“Not more than once,” Moss answered, which made Sprague break into a wide grin. More seriously, Moss went on, “After that, the War Department sends your family a wire they’d sooner not have.”
“After what?” Percy Stone asked, his goggles pushed up on top of his head. “After you strafe a Great Lakes battleship? I bet they do. The only thing I can think of that was less fun was when I got shot.”
“Actually, I was thinking of after you train to strafe a Great Lakes battleship,” Moss said.
Stone considered that, then nodded. “You’ve got something there. I knew about as many people who got killed learning as I did fliers who went down against the enemy. Nobody ever talks about it, but it’s true.”
Charley Sprague nodded. “You’re right about that, sir,” he said: even in brief acquaintance, Moss had seen that he punctiliously observed the rules of military courtesy. “I saw half a dozen fellows die while I was learning the game. Some of them were better fliers than I was, but they thought they were better than they were, too, if you know what I mean. And some fell out of the sky for no reason anyone could see.” He spread his hands. “ ‘Time and chance happeneth to them all,’ is what the Bible says about that.”
Last of the flight, Pete Bradley came up in time to hear Sprague’s last couple of sentences. “Ain’t it the truth?” he said, a sentence unscriptural but most sincere. “When your number’s up, it’s up, that’s all.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I thought all our numbers were up when we made the second run at that damn boat.”
“Worst of it is, they can go right on mounting more machine guns on it, too,” Moss said. “Pretty soon strafing it will be suicide, nothing else.”
“Have to bomb at high altitude, then,” Lieutenant Sprague said. “We’ll need better bombsights for that; we couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with the ones we have now. And the bombers will need more guns, to hold off the foe’s fighting scouts. Regular flying fortresses, that’s what they’ll have to be.”
Moss looked at him in admiration. “You’ve got all the angles figured, don’t you, Charley? Sounds like you’re ready for the next war right now.”
“Poppycock!” Sprague said. “What wants doing is plain enough-plain as the nose on my face, which is saying something.” He touched the member in question, which, though long and thin, was not outstandingly so. “How to get from where we are to where we need to be: ay, there’s the rub.”
“That’s Shakespeare,” Percy Stone said, and Sprague nodded. Stone slapped him on the back. He stiffened slightly, as at an undue familiarity. Either not noticing that or ignoring it, Stone went on, “Good to have you in the flight, by God. First the Bible, now this-you give us a touch of class we sure don’t get from our flight leader here.” He jerked a thumb at Jonathan Moss.
Lieutenant Sprague turned toward Moss, and turned pink at the same time. “Sir, I don’t want to offend or-”
“Don’t worry about it, Charley,” Moss said easily. “I was good enough to bring Percy’s carcass back home when he got himself a puncture a couple of years ago, and now I’m good enough for him to insult. That’s the way the world goes, I guess.”
He made sure Stone understood he was kidding. Both Sprague and Bradley looked worried; they weren’t sure he meant it for a joke till Stone laughed and said, “Well, it’s not like I asked you to do it. I was too busy bleeding for that.”
“I know.” Thinking about what the observer’s cockpit had looked like after he and the groundcrew got Stone out of it made Moss’ stomach do a slow loop. He fought the memory with another gibe: “You gave me so much trouble, I figured you’d make yourself a nuisance to the limeys and the Canucks, too.”
“Indeed.” Charley Sprague trotted out another tag from Shakespeare: “ ‘But when the blast of war blows in our ears, / Then imitate the action of the tiger.’ ”
“I can’t do that, Charley,” Stone said. “I’m not limber enough to lick my own balls.”
All four men from the flight laughed like loons, more because they were young and alive when they could easily have died than because Percy Stone had said anything so very funny. “Come on,” Jonathan Moss said. “Let’s go tell Major Cherney what we did on our summer holiday.”
The squadron commander listened to their report, then said, “I’m glad you’re all back in one piece, but don’t go sticking your heads in the lion’s mouth like that again, and that’s an order.”
“But, sir-” Moss began.
Cherney held up a hand. “No buts, Captain. Even if that ship had no antiaircraft guns at all, you couldn’t sink her or hurt her big guns. Don’t waste yourself on targets like that, not with the war so close to won. Do what you can do. Fight the enemy’s aeroplanes and balloons. Shoot up his men on the ground. If you take on a Great Lakes battleship, you’re fighting out of your weight.”
“But-” Moss said again. Then he remembered Charley Sprague’s words: some of them were better fliers than I was, but they thought they were better than they were, too. And they’d ended up dead, and they hadn’t helped the war effort a bit. Slowly, reluctantly, Moss nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve been thinking,” George Enos said between gulps of air as he stood beside the one-pounder at the stern of the USS Ericsson after yet another dash to battle stations, this one a drill.
Beside him, Carl Sturtevant was panting more than a little. “Probably won’t do you any lasting harm,” he said, and then, presently, “Yeah? What were you thinking about?”
“That son of a bitch who sank the Cushing yesterday and almost put a fish into us,” Enos answered.
“Yeah, well, I can see how that’d be on your mind,” the veteran petty officer allowed. “So what about it?”
“Whoever the skipper of that boat is, he fights mean,” George answered, to which Sturtevant could only nod. George went on, “He comes at us, and he comes hard, and he doesn’t like to dive deep for hell.”
“That’s all true,” Sturtevant agreed. “Like I said, though, so what?”
“He fights like the skipper who almost sank us before we sank the Bonefish,” Enos persisted. “Whoever he is, whether he’s a limey or a Reb, I don’t think we got him when we got that boat.”
Sturtevant screwed up his face as he thought that over. “That other bastard dove deep and tried to hide after he took a shot at us, didn’t he?” He smacked his lips a couple of times, tasting an idea instead of soup. “Maybe you’ve got something there.” He glanced over toward Lieutenant Crowder, who was talking with another officer. Lowering his voice, Sturtevant said, “You ain’t gonna make him your bosom buddy if you tell him, though.”
“But if I don’t tell him, and we go on doing what we’ve been doing, and he goes on doing what he’s been doing, we’re all liable to end up dead,” Enos said.
Sturtevant didn’t answer. His expression made plain what he was thinking: that Lieutenant Crowder wouldn’t listen even if he did get told. Crowder was convinced he’d sunk the submersible that had come so close to putting the Ericsson on the bottom for good. Telling him otherwise would make him unhappy, which was liable to make George’s life miserable.
Not telling him, though, was liable to make George’s life short. He went over and positioned himself so Lieutenant Crowder would have to notice him sooner or later. It was later, not sooner, but George had been sure it would be. Eventually, the lieutenant said, “You wanted something, Enos?”
George saluted. “Yes, sir,” he said, and proceeded to set out for Crowder the same chain of reasoning as he’d given Carl Sturtevant. As he spoke, he watched Crowder’s face. It was not encouraging. He sighed silently. He hadn’t expected it to be.