Group.
I am aware that military decorations are small consolation to you at this time, and can only hope “Ij that you will accept them as a token of the respect and affection in which David was held, not only by the officers and men of the 344the Fighter Group, but by the highest echelons of the Eighth Air Force. |jg David was a splendid officer and a fine human being. Ha;
will be missed.
If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Sincerely,
Peter Douglas s, Jr.
It. Col.” USA AC Commanding
When he had finished typing, he rolled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and read it.
Then he ran an envelope into the machine and typed the envelope. He folded the letter, put it into the envelope, and then wrote “Free” on the envelope where a stamp would normally go.
He picked up the telephone and, when the operator came on the line, said, “Find Captain Delaney and get him over here, will you?”
He walked to a small door beside the washbasin. Beyond was a small cubicle holding a shower and an ancient English water closet with a warped and cracked wooden seat. The shower consisted of a rusting showerhead pointing straight down from the slanted ceiling to the brick floor of the shower. A three-tier layer of bricks kept the shower water in place, and a shower curtain, cut from a condemned parachute, hung from a wooden rod.
An oil-temperature gauge, somehow modified by Douglass’s crew chief, who had also laid the bricks and found the crapper somewhere, was mounted on the wall. The needle, pointing to a green “OK” strip, indicated 280 degrees Fahrenheit, but it had been explained to Douglas that he should ignore the indicated temperature; when the needle pointed to the “OK” strip, the water was at the proper temperature for a shower.
Douglass went to the wardrobe and took out fresh underwear and a clean uniform. Then he stripped. As he pulled his T-shirt over his head, he winced at the sharp, acrid odor. He knew what it was. It was the enduring odor ofsweatwhileterrined.
Literally, the smell of fear.
He relived for a moment the absolute terror he had felt for about twenty conds when it had looked like the pilot of the Messerschmitt on his tail was going to succeed in turning inside Douglass’s turn. It had been as if time had somehow slowed down, like a movie newsreel in slow motion; and while things had been in slow motion, he had been able to see the stream of German tracers moving ever closer to him.
And then the stream of tracers had stopped when the German pilot, who was good and knew his trade, realized that he wasn’t going to make it. He had turned and dived sharply to the left.
As Douglass had turned to try to get on the German’s tail, he had become aware that he was sweat-soaked.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Douglass said disgustedly, throwing the T-shirt to the floor.
He went to his shower and turned it on full. It was hot, hotter than he liked, even too hot for comfort, but he stood under it, furiously rubbing red Lifebuoy soap over his skin, and then rinsing himself until the entire fifty-five gallons of the water supply in a former oil drum on the roof was exhausted.
He shut the head off and quickly opened a valve that would replenish the water in the drum. He heard a momentary hiss as the cold water struck whatever it was his crew chief had installed in the drum to heat the water, and he remembered that the crew chief had sternly warned him never to use all the water in the drum, otherwise the heating element would burn out.
“I’ve probably fucked that up, too,” Douglass said aloud.
“Sir?”
“Nothing.”
Douglass wondered how long he had kept Delaney waiting.
He wrapped a gray-white towel around his middle and went into his bedroom.
Delaney was a serious-faced Irishman from someplace in Iowa, a devout Roman Catholic with a wife and several kids, although he was only twenty-two or twenty-three years old. He had been sitting in the chair by the desk and had gotten up when Douglass entered the room.