At Croydon, it had been necessary to “light the burners.” The theory was-and damn the cost–that if enough gasoline were burned in devices set up alongside a runway, the heat generated would cause the air mass and the fog it contained to rise, clearing the runway. In practice, as now, what the burners did for pilots was serve as sort of a super beacon If you could see the glow of the burners, you knew that the runway was somewhere down there, and with a little bit of luck, when you went down low enough, you could find the runway.
The C-54, flown by a commissioned TWA pilot who had lots of experience finding San Francisco in the fog, came in low and slow toward the glow on his horizon over London and found the Croydon runway on his second pass.
As he taxied toward the terminal, it was raining so hard that he had trouble seeing out the windshield. The ground crew who came out to meet them were wearing yellow rubber coats, hats, and trousers, and looked, the pilot thought, like so many misplaced sailboat sailors.
The first passenger to come down the ladder was a chief petty officer of the U.S. Navy. He had a Valv-Pak in each hand and smaller pieces of luggage under his arms.
As he came down the stairs, an Austin Princess limousine drove up close to him. The chief opened the front door and tossed the luggage inside, then backed out and held the rear door open.
“Get in, Ellis!” Colonel William Donovan said as he came down the stairs from the C-54.
“In here, Ellis,” It. Colonel Edmund T. Stevens said, motioning with his hand.
“You’re getting soaked.”
Ellis got in the backseat, and a moment later Donovan got in beside him and closed the door.
Donovan gave Stevens his hand.
“Well, Ed,” he said, “how are you?”
“Just fine, thank you, Bill,” Stevens said.
“David said he hopes you will understand that he would have met you if he could.”
Donovan’s reply surprised Stevens. Donovan was usually not only polite but manifested the lawyer’s ability to say the unpleasant in the nicest possible way.
Donovan said, “I didn’t want to see him anyway. Not just now.”
And then Donovan leaned forward and cranked down the divider separating the backseat from the chauffeur’s compartment.
“Young lady, would you drive up to the terminal and get out, please? I’m sorry, but you’re about to be put out in the rain.”
“Yes, Sir,” the driver, a WRAC sergeant, said.
“You call the office and have them send a car for you,” Stevens said.
“There’s a bus, Sir,” the WRAC sergeant replied.
“I can take that.”
“Do what Colonel Stevens said,” Donovan said.
“The bus doesn’t go near Berkeley Square.”
The WRAC pulled the nose of the Princess close to a door of the terminal, pulled on the parking brake, jumped out, and ran into the building. Ellis climbed over Donovan and got in the front seat behind the wheel.
“She forgot her purse,” Ellis announced.
“No problem,” Donovan said.
“We’ll probably be at Berkeley Square before she gets there. Get us off the field and drive in wide circles.”
“Yes, Sir,” Ellis said, and backed the Princess away from the terminal building.
“Colonel, you put the window down.”
“It’s all right, I want you to hear this anyway,” Donovan said.
But then he didn’t say anything else until they had left the field and were driving through Thorton Heath toward the Thames on Highway A2 3 5.
“Get off the highway, Ellis,” he ordered.
Ellis made the next right turn.
“The ostensible purpose of my visit,” Donovan said, “is to smooth things over between you and SOE.
“Representations have been made at the highest levels’ to the effect that you are not only being uncooperative but are interfering with their smooth operation. All of which proves that you are doing what I told you to do.”
“Anything specific, Colonel?
“Stevens asked.
“No, just general allegations about your being uncooperative, which I interpret to mean you have both locked them out of our cupboard and have turned a deaf ear to the pronouncements of the professionals,” Donovan said.