The payload of the Crusader was prodigious; its sturdy frame could carry an anthology of destructive weaponry beneath its wings. Pfitz was highly satisfied with this aspect, soon indifferent to the absence of computer technology that precluded his carrying laser or guided bombs like the Phantoms. And he was never happier than when he supervised his crew as they bolted the finless, cigar-shaped canisters of napalm to the underwing pylons. Pascual overheard him talking about a request he’d made to be excused from carrying all other bomb loads and how he’d voluntarily restricted himself to napalm. He started to refer to his aircraft as the Rose Train and had Huq, who was something of an artist, paint this below his cockpit.
“It’s like roses in the jungle, man,” he would crow on returning from a mission. “You see them cans tumblin’ and whoomph—it’s like a fuckin’ great flower bloomin’ in the trees. Wham, pink an’ orange roses. Beautiful, man, just beautiful.” He made Huq keep a tally of missions by painting a red rose beneath the cockpit sill.
Lydecker thought Pfitz had gone mad, and so did many of the other pilots. Napalm had to be delivered from low level, making the plane vulnerable to ground fire. With half a dozen canisters wobbling like overripe fruit beneath your wings, you could be transformed into a comet of blazing petroleum jelly with one lucky shot. Lydecker sometimes thought about this as he patched bullet holes in the wings and tail.
Often at night Lydecker would leave the brightly lit crew quarters, where the air was thick with smoke, and bored sailors played cards or told obscene stories, and wander up to the dark cavern of the main hangar below the deck where the atmosphere had a tranquil metallic chill and the smell of oil and engine coolant clung to the air. He would go over to the Crusader, ponderously low-slung on its curious trolley undercarriage which jutted like spavined legs from the fuselage belly, and run his hands over the scarred and chipped aluminum, his fingers tracing and caressing the lines of rivet heads. Like the halted, bullied schoolchild who tinkers with his bike all day, Lydecker enjoyed the mute presence of his plane. It was like some gigantic familiar toy, stored in a cupboard with its wings folded and canopy up. He knew every square inch of the plane, from its gaping intake to the scorched jet at the rear. He had clambered all over its body, fueling and rearming it, riveting patches of aluminum alloy over the puckered ulcers caused by random bullets. He had climbed into the dark ventral recesses of the undercarriage bay, checking the hydraulic system, and had inched along its ribbed length replacing frayed control wires and realigning the armor plate. And he found himself, like an anxious mother, fretting for its return after long missions to Laos or Haiphong.
The war was a distant affair to the men on the “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea. Just a green haze on the horizon sometimes. Even for the pilots who flew above it, dumping tons of high explosive on the jungle, the war and the enemy remained abstract and remote. To them it was a dangerous, demanding job and only Pfitz openly expressed the requisite warlike antagonism; only he seemed to be exulted by the regular missions and the crop of red roses that grew on the side of the plane.
Then one late afternoon a seabird was sucked into the intake as the Crusader came in to land. The thump made Pfitz veer up and away to make his approach again. This caused a lot of hilarity among the deck crew and when Pfitz had landed safely someone shouted, “Hey! Why din’t ya eject, Pfitz?” There was no real danger, as, set about five feet down the intake vent, there was a fine wire mesh that protected the delicate compressor fans of the engine from such incidents.
Lydecker wheeled the light ladder against the fuselage as soon as the plane was towed to its bay on the deck. Pfitz took off his helmet, sweat shining in his crew-cut hair, his beefy face red with anger. As he climbed down, Lydecker stepped back from the ladder and looked away, but Pfitz grabbed him by the arm, fingers biting cruelly into his bicep.
“Fuckin’ bumpy landing again, you fuckin’ shithead creep. How many times I told you to get those tire pressures reduced? You’re on fuckin’ report.”
That night Lydecker abandoned the letter he was trying to write to a movie usherette he had known in Sturgis and made his way up to the hangar. He roved around the familiar contours of the plane, noting with a surge of anger the bulge of the fat soft tires on the steel floor. His brain hummed with an almost palpable hatred for Pfitz. His hands were raw and astringent from an evening spent cleaning latrines with coarse scouring powder as a result of his having been placed on report. He leaned up against the side of the Crusader and rested his hot cheek on the cool metal, his eyes blank and tearless, yet his mouth uncontrollably twisted in a rictus of sadness and utter frustration with his life. He forced himself to think of something else. He thought of the plane and the bird it had engulfed, how his heart had leaped in panic as the plane had jerked from its approach run. Without thinking he peered into the maw of the intake. In the gloom he could make out the detritus of feathers and expressed flesh stuck to the fine grille. He climbed into the intake, easily adapting the posture of his body to the narrowing curves of the interior, and began to pick the feathers and bones away from the wire mesh. He felt his spine molded against the curve of polished metal and sensed all about him the complex terminals of controls and cables running from the cockpit above his head. The only sound was the noise of his breathing and the quiet pinging of his nails on the wires as he plucked the trapped feathers away.
When he heard the voices he suddenly realized he did not know how long he’d been hunched in the throat of the plane. With a chill of alarm he recognized Pfitz’s oddly high laugh among them and hastily clambered out of the intake. He saw three officers sauntering toward the Crusader down the aisle of parked aircraft. Momentarily distracted, he tried to slip around the plane out of sight but Pfitz had seen him and ran forward.
“Hey! You there, sailor, stop!”
Lydecker stood at attention, his face red with embarrassment, as if his mother had discovered him having sex or masturbating. As Pfitz approached, the shame dissipated and fear suddenly gripped like a hand at his heart.
“Lydecker! This is off limits to you, man.” Pfitz was enraged; he clutched a beer can in his fist. “What’re you fuckin’ doing here, jerk-off?”
The other two officers stood back grinning. Pfitz was aware of their amused observation.
Lydecker held out his hand, showing the ball of fluff and feathers by way of explanation.
“Uh, I was just clearing the intake, sir. The bird? You know, when you landed this afternoon …?”
The two officers snorted with laughter. Pfitz’s eyes widened in fury. He cuffed at the feathers, and the bundle exploded into a cloud of swooping fluff.
“Hey, Larry,” one of the officers guffawed, “it’s a fuckin’ souvenir, man.”
Pfitz struck out blindly at Lydecker, punching him in the chest. Lydecker staggered backward. Pfitz’s voice rose to a shriek.
“You’re fuckin’ finished, you fuckin’ dipshit asshole! Get outa here an’ don’t come back or I’m gonna dump a giant shit on you, boy!”
Pfitz held the beer can up threateningly. Lydecker backed down the row of planes. Helpless with laughter, the two officers tried to restrain Pfitz.
“You’re getting transferred off of my crew. You ain’t gonna mess around with me anymore, you bastard. Now git out!” His face rigid with fury, Pfitz hurled the half-full beer can at the retreating Lydecker. It glanced off his forehead and went ringing along the steel deck. Lydecker turned and fled, only to slip on a patch of oil. He skidded to the ground, careening into the nose wheel of a Skyhawk. The beer can rested against the tire. All Lydecker could hear was laughter — Pfitz’s harsh, triumphant laughter. He picked up the beer can, paused for an instant, then got to his feet and limped off, the can clutched to his chest with both hands.