“Get serious.”
“That’s what the man said. Must be World War III.”
“Awww…”
“If Harrison is jerking our chains he’ll never have another OK pass as long as he lives. I promise.”
But Harrison wasn’t kidding, as Jake and the Real found out when they went through the ready room door. The skipper and Allen Bartow were standing near the duty desk talking to CAG Kall. Flap Le Beau was listening and sipping a cup of coffee. All of them were in flight suits.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” CAG said. He looked like he had had a great eight hours sleep and a fine breakfast. He couldn’t have had, Jake knew. Things didn’t work like that in this Navy.
“ ’Morning, CAG,” McCoy responded. “So it’s war, huh?”
“Not quite. Pull up a chair and we’ll sort this out.”
Apparently the admiral and CINCPACFLT had been burning the airways with flash messages. The Soviet ambassador in Washington had delivered a stiff note to the State Department protesting the previous day’s naval incident in the Indian Ocean, which he called “a provocation.” The powers that be had concluded that the U.S. Navy had to serve notice on the Russians that it couldn’t be bullied.
“The upshot is,” CAG said, “that we have been ordered to make an aerial demonstration over the Soviet task group, tonight if possible.”
“What kind of demonstration, sir?”
“At least two airplanes, high-speed passes, masthead height if possible.”
Eyebrows went up. McCoy got out of his chair and went to the television, which he turned to the continuous weather display. Current weather was three to four hundred feet broken to overcast, three-quarters of a mile visibility in rain. Wind out of the northwest at twenty-five knots.
CAG was still talking. “… it occurred to me that this would be a good time to try our foul weather attack scheme on the Russians. I thought we could send two A-6s and three EA-6Bs. We’d put a Hummer up to keep it safe. The admiral concurred. The Prowler crews and Hummer crews will be here in a few minutes for the brief. What do you think?”
“Sir, where are the Russians?”
“Two hundred miles to the east. Apparently the line of thunderstorms went over them several hours ago and they are also under this system.”
As he finished speaking the ship’s loudspeaker, the 1-MC, came to life: “Flight quarters, flight quarters, all hands man your flight quarters stations.”
In minutes the Prowler and Hawkeye crews came in and found a seat and the brief began. CAG did the briefing, even though he wouldn’t be flying. Forget the masthead rhetoric from Washington — the lowest any of the crews could go was five hundred feet.
The three senior pilots of the Prowler squadron would fly their planes, and the C.O. of the E-2 squadron would be in the left seat of the Hawkeye. Lieutenant Colonel Haldane and the Real McCoy would fly the go A-6s and Jake Grafton would man the spare.
“Uh, skipper,” Flap said, “if I may ask, why McCoy?”
“He’s got the best landing grades in the squadron. Grafton is second. As it happens, they have more traps than anyone else in the outfit and getting back aboard is going to be the trick. As for me, this is my squadron.”
“Yessir, but I was wondering about McCoy. Let’s face facts, sir. When the landing signal officer has the best landing scores — well, it’s like an umpire having the top batting average. There’s just a wee bit of an odor, sir.”
Laughter swept the room as McCoy grinned broadly. He winked at Jake.
“What say you and I flip for the go bird,” Jake suggested to McCoy.
“Forget it, shipmate. If my plane’s up, I’m flying it. Tonight or any other night.”
“Come on! Be a sport.”
The Real was having none of it. And Jake understood. Naval aviation was their profession. Given the weather and sea state, this would be a very tough mission. When you began ducking the tough ones, you were finished in this business. Maybe no one else would know, but you would.
In flight deck control Jake looked at the airplane planform cutouts on the model ship to see where his plane was spotted. Watching the handler check the weight chits as rain splattered against the one round, bomb-proof window and the wind moaned, Jake Grafton admitted to himself that he was glad he had the spare. He wasn’t ducking anything — this was the bird the system gave him and he wasn’t squawking.
All he had to do was preflight, strap in and start the engines, then sit and watch Haldane and McCoy ride the catapult into the black goo. After that he could shut down and go below for coffee. If he went to the forward mess deck galley he could probably snag a couple doughnuts hot from the oven.
The handler was a lieutenant commander pilot who had left the Navy for two years, then changed his mind. The only billet available when he came back was this one — two years as the aircraft handler on Columbia. He took it, resigning himself to two years of shuffling airplane cutouts around this model, two years of listening to squadron maintenance people complain that their airplanes weren’t where they could properly maintain them, two years listening to the air boss grouse that the go birds were spotted wrong, two years checking tie-down chains and weight chits, two years listening to the hopes, dreams and fears of young, homesick sailors while trying to train them to do dangerous, difficult jobs, two years in purgatory with no flying…yet the handler seemed to be weathering it okay. True, his fuse was getting almighty short and he wasn’t getting enough sleep, but his job performance was first-rate, from everything Jake had seen and heard. And behind the tired face with the bleary eyes was a gentle human being who liked to laugh at a good joke in the dirty-shirt wardroom. Here in Flight Deck Control, however, he was all business.
“Forty-six thousand five hundred pounds? That right, Grafton?” The handler was reading from Jake’s weight chit. This would be his weight if he launched.
“Yessir.”
Savoring the hubbub in Flight Deck Control while surreptitiously watching the handler, Jake Grafton felt doubt creep over him. Was getting out a mistake? It had been for the handler. An eight-to-five job somewhere, the same routine day after day…
He turned for the hatch that led to the flight deck. The first blast of cool air laden with rain wiped the future from his mind and left only the present, this moment, this wild, windy night, this airplane that awaited him under the dim red island floodlights.
His bird was sitting on Elevator Four. The tail was sticking out over the water, so he checked every step with his flashlight before he moved his feet. If you tripped over the three-inch-high combing, you would go straight into the ocean to join that Russian sailor who went in yesterday. Poor devil — his shipmates didn’t even stop to look for him. How would you like to go to sea in that man’s navy?
Going around the nose he and Flap passed each other. “What a night,” Flap muttered.
Both men were wearing their helmets. They had the clear visors down to keep the rain and salt spray out of their eyes. The wind made the raindrops hurt as they splattered against exposed flesh.
Jake took his time preflighting the ejection seat. He was tempted to hurry at this point so he could sit down and the plane captain could close the canopy, but he was too old a dog. He checked everything carefully, methodically while he used his left hand to hang tightly to the airplane. The motion of the ship seemed magnified out here on this elevator. The fact he was eight or nine feet above the deck perched on this boarding ladder and buffeted by the wind and rain didn’t help. He pulled the safety pins, inspected, counted and stowed them, then he sat.
The plane captain climbed the ladder to help him hook up the mask, don the leg restraints, and snap the four Koch fittings into place. Then the plane captain went around to help Flap. When both men were completely strapped in, he closed the canopy.