‘I don’t know, sir. It has been months, and there’s a war on. Maybe Ben needed a kick in the pants to get those planes into it before they all become ‘hangar queens.’ God knows he loves ’em like children. Besides, there’s that other little matter we came to ask him about, and if this goes well, he’s more likely to go along.”
The P-40 vanished in its own dust cloud as it stopped and turned, facing south. For a few moments, nothing happened. A ’Cat raced up. “Maa-kee got him on raa-dio in other plane! He say ‘all swell.’ He just careful; check stuff more!”
Suddenly, the distant Allison engine growled deeply with an earsplitting, feral roar that sounded like nothing Adar had ever heard. Maybe a chorus of a dozen “gri-maax,” or “super lizards” might have come close. The plane hurtled out of the cloud, flaps down, tail already rising off the ground.
“There he goes!” Pam cried excitedly.
The hungry drone of the Allison reached a fever pitch, and about halfway down the bright airstrip, Ben’s plane leaped into the air, already moving faster than anything most of those present had ever seen, short of a bullet. The landing gear dangled strangely beneath the wings, twisting, rising, disappearing into their wells one after the other, all while the plane clawed skyward at a shockingly extreme angle.
“Yes!” roared Dixon, his arms crossed over his head. “Yes, yes, yes!”
All around him, Adar heard wild cheering, and his own silver eyes became oddly unfocused.
“How often more must I apologize?” Adar laughed, grasping Ben by the shoulders and shaking him gently. “A glorious exhibition! Such speed, such agility!” He laughed again, almost giddy. “And that poor, poor barge! Ha! I doubt you left enough of it to build one of Ronson’s battery boxes!”
“And that was with only two guns!” Dixon crowed. “Imagine what six would do-and it can carry bombs too!”
They were back in the shade of a hangar, the recently exercised aluminum steed still ticking as the heat transferred from her radiators.
“It wasn’t all peaches and cream,” Ben cautioned. “I spent more time fooling with the mixture and throttle than just about anything else-crummy gas!-and talk about a hog! I bet the spark plugs look like lava rocks!” He shook his head. “She never cut out on me, but she would have, eventually. We can’t mix ethyl with the gas, so we’re going to have to figure out a way to inject it, or something. Jeez, did you hear that detonation when I first climbed out?”
“No.”
Ben snorted. “I did!” He nodded at Adar’s starry cloak. “And talk about stars! PB-1s are swell-but I haven’t pulled any real gees in a while!” Mackey and Dixon laughed appreciatively.
“Still, a most successful, and… gratifying test, no doubt?” Adar asked.
“Sure, for the most part,” Ben agreed. “Showed us what we need to fix, anyway. But mostly I hope it convinced you of the worth of my planes!”
“It did that,” Adar said softly. “So much so in fact that I’m persuaded Mr. Riggs’s scheme may have merit.”
“What scheme?” Ben asked guardedly.
“As you know, Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar, ‘Tikker,’ harbors concern the Grik, with Jaap aid, may employ flying machines of their own. Ahd-mi-raal Keje-Fris-Ar shares that concern, as does General Aalden. The plane that once bombed us here is still unaccounted for if nothing else, and the Grik and Jaaps have had just as long as we to… advance themselves.”
“So?”
“Arr-strips, just such as this, have been under construction at Aryaal and Sing-aa-pore. Another builds on Andaman Island. Mr. Riggs wants to put some of your planes there. In fact, once we secure enough of Saa-lon, he wants them to go as far forward as they possibly can-even to the extent of carrying and flying them off our… our carriers.”
“What?” Ben looked at Riggs. “That’s nuts! These aren’t carrier planes. They’d never take the stress of landing on a ship, or catching a cable. Christ, even if we beefed ’em up enough to take an arresting hook, they’d be too ass-heavy to fly!”
“I’m not talking about landing them on a carrier,” Riggs said, “just taking off from one. They’d fly their mission, then set down on land.”
Ben scratched his beard. “Okay. That might work… Mack says Jimmy Doolittle did that with B-25s to bomb Tokyo! Drove the Japs wild.”
“Yeah,” Mackey agreed. “They didn’t want us to know about it, but they couldn’t help taking it out on us, so we knew something fantastic had happened. Gradually, the details seeped into the camp we were in. Cheered us up, despite the extra beatings.”
“Just let me get the planes finished and crewed with good pilots before you throw an operation like that at me, for crying out loud!” Ben demanded.
“That goes without saying.”
Ben eyed Riggs. “No it doesn’t. Say it!”
“That was fun,” Pam admitted as she and Sister Audry strolled back through the bustle of the Baalkpan trading district. They’d left the others, and after checking on the newly arrived survivors of the Japanese prison ship and tending a few small hurts, they headed back in the direction of the Baalkpan hospital. Even in spite of the war- and because of it to a large degree-the open-air bazaars had begun to thrive once more. There was a difference now, of course; there were fewer luxuries, and far more troops-some from distant lands-frequented there. Naked younglings still scampered about, eliciting laughter or chastisement, and the merchants and hawkers had grown more numerous, but most of the trade remained much as it had been, except there were more purveyors of fine blades-and gold had largely taken the place of barter as a basis of exchange. That was still odd, and the values fluctuated wildly as people became used to the new system.
“It was,” Audry agreed. “Perhaps now you see that you needn’t remain cloistered in the ‘em box’ when not on duty?” she probed.
Pam’s face fell. “I suppose. I just miss the big rat, ya’ know?” she said, referring to Silva. “He shoulda’ come home.”
“There are other men,” Audry reminded her. “And other women now as well, at last,” she added with satisfaction, watching some dark-skinned former Respitans being led through the crowd, bearing a long, rolled-up fishing net. The women were mostly young and attractive, she noted, of that adventurous age most likely to strike out beyond the relative free- dom, safety, and security they’d already found in Maa-ni-la. Nearly a hundred had reached Baalkpan so far, and though uneasy, they wanted to work. People stared at them, but there was no hostility, only curiosity and generally pleasure that the “dame famine” was over. Already, a few “old” destroyermen had been seen, in their best shoregoing rig, escorting an exotic beauty around the city, “seeing the sights.”
“You might attend a dance at the…‘Castaway Cook,’ ” Audry suggested, “without worrying about being pestered so much by men like Dean Laney!”
Pam chuckled, but it sounded forced. “I wrote Dennis that I’d marry that big jerk Laney, if he didn’t come home… and he didn’t. He doesn’t care!”
Sister Audry sighed. “My dear, I grant you that sometimes it’s difficult to fathom what Mr. Silva cares most about, but I’ve learned he does indeed care about a great many things.” She paused. “He cares about you, for example, very much.”
“Did he say so?”
“No, but he didn’t have to. Have you asked yourself why he didn’t return?”
“Sure, an’ I know the answer too. He’s gotta kill bad guys wherever the Skipper is!”
Audry pursed her lips. “You’re more than half right,” she conceded, “but I think, in his own way, Mr. Silva follows a calling much like Captain Reddy’s: to protect those he cares about regardless of the cost to himself, in the only way he knows. He must destroy the threat. It is perhaps a simplistic approach, but most effective when successful. The Bible is full of examples.”
Pam stopped and looked oddly at the nun. “You tellin’ me that Dennis Silva’s on a mission for God?”
“I consider it possible,” Sister Audry replied with a straight face.
“You’re serious!”
