by Blood
"What's a 'touch-and-go'?" Sergeant Stein asked.
"Practice landing. You touch down, but instead of stopping, you apply throttle and take off again."
"Am I allowed to ask where we're going to land where we'll set up the radar?" Technical Sergeant Ferris asked.
"On an estancia, a ranch. The radar will be installed on property belonging to the estancia."
"Whose ranch?" Ferris pursued.
"Actually, it's mine," Clete said.
There was no response to that.
"Permission to speak, Sir?" Lieutenant Sawyer inquired.
"Granted."
"Firearms and explosives, Sir?"
"How are you armed, Captain Ashton?" Clete asked.
"Side arms. We also have Thompsons. Is that a problem?"
"We're not invading Argentina. We'll be landing at an Argentine Army base. I don't want them to see armed men."
"Ferris, is there room in the radar crates to hide the weapons?" Ashton asked.
"Yes, Sir."
Ashton looked at Clete. "OK?" he asked.
"What kind of explosives?"
"Are you familiar with plastic explosive, Major? C-3?" Clete nodded. "I have fifty pounds."
"Can you put it with the submachine guns?"
Stein nodded.
"Do that," Clete said. "I'd be happier if the side arms were also out of sight."
"Ferris, you and Stein go out there now and put all the weapons and all the plastic explosive in with the radar."
"Yes, Sir."
"Sergeant, do you think you could load the crates aboard the aircraft tonight'?" Clete asked.
"I'd have to talk somebody out of a truck to move the stuff from the ware-house to the hangar and talk somebody into letting me into the hangar. I think it would probably be better if I had an officer with me."
"I'll go with Sergeant Ferris," the gorilla said.
"No." Ashton said. "You will stay here and see that the Major and Mr. Rodriguez get their dinner. I'll go with Ferris and Stein."
[FIVE]
Headquarters
2035th U.S. Army Air Carps Support Wing
Porto Alegre Naval Base, Brazil
1205 17 April 1943
Colonel J. B. Wallace, U.S. Army Air Corps, who commanded the 2035th Training Wing, was informed at 1155 hours by the Brazilian Navy officer in charge of base security that two Argentinian gentlemen-a Se¤or Frade and a Se¤or Rodriguez-were at the main gate, seeking permission to enter the base for the purpose of visiting Colonel Wallace.
"I'll send a car for them," Wallace replied.
"They have a car, my Colonel. Shall I pass them in?"
"Please."
Colonel Wallace then made a note in his pocket notebook: 1159 17 Apr43-Major Frade, accompanied by an Argentine named Rodriguez., admit-ted to Base.
The notes he had been keeping would be later typed in draft, and edited, and then retyped. Colonel Wallace had every intention of keeping a detailed record of everything that happened with regard to these OSS people. Irregular as a monumental understatement. There was no question in his mind that questions would be asked about this whole mess, and he wanted to be prepared.
Colonel Wallace's office was on the ground floor of a single-story building that reminded him very much of the buildings at Maxwell Air Corps Base in Al-abama. Obviously, since Brazil drew its culture from Portugal, it was "Portuguese-style" architecture, but Colonel Wallace could not help but think of it as Spanish. The buildings at Maxwell were always thought of as Spanish-style.
He walked to the window and peered around the edge of the heavy curtain for his first look at Major C. H. Frade of the Office of Strategic Services. It was always helpful to have a look at someone with whom one was to deal before ac-tually meeting them.
A 1937 Buick Limited convertible touring sedan, which looked as if it had rolled off the showroom floor that morning, came down the street and pulled into the curved drive in front of the building. It was chauffeur driven, and when it came to a stop, it was close enough for Colonel Wallace to read the license plate. It was an Argentine plate, reading "Corrientes 11." It was obviously the property of some prominent Argentine.
The chauffeur ran around the rear of the car and opened the rear door. A very young man stepped out. Colonel Wallace thought he was no older than twenty-two or twenty-three. He was wearing a tweed jacket, a yellow polo shirt with a red foulard filling the open collar, riding breeches, and glistening boots.
He did not look like a field-grade Marine Corps officer detailed to the Of-fice of Strategic Services, Colonel Wallace decided. The older man with him, who had a pronounced military bearing, was probably Major Frade. The young man-Se¤or Rodriguez-was probably somehow connected with the chauffeur-driven Buick with the low-numbered licensed plate.
The more he thought about it, the more he was pleased. Not only was Ma-jor Frade obviously competent in what he was doing-establishing a good re-lationship with prominent natives was obviously both useful and difficult to accomplish-but Frade would likely be very interested to learn that Captain Maxwell Ashton had such contempt for military customs that he had installed his enlisted men in officers' quarters.
And Frade would very possibly, at least unofficially, tell him what this whole irregular operation was all about.
Two minutes later, Colonel Wallace's sergeant knocked at the door and in-formed him that Mr. Frade and another gentleman wished to see him.
"Show the Major in, Sergeant," Colonel Wallace said as he walked from the window toward the door.
"Welcome to Porto Alegre, Major Frade," Wallace said, offering his hand to Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired.
"I'm afraid Enrico doesn't speak English, Colonel," Clete said. "I'm Major Frade."
"Who is he?" Wallace blurted.
"My friend," Clete said.
Enrico came to attention.
"A sus ¢rdenes, mi Coronel," he said.
"What did he say?" Wallace asked.
"It's the Argentine military custom when a junior meets a superior to say that," Clete said. "It means, 'at your orders.' Enrico spent some time in the Ar-gentine Cavalry before he became a pilot."
"May I see your identification, Major Frade?" Wallace asked.
"I've got an Argentine passport," Clete said. "But I was told that I was to identify myself by giving you a telephone number."
"Quite right, quite right," Wallace said, and took out his notebook and found the number he was told would identify the OSS agent to whom he was going to turn over the C-56.
"Ready, Major," he said.
"CANal 5-4055," Clete said.
"Correct," Colonel Wallace said.
"I was also told that someone would be here who could give me an hour's cockpit familiarization in the C-45, and then let me shoot a few touch-and-goes."
"Yes. That is correct. Under the circumstances, Major, I thought it would be best if I performed that service. But it's a C-56, not a C-45."
What the hell is a C-56?
"I stand corrected, Colonel."
"What I thought we could do, Major, is have luncheon in the Officers' Club, a working luncheon, so to speak, to make sure all the paperwork is in or-der, and then go to the flight line."
What paperwork?
"That's very kind of you, Sir."
"How much time do you have in the C-56?"
I don't even know what the hell a C-56 is. Maybe it's like that business with the Bell fighter the Air Corps had on Guadalcanal. The one Sullivan was flying when he went in was a P-39. Another model of the same airplane, for reasons known only to God and the Army Air Corps, was called the P-400. It has to be something like that. Graham wouldn't have sent a plane down here he knew I couldn't fly.
"Not very much," Clete said. "I'm a fighter pilot by trade. But there were a couple of them at Ewa, in the Hawaiian Islands, and two at Henderson Field. We used them as sort of aerial taxis, and I got to fly a couple of them."
"As aeria
l taxis?" Colonel Wallace asked incredulously.
"Yes, Sir."
"You have not gone through a standard C-56 transition course?"
"No, Sir."
"That's very unusual. Presumably, this gentleman will function as your copilot?"
I never had any trouble flying a C-45 by myself, but I suspect that is some-thing I should not confide in this guy.
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, let's go have our lunch. They do a very nice luncheon steak."
"Thank you, Sir."
There were a half-dozen Marines having their lunch in the Officers' Club, four of them wearing wings. None of them looked familiar. In other circumstances, this would not have bothered Clete; he would have walked over to them and said hello, and played Who Do You Know?
Going over to them now was obviously out of the question. What would happen ran through his mind:
"Hey. Clete Frade's my name. Used to fly Wildcats with VMF-221 on Guadalcanal."
"Really? What are you doing here? And how come you 're in civvies? "
"Well, I'm in the OSS, and Fm here to pick up a C-56 Fm going to smug-gle into Argentina so we can find a neutral ship that's supplying German subs, and/or, depending on how the coup d'‚tat goes, maybe to fly some Argentine generals out of the country. You don't want to wear a uniform when you're do-ing stuff like that. People would ask questions."
"What are the Marines doing here, Colonel?" Clete asked.
"They're probably either Naval Air Transport Command pilots, IPs for the Catalinas we've given the Brazilian Navy, or they're ferry pilots who've brought aircraft down from the States."
"Colonel, I want you to do something for me," Clete said.
"What is it?"
"I want to have a word, in private, with the Marine Captain. You're going to have to identify me as a Marine major; I don't have an ID card."
Colonel Wallace looked at him, uncomfortably, for a long moment and then stood up and walked to the table where the Marines were sitting. He spoke to the Marine Captain, who rose to his feet and followed Wallace far enough from the table so they couldn't be overheard, and spoke to him again.
The Captain looked at Clete with suspicion, but after a moment walked to the table.
"You wanted to speak to me?"
"My name is Frade, Captain. I used to fly Wildcats with VMF-221 on Guadalcanal."
"That Air Corps Colonel said you were a Marine major," the Captain said, his tone of voice making it clear he thought that highly improbable.
The Captain, Clete thought, was in his thirties.
"That's right."
"Who was the MAG"-Marine Air Group-"Commander when you were on the 'Canal? Colonel Stevenson?"
"No," Clete said, almost as a reflex action. "Dawkins, Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W., was skipper of MAG-21. I never heard of a Colonel Stevenson."
"Neither did I, Major. Excuse me. I was just checking you out. You don't expect to find a VMF-221 Wildcat pilot in riding clothes in a Navy Club in Brazil. I knew 'The Dawk'; I used to fly R4Ds into Henderson from Espiritu Santo. How can I help you, Sir?"
"What's a C-56?"
"It's the Lockheed Lodestar," the Captain said.
"Oh, shit," Clete said.
He was familiar with the Lockheed Lodestar. It was a seventeen-passenger transport aircraft with a sixty-nine-foot wingspan powered by two 1,200-horse-power Wright Cyclone engines. It had a top speed of 250 m.p.h., a range of 1,600 miles, and a takeoff weight of 17,500 pounds.
"Excuse me, Sir?"
"I was hoping it was another number for the C-45," Clete confessed.
"Pardon me?"
"Remember the Bell fighters the Army had on Guadalcanal?"
"Yes, Sir. Some of them were P-39s and some were P-400s. I never under-stood that," the Captain said, adding, "I guess you were on the 'Canal, Sir."
"Right at this moment, I almost wish I still was," Clete said. "Do you know how to fly a C-56, Captain?"
"Before I came into the Corps, I flew Lodestars for Transcontinental and Western Airways. Los Angeles to Dallas."
"Are they hard to fly?" Clete asked. "Let me put that another way. How much time would it take you to teach someone who's never even been in one how to fly one?"
"Give me someone with a thousand hours, including a couple of hundred hours' twin-engine time, say, in the C-45, three, four days, including six hours or so in the air."
"How much could you teach me between now and dark?" Clete asked.
"I don't understand."
"And I can't explain very much, except that I'm here to pick up a C-56. I thought I was supposed to pick up a C-45, which I can fly. If that Air Corps colonel who's supposed to give me an hour of touch-and-goes sees that I don't know my way around the cockpit, much less how to fly one, he's going to give we trouble. I can't blame him. But a lot depends on me taking off out of here in that airplane as soon as it's dark."
The Captain looked at him for a good thirty seconds.
"You're OSS, right?"
"If I was, do you think I would say so?"
"There's a Lodestar in a guarded hangar freshly painted red with Argentine numbers. There's four guys in the BOQ. three of whom look suspiciously like sergeants, that don't talk to anybody but themselves. And the first thing I heard when I landed here in my R5D was that the OSS was here."
R5D was Navy nomenclature for the Douglas DC-4 (Army C-54), a four-engine, fifty-passenger transport aircraft with a range of 3,900 miles and a take-off weight of 63,000 pounds.
"Maybe they are. I just wouldn't know."
"What makes you think that Air Corps colonel is going to let me try to teach you how to fly the Lodestar?"
"I'll just tell him you are," Clete said.
"If I were a suspicious man, I would think that you must be OSS. Most ma-jors don't get to tell full bull colonels anything but 'Yes, Sir.'"
"Don't put me on a spot, please. And I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that if anyone hears you saying you think somebody's in the OSS, or about how this C-56 is painted, or who is flying it, you'll probably spend the rest of the war in the Aleutian Islands."
"In four hours, Major, maybe I can teach you to make a normal takeoff and a normal landing under perfect conditions. That's all."
"What would you say if I said I have to put that airplane into a dirt strip?"
"I would say don't try it."
"What I said was 'I have to put that airplane into a dirt strip.'"
"In that case, I think we should get to the flight line just as soon as we can."
"What's your name, Captain?"
"Finney."
Clete raised his hand and signaled Colonel Wallace to join them.
"Colonel," Clete said, "it turns out that Captain Finney is a C-56 IP. If you have no objection, I'll shoot my touch-and-goes with him."
"Whatever you wish, of course, Mr. Frade."
Chapter Twenty
[ONE]
Bachelor Officers' Quarters
2035th U.S. Army Air Carps Support Wing
Porto Alegre, Brazil
1730 1G April 1943
Clete found Captain Maxwell Ashton III at the bar of the hotel. Ashton was in a tieless shirt and sweater, sipping a beer and examining with interest and obvi-ous approval the long legs of a waitress as she bent over to deliver a round of drinks to a table across the room.
"We have a problem," Clete said as he slipped onto a bar stool beside him.
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Ashton said. "You want a beer, or is it the kind of bad news you would rather tell me sober?"
Clete looked around the room and found a table where there was less chance to overhear their conversation than at the bar.
"Let's go over there," he said.
"You want to take a beer with you?" Ashton pursued.
"No, I'm flying," Clete said automatically.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Ashton said, sliding off his stool. "I was hoping the bad news was that something was wrong with the airplane and
the operation was called off."