landings.”
Canidy smiled. The translation of that was “eat ass.”
The assistant base adjutant, a captain, was very impressed with Major Richard Canidy. This was his first encounter with an officer assigned to General Headquarters, Army Air Corps, who was traveling on orders stamped “Secret.” That he was flying a Navy airplane added a delightful touch of mystery.
“This is Major Canidy, Captain,” the base commander had told him. “I want you to take him where he wants to go and do whatever you can to assist him. But don’t ask him any questions.”
The remaining seven B-17Es circled the field in formation. As they passed over, the roar of their engines was awesome. They were simply enormous—and seemed invincible. Canidy let himself dwell for a moment on the incredible logistics problem involved in just getting them into the air. How many gallons of gas had it taken to fill their tanks? How many mechanics were required to service that many engines? For that matter, how many parachute riggers had to be trained just to pack all those parachutes?
One by one, at ninety-second intervals, the B-17Es detached themselves from the formation and began to land. By the time the first wheels touched down on the wide concrete runway, Fine’s plane had stopped a third of the way down the parallel taxiway, shut down its inboard engines, and turned its nose toward the runway.
The captain drove the pickup over next to it, and Canidy saw in the pilot’s seat a thin-faced, ascetic man with horn-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t at all like the man Canidy remembered. Captain Stanley S. Fine was wearing a leather-brimmed cap with a headset clamped over it. He looked down at the pickup truck, then turned his attention to the first plane landing.
A minute later, a sergeant in sheepskin high-altitude clothing came to the pickup. He saw Canidy’s gold leaf and saluted.
“Sir, Captain Fine wants to know if you’re waiting for him.”
“Yes, I am, Sergeant,” Canidy said.
When the message was relayed to him, Fine looked down at the pickup truck again, without recognition. His eyebrows rose in curiosity, and he smiled. Then he looked away and didn’t look back at Canidy until the last of the B-17Es had landed. Finally he held up his index finger as an “I’ll be with you in a minute” signal and disappeared from view.
He appeared on the ground shortly afterward walking around the tail section of the aircraft, holding his cap on his head with his hand against the prop blast of the idling engines. He was wearing a tropical worsted shirt and trousers and a horsehide leather A-2 jacket.
He saluted Canidy. “Is there something I can do for you, Major?”
“We’ve met, Captain Fine,” Canidy said.
Fine’s eyebrows rose in question.
“The first time was when Eric Fulmar and I tried to burn down Cedar Rapids. The last time was in Washington the spring before the war. We had dinner with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan and Cynthia Chenowith.”
“Dick Canidy,” Captain Fine said, extending his hand. “I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you. I guess I expected you to be halfway around the world.”
“I’m much better-looking than I used to be,” Canidy said.
Fine laughed. “I saw in the papers, of course, that Jim Whittaker got out of the Philippines. I wondered what happened to you.”
“I got out of China,” Canidy said.
“But you were in the Navy,” Fine questioned, indicating Canidy’s Air Corps uniform.
“And you were a lawyer,” Canidy said as they shook hands. “Things change. The war, I hear, has something to do with that.”
Fine laughed again, then said, “Well, I’m glad you did, and I’m glad to see you. But I suspect this is not a coincidence.”
“Can your copilot handle parking that aircraft?” Canidy asked.
“Interesting question,” Fine said dryly. “I suppose he has to learn sometime, doesn’t he?”
He turned to the airplane and made gestures telling the copilot to take the airplane to its parking place.
“Curiosity is about to overwhelm me,” Fine said to Canidy.
The conversation was interrupted by a roar from the B- 17’s outboard port engine. The copilot, Canidy thought, was running the engine much too fast to taxi.
The copilot retarded his throttle to a more reasonable level, and the B-17E began to move.
Fine and Canidy exchanged the smug smiles of veteran pilots over the foibles of new ones. Then Fine said, “He’s got a hundred thirty hours’ total time. He’ll learn.”
“Can we talk in your BOQ? Do you have a roommate?”
“We can talk there,” Fine said.
Fine’s room was in a frame building so new