Sayonara Read Free Page B

a big, important secret.”
    I t was a curious day in Korea. Our air base at J-10 wasn’t what you’d call warm, but there was a shot of spring in the air and the ground was beginning to thaw and even Korea felt pretty much the way any part of the world feels in spring. I took a couple of good deep lungfuls of air and walked down headquarters street, a dismal drag even with spring nibbling at its edges, and I said to myself, “Skip Kelly. Let him take care of himself.”
    I headed for my bunk, where there would be some beer and a poker game, but then I realized that Kelly had the hot dope on my orders, so I went into the squadron tent where I found this mutt sitting behind a hand-painted sign big enough for a general: AIRMAN KELLY .
    He was a runty kid in his teens. I was twenty-eight and everybody younger than that seemed immature, but Kelly really was. He’d never been to school but had a quick animal intelligence and a sort of gutter know-how. He’d come up through a tough section of Chicago and had sandy hair and an up-with-your-dukes Irish face. He was against the world and against all officers in particular. He had the weird record of having been promoted to corporal four times—and busted back each time. He was bitter and always in trouble and the last man in our outfit you would expect to get involved seriously with any girl.
    He shoved my orders at me and said, “Pays to have friends.”
    I had been responsible for one of Kelly’s court-martials, but he had astonished me on the second by requesting me as his counsel. He respected no one, but he did like men who flew the jets. When he jammed the papers at me I was going to haul him up again, but he grinned and said, “Hear you bagged two more today.”
    “Boom, boom.”
    “How was it up there, Ace?”
    “Never gets easier.”
    “You know what’s in your orders?” he asked in a snide way that a gangster might use in asking about a pay-off.
    “Kobe,” I said, picking them up.
    “Yeah, but I mean how you happened to get them?”
    “I’ve never discussed things like orders with enlisted men,” I said, turning for the door.
    Kelly was different. He said, “What I mean is, did you know about General Webster writin’ to the colonel?”
    It was infuriating. I wanted to bust this little twerp in the face but he kept me on the hook. I hesitated and said, “They’re friends.”
    “Sure, but these letters were about you.”
    “Me?”
    “Yeah, General Webster started all his letters, ‘Of course I don’t intend to intrude on your handlin’ of the squadron but…’ He always got the
but
in.”
    “But what?”
    “But he would sure like to have Major Lloyd Gruver come right the hell down to Kobe.”
    I stuffed the papers into my pocket and said, “I didn’t ask for orders like that.”
    Kelly laughed in an ugly way and said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, Ace.” He seemed to despise me for being an officer yet to tolerate me because I was a working pilot. He said, “General Webster’s had you assigned to the Interservice Aviation Board, which means you sit on your parachute all day long and do nothin’.” Then he grinned and added. “But oh them nights.”
    “What nights?”
    Kelly poked his blunt little head in one direction then the other and asked, “Ace, can you keep a secret?”
    I had always been careful never to discuss military secrets with anyone and I said, “I’d rather not hear about it.”
    Kelly threw me a nasty salute and said, “This ain’t Air Force secret. It’s Ace Gruver secret.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Why do you suppose you’re gettin’ orders to Kobe? And a cushy job? And a priority flight?”
    I sensed that I was getting in too deep with Kelly and changed the subject. “Chaplain tells me you’re heading for Kobe, too.”
    “Yep.”
    “I hear your Congressman arranged it.”
    “Yep. Chaplain said no. Colonel said no. You said no. But the Congressman said yes.”
    I let him know by my manner that