"Three, Skipper."
"Six, OK."
"Five, Skipper."
There was a minute of silence. Dunn reached for his microphone.
"Four?"
"I've got three of them working."
"You want to abort? And try to catch up?"
"I'll go with three."
"Form on me, keep your eyes open," Dunn ordered. "And for Christ's sake watch your fuel!"
There was no response.
VMF-229 formed loosely on its commanding officer and proceeded in a northwest direction, climbing steadily. At 12,000 feet, Dunn got on the mike again.
"Oxygen time," he ordered.
[TWO]
1125 Hours 11 October 1942
Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, Commanding Officer, Marine Air Group 21, set out to confer with the (acting) commanding officer of VMF-229. Dawkins was a career Marine out of Annapolis-a tanned, wiry man of thirty-five who somehow managed to look halfway crisp and military even in his sweat-soaked Suit, Flying, Tropical Climates.
He found Lieutenant Dunn engaged in his personal toilette. Dunn was standing naked under a fifty-five-gallon drum set up on two-by-fours behind the squadron office, a sandbag-walled tent. Water dribbling from holes punched in the bottom of what had been an Avgas fuel drum was not very efficiently rinsing soap from his body. Dunn's eyes were tightly closed; there was soap in them, and he was rubbing them with his knuckles.
Dunn was small and slight, five feet six or so, not more than 140 pounds; he had little body hair.
He's just a kid, Dawkins thought.
Six months before, the idea of a twenty-one-year-old not a year out of Pensacola even serving as an acting squadron commander would have seemed absurd to him.
But six months ago was before Midway, where this skinny blond kid had shot down two Japanese airplanes and then made it back home with a shot-out canopy and a face full of Plexiglas shards and metal fragments. And before Guadalcanal, where he had shot down five more Japanese.
The regulations were clear: Command of an organization was vested in the senior officer present for duty. And Bill Dunn was by no means the senior first lieutenant present for duty in VMF-229. He should not be carried on the books as executive officer (though in fact he was), much less should he have assumed command during the temporary absence of Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR.
But he was the best man available, not only in terms of flying skill, but as a leader. Dawkins had agreed with Galloway when the question had come up; fuck the regulations, Dunn's the best man.
This was the second time Dunn had assumed command of VMF-229. Six weeks before, Galloway had been shot down and presumed lost. When he heard the news, tears ran shamelessly down Dunn's cheeks. But the next morning, he led VMF-229 back into the air without complaining. If any doubt at all about the kid's ability to command VMF-229 had come up, Dawkins would have relieved him. But he did fine.
Meanwhile, Galloway's luck held... that time. A Patrol Torpedo boat plucked him from the sea, and he returned to duty. And then six days ago, on orders from Washington, Galloway went off on some mission that was both supersecret and-Dawkins inferred-superdangerous. It was entirely likely that he would not come back from it.
And so Dawkins was glad he had the skinny little hairless boy with the soap in his eyes to command VMF-229. He didn't look like one, but Lieutenant Bill Dunn was a fine Marine, a born leader, a warrior.
Dunn held his face up to the water dribbling from the fifty-five-gallon drum, then stepped to the side and wiped his face with a dirty towel. When he opened his eyes, he saw Colonel Dawkins.
"Be right with you, Skipper," he said.
"Take your time," Dawkins said.
Dunn pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. These didn't look appreciably cleaner than the ones he'd removed and tossed on a pile of sandbags. Then he pulled on a fresh flight suit. After that, he sat on the pile of sandbags and slipped on socks, then stuck his feet in his boondockers. Finally, he put the.45 in its shoulder holster across his chest.
When he was finished dressing, he looked at Dawkins.
"What happened to Knowles?" Dawkins asked.
"He got on the horn and said he was low on fuel, so I sent him back. Him and two others who were getting low themselves. We still had thirty, thirty-five minutes' fuel remaining."
"He almost made it," Dawkins said.
"Oblensky saw it. He told me he tried to stretch his dead-engine glide and didn't make it."
Technical Sergeant Oblensky had been a flying sergeant when Colonel Dawkins had been a second lieutenant. His professional opinion of the cause of the crash was at least as valid as anyone else's Dawkins could think of. He hadn't questioned it.
"He should have put it in the water," Dawkins said.
"He was trying to save the plane," Dunn said.
"What do we call it, 'pilot error'?"
"How about 'command failure'? I should have checked to make sure he wasn't running on the fumes."
"It wasn't your fault, Bill," Dawkins said.
Dunn met his eyes, but didn't respond directly.
"How is he?" Dunn asked. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"
"He died about five minutes ago."
"Shit! When I was over there, they told me they thought he would."
"They did everything they could for him."
"Yeah."
"What kind of shape are you in, Bill?"
"Me personally, or the squadron?"
"You personally, first, and then the squadron."
"Except for wishing Charley Galloway was here and not off Christ only knows where, playing whatever game he's playing, I'm all right."
"I'm sure it's not a game," Dawkins said, a hint of reproof in his voice. "That mission came right from Washington."
Dunn didn't reply.
"You're doing a fine job as squadron commander," Dawkins said.
"Squadron commanders write the next of kin," Dunn said. "I'm getting goddamned sick of that."
"I'll write Knowles's family. What is it, wife or parents?"
"He got married at P'Cola the day he graduated," Dunn said. "And heard last week that she's knocked up." He pressed his lips together, bitterly. "Sorry. That she's in the family way."
"I'll write her, Bill."
"No. I killed him. I'll write her."
"Damn it! You didn't kill him. He knew what the fuel gauge is for."
"And I should have known that he wouldn't turn back until he was ordered to turn back," Dunn said. "Which I would have done had I done my job and checked on his fuel."
"I'm not going to debate with you, Mr. Dunn," Dawkins said coldly, breaking the vow he made on the way from the hospital to VMF-229 to overlook Bill Dunn's habit of saying exactly what was on his mind, without regard to the niceties of military protocol.
"I will write Mrs. Knowles," Dunn said. "And since I am a coward, I will tell her that the father of her unborn child died doing his duty."
"You never know when to shut up, do you?" Dawkins flared. But he was immediately sorry for it.
Dunn met his eyes again, yet didn't reply.
"Nothing happened this morning?" Dawkins went on quickly. "You saw nothing up there?"