He was beginning to understand that there were questions he could ask, but that asking personal questions was taboo.
The answer, anyway, seemed self-evident. Whatever the OSS really did-some of the stories he’d heard about the OSS simply couldn’t be true–it obviously had a high priority for personnel and equipment. The big brass had apparently decided that an MIT-trained aeronautical engineer could do more good working and flying for the OSS than he could, say, as a maintenance officer in a troop carrier or heavy bombardment wing.
Canidy connected a portable oxygen bottle to his face mask, then went into the cabin. Ten minutes later, he returned.
“I’ll sit there awhile, John,” he said to Dolan, motioning him out of the pilot’s seat.
“Take a nap.”
When Dolan had hooked up a portable oxygen mask and gone back the fuselage, Canidy’s voice came metallically over the intercom.
“Dolan’s a hell of a fine pilot,” he said.
“He was a gold-stripe chief avi;
pilot before the war.”
Darmstadter had heard that both the Navy and the Marines had enliste lots in peacetime, and the legend was that they were better pilots than i of the officers because all they did was fly.
“And then he got a commission?” Darmstadter asked.
“No,” Canidy said.
“First, they took him off flight status. Bad heart. The got out of the Navy and went to China with the American Volunteer Groi a maintenance officer. Then he got a commission.”
“But he’s flying!”
“How Commander Dolan passed a flight physical, Darmstadter, is of those questions you’re not supposed to ask,” Canidy said.
“When you we preflight, and they were giving you those fascinating lectures on military tics, did they touch on ‘conservation of assets’?”
Darmstadter thought about it, then shook his head.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“What you’re supposed to do, if you’re a general or an admiral and abo enter battle, is decide what ‘asset’ you absolutely have to have if things tough. Then you squirrel that asset away so it’s ready when you need it. I sent my asset back for a nap. If anybody can sit this thing down safely mountain strip with a stream running across the runway, Dolan can. Yol low?”
“Yes, sir,” Darmstadter said. He was more than a little uncomforti Canidy was obviously a highly skilled B-25 pilot and comfortable doing tthings that with it that most people would not try (his solo flight of the B-25 thrt the soup the day Darmstadter had first met him was proof of that). An’ had just admitted that he didn’t think he could make the landing on the is of Vis
“There is an additional problem,” Canidy said.
“Commander Dolan d he is still twenty-two years old and that the doctors are dead wrong about condition of his heart. He will take affront unless handled properly. Kid glare required.” t “I understand, Sir,” Darmstadter said.
“And I told you before, stop calling me “Sir,”” Canidy said. ‘ Six hours and fifteen minutes after taking off from Fersfield, the V landed at Casablanca. Darmstadter made the landing. He had to tell hill there was no reason to be nervous. Landing on the wide, concrete runwi a commercial airport on a bright, sunny afternoon should be a snap, com to landing on the rough, narrow gravel runways at Fersfield. But he was ill
that it was sort of a test. Major Canidy was in effect giving him a check ride to Qy well Dolan had done as an instructor pilot.
Darinstadter was enormously pleased and relieved that the landing was a greaser.
A Follow The jeep, painted in checkerboard black and white and flying an enormous checkerboard flag, met them at the end of the runway and led them away from the terminal to a remote corner of the field. There was an old hangar there with the legend “Air France” barely legible through a layer of rust.
As they approached, the doors opened and a ground crewman gave Darmstadter hand signals, directing him to taxi to the doorway and then shut it down. The moment the engines died, a dozen Air Corps ground crewmen manhandled the B-25 inside the hangar and closed the doors.