The Patriot

by Evan S. Connell

  And this turned out to be very sound reasoning, because the officer assigned to their barracks was a plump, foppish little ensign named Monk who had inexplicable fits of rage and hysteria during which he would gasp and sometimes shudder from an excess of emotion. Nobody could tell when he was going to become enraged, or why. The only sensible thing to do was to keep out of his way. Whenever he met a cadet who displeased him, Ensign Monk promptly looked at the ceiling, clasped his moist, pudgy hands behind his back, and cried in a shrill feminine voice, “Oh-ho! Oh-HO!” Then with a peculiar snuffling and choking like an animal—a pig, possibly, rooting through a trough of garbage—Ensign Monk would write the cadet’s name on the pap sheet and give him the customary ten demerits and four hours of extra duty.

  At Barin Field they would no longer be flying as individuals but as members of a team, in groups of six, and since they were permitted to form their own group Melvin and Horne invited Nick McCampbell to join them, then Roska, Elmer, and finally Pat Cole, after which they held an election to decide who should be the flight leader. There was a certain amount of prestige to being flight leader: on the ground he answered roll call and occasionally signed a paper of one sort or another. Otherwise the title was meaningless. In the air the actual leadership of the team changed from one to another. When the ballots were counted it was discovered that Horne had received six votes, which meant of course that he had voted for himself. So they reported to the squadron office where they were given a number: 487. They were the 487th group to enter training at Bloody Barin.

  They had not been there very long when the uniforms they had ordered at Whiting Field were delivered. After the first look—the cartons unceremoniously ripped open, the so carefully folded tissue paper torn away with impatience—Horne and Melvin hurried upstairs to try them on. The uniforms were heavy and crisp, the fresh gold sparkling thickly on the sleeves. Once in a while, after that first day, they tried on the uniforms, saluted themselves in the mirror, and talked about being ensigns, but for the most part the uniforms hung in the closet, the hat with the commissioned officer’s insignia rested on a shelf.

  Ground school continued, the subjects and the problems so familiar now that the cadets answered without thinking. In a dark, warm room on the second deck of the second hangar they spent an hour a day waiting for lantern slides to flash against the wall, and wrote down what they had seen. If it was a Japanese ship they knew its class, name, tonnage, speed, the thickness of its armor plate, and the location and strength of its batteries; if it was a plane they knew its wingspan, speed, armament, and maneuverability.

  During the communications period each cadet sat quietly in a booth, listening through earphones to the frenzied, insistent code, and jotted down the messages: “Japanese convoy bearing zero-six-zero. Speed twelve knots. Heading zero-five-five. Attack immediately. Attack immediately.”

  Gunnery lessons took place in a Quonset hut in a device similar to the Link trainer. A motion-picture screen was set up directly ahead of the cockpit and an enemy plane flew wildly around the screen while the cadet attempted to shoot it down. The enemy flew over mountains and forest and across a beach and over the ocean while clouds floated by, puffs of anti-aircraft smoke broke all around, and the Quonset hut echoed from the noise of machine-gun bullets and the screaming, shrieking engines. The enemy dove through the clouds, diminishing, escaping, then seemed to increase in size, and if the wingtips spanned the screen the machine guns began clattering. Whenever the guns were on target the picture turned crimson.

  If the cadets were not attending school they were at the flight line. But the winter rains had set in and there was almost no flying. One glance at the icy, sluggish, water-laden clouds settling over the base like seaweed and they knew the field would be closed all day. There were mornings when the clouds sank so low that the water tank was invisible—only the bottom of the trestle could be seen, while the powerful red beacon on the squadron tower was a dim, intermittent blur the color of rouge in a woman’s compact—yet the company was required to muster in front of the barracks at the usual time every day and march down the narrow asphalt road to the hangars. There they had nothing to do. Everyone knew the clouds would not lift, but there the company was supposed to be, and there it was. The cadets played checkers and drank coffee, pitched pennies at a crack in the pavement, answered roll call every hour or so, and carried on long conversations with the WAVEs who worked in the parachute loft. They were not supposed to talk to the WAVEs except about the parachutes, but they did, and once in a while an officer would come around and run the cadets out of the loft and threaten the WAVEs, but a few minutes after the officer disappeared the cadets would come back; and it was here that Elmer Free got acquainted with one of the girls, whose name was Diane. Before the war she had been a dancer. Cole insisted he had seen her in a burlesque house in Chicago, but Elmer was not in the least offended. He chuckled amiably and replied, “Sho! You dog, Pat.”

  In a few days Elmer had become so interested in her that whenever the clouds did lift and 487 was scheduled for a flight he paid no attention to what he was doing. Whenever he and the WAVE got liberty together they would take the bus to Mobile and stay overnight. He soon began to talk about marrying her on the day he received his commission. But one drizzling afternoon about four o’clock, high up in the eternal twilight of the parachute loft, the WAVE removed her Navy blue coat and her shoes and placed them to one side and hanged herself. A rumor went around the base that she was pregnant.

  After her death Elmer seldom spoke, and nights when he had liberty he did not go out.

  On one of these nights he and Melvin were the only two cadets in the barracks. Everybody else had gone to Pensacola or Mobile. Elmer was lying on his bunk with his hands behind his head and Melvin was seated at a desk in the upstairs lounge with a blue band around his sleeve because it was his turn to keep watch. He had nothing to do all night except make an hourly inspection of the empty building. It was a dull job, and while he sat with his feet on the desk he thought about Elmer and wondered if there might be a way to cheer him up. Presently he noticed that he could see the cadet duty officer in the adjoining barracks. For a while this meant nothing; there was simply another cadet in charge of another barracks. Neither of them was doing anything. The other cadet appeared to be asleep. Then a singular thought occurred to Melvin: he recalled that a cadet duty officer was responsible for the cleanliness of the corridors and the lounge. On nights such as this when everybody had liberty the barracks was a shambles. There were soda-pop bottles on the ping-pong table and on the floor, and there were cigarette butts and newspapers and toothpicks and countless other artifacts strewn throughout the lounge and the corridors. Now, nobody had ever heard of an inspection taking place while all the cadets were on liberty, but it was not impossible. Melvin, pondering the terrible disorder of his own barracks, came to the conclusion that he could not get it cleaned up in less than two or three hours. Undoubtedly this same condition prevailed in the barracks across the way. He took his feet off the desk and sauntered to the window. He stood there for several minutes, chewing his lip and thinking. Then he walked down the corridor to the room where Elmer lived with Cole, Roska, and McCampbell. Elmer was still lying in the same position on the bunk. His eyes were open, otherwise he looked unconscious.

  “Got something to show you, Elmer,” he said. Elmer obediently got up and followed him to the lounge while Melvin explained what he had in mind.

  “I don’t know, boy,” Elmer commented. “What about Oh-ho?”

  “Monk?” Melvin exclaimed with contempt. “That moron? Do you know what? He came up here about four or five hours ago and told me he was going to Fairhope. Fairhope! Can you imagine that? Not Pensy or Mobile for Oh-ho Monk—no, he wants to go to Fairhope! Who ever heard of Fairhope? I swear, he hasn’t got the brains God gave a celluloid duck. And that name of his! Did you ever hear anything like that in your life? Every time I have to call him ‘Mr. Monk’ it’s all I can do to keep from laugh
ing. He’s the stupidest officer in the Navy.”

  “Oh-ho’s mighty sly,” said Elmer dubiously.

  “He’s stupid! Why, when I think of some of the things he’s pulled I just don’t quite know what to say. Like running around on those cold rainy mornings looking for guys wearing unauthorized gear. I mean, how chintzy can you get?”

  “Sho, he done give old Roska ten and four on account of wearing them two pair of socks.”

  Melvin grabbed Elmer by the arm. “Now listen. Oh-ho leaves his room unlocked and he’s got a telephone in there. I’ll call up the next barracks and disguise my voice and say that Commander Holt and Rear Admiral Magness have just come aboard the station and are making an inspection of the barracks. I’ll tell him to expect them in fifteen minutes.”

  “Ain’t no admiral would do a thing like that. A commander he might, but you better leave off the admiral.”

  Melvin gave him a crafty grin and stepped backward. “That’s exactly what he’ll think at first. But then he’ll think again, wondering if it’s a trick, and he’ll decide that if it was a trick nobody would be stupid enough to say an admiral was coming. And so,” Melvin concluded triumphantly, “he’ll decide it’s for real. It’ll scare hell out of him. You watch.”

  “Maybe so, only you better not use Oh-ho’s phone. You better use this one here.”

  “Who’s afraid of Oh-ho?” Melvin cried, flung up his arms, and rushed away. It was a point of honor to use the officer’s telephone.

  The door to Ensign Monk’s room was closed. On the chance that he might have returned Melvin tapped on the door. There was no answer.

  “Sir?” he called. “Mr. Monk, sir?”

  There was not a sound.

  He took a deep breath, opened the door, and switched on the light. There was a disgusting odor of talcum powder in the room. The officer’s soiled silken underclothes and black silk socks were lying on the unmade bed. Melvin picked up the telephone and announced an inspection. The cadet in the other barracks was so frightened he did not even bother to ask who was calling. Melvin put down the receiver and dashed back upstairs to the window. He noticed first of all that Elmer was laughing.

  “Looky! Looky!” Elmer chortled.

  The cadet was running down the corridor clutching his head. At the far end he tripped over something and fell. He was on his feet in an instant. They could see him hopping around, gathering soda-pop bottles. When he had all the bottles he could carry he came running frantically up the corridor and disappeared in a closet. He reappeared with a string mop and a pail and rushed into another room, and Elmer and Melvin leaned against each other and were faint with laughter.

  Finally they had laughed so much that they could not laugh any more, then they stood at the window holding their stomachs and painfully gasping for breath while they watched the cadet in the opposite barracks. He was still running around.

  “Oh, me!” Elmer said at last. “You just got to let that poor ignorant cadoodler off the hook. My funnybone, it only stands so much.”

  “I guess so,” Melvin answered, “but I sure hate to. That’s probably more work than he’s done all year.”

  Elmer chuckled and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “I know, only cadets don’t hardly thrive on hard labor. You liable to kill him off like a old toadstool.”

  They discussed it a while longer as preparations for the admiral’s inspection continued at full speed, and finally Melvin sauntered downstairs to Ensign Monk’s room. The room was dark. The door was open as he had left it. He went in, picked up the telephone, and called the barracks.

  “Look, Dilbert, you can knock it off,” he said amiably. “It was a gag. We thought you ought to get on the ball for once.” He could hear the victim panting; apparently he was too frightened or stunned to comprehend what had happened, because he did nothing except breathe hoarsely into the mouthpiece.

  “Relax,” said Melvin. “Don’t let the program get you down.” With a pleased expression he hung up the receiver. It had been a fine, successful joke. Nobody had been hurt and, at least for a while, it had made Elmer feel better. Then, all at once, his skin began to crawl. He knew someone else was in the room, and directly behind him he heard the little peacock cry.

  There stood Ensign Monk with shining eyes.

  The next day while marching off the first two hours of his extra duty, a rifle on his shoulder, from one corner of the barracks to the other, to and fro, Melvin watched the sun break through the clouds and saw the field come to life. The red beacon on the squadron tower was replaced by the flashing green and white course lights, mechanics hurried along the flight line untying mooring ropes, and in a short while the harsh cough of the engines resounded across the base and winter sunshine glinted on whirling propellers. As he came to one end of his route, halted, turned about, and prepared to resume marching, he could see the schedule board being trundled away from the wall.

  Flight 487 was scheduled to commence high-side gunnery at four o’clock that afternoon. A few minutes before the hour they met the gunnery instructor, a Marine captain named Teitlebaum, who, after shaking hands with everybody, squatted on his heels and began to draw diagrams on the floor of the hangar with sticks of colored chalk while he explained the procedure. After he had completed his explanation he asked for a volunteer to pull the target, which was a twenty-foot nylon sleeve, but nobody volunteered. Captain Teitlebaum waited and the cadets restlessly shuffled their feet. The captain glanced up and happened to look first at Melvin.

  “You volunteered, didn’t you, cadet?” said the captain.

  “Yes, sir, I guess so,” Melvin answered reluctantly. “Is this a permanent assignment, sir?”

  “It is not. Tomorrow you will be firing. Someone else will tow. This duty is rotational. What’s your name?” he asked, standing up.

  “Isaacs, sir.”

  “Pay attention, Mr. Isaacs. Watch yourself when you take off. When you hit the end of the cable you are going to know it. That air speed is going to drop. Do not stall out. If you do, ride the rudders and hold the stick full back because you will not have sufficient altitude to effect a normal recovery. Is that clear?”

  “Ride the rudders? All the way down, sir? Won’t I be up about forty or fifty feet?”

  “You should be higher than that. I suggest you don’t stall out.”

  He then inquired if Melvin knew where to rendezvous with the other members of the flight and Melvin said he did.

  “All right then, Mr. Isaacs. On the double. We’ll overtake you before you sight the beach.”

  Melvin saluted and hurried away to get his parachute. The tow plane, like most of the other planes at Barin Field, was an advanced trainer with the Naval designation of SNJ—the hump-backed, pigeon-toed J with the odd, triangular tail that Sam Horne had pointed out that first evening on the main station.

  At the downwind end of the runway he swiveled into position for the take-off and pressed the brakes while a seaman wriggled underneath the fuselage to attach the cable. Melvin looked along the runway toward the trees. They were a considerable distance away, but not half so far as he would have liked.

  The seaman reappeared, safely to one side, and gave the go-ahead signal.

  Melvin turned up the engine enough to check the magnetos; finding the drop within tolerance, he took a deep breath, reflecting that it could be one of his last, stepped on the brakes as hard as possible, and shoved the throttle to the forward end of the slot; immediately he felt the control stick start to pull against him, and the tail seemed to be dancing an anxious jig. The SNJ was shaking and trembling from wing to wing. The brakes could not hold it; the plane was creeping forward.

  Teitlebaum had given instructions not to drag the sleeve along the runway because the pavement would tear it apart. The idea was to jerk the sleeve all at once from the ground into the air and the way to do this was to fly the SNJ as high as possible in the shortest possible distance, which meant, of course, climbing at an extremely steep angle and holding this
climb until the plane had lost its initial speed and was about to stall. If it stalled it would roll over on its back and crash. The fine point of the maneuver was to ease the airplane into a normal flying position before it was too late, but not very much before it was too late. It might be all very well for Captain Teitlebaum to suggest riding the rudders in the event of a slight miscalculation; it was a bit of advice the captain offered simply because this was a situation in which there ought to be some kind of advice. Nobody was deceived. The captain himself, as they were all aware, was not deceiving anybody.

  Melvin let go of the brakes and the SNJ surged forward, gathering speed at a steadily increasing rate. For a few seconds there was nothing to do but wait. Then he knew the time had come; he drew the control stick into his lap and up he went, having left his entrails on the ground, his eyes fixed on the needle which registered the speed, groping delicately through some mysterious sensory apparatus for the very first of those faint vibrations which would be his ultimate warning.

  He did not think he had felt anything, but suddenly, without question, he eased the stick forward, the plane began leveling off, and just then he did feel a distinct tug. The J seemed to be straining—the sleeve was off the ground—but it did not stall, though it was close; it continued to fly, and gradually accelerated.

  He banked across the trees at the edge of the field and glanced over his shoulder: there was the sleeve, sluggishly roiling and twisting like a prodigious fish bent on swallowing the plane, the perfectly circular cloth mouth wide open.

  He climbed to an altitude of about half a mile and set off for the rendezvous.

  The clouds had dispersed, and below him the fields drifted by, green and lavender and brown and violet, occasionally a pond or a stream, giving an impression of immense fertility, and far ahead the Gulf of Mexico, shining in the sun. To the west a mile or so was another sleeve, level with him and on a parallel course. Some distance above it, farther away, motionless against the deep blue space, was another. Higher in the sky he could make out the gunnery formations, each hovering like a cluster of bees over a sleeve. And all this—the blueness of the sky around him, the globe of the earth, and the depth of the glittering sea—filled him with satisfaction. He began to think of the Deacon, who had been killed so accidentally, almost extemporaneously, as though someone had decided only that morning to do away with him, and who therefore was not present to witness these things, to participate in the afternoon, unless at death one did become present everywhere. He realized he did not know where the Deacon was buried, and all at once this seemed quite strange. And he reflected, too, that no one spoke of him any more, though only a year had elapsed. It had been last winter. He was gone, totally gone.