REUNION
Stan and Allison sat in the big Lockheed transport and looked down upon the shores of Africa. A coastal road wound along the beach. It was war-scarred and still littered with broken tanks and shattered trucks. This was the route Rommel had taken in his flight across Libya.
“Wonder what O’Malley’s doing about this time?” Stan asked. He was beginning to be sorry he had accepted the offer to return to Alexandria. O’Malley likely was leading a flight over the shores of Italy.
“I’ll bet he is seeing action,” Allison said. “But I’m satisfied to be riding in peace with a pip of a vacation ahead. You’re not beginning to get the bug to fight so soon, old man?”
“No,” Stan answered with a grin. “I aim to have a swell time and be ready for the big push into Europe.”
The trained ears of the two pilots caught a warning signal from one of the plane’s radial motors. The motor complained for a few minutes, then coughed and conked out completely.
“Looks like we might be due for a forced landing,” Stan said.
“That would be our luck,” Allison answered. “Where are we, anyway?”
“We must be near Bengazi.” Stan peered down at the coast line.
A few minutes later their fears were realized. The transport began circling for a landing. They sighted the ruins of a town and were soon over it. Ten minutes later they were standing on a sand dune along with the pilot and copilot. A group of higher-ranking officers, including a general, stood a little way from them.
“We’ll not be here very long,” the pilot said, jerking his head toward his other passengers. “Not with the big boy along. He’s on an urgent mission. We’ve already radioed for a pick-up plane.”
“He’s hurrying in the wrong direction,” Allison said.
Stan walked away and down the slope a bit. One of the Navy’s NATS amphibian freight planes was down at the dock. Stan had learned to respect the Navy Air Transport Service. Those boys flew freight and mail from the United States to every part of the world where the Yanks were fighting, and they flew it on schedule. This plane probably was headed back to Tunis or Bizerte.
He passed the high officers at some little distance. The wind was blowing away from them and he caught the irritated voice of the general.
“With this delay I’ll have to go back. Action against Italy starts at dawn tomorrow.” The wind whipped away the general’s words and Stan did not hear any more, but what he had heard made him halt.
Invasion. The boys were going in for the kill and he was heading for a rest in Alexandria. Turning, he walked up the hill. Allison was chatting with the pilot. Stan motioned to him and they strolled down the slope. When they were out of hearing of the crew, Stan said:
“I just overheard something.”
Allison gave him a quick look. “Been eavesdropping?”
“An ill wind brought me a word from that general. We’re hitting it back to Bizerte.”
“I say, old chap, you know I’m going where I can have two hot baths a day. I’ll have a barber shave me and I’ll have breakfast served in bed. You run along back to Bizerte, but I’m going on to Alexandria.”
“The attack on Italy is set for tomorrow morning. The general is going back and I’m going with him. O’Malley isn’t going to hog this show.”
Allison halted and stared at Stan. Suddenly his twisted smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “If you put it that way, I guess I’m going back to Bizerte, too.”
“The general has radioed for a plane to take him back. This delay has upset his schedule and he won’t go on. We’ll go back with him. Let’s collar the old boy.”
“We are under orders to report to Alexandria,” Allison reminded him.
“The general doesn’t know what our orders are. We can worry about little things like that after we get back,” Stan said impatiently.
They walked across the slope to where the general was standing. There were four officers with him, three colonels and a major.
“Could we have a word with you, sir?” Stan asked as he snapped a salute.
“Certainly,” General Miller said.
“We have decided to return to Bizerte and wondered if you could say a word for us if a westbound plane stops here. This delay will upset our plans and we might as well go back.”
The general looked at Stan sharply. “What made you change your plans, besides this accident?”
Stan grinned. He did not dare admit that he had overheard the general talking.
“The farther we get from the base of action, the more jittery we get,” he replied.
“You fellows have to be ordered to take leave,” General Miller said and smiled. “Do your orders allow you such freedom of action?”
“We feel that they do,” Stan said.
“I’m sorry I can’t take you. I’m afraid I’d be called to account for helping you disobey orders.” The general’s smile had spread into a grin. “You will go on as you should.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stan said. They both saluted and walked away.
“Guess we’re sunk,” Allison said sourly. “O’Malley will certainly rub it in when he sees us again. He’ll be right in the middle of the big fight.”
Stan was looking at the NATS amphibian and smiling. “We might be able to thumb a ride with the Navy.”
Allison looked down toward the sea. The Navy boys were getting the big freighter set to take off.
“Worth a try, let’s go down there.”
They hurried down to the beach. An ensign was handling the shifting of supplies from the flying boat to a truck. He greeted Stan and Allison in a friendly manner after glancing at their service stripes.
“You boys are a bit off your reservation, aren’t you?” he asked.
“We sure are and we want to get back. How about a ride to Bizerte?”
“We’re not hauling passengers, but if you piled in nobody would throw you off. We’re supposed to cooperate with the Army in every way we can.” The ensign laughed.
“Great stuff,” Allison said. “I’m March Allison and he’s Stan Wilson.”
“I’m Bert Thomas,” the ensign said. “If you have bags you better get them aboard. We’re about to shove off.”
“We’re not taking any bags back,” Stan said hurriedly. He did not want to risk having the general order them to go on into Alexandria. In fact, he did not want the general to know they were going out with the amphibian.
“O.K. Just get aboard and find a place to sit down.”
Stan and Allison climbed aboard the freighter. The crew paid no attention to them but went on lashing cargo into place, cramming all sorts of odd repair parts into every corner.
Ensign Thomas came aboard and took his place beside his copilot. Stan and Allison sat on the only two vacant seats along the arching ribs of the ship. They were careful not to take the space reserved for the crew.
The freighter slid out into the bay and soon she was slapping the step of the lazy waves. A few seconds later she lifted and was off, rising slowly, roaring along like a gorged pelican. She did not have a machine gun or a cannon aboard and she was going it alone. The two fighter pilots, used to a bank of Brownings in front of them, felt uneasy. If a Heinkel or an Me 110 showed up, the old girl would be a dead duck.
No enemy planes showed up, however, and the freighter bored along. Ahead of them the sun was settling down into the sea, filling the air with golden haze and making the water glow like sapphire. Just at sunset the freighter swung inshore and eased down over the harbor at Bizerte. Two fighter planes from a carrier lying offshore zoomed around her as she came in. She hit the water and glided in to a mooring.
“Passengers ashore!” Bert Thomas called back.
As they piled out Stan and Allison saluted the skipper. “Thanks a million,” Stan said.
“Right fine of you, old man,” Allison chimed in.
“Glad to give you a hand,” Thomas said as he turned to the job of unloading.
Stan and Allison shoved through the crowds along the docks. They were eager to get in touch with Colonel Benson and get back on the job. Everywhere they could see signs of the coming invasion attempt. Thousands of ships and barges and warcraft lay in the harbor or offshore. Men swarmed everywhere, while tanks and trucks and mobile guns rattled down to the water front.
The boys caught a ride with an air force truck headed toward their field. The truck took them to within a few blocks of headquarters. When they hopped out, Stan said:
“Here goes nothing. Wonder what the Old Man will say?”
“We’ll be lucky to be able to see him at all. He’ll be very busy,” Allison drawled.
Reaching headquarters they spoke to an orderly. The soldier regarded them closely.
“Yes, Colonel Benson is in his office.”
“Tell him Lieutenants Wilson and Allison wish to see him.” Stan gave the soldier a look that made him snap to attention.
“I’ll report, sir,” he said and made off.
“He acted as though we were not welcome,” Allison remarked.
“The Old Man probably told him to shoo all pilots away,” Stan said. “Now we better make our story good.”
The orderly returned and nodded toward the fliers. “Colonel Benson will see you, sir,” he said to Stan.
They moved into the room and found Colonel Benson sitting behind his desk. He had a pot of coffee, a bowl of soup, and a plate of sandwiches before him. His green eyes lifted and swept over the two officers. They saluted and Stan said:
“Lieutenants Wilson and Allison reporting for duty, sir.”
The colonel dipped up a spoon of soup and ate it. He selected a sandwich, lifted the lid and looked at the filling, then took a bite.
“I believe you gentlemen are under orders to report to Alexandria. I take it you have made some changes on your own account.” The colonel paused and waited for a reply. His face was expressionless, but his eyes bored into Stan and Allison.
“We hoped you would allow us to join Lieutenant O’Malley’s command. We got the idea there might be action on this front soon.” Stan stood very straight and looked the colonel in the eye.
“What gave you the idea there would be action?” the colonel asked.
“We got it quite by accident,” Stan answered.
“I see. So you canceled the orders of the area commander and returned. Who brought you back?”
“The Navy, sir.” Allison smiled as he said it.
The colonel grunted. He finished his sandwich and helped himself to more soup. Finally he spoke.
“There will be action very soon and we do need pilots,” he said blandly. His eyes dropped to a pad of reports. They were urgent requests from Wilks and Liske asking to be transferred from O’Malley’s ferry flight. “I have two places I find very difficult to fill, and they happen to be in Commander O’Malley’s flight. I’ll assign you men to those places.” His eyes lifted and there was a glint of hardness in them. “For the duration of the present action,” he added grimly.
“Thank you, sir,” Stan said. “We will not take up more of your time.”
“One more thing,” the colonel said. “I will cancel your leave to Alexandria. But your new assignment will not free you from any measures I decide to take later as punishment for your breach of orders. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” both officers answered. They saluted and about-faced.
Outside the door Stan turned to Allison. “The Old Boy isn’t such a tough cookie after all.”
“Don’t be so sure about that. You know I had a hunch he was spoofing us all the time.” Allison scowled. “I’m sure he was.”
“You smelled a mouse?” Stan grinned.
“I smelled a very dead one,” Allison answered. “Let’s locate O’Malley. He should be over in the quarters reserved for flight commanders.”
They barged into the quarters of the flight officers and looked around. O’Malley was not present but several men sat at a table playing chess. They moved over and stood beside the table.
“We’re looking for Commander O’Malley,” Stan said.
One of the boys looked up. He was wearing new and shiny insignia of a major. He grinned up at Stan and Allison, his eyes taking in their service stripes.
“I guess you mean Flight Leader O’Malley,” he said. “You should be able to find him over at Mess Three.”
“So, he’s already gotten himself shifted to flight leader,” Stan said, matching the major’s grin. “How’d he manage it?”
“By eating a pie while Colonel Benson was delivering a lecture on how to capture Italy,” the major chuckled.
“So he’s back on the firing line. I say, that’s just where he wanted to be,” Allison said.
“No, he didn’t rate that well,” the major explained. “The Old Man chucked him into a job of ferrying planes to Malta so we’d have some reserves in close to Sicily. Less than an hour ago O’Malley told me it was a quiet and peaceful job, but one he didn’t like.”
Stan looked at Allison. “You were right, there was a mouse, a big, dead one.” He nodded to the major. “Thanks, Major,” he said.
They turned away and walked out of the room. Allison laid a hand on Stan’s arm as they turned toward the door of Mess Three.
“Suppose we surprise O’Malley,” he suggested.
“He’ll be in no mood for surprises,” Stan answered. “He’ll be a wild man. With the whole Army and Navy getting set to force a beach-head and him on ferry duty, he’ll be red-hot.”
“We are to fill in on his flight. We might work it so that he wouldn’t know until we take off. We could be a bit late in showing up.” There was a twinkle in Allison’s eyes.
Stan began to grin. “I like the idea,” he said. “We’re stuck the same as he is and might as well cheer him up.”
They went to the operations room and located Captain Marks who regarded them with unbelieving eyes.
“You mean to say you gave up a vacation trip to Alexandria to take this ferry job with that wild Irishman, O’Malley?”
“Sure,” Stan said with a grin. “We like ferrying. It’s the sort of life for any ambitious officer.”
Captain Marks regarded them intently. “I have your assignments here, but I haven’t seen anything of O’Malley.”
“Suppose you shove them at him the last thing before the flight takes off. We’d like to surprise him, having been a pal of his for a long time.”
The captain grinned. “It will be a surprise,” he said. “I know about you three and I’m looking for trouble. O’Malley never looks at assignment or flight orders. And there will be only the three of you.” His grin faded and he scowled at the two pilots. “We’ll only lose three ships and I guess we can afford that.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Stan said. “Mum’s the word. We’ll see you before dawn tomorrow morning.”
They moved out and did not go to Mess Three. They headed out to locate a spot where they could hide out until flight time.