8
It could have been morning; it could have been night; the light on the airfield was such as seeps across the northern pole in winter. Engines hiccupped and caught fire within themselves. Gouts of blue fire streamed from their steel nostrils and human figures warily aimed extinguishers as they crouched under the great wings. One B-29—a special craft—sucked up its ladder.
"Good luck!" a thin voice called.
The slam of a hatch replied. The plane snorted, bellowed, vibrated against its chocks, and lurched about. Like a house on casters—like a house-sized aluminum insect, it moved in the opalescent murk.
There was a pause.
At Flight Control, the ground officers of the Twentieth Air Force made a last check. It was not sergeant's work, or lieutenant's. Brass looked at the weather maps—high brass read the bulletins, squinted into the instruments, followed the meterological balloons, talked through telephones. Anxious brass at the hangar interrogated the mechs—studied the quadruple checks, the four-colored V's ranged after a list of thirteen hundred and eleven critical parts of a very heavy bomber. In the officers' mess, captains, young majors, young lieutenant colonels filled their trays, walked to the tables, sat, listened while the juke box sang—
My mammy done tole me—
Listened not to the song but to the quartet of motors on the gloomy, loud field.
Above the coughing and the clamor, the roar and thump of other engines—came the long run, tightening nerves.
"There she goes!"