The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [128]
It's all yours now, Corporal old kid, Tepee Weepy be thy guardian angel. As for himself, he kept trying to think only of these last hours with Cass before he climbed on the plane in the morning. Kept trying and failing. These few weeks since she came back from training her squadron to the new fighter planes had been time after time of glimpsed and gone, the P-63s flying north with the red star on their sides whenever he looked up, the stolen bits of lovemaking with her here at the eternal roadhouse or in his dumpy hotel bed too desperate and brief. All he had told her, all he could stand to tell her, was that he was being shipped out to the Pacific on assignments he would be filled in on when he got there. He meant it as a mercy, in not saying anything about being tossed in with the Montaneers in whatever bloody pocket of the Philippines invasion. Whether or not it was the right thing for Cass, it cost him plenty of sleep. You're quite the specimen, Reinking. What are you going to do if you come face-to-face with Dan Standish out there, stick out your mitt and say "Hi, I came to cut the cards with you to see which of us gets Cass"? He still was trying to shoo away these thoughts as he dodged in out of the blustery weather to the permanent blue dusk of the roadhouse.
No sooner was he in the place than the bald bartender leaned across and muttered, "You're in for a ripsnorting time. She's belting drinks down about as fast as I can pour them."
Ben approached the table at the back as if testing thin ice. Cass watched him mutely. She looked half-swacked. And the other affected half attributable to something other than alcohol.
"Cass, what in hell—"
"I lost one, Ben. First time."
He sank into a chair and reached across to cover her hand in his, which had the added effect of keeping her from hoisting another glass of scotch. That blonde number in her squadron, the one who always looked ready to climb a guy's leg—"Cass, don't be blaming yourself, if that's what you're doing. You said last time she's an ingrown tailender and the new planes weren't helping any. It probably was just a matter of time before—"
The wobbly sway of her head stopped him.
"Not her." Cass slipped her hand out from under his and clamped onto the glass, taking a gulp before he could react.
"Beryl," she said amid the swallow, choking on the name. "My oldest, best pilot. The landing gear folded on her and Beryl bellied halfway across Edmonton." Cass's head went back and forth again, her voice thickening. "She didn't stand a chance with that damn engine down her neck. Damn it all to hell, Bear logged hundreds of hours in that flying piece of crap, the P-39, and we get the hot new planes and right away I lose her." She clutched at the table to stop swaying. "Isn't that a pisser? We get the 'new and improved' goddamn planes and right away—"
"Cass, look at me." She made the effort, her gaze only approximate by now. "Listen up, you've got to. When are you on duty?"
She concentrated. "Tonight?"
"No damn way in this world are you flying tonight, I'll call the ops section and tell them you've caught the twenty-four-hour crud. I know it raises hell with the squadron, but you can't—"
"Who said anything about flying?" she said belligerently, all the drinks talking. "USO. Liaison officer to the cookie pushers, that's me. Can't lead a squadron worth a pork-and-beans' fart, so might as well herd bashful—"
"Just sit here until I come back, okay? Just sit, don't try to get up." There still was a modicum of scotch in her glass, and he downed it so she