As he started rummaging through the briefcase, he glanced past the auxiliary fuel tanks into the fuselage. The German girl was looking at him. She had her hair done up in braids, which she had then coiled on the sides of her head.
Darmstadter wondered who she was and why getting her and her father out of Germany had been worth all the effort it had cost.
They had been introduced, and she had politely shaken hands, but had remained silent. From the way her eyes had followed the conversation, however, Darmstadter had known that she at least understood English. And yet she had asked no questions, not even about where they were taking her. He wondered if she was in some kind of emotional shock, or simply acknowledging that for the moment she had no voice whatever in what happened to her.
Then he had a strange thought. He wondered what she had done during ile flight about taking a leak. There was a relief tube in the cockpit, but that Wouldn’t have done her any good, even if she had known about it and asked for it.
He returned his attention to Dolan’s briefcase. There was everything in it, from a copy of TMB-25-1 Flight Operation B-25 Series Aircraft to a change of socks and underwear and a toilet kit. And a pint bottle of a bright red liquid with a label reading “Medical Corps, U.S. Army” and the typewritten message:
“It. Commander J. R. Dolan, USNR, Take As Required for Indigestion.”
Darmstadter hurried back to the cockpit.
Dolan reached for the bottle. Darmstadter unscrewed the cap and handed it to him.
“Sit down and take the airplane,” Dolan ordered. Then he waited until Darmstadter had gotten back into the copilot’s seat, fastened his seat and shoulder belts again, and nodded to show his readiness to fly the airplane before he put the bottle of bright red liquid to his lips.
He took a large swallow, hesitated, and then took a second. In a moment, the look of pain on his face went away, and he managed a weak smile.
Darmstadter looked at the instrument panel. They had been homing in on the Cairo RDF for the past thirty minutes. The needle on the signal-strength gauge was almost at the upper peg. They were flying ten degrees to the left of the direction indicated by the needle on the RDF antenna indicator.
Darmstadter made the course correction and then looked at Dolan again.
The startling paleness was gone from his face.
“You better start letting down,” Dolan ordered.
“Thousand feet a minute.”
Darmstadter nodded, then reached over his head for the trim wheel and lowered the nose. After that, he retarded the throttle just a hair.
There was time to reconsider his first alarmed conclusion that Dolan was , having a heart attack. That had been, he decided, a fear reaction. What was i wrong with Dolan was what Dolan had told him: an attack of indigestion. He probably had them often, for he was carrying the bright red indigestion medicine with him.
Dolan said something, and Darmstadter missed it.
“Excuse me?”
“I said it must have been Canidy’s goddamned steaks,” Dolan said, leaning , over to make himself heard over the roar of the engines.
“Every time I eat’, charred meat, it does it to me.” | Darmstadter nodded. | He was right back to Dolan was having, had had, a heart attack. He’d smelled Dolan’s breath when the older man had leaned over. Whatever was in that bottle, bright red or not, usually came in a narrow-necked bottle with a label reading “Sour Mash Bourbon.”
“You better sit it down,” Dolan said, leaning over again and sending Dam1 stadter another cloud of bourbon fumes. Then he slumped back against the |
cushions of the pilot’s seat and took another healthy swallow of “indigestion medicine.”
Darmstadter reached for the microphone and put it before his lips.
“Cairo, Army Four Three Three.”
A voice with the unmistakable tones of Brooklyn came over the earphones.
“This is Cairo, go ahead, Army Four Three Three.”
“Army Pour Three Three, a B-25 aircraft, is passing through niner thousand about thirty miles north of your station. Request approach and landing.”