"How is it, big man?" Bull asked.
"I've tasted better," Ben said roughly," but it's fit to drink. "He took another swallow, thinking to himself that every line he had spoken was lifted without due credit from a half dozen different movies he had seen in his lifetime. The second swallow was easier. The third was still easier.
"I'd slow down a bit, Ben. That's a man's drink you ordered."
"That's why I ordered it, Virgil," Ben said.
"That's Colonel Hedgepath to you, mister," Bull said.
"I thought with us guys sitting around, Dad. You know, just drinking and talking. We could all relax."
"If you call me Bull, we'll be going to duke city."
Ben took a longer drink. "Hey, this is great," he said looking around the bar. "This is really great."
"Bartender," Virgil called," another drink for my godson."
"What's in this thing anyway?" Ben said laughing.
"Liquor," Bull said, hitting Virgil with his elbow.
"This is great. This is really great," Ben said.
"How are you going to smuggle him past Lillian?"
"Hell," Bull answered," we've got a party to go to as soon as we leave here."
"Then I wouldn't touch this next drink, Ben. You already look like you've had enough."
"Heck, Virge, I don't even have a buzz on," Ben said, giggling loudly.
"It's Colonel Hedgepath, son."
"That's to you, Dad. But to me he's just good ol' Virge. Right, Virge?" Ben said putting his arm around his godfather and hugging his neck.
"That's right, Ben. Ben and Virge. Drinking buddies."
"Hey, this is great, Dad," Ben said. "This is really great."
"You like it, eh?" Bull said.
"You know what I think, Dad?" Ben said, taking another drink of his second martini.
"No, what?"
"I think it's great. I think it's really great! Just sitting here drinking with the Marines. I think it's great. I think it's really great. Have another drink, Dad. You too, Virge. This one's on me."
Twenty minutes later, Ben Meecham, eighteen years old, on the brink of manhood, was carried from the Officers' Club of Ravenel Air Station on the shoulders of his father. When they arrived home at nightfall, Bull bore his son past his mother, his brother, and his sisters, past a birthday cake, and presents. Bull and Lillian had a long and bitter fight that night. But Ben did not hear it. He heard nothing until he woke up to a most disagreeable noontime the next day.
Chapter 18
The alarm woke Bull Meecham at 0300 hours on the morning of October 21. He had been cast from a restless sleep, but he rolled off the bed and onto the floor where he pumped out fifty pushups before he groped his way to the bathroom. Lillian listened to his labored exhalations as he struggled with the last ten pushups and remembered the years when Bull could do a hundred with ease. Age had thickened her husband, thinned his hair, and reduced the numerology by which Bull himself measured his fitness.
"How many did you do, sugah?" Lillian called from the bed.
"Seventy-five," Bull said.
"Do you want breakfast?"
"Negative, sportsfans."
"I always feel better when I've fixed you a good hot breakfast before you go on a long hop," Lillian said.
"How do you know I'm going on a long hop?" Bull asked.
"Darling," she answered," the best source of information in the entire Corps is in the middle of an" O" wives meeting. The word among the girls is that 367 is going to Cuba."
"The Joint Chiefs of Staff should develop such an intelligence system," Bull grumbled.
"Then I'm right. You're going to Guantanamo. Is something going to happen?"
"That's classified."
"You mean you don't even trust your own wife?" Lillian asked coyly.
"I wouldn't trust Helen Keller. Even if you lopped her arms off."
"Do you think there might be war?"
"Lilian, I can't talk about this. It's classified."
"Do you think if we attack Cuba, Russia will intervene?"
"I hope so," Bull answered, applying shaving lather to his face as he talked to his wife.
"Aha," Lillian shouted," then it is Cuba."
"Keep your voice down, one of the kids might hear."
"Matt says he hasn't sold secrets to the Kremlin for at least a year, Bull."
"Yeah, but what about Ben?" Bull grinned. "It would take just one Marine wife or one Marine kid to start working for the Russkies and every move the Corps made would be transmitted to Russia twenty-four hours in advance."
"Do you know if something happens, sugah, you could be in combat later today?"
"I've got to win some medals if I'm going to make bird colonel. This could make or break my career."
"I'll get breakfast. You'll need to have breakfast if we go to war."
Lillian drank a cup of black coffee as she watched Bull inelegantly consume a plate of eggs, biscuits, and country ham.
"Do you ever think of the men you've killed in combat, darling?" she said, trying to begin a conversation. Bull's mind was fixed on other things.
"What?" he answered.
"Do you think of the men you killed?"
"Negative. No sense boo-hooing over dead slants."
"Don't you ever think about their wives and mothers? Or if they had children? Or if they liked to fish or enjoyed a stiff drink?"
"After I set 'em on fire, Lillian, none of those things makes any difference."
"I wish you wouldn't say things like that, sugah. It makes me feel funny to hear you say things like that. It's so strange that I'm married to a man with so little reverence for human life."
"I've got lots of concern for human life as long as it was born between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean and just north of Mexico and just south of Canada. That's why I would love to drop a few bombs on Cuba. I've never killed a round eye in my whole career. I've majored strictly in slants."
"Sometimes I think you'd have made a wonderful S. S. Trooper, Bull."
"I would have," Bull said.
"You sound proud of it."
"I've always admired those bastards. They were great military men and efficient as hell. I liked the Germans a hell of a lot better than I liked the Japs. Can you imagine what it would be like if the Japs had won the war? We'd be going down to the temple each Sunday to kiss Buddha's rosy red. And I'd sure rather learn how to speak German than that bird scratch Jap talk. Naw, the Germans would have been O.K. But we had to fight the Japs for keeps because the American way of life would have been destroyed if the Japs had taken the marbles. You talk about me not having respect for human life. It's the Japs that don't have any respect for human life. It's got something to do with their being yellow and having slitty eyes."
"What about the Jews, darling?" Lillian said, her fine blue eyes set in a kind of stare.
"So the Krauts fried a couple of Jews. Big deal. It was war. We fried Germans in Berlin and Dresden. We fried Japs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I mean, sportsfans, we done fried 'em like eggs there, no pootin' around. In every war someone gets fried. The Jews got it from the Krauts. In war, there ain't no morals. There are just winners, losers, and those that got their asses fried sunny side up."
"They killed women and children like they were butchering hogs. They set out to eliminate Jews from the face of the earth and for no reason except that they were Jews."
"Big deal. Jews are a pain in the ass. I imagine that when Hitler was a kid, he got pissed off at everyone with a big schnozzola and a fraternity beanie making more money than he ever dreamed of."
"He set out to eliminate one part of the human race, sugah. Do you hear that, sugah? Do you understand that, sugah? Is that registering in your fighter pilot brain, sugah? Doesn't that do anything to your sense of justice, sugah? To your heart, sugah? Doesn't that touch you somewhere, Bull Meecham?"
"Yeh, you're right, Lillian. It does touch me," Bull said sincerely. "I can feel it deep down inside me.
It's a ticklish feeling. A powerful itch that's located somewhere on the high side of my sphincter tube."
"I don't know why I even try to have a conversation with you," Lillian said angrily. "It's hopeless to even try to make you feel things."
"A fighter pilot isn't supposed to feel things. He's supposed to kill people. You and the other split-tails can do all the feeling you want to, but I can't. I have a mission to do. Period."
"If the fighter pilot can't feel things, then how can I feel things for the fighter pilot?"
"Because that's your mission. Your mission is to love the fighter pilot, cook good meals, police up the house, and raise superior children."
"Darling, you think an inch deep on every subject. Then quit."
"O.K., Lillian. I'll play your game," Bull said. "You've been reading those books about what jerks Hitler and the Germans were for as long as I can remember. But I'm a realist. I don't believe anything I read because I know that anyone who writes about something is always picking the scabs off someone else. If Hitler had won the war you'd be reading books about what a jolly good fellow Hitler was and how jim-dandy it was that he killed every Jew that ever lived. And what if he had? What if there wasn't a single long-nosed Jew living in the world today? Do you know what would be different? Nothing. You wouldn't even notice it. I'm always hearing do-gooders bawling about the passenger pigeons and the dodo bird being extinct. I have never once in my life given a rat's fart that I never saw a passenger pigeon. If Hitler had killed off every Jew that drooled between two lips it wouldn't affect my life one way or the other. The world gets by without them."
"What about its Marines? Could the world get by without its Marines?"
"Ain't no force in the world tough enough to make Marines extinct. Marines make enemies extinct or make them wish they were.
"The thing I love about you, Bull, is your radiant love of mankind. Sometimes when you talk I wonder how two people so different could be married so long."
"Because you're wild about my bod."
"But the thing that worries me most is that my children might turn out to be exactly like you."
"Only if they're lucky."
"Sometimes I think I'd rather see them dead."
"Don't worry, Saint Lillian," Bull sneered, "you've diluted the Meecham blood with so much radiant love of mankind that I'll probably be buying the boys silk panties and hair ribbons in a few years."
"You have four fine children."
"I want the boys to become good soldiers and the girls to be fine pieces of tail for their husbands."
"There are times, sugah, when you sicken me."
"I'm just saying what's what. I can use prettier words but that's my wish for my children."
"Never talk about my daughters like that again."
"O.K. I'll talk about the boys. They aren't tough enough."
"They're too tough, darling. They've been raised by you."
"I've got to check out. Varney's giving a briefing at 0500 and I've got some stuff to do around the office," Bull said, rising from his chair and glancing at his watch.
"What time do you take off?"
"Classified."
"Can you call me from Guantanamo?"
"Negative."
"When will you be getting back?"
"It depends on how long the war lasts," Bull said, grinning. "I can still get you upset anytime I want to, Lillian. I think it's getting easier the older we both get."
"I'm not as resilient as I used to be, Bull. I'm feeling older and I can't take things I used to take."
Bull took Lillian in his arms and kissed her lightly, playfully.
"Sometimes I play the ogre just to make you mad," he said.
"Sometimes you play the ogre because there's nothing else there."
"See you in Havana, kiddo."
"So it is Cuba."
"It's a shame you don't smoke cigars," Bull said as he walked out the back door.
* * *
In the ready room, the pilots of 367 milled around the room or fidgeted in their seats. They were dressed for flight. An inextinguishable elation gripped the room and the voices of the young aviators were fleshed with bravado. But mostly there was a kind of reflexive professionalism and an uncommon immersion of the aviators into philosophical speculation. Bull found Captain Johnson reading a copy of" High Flight" slipped into the back page of his log book. He teased Johnson about it, but without malice.
Varney entered the ready room a few minutes before 0500 and went immediately into the clipped, faintly Oxonian accent that scraped across Bull's eardrum like a nail. Bull knew there was no real reason for Varney to address the squadron; he wanted to be a part of the grand panoply of what could be the first day of a war.
"Gentlemen," Varney addressed the pilots," as you probably know by now, a call came from the Second Marine Air Wing yesterday placing squadron 367 on a twenty-four-hour alert. This action is culminated by the action that is forthcoming. At 0600, squadron 367 will break a day and deploy twenty planes to Gitmo. Arrive at Gitmo at 2 plus 36. On arrival Guantanamo Bay, you will be further briefed on specific missions and targets listed in op order that will be presented by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Further instructions will also emanate and be forthcoming from the C.O. of Gitmo, Captain Bruce Webster, at the time of arrival. Gentlemen, I do not have to tell you of the importance of this mission. If something breaks between Cuba and the United States or between the Soviet Union and the United States, this squadron will be expected to buy Havana. Good luck, gentlemen," he concluded.
He stopped to shake hands with Bull Meecham. "Good luck, Colonel."
"Thank you, sir," Bull replied and the two men shook hands.
Bull then walked to the same spot where Colonel Varney had stood. He did not begin to speak until he was certain that Varney had cleared the premises. "Men, this mission culminates your training in Ravenel. In reality, all our training has come to this single moment. They did not select this squadron by accident. They selected it because we were the best. As I look around, I see that each and every one of you have the capability of making this squadron the finest assembly of fighter pilots in the Marine Corps. If we are the best fighter pilots in the Corps, then by extension we are the best goddam fighter pilots in the world. Now I want you to think that this is the bell for round one and this squadron is the Sunday punch. We're going right into the teeth of the enemy. We will be expected to gain Air Superiority over the mainland of Cuba. Once we begin to clear the skies, I don't want anything larger than a sea gull still in the air over that island. But I also want to caution you on becoming overconfident. Though we are the best aviators in the world, it is fatal for any aviator to underestimate his enemy. The MIG is a goddamn fine airplane and several Marine pilots who doubted that bought the farm in Korea. The MIG is capable of performing extremely well in all types of combat environment. The Russians have excellent pilots and I personally feel very bad that we're going to have to blow the asses off so many of them."
A cheer went up from the pilots, virile, primal, up from the groin, at the very source of the breed.
"Here is my hope for the younger pilots," Bull continued, eyeing the lieutenants and captains. "I hope that we go to war today. You are fighter pilots but you are virgin fighter pilots. The only way to crack the cherry is through combat experience. A cherry bleeds and you have to draw blood before you know how good you are or how brave you are. You're feeling a storm brew in the pit of your stomach and you're worried that it's fear you feel. It's not fear; it's inexperience. When we break the fly this morning then hopefully we will be flying toward experience. I'd like to be talking to this squadron in about six months and see silver stars hanging from every chest in this room. Gentlemen, let's make history today."
The pilots broke toward the flight line and the open hangars dominated by the sleek, predatory presence of the F-8's. Mechanics clambered over the planes making last-minute checks on engines and radar. The air was filled with the smell of oil. The
deafening growl of engines and the sound of scraping metal made it a requirement for men to scream at each other to be heard.
"Where are you from, Corporal?" Bull screamed at an unwhiskered man who clambered off the wing of his plane. The boy smiled. He had played the game with his old man before.
"Galena, Illinois, sir."
"Second best city in Illinois, Corporal. After Chicago," Bull said.
"Galena's the best, sir. By far."
"Court-martial this man, Sergeant," Bull said to Latito. "That's heresy."
In the first light, Bull taxied his plane to the end of the runway, looking back to see the long line of F-8's following behind him. There was something coldly omnivorous in the massing of planes; it was like the gathering of sharks at a bloodspill.
Bull pushed the throttle forward and felt the plane become fire and speed beneath him. He rose into a capitulating dark and could see the glimmering lights of Ravenel on his right; in the east the sun was being born in a perishable orange that caught the fuselage of Bull's F-8 in a moment of gold.
As the squadron, in the demon pass of jets, edged offshore high above the green blaze of ocean, Lillian watched and listened from her second story veranda. She saw the night lights mount the treetops at the end of St. Catherine's Island and she heard the explosion of the afterburners and witnessed the fire that spewed from the exhaust of each plane as the squadron tightened into formation. Always, she was moved by the passage of the terrible winged squadrons. In the first plane, her husband controlled the wings and she could see his eyes set with purpose and she knew that he was at this moment a supremely happy man.