Aces (62 page)

“Captain—”

“Over and out, Lieutenant,” Greene said, and switched off his radio. Down below was the Me-109, locking onto the bomber’s
tail. As Greene watched, the Hun’s cannons began to wink fire—

He pushed the stick forward and began to dive on the Messerschmitt, taking great care to line the enemy fighter up in his
sights.

It was really quite simple, Greene told himself. It was a matter of mathematics. One man’s life to save ten. His altimeter
was unwinding so fast that it was hissing. The Me-109 was looming ever-larger in Greene’s gun sight. The Hun pilot was flying
steady as a rock. He wasn’t going to go into evasive maneuvers. Why should he? He knew the Hurricane was out of ammo.

Greene realized that he was crying. No shame in that, he decided. Just good sense—

Suze, I love you very much
, he thought, to take his mind off the fact that all he had to do was jerk the stick to fly away from this; fly home to Suze—

One life for ten, he reminded himself. Simple mathematics. Can’t argue with the numbers.

The German had stopped firing at the bomber. Greene imagined the Hun glancing up at the diving Hurricane and wondering…

As the Hurricane fell like a flame-singed moth toward the Messerschmitt, Greene wondered if Suze was right, if his child inside
her was indeed a boy. He decided it was.

An instant before his Hurricane slammed into the Messerschmitt, Greene realized that this was his fifth kill, and that he
was going to be an ace after all. Just like him to have to do everything the hard way.

Suze
—

A shriek seemed to echo inside Suzy’s skull. The book of poems fell out of her hands as thunder, followed by an orange ball
of fiery pain, engulfed her. She slumped sideways, falling off the bench.

“I say, Miss—”

It was the gent in the derby speaking. As Suzy writhed on the cold, damp grass, her eyes were level with his polished black
brogues. She managed to look up at him.

“I say—” He was looking around wildly. “Hello! Somebody! Over here! A pregnant woman!”

Suzy felt an agony, like drops of acid, in her belly. “My baby,” Suzy groaned, and her eyes squeezed shut. “My baby—”

“Steady now, Miss, help’s on the way,” the gent soothed, stooping over her. “You there!” he shouted. “Do hurry!”

She felt gentle hands lifting her up. “My baby—” she moaned. Her eyes were still shut, but orange and black tendrils of fire
and smoke were curling against her eyelids.

“Yes, luv. You’re having your baby,” a woman suddenly said. In the distance, a siren had begun to wail. “There’s the ambulance
for you now. You and your baby are going to be quite all right.”

Suzy felt herself drifting off into a faint.
My baby
, she’d wanted to say, but the pain inside had never let her.
My baby is crying inside me
.

“I wonder where her husband is,” somebody was asking.

“My husband is dead,” Suzy heard herself murmur, before blacking out.

Second Lieutenant Steven Gold received the letter from his father telling him about Blaize Greene’s death only a few minutes
before he was scheduled to take off on patrol. He was in the ready room, changing into his flight overalls, when one of the
orderlies brought him the letter, apologizing for the snafu that had prevented it being delivered during the morning’s mail
call. Steven had torn the envelope open, figuring to quickly skim the letter and then reread it later, but he never got past
the opening sentences concerning how Blaize had died.

“What’s wrong, kid?” asked Cappy Fitzpatrick. Cappy’s curly hair was cropped short, and he was clean-shaven, now that he was
a major and squadron commander in the Air Force. “You get a Dear John letter?” He chuckled.

“It’s about my brother-in-law. He was an RAF fighter pilot in North Africa. He was killed in action, saving an American bomber
from a German fighter.”

Cappy frowned. “Tough break, kid.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Hey, we’ve got to go. You all right to fly?”

“Huh?” Steven looked up, and then smiled weakly. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.” Just a few days ago fighters from the 339th had shot
down the Mitsubishi bomber carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the Jap who’d planned the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of that,
rumor had it that today the Jap Zeros would be out in force, like pissed-off hornets from a busted nest, and Steven didn’t
want to miss this chance to rack up some kills. He stuffed the letter into the pocket of his khaki coveralls, grabbed the
rest of his flight gear, and followed Cappy out of the ready room.

Steven squinted against the sunshine as they hurried through the palms, past the sandbag machine gun emplacements, to the
hangars. As they reached the muddy ready line Steven saw that the rest of the patrol were already in their silver and green
Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters equipped with auxiliary fuel drop tanks.

His squadron had been one of the first to get the twin-engined, swallow-tailed Lightnings. Some of the guys didn’t like them,
claiming they weren’t all that agile in a dogfight, but Steven was happy with the plane. Equipped with drop tanks, the P-38
had the extended range to take the fight to the northern end of the Solomon Islands chain, where the Japs were still dug in.
The Lightning was fast and could outclimb and outdive anything the Japs had, and with its single twenty-millimeter cannon
and four fifty-caliber machine guns clustered in its nose the Lightning packed one hell of a knockout punch. With it Steven
had already racked up three victories against Jap Zeros in the two months he’d been here.

Steven hoisted himself up onto the Lightning’s wing and then into the cockpit. He buckled in, called out “Clear!” to the ground
crew, and started his liquid-cooled Allison engines. Steven lowered his canopy and began to roll forward, following Cappy
onto the runway. Once all four airplanes were airborne, the patrol banked out over the immense, sparkling blue Pacific.

Steven had entered the Army last spring. Boot camp had been grueling, but once those initial six weeks of hell were behind
him, things got considerably easier. The toughest thing about Aviation School was keeping himself from showing off. After
all, he already was an experienced fighter pilot and combat veteran.

Upon receiving his wings and his second lieutenant’s single gold bar, he’d requested duty with Cappy’s squadron. Cappy had
called in some old favors to get Steven assigned to the squadron. His father, who had made good on his promise to help get
Steven into flight school, had also used his influence to get Steven his choice of duty assignment.

Steven smiled to himself as he looked down at the green dot in the blue and silver ocean that was Savo Island. His father
still hadn’t stopped grumbling over the fact that he was pulling strings to get his son
into
combat. Too bad he hadn’t been willing to do the same for Blaize. Weird how the world worked: if his dad had been willing,
Blaize would have entered combat months earlier, would have been assigned to a different unit, and might still be alive.

Steven, lost in brooding reveries concerning Blaize, was startled by Cappy’s voice crackling over the radio.

“Rat-a-tat, kid. You’re dead—”

Steven craned his neck to look behind him. Cappy was sitting on his tail.

“At least you’d be dead if I were a Jap,” Cappy added. “What’s your story, Steven? It’s not like you to let anybody sneak
up on you like this. You still thinking about that letter from home? Over.”

“I guess I am. Over,” Steven said.

“Kid, a man measures himself in combat not just by how he confronts the possibility of his own death, but also by how he deals
with the deaths of other people. People he cares about. Over.”

Steven thought about it as the patrol approached Russell Island’s thick jungle coastline. He keyed his throat mike. “You know
something, Cappy? War sucks, over.”

“MacArthur will be so pleased to hear that you agree with him.” Cappy chuckled.

“Hey, you guys, we’ve got company, heading east,” one of the other pilots cut in.

Steven looked and saw sunlight glinting off a swarm of specks heading toward the Jap air base on Rabaul.

“I don’t think they’ve seen us. All right, everyone. Drop your auxiliary tanks and let’s get some altitude on those babies,”
Cappy said. “Let’s go, cowboys! Steven, you’re my wingman.”

The patrol split into two pairs as Steven pulled back on his stick to follow Cappy. They leveled off and increased their speed,
gradually overtaking the Japs.

They were Zekes: Mitsubishi-built Zero-Sen single-engine fighters. There were six of them, flying in two rows of three abreast.
Their red rising sun insignia shimmered like blood blisters on their burnished silver wings.

“Steven and I go first,” Cappy said, pushing his Lightning over into a whistling attack dive toward the rear trio of Zeros.
Steven followed him down, picking out a target as the Jap formation spotted them and split apart. Cappy’s guns caught one
of the Zeros before he could decide which way to go.

That was always a bad mistake, Steven thought as he watched the enemy fighter leak smoke and fall toward the sea. It was better
to just
go
when somebody bounced you. Decide which way later.

Steven went after his own Zero, which was twisting like a hooked trout, trying to get away. Steven stayed on the Jap’s tail,
and each time the enemy plane appeared in his sights Steven blipped his triggers. His fifty-caliber tracer rounds were raising
sparks off the Zero’s fuselage, and then his cannon shells caught the Zero’s cockpit. Steven saw shards from the Plexiglas
canopy go spinning away, sparkling in the sunlight. His target abruptly seemed to stand on its tail, and then slide sideways,
going into a spin. There was no smoke and no fire. Watching the Zero splash down, Steven figured that he must have hit the
pilot.

Four kills
, Steven thought.
Just one more, and I’m an ace
—

He looked up and around and saw that the other two Lightnings were each accounting for an enemy plane. Steven was banking
his own Lightning, prior to climbing for altitude to get back into the battle, when Cappy’s voice filled his cockpit.

“Jesus Christ, Steven! Look alive! You’ve got one on your tail!”

Steven didn’t look to see where the Jap was, he just wrenched his stick hard to the left, hoping like hell that he was making
the right choice. As the Lightning slipped sideways he felt it being pelted and saw sparks like fireflies lifting off his
own wings. His starboard engine began smoking. The Zero was chewing him up!

“Get him off me, someone!” Steven yelled as Jap tracers slid past his canopy like fiery worms. The Plexiglas splintered, and
he felt white heat slicing into his left thigh. His leg went numb.

“I’m hit, I’m hit,” he announced, feeling strangely calm as his lap began filling with blood.

He looked behind him and saw the Zero that had gotten him break off its attack. He watched the Jap veer past in a shallow
dive, and then bank to the right in preparation for climbing to look for another target.

“You want to be an ace, too, is that it, buddy?” Steven murmured to the Jap. “You’re in too much of a hurry, pal. You shouldn’t
let a little smoke fool you like that.”

Steven grimaced with pain as he worked his rudder pedals. He wondered how bad his leg was. He sure didn’t want to lose it.
Look on the bright side
, he thought to himself.
You probably aren’t going to live long enough for them to amputate
.

The Lightning’s controls were sluggish and his smoking engine was sputtering, but the blessing of a twin-engined fighter was
that its second engine gave you a second chance. Steven managed to bring the plane around in a gradual banking turn that put
him on an approach to the Zero’s tail. Now if he could only close the gap before the Jap started to climb.

The Jap evidently spotted him and panicked. That was the break that Steven needed. The Jap tried to climb too steeply, almost
stalling his airplane. He recovered, but that little bit was all Steven needed to close in.

The smoke spewing from the Lightning’s shot-up engine was blowing across Steven’s windscreen, making it hard to see, but when
he caught a glimpse of the Zero less than a hundred yards in front of him he pressed his triggers and kept them pressed.

The smoke enveloping Steven’s canopy lifted for an instant, and he saw his tracers and cannon rounds streaking past the Zero’s
port wing. He jerked his stick to the right. The tracers drifted sideways with him, catching the Zero and chewing off its
wing. An instant later the crippled fighter disappeared in a blossom of orange flame.

“I’m an ace!” Steven shouted happily, just as his starboard engine coughed and died and his port engine began to sputter.
He quickly became preoccupied with his own troubles. The ocean was coming up fast. Steven leveled off, skimming the waves.
If he didn’t mash down just right, he was going to be a dead ace.

“Sorry we couldn’t help you out,” Cappy said in a burst of static. “But at the moment we were all a little busy.”

“Did you see it?” Steven asked.

“Yeah, I saw both your kills go down. They’re confirmed. Congrats, kid. For the second time in your life you’ve become an
ace. But this time it’s official. Steady now. Get your nose up. It’s almost time for you to mash it.”

The spray was glistening on his windscreen as Steven nudged the Lightning’s nose up a trifle.

“We got all the other Zeros, so don’t worry,” he heard Cappy say. “Air rescue is on the way kid, so—” The radio went dead.
Shorted out, Steven guessed.

He let the Lightning drop another few feet and then skipped her like a flat stone across the surface of the ocean, finally
mashing her down. She was filling up with water as he shoved open his canopy and threw out his life raft. The yellow raft
inflated and began bobbing in the white froth.