James Salter - The Hunters

As he taxied through them, pools of soft tar at the end of the runway sucked at his wheels and splattered up in oversized drops to stain the underside of the wings. He lined up and waited until Hunter drew alongside him. They ran up their engines. He looked across. Hunter nodded. Cleve dropped his raised right hand, and simultaneously they released their brakes. Gathering speed, they moved down the runway together. It was the highest moment of confidence forever renewed upon taking off, the soaring of spirit. Cleve felt light and new again, invincible. They were moments of well-being that did not last long. They were gradually replaced by nervousness. Cleve could feel it running through him, as they started north.

Flashing like fish silver, they broke through a low, billowing surf of clouds and into unmarked sky. They climbed. They crossed the Han and into enemy territory, passing the invisible line beyond which little was forgiven. Time seemed to be going quickly. The tempo of landmarks was greater than usual. The compounding hands of the altimeter seemed to be moving more rapidly. Over the radio, nothing except for routine traffic. The fight had not started. Cleve felt elated. He had not hoped for such luck.

He looked back toward Hunter, and his courage and pride swelled. There was nothing to compare with the happiness of leading. Toward the final test and winnowing they flew together, and though a man on the ground could neither see nor hear them, they were up, specks of metal moving through a prehistoric sky, contaminating an ocean of air with only their presence, electrifying the heavens. Cleve felt a distilled fulfillment. For these moments, no price could be too high.

As they neared the Yalu, the cloudiness increased, and above a spotty floor of white there was one huge cumulus buildup, a towering mushroom of brightness as big as a county. It looked like a cosmic fungus, like layers of wrath. They were at forty thousand feet then and climbing. The river was still five minutes away. Suddenly, cutting through the lesser voices, there was Colonel Imil’s.

“Dust on the runway at Antung, boys,” he called. “Heads up.”

It was as if they had waited for him, Cleve thought slowly. He tried to see the reddish plumes rising, but the cumulus was in the way. Beyond that vast cloud and beneath it, they were taking off to fight. He began searching the sky with the intensity of a man who has lost a diamond on a public beach.

The first train was called out, a confirmation of the colonel’s sighting. Less than a minute later, they were announcing a second. Then a third.

“They’re climbing to altitude north of the river,” Imil said. “It won’t be long.”

As Cleve reached the river, they were up to five bandit trains. He turned northeast, toward the dam and reservoir already marked by noiseless explosions that seemed as small as those made by stones dropped into lake silt. He watched as they appeared irregularly in unexpected places. Smoke from a big fire was starting to rise. He looked behind. Hunter was in good position, steady as a shadow. Over the radio an unemotional voice was tolling again:

“Bandit trains numbers six and seven leaving Antung, heading north. Trains six and seven leaving Antung.”

He reached the reservoir and turned back toward the south-west, high, higher than the others, climbing very gradually all the time. There was a brittle expectancy running through the flights. Urgent, confused calls came continually over the radio, but nobody had made definite contact. Nobody was in a fight yet. The eighth and ninth trains were announced. It would all happen at once. He felt himself living by individual seconds. He flew along the river, turning at the mouth.

“Bandit train number ten is on a heading of three three zero. Train number ten heading three three zero.”

Ten was more than he remembered ever having heard. The eleventh was called, and twelve, like compartments filling in a stricken ship. It was a flood. Strangely, he could feel the skin all over his shoulders and back, as if there were eyes staring at it. His sensitivity was almost unbearable. Then he heard Hunter’s quick voice:

“Bogies high at ten o’clock!”

He looked up into the vacant sky to his left.

“Five, six of them,” Hunter called.

Six. That number made it a certainty. Cleve started a gentle turn to the left, trying to locate them as he did.

“I don’t have them.”

“They’re at ten o’clock, high, way out, passing to nine now!”

Cleve looked. The sky was bright, empty blue. He stared hard at it, fighting to see, working painfully across it.

“Do you have them?” Hunter cried anxiously.

Surely they would appear at any second. The effort made his eyes water.

“No,” he said at last. “I don’t have them. Go ahead, you take them.”

Hunter did not turn. Cleve watched him and waited.

“Go ahead. Take them.”

There was still a pause.

“Aw,” Hunter said, “I’ve lost them now.”

In silence they took up a track along the river again. The last of the fighter-bombers were going in toward the dam, serenely, but he knew how they must feel. Everybody was uneasy. It was unbelievable that the MIGs would not strike, but slowly, as the minutes sank away, he began to accept it. Flights were starting to leave the area, low on fuel. He heard Imil turning toward home. He checked his own gauge: twenty-one hundred pounds.

They were going up the river, throttled back now for economy and descending slightly all the while to maintain good speed. They reached the reservoir and flew about twenty miles past it before turning toward Antung again. Halfway there, he called Hunter.

“How much do you have, Billy?”

“Eighteen hundred pounds.”

One more time, he thought. He listened impassively to more and more flights starting their withdrawals, intact, unsuccessful. In roughly the same order that they had arrived in, their fuel dropped to the minimum, and they departed. Fortune was a matter to be measured in minutes. At Antung, as he swung around toward the northeast, he had sixteen hundred pounds.

“Just once more,” he said. “How much do you have now?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

They started up the river. It was like swimming alone far out to sea. The minutes were a tide they were moving against. His eyes kept coming back to the fuel gauge. He knew it would be motionless for as long as he could look at it, like a clock. Finally, they were at the reservoir. The radio was almost silent. They were among the last ones remaining within fifty miles. They made a large orbit to the left and encountered nothing. They had stayed too long. Turning south, Cleve had twelve hundred pounds. He started climbing for home.

He looked in Hunter’s direction, back, over his shoulder. A memorial smoke hung over Sui Ho. He stared for a few moments. On the other side, as he turned his head, the great cumulus still rose near Antung, but now it seemed as inanimate and fading as an extinct volcano. It was a relic, enormous in a lonely sky. His gaze moved slightly. Something that could not be seen had drawn it, a force beyond all things sensory. He continued to watch idly, without a motive. Then, as if from out of nothing, so far off and delicate that if he were to move his eyes even slightly or blink he would not be able to pick them up again, airplanes appeared. He could not glance into the cockpit to check his fuel. He called Hunter instead, as he began turning toward them.

“How much fuel, Green Two?”

“I’m down to eleven hundred. What are you turning north again for?”

Cleve did not answer. He maintained his focus. The ships slowly grew to be unmistakable specks. They were still miles away, becoming not so much bigger as slightly darker. A minute later, Hunter called them out.