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I found Doug afterward, that line from the mask indenting his cheek again, a grin of relief on his face. He'd made his second landing without incident. He poured some coffee (it was almost midnight), and as we headed down to the wardroom for one last meal of meat loaf, he mentioned that when he'd climbed into his jet at 10, he noticed that two of the cockpit instruments that help the pilot with his approach, the "needles" and the "bull's-eye," were broken. A third navigational instrument, the least desirable of the three, still worked. Doug, trained for less than perfect conditions, took off anyway.

Doug grabbed some cake and strutted stiffly out, still somehow my longtime friend, yet also the man in the visored helmet and tight oxygen mask, now and forever unknown to me. ~

"A Pilot's Tale" appeared in the February 1999 issue of Harper's Magazine. Excerpts reprinted by permission of Matthew Klam, © 1999. Klam's work has also appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines. His short story, "The Royal Palms," received an O'Henry Award in 1997. A collection of his short stories will be published by Random House next year.

Testament to Friendship

Mat Klam '86 and Doug Hamilton '86 on a hike during their college days.

That Doug permitted me to write this story is a testament to the strength of our friendship. He let me write about his whole life—his potentially lethal and world-saving attributes—something only the truly brave would do. The insights I gained while writing this story for Harper's Magazine, the flak Doug had to take from his squadronmates as a result of my writing, the dangers of his job that became evident to me—all that has brought our friendship into a new era with its own personality and a deeper trust. This trust, the basis of our friendship, was born 15 years ago at UNH.

We met during our sophomore year, pledged neighboring fraternities, dated Chi Omega sorority sisters and grew bored of the Greek system at about the same time. In our senior year, we moved off campus into a house on Route 108 with four great friends, and built a bigger, broader friendship on the back of the more ordinary one.

Away from the revelry that had been our social beginnings, we discovered another side of life at UNH. We skiied on those backwoods, cross-country trails, snowshoed, made road trips to Stones concerts, hiked the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, skated, swam and waterskiied around Doug's family's house on Lake Winnepesaukee. I have fond memories of that house, built by Doug's great-grandfather. I remember raising the dock with Doug and his father at the end of the summer; I recall philosophizing with Doug's grandmother at the kitchen table about the exact point of ripeness to eat a banana. I remember standing in front of the roaring fire in that house, showing our Chi Omega girlfriends the candy-striped long underwear I wore under my ski pants, bought half-price at the Kittery Trading Post. In the summer after college, on the cusp of fall, we covered a section of the Appalachian Trail over four days; we played harmonica duets at the supper campfire, slept in a tent the wind tore apart as it blew through like a freight train.

Then Doug became a naval aviator. We stayed in touch through letter writing, later via e-mail. While I lived in Arizona, I made long drives with another college roommate, Jim Woodman '86, to see Doug fly into Phoenix and Albuquerque. But it was Doug's clear, luminous, brilliantly-written letters as much as it was my first sight of him flying that sparked my interest in his new life. I remember a letter in which he explained the logistics and fear associated with landing on a carrier in total darkness, during near- hurricane conditions. I read this letter to a writing workshop while in grad school at Hollins College—the feeling of sitting in a jet preparing to launch, the ship heaving in 30-foot seas— and saw the stunned look on my classmates' faces as we wondered whether Doug would survive. And it was around that time that I first pitched the idea of writing about his life, and how it was beginning to reshape him—how could it not?

Over time you develop certain fascinations about people you really care about. You see what they're able to achieve, and you begin to theorize about how their internal wiring allows them to work these minor miracles. Yes, Doug can land an F/A-18 jet on a moving ship's deck, on a spot 18 inches long, he can put himself in harm's way for a cause greater than himself, with sometimes a less than discernable outcome in mind. But he piqued my interest long before he landed a jet on a ship. On our hike along the Appalachian Trail, he led the way most days, and I watched from a bank while he jumped from small rock to rock across a rushing stream with a 60-pound pack on his back. Then I tried to copy his steps and fell in. Doug is a mysterious fellow.

—M.K.

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