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Lt. Colonel Stevens and Captain Fine were led into the refectory of the mansion, where thirty officers and enlisted men who were undergoing training as OSS agents had gathered for a pre-Christmas-dinner drink. A huge silver punch bowl had been set up at a table, and everyone was holding a silver mug.
There was an Army tradition that the commanding officer of a unit and his staff took Christmas dinner with the troops. Whitbey House OSS station was not a line company, of course, and Stevens was not the battalion commander. But he was the senior commissioned officer of the OSS in England (Station Chief David Bruce was a civilian), and Stevens felt that his place was here.
When it was immediately evident that the trainees were pleased to see him, he knew that he had made the right choice.
Lt. Colonel Stevens and Captain Fine were offered, and took, a glass of punch. The taste was familiar to Lt. Colonel Stevens. It was Artillery Punch. One of the trainees had served in the prewar Artillery and come forth with the recipe. There were shortly going to be, Stevens knew, some very drunk people in this room, and tomorrow morning some monumental hangovers. Artillery Punch was judged by the smoothness with which it went down and by the jolt one got a few minutes later. This was, in his expert opinion, very good Artillery Punch.
He decided against warning Captain Fine of its potency. It might be good for Captain Fine to get a little drunk—both because it was Christmas and because it was good to know how people behaved when drunk. In vino veritas had a special meaning for those in the intelligence business.
Captain Fine was on his third glass—a little red in the face and silly of smile—and Lt. Colonel Stevens was still delicately sipping his first when Major Canidy appeared in the refectory. He was accompanied by Captain James M. B. Whittaker, which was not surprising, and by Major Peter Douglass, Jr., which was. But this explained what Canidy had been doing with the B-25. He had used it to fetch Major Douglass.
But what was really surprising was the presence of Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., USNR. Stevens wondered where the hell Canidy had found him, and why he had brought him to Whitbey House.
Two days before, Canidy had decided that it would be nice to have Major Douglass at the Christmas dinner at Whitbey House. Douglass was close to going over the edge (the “incident” at Eighth Air Force headquarters was all the proof needed of that). And, because of his father, Douglass was one of the two exceptions (Ann Chambers was the other) to the rule that visitors to Whitbey House were absolutely proscribed.
But when Canidy called young Douglass at Atcham to offer him a ride, Douglass told him the base commander had restricted everyone to the base over Christmas. The Eighth Air Force was determined to nip in the bud a recently surfaced British resentment toward their American cousins. As in: Americans are “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.”
The base commander had decided it would not be in the best interests of Allied goodwill to turn loose his several thousand overpaid and oversexed officers and enlisted men to drown their homesickness on Christmas in English pubs. He had arranged activities for them on the base.
“If I wasn’t the group commander,” Douglass told him candidly, “I’d go over the fence. But I’m stuck, I’m afraid.”
Canidy actually winced when he saw Lt. Colonel Stevens. Then Canidy shrugged, and walked over to face the music.
Completely out of character, Captain Fine threw an affectionate arm around Canidy’s shoulders and asked,“How the hell are you, buddy?”
Canidy and Stevens smiled.
“Been at the punch, have you, Stanley?” Canidy asked.
“Noël, Noël,” Fine said happily.
“I’m happy,” Lt. Colonel Stevens said, “if a little surprised to see you, Major Douglass.”
“There I was, snug in my own little bed, minding my own business,” Douglass said. “When out of the blue—actually, it was out of the gray overcast—came Canidy in his airplane. He told the base commander I had been summoned to a briefing of VIPs. The base commander was very impressed.”
“I believe you know Lieutenant Kennedy, Colonel?” Canidy said innocently.
“Hello, Joe,” Stevens said. “It goes without saying that I’m more than a little surprised to see you here, too.”
“Major Canidy gave me the option of talking to Major Douglass here, or not talking to him at all,” Kennedy said.
“As you seem to have already learned,” Stevens said, “Canidy ofte
n does annoying things.” He turned his face to Canidy. “Was it smart to bring that airplane here, Dick?” he asked evenly.
“I didn’t have any choice,” Canidy said. “When I went to Wincanton, the MP at the gate told me that once I went on the base, I was restricted to it until December 26. Something to do with keeping the barbarians away from the natives at Christmas.”
“I thought this field was unsafe,” Stevens said.
“I wouldn’t want to try to take off with a load of bombs,” Canidy said, “but empty, it’s all right.”
Stevens reminded himself then that Canidy was not a fool. Not only that, he was an aeronautical engineer who fully understood the “flight envelope” of B-25 aircraft. Before he had decided to land the B-25 at Whitbey House, he had convinced himself that it could be done safely. Flight safety restrictions were based on the worst scenario, a fully loaded aircraft piloted by an aviator of no more than ordinary skill and experience.
According to the book, Canidy had made an unauthorized flight for personal reasons (which, making it worse, included aiding and abetting an officer to go AWOL), during which he had landed an aircraft on a field he knew had been officially declared unsafe. And he had brought with him an officer who was not (at least yet) cleared to visit Whitbey House.
According to the book, he should be tried by court-martial, if for no other reason than to set an example pour les autres.
There was another way to look at it: A highly skilled pilot had made a short hop to pick up a buddy, a buddy who had lost thirteen of the twenty-eight young pilots he had led on a suicidal assault on the German submarine pens at Saint-Lazare. Stevens decided, therefore, to forget the whole thing.
