Charles John O'Seven had made it into the Air Force, trained on B-60s and his crew been picked as a reserve for this deployment. Then, he'd been given a shot at Flying Fiasco. The Colonel had been honest, she was a hard-luck ship with a history of minor accidents, aborts and generally sub-standard performance. She was a challenge, turn her around and O'Seven would get Captain's Bars years earlier than otherwise. Fail and it would be a black mark that would really hurt.
He'd jumped at the challenge, grabbed the chance and now regretted it. Flying Fiasco was a B-60E, only three years old, yet she looked like an aircraft that had seen a decade of hard service. The paint was battered and scraped, the seats and worktables chipped and stained. Worse, not all the damage was wear and tear, some was deliberate, there was graffiti scratched into the paint and cigarette burns that looked intentional rather than careless. Hell, nobody was supposed to smoke on the flight deck anyway. But it wasn't just the mess. There was a sullen, resentful attitude in the cockpit. It had been there since he'd climbed in.
“OK guys, everybody find your station and we'll start to clean her up. Make notes of any damage and we'll try to patch it up. Chief, how did she get this way?”
“Ground crews tried to keep her neat Sir, but they gave up in the end. They can only do so much. They kept her running mechanically well, you know even after the abort yesterday, we couldn't find anything wrong with her. But her crew just didn't care. I'll get some cleaning stuff, Sir and a couple of men to start work on your station.”
“Chief, I think you misheard me. I said 'everybody find their station and start cleaning,' not 'everybody except me find their station and start cleaning.'“
The Chief grinned and O'Seven realized he'd just passed a little test.
“The cleaning supplies are good idea, can we also get the right paint so we can touch up all this damage? Another thing, that name outside, it isn't fitting for an aircraft. Can you remove it? That we would appreciate some help with.”
“Yes sir, that paint's hard to get off, but we'll strip it. Have you selected a new name for her?”
O'Seven thought for a moment. “How about Honey Pot? With some artwork of a sexy blonde rolling dice, five and two showing?” He reached into his wallet and took out a twenty “I understand that's the standing fee for nose art.”
The Chief was marveling. A young officer who didn't mind getting his hands dirty. One for the books. “No Sir, this one's on the house. And, Sir, I think I know something else that might help. If you'll excuse me.”
O'Seven got on his knees and crawled under the seat, there was debris under there, papers and just plain dirt and junk. Obviously, the previous crew, now on their way to Alaska, or so he'd heard, had just tossed trash around. That could explain some of the malfunctions. Silver foil from a cigarette package could play hell with electronics if it got to the wrong place. He heard steps behind him.
“Get me a bag for all this garbage and tell the guys to be on the look-out for debris that's found its way to places it shouldn't.”
“Yes Sir” said General Dedmon dryly.
“General, Sir, I'm sorry, I didn't, I thought you we, I mean, oh hell, sir. Please be merciful and kill me quickly.”
“At ease Lieutenant. Status?”
“Sir you wanted us to take her out in 24 hours. I request we stay for at least another 24 beyond that. I want to have a blitz on cleaning her and fixing her up. You know how it is Sir, once started, if we have to stop, we never quite get back in the swing again. Can we have 48 hours?”
“We're clearing the base in 72 hours. You'll have to be gone by then. You'll have to bring the ground crew back with you as well. I see they're scraping the old nose art off?”
“Yes Sir. Change the name, change the luck.”
Dedmon nodded. “Wise move. Good luck Lieutenant. After what happened yesterday, the B-60 is going to be around for quite a bit longer than we'd thought. And may be working a lot harder than we'd thought. Fly High Lieutenant.”
O'Seven had just started to relax when the Chief returned with four Thai girls, wearing coveralls, their hair tied back under scarves. “Lieutenant, these ladies have been helping keep the base and hangars clean, they've been cleared for working here. They'll clean the decks and bulkheads and the other traffic areas for you. They're paid from base funds, per diem and meals.”
“Meals Chief? Proper portions I hope, not left-overs.”
“Sir!” The chief appeared genuinely offended. “The ladies eat as guests of the Sergeant's Mess, Sir.”
Privately, the Chief gave O'Seven another tick of approval, most young officers wouldn't have thought to check that point.
“Buckets of hot water, soap, bleach and brushes coming up Sir. If your people lower the dirty water out of the nosewheel bay, we'll dump and refill for you. My people will be cleaning up the outside. Paint will be here this afternoon. Also, sir, we have some leather coming up, you can buy real good leather here. Once it arrives, the ladies will try and repair the seats as best they can for you. Oh yes, and sir? I got some coveralls for you and your crew to wear. This is going to be a long, dirty job.”
Lieutenant C.J. O'Seven started stuffing debris from around the aircraft commander's seat into a trash bag. Then he stopped and ran his hand along the instrument panel. “Don't worry Honey Pot” he whispered “We'll get you looking real nice again.”
Twinnge, On The Mandalay - Myitkyina Road, Burma
After almost two months of smelling rotting jungle and foul mud, the odor of freshly-laid tar was a blessed relief. The Indian Engineer battalion had reached them the night before, now they were just finishing putting blacktop on the reconstructed road to Mandalay. Two more companies of the battalion were hard at work building a new bridge over the Irawaddy.
Captain Golconda wouldn't be taking what was left of his convoy up to Myitkyina though, there wasn't enough of it to make the effort worthwhile. Two months of mortar fire and probing attacks had seen to that. Instead, his unit would become a guard detachment for the bridge that was now going up and would start to secure the area.
General Moses would have apoplexy if he read the operational guidance for that. He'd been a great one for taking the fight to the enemy, for offensive patrolling of the jungle to search for and destroy enemy units. All that had gone.
Now, the orders were, go to the villages, make friends with the local population, guard them against the guerrillas. Cut the guerrillas off from the villages, leave them in the jungle. If we control the people, the guerrillas can have the jungle, given time it will kill them all. Remember the golden rule. Fifteen percent of the people support you, 15 percent support the enemy, seventy percent just want to live in peace. So if your presence means that they will live in peace, those seventy percent will be your supporters.
His men had done well, Golconda thought, few could have done better. They'd held here for two months until relieved. Just like dozens of small outposts up and down the road. The Australian Expeditionary Force had won laurels in this campaign, even if the strategic concepts had been a bit misdirected.
There were lessons to be learned certainly, and faults to be put right. A new infantry rifle was one of them, it hadn't escaped his notice that as many of his men as had the chance had dumped their Lee-Enfields in favor of Chipanese Arisakas. But, there was much to be proud of as well. Much to be proud of.