James Salter - Cassada

Cassada’s teeth had begun to chatter lightly in the cold.

“What a great plane,” he said with enthusiasm. “It really is! When you were doing those rolls it was just so smooth. I know I was a little ragged…”

“Rolls?” Isbell said. There was silence. “For Christ’s sake, Grace.”

Grace looked at the ground and rubbed the tip of his nose with a thumb.

“Did you offer to help the crew chief clean up the cockpit?” Isbell said to Cassada. “Better go do that.”

Cassada said, “Yes, sir.”

When he had gone, Isbell said, “Bob.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had more confidence in you than that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what I expect of you?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t. If you knew, you’d never do a stupid thing like that. What do you know about whether this man can fly or not? You don’t. That’s what the transition missions are for. If the major found out about this he’d take away your flight.”

“Captain, I’m sorry. It wasn’t good judgement. He seemed to be doing pretty well and I just got carried away.”

“You don’t understand something.”

Grace did not reply.

“I trust you,” Isbell said. “I trust you will do the right thing. Don’t make me think I’ve made a mistake.”

“No, sir.”

“I’m not going to say anything to the major. You better make sure nobody else does.”

Cassada was carrying a bucket of water towards the parked planes when Grace caught up with him.

“Hey!”

Cassada stopped. “Gee, I’m sorry,” he said. He sneezed. “I didn’t realize what I was saying.”

“The next time don’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to you.”

“I’m really sorry,” Cassada said again. His hair was wet and lying flat.

“Another thing. Don’t mention this. I mean that. To nobody. We’ll both be out of here.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, OK.”

There was already a bond.

In the mess Wickenden sat smoking a cigarette after breakfast, his habit. He had others, all well defined like the clapping of the top of his Zippo lighter, opening it and clapping it shut again a number of times, a sort of overture before he spoke. The lighter was from his old squadron, the case enameled in yellow and black squares. Now that was a squadron, the display of it seemed to say, the yellow and black checkered squadron, and he was like a spider, waiting for the tremor that would be one of them asking about it.

He had a firm jaw and the fate of having been born in the wrong century. The cavalry was what he was made for, riding in the dust of the Mexican border with cracked lips and a line edged into his hair from the strap of a campaign hat. Even at that he would have been longing for the old days.

He sat by himself, the tray in front of him. Wick the prick. You can give them all haircuts, he liked to say, teach them to salute, and call them gentlemen, but what does that mean? Good pay, the best equipment in the world, and with all that they still have the guts to complain. What are they getting out of the Air Force they want to know? Their cavities filled for one thing.

At the next table he could see the squadron commander, what passed for one, looking fatherly and listening to what had happened the night before at some bar. The ones who weren’t married chasing after waitresses. Sirens, to hear them talk. Goddesses, skin like milk. Ferguson was one of them. And Godchaux, naturally.

Then, hair bent the wrong way from sleeping on it, in came the new man. He went through the food line and found a place to sit. Head bent forward, he began to eat.

“I like to see my pilots putting away a good breakfast,” Dunning commented.

Cassada, unaware, kept eating and as he did, smoothed his hair.

“Ah, Lieutenant Cassada,” Dunning said.

Cassada’s head came up. “Sir?”

“I said I like to see my pilots eat a good breakfast before they go up. But in your case I don’t know.”

There were some snickers.

“Are you scheduled to fly again this morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe you’d better just have some coffee then. Oh, I forgot. Tea.”

Cassada tried to smile. He wasn’t sure whether or not to stop eating.

Wickenden, sitting alone, watched it all. They’d turn him into a fighter pilot, all right. If he had the stuff. He’d walk into the briefing room one day like the rest of them with a rolled-up newspaper in his back pocket and picking his teeth. Gentlemen all and the world’s best.

“Go ahead and finish your breakfast,” Isbell said when the major had gone. “He was only pulling your leg.”

“I’m… it’s OK,” Cassada said.

“Go ahead and have your breakfast.”

Cassada looked at him for a moment with a cool, unbothered eye. Then he looked away.

“That’s all right, Captain,” he said.

Wickenden saw it clearly. More than clearly. He could see right through this one.

The first Saturday night after coming home there was a party at the club. Nearly everyone came. Mayann Dunning was sitting at the bar when Dumfries and his wife in what looked like her communion dress came in. They were almost the last ones and wandered along the big table trying to decide which places were taken.

“We’re late,” Dumfries said to Mayann. “Where is everybody?”

“In the other room.”

“What’s going on?”

“Yes, what’s happening?” Laurie asked in a little voice.

“They got a new singer while you were away,” Mayann said. “At least that’s what she’s supposed to be.”

“Aren’t you going in?” Dumfries asked.

“No, I’ve already seen her.”

“I guess I’ll have a look.”

“Where are you going?” Laurie asked.

“I’ll be right back.”

“We just got here.”

“Let him go,” Mayann said. “You wouldn’t want him to miss it, would you?”

She and Dunning had met in college. She was, at the time, grey-eyed and unknowable though not shy. She was the daughter of a pharmacist and had been given the combined name of both grandmothers. She had inherited, in addition, her mother’s outspokenness, one might even say boldness. It was known that she had remarked of the wing commander’s wife that she would be a wonderful woman if she ever told the truth. Had this reached the wrong ears it could have been damaging. Some things are unpardonable but Mayann was bored.

She should have been born a man, she often felt, been one of them instead of talking all the time about how terrible the maids were and why didn’t they shave under their arms. She should have had hard legs to swagger on and slim hips.

Laurie had resigned herself to sitting with Mrs. Dunning who she felt looked down on her somehow although it should have been the other way around, the things you heard. It was not long before the music stopped and everyone began coming back in. Two drinks in one hand and a cigar in the other, wearing a string tie and an expression of amusement, Dunning came to the bar. He set one of the drinks, the ice in it nearly melted, in front of his wife.

“Did you get enough of it?” she said.

“Ho, ho,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“She’s too much for any of these boys.”

“Well, that rules you out.”

Dunning only smiled.

Marian Isbell, coming up behind him, was irritated. They had been away for a whole month, she complained, and when they finally got back some fraulein was all they were interested in.

“Tommy find that interesting?” Mayann said.

“You’d think they had more sense than to hire a girl like that.”

“I don’t think they hired her.”