round, four, six, eight, ten of them, puffing and blowing. Roy rose and, looking over someone’s shoulder, saw the long gangplank ready with a mat at the bottom, and on the mat a map of the United States with the word HOME on it. Now the pier was close, and WACS and Red Cross girls and lots of brass were waving at them from the second story. And a band was playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
The men were singing, every single one. “Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack ...”
But what use is a guy with a bum leg to a ballclub?
“I don’t care if I never come back”
The boys round about were shouting at him. “Hey there, Roy! Hey, Tuck!” They turned from the rail to yell, “Hi, Tucker, that’s you! That’s you, kid.”
Yeah, that’s me all right.
“For it’s one ... two ... three strikes you’re out ... at the old ... ballgame.”
Yeah, that’s me. Maybe it’s me.
CHAPTER 11
R OY DUMPED HIS barracks bag on a cot in a tent in Company 24A, and glanced around. Everywhere was the same hubbub and confusion he remembered in the Reception Center at Camp Upton where he had entered the Army four long years before. Here, however, the atmosphere was quite different. At Camp Upton one felt the aching loneliness of hundreds of men, many away from home for the first time in their lives, and one could see the distrust and dislike they felt at being herded in with strangers of every kind, at the promiscuity, the lack of privacy which came to some of them as a shock. Here this had all vanished. You were used to the Army, to strange companions; you took them as they came. There was none of the antagonism he remembered in the faces of the men in the Reception Center years before. At Fort Dix you understood each other without speaking.
A city block away, down near Eighth Street, the loudspeaker was going full blast. From it were issued all orders about the roster. At Fort Dix, the one item of primary importance was the roster, because you could not be processed for discharge until you got on the roster. “Are you on the roster yet?” “How long does it take a guy to get on the roster, bud?”
Apparently it took anywhere from two days to two weeks to get on the roster. Yet one had to listen carefully all day to the loudspeaker, for if your name was called and you failed to appear for processing, you might have to wait a week or more to get on the roster again.
That evening Roy wandered into a movie about the Pacific, where it was easy to tell the soldiers who had served there by the shouts and jeers that rose. Then he went to the PX for a beer. He stood there, drinking, watching the crowd, when someone called his name.
“Roy! Hey there, Tuck!”
He turned quickly. “Earl! You old so-and-so! How are you?”
“Boy, this is good! How are you? ”
“Me? I’m swell; at least I think so. How’d you guys ever get out of France?”
“Kid, we climbed the Pyrenees, and lemme tell you something. They’re six times higher’n the Himalayas. It was rugged and no fooling. Say, we heard when we got to England that you and Jim had been picked up by the Jerries in France. That right?”
“That’s correct. We were picked up all right, chucked into the coldest, dampest jail I ever hope to see. Then they started to send us into Germany, and we were rescued by the Maquis from a train on the night of D-Day. They hid us until the 7th Army worked up from the south and overran the place.”
“Yeah? So? What then?”
“Oh, the usual thing. England for a few weeks, and then I came back on the Queen. ”
“Ya did, hey! We come back on a freighter, the Kokomo Victory. But really, kid, how are you now? Does your leg bother you still? Will they let you go back to the ballclub this summer? They could sure use you to plug up that hole out in the field, couldn’t they?”
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me so much at present. I spent the winter at the Greenville Army Air Base in South Carolina, and believe me, I took care of
The men were singing, every single one. “Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack ...”
But what use is a guy with a bum leg to a ballclub?
“I don’t care if I never come back”
The boys round about were shouting at him. “Hey there, Roy! Hey, Tuck!” They turned from the rail to yell, “Hi, Tucker, that’s you! That’s you, kid.”
Yeah, that’s me all right.
“For it’s one ... two ... three strikes you’re out ... at the old ... ballgame.”
Yeah, that’s me. Maybe it’s me.
CHAPTER 11
R OY DUMPED HIS barracks bag on a cot in a tent in Company 24A, and glanced around. Everywhere was the same hubbub and confusion he remembered in the Reception Center at Camp Upton where he had entered the Army four long years before. Here, however, the atmosphere was quite different. At Camp Upton one felt the aching loneliness of hundreds of men, many away from home for the first time in their lives, and one could see the distrust and dislike they felt at being herded in with strangers of every kind, at the promiscuity, the lack of privacy which came to some of them as a shock. Here this had all vanished. You were used to the Army, to strange companions; you took them as they came. There was none of the antagonism he remembered in the faces of the men in the Reception Center years before. At Fort Dix you understood each other without speaking.
A city block away, down near Eighth Street, the loudspeaker was going full blast. From it were issued all orders about the roster. At Fort Dix, the one item of primary importance was the roster, because you could not be processed for discharge until you got on the roster. “Are you on the roster yet?” “How long does it take a guy to get on the roster, bud?”
Apparently it took anywhere from two days to two weeks to get on the roster. Yet one had to listen carefully all day to the loudspeaker, for if your name was called and you failed to appear for processing, you might have to wait a week or more to get on the roster again.
That evening Roy wandered into a movie about the Pacific, where it was easy to tell the soldiers who had served there by the shouts and jeers that rose. Then he went to the PX for a beer. He stood there, drinking, watching the crowd, when someone called his name.
“Roy! Hey there, Tuck!”
He turned quickly. “Earl! You old so-and-so! How are you?”
“Boy, this is good! How are you? ”
“Me? I’m swell; at least I think so. How’d you guys ever get out of France?”
“Kid, we climbed the Pyrenees, and lemme tell you something. They’re six times higher’n the Himalayas. It was rugged and no fooling. Say, we heard when we got to England that you and Jim had been picked up by the Jerries in France. That right?”
“That’s correct. We were picked up all right, chucked into the coldest, dampest jail I ever hope to see. Then they started to send us into Germany, and we were rescued by the Maquis from a train on the night of D-Day. They hid us until the 7th Army worked up from the south and overran the place.”
“Yeah? So? What then?”
“Oh, the usual thing. England for a few weeks, and then I came back on the Queen. ”
“Ya did, hey! We come back on a freighter, the Kokomo Victory. But really, kid, how are you now? Does your leg bother you still? Will they let you go back to the ballclub this summer? They could sure use you to plug up that hole out in the field, couldn’t they?”
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me so much at present. I spent the winter at the Greenville Army Air Base in South Carolina, and believe me, I took care of
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