For a moment, Bitter was speechless. But finally he managed, ‘‘Well, thank you, Dolan.’’
‘‘That’s all right, Mr. Bitter,’’ the old chief said.
6
The house that CAMCO had acquired for the maintenance people, the communications technicians, and the two pilots was a large Victorian structure in the suburb of Kemmendine. They could see the gold-d
omed Shwe Dagon Pagoda from the window of their rooms, far away, dominating the skyline.
An hour after they had moved into the house, Canidy stuck his head in Ed Bitter’s door, where Bitter was sitting in an armchair rereading the P40-B dash-one.
‘‘You want to take a ride out to the airfield?’’ he asked. ‘‘And see what’s going on?’’
The Studebaker Canidy had signed for at the CAMCO godown had less than a hundred miles on the odometer, and there was still a faint new-car smell—even though the car was chronologically at least a year old and had traveled ten thousand miles to the docks of Rangoon.
Canidy found Mingaladon Air Field without much trouble, and then the CAMCO hangars. In front sat four Curtiss P40-B aircraft. Three of them looked ready to fly, and there was a group of mechanics squatting under the wing of the fourth, peering up into the right wheel well. The right wing of that airplane had been jacked off the ground.
Canidy parked the Studebaker beside the nearest of the aircraft and got out. With Bitter following him, he walked around the airplane, studying it closely, and then he climbed up on the wing root and looked inside the cockpit. A middle-aged man detached himself from the group around the last P40-B and walked over to them.
Canidy jumped off the wing root.
‘‘Canidy?’’ the middle-aged man asked, and when Canidy nodded, he identified himself as Richard Aldwood, of CAMCO. ‘‘Dolan told me about you,’’ he said.
‘‘You’re more than just ‘of’ CAMCO, aren’t you?’’ Canidy asked, shaking the offered hand. ‘‘Vice president, right?’’
‘‘Yeah, and at the moment in charge of making a studied guess about why that goddamned wheel won’t go up,’’ Aldwood said modestly, gesturing at the jacked-up airplane.
‘‘Ed Bitter,’’ Bitter said, and he and Aldwood shook hands.
‘‘How much time do you have in one of these?’’ Aldwood asked almost idly.
‘‘I read the dash-one real carefully,’’ Canidy said wryly.
‘‘I figured as much,’’ Aldwood said. He looked at Bitter.
‘‘I’ve never seen one before, sir,’’ Ed Bitter said.
‘‘Well, then, you’re both about eight hours behind me,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘And more than a little ahead of me. You’re a hell of a lot younger, and Dolan approves of you.’’
‘‘And he doesn’t approve of you?’’ Canidy replied.
‘‘Not after I told him there’s no way I was going to let him fly.’’
‘‘Why not?’’ Canidy asked. ‘‘I understand he’s got a hell of a lot of time.’’
‘‘Yeah, and some hard hours on his heart, too,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘Why did you think they took him off flight status? I’m surprised the Navy didn’t pension him off years ago.’’
‘‘I suppose,’’ Canidy said, ‘‘before we start test-flying these things, somebody’s going to have to check us out in them.’’
‘‘I’ll show you around the cockpit,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘And since you’ve already read the dash-one, that’s it, I’m afraid. There’s no ground school, unless Claire . . . Chennault . . . is starting one at Toungoo.’’
‘‘And what if I bend the bird?’’ Canidy asked.
‘‘Please don’t,’’ Aldwood said. ‘‘We’ve already wrecked two, and all we’ve got and are going to get is an even hundred. ’’
‘‘Are they all here?’’
‘‘Sixty-two. God only knows when we’ll get the rest. We’ve been putting them together at the rate of one every day and a half. We hope to get that up to two a day, maybe three,’’ Aldwood said. He climbed onto the wing root and motioned Canidy and Bitter up on the other side.