"Sergeant Haskell just told me you brought it home," D'Angelo said.
"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?" Bitter said.
D'Angelo handed him a miniature boule of Jack Daniel's bourbon.
Bieer unscrewed the cap and drank it down. He felt the warmth in his stomach.
D'Angelo handed him another and he drank that down, and that was a bad idea, for he threw up again without warning.
The humiliation was bad enough, but he saw pity in Sergeant Draper's eyes and that made it worse.
"Get a jeep, Dolan," Bitter ordered.
"A jeep?"
"Look at me, for God's sake!" Biter said, gesturing at his blood-covered flight gear. "I don't want to mess up Canidy's goddamned Packard!"
"We'll just get that high-altitude gear off you, Commander," Dolan said, and very gently started to undress him.
"When he's through with the crew," D'Angelo said, "III send the debriefing officer over."
"I don't know what the hell I can tell him," Bitter said.
"I'll tell him to make it brief," D'Angelo said. "What I want to know is how you got it out of the spin." Biter looked at him.
"The last sighting had you in a spin," D'Angelo said.
Bitter was genuinely astonished at his response, which came without thinking.
"I'm a naval aviator, Colonel," he said. "They teach us how to get out of spins." D'Angelo's face flashed surprise and even annoyance.
Dolan chuckled heartily, and D'Angelo glowered at him, but then smiled.
"Dumb question," he said, "dumb answer."
"I'm sorry, sir," Bitter said. "I don't know why I said that."
"Raise your leg, Commander, please," Sergeant Draper said, and Bitter felt a tug at his leg.
Sergeant Draper was on her knees in the muddy grass. His sheepskin trousers were down around his ankles.
Colonel D'Angelo put his arm around Biter's shoulders to steady him.
"Right now, Commander," D'Angelo said, "I think you have the right to say any goddamn thing you want to." Sergeant Draper pulled the sheepskin trousers off his feet, and then stood up and smiled at him.
"You're in pain, aren't you?" Agnes Draper asked--challenged--softly.
"If Dolan can come up with some ice and a rubber sheet, it will be all right," Biter said.
"Well, let's get you home, Commander," Dolan said, and wrapped his arm around him. Agnes took Biter's other arm and put it around her shoulder.
And between them, Bitter hobbled to Canidy's Packard.
FIVE] When they got to the BOQ, Dolan sent a white hat after ice, "I don't want any excuses, just come back with ice." Then they set Biter down gently on his bed.
Dolan gave him three ounces of rye, straight, with an almost motherly admonition, "Drink it all, it'll be good for you." The ice arrived in a garbage can carried by one of the white hats and Lieutenant Kennedy. A moment later, the other white hat came in with an oilskin tablecloth.
"I didn't know where to get a rubber sheet," he said.
Biter raised the lower part of his body so the tablecloth could be put under it, while Dolan made an ice pack with a torn sheet. Then, very matter-of-factly, Sergeant Draper ordered Commander Bitter to loosen his belt and undo his fly.
She took off his shoes, then pulled his trousers off.
There was only a moment before a major arrived for post flight debriefing. He handed Bitter a miniature I.5-ounce bottle of medical bourbon. Surprising himself, Biter twisted the cap off and drank it down.
Agnes Draper took the ice pack from Dolan and gently patted it in place on Bitter's leg.
The debriefing officer was good at his work. He skillfillly drew from Bitter the story of what had happened on
"Danny's Darling." Twice, Agnes Draper took Biter's glass from him and added rye.
And both times he found himself looking into her eyes.
And then he caught himself staring at her as she stood leaning against the wall, her breasts straining the butons of her blouse, her stomach pressing the front of her skirt. And he sensed that she knew what he was looking at and didn't care.
But she left with the others when the debriefing officer was finished.
"If the leg is still giving you trouble in the morning," she said on the way out, you'd better send for the flight surgeon. Right now, what you need is another belt of rye, and some sleep. Biter fell asleep wondering what Sergeant Agnes Draper's belly looked like when she wasn't wearing a unifomm skirt.
When he woke up, Sergeant Agnes Draper was sitting on his bed, pinning his shoulders down.
"You were having a nightmare," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"It will pass quickly, I think," she said.
He pushed himself up in the bed, so that his back was resting against the wall of his room.
"It wasn't about today," he said.
"Oh?"
"Years ago, flying with Dick as a matter of fact, I rolled a trainer close to the ground. When I was upside down, the engine quit.
That's what I was dreaming about."
"I see."
"I'm sorry I woke you, Sergeant," he said. "I'll be all right now."
"Actually," she said levelly, ayou didn't wake me. It was only that when I came in here I found you thrashing about."
"I appreciate your concem, Sergeant," he said.
"Do you think you could bring yourself to call me by my Christian name?
Or would you rather I left?"
"I don't quite understand," Biter said.
"Yes, you do," she said.
He met her eyes but found himself unable to speak. After a long moment she nodded, then stood up and walked to the door.
"Agnes!" Bitter called.
She stopped and was motionless for a moment, and then turned around and ran quickly to the bed. sxx] At 2115 hours Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Biter, USN, came to the attention of the Public Affairs office of the Naval Element, SHAEF.
Commander Richard C. Korman had the duty. Six months before he had been Vice President, Public Relations, of the Public Service Company of New Jersey. Komman was writing a leter to his wife on his typewriter when he received a telephone call from a public information officer of Headquarters, Eighth United States Air Force.
"Commander," his caller announced, "this is Colonel Jerry Whitney.
I'm in the PIO shop at Eighth Air Force."
"What can the Navy do for the Eighth Air Force?"
"We're about to decorate one of your officers, and the Chief of Staff said it would be a good idea to touch base with you."
"Tell me about it."
"I'm sure we would," Commander Korman said. "Who did you say is actually going to make the presentation?"
"That's not firm yet," Colonel Whitney said. "But I should know first thing in the morning. I'll touch base with you again then."
"I really appreciate your thoughtfulness," Commander Korman said.
"By the time you call me, I'll have Navy representation firmed up.
What's this guy's name?"
"Bitter, spelled the way it sounds. Edwin H. Lieutenant Commander."
"Where's he assigned?"
"Naval Aviation Element, SHAEF." "Got it," Commander Korman said, "I'll tell you what I'll do, Colonel. I'll pull his records here, and by the time you get him here in the morning, I'll have a biography mimeographed, next of kin, hometown, what he did as a civilian, and maybe with a little bit of luck, there'll be a negative of him in the file. There's supposed to be, but sometimes there isn't. If there is, I'll have our photo section run off a couple of dozen eight-by-tens."
"We'd sort of like to keep control of this, Commander," Colonel Jerry Whitney said firmly.
"Don't misunderstand me, Colonel," It. Commander Komman said.
"All want to do is cooperate. This is obviously your show. I understand that we're getting a free ride."
"Just as long as we understand each other," Colonel Whitney said, not mollified.
"Absolutely
," Commander Korman said. "I'll have whatever I can come up with by 0800 tomorrow. You just come in and I'll turn it all over to you.
I'm re'xy grateful for your cooperation."
"Well, what the hell, we're all in the same war, right, Commander?" When Colonel Whitney was off the line, Commander Korman pulled his leter to his wife from the typewriter, crumpled it up, and tossed it into a wastebasket. It would just have to wait.
Next Commander Korman called the duty off ficer at Naval Aviation Element, SHAEF, identified himself, and said he was coming right over and would be grateful if the file of Lieutenant Commander Bitter, Edwin H. , had been pulled by the time he got there.
When he arrived, he was informed that the only thing they had on Lieutenant Commander Bieer, Edwin H. , was that he had only a few days before he arrived in Europe, that his service records were not to be found, that the
"Are you familiar with our Impact Award program?"
"I can't say that I am," Korman said.
"Very briefly, when one of our people does something that clearly deserves recognition--when there's no question about what he's done and there are witnesses who can be trusted--we make the award just as soon as we can, the same day or the next day, and let the paperwork catch up later."
"And you say one of our people is involved? What did he do?
"He was riding as an observer in a B-17 on a raid we made on Dortsund today. Kraut fighters blew the nose off his airplane, killing the pilots, the bombardier, and the navigator. The plane was last seen in a spin with two engines on fire. We put it down as a confirmed loss.
But then, at five o'clock this afternoon, it came in at Fersfield with your man at the controls. All by his lonesome he'd flown it and navigated it all the way from Germany with one engine out and the fuselage shot full of holes."
"I'm surprised Kraut fighters didn't pick him off as a straggler," Commander Komman said.
"He avoided the fighters by flying it two hundred feet off the ground.
"Fucking incredible!"
"It gets better," Colonel Jerry Whitney said.
"He's a pilot, of course, but not a B-17 pilot. The Group Commander, who put him in for the DFC, said it was the first time the guy had even been inside a B-17, and that's what he was doing on the mission, getting familiarized. Talk about on-the ob training! aso when I heard about it, I immediately saw the public relations potential. So I called the Group Commander and told him not to give him the medal, we'd take care of the presentation ceremony."
"How do you plan to handle that?" Commander Korman asked.
"As soon as I touch base with you, I'm going to call over to Fersfield and tell this guy to move his tail to London. And first thing in the morning, I'll be at SHAEF, trying to find somebody senior to make the award. Maybe set up a special press briefing. Get the Signal Corps newsreel cameramen in. Using GI cameramen, we'll have prints to give Pathe, the March of Time, all the newsreel outlets."
"Sounds fine," Commander Komman said.
"I'll get the Navy a print, too, of course--inter service cooperation, right? --and I thought maybe the Navy would like to have a senior officer there, representing the Navy." only thing they knew about him was that he was involved in some Top Secret project, and that the only person who knew anything about that was Rear Admiral G. G. Foster.
Thirty minutes later, Commander Korman found himself standing at attention in the Connaught Hotel suite of Admiral Foster. Upon hearing Korman's recitation of the facts, Foster turned white. A moment later he infomled him that while he admitted he knew nothing about public relations, he could see at least a half dozen ways that Commander Komman had fucked this up.
"Goddamn it, Korman, Bitter is a naval officer! His exploits should reflect on the Navy, not the god damed Army Air Corps! That Air Corps public relations officer played you like a goddamned violin!"
"Sir," Commander Komman began.
"You just stand there, Commander," the vice admiral said, shutting him off, "and keep your ears open while I try to salvage what I can from the mess you've created." The admiral made several telephone calls, including one to General Walter Bedell Smith, whom he addressed as "Beetle," and finally turned to Commander Korman.
"Now, here's what you're going to do, Commander," he said. "And listen carefully, because I don't want to repeat myself. You're going to get in a car, and you're going to drive to Fersfield, and you are quietly going to locate Commander Bieer. You are going to tell him that I personally sent you for him. And nothing else. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Korman said.
"In the Navy, Komman, when a subordinate wishes to signify that he understands an order and is prepared to carry it out, he says Aye, aye, sir. "' "Yes, sir. Aye, aye, sir."
"You will bring Commander Biter to London. You will see that he is in a blue uniform and wearing all of his decorations, including in particular his Flying Tiger wings..
" sssir? n "What?"
"What kind of wings, sir?"
"Flying Tiger," Admiral Foster said impatiently. "You did know, Commander, did you not, that Commander Bitter was a Flying Tiger?"
"No, sir, I did not," Commander Korman confessed.
"Well, I can't say that surprises me," the admiral said, coldly sarcastic.
"But from a layman's point of view, Commander, correct me if I'm wrong, it would seem to me that would be just the sort of thing they callihuman interest. Something that would suggest that a naval aviator is really something special. That a naval aviator who has nine Japanese kills as a Flying Tiger can easily shift gears and take over the controls of a badly damaged Army Air Corps B-17."
"I take the admiral's point, sir," Commander Korman replied. He wondered how the admiral knew that Commander Bitter had nine kills.
The Air Corps PIO guy hadn't mentioned that. Had he known? Had he planned somehow to use that fascinating piece of infommation to sandbag the Navy?
"General Smith is going to try to see if he can fit Commander Bitter's award of the DFC into General Eisenhower's schedule tomorrow.
If he can't, he'll arrange for Biter to get it from General Eaker, or give it to him himself. I will be there, of course. Now, can you handle this, Commander, or would you like me to send one of my aides with you?"
"I'll check in with you just as soon as I have Commander Bieer in London, Admiral." [SEVEX] Lordon Statios Officroistrat-gicservicon 0800 Hours 11 January1943 "I'm almost afraid to ask why you're dressed like that, Dick," Chief of Station David Bruce said to Richard Canidy.
Bruce was a tall and handsome man, silver-haired, expensively tailored.
Whitaker had told Canidy of a remark Chesley Haywood Whittaker had once made about Bruce, "I always feel like backing out of his presence." The remark had stuck in Canidy's mind because Bruce was indeed more than a liale regal.
It. Colonel Edmund T. Stevens chuckled.
Canidy looked like a page from the Army Regulations dealing with prescribed attire for commissioned officers. He wore a green blouse and pink trousers. The shoes were regulation brown oxfords, suitably polished. The cap he had placed on the conference table in the chief of station's office was a regulation overseas cap. And the proper insignia of rank and qualification were affixed to the blouse in the proper places.
At the last division chiefs' conference he had shown up wearing a khaki shirt, a sheepskin flight jacket, olive-drab pants, sheepskin flight boots, and a leather-brimmed felt cap that, according to Colonel Stevens, looked to have just been rescued from five hours of being run over by traffic in Picadilly Circus.
"I have been shamed by Captain Fine," Canidy said, "who is psychologically unable to deviate by so much as an un shined button from' What the Properly Dressed officer Should Look Like." He paused, then went on, "Actually, we have a liale publicity problem, and I thought I should try to blend into the woodwork at SHAEF when I go over there."
"Since we don't go seeking publicity, "David Bruce asked dryly in his soft and cultured voice, "quite the opposite, how can
we have a problem?"
"This one came looking for us, " Canidy said. "At 1115, some big shot, as yet unspecified, is going to pin the DFC on Ed Bitter. And from what I have been able to find out so far, it will be done before newsreel cameras and fifty or sixty reporters."
"What the hell are you t'lking about?" Colonel Stevens asked, a liale impatiently.
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