"Welcome to Porto Alegre, Major Frade," Wallace said, offering his hand to Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired.
"I'm afraid Enrico doesn't speak English, Colonel," Clete said. "I'm Major Frade."
"Who is he?" Wallace blurted.
"My friend," Clete said.
Enrico came to attention.
"A sus ¢rdenes, mi Coronel," he said.
"What did he say?" Wallace asked.
"It's the Argentine military custom when a junior meets a superior to say that," Clete said. "It means, 'at your orders.' Enrico spent some time in the Ar-gentine Cavalry before he became a pilot."
"May I see your identification, Major Frade?" Wallace asked.
"I've got an Argentine passport," Clete said. "But I was told that I was to identify myself by giving you a telephone number."
"Quite right, quite right," Wallace said, and took out his notebook and found the number he was told would identify the OSS agent to whom he was going to turn over the C-56.
"Ready, Major," he said.
"CANal 5-4055," Clete said.
"Correct," Colonel Wallace said.
"I was also told that someone would be here who could give me an hour's cockpit familiarization in the C-45, and then let me shoot a few touch-and-goes."
"Yes. That is correct. Under the circumstances, Major, I thought it would be best if I performed that service. But it's a C-56, not a C-45."
What the hell is a C-56?
"I stand corrected, Colonel."
"What I thought we could do, Major, is have luncheon in the Officers' Club, a working luncheon, so to speak, to make sure all the paperwork is in or-der, and then go to the flight line."
What paperwork?
"That's very kind of you, Sir."
"How much time do you have in the C-56?"
I don't even know what the hell a C-56 is. Maybe it's like that business with the Bell fighter the Air Corps had on Guadalcanal. The one Sullivan was flying when he went in was a P-39. Another model of the same airplane, for reasons known only to God and the Army Air Corps, was called the P-400. It has to be something like that. Graham wouldn't have sent a plane down here he knew I couldn't fly.
"Not very much," Clete said. "I'm a fighter pilot by trade. But there were a couple of them at Ewa, in the Hawaiian Islands, and two at Henderson Field. We used them as sort of aerial taxis, and I got to fly a couple of them."
"As aeria
l taxis?" Colonel Wallace asked incredulously.
"Yes, Sir."
"You have not gone through a standard C-56 transition course?"
"No, Sir."
"That's very unusual. Presumably, this gentleman will function as your copilot?"