Chapter Text
Mission count: 25
Lt. Dennis ‘Kid’ Whitaker
“Aarfy do you have any fucking clue where we’re going!?”
Dennis was once again a hairs-breath away from strangling his navigator. For a man whose sole purpose is to make sure they know where they’re going, Aarfy has the absolute worst sense of direction. This being the main reason behind why their bombardier Yossarian was yelling at him from the top of his lungs.
“What!? Yo-yo I can’t hear you!”
Both pilots let out an audible sigh at Aarfy’s words. Dennis took his eyes off the sky for a moment and gave McWatt a look that said ‘Are you gonna handle this or me?’ McWatt then let out another sigh in acknowledgment before letting his co-pilot take over so he could turn around and stop the scene before it escalated.
“Fellas, are we really gonna do this again?” Inquired McWatt over the comms, as calmly he could.
“Ask that to him!” Spat out Yossarian.
“Ladies, ladies, let’s just calm down for a second-” called out their tail gunner Nately who could somehow hear the ordeal through all the chaotic radio chatter.
“I’m not fucking doing this today! I’m not!” Everyone could hear the clear frustration in Yo-yo’s voice, empathize with him too even, but they were all tired of this constant back and forth between the two and did not need nor want to add anymore stress to their mission.
“Just figure out our fucking position Aarfy!” declared McWatt before turning back around to the cockpit with Dennis. If you’d have told Dennis a year ago that he soon be flying bombing missions in Italy with the most insufferable man alive, he would’ve probably looked at you like you were crazy. Although now he wishes someone would have told him, just so he’d have joined the Navy like all his brothers did, but no, instead he gets sit in stifling hot cockpit with four other equally frustrated soldiers.
“Alright I got it, 30 seconds to the run. Holding steady, three-four-nine!”
Dennis could help but let out an exasperated ‘finally’ at the navigators words before relaying the information on the radio to the other bombers, “Three-Four-Nine at 9,000 feet.”
The sooner they could get this mission done, the sooner they could get out of this god forsaken bomber. He would much prefer to be back at his tent reading some rather interesting comic books his family had sent over to him.
“We almost there Yo-yo?” Called out McWatt. The rest of planes were starting to get impatient and kept calling out for Yo-yo to drop the bombs already, none of them could drop theirs until the lead Bombardier did.
Yo-yo’s voice came over the comms again, interrupting his thought.
“Opening Bomb-Bay doors! Adjusting for drift three degrees!”
“Holding, and… bombs away!”
Dennis couldn’t physically see the bombs themselves dropping from the plane, after all only the person in the nose of the could see and that was the bombardiers position, but he could still feel the weight of them leaving the bay as Yo-yo spoke those two little words. It was only a matter of time before they could hear the faint yet familiar sounds of the ground below them compressing before finally cracking open and becoming nothing but a giant crater. Yo-yo’s voice cut through the radio once again.
“Over to you McWatt! Get us out of here! We’re done!”
McWatt kept a straight face before pressing the button of his throat mic and updating the other bombers.
“All right, getting us out of this shit.”
The other bombers acknowledged his call but not before giving more remarks about the heavy fire. Dennis felt a small grin of relief grace his expression. Everyone knew McWatt liked to fly low just to scare Yossarian, but to be honest it also instilled a little fear into everyone else. Dennis couldn’t help but think that one day all his low flying could get someone killed, probably Yo-yo in the nose. ‘Poor guy’ he thought, everyone in the plane knows how paranoid he is about dying up here. Who could blame him? Not Dennis. Sure he could put on a brave face and act naive but he was just as scared as him. He wasn’t nonchalant like McWatt or oblivious like Aarfy, or even patriotic like Nately. He didn’t even join the army to fight, he just wanted to-
“Shit!” Nately’s voice suddenly came over the radio, frantic and desperate. The plane gave a hard rattle for a moment, both pilots let out a small ‘oh fuck’ as soon as they felt some flak hitting the underside of the Yankee Doodle. Dennis quickly reached up and pressed his throat mic before barking out, “Who was that! Is everyone okay!?”
“This is Nately in the tail! I’ve been hit!”, Dennis let out a curse at his words. When he turned around to look towards the back end of the bomber he could see Yossarians head appear out of the nose crawl away, “I’ll check him out you two get us out of here!”
As Yo-yo crawled over the bomb bay to get to the back, he returned to his task at hand: getting out alive.
———-
Dennis let out a large breath of relief as his feet hit the solid ground. It was short lived though as he soon heard Yo-yo helping Nately down the hatch. As it turned out Nately had gotten some little scrapes from the bit of Flak that came up through the tail. “You’ll be just fine, I however need to go talk to Clevinger real quick.”
“What, so you’re just gonna leave to hobble to the med tent by myself? What if my leg gives out?” Breathed out a frustrated Nately as he leaned most his weight on one leg. Yo-yo turned around for a second before turning back and saying, “If it means so much have someone else take you.”
Unable to take their bickering any longer, “Jesus Christ I’ll just take you Nately!” Dennis yelled out over the sounds of another bomber landing on the runway. Both men turned their heads to him, rather surprised at his sudden remark. Then Yo-yo suddenly started matching off towards the tents to go find Clevinger, leaving Dennis and Nately to both wonder ‘What’s his problem?’
Before they could wonder off McWatt called out to Dennis with a smile on his face, “Mechanics took a look, just a small breach, they said the Yankee Doodle will be back be back up and running in no time.” Dennis gave the B-25 a pat on the hard metal exterior before replying, “She’s a fighter, we’ll be fine.”
“Am I interrupting something between you three or can we go to medical now?”
Both pilots barked out a laugh at Nately’s words, he wouldn’t understand.
“Alright buddy, let’s go take a trip to the Doctors.”