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at
the strip. Are you still at the rendezvous point?”
    “That’s
affirmative. Estimate your time of arrival.”
    “Five minutes
or so, One Three. Hold your horses.”
    “Roger, Banger
Leader. Nice day for flying, wouldn’t you say?”
    “That’s a firm
worm, One Three. Just dandy.” Fred knew he was in time but went up
another thousand feet just in case. The rendezvous point was below
him now, directly down sun, a mile closer to the earth. And now,
Fred deduced, Banger Leader would say something like—
    “One Three,
I’ll explain what we’re going to do when I get there. I’m going to
make a few runs on you, and you’re going to try to get away and get
on my tail. Got that, One Three?”
    Fred smiled to
himself. “Roger, Banger Leader. I’m ready when you are.” And then
Fred spotted the Exec’s plane. It was circling in from the ocean
side, at maybe twelve thousand feet. Gotcha, thought Fred.
    “I don’t see
you yet, Banger Leader,” lied Fred, and he pushed the stick over to
begin his run. If he was lucky, he could make one pass and get away
below into the clouds. He could no more outfight the Exec in a
matched dogfight than he could run a four-minute mile, but he would
at least have the satisfaction of knowing he had bounced the better
pilot.
    “Just stay
where you are, One Three, I’ll find you.” The Exec was making a
shallow dive through the rendezvous area; his speed was high, but
he was still in a position to jump anything that appeared in front
of him. Fred watched his altimeter unwind through thirteen thousand
and checked his gun switches to make sure they were off. The square
wingtips and round nose of Banger Leader’s Hellcat grew in his
gunsight, and Fred corrected a little to the right to keep him on
target. He was suddenly aware of a pounding sensation; it was his
heart. He wondered briefly what he would say as he passed. The
target filled the gunsight ring. Fred squeezed the trigger on the
cap of the stick and held the Exec’s fighter in the gunsight for
four more long seconds.
    “Bang, you’re
dead,” he said, and in the fraction of a second when the two
aircraft passed, he saw the other plane flip into a violent
right-hand wingover and head down.
    Then he heard a
startled voice say: “Shit!”

    Duane had his
first indication that something was wrong when he came up to the
rendezvous point in a fast shallow dive and found nothing. Still,
the new pilot could have wandered off, and Duane took his fighter
into a gentle right-hand turn for a last look around before he
headed up and away. He had just completed his turn and had his hand
on the throat mike to call the errant wingman when that chilly
little voice went “Bang, you’re dead.” Then he knew he’d been
bounced like a goddamn trainee, and his flying and fighting
instincts took over.
    When the little
black dots quit dancing before his eyes and he was back in the
clear, with Trusteau somewhere below him, Higgins realized with a
touch of grudging admiration that Fred had used the same tactic on
him that he and Jack had used on the Zeros at Guadalcanal: It was a
fast attack out of the sun from above that gave their slower
fighters’ weight a speed advantage, and a break away below before
the more skillful Japanese pilots could force them into a
dogfight.
    “Good run, One
Three,” Higgins said, scanning the tops of the clouds for
Trusteau’s plane.
    “Thank you,
Banger Leader,” came the reply.
    “Let that be
your first lesson, One Three. Never assume your enemy’s going to be
where you want him to be.”
    “Roger, Banger
Leader.” Higgins caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark form dodging
through the clouds below and rolled into his first attack. Now he’d
show the little bastard what real flying was.

    Fred raised his
goggles up over his eyes and wiped the sweat from his brow. His
eyes burned from perspiration and the glare of the sun; his neck
and shoulders ached from the constant rubbernecking and the strain
of