sink rate and we’ll do okay. Come left a couple degrees, though.”
She complied.
“A little more. And gimme just a smidgen more power.”
When she squinted and blinked a few more times, she could make out the runway. There was a little crosswind and Toad had her aimed off to the left slightly to compensate.
The approach seemed to take forever, perhaps because she was hurting and perhaps because she was unsure if she could handle it at the bottom. She would just have to wait and see, but it was difficult waiting when she was so cold, and growing colder.
She let the plane descend without throttle corrections, without wiggling the stick or trying to sweeten her lineup. With three hun- dred feet still to go on the radar altimeter, she made a heading correction. She was going to have trouble judging the altitude with only one eye, and she thought about that. She could do it, she decided. There was the meatball on the Optical Landing System. She began to fly it, working mightily to move the throttles. Still coming down, on speed, lined up, across the threshold. Now! Throttles back a little and nose just so, right rudder and left stick to straighten her out … oh yes!’
The mainmounts kissed the concrete.
The pilot used the stick to hold the nose wheel off as she smoothly closed the throttles. She had no more than got the en- gines to idle when she felt the rapid deceleration as the tailhook engaged the short-field arresting gear. The nose slammed down. As the plane was jerked to a rapid stop, she applied the brakes.
She got the flap handle forward with her left hand, but knew she wouldn’t be able to tug hard enough to pull the parking brake handle out. Toggling the harness lock release by her right thigh, she got enough freedom to reach it with her right.
Toad opened the canopy. As it whined its way aft a fire truck came roaring up and screeched to a halt with firemen tumbling off.
Canopy open, Rita checked that the flaps and slats were in. Her left shoulder was aching badly now and it was difficult to make her fingers do as she wished. One of the firemen ran out from the wheel well and made a cutting motion across his throat He had inserted the safety pins in the landing gear.
Both throttles around the horn to cutoff, engine-fuel master switches off as the RFMs dropped. Then the generators dropped off the line with an audible click and everything in the cockpit went dead. Exhausted, she fumbled with the generator switches until they too were secured.
It was very quiet. She got the mask loose and, using only her right hand, pried the helmet off. The compressor blades tinkled steadily, gently, as the wind kept them turning, like a mobile on the porch of your grandmother’s house when you returned after a long absence.
A man was standing on the pilot’s boarding ladder. He looked at her and drew back in horror.
“A bird,” she croaked.
She heard Toad give a disgusted exclamation. “Wipe it off her, man! It’s just bird guts. It ain’t her brains!”
They were loading Rita into an ambulance and the crash crew was filling out paperwork when a gray navy sedan screeched to a halt near the fire truck. Jake Grafton jumped out and strode toward Toad as white smoke wafted from the auto’s engine compartment.
“Looks like you were in a hurry,” Toad said, and managed a grin. He was sitting, leaning back against the nose wheel, too drained to even stand. He felt as if he had just finished a ten-mile run. The crash chief tossed the captain a salute and he returned it even though he wasn’t wearing a hat. He obviously had other things on his mind.
“How’s Rita?”
“Gonna be okay, I think. When they looked at her they thought she had brains and eyeballs oozing out everywhere, but they got most of it cleaned off. Never saw so much shit. Must have been a damn big bird. They’re taking her over to the hospital for X rays and all.”
Jake Grafton deflated visibly. He wiped his forehead with a hand, and then wiped his hand on his trousers, leaving a wet stain.
“How come you didn’t answer me on the damned radio? I about had heart failure when you started doing whifferdills.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I disconnected my plugs and got a little un- strapped so I could reach over and fly the plane. Rita was sorta out of it there for a little while.”
Jake climbed the pilot’s ladder and surveyed the cockpit. He examined the hole left in the plexiglas quarter panel by the late buzzard or eagle or hawk. “She come around okay?”
“Came to and landed this thing like it was on rails. Real damn sweet, CAG. Never saw a better landing.”
A sailor drove up aboard a yellow flight-line tractor. He swung in front of the plane and backed a tow bar toward the nose wheel. “Well,” said Jake Grafton as he made a quick inspection of the Athena antennas, all of which seemed to be firmly in place, “you better zip over to the hospital and let them check you over too. I gotta get this plane put someplace private.”
“Uh, CAG, you’re still gonna let us fly the prototypes, aren’t you? I mean, it wasn’t like we tried to hit that bird or anything.”
Jake looked at Toad, slightly surprised. “Oh,” he said, “you two are my crew. If the doctors say you can fly. Now get over to the hospital and find out. Better get cleaned up too. You look like you’ve been cleaning chickens and the chickens won.”
“Yessir. You bet. But, uh, I don’t have a ride. Can I take your car?”
“Aw, Toad. you’re gonna get that bird goo all over the seat.” He glanced at the car. Smoke was still leaking out. It was junk. “Keys are in it. But be careful — it’s government property.”
Amazingly enough, the car engine actually started after Toad ground on it awhile. Jake had driven about forty miles at full throttle, about a hundred miles per hour, so he shook his head in wonder when the transmission engaged with a thunk and Toad drove away trailing smoke.
15
The base dispensary contained an emergency room, but no other hospital facilities. After Rita Mora- via was cut out of her flight gear, cleaned up and examined by a doctor, she was taken to a hospital in Reno, seventy miles away. Toad Tarkington arrived at the dispensary as the ambulance was driving away.
“0h. Doctor,” the corpsman called when he saw Toad coming through the door, “here comes the other one.”
The doctor was only a year or two out of med school, but he had already acquired the nuances of military practice. “In here.” He gestured to an examining room. A corpsman followed them in and closed the door. ‘”Strip to the skin,” the doctor said. “How do you feel?” He grasped Toad’s wrist and glanced at his watch.
“Okay, Doc. The pilot took the bird hit. I just got splattered.”
“Did you become hypoxic, pass out, inhale any feathers or any- thing like that?”
“No, sir. I just peed my pants.”
The doctor checked his watch again, then looked at Toad with raised eyebrows.
“Not really,” Toad said, suddenly aware that he was no longer in the company of his peers. “Sorry. How’s Moravia?”
The doctor was still all business. “Blurred vision in her left eye, some bruises and cuts, nothing serious. But she’s an excellent can- didate for a major-league infection. I gave her a large dose of peni- cillin and sent her to the hospital in Reno for X rays and observa- tion. She can stay there until we’re sure she’s okay.”
“And her eye?”
“I think it’ll be okay. They’ll look at that in Reno.”
The doctor spent the next five minutes examining Toad. He peed in a bottle and gave a blood sample. The corpsman gathered up his flight gear. Toad insisted it all be put in a duffel bag. He stood holding his flight suit, which already had a hen-house smell. “What am I going to do for clothes?”
“Got any money?”
He dug his wallet from the chest pocket. “Fifty-three dollars.”
The doctor added fifty dollars of his own money to Toad’s for- tune and sent the corpsman to the exchange for underwear, trou- sers, shirt, and tennis shoes. “Should be open until nineteen hun- dred hours. You can make it if you hurry.” Toad gave the enlisted man his sizes and expressed a few opinions about color and style. The
