James Salter - The Hunters

“You’re clear! You’re clear!” he heard Hunter calling.

They continued to turn. He drew nearer. It all seemed childishly simple. He wondered if they had seen him yet. He was almost in range, closing on the second MIG steadily. He ducked his head to see the gunsight reflection on the armor glass. The MIG was growing bigger and bigger in the bright reticle.

“Keep me cleared.”

“You’re all right.”

Before he could fire, the MIG banked steeply and tightened the turn. He’s seen us, Cleve thought. The limber sight computed itself off the glass screen as Cleve turned hard after him. The MIG began to climb. The sight swam back into view. Everything seemed to be going at a sleepy pace. They were not moving. They were all completely motionless in a glacier of space. The leader had disappeared. There was just this one. He fired a brief burst. The tracers lined out and fell short, like a bad cast. He pulled the pipper forward a little as the MIG turned, still climbing. He squeezed off another burst. It fell around the wing. He could see a few flashes there and the minute debris of glancing hits. He managed to move the pipper forward again, leading more.

“There’s one coming in on us,” Hunter shouted. “We’ll have to break.”

“OK,” Cleve said, “tell me when.”

“It’s two of them.”

With just a few grains of time he could do it. He had no thoughts but those that traveled out on a line of sight to the plane ahead of him. He needed only seconds. He fought the impulse to look behind. The pipper refused to stay in the right place. He kept calmly adjusting, holding his fire. It was like standing on the tracks with his back to an express already making the earth tremble. He fired again. A solid burst in the fuselage. The silver lit up in great flashes of white. He was playing a machine in a penny arcade. Suddenly he saw something fly off the MIG. It was the canopy, tumbling away. A second later the compact bundle of a man shot out.

“Did you see that, Billy?” he shouted.

“Break left!”

Cleve turned hard, straining to look back. Two MIGs, firing, sat close behind. Their noses were alight. He was turning as hard as he could, not gaining, not yet feeling himself hit, thinking no, no, when at the last moment they were gone, climbing away, in the direction of the river.

Cleve saw nothing more of the fight. He headed north for a while, but it had all ended. There was only the meager conversation of flights withdrawing from the area. It was over. The fight had dissipated. The MIGs were gone.

Cleve had never felt so fine as when finally they headed back through the quiet sky. This was the real joy of it all. He understood at last. He looked across at Hunter. His ship, far out, was like a silver, predaceous minnow with an abrupt, featherish tail. It seemed to be fixed against the azure blue of altitude. At that moment, Cleve could not remember ever having doubted that he would know this heady, sweet surfeit. Instead, it was just as he had always felt it would be. He knew then that he would never lose.

He was unprepared for what happened soon after they had landed. He thought he heard a crew chief say it, and then they told him as they walked to debriefing: Pell had gotten one, too. Cleve saw DeLeo waiting for him outside the sandbagged operations building. He appeared angry, tight with fury.

“What happened, Bert?” Cleve asked.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“They tell me that Pell got a MIG.”

“That’s right. The son of a bitch went off alone and got one.”

“Alone? By himself?”

“Sure, by himself,” DeLeo said.

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

“Not about leaving me. I was going after a flight of four of them. It was after we left you, later, and he called that he had some more of them out to the side of us. I said OK, and the first thing I knew he was gone, and I had two right in back of me that I damned near never got away from.”

Pell came up, his face circumspect, but subduing a grin.

“How’d it go?” he said to Cleve casually. “I understand you got a MIG.”

“That’s right. I hear you got one, too.”

“I did,” Pell said happily. “I guess I was pretty lucky. I got hits all over him, though.”

“Where did you get the idea that you could take off alone in the middle of a fight?”

Pell’s expression was innocent.

“I didn’t know I was alone,” he protested, “until I was just about to start firing on this MIG, and then it was too late to do anything else. I lined up behind him…”

“What do you mean you didn’t know you were alone?” Cleve interrupted. “What made you think you could go off and leave your leader?”

“He said it was OK. I asked him.”

“Listen, you son of a bitch,” DeLeo began, “you never asked me a thing.”

“Yes, I did. I called out two MIGs to the right of us, and you said it was OK to go after them. I thought you were with me all the time.”

“I didn’t tell you to go after anything,” DeLeo said flatly.

“I thought you did. Well, that’s probably what caused us to become separated.”

“I don’t care what caused what, Pell. You never said a word to me, and even if you did, I didn’t tell you anything about going after them. When you’re flying wing, your job is to cover me, and you stay there and do that no matter what you see or think. You almost got me killed today.”

Pell did not reply.

Cleve was tempted to let it go as a misunderstanding. Things like that could happen easily enough in the excitement of fighting, he reasoned. Meanwhile, it seemed as if a dozen people were crowding around him, offering handshakes and asking how he had done it. He found it difficult to sustain any displeasure. He was swept along in a flurry of rejoicing. There were two MIGs in his flight.

“Cleve,” Imil said, punching him on the flat of the shoulder, “I knew you’d do it. It took a while, but I knew you would.”

“He bailed out,” Cleve grinned. “I could have kissed him.”

“You should have given him a squirt.”

“Oh, no. That one’s my friend. He may be back tomorrow with another MIG for me.”

Imil laughed.

“It’s only the beginning,” he said. “You’re on the way now. I hear a wingman in your flight got one, too.”

“That’s right.”

“Who was it?”

“Pell. He’s a second lieutenant.”

“Pell, eh? They tell me it was only his seventh mission at that. Well, that’s good work.”

Everybody was saying nice going. Nolan came by, and Desmond. The debriefing was continually interrupted. A sergeant was standing by to take pictures for press releases. Cleve felt the full warmth of exhilaration devouring him. So this was what it was like to win. Already he could no longer recall the hunger and despair of days past.

DeLeo stood in the background silently. Cleve took the opportunity to talk to him as soon as he could. He wanted to smooth it over.

“It won’t happen again,” he said.

“He’s going to get shot down,” DeLeo swore. “They’ll get him up there alone and murder him. He’s a smart one, but I don’t care how smart he thinks he is or how good he thinks he is. If he’s alone, he can’t cover himself, and they’ll get him. I don’t give a damn if they do. He’s asking for it. He’ll never leave me again, though. I won’t fly with him.”

“He’s all right,” Cleve argued, feeling the words awkward in his mouth. “It was probably a misunderstanding, that’s all. Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“It was no misunderstanding.”

“It might have been. Those things happen.”

“Who do you believe anyway?” DeLeo asked. “Me or him? It has to be one of us.”

“It’s not a question of that.”