3
ANACOSTIA NAVAL AIR STATION
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JUNE 29, 1942
When Canidy and Fine landed at Anacostia, Chief Ellis was there with the Buick to meet them.
“Give Captain Fine a hand with his gear, please, Chief,” Canidy said. “I’ve got to see about getting this thing fueled, and I want to check the weather.”
When they had Fine’s Val-Paks and his footlocker in the Buick, Chief Ellis led Captain Fine into base ops, where they found Canidy in the weather room getting a three-day forecast from a Navy meteorologist.
As the weatherman was concluding, Captain Chester Wezevitz—the Navy officer whom Canidy had told that the COI’s job was suppressing VD—came into the room.
“VD must be a hell of a problem in the fleet,” he said. “I had a look at your airplane, Major. Carpets, upholstered leather seats, and everything.”
“You noticed, I’m sure,” Canidy said, “that the seats fold down into couches. We think of it, Captain, as our airborne prophylactics-testing laboratory.”
“Shit,” Wezevitz said, grinning.
“It is considered so important to the overall war effort,” Canidy said, “that I have been given a copilot to share the strain of my burden. May I present Captain Fine?”
As Fine, baffled, was shaking hands with Wezevitz, Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Bitter, with the golden rope of an admiral’s aide hanging down his arm, walked into the weather room.
He and Canidy looked at each other for a moment without speaking.
“Well,” Canidy broke the silence, “look at the dog robber.”
Bitter offered his hand.
“It’s good to see you again, Dick,” he said a little stiffly. “In the Air Corps, are you?”
“That’s right,” Canidy said. “Captain Fine, Commander Bitter. Do you remember him? He was at that dinner in Washington.”
“Of course,” Fine said. “He went off to the Flying Tigers with you.”
The eyebrows of the Navy captain rose in surprise. “You’re now in the Air Corps, eh?” Bitter asked.
“The Air Corps,” Canidy said.
The awkwardness and tension between Bitter and Canidy was evident to Ellis, Fine, and Wezevitz.
“The admiral’s flight is all laid on, Commander,” Wezevitz said. “I presume that’s why you’re here?”
“Yes, Sir,” Bitter said. “The admiral asked me to check on it.”
“All laid on,” Wezevitz repeated awkwardly.
“Are you stationed here?” Bitter asked.
“No. But I come in here from time to time,” Canidy said. “I’m assigned to the Office of the Coordinator of Information.”
Canidy saw no comprehension on Bitter’s face.
“How’s the knee?” Canidy asked, to change the subject.
“I have a cane,” Bitter said. “I left it in the staff car. It keeps me from flying. I’m assigned to BUAIR.”
“You’re a lieutenant commander, so congratulations are in order,” Canidy said, adding mischievously, “How do you like being a dog robber?”
Bitter was not amused.
“Obviously, I can’t fly,” he said. “I can’t even get limited duty at sea.”
“And that bothers you?” Canidy said. “Be grateful, Edwin.”
Bitter didn’t like that either, but he didn’t respond to it. Instead, he asked, “Have you got a minute?”
Canidy nodded. Bitter took his arm and led him out of the weather room into the corridor.
“Do you remember Sarah Child?” he asked.
“Sure,” Canidy said. “Your pen pal. The little girl with the sexy eyes and the marvelous boobs.”
“We’re married,” Bitter said levelly.
“Ooops!” Canidy said.
“And we have a child,” Bitter went on. “A little boy. His name is Joseph after Sarah’s father, and he was born last March. We were secretly married before we went over there.”
Canidy’s eyebrows went up, and then he understood.
“I remember,” he said. “I was your best man. How could you have forgotten?”
“She’s really a fine woman, Dick,” Bitter said.
“I know she is,” Canidy said.
“Thank you, Dick,” Bitter said.
Canidy was embarrassed. He was being thanked, he understood, for his unspoken promise not to tell anyone, should the occasion arise, that Lieutenant Commander and Mrs. Bitter had not been married when Bitter went off to the Flying Tigers.
Quickly, Canidy said, “So tell me all about your little nest. You got a picture of the kid?”
Bitter took several from his wallet and handed them over.
“Unfortunately, he looks just like his old man,” Canidy said. “I’m happy for you, Eddie.”
“Come see us, Dick,” Bitter said.
“That would be difficult, Eddie,” Canidy said.
“We’re in the Willard Hotel,” Bitter said in a rush. “We absolutely couldn’t find a place to live, so Sarah’s father turned his apartment in the Willard over to us.”
“You get along all right with Sarah’s father, huh?”
“Our mothers are the ones who give us trouble,” Bitter said.
“Oh?”
“Sarah’s is—well, crazy. She’s in and out of mental hospitals. And mine—disapproves.”
“She’s probably sore you didn’t tell her you were secretly married,” Canidy said. “She’ll get over it.”
“I really would like to talk to you, Dick,” Bitter said.
He means about my cowardice in China. He wants an explanation. That’s touching. But I can’t tell him about that. That would violate the Donovan’s Dilettantes code of honor.
“Tell me, Eddie, did your kid inherit your undersized wang?”
Bitter shook his head in resignation, but then, surprising himself, he said, “He can lie on his back and piss on the ceiling.”
“Here’s to a kid who can piss on the ceiling,” Canidy said, lifting his hand high, then, “Eddie, I have to go.”
They shook hands again, and Canidy went to the weather-room door to motion to Fine and Ellis to come with him.
When they were gone, Wezevitz asked, “Old pal of yours?”
“We were at Pensacola as IPs before the war,” Bitter said.
“And now he’s in the Air Corps?”
“He left the service in 1941,” Bitter said.
“Now he’s an Air Corps major flying a VIP transport for the VD comic-book people,” Wezevitz said. “Seems like a hell of waste of a naval aviator.”
Bitter, not quite sure he had heard correctly, asked, “Sir?”
“What the Coordinator of Information does, Commander,” Wezevitz said, “is publish those ‘Use a Pro Kit’ comic books they issue to the white hats. Why they need an airplane to do it is beyond me.”
Bitter looked at him curiously but didn’t say anything. He thought it was highly unlikely that the Navy would assign a C-45 to airlift VD comic books. It was even more unlikely that the Air Corps would commission as a field-grade officer someone with Canidy’s record. At the same time, he remembered a cryptic remark from Doug Douglass once when Canidy’s name had come up, that people should not jump to conclusions before they had all the facts. Doug wouldn’t say anything else, but he obviously knew something else.
When I get back to the office, Ed Bitter decided, I will get to the bottom of this. While there’s a hell of a lot wrong with being an admiral’s dog robber, it has certain benefits. When you call somebody up and identify yourself as the aide to a vice admiral, you get answers a lieutenant commander wouldn’t be given.
Two hours later, when he walked into the office, the admiral’s WAVE said the admiral wanted to see him immediately.
“Close the door, Commander,” Vice Admiral Enoch Hawley said.
When Bitter had done that, he went on: “I’ve just had a strange telephone call about you, Commander. You will consider the following an order: From this moment on, you will make no attempt to contact Major Richard Canidy, U.S. Army Air Corps. Nor will you discuss him with anyone, nor make inquiries regarding him or the Office of the Coordinator of Information. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” Bitter said.
“Whatever this is about, Ed,” the admiral said, “it doesn’t seem to bother you. You’re smiling.”
“In a way, Sir, it’s very good news.”