He could tell himself that it was irrational, that he was a better pilot than most people he knew, that the aircraft he was about to fly was perfectly safe, that he had so many hours total time; and he could even remind himself that a study by the University of California had proved beyond reasonable doubt that a cretin (defined as the next step above morons) could be taught to fly; but it didn't work. At that moment- and all those other times-he had a very clear image of the airplane going out of control, smashing into the ground, rolling over, exploding. And it scared him. Sometimes his knees actually trembled. And more than once he had taken his hand from the stick so he could try to hold his shaking knees still.
Today, as he sat there waiting, he reminded himself of the command decision he had made vis-…-vis himself and Lieutenant Bill Dunn: who would fly what and why. Dunn was a good pilot, and he had done something Galloway had not done. He had met the enemy in aerial combat and shot down two airplanes. Galloway believed that there was no way to vicariously experience what it was like to have someone shooting at you.
That did not change, however, his belief that good pilots were a product of two qualities: natural ability and experience. He really believed that he was a better natural pilot than Dunn, and there was no question that he had much more experience.
The mission of VMF-229 at the moment was to become operational, which is to say its eighteen F4F-4 Wildcats and their pilots had to be made ready to go where the squadron was ordered to go, and to do what the squadron was ordered to do.
All his pilots were of course rated as Naval Aviators. Someone in authority had decreed that they were qualified to fly. But with Galloway's certain and Bill Dunn's possible exception, the pilots VMF-229 had so far were for all practical purposes novices. They were highly intelligent young men in superb physical condition who had passed through a prescribed course of training. But none of them had been flying for more than a year; and none of them, so far as Galloway had been able to determine, had ever been in trouble in the air.
And they were all impressed with Lieutenant Bill Dunn- understandably... if, in Galloway's judgment, rather naively. Dunn had been in combat, and he'd been hit and wounded, and he'd returned alive and with two kills.
All the same, just as soon as Big Steve Oblensky was able to make flyable two of the Wildcats they had trucked to Ewa from the docks at Pearl Harbor, Galloway flew against Dunn in half a dozen mock dogfights. He had no trouble outmaneuvering him the first time out, or the second, or the third; and he was starting to wonder if he should, so to speak, throw a dogfight, because consistently whipping Dunn was likely to humiliate him.
Then he thought that through and realized that humiliating Dunn was precisely the thing he should do. As the privates in a rifle squad should think, believe, that their sergeant was the best fucking rifle shot in the company, so should the lieutenant pilots of a fighter squadron believe that The Skipper was the best fucking airplane driver in Marine Aviation.
That policy seemed to have worked out well, even better than Galloway foresaw. For one thing, Dunn wasn't impressed with his own heroic accomplishment at Midway. So he was not humiliated when he was bested by a pilot who'd been flying when he was trying out for the junior varsity football team in high school.
For another, as the other pilots drifted into the squadron, Dunn let each of them know that The Skipper was really one hell of a pilot. Coming as it did from a pilot who had been wounded and scored two kills at Midway, Dunn's opinion was taken as Gospel.
And Galloway didn't let either himself or Dunn sit and rest on their accomplishments. He believed the simple old Marine Corps adage that the best way to learn something was to teach it. So he had Dunn up all the time teaching techniques of aerial combat and gunnery to the kids, honing his own skills in the process, and picking up time, which meant experience.
As for Galloway, whenever possible he did the test flying himself-simply because he was the best qualified pilot to do it. Most test flights were simply routine. If everything worked, they could be flown by one of the University of California's cretins. It was only when something went wrong that experience became important. An experienced pilot often sensed when something was about to go wrong, and so he could act to reduce the risk to the airplane before things went seriously bad. Even when some major system failed unexpectedly, an experienced pilot could often recover, and put the airplane back on the ground in one piece, while a pilot without his experience was likely not only to get himself killed, but to send the airplane to the junkyard, as well.
No aircraft assigned to VMF-229 had been lost-or even seriously damaged-during test flights. In Galloway's view this was a pretty good record... especially when you considered that three times the test pilot-C. M. Galloway- had lost power on take-off: When the fan of a Wildcat stopped spinning, the Wildcat didn't want to fly anymore; as soon as the power quit, the nose got heavy, and it started to stall. (Although the manual usually read like a sales brochure for Grumman, it nevertheless warned-in small print-that the aircraft became "excessively nose heavy in a power loss situation.") And then, even if you could keep it from stalling by getting it into a glide, the Wildcat sank like a rock.
Despite all that, Galloway somehow managed to bring each of those three aircraft down without cracking up the aircraft or the test pilot.
And so as Galloway sat there in the cockpit of the Wildcat he was testing that afternoon, cleared by the tower as Number One for take-off, and with all the needles in the green, it started to hit him that his anxious feelings, viewed objectively, just might be pretty goddamned ridiculous.
Captain Galloway pressed his mike button.
"Ewa," he said confidently, "Five Niner Niner. I'm experiencing a little roughness and low oil pressure. I want to check it out a moment."
"Roger, Five Niner Niner. Do you wish to leave the threshold at this time?"
"Five Niner Niner, negative. I think I'll be all right in a minute."
It would be a mistake I would regret all my life, correction, for all eternity, however the fuck long that is, if I took this bird off and crashed inflames with a letter from my girlfriend I hadn't read in my pocket.
He put his finger in his mouth, caught the index finger of the pigskin glove on his right hand between his teeth, and pulled the glove off. Then he repeated the process with the glove on his left hand. He took the envelope from his pocket and sniffed it.
I am probably fooling myself, but I think I can smell her perfume.
The envelope contained what Charley thought of as "ladies' stationery," a squarish, folded, rather stiff piece of paper. The outside bore a monogram. Scotch-taped to the inside was a small piece of jewelry, a round gold disc on a chain.
Jenkintown, June 30 '42
My Darling,
This is an Episcopal serviceman's cross. I know you're not an Episcopalian; and now that I'm divorced (and for other reasons), I am a fallen Episcopalian woman. But I wish you would wear it anyway, to know that I am praying for you constantly.
It has occurred to me that the only time you will ever notice it is when it gets in your way when you're taking a shower. But perhaps that will remind you of the showers you have shared with someone who loves you and lives for the moment when she can feel your arms around her again.
All my love, now and forever, Caroline
Charley Galloway reached up and shoved his goggles up on his forehead. For some reason, his eyes were watering. He pried the medallion loose from the Scotch tape and looked at it. He tried to open the clasp on the gold chain, but couldn't manage it. There was no way he could get that fragile gold chain over his head. So he leaned forward and looped it around the adjustment knob of the altimeter on the control panel, then tugged on it to make sure vibration wouldn't shake it off.