The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

One of the questions was immediately answered: “Gear going down,” the flight engineer’s voice said, then: “Gear down and locked.”

“Twenty degrees flaps,” Bitter ordered.

The airspeed immediately began to drop, and control went mushy. He pushed the throttles forward.

“Twenty degrees flaps,” the flight engineer reported.

He was now lined up with the runway, approaching the threshold.

He was afraid to cut power. He suspected the seventeen might sink like a stone without it. He would fly it onto the ground, as a fighter is landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and pray that he would be able to stop it once he was there.

But almost instantly he recognized that had been the wrong decision. The B-17 was high above the runway. He reached out for the throttle quadrant and pulled the levers toward him. And still it wanted to fly. He pushed the wheel forward and the wheels touched and chirped, and then it bounced into the air again. His hands on the wheel were shaking.

He touched down again and raised the nose, and it bounced again into the air, then touched down a third time and stayed down. He tapped the brakes, tapped them again, and again, and was aware that every time he pushed hard he was making an animal-like noise—a cross between a moan and a shriek—when the knee flamed with pain.

But finally, with five hundred yards of runway left, the B-17 shuddered to a stop.

He gunned the port inboard engine enough to get him off the runway, then he chopped the throttle again and flipped the MASTER switch to off.

He exhaled. When he inhaled, he smelled the vomitus in his lap, and something else foul. And there was a stabbing pain in his knee and leg. And he felt a clammy sweat soak his face and back and was sure he was going to pass out.

But instead, without warning he threw up again. He was dimly aware that crash trucks, and ambulances, and a parade of other vehicles were heading toward the airplane. He looked at his wristwatch. His whole arm was trembling so severely that he could not see where the hands were on the face of his watch.

Chapter FOUR

When Lt. Commander Edwin H. Bitter, USN, exited the aircraft, Lt. Commander John B. Dolan, USNR, was there to greet him. But his welcome was not exactly what Bitter expected.

When Bitter put his arm around Dolan’s shoulders to take the weight off his knee, Dolan’s strong arm went around Bitter, and he looked at him with concern and compassion. But what he said was:

“Goddamn you! I told you, you should have told that little shit to fuck himself!”

“The little shit’s dead, Dolan,” Bitter said, and made a vague gesture toward the airplane.

“We thought you were all dead,” Dolan said furiously. “The last time anybody seen you, you had two engines on fire and you was in a spin. The Air Corps’s not too smart with spins. I was just getting up my courage to call Canidy.”

“Did you?” Bitter asked. Over Dolan’s shoulder he saw Sergeant Agnes Draper, standing beside the Packard.

“I was about to, goddamn it,” Dolan said.

Bitter saw medics carrying a blanket-covered body to an ambulance.

He looked at Sergeant Draper. She was chewing her lips. And then she started to walk toward him.

And then Lt. Colonel D’Angelo was there.

“Are you all right, Commander?” he asked. “Something wrong with your leg?”

"I hurt it in the Orient,” Bitter said. “I must have strained it again. I wasn’t hit. I’m all right. I was lucky.”

D’Angelo went into the aircraft, then returned as Sergeant Draper walked up and said,“I’m very glad to see you, Commander. Are you all right?”

“Sergeant Haskell just told me you brought it home,” D’Angelo said.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” Bitter said.

D’Angelo handed him a miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon. Bitter unscrewed the cap and drank it down. He felt the warmth in his stomach. D’Angelo handed him another and he drank that down, and that was a bad idea, for he threw up again without warning.

The humiliation was bad enough, but he saw pity in Sergeant Draper’s eyes and that made it worse.