Seeing the look, McCoy continued, “God only knows why the Marines made him a BN. He went back to Vietnam in A-6s. Punched out twice, the first time on final to DaNang. Walked through the main gate carrying his parachute and seat pan. The second time, though, was something else. His pilot got his head blown off and Le Beau ejected somewhere near the Laotian border. Maybe in Laos or Cambodia — I don’t know. Anyway, nobody heard anything. Just nothing, although they looked and looked hard. Then seventeen days or so later a patrol stumbled onto him out in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. He was running around buck naked, covered with mud and leaves, carrying nothing but a knife. Was busy ambushing the gomers and gutting them. They brought him back with a whole collection of gomer weapons that he had stashed.”
From the look on Grafton’s face, McCoy could see that he was not a happy man.
“That ain’t the amazing part, Jake,” the Real McCoy continued. “The amazing part is that Le Beau didn’t want to get rescued. Two guys have told me this, so I’m assuming that there’s something to it. He didn’t want to come back because he was having too much fun. The grunts on that patrol almost had to tie him up.”
“Why me, Lord?”
“His last pilot didn’t cut the mustard,” McCoy continued, “not to Le Beau’s way of thinking. Was having his troubles getting aboard. Oh, he wasn’t dangerous, but he was rough, couldn’t seem to get a feel for the plane in the groove at night. He might have come around, then again he might not have. He didn’t get the chance. Le Beau went to the skipper and the skipper went to CAG and before you could whisper ‘Semper Fi’ the guy was transferred.”
“Le Beau did that?”
“Whatever it takes to make it in the Corps, that dick-head has it. He just got selected for promotion to major. Everyone treats him with deference and respect. Makes my stomach turn. Wait till you see these tough old gunnies — they talk to him like they were disciples talking to Jesus. If he lives he’s going to be the commandant someday, mark my words.”
“Strangers in a strange land,” Jake murmured, referring to himself and McCoy.
“Something like that,” the Real agreed. He pulled off his steel-toed flight boots and tossed them carelessly on the floor. “This tour is going to be an adventure,” he added sourly.
“Uh-huh.”
“We’ve got an all-officers meeting in the ready room in about an hour. I’m going to get fourteen winks. Wake me up, huh?”
“Okay.”
McCoy turned over in his bunk and was soon breathing deeply.
Jake snapped off the overhead light, leaving only his desk lamp lit, the little ten-watt glow worm. He tilted his chair back against McCoy’s steel foot locker and put his feet up on his desk.
Thinking about Le Beau, he snorted once, but his thoughts soon drifted on to Callie. The gentle motion of the ship had a tranquilizing effect. After a few moments his head tilted forward and sleep overcame him.
The skipper of the squadron was Lieutenant Colonel Richard Haldane. He was a short, barrel-chested, ramrod-straight man with close-cropped black hair that showed flecks of gray. In this closed community of military professionals his bearing and his demeanor marked him as an officer entitled to respect. He took Jake aside after the all-officers meeting — boring administrative details in a crowded, stuffy room filled with strangers— and asked him to sit in the chair beside him.
Haldane had Jake’s service record on his lap. “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk last night, Mr. Grafton, but welcome aboard. We’re glad to have someone with your carrier experience.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We’re going to assign you to the Operations Department. I think your experience will be the most help to us there.”
“Yessir.”
“During this transit to Hawaii, I want you to put together a series of lectures from CV NATOPS.” CV NATOPS was the bible on carrier operations. The acronym stood for fixed-wing carrier naval air training and operation procedures. “We’ve been through it several times while working up for this deployment,” Colonel Haldane continued, “but I’d like for you to lead us through the book again in detail. I want you to share with us everything you know about A-6 carrier operations. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Richard Haldane nodded his head a millimeter. Even sitting down he exuded a command presence. Jake sat a little straighter in his chair.
“I see from your record that you have plenty of combat experience, but it’s experience of the same type that most of the officers in this room have had — bombing targets ashore.”
“Single-plane day and night raids, some section stuff, and Alpha strikes, sir, plus a whole hell of a lot of tanker flights.”
“Unfortunately our combat experience won’t do us much good if we go to war with the Soviets, who are our most likely opponent.”
This remark caught Jake by surprise. He tried to keep his face deadpan as Haldane continued: “Our part in a war with the Russians will probably involve a fleet action, our ships against their ships. Mr. Grafton, how would you attack a Soviet guided-missile frigate?”
Jake opened his mouth, then closed it again. He scratched his head. “I don’t know, sir,” he said at last. The truth was he had never once even thought about it. The Vietnam War was in full swing when he was going through flight training, when he transitioned into A-6s, and during his three years in a fleet squadron. The targets were all onshore.
“Any ideas?”
Jake bit his lip. He was the naval officer and he was being asked a question about naval air warfare that in truth he should know something about. But he didn’t. He decided to admit it. “Sir, I think the answer to that question would depend on a careful analysis of a Soviet frigate’s missile and flak envelope, and to be frank, I have never done that or seen the results of anybody else’s look. I suspect the Air Intelligence guys have that stuff under lock and key.”
“So what weapons does a Soviet frigate carry?”
Jake squirmed. “Colonel, I don’t know.”
Haldane nodded once, slowly, and looked away. “I would like for you to study this matter, Mr. Grafton. When you think you have an answer to the question, come see me.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“That’s all. Good luck tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jake rose and walked away, mortified. Well, hell, the stuff he had spent his career attacking was all mud-based. Of course he should know about ships, but…
What Haldane must think — a naval officer who doesn’t know diddly-squat about naval warfare!
Congratulations, Jake. You just got your tour with the Marines off to a great start.
5
There was still a little splotch of light in the western sky and a clearly discernible horizon when Jake Grafton taxied toward the catapult that evening. This first shot would be a “pinky,” without severe sweat. He needed six landings to attain his night qualification, which meant after this twilight shot there would be five more…in stygian darkness. A pinky first one was just dandy with him.
He carefully scanned the evening sky. The cloud cover was almost total, with the only holes toward the west, and low, maybe seven or eight thousand feet. Wind still out of the northwest, but stiffer than this morning. That was good. Tonight the ship could steam slower into the wind and yet still have the optimum thirty knots of wind over the deck. Since every mile upwind took her farther from the coast and the airfields ashore, the fewer of those miles the better.