Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  In turn, she learned that Wade Lovett's older brother had been with the 6th Marine Division, killed in action on Okinawa late in the war. "In case you're thinking what I'm thinking, I'm pretty sure this old Ohtsu guy couldn't have been there," he confided; "and I don't intend to ask."

  She said that was wise of him and then chose a surf abraded log to lean against and sank down on dry sand that was hardly cooler than skin. He copied her, taking her hand, reacting at her swift hissing intake of breath. "What'd I do?"

  "Not you. Try using a wire brush on rusted fittings all day and see how many pricks you get," she told him A moment's silence. Then he said,

  "You want to rephrase that?"

  "You're shameless," she said, and actually giggled. "I like that in a man."

  "That's a lie, Melanie. Cute, but a lie."

  He could see her profile faintly against the sky as she shook her hair for the breeze and chuckled. "All right, if you know so damned much: what do I like in a man?"

  He drew up his knees, elbows across them, chin on his arms. "Easier to say what you hate, since you always make that so terrifyingly clear. Let me guess by elimination. You' want him gentle, a stead sort, maybe a family man."

  I y "Hardly the type I always wind up with-but you could be right. My God, Wade, I think you are right!"

  I'm not finished. You don't want him too up-front."

  And what the hell is that supposed to mean? Of course I do."

  "Well, you may want him that way, but you don't need him that way.

  Because if he is, you'll always be arguing. You'd like a guy with the social graces of a Crispin Reventlo, the basic decency of my grandson, and the sex drive of-ofsay, Errol Flynn."

  "Why an old film actor," she asked." 'Cause I didn't want to use Jean-Claude or Elmo as examples,",he admitted. "That'd make it too personal." @L "I don't see how you could get much more personal," she said. "No?" He leaned back and cupped her chin in his hand. Let me expand those horizons."

  It was a gentle kiss, warm and unexpectedly yielding. "Mm, salty," she murmured, and kissed him back, accommodating his tongue. After a moment:

  "You know, I don't think we're going to miss the Drambuie."

  "Not if I manage to hit something else," he said, both Of them fumbling in the darkness.

  "Will you shut up," she encouraged. And he did.

  There was something to be said, he remarked somewhat later, for pleasures more primitive than liqueur.

  "Oh? Like sharing a warm shower," she said wistfully.

  "I suppose, if we had one available. You know what I mean," he insisted, lying full-length beside her as the night wind cooled his perspiration.

  "I know. When it's this pleasant, I second the motion," she said, stretching her arms gracefully aloft. "Even when it isn't this good, it's not all that bad. There's an old joke about that but it's too much trouble to recall right now."

  "I know just how you feel," he said sleepily.

  "Sensitive new-age man that you are," she chuckled. "How do I feel?"

  "Firm and responsive," he said, misreading her for the fun of it. "You seconded a lot of motions, I'm happy to say. Must be that hot islander blood I've heard so much about."

  "You're welcome. So now it's your turn. What else do you like in a woman?"

  "Me," he said, and she kicked him lightly.

  "I'm serious. You seem to understand me fairly well, and there was a time when I would've hated that. But now I don't mind; it's kind of nice, in an old-shoe kind of way. And I said it's your turn and don't make me guess."

  He took so long she nudged him With a toe, fearing he'd fallen asleep.

  "Acceptance! Forgiveness, approval," he amended. "Jeez, give me time to think. Of course I like the physical things, all the things you have in abundance, my God but you must've been a town-wrecker at twenty."

  "I was," she agreed. "Girls in my dorm called me the Tramp Steamer-but we're talking about you now."

  "Maybe the word I'm looking for is endorsement," he said, "like countersigning a check. Maybe you don't know what I intend to do with it; maybe you know and wish I wouldn't; but you're willing to live with that difference of opinion and let me just-just follow my best judgment." More softly, now: "All my life, I have wound up with women who thought we had to resolve every difference. Compromise, meet halfway, every decision ratified."

  "Whereas you want to be the top dog in your kennel," she said. 'Depends, Melanie. When I'm better qualified, you're damn right. Even when everybody's equally qualified, sometimes you have to agree on a top dog.

  Like the pilot in command, or the responsible surgeon. I had no trouble letting Cris Reventlo stand a pace ahead. And when we first got here, we joked about your being our Maggie Thatcher but I had no objection."

  "You'd have played hell talking with the Fundaborans on your own," she observed.

  "My point exactly. When dem6cracy means all opinions are equal, that democracy's in deep shit. You might stumble along in a half-assed way but-somebody said that great airplanes aren't designed by committees.

  I'll go further; neither are great cars or great buildings or great anything else, with rare exceptions. When I thought my wife or my daughter was the expert, I was willing for 'em to, carry the ball. When I was, they expected full veto power."

  "I think that's part of the give-and-take of marriage," she said. "I'm not sure we should believe in experts.' I

  Lovett's response was sly: "Is that your expert opinion?"

  She laughed, seeing her dilemma. "Okay. My old man always used to say,

  'Ain't no democracy in the cockpit,' and I suppose that means career pilots make lousy husbands."

  "Suppose away. You won't get a rise out of me," he chuckled.

  "Not again; not tonight," she said, sighing contentedly. "So that's it?

  If she has adequate goodies and agrees on a pilot in command for a given situation, you're a happy camper?"

  "How would I know," he said. "I've never met her."

  Her laugh this time was a series of little bleats, gradually subsiding; then a fresh outburst that set him off as well.

  At last she stood up, rearranging her clothes, still amused. "I'm afraid you're incurable, Wade Lovett. But thank God, not inoperable."

  "I still have my moments," he agreed, standing with her,

  "But sharing a hug that said more about friendship than lust. I suppose this was a moment we never had, right?"

  "I hope you can deal with that," she said, snapping on her flashlight.

  "We were just a passing fanny," he said, raising his voice as she strode away. "Just two ships that shrieked in the night.

  "You're babbling," she laughed. "Go home."

  No trespassers showed up either that night or the next, when Myles took sentry duty. The false wall was now half its original height and, being thicker near the base, became a slower job. After his solitary duty Vic Myles met his fellow crew members at the maintenance sheds, as agreed, for a crucial test. As he put it, he didn't want to miss seeing Benteen put an earthmover through the end of a building.

  Except that Mel Benteen was as good as she'd claimed. Seated high and erect under, the Letoumeau's protective cage, she waited until Coop Gunther linked the APU cables up, then nodded at his forefinger-in-a-circle signal. Obviously they'd done some dry runs; when Coop cleared the cabling away, the entire metal shed was already trembling with the rumble and snort of a big diesel, the air thick with a rich mix Of exhaust.

  The vast wheels turned, engines bellowed, and everyone abandoned the shed with hands pressed over their ears as Mel Benteen operated the huge vehicle by manipulating switches on her console. Standing near the leviathan as its eight-foot tires took it outside the shed, Lovett couldn't even hear the crunch of shell over the din, but he could hear electric motors and gear-trains, two motors to each wheel, doing an industrial-strength job as they'd done it a generation past.

  For some minutes she put it through its ponderous paces, checking turn radius an
d scraper blade travel, and the noise made one comer of Fundabora uniquely American-Texan, in fact, since Coop swallowed his Alaska-sized pride enough to admit the brute was the proud product of Long view, Texas. When Benteen silenced her monster, she was rewarded with cheers and clambered down to plant a resounding kiss on Coop's brow. "Check the oil, clean the windshield, filler up and point me at the freeway," she joked to further cheers.

  "Lordy, I wish we 'could," said Coop. "This sumbitch will guzzle six or eight gallons an hour and I don't think she'll bum coconut oil, folks."

  Myles: "We could try it."

  Coop: "Sure we could. And try it in those Tojos, too. Then try and find somebody willing to disassemble the fuel systems to clean 'em out when it doesn't work, 'cause I sure-God don't want the job. The Letoumeau has injectors. Am I getting through to you, partner?"

  "Just an idea," Myles said, hands up in surrender. Coop's wry smile said he wasn't sure you could call it an idea; more like a knee-jerk reflex.

  Myles went-on: "So how much fuel's in there now?"

  I 'About half a barrel of kerosene, all we had, mixed with what, six gallons of thirty-weight?" Benteen looked to Coop for a nod and got it.

  "It needs both. You've heard about vehicles that bum oil? Well, these old Letoumeaus are supposed to." She glanced around and saw the new arrivals from the village. "And if it bums a barrel of fuel every couple of hours, we'll need more of it from Jean-Claude," she said more loudly, deliberately exaggerating the fuel consumption.

  Lovett looked around and saw why. The man-mountain stood near the shed with two of his guards, chest heaving, agleam with sweat. His b ' road grin said he was merely winded from trotting, not angry. Keikano arrived moments later, hands gray with what could have been soot, studying Jeanclaude the way a zoologist might study an anaconda. "Bikbik machine him talk too much," Jean-Claude said, but he seemed to be joking.

  Benteen conferred softly for a moment with Coop before the old fellow started talking, running his hands over fresh weldments, feeling motor housings, keeping up a monologue not really intended to be understood.

  Mel Benteen stood near Coop and appeared to be translating but Lovett had to bite his lip to hide a grin. Some of her speech was pure improvisation. As Lovett understood it, she said the huge machine was ready to rebuild the presidential roads. Here were the repairs made by iron stick burn broken iron, blab blah, and everyone who heard the Letoumeau bellowing across the island would hear in it the voice of the might Jean-Claude. Now the roads could be improved, blab blab, I and a better landing strip created for 01' Cris, who would need something more substantial than a beach when he landed his aero canoe heavy with Fundaboran goods. The big machine's motors needed much slick water and, my, MY, how sad if they quit working but of course Jean-Claude understood what his needs were. ]3y the time Coop finally stopped rambling, Benteen had buried Pelele knee-deep in bullshit. She ended by saying that the big machine's voice Jean-Claude's voice, so to speak-lacked only fuel now.

  Not to be outdone by Benteen's rhetoric, the big man set off on a fanciful flight on his pidgin, circled the globe twice, and settled back to earth with a perfect landing. Benteen smiled and turned to Coop.

  "Ake-shay the man's and-hay," she said, and Coop let his hand, be swallowed by Jeanclaude's, everyone now grinning like fools for a variety of reasons. The presidential fuel dump was at their disposal, said Benteen.

  Keikano got a direct order to see that Pilau would provide the needed liquids before Jean-Claude set off toward the village again. "I would go with you," he said to Benteen, "but I must finish my task first."

  Lovett took in the gray smudges and said, "What're you doing, sweeping chimneys?"

  "The annual games require much play-fire. You have a word for it. The Chinese traders bring many kinds; pop, poof, pop," he explained, hands describing arcs in the air.

  Benteen said, "Fireworks?"

  "That is the word," Keikano said, brightening, turning to leave. "Pilau does not like such work. He will be happy to help you instead of me."

  Myles burst into laughter. "Smart of him, kid. If-that's black powder on you, you're a walking sparkler." Raising his voice as Keikano strode away: "What night will you shoot them off?"

  "Each night," was the reply, with a wave, and then Keikano was trotting away.

  "I-be-damn," Myles breathed, grinning. "That's something I wouldn't mind helping with. Firework displays are still an art, you know."

  "Spoke like a man lookin' for an alternative to a little hard work,"

  Coop said. "Let's just wait 'til that dumbshit Pilau gets here. We've got some fuel to transfer."

  Presently Pilau arrived in the half-track with a pair of helpers and drove them all to the lagoon with its ramshackle dock. Across the lagoon, villagers swarmed over temporary structures made from palm logs lashed tog-ether with braided fiber.

  Benteen learned from Pilau that the local citizens were under the critical gaze of Merizo, which explained why half of them weren't splashing around in the lagoon, joyously watching the strangers sweat like Englishmen in the hot sun. For that matter, Pilau himself stepped up his standard pace, uneasy at being called away from his work in the village.

  They did not begin loading fuel drums immediately despite Pilau's anxiety because this was the first chance they'd had to make a detailed check of the dock's condition. While Lovett tallied the drums of stuff stacked beneath thatching near the dock, Coop lay on his belly and used a machete to test the pilings.

  Lovett's report came with a smile, Coop's with -a rueful headshake.

  "There's gasoline, too. Some of those drums have been tapped-you guess who-but there's at least two thousand gallons of kerosene hpre," Lovett said. "Let's grab some drums of gasoline, too. And some of those cases of engine oil stacked in cardboard cartons that're falling apart. Some of the cartons have stencils from the sixties."

  "Doesn't matter," Coop replied. "If it was under the Arabian desert for a million years, thirty more won't hurt it. What worries me is, whether this dock will stand up to loading airplanes onto a barge." The pilings, he said, had been attacked by some marine borer, the equivalent of terniites.

  While Coop's team rolled and Pilau's lifted with Chip's help, ten of the drums found their way onto the half-track. Because motor oil had once come in tin cans, the corrosion of the tropics had actually begun to eat rust pits into those cans. "Christ, there's more oil soaked into the ground than there is in the cans," Myles noted, lugging an armload with care. "I know a wildcatter in West Texas who'd sink a shaft right here."

  It was past noon before the second shipment of fluids was, delivered, this time to the edge of the old airstrip. Now, with five hundred gallons in the sheds and a similar amount at the airstrip, Coop allowed as how they just n-tight have enough. He worried about skimping on oil in the mixture but, he said, he'd think of something. After Pilau left, they slowly rolled the few drums of gasoline to the cave.

  That afternoon, Benteen made her first foray down the perimeter road with the fully tanked Letoumeau, using its belly-scraper blade in the process. The result was more cosmetic than useful but it brought her to the airstrip, followed by admirers on Cushmans. "Now," she called over the stentorian burp of her great vehicle, "let's see how this buggy fights the jungle!"

  There was simply no contest between spindly, shallowroo ted twenty-foot trees and a leviathan on eight-foot wheels. Lovett and the others spent some time in Benteen's wake, clearing debris as she sent her steed bellowing up the gentle slope to within a hundred yards of the cave. At last Lovett, sweat streaming down his face, realized that Coop and Myles were seated on a log like kids on bleacher seats, cheering Benteen on.

  At that point he and Chip collapsed on another log, but Lovett told Chip to save his breath. Benteen couldn't have heard them over the thunderous blatter of that diesel, he said, if they'd been the Morinon Tabernacle Choir.

  Presently Benteen and her jungle-chomper outdistanced them enough to resume something like normal conv
ersation. "Look at her go. She cuts a swath like a tank through those trees," Lovett observed.

  "I bet she's imagining they're men," said Myles.

  "Whatever takes 'em down," Coop said.

  "Like I said," Myles replied. "But hey, so long as I'm not one of 'em."

  Lovett bit back a rejoinder and winked at Chip. "She'll have it mowed like a lawn in two days," he said.

  "Not by a daft sight," from Coop. "Before she can level and and pack down the surface we gotta get all these trunks hauled out somehow, and a belly-scraper won't do that. Too bad our old buddy Pilau's so busy building that crap in the village."

  "But he's doing it with logs," Chip said. "Dudes, I think we can get him back here."

  "Don't even think about it," Myles rejoined. "He was antsy as a cat in a kennel this morning; got Merizo's deadlines to meet, or face the usual consequences." Chip sighed and muttered a few quiet sentences td'lovett, who patted the youth's knee and interceded. "Coop, those guys are wearing that half-track out, toting logs into the village. Here's an idea: have Pilau and a crew load as many of these logs as they can into the Letoumeau's hopper. Then Benteen can haul 'em to the village a hundred at a time. Works for them, works for us."

  "By God," Coop said, nodding, then smiling and nodding again. "By God!"

  Myles jabbed a forefinger at Chip. "You should'a thought of that one, kid."

  "He did," Lovett said. "You told him not to think about it.,,

  "He listens to Keikano," Chip put in to reroute the conversation. "I'll see if Kei will talk to him, try and get it arranged. That way, Miz Benteen won't need to make another address to the U.N. like she did this morning."

  With that agreement, Chip set off alone on a scooter. At Coop's suggestion, the men began to carefully pace off the dimensions of the old strip for the first time, the better to estimate exactly how big a bite of jungle they had to chew. From cave mouth to beach sand turned out to be roughly twenty-four hundred feet, a hair-raisingly short distance for a warplane, even the lightweight craft the Japanese had built.