To say that Mama squawked like a stuck pig over this would be a gross understatement, and of course, you don't use that kind of language anyway in speaking of Mrs. Worthington. But Mary was her mother's daughter, had a mind of her own too, so love overcame all, and the impending nuptials were announced.
Two weeks later, on a bright cold morning, Willy looped and swooped high in the sky over San Diego in a Banshee fighter leaving a long white fluffy trail behind him. Willy, making a test flight, had found that at 50,000 feet his plane made vapor trails that morning. Since the test required that he stay up there for a while, he occupied his time by writing MARY in the sky in huge, white letters for all the world to see, just as many a small boy writes his lady-love's name on a fence.
At this point in Willy's life there wasn't a cloud in his own sky except for the fluffy white ones he was trailing behind him that morning. Now that love had triumphed, he and Mary would soon be living happily ever after and the future looked like a straight in approach on the main runway with a gentle breeze.
True, old lady Worthington was planning a wedding that would probably have to be held in the balloon hanger. It was shaping up as the biggest middle-aisle event since the Napoleon-Josephine nuptials. But for Mary's sake, Willy was prepared to bear this cross.
To top it all off, Willy's tour of sea duty would be up on the date set for the wedding and he had been promised a month's leave before reporting to his next assignment. This job was to be as a jet test pilot at the Naval Air Station, San Diego. So, any way you looked at it, Willy had the world by the tail with a downhill drag.
When he had finished putting the name of his love up over the world where it belonged, Willy throttled back on his jets, popped his dive brakes, nosed over, and whooshed straight down five miles closer to earth so he could have a look at it himself. Then, well pleased with his handiwork, he spiraled around the NAS, North Island, greased his Banshee in to an eggshell landing, and taxied Up to the line.
In the locker room Willy shifted from his G suit to a spick-and-span, blue uniform with aiguillettes on the shoulder, and brand-new gold stripes glistening on the sleeves. Willy took a whisk broom and brushed the lint away from that extra half-stripe which made him feel a foot taller. Someday he might get to be an admiral and sport a broad gold band on his sleeve. But it wouldn't seem as big as this narrow one did now.
Looking at Willy as he emerged from the locker room, you could easily see why Admiral Day had picked him for flag lieutenant. Regardless of any other factor, he looked the part, and was obviously a sharp, alert young officer that any admiral would be proud to have on his staff.
When Willy strode into his office in the Administration Building a few minutes later, his feet now on the ground but his head still at 50,000 feet, the yeoman handed him the following priority dispatch:
From: BUREAU OF NAVAL PERSONNEL
Lieutenant junior grade William Wigglesworth detached from present duty. Proceed and report to U.S. Embassy, Moscow, for duty involving flying as assistant naval attache for air.
Keep Navy Department advised of your movements.
Willy clung to the edge of the desk while the wreckage of his dreams came crashing down around him. Then he shook his head like a fighter pilot who has just pulled out of a dive too fast and tottered into the sanctum of his boss, Admiral Day.
When the Admiral read the dispatch he let out a low whistle and said, "Say, this is a surprise!" Thinking back on some of Willy's escapades that he knew of, he added, "Very ill-advised assignment, if you ask me. Could easily result in an all-out atomic war with Russia."
"They can't do this to me, sir. I never heard of a deal like this before. They didn't even consult you about it - did they, sir?" asked Willy.
Studying the dispatch, the Admiral began to bristle up. "They've got no right to shanghai somebody off my personal staff without even asking me about it. I won't stand for it. Who do those Office of Naval Intelligence guys think they are? Ill show those cloak-and-dagger monkeys they can't push me around that way. I'll phone the Chief of Naval Operations. I'll ... I'll..."
The Admiral's head of steam fizzled out, and after some moments of ominous muttering, reason returned. He grinned sheepishly at Willy and said, "On second thought, Willy, this looks bad. I hate to say this, but there's no use kidding ourselves. It looks to me like you have had it."
"But, Admiral, this cannot be. They promised me that test pilot job at the air station here. You recommended me for it... Couldn't you do something, sir?"
"Son," said the Admiral, "you know I'll go to bat for you any time I think it will do any good. In fact, I've done it a couple of times, haven't I?"
"Yessir, I know that - but in both those cases the police were wrong!"
"So they were," said the Admiral, "but in this case, I'm afraid I can't do a particle of good. This is high-level stuff, cooked up by the Office of Naval Intelligence. They wouldn't yank you out this way without consulting me unless it was urgent. These diplomatic jobs are special cases. Before orders to a job of this kind are issued, they are cleared through the State Department, FBI, CIA, the Soviet Embassy, and all the top offices in the Navy Department. The Department is committed to this thing now and I would be just butting my head against a stone wall trying to get it changed."
Willy realized this was all true. In desperation he said, "Admiral, I just can't take that job. I'd be lucky to get in four hours flying time a month out there, and by the time I come back, I'll be a chair-borne desk pilot. It's just a cookie-pushing job anyway, and there are urgent personal reasons, too, which you know all about... Maybe if I went to Washington myself and explained things, I could get it changed. Would there be anything wrong about that?"
"That's okay if you can swing it," said the Admiral, "but this deal has the earmarks of the Chief of Naval Intelligence on it, old Admiral 'Teacup' Twitters. I don't think you'll have much luck talking Teacup out of this assignment. Once he makes up his mind, you have to blast to change it. Your personal plans won't cut any ice with him at all. The only way you could move him would be to convince him that you aren't suited for the job. And when you get right down to brass tacks, you are ideally suited for it, Willy. I'll admit it's a waste of good flying talent to send you there, but you are the attache type, my boy."
That night Willy broke the news to Mary, who took it calmly like the thoroughbred she was, and said, "Okay, Willy, so we go to Moscow. We can get married next week. Worse things than that could happen to us."
"But what's your mother going to say about this?"
"We will have trouble with Mother. The second truckload of invitations went out today. But I wasn't looking forward to that Roman holiday Mother is planning any more than you were. We'll have a nice quiet family wedding... quiet, that is, except for the fuss that Mother raises about it. Come on, let's face the music and get it over with."
Mrs. Senator Worthington was a formidable character. If she had ever tangled with the battleship Missouri on a collision course, there is no doubt whatever the Missouri would be the one that eventually had to give way. She had been making her own rules of the road so long that she now took it for granted that she had the right of way over all others. Back in Washington, where it sometimes became necessary for her to lower the boom on famous ladies, they referred to her as "that belligerent old blister" but were careful not to plan parties that might conflict with hers. If the Navy Department thought they could upset her plans for a wedding merely by issuing a set of orders, they might find they had another think coming.
When Willy and Mary entered her sanctum, Mrs. Worthington was about to dictate a letter to her secretary. "Just a minute, children," she said, "I want to get this letter off tonight."
Then she said to her secretary, "This goes to the president Atlas Oil Company. You've got his home address in your files. Send it there - not to his office.
George -
Some months ago your people sent me a letter saying your accounting department was being computer
ized and that this would improve the accuracy and promptness of your service. They enclosed a credit card for me to use at your service stations.
Since then, instead of a bill I have been receiving little cards each month with holes punched all over them and a number up in the corner which is supposed to tell me how much I owe you.
Evidently somebody punched the wrong hole some months back and got my fuel oil budget account crossed up with some tires I bought at one of your service stations and paid for in cash.
Ever since I have been writing letters back and forth to your people trying to straighten out this snafu but things just get more and more confused and they can't get their computer to say who did what to whom, and who ought to pay for it.
I think the only way for me to get my household account in order again is to pay cash for everything from now on.
Will you please take the enclosed credit card and stuff it up your computer.
Sincerely,
Dolly
"Get that in the mail first thing in the morning," said Mrs. Worthington to her secretary. Then turning to Willy and Mary she said pleasantly, "Good evening, children, what's on your happy minds tonight?"
Willy simply handed her the telegram from the Navy Department and battened down for the expected storm. Mrs. Worthington wasn't the least bit perturbed. It took more than a silly telegram from the Navy Department to ruffle her hatch covers.
"That's ridiculous," she said. "Pay no attention to it."
"But, Mrs. Worthington," said Willy, "its orders - from the Navy Department."
"I can see where it's from as well as you can, young man," said Mrs. Worthington, like an admiral saying it isn't necessary to call his attention to a lubberly maneuver by a ship in his fleet, "and I think it's a sad state of affairs when the Navy wastes the taxpayers' money sending stupid telegrams like that one."
"But that stupid telegram is an official set of orders and it says I've got to be in Moscow next month."
"That's absurd," said Mrs. Worthington. "How can you be in Moscow next month?"
"Never mind how, Mother," said Mary. "He's got to be there."
"Mary, you've always been a scatterbrained child. Don't you realize the wedding is three months from now? Willy can't possibly go to Moscow before that."
"Mother, the Navy doesn't base its plans on wedding dates. When they say 'go,' you've got to go."
"Hunh!" sniffed Mrs. W., shaking out her topsails and bracing her yards. "That's what they think. All my invitations have gone out, I've got people coming from all over the country, and I've made all my arrangements. The Navy can just guess again."
"Mrs. Worthington," said Willy, "I hope I can get these orders changed. But if I can't do it, then I'll have to go, and there's nothing we can do about it."
"Well, maybe you can't do anything about it - but I can," said Mrs. W., her sails filling up in a way that indicated small craft should seek shelter. "The Senator is on the Armed Forces Committee and the Chief of Naval Operations, old Stinky Parker, is a good friend of ours. I'm going to phone the Senator long-distance right now, and I'll have those orders canceled by tomorrow morning."
"Please don't do that, Mrs. Worthington!" pleaded Willy.
"Why not?" snapped Mrs. W., the same way that the fleet flagship whips the "Interrogatory" flag to the starboard main-yard arm when the Admiral gets mad.
"Because you just can't do things that way in the Navy. They never forgive you."
"You don't have to do anything, young man. Ill take care of this whole business and you won't have to lift a finger."
"That won't make any difference, Mrs. Worthington," said Willy. "If you get the Senator to throw his weight around, he'll get the orders changed, all right. But the Navy resents political pressures to get duty assignments for junior officers. They will lay for me from now on and eventually they will nail me and send me to Siberia."
"They're sending you there now, aren't they?" demanded Mrs. W., unlimbering her main battery and securing loose gear about the decks. "I'm going to phone the Senator in Washington right now. You can't stop me, and they can't hold it against you."
"Mother," said Mary, slowly and deliberately, "don't you do that!" The young lady's decks were obviously cleared for action, too, and her battle ensigns were flying.
Mrs. Worthington, having lived with her baby daughter for twenty-one years, could recognize storm signals when she saw them. There was a tone in Mary's voice that warned all prudent seamen a hurricane might be making up.
"I'm the one who's marrying Willy. I'm marrying into the Navy and I'm going to abide by the Navy rules the same as he does. Wherever they send him, I'm going to go. I'm warning you right now that, unless Willy can get those orders changed himself, your plans for that three-ring-circus wedding are off. If you barge into this and get Daddy to interfere, Willy and I will elope and get married in Tijuana tomorrow."
Mrs. Worthington leveled a shrewd, calculating look at her daughter. She was enough of a tactician to know when she was licked and when strategic retreat was better than getting sunk with her colors nailed to the masthead. She knew that Mary had a mind of her own and could be a chip off the old battle-axe. The storm warnings were unmistakable now. So, while her rigging was still intact, she assumed an air of injured innocence, put her helm alee, came about, and sailed majestically out of the room.
"I meant every word of that, Willy," said Mary. "Where you go I go."
"I know that, Mary, and that's one of the reasons I love you so much. But I just can't drag you out to a place like Moscow - he Russians keep our people cooped up there like monkeys in the zoo."
"Wherever you go is good enough for me. But I can't understand why they should waste the best jet pilot in the Navy on a job like that!"
"I don't know what's behind it," said Willy. "I'm going to Washington to try and talk them out of it, but I haven't got any very good ideas yet on how to go about it. If I got publicly plastered and picked a fight in the lobby of the Army-Navy Club, that might do it. But there must be a better way than that."
"Sure. You could punch an old lady in the nose in front of the White House or you could join the Communist party. But we've got to use a little more finesse than that. We don't have to convince anybody except that coffee cup admiral in the Intelligence Office that you're not cut out to be a diplomat."
"That's right," said Willy. "Just Admiral Twitters; he's the man."
"Okay, then. Let's figure out a way of making him think you would be a Missouri mule in the Ballet Russe. If he is the only one who thinks so, that won't be so terrible... Now look - I've got an idea - you can create an impression in one minute that you couldn't live down in a lifetime - but if it's only with one man that wouldn't be so bad..."
When Mary finished outlining her idea, Willy said, "Mary, I always knew you were wonderful but I didn't know until now what a genius you are. You ought to be the Chief of Naval Operations."
"I'll settle for Mrs. William Wigglesworth and let you worry about being CNO."
"I'll be on my way to Washington bright and early in the morning, and I'll bet by the time I get back, those orders will be canceled."
Shortly before noon next day, Willy flew his Banshee into the rat race that is called a traffic pattern around Washington, D.C., and by skillful piloting managed to come out alive and land at the Naval Air Station, Anacostia. He checked in at the BOQ, phoned the Pentagon, and made half a dozen appointments to pay his respects that afternoon to various admirals he knew. He also made a date to see Admiral Twitters promptly at 3 p.m. Then he shifted to his best blue uniform, shined himself up for inspection, and went over to the officers' mess where he lunched on sauerkraut and Brussels sprouts.
Right after lunch Willy showed up at the Pentagon carrying a small handbag and began paying the series of calls he had mapped out. They were purely social calls - just dropping in and saying hello to old (and highly placed) friends. So half a dozen aviator admirals who knew and liked Willy had the pleasure of a fiv
e-minute chat with him, and the opportunity to observe that he was his usual fine-looking self, full of health, vigor, and good spirits - just the sort of young officer any of them would be glad to have on their staff.
At 2:30 Willy dropped in on Vice Admiral Cuddahy, Chief of Naval Personnel, who had known Willy in the Mediterranean and had given him glowing efficiency reports as an up-and-coming young officer who would make his mark in the Navy.
"Delighted to see you, Willy," said Admiral Cuddahy. "And I'm glad to have a chance to talk with you, because I want you to know I had nothing whatever to do with this Moscow assignment."
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