"I'm not sure how long we can go on. We've had some indications that Hafner is under suspicion. We may have to bring him back here."
"I knew him during the war. He would make a good Geschwader commander."
Milch snorted. "Hardly! We'll need him more as a technician, someone to run one of the new factories."
Goering returned, obviously pleased to have the summons from Hitler reinforce his importance. "My apologies, but the Fuehrer needed some information that only I could supply." He put his gloves on the table, arranged his jacket carefully, and got down to business.
"I know that you have both read the Knauss memorandum. It will be the basis for the first expansion. But it is not enough."
Major Robert Knauss, one of the earnest staff toilers who generated the ideas that shaped the path of the army, had written a paper outlining the advantages of secretly building a fleet of four hundred heavy bombers. When they were ready, they were to be unveiled as a "risk fleet," as Knauss called it, an inexpensive weapon with which to threaten other powers.
The army high command had dismissed Knauss's ideas out of hand, but Milch had gotten them to Hitler, who saw at once the benefits. It would take years for Germany to build up an army as large as France's, decades to even begin to match the English navy. Four hundred bombers could be built at the cost of five infantry divisions, or perhaps two battleships. Even more important, no one, not even Russia, had a striking force of four hundred bombers. Used as a shield, they could check the talk of a "preventive war" being heard in France and Russia, and give the Nazis time to rearm Germany adequately.
"Herr Reichskommissar."
"Yes, Colonel Wever, go ahead."
Wever's voice had a pedantic quality, a lecturing tone that made Milch wince. You didn't talk to "Der Dicke" like that.
It was a subterfuge. Wever could barely suppress the energy coursing through his frame, and had to be sure what he said was measured for impact.
"We are now standardizing on the combat aircraft for the Knauss risk fleet." Wever paused for effect.
"You forget yourself. It is the Goering risk fleet." It was a gentle, genial reproof. Hermann was in too good a mood to be angry.
Wever took the bait, converted it to flattery.
"All the more reason, then, to make sure we have not selected the wrong aircraft to build. If this risk fleet is to have credibility, it must have capability. The airplanes we are planning—single-engine and twin-engine bombers—are inadequate. We must have heavy, four-engine bombers that can carry two tons of bombs for a thousand miles, as far as the Ural Mountains, if we are to bluff—much less fight—the Soviet Union."
"Wever, I came here to tell you the good news about announcing the Luftwaffe. I didn't come to get bad news about our aircraft types."
Wever and Milch stiffened in their seats.
"However, your point is not without merit. But listen to me." He became affable Hermann again, their confidant, their leader.
"This is just the first round. The Fuehrer assures me that there will not be a war until 1943 at the earliest. By then, we will have introduced our second generation of aircraft, and, Colonel Wever, you can be sure that it will include your Ural bomber. We'll let our 'experimental station' in the United States develop the first round, and then we'll be prepared for the second."
He paused and nodded genially to Wever. "I'll pass your comments on to the Fuehrer." Goering went on with the other points on his memorandum, items concerning the new uniform with which he was almost inordinately concerned, cooperation with Italy, and the possibility of using political prisoners in factories. He didn't ask their opinion, he simply told them how it would be. When he'd finished, he stood up and the meeting was over.
Milch punched Wever lightly on the arm. "Good job. You salted the idea for the four-engine bomber. He'll spring it on Hitler and take credit for it. That's the way we have to work it."
Wever's reply was stiff. "It's a pity when the general staff has to adopt the sycophantic tactics of an advertising firm. In the old days, you were paid to say what you thought—or else!"
Milch laughed. "Thank God these aren't the old days, Wever. I'd be grooming some Hohenzollern's horse!"
***
Chapter 9
Downey, California/October 4, 1934
Like an aging high school beauty queen primping for a reunion, the distressed Beech Staggerwing sat in the back of the Roget hangar, its dignity destroyed. The firewall was festooned with wires and tubes, and an asbestos blanket covered the windscreen to fend off the sparks that flew as Frank Bandfield welded up a new engine mount.
Hadley slipped on dark goggles and watched approvingly as the torch left a perfectly smooth bead. The deep blue shade of the goggles was a perfect complement to Hadley's sad, reflective mood, the goggles turning the torch's flame into a mirror reflecting all their efforts of the past. It seemed like only yesterday he'd watched Bandy doing exactly the same work on the original Rocket, sweating to get it ready to fly to Paris. So much had happened since then—the races at Cleveland, the first flight of the RC-3, the deliveries to Allied Airlines—yet financially they were headed back almost exactly to where they had started.
The euphoria of the sixty-plane order Mahew had given for the RC-3 had led them to expand the plant and its work force too rapidly. Ironically, it was the very size of that initial success that was now giving them problems. They had created a full manufacturing plant to deliver aircraft at the rate of ten per month, but had not since gained any other orders for the airplane. Douglas Aircraft had quite simply trumped their ace with its DC-2, sewing up the marketplace, and Roget Aircraft was trapped in the classic aviation dilemma: a large work force, a huge payroll, and no backlog of orders.
No outsider could have guessed this by looking at the plant, for the aisles were still filled with planes in the process of being built. But the simple truth was that unless there were some sizable orders for new aircraft in the next few weeks, they were going to have to start laying people off as they began the process of shutting the plant down.
It had startled Hadley to find that success was far more difficult to deal with than failure. Before the "big order," Roget and Bandfield had been able to keep body and soul together with the survival techniques they'd learned over the years. They would do odd jobs, charter flights, and repair aircraft and cars. Now the focus was shifted entirely away from themselves onto the work force which depended upon them for its livelihood.
Hadley roused himself from his uncharacteristic reverie and said, "Your pay runs pretty high for doing a welder's work, doesn't it, Bandy?"
Bandfield's nod showed that he had heard. He didn't interrupt his fierce concentration on the job at hand. Working at night on the Beechcraft was a relief from the frantic pressures of the day.. As he watched, the blue-black metal glowed red, then white as it fused. He remembered all his father had taught him about craftsmanship. George Bandfield had been a wild-eyed dreamer, but he played machine tools the way Paderewski played a piano. Even as the two pieces of metal merged into the stout angle he sought, he recalled how closely his father had supervised his work, rejecting any that wasn't perfect. Like any smart-aleck kid, he'd resented it at the time; now he knew it had paid off. Recognition sparked like the torch; it wasn't only craftsmanship his dad had taught, but philosophy, probably shaping his attitude about selling safe, well-proven aircraft as much as Millie's crash had done. So Slim Lindbergh was probably right when he had said his dad had influenced his political arguments.
Finished with the bead, he snapped up his welder's mask and grinned. "I've had a lot of good times in this bucket." The thought of Patty's athletic sex-at-altitude program stirred him. "And I'd never forgive myself if something happened to my girl in an airplane I'd worked on."
He flipped his mask down, then up again. "You know this airplane is twice as fast as the Nieuports her dad flew in the war? Who'd believe a woman would be flying something like this?"
"Yeah, lots of progr
ess in airplanes, but none in business. If we don't get some more orders we'll be starving to death again. I thought we'd broken out of that rut."
Bandfield nodded, sharing Roget's sorrow and anxiety over the roller-coaster ride of the aircraft business.
"Well, maybe I'll learn something at Wright Field that will help. And maybe you can sell Howard on buying an airline and outfitting it with Roget Aircraft planes. I know he's wanted to get into the airline business for years, ever since he flew for TWA."
"I think that's part of our problem, Bandy. We depended too much on Hughes in the past. That's why I'm willing to take the time to work on his racer. But I don't think we can depend on him now. The only thing to do is come up with another design, something smaller that doesn't take a big work crew to build in quantity. We could afford to design a fighter, maybe, or a trainer. Henry Caldwell was always trying to get me to design a trainer for the Air Corps."
"Well, Hadley, we'll swing something. Right now, though, I've got to get back to work. Patty is on my ass all the time to get this thing finished. She's not too happy that I only work on it after hours."
Hadley examined the bright yellow Beech appreciatively, letting the beauty of its lines restore his humor. He asked, "Which engine are you installing now?"
"It's a six-hundred-and-ninety-horsepower Wright Cyclone. I'll tweak it a little bit until it delivers seven-fifty, and Patty will have the fastest biplane in the country, maybe the world."
Roget ran his hand over the bulldog-jawed lower wing, which gave the Staggerwing its name. "Will she be able to handle it?"
"No problem in the air, and any Staggerwing's a problem on the ground. She's got about fifty hours in it, and is doing a good job. She'll be all right. If there was a problem, I wouldn't let her go."
Roget laughed. "Yeah, I know how much attention she pays to what you say—about like what Clarice does to me."
The older man turned and bounded off to the tool room. He doubted if Patty would really be able to master the airplane. It would be bad enough if Bandy lost another woman in an aircraft accident, impossibly worse if he felt he had been the cause.
Bandfield turned back to his torch. As with any task, he approached the welding with a single-minded intensity, a tidal wave of concentration that swamped the event and usually anyone associated with it. When he could not be exactly focused—in the bath, walking to work, driving—he tended to wander mentally through a portfolio of ideas, setting them in order, shaping them to be a task that could then be done. It was another legacy from his father. They would sit in the woods, waiting for a deer to come by, and his father would whisper to him all the things that needed to get done, what they were going to do with the deer, how they would cook it, and, always, with whom they would share it. Not a Christian, George Bandfield had nevertheless always more than tithed his possessions, taking care of anyone who needed it.
Patty had been waiting for thirty minutes when she saw Bandy appear at the door, wiping his hands on a handkerchief, brow furrowed. She honked the horn of the cream-and-red Auburn Speedster, a car whose curves suited her own perfectly.
"Hey, ye old absent-minded professor, over here."
He looked up, genuinely surprised, then glanced at his watch. "God, honey, I'm sorry I'm late. Been waiting long?"
"Just the usual half hour."
A familiar surge of pleasure washed over him. He was content for the first time ever with his love life. Patty's highly charged eroticism matched his own, and they enjoyed an intensity of lovemaking that continued to surprise him. Their life was spiced by wild arguments that led to name-calling, dish-throwing, and door-slamming, and almost always dissolved into a quick, heated tumble right where they were—the kitchen, the car, wherever. And when it was over—the fighting or the loving—they could talk endlessly about everything.
A bursting hot whiff of the local White Castle's greasy fried onions bubbled around him as he walked to the car, whacking his appetite as a jockey whips a horse.
"Let's eat. How about a steak at Pancho's?"
She pointed to a bag of groceries. "I've got a two-inch-thick Porterhouse and a box of mushrooms. Forty cents a pound for the steak, but so what. It's been a bad day—a letter from my mother worrying about all sorts of things."
"Like what?"
"Like will the airplane be too much for me, am I getting enough sleep, and if your intentions are honorable."
"The answer to all three is no. But I could make an exception for the last one."
Laughing, she turned left toward Santa Monica.
"Where are we headed?"
"To the beach. I've borrowed a cabin for the weekend. I'm giving you one more chance to, see if you like playing man and wife with me. If you do, we're going to see a justice of the peace pretty soon."
"A JP? We ought to have a big wedding, invite everybody."
She winced, remembering the wedding in Orleans. "No thanks. I've done that once too often. Let's just get Hadley and Clarice to be witnesses and do everything quietly."
"What about your flying?" He meant: Are you going to give it up, as I want you to do?
She took her eyes off the road only long enough to look at him and say, "What about yours?" It was a complete message.
The weekend had gone predictably well, and two weeks later they were married in a simple morning ceremony in Riverside. Clarice Roget insisted on her Episcopal priest conducting the ceremony in the St. Francis Chapel of the Mission Inn. The inn, done in traditional Southern California-Spanish formula, had come to be a gathering place for both military and civilian flyers. The custom had begun with a series of rollicking wakes, when saddened comrades would gather to toast the latest death. In time, the inn was adopted by flyers as the appropriate place to drink, have a romantic rendezvous, or, less frequently, to get married.
Clarice was terribly pleased with herself for choosing the little nondenominational chapel, for she knew that its decorations included a gilded wooden altar and nine genuine Tiffany windows. In good times and in bad, no matter what Hadley had earned, Clarice had lived an impoverished life. Aviation had drained their finances like a major illness, and she had watched all the money go for "necessities" like tools, parts, and payrolls. For years she had lusted for a Tiffany lamp, to her a glowing symbol of luxury and taste. She knew she would never have one simply because Hadley would never understand how it related to airplanes. Having Tiffany windows in the chapel served as a substitute, and was in its own way a personal victory for her.
There was a small reception, during the course of which Hadley managed to bring Bandfield back through the stuccoed archways of the inn to the fabled Flyers' Wall, where famous and not-so-famous flyers were honored.
"Come take a look at this, Bandy." The beige stucco wall was covered with ten-inch-long copper wings, each one signed by a well-known aviator. Other walls were filled with signed photos of flyers from the early days of aviation in California. All the aviation greats and near-greats were there. Roget ran his finger along the wall, calling out the names—Glenn L. Martin, Lincoln Beachey, Hap Arnold, "Doc" Young, Jimmy Wedell, Jimmy Doolittle. Half the photos were marked with a simple black ribbon slanted across the upper right-hand corner.
They were bantering back and forth when Roget pointed to the picture of Millie Duncan, standing with Jack Winter near the Golden Eagle, cute as a button in her fake military outfit, looking up at the stars.
Bandfield was visibly staggered—he'd heard of the Flyers' Wall, but he'd had no idea that Millie was included. His jaw dropped as he flushed with irritation; the photo was the same one that had been run in the Oakland Tribune, the one he had reproached her about.
Roget was relentless. "Most of these guys were good. And most of them are dead. You've survived pretty well. If you let Patty fly, the odds are against her, no matter how talented she is. You ought to put your foot down."
Bandfield walked away, shaken. Though tactless as a shark, Roget was right—but there didn't seem to be anything B
andy could do. He sat down at a table, wondering where Patty had gone.
She was with Clarice, Roget's faithful teammate, who pulled her to the same wall, the same picture. In an affectionate, caring voice, Clarice whispered, "She put him through hell. He never stopped blaming himself. You've saved him. Don't let it happen to him again."
The effect was different. Patty was not shocked, just angry, wondering if Bandy had put Clarice up to it.
The Rogets were traditionalists, from the rice they had thrown after the wedding to the tin cans Bandfield found tied to the back of the Auburn and to the tail wheel of the Roget Rocket they, were to fly to San Francisco. He had arranged with the Army to land at Crissey Field, and they had splurged on a room at the St. Francis Hotel. Patty had been upset all the way up, and they hardly spoke through dinner. As they undressed unenthusiastically for bed, Patty said, "Great start for a honeymoon, isn't it? I'll bet Clarice is a scream at a wake."
"They meant well. And I happen to agree with them. You don't have to prove anything."
"I know you agree with them. Did you put them up to it?"
She could tell by the look on his face that he had not. In a kinder voice, she said, "How can you be so understanding about most things, and miss this completely? Stephan was right. You men flyers have flying and sex so screwed up you think women feel the same way."
"I thought you said they did."
"If I did, it was because we were courting, and I didn't want to argue about it. Why can't flying be a challenge, like painting or music? Why can't a woman pursue something she's good at?"
"It's not natural. A woman is supposed to be the homemaker. Why are there so few women doctors or lawyers? It's the same thing, it's just not right."
She turned rigid with fury. "You're making my point. There aren't many women in the professions because you men won't let them in. And that's why I'm going to have a flying career. Mother is all wrong about Amelia Earhart. She does her flying for a larger cause."
"I'm not worried about any goddam larger cause! I'm worried about you and I'm worried about having a family."
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