Horace McCoy: Bombs for the General (Short Story)

Four minutes later he was at thirty-five hundred feet and he swept the sky in layers again to make sure he was all alone. He was. It was almost as if the sky had been invented exclusively for him.

He nosed over and opened his guns. His tracers reached far out with smoky fingers and fell short, in little arcs.

He did not realize this was the most common mistake of green men—ineffectual firing. Nor did he know the Commanding General was speeding to the Toul airdrome in an open Fiat, his glasses trained on the Spad, as best they could, what with the bumping along the road and the quick turns.

The Fokker evidently was aware that his opponent was not an experienced pilot, for he rolled over to get on top. One almost could see the avariciousness on his face. A mastiff setting himself for the rush of the terrier. But the terrier tore in, regardless.

Both guns blazing, Dorman held his nose down until the Fokker rolled and then he brought it up and tried to get into firing position. The Fokker was side-slipping away, then he leveled off and Immelmaned back. Dorman yanked his stick back for a loop, but the Fokker had figured where he would emerge and at the close of the circle there was lead rattling through Dorman’s wings. It spattered his windshield into bits and fanged into the instrument board.

His heart closed with the cold of weakness and fear, and he dived low to free himself of the hail of lead. He knew he had not fought the approach with care, and he bit his teeth and swept to the left in a climbing turn.

For a moment he got above the line of fire and felt relieved; then he half-rolled to get on top. The Fokker raced by a hundred and fifty yards away and Dorman kicked his rudder around savagely and squeezed his trigger again.

The crank arms wouldn’t move. Madly he yanked at the cocking lug. It wouldn’t budge. He yanked again and the wind screamed in his face. Still it refused to move.

The little spot of fear that had burned at him now swelled and gave way to flame. His mouth was dry and he couldn’t swallow. Big George Dorman had a panicky moment. He was helpless. Out ahead the Fokker, like a thing inspired, had banked wide and was coming back.

Dorman put his nose down and came home.

He bounced down into the landing field and as he pulled over to the starting line another Spad was trundled out of the hangar. A pilot was getting in as it came through the door. He had a silk stocking tied around his mouth and nose and the straps of his helmet were dangling below his chin. His uniform coat and his flying coat both were open and Dorman could see his shirt beneath. His boots were only half-laced.

It was Lufbery.

As Dorman kicked off the switch Luf got away. He pulled straight off with the windside and made straight for a line of bois-d’arc trees ahead; and just when it seemed his wheels would get caught in the foliage he yanked his Spad up and went after the Fokker.

But the Fokker was no longer in a playful mood. It rolled of a sudden and scudded for home, with the drab brown Spad on its tail. It may be, sometimes these things did happen, that the pilot recognized an adversary of merit. There was a double explosion of black from the exhausts of the Spad as Luf gunned it and drove after the daring German pilot.

Dorman crawled down and Saufley came trotting over.

“Say,” Dorman said, “drop a match in this cockpit. What the hell’s the matter with these guns?”

Sergeant First Class Saufley didn’t say anything for a moment. He just looked. A cold, contemptuous look. Then he spoke.

“Tough luck,” he said.

He turned around and saw a slender officer approaching rapidly. He was about forty, and he was in a light overcoat. From his cap gleamed a silver star. Saufley snapped to a salute, Dorman raised his hand awkwardly. He felt ill, for something shone through the officer’s eyes.

“Your name, Lieutenant,” he said, spreading his legs.

“Dorman, sir. George Dorman.”

“Oh, yes. Reported this week for duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come to my headquarters in half an hour,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

He snapped his hand to a salute, and the general turned on his heel without another word.

Saufley said, “I’ll have the guns gone over.”

Dorman nodded abstractedly.

“Who was that?” he asked.

Saufley rammed his hands in his pockets and screwed down the corners of his lips.

“My God, you mean you don’t know?”

Dorman got a little sore.

“I sure as hell don’t,” he said.

“Well,” Saufley said carelessly; “that wasn’t nobody much. Just Billy Mitchell.”

Dorman’s eyes widened.

“Oh,” he said. “General Mitchell. I guess he saw the—er—mess?”

Saufley nodded. Dorman pulled off his helmet and went over to the cubicle. He flung his helmet against the wall and swore loudly and took off his coat and shirt and poured a pan of water. He washed himself loudly and continued to swear, then he dressed and went back to the hangar.

“Get somebody to take me over to headquarters,” he told Saufley.

Saufley went inside the hangar and in a moment a mechanic rode out with a motorcycle and sidecar. Dorman piled in without saying anything. He looked back off in the direction where he had seen Luf chasing the Fokker but there was nothing in the sky. It was serene and blue.

General Mitchell had his headquarters in a two story house on the Rue Pigalle, and the motorcycle jerked to a stop before the huge iron grillwork.

Dorman got down and went inside. He announced himself and in a minute was shown into a deep-ceilinged room. There was a desk in the center and behind it sat the General.

Dorman saluted and the General nodded.

“Lieutenant, Major Lufbery has just been shot down.”

Dorman paled. All at once a mist ascended before his eyes, the General seemed very far away.

“Sir?”

The General nodded heavily and looked out the window.

“Major Lufbery has been killed,” he said again.

Dorman bit his lip and his head dropped. Luf was gone; Luf the great. It didn’t seem possible.

General Mitchell turned his head and looked at Dorman.

“His ship caught fire and he jumped out. He fell in a shoemaker’s flower garden eight miles up the river. You know why, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You should have handled that enemy, Lieutenant. Your failure has cost us our finest pilot. You’re being transferred to ferry duty at once.”

Big George Dorman opened his mouth to protest, to say something; and then he suddenly closed it. He had washed out as a fighting pilot, he had blown his first chance—and now he was getting his medicine. Well, he told himself he’d take it on his heels.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I shouldn’t—”

“That’s all, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dorman saluted and went out.

Ferry duty. God what a laugh that was. A month now he’d been doing ferry duty. A month of peaceful flying. Why, a guy might as well be back home!

George Dorman yanked up the nose of his Nieuport 23 and passed over the flat-roofed houses on the edge of Chaumont. What he should do, he told himself again, was to put the ship down, go in and tell Pershing all about it. Tell him he’d had his lesson and that if he could get just one more chance...

But, of course, he didn’t. He took his Nieuport back to Orly, checked it in, and because he’d been doing a lot of thinking that day and was all in a fuddle he went down to Papa Jean’s grog shop that night and proceeded to get gloriously, thoroughly and completely soused.

The next morning his head felt like a balloon; it pulled him up and took him into the mess hall exactly two hours late. But the mess sergeant was a good egg, and he fixed Dorman some coffee, oatmeal and a thick slice of lamb.