Smoke from the guns of the formation all around him trailed back from the bombers in satisfying streams.
“God, that was great,” Snowberry said over the interphone.
“That’s the best, that’s amazing, to get them like that,” Piacenti said. Bryant was trembling and overheated. He fired his guns out into space, overwhelmed by how intense the gratification had been, the physical pleasure detached from emotion, from any thought of the absurdly forlorn Mack Sennett face in the canopy before they had let fly. He watched the bombs rain down over Le Bourget, on Lindy’s head, and felt as though a part of him were killed off, and had no regrets. They burst yellow and white in the rapid streams of the bombing pattern and the smoke bloomed and spread like stirred-up muck in pond water. “Bye, bye, Bourget,” Snowberry said over the interphone, for Bryant’s benefit. “Hope the St. Louis was off at a dispersal site.”
Lewis reported a perfect bombing pattern, and added as an item of interest that somebody’s bombs had torn the wings off a fighter attempting to climb beneath them. On the flight home they had maintained perfect formation, the spread of graceful Fortresses ahead and above him beautiful against the sky, and the Thunderbolts had swooped and looped around them after they had cleared the coast, celebrating with their own near-animal grace the ease and success of the day.
There was a minor celebration after debriefing, with Cokes and watery Scotch that Cooper and Gabriel had stashed away. There had been no announcement but already there were signs of another mission the next day, which was supposed to mean no drinking. After their triumph they interpreted that as a little drinking, confined to the afternoon. Gabriel announced to the assembled crew that Snowberry, Bryant, and Piacenti had each been awarded a third of a kill for the Messerschmitt and proposed a toast now that Paper Doll had been officially baptized. Now that the Luftwaffe has felt the sting of our anger, he added wryly. They drank the Scotch and Coke and poured water over each other’s heads. It was only late afternoon and the minute amount of Scotch allotted Bryant made him woozy. It tasted like the metal cup.
“I’ve got an announcement,” Gabriel said. “Thanks to the selfless bravery of Tech Sergeant Gordon L. Snowberry, Jr.—”
“L?” Snowberry said. He was rapidly finishing a loose pile of sketches.
“—L. Snowberry, Jr., we were able to obtain gun camera footage of Paper Doll’s historic kill today.”
Bean looked at Bryant. Gun cameras were altogether glamorous gizmos reserved exclusively for fighter pilots. The notion of Paper Doll’s gunners employing gun cameras was akin to the idea of their jousting over aerodromes with the Red Baron or Max Immelmann.
“Gather round. Somebody hit the lights.”
It was a sunny midafternoon and they were sitting around crates outside the day room. The crew gathered closer and Snowberry stood before them with his pile of sketches at chest level. On the first was a number 5 ringed with a geometric pattern like a cue number on a film leader. The men laughed.
Snowberry began to flip the pages, rapidly dropping them to his feet, and as the other numbers appeared the crew chanted the countdown, as they did before base movies: 4. 3. 2. 1. The first sketch appeared, a few lines suggesting a B-17 with an oversized tail. The men cheered. The next showed the formation. The next showed a ball turret. The next showed the same ball turret, from a slightly different angle. The men hooted and complained.
The drawings began to change more quickly as Snowberry developed dexterity with the flipping, and the B-17 began to bank — though there was some argument in the audience as to whether it was in fact banking or whether a wing was falling off — and the Messerschmitt appeared, to a huge cheer. A close-up of the canopy revealed a fierce-looking Nazi with an eye patch, a dueling scar, and jagged teeth, and the crew hissed and booed. Across his fuselage were a string of tiny bull’s-eyes that an arrow and tag helpfully identified as “37 Downed Brit Bombers.” In the next drawing the Messerschmitt was approaching the viewer head on, guns blazing in sunlight-like rays. In the next, Paper Doll was viewed from the beam, with stick figures in the dorsal and waist windows firing.
“That’s Bryant. I could tell by the shape of the head,” Willis Eddy called.
“And Piacenti ‘cause his hands aren’t on the guns,” Lambert Ball said.
More sketches of the firing, the tracer streams double-dotted lines. Bryant’s and Piacenti’s guns were missing high. Snowberry’s belly turret, now visible, was firing right into the cockpit.
A big explosion, a swastikaed tail flying outward with lines of force.
A final drawing, over which was superimposed THE END: a cartoon Snowberry curled inside the ball, winking, holding up an okay sign.
The men booed and threw gear. It did seem to Bryant as though morale had picked up.
“You gotta be kidding,” Lewis called. “I think the only thing you hit was the Fort opposite.”
“Hey, you see the curve in some of these?” Snowberry rustled around at his feet for the appropriate drawings. “I got off some classic, classic deflection bursts.”
“Hey, the only thing you know about deflection shooting is that you can’t do it,” Lewis said.
Gabriel had a fat new cigar in his mouth, unlit, and he grinned around it at them like a proud father.
“Get a load of Billy Mitchell, there,” Hirsch said quietly from Bryant’s left.
“Gabriel’s all right,” Lewis answered. Gabriel was hearing again from Piacenti how the Messerschmitt had just appeared, as if out of nowhere. “He’s starting to turn into one of those beady-eyed sons of bitches who absolutely hold the course, the kind of guy you want up there. And this movie thing with Snowberry was a good idea. We could use some loosening up.”
Lewis stood and suggested a game of Gordon Pong, and over Snowberry’s protestations the idea was enthusiastically endorsed by the rest of the crew. Four crates were stacked two on two as a net and Snowberry was caught and dragged to one side. After some rules debate, it was decided that he would not be allowed to bounce once on the receiving team’s side.
He kicked and squirmed too much — it was hard to maintain a good throwing grip — so they sat on him and tied his arms and feet. The officers agreed to play, and it was Bryant, Piacenti, Lewis, and Ball against Gabriel, Cooper, Hirsch, and Eddy. The gunners against the ninety-day wonders, as Lewis put it. Bean refused to play.
On the first toss Snowberry shrieked, so it was decided to gag him as well. After a few more tosses the best tactics revealed themselves to be: on the receiving end, spread out and close to the body as it flew over the crates; on the throwing end, try to produce a spin which would overload one end of the opposite line and defeat attempts at a good solid grasp. After one throw from the officers that just cleared the crates — Lewis called net ball but was argued out of it — Bryant commented to the group on the sheer terror in Gordon’s eyes, and recommended a blindfold, both as a mercy measure and further elimination of distractions. It was agreed to, and Bean gave up a sock to that purpose when no one was able to produce a handkerchief.