The Aquitaine Progression Read Online Free Page B

hour ago—”
    “Running away?” Again Delavane interrupted, the tastelessness of his remark compounded by the nasal pitch of his voice. “Was his goddamned tail shot off?”
    “For the record, I resent that!” said Converse, unable to control himself. “I’m replacing that man and I resent what you just said—General!”
    “You? Who the hell are you?”
    “Easy, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”
    “I respectfully request to answer the general, sir!” shouted Joel, in his anger refusing to move
.
    “You what, prissy fly boy?”
    “My name is—”
    “Forget it, I’m not interested!” Delavane whipped his head back toward the captain. “What I want to know is why you think you can disobey my orders—the orders from Command-Saigon! I called a strike for fifteen hundred hours! You ‘respectfully declined’ to implement that order!”
    “A weather front’s moved in and you should know it as well as I do.”
    “My meteorologists say it’s completely flyable!”
    “I suspect if you asked for that finding during a Burma monsoon they’d deliver it.”
    “That’s gross insubordination!”
    “This is my ship and military regulations are quite clear as to who’s in command here.”
    “Do you want to connect me to your radio room? I’ll reach the Oval Office and we’ll see just how long you’ve got this ship!”
    “I’m sure you’ll want to speak privately—probably over a scrambler. I’ll have you escorted there.”
    “Goddamn you, I’ve got four thousand troops—maybe twenty percent seasoned—moving up into Sector Five! We need a low-altitude combined strike from land and sea and we’ll have it if I have to get your ass out of here within the hour! And I can do it, Captain!… We’re over here to win, win, and win it all! We don’t need sugarcoated Nellies hedging their goddamned bets! Maybe you never heard it before, but all war is a risk! You don’t win if you don’t risk, Captain!”
    “I’ve been there, General. Common sense cuts losses, and if you cut enough losses you can win the next battle.”
    “I’m going to win this one, with or without you, Blue Boy!”
    “I respectfully advise you to temper your language, General.”
    “You what?” Delavane’s face was contorted in fury, his eyes the eyes of a savage wild animal. “You advise me? You advise Command-Saigon! Well, you do whatever you like—Blue Boy in your satin pants—but the incursion up into the Tho Valley is on.”
    “The Tho,” interrupted Converse. “That’s the first leg of the Pak Song route. We’ve hit it four times. I know the terrain.”
    “You know it?” shouted Delavane
.
    “I do, but I take my orders from the commander of this ship—General.”
    “You prissy shit-kicker, you take orders from the President of the United States! He’s your commander in chief! And I’ll get those orders!”
    Delavane’s face was inches from Joel’s, the maniacal expression challenging every nerve ending in Joel’s body: hatred matched by loathing. Barely realizing the words werehis, Converse spoke. “I, too, would advise the General to be careful of his language.”
    “Why, shit-kicker? Has Blue Boy got this place wired?”
    “Easy, Lieutenant! I said you were dismissed!”
    “You want me to watch my language, big fella with your little silver bar? No, sonny boy, you watch it, and you read it! If that squadron of yours isn’t in the air at fifteen hundred hours, I’ll label this carrier the biggest yellow streak in Southeast Asia! You got that, satin-pantsed Blue Boy, third class?”
    Once more Joel replied, wondering as he spoke where he found the audacity. “I don’t know where you come from, sir, but I sincerely hope we meet under different circumstances sometime. I think you’re a pig.”
    “Insubordination! Also, I’d break your back.”
    “Dismissed, Lieutenant!”
    “No, Captain, you’re wrong!” shouted the general. “He may be the man to lead this strike, after all. Well,