“They warned us that the Japanese liked to shoot at people in parachutes, and that the thing to do was not pull the handle…” He made a pulling gesture across his chest.
“The ‘D Ring,’” Tony furnished.
“…until you were close to the ground. Or in my case, the water. So there I was,” he gestured with his hands, “doing somersaults in the air, and every time I turned around—which seemed like twice a second—I looked at the water and tried to decide how close I was. Finally, I figured fuck it, and pulled the handle…”
Tony, chuckling, corrected him again: “The D Ring.”
“…and all of a sudden, it goes ‘bloop,’ jars the living shit out of me—I was sore between the legs for weeks—and then there’s the water. Water is not always soft. And have you ever tried to swim wrapped in three square miles of parachute silk?”
“You didn’t have your harness tight,” Tony said. “That’s one of the first things you learn, to make the harness tight.”
“As I said, I tried it once and didn’t like it. But you have fun, Tony. Each to his own.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Tony thought. That’s a true story. He was out fighting the Japs and got shot down, and jumped, and fucking near killed himself not opening his ’chute in time. He may be a little stuck up, but he’s no candy-ass.
“But you came out all right.”
“They had PT boats patrolling between Guadalcanal and Tulagi. One of them saw me coming down, and they started firing at the Zero who was strafing me, chased him off, and then fished me out of the water. There was a guy—he commanded one of the other fighter squadrons, VMF-229—who went in the drink and spent twenty-four hours out there, floating around all by himself, before he was spotted and fished out. I don’t think I could have taken that.”
“Huh?”
“Waiting for the sharks. I think I would have gone nuts.”
Tony could imagine that. He felt a chill.
“You ever shoot down any Japs?”
There was a moment before Clete replied, “I got lucky a couple of times.”
“You going to tell me how many times?”
“Seven.”
“You’re an ace, then.”
“Before I was dumb enough to volunteer for this, the Marine Corps was about to put me and a dozen other aces on display on the West Coast to sucker other innocent young men into volunteering for the crotch.”
“The crotch”? What the hell is “the crotch”? Oh! He means the Marine Corps. If I called it “the crotch” he’d shit a brick.
“Was it as bad as they say on Guadalcanal?”
“It was unpleasant, Tony. Hot, humid, filthy, lousy food—much of it captured from the Japs—all kinds of bugs. And flying beat-up, shot-up, worn-out airplanes against Zeroes…a much better airplane, flown by pilots who were better than we were.”
They weren’t all better than you. Not if you shot down seven of them.
“You never talked about it before.”
Clete shrugged. “Most people, civilians especially, don’t understand.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Hell, I thought you knew, Lieutenant Pelosi. Our contribution to the war effort is going to be to blow up a ship. That is, if people we must presume are far wiser than we are can make up their minds which ship, and tell us where it is, and how the hell we are supposed to blow it up.”
Tony chuckled.