“This is Lord Haw Haw, speaking to you from Berlin.”
There was a rustle of magazines and newspapers being tossed aside by the combat crews lounging near the radio, in the chilly Nissen hut. And drinks were held unsipped, as the glib voice of England’s suave traitor continued with his broadcast from Herr Goebbels’ propaganda ministry.
“Tonight I bring a special greeting from the fighter pilots of the Luftwaffe to the 918th Bomb Group in England. Congratul- ations on your safe arrival at Archbury. We’ve been expecting you since you left Kansas, and our U-boats have been counting your B-17s on the flight from Iceland to Prestwick, Scotland. We’re sorry that you lost one in the drink off Bluey West Two, but the U-Boat that picked up the crew reports that all of them are in good spirits . . . and most talkative.
So, here’s luck on your first mission, and a friendly tip to your Group Commander, Colonel Keith Davenport. I say, Colonel, have your Adjutant, Major Stovall, correct the clock above the radio in your Officers’ lounge, it’s four minutes slow. Pleasant dreams, chumps, and take it easy. We’ll be seeing you.”
Forty pairs of eyes swung, first to the clock, then to their wrist watches and finally to the tall bony figure of Colonel Davenport, who had been leaning on the radio cabinet, and who now switch- ed off the dial with a snap. The fatigued, mostly unshaven young faces looming above the flight jackets and flying clothes focused on him expectantly.
Davenport, who likewise needed a shave, appeared more tired than anyone. Dark smudges showed under his eyes, and his left eyelid twitched nervously, as he met the questioning glance of a yellow- haired pilot who wore his crushed hat tilted back.
“How about that, Colonel”, asked the young man, uncertain- ly? “It sounds like a gag.”
“That was no gag, Bishop”, said Davenport, with a shrug and an awkward imitation of a smile. “The 918th has apparently al- ready made Goering’s hit parade. Especially, Major Stovall.”
Everyone looked at the Adjutant, who stood nearby wearing a rather unhappy expression that matched a sudden craving, un- precedented in his tea-totaling life, for a strong shot of whisky.
“What do you say, Harvey?”, Davenport continued, “Do you keep our clock on time from now on, or do we get a new adjutant in the Group?”
Disconcerted, Stovall groped for an answer amid the flurry of nervous laughs that followed the colonel’s effort at humor. Then Davenport led Stovall to one side.
“Let’s go over to my office, Harvey”, he said, inconspicuous- ly.
On their way to the door, the pair passed a heavyset navigator with LT. HEINZ ZIMMERMANN stenciled on the breast of his flying jacket. Zimmermann had not looked up once from the red -hot stove, at which he had been staring, during the broadcast. After the colonel and major had passed, he deliberately spat on the stove.
Outside, the night was cold and damp against a man’s face. Even if there had not been a trace of the fog which muffled the occasional blinks of Major Stovall’s flashlight, shielded with blue tissue paper, no low-flying JU-88s would have detected a crack of light, to betray the existence of an American bomber station, in the solid blackness. The two officers picked their way cautiously through the mud, past the still unfamiliar layout of the Administration Block of Nissen huts. Past a slithering bicycle, and finally past the guard, who rose awkwardly to attention from behind his unpainted wooded desk, in the hall of the Ops Block, shielded just inside by a blackout curtain.
As they walked down a narrow hall, hung with signs reading S-2, and S-3, and ADJUTANT, Davenport spoke over his right shoulder.
“What a lousy dirty dump”, he said. “They can take England and ram it, and jam it.”
Stovall sympathized acutely with Davenport’s irritation, be- cause he knew that it was not prompted by personal discomfort. Throughout the endless and maddening difficulties that had plagued the Group during its months of training, he had never once known this conscientious West Pointer to think of himself. But he sensed that Lord Haw Haw, spokesman of an implac- able enemy, sweeping everything before it toward Stalingrad, and waiting across the North Sea for Davenport’s green boys, had un- duly disturbed the Old Man. If the colonel had a flaw, reflected Stovall, it was that he felt too much like a father toward his forty- eight air crews, and that he had over identified himself with his men. Incessantly worrying about them.
Under the stress of combat, would Davenport try to spare the crews the ultimate hardships and sacrifices? Would losses overly upset him, and would he thereby lose his efficiency as a leader? Stovall comforted himself with the reminder that HE was a civilian soldier . . . and that such misgivings might well be stem- ming from his own inexperience of command.
He followed the colonel through a green door lettered C.O., groped with the blackout curtains to insure that they were tightly drawn and switched on the office light. Far away, in the village of Archbury, the two men could hear an air-raid siren’s wail, rising and falling.
“That’s just what we need”, grumbled Davenport. “A few bombs dumped on the 918th to prove that that Lord Haw Haw guy wasn’t fooling.”
“Night intruder, maybe”, said Stovall, while the colonel fished in his desk until he came up with a sealed pint bottle of bourbon. “Snooping around that R.A.F. airdrome near here.”
Davenport unscrewed the bottle cap, sniffed the bourbon and held it out toward Stovall. “Join me?”
“Afraid I still don’t drink, Colonel”, said Stovall, and to him- self: “You’re not going to find the answers to your problems at the bottom of a brown bottle.”
Some hint of disappointment in his eyes caught Davenport’s attention.
“I know what you’re thinking, Harvey”, he said. “Not until after our first mission, I used to say. Well, tonight, I kind of feel that for us, the war has begun.”
The siren’s wail died out, uncovering the distant drone of eng- ines in the sky, as night fighters of the R.A.F. shooed the visiting German away. The colonel swallowed two swigs, and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his flight jacket.
“Better have one.”
Davenport held out the bottle again, but the Adjutant shook his head. “If you don’t mind, sir”, he said.
“Okay”, said Davenport. “Now, how in hell did those mon- keys find out so much about us?”
Stovall scratched his head.
“Well”, he said, “there’s the crew they said they picked up.” “Any Nazi sympathizers on that crew?”
For a moment Stovall looked as though he hadn’t understood.
“Colonel”, he said, in a persecuted tone, “are you still riding me about that navigator . . . Zimmermann?”
“Maybe”, said Davenport. “Of course”, he added, “he wasn’t on that crew.”
“If he isn’t on the level”, said Stovall, “then the F.B.I. and Counter-Intelligence are all wet. They couldn’t have given Zim- mermann a cleaner bill of health.”
“And yet, his old man was a big wheel in the German Ameri- can Bund.”
“I’m satisfied that he always hated his father”, replied Stovall. “He left home when he found out about it, you know. He real- izes he’s still suspect and he’s plenty eager for combat . . . . to live down his family’s stigma.”
“He’ll still have to convince me . . . what with that Nazi back- ground. Maybe we’d better keep him restricted to the station and detail somebody to keep a close check on him.”
“I’d strongly recommend against that, Colonel. Eventually it would attract attention, probably ruin him with the rest of the men in the Group . . . none of them know he was ever under any suspicion.”
“Of course”, said Davenport, reluctantly, “I wouldn’t want to hurt one of my guys by any hasty action.”
He took another shot of whisky and replaced the pint in his desk.
“I’ve got the finest bunch of young men that ever came out of the U.S.A. But you’d better issue another memorandum on base security. Everybody, from cooks, M.Ps., to ground crews and officers, to you and me, have got to clam up more. I don’t know where you’ll dig him up, but put an M.P. at the Officers’ Club, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
Davenport lifted one of his green painted phones.
“Might as well see if I can operate one of these scrambler phones”, he said to Stovall, then, into the receiver: “Operator, get me PINETREE.”
There was a two-minute wait, during which Stovall studied the gloomy expression on the homely, fatherly, face of his thirty- eight-year-old commander, whose cheekbones were creased from the oxygen mask he had worn on that afternoon’s practice mission. It was the face of a man unable to conceal the heavy load he was carrying.
“Hello”, said Davenport. “PINETREE? I want to speak to Colonel Savage.” There was a pause.
“Hello, Frank? This is Keith Davenport . . . . thanks . . same to you. Say, can you scramble? Okay, I’ll scramble now.”
He waited several moments, then pressed a switch on the phone’s base. “Hello, Frank. Yes, I can understand you.”
Davenport’s voice was traveling through the wires in garbled form, to thwart any line tapping, and was being unscrambled automatically at the other end.
“Can you make me out? Okay? Look, Frank, I’ve got a pro- blem . . . if you’re going to be there for the next half hour . . . . Roger that.”
He hung up the phone, took his trench coat off a wall hook, slipped it on, and slung his gas mask over his shoulder.
Stovall beamed, “I see that you’ve read that poop-sheet from headquarters I put in your basket, about wearing gas masks.”
“Yes. And from the looks of that IN basket, those cookies at PINETREE are out to win this war with mimeograph machines. It’s not like Frank Savage, either; he’s always hated paper work.”
Stovall helped Davenport adjust the straps of the mask so that it hung properly.
“Memorandum thirty dash six”, he said. And then, “Isn’t Colonel Savage kind of low ranking for a commanding general’s job?”
“He’s only the acting C.O. Until some hot-shot general from the Pentagon shows up.
Frank is strictly a stick and rudder man. But he got the dream assignment, leading the first ten missions here, and built himself a reputation back home. That was before the German fighters started playing rough.”
Davenport leaned against the doorway, taking out a cigarette, and Stovall saw that the conversation had stumbled over one of the colonel’s pet subjects.
“Personally”, continued Davenport, “I was surprised to see General Pritchard give him that first Bomb Group. Savage hand- les men like Simon Legree.”
“You’ve served with him before, sir”, asked Stovall, casually trying to hide his eagerness for a glimpse behind the scenes of military politics?
“Off and on”, said the colonel, “since we were lieutenants in the 3rd Attack Group at Barksdale Field.”
His expression showed that the recollection was exciting. “What sort of joker is he”, prompted Stovall?
“Well, to begin with, he’s a good-looking bastard. He’s part Indian. And nobody’s neutral about him. You either like him, or you hate him. Personally, I couldn’t help liking him. He’s lousy at a desk job, but he’s a damn hot pilot. He won a D.F.C. in peacetime, which takes some doing. Dames love him and I wish I had a dollar for every quart of whisky he’s drank.”
“Sounds like an interesting guy to meet.”
“You don’t meet Frank Savage. You collide with him.” Davemport lit his cigarette and ejected a puff like a snort.
“Life is funny, Harvey. Tonight he’s my boss and yet, just a few short years ago I was ordered down to Barksdale to relieve him of command of his squadron. He had been flying his boys ragged and sweating the ground personnel like a road gang.
You’d thought there was a goddamn war on the way he ran that outfit. Keerist, were they glad to see me!”
“Is he a West Pointer”, asked Stovall?
As soon as he had uttered the words he felt embarrassed, but the colonel missed the implication.
“No, he came in as a reserve officer. And then he finally got a regular commission.”
Davenport turned to leave then added. over his shoulder.
“See if you can take the mens’ minds off that blast from Berlin. How about cooking up a christening party for the Officers’ Club next Sunday? Something to keep my family happy.”
After the colonel had left, Stovall sat heavily on a corner of the desk and lit his pipe. He had a sense of unreality, and he couldn’t rid his mind of the illusion that the Group was still in training. That it would always be in training. He tried to visual- ize the twenty-five hundred men, whose records he kept, as a finished weapon, which had been brought face to face with the enemy at the logical moment. But the picture wouldn’t focus. There simply hadn’t been enough time to yank these young- sters off the sidewalk, throw their schoolbooks away and trans- form them into airplane commanders, with a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of four engine bomber, and ten lives, thrust into their hands. Or enough time to tap a bellhop on the shoulder and, presto, come up with a ball-turret gunner, skilled in the art of shooting to kill.
Until now, he thought, I’ve wondered how I’d ever catch up with my work. But soon there will be decorations, missing-in- action reports, shipping home the personal effects, gathering the material for those telegrams which will read: . . .
“The Secretary of War deeply regrets to inform you . . .”
I’ve been working harder than I ever worked in my life, and yet we haven’t even started.
He glanced through the connecting door to the filing cabinets in his office. There, he thought, is the first part of the story, the vital statistics. Now comes the last part.
What a seat for a spectator, for the Keeper of the Records. From the womb to the tomb.
The all-clear was sounding in the village as he went to his desk.
“Sergeant”, he said to his chief clerk, “it may be all clear in Archbury, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a long time before they sound the all-clear in this office.”
“The major”, replied the clerk, “can say that again.”
From his back seat of his staff car, as he and his driver drove through Archbury, Colonel Davenport glanced toward the Black Swan. Four soldiers, with their arms around the waists of four W.A.A.F. girls, looking particularly broad-beamed in their slate- blue R.A.F. uniforms, passed under the muffled light above the entrance and disappeared inside the pub, singing . . .
“Bless them all. Bless them all. The long and the short and the tall.” The colonel smiled to himself, and to the driver he said.
“Looks as though the 918th is getting Anglo-American relat- ions off to a fast start.”
“Yes, sir”, said the corporal, as the car continued on, it’s shielded lights barely reflecting the doorways along the left-hand side of the cobbled street. “They tell me that you’ve got to culti- vate the local talent to get eggs with shells on. The two go toget- her. Dames and eggs, and eggs and dames.”
But the colonel’s mind, freed for the first time in days from harassing details, had already begun to rove in broader sweeps. For the first time he was conscious of a question in his mind about the wisdom of having pulled every string at his disposal to grab that prize plum . . . command of a Bomb Group.
If it hadn’t been for his West Point classmate, newly promot- ed Brigadier General Ed Henderson, on duty in the Pentagon, he’d never have gotten the Group. Everybody wanted the chance to make a combat record that counted. It was nice to be the boss, and take the bows, while you were back in the States. But it cut both ways.
Over here it was possible to fail, to get killed, playing guinea pig in an American bombing experiment that a lot of military minds didn’t believe in. The British, for instance. They were sold on night bombing, where you had the protection of the dark- ness. They thought the Americans were crazy to go in naked by daylight, for the sake of greater bombing accuracy.
Did Frank Savage, up at headquarters, who had already had a taste of it, or General Spaatz, or Hap Arnold, or even General Marshall, really believe that the handful of B-17s, sitting on their wet hard- stands in England tonight, could challenge the skeptics with results good enough to justify building up a much larger Air Force here? Nobody knows, he told himself.
Twenty minutes later the colonel stepped from his car, in the driveway, before a huge stone structure that resembled a castle. A crescent moon had risen, shedding enough light to illuminate sweeping lawns, avenues of linden trees, and a pond clustered with wild ducks and three swans. Formerly a girls’ school called Wycombe Abbey, the towering, blacked-out edifice, was now the headquarters of the American Bomber Command, known by the code name PINETREE.
Colonel Davenport opened the great oak door, pushed aside the blackout curtain and found himself in a brilliantly lighted hall, high-ceilinged and austere with its Gothic arches. So this, he told himself, is where they fight a plush war. With hot show- es, and tea time at four o’clock. Where lieutenants have break- fast, are promoted to captains at lunch and majors by dinnertime.
He showed the sentry his A.O.G. card, then walked through an anteroom marked
COMMANDING GENERAL
And, seeing that the door to the office was open, he thrust his head inside, however, the room appeared to be empty.
“Have a seat”, said a casual voice that seemed to come from the ceiling.
Davenport stepped inside and saw Colonel Savage standing, precariously, on top of a tall bookcase from which he was reach- ing out to tack in place the corner of a ceiling-high map of West- ern Europe, mounted against the wall on beaver board.
“Short of help around here”, asked Davenport?
“Help is short everywhere”, replied Savage, without interrup- ing his hammering, “when there’s a war on. You can usually do it yourself by the time you get hold of a corporal.”
He tapped the last brad in place and then, in one simultaneous movement, he tossed the hammer down at Davenport, without warning, and executed a spring to the floor, landing with the cushioned spring of an athlete. Unprepared, Davenport made a grab for the hammer, but dropped it.
Same old Frank, he thought; tosses the ball to you and takes it for granted that you’ll catch it. Savage gave Davenport a hard handshake, pushed him toward a chair, settled himself behind his desk and confronted his visitor with a quizzical expression, pre-
dominated by friendliness and sympathy.
“Keith”, he said, “I know that look - that harried look of the new Group Commander. As if you’d just had a barbed-wire high calonic.”
“Well, anyway, I’ve got a problem”, said Davenport.
Savage laughed and motioned toward his IN and OUT baskets.
“That’s full of problems”, he said. “I’ll listen to yours if you can give me a new one. And I don’t mean a shortage of spare parts. Nor, generators burning out when the turrets are tracking at once. Nor, turbos and props running away on take-off. Nor, shortage of privates for K.P. and guard duty. Nor, machine gun stoppages and defective tracers. Nor, chuck holes in the runway and wheels breaking through the hard-stands. Nor, lack of hang- er space for night maintenance. Nor, powdered eggs, pregnant W.A.A.F.’s, cold shaving water, honey buckets instead of plumbing.”
He stopped to take a breath.
“That IN basket is full of freezing oxygen masks, freezing guns, freezing Plexiglas, electric flying suits that short out and burn a grid on your butt. It has eighteen different kinds of eng- ine malfunctions at high altitude, gunners that can’t hit anything but their own wing man, and losses that have gone up from zero to five percent on shallow penetrations into France. And, that’s just a sample.”
He grabbed the basket with both hands and flipped it upward so that the top papers fluttered back into place like a deck of cards.
“Now, give me a new problem.”
“I’ve got a new one, all right”, said Davenport. “A bad one. Did you hear Lord Haw Haw tonight?”
“I never listen to the son-of-a-bitch”, said Savage.
“For Christ’s sake, Frank”, responded Davenport, impatiently, “Berlin knows we’re here, knows my name, even knows our clock is four minutes slow.”
Savage looked with frank incredulity at the alarm written on the other man’s face. “Do you mean to tell me”, he said, “that you drove through this blackout just to tell me that?”
“But, . . but”, - Davenport was nonplused - “what do you make of it?” “So they’ve got spies”, laughed Savage. “So, you can’t hide a bomber station. So, we’ve got farmhouses right alongside the perimeter track. So, Americans like to talk.”
“Yeah, they talk”, he said, with a flush of guilty recollection. “And I let a few of them go on pass - hanging around that pub in Archbury.”
Davenport stood up, took a few nervous paces and lit a cigar- ette. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and an aide step- ped inside.
“There’s a Flight Leftenant Mallory to see you, sir”, said the aide. “Please ask him to wait.”
Before the aide could reply, Davenport spoke up.
“It’s not a him, Frank”, he said, pointedly. “It’s a her.” “Then ask her to wait”, said Savage.
When the aide had withdrawn, Savage made a wry face at Davenport.
“Why can’t we fight a war over here”, he said, “without having the joint loused up with babes during working hours?”
“It all depends”, said Davenport, again speaking pointedly. “This babe, you haven’t seen.” They exchanged glances for a moment. A twinkle came into Savage’s eyes.
“An operational piece of equipment, eh”, he asked?
“If you mean is she a beautiful girl, the answer is yes.”
“You’ve only been here a short while. Where did you find her?”
“Her old man is Lord Desborough - our airfield is on their family estate. They dropped in on me for a neighborly call.”
“She’s a real dish?”
“On the plus side of a real knockout. Not the kind you ever keep waiting in an anteroom for more than three seconds.”
Savage stared at Davenport, remembering for a moment.
“Right now”, he said, “I’m not interested in dames - not even one like that. I want to know how you guys are getting along down there in the mud - what we can do to help you?”
“Well - I guess we’re doing okay, so far. All except this sec- urity business. That’s what’s worrying me right now.”
Savage stood up and walked over to the fireplace, tall, broad of shoulder, back and arm muscles showing through his uniform jacket. If his easy movements suggested a former pro-ball player or a man with American Indian blood, it was because he was both. His wavy hair was black, except for a fringe of gray at the edges, and his face was bronzed and much younger looking than might be expected at the age of thirty-six.
As Savage turned to face him, Davenport felt a faint annoy- ance at this man’s exceptional asset of rugged good looks, and at the power of those eyes. One minute, when he smiled, they pull- ed at you; a minute later they knocked you back, as though he had reached out and pushed you. They were doing that now.
“You want to know about security?”
The words came with emotional conviction.
“Bear down on loose talk, of course. But as soon as you are operational, there will be only one kind of security that counts, and that is. Have you got a bunch of pilots that can hold a tight formation? Can your gunners shoot straight? Can you put air- craft commanders in the air that won’t turn back from a target as long as their wings stay on?”
Openly irritated, Davenport ground out his cigarette in an ashtray that had an aluminum model of a B-17 mounted on it.
“Sounds like a fight talk, Frank”, he said. “Do you think that’s what I need?”
In spite of old rivalries, Savage had always liked Davenport personally. His expression softened. “You’re right, Keith”, he said, finally. “Where do I get off lecturing you? It’s just that I’ve been over here longer, I guess. I’m sorry.”
“Aw, balls, Frank”, responded Davenport, mollified. “I real- ize you’ve had a lot of combat experience.”
Savage reached down and pulled out a bottom desk drawer.
He lifted out a Green Toby Mug, modeled in the likeness of a masked robber, and set it on the desk.
“Take this old fellow along with you, Keith”, he said, deliber- ately changing the subject. “Maybe he’ll bring you as much luck as he brought me.” “A beer mug?”
“I had a better use for it. Mister Security. He worked for me when I had the 901st Group. We stuck this mug on the mantel- piece in the Officers’ Club as a signal that we were alerted for a mission. The boys finished their drinks and went to bed. Any visitors hanging around were none the wiser.”
“We can use that idea”, said Davenport, picking up the Toby. “Thanks, Frank.”
“You’re welcome to it”. said Savage, as he stood up, “but don’t bust it. Someday I’ll want it back for a souvenir.”
The two walked together out to the anteroom, where a W.A. A.F. officer sat with her head bent over, looking at a magazine.
“Hi there, Flight Leftenant”, said Davenport. “How’s every- thing at Desborough Hall?” She rose and stood at attention.
“Rather quiet, Colonel”, she replied. “But I imagine your chaps will liven things up for us a bit. Several are coming by this weekend for some tennis.”
As the young woman smiled at Davenport, Savage felt some- thing like a shock go through him. A beautiful girl always gave him a thrill. But this girl was literally stunning.
“May I present Colonel Savage”, said Davenport? “This is Flight Leftenant Pamela Mallory.” She turned her wide, violet eyes toward Savage, who reached out and gave her a masculine handshake.
“Sorry I was busy”, he said, cordially, “but I have to make sounds in there like a commanding general, until my new boss gets in. I’m just pinch-hitting.”
“Pinch-hitting”, she asked, quizzically? “Substituting.”
“Oh - of course, Stupid of me.” She hesitated.
“To tell the truth, my business was with the commanding general, but -.”
“But maybe this guy will do”, interposed Davenport, who was observing with interest the difficulty with which Pamela was con- cealing a flustered reaction to Savage’s disconcerting gaze.
She gave a little laugh, and said. “I’m sure he does very well - as a pinch-hitter.”
“If you’ll excuse me”, said Savage, as he was moving toward the door, “I’ll be right back.” “That’s perfectly all right, sir”, responded Pamela, formally.
As the two men disappeared, her eyes followed Savage’s re- treating figure intently, for a moment, then with a quick shift of her eyes to the aide, who looked away, she returned her attention to the magazine.
“See what I told you”, asked Davenport, as he and Savage approached the front door?
“Not bad”, said Savage. “What a break for you. You’re park- ed on the most strategic spot in England. But don’t go messing around with targets of opportunity, Keith. Stick to the primary”. “She’s way out of my league, Frank.”
Davenport extended his hand out to say good-bye, then paused.
“I almost forgot to ask you. Who’s the new Bomber Com- mander?”
“Ed Henderson. He left London an hour, or so, ago. He’s probably blundering around High Wycombe now, in the black- out, with a green driver.” “Henderson?”
Davenport’s face broke into a smile of pleased surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Yeah”, said Savage, dryly, “your pal Ed Henderson.”
Davenport felt a warm glow at this unexpected news, of a friend in court. In addition to being the classmate who had used his influence to get Davenport the 918th Group, it had been Hen- derson who had switched Savage and him, to be in command of the 13th Attack Squadron.
It was the kind of development that would have been an odd coincidence anywhere, except in the Air Corps, where a small cadre of men, as intimate in peacetime as a family, were now running an enormous operation. If you tossed any three of them together, you were sure to have similar complications, rooted in the past.
But to Savage, it seemed that Henderson’s arrival was carry- ing any coincidences a little too far. He had always believed that Henderson’s love of the Old School Tie had cost him the com- mand of his squadron.
“I’d like to wait and say hello to him”, said Davenport, “but I ought to get back. Give him my best. Tell him I think it’s great news.”
“Yeah, great”, remarked Savage, noncommittally, as Daven- port climbed into his staff car.
Savage watched Davenport drive off and then started to re- enter the Abbey, then changed his mind and strolled across the driveway, where he stood on the grass, breathing deeply of the wet night air. Through the trees he could gradually make out the church steeple in the ancient town of High Wycombe.
How long will it be, he wondered, before the steeple bell, and all of the bells in England, silent since they had been reserved by the government as the official warning of the invasion, would ring out again in victory? If ever.
This British Isle was still terribly vulnerable, a ripe apple which could be had - which the German High Command ought to invade at any price. If they understood the potential dagger that was being aimed at their heart by a few men in this old - girls’ school. Or, Savage asked himself, would it be a rubber dagger, bending because its human metal was not hard enough.
He walked back to his anteroom and rejoined Flight Leften- ant Mallory.
“Come right in, Miss Mallory”, he said, showing the way to his office, but without noticing the hint of disapproval in her ex- pression, when he failed to use her military title.
As she sat down by his desk, he became aware of an unmili- tary scent of gardenia. And he noticed that she did not cross her legs, but sat rather stiffly with her feet together.
Despite the camouflage of a W.A.A.F. uniform, no one could have mistaken Pamela Mallory, even at a distance, for a man. There was too much bosom, too small a waist, and the racehorse ankles were too slender. Her face, straight of nose, unusually pale, and framed by her chestnut-colored hair, that curled in a roll above her slate-blue collar, was rather a small setting for her eyes.
Her eyes were enormous, and Savage couldn’t help but not- iced that their whites had the bluish tinge normally seen only in small, and healthy, children.
“Care for American cigarettes?” “Like anything”, she said, pleasantly.
It was the first time he had heard this odd expression. “Here.”
He reached into a drawer, taking out two packs. “I’m a cigar smoker. These are for you.”
“Oh, no, . . . thank you”, she said, quickly. “But, may I try just one of yours, for a change?”
Savage sensed that he had touched her pride. It was that Eng- lish pride, so vulnerable to the invading horde of Americans, with their abundance of cigarettes, chocolate and salted peanuts, their superior rations, their high pay, their lavish tips to London cab- bies, and their wealth of all material things that were now scarce in an austere Britain. He offered a light for her cigarette.
“I know how busy you are, Colonel Savage”, she began, in a crisp, official tone, “but I came to your headquarters on a rather important matter.”
“I haven’t got a thing to do but listen to you”, said Savage, smiling. “You see, sir, - I’m in DDI-4-B.”
She saw that he was in the dark about what she just said.
“Signals”, she amended, “radio. What we’re doing is in a SECRET classification that won’t permit me to go into details, but perhaps that won’t be necessary. The point is, is that I get information every day that may be very valuable to you and your staff.”
“Sounds great”, Savage looked skeptical.
“Yes, sir”, she agreed. “How would you like to receive accur- ate information on German fighter reaction to your daylight bombing strikes?”
“We’d grab at it”, he said, still regarding her with uncertainty. “And just how do you mean, fighter reaction? Our crews give us pretty good reports on how the Germans react.”
“I mean a lot more than the enemy fighter tactics your crews see. I know most of the German fighter pilots by name, where they live, where they rearm and refuel, what they talk about - what they say about you. By that I mean, you Americans.”
She had Savage’s rapt attention, now. “Mind telling me more”, he asked?
“Unfortunately, sir, I can’t”, she responded. “I think you can readily understand why security is so tight. If the enemy found out we are getting this information, the source would dry up.”
“Sure, I can see that. But you’ve got me on the edge of my chair. I’ve never heard a word about - what it is you’re doing.”
“And that’s the way we need to keep it. For now, I can pass on the information to you, without telling you how we get it. Of course, you’ll have to get an okay from the Air Ministry.”
“Hell, that’ll take a couple of months.”
“Possibly, sir. Channels, and all that. But meanwhile, I don’t see why we can’t arrange something between us informally.”
“I’m all for that. Nuts to the red tape.”
“All right, but I’m going to need one thing from you. Other- wise, I can’t be of a maximum assistance to you.”
“Sure, what is it you want.”
“Your routes and control times, as far as possible in advance, before each of your missions.” Savage’s mouth opened.
“Are you kidding me”, he said?
“No, sir, not at all. It’s absolutely necessary that we know your routes and times.” Savage abruptly stood up. All of the early skepticism had returned to his face. “Just a minute”, he said. “That’s information we don’t give to anybody - except the combat units. I’d get court-martialed if I let any of it out.”
“Perhaps I’d better wait and discuss this with your new general”, she quipped. “He’d tell you the same thing.”
Savage stared at the girl for a long moment, nonplused.
“I don’t get it”, he continued. “If the R.A.F. wants that kind of secret dope from us, why didn’t they send an officer over here to see me, Miss Mallory, instead of a - .”
He stopped, groping for the right word, his eyes involuntarily dropping to the un-masculine contours of her uniform jacket.
“Flight Leftenant Mallory, if you don’t mind, sir. And do I really have to remind you that I am an officer? And I dare say that women in the W.A.A.F. have been entrusted with much more confidential information during the past three years than anyone in your headquarters, Colonel Savage.”
“It all sounds cockeyed”, persisted Savage, in a tolerant tone, ignoring the girl’s pique. “We’re worried enough, as it is, about possible leaks of our Field Orders. Sending you a copy would be one more chance for a leak. No, - I’d have to see this request in writing from the Air Ministry, Miss Mallory.”
“You’ve called me Miss Mallory twice, now, Colonel.” “I’m sorry.”
“And I thought you Americans, most particularly, detested red tape. Go ahead, then, and get it in writing - a couple of months from now. Meanwhile, I’m sure I could have helped you. I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir.”
She stood up.
“Hey, not so fast”, said Savage, hurrying around his desk. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m extremely interested in what you’ve told me, and I appreciate your coming here. I’ll look into it thoroughly - and get a request in for coordination, right away.”
“Why hurry”, she asked, coolly? “perhaps it will be a nice, long war.”
Savage flushed as she gave him a brief handshake, rendered a side-wheeling R.A.F. salute, and then left. He slowly returned to his desk, sat down and stared at nothing in particular, scratching his head. Then he rang for his aide.
“Ask the communications officer to come in and see me”, he said. “Maybe he’ll know what that glamour girl was driving at. She just might have something.”
“How do you like this layout”, asked Savage?
Shifting his small body in his easy chair, Brigadier General Edward Henderson glanced appreciatively around his quarters on the second floor, which had formerly been occupied by the head mistress of Wycombe Abby. He saw a handsomely furnished living room, large enough for entertaining his British opposite numbers with official cocktail parties, a double bedroom and guest room, a door leading into a spacious bathroom, and plenty of coal in the brass scuttle, handy to the blue and red flames curling in the fireplace.
“First rate”, said Henderson.
The two had just settled down with their cigars and Scotches. How easily, thought Savage, he adjusts himself to new surround- ings. Already he looks as though he belongs here, and in a uni- form with a star.
It had not escaped Savage’s notice that although Henderson’s promotion was less than a week old, his new star and shoulder patch were embroidered in silver and gold on all the uniforms and overcoats, which the R.A.F. batman was carrying to the closet in the bedroom. His slacks had a straightedge crease and the polish on his jodhpur boots glistened like glass. Even his cross-country bags, neatly stenciled with his new rank, were of special gabardine material instead of the canvas of the standard A-2 bag.
“What’s the lowdown on this show”, asked Henderson, brisk- ly?
“The newspapers”, said Frank, “have been putting up almost a thousand bombers for me. But all I’ve been able to put over the target, on our biggest mission to date, is less than a hundred .”
“You know how it is, Frank”, said Henderson, with an airy wave of his hand. “It’ll be months before production really hits its stride. Meanwhile, we can’t let the people back home get dis- couraged. They need good news. And this is the only spot from which Americans are fighting Germans.”
There was no agreement in Savage’s expression.
“Flak”, he continued, “is getting worse. And those yellow- nose Focke Wulfs are pressing home their attacks. Losses are running three to five percent higher. And bombing accuracy is falling off.” “What’s your solution?”
“Fighter cover to the target and back. More nose guns. More bombers. And more replacement crews.
That North African show is still robbing us of the buildup we need. Down at the Groups, the combat crews are getting cynical about the lack of replacements, and discouraged about their chances of completing a tour. They’ve begun to figure out the percentages.”
“What about the weather?”
“Awful! Sometimes we have to scrub a mission as many as seven or eight times, trying to outguess the stinking weather over the Continent.
It’s maddening to the crews. They might fly eight missions on the ground for every one in the air. I believe that’s their big- gest beef, but there isn’t anything we can do about it up here.” “Do you think our daylight bombing may turn out to be a fiasco?”
Savage pondered the question before answering.
“A lot of people think so”, he finally said. “But here’s the way I see it. With a big force we could get better results. But, if they won’t give us that big force until we’ve proved the case for day- light bombing with what we have, then we’re sunk.
Personally, I believe we can do the job in spite of all the ob- stacles, if we can develop the right leadership. Good Group Commanders are going to be your number-one problem. So far, it’s been a case of a good Group Commander - a good Group. A weak Group Commander - a weak Group. Right there is where we’ll win or lose.”
“I agree with you on that”, said Henderson. Incidentally, has Keith Davenport gotten here with the 918th?”
“Yes, sir. A few days ago. He sent you his regards.”
“I’ll watch that outfit with a lot of personal interest. Daven- port’s tops at handling men.”
Savage offered no comment.
“And speaking of jobs, Frank, you are the one who ought to have this job. You’ve earned it in combat, while I’ve been shuff- ling papers in the Big House.”
The atmosphere between the two men became charged. Hen- derson’s statement was literally true and they both knew it.
“I’m not kicking”, said Savage, quickly. “I guess I’ll always be a Squadron Commander at heart.” “If you don’t mind my saying so”, said Henderson, smiling faintly, “you turned out to be a better Group Commander in combat than a Squadron Commander in peacetime.”
Savage’s eyes, always the color of granite, assumed the same texture. He held Henderson’s glance until the latter looked away toward the fire.
“Let’s call that a matter of opinion”, said Savage.
“In any case”, Henderson went on smoothly, after a pause, “I envy you. You’ve won everybody’s admiration with the way you led the first Group here. That critically important first Group. Eight missions before you lost an airplane - when the British Bomber Command figured you’d lose seventy- five percent at a crack.”
“Thanks”, said Savage.
“Your star is already in the mill, you know”, continued Hen- derson. “I hope it comes through soon. You deserve it.”
To himself, Savage said: “You’re not kidding, brother.”
Henderson went over to the sideboard and mixed two fresh highballs, remaining standing after he had handed one to Savage.
“Look, Frank”, he said. “Quite honestly, how do you feel about serving under me - again?” Savage dangled his glass from his fingertips. Then looked straight into Henderson’s eyes. “I’d be a damn liar”, he said, “if I told you I was happy about it.”
“I anticipated that you’d feel that way”, remarked Henderson, pokerfaced. “So, I discussed it with General Pritchard. His feel- ing is that even if it’s a shotgun wedding, we’ve both got to sweat it out for a while. With your experience, I’m going to need the hell out of you in Operations, and he wants you right where you are - as A-3.”
He looked over the rim of his glass at Savage as he sipped his Scotch, then said. “I told him I was in complete agreement with him.”
“Well, if that’s the way the Old Man wants it”, Savage said casually, “that’s always been good enough for me.”