The Bridges at Toko-ri Read Free Page A

inhuman and any pilot aboard the Savo would prefer to risk his own life and his plane rather than to leave a man adrift in the freezing sea before the helicopter had spotted him.
    For in the seas of Korea a downed airman had twenty minutes to live. That was all. The water was so bitterly cold that within five minutes the hands were frozen and the face. In twelve minutes of immersion in these fearful waters the arms became unable to function and by the twentieth minute the pilot was frozen to death.
    The decision could not be deferred, for the squawk box repeated, “Wingman 1592 requests permission to stay.”
    The admiral asked, “What is the absolute minimum of gas with which the wingman can make a straight-in landing?”
    There was a moment’s computation. “Assuming he finds the carrier promptly, about four hundred pounds.”
    “Tell him to stay with the downed man ...”
    The voice interrupted, “Admiral, 1591 has just ditched. Wingman says the plane sank immediately.”
    There was a moment’s silence and the admiral asked, “Where’s the helicopter?”
    “About three more minutes away from the ditching.”
    “Advise the helicopter …”
    “Admiral, the wingman reports downed pilot afloat.”
    “Tell the wingman to orbit until helicopter arrives. Then back for a straight-in landing.”
    The bull horn echoed in the gathering dusk and mournful sounds spread over the flight deck, speaking of disaster. “Get those last two jets down immediately. Then prepare for emergency straight-in landing. A plane has been lost at sea. Wingman coming in short of fuel.”
    For a moment the many-colored figures stopped their furious motions. The frozen hands stopped pushing jets and the yellow jeeps stayed where they were. No matter how often you heard the news it always stopped you. No matter how frozen your face was, the bull horn made you a little bit colder. And far out to sea, in a buffeted helicopter, two enlisted men were coldest of all.
    At the controls was Mike Forney, a tough twenty-seven-year-old Irishman from Chicago. In a navy where enlisted men hadn’t much chance of flying, Mike had made it. He had bullied his way through to flight school and his arrival aboard his first ship, the Savo , would be remembered as long as the ship stayed afloat. It was March 17 when he flew his copter onto the flight deck, wearing an opera hat painted green, a Baron von Richthofen scarf of kelly green, and a clay pipe jammed into his big teeth. He had his earphones wrapped around the back of his neck and when the captain of the Savo started to chew him out Forney said, “When I appear anywhere I want the regular pilots to know it, because if they listen to me, I’ll save ’em.” Now, as he sped toward the ditched pilot, he was wearing his green stovepipe and his World War I kelly green scarf, for he had found that when those astonishing symbols appeared at a scene of catastrophe everyone relaxed, and he had already saved three pilots.
    But the man flying directly behind Mike Forney’s hat wasn’t relaxed. Nestor Gamidge, in charge of the actual rescue gear, was a sad-faced inconsequential young man from Kentucky, where his unmarried schoolteacher mother had named him Nestor after the wisest man in history, hoping that he would justify everything. But Nestor had not lived up to his name and was in fact rather stupid, yet, as the copter flew low over the bitter waves to find the ditched plane, he was bright enough to know that if anyone were to save the airman pitching about in the freezing water below it would be he. In this spot the admiral didn’t count nor the wingman who was orbiting upstairs nor even Mike Forney. In a few minutes he would lean out of the helicopter and lower a steel hoisting sling for the pilot to climb into. But from cold experience he knew that the man below would probably be too frozen even to lift his arms, so he, Nestor Gamidge, who hated the sea and who was dragged into the navy by his draft board,