“What’s that?”
“That’s the Order of the Cloud Banner,” Crookshanks said. “Which I was given a couple of weeks ago to present to the first pilot who scored a victory.”
“They got one, did they?”
“We got six of the eight,” Crookshanks said.
“That makes me feel pretty inept,” Canidy said. “Is that why YOU called me in here, to point that out?”
“I called you in here to give you the medal,” Crookshanks said. “I didn’t think you’d want a parade.”
“One of mine went down?” Canidy said, genuinely surprised.
: Crookshanks nodded. “Well, I’ll be damned!” Canidy said.
“Are you sure?”
“We’re sure,” Crookshanks said. “It was witnessed from the ground. We have pieces from all of them.”
“All of them?” Canidy asked. “Oh, you mean the other five.”
“Yeah. Your five and the other one.”
Canidy looked at him to make sure he had heard right.
“You are surprised, aren’t you?” Crookshanks asked.
“I didn’t stick around a second longer than I had to,” Canidy said. “Yeah, I’m surprised.”
“You think it was luck?” A “Sure it was luck,” Canidy said. “What else?”
“It’s going to cost you,” Crookshanks said. “How?”
“I want you to talk to the others so maybe they’ll get lucky too.”
“I’d probably get as many laughs as Groucho Marx.”
“It was an order, Canidy, not a suggestion,” Crookshanks said. “In that case, yes, sir, Commander Crookshanks, sir.”
“Because you are such a paragon of cheerful, willing obedience, Mr. Canidy, I have decided to give you a little reward of my own.”
“I’d like my own ship.”
“That’s what I had in mind,” Crookshanks said. “Thank you,” Canidy said. “There’s a hook there too, I’m afraid.”
“Which is?”
“Martin Farmington didn’t get back today,” Crookshanks said. “I didn’t know him.”
“He was a flight leader in the First Squadron,” Crookshanks said. “I want you to take his place.” When Canidy did not reply, Crookshanks said, “It’s another seventy-five dollars a month.”
“OK,” Canidy said. Martin Farmington returned early the next morning to Kunming on the back of a farmer’s cart, in time to be a hero at breakfast. He -landed his pi bad crash ane, demolishing it, but aside from a couple of bruises and a cut on his arm from a sharp piece of canopy Plexihe was unharmed. glas, Canidy was readying his plane for flight when Crookshanks came out to the line.
,You’re not going,” he announced. “Can Bitter handle it?”
“Sure. But why not me?” Canidy asked.
“Because there was a TWX from Chermault. He’s flying in here with some big shot. They want to talk to you.”
“He’s not going to make a production about that medal, is he?” Canidy asked.
“All I know,” Crookshanks said, “is what the TWX said. And what it said is “Ground Canidy until further notice.”‘
Kunming, China 21 December 1941
Dick Canidy watched Brigadier General Claire Chennault walk across the tarmac from his Twin-Beech to where he and Commander Crookshanks stood waiting.
Chennault was wearing a horsehide leather jacket, a leather brimmed cap, from which the crown stiffener had been removed, and sunglasses. He also had a.45 hanging low, like a cowboy’s six-shooter, on his hip; and his feet were in halfwellington boots. It was the pursuit pilot’s uniform, and Chennault was entitled. He had, literally, written the book. A thousand Army Air Corps, Marine, and Navy fighter pilots-including Ensign Richard Canidyhad been trained according to the theories Chennault had laid down in Pursuit Aviation. Before the war was over, tens of thousands of fighter pilots would be so trained. Chennault was the acknowledged expert.
But Chennault has never shot down an airplane, Canidy thought. I have. If Crookshanks’s spotters are to be believed, I have shot downfive of them. I am therefore an ace. Since we have been in the war only two weeks, it is entirely possible that I am the only ace so far.
From everything he had heard, the fighter force in the Phifil)pines and the Hawaiian Islands had been wiped out on the ground.
He wondered what Chennault wanted with him, and for the first time he considered it might very well have something to do with yesterday’s actions. God knows, he thought, the American public needs some good news. That an American had shot down five T
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