Ten minutes later, Bill Dunn looked over at Pickering and gave the wind-'em-up signal. Pickering followed him to the threshold of the active runway and stopped, to permit Dunn to take off first.

"Do you ever remember taking off one at a time?" Dunn's voice came metallically over the radio. "Come on."

Pick released the brakes and moved onto the runway beside him. Dunn looked over at him, smiled, and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Corey, Cactus rolling," Dunn told the tower, and shoved the throttle to TAKEOFF POWER. Pickering followed suit. They started down the runway together.

Something is wrong! Something's missing! Pick thought, and for a moment he felt fear.

Shit, goddamn it, you goddamn fool! This is a paved runway. Paved runways don't cause the goddamned gear to complain the way pierced steel planking and large rocks do.

Life came into the controls. Twenty feet apart, the two Wildcats lifted off the ground.

"Colonel," Dunn's voice came over the radio ten minutes later. "Sir, I'm sorry, I forgot your call sign."

"Cactus Leader," Colonel Porter replied, "this is Red Leader. Over."

"Red Leader," Dunn replied, "this is Cactus Leader. Colonel, I'm out of bullets. Or at least a red light comes on when I pull the trigger."

Pickering laughed and touched his mike button.

"Cactus Leader, this is Cactus Two. I'm out of bullets, too."

"Cactus Leader, Red Leader," Colonel Porter replied. "Break this off, and return to field."

"Roger, Red Leader."

"Cactus Leader, we will go first. Cactus Leader, there will be no, repeat no, unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers at any altitude in the vicinity of Corey Field. Acknowledge."

What the hell does that mean? Oh, Christ, he thinks we were planning on doing a victory barrel roll over the field. Why not? We really whipped their ass. I expected to win, but not that easily.

"Red Leader, say again?"

"Cactus Leader, you will land at Corey and you will not, repeat not, perform any aerobatic maneuvers of any kind. Acknowledge."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Dunn said. "Cactus Leader, out."

Dunn suddenly made a sharp, steep, diving turn to his right. This confused Pickering for a moment. He'd been flying on Dunn's wing since they formed up again after what must have been the third or fourth time they shot Porter and O'Fallon down; and, confused or not, he followed him instinctively. Dunn straightened out heading west. Pickering could see Mobile Bay near the horizon.

Now what, Billy Boy? Are you going to do a barrel roll over Ye Olde Family Manse?

Lieutenant Dunn did precisely that, with Lieutenant Pickering repeating the maneuver on his tail.

Then Dunn did more than confuse Pickering; he astonished him. After putting his Wildcat into a steep turn (permitting him to lower his gear utilizing centrifugal force, rather than having to crank it down), he lined himself up with an auxiliary field and landed.

What the hell is that all about? Did he get a warning light?

"Billy?"

There was no reply.

Pickering overflew the auxiliary field.

It's not in use. Otherwise, there'd be an ambulance and some other ground crew, in case a student pranged his Yellow Peril.

Billy, you just about managed to run out of runway! What the hell is going on?

Pickering picked up a little altitude and flew around the field. Then he put his Wildcat in a steep turn in order to release his gear in the usual (but specifically proscribed) manner. And then he made an approach and landing that he considered to be much safer than the one executed by Lieutenant Dunn.

Christ, you're not supposed to put a Wildcat down on one of these auxiliary fields at all!

He stood on the brakes and pulled up beside Dunn's Wildcat. The engine was still running. Dunn was a hundred yards away, walking toward an enormous live oak tree.

Pickering unstrapped himself, climbed out of the cockpit, and trotted after Dunn. He had to wait to speak to him, however; for as he caught up with him, Dunn was having a hell of a time trying to close the zipper of his new flight suit after having urinated on the live oak.

"You want to tell me what you're doing?"

"Officially, I had a hydraulic system failure warning light and made a precautionary landing. When you were unable to contact me by radio, you very courageously landed your aircraft to see what assistance you might be able to render. All in keeping with the honorable traditions of The Marine Corps. Semper Fi. "

"What the hell is this?"

"Actually, I am planning for the future," Bill Dunn said, very seriously. "Fifty years from now... what'll that be, 1992?... Colonel William C. Dunn-anybody who has ever worn a uniform in the Deep South gets to call himself 'Colonel,' you know..."

"Billy..."

"Colonel Dunn, a fine old silver-haired gentleman, is going to stand where you and I are standing. He will have a grandfatherly hand on the shoulder of his grandson, William C. Dunn... let me see, that'll be William C. Dunn the Sixth... and he will say, 'Grandson, during the Great War, your granddaddy was a fighter pilot, and he was over at Pensacola and out flying a Grumman Wildcat, which at the time was one hell of a fighter, and nature called. So he landed his airplane right here where this pecan orchard is now. That used to be a landing strip, boy. And he took out his talleywacker and pissed right up against this fine old live oak tree.' "

"Jesus Christ, Billy!"

" 'And the moral of that story, Grandson, is that when you are up to your ears in bullshit, the only thing you can do is piss on it.' "

"You're insane." Pick laughed.

"You landed here when you knew goddamned well the strip wasn't long enough for a Wildcat. You're insane, too."

A sudden image came to Pick of Bill Dunn as a silver-haired seventy-odd-year-old with his hand on the shoulder of a blond-haired boy.

And his mouth ran away with him.

"You're presuming you're going to live through this war," he said.

Dunn met his eyes.

"I considered that possibility, Pick," he said. "Or improbability. But then I decided, if I do somehow manage to come through alive, and I didn't land here and piss on the oak, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. So I put the wheels down. I certainly didn't think you'd be dumb enough to follow me. This was supposed to be a private moment."