“Won’t I, Lieutenant?” he muttered tonelessly. “That’ll be—fine.”
I went outside. Heat soaked into the deck. I ran into Sock Casey near
the aft companionway. He grinned at me.
“How’s your little pal, Hell’s Angel?” he greeted. “This heat ought to
suit his temperament fine.”
I swore. It seemed to me that I could understand a lot of things. It
isn’t fun to watch a fighter taking a licking.
“Sock,” I said slowly, “stick to flying. Don’t try to be a comedian.”
I went down and tried to sleep. But it wasn’t any good. I kept thinking
about Marcosson, about the past he’d pictured for me. The captain had a
knack of saying things in a way that brought out a lot of things he did
not say. He had flown a ship sweetly, during the war. He had wings, all
right. He made a plane his wings. And inside of him was a hell. Some one
had tagged him right.
There were rumors of a field to be established at Baguio. The C. O. up
there would have a nice job. Good air, cool. I hoped Marcosson would get
that field. But I knew he would not. A social job, that would be. Staff
officers would wing up from Manila. There would be conversation to be
made. Not Marcosson’s brand of conversation. A West Pointer would get
that assignment. An officer with charm. A personality.
I swore into the damp sheets of the bunk in the tiny cabin. There would
be the fields out in the distant provinces. Mindoro, Samar, Leyte,
Panay, Mindanao. Bohol and Cebu. Hell’s Angel Marcosson in close contact
with a few pilots, day after day, night after night, on some
God-forgotten stretch out in the provinces! The same faces, the same
word tones, the same ships. The same enlisted men. And the same heat.
Two years of it.
Perspiration soaked my body. The transport vibrated as it had been
vibrating for days. The same wood panels creaked. I groaned. If the heat
were getting me, what would it do to Marcosson? What wouldn’t it do?
The cabin door opened with a slam, against the wash basin. Sock came in.
He was red with anger. He glared down at me, his blue eyes narrowed.
“I go into the smoke room,” he stated harshly. “No one’s in there but
Marcosson. I sit down at the next table, start to deal myself a
solitaire layout. The first thing I know Marcosson’s on his feet. He
tells me to get the hell out of the place. God, but he’s sore! White, he
was.”