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to do. If you ever go to the captain again, I’ll break you in two.”
    Mike bit off his words as he continued his rant. “Tonight I got chewed out by the lieutenant. You know why?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    â€œI got chewed out by the lieutenant because you went to the captain. The captain lambasted the lieutenant because you didn’t follow the chain of command. The lieutenant took some of my hide because you didn’t follow the chain of command. Now it’s my turn to pass along some wisdom and a warning to you.”
    He turned his head and focused his right eye on me. “If you and your buddies think you’ve had it rough so far, I got news for you. I’m gonna do everything I can to make your lives miserable. You’ll have the jobs nobody wants. I’m gonna work you like dogs. Wait and see. You’re gonna beg me to kick you out of the CCC. And if you screw up even one time, I’ll have you on the next train back to Polack town whether you want to go back or not.”
    O’Shea twisted his head and looked at me closely. “That’s funny ain’t it? Jarek Sokolowski gets kicked out of the CCC at Camp Polack Lake and is sent home to Polack town.” He laughed deeply, then suddenly turned silent and serious. Mike released one hand and balled it into a fist in front of my face. “Do you understand me, or do I have to explain myself further?”
    â€œI understand. You don’t need to explain any further.”
    He released me and stomped off into the night. As I gathered myself, I noticed guys pulling their heads in and closing tent flaps. Lightning lit the sky and the clouds opened up. Rain fell in buckets. The real storm was yet to strike.
    Mike was right. I was wrong. Still in all, no matter how much talking or going through proper channels I would have done, Mike had proven over and over that he wouldn’t listen to my side of an argument. It would have been useless for me to take this problem to Mike. He had given me no choice but to go directly to the captain. Still, he didn’t see it that way.
    I didn’t follow the proper chain of command. So, I was on the hot seat. What made me mad was how Mike O’Shea handled the problem.

Chapter 18
Hard Rain
    I t had been raining around the clock since I had gotten my chain-of-command lecture from Mike O’Shea. Stosh had been gone three long days. Sunup tomorrow would be day four. Captain Mason told me he might allow him back if he returned in a couple days. By most accounts, a couple means two. Stosh was stretching his luck. What’s more, all of us were exhausted from picking up his slack.
    After lights out, I laid in my cot thinking. Though I was dog tired and arm weary, I couldn’t sleep. The rain was coming in waves. A leak at the top of the center pole kept up a rhythmic drip of raindrops on the floor. Thoughts kept running through my mind.
    Drip. Drip. Drip.
    I thought about Mike and our last run-in. Mike O’Shea was bigger, older, and stronger than me. The way I figured it, he’d been a bully most of his life. I had been warned about people like him. My father told me that the only way to stop bullies was to stand up to them. I wasn’t afraid to fight Mike if it came to that.
    My father was a great boxer in his time. Once he even fought Stanley Ketchell, the Polish boxer from Grand Rapids who won the world middleweight championship in 1908. Father gave up his dream to be a professional boxer after that fight. He got married and settled down, taking a job in a furniture factory until he was laid off in 1931.
    From the time we were little, our father taught both Squint and me how to box. He built a boxing ring with cotton rope in the backyard and showed us how to defend ourselves. We learned how to punch and duck, to use our legs as well as our arms to deliver a punch. Squint never really took to the sport. Maybe it was because his eyesight was so bad. On