W E B Griffin - Men at War 2 - Secret Warriors

by Secret Warriors(Lit)

  "Dick Canidy," Captain Fine said, extending his hand.

  "I don't know Why I didn't recognize you, I guess I expected you to be halfway around the world."

  "I'm much better-looking than I used to be," Canidy said.

  Fine laughed.

  "I saw in the papers, of course, that Jim Whittaker got out of the Philippines. I wondered what happened to you."

  "I got out of China," Canidy said. "But you were in the Navy," Fine questioned, indicating Canidy's Air Corps uniform. "And you were a lawyer," Canidy said as they shook hands, "Things change. The war, I hear, has something to do with that." Fine laughed again, then said, "Well, I'm glad you did, and I'm glad to see you. But I suspect this is not a coincidence."

  "Can your copilot handle parking that aircraft?" Canidy asked.

  "Interesting question," Fine said dryly "I suppose he has to learn sometime, doesn't he?" He turned to the airplane and made gestures telling the copilot to take the airplane to its parking place.

  "Curiosity is about to overwhelm me," Fine said to Canidy. The conversation was interrupted by a roar from the B- 17's outboard port engine. The copilot, Canidy thought, was running the engine much too fast to taxi. The copilot retarded his throttle to a more reasonable level, and the B-17E began to move. Fine and Canidy exchanged the smug smiles of veteran pilots over the foibles of new ones. Then Fine said, "He's got a hundred thirty hours' total time. He'll learn."

  "Can we talk in your BOQ? Do you have a roommate?"

  "We can talk there," Fine said.

  Fine's room was in a frame building so new it smelled of freshly sawed lumber. Fine led Canidy to his spartan quarters-two small rooms, with the studs exposed, and a shared bathroom with a tin-walled shower-and told him to make himself comfortable. "Close and lock the door, please, Stan," Canidy said, then reached into his tunic and took from it a tiny American flag on an eight-inch pole. He waved it at Fine.

  "In case you miss the symbolism," he said, I'm waving the flag at you.

  THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 IRS "I don't think I'm going to like this," Fine said, laughing. "You always carry a flag around?"

  "No," Canidy said.

  "I stole this one from your group commander's desk while he left me to check out my orders." Fine smiled.

  "They apparently checked out," he said.

  "What do they say?" Canidy handed him the orders. "They don't say much, do they?" Fine said when he had read them. "Except that whatever you're doing has the approval of the Air Corps. And that it's secret. I used to be in the motion-picture business, you remember, and this has all the earmarks of a Grade B adventure thriller. A mysterious officer appears, carrying secret orders. Are you now going to ask me to volunteer for a secret, dangerous mission, from which there is rtually no chance of returning alive?" VI idy said, "that you'll get back "I'd say the chances are sixty-forty," Can all right."

  Fine looked at him long enough to see that he was serious. "I'll be damned!" he said. "There's a mission, a long-distance flight, that we would like you to undertake, Canidy said. "We?" Fine asked. "@",o's 'we'?"

  "I can't tell you that yet," Canidy said. "Hey, come on! " Canidy shrugged and smiled. "Well, let's see, Dick," Fine said.

  "This wouldn't have anything to do with Colonel Donovan, would it?"

  "Colonel who?" Canidy asked innocently. "And you are also forbidden to tell me where I would be going, or for how long, or why. Right?"

  "How long will it take you to pack?" Canidy asked. "That would depend on where I would be going, and how long I would be gone. Will I need my fur coat or short sleeves?"

  "If I were you, I wouldn't leave anything behind."

  "I'm usually not much of a drinker," Fine said.

  "And taking a drink right now probably isn't very bright, but I'm going to have one anyway. Scotch all right with you?"

  "I'm driving, thank you just the same," Canidy said.

  Fine took a bottle of Scotch from a shelf in his closet and poured two inches of it into a water glass. "And if I tell you "Thanks, but no thanks'?" he asked. "They wouldn't have sent me after you," Canidy said, "if they didn't need you."

  Saying that seemed to embarrass him, Fine saw, although Canidy tried to cover it by waving the little American flag again.

  I don't know why I am surprised about this, Fine thought. I should have known that sooner or later the service would require me to do what it wants me to do, as opposed to indulging me in the acting out of my personal fantasies.

  On December 9, 1941, Stanley S. Fine, Vice President for Legal Affairs, Continental Motion Picture Studios, Inc." who had been in New York on business when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, took the train to Washington to see Greg Armstrong, a friend from law school who had given up corporate law to serve his country in uniform. When he found Greg, who was working in one of the temporary buildings-from the First World War-near the Smithsonian Institution, he quickly saw that his friend thought Stanley Fine had gone off the deep end. Even though Greg professed to understand why Fine wanted to come into the service, and even why Fine wanted to fly, it was clear that Greg thought that flying was the last thing Stanley should be doing. But still, he went through the motions.

  "There's two ways you can handle the flying thing, Stanley," he said.

  "You can apply to one of the aviation cadet selection boards. If you've got a pilot's license-what did you say you have?"

  "I've got a commercial pilot's certificate with five hundred ten hours, and an instrument ticket, single-engine land."

  "Okay. What I'm saying is that you can certainly get into the aviation cadet program. Which means after you got your wings, you would be either a flight officer or a second lieutenant. Or, Stanley, you can go in the service as a lawyer, With your years of practice, you can start out as a captain. "I don't want to be a lawyer."

  "Hear me out. You're a captain. I can have that paperwork for you in THE BECKET WARRIORS N 18T two weeks. You get a commission, and they tell you to hold yourself ready for active service. While you're waiting to be called, you apply for flight duty. Send them a certified copy of your licenses, and so on. They'll probably jump at you. But you do have a senator in your pocket who can do you a favor, don't you?"

  "Do I have to do that?"

  "You don't even have to go in the Army, Stan.

  You're a married man with three kids. And movies are going to be declared an essential war industry, I heard that last week. If you want to play Errol Flynn in Dawn Patrol, though, you're going to need a senator." On February 7, 1942, they gave a going-away party at Continental Studios. It was held on Sound Stage Eleven, and Max Lieberman had it catered by Chasen's, so the people in the Continental commissary could attend. There was one big head table on a four-foot platform built especially for the occasion. It sat sixty-eight people, and it was draped with bunting. Behind it hung an enormous American flag. Everybody else sat at ten-seat round tables. With the exception of Max and Sophie Lieberman, the guests at the head table were Continental employees about to enter the armed forces. The honorees were introduced alphabetically, and Max Lieberman made it through best boys and truck drivers and clerks and scenery painters and even two actors until he got to Stanley Fine, who was his nephew-Sophie's sister Sadie's boy-and who was the nearest thing he had to a son. That was when he got something in his throat, and then in his eye, and so Stanley took over for him at the mike and introduced the others while Uncle Max sat blowing his nose and wiping away tears. The founder and chairman of the board of Continental Studios got control of himself by the time Stanley had finished the introductions. He reclaimed the mike and announced that in case anybody was wondering, everybody had his job waiting for him, so they should get the lead out of their ass and win the war. Meanwhile, Continental had movies to make. Captain Stanley S. Fine, judge Advocate General's Corps, had entered upon active duty for the duration plus six months on May 1, 1942. His initial duty station was the U.S. Army Air Corps Officers' Reception Station, Boca Rat on, Florida. The Adjutant
General of the United States Army was led to understand that assigning Fine to the Army Air Corps would please the junior senator from California, and he so ordered.

  When Captain Fine reached Boca Rat on, he learned that the U.S. Army Air Corps Officers' Reception Station had only three weeks before been the Boca Rat on Hotel and Club, an exclusive, very expensive resort.

  The Air Corps had taken it over for the duration, rolled up the carpets, put the furniture in storage, closed the bar, installed GI furniture and a GI mess, and turned the place into a basic training camp for newly commissioned officers. Fine's fellow student officers had also been lawyers, or doctors, dentists, engineers, wholesale grocers, paper merchants, trucking company executives, construction engineers, or other civilians whose occupations had a military application and who had been directly commissioned into the services.

  He had been at Boca Rat on six weeks when his senator's influence was again felt. Captain Fine was engaged in a class exercise in the administration of military justice. He was playing the role of prosecutor in a mock court martial when a runner summoned him from the classroom-which had been the card room of the Boca Rat on Hotel-to the station commander's office. "I don't understand this, Captain," the station commander said, "but we are in receipt of orders assigning you to the Three-forty-fourth Heavy Bombardment Group at Chanute Field. It says for transition training to B- 17 aircraft. You're not a pilot, are you?"

  "I have a civilian license, Sir."

  "I never heard of anything like this before," the colonel said.

  "But orders are orders, Captain." When he reported to the 344th Bombardment Group at Chanute, he was sure there was no way he would be permitted to become a pilot. "The only time you have is in Piper Cubs and a Beechcraft?" the colonel asked. "I'm afraid so, Sir," Fine said.

  "I hope you can fly, Fine," he said.

  "And not just because you know some important politicians and the general told me to give you every consideration."

  "I wanted to fly very badly," Fine said.

  "I thought I needed some help. That now seems rather childish. "If you can fly," the colonel said, "I'd like to make you a squadron commander.

  I've got a lot of very healthy, very impetuous young men who need a stabilizing influence. In my day, it took ten years to make captain.

  Now we're making them in a year, and then making them B-17 aircraft commanders with a hundred twenty hours' total time. It's working better than I thought it would, but I would still like as many officers like you as I can get. I really need officers with five hundred hours and some instrument experience. Who can really navigate."

  "I was about to say that I might well be more use as a lawyer," Fine said. "That's not my decision to make," the colonel had told him.

  "I have one other officer, Major Thomas son, who was an aircraft commander before last week. I'm going to introduce you to him, explain the situation, and see w iat t S. "Yes, Sir," Fine said "On the basis of your extensive civilian aeronautical experience, Captain Fine," the colonel said dryly, "Headquarters, Army Air Corps, has seen fit to designate you as a military aviator. You are now a pilot, Captain Fine.

  Congratulations."

  He tossed Fine a pair of aviator's wings still pinned to a piece of cardboard. 4C "If you can't handle the Seventeen," the colonel said, and I really hope you can, there are other places where you can be put to good use."

  The next day, Fine began what he was sure would be at least a two week course in the B-17 aircraft. Major Thomas son turned out to be a bright-eyed twenty-three-year-old West Pointer who told Fine that he had graduated from the last prewar, yearlong pilot training course.

  Thomas son almost casually went through the B-17E dash-one with him for most of the day, then took him to the flight line for what Fine expected would be a hands-on explanation of the aircraft. "I've never seen one up close before," Fine confessed. "It's a pretty good bird, Captain," Thomas son said.

  "It's the E model. I picked this one up in Seattle last week." Fine had been introduced to the crew. There was a navigator and a bombardier, both officers, and an engineer, a radioman, and tail and turret gunners.

  There was no copilot. "I don't think you'll have any trouble with it, Captain," Thomas son said to him, then raised his voice.

  "You guys get aboard."

  It took a moment for that to sink in. They were obviously about to take the B- 17 aloft-without a copilot. The incredible truth seemed to be that on his first time up in a B-17E, he would fly as copilot. "I think I should tell you," Fine said as he sat down in the copilot's seat and looked around the cockpit, "that I have a total of zero hours' twin-engine time."

  "That's exactly as many as I had when I first came down here," Major Thomas son said.

  "They sent me to Seventeens right out of primary."

  "Jesus!" Fine said. "The way you fly this thing," Thomas son said, "is that the copilot reads the checklist out loud." He handed Fine a sheet of cardboard three inches wide and six inches long.

  "And the pilot does what it says. Got it?"

  "We'll find out," Fine said. He read the first item on the list: "Master power buss on."

  "Master power buss on," Thomas son parroted. "Uncage gyros," "Gyros uncaged." Fine looked at the artificial horizon on the instrument panel before him. There were two sets of instruments-one for the pilot and one for the copilot. He reached out and uncaged his gyro. The ball inside began to move. "Verify crew in position, crew hatches closed," Fine read. He didn't understand that and looked at Thomas son. "You have to get on the intercom to do that," Thomas son explained, and showed him how to switch it on. "Crew report," Thornasson's voice came over the intercom. One by one, the crew reported their presence. "Navigator, yo!

  "Bombardier here, forward hatch closed and locked," "Radio here, Sir."

  "Tail here, Sir."

  "Belly, yo! "Engineer, rear door closed and locked."

  "Fire extinguisher in place," Fine read.

  "Ground crew clear." Thomas son looked out his window and reported: "Clear! "Number one engine, full rich," Fine read. "One full rich."

  "Prime number one engine."

  "One primed."

  "Start number one engine," Fine read. "Starting number one," Thomas son replied. There came the whine of the starter, and then the cough of the engine as it tried to start, and the aircraft began to tremble.

  The engine caught, smoothed out. Fine looked across the cockpit to the left wing. He could see the propeller turning. "Number one running smoothly," Thomas son said. "Lean and idle number one," Fine read.

  "Number three engine, full rich."

  "Number one lean and idle," Thomas son replied.

  "Number three full rich. "Start number three," Fine read. "Starting number three." The propeller on the engine at Fine's right began to turn slowly as the starter ground, and then the engine caught. "What you do," Thomas son said dryly, "is taxi to the threshold with just two engines."

  "I see," Fine said. "Then, when you get there, Captain, before you take off, I suggest you start the other two." Fine looked at him in disbelief. "Go ahead," Thomas son said, smiling.

  "There always has to be a first time. Fine had picked up the microphone.

  "Chanute, Air Corps Four-oh-one in front of the terminal for taxi and takeoff."

  "Well, at least you know that much," Thomas son's metallic voice came over the intercom.

  "I've had guys in the right seat who got on the horn and called "Yoo-hoo, Tower! Anybody there?" The tower came back: "Air Corps Four-oh-one, taxi left on taxiway six to the threshold of the active, The active is three-two. You are number one to take off. There is no traffic in the immediate area. The altimeter is two-niner-niner-niner, the time one-five past the hour, and the winds are five, gusting to fifteen, from the north."

  "Where the hell are the brakes on this thing?"

  Fine asked. The pilot showed him how to release the brakes. Fine put his hand on the throttles and ever so gently nudged them forward. The pitch of
the engines changed, and the B-17E had started to move. A week later, he was certified as B- 17 qualified, and a week after that as pilot in command. Two weeks after that, he scrawled his signature to a document of the 319th Bomber Squadron: "The undersigned herewith assumes command, Stanley S. Fine, Captain, Air Corps, Commanding." He then set about to make the 319th Bomber Squadron the best squadron in the group, in the wing, in the Army Air Corps. He was as happy as he could ever remember.

  I should have known it couldn't last, he thought, looking balefully at Dick Canidy. "Cue the rolling drums and the trumpets," he said.

  "Our hero is about to volunteer."

  "Then let me be the first to welcome you, Captain," Canidy said, "to Donovan's Dilettantes."

  "I thought so," Fine said.