Canidy was to fly the Beech 110 11 W.R.R. GRIFIFIN to Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington first thing in the morning Someone would meet him at the airport.
FOUR I MOM Phis, Tennessee Sune 26,1942
Two signs forbidding personal long-distance telephone calls were tacked to the employee bulletin board of the Memphis Advocate. One was a poster published by the Office of the Coordinator of Information. It showed an Air Corps officer sitting at a desk with a telephone to his ear. He was wearing a look of pained frustration in response to a balloon coming from the telephone: “Sorry, Captain, all the lines are busy.” In black letters was the legend “Telephones are tools of war!
If you have to call, make it quick! The second was smaller and more succinct. It was hand-lettered:
A RECORD OF LONG-DISTANCE CALLS is NOW BEING KEPT. CHARGING PERSONAL LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONE CALLS TO THE ADVOCATE IS GROUNDS FOR DISM188AL.
Ann Chambers ignored both. For one thing, she doubted that one two-minute telephone call from Memphis, Tennessee, to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was really going to lose more battles than were already being lost. For another, the Memphis Advocate was one of nine newspaper properties owned by Chambers Publishing Corporation. The president of Chambers Publishing was Brandon Chambers, and Brandon Chambers was Ann’s father.
She had begun thinking about making the telephone call to Iowa in the elevator in the Peabody Hotel the day her cousin Ed Bitter had told THE SECRET WARRIORS 0 III her that Dick Canidy had been sent home in disgrace from China for “re fusing to engage the enemy.” Ed obviously believed what he told her to be true. And it certainly would explain why her pen-pal letters to Canidy had gone unanswered. It was possible that he was a coward, though she didn’t feel that was likely. In fact, the truth was that even if Dick did run away from the japs she didn’t care.
The truth was that she loved him more than she’d ever believed she could love any man. And what she wanted more than anything in the world right now was to get his head on her shoulder. Or her breast.
“This is Reverend Canidy,” the voice on the telephone said curiously.
“Reverend Canidy, this is Ann Chambers,” she said.
“I’m Ed Bitter’s cousin, and, more to the point, a friend of Dick’s.”
“Oh, how nice!” he said, puzzled. “The reason I’m calling is that I’m going-I live in Memphis-East, and I seem to have lost Dick’s address.”
“He’s horn ig e from China,” the Reverend Canidy said, as I guess you know? “Yes,’ Ann said. “And he’s found work with the National Institutes of Health, as a pi lot.” The National Institutes of Health?
“I’d heard,” Ann lied.
“Could you give me his address in Washington? And his phone number?
I’d really like to say hello when I’m there.”
“Just a moment,” he said.
“I’ve got it somewhere.” Later, when she called the number Canidy’s father gave her, a woman answered and denied any knowledge of anyone named Canidy. When Ann called the National Institutes of Health, they had never beard of him either. When she called the Washington information operator, she said she had no listing for the address Reverend Canidy had given her on Q Street, NW Ann walked into the teletype room and sat down before the Chambers News Service teletypewriter. She typed rapidly, a service message to the Chambers News Service Washington Bureau. She asked for ALL INFO, FACT AND SPEC the Washington bureau could develop SOONEST on what was going on at the address Reverend Canidy had given her on Q Street, Northwest. She signed it CHAMBERS ADVOCATE. if they thought her father had sent the service message, so much the better. Her name was Chambers, too, and if they were inspired to drop something unimportant and get on this right away, fine.
As she’d hoped, the response was quick, but it was not quite the one she expected. Two hours after she sent the service message, she had a telephone call.
“Exactly what is your interest in that address on Q Street? ” her father began without other preliminary. “Hello, Daddy,” she said.