James Salter - The Hunters

“Somewhere along in here, I think,” he said.

“Set up a couple of flights right away in case we have to cap him, Monk, and check around. Somebody else may have seen him.”

Colonel Moncavage hurried off.

“What happened?” Pell asked. “Where’s Connell?”

Pettibone looked up at him pleadingly.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I lost him in the fight, and he’s not back yet.”

They stood there, looking down at the map that covered the entire surface of the table.

“Right in here somewhere,” Pettibone added, pointing again to the place.

After a few minutes, Colonel Moncavage was back with a pilot from one of the other squadrons who was able to tell them something more. He had been in that same area with his flight at the time. He remembered hearing Pettibone’s calls. A little later he had seen Cleve’s ship. One wing had been shot off it. He had watched it going down in a long, shallow trajectory near the river, spinning over and over like an elm pod all the way.

“Are you sure it was him?”

“I don’t know who it was, Colonel.”

“It was one of ours, though?”

“Yes, sir. The MIGs were still shooting at it.”

“Did you see a parachute?”

“It looked like the canopy was still on the ship, the last I saw of it, Colonel.”

There was a pensive silence.

“Then you didn’t see it crash,” Imil said at length.

“I couldn’t even keep it in sight. We were right in the MIGs ourselves, then.”

“Well,” the colonel said, “I guess that’s it.”

He drummed his fingers on the table as he thought about it. Then he turned and walked out of the room toward the switchboard, to report to Fifth Air Force.

The correspondent, who had strolled over behind Pell, had heard it all. He brought it up as he resumed his interview: “Did you know him, Lieutenant?”

“Cleve Connell?”

“Is that who it was?”

Pell nodded, listening to the hurried sound of the pencil. He knew its magic. He paused at length. He had a thoughtful expression on his face. His eyes, those exceptional eyes, had apparently seen things he could not tell about, and that he never could be old enough not to be too young to have seen.

“He was a george guy,” Pell said.

“George?”

“That’s right. The best, the greatest. He taught me everything I know about this business. It was just that he didn’t get the breaks himself.”

“You were pretty close to him?”

“He was my flight leader,” Pell said, “but he was like a brother. I just don’t know what to say, I can’t believe they got him.”

The correspondent lived on his judgment, too, and he was no fool. He watched Pell closely. He could not subdue a sense of suspicion, but then he became a little ashamed of himself. They were fighting here, up in the hostile skies of North Korea. There was no fraud in that. Pell seemed a little—was it aware? but every word rang poignantly true.

“Don’t write any of that, though,” Pell said unexpectedly.

“These are just my notes.”

“I know, but people don’t understand what it’s like. It wouldn’t mean anything.”

“That depends on how well I handle it.”

“Well, I hope you’re a good handler,” Pell said. He smiled wanly. His candor was disarming.

The article was carried in a national magazine. It was a great success. There was a photograph of Pell in the cockpit, stark and memorable. A whole country found its heroism in his face.

For Cleve, the war had ended in those final minutes of solitude he had always dreaded. He was carried as “missing in action.” If there had been a last cry, electrically distilled through air, it had gone unheard as he fell to the multitudes he feared. They had overcome him in the end, tenaciously, scissoring past him, taking him down. Their heavy shots had splashed into him, and they had followed all the way, firing as they did, with that contagious passion peculiar to hunters.

Copyright © 1956, 1997 by James Salter

Originally published by Harper & Brothers, 1956. This Counterpoint edition has been revised by the author.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Salter, James.

The hunters/James Salter.

1. Korean War, 1950–1953—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.A4622H86 1997

813’.54—dc21 97-21361

eISBN : 978-1-619-02128-0