All four nodded.
“We’ve got to turn them around for the next event. Any gripes at all, sir?”
Woods replied first. “Trim button sticks, but it’s not a big problem.”
“What about 211?” Lucas inquired.
“ECS is really loud,” Vialli replied. “When it changes the temperature it wants to get there now. Sounds like a hurricane.”
“We can take care of that,” Lucas said confidently. “What about the backseat?”
“No problems,” Sedge said.
“Great,” Lucas said and hurried out.
Vialli crossed over to Woods, and sat down next to him. He leaned toward him, and said in a low voice, “I need to talk to you.”
Woods glanced up from the paperwork on his fold-over desk. “About how you’re going numb on me out there?”
“No, something else.”
Woods studied his face. “When?”
“Now… if you can.”
Woods looked at his watch. “The wardroom will be shutting down. Let’s go to chow. We’ll just wait out the rest until we have time.” Vialli’s face showed concern. “Unless it can’t wait. We can just go to the stateroom…”
“No, lunch is fine,” Vialli said. “I’m kind of hungry anyway. They’re having sliders — we can stuff a couple of those and then talk.”
Woods handed the yellow sheet to Wink, who took it to Maintenance Control. “You want to go eat?” Woods asked him as he was walking away.
“Sure,” Wink said. The four of them walked the three hundred yards from Ready Room Eight to the forward wardroom. Greasy hamburgers lay quietly in the steel pans over heated water. They each made double cheeseburgers and put them on their plates. As they went for drinks, Woods moaned when he saw the cow was disconnected and there were boxes of funny-shaped cartons in front of it. “Not German milk again,” he groaned.
No one answered him. Woods hailed one of the messmen and asked him directly, “All we’ve got is German milk?”
“Afraid so, sir.”
“When did we run out of real milk?”
“Yesterday.”
“What’s the matter with German milk?” Vialli asked.
Woods shook his head. “It tastes like goat’s milk.”
Vialli laughed. “How the hell do you know what goat’s milk tastes like?”
“I’m guessing,” Woods said sarcastically.
Wink sat next to him and said, “We go to sea for weeks on end and you expect someone to bring you milk out of an American cow — pasteurized and homogenized — and whine about it when you have to drink German milk someone probably paid through the nose to get trucked down to Italy just for you?”
Woods looked at Wink. “You don’t have to make me sound like an ax murderer. I just like regular old milk. That’s all. And eggs, and butter, and all the things people back home take for granted. Here we eat powdered eggs, no butter, no real milk, and get paid less than bus drivers, and we’re supposed to be really grateful. I keep forgetting,” he said, finally biting into his hamburger.
After the other officers had eaten and wandered off, Woods sat with his hands around his coffee cup and studied Vialli across the table. “So what gives?”
“I need to ask you something as a friend,” Vialli began tentatively. Woods waited. “I know you’re my section leader, and senior to me and everything. But I feel like you’re my brother. You’re the best friend I’ve got. Can I say that?”
“Sure. But before you go too far, what’s eating you? You just about bought it on the strafing run the other day. And today you were flying formation like you were afraid of it. Your hook wasn’t even down. What gives?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d rather be somewhere else.”
“Who wouldn’t. But if you want to get out of the Navy, you’ve got to wait—”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“What?”
“It’s something else.” Vialli swallowed. Now that he was actually going to say it, his courage was evaporating. “Always before, in New York, in college, I was always the tough guy. Always doggin’ everybody, making life hard. But here, I don’t know. It’s different. I don’t have to prove anything except in the air.” He grinned at Woods. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna ask you for money.”
“Just say it. Don’t get misty-eyed on me or something.”
“You’re a Lieutenant, a second-tour Lieutenant, and I’m just a first cruise JG.”
“So?”
“So that means you’re probably a lifer and figure the Navy’s your career. I haven’t come to that point yet, and figure flying around in a 747 would be a pretty good job.”
Woods was puzzled. “What are you trying to say?”
“Before I tell you, I need your promise you won’t tell anybody about this.”
Woods was starting to feel uncomfortable. He had responsibilities in the squadron that went beyond friendship. “Okay,” he said after a long pause.
“It’s Irit.”
Woods smiled suddenly. “So you’re in love. Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
“It’s not that. Well, I guess part of it is… I was in love in college once.” He struggled to express himself. “You ever fall in love a lot faster than you even knew you could?”
“Just once.”
“How did you know?”
“The usual. Every hour I lived when she wasn’t there was like it was wasted.”
“Exactly,” Vialli agreed. “That’s exactly how I feel.”
“This is all about Irit?”
“Yeah. It is. It’s the strongest thing I’ve ever felt. It’s almost scary.”
“Does she feel the same way?”
“I think so.” He hesitated. “You see her hand?”
Woods nodded.
“She only has her thumb and one finger on her right hand. She’s really good at hiding it.”
“Does it bug you?”
“Yeah. And I can’t believe it does. I always thought I was bigger than that. I was horrified.”
“You’ll get over it.” Woods started to push his chair away from the table and get up, but Vialli put up his hand to stop him.
“I’ve got to see her.”
“We’ll be there in a few weeks,” Woods said supportively.
“I can’t wait that long.”
“What’s a few weeks?”
“I can’t explain it.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want to take some leave and go there.”
“Where?”
“Israel. Nahariya.”
“Nahariya? Isn’t that way north?”
“I’m not sure—”
“Just wait, Boomer. We’ll be there in a few weeks.”
“I can’t.”
He knew Vialli was impulsive, but he also usually had good judgment. “You know better than to decide things like this just ’cause you’re hot—”
“It’s not like that.”
Woods had his doubts. “What are you thinking about doing exactly?”
“When we pull into Naples I’m going to take leave.”
“And?”
“Fly to Tel Aviv. Commercial. She’s going to pick me up. I’ve already made the reservations.”
Woods sat back. “Skipper will never approve a leave request for Israel.”
“The leave request won’t say Israel.”
Woods immediately understood. “It’ll say Naples? You’re going to put a false destination on it?”
Vialli looked into Woods’s eyes. “You don’t have to put it that way, but yeah.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’m not asking you to. The Skipper will approve it. I’ll tell him I need some time off. I’ll be back long before we sail.”
“What if we sail early?”
“I’ll take the COD and catch the ship when I can. Same as if I woke up one morning on leave in Naples and saw the big gray ship had left without me.”
“She know about this?”
“I talked to her on the phone the last day we were in Venice.”