The truth was that this was one of those situations where people had to do what they were told, when they were told, and not ask questions. McCoy knew there was going to be a confrontation sooner or later, but decided that provoking one now by ordering Cawber, Abraham, and Sweatley out of the trailer didn't make any sense.
«Okay, McCoy?» Sampson asked.
«Go ahead,» McCoy said.
Sampson raised his voice, and one of the Chinese «soldiers» they had brought with them started to pump the generator. Sampson put earphones on and, when the needles on the dials came to life, started to tap his radiotelegrapher's key. «Got 'em,» he announced thirty seconds later. And a moment after that, he began to recite numbers, which McCoy wrote on a small pad. There were not many numbers. «That's it. They want an acknowledgment,» Sampson said.
McCoy translated the numbers from Signal Operating Instruction Number Three.
Four Able meant that the Catalinas had successfully completed their rendezvous with the
Sunfish
and taken off again with the meteorologists and their equipment aboard. Two Fox gave the time of their departure. Two X-Ray gave the estimated time—six hours and thirty minutes—it would take them to reach the gypsies.
«Acknowledge, Jerry,» McCoy ordered. «Tell them to monitor continuously, and sign off.»
«Gotcha,» Sampson said, and began to tap on his key.
«What do they say, McCoy?» Technical Sergeant Abraham demanded.
I
can either tell him to call me Captain, or I can ignore the old sonofabitch
.
«Captain Sampson, starting in thirty minutes, send SN for ten seconds once a minute.»
McCoy hoped that Sampson would reply, if not «Aye, aye, sir,» then «Yes, sir.»
«Gotcha,» Sampson said.
«Captain,» the old radioman first said. «I could do that.»
«Have you got a watch?» McCoy asked.
«No, sir.»
McCoy unstrapped his. «I'll want this back,» he said, and handed it to him.
«Yes, sir.»
«Captain Sampson, why don't we go check on the fires?» McCoy said.
Sampson finally caught on. «Yes, sir,» he said.
«And you, too, Chief,» McCoy said to Chief Brewer.
«Aye, aye, sir,» Brewer said.
McCoy looked at Technical Sergeant Abraham. «The aircraft are due in here from forty-five minutes to an hour. You are in charge of keeping everybody away from them when they land. I don't care how you do it. I don't want anybody chopped up by a propeller, or the aircraft damaged by excited people.»
«What difference does it make if you're going to destroy them anyway?» Abraham replied.
«What did you say?» McCoy said.
«I think you heard me,» Abraham said.
«Let me tell you something, Sergeant,» McCoy said. «The moment I got here, you were recalled to active duty for the duration of the war plus six months. That means you're back in the Corps. And that means when you get an order, all you say is 'Aye, aye, sir.' You don't question the order. Do you read me, Sergeant?»
After a moment, Sergeant Abraham said, «Aye, aye, sir.»
McCoy opened his door and stepped out of the ambulance. Chief Brewer got out on the other side, and a moment later Sampson came out the back door.
Earlier, McCoy and Zimmerman had driven over an area of the desert long enough to serve as a runway. Once they'd determined a suitable place for it, they'd walked all over it, carefully searching for holes or rocks that would damage the Catalina's landing gear. When the «'runway» had been marked off, he ordered the building of two fires, to be ignited on order, marking the ends of the runway. When—if—the Catalinas appeared, they would be lit and made as smoky as possible. This would indicate to the Catalina pilots not only the position of the runway but the direction of the wind, which would tell them the direction to land.
Because material for building fires was scarce, there was a good deal of resentment when the gypsies were ordered to part with material to build them.
Furthermore, McCoy suspected (a suspicion Milla confirmed) that he was going to be looking at more resentment as soon as most of the women—and even some of the men—realized that their long ordeal was far from over the minute he showed up.
McCoy had some new ideas about how to get the women, the children, and even some of the men out of the desert, but that wasn't going to happen now. What was going to happen now was that once the Catalinas had off-loaded their cargo and anything on them that might be useful, thermite grenades would be set off on the wing, over the fuel tanks, and the aircraft destroyed.
Then they'd leave the burned aircraft where they were, and take the wagons, the carts, and the two vehicles as far away as they could get as quickly as they could go. The hope was that if reports of two aircraft flying into the desert triggered aerial reconnaissance of the area, the reconnaissance pilots would think both had crashed and burned. If people were then sent in to check on the «crashed and burned» aircraft and no bodies were found, it was hoped that it would be deduced that the aircrews had bailed out. Thus any subsequent search would look for airmen, not a caravan of pony– and camel-drawn wagons.
There was going to be disappointment and resentment when the aircraft were destroyed. According to Milla, as soon as the women were informed that aircraft were coming, some of them immediately decided they'd be able to fly out on them. That wasn't going to happen.
note 100
Aboard Sea Gypsy Two
Somewhere Above the Gobi Desert
Mongolia
1525 2 May 1943
Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, climbed into the cockpit of the Catalina with the call sign «Sea Gypsy Two,» slipped into the copilot's seat, and strapped himself in. Moments before, he had been sleeping in the fuselage. Lieutenant Pickering and the pilot-in-command, Captain James B. Weston, USMC, had alternated flying the aircraft and sleeping during the long haul from Pearl Harbor. They didn't actually follow a schedule. Instead, one or the other kipped out when he felt the need to take a nap.
«Anytime, Jim,» Pick said.
Weston took his hands off the control wheel in an exaggerated gesture. «You've got it,» he said, as Pick put his hand on the wheel. For some time they'd been flying the airplane without the assistance of its autopilot. Though it had worked well on the eleven-hour leg from Pearl Harbor to the rendezvous with the
Sunfish
, it had gone out either during landing at the rendezvous, or while taking off. At near takeoff velocity, they had run into a large swell that had really shaken the bird.
«Where are we?» Pickering asked.
«I would estimate that we are perhaps two hundred feet above and three hundred feet behind that airplane out there,» Weston said, indicating the Catalina with «Sea Gypsy One» as its call sign.
«In other words, you have no idea?»
«I just told you where we are,» Weston said.