The Evening News (14 page)

His voice dropped to a whisper
.”
I was on those raids. The worst thing afterward was at night being surrounded by so many empty beds---of people who didn't come back. In the night, waking up, looking around me, I used to wonder, Why me? Why did I get back-in that week and others after-when so many didn't
?
”

The effect was salutary and moving, causing Sloane to wish he had not
spoken, hadn't tried to score a debater's point against his father. He
said, "I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't realize how much I was opening an old
wound
.”

As if he had not heard, his father went on, "They were good men. So many
good men. So many of my friends
.”

Sloane shook his head
.”
Let's leave it. As I said, I'm sorry
.”

"Gramps
,”
Nicky said. He had been listening intently
.”
When you were in
the war, doing those things, were you frightened very much
?
”

"Oh god, Nicky! Frightened? I was terrified. When the flak was exploding
all around, throwing out razor-sharp hunks of steel that could cut you
into slices . . . when the German fighters swarmed in, with guns and
cannon firing and you always thought they were aiming just at you . .
.
when other B- 17s went down, sometimes in flames or in tight spirals so
you knew the crews could never get out to use their parachutes . . . all
of it at 27,000 feet, in air so cold and thin that if the fear made you
sweat it froze, and even with oxygen you could hardly breathe . . . Well
,
my heart was in my mouth and sometimes, it seemed, my guts too
.”

Angus paused. There was silence in the breakfast room; somehow this was
different from his usual reminiscing. Then he went on, speaking only to
Nicky who was following every word, so there seemed a communion between
the two, the old man and the boy
.”
I'll tell you something, Nicky, and it's something I've never told a
soul before, not anybody in this world. One time I was so scared, I
.”

He glanced around as if appealing for understanding
.”
.I was so scared, I messed my pants
.”

Nicky asked, "What did you do then
?
”

Jessica, concerned for Angus, seemed about to interrupt but Crawford
gestured her to silence
.
The old man's voice strengthened. Visibly, a little of his pride returned
.”
What could I do? I didn't like it, but I was there, so I got on with what
I'd been sent for. I was the group bombardier. When the group commander-he
was our pilot
reached the IP and set us on our target course, he told me
over the intercom, 'It's yours, Angus. Take it.' Well, I was stretched out
over the Norden bombsight and I steadied myself and took my time. For those
few minutes, Nicky, the bombardier flew the airplane. I got the target
exactly in the cross hairs, then the bombs were away. It was the signal to
the group to release theirs too
.”

Angus went on, "So let me tell you, Nicky, there's nothing wrong with being
scared to death. It can happen to the best. What counts is hanging on
,
somehow staying in control and doing what you know you should
.”

"I hear you, Gramps
.”

Nicky's voice was matter-offact and Crawford wondered
how much he had understood. Probably a good deal. Nicky was smart and
sensitive. Crawford also wondered if he himself, in the past, had taken the
trouble to understand as much as he should about his own father
.
He glanced at his watch. It was time to leave. Usually he arrived at CBA
News at 10:30 A.M.; today though, he would be earlier because he wanted to
see the division president about firing Chuck Insen as National Evening
News executive producer. The memory of last night's clash with Insen still
rankled, and Sloane was as determined as ever to ensure changes in the news
selection process
.
He rose from the breakfast table and, excusing himself, went upstairs to
finish dressing
.
Selecting a tie-the same one he would wear on camera that evening-and
carefully tying it in a Windsor knot, he thought about his father
,
envisaging the scenes the old man had described, in the air over
Schweinfurt and else

here. Angus, at that time, would have been in his
early twenties-half Crawford's age now, just a raw kid who had hardly lived
and
was terrified he was about to die, most likely horribly. Certainly not even during his time as a journalist in Vietnam had Crawford endured anything comparable
.
Suddenly he had a pang of conscience for what he had failed to understand
sooner, in any deep or caring way
.
The trouble was, Crawford thought, he was so caught up professionally in
each day's current, breaking news that he tended to dismiss the news of
earlier eras as history and therefore irrelevant to the brimming
,
bustling here and now. That mind-set was an occupational hazard; he had
seen it in others. But the older news was not irrelevant, and never would
be, to his father
.
Crawford was well informed. He had read about the raid on Schweinfurt in
a book, Black Thursday. The author, Martin Caidin, compared the attack
with the "immortal struggles of Gettysburg, St. Mihiel and the Argonne
,
of Midway and the Bulge and Pork Chop Hill
.”

My father, Crawford reminded himself, was a part of that long saga. He
had never viewed that fact before in quite the same perspective as today
.
He put on the jacket of his suit, inspected himself in the mirror, then
,
satisfied with his appearance, returned below
.
He said goodbye to Jessica and Nicky, then approached his father and told
the old man quietly, "Stand up
.”

Angus seemed puzzled. Crawford repeated himself
.”
Stand up
.
Pushing his chair back, Angus slowly rose. Instinctively, as he so often
did, he brought his body to the equivalent of military attention
.
Crawford moved close to his father, put his arms around him, held him
tight, then kissed him on both cheeks
.
The old man seemed surprised and flustered
.”
Hey, hey! What's all this
?
”

Looking him directly in the eye, Crawford said, "I love you, you old
coot
.”

At the doorway, on the point of leaving, he glanced back. On Angus's face
was a small, seraphic smile. Jessica's eyes, he saw, were moist. Nicky
was beaming.
T
he surveillance duo of Carlos and Julio were surprised to see Crawford
Sloane leaving his home by car earlier than usual. They reported the fact
immediately by code to the leader, Miguel
.
By now, Miguel had left the Hackensack operating center and, accompanied by
others in a Nissan passenger van equipped with a cellular phone, was
crossing the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York
.
Miguel was unperturbed. He issued, also in code, the order that prearranged
plans were now in effect, their time of implementation to be advanced if
needed. He reasoned confidently: What they were about to do was the totally
unexpected; it would turn logic upside down, then soon after raise the
frantic question, Why?

At about the same time Crawford Sloane left his Larchmont home to drive to CBA News headquarters, Harry Partridge awakened in Canada-in Port Credit, near Toronto. He had slept deeply and spent the first few moments of the new day wondering where he was. It was a frequent experience because he was used to waking in so many different places
.
As his thoughts arranged themselves he took in familiar landmarks of an
apartment bedroom and knew that if he sat up in bed-which he didn't feel
like doing yet-he would be able to see, through a window ahead, the broad
expanse of Lake Ontario
.
The apartment was one Partridge used as his base, a retreat, and the
nomadic nature of his work meant that he got to it for only a few brief
periods each year. And even though he stored his few possessions here-some
clothes, books, framed photographs, and a handful of mementos from other
times and places
the apartment was not registered in his name. As a card alongside a bell push in the lobby six floors below advised, the official tenant was V. Williams (the V for Vivien), who resided here permanently
.
Every month, from wherever in the world Partridge happened to be, he sent
Vivien a check sufficient to pay the apartment rent and, in return, she
lived here and kept it as his haven. The arrangement, which had other
conveniences including casual sex, suited them both
.

Vivien was a nurse who worked in the Queensway Hospital nearby, and he
could hear her now, moving around in the kitchen. In all probability she
was making tea, which she knew he liked each morning, and would bring it
to him soon. Meanwhile he let his thoughts drift back to the events of
yesterday and the journey the night before on his delayed flight from
Dallas to Toronto's Pearson International . .
.
The experience at DFW Airport had been a professional one which he took
in stride. It was Partridge's job to do what he did, a job for which he
was well paid by CBA News. Yet thinking about it last night and again
this morning, he was conscious of the tragedy behind the surface of the
news. From the latest reports he heard, m
ore than seventy aboard the Mus
kegon Airlines flight lost their lives, with others critically injured
,
and all six people died aboard the smaller airplane that had collided
with the Airbus in midair. Today, he knew, many grief-stricken families
and friends were struggling, amid tears, to cope with their abrupt
bereavement
.

The thought reminded him that there were times when he wished he could
cry too, could shed tears along with others because of things he had
witnessed in his professional life, including perhaps the tragedy of
yesterday. But it hadn't happened--except on one unparalleled occasion
which, as it came to mind, he thrust away. What he did remember was the
first time he ever wondered about himself and his apparent inability to
cry.

Early in his reporting career, Harry Partridge was in Britain when a
tragedy occurred in Wales. It was in Aberfan, a mining
village where a vast pile of coal waste-slurry-slid down a hillside and engulfed a junior school A hundred and sixteen children died
Partridge was on the scene soon after the disaster, in time to see the dead
being pulled out. Each small pathetic body, covered with black
,
evil-smelling sludge, had to be hosed down before it was carted awayfor
identification
.
Around him, watching the same scene, other reporters, photographers
,
police, spectators, were weeping, choking on their tears. Partridge had
wanted to cry too, but couldn't. Sickened but dry-eyed, he had done his
reporting
job and gone away
.
Since then there had been countless other witnessed scenes where there was
cause for tears, but he hadn't cried there either
.
Was there some deficienc
y, some inner coldness in himsel
f? He asked that
question once of a woman psychiatrist
friend, after both of them, following
an evening of drinking, had been to bed together
.
She told him, "There's nothing wrong with you, or you wouldn't care enough
to ask the question
.”
at you have is a defense mechanism which
depersonalizes what you feel. You're banking it all, tucking the emotion
away inside you somewhere. One day everything will overflow, crack open
,
and you'll cry. Oh, how you'll cry
!”