And then the personnel chief had called him in, and said there was a levy down from BuPers--the Navy Bureau of Personnel--for someone with his rate, who had been a China Sailor, and who was unmarried. The personnel chief said he had to volunteer, for the billet was "classified and hazardous." Reasoning that anything had to be better than cleaning carburetors, Staley volunteered.
Five days later, his orders came through. For the first time in his service, Staley was flown somewhere in a Navy airplane. He was flown to Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington, where a civilian driving a Plymouth station wagon met him and took him to a large country estate in Virginia about forty miles from Washington. Some very rich guy's house--there was a mansion, and a stable, and a swimming pool, set on 240 acres in the middle of nowhere--had been taken over by the government for the duration.
A real hard-nosed civilian sonofabitch named Eldon C. Baker had given him and ten other guys a short speech, saying the purpose of the training they were about to undergo was to determine if they met the standards of the OSS.
Staley didn't know what the hell the OSS was, but he'd been in the service long enough to know when to ask questions and when not to ask questions, and this was one of the times not to ask questions.
Baker, as if he had been reading his mind, almost immediately made t
hat official.
"This is not a summer camp," Baker said, "where you will make friends for life. You are not to ask questions about the backgrounds, including girlfriends and families, of other trainees, and if a trainee asks you questions that do not directly concern what is going on at the school, you will report that immediately to one of the cadre."
Baker had made it clear that if you reported it, the trainee who had asked the questions would be immediately "relieved" (which Staley understood to mean thrown out on his ass), and if you didn't report it, you would be relieved.
They would be restricted to the camp, Mr. Baker told them, for the length of the course, or unless "sooner relieved for cause."
The training itself had been part boot camp--running around and learning about small arms; part how to fight like a Shanghai pimp--in other words, with a knife, or by sticking your thumbs into a guy's eyes, or kicking him in the balls; part how to blow things up; and part how to be a radio operator. Staley hadn't had any trouble with any of it, but some of the other guys had had a hell of a time, and although they had said as little as possible about themselves, ley had been able to figure out that most of the other guys were college guys, and he would have laid three to one that at least three of them were officers.
Of the twelve guys who started, six made it through. Three got thrown out, one broke his leg climbing up the side of a barn, and two just quit.
Some Army full-bull colonel, a silver-haired Irishman wearing the blue starred ribbon of the Medal of Honor (the first one Staley had ever seen actually being worn), came to the estate just before they were through with the course and shook their hands; Staley was able to figure out from that that whatever was going on involved more than one service.
Two days before, the cadre had loaded them all in station wagons, taken them to Washington, and handed them $300 and a list of "recommended civilian clothing." Staley had bought two suits, six shirts, a pair of shoes, and some neckties.
The night before, one at a time, Baker had called everybody in and given them their orders, which they were not to discuss with anyone else. Staley didn't know what to make of his. He was ordered to report in civilian clothing to the National Institutes of Health, in Washington, D.C.
They had brought him there in one of the station wagons.
There was a receptionist in the lobby, and a couple of cops.
He went to the receptionist, not sure what to do about his orders. They were stamped secret, and you don't go around showing secret orders to every dame behind a plate-glass window with a hole in it.
"I was told to report here," Staley said, when she finally looked at him.
"May I have your name, Sir?" she asked.
When he gave it to her, she looked at a typewritten list, then handed him a cardboard badge with visitor printed on it, and an alligator clip on the back of it so that he could pin it to the lapel of his new suit. Then she called one of the cops over.
"Would you take Mr. Staley to Chief Ellis, please?" she said.
The cop smiled and made a come with me gesture with his hand. Staley followed him to an elevator, and they rode up in it and then went down a corridor until they came to a door with a little sign reading "Director." Inside that door was an office with a couple of women clerks pushing typewriters, an older woman who was obviously in charge, and a door with another sign reading "Director" on it.
"This is Mr. Staley," the cop said.
"The Chief expects him," the gray-haired woman said with a smile. Then she looked at Staley.
"Go on in," she said.
Staley stopped at the door and, conditioned by long habit of the proper way to report to a commanding officer, knocked and waited to be told to enter.
"Come in," a male voice called.
There was another office beyond that door, furnished with a large, glistening desk, a red leather couch, and two red leather chairs. Sitting at the desk, side wards so he could rest his feet on the open lower drawer of the desk, was a chief boatswain's mate, USN, smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper.
"Whaddayasay, Staley?" the Chief said.
"Getting any, lately?"