the moment Bill Donovan blew his bugle. He considered his wife’s arguments on the ride to Washington. They were reinforced by his uncomfortable awareness that he was wearing a uniform that no longer fit.
It was worse in Washington. As he walked across the waiting room at Union Station, a military policeman stopped him and informed him that the leather Sam Browne belt he was wearing had been proscribed for more than a year. He was sorry, he said, but he had his orders, and would have to issue Stevens a citation for being out of uniform. He then asked for Stevens’s ID card, and of course Stevens didn’t have one.
Stevens had resigned himself to arrest for impersonating an officer when a man walked up, asked if he was Edmund T. Stevens, and then flashed some sort of identity card. The MP backed off immediately.
“I’m Chief Ellis, Colonel,” the man said. “Captain Douglass sent me to fetch you. I must have missed you on the platform.”
“It’s Captain Stevens,” Stevens insisted.
“Yes, Sir, whatever you say, Sir,” Ellis said.
He then took Stevens to the dining room in the Wardman Park Hotel, where Colonel Donovan and Captain Peter Douglass were about to take luncheon.
That afternoon was the first Stevens heard of the Office of Strategic Services. Over broiled scrod Donovan told him that he wanted Stevens to go to London for that organization and serve as sort of secretary-treasurer of the office he had established there. What was needed over there right away, Donovan said, was someone with enough military experience to deal with the military from whom OSS was drawing ninety percent of its logistical support, as well as someone familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the “natives.” Since Stevens obviously met both criteria, Donovan felt certain he would accept the job. Stevens of course agreed.
“Buy yourself some silver leaves, Colonel,” Donovan said, handing him a War Department general order, four consecutive paragraphs of which promoted Captain Stevens, Quartermaster Corps, U.S. Army Reserve, to lieutenant colonel; ordered Lieutenant Colonel Stevens to extended active duty for the duration of the war plus six months; detailed him to the General Staff Corps for duty with the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and further reassigned him to the Office of Strategic Services.
Stevens spent the next several days in briefing, most of which he didn’t understand, and, honor-bound, told Captain Peter Douglass about it.
“Once you get over there, it will all fall in place,” Douglass had said. “And tomorrow night there will be a working dinner, and things should be a lot clearer after that. If you’d like, you could take the day off and go home. Just be back here by, say, half past five tomorrow afternoon.”
“I will have some sort of leave before I actually go to London, won’t I?”
“I don’t think that will be possible right now,” Douglass said. “But you’ll be coming back and forth, I’m sure, and we’ll work something out then.”
His wife was furious and heartsick when he announced he was leaving for overseas practically immediately. But his private reaction—though he was careful not to show it—was exultation, as if he had been pardoned from prison.
As Canidy made himself—Stevens politely declined—a second drink, a muscular young first lieutenant in Class-A uniform—pink trousers and green blouse and glossy jump boots—arrived, soon after followed by a somewhat better-looking young man also wearing pinks and greens, but with no insignia except for parachutist’s wings on the breast.
“What’s he dressed for, Martin?” Canidy asked.
“His commission came through, Sir,” Martin said.
“Where’s his insignia?”
“He hasn’t been sworn in yet, Sir,” Martin said. “I thought it best to wait for that before pinning on his insignia.”
“If I didn’t know better, Martin,” Canidy said, “I would mistake you for a West Pointer.”
Martin, Colonel Stevens thought, isn’t sure if he has been complimented or insulted. And Major Canidy, come to think of it, certainly wouldn’t have made that crack if he suspected that this middle-aged retread warrior marched in the Long Gray Line.
“Do those little silver wings mean what I think they do?” Canidy asked. “That you have willingly been jumping out of airplanes?”
“Why don’t you lay off me, Dick?” the handsome young man snapped.
“Eric, if you are going to be an officer and a gentleman, you will have to learn to treat your superior officers with much greater respect.”
The man glared at him but said nothing.
“Is Captain Whittaker with you?” Canidy asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Martin said. “He went to say hello to Miss Chenowith.”