see you again, Marshall, and see the old crew, what’s left of it. Remember, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro.
Yours in Christ,
Al
Marshall lay sleepless in the heat, tossing on his new sheets, which were still stiff, even though he had had them laundered. They wouldn’t stay tucked, and he found himself wallowing on the bare mattress. Evidently he had bought two top sheets. Grainger’s letter preoccupied him. Al had dropped those bombs on their targets so gleefully. Hitler’s Focke-Wulf works was his favorite. Marshall had been surprised when Al became a lay pastor. Al, the evangelist bombardier.
The sheets were damp and twisted around his legs. He wondered whether Gordon Webb had ever panicked in an F-101. His father had panicked and Marshall had taken over. Only Chick Cochran obeyed the order to bail out. Marshall was glad Gordon hadn’t been very curious about his father. Marshall had seized control of the plane in a mutiny that lasted about twenty seconds—until he saw that Webb had been wounded. Marshall saved the crew. He was proud of that. But any good pilot could have belly-landed the thing. Webb was dead.
Marshall saw lightning flash, followed on the count of ten by muffled thunder. He imagined sitting in a cockpit, waiting for takeoff, watching the storm, waiting for clearance. Lightning hit his plane once, but it didn’t hit the fuel tanks. He remembered Saint Elmo’s fire dancing on his wings a few times. He liked spotting a glory in the clouds below—a rainbow ring with the plane’s shadow in the center. He heard himself as pilot, the instructor, telling the passengers, “Folks, on the left side of the aircraft you will see a magic rainbow.” It was a circle, seen from above. Telling Loretta. Her boundless enthusiasm.
The advantages he had had in his life as a flyer were still a marvel to him, but now he had no schedule. He had no flights, no logbooks, no maps to study, no uniform to keep in pristine condition. He didn’t know what to wear. He was trying new things—a load of langoustines. Caroline bothered him. Her pop-out breasts. And the fact that he was still thinking about her slim, seductive hips in those deplorable blue-jeans.
He turned the light on and sat up against the wall. The rain had stopped. His watch said 4:11.
Who was Robert? Surely not a man who was mean to his children. Marshall was getting nowhere. In the turmoil of his nighttime thoughts, his wakeful dreaming, he thought he had been trying to find the young man he wished he had been. As a time traveler, he could jiggle the outcome. He could be a hero after all.
“You jerk,” he said aloud.
30.
HE ATE SOME CORNFLAKES AND THEN STOPPED FOR AN EXPRESS at the tabac down the block. He was growing to love the strong French coffee. Quickly, he had another. Then he headed to the Everything Store, where Guy had just the tape recorder Marshall needed.
For a change of scene, Marshall sat on a bench in the parc Montsouris, trussed up his ears, and listened to the tape James Ford had made for his family. In the direction of the rue d’Alésia, a police siren was yelling out its high-pitched hee-haw. A 747 flew overhead. He couldn’t make out its markings.
You know, I never wanted to talk about it. I didn’t want to brag. And I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity either. It went both ways.
I went into the Army Air Force in 1942 and trained in Texas. I qualified for flight engineer, and if I had to shoot a gun, the top turret was a pretty good place to be—much better than in the tail or the belly. I was sure thankful I didn’t have to be the belly gunner. The waist gunners were more exposed too. But on the top, I could duck down from my bubble.
When it came time to go to England, we shipped out on the Queen Elizabeth luxury liner! Of course we were crammed twenty to a stateroom, but that ship was so beautiful, and we had the run of it. That was sure a fine trip. I always said Martha and I should take a trip on that ship—now they’ve got the QE-II. Well, never mind.
Marshall listened to Ford describe Molesworth and then the missions. Matter-of-factly, he told at some length how the plane was hit on the mission to Frankfurt.
It may surprise you to know, but when a fighter comes at