Eagles at War Read Online Free Page B
Author: Walter J. Boyne
mouth like after-dinner mints.
It was almost two hours before they were served the traditional last dishes of soup and rice; Jim, exhausted and burning up inside, wanted Chennault to excuse him.
"You did okay, son, your poppa would have been proud of you. I'm sorry things have gone so bad for him financially. He always helped me out."
"Things are bad for most people. As soon as my tour is up, I'm going to go back and help him get back on his feet. We Lees don't like living like poor white trash."
"That you could never be—but you should help your poppa."
Eyes squinting from the smoke of the Camel cigarette that hung like a growth from the corner of his mouth, he took Jim by the arm and led him into the living room. It was decorated simply, in Chinese style except for an enormous Wurlitzer piano in the corner.
"I want you to study this book on the little fighter Madame Chiang bought for me. She paid fifty-five thousand U.S. for it."
Lee glanced at the photo of a Curtiss Hawk 75 H on the front of the red velvet-covered manual Chennault handed him.
"Looks like a fixed-gear P-36."
"That's just about it, son. Fastest thing in China right now; I use it for reconnaissance mostly, but it's got two machine guns, if I need them." He tossed over a loose-leaf folder, filled with crude three-view drawings and hand-lettered tables of specifications.
"These are the best I can do for identifying the Jap planes. You don't have to worry about the biplanes, you can outrun them. But they've got some damn fast bombers, and a little Nakajima fighter they call the Type 97. Probably what hit you. Looks a lot like my Hawk, but it's smaller and lighter. Anyway, you get familiar with these tonight; I've marked the performance estimates down beside them. I've got a job for you tomorrow."
Lee was pleased that Chennault was not wasting any time.
"I'm meeting with the mayor of Hankow in the morning, so I'm sending you out to the field to preflight my airplane. The car will take you and wait for you. Just give the ship a walk-around and run it up. All you need to know is in the manual there."
As Jim left the room, Chennault's voice boomed out behind him, "The water on your dresser is boiled; the Bromo-Seltzer is in the dresser drawer."
He slept better than he expected to, and the breakfast of tea, rolls, and noodle soup was just what the doctor ordered. Hankow woke up around him as he rode to the field, peddlers pushing carts with huge wooden-spoked wheels and tiny narrow flatbeds, beggars sitting mutely on the corners, hands outstretched, women scuttling along with back-breaking loads. The air was miasmic with human waste, poverty, and death, as if the bacteria had no more room to breed on the ground and were invading the atmosphere.
He'd come to China with the Charlie Chan stereotype in mind, expecting the Chinese to be oval-faced and paunchy. Instead he saw all about him a universal leanness, a crowd of scarecrows with sallow, emaciated faces, their rib-etched bodies grunting under loads he couldn't have budged on his best day. Most were barefoot, clothed if they were lucky in a worn tunic and trousers, a few wearing the traditional straw hat. Gaunt children squatted in groups around little hooped baskets; he couldn't see what they were selling. Hunger clasped their gaunt bodies like a jockey riding a horse; their feet were long extrusions of dirty flesh, slender toes snaked into the mud like tendrils of a vine.
And through all the hustling humanity trooped the bearers. They wore nothing but a cloth twisted across their middle as they balanced a bamboo pole across their shoulders, huge baskets of goods suspended at each end. Moving at a trot, heads bobbing, they threaded their way through the thickest crowd. The narrow streets were lined with tile-roofed mud houses leaning drunkenly together for support; down past them the bearers tramped, converging like runs of herring at narrow points, never colliding or upsetting a basket.
Two
It was almost two hours before they were served the traditional last dishes of soup and rice; Jim, exhausted and burning up inside, wanted Chennault to excuse him.
"You did okay, son, your poppa would have been proud of you. I'm sorry things have gone so bad for him financially. He always helped me out."
"Things are bad for most people. As soon as my tour is up, I'm going to go back and help him get back on his feet. We Lees don't like living like poor white trash."
"That you could never be—but you should help your poppa."
Eyes squinting from the smoke of the Camel cigarette that hung like a growth from the corner of his mouth, he took Jim by the arm and led him into the living room. It was decorated simply, in Chinese style except for an enormous Wurlitzer piano in the corner.
"I want you to study this book on the little fighter Madame Chiang bought for me. She paid fifty-five thousand U.S. for it."
Lee glanced at the photo of a Curtiss Hawk 75 H on the front of the red velvet-covered manual Chennault handed him.
"Looks like a fixed-gear P-36."
"That's just about it, son. Fastest thing in China right now; I use it for reconnaissance mostly, but it's got two machine guns, if I need them." He tossed over a loose-leaf folder, filled with crude three-view drawings and hand-lettered tables of specifications.
"These are the best I can do for identifying the Jap planes. You don't have to worry about the biplanes, you can outrun them. But they've got some damn fast bombers, and a little Nakajima fighter they call the Type 97. Probably what hit you. Looks a lot like my Hawk, but it's smaller and lighter. Anyway, you get familiar with these tonight; I've marked the performance estimates down beside them. I've got a job for you tomorrow."
Lee was pleased that Chennault was not wasting any time.
"I'm meeting with the mayor of Hankow in the morning, so I'm sending you out to the field to preflight my airplane. The car will take you and wait for you. Just give the ship a walk-around and run it up. All you need to know is in the manual there."
As Jim left the room, Chennault's voice boomed out behind him, "The water on your dresser is boiled; the Bromo-Seltzer is in the dresser drawer."
He slept better than he expected to, and the breakfast of tea, rolls, and noodle soup was just what the doctor ordered. Hankow woke up around him as he rode to the field, peddlers pushing carts with huge wooden-spoked wheels and tiny narrow flatbeds, beggars sitting mutely on the corners, hands outstretched, women scuttling along with back-breaking loads. The air was miasmic with human waste, poverty, and death, as if the bacteria had no more room to breed on the ground and were invading the atmosphere.
He'd come to China with the Charlie Chan stereotype in mind, expecting the Chinese to be oval-faced and paunchy. Instead he saw all about him a universal leanness, a crowd of scarecrows with sallow, emaciated faces, their rib-etched bodies grunting under loads he couldn't have budged on his best day. Most were barefoot, clothed if they were lucky in a worn tunic and trousers, a few wearing the traditional straw hat. Gaunt children squatted in groups around little hooped baskets; he couldn't see what they were selling. Hunger clasped their gaunt bodies like a jockey riding a horse; their feet were long extrusions of dirty flesh, slender toes snaked into the mud like tendrils of a vine.
And through all the hustling humanity trooped the bearers. They wore nothing but a cloth twisted across their middle as they balanced a bamboo pole across their shoulders, huge baskets of goods suspended at each end. Moving at a trot, heads bobbing, they threaded their way through the thickest crowd. The narrow streets were lined with tile-roofed mud houses leaning drunkenly together for support; down past them the bearers tramped, converging like runs of herring at narrow points, never colliding or upsetting a basket.
Two
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