Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page B

getting short. They have the obscure job, the job without glory and without publicity, and the ships could not fly without them. They are dressed in coveralls and baseball caps.
    The gunners have mounted their guns by now and are testing the slides. A ground man is polishing the newly mended nose, rubbing every bit of dirt from it, so that the bombardier may have a good sight of his target.
    A jeep drives up, carrying the officers—Brown, Quenin, Bliley, and Feerick. They spill a number of little square packets on the ground, one for each man. Captain Brown distributes them. They contain money of the countries near the target, concentrated food, and maps. Brown says, “Now, if we should get into any trouble don’t go in the direction of——because the people haven’t been very friendly there. Go toward——you’ll find plenty of help there.” The men take the packets and slip them in pockets below the knees in their coveralls.
    The sun is just below the horizon now and there are fine pink puff clouds all over the sky. The captain looks at his watch. “I guess we better get going,” he says. The other Brown, the tail gunner, runs over. He hands over two rings, a cameo and another. “I forgot to leave these,” he says. “Will you put them under my pillow?” The crew scramble to their places and the door is slammed and locked. The waist doors are open, of course, with the guns peering out of them, lashed down now, but immediately available. The long scallop of the cartridge belts drapes into each one.
    The captain waves from his high perch. His window sits right over the ship’s name— Mary Ruth , Memories of Mobile . The engines turn over and catch one at a time and roar as they warm up. And now, from all over the field, come the bursting roars of starting engines. From all over the field the great ships come rumbling from their dispersal points into the main runways. They make a line Like giant bugs, a parade of them, moving down to the take-off stretch.
    The captain signals and two ground-crew men dart in and pull out the chocks from in front of the wheels and dart out again. The Mary Ruth guns her motors and then slowly crawls out along her entrance and joins the parade. Along the runway the first ship whips out and gathers speed and takes the air, and behind her comes another and behind another and behind another, until the flying line of ships stretches away to the north. For a little while the squadron has disappeared, but in a few minutes back they come over the field, but this time they are not in a line. They have gained altitude and are flying in a tight formation. They go roaring over the field and they have hardly passed when another squadron from another field comes over, and then another and another. They will rendezvous at a given point, the squadrons from many fields, and when the whole force has gathered there will be perhaps a hundred of the great ships flying in Vs and in Vs of Vs, each protecting itself and the others by its position. And this great flight is going south like geese in the fall.
    There is incredible detail to get these missions off. Staff detail of supply and intelligence detail, deciding and briefing the targets, and personnel detail of assigning the crews, and mechanical detail of keeping the engines going. Bomb Boogie went out with the others, but in a little while she flutters back with a dead motor. She has conked out again. No one can know why. She sinks dispiritedly to the ground.
    When the mission has gone the ground crews stand about looking lonesome. They have watched every bit of the take-off and now they are left to sweat out the day until the ships come home. It is hard to set down the relation of the ground crew to the air crew, but there is something very close between them. This ground crew will be nervous and anxious until the ships come home. And if the Mary Ruth should fail to return they will go into a kind of sullen, wordless mourning. They have been