“Yeah,” he said, admiring her.
“Don’t you already know?”
Trier was a port town, on the Moselle, and possessed, though neither of them had heard of it, a celebrated garment said to be the robe of Christ. It was not ordinarily on display and was brought out only rarely, when it attracted great crowds. Close to the well-preserved Roman gate was the chief hotel of the town. It had survived the war undamaged—Trier was not heavily bombed—and was comfortable if a little old-fashioned. In such hotels one expected comfort. The hallways were wide and the doors of the rooms, which were large and seemed to have too much space, were glossy with a perfect, almost plastic coat of white.
The hotel was the Porta Nigra, named for the Roman gate. It was there, not only on that day but on a number thereafter that Lancelot, aware of the danger, went with his queen.
Chapter IV
The clouds were spread in all directions like a layer of curdled milk. Far above them flew two Canadians looking, as always, for a fight. No one else was up, however, and they had turned homeward when, at the very last, they saw two contrails, lower, distant, to the south.
“Let’s get those.”
“I’m down to twelve hundred pounds,” the wingman said.
“That’s plenty.”
They began a slow turn to bring themselves over and behind, and then rolled down. It was perfect. They hadn’t been seen. As they closed they saw the big droptanks, bathtubs. Americans. Four hundred knots. Almost in range. Suddenly the two planes in front of them pulled up together in a left turn and disappeared into the glare of the sun. The Canadian leader held up his thumb to cover it and then his entire hand. He didn’t see them. He continued to block out the sun, waiting for them to come out on one side of the glare or the other. Leveling out, he kept looking and heard his wingman call, “Eight o’clock!”
He strained to look back, over his shoulder. Sure enough, there they were.
“Hard left!” he called.
They began a tightening circle, turning amid their own contrails, which were persistent and thick. In the end the two opposing leaders were heading straight down, speed brakes out, canopy to canopy, rolling around each other like a barber pole. Through the very top of the canopy the Canadian could look into the other cockpit and see the pilot’s head there, thrown back too. They were that close, absolutely vertical, the rate of descent needle straight down, the altimeter spinning like a wheel. Around and around, headed for the clouds until just above them they pulled out and began scissoring, almost in a stall, noses high, lurching past each other.
Slowly, sweat pouring from him, the Canadian began, because of the tanks, to get the better of it, skimming over the cloud surface. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the second American, come from he didn’t know where and unbelievably close, the intake as big as a piano. Without pausing he pushed over and into the clouds.
He was safe there, unfollowable. He made several turns and at the end climbed out again, half expecting to see them waiting like terriers over a rat hole, but they were gone. He couldn’t see them anywhere, nor his wingman. He called but got no answer. Only when he was nearly back to the base at Gros Tenquin did he get the wingman to reply.
“What happened to you?”
“I lost you when we went below the cons,” the wingman said.
“I’ll say you did.”
The victors of the combat in which they had been matched against cleaner airplanes landed low on fuel in light rain. The ceiling had come down. The leader—it was Grace—was summoned from the locker room almost immediately. Isbell had learned from the servicing crew how much fuel had been left in the planes.
“Debrief later,” he told Grace. “I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Grace in a serious voice, his flying suit dark where he’d been sweating beneath his parachute.
The door closed behind them.
In the briefing room, Godchaux waited, biting at the corner of a fingernail and looking at the floor. When somebody asked him a question he answered with only a grin. He bit at his fingernail again.
“Pretty close on, eh, Captain?” Abrams said in some confidence to Wickenden.
“Too close.”
“Boy, oh, boy.”
“I wouldn’t talk about it,” Wickenden said. “You start talking about it and the first thing you’ll have the group commander down here wanting to know what’s been going on.”
“Captain,” Abrams said, wounded, “I wouldn’t say anything. You know that.”
“Just so you understand.”
“Sir, I’d never say a word.”
“Just forget it. Make believe it never happened, that’s the best thing.” The door to Isbell’s office had been closed for nearly fifteen minutes. “Staying up there like that to tangle with someone, knowing what the weather was,” Wickenden declared. “Plain stupidity.”
And a flight commander, he refrained from saying. Ought to be grounded, as well as that clown Godchaux, in there where the rest of them were coming in wanting to hear about it. Experience, he once told Wickenden, that was the thing. Correct. Using his head once in a while, that was the experience he needed. Just occasionally. Once a month, maybe. Even that would make a difference.
It was like an infection. Wickenden could see it spread. He could pick out the next one to do something brainless even if he’d never happened to lay eyes on him before. It was all over his face. “Captain, I can fly the airplane.”
“Oh, is that it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maybe so. Every fool says that.”
“I’m not a fool.”
“You don’t have to be, but that doesn’t mean you won’t act like one.”
“I’m not a fool,” Cassada had said.
After a while the door opened and Grace came out, head bent forward a little as if in submission, lips compressed like a schoolboy. As he passed he looked at Wickenden and raised his eyebrows to show some sort of regret. In the briefing room Godchaux wanted to know if he was next. “Me?”
Grace shook his head. He took Godchaux by the arm and led him away from the others. They stood in a corner of the room.
“What did he say?”
Grace bent and took a light from Godchaux’s cigarette. “We were too low on fuel, that was basically it. He’s right, too.”
“I’ll say he is.”
“Exactly how much did you shut down with? I told him four hundred pounds. He said it was lower.”
“About half that.”
“Well, that is low. That’s much too low,” Grace said as if there was no way for him to have known.
“What did you have?” Godchaux asked.
“I wasn’t that bad off. I was low, but not that low.”
“Like how much?”
“I was low.”
“But what did you have?”
“Three hundred,” Grace said.
Godchaux grinned at him.
“No, you weren’t that bad off,” Godchaux said. “Do you suppose those Canucks ever made it back all right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one of them did.”
“What do you mean?”
They were both grinning.
“One of them is probably still hiding in the clouds,” Grace said.
“I was about two hundred feet behind him. Even closer. I actually saw him turn his head and look back at me.”
“Jesus, it was perfect.”
Isbell was standing in the doorway to his office. He may even have been able to hear it. He knew Wickenden was looking at him. He went back inside and closed the door.
Down the hallway, near the latrine, was a sign that said flying was inherently safe but, like the sea, unforgiving. Wickenden, standing there, was able to hear Cassada, dog-eager, asking Godchaux if he had used flaps to scissor. Godchaux illustrated with his hands. “Right here,” he said, “I swapped them, brakes in, flaps down.”