"And he won't be available for long.
The way things are going, somebody's going to snap him up."
"Let them! He's a prick and a lush.
Besides, he's bombed out on everything he ever did."
"He knows aircraft production," Forrester said stubbornly. He glanced at me again. "I heard what happened between you two but that's got nothing to do with this."
I didn't answer.
Up ahead of us, I saw the Spitfire formation leader waggle his wings.
It was the signal to break radio silence.
Forrester leaned forward and flipped the switch.
"Yes, Captain?"
"This is where we leave you, old boy."
I looked down.
The gray waters of the Atlantic stared back at me. We were a hundred miles off the coast of the British Isles.
"O.K., Captain," Forrester said. "Thank you."
"Safe home, chaps.
And don't forget to send us the big ones. We'll be needing them next summer to pay Jerry back a little."
Forrester laughed in his mike.
The British had just taken the shellacking of their lives and here they were worried about getting their licks in.
"You'll have them, Captain."
"Righto. Radio out."
He waggled the wings of his Spitfire again and the formation peeled away in a wide, sweeping circle back toward their coast.
Then there was silence and we were alone over the Atlantic on our way home.
I pulled out of my safety belt and stood up.
"If it's O.K. with you, I'm going back and grab a little snooze."
Roger nodded.
I opened the compartment door.
"You just think about what I said," he called after me.
"If you're talking about Amos Winthrop, forget it."
Morrissey was sitting dejectedly in the engineer's bucket seat.
He looked up when I came in. "I don't understand it," he said sadly.
I sat down on the edge of the bunk.
"It's easy enough to figure out.
The B-17 flies with a five-man crew against our nine.
That means they can put almost twice as many planes in the air. Round trip to Germany at the most is two thousand miles, so they don't need a five-thousand-mile range.
Besides, the operational costs are just a little more than half ours."
"But this plane can go ten thousand feet higher and two hundred miles an hour faster," Morrissey said.
"And it carries almost twice the pay load of bombs."
"The trouble with you, Morrissey, is you're ahead of the times.
They're not ready for planes like this one yet." I saw the stricken look come over his face.
For a moment, I felt sorry for him. And what I'd said was true.
For my money, he was the greatest aircraft engineer in the world. "Forget it.
Don't worry, they'll catch up to you yet.
Some-day, they'll be flying planes like this by the thousands."
"Not in this war," he said resignedly. He picked up a Thermos from a cardboard carton. "I think I’ll take some coffee up to Roger."
He went forward into the pilot's compartment and I stretched out on the bunk.
The drone of the four big engines buzzed in my ears.
I closed my eyes.
Three weeks in England and I don't think I had a good night's rest the whole time.
Between the bombs and the girls.
The bombs and the girls.