It took him two hours to reach Atcham. The MP at the gate was willing to accept his identity card and trip ticket as proof that he hadn’t stolen the jeep, but warned him that Atcham Air Force Station was “closed in.” Once he came inside, he would not be permitted to leave until 0600 hours 26 December.
That strongly suggested that an operation was in progress, that he had come all this way only to find that the man he wanted to see was somewhere over France or Germany. Then he found a faintly glowing coal of hope. It was raining again. Visibility was about half a mile. There was a thick cloud cover at 1,000 feet. It was likely that an operation would not be able to get off the ground because of the weather.
He decided that seeing Major Peter Douglass was worth a chance. He’d worry about getting off the base when it was time to leave.
As he drove the jeep through an endless line of rain-soaked P-38s in sandbag revetments, a B-25 flashed low over him, so low that he could see the fire at the engine exhausts. It touched down and immediately disappeared in a cloud of its own making as it rolled down the rain-soaked runway.
One of two things was true, Naval Aviator Kennedy thought professionally. Either his assessment of flying conditions was way off, or the pilot of the B-25 was a fucking fool flying in weather like this.
Headquarters, 311th Fighter Group, U.S. Army Air Corps was a Quonset hut surrounded by tar-paper shacks with a frame building used for a mess, theater, and briefing room.
There was no answer to his knock at the door, so he pushed it open. Inside, a baldheaded man was snoring under olive-drab blankets on a cot. The jacket with staff sergeant’s chevrons draped over a chair identified him as the charge of quarters.
When he shook the sergeant’s shoulder and woke him, Kennedy expected the man would be upset that an officer had caught him asleep. But the reaction was annoyance rather than humiliation.
“I would like to see Major Douglass,” the lieutenant said.
“He’s asleep,” the sergeant said doubtfully as he reluctantly got off the cot and began pulling his trousers on. “He came in pretty late last night.”
“It’s important, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “Would you please wake him?”
“He’s in there,” the sergeant said, pointing to a closed door and leaving unspoken what else he meant: If you want to wake him, you wake him.
Kennedy went to the door, knocked, got no response, and then pushed it open. Major Peter Douglass, Jr., Army Air Corps, was in a curtained alcove of the office. He lay on his back in a homemade wooden bed, his legs spread, his mouth open. A uniform was hung somewhat crookedly over a chair. The decorations on the tunic were a little unusual: A set of standard U.S. Army Air Corps pilot’s wings was where it was supposed to be. But there was another set, which the young naval officer recognized after a moment as Chinese, over the other pocket. And under the Army Air Corps wings were the ribbons of two Distinguished Flying Crosses. One of them was the striped ribbon of the British DFC. The other was American.
Kennedy went to the cot and looked down at Douglass. He wondered how much truth there was to the story that Douglass had walked into the Plans and Training Division of Headquarters Eighth Air Force, politely asked the lieutenant colonel who had planned the disastrous P-38 raid on Saint-Lazare to stand up, and then coldcocked him.
Kennedy leaned down and shook Douglass’s shoulder. Douglass angrily snorted and rolled onto his side.
“Major Douglass,” Kennedy said.
There was no response.
Kennedy was about to shake him again when he heard voices in the outer office.
“Merry Christmas, Sergeant, we’re the Eighth Air Force Clap Squad,” a voice said. “Where do we find a character named Douglass? He’s been infecting the sheep.”
The charge of quarters laughed.
“He’s right in there, sir,” the sergeant said. “And Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Two officers, a major and a captain, walked into the room. They looked at the sleeping Douglass, then at Kennedy, and then at each other. They smiled and went to the bed, picked up one side of it, and rolled Major Douglass out onto the floor.
Kennedy was suddenly sure that these guys were the ones who had just flown the B-25 through the soup.
Major Douglass, now wide awake on the floor, was piqued.
“You sonsofbitches!” he declaimed angrily.
“Hark,” Captain James M. B. Whittaker said,“the herald angel sings!”
“You bastards,” Major Douglass said, but he was now smiling.
“Get dressed,”Canidy said.“We are going to spring you from durance vile.”
“You know, I suppose,” Douglass said, as he rose to his feet and quickly stripped to change his underwear,“that now that you’re on the base, you’re restricted to it until 0600 tomorrow?”
“Only the gate is closed,” Canidy said.