“What do you mean by that?”
“You tell them you were on a bombing raid, got lost, and bailed out when you ran out of gas. If they believe you, you sit out the war in a Stalagluft la prisoner-of-war camp for aviation personnel]. If they don’t, you’re in trouble.”
“And where are you and Dolan going to be while I’m taking my chances with the partisans?”
“Dolan and I will have drawn the “Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass “Go” and Do Not Collect $200′ card,” Canidy said matter-of-factly.
“We can’t get captured.”
“Why not?” Darmstadter blurted.
“Because the Germans can find out anything they want to know from anybody, if they put their mind to it,” Canidy said.
“And there are certain things that Dolan and I know that you don’t, and that the Germans shouldn’t.”
“What are you going to do,” Darmstadter asked, horrified, “to keep from getting captured?”
Canidy ignored the question. Instead, he handed Darmstadter another typewritten sheet of paper.
“There will be a bombing raid by B-25 aircraft on the boot of Italy,” he said.
“Here’re the details, what you would be expected to know if you had gone on the mission. Memorize as much as you can, especially your unit, your aircraft number, your departure field. Use your imagination for the names of the crew.
I think you can probably get away with it.”
“And what, exactly, are you and Dolan going to do?” Darmstadter asked.
“To coin a phrase,” Canidy said, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“I’d really like to know,” Darmstadter persisted.
Canidy thought it over a moment before replying.
“They gave us a pill,” he said.
“Actually, it’s a small glass vial, filled with what looks like watery milk. When you bite it, it’s supposed to work before you feel the little pieces of glass in your mouth. The idea is that we’re supposed to bite it when it becomes clear we’re not going to make it to Vis. But what I think we’ll do is bail out over the mainland and take a chance the partisans will find us before the Germans do. If we land in the lap of the Wehrmacht, then we’ll j bite the pill.” | “What the hell do you know that makes suicide necessary?” Darmstadter | blurted. | Canidy had not responded. |
Just over an hour before, Canidy had turned on the radio direction finder.
By then, the three of them had relieved for each other at the controls at roughly hourly intervals, and Dolan was then sitting in the pilot’s seat. At first, the signal strength indicator needle on the instrument panel had made no response as Canidy turned the crank that rotated the loop antenna mounted atop the fuselage.
Then the needle jumped, just perceptibly, and he reversed his cranking motion, aiming the antenna at the source of the radiation. The needle on the signal-strength indicator crept very slowly, barely perceptibly, upward as the signal strength increased.
And then, very faintly, over the static in his earphones, Darmstadter began to be able to recognize one Morse code letter, Dah-Dah-Dah, D, and then another, and finally a third, until there was in his earphones, endlessly repeated Dah-Dah-Dah Dit-Dit-Dit-Dit Dah-Dah-Dah. He wondered if DHD meant something, or whether it had been selected because it was a long, readily recognizable string of letters.
“I don’t think,” Canidy’s voice came dryly and metallically over the earphones, “that’s what they call ‘right on the money.”” Dolan looked up at the roof of the cabin, at the needle on the antenna rotating mechanism. Then he put the B-25G into a very gentle turn, in a very slightly nose-down attitude, and made small adjustments to the throttle and richness controls.
Finally, his voice came metallically over the earphones.
“Fuck you, Canidy.”
A moment later, he straightened the B-25 on a course corresponding with that indicated on the radio direction finder, made a minute adjustment of the trim wheel, and then touched his intercom mike button again.
“And if you can refrain from walking up and down, Darmstadter, like a passenger on a ferry boat, I would be obliged.”
Then he folded his arms on his chest.