The Intruders (15 page)

He had never told anyone about the sharks. The thought of being down
there with them made him nauseated. And at night, when he couldn’t see.
Of course he would be bleeding somewhere. Nobody ever ejected without
getting cut some how. Blood in the water, trying to keep from drowning
-War Ace Five Two One, Your signal charley.” -Five Two one,” Jake
acknowledged bitterly, then bit his lip- He should have told the brass
to go to hell and bingoed.

First came ten degrees of flaps, Which had to be- lowered electrically.
Linked to the flaps were the slats on the leading edge of the wing; they
also came out. The flaps and slats changed the shape of the wings and
allowed them to develop Will lift at lower airspeeds. They also added
drag, slo 9 the plane.

Next came the hook. Jake merely pulled the handle and made sure the
transition light disappeared.

The intruder was slowing … 17( … 160 … 150 …

“Here goes nothing,” he told Flap as he lowered the gm handle to the
gear down position, then rotated the ]mob on the end ninety degrees and
pulled it out. The up-UP-UP indications on the panel barber-P(led.

He waited. He could feel the drag increasing on the Plane, could see
his airspeed decreasing, and added power. The fitel-flow tapes surged
upward.

C’mon, baby. Give me three down indications. Please!

The nose gear locked down first. Two seconds later the mains locked
down. Seventeen hundred pounds of fuel left in the main bag.

“They’re down,” he announced to Flap and God and whoever else was
listening.

Approach controller was giving him a steer.

“Hell!” Flap exclaimed disgustedly between calls from the controller,
“it wasn’t even close. We don’t even have a low fuel light.” The low
fuel warning light would come On at about 1,360 pounds.

“We aren’t down yet,” Jake Pointed Out”Oh ye of little faith, take note.
We’re almost down-”

Jake concentrated on flying the plane, staying on speed, smoothly
intercepting the glide path. He was carrying less power than normal
since the speed brakes were inoperative after the hydraulic failure, and
while this saved a few gallons of gasoline, it caused its own problems.
If he got high, retarding the throttles would be less effective than
usual-the plane would tend to float.

He saw the ball two miles out. At a mile he called, “Five Two One,
Intruder ball, One Point Four.”

“Roger ball. Paddles has you. Looking good . . . fly the ball!”

The meatball began to rise above the datums and he pulled power
aggressively while watching that angle-of-attack needle.

Paddles was talking to him. “Power back on … too much, off a little
… No, little more … lineup …”

Any second would come the burble, the swirl of air disturbed by the
ship’s island. He anticipated it just a smidgen on the power and didn’t
have to slam on too much, then he was quick to get it off.

Coming across the ramp the airspeed decayed a tad and the ball began to
sink.

“Power!” shouted the LSO.

Slam! The wheels hit. Throttles to the stops … and the welcome,
tremendous jerk as the hook snagged a wire.

“Two wire, I think,” Flap told him.

Jake didn’t care. A huge sigh of relief flooded through him.

Here came the yellow-shirts. He raised the flaps and slats electrically
while they chocked the plane, then cut the engines.

They were back.

Walking across the flight deck with their helmet bags in their hands,
with the warm sea wind on their wet hair, the firm steel deck beneath
their flight boots, Flap repeated, “It wasn’t even close.”

No, Jake Grafton acknowledged to himself, it wasn’t. Not tonight. But
a man can’t have luck all the time, and someday when he reached into
that tiny little bag where he kept his luck, the bag would be empty. A
hold-back bolt would break T HE IN T RUDER S

at the wrong time, a taxiing plane would skid into another, the airborne
tanker would go sour, the weather would be bad . . . some combination
of evil things would conspire against the man aloft and push him over
the edge. Jake Grafton, veteran of more than 340 cat shots and arrested
landings, knew that it could happen to him. He knew that as well as he
knew his name. ghtrope The brass had taken the net from under the ti
when they didn’t let him bingo, and he was infuriated and disgusted with
himself for letting them do it.

I think Jake wrote to Callie that night, that a man’s fate is not in his
control. We are under the illusion that we can control our destinies,
that the choices we make do make a difference, but they don’t. Chance
rules our lives. Chance, ou wish to call it.–sets the hook and fate
fortune-whatever y pulls the string and we quiver and flail; jerk and
fight.

Maybe pray. much. I do it anyway, just I don’t think praying helps
very in case. I ask Him to be with me when I fall.

THERE ARE FEW THINGS IN LIFE MORE SATISFYING TI-IAN TO BE accepted as an
equal in a fraternity of fighting men. Jake Grafton was so accepted
now, and this morning when he entered the ready room he was greeted by
name by the men there, who asked him about his adventures of the
previous evening and listened carefully to his comments. They laughed,
consoled him, and joked about the predicament he had found himself in
last night. Several refused to believe, they said, that the main dump
valve had failed: he had forgotten to secure it and was now trying to
cover his sin by appealing to their naivete. All this was in good fun
and was cheerfully accepted as such by Jake Grafton. He belonged.

He was a full member of this aristocracy of Inerit, with impeccable
credentials. Ms mood improved with each passing minute and soon he was
his usual self.

He and his Marine colleagues inspected the board that recorded the
pilots’ landing grades. Jake’s grades for his qualification landings
were not displayed there, so like most of them, he had only two landings
so far this cruise, an OK 3-wire and a fair 2-wire.

The bombing poster was more complicated, displaying the CEP of each
crew, and to settle ties, the number of bull’s-eyes. Jake ranked fourth
in the Squadron here. Today he was scheduled to go to the target with
twelve five-hundred pounders, so perhaps he could better his standing.

He had a secret ambition to be the best pilot in the squadron in
landings and bombing and everything else, but he shared that ambition
with everyone so it wasn’t much of a secret. Still, it wasn’t a thing
that you talked about. You tried your very best at everything you did,
glanced at the rankings, fiercely resolved to do better, and went on
about your business. The rankings told you who was more skilled-“more
worthy” was the phrase used by the Real McCoy a day or two before-than
you were.

The LSO regarded intrasquadron competition with goodnatured contempt.
“Games for children,” he grumped. But Jake noticed now that McCoy’s
name was in the top half of the rankings on both boards.

This morning there was mail, the first in six days. A cargo plane
brought it out from Hickam Field, trapped aboard, then left with full
mail sacks from the ship’s post office. Two hours later the mail was
distributed throughout the ship.

Jake got three letters from Callie, one from his folks, and something
from the commanding officer of Attack Squadron 128 in an official,
unstamped envelope. He shuffled Tiny Dick Donovan’s missive-probably
some piece of official foolscap from a yeoman third in the Admin
Office–to the bottom of the pile. Callie’s letters came first.

She was taking classes at the University of Chicago, working on her
master’s degree. Her brother and her parents were fine. The weather
was hot and muggy. She missed him.

I think that it is important for you to decide what you wish to do with
your life. This is a decision that every man must make for himself, and
every woman.

To make this decision because you hope to please an other is to make it
for the wrong reason. We each owe duties to our families, when we
acquire them, but we also owe a duty to ourselves to make our lives
count for something. To love another person is not enough.

I have thought a great deal about this these last few weeks. Like every
woman, I want to love. I feel as if I have this great gift to
give-myself. I want to be a wife and mother. Oh, how I could love some
man!

And I want the man I love to love me. To have a man who would return
the love I have to give is my great ambition.

I have dated boys, known boys of all ages, and I do not want to marry
one.

I want to marry a man. I want a man who believes in what he is doing,
who goes out the door every day to make a contribution-in business, in
academia, in government, somewhere. I want a man who will love not just
me, but life itself. I want a man who will stand up to the gales of
life, who won’t bend with every squall, who will remain true to himself
and those who believe in him, a man who can be counted on day after day,
year after year.

An hour later, after he had reread Callie’s letter three times and
lingered over the one from his parents, he opened the official letter.
In it he found a copy of his last fitness report, bearing Donovan’s
signature. In the text Donovan wrote:

Lieutenant Grafton is one of the most gifted aviators I have ever met in
my years in the naval service. In every facet of flying, he is the
consummate professional.

As a naval officer, Lieutenant Grafton shows extraordinary promise, yet
he has not made the commitment to give of himself as he must if he is to
fulfill that promise.

There was more, a lot more, most of it the usual bullshit required by
custom and instruction, such as a comment upon his support of the Navy’s
equal opportunity goals and programs. Jake merely skimmed this treacle,
then returned to -the meat: “. . . has not yet made the commitment to
give of himself as he must if he is to fulfill that promise.”

A pat on the back immediately followed by a kick in the pants. His
first reaction was anger, which quickly turned to cold fury. He stalked
from the ready room and went to his stateroom, where he opened his desk
and seized pen and paper. He began a letter to Commander Donovan. He
would write a bullet that would skewer the son of a bitch right through
the heart.

What kind of half-assed crack was that? Not committed to being a good
naval officer? Who the hell did that jerk Donovan think he was talking
about anyway?

Even before he completed his first sentence, the anger began leaking
from him. Donovan had said nothing about the Sea-Tac adventure, didn’t
even mention that the promising Lieutenant Grafton had punched out a
windy blowhard and thrown him ass over tea kettle through a plate glass
window, then spent a weekend in jail. Perhaps his comments dealt
strictly with the performance of Jake’s duties at the squadron. No, he
must have meant that comment to cover the Sea-Tac debacle in addition to
everything else. Worse, Donovan was right-a more Committed, thinking
officer would not have done it. A wiser man … well, he wouldn’t have
either.

Jake threw down the pen and rubbed his face in frustration.

Were Callie and Dick Donovan talking about the same thing?

“Man, you should have seen ol’ Jake last night,” Flap Le Beau told his
fellow Marines. “Both the you’re-gonna-die lights pop on bright as
Christmas going’ down the cat, and this guy handled it like he was in a
simulator. Cool as ice.

just sat there doin’ his thing. Me-I was shakin’ like a dog shittin’
razor blades. I ain’t been so scared since the teacher caught me with
my hand up Susie Bulow’s skirt back in the sixth grade.”

There were eight of them, four crews, and they had just finished a
briefing for another flight to the Kahoolawe target.

This time they were carrying real ordnance, twelve five-hundred-pound
bombs on each plane. After they had reviewed how the fuses and arming
wires should look on the bomb racks, the crews stood and stretched. That
was when Flap took it on himself to praise his pilot to the heavens.

Jake was embarrassed. He had been frightened last night, truly scared,
and Flap’s ready room buff puckey struck a sour note. Still, Jake kept
his mouth shut. This was neither the time nor place to brace Flap about
his mouth.

He got out of his chair and went over in the corner to check his
mailbox. Nothing. He gazed at the posters on the wall as if
interested, trying to shut out Flap, who was expanding upon his theme:
Jake Grafton was one cool dude.

One of the pilots, Rory Smith, came over and dug a sheet of official
trash out of his mailbox, something he was supposed to read and initial.
“Flap gets on your nerves, does he?” he asked, his voice so soft it was
barely audible. He scribbled his initials in the proper place and
shoved the paper into someone else’s box.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t sweat it. To hear him tell it, every guy he flies with is the
best who ever stroked a throttle. He was saying that in the ready room
about his last stick five minutes before he was down in the skipper’s
stateroom complaining that the guy was dangerous. You just have to take
him with a grain of salt.”

Jake grinned at Rory.

“Everybody else does,” the Marine said, then wandered off toward the
desk where the maintenance logs on each aircraft were kept. Jake
followed him.

Smith helped himself to the book for 511, the plane Jake had flown into
an in-flight engagement.

“Gonna fly it today, huh?” Jake said.

“Yeah,” Smith said. “The gunny says it’s fixed. We’ll see’ “It’ll
probably go down on deck,” Jake pointed out.

“Down” in this context meant a maintenance problem that precluded
flight. “Since I bent it,” he continued, “I’ll fly it if you want to
trade planes.”

“Well, I’m one of the maintenance check pilots and they gave it to me.”