A Gift of Wings by Richard Bach

Author:Richard Bach [Bach, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82434-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Cat

It was a cat, a gray Persian cat. It had no name and it sat very carefully in the tall grass at the end of the runway, studying the fighter planes as they touched down in France for the first time.

The cat did not flinch as the ten-ton jet fighters whistled airily by, nosewheels still in the air and drag chutes waiting to spring from their little houses beneath the tailpipes. Its yellow eyes watched calmly, appraising the quality of the touchdowns, angled ears listening for the faint pouf! of the late-blossoming drag chutes, head turning serenely after one landing to watch the final approach and touchdown of the next. Now and then a touchdown was hard, and the eyes narrowed ever so slightly for an instant as the soft paw-pads felt the jar of airplane and soil for an instant as an airplane did not correct for crosswind, and great gouts of blue rubber-smoke angled from tortured wheels.

The cat watched the landings for three hours in the cold of an October afternoon, until twenty-seven airplanes had landed and the sky was empty and the last whine of dying engines had faded from the parking revetments across the field. Then the Persian stood suddenly, and without even a feline stretch of graceful body, trotted away to disappear in the tall grass. The 167th Tactical Fighter Squadron had arrived in Europe.

When a fighter squadron is reactivated after fifteen years of nonexistence, there are a few problems. With the barest nucleus of experienced pilots in a squadron of thirty, the 167th’s problems centered around pilot proficiency. Twenty-four of its air crews had been graduated from gunnery training schools within the year before reactivation.

“We can do it, Bob, and do a good job of it,” said Major Carl Langley to his squadron commander. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been an operations officer, and I tell you I’ve never seen a bunch of pilots who are more eager to learn this business than the ones we have right here.”

Major Robert Rider pounded his fist lightly against the rough wooden wall of his office-to-be. “That point I will grant you,” he said. “But you and I have a job cut out for us. This is Europe, and you know European weather in the winter. Aside from our flight commanders, young Henderson has more weather time than any other pilot in the squadron, and he only has eleven hours of it. Eleven hours! Carl, are you looking forward to leading a four-ship flight of these pilots, in old F-84s, through twenty thousand feet of weather? Or to a GCA touchdown on a wet runway in a crosswind?” He glanced out the dirt-streaked window. High overcast, good visibility beneath, he noted unconsciously. “I’m going to run this squadron, and I’m going to run it well; but I’ll tell you that I can’t help but think that before the new 167th is a real combat-ready outfit, a couple of our boys are going to be scattered across the sides of mountains.

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