"Major Canidy, may I introduce Lieutenant J.V.M. Bean Williams, late of the Household Cavalry?"
"How'd'ja do?" It. Beane-Williams said with a smile, offering his hand."
hate to put it to you so bluntly, Major, but you have, so to speak, just enter the "Out' door. England... I presume you came from England... is in quit the opposite direction."
Canidy chuckled. He liked this Englishman.
"Hughson tells me that you can put us ashore on the mainland," Canid said.
"I presume there is a reason?" Saint Peter said.
"Someplace where we can make contact with Mihajlovic's guerrillas, Canidy said.
"Our ultimate destination is Budapest, and the sooner we can gs there, the better."
"Budapest is rather nasty this time of year," Saint Peter said.
"Snow an.
slush, and ever-increasing numbers of the Boches. But I daresay you've al read considered that, haven't you?"
Without waiting for a reply, he entered into a conversation with the Yi goslavian captain.
Finally, he turned to Canidy.
"Todor suggests we put you ashore at Ploce," he said.
"He has a first cousi twice removed there. Or did he say a 'second cousin, once removed'? He aSa asked that I express his practically boundless admiration for your wristwatch, Canidy looked at the Yugoslavian captain, who was smiling warmly at tuff exposing two gold and two missing teeth, i Then he unstrapped his chronometer and handed it to him.
The Yugoslavian said something, and Saint Peter translated, j "He says, "Oh, I couldn't."" "Tell him I insist," Canidy said I The Yugoslav unstrapped his cheap watch and handed it to Canidy.
"He says," Saint Peter said, "that if you insist..." } Canidy chuckled. I "It's sixty miles, or thereabouts, to Ploce," Saint Peter said.
"If we're N stopped, it should take us four, perhaps four and a half hours." | "And if we're stopped?" 1 "Then none of us will get to visit Piece's many historical and cultural 9 tractions," Saint Peter said. 'i
lONE]
First Lieutenant Hank Darmstadter was riding in the copilot's seat working the radios when Commander John Dolan suddenly reached over and grasped his upper arm in a very tight grip.
Startled, Darmstadter looked at him. Dolan's face was white and beaded with sweat. He seemed to be in pain.
"Indigestion," Dolan said with a terrible effort.
"There's a bottle of medicine in my briefcase. Get it, will you?"
The first thing Darmstadter remembered, as he hastily unfastened his seat and shoulder harness, was that Dolan had been medically retired from the Navy before the war because of a heart condition.
Jesus, he's having a heart attack' Dolan's black leather Navy-issue briefcase was on a shelf in the passageway between the cockpit and the auxiliary fuel tanks that had been installed in the bomb bay. Its contents expanded the accordion folds, and Darmstadter grunted with the effort it took to open the catch and the straps that held it closed.
As he started rummaging through the briefcase, he glanced past the auxiliary fuel tanks into the fuselage. The German girl was looking at him. She had her hair done up in braids, which she had then coiled on the sides of her head.
Darmstadter wondered who she was and why getting her and her father out of Germany had been worth all the effort it had cost.
They had been introduced, and she had politely shaken hands, but had remained silent. From the way her eyes had followed the conversation, however, Darmstadter had known that she at least understood English. And yet she had asked no questions, not even about where they were taking her. He wondered if she was in some kind of emotional shock, or simply acknowledging that for the moment she had no voice whatever in what happened to her.
Then he had a strange thought. He wondered what she had done during ile flight about taking a leak. There was a relief tube in the cockpit, but that Wouldn't have done her any good, even if she had known about it and asked for it.
He returned his attention to Dolan's briefcase. There was everything in it, from a copy of TMB-25-1 Flight Operation B-25 Series Aircraft to a change of socks and underwear and a toilet kit. And a pint bottle of a bright red liquid with a label reading "Medical Corps, U.S. Army" and the typewritten message:
"It. Commander J. R. Dolan, USNR, Take As Required for Indigestion."
Darmstadter hurried back to the cockpit.
Dolan reached for the bottle. Darmstadter unscrewed the cap and handed it to him.
"Sit down and take the airplane," Dolan ordered. Then he waited until Darmstadter had gotten back into the copilot's seat, fastened his seat and shoulder belts again, and nodded to show his readiness to fly the airplane before he put the bottle of bright red liquid to his lips.
He took a large swallow, hesitated, and then took a second. In a moment, the look of pain on his face went away, and he managed a weak smile.
Darmstadter looked at the instrument panel. They had been homing in on the Cairo RDF for the past thirty minutes. The needle on the signal-strength gauge was almost at the upper peg. They were flying ten degrees to the left of the direction indicated by the needle on the RDF antenna indicator.
Darmstadter made the course correction and then looked at Dolan again.
The startling paleness was gone from his face.
"You better start letting down," Dolan ordered.
"Thousand feet a minute."
Darmstadter nodded, then reached over his head for the trim wheel and lowered the nose. After that, he retarded the throttle just a hair.
There was time to reconsider his first alarmed conclusion that Dolan was , having a heart attack. That had been, he decided, a fear reaction. What was i wrong with Dolan was what Dolan had told him: an attack of indigestion. He probably had them often, for he was carrying the bright red indigestion medicine with him.
Dolan said something, and Darmstadter missed it.
"Excuse me?"
"I said it must have been Canidy's goddamned steaks," Dolan said, leaning , over to make himself heard over the roar of the engines.
"Every time I eat', charred meat, it does it to me." | Darmstadter nodded. | He was right back to Dolan was having, had had, a heart attack. He'd smelled Dolan's breath when the older man had leaned over. Whatever was in that bottle, bright red or not, usually came in a narrow-necked bottle with a label reading "Sour Mash Bourbon."
"You better sit it down," Dolan said, leaning over again and sending Dam1 stadter another cloud of bourbon fumes. Then he slumped back against the |
cushions of the pilot's seat and took another healthy swallow of "indigestion medicine."
Darmstadter reached for the microphone and put it before his lips.
"Cairo, Army Four Three Three."
A voice with the unmistakable tones of Brooklyn came over the earphones.
"This is Cairo, go ahead, Army Four Three Three."
"Army Pour Three Three, a B-25 aircraft, is passing through niner thousand about thirty miles north of your station. Request approach and landing."
"Four Three Three, Cairo. The winds are from the north at ten, gusting to twenty. Visibility is unlimited. The altimeter is Two Niner Niner Niner. Descend to three thousand feet and report when you have the airfield in sight."
"Cairo, Pour Three Three. Understand three thousand," Darmstadter said, and hung his microphone up.
Then Dolan's voice came over his earphones, and he turned and saw that he had his microphone in front of his lips.
"Cairo," Dolan said.
"Four Three Three. Four Three Three is Ninth Air Force flight Four Zero Five. Acknowledge."
Darmstadter wondered what the hell that meant. It didn't surprise the Cairo tower.
"Four Three Three," the operator with the Brooklyn accent said, "Cairo.
Roger your Flight Four Zero Five."
Darmstadter could see three large pyramidal structures to his left.
My God, those are the pyramids!! The real ones!
And then he
looked to his left and picked up his microphone again.
"Cairo, Four Three Three, I am at four thousand five hundred. I have the field in sight."
"Pour Three Three, Cairo. Maintain present course and rate of descent.
You are cleared as number one to land on Runway Three Four. The altimeter is Two Niner Niner Niner. The winds are from the north at ten, gusting to fifteen.
Report on final."
"Four Three Three, roger."
Darmstadter looked at Dolan as he reached for the throttle quadrant. Now there was a sort of dazed look on his face. And he had not reached for the plastic sealed landing checkoff list hanging from the instrument panel.
Darmstadter realized that he was going to have to land the airplane himself, without help. But he was more concerned about Dolan's condition than he was about getting the flaps and gear down without help.
He turned to the right, then the left.
"Cairo, Four Three Three on final."
"Roger, Four Three Three. You are number one to land. Look out for the C-47 on the threshold."
Darmstadter put on twenty degrees of flaps, then lowered the gear. He came in low and slow and put it on the ground within a hundred yards of the threshold.
"Four Three Three on the ground."
"Four Three Three, take Taxiway Five, a Follow Me will meet you."
"Roger," Darmstadter said.
Taxiway Five was the last turnoff. As he taxied down the runway to it, Darmstadter saw a jeep racing down a taxiway parallel to the runway. The jeep was painted in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, with a huge checkerboard flag above it flapping in the wind.
When he turned the B-25 off the runway, the jeep was there waiting for him. It led him to a remote corner of the field. There was a large hangar there whose doors were being opened as they arrived.
The Follow Me jeep stopped, and a ground handler hopped out and signaled for Darmstadter to move to the hangar doors. When the nose of the B-25 was ten feet from them, he gave the throat-cutting sign to stop engines.
Immediately, a dozen GIs came out of the hangar and manhandled the B-25 inside the hangar. Darmstadter sensed, from the decreasing light inside the hangar, that the doors were being closed.
He looked at Dolan.
"You all right, Commander?" he asked.
"The word you have to keep in mind, Darmstadter," Dolan said, "is 'indigestion."
Am I going to have trouble with you about that?"
"No, Sir," Darmstadter said after a moment.
"Thank you," Dolan said, simply and sincerely..
"What happens now?" Darmstadter asked.
"I don't know," Dolan said.
"Canidy gave me that "Flight Four Zero Five' , message just before we took off. I expect somebody will show up shortly. In i the meantime, you might have them start to refuel it." i When Darmstadter dropped from the belly of the B-25, he saw that there were two military policemen, armed with Thompson submachine guns, guarding the airplane. And there was a captain, wearing an AOD (Aerodrome Officer of the Day) brassard.
Darmstadter walked over to him and saluted.
"I'd like to get this fueled," he said.
"Someone will be along for you shortly, Lieutenant," the AOD said.
"In the meantime, nothing comes into, or goes out of, this hangar."
"We have a female passenger aboard," Darmstadter said.
"She has to use the can."
"I don't know if there's one available," the AOD said.
"There has to be something," Darmstadter said.
"Jesus Christ!" the AOD said in annoyance.
"Sorry as hell to inconvenience you," Darmstadter flared.
The AOD glared at him.
"Who the hell do you think you are, Lieutenant?"
"I'm only a lieutenant," Darmstadter said, "but I can ask Commander Dolan to come down here if you have to have that as an order."
"Sergeant!" the AOD said, and one of the submachine-gun-armed MPs came over.
"There is a female aboard this aircraft who needs the facilities," he said.
"Take her there and bring her back."
Darmstadter climbed back into the aircraft.
"Would you like to..."
"I must have the ladies' room," Gisella Dyer said in precise, if uneasy, English.
"Come with me," Darmstadter said.
Five minutes later, before Gisella had come out of the men's room at the rear of the hangar, a side door opened and two men in U.S. Army civilian technician uniforms came in.
The AOD indicated Darmstadter with a nod of his head. One civilian walked up to him and held a leather folder in front of Darmstadter's eyes.
They were OSS credentials, but Darmstadter had never seen any before, and it took him a moment to realize what they were.
The man's name was Ernest J. Wilkins.
"You're the flight Four Zero Five?" Wilkins asked.
"That's right," Darmstadter said.
"You want to tell me what this is all about? Before that, you want to show me your identification?"
"I think maybe you better go aboard and talk to Commander Dolan," Darmstadter said.
"I'm just an airplane driver."
"Why don't you go aboard and ask Commander Dolan to join us?" Wilkins said sarcastically.
"He's a little under the weather," Darmstadter said.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Indigestion," Darmstadter said.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Wilkins said, but he went to the access hatch and climbed aboard the B-25.
There was a marked change in Wilkins's attitude when he climbed back down from the airplane.
"Captain," he said to the AOD.
"Get on the horn and get an ambulance over here. There is no medical emergency, we will not need a physician. I will require one of the MPs to come with us. This airplane is to be refueled and kept under guard in this hangar. I presume you have cautioned your men to keep their mouths shut?"
"Yes, Sir," the AOD said.
Gisella Dyer, trailed by the MP sergeant, walked up.
"Good afternoon, Miss Dyer," Wilkins said to her in fluent German.
"Welcome to Egypt. We're going to go from here to a place where you'll be staying for a while. I'm afraid, for reasons of security, that you'll have to travel by ambulance.
It'll be a little warm in the back, but we don't have far to go."
Thirty minutes later, Dolan, Darmstadter, and Wilkins were in what had once been the pool house by the swimming pool of a wealthy Egyptian banker. The blue-tile-walled room now held an impressive array of communications equipment under the supervision of a gray-haired, distinguished-looking man who wore a ring, an amethyst surrounded by the legend "20 Years Service
AT&T."
Dolan seemed to be completely recovered from his "indigestion." The color was back in his face, and he was no longer tensed with pain.
Darmstadter was uncomfortable. There was no doubt in his mind that there was a hell of a lot more wrong with the old sailor than indigestion. What was his duty, to tell Wilkins--who had identified himself as Station Chief, Cairo--so that Wilkins could, by force if necessary, get him medical attention?
Or to obey Dolan's admonition to "keep in mind that the word was indigestion"?
Dolan himself answered the question.
When London acknowledged receipt of the encrypted message from Canidy and ordered Cairo to stand by while the message was decrypted, Dolan j handed the man with the AT&T ring a sheet of paper.
"Encrypt that, and send it, urgent, before they get off the air," he ordered.
When the communications officer had run the message through the encryption device and begun to transmit the encoded message, Dolan reclaimed the sheet of paper and handed it to Darmstadter.
"I
4
TO OSS LONDON STATION. EYES ONLY BRUCE AMD STEVENS.
SUFFERING SEVERE INTESTINAL DISTRESS AND FEVER. PROBABLY
RECURRENCE OF MALARIA. HAVE MA
DE DARMSTADTER AWARE OP ALL
REPEAT ALL OPERATIONAL DETAILS IN CASE HIS ASSUMPTION
COMMAND NECESSARY. DO LAS LIEUTENANT COMMANDER, USNR.
When Darmstadter looked at him, Dolan shrugged "What the hell, kid," the old sailor said.
W E B Griffin - Men at War 4 - The Fighting Agents Page 31
