Colonel Spiller gave me the usual rah-rah pitch about signing over for a second tour, telling me that the war in Germany was almost over, hell, General Marshall had expected it to be over by last November, it was just taking a trifle longer, that was all. Patton’s Third Army had already crossed the Rhine and only last night Allied bombers had dropped 12,400 explosives and 650,000 fire bombs on Berlin, it was worth seeing through to the end, wasn’t it? Besides, there was the possibility that if I signed over for a second tour, I might be immediately discharged after we knocked off Germany, instead of being redeployed to the Pacific where I would have to fly my ass off against the Japs. I thanked Colonel Spiller for his consideration, knowing he had only my welfare in mind, but I told him that I was very tired just then and that I thought it might be nice to go home. The colonel looked me in the eye, the tic in his own eye beating erratically, and said, Sure, Tyler, I’ll okay the necessary papers. On April 3, 1945, two days after Easter, I left Foggia in an ATC airplane and after interminable stops at Iceland and Gander, finally landed at Michel Field, two miles northeast of Hempstead, Long Island.
There was the scent of imminent victory in the New York streets that April, much stronger, more easily sniffed than it had been in Italy. It was as though, paradoxically, the civilians knew more about the progress of the war than the men who were overseas fighting it, and thus informed could safely predict its early end. Even my father, when I spoke to him on the telephone from a bar in midtown Manhattan (the phones at the field had men standing in line ten deep) seemed to possess secret intelligence that the war, in Europe at least, would be over before the end of the month. I told him that I certainly hoped so, and then I asked about Linda and told him how anxious I was to see them both, but that I didn’t know exactly when I’d be getting to Chicago because the Air Force seemed to be fairly confused (situation normal) about what to do with all these returnees. My father asked if I wanted him to conic down to New York, and I said I didn’t think that was necessary, and he told me again how happy he was that I was home and safe, and asked me if I needed any money, and then said he hoped to see me soon, and to please keep in touch with him. The call ran seventeen minutes overtime. I went back to the bar where the ice was melting in my scotch, and asked the bartender to freshen my drink, and then walked over to the jukebox and put in a quarter and punched out five records, and went to sit down again. An Air Force captain was sitting at the far end of the bar, a jigger of whiskey and a glass of beer on the polished top in front of him.
I did not recognize him at first.
I looked him full in the face, and he looked back at me, and then we both turned away. I lifted my scotch and sipped a little of it, and listened as my first jukebox selection fell into place, a song new to me, its melody haunting, its lyric evocative, “... on a train that is passing through, those eyes...” and I drank silently, listening, and then ordered another scotch and glanced again at the captain. He was wearing a jauntily tilted crushed hat and he had a blond mustache and blue eyes, silver pilot’s wings over the left-hand pocket of his blouse. He turned toward me as though aware of my casual glance, his own look becoming one of scrutiny, and all at once he said, “Will?”
Our eyes met, his probing tentatively and uncertainly, mine searching for a clue. “Will Tyler?” he said, more confidently now, and I suddenly knew who he was, the face registered, the voice registered, “Michael?” I asked.
We were rising simultaneously off our stools, slowly, slowly, our faces cracking with wide grins, our arms coming up (“Michael?” I asked, “Michael Mallory?”) and we rushed toward each other like some crazy Klondike prospector brothers meeting in the middle of a muddy Main Street after months in the wilderness (“Michael, you son of a bitch!”) and threw our arms around each other and let out blood-curdling yells that must have shattered a dozen glasses behind the bar. We jigged all around that room, we threw our hats in the air, we put six quarters in the juke and turned the volume up full, and bought the bartender a drink when he complained, and laughed and slapped each other on the back, yelling over the sound of the music, roaring our amazement and our pleasure, “Let’s call my sister!” I shouted, “Let’s call Charlotte Wagner!” Michael shouted, our words tumbling over themselves, overlapping, You look great, When’d you get back, Where’ve they got you now, What were you
flying, How do you like my paintbrush, I’ve seen more hair on a strip of bacon, Hey, remember that night, Remember old Ronny Booth passing out on us, Remember those jigs chasing us out of Douglas, remember? remember? remember?
The party was being given for a bombardier who had lost an eye over Ploesti. Michael had met him at Fort Dix (where the poor bastard was being discharged with a Purple Heart), and he had invited Michael to the big bash tonight, promising him plenty of girls, booze, and music. Michael had assured him he would show, but then had lost his courage, and had wandered into the bar for a few fortifying drinks. We finally decided to brave it together, hero fighter pilots that we were, and we managed to find the Sutton Place address, a high-rise overlooking the East River, but then Michael chickened out again. I think he really was afraid of contact with, well, people who hadn’t been dropping bombs or firing machine guns. People.
So we stood on the edge of the river, and watched the shimmering reflection of a tug’s lights on the water, and Michael softly said, “Reminds me of the lake, doesn’t it you?” and I said, “Yes, it docs,” though I wasn’t really sure, I think anything that night would have reminded us of Chicago. Michael began talking all at once about how strange it felt to be back in the United States, and then asked me if I’d taken one of those returnee tests at Mitchel, and when I told him I hadn’t as yet, he went on to explain that the Air Force had developed a questionnaire to assist them with the enormous task of redeployment and that some of the responses given by bomber pilots and fighter pilots were pretty surprising, hadn’t I heard about that questionnaire?
“Well,” he said, “you might be interested in knowing that only twenty-eight per cent of the bomber pilots thought they should be shipped overseas again, whereas forty-six per cent of the fighter pilots figured they would be sent over and actually wanted to go.”
“So what docs that prove?” I said.
Michael shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.” He looked out over the water again. “I don’t remember all the figures, Will, but the guys who said they didn’t want to go overseas again gave a lot of different reasons. Some of them felt they’d already done their share of overseas duty — almost twice as many bomber pilots said that as fighter pilots. Or they just couldn’t take another tour either physically or mentally — the percentage was in favor of the fighter pilots on that one. Or...”
“You think they’re going to ship us to the Pacific?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said, and shrugged again. “There was another question on one of the tests, Will. This one was given only to enlisted men, maybe the Air Force didn’t want to hear what its flying officers had to say. Anyway, the question was ‘Do you ever feel this war is not worth fighting?’”
“What were the answers?”
“The majority, forty-five per cent, said ‘Never.’ Twenty-three per cent said ‘Once in a great while.’ Twenty-four per cent said ‘Sometimes.’ And eight per cent said ‘Very often.’” Michael paused. Turning to me, he said, “What would you have answered, Will?”