The Great Santini Part 35

"That was the Old Corps, No Nose, the Old Corps."

"Yeah, Bull. You and I are the last of a great breed."

"I'm the last of a great breed. You are the last of the sc.u.m and dross."

"How's Lillian and the kids?"

"Fine. The troops are shaping up, I think."

"I've been reading about Ben. It looks like a chip off the old block as far as basketball is concerned."

"He ain't as good as the block."

"I can vouch for that. I still remember that game against West Point when you were playing for Quantico."

"I scored thirty-two that night," Bull said, "and ate their forward Saleesi alive."

"Naw, you scored two and Saleesi ate you alive."

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Bull, you still got an ego the size of a battleship. Anyway, get them lace panty pilots over to the club at happy hour and I'll let 'em drink with some men with real hair on their p.e.c.k.e.rs. And one more thing, Bull. I want you to do me a favor."

"Anything, Cecil. You know I'll do anything for you," Bull said, growing serious.

"I've got a real turkey of a lieutenant that I want taught a lesson by one of your studs. Maybe put him out of commission for a little while. Perhaps ten years."

"What's his name, and what does he look like?"

"His name is Beasley. You'll recognize him right away. He'll be wearing an ascot, a Sam Brown cartridge belt, and a Bowie knife. I'm making him leave his pearl-handled revolver at home."

"You're kidding, Cecil," Bull groaned. "Anyone that wears that kind of c.r.a.p to happy hour either has to be the best pilot in the world, or he's got the biggest set of nads in the southeast."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? We got a pool goin' at the squadron about when ol' Beasley's gonna kill himself in a plane or kill one of us. This guy already is well on his way to becoming a black ace."

"How many planes has he lost?"

"He's lost three and he's only been in the Marine Corps four years. One of his crashes happened when he punched out on takeoff."

"Is this the same guy flamed out near Jacksonville in December?" Bull asked.

"That's my man Beasley."

"I've heard about him, No Nose. I heard he punches out if he feels a sudden blast of moonlight on his wing."

"I want one of your studs to let him know he is not the most beloved of all pilots. I'd get one of mine to do it, but you know the kind of problems that can cause. Anyway, I'm afraid of something."

"What's that, No Nose?"

"Every time I see ol' Beasley, it p.i.s.ses me off royally. It p.i.s.ses me off when I see him breathing. He's using up oxygen that I could be breathing. Or my kids. Or egg-sucking dogs. Or even you. I'm tired of seeing him breathing, Bull. I even hate it when he blinks. You ever met anybody like that?"

"Yeah," Bull said, "I'm trying to think of who it is though. Oh, I know. I felt that way when I first met you."

"Good talking to you, Bull. I'll see you and your squadron at 1700 hours. By the way, I heard Everett say the other day that it's unbelievable what you've done with 367."

"If only it was Varney and not Everett."

"He was saying it to Varney, Big Fella. Now get Beasley for me and for G.o.dsakes, get those shoes under Lillian's bed."

"See you at 1700 hours, No Nose. And do me one favor in return for Beasley."

"Name it."

"Wear a bag over your head. I don't want that s.h.i.tty looking face of yours scaring any of my young pilots."

"I can't wait to beat on your head tonight. Over and out, t.u.r.d."

"Outstanding," Bull answered.

Bull replaced the phone on the hook, smiled to himself in antic.i.p.ation of the coming fracas, then bellowed for Sergeant Lat.i.to. "Hebe, get in here for a second, on the double. Your skipper needs you."

"Yes, sir, skipper," Sergeant Lat.i.to answered, hurrying through the door with a clipboard in his hand.

"Get Captain Brannon to my office p.r.o.nto. He's out on the flight line. And pa.s.s the word that there'll be a meeting of all officers in the ready room at 1500 hours."

"Yes, sir."

"And Lat.i.to, one very important thing," Bull said, the hint of a suppressed smile stealing through the hard lines on his face. "Did you know that the c.l.i.toris on a female dinosaur was three feet, four inches long?"

"Yes, sir. Fascinating, sir," Lat.i.to answered. "I just talked to Gillespie, and he told me that the radar malfunction of your bird was more serious than first reported."

"Just tell Gillespie that his C.O. is going up first thing Monday morning."

"He's got his best man on it, sir."

"Is it Harter?"

"Yes, sir. He's one of the best radar men in the Corps."

"Then how come Harter's only a PFC?"

"Bad att.i.tude, Colonel. Besides, he gets drunk and picks fights with NCO's all the time."

"Sounds like a good Marine to me. Let's try to get Harter a few stripes. I like a happy man to work on my bird."

"Yes, sir. I'll send Captain Brannon to your office as soon as possible."

"Before you go, Sarge, I want to tell you one thing. You prove the old saw that a good top sergeant runs the squadron for the old man. You're the best I've run across, even if you are just a G.o.ddam Jew."

"Thank you very much, sir."

Ten minutes later Captain Brannon stood in front of Bull's desk. Though not as tall or physically commanding as Bull's, Captain Brannon's body was stacked together with the knotted muscles of a stevedore, and an implied menace shadowed his whole appearance. His eyes were dark, coffee-hued, and his jaw was an aggressive promontory. His expression had the insouciance and arrogance of the carnivore, for there was nothing in his demeanor where one could detect a glimmer of civilized ripeness. His entire body had a violent definition, a primal joy in aggression that caused men of equal size to afford him caution, and especially distance.

When Bull had spoken to Captain Brannon after taking over the command of 367, he had asked Brannon why he had chosen the Marine Corps for a career.

"I joined the Corps, sir, so I could help defend white America from all foreign aggression."

Bull had promptly nicknamed him "White America," an appellation that Brannon bristled at to the undiluted joy of his commanding officer.

Each day Brannon ran three miles, worked out on the punching bag in the gym, and boxed a few rounds with anyone he could insult or entice into the ring with him. At lunch, he walked outside the squadron headquarters and pounded a huge iron stake in the ground with a sledge hammer he kept in the trunk of his Jaguar XKE. When he had almost buried the stake, he pulled it from the ground with his ma.s.sive hands, and repeated the ritual until he felt he had punished his body enough. The enlisted men quaked whenever he was in view. Officers feared his temper. Even Bull had no desire to match his strength with Butch Brannon. As Captain Brannon stood in front of Bull's desk awaiting instructions, Bull thought that it was one of G.o.d's minor vices that such an admirable physical specimen was such a mediocre pilot.

Twice Bull had ha.s.sled with Brannon in their F-8's, and twice he had come away believing that Brannon was either an incompetent fighter pilot or a coward. There were thresholds of flight that Brannon could not or would not pa.s.s.

"At ease, Captain," Bull said, stretching back in his chair. "Does my nickname for you still ruffle your feathers?"

"I've never liked nicknames, sir."

"Well, what's Butch?"

"It's my real name, sir. It's on my birth certificate."

"Well, since I'm the C.O., and I like nicknames for my troops, you'll just have to put up with my nickname for you, White America. Do you read me loud and clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Outstanding. Now I have a job for you, Butch. A little mop-up job that should just take a couple of seconds. The target will be wearing an ascot, a Bowie knife, and a Sam Brown cartridge belt. He will be a pilot from 234, Colonel Causey's outfit. Beasley's been going around bragging that he can whip your a.s.s, Butch. Some of his fellow pilots have been laying money on the line," Bull said, eyeing Brannon, "and the betting has been going pretty heavy against you."

"I could break every bone in his body, sir."

"So you say, Butch. So you say. I've seen you out there hammering in that stake every day like you're practicing up for a job if crucifixion ever comes back in style, but I've never seen you fight anyone. A lot of folks think you're musclebound, Butch. They don't believe you could handle yourself in the real McCoy."

"I could kill Beasley, sir. Or any of those other guys running their mouths."

"Well, if anything starts up at happy hour today when we get together for a little fun with 234, I want you to remember Beasley."

"Yes, sir."

"And one more thing, Captain. My X.O. and I have been talking, and he and I agree you'd get a lot more done if you'd wipe that silly grin off your face that you wear all the time."

"Yes, sir," the man answered darkly.

"I mean it, Butch, you're always f.u.c.king around, raising h.e.l.l, and playing practical jokes. You've got to be serious, man. We're in the business of war, and we can't have a Harpo Marx like you flying an airplane."

"You're joking with me, aren't you, sir?" Brannon asked, as a smile began to build on the spartan isthmus around his mouth.

"No, that's not all," Bull shouted, enjoying himself as he always did when facing a man totally without humor. "I've been looking at that fat-a.s.sed sloppy body of yours, and I am going to order you to stay in shape. You're a Marine, Brannon, and you may think all that baby fat is cute, but we've got an image to uphold."

"I keep in shape, sir. I'm in better shape than any man in this outfit, and I'll prove it if you like."

"I want you to take me more seriously, Captain. You've got to try to be more literal. I never, and this is an order, I never want you to think I'm being sarcastic or that I'm s.h.i.ttin' around with you. Because, White America, I mean what I say."

"Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?"

"See you at happy hour, Captain. And I'll buy every drink that touches your lips if I see Beasley carried out of the club."

Before leaving for happy hour, Bull placed a call to his home. Mary Anne answered the phone.

"This is Rock Hudson," Bull said. "I'm calling from Hollywood to see if Mary Anne Meecham will accept my hand in marriage."

"What do you want, p.o.o.psie?"

"Don't call me 'p.o.o.psie,' " Bull ordered. "Where's your mother?"

"She's shopping downtown."

"When she gonna get back?"

"She didn't say, Daddy dear."

"What's Ben doing?"

"Oh, superhero is resting up for his starring role tonight."

"Well, don't make any noise. We want him fresh tonight."

"Oh, of course, we do, p.o.o.psie. I'd just die if precious all-star went out on the floor not fresh. I think I'd feel personally responsible."

"You're a real wisea.s.s sometimes, Mary Anne. Tell your mother I'm going to happy hour with the boys, and will meet you at the game."

"If Mom calls you up at happy hour, you'll have to buy a round of drinks for everybody at the club, won't you, p.o.o.psie, dear? I'll leave her a note to call you as soon as possible."

"Tell her if she does, I'll have to get morose with her," Bull growled. "By the way, how are your studies coming?"

"Fine, p.o.o.psie, fine. I'm failing algebra, American history, and French," she said, knowing that her father's thoughts had drifted to other matters.

"That's good," he answered. "Keep it up. Good grades are the only things that count for a girl. Tell your mother I'll meet her at the game. That's an order I expect to be carried out."

"Oh tremble, tremble. Yes, sir. Bye-bye, Rock Hudson."

When her father put the receiver down, Mary Anne, whispering a tuneless half-remembered melody, thumbed through the telephone directory, and with her pen, marked the number of the Ravenel Air Station's Officers' Club.

At five o'clock across the eastern seaboard, in the darkening skies of January, with the week's mission accomplished, the nation safe, the enemy quiet, the wings of aircraft folded, the rifles oiled, the radar screen unthreatening, and the tanks parked, it is then, at that sun-ruled moment that the armed services of America in general, and Marine pilots in particular, pay homage to the laws of happy hour and settle down into the serious business of drinking. All across this soldier-filled nation, gathering around dark mahogany bars, the fighting men gather, druids of the cold war, who in the communion of men bound by the same violent destiny, a.s.semble each Friday for the lifting of gla.s.ses and eloquent toasts to their branch of the service, and their mother country.

Bull Meecham required his pilots to go to happy hour every Friday. Not only was it a ritual that stimulated esprit and fraternity in his squadron, it also helped relax his pilots and provided them an outlet to cut loose from the tensions of flight, from the unspoken knowledge that every time a pilot took a plane up, he was riding with death on his wings. Bull himself was obsessed by a carefully concealed fear that he would die in a plane, and he knew that death in flight could a.s.sume many shapes, a light on a control panel, a subtle change in an engine's pitch, a frozen control, a migratory bird. To Bull, death could be a matter of inches and could be read as clearly as an alphabet in the lidless eyes of gauges. Though he could not explain this to Lillian or his children because he thought it would frighten them, he wanted to tell them this someday: that pilots are killed in the blink of an eye. He had seen injured jets fall from the sky as inexorably as arrows pulled from strong bows. Death itself had a.s.sumed human shape for Bull, and there were times, like landing on an aircraft carrier at night, that he felt its presence, a dark, slouching rider on the wing, a cold stranger who lived on the wing, and in the pit of the stomach. But fear and death were laughed at and another round ordered. Happy hour was a good place to bray, to regenerate courage, and to be infected with the enthusiasm of other men who lived to fly. So as Bull pulled up to the parking lot of the Officers' Club, he saw groups of pilots arriving wearing their flight jackets. They have come back to earth for another Friday, he thought, they have come down to celebrate the brotherhood of men who fly, an inviolate brotherhood closed to other men, to lesser men, to unwinged men. Bull walked into the club as Friday grew darker and the sun moved toward El Toro.

In a large room adjacent to the main bar, the pilots of 367 and the pilots of 234 faced each other from opposite sides of the room. Two tables were set up in the middle of the room with twenty-four bottles of cold Coors beer on each one. The pilots had bought drinks from the bar and were beginning to warm up to the festivities. They began to taunt each other across the room.

"Hey, 367, I heard one of your pilots had to get a hysterectomy last week," a voice rang out.