"The one thing I don't want is the German Army," he said. "How are you going to get me out of here? In addition to the Sicherheitsdienst people, there is also a pair from the Deuxi@me Bureau out there sitting in a Citro@n just outside the gate."
"Before we go any further, do I have your word?"
"OK, Christ. Sure." He held three fingers extended at the level of his shoulder. "Boy Scout's honor," he said. "How's that, you prick?"
Sidi el Ferruch slapped his face as hard as he could.
"Don't forget again where you are, and what you are, and who I am," el Ferruch said.
Fulfriar balled his fists, and for a moment el Ferruch thought he was going to punch him. But in the end, Fulmar relaxed his fingers.
"OK," he said, his voice strained. "I give you my word of honor. Before I try to get in touch with any Americans, I'll tell you first. Is that good enough?"
"Don't expect to impose on the friendship between US5" el Ferruch said.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Fulmar said sarcastically. ,just tell me how you're going to get me out of here."
"The Germans are not paying any attention to the natives, and the Deuxi@me Bureau will not interfere with me unless I give them cause," el Ferruch said. "So the trick is not to give them cause ' "
Five minutes later, Sidi el Ferruch, accompanied by one Of his Berber guards, whose lower face was masked in the Berber tradition, rode the elevator down to the lobby, where Najib Hammi was waiting along with four other Berbers. They walked across the lobby and went outside and entered the automobiles in which they had arrived.
There was a Sicherheitsdienst agent in the lobby, but he paid little more than perfunctory attention to the small group of natives who came out of the elevator, chattering like gossiping women.
Across the street from the H6tei d'anfa, one of the Deuxi6me Bureau agents pointed his finger at them as he counted them like sheep. He was satisfied. Seven had gone into the hotel, and seven had come out.
In twenty minutes they were out of Casablanca on the Atlantic coast road to El Jadida. There they turned onto the road which would take them-via the Tizi-ntichka pass-through the mountains. The road was narrow, unpaved, and there were no barriers. The French Foreign Legion had built it using only picks and shovels.
The trip to the palace of the pasha of Ksar es Souk took them all night.
S Kunming, China 18 December 1941
When the P40-Bs and the First and Second Squadrons of the American Volunteer Group began to land at Kunming, Wingmen canidy nd Bitter were waiting for them. They had been there three days. Callidy and Bitter had been officer- and deputy-officer-in-charge of moving the ground element from Toungoo to Kunming.
The ground element of the American Volunteer Group had made the first leg-about 350 miles-of the trip to China aboard a special train, made up of thirty-three flatcars, a dining car, and three first-class passenger cars.
,Army bodied" (canvas-roofed flatbed) Studebaker and International two-ton trucks (some olive drab with Chinese Army insignia, some , With the CAMCO legend on their doors, and some unmarked), all loaded to capacity, were chained to the flatcars. SO were two aircraft-fueling trucks, a fire truck, half a dozen Chevrolet pickup trucks, four jeeps, and three Studebaker Commander sedans, one of them Canidy's. fter midnight, and The train passed through Mandalay shortly a arrived at Lashio, the eastern terminus of the Burma Road, as dawn was breaking.
While the Americans of the AVG group ate breakfast in the dining car, the vehicles were unloaded from the flatcars and inspected by a team of American mechanics. Six of the trucks and one of the pickups were judged unfit to make the trip, They would follow with subsequent convoys. road trip, the As Canidy was being given instructions for the CAMCO Twin Beech D 18S appeared in the sky, and thirty minutes later John B. Dolan, Carrying two canvas suitcases, walked UP to Canidy's Studebaker and asked if he had room for a hitchhiker.
Once the convoy set out it averaged 20 mph over the Burma Road, and it took them forty-four hours to drive its 681 miles. This and included a ten-hour overnight stop. The road was too narrow too dangerous to drive in the dark. they had seen hu-At more than a dozen places along the road, trucks which had man chains of Chinese manhandling cargoes Of es. And there had gone over the edge back up the steep mountainsid been three large black gashes burned in the thick vegetation where fuel trucks had exploded and burned.
In the Studebaker, Dolan volunteered to explain how the Arnerican Volunteer Group would have to function now that the United States was in the war.
They were supposed to have one hundred pilots. They had eighty. There were supposed to be about three hundred people it, the support element. There were just over one hundred thirty - And there would be no More "Volunteers" released from the Army and the Navy and Marine Corps to "Work for CAMCO."
Of the one hundr @ed P40-Bs shipped from Buffalo, seventy-five remained. Ten were simply missing, probably riding the Orient in the hold of some freighter, or on the bottom of the sea in ships sunk by the Japanese. Twelve had been wrecked beyond repair in training. Of the seventy-five aircraft now in AVG hands, twenty were grounded, more than likely permanently, because of missing parts.
When they reached Kunming, very early in the morning, smoke had been still rising from the fires started by the Japanese bombing attack the previous day. The Japanese tactic was to bomb the city with incendiaries. They knew that fires were going to cause more physical and psychological damage than high explosives.
Kunming's only defenses against the aerial attack were a halfdozen batteries of 20mm antiaircraft cannon, which the Japanese could easily fly around, and some.50caliber water-cooled machine guns protecting the air base against strafing attacks. Since it was unnecessary for the Japanese to descend into range of the.50s, the machine uns were seldom fired.
But the Kunming air base itself was far better militarily than anyone expected. There were solid revetments for the planes, and piles of stones and sandbags protected the maintenance buildings against anything but a direct hit. The runways were long and smooth. And because they were made of crushed stone, a bomb striking a runway would knock it out only until the hole could be filled with more crushed stone.
It was literally hand-built. Thousands of people had spent long days, using only the most rudimentary hand tools, to build it.
For the AVG itself, something like a U.S. military base had been established. There was a BOQ (called a hostel), with showers, dayrooms, a bar, and a library. There was a baseball field and tennis courts, a small medical facility, and even a pistol range.
Dolan, Canidy, Bitter, and the others were not the first Arnericans at Kunming. They had been preceded by people from CAMCCI and by more old China hands from Chennault's staff. three squadrons as the other pilots had, and since all the rooms in Since Canidy and Bitter had not been assigned to one of the the hostel had been reserved for the squadrons, Canidy and Bitter moved in with Dolan and the support personnel, as they had in Ran-goon.
The operation of the airfield was under a Chinese major general, Huang Jen Lin, an enormous man who-Canidy and Bitter were promptly and significantly infortnedwas a devout Christian. General Huang spoke fluent English and seemed quite competent- After meeting Huang, Canidy and Bitter were immediately issued brandnew U.S. Army Air Corps horsehide flight jackets. On the back of these had been hand-painted a sort of signboard. At its top a legend in Chinese announced that the wearer was an American who had come to China to fight the Japanese, and that it was the duty of every Chinese to give him whatever assistance he required.
The food in the mess was astonishing. Not only was it very rade good, but it was American. The Chinese chef had learned his t as number-one kitchen boy aboard a U.S. Navy gunboat on the Yangtze River patrol. And there was something else in the mess Canidy found delightful: Chinese girls from the American Missionary College. They had been enlisted for service as interpreters. They were quite lovely, adored American food, spoke excellent English, and one of them, a slight, d
elicate, graceful girl, was receptive to Canidy's invitation to come to his room and see what they could Pick up on the Hallicrafter's shortwave radio.
Sensing that Ed Bitter really disapproved of what he had in Mind, Canidy spent a moment with him before he left with the girl W. E. B. a R I Ir IF "What's the matter with you now?"
"Nothing."
"Because they're Chinese? Amazing thing about Chinese girls, Canidy said, "they get better-looking by the minute."
"You don't think you're taking advantage of her?" Bitter asked. "That doesn't bother you? For Christ's sake, she's from a r issio ary school. She doesn't know what you want from her." n n "What I'm doing, Eddie," Canidy said patiently, "is getting laid." Then, grasping Bitter by the arm, he theatrically proclaimed, "Live today, Edwin, for tomorrow you may wish you were dead! Into the valley of death fly the noble ninety-five."
Bitter was not amused.
A few minutes later, Canidy had learned that General Huang's thoroughness in providing for the needs of the Americans went so far as providing interpreters with supplies of foil-wrapped U.S. Navy-issue condoms.
Early in the morning of December 20, Canidy was awakened before dawn by a shy and giggling interpreter who shielded her eyes from the interpreter in his bed and sweetly singsonged that "Meester Crooooookshanks" would be happy if "Meeester Can-Eyedie" would join him immediately at breakfast.
Ham and eggs, pancakes, strawberry preserves, and good black coffee were already on the table when Crookshanks waved him into a chair. There was another pilot wearing an Air Corps green shirt and trousers, with a piece of white parachute silk tied as a foulard around his neck. There were wings, similar to Air Corps wings, with the flaming sun of China where the federal shield usually went. It was the first time Canidy had seen such insignia.
"You know Doug Douglass, of course?" Crookshanks said. "Sure," Canidy said. Doug Douglass was short, crew-cutted, and young-looking. The first time Canidy had seen him had been on the ship on the way over. He had thought then that Douglass looked fnore like a Boy Scout than an officer and pilot. He had subsequently learned that Douglass was a West Pointer, one of those rare "natural" pilots. Douglass also shared (as much as could be expected of a West Pointer) much of Canidy's amused scorn for Crookshank's attempts to "shape up" the Flying Tigers.
Canidy wondered if Douglass's irreverence for proper behavior and the "wrong attitude" had earned him a place on Crookshank's shit list.
"What I'm going to do, Canidy," Crookshanks said, "is send up early-moming patrols of two aircraft, to watch the area the Japanese usually come through."
Canidy nodded.
"There's the ground spotter network, of course," Crookshanks continued, "but we don't really know yet whether that really works. And we don't really know how well our air-to-ground communications are going to function. That's what we hope to find out from you two."
"When do we go?" Douglass asked.
"First light, about fifteen minutes."
"OK ' " Canidy said. "Why me?"
"Because you're a pretty good navigator," Crookshanks said. "I want a pretty accurate position report, to compare with the ground spotter network's report."
"OK," Canidy said.
"Any Other questions?"
"You plan to have me doing this regularly?"
"For the time being. You and Bitter can alternate. I plan to have an afternoon patrol, too. And we'll rotate the pilots from the squadron who will fly with you."
"I don't like to fly pool airplanes," Canidy said.
"The only aircraft we have are assigned to squadrons. You'll have to fly what's available."
"I don't care which one," Canidy said. "I would just like same one, time after time." th I don't see how I can arrange that," Crookshanks said. fie waited until Canidy nodded, and then went on. "Now, the way this will work this morning is that you will fly patrol until we send y" a report of incoming aircraft from the ground spotters. You will th., confirm sighting. When you have their location, you will so report by radio. We're not sure about our communications, so while you,re reporting by radio, Doug will hightail it back here with the same in_ formation. You will remain in sight of the Japanese formation."
"OK," Canidy said. "And what if we sight a formation before we get it from the ground spotters?"
"Same thing. Fix the location, course, altitude, and so on, radio it, and send Doug back here immediately."
"OK," Canidy said. "Am I supposed to attack the formation?"
Crookshanks met his eyes. "Use your own judgment," be said softly.
Canidy nodded. Then he drained his coffee.
"I'll see you on the flight line in ten minutes, Doug," he said.
"If I'm late," Douglass replied, "you just go on without me."
Canidy smiled at him. At least he wouldn't be going out for the first time with some damned hero, eager to do battle with the Dirty Jap.
They found a Japanese formation before they were advised of its presence by ground spotters relaying the information through Kunming.
They were on oxygen at fifteen thousand feet. Six thousand feet below, flying directly toward them between two cloud formations, were a dozen Japanese airplanes, too far away to be typed, flying in two uneven Vs.
Canidy waggled his wings, and at the same time turned to look at Doug Douglass, who was flying two hundred feet off his right wingtip. Douglass was also waggling his wings and pointing ahead. Canidy nodded and held up his chart for Douglass to see. Canidy ed the location on his chart and went on the air long enough to mark transmit, once, the coordinates. Just the coordinates, not the altitude or direction or airspeed. He had no way to judge those. Doug Douglass would have to estimate their altitude, airspeed, and direction and report them as well as he could. It was possible that the Japanese would have their radios tuned to the same frequency they were using.
Douglass bent his head over his lap, obviously marking down the coordinates Canidy had given him; then he raised his head and shook it exaggeratedly: OK.
Canidy made a motion with his right hand: Go.
Douglass nodded and peeled off to his right, toward Kunming.
Now that Douglass was gone with the information, it was safe to try to send it by radio.
"Kunming' " Canidy said to his microphone. "Dawn patrol leader. Twelve Japanese single-engine aircraft at nine thousand feet, course one hundred seventyfive degrees."
He waited a moment, redialed the transmitter frequency, and repeated the message. There was no reply to either call.
He turned the P40-B slowly, in a wide arc, maintaining his altitude. When he completed the 180-degree turn, the Japanese were now almost directly below him. He lowered his left wing and looked down at them, then straightened the wings and made a long, flat 360-degree turn. When it was completed, the Japanese aircraft were some distance ahead of him.
As he flew along, his hands inside his gloves were sweating, and he felt the chill when the sweat on his forehead encountered the cold air of fifteen thousand feet.
"Shit," he said, and he pushed the stick forward and tested his guns. The two.50s on the nose ahead of him spit fire. He could not see the.30s in the wing.
The gunsights on the P40-B consisted of cross hairs on a foothigh pedestal mounted on the fuselage in front of the canopy, and a fwt-high pedestal eighteen inches in front of that. He lined the sights up on the last aircraft in the Japanese formation, the third air, craft in the right of the V. He could identify the aircraft now. The facts he had learned about the Mitsubishi B5M in Rangoon came to him:
I 000-horsepower 14-cylinder radial engine.
Crew of three.
1700-pound bomb load.
One flexibly mounted 7.7-mm machine gun facing aft. Two 7.7mm machine guns in the leading edge of each wing.
Maximum speed 325 mph. Cruising speed 200 mph.
The Japanese observer-gunner had spotted him and frantically charged his machine gun, a Japanese copy of the Browning.
Canidy held him a second or tw
o in the cross hairs of his gunsight, then raised his nose so that the cross hairs were now pointing twenty yards ahead of the Mitsubishi. He pushed down with his thumb on the machine-gun button.
The.50s, he realized, were off. The stream of their tracers was to the right of the Mitsubishi. But the stream of tracers from the.30 in his left wing stitched the fuselage from just forward of the vertical stabilizer. He saw the Plexiglas of the long, narrow canopy shatter. He held his position as long as he dared; then he pushed the nose farther down, diving first under the Japanese aircraft and then banking steeply for the nearest cloud cover.
As soon as the gray of the cloud surrounded the P40-B, Canidy put the aircraft into a steep, climbing turn, welcoming the feeling of invisibility the cloud gave him.
When the cloud began to break up at its tops he realized that he was ready to return to the fight, prepared now to compensate for the off-to-the-right firing cone of the.50 calibers. And he knew how to fi gh t.
W E B Griffin - Men at War 1 - The Last Heroes Page 27
