I hadn't seen Darr Alkire since I had resigned from the army several
years before, so when I dropped into March Field, Calif., to say hello
and he told me that he and a couple of the other officers were flying
three ships down to Mexacali on the Mexican border that afternoon to
return the next and asked me to go along, I said yes.
I flew down in the rear seat of Darr's ship, and when we landed and
crossed the border everybody proceeded to get drunk. Everybody but Yours
Truly. I had been on a party the night before I had dropped in to see
Darr and didn't feel up to it.
The next morning we met a Mexican captain, and everybody had to drink a
lot of drinks to each other. I still threw mine over my shoulder.
That afternoon the Mexican captain had to escort us to the airport, just
to say good-bye to us. The leader of our formation then, no sooner had
we taken off, had to lead us in some diving passes at the Mexican
captain, just to say good-bye to him.
They were having a lot of fun dusting their wings on the airport,
saluting the captain, but I wasn't! Darr was sticking his wing in too
close to the leader's for comfort. I had a set of dual controls in the
rear cockpit and couldn't resist just a little pressure on them to ease
his wing away from the leader's in some of the passes or to pull him up
just a little sooner in some of the dives. It was a heluva breach of
flying ethics, but after all I was sober!
We got back to March, and Darr, sobered by then, began telling me what a
swell guy I had been to sit back there and take it. He said he would
have taken the controls away from me, had I been flying drunk, and he
sitting back there sober. I thought he was razzing me for a moment, but
saw that he really meant it. My pressure on the controls had been so
subtle that he hadn't noticed it.
I didn't bother to tell him the truth. I liked the idea that he thought
I had had enough sand to sit there and not interfere with him. I didn't
have enough nerve to set him straight on the matter.