Don't Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James Salter(20)

Ortona. D’Annunzio’s mother’s birthplace near Pescara and the seat of his candidacy for parliament in 1899. He ran successfully as a conservative. He was not and never had intended to be only a poet; the world had to understand that he was capable of everything. His political career consisted of two speeches, a duel, and a dramatic change of party when he walked across the Chamber of Deputies from the right to the left, from death to life, he said. In the following election he ran from a district of Florence and was soundly defeated.

Vienna. It was described as one of the greatest exploits of the war. The mission had been cancelled several times. At last the weather was right. On August 12, 1918, the planes took off at dawn, one by one, and reached the Austrian capital by midmorning. “Over Vienna a pale mist lay,” D’Annunzio reported. “Our manifestos drifted down like leaves falling in autumn.”

People of Vienna. We are flying over Vienna and could drop tons of bombs, on the contrary, we leave a salutation and a flag with its colors of liberty . . .

There was scrambling in the streets for the leaflets. Seven hundred miles, the newspapers hailed, with two crossings of the Alps and the stormy Adriatic. D’Annunzio delivered a speech: “We passed in our flight . . . the Isonzo, like a ribbon fallen from heaven, and forgotten Sabotino . . . Caporetto, like the Despair, which climbed up to tear our wings, all our slaughterhouses, our cemeteries, our Calvaries, our holy places. No, comrades, don’t weep . . . Remember, remember, remember . . .” Elated by his success he planned a series of flights over all the capitals of Europe, flying directly over Mont Blanc, the highest point on the continent, as a symbol, but the war ended.

World War I. He saw action on land, with the 77th Regiment. He led a raid by torpedo boats against the harbor of Buccari. He commanded a flying squadron, made speeches to troops, won medals, fell to his knees to kiss the earth of battlefields. In Venice, while convalescing and half-blind, he wrote on slips of paper handed to him by his daughter the book that is regarded as his finest prose, Notturno (Nocturne). The war exhilarated him. At the head of his bed was a banner, on the dressing table, talismans and perfume. He flew in patent-leather boots with high heels and sometimes held the bombs between his knees. In the air over Italy he was battered by his age, the passions of his heroines crashing back to him, the memories, the trampled lives. He had no fear, he said, because he expected every mission to be his last and he could desire no greater glory than to die for Italy with “her beautiful limbs, from which harvests, artists and heroes were born.” Death, he described as the male genius to whom youth was consecrated. Blood, wounds, and sacrifice, they were woven into themes to create an invincible nation, a great Italy rejoicing in just battle. “You with us,” the blue and white banner of his squadron said, “We with you.”

He had seduced a nation. He had as much as anyone brought his country into war. And afterwards the seizure of Fiume. He had spent himself. He had always considered himself a god and behaved as one, but physically and psychologically he was exhausted. The cloak of heroism which he had fashioned for himself had become heavy. With such a cloak, how much further could he march?

He went as far as Lake Garda. His uniforms are there, his letters from Rostand and Anatole France, his signed copies of Wagner’s librettos. His death mask is there, as well, the nose larger, the eyes closed and at peace or at least in repose like a performer resting, like a gambler who need no longer play.

The Paris Review

Fall/Winter 1978





Cool Heads


As a pilot I came close to being killed twice, once in a spectacular training crash and the second time in combat, in Korea, though oddly enough not by the enemy. It was the airplane itself that almost killed me. This was an F86, a Sabre, the first swept-wing fighter and at the time the best we had.

I was coming back from a mission and turning steep onto final at about five hundred feet. The landing gear and flaps had just come down when suddenly, without warning, the controls froze. The stick would not budge; it felt as if it was set in concrete. I was headed straight for the ground. There was no time to call or say anything. I might have ejected with a chance my chute would open in time, but I was afraid I was too low. In those last seconds I shoved the throttle forward and trimmed back on the stick, the only possible chance, however slight, of moving the horizontal stabilizer and getting the nose up enough to clear the ground. At the same time I pulled up the gear. This last, almost insignificant detail saved me. Something had gone haywire in the hydraulic system and extending the landing gear somehow froze the stick.

I climbed shakily and at a safe altitude tested it. There was the identical result.

“K14 Tower, I’m having some control problems. I’m declaring an emergency and would like permission to make a straight-in.”

I don’t know what my voice sounded like. In my memory, which is the only record, it was as calm as one could hope for. Why this, instead of, “Oh, my God! You know what happened? I nearly killed myself out here!” For one thing, other planes were trying to land; no one was interested in my emotional state. I was an element leader. This was a veteran wing.

You were trained to be cool. It was a mark, in fact a requirement. Frightened, inaccurate transmissions could clutter the air, spread confusion. Extreme coolness was greatly admired. It showed nerve, ability, control. After the event, sometimes hours after, the fear that had been subdued might make its appearance. A pilot I knew bailed out once at three hundred feet with his plane literally tumbling end over end. His chute barely blossomed before he hit. To his leader who’d circled back and was passing over he held out an upraised thumb—I’m OK. It was not until he was in the club that evening that his knees began to shake uncontrollably.