There were at least a dozen questions spinning around in Darmstadter's mind. He was surprised at the one he blurted:
"Why are the tops cut off those B17s?"
"That's not the question I expected," Canidy said.
"I thought you'd ask what's going on around here. Then I would have told you that you have just joined the OSS on a probationary status. If you turn out, you'll join the OSS's private air corps. If you don't... you won't like what will happen if you don't. Not a threat, a statement of fact."
Darmstadter had heard about the OSS. Very hush-hush, involved in all sorts of things involving espionage and sabotage and dropping agents behind enemy lines.
Canidy saw the shock on Darmstadter's face and smiled.
"As far as the B-17s are concerned," Canidy went on, "what we're trying to do with them is turn them into radio-controlled flying bombs. We fill them with an English explosive called Torpex. Then Joe gets in, fires it up, and takes off. We cut the roof off so he can bail out. The plane is then flown to the target by radio control. If we can get the sonofabitch to work twice in a row, we're going to fly one into the German submarine pens at Saint-Lazare. So far we haven't been able to get it to work twice in a row."
Darmstadter looked into Canidy's face and saw that he had been told the truth.
"You've had your question," Canidy said.
"I answered it. That's all you get."
"I understand. Sir," Darmstadter said seriously.
The door of the Quonset creaked again as it opened. Darmstadter saw an enormous Packard limousine sitting outside. It had been adopted for military service by having a serial number stenciled onto the hood and the words "U.S.
Army" on the doors. But it still looked, Darmstadter thought, as if it should be rolling up to Buckingham Palace and not a Quonset hut in a B-17 graveyard.
A tall, attractive woman wearing the uniform of a sergeant of the Women's Royal Army Corps came in. The uniform was of rough woolen material and ill fitting but it did not hide the fact that beneath it was a very well set-up female, indeed.
She looked curiously, hesitantly, at Darmstadter.
In the prescribed British manner, the WRAC sergeant came to stiff attention and stamped her foot.
"Sir," she said to Canidy.
"Sorry to be late, Sir. There was a dreadful smashup on the way."
"It's all right, Agnes, he's now one of us. Lieutenant Darmstadter, Sergeant Agnes Draper."
"Hello," Sgt. Draper said. Her smile was dazzling.
"To answer your unspoken question, Commander Bitter," Canidy said dryly.
"Yes, Sergeant Draper and I can find time in our busy schedule to take lunch with you. And how lucky for you both that I have just given Darmstadter the 'no questions allowed' speech."
Commander Bitter's face tightened in anger. Commander Dolan and It.
Kennedy laughed. Sgt. Draper blushed.
"Damn you, Dick," Sgt. Draper said.
"Military courtesy around here, you may have noticed. Lieutenant Darmstadter, is sometimes a bit lax. In the future. Sergeant Draper, you will make that 'damn you. Sir."" "Oh, go to hell," she said, but she smiled at him.
[FOUR]
Petty Officers' Club Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
Radioman 2nd Class Joe Garvey, USN, moved his beer glass in little circles on the bar, spreading the little puddle of condensation in ever-larger circles. Joe Garvey was more than a little drunk. He had been drinking in the petty officers' club since half past five, when he'd
come to the club from the petty officers' mess. And he was not used to drinking. Sometimes, out at Mare Island, after he'd made radioman third, he had a beer. It was bad enough in boot camp being a skinny little guy with glasses who had never been afloat on anything bigger than a whaleboat, without getting the reputation for being a teetotaler too. Real sailors drank. It was as simple as that.