and she knew what authority came with that. This morning, she had walked into his office and, politely, sure, but in a this-is-an-order tone of voice, told him she wanted to be at Kamina at 1630, and what time did she have to meet him at the airport so that he could fly her there in the L-23?
She would be at Kamina for two or three days, she said, and would get word to him when he was to fly back and get her.
He told her two o’clock, and she was there at two o’clock, and she smiled at him, and his copilot, and said “Hello,” but not one other word.
“You’re strapped in all right, ma’am?” Major Anderson asked.
“Yes, I am, and if we’re going to work together, could you call me Cecilia?”
“I’d be happy to,” he said. “My first name is John.”
“I’ll shake your hand, John,” she said with a smile, “when you don’t need it to steer the airplane.”
“Is someone going to meet you here, ma’ . . . Cecilia, or should I radio for a car?”
“Someone’s going to meet me,” she said. “But thank you.”
A follow-me jeep led the L-23 to the tarmac in front of one of the hangars, and as he turned it around, he glanced into the hangar and saw an L-19, painted flat black all over, with no markings of any kind, on which three Congolese were working. They were wearing what looked like GI mechanic’s overalls.
A Congolese lieutenant colonel drove down the tarmac in a jeep, and Major Anderson did a double take.
I know that sonofabitch. He’s the Green Beanie that was in the Air Simba hangar when the other Green Beanie, the aviator, told me they would fly my airplane to Stanleyville by themselves, thank you just the same.
“Cecilia,” Major Anderson said helpfully, “the last time I saw that Congolese light colonel in the jeep there, he was wearing a U.S. Army Special Forces major’s uniform.”
“John,” Miss Taylor said, “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
“No, really.”
“Major, you are mistaken,” Miss Taylor said, with that voice-of -command tone again in her voice, “I know you are mistaken.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Major Anderson said.
The Congolese lieutenant colonel walked up to the wing root of the L-23, saluted Miss Taylor, and spoke to her in Swahili. She replied in Swahili, and he helped her off the wing root and into the jeep, then returned to the L-23, where he opened the luggage door with what looked like experience and took out her luggage, put it in the jeep, got behind the wheel, and drove off.
Major Anderson told the copilot to watch while the tanks were topped off, and he would check the weather.
“The pilot recognized you, Colonel,” Cecilia said.
“There was a minor flap when we first got here,” Father said. “Felter told him he wanted the L-23—Jack Portet flew it—and that idiot thought we needed him to fly the airplane. It was like we were stealing his little rubber duckie.”
“You often refer to peers as idiots, do you?”
“Only when they are,” Father said.
“Where are we going?”
“First to your quarters, then I thought we would tour your motor pool. The guy now in charge of the motor pool is one of my guys. SFC Doc Jensen. Great big guy from Chicago, speaks pretty good Swahili. After that, I thought I would show you your air force. The pilot in charge is a Cuban. Good guy, knows what he’s doing, has the motivation, and knows and likes Jack Portet from the time Jack was teaching them how to fly the -26s at Hurlburt. The problem was the idiot you replaced.”
“Tell me something, Lunsford,” she said. “How much did you have to do with your colonel asking O’Connor to transfer me here?”
He turned and looked at her.
“When Colonel Lowell made that suggestion, I was in the ‘is that my brain or my heart thinking’ part of the thought process. He spoke before I could make up my mind.”
“Let’s clear the air,” Cecilia said. “We have a professional relationship, and that’s all it’s going to be.”
“You got it,” Lunsford said.
Lunsford pulled the jeep up before the verandah of a large, single-story, tin-roofed house with an immaculately trimmed lawn and shrubbery.
“This is the VIP guest house. Colonel Supo told me to tell you he hopes you’ll be comfortable here.”
“You like Supo, don’t you?”
“He confirms my theory that a lot of sergeant majors should be colonels, and vice versa,” Lunsford said. “He’s smart, and a good soldier.”