James Salter - Cassada

“If we get the maintenance.”

Dunning nodded sagely as if he knew something about that.

“Well, Friday night,” he said, gathering himself. “You getting up to the club before long?”

“I’ll be there.”

There were a few things left to be attended to and the last flight had yet to land. Isbell sat working at his desk. There was the faint sound of the adding machine in the outer office striking out sums in bursts. The operations clerks would be working late. He was looking out the window when there was a knock.

“Are you busy, Captain?” Cassada, slightly reticent, stood in the doorway. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute if I could.”

“Sure. What’s on your mind?”

“Is it all right if I close the door, sir?”

Isbell was still looking out the window. He turned his head. “What for?”

“It’s something that I… it’s something personal.”

“It is, eh?” Isbell said unconcernedly.

He thought he heard them then and glanced out the window, then turned once more to Cassada who was wearing—Isbell was a little surprised by it—a look of impatience. “Sit down. What’s the problem?”

“I wanted to ask about something. Maybe I should have come in sooner.” He paused. “The thing is, ever since I’ve been in the squadron…”

“Which is what, all of three months?”

“Almost.” Cassada began again: “When I started flying here it was with Lieutenant Grace and his flight.”

Isbell felt a certain resentment rising in himself. “Yes. Grace had you for transition.”

“I really learned a lot from him.”

Cassada was looking down at his hands. “I wondered if there was a chance of my being put in his flight. I mean, if it wouldn’t make too much difference. I think I’d pick up quite a bit from him.”

“I’m sure you would.”

Cassada looked up, uncertain at the tone. “To tell the truth I sort of expected—I suppose it was wrong because nobody had said anything to me one way or the other—to be in his flight from the beginning.”

“Why?” Isbell said. He heard and saw them, coming along the main taxiway, gliding like ghosts, like something borne on a river, through the fading light. The sound rose as they came closer, slowing.

“Well, because I’d flown with him all along.”

The last ones were down. All was as it should be. Freed of concern then, fully attentive, “Just because I’m curious,” Isbell said, “why did you wait until now to come in here?”

“I guess I shouldn’t have.”

“What is it, three or four weeks you’ve been in Captain Wickenden’s flight now?”

“Yes, sir.”

The last two planes were entering their hardstands, the crew chiefs skipping backwards as they came, waving them around in a tight, fetal turn, the engine cut even before the wheels came to a stop. The sound escaped, piercing and faint. It fell to nothing, to a deep, full silence.

“Well, what made you suddenly decide?” Isbell repeated. “There must be a reason.”

Was it possible Isbell did not know what Wickenden was like, how overbearing, Cassada thought in confusion. Would he be angered to hear? “I guess I didn’t have the nerve.”

“The nerve?”

Cassada was silent.

“You can learn just as much about flying right where you are, if that’s what you’re really worried about. Maybe more.”

“That’s just it,” Cassada insisted.

“What?”

“I think I’d do better. In fact I’m sure of it.”

“Grace already has four men in his flight. If you were in it there’d be five and Wickenden would have three.”

“I thought maybe there could be a switch. I might be able to get someone to agree to change.”

“No,” Isbell said instead of “Just try.” “There’s not going to be any change.”

“Captain, I…”

Isbell made a gesture of what more do you want?

“Maybe I didn’t explain it right.”

“No, that’s all. I have work to do.”

A few minutes after Cassada had gone, Isbell picked up his cap and walked out of the office himself. There, inspecting the time chart with a grave air stood Wickenden, finishing a cigarette. “A lot of hours this month,” he commented when Isbell was standing beside him.

“Yeah.”

Some ashes had fallen to the floor near Wickenden’s foot, Isbell saw. He’d been there for a while. It was hard to know for how long. “We’ll be the top squadron this month,” Isbell said, watching for a hint in Wickenden’s face.

“Pine is probably holding back fifty hours till the last day.”

“I know. He usually does. We figured that in.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Sure. It’s a game.”

“Next month we’ll fall on our face.”

“Next month is Tripoli.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

“Coming to the club?”

Wickenden seemed still engrossed in the figures, the names of the pilots, how many hours each had flown, the total for each flight easily calculated. Isbell stared at the firm profile.

“I suppose I’m expected to,” Wickenden said.

In the car he sat looking straight ahead, pointedly disaffected. How much he might have heard was hard to guess. Perhaps it was only his suspicions. He was slow to reveal himself, sometimes it took months. Sometimes he brought up things long past as if they had happened the day before. He began whistling through his teeth as they drove, difficult, touchy as an old dog. My ranking flight commander, Isbell thought wearily. The most experienced.

Some colonel up from Landstuhl had his 300SL parked below. They were admiring it from Harlan’s room. They could see down into the rear window, the seats, tan leather and soft.

“They hand rub the lacquer between coats,” Godchaux said.

It was after lunch. Harlan was picking his teeth.

“I like that color,” Godchaux said.

“Maroon fades,” Harlan said. Cars held no mystery for him. He had changed transmissions lying on his back in the hard dirt.

“There isn’t a car that can touch it,” Godchaux said.

“What does a car like that cost?”

“A lot.”

“How much?”

“Six thousand dollars in Stuttgart. They guarantee you can do a hundred and fifty when you leave the factory.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“It’s a fact. Look at it. Look at the way it’s humped over even standing still. They put the engine in there on an angle. It’s canted. It’s not straight up and down. That’s so they can keep the hood low.”

“What’s wrong with that Mercury you have?”

“It practically shakes to pieces at ninety.”

“That’s the roads over here,” Harlan said.

“Even on the autobahn.”

“Well, if I had six thousand dollars I wouldn’t be buying that. I don’t see the point of driving around in a year’s pay.”

“What a feeling, eh?”

“It looks fine, but what can you do in it that you can’t do in yours?”

“A hundred and fifty,” Godchaux said.

The sun had come out and was shining off the snow. The room bloomed with light.

“Looks like it’s melting,” Godchaux remarked. “Did you hear what Cassada said at lunch?”

“No, what?”

“He said he wanted to pack some up and send it home to his mother in a box.”

Cassada had never seen snow.

“Oh, yeah? Where’s he from? Alabama?”

“No, he’s from Puerto Rico.”

“Puerto Rico? You’d never know that from looking at him. Was he born there?”

“I think so. His father died or they got divorced. He lived with his mother.”

“Puerto Rico,” Harlan said. “Well, how’d he get in the American Air Force?”

“Puerto Rico’s part of the United States.”