At the same moment, the Device has stopped in the air, at the very apex of its high trajectory. A long plumbline descended would pass through the center of the white pyramid. Then it falls. Subject only to the winds, impossible to halt, the bomb falls. If it were a real Device in a real war, it would be well at this time for the enemy to have his affairs in order. The hate of the enemy has been reflected in the hate of the friend, reflected through me and my airplane and the computers that it carries.
And it is too late. We may declare an armistice, we may suddenly realize that the people under the bomb suspended are truly, deeply, our friends and our brothers. We may suddenly, blindingly see the foolishness of our differences, and the means to their solution. But the Device has begun to fall.
Do I feel sorry? Do I feel a certain sadness? I have felt those from the moment I saw the first practice Shape lifted into position under my wing.
But I love my airplane more than I hate the Device. I am the lens through which the hatred of my country is focused into a bright molten ball over the home of the enemy.
Although it is my duty and my only desire in wartime to serve my country as best I can, I rationalize. We will never really use the Devices. My targets will be completely and solely military ones. Everyone who is consumed in the fire is purely evil and filled with hatred for freedom.
There is a point where even the most ardent rationalization is only a gesture. I hope, simply, that I will never have to throw one of the repellent things at living people.
The distance-measuring drum of the steady TACAN has turned down now to 006 and that is as far as it will go, for I am six miles into the deep night directly above the transmitter of the Wiesbaden TACAN station. I am a minute and a half behind schedule in a wind that came from nowhere. In 30 minutes my wheels will be touching the cold wet runway at Chaumont Air Base.
The thought would have been reassuring, but there are two quick flashes of lightning to the right, across my course.
Once again, ready the report, tilt the stick to the right, fly the instruments, fly the instruments, thumb down on microphone button.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Rhein Control, Air Force Jet Two Niner Four Zero Five, Wiesbaden.” The City That Was Not Bombed.
Silence. Here we go again. “Rhein Control, Rhein control; Air Force Jet. . .” I try once. Twice. Three times. There is no answer. I am alone with my instruments, and suddenly aware of my aloneness.
Click around with the radio channel selector under my right glove; perhaps I can talk to Barber Radar. “Barber Radar, Air Force Jet Two Niner Four Zero Five, over.” Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing.
A flash in the clouds ahead. The air is still smooth, paving the way. Hold the heading. Hold the altitude.
A decision in my mind. If I were flying this crosscountry just to get myself home tonight, I would turn back now. I still have enough fuel to return to the clear air over Wethersfield. With my transmitter out, I cannot ask for a radar vector through the storms ahead. If it was not for the sack above the machine guns, I would turn back. But it is there, and at Chaumont there is a wing commander who is trusting me to complete my mission. I will continue.
I can use the radiocompass needle to point out the storms, if worst comes to worst I can dodge them by flying between the flashes. But still it is much more comfortable to be a spot of light on someone’s radar screen, listening for sure direction about the white blurs that are the most severe cells of a thunderstorm. One more try, although I am certain now that my UHF radio is completely dead. Click click click to 317.5 megacycles. “Moselle Control, Moselle Control, Jet Zero Five.” I have no hope. The feeling is justified, for there is no answer from the many-screened room that is Moselle Radar.
Turn back. Forget the wing commander. You will be killed in the storms.
Fear again, and it is exaggerating, as usual. I will not be killed in any storm. Someone else, perhaps, but not me. I have too much flying experience and I fly too strong an airplane to be killed by the weather.
Flash to the right, small flash to the left. A tiny tongue of turbulence licks at my airplane, making the wings rock slightly. No problem. Forty minutes from now I shall be walking across the ramp through the rain to Squadron Operations, Chaumont Air Base. The TACAN is working well, Phalsbourg is 80 miles ahead.
Friends have been killed. Five years ago, Jason Williams, roommate, when he flew into his strafing target.
I was briefing for an afternoon gunnery training mission, sitting on a chair turned backwards with my G-suit legs unzipped and dangling their own way to the wooden floor of the flight shack. I was there, and around the table were three other pilots who would soon be changing into airplanes. Across the room was another flight briefing for an air combat mission.
I was taking a sip of hot chocolate from a paper cup when the training squadron commander walked into the room, G-suit tossed carelessly over one shoulder.
“Anybody briefing for air-to-ground gunnery?”
I nodded over my cup and pointed to my table.
“I’m going to tell you to take it easy and don’t get target fixation and don’t fly into the ground.” He held a narrow strip of paper in his hand. “Student flew into a target on Range Two this morning. Watch your minimum altitude. Take it easy today, OK?”
I nodded again. “Who was it?”
The squadron commander looked at the paper. “Second Lieutenant Jason Williams.”
Like a ton of bricks. Second Lieutenant Jason Williams. Willy. My roommate. Willy of the broad smile and the open mind and the many women. Willy who graduated number four in a class of 60 cadets. Willy the only Negro fighter pilot I had ever known. It is funny. And I smiled and set down my cup.
I was amazed at myself. What is so funny about one of my best friends flying into a target on the desert? I should be sad. Dying is a horrible and terrible thing. I must be sad. I must wince, grit my teeth, say, “Oh, no!”
But I cannot keep from smiling. What is so funny? That is one way to hit the target? The ’84 always was reluctant to change direction in a dive? The odds against the only Negro fighter pilot in all the USAF gunnery school at this moment flying into the ground? Willy’s dead. Look sad. Look shocked. Look astounded. But I cannot keep from smiling because it is all so very funny.
The briefing is done and I walk outside and strap my airplane around me and push the throttle forward and go out to strafe the rocks and lizards on Range Number Three. Range Number Two is closed.
It happened again, a few months later. “Did you hear about Billy Yardley?” I had not heard from Bill since we graduated from cadets. “He flew into the side of a mountain on a weather approach to Aviano.” A ringing in my ears. Billy Yardley is dead. And I smile. Again the wicked unreasoning uncontrollable smile. A smile of pride? ‘I am a better pilot than Jason Williams and Billy Yardley because I am still alive’? Kenneth Sullivan crashed in a helicopter in Greenland. Sully. A fine man, a quiet man, and he died in a spinning cloud of snow and rotor blades. And I smile.
Somehow I am not mad or insane or warped, for I see it once in a while on the faces of others when they hear the ringing in their ears at the death of a friend. They smile, just a little. They think of a friend that knows now what we have wondered since we were old enough to wonder: what is behind the curtain? What comes after this world? Willy knows it, Bill Yardley knows it, Sully knows it. And I do not. My friends are keeping a secret from me. It is a secret that they know and that they will not tell. It is a game. I will know tonight or tomorrow or next month or next year, but I must not know now. A strange game. A funny game. And I smile.