W.E.B. Griffin: The Corps IV - Battleground

Bill checked the emergency canopy release and the fuel gauge, then glanced out the canopy.

"Ignition switch off, throttle open, mixture at idle cut off," he called. "Pull it through."

Florentino grasped a propellor blade and pulled on it, then the next blade, and the next, until the engine had been turned through five revolutions. Otherwise, oil that had accumulated by gravity in the lower cylinders would still be there when the engine fired. Since oil does not compress, lower link rods would have been bent or broken.

Bill put the Fuel Selector Valve handle to MAIN TANK and turned the crank opening the engine cowl flaps. He checked the propellor circuit breaker switch and then set it on AUTOMATIC. Outside, Corporal Florentino had charged the starter mechanism with a Type C cartridge, a kind of super-sized blank shotgun shell. When it fired, its energy would turn the engine over until it started.

Bill set the supercharger on LOW, pushed the Carburetor Air handle in so that air would be delivered directly to the engine, and set the throttle for 1000 rpm.

He looked to make sure that no one was near the propellor and that a ground crewman had a fire extinguisher ready to go.

"Clear!" he called.

Florentino made a wind-it-up motion.

Bill turned the battery switch to ON, turned on the Emergency Fuel Pump, and watched as the fuel pressure gauge rose to fifteen pounds. Then he held the primer switch on for three seconds, turned the ignition switch to BOTH, and fired the starter cartridge.

The propellor began to turn, and then there was the sound, rough, of the engine catching. The Wildcat shuddered, and the engine gave off a small cloud of blue smoke. He moved the mixture control to AUTO RICH and flicked the primer switch a couple of times until the engine smoothed out.

He idled the engine at 1000 rpm, and then teased the throttle further open until it indicated 1200 rpm. There was nothing to do now but wait for the oil pressure and inlet temperature needles to "move into the green." This made reference to little green arcs painted on gauges and dials to show where the indicator needle should point, if things were as they were supposed to be. There were also little red arcs that indicated a dangerous temperature, or pressure, or the like.

The oil pressure gauge almost immediately indicated 70 psi (Pounds Per Square Inch) and then the oil inlet temperature gauge needle came to life. It slowly began to move across the dial to the green arc, stopping at an indication of 86? Fahrenheit.

Then he checked the magnetos, which provided the ignition spark to the engine, by switching from their normal BOTH position first to LEFT and then to RIGHT. The tachometer showed a drop of less than 100 rpm, which meant he had no problem there.

The goddamn airplane is not going to suffer some fatal internal malady and keep me on the ground. That would have been nice. Not exactly heroic, but nice.

He let it run another minute and then shut it down. It was warmed up and ready to go. He sat in the cockpit for another minute, listening to the creak of metal as it cooled, and then a Jeep came down the flight line with Captain John Carey at the wheel. He signaled down the flight line. Dunn had expected this. The word had come, and there would be last minute instructions and probably a pep talk.

"We've been over this before," Major Parks conceded. "You all know where you're supposed to be when we get in the air. What we have now is where the enemy is: bearing 310, about 90 miles. Radar reports too many of them to count."

Now he's going to say, "Go out there and give them hell, men! Win one for the Gipper! Semper Fi! To the Halls of Montezuma!"

Major Parks said, "I'll see you all later at the debriefing."

Bill was a little surprised to find himself trotting, almost running, back to the Wildcat. As he climbed in, he saw for the first time that something had been stenciled below the canopy: 1ST LT W C DUNN USMCR CPL A M FLORENTINO, USMC.

That wasn't there yesterday. He must have painted it on there last night. And I didn't see it before because I had other things on my mind, like getting killed.

"Great-looking sign, Florentino," Bill said when the plane captain appeared at the side of the cockpit.

"Thank you, Sir."

He fastened his seat and shoulder harness again and went through the start-up procedure. The engine caught immediately and quickly smoothed down. He checked the Manifold Pressure Regulator and the Propellor Operation; then he de-sludged the supercharger. After that he followed the Buffalo which had been parked beside him toward the runway.

When he was lined up with the runway, he went through the final take-off checklist, which takes longer to describe than to do: He checked to see that the indicator in the wing root showed the wings were properly spread and locked. He locked the tail wheel; made sure the sliding portion of the canopy was locked open; set the aileron and elevator tabs in NEUTRAL and the rudder tab a couple of marks to the right. He checked to see that the fuel selector switch was on the main tank and that the cowl flaps were open. He made sure the propellor governor control was pushed all the way in; that the supercharger was set to LOW, the mixture control set to AUTO RICH, and the Emergency Fuel Pump to ON. He pushed the Carburetor Air Control all the way in and finally pushed the throttle to FULL.

The engine roared, the plane began to strain against the brakes, and the needle on the Manifold Pressure Gauge rose to indicate about fifty-two inches. He released the brakes and the Wildcat started to move down the runway, as if it was chasing the Buffalo in front of it.

He dropped his eyes momentarily to check the oil and fuel pressure, the oil and cylinder head temperatures, and the indicated airspeed. The needles were all in the green. He thought he saw the airspeed indicator needle flicker to life, which usually happened about 40 knots, but he wasn't sure. It didn't really matter. He would sense in the seat of his pants when the Wildcat wanted to fly.

The rumble of the landing gear suddenly stopped. The Wildcat, having reached an airspeed of about 70 knots, had decided to fly. Without thinking about it, Bill swapped hands on the control stick, using his left hand on the stick to counter the Wildcat's tendency to veer to the right on take-off and freeing his right hand to crank up the landing gear. It took twenty-seven revolutions of the crank, hard turns, to get it up.

When he had finished and put his right hand back on the stick, he looked around for Major Parks, spotted his Wildcat, and maneuvered to get into his assigned position behind him. He was not at all surprised when he was in position and had adjusted the throttle, the mixture, and the trim, to see that he was climbing at 1,000 feet per minute, indicating 125 knots, and with his cylinder head temperature right at 215? Centigrade. That's what the book said was the most efficient climbing attitude, and Major Parks flew by the book.

As they passed through 12,000 feet, he put the black rubber mask over his face, readjusted his headset to accommodate it, and turned on the oxygen. It felt cool in his mouth and throat, and somehow alien. At 14,000 Parks leveled his flight out.

Several minutes after that, Parks wiggled his wings, seeming to point with his right wing tip. Bill followed the line down, and there they were, two thousand feet below them.

He was surprised at the color scheme. The Kates' fuselages, wings, and rear appendages were painted a lemon yellow. And the red ball of Japan was not readily visible on either fuselage or wings. From the windscreen forward, the Kates were painted black. And so was the bomb hanging under the fuselage.

Jesus Christ, there's a lot of them!

I'll be goddamned, the Zeroes are below them! What the hell is that all about? Didn't they think we'd try to intercept?