Free The Fly Boys by T. E. Cruise Page A

fellow pilot that the enemy was on your tail, that at any instant gunfire might be rattling through
     your cockpit. A fighter jock was trained to react instinctively to the warning. He couldn’t afford to think about it, because
     the time it took to think might be all the time the enemy needed to kill him.
    It had taken Steve less than a second to almost involuntarily react. By the time his consciousness had caught up to remind
     him that this was a mock dogfight and that there could be no enemy behind him, the Corsair was long gone, and in hot pursuit
     was the son of a bitch Thunderbolt pilot who had issued the phony warning. As the Jug flashed past, Steve had barely enough
     time to read the Pilot’s personal name for his airplane plastered beneath the canopy, written in yellow script against a blue
     background:
Miss Bessie
.
    You bastard!
Steve cursed the pilot who had ruined his perfect run against the Marines.
You bastard, you stole my kill!
    It was the oldest asshole’s trick in the book: the asshole waited for a fellow pilot to do all the hard work of lining up,
     hammering, and hamstringing an enemy. Then, at the last possible second, the asshole yells, “Break!” The rightful pilot takes
     evasive action, allowing the asshole to move in, put a short burst into the falling enemy, and in that way get to claim false
     credit for the kill.
    Steve clicked his throat mike. “Hey, Miss Bessie, you son of a bitch! You stole my kill.”
    “Steve, this is Cappy. Calm down.”
    “Cappy, did you see what that son of a bitch did?”
    “We all saw it. But this is just a mock dogfight, Lieutenant. Don’t take it so seriously.”
    “Well, I
do
take it seriously, Cappy!” Steve protested. “I’ve got three of them on film. I was about to wax the last one, and then that
     bastard goes and pulls a dirty stunt like that. Who the fuck
is
he, anyway?”
    A new voice cut into the conversation. “Lieutenant Gold, the name’s Detkin. Lieutenant Ben Detkin.”
    Steve mentally ran through the members of the squadron. He knew the name, of course, but he just couldn’t attach it to a face.
     “Detkin, just wait till I get my hands on you.”
    “Gold, you’re talking to a fellow officer,” Detkin chuckled. “You’d better watch your tone.”
    “Oh, yeah, Detkin, I’ll watch it. And
you
can watch
me
shove those louie’s bars of yours right up your fucking, deceitful ass.”
    “That’s enough!” Cappy cut in sharply. “Benny, you were wrong to cry wolf the way you did. And as for you, Steve, come on!
     Lighten up, for chrissake. You got three of those webfoots, and you ought to be satisfied with that. We’re going home. I want
     to get your gun camera film developed. I can’t wait to send it over to the Marine group commandant, along with some pillows
     for his pilots to sit on.”
    Steve was tempted to go after Detkin and wax
his
tail, but by now the water squirted into the engine had been used up. He could inject water again, of course, but he couldn’t
     see straining his Jug that way in a noncombat situation. The Jug’s power plant was already sounding rough—complaining about
     the abuse. Anyway, his fuel supply was low, and the loss of altitude was further hampering his performance.
    “Cappy, this is Steve. I’m returning to base.” He put the Jug into a gentle coasting turn back toward Santa Belle.
    Detkin—I’ll wax your tail on the ground
.
    (Three)
    Santa Belle Airfield
    Steve had the Jug’s canopy up while he was still taxiing toward the hangar area. He cut his engine, coasting to where he wanted
     the Jug to stop with just a feather touch on the brakes. He was out of his plane the instant the wheels stopped turning.
    “Get my gun camera
film
into the lab,” Steve ordered his mystified crew chief as he strode past the man without stopping, heading for the squadron’s
     ops-ready room.
    Most of the pilots—Cappy excluded—were already there as Steve banged through the double screen doors.