The Secret Warriors - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,129
meant that he could fly no higher than 12,000 feet, which in turn meant the fuel consumption was considerably higher than it would have been at 20,000.
He drank all but what he guessed were two cups of the now-cold coffee in the thermos. He had to leave some for Nembly, he knew, presuming he recovered, or for Wilson if he didn’t.
He dozed off, caught himself, shifted in the seat, and flexed his legs and arms. He thought that perhaps if he took the plane off the autopilot and flew it, that might keep him awake. He really didn’t want to start taking the Benzedrine just yet.
He woke up, he didn’t know how much later, looked at the altimeter, and felt bile in his throat. The altimeter indicated 7,000 feet.
He knew what had happened. He had dozed off, apparently with the airplane trimmed in a very slight nose-down position. Losing this much altitude was bad, but it would have been worse if the nose had been elevated as much as it had been depressed. If that had happened, they would have just as gently climbed 5,000 feet, which would have taken them to 17,000. From 13,000 up there would have been increasing oxygen starvation. He would have been unconscious at around 14,000, and at 17,000 they would have all been dead.
He reached for the trim wheel and set up a slight nose-up altitude. Then he popped three of the Benzedrine capsules into his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of cold coffee. Benzedrine was no longer an option for later use; he needed it now.
He took the C-46 to 10,000 feet, then went aft again to check on Nembly. If anything, he was worse. Whatever was wrong with him, Fine decided, it had nothing to do with Spanish peppers.
But when he got back to the cockpit, Wilson was awake.
“Is there any coffee left?” Wilson asked. “I can watch the gauges awhile.”
“I just took some Benzedrine,” Fine said as he poured a cupful of coffee for Wilson.
“You should have woken me up,” Wilson said.
What I should have done, Fine thought, suddenly furious, when Canidy waved the flag at me, was tell him to stick it up his ass. Then I wouldn’t be in this fucking mess.
The depth of his anger surprised him. After a moment, he decided it was a symptom of fatigue. And fear.
The next thing he knew, he was coming awake. His bladder ached to be relieved of all the coffee.
The damned Benzedrine doesn’t work, he thought angrily.
The forty-eight-hour clock on the instrument panel had stopped. He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for two hours. The clock had stopped long before that. They had forgotten to wind it.
What else, in our fatigue, have we forgotten to do?
He wound the clock and set it, and then went aft to relieve himself. Nembly was shivering beneath his blankets, and the square aluminum box they were using as a toilet smelled so foul when Fine lifted the lid he thought he was going to be sick.
5
LUANDA, PORTUGUESE ANGOLA
1000 HOURS
AUGUST 20, 1942
For some reason—perhaps, Whittaker thought, because the London station chief had given him a gun so he could shoot Canidy, or perhaps because Whittaker had shoved his own gun into the man’s face and taken the gun away—the flight engineer was growing more and more nervous and irritable as the flight progressed. And ten hours and fifteen minutes after they had taken off, he had come forward and angrily and without asking permission switched on the radio direction finder. Canidy had turned it off hours before; its hiss annoyed him, and they were not in range of any transmitter it could detect.
The way that sonofabitch did that, Whittaker thought angrily, was pretty damned close to giving me the finger. I’m pilot in command of this goddamned airplane; I decide what gets switched on and when.
After a moment’s thought, he decided against calling the engineer down.
The poor bastard’s probably nearly as scared as I am.
Whittaker looked over at Canidy, who was sound asleep with his head resting at an angle that was going to give him a stiff neck when he woke. Very tenderly, Whittaker leaned over and pushed Dick gently, so that his head hung down over his chest. He would not wake him, he decided, until they were twenty minutes or so out of Luanda.
They found Luanda when and where they had planned to, and Whittaker set it down with no trouble.