‘‘That’s another little problem,’’ Baker said. ‘‘Our information is that the Frenchman desperately desires to return to his family. Thus he works for Vichy and the Germans in the hope they’ll give him permission to return to France. Likewise, because he’s concerned about reprisals against his family in France, it’s extremely unlikely that he will leave Morocco voluntarily.’’
‘‘You mean, we kidnap him,’’ Canidy said. Baker nodded. ‘‘Then what happens to his family?’’
Baker shrugged.
‘‘Jesus!’’ Canidy said, repelled by what he took to be unconcern.
‘‘Which is another reason we need the cooperation of el Ferruch,’’ Douglass said.
Canidy looked at him, eyes flaring.
‘‘It’s not that we don’t care about that sort of thing,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘Of course not,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘But whatever you need this guy for is more important, right?’’
‘‘Yes, it is,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘How do you propose to get this man and Fulmar out of Morocco—presuming that ‘happy scenario’ comes true?’’ Canidy asked.
Baker looked at Douglass for permission to reply. Douglass shook his head no.
‘‘We don’t think you should know that yet,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘How am I supposed to see Fulmar? Or, for that matter, enter Morocco?’’ Canidy asked.
‘‘That at least is fairly simple,’’ Baker said. ‘‘We’re going to send you to the consulate in Rabat as a foreign service officer. Cynthia will arrange for you to be issued a diplomatic passport, and we’ll run you through a quick program to show you how to behave, that sort of thing.’’
‘‘She wouldn’t tell me last night,’’ Canidy said, ‘‘how she fits in this.’’
Cynthia looked at Douglass for permission. This time he gave it.
‘‘You’ll be an agent in this operation,’’ Cynthia said. ‘‘Every agent has a handler. I’m your handler.’’
‘‘How are you going to ‘handle’ me?’’ Canidy asked.
‘‘Take care of your pay, your travel, your training, your briefings, your last will and testament, do whatever I can to get you where you’re going as quickly as possible. In other words, be responsible for you.’’
‘‘You’re too young to be my mother,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘And too pretty.’’
‘‘I know, Dick, I know,’’ Cynthia said. ‘‘But I’ll just have to do.’’
‘‘Actually, I could do a lot worse,’’ Canidy said, meaning it. ‘‘Meanwhile’’—he switched his attention to Baker— ‘‘where are you going to be while I’m running around in the desert looking for Fulmar?’’
‘‘Mr. Baker is leaving tomorrow for Rabat,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘He will be there when you arrive. As soon as we can make it through the bureaucratic niceties and your briefings, you’ll go to Rabat.’’
‘‘Via Lisbon and Vichy,’’ Baker said. ‘‘An ordinary junior foreign service officer would spend a week being briefed at the embassy in Vichy before moving on to a consulate general assignment. If you didn’t do that there would be questions. You do understand, don’t you, that since Morocco is still a French protectorate, our consulate general there reports to our ambassador to France.’’
‘‘No,’’ Canidy said.
‘‘We’ll get into that in the briefings, Dick,’’ Cynthia said. ‘‘There’s a lot of material we have to give you.’’
‘‘Chief Ellis will stick with you through all of this,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘I’m sure you’ll find him helpful. He’s an old sailor.’’
‘‘He makes a pretty good guard, doesn’t he?’’ Canidy asked.
Douglass met his eyes.
‘‘Yes,’’ he said. ‘‘That too.’’
5
Kunming, China 18 January 1942
The sixteen B5M Mitsubishis the ground spotters reported en route to Kunming turned out to be, when Ed Bitter and his wingman found them, eight B5Ms and eight K1-27 Nakajima fighters.
‘‘What the hell are they?’’ Bitter’s wingman asked.
"Nakajima K1-27s," Bitter reported excitedly. ‘‘Get the hell back to Kunming.’’
It was the AVG’s first encounter with the K1-27s. They had been told that their P40-Bs were superior in several important ways, but that was theory. He was about to test that theory.
Bitter waited until his wingman was nearly out of sight before he pushed the nose down to attack formation. He wondered if that was prudent. It was insane for one man to attack a formation of sixteen aircraft, eight of them fighters.
He got a B5M on his first pass. He had put several .50-caliber tracers into the fuel tanks in the left wing, and the tanks had blown up. He just had time to consider, as he pulled away from the formation in a steep dive, that it was his third kill, when he looked over his shoulder. There were three K1-27s on his tail.
He had no trouble pulling away from two of them in the obviously faster P40-B, but the third, obviously a first-class pilot, kept turning inside Bitter’s turns, and once when Bitter looked over his shoulder he was chilled by little red bursts coming from the Jap’s wing guns.
He put the P40-B into a steep dive, dropping from seven thousand feet almost to the ground. When he saw the Nakajima was still on his tail, farther back than he expected, he knew that he could get away with what he planned. He pulled back on his stick, feeling the g forces force his body down in the seat. The world turned red and then nearly black as the blood drained from his head, and he prayed he wouldn’t black out.
He remained conscious enough to feel the life of the stick, and when his vision cleared, he was through the loop and the Nakajima was ahead of him, falling out of a loop he had tried to make inside Bitter’s, which he now realized he could not complete in time. He went through the fall and tried to dive to safety.
Bitter caught up with him, got on his tail, and opened fire. He saw the .50 tracers pass the Nakajima, and reminded himself that for every tracer there were four armor-piercing ball projectiles. He was certainly getting his fire in the Nakajima, but there was no sign of it. The guns stopped, first the .50s and then the .30s. He was now, except for speed, defenseless. He looked over his shoulder. The other two Japanese fighters, the ones he had lost, were now diving on him. He banked sharply to the left. In the last second he had the first Nakajima in sight; it burst into a ball of orange flame and disappeared.
He headed for Kunming, the P40-B’s throttle lever past the takeoff indent, as far as it would go, into full emergency military power. The Nakajimas on his tail fell farther and farther behind, and finally, convinced they had chased him off, broke off and started back to the bombers they had been sent to protect.
He had, he realized, shot down his third and fourth enemy aircraft, one of them a fighter. But then he had a follow-on, an unpleasant thought. As soon as it worked its way through the Japanese command structure that the Nakajima K1-27s were no match for the Curtiss P40-Bs of the American Volunteer Group, the Japanese high command would send in something better. The destruction of the AVG was at least as important as the bombing of China. They would send the best aircraft they had to win that battle. The AVG was already playing its ace, and there was no hole card.
He realized he was far more frightened of that prospect than he had been when the K1-27 was on his tail.
Ed Bitter got drunk that night and, for the first time, took an interpreter to his quarters.
Right after Canidy had been sent home in disgrace, Doug Douglass had been given command of the squadron. Douglass had not, however, moved into the suite of rooms that were now his by right of command, but stayed where he was. Bitter realized when he saw the light under Douglass’s door that he had not changed his nightly habits. Since assuming command, he had rarely gone to the bar, and when he did, hadn’t taken liquor. Nor did he drink in his room.
It was therefore meet, right, and just, Ed Bitter decided, to annoy the sober sonofabitch.
Bitter staggered into Douglass’s room with the girl under his arm.
Douglass was alone in his bed, writing on a clipboard propped against his knees.
‘‘Why, Romeo, Romeo,’’ Douglass mocked him when he saw the giggling interpreter. ‘‘Wherefore goeth thou, Romeo? ’’
‘‘If I can get a straight answer out of you,’’ Bitter said, carefully pronouncing each syllable, ‘‘I would like a straight answer to a straight question.’’
He realized that he couldn’t think of a question, but that didn’t seem to be important.
‘‘Both of your kills were confirmed,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘That makes four, right?’’
‘‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’’ Bitter said. He was just sober enough to see that Douglass was smiling at his condition, which annoyed him. ‘‘I said, I wanted to ask you a straight question . . .’’
‘‘Generally speaking,’’ Douglass said, smiling, ‘‘the best technique for beginners is if the lady gets on her back and spreads her—’’
‘‘Goddamn you, I’m serious.’’
‘‘Ask away,’’ Douglass replied. He laid down the clipboard he had been holding. Bitter saw that he was writing a letter.
‘‘Why did Canidy turn yellow?’’ Bitter asked.
He was surprised to hear those words.
‘‘I thought we had agreed not to talk about him,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘I want to know why, goddamn it!’’
‘‘I don’t know, Ed,’’ Douglass said.
‘‘You were with him, goddamn it!’’
‘‘What brought this up all of a sudden?’’ Douglass asked.
‘‘Because I was scared out there today.’’
‘‘You’re afraid it might get the best of you?’’
‘‘Yeah, maybe,’’ Bitter said.
‘‘Well, you’re not alone,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘If that makes you feel any better.’’
‘‘Is that what happened? It got the better of Canidy?’’
‘‘I don’t know, Eddie,’’ Douglass said. ‘‘Probably.’’
‘‘But he was my friend,’’ Bitter said.
‘‘For what it’s worth,’’ Douglass said, ‘‘he’s still my friend.’’
‘‘He’s a fucking coward, goddamn it!’’ Bitter said righteously, and then quickly walked out of Douglass’s room.
As he walked down the corridor, he realized he was crying. The Chinese girl looked at him, half concerned, half frightened.
ELEVEN
1
The Consulate General of the United States Rabat, Morocco February 20, 1942
In the briefing he had received from Cynthia Chenowith in Washington, and later in Vichy at the hands of a mousy, schoolteacherish foreign service officer in the U.S. embassy, Canidy learned about the Alice in Wonderland diplomatic situation in France and in the French protectorate in Morocco.
Though the United States was at war with Germany, neither the United States nor Germany was now at war with France. That country, following the signing of the armistice agreement with the Germans at Compiègne, was legally neutral. Consequently, the United States maintained an embassy at the French seat of government at Vichy and consulates and consulates general throughout the French colonial empire. The embassy in Paris stood empty, because that part of France was occupied by the Germans.
Vichy, a small town whose prewar fame was solely due to the mineral water bottled there, was now the capital of ‘‘unoccupied’’ France. In Vichy, and cities such as Rabat, where there were embassies and consulates general, American diplomats daily encountered their German, Japanese, and Italian enemies on the street and at cocktail parties and dinners. Each side generally pretended the other was invisible.
In 1942 the French, as a general rule of thumb, were far more impressed with the Germans who had so soundly defeated them than they were with the Americans and their allies, who seemed then far from likely to do to the Germans what the Germans had done to the French. The only organized resistance to the new Franco-German relationship was a tall, rather ungainly, but nonetheless regal French brigadier general, Charles de Gaulle, who had escaped to London just before France capitulated. There, solely on his own authority, he had proclaimed himself leader of the Free French. The Free French consisted of the handful of French military who had managed to make it to England.
Canidy was told that no one in Morocco paid very much attention to the Free French or Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle. It was indeed believed that his activities in England made things awkward for his brother officers who had obeyed their orders—the orders of Marshal Pétain himself— to accept defeat and cooperate in implementing the new relationship with Germany.
In Morocco, the training officer in Vichy told him, French neutrality was of necessity tilted toward Berlin, but the French were a civilized people, and their attitude toward the Americans in Morocco was always correct and sometimes even friendly.
Canidy traveled by train from Vichy to Marseilles, and then by ship—brilliantly floodlit at night to show the French tricolor painted on its sides—from Marseilles to Casablanca. His diplomatic passport quickly passed him and his luggage through customs control, and the consulate general had sent a Ford to meet the ship.
At the consulate proper, he was met by an assistant consul, who welcomed him warmly and marched him around introducing him as the newest member of the team.
Later he was introduced to Eldon C. Baker, the vice consul for visas and passports. Baker acted as if he had never seen Canidy before.
‘‘I believe,’’ the assistant consul told Eldon Baker, ‘‘that Mr. Dale has spoken to you about Mr. Canidy?’’ Mr. Dale was the deputy consul general.
‘‘Oh yes, indeed,’’ Baker said, with no enthusiasm whatever, ‘‘Mr. Dale asked me to offer to let Mr. Canidy share my apartment . . . temporarily,’’ he added significantly. ‘‘Naturally, I’m happy to do that.’’
Canidy accepted.
‘‘And I suppose you’ll need a ride, too, won’t you, until you can get a car?’’
‘‘Yes, I’m afraid I will,’’ Canidy said.
‘‘Meet me here at five o’clock,’’ Baker said with a limp handshake.
The apartment was downtown, not far from the royal palace.
‘‘Everybody else in the building is in communications,’’ Baker said when he’d closed the door after them. ‘‘Which means that people are used to seeing people coming and going in the middle of the night.
‘‘So far as I can find out,’’ Baker said, ‘‘Fulmar is still in Ksar es Souk. The information came via the military attaché, Major Berry. Since, however, Major Berry is an ass, that doesn’t mean it’s reliable. Still, I think we have to go with what we’ve got, and what we’ve got is that Fulmar’s at Ksar es Souk.’’
‘‘How far is that from here?’’ Canidy asked.
‘‘They didn’t brief you?’’ Baker asked, annoyed.
‘‘I know where it is on the map,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘But not how to get there, or how long it will take.’’
Baker took a Guide Michelin road map from a desk drawer and spread it out on the desk.
‘‘It’s been said that the only thing the French have done right is the Guide Michelin,’’ Baker said. He pointed. ‘‘Here we are, and there’s Ksar es Souk. Do you read French?’’
Canidy shook his head.
‘‘What that says,’’ Baker said, pointing to an explanation of symbols box, ‘‘is that the road from Ouarzazate to Ksar es Souk is ‘dirt, single lane, unpassable after rain.’ ’’
‘‘Great. Does it rain in the desert? I have visions of sand dunes.’’
‘‘This is just arid soil. No sand dunes. They’re farther south. And, yes, every once in a while it rains in this desert. ’’
‘‘Where is this Frenchman we’re looking for?’’ Canidy asked, looking up from the map.
Baker hesitated just a moment before replying.
‘‘He
re,’’ he said. ‘‘Between Benahmed and Oued-Zem. He works in the phosphate mines. His name is Grunier. Louis Albert Grunier.’’
Baker went in the drawer again and came out with half a dozen snapshots. They showed a not very good-looking man in round spectacles. Though only about thirty, he was already balding.
‘‘These were taken a little over two years ago,’’ Baker said, ‘‘in the Belgian Congo. By now, he’s lost some more hair, and he’s a little thinner.’’
‘‘What was he doing in the Belgian Congo?’’
‘‘He’s a mining engineer,’’ Baker said.
‘‘And we want to know what he’s doing, is that it?’’
‘‘You don’t need to know why we want him.’’
‘‘OK.’’ Canidy shrugged theatrically. ‘‘I’m not at all curious. ’’
‘‘That’s the right attitude, Dick,’’ Baker said, with the barest hint of a smile.
‘‘So what am I supposed to do besides be agreeable and smile at my long-lost friend?’’
Baker caught Canidy’s eyes. ‘‘Rather a lot more than that.’’ Canidy raised his brow. ‘‘There are a few more pieces to what we’re up to in Morocco than you’ve learned yet. First, you already know that we have to act with a bit more subtlety here than Americans are used to. We’re not—shall we say?—totally welcome. On top of that you know that it is crucial for us to conceal from the French and the Germans our connection with the sudden disappearance of Monsieur Grunier. Which is why we need to approach Sidi el Ferruch. He has the facilities to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. On top of that, I don’t want to need to trust him with the knowledge of the value Grunier has to us. That knowledge is a tempting and quite salable morsel. Next, we have another piece of knowledge which, on the surface, is even more tempting and salable. This morsel we intend to entrust to el Ferruch.’’
‘‘What is that?’’
‘‘The commander of the French naval base at Casablanca is an ancient, salty, irascible vice admiral d’escadre, whose name is Jean-Phillip de Verbey. Some people say he’s daffy. De Verbey has sent delicate feelers to us hinting that he would be willing ‘temporarily’ to leave his command in order to join the Free French in their battle against les Boches. These feelers reached Robert Murphy and then me. Neither of us failed to notice that de Verbey outranks Brigadier General de Gaulle and that thus he and not de Gaulle would by rights—according to protocol—assume command of Free French forces. De Gaulle is not popular in London and Washington. . . . Is this making sense?’’
The Last Heroes Page 31