Read Online Cassada by James Salter - Free Book Online Page A

willing. Reeves is, I know.”
    Silence.
    â€œHow about it?”
    Instead of answering, Wickenden raised his hands to his mouth and in a surprisingly powerful voice commanded, “Let’s get going, driver!”
    As if in response the driver bent forward and lazily turned the ignition key. The engine started. With a jolt the bus began to move.
    Grace had given up. Most of it had only been for show; he knew Wickenden wouldn’t gamble—too humiliating if he lost. Wickenden liked to read military history. He could explain that the essence of generalship was to fight only when you were thoroughly prepared and certain you could win. Maybe that was what they taught them up there, Grace thought. It certainly wasn’t like the ROTC .

These were the days, the airplanes clean—without external tanks—at their fastest and most maneuverable, the maintenance hardworking, weather flawless, the competition intense. In North Africa it was gunnery and only gunnery. The first tow ship took off early at eight, climbing at a steep angle with the target, a long, fabric panel, trailing behind. A few minutes later the first flight of firing ships, trim as hornets, followed.
    Isbell was leading. The three others were in string, behind. They hadn’t spotted the tow ship yet. Finally they found it crossing the shoreline, insect small, and circled above watching it over the dark water, slow, deliberate, like a ship sailing to Malta with, instead of wake, the dash of white behind.
    The sun was always bad early in the day, naked and low, the reflections drifting across the windshield glass. Sometimes they blanked out the target, even the tow ship, in sky that had a soft blue cast to it, the light pale and lacking contrast. But it was smooth then. The air was still. Not a tremor.
    Banking from side to side, hand held up to block the sun, Isbell kept the tow ship in sight. The familiar excitement mounting within, he watched it reach altitude and roll out on course.
    â€œRed Tow on station, on course.”
    â€œWe have you in sight, Red.”
    â€œRoger. You’re cleared in to fire.”
    Isbell led them alongside, several thousand feet above.
    â€œLead in,” he called and started down towards the strip of white, an inch long it seemed.
    The tow ship was at twenty thousand feet, ten or fifteen miles from shore, red desert to the south, hard blue sea below. There was a full, damp quality to the air. Long streamers curved through it marking one’s path. All unhurried, all unalterable. There was a rhythm, mostly of pauses but regular, like section hands driving a spike.
    â€œTwo in,” Phipps called.
    Isbell had reversed his turn and was coming in from the rear of the target which shone in the light like a grail. His gunsight had locked on. His speed was increasing. He quickly checked it, three forty. He could feel the G’s as he held the turn and then, in a rush, the climax when he was in range for a second or two with the target suddenly expanding in size until the final instant when he broke off.
    â€œLead off,” he called.
    â€œThree in,” he heard and as he was climbing back up, “Two off.”
    He had not fired on the initial pass, but on the five following ones, all just so, not a single bad one, bursts of about a second, long and even. He was getting hits, he was sure of it. It felt exactly right. The ship seemed firm under his hand, obedient to the last moment, the white rectangle slowly enlarging, not much at first then faster and faster like an express going by. The bullets left traces of smoke as they vanished into the cloth.
    If the sight was any good, that was the only thing. When theaircraft were listed he had given Cassada his choice, then Phipps, then Harlan. He had taken the one that was left.
    â€œI have a feeling I’m going to hit today,” Cassada had said.
    â€œGlad to hear it.”
    â€œI just have the feeling.”
    On the way back, as they