The Last Heroes Page 9

  They were going to China!

  ‘‘I’m not a goddamned Japanese spy, Eddie,’’ Brandon Chambers said impatiently. ‘‘And it wasn’t really that hard for me to find out more about this operation than you in all likelihood know.’’

  ‘‘My father is a clergyman, Mr. Chambers,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘I didn’t think I had to tell him any more than what we are supposed to say, that we’ve been hired by the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Federal.’’

  ‘‘What kind of clergyman?’’ Sue-Ellen asked.

  ‘‘Episcopal,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘He’s headmaster of a boys’ school.’’

  ‘‘Legend has it,’’ she said, ‘‘that ministers’ kids are really hell-raisers. You don’t look like a naughty boy, Mr. Canidy. ’’

  ‘‘Sue-Ellen!’’ Mr. Chambers said impatiently.

  ‘‘Sorry,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Well, I’ll tell you this, when Eddie’s parents heard about it, they had a fit,’’ Brandon Chambers said.

  ‘‘They should not have called you,’’ Ed Bitter said. ‘‘I told them not to say anything about it to anybody.’’

  ‘‘They wisely decided that they should call me because I was likely to know somebody, or Mark would, who could find out what is really going on. And I have. Mark and I have.’’

  ‘‘Well, it’s done,’’ Ed said. ‘‘There is really no point to this conversation.’’

  ‘‘It’s not done,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘You can still change your mind. You’re still in the Navy. All you have to tell them is that you’ve changed your mind. Minds,’’ he corrected himself. ‘‘Everything I’m saying applies to you, too, Dick.’’

  ‘‘You went off as a volunteer pilot before the World War,’’ Ed Bitter said. ‘‘And we’re going off now. Why was it right for you and wrong for us?’’

  ‘‘I didn’t have anybody, like me,’’ Brandon Chambers said, ‘‘who had been there and who could tell me it was a damned-fool thing to do.’’

  ‘‘It didn’t seem to hurt you any,’’ Ed said.

  ‘‘I was lucky,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘There were thirty-six people in my draft when we went to France. Eleven came back. Two out of three of us were killed.’’

  Oh my God! Sarah thought. He’s going off to war!

  ‘‘You weren’t a trained pilot,’’ Ed protested. ‘‘We are.’’

  ‘‘Just because you’ve got a few hours in the F4F-3 doesn’t make you Eddie Rickenbacker, Ed.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t know you knew about that,’’ Bitter said.

  ‘‘Buzzing the Naval Academy,’’ Brandon Chambers said, ‘‘is not the same thing as going to war, Eddie. Do you really think the Japs aren’t well trained? Well equipped?’’

  "I didn’t say that."

  ‘‘For your information, Mr. Expert Aviator,’’ Brandon Chambers went on angrily, ‘‘the Japanese have equipped their Air Corps with Howard Hughes’s fighter plane.’’

  ‘‘What?’’ Canidy asked.

  ‘‘The Mitsubishi A6M,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘It’s a carbon copy of the low-winged monoplane Howard Hughes designed. I saw it being tested. He offered it to the Army and Navy, who were too dumb to take it. I don’t know how the Japs got their hands on it . . . I heard through the Swedes, but that could be just a story . . . but they’ve got it, and they’re mass-producing it.’’

  ‘‘Is it any good?’’ Canidy asked.

  ‘‘It’s better than anything we have, including the F4F-3,’’ Chambers said flatly. He turned to face Ed Bitter and went on. ‘‘If you have some schoolboy notion that you’ll be able to sweep the Japanese from the skies like Superman, and come home a hero in a couple of months, covered with glory, forget it.’’

  ‘‘I’m a naval aviator,’’ Ed Bitter said levelly. ‘‘I’m going to go over there and be very careful and learn the practice of my profession. And then come back to the Navy and teach others what I have learned. That is not a schoolboy notion.’’

  ‘‘You’re a goddamned fool!’’ Brandon Chambers exploded. ‘‘The first thing a pilot who has been there learns is that only goddamned fools volunteer for anything.’’

  Ed Bitter stood up, white-faced. That somehow interfered with the acoustics, and Sarah Child had to strain to hear him.

  ‘‘Thank you for your concern and your hospitality, Uncle Brandon,’’ he said stiffly, artificially. ‘‘Dick and I will be going now.’’

  ‘‘Let me put one more question to your friend,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘Is Eddie doing this because he is still young and stupid enough not to want to look like a coward in front of you? He can’t quit now, in other words, now that you’ve led him into this?’’

  ‘‘I didn’t lead him into anything, Mr. Chambers,’’ Canidy said coldly. ‘‘Nor he me. We were asked, separately, and we accepted separately. The fact that we’re friends hasn’t entered into it.’’

  ‘‘Then answer me this: Why are you doing it? Why are you going to go halfway around the world to fight a well-equipped, well-trained enemy in obsolete fighter planes?’’

  ‘‘Two reasons,’’ Canidy said after a moment. ‘‘For one thing, it’s going to get me out of the Navy. With a little bit of luck, in a year I can be out of uniform once and for all, and finally working as an aeronautical engineer, which is what I am, and what I want to do. I’ve got an offer from Boeing.’’

  ‘‘And the other?’’

  ‘‘For the money. Six hundred dollars a month, and rations and quarters, is twice what I am making now. And there’s five hundred dollars for every confirmed kill.’’

  ‘‘At least,’’ Brandon Chambers said, ‘‘he has reasons.’’

  ‘‘So do I,’’ Ed Bitter said.

  Brandon Chambers said nothing else for a minute, and Sarah saw Ed Bitter staring off into the pine forest. After a moment, Dick Canidy got to his feet.

  Ed Bitter’s leaving, Sarah Child thought. He’s had a fight with his uncle, and he’s leaving, and he’s going to get killed in the war and I’ll never see him again.

  But then Brandon Chambers got to his feet and waved at Ed’s chair.

  ‘‘Oh, sit down, Eddie,’’ he boomed. ‘‘I promised your mother I’d give it my best shot to talk you out of it, and I have. I also told her that I thought it would be a waste of time.’’ He looked at Dick Canidy. ‘‘I’m sorry I had to put you through this, Dick. I hope you understand.’’

  ‘‘Yes, sir,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘No problem.’’

  ‘‘Robert!’’ Mr. Chambers called out.

  ‘‘Yes, sir?’’

  "Enough of this stuff,’’ Mr. Chambers said. ‘‘Bring us some whiskey."

  5

  The servants set up a supper buffet by the pool, but the bugs came out; so before they could start to eat, Jenny Chambers ordered the whole thing carried back inside the house.

  The separation by generation went into effect. The girls and Charley Chambers and his friends were drafted into helping the servants move the dishes and the tables. Ed Bitter and Dick Canidy went into the bar with the ‘‘adults.’’

  Charity saw her watching them go in, and whispered in Sarah’s ear: ‘‘I like the tall one.’’

  ‘‘All you think about is boys,’’ Sarah replied cattily.

  ‘‘And you don’t?’’ Charity laughed.

  Not normally, Sarah thought.

  The ‘‘adults’’ took their supper alone, too. Servants went down the buffet and filled plates for them. The ‘‘kids’’ went through a line. But then the meal was over, and everybody went to the playroom—a screened-in porch on the right side of the house. More ice was added to the galvanized tub, and more beer.

  ‘‘What can I get you, Miss Sarah?’’ Robert asked.

  ‘‘I get blown up when I drink beer,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Fix her a weak Scotch,’’ Ann Chambers ordered.

  Sarah’s drink tasted like medicine, but she sipped on it anyway, so as no
t to look like a child.

  She was more than a little unnerved when a warm hand tapped her bare shoulder (she had changed into a peasant blouse and skirt) and Ed Bitter’s voice said, ‘‘Dance, Sarah?’’

  There was a phonograph playing, but no one was dancing, and Sarah blurted out this comforting truth.

  ‘‘I know,’’ Ed Bitter said. ‘‘I have been dispatched by my aunt because of that. She hopes you and I will inspire people.’’

  ‘‘Us?’’ she said. ‘‘Oh my.’’ But she had to giggle. She raised her arm so that he could take it.

  They danced for a moment, and then he said, ‘‘Hey, you’re good!’’

  She quickly changed the subject. ‘‘I understand you’re going to China?’’

  ‘‘Christ, who told you that?’’

  ‘‘Is it supposed to be a secret?’’ she asked. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

  ‘‘Nothing to be sorry about,’’ he said, and he gave her a little hug. That pressed her breasts against his chest; but he sensed that made her uncomfortable, and quickly released her. A moment later, she felt her breasts against his chest again, and she knew that she had moved against him.

  She felt strange, dizzy, confused, out of control, as though she were trying to run on sheet ice.

  ‘‘Dick and I have joined something called the American Volunteer Group,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Excuse me?’’

  ‘‘I said that Canidy and I are going over there with the American Volunteer Group, and fly for the Chinese. Against the Japs.’’

  ‘‘But we’re not at war with the Japanese,’’ she said.

  ‘‘That’s why we had to volunteer,’’ he said.

  ‘‘When are you going?’’ she asked. ‘‘How long will you be gone?’’

  ‘‘In the next couple of weeks,’’ he said. ‘‘We should be back in a year. I mean, the contract is for a year.’’

  A year didn’t seem like all that much time. It was sort of like going away to college.

  She felt his fingers graze and then flutter away from her brassiere.

  And then she felt him, in front. It made her feel even funnier, all flushed and dizzy.

  ‘‘I need something to drink,’’ he said, breaking away from her, and she saw that his face was flushed, too.

  ‘‘A little touch of Scotch, please, Robert,’’ he said, and then he seemed to remember that he was still holding her hand, and let go of it as if it burned him.

  ‘‘And you, miss?’’ Robert asked.

  ‘‘Nothing for me, thank you,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Want to try it with me, Sarah?’’ Davey Bershin asked.

  She turned and smiled at him. ‘‘Thank you,’’ she said.

  It wasn’t the same, dancing with Davey. His hand felt like any other boy’s hand on her shoulder felt, and she didn’t get dizzy or feel funny down there.

  She desperately wanted Ed Bitter to dance with her again, but he didn’t. He spent the rest of the evening sitting around a table with his friend and Mr. Chambers. From the way they were moving their hands around in the air, making believe they were airplanes, she knew what they were talking about.

  6

  Carrying drinks, Mark and Sue-Ellen Chambers walked to where Ed Bitter, Dick Canidy, and Brandon Chambers were sitting and dragged up chairs.

  ‘‘If you come down on a guy,’’ Brandon Chambers was saying, using his hands to illustrate his point, ‘‘and he tries to evade you by pulling up into a climb, then it’s a test of engine power. You either keep up with him, climbing after him, which means overcoming the inertia of the dive, and you get your fire into him; or your engine won’t do it, and he gets away from you, and then he’s on top.’’

  ‘‘Can two civilians join this ghastly conversation?’’ Mark Chambers said.

  ‘‘Certainly,’’ Brandon Chambers replied, a little embarrassed.

  ‘‘I have a small announcement to make,’’ Mark Chambers said. ‘‘I just called Mobile, and in the morning Stuart’s going to bring the boat up.’’

  ‘‘That’s a good idea,’’ Brandon Chambers said.

  ‘‘It’s near a hundred miles against the current, which means it’ll be nearly noon before it gets here,’’ Mark Chambers went on. ‘‘Would that be too late for you to fly Stuart and me back to Mobile?’’

  ‘‘I thought you and Sue-Ellen were going back tomorrow night?’’ Brandon Chambers asked.

  ‘‘No. What Sue-Ellen did was call her mother, and the kids will be gotten out of bed at four, then Stuart will pick them up, and they’ll come up and they’ll stay with Sue-Ellen. I have to get back, but there’s no reason the kids can’t have some fun. They love the boat, and Charley’s friends, and Ann and her friends. . . .’’ He left the rest unsaid.

  ‘‘But who’s going to operate the boat?’’ Brandon Chambers asked.

  ‘‘You’ve just insulted an officer—two officers—of the United States Navy. You can run it, can’t you, Eddie?’’ Mark asked.

  ‘‘Why not?’’ Ed Bitter replied a little thickly.

  ‘‘And if he’s still drunk,’’ Sue-Ellen Chambers said bitchily, ‘‘I’m sure Lieutenant Canidy can.’’

  ‘‘Not drunk,’’ Ed corrected. ‘‘Tiddly. There is an enormous difference.’’

  ‘‘I’ll take you to Mobile whenever you have to go,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘I’m just sorry you have to go.’’

  ‘‘You know what things are like at the yard,’’ Mark Chambers said. ‘‘We’re running three shifts, seven days a week. And you’d be surprised what comes up when I’m away just a couple of hours.’’

  ‘‘Well,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘It’s very nice of you to think of the boat, Mark.’’

  ‘‘Don’t be silly,’’ Mark said. ‘‘Anyway, it was Sue-Ellen’s idea.’’

  ‘‘It’s clearly my patriotic duty,’’ Sue-Ellen Chambers said, thickly sarcastic, looking directly into Dick Canidy’s eyes, ‘‘to do whatever I can to bring a little joy into the lives of lonely sailors.’’

  ‘‘What you’re really doing,’’ Dick Canidy said, ‘‘is drafting two sailors to amuse a bunch of college kids.’’

  ‘‘That was uncalled for, Dick,’’ Brandon Chambers said.

  ‘‘Sorry about that, Sue-Ellen,’’ Canidy apologized.

  He looked across the room and found Sarah Child looking at him. Without thinking what he was doing, he winked at her. She looked quickly away, but then she looked back. He shrugged his shoulders. She smiled at him.

  7

  The boat, a fifty-two-foot ChrisCraft, appeared around a bend in the Alabama River just before noon the next day. It blew its horn as it passed The Plantation wharf, went several hundred yards upstream, turned, and then came into the wharf and tied up.

  Dick Canidy thought that there was a good chance, if he wasn’t careful, that the five-year-old boy standing forward with a rope in his hands would wind up in the river. But he threw the rope as if he knew what he was doing, and then the girl in the back of the boat threw one from there, and Ed Bitter and Brandon Chambers caught them and tied it up.

  The children jumped ashore and were embraced by their grandparents, and then introduced, rather formally, to Dick Canidy. They were nice, polite kids, and when they had started up the wide lawn to The Lodge, Canidy said so.

  ‘‘Nice kids, Mrs. Chambers,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Thank you, Lieutenant Canidy,’’ she replied.

  ‘‘Unless you want me to come to the airstrip,’’ she said to her husband, ‘‘maybe I’d better stay here and help the Navy fuel her.’’

  ‘‘Right,’’ Mark Chambers said. He was dressed in a suit, ready to go to work as soon as he returned to Mobile. He walked up to Eddie and somewhat awkwardly put his arm around his shoulders.

  ‘‘You be careful when you get over there, hear?’’ he said, not comfortable with the emotion.

  ‘‘Thank you, Mark,’’ Eddie said, just as embarrassed.

  Mark Chamb
ers turned to Dick Canidy. ‘‘You, too, Dick,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re counting on you two fellas to take care of each other.’’

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ Canidy said.

  ‘‘Good luck,’’ Mark Chambers said, and shook his hand.

  Then he kissed his wife perfunctorily on the cheek and started up the stairwell from the wharf to the lawn.

  ‘‘So much for the husband,’’ Sue-Ellen said softly.

  ‘‘I’m flattered,’’ Canidy said.

  ‘‘I thought that if you had the balls to show up here,’’ she said, ‘‘it was up to me to give you an answer.’’

  She stepped up behind him and slid her hand up the leg of his shorts, her hand moving surely past his underwear to grab him gently but firmly.

  ‘‘I’m a pushover for men with balls,’’ she said, laughing deep in her throat.

  She squeezed him and let him go. She stepped to the side of the cockpit and called to Ed Bitter: ‘‘It’s run about seven hours,’’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘‘And it burns about twenty-five gallons an hour against the current, so it’ll take about two hundred gallons. Tell Charley to watch the dial.’’

  She turned back to Canidy.

  ‘‘Everything all right with you?’’ she asked.

  8

  The coolness of Charley Chambers and his friends toward him was understandable, Ed Bitter thought. They didn’t mind competing among themselves for the virgins of the tribe, and they understood that there were not enough virgins to go around. But what they had not counted on was visiting warriors from a distant tribe, whom their own virgins found fascinating.

  Ann Chambers had told him she thought Dick Canidy was a ‘‘doll.’’ Dick Canidy showed absolutely no interest in any of the girls. Dick, Ed thought, was an accomplished woman chaser, and not interested in girls who had just completed their freshman year of college. Dick was interested in women whom he could lure into his bed with only perfunctory attention to the ritual of courtship. He barely concealed his lack of interest, which of course made him more attractive to them.

  What really surprised Ed Bitter was how much Sarah Child excited him. When Jenny Chambers had sent him over the night before to make him dance with her, the moment he’d touched her warm back there had been a stirring in his groin.