They were going to China!
“I’m not a god damned Japanese spy, Eddie,” Brandon Chambers said impatiently. “And it wasn’t really that hard for me to find out more about this operation than you in all likelihood know.”
“My father is a clergyman, Mr. Chambers,” Canidy said. “I didn’t think I had to tell him any more than what we are supposed to say, that we’ve been hired by the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Federal.”
“What kind of clergyman?” Sue-Ellen asked. “Episcopal,” Canidy said. “He’s headmaster of a boys’ school.”
“Legend has it,” she said, “that ministers’ kids are really hellraisers. You don’t look like a naughty boy, Mr. Canidy.”
“Sue-Ellen!” Mr. Chambers said impatiently. “Sorry,” she said.
“Well, I’ll tell you this, when Eddie’s parents heard about it, they had a fit,” Brandon Chambers said.
“They should not have called you,” Ed Bitter said. “I told them not to say anything about it to anybody.”
“They wisely decided that they should call me because I was likely to know somebody, or Mark would, who could find out what is really going on. And I have. Mark and I have.”
“Well, it’s done,” Ed said. “There is really no point to this conversation.”
“It’s not done,” Brandon Chambers said. “You can still change your mind. You’re still in the Navy. All you have to tell them is that you’ve changed your mind. Minds,” he corrected himself. “Everything I’m saying applies to you, too, Dick.”
“You went off as a volunteer pilot before the World War,” Ed Bitter said. “And we’re going off now. Why was it right for you and wrong for us?”
“I didn’t have anybody, like me,” Brandon Chambers said, “who had been there and who could tell me it was a damned-fool thing to “It didn’t seem to hurt you any,” Ed said.
“I was lucky,” Brandon Chambers said. “There were thirty-six people in my draft when we went to France. Eleven came back. Two out of three of us were killed.”
Oh my God! Sarah thought. He’s going off to war!
“You weren’t a trained pilot,” Ed protested. “We are.”
“Just because you’ve got a few hours in the F4F-3 doesn’t make you Eddie Rickenbacker, Ed.”
“I didn’t know you knew about that,” Bitter said.
“Buzzing the Naval Academy,” Brandon Chambers said, “is not the same thing as going to war, Eddie. Do you really think the Japs aren’t well trained? Well equipped?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“For your information, Mr. Expert Aviator,” Brandon Chambers went on angrily, “the Japanese have equipped their Air Corps with Howard Hughes’s fighter plane.”
“What?” Canidy asked.
“The Mitsubishi A6M,” Brandon Chambers said. “It’s a carbon copy of the lowwinged monoplane Howard Hughes designed. I saw it being tested. He offered it to the Army and Navy, who were too dumb to take it. I don’t know how the Japs got their hands on it… I heard through the Swedes, but that could be just a story… but they’ve got it, and they’re mass-producing it.”
“Is it any good?” Canidy asked.
“It’s better than anything we have, including the F4F-3,” Chambers said flatly. He turned to face Ed Bitter and went on. “If you have some schoolboy notion that you’ll be able to sweep the Japanese from the skies like Superman, and come home a hero in a couple of months, covered with glory, forget it.”
“I’m a naval aviator,” Ed Bitter said levelly. “I’m going to go over there and be very careful and team the practice of my profession. And then come back to the Navy and teach others what I have learned. That is not a schoolboy notion.”
“You’re a god damned fool!” Brandon Chambers exploded. “The first thing a pilot who has been there learns is that only god damned fools volunteer for anything.”
Ed Bitter stood up, white-faced. That somehow interfered with the acoustics, and Sarah Child had to strain to hear him.
“Thank you for your concern and your hospitality, Uncle Brandon ” he said stiffly, artificially. “Dick and I will be going now.” : :,Let me put one more question to your friend,” Brandon Chambers said. “Is Eddie doing this because he is still young and stupid enough not to want to look like a coward in front of you? He can’t quit now, in other words, now that you’ve led him into this?”