The Fly Boys (42 page)

“Steve, I can’t shake mine—” DeAngelo said.

Mikey’s voice was sounding reedy; he was scared. Like he was near crying.
He never wanted in on this
, Steve thought, feeling guilty.

“Dive!” Steve called to DeAngelo. “Get low, where you’ve got the advantage!”

“I can’t! I’d give him a clear shot at me. He’s real close, this son of a bitch. I haven’t seen aerial combat maneuvers like
this since I was up against the Luftwaffe. Oh, he’s good, whoever he is.
North Korean trainees, huh
?” Steve could hear DeAngelo’s sarcastic sneer.

“Oh, shit! He’s on my six again. He’s sticking to me like he’s glued there! I’m taking hits!”

Steve desperately wanted to look around for Mikey, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off his own MiG, which was jinking around
in a series of random turns and skids, trying to spoil Steve’s aim long enough for it to get some altitude, where the MiG’s
superior speed might get it out of gun range. It might have worked, Steve thought, but all dogfights cost altitude, and this
one had dropped down to 15,000 feet. Down here the heavier F-80 had the speed advantage, and Steve was too good a shot. As
the F-80’s guns continued to hammer sparks off the MiG, Steve guessed that the commie pilot must have concluded that the way
things were going, he was not going to last long enough to get back up to 25,000, where he could have things his way.

Abruptly the MiG broke to port and went into a spiral dive. Steve put himself in the commie’s shoes and immediately guessed
what the MiG pilot had in mind. The Red was hoping that Steve would try to stay on his tail, forgetting that in a dive the
heavier Shooting Star would automatically increase its velocity and, hopefully, overshoot.

Nice try, pal
, Steve thought as he abandoned his position on the MiG’s six, and threw his heavier Shooting Star into an even steeper angle
of descent. The negative G-force drove the blood up into his brain, and his vision began to go red-out, but the punishing
dive allowed him to gain on the MiG. He pulled up for another try at the MiG’s belly and managed to stitch holes along its
silvery gut from nose to tail. He finally must have hit something important, because the aircraft began to flounder, leaking
black smoke from its tailpipe. The MiG pilot blew his canopy and bailed out.

Steve came up and around in a vertical climb aileron turn, spinning 360 degrees like a top in order to look for DeAngelo.
At twenty thousand feet Steve saw his wingman maybe two miles away, still being pursued by the MiG.

“Hang on, Mike! I’m coming!”

Steve pulled out of his climb and cobbed the throttle for maximum speed. Behind him the MiG he’d killed had brushed a bold
slash of smoke diagonally across the sky as it fell. Its pilot was wafting down beneath his deployed chute.

As Steve streaked toward DeAngelo, he saw Mike roll into a spiral dive.

“Good move, Mikey!” Steve radioed. “Be ready to wax him.”

As the MiG overshot the F-80, DeAngelo reversed his direction with a roll, pulling up in perfect position to lock on to the
climbing MiG’s tail.

“Nice flying!” Steve roared, relieved and elated. “Now get him, Mikey!”

But DeAngelo broke away from the MiG. He was trying to run.

He never wanted any part of this fight
, Steve reminded himself sadly.
He hasn’t got the killer instinct anymore
.

Within moments the MiG had come around to again lock on to DeAngelo’s six-o’clock position.

DeAngelo may have lost his killer instinct, but he’s up against a born killer
, Steve realized as he watched the MiG begin to squeeze off rounds from its nose-mounted trio of one 37-millimeter cannon
and twin 23-millimeter guns. The MiG’s cannons had a slower rate of fire than machine guns, but each hit counted more, especially
when its target had lost its nerve and refused to take any evasive maneuvers as it tried to escape.

The irony of the situation was not lost on Steve. It was DeAngelo who had reverted to a trainee’s behavior of crouching within
his armored cockpit and hoping for the best as a clearly superior enemy ravaged him.

I got Mikey into this, damn me
, Steve thought.
I’ve got to get him out
—

But the MiG was still too far away. Steve began firing anyway, in the hope that he might remind the commie that it was two
against one, and in that way scare him off. At the very least, Steve figured his shooting would distract the MiG pilot long
enough for Mike to get some relief.

It didn’t happen. That damned commie in his blue lightning bolt MiG showed steely concentration, taking his time lining up
his shots as he attacked DeAngelo.

Steve saw the cannon rounds striking Mikey’s Shooting Star. Pieces of the airplane were flying off. It began to leak smoke.

“Hang on, Mike, I’m almost there—”

“No good. She’s hurt bad, and so am I…. Shrapnel or something…. I can’t control her. I’m bailing out!”

Steve saw the Shooting Star’s canopy blow off. The commie, to his credit, immediately broke off the attack.

Come on, Mikey, do it! Eject!

The F-80 abruptly vanished in a blossom of flame. Steve stared, horrified, as the fiery rain of wreckage that had been Mike
DeAngelo’s airplane plummeted to earth from out of the oily smudge of smoke that hung in the sky.

There was no sign of Mike.

Steve flew toward the MiG, intent upon killing it. The MiG took the time to do an insolent, eight-point roll in celebration
of its victory, and then it streaked off toward home.

Steve poured it on, but as the commie quickly shrank down to a speck on the horizon he bitterly had to accept the fact that
there was no way he could catch a MiG in a Shooting Star.

He broke off the chase as his low fuel indicator came on. It was now or never to start home if he wanted to land with something
more than fumes in his tank.

As Steve came around, he began broadcasting a Mayday. A Tactical Air Direction station answered the call. Steve identified
himself and his flight, and explained what had happened. He was asked for the coordinates where DeAngelo had gone down. Steve
wearily gave them.

“Did you see a chute?” the TAD operator asked.

“Negative chute,” Steve replied.

“Well, we’ve got Search and Rescue on the horn, Major. They’ll put out a chopper anyway.”

“It’s a waste of SAR’s time,” Steve said.

“There’s always hope,” the TAD man protested.

No, sometimes there isn’t
, Steve thought. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Over and out.”

At eleven
A.M.
on a Sunday morning Steve was the only customer in the officers’ club at Kawon, which was a badly deteriorating tarpaper
shack built on low stilts to protect against flooding during the summer months. Inside, there was a rickety bar and a bunch
of card tables and folding chairs. The windows were covered with cheesecloth curtains, which let in the breeze but still kept
the joint dimly lit. The plywood walls were papered over with pinups and a series of posterboard renditions of the colors
of the various squadrons based at Kawon. The 19th’s orange markings were prominently displayed.

There were no bar stools. Steve stood at the bar, contemplating his bourbon. The Korean national behind the bar was polishing
glasses and steadfastly ignoring him. The Korean had the radio on the shelf behind the bar tuned to a U.S. Army–run station
broadcasting out of Seoul. “Tennessee Waltz” was being sung by Patti Page. The Korean crooned along with Patti whenever she
got to the refrain part about remembering the night. The rest of the lyrics evidently stumped him. He just whistled through
his teeth along with the tune.

Steve knocked back his bourbon, and for the third time gestured to the Korean to fill his glass. While he was waiting, he
lit a Pall Mall off the butt of the one that lay smoldering in the ashtray. The ashtray was made out of pine-green plastic
and in bold white lettering strongly recommended to Steve that he guard against bad breath by chewing “Fresh-OH!” chlorophyll
gum.

The music ended, and the radio announcer came on and began to murmur unintelligibly. Behind Steve a lance of daylight stabbed
into the club and receded as the door closed again.

“Thought I’d find you here, Major.”

Steve looked over his shoulder as his CO, Colonel Billings, came over to the bar. Billings was a barrel-chested, middle-aged
man with pale blue eyes. He had a thick neck that overflowed his shirt collar, a shaved head, and a waxed, handlebar mustache.

Billings slapped a thin manila folder on the bar in front of Steve.

“What’s that? Paperwork, Colonel?”

“Open it and see,” Billings replied.

Steve pulled the folder toward him and opened it, remembering that in his brief stint as squadron CO he’d been saddled with
paperwork. At the time, he’d hated it, but at the moment it didn’t seem all that bad to be stuck behind a desk where the worst
mistake you could make was a typo in a memo. Typos didn’t cost lives….

Steve squinted in the dim light to read the first paragraphs, and then he looked up at Billings. “Sir, this looks like your
report on the incident with the MiGs….”

“It is. Search and Rescue found the remains of DeAngelo’s F-80, and the wreckage of the MiG that you shot down. You’ve got
yourself your first confirmed kill.”

Steve skipped to the last page and quickly skimmed it. “Colonel, I strongly portest the conclusions you’ve reached.”

Billings frowned. “But I’ve totally absolved you concerning the matter of Lieutenant DeAngelo’s death.”

“That’s just it, sir.” Steve, unable to meet Billings’s gaze, stared at his drink, then picked it up and knocked it back.
“It
was
my fault. I killed Mikey. I’m more to blame for his death than that commie.”

The radio began playing “Come On-A My House” by Rosemary Clooney. The Korean broke into a wide grin and hurried to turn up
the volume.

Colonel Billings signaled the bartender. “You got any coffee, son?”

“No coffee,” the Korean said, sounding peeved at the interruption.

“Then how about Coca-Cola?” When the Korean nodded, Billings said, “Two Coca-Colas, then.
Cold
ones, son. And turn down that goddamned radio.”

Sulking, the Korean did as he was told, slamming down the two bottles of pop and stalking away to the far corner of the bar.

Billings threw down some coins. He gathered up the manila folder and the sodas, and said, “Come on, Major, let’s you and me
sit down and discuss this.” He led Steve to a table, and after they were seated, slid a Coca-Cola toward him. “Drink that.
The caffeine will help sober you up.”

“I’m sober, Colonel,” Steve said.

Billings stared at him and then nodded. “Yes, I believe you are….”

“I’ve been trying to get drunk for a couple of days now, but every time I get close, I think about Mikey, and I sober right
up.”

“Okay, Major,” Billings said. “I want you to consider the fact that trying to lay blame on yourself for what happened a couple
of days ago is about as profitable an endeavor as shoveling horse shit into the wind.” He sniffed. “Which you smell like you’ve
been doing. Tell me, Major, when was the last time you took a bath, or had a shave, for that matter?”

“Not since I killed Mikey, I guess,” Steve replied.

Billings scowled. “You keep saying things like that and I’m going to lose my temper, Major, in which case I will have to take
you outside this shithole and boot your ass up and down the airstrip.”

Steve tapped the manila folder. “There’s something in there that’s wrong,” he said. “There’s something you don’t know.”

“What would that be, Major?” Billings demanded skeptically.

“I lied to you. Those MiGs didn’t bounce us. We bounced
them
.”

Billings smiled sadly. “I knew that, son.”

Steve stared. “But how could you have?”

“Two things tipped me off,” Billings began. “First of all, taking into account the coordinates of the dogfight, there was
no way a pair of MiGs would have dropped down into Shooting Star cruising altitude looking for trouble. Those two Reds were
already pretty far south. No way would they have risked their skins chasing you very far at low altitudes, where they would
have been gulping the fuel they would have needed to get home.” He shook his head. “No, the only scenario that held water
was that you and DeAngelo
went looking
for trouble.”

Steve nodded ruefully. “You said two things tipped you off, Colonel. What was the second?”

Billings smiled. “I know
you
, Major. I’ve heard you complain about how unfair it was that F-80s have been restricted from MiG Alley without BroadSword
escort.” Billings smiled. “No way would you have passed up engaging the enemy if the situation presented itself.”

“Okay, then,” Steve shrugged. “If you know that I lied to you, that should make it worse for me.”

“Nah, it doesn’t. You’re not the first F-80 jockey who’s used the old
they
-bounced-
us
dodge.”

“Come on, Colonel!” Steve complained. “I’ve been going nuts about what happened to Mikey. I deserve some kind of punishment.”

“It’s no use, son. You want me to crucify you because that might make the guilt you’re feeling somehow easier to bear. Well,
I’m not going to do it. You’re a good pilot. You
got
your MiG. You fought him on his terms, but you got him.” Billings shook his head. “You’re much too valuable to be thrown
away over this one mistake in judgment on your part.”

“Some ‘mistake in judgment,’” Steve sneered. “I cost a man his life!”

“Nobody forced DeAngelo to follow you.”

“Come on, Colonel!” Steve’s voice rose. “You
know
better than that. Mike was my wingman! He was honor bound to go where I led him, even if his best instincts were against
it.”

“He might still be alive today if he hadn’t lost his nerve up there,” Billings said. He hesitated, his eyes narrowing. “I
presume you
were
telling me the truth when you reported that DeAngelo managed to break free of his MiG, and then passed up the opportunity
to press his own attack.”