The old field 5

The next morning everybody found themselves standing at attention with the first rays of morning sun warming their cold limbs. They had been called in at 05.30 that morning and were now standing shoulder on shoulder with Mitch and his team. Right now it didn't bother them. The only thing, that kept the men awake was their eagerness to find out what was happening.

Soon a man with a grim expression on his face appeared from the far right side. He slowly walked past inspecting each and everyone of them carefully. The look on his face didn't reveil how disgustest he was by the slack appearance of a few of the soldiers. But the way he drew his breath did! He stared Rafe and the eye, who could just feel himself shrink to the size of a watermelon. He knew exactly that the must still smell of alcohol although he had tried hard to brush his teeth, slap on deodorant and quick- shine his boots. Danny had even had the nerve to take a cold shower, which didn't seem to have a long-lasting effect as he couldn't suppress a yawn. Rafe teased: "Had fun last night?" The Colonel turned on his heel and positioned himslef in front of the pilots next to Col. Doolittle. He stared at them before he raised his dark husky voice: "These are the pilots, you tell me so much about?" Col. Doolittle answered: "Yes, they are." He tried hard to hide his disappointment about their appearance that day. "Gentleman, let me tell you that I'm just as surprised as you." He eyed them suspiciously: "That your two squadrons have been picked for a special training introducing 6 new planes, which have been recently equipped with the lastest and, let me tell you, top-secret technology." Now all of the boys were suddenly wide awake. "You will be the first ones to fly these planes. They are faster, the weapons on board are more precise and fire more shots per minute. But most of all they allow you to do manouvres, which weren't possible before. In order to learn how to fly these machines you will go TDY and see your instructor at 1500h today. On your orders you will find the location. You will need a few hours to get there, so you need to leave in a hour." He looked into their now beaming faces. Each one of them already pictured himself flying one of these new planes. Danny could feel his heart beating in his neck. He was getting so excited. He didn't dare to look at Rafe but kept staring straight ahead but he knew his friend felt exactly the same. The Col. Stepped in front of Red and Anthony:" Clean up before you leave!" "Dismissed!" he shouted to the rest of the group and walked away. Col. Doolittle came up to the group that had gathered around Rafe and chatted eagerly. When they spotted him, they straightened up. Col. Doolittle gave them an angry look:"What did you think you were doing?" Nobody tried to answer. "Just look at you!" He pointed at Anthony's dirty boots, Rafe's stubbles and Danny's knitted shirt. "You can be glad he lets you attend the training. But this..." he pointed at them again:"...will have consequences. You don't ever show up like that again no matter if you had the night before off. No days off for the next month!" his voice clearly stated how angry he was. He turned and left and for a moment all of them had an uneasy feeling for dissapointing him. But then the hype of getting to fly these super-planes kicked in again and the guys couldn't help but cheer. Their good mood was only darkened by the nasty remarks of Mitch and his friends regarding their being told off. Frank went one step too far when he gave Danny an odd look and asked: "How's the foot?". Danny practically jumped at him but Rafe grabbed him and drew him back: " Hey, Danny. That's not worth it! Leave that brain-shrunk guy alone."

Only 45 minutes later they were on a train up the coast. While Red dreamily looked out the window, Danny, who sat opposite of him tried to use his jacket as pillow. He squeezed it between the window and his head but the vibrations from the train were to strong to possibly go to sleep. Nevertheless he closed his eyes. When Rafe came back he slumped down next to Danny waking him from his light sleep. "Guess what." Rafe said. "What?" Danny mumbled. "There's heaps of pretty girls on this train, all just waiting to get to know a pilot." Anthony threw in: "They totally dig the uniforms." Danny tried to go back to sleep but Rafe didn't let go of his arm:" Did you hear me?" "I'm tired!" "Girls, Danny!" Rafe chirped. Danny opened one eye:"Don't you have a girlfriend?" "Yeah, I'm talking about you!" Danny smiled a bit to himself: "Let me sleep, Rafe." "Are you sick or weird or something?" "No, just tired because I had too much fun and beer last night, for goodness sake, now let go. I don't need a girl." He grinned to himself. Rafe knew him well, so it didn't take him long to figure it out. So he whispered into Danny's ear: "You and Sandra, is that serious?" His best friend didn't want to answer so he pretended to be asleep. Red and Rafe exchanged some glances and then both grinned.