And the sane person would be wrong.
Great pilots always find a way to survive. Almost by instinct they manage to choose a course of action — sometimes in blatant violation of the rules — that results in their survival.
The most obvious fact here was probably the most important: Jake Grafton was still alive and uninjured.
Had he ejected…well, who can say how that would have turned out? The seat might have malfunctioned, he might have gone into the ocean and drowned, he might have broken his neck being slammed down upon the flight deck or into the side of an airplane. Le Beau had been very lucky, and he freely admitted it, proclaimed it even, in the ready room afterward: “I’d rather be lucky than good.”
Grafton was good. He had saved himself and the plane. Yet there was more. In the ready room afterward he hadn’t been the least bit defensive, had stated why he did what he did clearly and cogently, then listened carefully to torrents of free advice — the what-you-should-have-done variety. He wasn’t embarrassed that Flap ejected. He blamed no one and expressed no regrets.
Haldane liked that, had enjoyed watching and listening to a man whose rock solid self-confidence could not be shaken. Grafton believed in himself, and the feeling was contagious. One wondered if there were anything this man couldn’t handle.
Now the colonel dug into the bottom drawer of his desk. In a moment he found what he was looking for. It was a personal letter from the commanding officer of VA-128, Commander Dick Donovan. Haldane removed the letter from its envelope and read it, carefully, for the fourth or fifth time.
I am sending you the most promising junior officer in the squadron, Lieutenant Jake Grafton. He is one of the two or three best pilots I have met in the Navy. He seems to have an instinct for the proper thing to do in a cockpit, something beyond the level that we can teach.
As an officer, he is typical for his age and rank. Keep your eye on him. He has a temper and isn’t afraid of anything on this earth. That is good and bad, as I am sure you will agree. I hope time and experience will season him. You may not agree with my assessment, but the more I see of him, the more I am convinced that he is capable of great things, that someday he will be able to handle great responsibilities.
I want him back when your cruise is over.
Colonel Haldane folded the letter and put it back into its envelope. Then he pulled a pad of paper around and got out his pen. He hadn’t answered this letter yet, and now seemed like a good time.
Donovan wasn’t going to be happy to hear that Grafton was resigning, but there wasn’t anything he or Donovan could do about it. That decision was up to Grafton. Still, it was a shame. Donovan was right — Grafton was a rare talent of unusual promise.
When the adrenaline rush had faded and the ready room crowd had calmed down, Jake and Flap went up to the forward—“dirty shirt”—wardroom between the bow cats. Flap had already been to sick bay and had several minor Plexiglas cuts dressed. “Iodine and Band-Aids,” he told Jake with a grin. “I’ve been hurt worse shaving. Man, talk about luck!”
In the serving line each man ordered a slider, a large cheeseburger so greasy that it would slide right down your throat. With a glass of milk and a handful of potato chips, they sat on opposite sides of a long table with a food-stained tablecloth.
“I didn’t think you could get it stopped,” Flap said between bites.
“You did the right thing,” Jake told him, referring to Flap’s decision to eject. “If I hadn’t managed to get it sliding sideways I would have had to punch too.”
“Well, we’re still alive, in one piece. We did all right.”
Jake just nodded and drank more milk. The adrenaline had left his stomach feeling queasy, but the milk and slider settled it. He leaned back in his chair and belched. Yep, there’s a lot to be said for staying alive.
Down in his stateroom he stood looking around at the ordinary things, the things he saw every day yet didn’t pay much attention to. After a glimpse into the abyss, the ordinary looks fresh and new. He sat in his chair and savored the fit, looked at how the light from his desk lamp cast stark shadows into the corners of the room, listened to the creaks and groans of the ship, examined with new eyes the photos of his folks and Callie that sat on his desk.
He twiddled the dial of the desk safe, then pulled it open. The ring was there, the engagement ring he had purchased for her last December aboard Shiloh. He took it from the safe and held it so the light shown on the small diamond. Finally he put it back. Without conscious thought, he removed his revolver from a pocket of his flight suit and put that in the safe too, then locked it.
He was going to have to do something about that woman.
But what?
It wasn’t like he had her hooked and all he had to do was reel her in. The truth of the matter was that she had him hooked, and she hadn’t decided whether or not he was a keeper.
So what is a guy to do? Write and pledge undying love? Promise to make her happy? Worm your way into her heart with intimate letters revealing your innermost thoughts?
No. What he had to do was speak to her softly, tell her of his dreams…if only he had any dreams to tell.
He felt hollow. Everyone else had a destination in mind: they were going at different speeds to get there, but they were on their way.
It was infuriating. Was there something wrong with him, some defect in him as a person? Was that what Callie saw?
Why couldn’t she understand?
He thought about Callie for a while as he listened to the sounds of the ship working in a seaway, then finally reached for a pad and pen. He dated the letter and began:
“Dear Mom and Dad…”
When he finished the letter he didn’t feel sleepy, so he took a hot shower and dressed in fresh, highly starched khakis and locked the door behind him. There weren’t many people about. The last recovery was complete. The enlisted troops were headed for their bunks and the die-hard aviators were watching movies. He peered into various ready rooms to see who was still up that he knew. No one he wanted to talk to. He stopped in the arresting gear rooms and watched a first-class and two greenies pulling maintenance on an engine. He stopped by the PLAT office and watched his aborted takeoff several more times, wandered through the catapult spaces, where greenies supervised by petty officers were also working on equipment. In CATCC the graveyard shift had a radar consol torn apart.
In the Aviation Intermediate Maintenance avionics shop the night shift was hard at repairing aircraft radars and computers. This space was heavily air-conditioned and the lights burned around the clock. The technicians who worked here never saw the sun, or the world of wind and sea and sky where this equipment performed.
Finally, on a whim, Jake opened the door to the Air Department office. Warrant Officer Muldowski was the only person there. He saw Jake and boomed, “Hey, shipmate. Come in and drop anchor.”
Jake helped himself to a cup of coffee and planted his elbows on the table across from the bosun, who had a pile of paper spread before him.
“You did good up there on that cat.”
“Thanks.”
“Kept waiting for you to punch. Thought you had waited too long.”
“For a second there I did too.”
They chewed the fat for a while, then when the conversation lagged Jake asked, “Why did you stay in the Navy, Bosun?”
The bosun leaned back in his chair and reached for his tobacco pouch. When he had his pipe fired off and drawing well, he said, “Civilians’ worlds are too small.”
“What do you mean?”
“They get a job, live in a neighborhood, shop in the same stores all their lives. They live in a little world of friends, work, family. Those worlds looked too small to me.”