“I didn’t know you were a blue blood, Agnes,” Canidy said.
Agnes flashed him a brilliant smile.
“Begging the major’s pardon, sir, there is a good deal about me the major doesn’t know,” she said sweetly.
FIVE] It was nearer to seven than six when Commander Edwin W. Bitter and Miss Ann Chambers reached the bar at the Dorchester. Once they had left Admiral Foster’s Connaught Hotel suite, they sent Mr. Meachum Hope, It Commander Dolan, and Lieutenant Kennedy on ahead of them to the Dorchester.
Then they went to the London bureau of Chambers News Service.
There Biter wrote a short, awkward letter to his wife. The gist of the letter was that Sarah, despite what she was going to read in the newspapers tomorrow, or what she was liable to hear on Meachum Hope’s “Report from London” broadcast, was not to worry. What he had done was neither as heroic nor as difficult as they were making it sound.
She should, he wrote, think of it as an automobile accident. He had been a passenger in a wrecked car, so to speak, and when the driver couldn’t drive it himself, he simply took the wheel and drove it to the garage for him.
He was not making regular bombing missions. He had thought, howeveg that he should make one mission as a passenger, so that he would understand what was involved. As far as he knew, he would never make another.
He gave it to Ann, who sat down at a teletype machine and retyped it, sending it to the SHAEF press center for censorship, then transmitting it by radio to Brandon Chambers, editor-in-chief of Chambers News Service, as a service message. He would see that it got to Sarah in Palm Beach.
“I don’t think she’ll believe you, Eddie,” Ann said. “But I will write her and tell her that Canidy told me he’s grounded you.”
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Ann said. “I just made it up. But now that I think about it, it seems like a good idea.”
“Just mind your own business, please, Ann.”
“Just how long do you think you can–What is it you say? Harm’s way’?
Just how long do you think you can go in harm’s way without getting harmed?”
“Isn’t that a moot point? We’re in a war, and I’m a naval officer.” “You’re a horse’s ass,” Ann said. “Worse, you’re a horse’s ass with courage. That can get you killed. It will get you killed.” They locked eyes for a moment, and then Ann broke the silence, “Come on, let’s get to the Dorchester before someone starts making eyes at Dick.”
“Does that happen often?” he asked. “How is the great romance?”
“I don’t know if you’ll believe this or not, “Ann said. “But if I can ever get him out of this war and up in front of an altar, I really believe he will be the perfect husband. His eye doesn’t wander when I’m around.”
“Why don’t you marry him now?” Bitter asked.
“The way that works is that the boy asks the girl, Eddie,” Ann said, “and Dick hates having to tell me that over and over.”
“Aren’t you worried about… ”
“About what?”
“Getting in the family way.”
“Eddie, that’s in the category of none of your goddamned business!
“Ann snapped. “God, I can’t believe you asked me that!” She gestured impatiently toward the door.
When he saw Canidy’s Packard in front of the Dorchester, he knew he would have to face Agnes. And do so in front of the others. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her at all after Dolan came to his room at Fersfield and told him that Commander Korman had arrived from London.
Dolan, of course, knew that Agnes had been in his bed. He wondered if Dolan had decided that Canidy would be interested in that little bit of IN_LL teresting information. And he wondered what Canidy’s reaction would be if he knew. Canidy might tell Ann, certainly would tell Ann, unless he went to him and expressly asked him not to.
He decided he would have to do that. If Ann knew, it would get back to Sarah.