Pick's airplane was a Staggerwing Beechcraft, so called because the upper wing of the single-engine biplane was mounted farther aft than the lower. It was painted bright yellow, and there was a legend painted in script on the en-gine nacelle, "Once Is Enough."
"I'll bite," Ernie McCoy said, pointing to the legend af-ter her husband and Pick Pickering had rolled the aircraft from the hangar behind the main house of Through with Engines. "Once what is enough?"
"Once under the Golden Gate Bridge," Ken McCoy said, smiling at her.
"Mom's father gave me the Beech when I came home from the Pacific," Pick said. "It used to be Foster Hotel's. Now they have an R4D. Together with a long `once is enough' speech. So I had it painted on the nacelle."
"Once what is enough?" Ernie said.
"I told you, baby," McCoy said, smiling at her. "Once under the Golden Gate Bridge."
"He flew this under the Golden Gate Bridge?" Ernie asked, incredulously.
"With poor George Hart with him," McCoy said, chuck-ling at the memory.
"At the time it seemed like a splendid idea," Pick said.
"George had just gone to work for the Boss," McCoy said. "Colonel Rickabee decided the Boss needed a body-guard, so I went to Parris Island and found George in boot camp. He'd been a detective in Saint Louis...."
"Still is," Pick said. "I saw him there a couple of months ago. He's twice a captain, once in the cops, and once in the Corps Reserve. He's got an infantry company."
"I didn't know that," McCoy said. "Anyway, one day George is a boot, and the next day he's a sergeant bodyguard protecting the Boss, and the day after that, the Boss col-lapses-malaria and exhaustion; that was right after he was hit on the tin can leaving Guadalcanal, and they made him a Brigadier-in the suite in the Foster Lafayette in Washing-ton and winds up in the hospital. Rickabee sends George out here to tell the lunatic here that his father's going to be all right, and the lunatic here loads him in this-which he stole from his grandfather for the occasion, by the way-and flies under the Golden Gate. George told me he prayed to be able to go back to the safety of boot camp on Parris Island."
"Hart was with your dad all through the war, wasn't he?" Ernie asked.
"All the way, right to the end. He was even on the plane when the Old Man went into Japan before the surrender," Pick said. "Good man, George."
"And you got away with it?" Ernie asked. "You flew un-der the bridge, and got away with it?"
"I was a newly rated Marine aviator," Pick said. "With probably two hundred hours' total time, and therefore con-vinced I could fly anything anywhere..."
"By the skin of his teeth," McCoy said, "and with the considerable assistance of Senator Fowler."
"I don't like the look in your eyes, Pick," Ernie said. "Nothing smart-ass with the airplane today, Okay?"
"Nothing could possibly be further from my mind," Pick said, smiling wickedly.
"She means it, Pick," McCoy said. "Nothing cute with the airplane."
Pick looked at McCoy, surprised at his seriousness.
"Ernie's pregnant," McCoy said. "This is the fourth time; the first three didn't-"
"Jesus H. Christ!" Pick said. "Jesus, Ernie, you didn't say anything...."
"The first time, I told everybody, and everybody was re-ally sympathetic when I miscarried," Ernie said. "Like it says, `once is enough.'"
"You're the only one who knows," McCoy said. "Don't make us sorry we told you."
Pick looked between the two of them for a moment.
"Would congratulations be in order?"
"Nice thought," Ernie said. "But a little premature. Wait six months, and have another shot at it."
[THREE]
NORTH ISLAND NAVAL AIR STATION
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
1400 8 JUNE 1950
"North Island," Pick Pickering said into his microphone. "Beech Two Oh Two."
Pick was wearing a flamboyantly flowered Hawaiian shirt, yellow slacks, and loafers without socks.
Ernie McCoy was sitting beside him, wearing a dress. Pick had refused, considering her delicate condition, to let her defer to the rule that men sat in the front of a vehicle- wheeled or winged-and women in the back. McCoy, wearing his uniform, was in the back with the luggage that wouldn't fit in the baggage compartment.
"Civilian aircraft calling North Island. Go ahead."
Ernie could hear the conversation over her headset.
"North Island, this is Beech Two Oh Two, VFR at 4,500 over the beautiful blue drink, about ten miles north of your station, request approach and landing, please."
"Beach Two Oh Two, North Island is a Navy field, closed to civilian traffic. Suggest you contact Lindbergh Field on 214.6."
"North, Two Oh Two, suggest you contact whoever has the exception to the rules book, and then give me approach and landing."
"Hold One, Two Oh Two."
There was a sixty-second pause.
`Two Oh Two, North."
"Go ahead."
"North clears Beech Two Oh Two to descend to 2,500 feet for an approach to Runway One Eight. Report when you have the field in sight."
"Roger. Understand 2,500, Runway One Eight. Begin-ning descent at this time."
"Aircraft in the North pattern, be advised that a civilian single Beech biplane will be in the landing pattern."
"North, Two Oh Two, at 2,500, course one eight zero, I have the runway in sight."
`Two Oh Two, North. You are cleared as number one for a straight-in approach and landing on Runway One Eight. Be advised that high-performance piston-and-jet aircraft are operating in the area."
"North, Two Oh Two, understand Number One to One Eight. I am over the outer marker."
"Two Oh Two, North. Be advised that Lieutenant Colonel Dunn will meet your aircraft at Base Ops."
"Thank you, North."
There was no headset in the back of the Staggerwing, and McCoy had not heard the conversation between the North Island control tower and Pick Pickering. And because he was in the rear of the fuselage, when the airplane stopped and he heard the engine dying, he reached over, unlatched the door, and backed out of the airplane. When his feet touched the ground, he turned around and was more than a little startled to see a light colonel standing there wearing the gold wings of a Naval aviator, a chest full of fruit salad, and a displeased look on his face that, combined with the fact he had his hands on his hips, suggested he was dis-pleased with something.
Probably Pick. This is a Naval air station, and you're not supposed to land civilian airplanes on Naval air stations.
Captain McCoy did the only thing he could think to do under the circumstances. He saluted crisply and said, "Good afternoon, sir."
At that point, recognition, belatedly, dawned. It had been a long time.
Lieutenant Colonel William C. Dunn, USMC, who car-ried 138 pounds on his slim, five-foot-six frame, returned the salute crisply.
"How are you, McCoy?" he asked, and then stepped around McCoy to assist Mrs. McCoy in leaving the aircraft.
"Oh, Bill," Ernie said. "What a-pleasant surprise!"
"You're as beautiful as ever," Lieutenant Colonel Dunn said, "and as careless as ever about the company you keep."
Pick Pickering got out of the airplane.
"Wee Willy!" he cried happily, wrapped his arms around Lieutenant Colonel Dunn, and kissed him wetly on the forehead.