The Eleventh Man Page 6

  "Is that where you head out to with that warrant officer who has the jeep," Mary Catherine wondered, "the nearest field?"

  "Nice talk, Mary Cat. I don't see you around the nunnery." Della tucked the newspaper into her ready-bag. "Maybe I ought to set my sights higher, a war correspondent. Anybody find out, is he up for grabs?"

  "He's engaged," Cass made up on the spot. "Head over heels for the lucky girl, from the sound of it. Everybody, strap on those chutes in case this moron pilot isn't any better at reading a fuel gauge than the weather."

  Mary Catherine couldn't resist a last dig on Della. "You're losing your touch, Delly. You might have known that dreamboat of a correspondent is taken." She spoke with the air of one who had been through enough men to know. "The good ones always are."

  "Lieutenant Reinking, sir? I've been looking all over for you."

  Not again. Doesn't that damn general have anything else to do, like run the base? On edge anyway, Ben had intended to slip into his office only for a minute before heading to the communications section and then checking the flight board again. The last two times, the board showed NTO ZV—no takeoff, zero visibility—for Cass's WASP 1 squadron. It spooked him—possibly more than it should, but it spooked him nonetheless. Fog induced crashes. That 1,200-horsepower engine situated directly in back of the pilot seat, like a cocked catapult. Seattle wrote the book on fog, surely to God they'll scrub the flight, won't they?

  Along with fretting about Cass and trying to wind down from leave, he had spent the afternoon with his typewriter in a back room at the base library, wrapping up the piece on Vic. The war did not recognize Sunday, but somehow it was the slowest day of message traffic and his intention was to send in the piece while the sending was good. In the way of that stood a squat broken-nosed hard case in rumpled uniform, nervously fiddling with his cap. Ben eyed him distrustfully until he realized there was no armband of an orderly-room runner on this one.

  "All over is the right place to look for me," Ben admitted. "What's on your mind, soldier?"

  "Didn't they tell you, sir? I'm your new clerk."

  Caught off-guard, Ben shot a glance at the desk in the corner; it had been swept clean of everything except the typewriter and the Speed Graphic camera, making his own chronically overloaded desk look even more like a dump. "What happened to Wryzinski?"

  "Nobody told me that, sir." The anthem of the enlisted man.

  Ben had just been getting used to Wryzinski. "Right, why did I even ask. Tepee Weepy taketh away and Tepee Weepy giveth." He offered the new man a handshake. "What do I call you?"

  Jones, sir.

  "Nobody's named that," Ben responded, grinning to put him at ease. "It's taken."

  "I don't quite catch your meaning, sir."

  This was going to require some care, Ben realized. "Let's do this over, Corporal. First off, I'll try to remember to wiggle my ears when I'm making a joke and you try to pretend there is such a thing as a joke. Second, drop the 'sir' when there's no one here but us, and that's all the time." The makeshift office that had been tossed to Ben—in earlier life it was some kind of overgrown storage bin, for onions from the smell of it, at the rear of the mess hall—at least provided seclusion. "Maybe then we can get along reasonably well, okay?" The plug-ugly face indicated it was determined to try. "So, Jones, enlighten me—what did you do in civvie life to condemn yourself to being assigned to me?"

  "College. Religious studies, ahead of seminary."

  Ben examined him. Jones looked as if any study time he had put in likely would have been with Murder Incorporated. "No kidding. At any place I ever heard of?"

  "Out at the university." This drew him closer scrutiny from Ben. "I was a freshman in '41. Yelled my head off at every game, Lieutenant. What a team you guys were."

  "Then you know what this is about," Ben indicated the overloaded small office. "Go ahead and move into that desk. I'm just on my way over to the wire room and—"

  "Sir—I mean, Lieutenant? I was just over there. Figured I could at least check on things until you showed up." The incipient clerk looked uncomfortable. "There's a slew of messages, but they said for your eyes only. They told me to, uhm, get lost."

  They told you to go screw yourself six ways from Sunday, didn't they, Parson Jones. Welcome to the East Base version of close combat. "I'll have a word with them about giving you confusing directions like that. Just so you know, I need to sign off on all messages. Don't ask me why, I don't write the regulations." The war clock ticking in his head, he suddenly asked: "Any skinny about where these came in from?"

  Jones pursed his lips as if calculating where gossip fell on the scale of sin. "Uhm, I did pester the teletype operator until he'd tell me that much. Pacific theater, Lieutenant."

  Friessen and Animal Angelides and Danzer. Rest camp in Australia and troop ship in convoy and destroyer on noncombat station. Those should be okay; routine reports this time of day. Relieved, Ben grabbed up the materials from his desk that he had come for and turned to go. Jones still stood there fidgeting.

  "Lieutenant, I better tell you, I don't have the least idea what I'm supposed to be doing here. I never heard of this TPWP outfit until I was assigned to you."

  By now Ben could have recited it in his sleep, the same spiel he had given Wryzinski, and Torvik before him, and Sullivan before that, that the government was in the habit of setting up special projects for certain war priorities. There was one for lumber production, and one for the artificial rubber called guayule, and a rumored strange one going on out in the desert at Hanford, Washington, that no one would talk about officially, and who knew how many others. "In ours, we produce boilerplate for the newspapers, to put it politely. You do know how to handle a typewriter and a camera, right? Where is it you were stationed, before?"

  "The Aleutians. I was on the base newspaper at Adak, the Williwaw." A mistily nostalgic expression came over the thug face. "They really had the weather up there. It was great for Bible study."

  "I'll just bet." If the Aleutian Islands were known for anything, it was sideways rain. That remote Alaska outpost was about as distant as possible from Montana and any logical assignment to this office. Another of those chills blowing through a gap in the law of averages crept up Ben's spine as he inspected the unexpected corporal again. The war tossed people like scraps of paper to far corners of the world, except those who happened to have attended Treasure State University in '41; those it was busily sifting back to Great Falls. Jake Eisman, first. Then himself, and now this clerk with nothing standing out on his record except piety. Would coincidences never cease: the tangled situation with Cass, and all of a sudden a Ten Commandments officemate who would definitely know which number the one against adultery was.

  "Tell you what, Jones, things are kind of slack at the moment and it's late in the day," he resorted to, wanting time to think over this latest circumstance, "so why don't you just get settled in the barracks. I'll collect the messages and we'll start work in the morning—with any luck, the two of us will have the war won by noon."

  Jones cleared his throat. "Sir? We have company."

  Another soldier was standing in the office doorway wringing a cap. This one wore an armband.

  "I have been reprimanded," the base commander set fire to each word. "Because of you, Lieutenant Reinking."

  Standing at attention in the same old spot at eye-chart distance from the desk nameplate that read GENERAL GRADY, Ben mentally tried out "I was just trying to do my job, sir," and decided silence sounded better.

  The general continued, at volume. "A certain United States senator from here read your article on the WASPs. Ordinarily that wouldn't matter a shit's worth, but he's a busybody on a committee the Pentagon has to get along with. It seems he wants to know why, if women have the training to fly these airplanes of ours in American air, they can't cross a meaningless line on the ground called the Canadian border and do the Alaska run. The interfering old fart."

  "Sir?" Ben risked. It drew him a glare,
but also a nod for him to speak if he dared. "Could you maybe fill me in as to why the WASPs can't fly north?"

  The general said sardonically, "I thought you were supposed to be bright, Reinking. I use the Alaska run to weed my pilots. It's the next thing to combat flying."

  He whirled in his chair and slammed a hand to the wall map behind him. "Shit's sake, man, just look at the terrain! The hop from here to Edmonton, anybody in ATC can fly that with one eye closed. But then comes the real flying, every goddamn Canadian mountain there is and then the Alaskan ones. That flight is long, the weather is bad half the time and worse the rest, the Fairbanks airport is no cinch—do you see what I'm driving at? Those who can hack it on the northern hop"—the general reached high to resoundingly slap the Alaska portion of the map—"I see to it that they have a good shot at transferring over to be fighter or bomber pilots. Those pilots, perhaps you have noticed, Lieutenant, according to United States Army Air Corps regulations need to be m-e-n." The general spelled it out for him ever further: "Letting the goddamn WASPs onto that run would get in the way of that."

  "I see, sir." Does the Senator?

  General Grady slumped back in his chair as if under the weight of that thought. "Not that it matters, now that I have to screw the mongoose on this"—Ben did not let his face show how much he savored that description—"but what do I have to look forward to next from you, Reinking? I am supposedly in charge of all personnel on this air base, yet you have orders from somewhere on high that lets you flit around here doing whatever you damn please. Exactly who is behind this kink in the chain of command?" The general leaned far forward. "The President? Joseph Stalin? God?"

  A colonel with a Gable mustache, actually.

  Ben's war then had not yet become an endless maze of map-plastered base offices and florid commanding officers discomfited by his existence, but it was about to. That last spring morning in 1942 at the pilot training base outside Nashville, reporting as ordered but so mad he could barely see straight, he stepped into the briefing room the visiting colonel had borrowed. He still was reeling from the epic chewing out inflicted by his training squadron CO, minutes before. "So, Reinking, is your father possibly a Congressman? He's not? Then where the hell does your pull come from? I'm supposed to produce fighter pilots. I get somebody who looks like the second coming of von Richthofen, and ten days from graduation he chickens out. First thing I know he's detached to the goddamned puzzle palace in D.C. A colonel flies in from Washington just to fetch you—if that isn't pull, Reinking, I don't know what is. Have a nice safe war, and get out of my sight."

  Torn between outrage and trepidation, Ben approached the waiting colonel prepared to plead this as a case of mistaken identity. His rigid salute went unanswered, the officer waving him to stand at ease. That and the way the Pentagon man casually perched on the edge of a desk instead of requisitioning it said he was not a military lifer, Ben deciphered. Instead he looked like someone off the cover of Time, the slicked-back hair, the dapper pencil-thin mustache, the executive attitude; there was always a smokestack or an assembly line over the tailored shoulder on the magazine cover.

  Colonel Whoever-he-was meanwhile had given Ben an equal looking-over and now said, as if it was the first of many decisions, "Light one if you've got one. Or try one of my Cuban 'rillos?" He held out a pack of thin dark baby cigars.

  "I don't smoke, sir."

  "Still in training, good." The colonel flipped open his lighter and puffed a cigarillo to life. His sudden question caught Ben off-guard. "Did you happen to hear the Ted Loudon show last Saturday?"

  Loudmouth? You couldn't pay me enough to listen to that creep. Ben stuck to, "Can't say that I did, sir."

  "Too bad. You were prominently mentioned. Here's a transcription." He held out a fold of yellow teletype paper for Ben to take.

  THRESHOLD PRESS WAR PROJECT PICKUP FROM CONTINENTAL BROADCASTING SYSTEM, the slugline read. And beneath in the familiar staccato spatter of wire-service copy:

  Good evening, America, and our fighting men and women everywhere. This is Ted Loudon with the latest Sports Lowdown. And have I got a super-size scoop for you tonight." (Ben could just hear that rat-a-tat-tat radio patter. Not for the first time, however, Loudon's brand of spiel went beyond anything that could be expected.) "On the gridiron of life, champions now are taking the field in a game for all the world to see. Every true follower of football will remember the war cry of the Golden Eagles of 1941. That Treasure State University team gallantly rallied to the memory of its 'twelfth man,' the teammate whose heart tragically gave out on the practice field, and went on to an undefeated season. Now those Golden Eagle players have heroically committed themselves to victory on a field as large as the world. Every starting player of that unforgettable Treasure State team—now get this, fans—those eleven players all are now in the service of their country.

  "I have searched the records high and low, folks" (—Ben would have bet most of it was low, wherever Loudon was involved—) "and with the natural exception of the military academies of West Point and Annapolis, no college football team has ever before offered up every member in simultaneous service to our country. Count on it, friends, Hitler and Tojo are in for some rough tackling from these fellows. The roster of this Supreme Team is quite amazing:

  Moxie Stamper, the slinging quarterback.

  Jake Eisman, the Iceman, cool head at fullback who always delivered in All-American fashion when vital short yardage was needed.

  Quick Vic Rennie, as fast as a halfback gets.

  Dexter Cariston, deceptive as a ghost at the other halfback spot.

  Then the outstanding line, beginning with ends Nick Danzer and Ben Reinking, two of the catchingest receivers this side of Don Hutson."

  On down the list. The one surprise to Ben was Dexter Cariston, who always claimed the only blood he intended to be around any time soon was in med school. Dex must have decided not to wait for the draft.

  Ben passed the transcription back to the colonel, wishing he could wash Ted Loudon off his hand. "All due respect, sir, I already knew most of that." Swallowing hard against the possibility that he was going to throw up, he managed to croak out: "Could you possibly tell me why was I yanked out of pilot training to read a wire story?"

  "For one thing," the colonel said mildly, "because you know what a wire story is. Two summers with the United Press bureau in Helena ripping and reading the teletype, am I right? And you know how to meet a deadline, as well. 'Letter from the Hill' every week for, what, three seasons?"

  Staring at the man, Ben felt a rush of blood through his head, although he couldn't have told whether it was draining from his face or coloring it up. His football diary had run in only the college newspaper; what was the Pentagon doing reading the Treasure State Nugget?

  "An upbringing in your father's newspaper office on top of that," the colonel was going on, as if he was ordering parts for something he wanted built, "and you were sharp in class, your grades always up there on the dean's list. Plus that famous football season. Quite the pedigree." Abruptly he shifted ground. "Was it a pact? The eleven of you talking it over and deciding to go into the war sooner than later, one for all and all for one, that sort of thing?"

  "No, sir." All for one, one for all? However much else this Pentagon whiz knew, he didn't know Stamper and Danzer. Nor, for that matter, Dex. "Sure, a few of us went to the enlistment office together right after Pearl Harbor. But other than that it was strictly one by one, guys trickling in as they felt they had to, from what I hear."

  "Pity. But that doesn't change the essential story, fortunately."

  The colonel sprang it then, the Supreme Team coverage for the duration of the war, that Ben's background singled him out for. He listened in a daze as the colonel brought it all home to him. "Naturally we will accredit you as a full-fledged correspondent. You'll be on detached duty to TPWP for the duration, and there are a few ins and outs that go with that. But you'll learn the ropes quickly enough." Then the brief one-sided j
oust, with Ben heatedly asking whether he had any choice in this and the colonel replying, "Not really. Your orders already have been cut. In fact, I have them here." The man patted an attaché case of an elegance that had nothing to do with military issue.

  Heart thudding, knowing this would take endless sorting out between the writing chance of a lifetime and the loss of flying, Ben ended up blurting what he had to:

  "Sir, begging your pardon. But following the team all during the war that way, what are we supposed to do"—what am I supposed to do—"if not everybody makes it through?"

  A sharp nod from the colonel. "Good, let's get that contingency out of the way. We've had the casualty figures from other wars run," he said as if Ben had asked that as a favor. Another cigarillo appeared in the manicured hand, another flare of the lighter. The colonel appraised Ben through a puff of smoke before going on. "You aced your statistics course in college, so you'll be interested in what our stix section came up with. An American male of military age had a greater chance of being killed or maimed in, say, a logging camp or a deep-shaft mine than in the front lines of either the Civil War or World War One. Does that surprise you?" He tapped the slightest dab of ash into the ashtray on the desk. "It did us, but not unduly. The size of veterans' groups from both wars indicated that many, many more soldiers survived than people think, and our figures merely back that up. Statistically speaking, in this war we are looking at a nine percent mortality rate for active combatants such as your teammates. Rounding that off to a whole man, as we must"—Ben stared at a human being who could use the law of averages to measure dirt on a grave—"that is one in ten, isn't it. That unfortunate formula of fate or something very like it would occur whether or not we"—he gestured with the cigarillo as if striking that word—"or rather you, Lieutenant, do this."

  No uniform of authority Ben had come up against in the many months since held a candle to that. Now he looked at the red-faced East Base commander and informed him he was not at liberty to divulge who was behind this kink in the chain of command, as the general called it. In the same dead-level tone of voice he added: "General Grady, since you ask, my next piece is about a teammate of mine wounded in action. He has one leg left."