Cassada (4 page)

“Black, go Channel One,” Cassada finally said.

“That's better.”

They had no further trouble. Grace behind, they taxied out. Many eyes were on them casually, some like Isbell's, attentive. Together the planes lined up on the runway, black smoke mounting behind them, and then the first plane began to roll, slowly at first, then faster, Grace, in the chase plane, close behind. The powerful sound, as thick as if it were metal, lay over everything.

Grace, responsible for the supervision on this first flight, watched the arrowy shape in front of him lift and leave the ground with a slight unsteadiness. He saw the gear retract, the flaps, and the speed increase. He was connected to the plane ahead by a single filament finer than silk and no stronger: the invisible link that carried his voice. Usually he said little. There were pilots who, like women, talked a lot on the radio, but Grace said only what was necessary. He was highly regarded as a pilot and as the only flight commander below the rank of captain. He watched as Cassada climbed and at altitude began the stalls. Straight ahead, in a left turn, a right. Then the steep turns. Whatever the card said—there was not much on that first one.

Grace was flying off to the side and began a gradual turn away when Cassada had finished. “OK, join up, Black Two,” he said.

He watched as the other plane, closing too fast, swept above him, banking steeply. Its speed brakes came out. Grace continued a gentle turn. The other plane had dropped back and hung there on the inside, trying to cut him off. It took a long time. Grace saw what the trouble was. “Speed brakes,” he called.

They were pulled in right away. A few moments later, not to Grace's surprise, Cassada went sailing past.

“Settle down,” Grace said.

Finally Cassada came into close formation. Grace let him establish
himself and then began a turn, and another. Cassada stayed in position. Grace made them steeper. Eventually they were vertical, even beyond. Then he pulled up so Cassada was looking into the sun and held it there while the airspeed drained away. He rolled onto one wing and headed down. At about five hundred knots he began a hard turn, steady and solid. Cassada stayed in close.

“Let's try some trail,” Grace said.

He watched as Cassada dropped back and swung in behind.

“Closer. About half a ship-length.”

He was looking up into the rear-view mirror, and after some moments Cassada's wingtips appeared which meant he was in the right position, but then they fell away. He waited until they returned, easing back in, not too steady but remaining there. Watching them he made a turn, first one way, then the other, then pulled the nose up and did a roll. The wingtips were visible until just at the end. They vanished but came quickly back. Grace did the same thing again, making the turns faster. The wingtips bobbed but stayed in sight.

In Grace could be found all the qualities desired in a flight commander, or almost all. He was levelheaded and able and judged the men around him by a single standard, so simple it was sublime: could they fly? He did not put himself above them save in this one regard. It was the one thing that mattered.

He had almost forgotten who he was flying with. He dropped the nose and let it build up speed. The wingtips were jerking. Grace pulled up sharply and continued, straight up, onto his back. Just past the top of the loop, as he expected, the ship behind him fell back. He finished the loop and waited for Cassada to move in again. Then he did another. It was about the same. He rocked his wings and waited. Cassada slid to the side and slowly pulled into close formation. Grace said,

“How much fuel do you have?”

The reply was garbled. He asked a second time. He heard, “Twelve hundred pounds.”

“Go ahead and practice your landing pattern,” Grace instructed.

At ten thousand feet, well above the ground, Cassada did two of them. They looked good.

“All right, take us back to the field,” Grace said.

They were to the south of it. Cassada first headed west but soon corrected. With Grace trailing behind, he found the field and entered the pattern and instead of landing made the required go-around, requesting closed traffic.

“You're cleared for closed pattern and landing,” the tower replied.

One after the other the two planes came down and landed. Isbell was watching from mobile control. He drove in to talk to Grace afterwards.

“The landing was good,” he said. “How was he in the air?”

“Not too bad.”

“No difficulties? Nothing dangerous?”

“No. He'll be all right, I think. I'll take him.”

“We haven't decided about that,” Isbell said. “Where is he, anyway?”

Someone came around the side of Maintenance, arms held out oddly like a shirt on a clothesline. The flying suit, clinging and wet, was sheathed against his legs and chest. It was Cassada. He'd gotten sick to his stomach while in the air and in the midst of things had thrown up, catching it in one of his flying gloves but afterwards it spilled. He'd been in the latrine trying to wash himself off, but the smell was still there.

“What happened?” Grace said.

“I'm OK.”

“Go on back to the quarters and change,” Isbell said.

“I'm all right,” Cassada repeated. His face was grey.

“I'll fill out a card,” Grace said. “There's not that much to say. It's an easy flight. You waited a little too long after takeoff, let the airspeed build too much before you began your climb. Do you have any comments?”

Cassada's teeth had begun to chatter lightly in the cold.

“What a great plane,” he said with enthusiasm. “It really is! When you were doing those rolls it was just so smooth. I know I was a little ragged . . .”

“Rolls?” Isbell said. There was silence. “For Christ's sake, Grace.”

Grace looked at the ground and rubbed the tip of his nose with a thumb.

“Did you offer to help the crew chief clean up the cockpit?” Isbell said to Cassada. “Better go do that.”

Cassada said, “Yes, sir.”

When he had gone, Isbell said, “Bob.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had more confidence in you than that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what I expect of you?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don't. If you knew, you'd never do a stupid thing like that. What do you know about whether this man can fly or not? You don't. That's what the transition missions are for. If the major found out about this he'd take away your flight.”

“Captain, I'm sorry. It wasn't good judgement. He seemed to be doing pretty well and I just got carried away.”

“You don't understand something.”

Grace did not reply.

“I trust you,” Isbell said. “I trust you will do the right thing. Don't make me think I've made a mistake.”

“No, sir.”

“I'm not going to say anything to the major. You better make sure nobody else does.”

Cassada was carrying a bucket of water towards the parked planes when Grace caught up with him.

“Hey!”

Cassada stopped. “Gee, I'm sorry,” he said. He sneezed. “I didn't realize what I was saying.”

“The next time don't just blurt out the first thing that comes to you.”

“I'm really sorry,” Cassada said again. His hair was wet and lying flat.

“Another thing. Don't mention this. I mean that. To nobody. We'll both be out of here.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, OK.”

There was already a bond.

In the mess Wickenden sat smoking a cigarette after breakfast, his habit. He had others, all well defined like the clapping of the top of his Zippo lighter, opening it and clapping it shut again a number of times, a sort of overture before he spoke. The lighter was from his old squadron, the case enameled in yellow and black squares. Now that was a squadron, the display of it seemed to say, the yellow and black checkered squadron, and he was like a spider, waiting for the tremor that would be one of them asking about it.

He had a firm jaw and the fate of having been born in the wrong century. The cavalry was what he was made for, riding in the dust of the Mexican border with cracked lips and a line edged into his hair from the strap of a campaign hat. Even at that he would have been longing for the old days.

He sat by himself, the tray in front of him. Wick the prick. You can give them all haircuts, he liked to say, teach them to salute, and call them gentlemen, but what does that mean? Good pay, the best equipment in the world, and with all that they still have the guts to
complain. What are they getting out of the Air Force they want to know? Their cavities filled for one thing.

At the next table he could see the squadron commander, what passed for one, looking fatherly and listening to what had happened the night before at some bar. The ones who weren't married chasing after waitresses. Sirens, to hear them talk. Goddesses, skin like milk. Ferguson was one of them. And Godchaux, naturally.

Then, hair bent the wrong way from sleeping on it, in came the new man. He went through the food line and found a place to sit. Head bent forward, he began to eat.

“I like to see my pilots putting away a good breakfast,” Dunning commented.

Cassada, unaware, kept eating and as he did, smoothed his hair.

“Ah, Lieutenant Cassada,” Dunning said.

Cassada's head came up. “Sir?”

“I said I like to see my pilots eat a good breakfast before they go up. But in your case I don't know.”

There were some snickers.

“Are you scheduled to fly again this morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe you'd better just have some coffee then. Oh, I forgot. Tea.”

Cassada tried to smile. He wasn't sure whether or not to stop eating.

Wickenden, sitting alone, watched it all. They'd turn him into a fighter pilot, all right. If he had the stuff. He'd walk into the briefing room one day like the rest of them with a rolled-up newspaper in his back pocket and picking his teeth. Gentlemen all and the world's best.

“Go ahead and finish your breakfast,” Isbell said when the major had gone. “He was only pulling your leg.”

“I'm . . . it's OK,” Cassada said.

“Go ahead and have your breakfast.”

Cassada looked at him for a moment with a cool, unbothered eye. Then he looked away.

“That's all right, Captain,” he said.

Wickenden saw it clearly. More than clearly. He could see right through this one.

The first Saturday night after coming home there was a party at the club. Nearly everyone came. Mayann Dunning was sitting at the bar when Dumfries and his wife in what looked like her communion dress came in. They were almost the last ones and wandered along the big table trying to decide which places were taken.

“We're late,” Dumfries said to Mayann. “Where is everybody?”

“In the other room.”

“What's going on?”

“Yes, what's happening?” Laurie asked in a little voice.

“They got a new singer while you were away,” Mayann said. “At least that's what she's supposed to be.”

“Aren't you going in?” Dumfries asked.

“No, I've already seen her.”

“I guess I'll have a look.”

“Where are you going?” Laurie asked.

“I'll be right back.”

“We just got here.”

“Let him go,” Mayann said. “You wouldn't want him to miss it, would you?”

She and Dunning had met in college. She was, at the time, grey-eyed and unknowable though not shy. She was the daughter of a pharmacist and had been given the combined name of both grandmothers. She had inherited, in addition, her mother's outspokenness, one might even say boldness. It was known that she had remarked of the wing commander's wife that she would be a wonderful woman if she ever told the truth. Had this reached the wrong ears it could have been damaging. Some things are unpardonable but Mayann was bored.

She should have been born a man, she often felt, been one of them instead of talking all the time about how terrible the maids were and why didn't they shave under their arms. She should have had hard legs to swagger on and slim hips.

Laurie had resigned herself to sitting with Mrs. Dunning who she felt looked down on her somehow although it should have been the other way around, the things you heard. It was not long before the music stopped and everyone began coming back in. Two drinks in one hand and a cigar in the other, wearing a string tie and an expression of amusement, Dunning came to the bar. He set one of the drinks, the ice in it nearly melted, in front of his wife.

“Did you get enough of it?” she said.

“Ho, ho,” he said.