“You really are a bastard, Jimmy,” she said.
“You miss the point, Cynthia,” Whittaker said.
“The one thing I demand of my subordinates when I’m off saving the world for democracy is what they call instant, cheerful obedience.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Cynthia flared.
“I’m about to go into the Philippines,” Whittaker said.
“If the lieutenant here is half the radio wizard Douglass tells me he is, and if I’m convinced he’ll take orders, he’s going with me.”
“That’s operational information,” Cynthia flared.
“That’s Top Secret. I’m going to tell Colonel Donovan you’ve been running off at the mouth again, and Ellis, damn you, too, you’re my witness.”
“Oh, you’ve got the Need-to-Know, Cynthia,” Whittaker said.
“You’re the control.”
She looked at him and saw in his eyes that he was telling the truth.
“I’m not thrilled about you being my control, frankly,” Whittaker said.
“But it was the only way I could think of to get you out of that school.”
“Why did you do that?” Cynthia snapped.
“What gave you the right?”
“I already told you,” he said.
“I love you, and all’s fair in love and war. This seems to be both, so anything goes.”
“Damn you, Jimmy!” she said, furious that she felt like crying.
“That may pose certain problems between us, Captain,” Hammersmith said.
“How is that?” Whittaker asked.
“I’m in love with her, too,” Greg Hammersmith said.
“Oh, Greg!” Cynthia said.
“From this point, then. Lieutenant, you are advised not to turn your back on me,” Whittaker said.
“Fair enough,” Hammersmith said.
“You look vaguely familiar to me, Lieutenant,” Whittaker said.
“Do we know each other?”
“No, Sir,” Hammersmith said.
“He’s the actor. Captain,” Chief Ellis said.
“Greg Hammer?”
“Oh, yeah,” WTiittaker said.
“I’ll be damned. How’d a movie star get in the oss?”
“I’m a friend of Stan Fine’s,” Hammersmith said.
“When the Army announced that I would be stationed as an instructor at Fort Monmouth for the indefinite future, I asked him to get me out of it.”
“I’m really sorry you told me that,” Whittaker said.
“I always find it difficult to cut the throats of friends of friends of mine.”
“Catch me asleep,” Hammersmith said.
“I’m very vulnerable when I’m asleep.”
“You just volunteered to run around in the Philippines, Lieutenant,” Whittaker said.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I thought I had to prove I was a radio wizard first,” Hammersmith said.
“That was before you told me you have the hots for our girl… ,” Whittaker said.
“Damn you!” Cynthia said.
“Obviously,” Whittaker went on, “I could not go off to run around in the jungle and eat monkeys and leave you here to pursue yon fair maiden by yourself.”
“Obviously not,” Hammersmith said, and chuckled.
Damn it, Cynthia thought, they like each other!
[THREE]
First Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Darmstadter, U.S. Army Air Corps, a stocky, round-faced young officer of twenty-three, was not sure why he had volunteered for a “classified assignment involving great personal risk” or why he had been accepted.
As a simple statement of fact, rather than from modesty, he understood that he was not the world’s greatest airplane driver. There was proof of this.
He had twice–once in basic and again in advanced–been sent before the elimination board. The first time, the reason had been simple. He had suffered airsickness.
The only reason he had not been eliminated in basic and sent to navigator’s or bombardier’s school, or for that matter to aerial gunner’s school, was that his class had an extraordinary number of cadets who also suffered from airsickness, plus half a dozen guys who had just quit. The elimination board had considered all those cadets who had an airsickness problem and decided that Darmstadter, H.” was the least inept of the inept.
They really couldn’t eliminate all of those who under other circumstances should have been eliminated. Pilots were in short supply, and the demand was growing. When he had been given another “probationary period” by the elimination board, it had two conditions. The first was official: that he “demonstrate his ability to perform acrobatic maneuvers without manifesting signs of illness or disorientation.” Translated, that meant that he do a loop without getting airsick. The second, unofficial, unspoken, condition was that he understand he would not get to be a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot, and that there was a good likelihood, presuming he got his wings, that he would be assigned to a liaison squadron, flying single-engine two-seaters. Or even be assigned to the Artillery to fly Piper Cubs directing artillery fire.