James Salter - The Hunters

“How was the mission, Cleve?” he asked.

“No good. All we saw was clouds.”

“Did your new boys do all right?”

“There wasn’t much they could do wrong. They didn’t get lost anyway, which wouldn’t have surprised me. One of them seems like a pretty good pilot, but I don’t know about the other one.”

“Pettibone?”

“Yes.”

“I put a new man in your flight today,” Desmond said after a pause.

“I know.”

“Another second lieutenant. His name is Pell.”

“Yes, I met him a little while ago. Have you talked to him?”

“Sure. He seems all right,” Desmond said, “a little cocky maybe. They tell me that he’s a good pilot, though.”

“I hope so. He calls himself Doctor.”

“What?”

“Says that’s what everybody calls him.”

“He’ll be all right,” Desmond assured him.

Cleve did not reply. Everything had changed somehow. It was like a passionate marriage suddenly palled by an in-law coming to stay indefinitely in the house. He fought a sense of disappointment.

It turned out that the three second lieutenants had been classmates all through flying school until they were separated before coming overseas. Pell was soon telling them what had happened to him since that time.

“You guys missed it. I came over on this Pan Am ship with a real babe for a stewardess.”

“Don’t give us that.”

“I don’t understand how it happened,” Pell admitted, “but when we walked out to the plane in California, there it was, a big luxury job. The stewardess was smiling, and I said to myself, ‘Doctor, this is an omen. Your luck is going to hold.’”

“It must have been pretty soft.”

“Terrific. Hot coffee, sandwiches, reclining seats. The best.” Pell picked a kiss from his lips with thumb and forefinger.

“I think we were pretty lucky to get assigned to this group,” Pettibone said.

“You said it. I was really sweating back there at Fuchu. They held me up for ten days, trying to stick me in those lousy fighter-bombers.”

“How did you get out of it?”

“Oh,” Pell said, “I got to know the guy who was giving out the assignments. He finally fixed it up. What happened to everybody else in the class, though? Where did they go?”

“Let’s see. Mullins, Boyd, Bechtel, and Tom Slazac went to fighter-bombers.”

“The poor bastards,” Pell commented. He had a lean, expressive mouth.

“They say they like it. They’ve already driven up here to see us once.”

“What do they know about it? This is the deal.”

“It surely is,” Hunter agreed.

“Have you flown any missions yet? You probably have ten apiece, you weenies.”

“We were on a mission this afternoon.”

“Veterans, eh?”

Hunter shrugged.

“Have you seen MIGs yet?” Pell said.

“No.”

“The weather was pretty bad today” Pettibone added.

“It was, eh? Tough.”

Rummaging around in his belongings, he pulled out a full box of cigars and expertly slit the seal with a fingernail. He offered them around.

“How about one?”

Hunter accepted. Pettibone shook his head.

Pell picked out two for himself. He lit one and inserted the other in his shirt pocket. He was feeling more certain of himself.

“Have you run into any gin players around here?” he asked. “I’d like to find a game somewhere.”

“How have you been making out?”

“Tom. I almost got cleaned in Japan.”

“Don’t tell me you lost.”

“Not really” Pell admitted. “I managed to get well at the very end.”

“Oh.”

“I was playing with this old major. He had me way down, but the last couple of days I began getting to him and came out a little ahead.” Pell grinned. He had a sly, condescending way of doing it.

“How much?” Hunter finally asked.

“Four bills, that’s all.”

“Four hundred dollars?”

Pell nodded.

“That’s more than a month’s pay. You didn’t really win that much, Doctor.”

“I didn’t, eh?”

“Did you?”

“What’s the difference? How about a quick game?” Pell said. “You and I?”

“No, I don’t feel like it just now.”

“Too bad,” Pell said casually. “Well, I’ll catch you some other time.”

He stood smoothing his hair with his hand. Then he put on his hat and walked out. The door slatted shut behind him.

“Always some big deal,” Pettibone muttered.

Hunter looked at the door without answering.

“Did you hear him?” Pettibone continued. “This is the place to be. He hasn’t even been here twelve hours yet.”

“He’s something all right. Winning four hundred dollars. What do you think of that?”

“From a major,” Pettibone said. “It had to be a major.”

“That sucker knows how to play cards, though. I’ve seen him.”

“So have I. Who cares?”

They glanced at each other in the darkened room, feeling the vague discomfort.

“He’s the same old wise guy,” Pettibone said finally.

Later, Cleve listened to Hunter obsessively describing Pell as a card player. He loved to gamble, and he was lucky. He always won. There was one night in Las Vegas when he lost eight or nine hundred dollars, and the club gave him cab fare to get back to the field; but then he came back and beat the blackjack game for over three thousand. Cleve did not doubt it. He had noticed Pell’s hands. They were probably the most educated thing about him, thin and ascetic, with exceptionally long fingers.

“They must have been sorry they ever gave him the carfare,” Cleve said.

The room had become confining for him, a regular closet. He stood up. He felt like a man who puts weight on a bad leg for the first time. Suddenly he was conscious of his position, uncomfortably. He was the leader. There seemed to be something artificial and repugnant about that, as if he were wearing a bright shirt with the word printed on it. Everything had been so effortless until now. Unexpectedly, the simplicity of things was gone. It had been a bad day.

Like the hand that bears the orb, the pilots—there were actually not many of them, about a hundred altogether—carried alone the ultimate strength of the wing. In each of the three squadrons there were some thirty, and in the rest of the structure perhaps fifteen others, who flew missions. It was a small complement; but even of the few there were only three who were recognized wherever they went: Imil, Bengert, and Robey They stood out like men moving forward through a forest of stumps. Their names were gilded. They had shot down at least five MIGs apiece. Bengert had seven, but five was the number that separated men from greatness. Cleve had come to see, as had everyone else, how rigid was that casting. There were no other values. It was like money: it did not matter how it had been acquired, but only that it had. That was the final judgment. MIGs were everything. If you had MIGs you were a standard of excellence. The sun shone upon you. The crew chiefs were happy to have you fly their ships. The touring actresses wanted to meet you. You were the center of everything—the praise, the excitement, the enviers. If you did not—although nothing was shameful about it, and there were reasons, allegedly valid, for any man, no matter how capable and courageous, to have failed to get victories—still you were only one of the loose group in the foreground of which the triumvirate gleamed. If you did not have MIGs, you were nothing. Every day as he walked among them, Cleve knew it more truly.

Robey, of them all, was the most difficult to know. There was never any question of friendship; even a congeniality not much closer than that of two commuters was hard. Cleve made the effort. He had pride, but he forced himself. A drink at the bar, an occasional cool talk at night, always in Robey’s room, it progressed slowly until one evening, unexpectedly, he found himself knowing Robey very well indeed.