Davidson met his eyes for a minute. Then he brought himself to a position of attention worthy of the parade ground at West Point, and saluted.
“Serving with you has been a privilege, Sir,” he said.
“Thank you, Sam,” Dawkins said after a moment, as he returned the salute. “For a dog-faced soldier, you’re not too bad an airplane driver.”
Davidson did a precise about-face and marched out of the sandbag-walled tent that served as the headquarters of Marine Air Group 21.
Corporal Robert F. Easterbrook ran up to the B-17 as it stood, second in line, for takeoff. The prop blast from its idling engines blew his helmet off.
He glanced at the helmet, then went up to the airplane and banged on the fuselage. After a moment, the door in the fuselage opened and an Army Air Corps staff sergeant peered out.
“Major Dillon! Major Dillon!” the Easterbunny shouted over the roar of the engines.
The staff sergeant disappeared, and a moment later Major Dillon showed up in the door.
Easterbrook handed Dillon a canvas bag.
“Still and motion picture film of the Raiders last night,” he shouted. “And a couple of reels of this fucking mess.”
Dillon took the bag and nodded.
Easterbrook stood back and the door closed.
Easterbrook waved at the nice lieutenant who’d kept him from having to carry cots the day before.
The door opened again. Major Dillon motioned for Easterbrook to come closer. When he did, he extended his hand.
Easterbrook thought it was nice that the Major wanted to shake his hand.
Major Dillon took Corporal Easterbrook’s wrist, not his hand. With a mighty jerk, he pulled Corporal Easterbrook into the airplane. The door closed.
The pilot advanced the throttles. The B-17 started to roll. He turned onto the runway and shoved the throttles to FULL MILITARY POWER. It began to accelerate very slowly, and for a moment Captain Davidson thought that with only three engines working, there was a very good chance they weren’t going to make it.
But then he felt life come into the controls. He edged the wheel back very, very carefully.
The rumble of the landing gear on the battered runway died.
“Wheels up!” Captain Davidson ordered.
[SIX]
United States Naval Base
Espiritu Santo
1715 Hours 14 October 1942
While Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam, USN, of the CINCPAC Staff, was not a cowardly man, or even an unusually nervous one, he was enough of a sailor to know that the greater the speed of a hull moving through the water, the greater the stresses applied to that hull.
He could see no reason why this basic principle of marine physics should be invalidated simply because the hull belonged to a flying boat. Flying boats, moreover, were constructed not of heavily reinforced steel plate, but of thin aluminum.
Consequently, Admiral Wagam was not at all embarrassed to feel a bit uncomfortable whenever his duties required him to take off or land in a flying boat. Each required the flying boat’s hull to move through the water at a speed two or three times greater than a battleship’s hull would ever be subjected to, or even a destroyer’s.
The twin engines of the PBM-3R “Mariner” made a deeper, louder sound, and the Admiral glanced out of the window beside him. They were moving; the water was just starting to slide by. (The PBM-3R Martin “Mariner” seaplane was a variant of the Martin PBM-series maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Powered by the same two Wright R-2600-22 1900-horsepower “Cyclone” engines, but stripped of armament, the -3R aircraft were employed as transports, capable of carrying 20 passengers or an equivalent weight of cargo.)
When the Mariner began its takeoff, he tried, of course, not to show his concern: He turned to speak to his aide, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Chambers D. Lewis III. Lewis’s father, Admiral Lewis, had been Admiral Wagam’s classmate at Annapolis.
His mouth was barely open, however, when the roar of the Mariner’s engines died and the seaplane lurched to a stop.
“I wonder what the hell that is?” Admiral Wagam said aloud. The seaplane now rocked side to side in the sea, reminding the Admiral that they were not in a bona fide vessel, but rather in an aircraft that happened to float.