James Salter - Cassada

Dunning, stripped of hope like someone who has just lost all his money, everything, but unwilling to show it with the colonel beside him, stands with the microphone in one hand, a microphone that is useless. Abruptly coming to life again, he says,

“Come on down, Cassada. You can make it. The runway lights are showing up good now. You’ll spot them this time.” His eyes sweep the length of things outside. “Come on, boy. Penetrate right from where you are.”

“Roger.”

“How much fuel do you have?”

“Three hundred pounds. I can’t tell. It’s jumping around.”

“You can make it,” Dunning says. You can make it, you can make it, he says to himself.

Get us on, Isbell was thinking, get us on. They were trying the third time but everything was running the wrong way, he could feel it, a tide in the dark pulling at his legs. Get us on. He was either saying or thinking it when suddenly they came skimming out of the clouds in the moment of revelation, his heart rising up into his throat.

This time he saw it all. They had come down even lower, a hundred feet off the ground, bursting in and out of the ragged scud. Instants of vision, then into it again. The runway, the yellow mobile, everything passing by on the left as he saw it was like the others, no good. There welled up in him without thinking, oh, God, and looking down for a second too long he was late as Cassada turned. He turned hard himself, following, watching the ship ahead, the ground, clouds, the control tower almost straight on. Then Cassada was gone into a cloud lower than the rest. Isbell was in trail. He would see Cassada on the other side in a moment. Two moments. Longer. The cloud did not end. They never emerged. Isbell was on his own instruments, climbing. The tops were far above. The bases were frightening. He was climbing alone.

He was unable to think. He didn’t know what heading he was on. It meant nothing just then. He was watching the fuel gauge. They were sometimes off by a couple hundred pounds. On top, he was thinking, on top. He could not concentrate on anything but that. The brightness above. To circle for a moment there within sight of the sky. He did not know whether there was something else he might be doing or not. He had to climb.

It became a little easier the higher he went. The airplane was flying as if it could go on forever. It was powerful, light. He didn’t wonder about Cassada, where he had gone. There was nothing left but a silent, darkening world, rock-hard, waiting for him to fall. He looked again at the fuel gauge. He was unable to keep his eyes from it, no matter how hard he tried.

Harlan stands with Godchaux near the doorway. All of them are listening. The controller reports Isbell two miles out, and he’s switching to guard channel, the emergency channel, in case Isbell can receive—as if he is receiving—giving him corrections. There’s no response to them. As if flown by a dead man, Isbell’s plane is coming straight in.

The GCA van, beside the runway, has no windows. The plane may come right out of the clouds, directly at it or towards mobile.

“Get ready to move out of here in a hurry,” Harlan says in a low voice to Godchaux.

“What’d you say?”

Harlan repeats it.

“Don’t worry,” Godchaux whispers.

They have Isbell a mile and a half out. The rain is still falling, like drops of ice. Harlan stands close to the side of mobile, partly sheltered, listening. The visibility is worse, if anything. He looks at Godchaux.

He ain’t going to get down, Harlan thinks. If he does, they’ll go crazy. They’ll make a big hero out of him and we’ll never get done hearing about it. Not that he will, but things are funny sometimes. You never know.

One mile now. Dunning ducks a little, looking all around. He turns the volume down slightly to listen. Godchaux touches Harlan on the arm.

“What?” Then Harlan hears it himself. He nods.

It’s Isbell for certain. They barely hear him. They stand there peering into the rain. The sound gets no louder.

“Major,” Godchaux says.

Dunning quickly comes to the door, Cadin behind him.

“Do you hear him?” Dunning says.

“I think so.”

Suddenly the sound is closer, unmistakable. It comes beating, like waves.

“That’s him!” Dunning agrees.

They stare in the direction of the sound but see nothing. It feels as if he’s headed straight for them.

“Where is he?” Dunning asks. He has the flare gun in his hand and holds it outside the door. The sound is becoming louder, rushing at them like a roof collapsing. There’s a sudden explosion as Dunning shoots off a green flare.

“Do you have him?” he shouts.

“There he is!”

Almost straight up with a roar as it passes overhead, almost on top of them. Black gear wells, a great smooth belly, and then it’s past. For a second the sound doesn’t fade, it even increases and then begins to fall away, faster than it came. Harlan is shaking a little, he can’t help it.

“Shit,” Dunning says.

Then, despite the low volume, Cassada is calling. They have him on downwind. Dunning seems not even to hear. He stares out the glass towards where Isbell moments before has disappeared. Cassada is turning onto base. He’s down to two hundred pounds.

In his mind Isbell prepares it. The details merge, become entangled. He forces his way through them, striving to make them distinct. He watches the instruments as he climbs, it seems to take a minute to read each one. A hundred and fifty pounds. He has made the decision but cannot move. He sits frozen, trying to believe.

Twenty-five hundred feet. He is delaying but can’t think why. At any moment there’ll be a surge, the gauges dying then coming back. The expectation makes him hollow. His hand won’t move. He looks down at the red handle that blows the canopy. He can’t touch it. The first, warning lurch will make him jump like a cat but he does nothing. The engine is steady, the plane intact.

One hundred pounds. The agony of the end. With an abrupt movement he levels the wings. He was rolling into a bank unaware. Pull it now, he thinks. Then sit erect. Squeeze the forked handles. He knows it from a thousand recitations. Pull. He can’t.

The safety pin. Suddenly he thinks of that and looks down. It’s out. Three thousand feet. Should he begin slowing? The clouds are a death shroud. He is climbing for the last time, sick, clinging to a dream that is over. The cockpit lights gleam in the glass above his head. Fifty pounds. He levels off and reduces power. He feels nothing. He is a ghost who is flying. Then in an instant that passes. He thinks: I have to do it now. I have to move my hands.

He tries. They glide across his lap, independent, light. The left takes the stick. The right drops down and takes hold of the handle, round in his palm. He tightens his fingers and gathers himself. Ready. Pull!

Nothing happens. His hand will not do it. It’s like trying to pull out a tooth. Mechanically, like a child, he starts counting. One… two… The next word jams. He begins again, resolute. One… Two… A pause. Three! He yanks up. The air explodes, icy, vast. The canopy is gone. A roaring surrounds him. He almost feels regret. Scraps of paper flash by. The maps inflate, rise past him and are torn away. The wind is tearing at his clothes. I’ve done it, he thinks! The relief is so great he could laugh.

Suddenly he feels a heave. The ship hesitates for a moment and goes forward again. He can’t make out the instruments. It doesn’t matter. He could smash them with a hammer, break everything. All is profaned, all is going and at any moment, a terminal sounding, fierce and ultimate. The death dive. Get out, he thinks. He realizes he can’t tell what attitude it’s taking. He might be rolling over, blind, out of control. Get out!