Whip (26 page)

The bombers tore away over jungle. The Zeros were low on fuel and didn't follow.

It was a pattern that dogged their steps on almost every mission. Their losses were brutal.

More than half the men with whom Whip had taken the newly formed 335th into combat with its new killer airplanes were dead.

The word spread down the line. Impossible not to have that happen. It went all the way to headquarters, Fifth Air Force. Pilots talked because a legend was being created. The Japanese wanted the Death's Head Brigade.

General George Kenney called in Smyth to ask him what the hell was going on with this special outfit at Kanaga Field. And where the hell was Kanaga? It wasn't even on the charts. Smyth filled in the new air force commanding general. Kenney was slow to react.

He liked the idea of special outfits. Their morale, their spirit, could be the driving force of far vaster bodies of men. Yet, those reports were disturbing. Kenney understood the hammer and the anvil. He'd been around.

"Go up to their field," he told Smyth. "Find out what's happening with your own ears and eyes and use your own mind."

Smyth nodded. "What do you want me to do then, sir?"

A face leathered from years of flying — decades of flying — looked steadily back at Smyth. "Whatever has to be done, of course."

Smyth didn't believe it when he saw Kanaga Field. He landed at Seven-Mile where Alex Bartimo was waiting for him. "With all due respect, sir, I do think it would be better if I took the ship into Kanaga." Smyth thought the whole thing was ridiculous, but he had enough savvy to save his arguments for later. There weren't any. His pucker factor was going clear out of sight as Bartimo drove the light bomber straight toward the trees. Not until the last moment, the last
possible
moment, did the trees melt away so that the A-20

could slip onto the airstrip that had appeared as if by magic.

Smyth didn't waste time with amenities. He explained his mission and was thankful, after a burning study by the pilots about him, that it was he, Smyth, who'd been supporting this outfit all the way. It helped. My God, it almost felt like being in an enemy camp.

He listened to Whip Russel and he listened to Lou Goodman and he surprised them both by nodding agreement with their gripes. "Everything you say has merit to it," he admitted.

"Then what the devil gives, sir?"

"It may be," Smyth said carefully to both men, "that the 335th has outlived its usefulness as a separate and distinct entity. The Japanese are concentrating so hard against you that it's only a matter of time before they wipe out this whole outfit. We've gotten some of their communications, Major, and what I've said is fact. They're out to destroy you and your men."

Whip's response was a mixture of a growl and snarl. "Let the bastards come, General.

That's why we're here."

"No, it isn't. You've lost fourteen crews in all when you count your replacements. That's a mortality factor exceeding one hundred percent."

"That's our job. You take losses in this work. No one promised anyone else a gravy train."

"You take losses," Smyth corrected him quietly, "only when those losses are unavoidable, or, you get a proper return for what you lose. What's happening with the 335th has gone beyond that point." Smyth walked slowly about the cave. "Let me explain something to you both. The colonel, here, may already be aware of it." Smyth turned to face Whip Russel. "You see, you've proven yourself right. You already know that. But General Kenney has decided that what you started with this outfit and its gunships is the way to go in this theater. Starting as of yesterday, every B-25 and A-20 that comes into this area goes to Garbutt Field, and several more centers we're setting up, for retrofit to heavy armament like your airplanes. The low-level strike with massed firepower is the way we're going to fight this war. If you never flew again, Major, you've done more to win this war than a thousand men could ever accomplish."

Smyth lit a cigarette. They watched him like two stone hawks, waiting. "In fact, although this is a bit premature, Major, you've been put in for the DSC."

"Screw the goddamned medal," came the rasping answer. "I'm not flying for any piece of tin on my shirt. I —"

"Major, you have a mission only five hours from now. You need some sleep." Lou Goodman was stopping this shit
right now
.

"Goddamnit, Lou, I —"

"That's a goddamned order!"

Whip studied him through half-closed eyes. He left without saying another word.

Smyth looked at Goodman with open relief. "Thanks, Colonel."

"What happens now, General?"

"You have an opinion, Colonel?"

"Keep me out of it. I was his friend a long time ago."

"And you still are."

"I am."

"Whip Russel has become a living legend. We've got to think of the big picture."

"I'm not sure I like what comes next."

The general smiled. "Not what you think. We want Whip Russel alive and we want to keep him alive. I can't tell him but I can tell you. He's a hero and we need heroes. Very badly, I might add. What Russel has learned and what he's done is more important than anything else. Skip bombing is now going to be the Fifth Air Force's standard form of attack. The factories will soon be rolling out airplanes like those of the 335th you modified. We're even bringing out a model with a seventy-five millimeter cannon in the nose."

"I'll buy a bond if I don't have to fly it."

Smyth crossed his arms. He was coming to a decision. One way or the other. "Times have changed, and it's time for more changes. Whip can teach other men to fight, teach them to fight the way he learned. And we have a better chance of letting the legend live longer."

Goodman studied his fingers. "He won't like that."

"Then, Colonel, as his friend, and, as you say, you've been friends a very long time, it's going to be up to you to make Major Russel understand what I'm talking about will do more than any one-man war."

26

They came back from the mission chewed to pieces. They had flown a loitering top cover for two hours. Below them an Australian force was trying to batter a Japanese stronghold. If they took the stronghold they had a good shot at major objectives beyond.

The Aussies were squeezing, trying to punch through in strength along the New Guinea trails so they might establish a meaningful threat to the Japanese airfields along the northern coast. The B-25s stayed overhead, flying wide circles, trying to hit positions pinpointed for them by the Australians. But at best it was a kind of frustrating blindman's buff, shooting up targets concealed by heavy growth. No one knew if the Japanese were really being hurt by all the lead thrown at them.

It was also an appalling violation of plain common sense, because the key defense of these bombers was either tight formation, or a slashing attack when the enemy wasn't ready for that sort of maneuver. Now all that had been thrown away. The Aussies had a handful of Wirraways, airplanes that were nothing more than souped-up trainers, to drop smoke bombs and mark the targets. So all the B-25 pilots had to hit, really, were plumes of smoke shredding upward in the wind. It became a matter of throwing ordnance loads or making a strafing pass into an area where you hoped the Japanese had been caught —
if
they really were there to begin with, and
if
the Wirraway had been accurate in his smoke marker drop.

They stooged around for two hours and dropped their 300-pounders on cue from the spiraling smoke, and went in to shoot up waving bushes, and never really knew if they were doing anybody a damned bit of good. And they were nervous. They were so uptight their nerves were snapping, because to do this kind of mission, where your speed is low and your altitude is zilch, you need top cover.

They didn't have any, and they were getting headaches from squinting and shooting at shadows, and trying to judge the wind drop for their bombs, and shouting at the Aussies with radios that barely worked. It was a day of broken clouds, but there were plenty of holes, and the visibility was appalling, what with the uneven ground speckled and mixed with shadows and sunlight and you couldn't see for crap in the thickening haze and smoke, and everybody was trying everything he could to wax the Japanese on the ground and to keep from running into one another in the air, and always having one eyeball peeled above and behind, because they were in a perfect position to get bounced.

And it happened.

The Zeros came whistling through the broken clouds and anviled them. It was that simple.

It was murder.

They had almost no chance to fight off the barracudas that were suddenly in their midst, darting and twisting and slashing in for attacks at pointblank range. The Japanese nailed three bombers at once, flying too low, too slow, out of formation. They were wide open to be hit and three B-25s went into the jungle burning and exploding, and their own heavy firepower managed, in the short and savage melee, to nail just one fighter.

Another bomber crashed trying to make it into Seven-Mile. The hydraulic system was shot out and the crew was badly wounded. They were a mess, and the gear snapped on landing, and when it was over only the two gunners in the back of the fuselage survived.

General Smyth listened in silence as it spilled from Whip in jerky, staccato phrases, the pilot's facial muscles twitching visibly with barely controlled rage. "It was the worst kind of waste, of good men and good airplanes, and the results were shit. Nothing more than that."

"The Australians might feel differently," the general replied. "They needed your help, and

— "

"
They didn't get our help
," Whip broke in. He didn't see the star on Smyth's shoulder.

Only the man. The figurehead for the stupid decision that had cost him four bombers.

"Don't any of you people
understand
? We never saw a Jap. We never saw a gun. All we saw were trees and smoke and we bombed blind and we strafed blind.
Blind
. We didn't help the Aussies. General, you do not kill people by shooting with your eyes closed. And worst of all is that we had to leave ourselves wide open because we were ordered to fly a stupid mission by stupid people and that under the best of circumstances still wouldn't have been worth a tinker's damn. If we flew the way we've developed our tactics we wouldn't have been caught the way we were and I wouldn't have lost four planes and eighteen men dead and two more so broken up they'll never fight again."

Lou Goodman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Whip was leaning too heavy on the man with the star. Oh, to be sure he was right. He was so right it was painful, and he knew it and Goodman knew it
and so did Smyth
. But all Whip was doing was raking the general over the coals and
he
hadn't ordered the strike. Goodman was grateful to the general for understanding. Otherwise he could just as well have dropped the boom on Whip Russel, right here and now, and rid himself of what was swiftly becoming a class A headache.

"You have my word we'll look into it," Smyth said finally. It wasn't much but then all the words in the world couldn't undo what had happened.

Whip dismissed the presence of the general in a way that hovered between preoccupation and insubordination. He didn't answer, he made no facial expressions. He didn't do anything except to ignore what he'd heard. He turned from the general to Lou Goodman. "What about replacements?" he queried.

"They'll be in this afternoon. I've set up Arnie Kessler to brief them. But the airplanes are glass, Whip."

He took that in slowly. The old glass-nose jobs. One stinking gun. "How the hell are we supposed to operate with those things?" he demanded.

"You bomb from twelve thousand tomorrow."

"That's one way to avoid an issue."

"Goddamnit, Whip, the other planes aren't ready yet! What the hell do you want me to do? Apologize because we don't have exactly the ships you want?"

Whip looked at him for several moments. "There was a time you'd never have said that.

You would have made sure the planes were here when we needed them." A crooked smile tugged at the side of his mouth. "If you'll excuse me, sir? We have a mission to set up." He left without speaking further.

"No matter what he says," Smyth sighed, "we've laid on what we think is the most effective strike for tomorrow morning. A PBY picked up a big mess of barges. Looks like fuel. Maybe the Japanese are running low and maybe they're just stocking up for the big push against our fields here. It doesn't matter. We're going to hit them with as many airplanes as we can fly. And the 335th goes in with everybody else for the pattern."

Goodman nodded slowly. "On the deck," he said quietly, "this outfit could do as much damage as a hundred other aircraft."

"Not now they couldn't," Smyth retorted. "How many gunships do you have in commission?"

"Five. Four more will be ready the day after tomorrow."

"That's two days away. It's not tomorrow."

"Yeah." Goodman saw the strained look on Smyth's face. "I think I can hear a speech coming."

Smyth laughed. He sprawled on a bench. "Not really a speech. How would a pep talk go with you?"

"I don't believe it."

"Neither do I. But those barges, Goodman, are a clear indication of what we've been waiting for. We're positive they're stocking up for the big push against Moresby. So we want to stop their fuel supply before it gets here. That way we can force their hand. They might get jumpy because of Guadalcanal. They may even try an all-out assault against Milne Bay. Who knows? They've done some pretty daring things before. They could hit all the way into Moresby."

"General, you sound suspiciously like a man who
wants
the Japanese to come after us in force."

"That's what General Kenney wants, Goodman. It's precisely what he wants. To draw them out. Their reserves are getting thin. They won't waste them in small lots. They'll have to commit to the gamble. And we'd rather have a shot at them on the open seas than going into Rabaul."