing to do. We’re all proud of him.”

  “Do you think his English wife put him up to it? Could any woman be that crazy?”

  “He might have done it for her. Love and idealism are easily connected when you’re young.”

  Adrian understood Tama’s relationship with her son. It was a crude version of his own involvement with his mother. It made him feel confident that he could deal with this woman. At the very least Tama would be a change from the tepid sex he got at home, when he got anything at all.

  “Adrian—could you get Cliff transferred to this country? I can’t ask Buzz. He’d have a tantrum. I’d be so damn grateful.”

  “I’ll make a call or two. I can’t promise anything.”

  “Thanks. What do you want to do about Slade?”

  “Tell him to give me a ring tomorrow.” He pulled an expense chit out of his desk and filled it out for five hundred dollars. “Buy yourself a new dress.”

  Tama strolled out the door, smiling. Adrian telephoned the president of the Los Angeles National Bank. He got through to him in ten seconds. These days Buchanan Aircraft kept a running account at the bank that seldom dropped below twenty million dollars.

  “Joe,” he said. “I’ve got an old army friend, Newton Slade. He’s got a chance to make some money in Santa Monica real estate and needs a hundred thousand dollars. Can you get it to him fast, if he comes to see you tomorrow? Of course I’ll cosign it.”

  Adrian buzzed his secretary. “Get me Hanrahan.”

  In a moment the rough voice of his new security chief was on the phone. Before the war, Daniel Hanrahan had been a career detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. Adrian had hired him at four times his detective’s salary. With the company awash in money, Adrian used it to buy loyalty whenever possible. “Have we got a file on Buzz McCall?”

  “You told me to run a file on everybody, Mr. Van Ness.”

  “Let me see it.”

  The government had ordered Buchanan Aircraft to hire a security chief. Adrian soon realized security was a good excuse to find out all sorts of useful things about his employees. Hanrahan arrived with the file in his left hand and handed it to Adrian. A remarkable feat if you knew the left arm, the stiff hand were plastic. A shell had blown off Hanrahan’s real arm in a sea battle off Guadalcanal. It had been replaced by a prosthetic device designed by Frank Buchanan. Tama had gotten Buchanan reams of good publicity for this invention, which was being used to rehabilitate amputees all over the country.

  Adrian opened Buzz’s file. Hanrahan did not depart. He stood there, all two hundred pounds of him, feet spread wide. “What’s wrong?” Adrian said.

  “I don’t intend to let one of those files out of my sight, Mr. Van Ness. Not even for you. You want to look at it, go ahead. But I’m staying here while you finish it.”

  Adrian read a sample page. On August 18, 1944, at 8:31 P.M., Mr. McCall left the plant with two women, a riveter named Dora Kinkaid and his secretary, Helene Quinn. They drove to the Kit Kat Club in Long Beach where they met several friends, including Albert (Moon) Davis, Buchanan’s chief test pilot. They had dinner and drinks and danced until 1:36 A.M. Leaving the club Mr. McCall was too drunk to drive and Miss Kinkaid took the wheel. They drove to her house in east Los Angeles, where a party was in progress. A glance in the window revealed a remarkable amount of nudity and orgiastic sex in every room. The party continued until 4 A.M.

  There was nothing to worry about from Buzz McCall.

  “One other thing, Mr. Van Ness,” Hanrahan said as Adrian gave him back the file. “The purpose of these files is to make sure there are no lapses of military security, no government secrets leaked. Is that correct?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then I’m not obligated to inform you or anyone else about what you might call personal matters?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “I’m glad we understand each other on that point.”

  Something—was it the intensity in Hanrahan’s voice?—made Adrian uneasy. Did he mean matters relating to Adrian Van Ness’s personal life? Adrian could not imagine what these might be. His personal life was humdrum to the point of boredom. He had a wife who spent far more time in hospitals working with amputees than she did with him. (Amanda had discovered Hanrahan in the hospital and recommended him to Adrian.) He had a thirteen-year-old daughter who adored him almost as much as she worshipped Frank Sinatra and was in all other respects a typical American teenager.

  Adrian decided Hanrahan, a devout Catholic, was probably in a state of shock from discovering the sexual liberation of the aircraft world. Two days later, Adrian flew to Washington, D.C., to confer with Army Air Force planners at the Pentagon about a new military transport they were considering to carry supplies and wounded across the Pacific. The Japanese kamikazes had proven fearfully effective, blowing up hospital ships as well as warships. With B—17 production winding town, Buchanan had the capacity to build this plane.

  As usual, Adrian took Frank Buchanan with him to discuss the design. He turned out to be the worst imaginable company. He was in a funk about the way the air war was being conducted over Germany and Japan. He said he did not object to the airplane as a weapon. He had resigned himself to that a long time ago. But the thousand-bomber raids on Berlin and Dresden were barbarism. Ditto for the firebomb raids on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. “If I’d known planes were going to be used to kill innocent civilians, I never would have designed one,” he said.

  “The terror raids were approved at the highest levels,” Adrian said. “The Americans and the British fought over it for months. It finally went all the way to the White House. Roosevelt ordered us to go along with the British. You can’t really blame them. The Germans did it to them first.”

  “Is that our morality? An eye for an eye? Surely we’ve advanced beyond the Old Testament. Even there, the prophets reminded Israel that the Lord said, ‘Vengeance is mine.’”

  “I don’t see how it’s any of our business. We’re not running the war. Do you really want me to start lecturing the air force for killing civilians?”

  “Someone should. I will, if I get a chance.”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re as bad as Amanda. She carries on like this all the time. It’s gotten to the point where I’m afraid to introduce her to a general or an admiral.”

  Buchanan buried his nose in a book for the rest of the flight. Adrian decided Frank was mortified to find himself being compared to a woman as featherbrained as Amanda.

  Adrian skimmed the war news in the Los Angeles Times. In Europe, the end was in sight. The Americans were across the Rhine, battering their way into Germany. The Russians were rampaging in from the east. The Japanese were another matter. Although they were being pounded nightly by Boeing’s B—29 superfortresses, they showed no sign of giving up.

  In the taxi on the way to the hotel, Adrian tried to thaw Frank Buchanan by telling hi
m about Tama’s plea to bring Cliff home. Adrian thought Frank would applaud getting a friend’s son out of the air war he was denouncing. Instead, the chief designer became enraged again.

  “Let him take his chances like the rest of them,” he roared. “She didn’t ask to bring Billy home, did she? He’s still bombing at fifty feet out there in the Pacific. Their casualties have been ninety percent. But they don’t bomb civilians. Those Eighth Air Force crybabies have nothing to worry about. They’ve got fighter cover all around them now.”

  Adrian was undeterred by this explosion. He knew nothing about Frank’s complex relationship with Billy McCall. He thought it was one more proof of his chief designer’s eccentricity.

  At the Pentagon, the five-sided fortress the government had erected on the Virginia side of the Potomac to house the War Department’s brass, they conferred with the head of the Army’s Air Forces transportation command, a tall cigar-smoking southerner named Mellow. He was enthusiastic about Clay’s sleek, whale-shaped transport. He even liked the name Adrian had selected, the Skylord. But there were problems about going into production immediately. To explain them required a visit to General Hap Arnold’s deputy chief of staff, Major General George Crockett.

  They marched down the hall for what seemed a mile and a half to General Crockett’s office. A short intense Texan, Crockett wore the crispest uniform Adrian had ever seen. He pumped Frank Buchanan’s hand and praised the magnificent work his long-range fighter was doing over Europe and in the Pacific.

  “We think we can end the war with Japan by strategic bombing alone,” Crockett said. “To do it we need four hundred more B—Twenty—nines. Can you go into production on them immediately? Boeing will give you everything they’ve learned. They’ve gotten the man-hours down to seventeen thousand a copy. A year ago it was a hundred and fifty-seven thousand.”