unofficial when you dropped bombs on somebody’s head…could you? Harrison went on, “We do fly a day-and-night combat air patrol, and we have radar sweeping the sky. We won’t make it easy for them.”
Something occurred to Bill. He raised his hand. General Harrison aimed the tip of the pointer at him. He said, “Sir, their heavy bombers will be Bulls, right?”
Bull
was the NATO reporting name for the Tu-4. “If they paint some of them to look like B-29s, will our fighter jockeys up there recognize them soon enough to shoot them down?”
The base commander opened his mouth. Then he closed it without saying anything. A few seconds later, he tried again: “That’s a…better question than I wish it were. With luck, IFF will alert us that they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. But, if they look like our planes, we may take them at face value.” His expression looked like that of a man halfway through eating a lemon. “You’ve given me something new to lose sleep over. Thanks a bunch.”
A major who wore the ribbons for the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with two oak-leaf clusters came up to Bill as the gathering broke up. “Good job,” he said. “That’s exactly the kind of thing the Russians are liable to do. They take camouflage seriously. They don’t just play games with it, the way we do half the time.”
“You sound like somebody who knows what he’s talking about, sir,” Bill said.
“Too right, I do. We flew back-and-forth missions a few times, from England to Russia and then the other way. I was on one of them, piloting a B-24. Man, you wouldn’t believe what all they’d do to make an airstrip disappear. We didn’t fly many of those, though. The Reds were nervous about ’em. Partly for what we’d see of theirs, I guess, and partly because they didn’t want their people meeting us. Russians are scared to death of foreigners.”
“I bet I would be, too, if I had Germans on my border,” Bill said.
“Yeah, they’re good neighbors, aren’t they?” The major rolled his eyes. “No wonder Stalin wanted satellites between him and the krauts. But now he’s got us on his border, and he doesn’t go for that, either.”
“And we have the bomb,” Bill said.
“We sure do. So does Stalin.” The major grimaced. “Ain’t life grand?”
—
“Time, gentlemen, please!” Daisy Baxter had run the Owl and Unicorn since her husband’s tank stopped a
Panzerfaust
in the closing days of World War II. Tom’s picture still hung behind the bar. In it, he looked young and eager and brave, ready to do whatever it took to get rid of the Nazis once for all. He’d never get any older now.
And I’ll never get any younger,
Daisy thought discontentedly. She’d been only twenty-two when she got the telegram from the Ministry of War. Hard to believe that would be six years ago in a couple of months. Not at all hard to believe she was getting close to thirty. As tired as the pub could make her, some nights she felt close to fifty.
“
Time,
gentlemen!” she said again. Would a male publican have to repeat himself four or five times a week to get noticed or believed? She didn’t think so. Tom hadn’t needed to, nor had his father before him. But they were gone and she was here, so she did what she needed to do.
Grumbling, her customers drank up, paid up, and filed—sometimes lurched—out into the chilly night. Most of them wore the RAF’s slaty blue or the slightly darker uniforms of the U.S. Air Force. If not for the air base at Sculthorpe, three or four miles west of Fakenham, she didn’t think she would have been able to keep the Owl and Unicorn going. Fakenham was only a small town; there weren’t many big towns in northern Norfolk. But the men who flew planes for his Majesty and their Yankee counterparts did like to take the edge off whenever they got the chance. The way they drank, they could have kept someone a good deal less thrifty than she was comfortably in the
Something occurred to Bill. He raised his hand. General Harrison aimed the tip of the pointer at him. He said, “Sir, their heavy bombers will be Bulls, right?”
Bull
was the NATO reporting name for the Tu-4. “If they paint some of them to look like B-29s, will our fighter jockeys up there recognize them soon enough to shoot them down?”
The base commander opened his mouth. Then he closed it without saying anything. A few seconds later, he tried again: “That’s a…better question than I wish it were. With luck, IFF will alert us that they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. But, if they look like our planes, we may take them at face value.” His expression looked like that of a man halfway through eating a lemon. “You’ve given me something new to lose sleep over. Thanks a bunch.”
A major who wore the ribbons for the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with two oak-leaf clusters came up to Bill as the gathering broke up. “Good job,” he said. “That’s exactly the kind of thing the Russians are liable to do. They take camouflage seriously. They don’t just play games with it, the way we do half the time.”
“You sound like somebody who knows what he’s talking about, sir,” Bill said.
“Too right, I do. We flew back-and-forth missions a few times, from England to Russia and then the other way. I was on one of them, piloting a B-24. Man, you wouldn’t believe what all they’d do to make an airstrip disappear. We didn’t fly many of those, though. The Reds were nervous about ’em. Partly for what we’d see of theirs, I guess, and partly because they didn’t want their people meeting us. Russians are scared to death of foreigners.”
“I bet I would be, too, if I had Germans on my border,” Bill said.
“Yeah, they’re good neighbors, aren’t they?” The major rolled his eyes. “No wonder Stalin wanted satellites between him and the krauts. But now he’s got us on his border, and he doesn’t go for that, either.”
“And we have the bomb,” Bill said.
“We sure do. So does Stalin.” The major grimaced. “Ain’t life grand?”
—
“Time, gentlemen, please!” Daisy Baxter had run the Owl and Unicorn since her husband’s tank stopped a
Panzerfaust
in the closing days of World War II. Tom’s picture still hung behind the bar. In it, he looked young and eager and brave, ready to do whatever it took to get rid of the Nazis once for all. He’d never get any older now.
And I’ll never get any younger,
Daisy thought discontentedly. She’d been only twenty-two when she got the telegram from the Ministry of War. Hard to believe that would be six years ago in a couple of months. Not at all hard to believe she was getting close to thirty. As tired as the pub could make her, some nights she felt close to fifty.
“
Time,
gentlemen!” she said again. Would a male publican have to repeat himself four or five times a week to get noticed or believed? She didn’t think so. Tom hadn’t needed to, nor had his father before him. But they were gone and she was here, so she did what she needed to do.
Grumbling, her customers drank up, paid up, and filed—sometimes lurched—out into the chilly night. Most of them wore the RAF’s slaty blue or the slightly darker uniforms of the U.S. Air Force. If not for the air base at Sculthorpe, three or four miles west of Fakenham, she didn’t think she would have been able to keep the Owl and Unicorn going. Fakenham was only a small town; there weren’t many big towns in northern Norfolk. But the men who flew planes for his Majesty and their Yankee counterparts did like to take the edge off whenever they got the chance. The way they drank, they could have kept someone a good deal less thrifty than she was comfortably in the
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