2
When Pitt awoke, it was still dark. He did not know how long he had slept. Perhaps he just dozed off.
Perhaps he bad been lost under the black cloak of sleep for hours. He did not know, nor did he care.
The metal springs of the Air Force cot squeaked as he rolled over, seeking a more comfortable position.
But the comfort of deep sleep eluded him. His conscious mind dimly tried to analyze why. Was it the steady humming noise of the air conditioner, he asked himself? He was used to drifting off under the loud din of aircraft engines, so that couldn’t be it. Maybe it was the scurrying cockroaches. God knows Thasos was covered with them. No, it was something else. Then he knew. The answer pierced the fog of his drowsy brain. It was his other mind, the unconscious one that was keeping him awake. Like a movie projector, it flashed pictures of the strange events from the previous day, over and over again.
One picture stood out above all the rest. It was the photograph in a gallery of the Imperial War Museum. Pitt could recall it vividly. The camera had caught a German aviator posing beside a World War I fighter plane. He was garbed in the flying togs of the day, and his right hand rested upon the head of an immense white German Shepherd. The dog, obviously a mascot, was panting and looking up at his master with a patronizing, doe-like expression. The flyer stared back at the camera with a boyish face that somehow looked naked without the usual Prussian dueling scar and monocle. However, the proud Teutonic military bearing could be easily seen in the hint of an insolent grin and the ramrod straight posture.
Pitt even remembered the caption under the photo:
The Hawk of Macedonia
Lieutenant Kurt Heibert, of Jagdstaffel 91, attained 32 victories over the allies on the Macedonian Front; one of the outstanding aces of the great war. Presumed shot down and lost in the Aegean Sea on July 15, 1918. For some time, Pitt lay staring in the darkness.
There would be no more sleep tonight he thought. Sitting up and leaning on one elbow, he reached over a bedside table, groped for his Omega watch and held it in front of his eyes. The luminous dial read 4:09.
Then he sat up and dropped the bare soles of his feet on the vinyl tile floor. A package of cigarettes sat next to the watch, and he pulled out one and lit it with a silver Zippo lighter. Inhaling deeply, he stood up and stretched. His face grimaced; the muscles of his back stung from the back slapping he had received from the cheering men of Brady Field right after he and Giordino had climbed from the cockpit of the PBY. Pitt smiled to himself in the dark as he thought about the warm handshakes and congratulations pressed upon them.
The moonlight, beaming in through the window of the Officers’ Quarters, and the warm clear air of early morning made Pitt restless. He stripped off his shorts and rummaged through his luggage in the dim light.
When his touch recognized the cloth shape of a pair of swim trunks, he slipped them on, snatched a towel from the bathroom and stepped out into the stillness of the night.
Once outside, the brilliant Mediterranean moon enveloped his body and laid bare the landscape with an eerie ghost-like emptiness. The sky was all studded with stars and revealed the milky way in a great white design across a black velvet backdrop.
Pitt strolled down the path from the Officers’ Quarters toward the main gate. He paused for a minute, looking at the vacant runway, and he noticed a black area every so often in the rows of multi-colored lights that stitched the edges. Several of the lights in the signal system must have been damaged in the attack, he thought. However, the general pattern was still readable to a pilot making a night landing.
Behind the intermediate lights, he could make out a dark outline of the PBY, sitting forlornly on the opposite side of the apron like a nesting duck. The bullet damage to the Catalina’s hull turned out to be slight and the Flight Line Maintenance crew promised that they would begin repairs first thing in the morning, the restoration taking three days. Colonel James Lewis, the base commanding officer, had expressed his apologies at the delay, but he needed the bulk of the maintenance crew to work on the damaged jets and the remaining C-133 Cargomaster. In the meantime, Pitt and Giordino elected to accept the Colonel's hospitality and stay at Brady Field, using the First Attempt’s whale boat to commute between the ship and shore. The last arrangement worked to everyone’s advantage since living quarters aboard the First Attempt were cramped and at a premium.
“Kind of early for a swim, isn’t it, buddy?”
The voice snapped Pitt from his thoughts, and he found himself standing under the white glare of floodlights that were perched on top of the guard’s shack at the main gate. The shack sat on a curb-lined island that divided the incoming and outgoing traffic and was just large enough for one man to sit in. A short, burly looking Air Policeman stepped from the doorway and eyed him closely. “I couldn’t sleep.”
As soon as he said it, Pitt felt foolish for not being more original But what the hell, he thought, it’s the truth.
“Can’t say as I blame you,” said the AP. “After all that’s happened today, I’d be real surprised if anyone on the base was sound asleep.” The mere thought of sleep triggered a reflex, and the AP yawned.
“You must get awfully bored, sitting out here alone all night,” said Pitt.
“Yeah, it gets pretty dull,” the AP said, hooking one hand in his Sam Browne belt and resting the other on the grip of a.45 Colt automatic, clinging to his hip. “If you’re going off base, you’d better let me see your pass.”
“Sorry, I don’t have one,” Pitt had forgotten to ask Colonel Lewis for a pass to get on and off Brady Field.
A swaggering, tough look crossed the AP’s face. “Then you’ll have to go back to the barracks and get It.” He swatted at a moth that flapped by his face, toward a floodlight.
“That would be a waste of time. I don’t even own a pass,” said Pitt, smiling helplessly.
“Don’t play dumb with me, buddy. Nobody gets in or out of the gate without a pass.”
“I did.”
The AP’s eyes became suspicious. “How did you manage that?”
“I flew In.”
A surprised look bit the AP. His eyes beamed in the brightness of the floods. Another passing moth lit on his white cap, but he did not notice it. Then it burst from him. “You’re the pilot of that Catalina flying boat!”
“Guilty as charged,” said Pitt.
“Say, I want to shake your hand.” The AP’s lips opened in a big tooth displaying smile. “That was the greatest piece of flying I’ve ever seen.” He thrust out a massive hand.
Pitt took the outstretched hand and winced. He had a strong grip of his own, but it seemed puny compared to the AP’s. “Thank you, but I’d have felt a lot better about it if my opponent had crashed.”
“Oh hell, he couldn’t have gone far. That old junk pile was smoking up a storm when it crossed over the hills.”
“Maybe It crashed on the other side?"
“No chance. The colonel had the whole Air Police squadron chasing all over the island in jeeps, looking for it. He searched until dark, but didn’t spot a thing.” He appeared disgusted. “What really pissed me off was getting back to the base too late for the chow line.”
Pitt grinned. “It must have gone down in the sea, or else made the mainland before falling.”
The AP shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. But one thing’s for sure; it ain’t on Thasos. You have my personal guarantee on that.”
Pitt laughed. “That’s good enough for me.” He swung the towel over his shoulder and pulled at his swim trunks. “Well it’s been nice talking to you…“
“Airman Second Class Moody, sir.”