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“What the hell is that?” Lieutenant Thomas Winters, Artillery, inquired of Captain James D. Cronley as they taxied up to the hangar in the L-5.
“I believe it is a C-47, which is the military version of the Douglas DC-3. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
There was indeed a C-47 sitting in front of Hangar Two. It had the Constabulary insignia on the nose, which surprised Cronley.
“I mean that funny-looking black airplane they’re pushing into the hangar,” Winters said, in exasperation.
“I don’t see a funny-looking black airplane,” Cronley replied. “Possibly because I know that funny-looking black airplanes like that are used only in classified operations I’m not supposed to talk about.”
As Winters parked the L-5 and shut it down, a lieutenant wearing Constabulary insignia and aviator’s wings walked up to it and saluted.
Cronley got out of the Stinson and returned the salute.
“Colonel Wilson’s compliments, gentlemen,” the lieutenant announced. “The colonel would be pleased if you would join him aboard the general’s aircraft.”
“Lieutenant,” Cronley asked, straight-faced, “is that the colonel some people call ‘Hotshot Billy’?”
“Only full colonels or better can do that, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “Anyone of lesser rank who uses that description can expect to die a slow and painful death.”
“Lead on, Lieutenant,” Cronley said.
A nattily turned-out Constabulary corporal, who looked as if he was several months short of his eighteenth birthday, was standing guard at the steps leading to the rear door of the aircraft. He saluted, then went quickly up the steps and opened the door, which was, Cronley noted, a “civilian” passenger door, rather than the much wider cargo door of C-47 aircraft.
The sergeant came down the steps and Cronley, followed by Winters, went up them.
The interior of the aircraft was not the bare-bones, exposed-ribs interior of a standard Gooney Bird. Nor even the insula – tion-covered ribs and rows of seats in the interior of a DC-3 in the service of, say, Eastern Airlines. There were eight leather-upholstered armchairs and two tables in the fuselage, making it look not unlike a living room.
General White was not in his aircraft, but Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson, Major Harold Wallace, and former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were, sitting in the armchairs.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Cronley said.
“Where the hell have you been?” Wilson demanded.
Cronley saw on Lieutenant Winters’s face that he was now questioning the wisdom of their flight.
“Lieutenant Winters was kind enough to give me a tour of the Thuringian-Hessian border.” He turned to Winters. “I believe you know the colonel, Lieutenant,” he said. “And this officer is Major Harold Wallace of the Twenty-third CIC Detachment, and this gentleman is Herr Ludwig Mannberg of the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation.”
Winters saluted and Wallace and Mannberg offered him their hands.
Wallace ordered Cronley and Winters, who were standing awkwardly on the slanted floor of the airplane, into armchairs with a pointed finger. Wilson waited impatiently until they were seated, and then asked, rather unpleasantly, “Cronley, you’re not suggesting that Winters suggested this aerial tour of the border?”
“No, sir, I’m not. But I took one look at him and I could see that Lieutenant Winters is a fine pilot, a credit to the United States Military Academy and Army Aviation generally, and decided on the spot that I would recruit him for service with DCI-Europe. Then I asked him to give me an aerial tour of the area.”
“You decided to recruit him for DCI?” Wilson asked incredulously.
“He can do it,” Wallace said, smiling. “I think the phrase is ‘drunk with newfound authority.’”
“I mention that now because I wanted you to know you can speak freely in his presence about our current enterprise,” Cronley said. “He knows all about it. Well, maybe not all about it, but a good deal about it.”
“And how much did you tell Colonel Fishburn about our current enterprise?” Wallace asked.
“Essentially nothing, sir. When Captain Dunwiddie and I made our manners to the colonel, he led us to believe that Colonel Wilson had told him that he would explain everything to him when he got here.”
“So you didn’t tell Colonel Fishburn that you wanted Lieutenant Winters to fly you up and down the border?” Wilson asked.
“When we made our manners to Colonel Fishburn, I hadn’t met Lieutenant Winters. We met him at dinner last night.”
“In other words, Colonel Fishburn doesn’t know that you have been using one of his airplanes and one of his pilots to fly the border?”
