The Piper Cub aircraft, known as the L-4 in the U.S. Army, was universally referred to as a puddle jumper. A dozen of them had been assigned, primarily for personnel transport, to the now out-of-existence organization known as OSS Forward.
Cronley didn’t reply.
“But let me get on the horn and see if I can get a puddle jumper from the United States Constabulary,” Mattingly said.
“From whom?”
“The newly formed police force of the American Zone.”
Mattingly walked to a desk, where he commandeered a telephone. Ten minutes later, he walked back to Cronley.
“You got lucky, Jimmy,” he said. “They loaned me one. You will be spared that long ride down the autobahn to Munich. And I called Tiny and told him to meet you there at the Vier Jahreszeiten.”
The luxury hotel had been requisitioned by the Army. The XXVIIth CIC Detachment had space in the building.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You okay, Jimmy?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Forgive me, Captain, for not thinking so.”
“I’m really okay, sir. But thanks for getting me a ride.”
“They said within thirty minutes. We can get a cup of coffee over there”—he pointed to a PX coffee bar—“while we wait.”
“Colonel, you don’t have to wait with me.”
“Captains don’t get to tell colonels what they don’t have to do. And I just realized I have some questions for you.”
“Should I be worried?”
“That would depend on the answers I get.”
Mattingly pointed again toward the coffee bar. They walked to it and ordered coffee and doughnuts — it was all that was available — and sat at a small table.
“When Admiral Souers told me that you had found that stuff everybody was looking for, I naturally wondered how you had found it,” Mattingly began his interrogation. “When I asked him, he said something to the effect that Cletus Frade had told him that after you had come up with a pretty good idea where that vessel was, you and two of our Germans got into Clete’s Fieseler Storch and a Cub, and went looking for it.”
“Yes, sir. The Germans were Willi Grüner — he’s the Luftwaffe buddy of Clete’s buddy von Wachtstein. They found him in Berlin and took him to Argentina — and Kapitän von Dattenberg. He’s the guy who surrendered U-405 to the Argentines. He and the captain of U-234… Sorry. He and the captain of the vessel we were looking for were friends, and Clete thought that might be useful — and it was — if we found what we were looking for.”
Mattingly made a Keep talking gesture with his hands.
“Well, the first thing Clete did when I figured out where U-2… the vessel… probably was, was to take the wings off his Storch and one of his Cubs. Then he had them loaded onto flatbed trucks and trucked them down to a place called Estancia Condor. He sent Grüner along to make sure the mechanics put the wings back on right. And Grüner had a lot of experience flying Storches in Russia.”
“What was that all about?”
“Well, when I say I figured out where the vessel was, I mean that I thought it was way down south, within fifty miles of the mouth of the Magellan Straits. There’s not much but mountains and snow and ice down there. To find anything, we knew we would have to fly low and slow. The only way to do that was with little airplanes — you can’t do that in, say, a Lodestar.”
“Souers said that Commander Ford told him the material was brought to Mendoza, where it was transferred to the Constellation, on a Lodestar.”
“Yes, sir. That’s right.”
“The Lodestar was flown by Cletus?”
“No, sir. If Cletus had left Buenos Aires to fly the Lodestar, the wrong people would have asked questions. So Clete didn’t go down south.”
“Getting to the heart of our little chat, Captain Cronley: If Colonel Frade didn’t fly the Lodestar during this exercise, who did?”
After a long moment, Cronley said, “I did.”
“And you were flying what when you found U-234? It was you who found her. Correct?”
“Yes, sir. I was flying the Cub.”
“I wasn’t aware that you were a pilot.”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“You want to explain this?” Mattingly said.
Again Cronley didn’t reply.
“That was more in the nature of an order for an explanation, Captain, than an idle question.”
“Yes, sir. Clete is like my big brother, Colonel.”
“Would it surprise you to hear I have already come to that conclusion? And… ?”
“I followed him all my life. Into the Cub Scouts. Into the Boy Scouts. Into Texas A&M. I was about to follow him into the Marine Corps when I decided I had had enough of following him.”
“Was this before or after you became a pilot?”
“I’ve been flying since Clete taught me when I was fourteen.”
“So, passing up the glory of becoming a Marine fighter pilot, you joined the Army instead? On behalf of the officer corps of the U.S. Army, let me say how pleased we are that you’re slumming amongst us.”
Jimmy didn’t reply.
“I gather you did not qualify for the Army’s aviator training program? Why not?”
“I never applied for it.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to spend four years as an aerial taxi driver.”
“Had you applied, would you have been qualified? What sort of a license to fly do you hold? How experienced a pilot are you?”
When Jimmy hesitated, Mattingly said, “That, too, was not a question born of idle curiosity as we wait for your aerial taxi driver to appear, Captain Cronley.”
“I’ve got eleven hundred hours, sir, and hold a commercial ticket, with instrument and multi-engine ratings.”
“This secret talent of yours comes as something of a surprise. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Life is just full of surprises, isn’t it, Colonel?”
Mattingly looked at him for a moment.
“Under the circumstances, Captain,” he said, “I’ll choose not to consider that a smart-ass remark.”
Five minutes later, a first lieutenant whom Cronley could not remember having seen before walked up to their table and saluted. He wore a zippered “Tanker Jacket” to which were sewn Liaison Pilot wings and a shoulder insignia — a circle of Cavalry yellow, in which was the letter “C” with a diagonal lightning bolt through it.
“Sir, Colonel Wilson said you need a ride.”
“Not me,” Mattingly said as he quickly — and Cronley belatedly — returned his salute. “The captain here needs a ride to Munich.”
“Yes, sir. Not a problem. It’s right on my way. I’m headed to Sonthofen.”
“Be gentle with him, Lieutenant,” Mattingly said. “The captain doesn’t like to fly.”
The lieutenant, looking a little uneasy, said, “Yes, sir. If you’ll come with me, sir?”
Jimmy stood and looked down at Mattingly, wondering if he was supposed to salute.
Mattingly answered the question by getting to his feet and putting out his hand.
“If I somehow forgot to say this earlier, Jimmy, I’m very sorry for your loss and greatly admire the way you’re handling it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
[TWO]
Colonel Robert Mattingly returned the salute of the two natty paratroopers of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment on ceremonial guard at the entrance of the building and entered the lobby. He walked past the sea of red general officers’ personal flags — in the center of which was the red flag with five stars in a circle of General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower — and stepped onto the right of the two devices he thought of as the dumbwaiters.