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Show Flying - 1 CHAPTER I Hands wrapped loosely around the wheel, back hard against the seat, John Henry drives through the Texas morning, his lieutenant nervous beside him, his sergeant asleep In the back. The jeep rolls down the narrow string-straight Texas road and the lieutenant worries about the convoy trailing behind and the deep deep rain-ditches on either side. The air is cool and sharp, the sky blue, the sweet smell of fall on the desert breeze. It is late August I958 and it will be hotter than hell in a couple of hours as soon as the sun gets all the way up above the distant horizon. The jeep rolls on at a steady thirty-five miles an hour, the convoy officer's pennant waving stiffly from the left front fender, the hundred and two vehicles of the Fifty-third Signal Battalion following behind. John Henry revels in his achievement of the well-nigh perfect driving stance: one hand at ten o'clock, the other at three, the back straight, the arras fully stretched. Not much else a man can achieve at thirty-five miles an hour. Even the occasional treacherous cross-wind shooting out of a gully is not much of a challenge at this petty pace. "We'll stop now," says the lieutenant to John Henry. "Pull over and we'll get a count." A small thrill in sight at last. John Henry pulls the jeep onto the soft sand shoulder of the road at a steady |
