James Salter - The Hunters

“How much do you have?” he asked Hunter.

“Say again, Cleve.”

“What state fuel?”

“I’m down to… down to three hundred now.”

“We’ll climb as high as we can.”

The engines drank as they climbed. It was a hemorrhage. They were paying for altitude with an open-throated flow. It poured away. The needle of the gauge seemed to fail as Cleve looked at it. The minutes were endless. He suffered through them, trying not to think, restraining himself. He looked out to sea, where they would probably end up. It had always seemed a sanctuary. Now it was unnerving, a place to drown in. He thought of the bailing out. He had never left an airplane before, and the moment of abandoning that close cockpit for sheer, climactic space chilled him.

They were climbing fast. The ships performed better the emptier they became, and the blackfaced dial then showed just less than one hundred pounds. It was hardly enough to wet the bottom of the tank. They were past Sinanju, but with more than a hundred miles to go.

“What do you have now, Billy?”

“Not enough to mention.”

“Empty?”

“Almost,” Hunter said. “Do you think we’ll make it?”

“Well,” Cleve began. He was interrupted.

“Oh, oh! There it is,” Hunter said.

“Did you run out?”

“Yes.”

Cleve looked at his own gauge. It read zero, although the engine was still running. He shut it off. There could not be more than a minute or two of fuel left, anyway.

It was almost absolutely silent, gliding evenly together. They were at thirty-eight thousand feet. It was all up to the winds aloft and the exact number of miles remaining. He looked out ahead. They still had a long way to go. The altimeter unwound: thirty-seven thousand.

They glided south, descending steadily as the unyielding miles fell behind them. The altimeter surrendered feet mechanically: thirty-six thousand five hundred. Thirty-six thousand. He watched it creep and then hurry, like a nightmare’s clock, as slowly, gently, they fell from grace. He listened to the valves in his mask open and close to his breathing. Thirty-five thousand. It all had to happen at the most regulated pace. The airspeed was important. A few knots too high or low meant miles. He guarded it carefully. Thirty-four thousand. Thirty-three thousand five hundred.

He reassessed the chances constantly, checking the altitude against his map. There were things that had to be guessed, but he computed over and over. Thirty-two thousand. The moment he dreaded was when he would have to decide between heading for the water or continuing toward the Han, trying to make it all the way. That was the final commitment. He kept waiting, hoping to be sure. Thirty-one thousand. Finally the time came.

He did not really have to choose. He continued south. Afraid or not, he had decided beforehand. The feeling in his stomach was heavy as mercury. Perhaps he had not decided really, but only failed to decide. It did not matter. The hand of the altimeter was moving a little faster.

At twenty-five thousand, with the field far off, not yet visible, he heard somebody calling. It was Imil, back at the base.

“…now, Green Lead?”

“I can’t read you. Say again.”

“What’s your position? Where are you now, Green Lead?”

“We’re about forty miles north.”

“How much fuel do you have?”

“None.”

“What?”

“We’re both empty.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“Do you have enough altitude to make it across the Han?”

“I think so,” Cleve answered. “It’s going to be close.”

“Get out if you can’t make the field. Don’t ride it down.”

“Understand.”

“But try and make it.”

They were passing through seventeen thousand. The air grew thicker all the way down, more viscous, so that they had to keep lowering the nose slightly to maintain speed. The ship felt heavier and heavier as it passed from the abstraction of deep air and slipped closer to the solid, irresistible ground. The field was in sight now. Fifteen thousand.

“Did you get any?” the colonel asked abruptly.

“Roger.”

“How many?”

“One.”

There was no reply.

At eleven thousand feet they were gliding across the mouth of the Han. The water bore the flat gleam of daylight. The backs of the hills were edged with shadows. In the cockpit with the engine dead, the silence was cruel as Cleve alternately abandoned and then retook hope. He altered course slightly to line up better with the runway. If they were able to reach the field they would have to land straight in.

“If it looks like we won’t make it,” Cleve said, “get out at two thousand feet. Don’t wait any longer than that, Billy.”

“Roger. I think we’re going to be all right, though.”

“Maybe.”

Cleve was slightly in front. When he passed through eight thousand feet he was still not absolutely certain, but shortly after that he knew. He could make it. The last thousand feet, coming easily down the path of the final approach he knew so well, was overwhelmingly fulfilling. Dead sticking it in, he landed a little long but smoothly in the stillness. He felt an emptying relief as his wheels touched the runway. He cracked the canopy open. The fair wind came in to cool him.

Hunter misjudged. He had been off to one side and a little lower than Cleve, and when he saw that he was going to be short, he tried to stretch his glide, turning very low at the last with not enough speed left. There was that moment of immense awkwardness, as when a wall begins to fall outward into a crowd. He crashed just north of the field. There was no fire. It was a dry, rending disintegration that plowed up a storm of dust.

They towed Cleve’s ship in from the end of the runway. Halfway back, Colonel Imil came driving up. He jumped onto the wing.

“Well, you made it, anyway,” he said.

“Is Hunter all right?”

“They’re out there now. I haven’t heard.”

“I thought he was going to make it,” Cleve said.

“He was half a mile short. It wasn’t even close.”

In the parking area they were gathered, pilots and crewmen. They pressed close as the plane came to a stop. Cleve looked out at the rash of faces. He recognized some. Others were like those at a station, seen from a moving train. He could hear the armorers clearing his guns. The bolts clapped forward.

“How did it happen?” the colonel asked.

“We were jumped on the way back,” Cleve said. They were all listening. He was conscious of that. They were stretching their necks to hear. “There were four of them, tough babies. They finally ran us out of fuel.”

“You got one, though?”

He felt his heart skip and his hands become weightless from what he was about to cast before them, to hold high like a severed head. One? He was not in complete control of himself. He could have laughed with tears running from his eyes. Had he gotten one? They were all packed close, looking up, the strong and the slight, the famous and the unfulfilled. He opened his mouth a little to prevent the words from forming there and bursting out. He knew how to say it, the phrase that stilled trumpets, that fell like a great tree; but he had to wait. He gazed out over their open faces.

Somebody was pushing through to the airplane. Cleve watched. He saw Pell just below, his hands in his hip pockets, his expression querulous. Somebody squeezed past Pell. It was Colonel Moncavage. He had come from the wreck.

“Is he all right?”

Moncavage was trying to get up on the wing.

“Is Hunter all right?”

Imil took his arm and pulled him up.

“He’s dead,” Moncavage said.

“Nice going,” Pell’s voice rose piercingly.