Flying Home to Church

Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Page 25

Lieutenant Reis checked his watch, and then drifted off into his reverie.

-- And that's how we got to the damn Indian. What a night! He had laid this one on me for months. Time for me to come home with him and learn things I didn't know and my parents agreed. But the closer it got the more scared I got. We stayed up all the night arguing until the plebe orderly on the floor got nervous and called the Officer of The Day who came up and knocked the whole corridor awake. "Just you shut up and get on the damn train. I can hardly wait to get you two characters off to the Japs!!"

So then we sat on our suitcases from Baltimore to Chicago and then got a seat on West and damned if his mother and grandmother and some others didn't meet us in a summer hail storm. The next day they took me in hot sunshine even farther West and left me alone in a big store while they went off to buy panties or whatever and I saw this Indian. I didn't know what to do. I ran around till I found Susan and said: "I just saw an Indian."

"Let's go over and talk with him."

She took Run-Run's arm and walked up and said: "Hello, Chief, we have this friend...."

The Indian had not missed any of it.

"I know. He has never seen my kind before."

He turned to Nathan. "You are a Jew. Our tribes have been treated badly, but you are with good people. When the time comes you take care of them." He tossed his blanket over his shoulder without fluffing a feather in his headdress and walked away.

Susan stood there for a moment and then on her toes gave Run-Run a kiss. Very chaste, but Nathan instantly knew why Cat had never chased the ladies.

The jeep slammed to a stop between two F6F Hellcats on the runway. Cat was awake and out the door and on his way to the cockpit. He was charged. He loved to fly this plane.

-- It's a bitchy, beautiful killing machine. I feel my balls getting up tight. Kill ratio of 19 to 1. Let's go.

He half turned to Run-Run. "I'm waitin' for you, Sir. Time to see another Indian. Get the poop and tell 'em we're in the air."

Lieutenant Reis shook his head: "You just crazy for your Susan."

That was true, but there was also the Indian. Anyway right now Cat wanted to fly.

"Stuff it, Number One. We got six minutes. Goose it."

Run-Run was back in three on the radio. "Weather will get dirty. Up to Fifteen and cleared to Twenty-One-Five. We go north and then south as we're told."

"Let's do a slow roll at Fifteen Hundred to give that Marine a cheap thrill."

"Just fly the airplane, sonny."

"Sir. Wheels up."

-- Lieutenant Wye laughed. Now that was beautiful, Run-Run: 'Just fly the airplane, sonny.' So no slow roll and a bore up to Fifteen without anything to do but keep an eye on the manifold pressure and do my homework on the chart. He began to remember and there was a lot to remember.

But first he locked-in off the aft port side of Number One and matched speed. Then he isolated one part of his mind on the navigation: this might get tricky. Particulary with The Man's ass on the line.

-- I wonder if Run-Run really understands that? Probably not, but his heart and gut are sure as hell on course. Damn, I do love the man. Shit, even if he lands better than I do!

Two hellcats flying
Courtesy Naval Historical Center

So far it was a beautiful afternoon and the planes, jittery as they could be, mostly flew themselves; at least with men who knew enough to leave them alone under such circumstances. Cat sighed with pleasure when a well-tuned and fine-trimmed plane would do a bit of rock and lullaby in an occasional up-or-down draft and then put the ball right back in the center of the bank indicator. Sometimes it even seemed like they made their own throttle adjustments. As if: 'You rest now and I'll call you when I need you.'

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