They had taken off from Pensacola at first light, just after four A.M. It was now nearly four P.m., or actually five, since they had changed time zones.
"I mean, really," Stecker said.
"Not me. I'm a fighter pilot," Pickering said grandly.
"Oh shit," Stecker groaned.
The Gooneybird flew down the length of the dirigible hangar, then turned onto his final approach. There was the groan of hydraulics as the Gooneybird pilot lowered the flaps and landing gear.
"You know, it actually rains inside there," Stecker said.
"So you have told me. Which does not necessarily make it so.
"It really does, jackass."
"Another gem from R. Stecker's fund of useless knowledge," Pickering said, mimicking the dulcet voice of a radio announcer, "brought to you by the friendly folks at Piper aircraft, where you too can learn to fly." With a chirp, the Gooneybird's wheels made contact with the ground.
"The Lord be praised, we have cheated death again," Pickering said.
"Jesus Christ, Pick, shut up, will you?" Stecker said, but he was unable to keep a smile off his lips.
They taxied to the transient ramp at one end of the dirigible hangar. A two-story concrete block there was dwarfed by the building behind it.
The plane stopped. The door to the cockpit opened, and a sailor, the crew chief, went down the aisle and opened the door.
He was wearing work denims and a blue, round sailor's cap. A blast of hot air rushed into the cabin.
He unstrapped a small aluminum ladder from the cabin wall and dropped it in place.
Pickering unfastened his seat belt, stood up, and moved into the aisle. When the other passengers started following the crew chief off the airplane, he started down the aisle.
"Put your cover on," Stecker said. "You remember what happened the last time."
"Indeed I do," Pickering said. It wasn't really the last time, but the time before the last time. He had exited the aircraft with his tie pulled down, his collar unbuttoned, and his uniform cap (in Marine parlance, his "cover") jammed in his hip pocket.
He had almost immediately encountered a Marine captain, wearing the wings of a parachutist-Lakehurst also housed The Marine Corps' parachutists' school-who had politely asked if he could have a word with him, led him behind the Operations Building, and then delivered a brief inspirational lecture on the obligation of Marine officers, even fucking flyboys, to look like Marine officers, not like something a respectable cat would be ashamed to drag home.
Dick Stecker, who'd listened at the corner of the building, judged it to be a really first-class chewing-out. He'd also known it was a waste of the Captain's time and effort. It would inspire Pickering to go and sin no more for maybe a day. He had been right.
If I hadn't said something, he would have walked out of the airplane again with his cover in his pocket and his tie pulled down.
When Stecker got off the plane, he found Pickering looking up like a tourist at the curved roof of the dirigible hangar.
From that angle it seemed to soar into infinity.
He jabbed him in the ribs.
"I'll go check on ground transportation. You get the bags." Pickering nodded.
"Big sonofabitch, ain't it?"
Stecker nodded.
"It really does rain in there?"
"Yes, it does," Stecker said, and then walked toward the Operations Building.
There were a corporal and a staff sergeant behind the counter with the sign TRANSIENT SERVICE hanging above it.
Wordlessly, Stecker handed him their orders.
"Lieutenant," the corporal said, "you just missed the seventeen-hundred bus. The next one's at nineteen-thirty."
"That won't cut it," Stecker said. "Sorry."
"Excuse me, Sir," the corporal said politely, turned his back, and gestured with his thumb to the sergeant that the Second Lieutenant was posing a problem.
The sergeant walked to the counter.
"Can I help you, Lieutenant?"
"I'm on my way to the Grumman plant at Bethpage, L.I. I need transportation."
"Yes, Sir. The way you do that is catch the bus to Penn Station in New York City. And a train from there. You just missed the seventeen-hundred bus, and the next one is at nineteen-thirty."
"If I wait for the nineteen-thirty bus I won't get out there until midnight."
"Sir, you just missed the bus."
"We're scheduled for an oh-six-hundred takeoff, Sergeant. I am not about to get into an airplane and fly to Florida on five hours sleep. If you can't get us a ride, please get the officer of the day on the telephone," Stecker said.
The sergeant looked carefully at the Lieutenant's orders and then at the Lieutenant and decided that what he should do was arrange for a station wagon. This was not the kind of second lieutenant, in other words, who could be told to sit down and wait for the next bus.
"I'll call the motor pool, Sir. It'll take a couple of minutes."
"Thank you, Sergeant."
"Yes, Sir."
Dick Stecker was less awed with the sergeant-for that matter, with The Marine Corps-than most second lieutenants were. For one thing he was a regular; the service was his way of life, not an unwelcome interruption before he could get on with being a lawyer, a movie star, or a golf professional.
More important, he was a second-generation Marine. He had grown up on Marine installations around the country and in China. While he and Pick Pickering both believed that there were indeed three ways to do things-the right way, the wrong way, and The Marine Corps Way-Pickering viewed The Marine Corps Way as just one more fucking infringement on his personal liberty, and Dick Stecker regarded The Marine Corps Way as an opportunity.
Their current situation was a case in point. The Marine Corps seemed for the moment to have misplaced them-as opposed to having actually lost them. So far as they knew, immediately on certification as qualified in a particular aircraft, every other Marine Corps Second Lieutenant Naval Aviator had been transferred to an operational squadron for duty.
Most F4F Grumman Wildcat pilots were assigned to the Pacific, either to a specific squadron or to one of the Marine Air Groups. The Marine Corps had lost a lot of pilots in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and in connection with the invasion of Guadalcanal.