Secret Warriors (Men at War 2)

"I'm rated in it."

"Not with twenty hours you're not, not by Navy standards," the commander had told him abruptly.

Between Prest wick, where they had refueled, and London, Colonel Stevens had politely asked the commander to come into the cabin. He told him then that in London the aircraft would be taken to a hangar, where the seats would be removed and auxiliary fuel tanks installed.

During this time quarters for him and his crew would be provided at Croydon, where they were to hold themselves in readiness for departure on twelve hours' notice.

"I'm afraid I would require authority from a competent naval authority before I could permit any modifications to the aircraft," the commander said.

Stevens handed the commander a Top Secret order on the stationery of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It directed the movement of the aircraft "to such places as Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens might deem necessary in the execution of his mission," and directed " all United States military bases and facilities to render any and all support as Lieutenant Colonel Stevens might request."

"I'm not entirely sure I understand this," the commander said. "Let me make it simple for you," Stevens snapped icily.

"So far as you're concerned, Commander, until I relieve you, I'm the Chief of Naval Operations. "Aye, aye, Sir," the commander said.

Canidy was amused and pleased at Colonel Stevens's reaction to the commander's density. And he was also sure that as soon as the commander had the chance, he would get in contact with the highest-ranking Naval officer he could find. With a little bit of luck, he might even get to an admiral to relate his tale of woe.

Eventually he would be told that so far as he was concerned, Stevens was in truth speaking with the authority of the Chief of Naval Operations, and his ass would be thoroughly chewed for talking about a mission he had been specifically ordered not to talk about. On the other hand, if the C-46 was needed to fly to Africa, the commander probably was just the guy they needed, someone with a lot of experience in flying great distances where there would be no navigational aids worth speaking about. He had probably, Canidy thought, been selected for just that reason. Doug lass had requested from the Navy-which really meant Eddie Bitter's Vice Admiral Hawley-the best C-46 they had and the best crew to fly it. Hawley had provided a nearly new C-46 and the commander. But after a minute, when he thought about it, having the commander get his ass chewed-however delightful a prospect that was-was not worth the risk of the bastard compromising the mission by running off at the mouth. He decided he would have to mention this to Colonel Stevens. "Our minds run in similar paths," Stevens said with a smile. "I was just thinking that I should talk with the commander and give him the 'loose lips sink ships' speech suitably revised for the circumstances." When theydanded at Croydon, they sat on the taxiway for fifteen minutes before the tower directed them to a hangar some distance from the terminal building. There a small caravan of vehicles was waiting for them: an English limousine with its fenders outlined in white reflective paint; an Army three-quarter-ton truck; and four American Ford staff cars.

The moment the plane door opened, Canidy realized he was back in the war. There was a familiar, pervasive odor of burning and open sewage.

The smell of burning he remembered from Burma and China. It was the aftermath of bombing. The sewers had already been open in Burma and China. Here the smell came from sewers ruptured by bombs.

Two colonels wearing the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) patch spoke briefly with Colonel Stevens, who then came back on the airplane and said that he was going to take Admiral de Verbey with them, and Canidy should come along to the Dorchester with the others when the plane had been unloaded. The limousine, preceded and trailed by two of the Ford staff cars, each occupied by three men wearing U.S. Army uniforms with civilian technician insignia,' drove off into the rain.

When the truck had been loaded, the remaining Fords drove them into London. Almost immediately they saw signs of the bombing. There were fire-scarred holes, like missing teeth, where German bombs had landed on row houses. They passed a bomb crater from which the rear of "An embroidered blue triangle with the letters "US,' worn sewn to the lapels. a bus still protruded, and when they got to the Dorchester Hotel, the entrance was piled high with sandbags, Canidy saw there remnants of what must have been prewar splendor-there was an elaborately uniformed doorman in a top bat, and small uniformed boys who came out to unload the truck-but the hotel was war-tarnished, and the lobby was crowded with headquarters types. One of the civilian technicians from Croydon was waiting for them inside, and led them to an elevator. There was another civilian technician sitting at a small desk in the corridor of the sixth floor, barring access to the wing where Colonel Stevens, alone, was waiting for them. The civilian technician who had met them in the lobby was introduced as Mr. Zigler of the Counterintelligence Corps. Zigler told him that he would be responsible for Admiral de Verbey until Canidy felt that the security of Whitby House was such that he could take over. Zigler explained that after a survey of the estate, he'd made certain recommendations for its security. The first elements of the infantry battalion had begun arriving that morning "If you feel up to it, Dick," Stevens said, "I thought you might go out there first thing in the morning You could drop Martin and Fulmar off at Station IX on your way. There will be a car for you here at eight o'clock. 7) "Fine," Canidy agreed, although he would have preferred to sleep for twenty-four hours, Stevens, Canidy, and Whittaker had a room-service dinner with Admiral de Verbey in the three-room suite provided for him. The service was shabbily elegant, Canidy thought, and the portions very small. He had ordered roast beef, envisioning a juicy slice of rib. He got a two-inch-square, tough chunk of overdone meat. During the dinner, Colonel Stevens told the admiral politely but firmly it would be best if he didn't leave his suite or contact anyone while he was in London. The admiral seemed resigned to whatever indignities the OSS had planned for him. Canidy felt a little sorry for him. Breakfast in the hotel dining room was much like dinner.

The coffee-and they were allowed only one cup-was watery, the jam for the single piece of cold toast was artificial, and the scrambled eggs were powdered But precisely at eight o'clock a bellboy wearing a round hat cocked over his eye like Johnny in the Phillip Morris advertisements came into the dining room paging Canidy by holding up a slate on a pole with "Major Canidy" written on it. "Your car and driver are here, Sir," he announced when Canidy waved him over. The car was a Plymouth sedan driven by a GI. Even with some of their luggage on the front seat, the trunk would not close over the rest of it, and it had to be tied closed with twine. They made it that way, however, to Station IX. Canidy found the British Special Operations Executive training school officers to be an insufferably smug collection of bastards who made no effort to conceal their "superiority" over their American cousins. The lieutenant colonel in charge told Canidy and Whittaker in great detail what was planned for "your young chaps." What was planned that didn't sound childish sounded sadistic, and Canidy toyed for a few minutes with the notion of somehow rescuing Fulmar and Martin from the Englishman before he realized that was out of the question. And so was telling the Englishman that Fulmar had lived among the Berber tribesmen of Morocco-some of the most vicious fighters in the world-long enough to be accepted as one of them. He was also tempted to tell the English officer-a parachutist who made it plain that parachuting was an exclusively English story that Fulmar had told him: At the OSS school in Virginia, Martin had given his own high-altitude jump trainees a long moment's horror by "falling out" of his harness and, with a bloodcurdling scream, dropping out of sight, It turned out that he did not become hamburger. He had hidden a second reserve chute under his field jacket, and was waiting, smiling broadly, immensely pleased with himself, when they themselves had landed. Martin had made sixty-odd jumps, which Canidy suspected was far more than any of the Englishmen who were going to teach him how it should be done had made.

The temptation to te

ll the colonel that story was great, but he resisted it, and he went even further in the interest of hands across the sea: he told both Fulmar and Martin, as sternly as he could, that they were to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut and absolutely no fucking around with their English hosts.

When he and Whittaker went outside to get in the Plymouth to be taken to Whitby House, the Plymouth was gone, the driver having apparently decided on his own that he had done his duty for that day. The British found this frightfully amusing, of course, but ultimately produced an automobile for them. It was a worn-out Anglia, an English automobile that obviously had not been designed to accommodate two large American males, their luggage, and a driver at the same time. But it was better than walking, Canidy told himself as the Anglia roared along-it sounded, Whittaker solemnly pronounced, "like an overworked lawn mower"-at what must have been all of thirty miles an hour, bouncing and lurching in the rain down what seemed like an endless country road.

There was an American GI in a steel helmet and a raincoat guarding access to Whitby House with a rifle hung muzzle down over his shoulder, but their pleasure at seeing him-"Thank God, a GI! Where there are GIS there is a mess hall," Whittaker had cried.

"Dying for my country is one thing; starving painfully to death on English food is something else! was quickly replaced by annoyance.

The guard had been ordered to pass no one, and so far as he was concerned, that included two Army Air Corps officers. It was ten minutes before the officer of the guard responded to the sentry's summons, and another five minutes before he received permission from the "colonel" to pass the Anglia through the gate.

Whitby House was enormous and, like everything else he'd seen so far in England, it looked run-down. But even run-down, Canidy reflected, it looked comfortable-sort of like the mock "Olde English" buildings he'd known in prep school as a boy. Except none of the those buildings had genuine suits of armor lining their corridors, as this one did, hung up on the walls, as if they'd been put up to dry. The officer from the London station, a nice-looking young lieutenant named Jamison, waited for them with a bulletin from Colonel Stevens. An English officer who was going to make himself helpful to the new tenants of Whitby House would shortly show up, and the duchess of Stan field herself was going to make an appearance. "Colonel Stevens said to tell you he has absolute faith in your ability to handle the duchess," Lieutenant Jamison said.

"Captain Whittaker, Lieutenant," Canidy said, "is herewith appointed officer in charge of dealing with duchesses."

"And Colonel Innes is waiting to see you, Major," Jamison said. "And I think I should warn you, Major, he' more than a little pissed." s "Why?"

"I told him he couldn't move his officers into the house, Major,' the man from the London station said.

"And he said he would have to hear that from you."

"Why can't he move his officers in?" Canidy asked.

"Christ, from what I've seen of this place, he could move his whole battalion in here."

"The final decision's yours, Major, but this is what they recommend."

"They being-Mr. Zigler of the CIC?" Canidy asked. "Yes, Sir," Jamison said.