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“Get a jeep, Dolan,” Bitter ordered.

“A jeep?”

“Look at me, for God’s sake!” Bitter said, gesturing at his blood-covered flight gear. “I don’t want to mess up Canidy’s goddamned Packard!”

“We’ll just get that high-altitude gear off you, Commander,” Dolan said, and very gently started to undress him.

“When he’s through with the crew,” D’Angelo said, “I’ll send the debriefing officer over.”

“I don’t know what the hell I can tell him,” Bitter said.

“I’ll tell him to make it brief,” D’Angelo said. “What I want to know is how you got it out of the spin.”

Bitter looked at him.

“The last sighting had you in a spin,” D’Angelo said.

Bitter was genuinely astonished at his response, which came without thinking.

“I’m a naval aviator, Colonel,” he said. “They teach us how to get out of spins.”

D’Angelo’s face flashed surprise and even annoyance. Dolan chuckled heartily, and D’Angelo glowered at him, but then smiled.

“Dumb question,” he said,“dumb answer.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Bitter said. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Raise your leg, Commander, please,” Sergeant Draper said, and Bitter felt a tug at his leg. Sergeant Draper was on her knees in the muddy grass. His sheepskin trousers were down around his ankles.

Colonel D’Angelo put his arm around Bitter’s shoulders to steady him.

“Right now, Commander,” D’Angelo said, “I think you have the right to say any goddamn thing you want to.”

Sergeant Draper pulled the sheepskin trousers off his feet, and then stood up and smiled at him.

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” Agnes Draper asked—challenged—softly.

“If Dolan can come up with some ice and a rubber sheet, it will be all right,” Bitter said.

“Well, let’s get you home, Commander,” Dolan said, and wrapped his arm around him. Agnes took Bitter’s other arm and put it around her shoulder. And between them, Bitter hobbled to Canidy’s Packard.

Chapter FIVE

When they got to the BOQ, Dolan sent a white hat after ice: “I don’t want any excuses, just come back with ice.”

Then they set Bitter down gently on his bed.

Dolan gave him three ounces

of rye, straight, with an almost motherly admonition:“Drink it all; it’ll be good for you.”

The ice arrived in a garbage can carried by one of the white hats and Lieutenant Kennedy. A moment later, the other white hat came in with an oilskin tablecloth.

“I didn’t know where to get a rubber sheet,” he said.

Bitter raised the lower part of his body so the tablecloth could be put under it, while Dolan made an ice pack with a torn sheet. Then, very matter -of-factly, Sergeant Draper ordered Commander Bitter to loosen his belt and undo his fly.

She took off his shoes, then pulled his trousers off.