Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 6, May 27, 1981

Combat by Gary Alexander

Clyde Ennerson applied full throttle and his World War II Wildcat fighter accelerated across the field. Just a touch to the controls and its tail lifted. Then back ever so slightly on the elevator lever and the Wildcat leaped into the air.

Clyde flicked the landing-gear switch; the Wildcat’s wheels tucked neatly out of the airstream. The ship snarled upward until it was little more than a speck. Clyde performed a loop, another loop, brought it down almost on the deck, put it through an eight-point roll, and as it neared the trees on the far end, climbed it out of danger with a soaring chandelle.

It was a beautiful day for flying. Clyde Ennerson’s radio-controlled model was handling like a dream. He backed off the power and allowed the Wildcat to circle lazily overhead while he admired his creation and the glints of sunlight against its navy-blue paint.

I must have a thousand bucks invested in this one, he thought — and countless hours of labor. He had built it from a kit, painting it to match the real Wildcat he flew during the war all those years ago.

Sounds of engines began to drown out the staccato of the tiny model airplane above. Clyde glanced over to the edge of the field near the road. Three motorcycles had bounded onto the grass and were approaching. Clyde chopped his throttle, lowered the wheels and flaps. The Wildcat glided in, made a smooth landing, and rolled to a halt at his feet.

The bikers pulled up in front of Clyde and shut off their engines. The bikes were large and menacing; the riders appeared no more benign. Leather jackets, greasy, hair, defiant smirks — they looked like the characters in that old Brando movie.

The apparent leader dismounted, studied the Wildcat for a moment, and said, “What have you got going here, Pop?”

Clyde forced a smile. Since Mollie had passed away last year he had indulged his hobby full-time. He was retired and lived alone. The World War II models he built and flew occupied his time and his mind. There were no bullets in these little ones, no death. They were a pleasant anachronism.

“It’s a Grumman F-4F Wildcat,” Clyde said, pointing at the plane. “About all that held the Japanese Zeroes in check early in the war until we really got going.”

The lead biker nodded and said to the man at his right, “Yeah, well, that was before my time. What do you think, Clipper?”

Clipper rolled his eyes and said, “Man, what I think is that Pop here ain’t no kid. That thing is big, but it’s a toy, and he shouldn’t be playing with toys. He ought to be back at the old folks’ home rinsing out his support socks or something.”

His companions laughed and slapped their knees. Clyde Ennerson, grey-haired and wiry, was a good athlete in his day, but the bikers were much younger and larger, and it would be three against one. He held his temper and said calmly, “This is my hobby. And the six-foot wing span on the Wildcat isn’t unusually big. I used to fly the genuine article. I helped make sure you boys wouldn’t grow up speaking German or Japanese.”

The bikers whooped. “How about that!” Clipper said. “A war hero! You believe that, Billy? You believe that, Fang? He’s so old he’s got one foot in his pine box and he’s telling us how he saved the world.”

The leader, Fang, continued smiling, revealing a number of missing and broken front teeth. Thus his nickname, Clyde figured. Fang said, “That’s all well and good, Pop, but maybe you should head home to prune some roses or something. Billy just got some new headers on his Hog and we figure on playing some tag and trying out those trails over by the hill. That toy of yours is going to cramp our style.”

“There’s plenty of room,” Clyde said. “I’ll keep it out of your way.”

Fang’s grin vanished. “No way, Pop. We don’t want to be looking out for some midget flying machine. You nod off at the controls and that thing could be dangerous. Pack up and scat.”

Scat? Clyde hadn’t scatted when the Imperial Japanese Navy decided that the Pacific was their own private lake. Three Zero pilots had found that out the hard way and had joined their ancestors prematurely. He had acquitted himself in like fashion on liberty; some of the dives near Pearl and in Sydney weren’t exactly church socials. Clyde Ennerson would be damned if he’d let three punks run him out like a whipped dog.

Clyde knelt by his Wildcat with his fuel can and funnel. “You boys enjoy yourselves. I plan to do the same.”

Billy had slipped behind him. With a dirty boot he shoved Clyde off balance. Clyde sprang to his feet, but Billy immediately wrapped him in a bear hug.

Fang stepped up to him, nose to nose. “The batteries in your hearing aid need changing, Pop,” he snarled.

“You punks belong in a cage,” Clyde answered.

Fang lifted the Wildcat and held it over his head. Clyde struggled but couldn’t break free.

Fang grinned again. “Your toy gets shot down, you got no reason to be hassling us.” He slammed it onto the ground, breaking only the landing gear and rudder. “Tough little monkey, ain’t it?”

Clipper whooped. “It just needs what you call your coupe dee grass.”

“Yeah, right,” Fang said. He jumped, landing with both feet on the Wildcat, crushing the fuselage and breaking both wings. He jumped on it again and again. Balsa wood, plastic, control cables, the radio receiver unit, hundreds of hours of craftsmanship and love were instantly turned into useless rubble.

Clyde pumped too much adrenalin for Billy to handle. He burst loose and drove a bony fist into Fang’s face.

Fang slumped to his knees as Clyde bore in. “You goddamn old coot! Billy! Clipper!”

Billy and Clipper grabbed Clyde before he could do more damage, wrenching him to his feet and pinning his arms.

Fang staggered up and drove one fist into Clyde’s gut, then the other. Before Clyde blacked out he heard Fang warn him not to call the law and heard the roar of motorcycle engines.

Royal Falls was a mere interruption of scenery, a punctuation of rolling hills rich with virgin timber, a small and random collection of homes and businesses on both sides of the highway that led to the town’s namesake. In the summer, tourists came to enjoy the majesty of cascading white water. Sometimes they stopped for gas and groceries. Sometimes they didn’t.

Royal Falls was too small to support a resident police force, so Clyde Ennerson’s statement was taken by a sheriff’s deputy at the Denton City Hospital. Clyde was in good spirits; the doctors and x-ray folks had discovered nothing broken or torn.

“We know all about them,” the officer said. “A bad bunch. They cruise around with nothing to do but make trouble. They pass through Denton City from time to time. We’ll keep our eyes open. Of course, with just your word against theirs and no witnesses, we might not be able to make a case of it. That’s their pattern.”

Clyde sat upright in bed. “Hell’s bells! Is this what law enforcement boils down to these days? I pick ’em out of a lineup, and they get together and invent an alibi and go free? Or, if we do go to trial, some cheap lawyer gets them off on a technicality?”

The officer shrugged pessimistically. “We’ll do our best.”

Dave Harper, Clyde’s son-in-law, said, “Settle down. They’re working on it. In the meantime, don’t go back out to fly a plane except on Saturdays when you’re with the club. These jokers have a sadistic streak.”

Clyde looked at Dave, patiently absorbing his warning. Of Clyde’s three children, only Laurie had stayed in Royal Falls. Since cancer had taken her three years earlier, Dave, a foreman at the sawmill outside of town, had become both a best friend and a mother hen to Clyde.

They’d thought for a while of sharing Clyde’s house, but each was independent and opinionated, neither could cook, and neither had mastered the intricacies of the vacuum cleaner. The bachelor clutter would be too much. In terms of stubbornness, the proverbial mule was out of his class with this pair. So Dave kept his own place, a half mile from Clyde’s up the river road.

After Laurie’s death, Clyde had drawn his son-in-law into the hobby and now Dave was president of the Royal Falls Model Airplane Club. Two more fellows from the mill were now building and flying also.

“What do you want me to do?” Clyde protested. “Lock myself in my house until you fellows come for me on Saturday mornings?”

“All I’m asking is that you use some common sense until these creeps are picked up.”

“If we’d used that kind of ‘common sense’ during the war—”

“Clyde,” Dave interrupted, “that was over thirty-five years ago.”

Clyde did not reply. Dave’s logic was cruel but true.

Clyde’s small house — outside of Royal Falls proper on three treed acres — was semi-isolated, as many in the area were.

They must have parked their motorcycles at the gate and walked in. He heard nothing till they caved in his back door. When he grabbed for the phone, the line was dead. He hurried across the living room for his shotgun, but the bikers reached it first and Billy enveloped him in another bear hug, even tighter than the first.

“They got Clipper,” Fang accused him. He swaggered around the room, then peered into the spare bedroom Clyde had converted into a workshop. He wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

“Dope, thinner, glue,” Clyde said. “You punks should recognize it. Isn’t it what you put in plastic bags to sniff?”

Fang charged Clyde and slapped him hard across the face. “Look, old man, we’re not here to listen to none of your smart mouth. We’re here to tell you that when the oinkers call you in to identify Clipper, you never seen him before in your life. Got it?”

Clyde didn’t answer. His hard stare was his reply.

“You think you’re a tough old coot, don’t you?” Fang walked into the workshop and returned with the model Clyde usually flew when he wasn’t out with the Wildcat. “Funny-looking thing. What is it?”

“An F4U Corsair. The same as what Boyington had. Our squadron got them late in the war.”

“Yeah, but I think you made a mistake, Pop. The wings are bent.”

“They’re designed that way. It’s an inverted-gull shape.”

Fang grinned and shook his head. “I never seen a plane with crooked wings before. Lemme fix them for you.”

Crack! Crack!

Clyde struggled fiercely, but Billy pushed him roughly onto the couch. The bikers moved quickly to the door. “That plane, Pop,” Fang said. “It was real brittle — just like your bones. Keep that in mind when the law calls you in.”

Clyde kept it in mind. He also picked Clipper out of a lineup and signed a complaint.

“We’ve got a good case now,” the desk sergeant said. “Your friend Clipper isn’t so rough when he’s away from his partners. He’s no Rhodes scholar either. His alibi is full of holes and a few more days in the slammer might be all he can handle. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a full confession.”

“That’s a relief,” Dave said, “but what about the other two?”

“We’ll get them eventually. But they drift around, cover a lot of territory, so I can’t promise you when.”

Dave turned to Clyde. “In the meantime—”

“I know. Stick close to home. Install some bolts on the doors. Wait till Saturday to fly with my bodyguards. No problem. I’m almost done with my new ship. I’ll just stay indoors and work on it.”

Clyde had never lied to Dave before, and he didn’t feel very good about doing it now.

Clyde’s latest creation performed well when he took it to the field for its maiden flight on Friday afternoon. He experimented with a series of mild aerobatics, getting the feel of the new plane and the control unit. He brought it in, refilled the fuel tank, and had sent it up again when he heard the familiar roar of motorcycle engines from the hillside and saw Fang and Billy emerge from a trail. No wonder the law couldn’t locate them. They must have been holed up there, just waiting.

Clyde gave the plane maximum power and steered it upward in a steep spiral. If anything, this model was overpowered; it gained altitude quickly and effortlessly.

Fang and Billy were at the far edge of the field, their bikes kicking up billows of dust as they raced directly at Clyde. Just then, Dave’s pickup truck came into view — Dave and several of his friends from the mill in it. The rascals, Clyde thought, they had probably been watching him, knowing he would play possum.

Well, Dave and his friends were welcome to Billy — but Fang was his. Clyde adjusted a control lever and the twenty-pound model airplane nosed downward.

It was a replica of the Japanese Zeke fighter, more commonly known as the Zero. It had been a most formidable foe throughout the war in the Pacific, and toward the end it had been used for an even more ominous purpose.

Clyde had followed one down in his Corsair and peppered it with bullets, committing it to the sea just before it accomplished its mission — which was to slam into the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Kamikaze. The Divine Wind. The enemy’s last fanatic hope.

Clyde’s Zero closed on Fang in a vertical dive. Fang saw it and zigzagged desperately. Clyde subtly corrected Fang’s every move.

“Banzai!” Clyde said too softly to be heard above the vicious whine of the hurtling Zero. “Banzai.”