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"Is there something I can do for you, Major?"
"We've met, Captain Fine," Canidy said. Fine's eyebrows rose in question. "The
first time was when Eric Fulmar and I tried to burn down Cedar Rapids. The
last time was in Washington the spring before the war.
We had dinner with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan and Cynthia Chenowith."
"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.
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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
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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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]