A Private Little War(34)

Fenn had ducked out of the excitement the minute he’d seen Ted hurrying for the comms tent in the darkness, dogging the heels of some slinking flight controller. Reason enough to make himself scarce. Just playing the odds. He sat on the edge of his bed in his lightless tent now, breath steaming as he stared at the door while pilots tumbled, half-dressed, into their cockpits, pounded the foam-padded cockpit rails while their heads spun, and circled their hands in the air as they shouted to be cleared, to let slip the chains like dogs a-hunting so they could get out there and drop their loads before their hangovers came on and crippled the whole puke-smelling lot of them.

Diane could see them through the netted windows in the control tent and watched while she mouthed commands into the microphone; speaking to ground control, to the pilots, to the mechanics now doing duty as mules—pushing and shoving planes into lift order and hauling to them their consignments of death. Diane sniffed. She loved the smell of the exhaust on the cold air, of the aviation fuel slopped onto the ground by clumsy hands. She loved the smell of the machines warming, and the hot ones returning whole after a flight.

Ten minutes ago, Ted had come roaring into the comms tent like a devil, demanding information from everyone and shouting at the machinery. Diane had felt her pulse quicken. She’d explained the situation in terse, clipped terms: Roadrunner in the air, missed radio contact, explosions, a frantic call-in from Durba’s position ten minutes before Carter had arrived on target, then the screaming. Ted had gotten on one of the other radio sets and started making calls. To Connelly, maybe. Or someone else. Numbers that only he had, working with his head down and his eyes closed and sweat standing out on his head like beads of oil even in the cold. He’d reached out from nowhere, his hand like a snake striking, and grabbed Tanner by the belt without looking, dragged him close, bent him down, talked into his ear, and then sent him on his way with a shove. Tanner hit the door at a run, making for the longhouse like he was being chased. Ted coolly moved onto the next call, then the next. Diane had watched him. And when he was done, he’d gotten up and taken her radio to talk to Carter. When he was done with that, he’d gone to the door to stand and watch.

Diane watched, too, as she gave the first clearance to taxi, to lift. She was the one who controlled these boys, these machines. It was she who sent them off to kill, who guided them to their targets and then talked them home again. She watched the plumes of smoke—white against the darkness—belching from exhaust pipes as the pilots goosed their planes forward, their ridiculous scarves giving a white flutter.

She watched the white steam of Ted Prinzi’s breath as he stood in the doorway watching the planes rumble down the runway, his hands clenched into furious little fists while his entire body trembled from rage. When he’d turned from the mike while talking with Carter, he’d asked her, “The fuck is wrong with him? He’s not making any sense. Check his biologicals again. Is he damaged?”

Not hurt, damaged. Like he was just another part of the machine. And Diane had hissed at Ted through her teeth for being that way until it’d occurred to her that Ted was correct. Of course Carter was hurt. That was obvious. He’d almost died. He’d just seen something terrible. He’d been screaming like a child waking from a nightmare and had been so scared that he would’ve pissed in his pants but for twenty-five cents’ worth of rubber and a plastic bag. Of course he was hurt. But the important question was, was he damaged? Was he incapable of performing or too broken to fly? Was he so rattled that he’d begun to fall apart? Ted was asking for a woman’s opinion, maybe. Probably because he had none of his own.

And she’d said no. He wasn’t damaged. Diane had heard plenty of men scream in her time. She’d heard them die. And she knew that those who didn’t almost always came back. They were tough machines. Resilient. She sent them off to kill and loved them when they came home whole—the smell of them, the strength, the power of the machine.

“Get him to the fucking target,” Ted had said. “We don’t have time for him to turn into a girl.”





The artillery struck again and again. Over the ford, Carter found his bearings and took Roadrunner up to five thousand feet in a long, lazy spiral. He loosened his belts enough to scrape his fingers around on the floor until he found his stopwatch, then marked the time, clicked a couple of buttons and, hunching himself into the seat, ducking his head below the screen, and folding his shoulders in against the cold, settled in to wait.





THE SOPWITH CAMEL was never an easy plane with which to do nothing. It wasn’t the easiest plane with which to do anything, but doing nothing came unnaturally to it and seemed to bring out every quirk and idiosyncrasy of its nature.