Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann
Author:Ernest K. Gann
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Military History
ISBN: 9781908059086
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-11-03T04:00:00+00:00
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A LONELY, UNLOVED SHIP
FINDING HAZARD THE MORE BITTER WHEN MATCHED WITH TRIFLES
MERE beauty could not stay Johnson from his fixed intent. His button nose sniffed at the lean and invigorating air of Bluie-West-One, detecting a fragrance unassociated with the tiny wild flowers, lichen, and outcroppings of moss scattered along the cliff sides. His nose took a firmer bearing than had our direction-finder on Semitak Island and led us surely past the regular army mess until we reached a long wooden building. It proved to be a dining hall operated by the airport construction company.
In this place there followed such a memorable meal that Johnson fell asleep sitting up, which was not so surprising as his faulty sense of timing. He was overcome before the pies arrived.
We were still yawning over our coffee when a major arrived to hold me in brief consultation. He said that the steel girders had been removed from our airplane and another cargo substituted. The major fanned a sheaf of papers toward me and explained we must leave at once. I pointed out that we had just arrived and had not measured a decent sleep since our departure from Presque Isle two nights previously. The major muttered something about our ignorance of a war and added that we might finish our coffee. I thanked him for this consideration of our ease and began a sorry discourse on the ability of a single airline crew to change appreciably the course of a world’s conflict.
He fluttered the papers again and told me of our new cargo and destination—and much of the weariness left me. For I saw that he spoke with the longing of those who must send others to places they have not seen themselves. I pitied him because here was a willing warrior hopelessly separated from any principal fray and he knew it; and knowing it, he was striving very hard to conceal his disappointment. So I agreed we should go as soon as we could gather our wits.
I looked at the slumbering Johnson, who now lay outstretched upon the bench and wondered at Hitler’s far-reaching influence.
“Wake up. We’re going to Iceland.”
“Where’s that? Where …”
“Over the hill they say.”
“What hill?”
“The one with the snow on it.”
“Sure … of course …”
Johnson’s eyes were still glazed, and it was obvious he had never heard of Iceland, nor did he care how far over any hill such a place might be. Yet it was typical of the man that he was willing to go without further inquiry. We could as well have been bound for Tibet and his answer would have been the same. Johnson might regret the pie, but never his destiny.
Summers was of a more inquisitive mind. He wanted to know what in the name of God kind of cargo we were taking to Iceland.
“Toilet paper.”
“You mean a whole airplane load of—”
“This is war, men,” I said bravely. There was obviously a logistic crisis in Iceland and I thought again of my fighter-pilot friends chained to a bauxite mine in the jungles of Dutch Guiana.
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