“Sir, may I inquire where we’re going?”
“Sonthofen. It’s about thirty miles. You’ll know we’re close when I get on the radio.”
Sometime thereafter, Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson suggested, “Why don’t you start a gentle descent to five hundred meters?”
Several minutes after that, he announced, “Sonthofen, Army-Seven-Oh-Seven. About three miles out. Request straight-in approach to Twenty-seven.”
“Sonthofen clears Army Seven-Oh-Seven as Number One to land on Two-seven. We have you in sight. Welcome home, Colonel.”
“Tell the man you understand, Captain,” Colonel Wilson ordered.
“I’m supposed to land this thing?”
“Without breaking anything, if possible. Talk to the man.”
Cronley dropped the nose so that he could make out what lay ahead. He saw they were more or less lined up with a runway, around which was a fleet of L-4s, plus two C-47s and some other aircraft Cronley didn’t recognize.
“Sonthofen, Seven-Oh-Seven understands Number One to land on Two-seven,” Cronley then said into the microphone.
“There are two hangars,” Wilson announced. “If you manage to return us to Mother Earth alive, taxi to the one on the right.”
“Yes, sir.”
—
When Cronley had parked the Storch on the tarmac before the hangar, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson climbed out of the front seat and motioned for Cronley to follow him.
A master sergeant approached them and
saluted.
“Say hello to Captain Cronley, Sergeant McNair,” Wilson said. “And then get out the paint and obliterate our beloved insignia that’s on the vertical stabilizer. Our bird has a new master.”
“I hate to see her go,” Sergeant McNair said.
He offered his hand to Cronley and said, “Captain.”
“I am taking some solace in knowing that she has found a new and loving home,” Wilson said, and turned to Cronley. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee. It will take half an hour for the obliteration to dry.”
He led Cronley to an office inside the hangar.
“Close the door, please, Captain,” Wilson said. “I wouldn’t put it past the Air Force to have a spy in here, and we wouldn’t want them to hear what I have to say, would we?”
He added, “Sit,” and walked to a coffeemaker.
There was a framed photograph on the wall, showing an L-4 about to touch down beside the Coliseum in Rome.
Cronley blurted, “I saw that in the newsreels.”
Wilson glanced at the photograph. “Ah, yes. The triumphal entry of General Markus Augustus Clark into the Holy City. I had the honor of being his aerial taxi driver.”
When Wilson saw the look on Cronley’s face, he added, “Oh, yes, Colonel Mattingly told me what you think of Army Aviators. You’re wrong, of course, but young officers often are.”
He let that sink in a moment, and then added, as he handed Cronley a coffee cup on a saucer, “Yes, Captain Cronley, I know a good deal about you—and knew you were out of the mold even before I saw you running up to the Storch in your cowboy boots.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have put my boots on.
After all, Mattingly did warn me he was a crotchety Old Regular Army sonofabitch.