his first class, Sakowitz knew a great deal about Larry Douglas. A few minutes after Larry had departed, Carl Eastman came into the office.
“ How did it go?” Eastman asked.“ OK.” Eastman gave him a hard look.“ What do you think, Sak?”“ We’ ll try him.”“ I asked you what you thought.”
Sakowitz shrugged.“ OK. I’ ll tell you. My hunch is he’ s a goddamn good pilot. He has to be, with his war record. Put him in a plane with a bunch of enemy fighters shooting at him, and I don’ t think you’ ll find anyone better.” He hesitated.
“ Go on,” Eastman said.
“ The thing is, there aren’ t a hell of a lot of enemy fighters around Manhattan. I’ ve known guys like Douglas. For some reason I’ ve never figured out, their lives are geared for danger. They do crazy things like climbing impossible mountains or diving to the bottom of the ocean, or whatever the hell else danger they can find. When a war breaks out, they rise to the top like cream in a cup of scalding coffee.” He swerved his chair around and looked out the window. Eastman stood there, saying nothing, waiting.
“ I have a hunch about Douglas, Carl. There’ s something wrong with him. Maybe if he were captain of one of our ships, flying it himself, he could make it. But I don’ t think he’ s psychologically geared to take orders from an engineer, a first officer and a pilot, especially when he thinks he could outfly them all.” He swung back to face Eastman.“ And the funny part is, he probably could.”
“ You’ re making me nervous,” Eastman said.
“ Me, too,” Sakowitz confessed.“ I don’ t think he’ s—” He stopped, searching for the right word,“ stable. Talking to him, you get a feeling he has a stick of dynamite up his ass, ready to explode.”
“ What do you want to do?”“ We’ re doing it. He’ ll go to school and we’ ll keep a close eye on him.”“ Maybe he’ ll wash out,” Eastman said.“ You don’ t know that breed of cat. He’ ll come out number one man in his class.” Sakowitz’ s prediction was accurate.
The training course consisted of four weeks of ground school followed by an additional month of flight training. Since the trainees were already experienced pilots with many years of flying behind them, the course was devised to serve two purposes: the first was to run through such subjects as navigation, radio, communication, map reading and instrument flying to refresh the memories of the men and pinpoint their potential weaknesses, and the second was to familiarize them with the new equipment they would