Stand BY-Y-Y to Start Engines

by Daniel V Gallery

  "Oh...?" said Willy.

  "As a matter of fact, I did my best to block it. I figured it was wasting high-powered flying talent to send you there. But old Twitters went over my head and high-pressured the Chief of Naval Operations into approving this thing as a special case. He had a long song and dance about the State Department, U.S. prestige in diplomatic circles, and about some gawd-awful jam the present incumbent had got into. The ambassador himself demanded his immediate relief. The CNO swallowed the story, approved the deal, and there was nothing I could do about it."

  "I certainly appreciate your going to bat for me, sir," said Willy. "I'm due for an interview with Admiral Twitters at three o'clock and I'm hoping I may still talk him out of this."

  "I wish you luck, Willy, and I'm afraid you're going to need a lot of it. Drop in afterwards and let me know how you make out."

  Willy left Vice Admiral Cuddahy's office at a quarter to three, lugged his bag into the gentleman's room just across the hall from ONI and locked the door behind him. In the next few minutes a startling change was wrought in Willy's appearance. He whipped off his number one uniform blouse, and his immaculate white shirt and stiff collar. Out of the bag came a crummy white shirt with a badly soiled soft collar. Willy donned this garment and put on a black tie with egg spots all over it. Over this he put on a blue uniform coat that looked as though it had been slept in and had caught all the eggs that missed the tie. He mussed up his hair, doused it with cheap perfume, sprinkled something that looked like dandruff on his shoulders, and with a black grease pencil quickly fixed his finger nails as though he had just finished assembling a crankcase.

  Promptly at three o'clock, Lieutenant JG Wigglesworth presented himself to Admiral Twitters' flag secretary, looking as if he had ridden the rods of a coal gondola all the way from San Diego. A look of astonishment spread across the flag secretary's face as he called Admiral Twitters on the squawk box and informed him dubiously that Lieutenant Wigglesworth was waiting.

  "Send him in," came the brisk reply.

  If the flag secretary was astonished, Admiral Twitters was flabbergasted by the apparition that barged into his office, with its blouse unbuttoned, its hand extended, and strode up to his desk and said "Hello, Admiral Twatters. I'm Lieutenant Wigglesworth, your new naval attache for Moscow."

  The Admiral couldn't have been more startled, if Willy had announced that he was Christopher Columbus. He gaped and had a choking spell while Willy seated himself at the desk and immediately launched into his script.

  "Admiral, I'm tickled to death to get this job. At first I didn't want it. But you can't always get what you want in this Navy, so I figured I would just make the best of it. Now that I've got used to the idea, I kind of like it. Ain't that the right way to look at it, Admiral?"

  Admiral Twitters coughed up an incoherent reply and frowned at Willy's unbuttoned blouse.

  Willy buttoned the blouse, began scratching at a spot on it, and continued pleasantly, "I thought you'd like that attitude, Admiral. When things don't work out the way I want them to, I just say 'Neechevo!' - that's Russian, Admiral. I've got a good-looking babe teaching me the language," Willy explained with a knowing leer.

  Admiral Twitters, beginning to suspect that Willy was drunk, pulled his chair over and leaned closer to get a whiff of his breath. Willy exploded that theory very quickly. He uncorked a resounding Brussels sprout burp and said, "Oops, pardon me, Admiral. Did I get any on you? Must have been something I et. As I was saying, I'm looking forward to going to Moscow and meeting them foreign diplomats from all over the world. I just dropped in to see if you had any special dope to give me before leaving, sir."

  "No!... No!" said the Admiral weakly, "... er... your name is Lieutenant William Wigglesworth?"

  "Yessir. That's right, sir."

  "Your present job is aide and flag secretary to Admiral Day out at San Diego?" inquired the Admiral incredulously.

  Willy picked something out of his nose, examined it casually, and wiped his finger on the seat of his pants. "Nossir, flag lieutenant, sir, and Admiral Day is a very fine gent, sir... Well, Admiral, I don't want to take up too much of your valuable time, so if you have no further instructions, I'll beat it now."

  Admiral Twitters shook his head groggily, so Willy rose, about-faced, and got the hell out of there. The Admiral groped with a trembling hand for the button that summoned his chief of staff.

  "What in heaven's name is the matter with this alleged Office of Naval Intelligence?" he demanded. "With all the sources of information in the Navy Department at your fingertips, all the records of the Bureau of Personnel at your disposal, you pick the worst misfit I've ever seen."

  "Wh... what's wrong, sir?" stammered the COS, who hadn't seen Willy.

  "What's wrong? This fellow you recommended for Moscow was just in here and he's - he's - well, he's just absolutely impossible!... Now I am in a jam... But this can't be the same man Cuddahy was so hot about!"

  So saying, Admiral Twitters flipped a switch in the interoffice squawk box and soon had Vice Admiral Cuddahy on the line. "This is Twitters. Didn't you tell me a few days ago that a Lieutenant Wigglesworth was a good man for that Moscow job?"

  "Yes, I did," came the reply. "Matter of fact, I said he was too good a man, and I still say so!"

  "Do you know this fellow personally?" asked Admiral Twitters.

  "Yes, indeed," replied Admiral Cuddahy, "I know him well. He was in to see me only twenty minutes ago. Nice lad. I like him."

  "Good God!" said Admiral Twitters, and hung up.

  Admiral Twitters shook his head sadly at the chief of staff and said, "I always knew these aviators were a ragtime outfit but I never would have believed that vice admiral aviators would tolerate a clown like that one!"

  Meantime Willy had slipped into the gents' can across the corridor from the flag secretary's office and in five minutes emerged into the halls of the Pentagon again, his usual spic-and-span self. Back in the office of the Chief of Naval Personnel, he received an enthusiastic but puzzled welcome from Admiral Cuddahy.

  "How in the world did you do it, Willy? I never heard of old Twitters changing his mind that fast before, especially after committing himself as he did on this deal. You're a miracle man."

  "He was non-committal with me, sir," said Willy innocently. "He didn't say more than a half dozen words, and he didn't promise anything."

  "Well, he phoned me a little while ago," said Admiral Cuddahy, "and seemed to be all worked up about you. He was sort of incoherent and blew up in the middle of our conversation. His chief of staff called right afterwards and said ONI wanted your orders canceled, right now, this afternoon."

  "Oh," said Willy. "I wonder what happened?" Butter would have melted in his mouth.

  "The hell you do," grinned Admiral Cuddahy. "You know darned well what happened and someday I'm going to worm it out of you. Meantime, we will go back to our previous program for you. Thirty days' leave in June and then the air station at San Diego."

  "Thank you, sir, thank you very much, sir," said Willy, grabbing the Admiral's hand, "and now, Admiral, I won't take up any more of your valuable time - good-bye, sir, and thank you again."

  Before the Admiral could change bis mind, Willy took off out of there as if rocket-propelled, and was last seen disappearing toward Anacostia in a cloud of dust.

  Next morning Admiral Cuddahy received a puzzling memorandum from the Office of Naval Intelligence. It stated that the reason for requesting cancellation of Lieutenant Wigglesworth's orders was "uncouth personal appearance and habits.'" Vice Admiral Cuddahy studied it incredulously. Usually a memorandum of that kind goes into an officer's record jacket in the Bureau of Personnel for the guidance of future promotion boards, and constitutes a serious black mark against him.

  "Uncouth," muttered Vice Admiral Cuddahy. '"Why, Willy is about the couthest officer I know... there's some kind of monkey business behind this, and next time I see that young scoundrel I'm going to take a rubber hose and b
eat it out of him. Meantime, old Twitters must be in a foul mood this morning so I'm not going to stir him up by nosing any further into this affair."

  So saving Admiral Cuddahv tore up the memo, dropped it in the wastebasket, and thus, terminated Willy's Mission to Moscow.

  That evening Mrs. Senator Worthington was chatting with Mrs. Hardleigh Able, one of her cronies in Coronado, "Yes," said Mrs. W., "I just put my foot down, sent him to Washington, and got things changed. I think he went right to the top and saw the Chief of Naval Operations... just goes to show that you can get your rights even in the Navy, provided you stand up for them in a firm but gentlemanly way."