Soldier Spies

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “We could have used you up there, Colonel,” Canidy said as he shook Donovan’s hand. “We were outnumbered.”

  “Ed told me it was tough,” Donovan said. “It couldn’t be helped. You understand, I suppose, that the meeting wasn’t really about the reconnaissance missions you’ve been asking for.”

  “I don’t understand,” Canidy admitted.

  “That’s part of it, but only part. As long as we maintain there is a bonafide threat from jet-propelled aircraft, the whole Air Corps strategy for Europe is being questioned. The pressure on the people you and Ed were dealing with came right from the top. I’m sorry you had to stand up under it, but the alternative was David going, and I didn’t want that.”

  “Or you,” Canidy challenged.

  “No way.” Donovan laughed. “I was saying, I didn’t want David to go. Which made you and Ed the sacrificial lambs. I just want you to know I know it must have been tough acting that small gemlike flame of reason, et cetera et cetera.”

  “I’m afraid there was antagonism, sir,” Canidy said.

  “They’re going to be antagonized until we announce that we’ve been wrong all along,” Donovan said. “And since we are not wrong—”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, sir,” Canidy said. “I was beginning to think I was on the shitlist.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Donovan said quickly, and then went on:“Before we get into this, Canidy—how important is Jimmy Whittaker to you?”

  “Sir? I don’t think I understand the question.”

  “There’s an operation coming up in the Pacific where I think he’d be very useful. Barring a very strong objection from you—for example, if he’s absolutely essential to your plans to get Professor Dyer out of Germany—I want to send him over there.”

  Canidy hesitated before replying:“Nothing specific at the moment, sir. I guess I think of him as my reserve. He has experience behind the lines. I’d really like to have him available in case I do need him.”

  “I need that behind-the-lines experience myself,” Donovan said. “Or re-phrasing that so I don’t sound like God. Whittaker’s experience in the Philippines is just what is needed right now in the Philippines.”

  “Sir, I don’t follow you.”

  “Let me tell you what I have in mind,” Donovan said. “There’s an officer in the Philippines, a man named Wendell Fertig. Before the war, he was a civil engineer. He was a friend of Chesty Whittaker. He took a commission just before the war started, and then, refusing to surrender, took to the hills when Bataan fell. He made it to Mindanao and began guerrilla operations.

  “He began by promoting himself to brigadier general—he was a major—apparently in the belief Filipinos wouldn’t be impressed with anything less than a colonel. He also appointed himself ‘Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in the Philippines.’ That allowed him to recruit guerrillas. But as you can imagine, it didn’t endear him to Douglas MacArthur and his staff, who like to do things strictly by the book. . . .”

  “I hadn’t heard we had any guerrillas,” Canidy said.

  “As I was about to say,” Donovan said sharply, annoyed at the interruption, " ’General’ Fertig and his guerrillas are being studiously ignored by Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur won’t even reply to his radio messages. He says they’re phony, controlled by the Japanese. MacArthur has a G-2 named Willoughby who says there is no way a useful guerrilla force can be organized or supplied.

  “But Fertig made radio contact with the Navy in San Diego, it came to the attention of Navy Secretary Frank Knox—and the President—and Knox, who has his own private covert operation, called the Marine Corps Office of Management Analysis, has sent a team of Marines into Mindanao to see if they find Fertig.

  “And if they find him, what?”

  "There has been a suggestion from MacArthur’s headquarters that Fertig is not playing with a full deck. The first thing Knox’s people are supposed to do—presuming they can find him—is determine if he’s sane, and then what his chances are of mounting a useful guerrilla operation.”

  “The Marines haven’t found him yet?” Canidy asked.

  Donovan shook his head “no.”

  “So far not a word,” he said. “I rate their chances of their mission being successful as fifty-fifty. And if they don’t make it, I rate the chances of the President—who is fascinated with the idea of American guerrillas in the Philippines—giving the mission of having another go at it to the OSS as one hundred to one.”

  He paused, waited until he decided Canidy had time to absorb what he had been told, and then asked:

  “Are you beginning to get the picture?”

  “Yeah,” Canidy said thoughtfully.

  “If I am ordered to send someone into the Philippines, I want it to be someone who won’t antagonize MacArthur,” Donovan said. “And Jimmy left the Philippines on the PT boat with MacArthur. Even Willoughby can’t argue with that.”

  “And Jimmy, of course, knows the Philippines,” Canidy said,“and speaks Spanish.”

  “It’s even possible that he knows Fertig,” Donovan said. “Before the islands fell, they were both blowing things up. So it would seem to me that Jimmy is the man to go. But it’s your call. The Dyer mission, and the followons, have the higher priority. If you think you really need him . . .”

  It was a long moment before Canidy replied.

  "The unpleasant truth seems to be,” he said finally, "is that Jimmy falls into the ‘Nice to Have’ rather than ‘Have to Have’ category.”

  “The Philippines mission is important, Dick,” Donovan said.

  “It will screw up his love life, but what the hell, war is supposed to be hell anyway, isn’t it?”

  “It would be a volunteer mission. You think he’ll be willing?” Donovan said.

  Canidy nodded.

  "And now, as they say,” Donovan said, “to the business at hand. I understand that contact has been made with Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz?”

  “Three days ago,” Canidy said.

  “By whom?” Donovan pursued. “What was said?”

  “The British have been helping us,” Canidy said. “We don’t have anyone in Berlin that we can use for this. Their help has been a little reluctant.”

  “That figures,” Donovan said.

  “Their story is that their men are involved in something ‘rather more important, don’t you know,’” Canidy said in a credible upper-class British accent. “They have told us that we are going to have to make our own arrangements and stop using their agents in both Berlin and Frankfurt. Specifically, they are going to give us one more contact. Probably, if we lean on them, we can make that two contacts. But after no more than two contacts with von Heurten-Mitnitz, we’re on our own.”

  Donovan nodded.

  “There’s something else, Dick,” he said, “that until now you didn’t have to know, and which the British aren’t going to be told about at this time. We have, we think, a pipeline in place. From Budapest out, I mean.”

  “Do I get to use it?” Canidy asked. “I’ve been going on the idea that we’ll get Dyer and his daughter out by fishing boat from Holland. And why the long way around?”

  “The Germans know that we, as well as the British, are bringing people out through Holland and Belgium. And they’re getting better and better at finding those pipelines. We’ll continue to use them, of course. And we’ll set up others when they turn one off. But what we’ve done is set one up which will move people the other way, from Germany to Hungary, then through Yugoslavia. It won’t be used much, just enough to keep it open. And it will be used only for those we must bring out. Do you follow the reasoning?”

  Canidy nodded. “It’s in reserve, so to speak.”

  “No,” Donovan said. “Not the way I think you mean. It will not be used when one of the Dutch or Belgian routes is shut down. It will be used only when the people being run through are too valuable to run through the others. ”

  “Dyer is that important to us?�
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  “Dyer can tell us about the metallurgy for the jet engines,” Donovan said. “Do I have to tell you, of all people—you burr-under-the-Air-Corps-saddle-blanket—how important that is to us?”

  It wasn’t much of a joke, but everybody laughed.

  “Why Yugoslavia?” Canidy asked.

  “Your responsibility ends when Fulmar delivers the Dyers to Budapest,” Donovan said. “So that’s really none of your business, Dick.”

  “The only way to test a pipeline is to run something through it,” Canidy said. “Is that what this is, another goddamned test? I send Fulmar in there, and he picks up the Dyers, and then we wait around to see if the pipeline works? Goddammit!”

  “Just who do you think you’re talking to?” David Bruce snapped.

  Donovan raised his hand to shut him off.

  “Fulmar is being sent in, Dick,” Donovan said, “because Dyer is so important to us that Ed Stevens and I agreed it was worth the risk. Believe me, if I didn’t think the pipeline would work, I would not send Dyer or Fulmar through it.”

  Canidy looked at Donovan and after a moment said, almost formally, “Thank you.”

  “We think it will take Fulmar’s presence, his physical presence, to convince Dyer that it will be safe to leave,” Stevens said. “I don’t intend this as a criticism, but I thought I had made that point to you earlier.”

  Canidy nodded. “That was before this Yugoslav pipeline came up,” Canidy said. “Yugoslavia worries me.”

  "Why?” Bruce asked.

  “As I understand it,” Canidy said, “there are two major guerrilla operations in Yugoslavia. One is run by an ex-Royal Yugoslav Army colonel named Dragoljub Mihajlovic, and the other by a Communist who calls himself Josef Tito. Presumably, we intend to use the colonel for the pipeline, for obvious reasons. But he and Tito are fighting each other. Tito’s backed by the Russians, of course. So what happens if the Dyers and Fulmar get grabbed by Tito? Or is that what we’re really doing here? Seeing if that’s what’s going to happen? Another goddamned Machiavellian test?”

  “I am so interested in learning how you know so much about what’s going on in Yugoslavia, Canidy,” Donovan said, “that I am going to pretend I didn’t hear the rest of what you said.”

  “I’ve been given ‘disinformation’ before around here,” Canidy said. “Or not told things I should have been told.”

  “Now, see here, Canidy—” David Bruce spluttered.

  “That has been unfortunately necessary in the past,” Donovan said simply. “But I didn’t do it, and that’s not happening now.”

  “No, sir,” Canidy said. “Not by you. My mouth ran away with me, and I’m sorry. I apologize.”

  “I should hope so,” Bruce said.

  Donovan shut him off as he had before, by holding his hand up.

  "My question, Canidy,” he said, "was the source of your expertise about Yugoslavia.”

  “I’ve talked to the people we’re dropping in,” Canidy said. “They naturally presumed that as the CO of Whitbey House, I had a need to know.”

  “And you pumped them!” Bruce accused.

  “Very enterprising of you,” Donovan said. “I should have guessed as much.”

  Canidy was really not sure whether it was a sarcastic reprimand or just what the words said.

  Donovan looked at Stevens, then at Canidy.

  "Obviously, Dick,” Donovan said,"we are going to use Mihajlovic’s forces to protect the Hungary-Yugoslav pipeline. For the moment at least, I’m confident that he can bring our people out safely. But aside from that, I’m afraid you’re going to have to consider the question answered in all the detail you’re going to get.”

  “Fulmar is going to ask me what will happen when he brings the Dyers to Budapest,” Canidy said. "’Trust me’ is not going to be a satisfactory answer to that question.”

  “Tell him,” Donovan said after a moment,“that they will be taken across the border into Croatia, pass into the hands of Mihajlovic’s partisans, who will carry them through Bosnia-Herzegovina to the coast, where they will be carried by ship to the island of Vis. Once they get there, they will be picked up by aircraft.”

  “Whose aircraft?”

  “The British have a fairly substantial force, more than a hundred men, on Vis,” Donovan said. “Two of our people are with them. They have furnished us with the airfield dimensions. Have a look at them, then tell Stevens if you think your B-25 has the necessary range and can use the airfield on Vis. If it doesn’t, we have been offered space on a British submarine.”

  Canidy’s face registered surprise.

  “We also have people with Mihajlovic and Tito,” Donovan said. “It wasn’t considered necessary that you know, Dick.”

  “I need one more piece of information,” Canidy said. “Now that Fulmar has committed to memory a map of Leeuwarden, Holland, he’s going to Budapest. Where in Budapest?”

  Donovan chuckled.

  “Stevens has that, too,” he said. “Will you have any trouble getting it to von Heurten-Mitnitz?”

  “It takes five days to put a piece of paper in his hand,” Canidy said. “Overnight to Sweden, and then four days from Stockholm to Berlin.”

  “We don’t want to cut it too close,” Donovan said. “Better set that moving, Ed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stevens said.

  “That’s it,” Donovan said, rising. “I’ve got a plane to catch. I can sense Chief Ellis growing nervous downstairs.”

  He went to each man to shake hands, and then he walked out of the sitting room. The chief of station and Colonel Stevens walked after him.

  “I have just had an inspiration,” Canidy said. “Let’s find Jimmy and Fulmar, and go to some pub full of soldiers and get drunk. Maybe with a little bit of luck we can get in a fight.”

  “I’m going to surprise you,” Fine said. “I’m going with you.”

  [FIVE]

  The Dorchester Hotel Bar London, England 2010 Hours 15 January 1943

  Captain James M. B. Whittaker, Lieutenant Eric Fulmar, and Captain the Duchess Stanfield, WRAC, were sitting in the Dorchester bar where Canidy had expected to find them, at a table against the wall.

  “We were wondering where you were,” Whittaker said as Canidy sat down and inspected the bottles in paper bags. He was looking for Scotch.

  “We were with the Boss,” Canidy said.

  “I thought he was with you at High Wycombe,” Whittaker said.

  “The Boss,” Canidy said.

  “There was a rumor he’s in town,” Whittaker said. “Got any interesting gossip?”

  As a matter of fact, buddy, you’re going to go back to the Philippines.

  “Nothing important,” Canidy said.

  “And how was High Wycombe?” the Duchess asked.

  “The less said about it the better, Your Gracefulness,” Canidy said. “Even the Boss felt sorry for us.”

  “We ate,” Whittaker said. “We didn’t know when, or if, you were coming.”

  “No problem,” Canidy said. “Stan and I came to take the third man here over to drink with the Air Corps anyway. Joe Kennedy’s over there talking them out of aircraft parts. They have a pretty good kitchen in the O Club.”

  "The third man? ” the Duchess asked.

  “Another quaint Americanism, Your Gracefulness,” Canidy said. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

  She blushed, then quickly said:“We’re not going back to Whitbey House tonight?”

  “No,” he said. “Both Jimmy and I have to see Stevens in the morning.”

  And Stevens will tell him to pack his things; his services are needed in the Philippines. The Great Romance will be put on hold.

  Canidy sipped at his liquor. And wished that Ann were here. It would have been nice to spend what was certain to be Jimmy’s last night on the town with the four of them together.

  And then his eyebrows went up and he smiled mischievously.

  "Stanley,” he said,“there is a damsel yonder
trying desperately to attract your attention.”

  “I know,” Fine said. “I’m doing my best to pretend I don’t see her.”

  “You don’t want to be nice to the damsel, Stan?” Canidy asked.

  “For God’s sake, ignore her,” Fine said.

  Canidy raised his hand over his head and waved.

  The woman across the room was a tall, slender woman with silver-gray hair combed upward under her Red Cross uniform cap. She pointed, signifying she was trying to attract Fine’s attention. Canidy nodded and beamed happily at her and pushed Fine’s shoulder.

  “I think she wants to say hello to you, Stan,” Canidy said innocently.

  “You sonofabitch,” Fine said, and turned toward the woman. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Here she comes.”

  Fulmar and Canidy laughed.

  “You’ll stop laughing, Eric,” Fine said,“when she sinks her fangs into you.”

  It had been inevitable that Stanley S. Fine would become a regular at the Dorchester bar. He had been temporarily housed at the hotel on his arrival in London, and when quarters were found, they were shabby and a long Underground ride across London. With a good deal less embarrassment than he had expected, he took over the apartment Continental Motion Picture Studios maintained in London for traveling stars and executives. It was at Park Lane and Aldford Street, two blocks from the Dorchester.

  He found that he missed the people he knew in the motion picture industry, and it was at the Dorchester that people in the industry were billeted when they came to London.

  Another Dorchester bar regular was the woman now marching across the room. Fine privately thought of Eleanor Redmon as “the Scorpion.” She was a Red Cross girl, although that description was not precise. Eleanor Redmon was some sort of executive within the Red Cross organization, holding a position too exalted to require her personally to pass out coffee and doughnuts to the boys. For another, the Scorpion was no longer a girl.

  She was, in fact, forty. She was from Duluth, Minnesota, where she had been left widowed, childless, and well-off shortly after the war began. Volunteering for the Red Cross seemed to be just the thing.