She didn’t respond. If it was Horace G. Hammersmith and she didn’t respond to his knock, he might take the hint and go away.
But after a moment, there was another knock, this time far more demanding.
“Who is it?”
“Eldon Baker.”
“Come on in,” Cynthia called.
Baker entered the room.
“Studying,” Cynthia said unnecessarily.
She saw that Baker had seen the hot plate and the jar of Nescafe and wondered if he would turn her in. He knew that she had a close relationship with Colonel Donovan and Captain Douglass; the other training personnel did not.
“Have you got a minute so that we can talk?” Baker asked.
“I should study, Eldon,” she said, “but sure.”
“Don’t worry about the examination,” he said as he closed the door.
“You won’t be taking it.”
“Oh?”
“I have just had a telephone call from Chief Ellis,” Baker said.
“You are to go to Washington to the house on Q Street with the station wagon in the morning.”
“Oh?” she repeated.
“You will take your things with you,” Baker said.
“According to the Chief, you will not be coming back. At least as a trainee.”
“What’s this all about?” Cynthia asked.
She was sure she knew.
Oh, goddamn you, Jimmy!
“Chief Ellis did not elect to tell me,” Baker said.
“But I think we can both make an educated guess, can’t we?”
“Whittaker?” Cynthia asked.
“Doesn’t it seem that way to you? “Baker said.
“I can’t tell you how annoyed this makes me.”
“Why should it bother you? He’s not offering you his unasked-for male protection.”
“After some thought,” Baker said, “after Captain Whittaker’s visit, I decided I could not overlook it. That, in other words, I had to make an official issue of it.”
“I don’t think I quite follow you,” Cynthia said.
“In addition to what he did to you,” Baker said, “he had a run-in with me.
He was insubordinate. Technically, I suppose, he’s A.W.O.L.. He was ordered to report here for training. He decided, on his own, that he’d really rather not do that. I wrote a letter reporting what had transpired to Colonel Donovan.”
Cynthia wondered why that bothered her, why she felt a surprising flash of anger. Baker was right. Jimmy Whittaker was an Air Corps officer. Officers do what they are told to do. And there was absolutely no excuse for his having kissed her the way he had, making a fool of her in front of the others.
“It would appear that the rules which apply to everyone else in the OSS, myself included, do not apply to Captain Whittaker.”
“We don’t know that’s what’s happened,” she said.
“I felt sure that Colonel Donovan would understand my motives in making an official report of what happened,” Baker said.
“That, rather than trying to get Whittaker in trouble, my concern was for the overall discipline of the organization.
I felt confident he would understand that it was not a personality clash between Captain Whittaker and myself, but rather an impersonal incident in which an agent willfully disobeyed his superior, with the result that the authority of the Director of Training was seriously undermined.”
He waited for her to respond to that, and then, when she did not, went on, “Obviously, I was wrong. The only response to my letter was the telephone call just now. When Whittaker left here, after telling me that I was ‘out of my mind’ for having you in the school, he said that he was going to see the colonel.
I had the impression he meant both about his coming here and about you.”
“He’s known Colonel Donovan all his life,” Cynthia said softly.
“And so have you,” Baker said.
Cynthia looked at him.
“You want me to go to Colonel Donovan?” she asked.
“I thought you might consider it,” Baker said.
“For what a fraternal organiation would call ‘the good of the order.”” “I’m going to see Colonel Donovan,” Cynthia said.
“I intend to graduate from this school.”
“I thought perhaps you could make it clear to him why this whole sequence of events is so distressing to me,” Baker said.
Cynthia’s mind ‘was rushing ahead.
“If I’m to go to Washington in the morning,” she said, “what do I do about turning in my equipment, settling things?”