WHEN TORCHY GOT THE CALL

No, I ain’t said much about it before. There are some things you’re apt to keep to yourself, specially the ones that root deep. And I’ll admit that at first there I don’t quite know where I was at. But as affairs got messier and messier, and the U-boats got busier, and I heard some first-hand details of what had happened to the Belgians well, I got mighty restless. I expect I indulged in more serious thought stuff than I’d ever been guilty of.

You see, it was along back when we were gettin’ our first close-ups of the big scrap some of our boats sunk, slinkers reported off Sandy Hook, bomb plots shown up, and Papa Joffre over here soundin’ the S. O. S. earnest.

Then there was Mr. Robert joinin’ the Naval Reserves, and two young hicks from the bond room who’d volunteered. We’d had postals from ’em at the trainin’ camp. Even Vee was busy with a first-aid class, learnin’ how to tie bandages and put on splints.

So private seccing seemed sort of tame and useless like keepin’ on sprinklin’ the lawn after your chimney was bein’ struck by lightnin’. I felt like I ought to be gettin’ in the game somehow. Anyway, it seemed as if it was my ante.

Not that I’d been rushed off my feet by all this buntin’-wavin’ or khaki-wearin’. I’m no panicky Old Glory trail-hitter. Nor I didn’t lug around the idea I was the missin’ hero who was to romp through the barbed wire, stamp Hindenburg’s whiskers in the mud, and lead the Allies across the Rhine. I didn’t even kid myself I could swim out and kick a hole in a submarine, or do the darin’ aviator act after a half-hour lesson at Mineola.

In fact, I suspected that sheddin’ the enemy’s gore wasn’t much in my line. I knew I should dislike quittin’ the hay at dawn to sneak out and get mixed up with half a bushel of impetuous scrap-iron. Still, if it had to be done, why not me as well as the next party?

I’d been meanin’ to talk it over with Vee sort of hint around, anyway, and see how she’d take it. But as a matter of fact I never could seem to find just the right openin’ until, there one night after dinner, as she finishes a new piece she’s tryin’ over on the piano, I wanders up beside her and starts absent-minded tearin’ little bits off a corner of the music.

“Torchy!” she protests. “What an absurd thing to do.”

“Eh?” says I, twistin’ it into a cornucopia. “But you know I can’t go on warmin’ the bench like this.”

She stares at me puzzled for a second.

“Meaning what, for instance?” she asks.

“I got to go help swat the Hun,” says I.

The flickery look in them gray eyes of hers steadies down, and she reaches out for one of my hands. That’s all. No jumpy emotions not even a lip quiver.

“Must you?” says she, quiet.

“I can’t take it out in wearin’ a button or hirin’ someone to hoe potatoes in the back lot,” says I.

“No,” says she.

“Auntie would come, I suppose?” says I.

Vee nods.

“And with Leon here,” I goes on, “and Mrs. Battou, you could ”

“Yes, I could get along,” she breaks in. “But but when?”

“Right away,” says I. “As soon as they can use me.”

“You’ll start training for a commission, then?” she asks.

“Not me,” says I. “I’d be poor enough as a private, but maybe I’d help fill in one of the back rows. I don’t know much about it. I’ll look it up to-morrow.”

“To-morrow? Oh!” says Vee, with just the suspicion of a break in her voice.

And that’s all we had to say about it. Every word. You’d thought we’d exhausted the subject, or got the tongue cramp. But I expect we each had a lot of thoughts that didn’t get registered. I know I did. And next mornin’ the breakaway came sort of hard.

“I I know just how you feel about it,” says Vee.

“I’m glad somebody does, then,” says I.

Puttin’ the proposition up to Old Hickory was different. He shoots a quick glance at me from under them shaggy eyebrows, bites into his cigar savage, and grunts discontented.

“You are exempt, you know,” says he.

“I know,” says I. “If tags came with marriage licenses I might wear one on my watch-fob to show, I expect.”

“Huh!” says he. “It seems to me that rapid-fire brain of yours might be better utilized than by hiding it under a trench helmet.”

“Speedy thinkers seem to be a drug on the market just now,” says I. “Anyway, I feel like it was up to me to deliver something I can’t say just what. But campin’ behind a roll-top here on the nineteenth floor ain’t going to help much, is it?”

“Oh, well, if you have the fever!” says he.

And half an hour later I’ve pushed in past the flag and am answerin’ questions while the sergeant fills out the blank.

Maybe you can guess I ain’t in any frivolous mood. I don’t believe I thought I was about to push back the invader, or turn the tide for civilization. Neither was I lookin’ on this as a sportin’ flier or a larky excursion that I was goin’ to indulge in at public expense. My idea was that there’d been a general call for such as me, and that I was comin’ across. I was more or less sober about it.

They didn’t seem much impressed at the recruitin’ station. Course, you couldn’t expect the sergeant to get thrilled over every party that drifted in. He’d been there for weeks, I suppose, answerin’ the same fool questions over and over, knowin’ all the time that half of them that came in was bluffin’ and that a big per cent. of the others wouldn’t do.

But this other party with the zippy waistline, the swellin’ chest, and the nifty shoulder-straps why should he glare at me in that cold, suspicious way? I wasn’t tryin’ to break into the army with felonious intent. How could he be sure, just from a casual glance, that I was such vicious scum?

Oh, yes; I’ve figured out since that he didn’t mean more’n half of it, or couldn’t help lookin’ at civilians that way after four years at West Point, or thought he had to. But that’s what I get handed to me when I’ve dropped all the little things that seemed important to me and walks in to chuck what I had to offer Uncle Sam on the recruitin’ table.

Some kind of inspectin’ officer, I’ve found out he was, makin’ the rounds to see that the sergeants didn’t loaf on the job. And, just to show that no young patriot in a last year’s Panama and a sport-cut suit could slip anything over on him, he shoots in a few crisp questions on his own account.

“Married, you say?” says he. “Since when?”

“Oh, this century,” says I. “Last February, to get it nearer.”

He sniffs disagreeable without sayin’ why. Also he takes a hand when it comes to testin’ me to see whether I’m club-footed or spavined. Course, I’m no perfect male like you see in the knit underwear ads, but I’ve got the usual number of toes and teeth, my wind is fairly good, and I don’t expect my arteries have begun to harden yet. He listens to my heart action and measures my chest expansion. Then I had to name the different colors and squint through a tube at some black dots on a card.

And the further we went the more he scowled. Finally he shakes his head at the sergeant.

“Rejected,” says he.

“Eh?” says I. “You you don’t mean I’m turned down?”

He nods. “Underweight, and your eyes don’t focus,” says he snappy. “Here’s your card. That’s all.”

Yes, it was a jolt. I expect I stood there blinkin’ stupid at him for a minute or so before I had sense enough to drift out on the sidewalk. And I might as well admit I was feelin’ mighty low. I didn’t know whether to hunt up the nearest hospital, or sit down on the curb and wait until they came after me with the stretcher-cart. Anyway, I knew I must be a physical wreck. And to think I hadn’t suspected it before!

Somehow I dragged back to the office, and a while later Mr. Ellins discovers me slumped in my chair with my chin down.

“Mars and Mercury!” says he. “You haven’t been through a battle so soon, have you?”

At that, I tries to brace up a bit and pass it off light.

“Why didn’t someone tell me I was a chronic invalid?” says I, after sketchin’ out how my entry had been scratched by the chesty one. “I wonder where I could get a pair of crutches and a light-runnin’ wheel chair?”

“Bah!” says he. “Some of those army officers have red-tape brains and no more common sense than he guinea-pigs. What in the name of the Seven Shahs did he think was the matter with you?”

“My eyes don’t track and I weigh under the scale,” says I. “I expect there’s other things, too. Maybe my floatin’ ribs are water-logged and my memory muscle-bound. But I’m a wreck, all right.”

“We’ll see about that,” says Old Hickory, pushin’ a buzzer.

And inside of an hour I felt a lot better. I’d been gone over by a life insurance expert, who said I hadn’t a soft spot on me, and an eye specialist had reported that my sight was up to the average. Oh, the right lamp did range a little further, but he claims that’s often the case.

“Maybe my hair was too vivid for trench work,” says I, “or else that captain was luggin’ a grouch. Makes me feel like a wooden nickel at the bottom of the till, just the same; for I did hope I might be useful somehow. I’ll look swell joinin’ the home guards, won’t I?”

“Don’t overlook the fact, young man,” puts in Old Hickory, “that the Corrugated Trust is not altogether out of this affair, and that we are running short-handed as it is.”

I was too sore in my mind to be soothed much by that thought just then, though I did buckle into the work harder than ever.

As for Vee, she don’t have much to say, but she gives me the close tackle when she hears the news.

“I don’t care!” says she. “It was splendid of you to want to go. And I shall be just as proud of you as though you had been accepted.”

“Oh, sure!” says I. “Likely I’ll be mentioned in despatches for the noble way I handled the correspondence all through a hot spell.”

That state of mind I didn’t shake loose in a hurry, either. For three or four weeks, there, I was about the meekest commuter carried on the eight-three. I didn’t do any gloatin’ over the war news. I didn’t join any of the volunteer boards of strategy that met every mornin’ to tell each other how the subs ought to be suppressed, or what Haig should be doin’ on the West front. I even stopped wearin’ an enameled flag in my buttonhole. If that was all I could do, I wouldn’t fourflush.

The Corrugated was handlin’ a lot of war contracts, too. Course, we was only gettin’ our ten per cent., and from some we’d subbed out not even that. It didn’t strike me there was any openin’ for me until I’d heard Mr. Ellins, for about the fourth time that week, start beefin’ about the kind of work we was gettin’ done.

“But ain’t it all O. K.’d by government inspectors?” I asks.

“Precisely why I am suspicious,” says he. “Not three per cent. turned back! And on rush work that’s too good to be true. Looks to me like careless inspecting or worse. Yet every man I’ve sent out has brought in a clean bill; even for the Wonder Motors people, who have that sub-contract for five hundred tanks. And I wouldn’t trust that crowd to pass the hat for an orphans’ home. I wish I knew of a man who could could By the Great Isosceles! Torchy!”

I knew I was elected when he first begun squintin’ at me that way. But I couldn’t see where I’d be such a wonderful find.

“A hot lot I know about buildin’ armored motor-trucks, Mr. Ellins,” says I. “They could feed me anything.”

“You let ’em,” says he; “and meanwhile you unlimber that high-tension intellect of yours and see what you can pick up. Remember, I shall expect results from you, young man. When can you start for Cleveland? To-night, eh? Good! And just note this: It isn’t merely the Corrugated Trust you are representing: it’s Uncle Sam and the Allies generally. And if anything shoddy is being passed, you hunt it out. Understand?”

Yep. I did. And I’ll admit I was some thrilled with the idea. But I felt like a Boy Scout being sent to round up a gang of gunfighters. I skips home, though, packs my bag, and climbs aboard the night express.

When I’d finally located the Wonder works, and had my credentials read by everyone, from the rookie sentry at the gate to the Assistant General Manager, and they was convinced I’d come direct from Old Hickory Ellins, they starts passin’ out the smooth stuff. Oh, yes! Certainly! Anything special I wished to see?

“Thanks,” says I. “I’ll go right through.”

“But we have four acres of shops, you know,” suggests the A. G. M., smilin’ indulgent.

“Maybe I can do an acre a day,” says I. “I got lots of time.”

“That’s the spirit,” says he, clappin’ me friendly on the shoulder. “Walter, call in Mr. Marvin.”

He was some grand little demonstrator, Mr. Marvin one of these round-faced, pink-cheeked, chunky built young gents, who was as chummy and as entertainin’ from the first handshake as if we’d been room-mates at college. I can’t say how well posted he was on what was goin’ on in the different departments he hustled me through, but he knew enough to smother me with machinery details.

“Now, here we have a battery of six hogging machines,” he’d say. “They cut the gears, you know.”

“Oh, yes,” I’d say, tryin’ to look wise.

It was that way all through the trip. I saw two or three thousand sweaty men in smeared overalls and sleeveless undershirts putterin’ around lathes and things that whittled shavings off shiny steel bars, or hammered red-hot chunks of it into different shapes, or bit holes in great sheets of steel. I watched electric cranes the size of trolley cars juggle chunks of metal that weighed tons. I listened to the roar and rattle and crash and bang, and at the end of two hours my head was whirlin’ as fast as some of them big belt wheels; and I knew almost as much about what I’d seen as a two-year-old does about the tick-tock daddy holds up to her ear.

Young Mr. Marvin don’t seem discouraged, though. He suggests that we drive into town for lunch. We did, in a canary-colored roadster that purred along at about fifty most of the way. We fed at a swell club, along with a bunch of cheerful young lieutenants of industry who didn’t seem worried about the high cost of anything. I gathered that most of ’em was in the same line as Mr. Marvin supplies or munitions. From the general talk, and the casual way they ordered pink cocktails and expensive cigars, I judged it wasn’t exactly a losin’ game.

Nor they didn’t seem anxious about gettin’ back to punch in on the time-clocks. About two-thirty we adjourns to the Country Club, and if I’d been a mashie fiend I might have finished a hard day’s work with a game of golf. I thought I ought to do some more shops, though. Why, to be sure! But at five we knocked off again, and I was towed to another club, where we had a plunge in a marble pool so as to be in shape for a little dinner Mr. Marvin was gettin’ up for me. Quite some dinner! There was a jolly trip out to an amusement park later on. Oh, the Wonder folks were no tightwads when it came to showin’ special agents of the Corrugated around.

I tried another day of it before givin’ up. It was no use. They had me buffaloed. So I thanked all hands and hinted that maybe I’d better be goin’ back. I hope I didn’t deceive anyone, for I did go back to the hotel. But by night I’d invested $11.45 in a second-hand outfit warranted steam-cleaned and I had put up $6. more for a week’s board with a Swede lady whose front porch faced the ten-foot fence guardin’ the Wondor Motors’ main plant. Also, Mrs. Petersen had said it was a cinch I could get a job. Her old man would show me where in the mornin’.

And say, mornin’ happens early out in places like that. By 5:30 A.M. I could smell bacon grease, and by six-fifteen breakfast was all over and Petersen had lit his corn-cob pipe.

“Coom!” says he in pure Scandinavian.

This trip, I didn’t make my entrance in over the Turkish rugs of the private office. I was lined up with a couple of dozen others against a fence about tenth from a window where there was a “Men Wanted” sign out. Being about as much of a mechanic as I am a brunette, I made no wild bluffs. I just said I wanted a job. And I got it riveter’s helper, whatever that might be. By eight-thirty my name and number was on the payroll, and the foreman of shop N was introducin’ me to my new boss.

“Here, Mike,” says he. “Give this one a try-out.”

His name wasn’t Mike. It was something like Sneezowski. He was a Pole who’d come over three years ago to work for John D. at Bayonne, New Jersey, but had got into some kind of trouble there. I didn’t wonder. He had wicked little eyes, one lopped ear, and a ragged mustache that stood out like tushes. But he sure could handle a pneumatic riveter rapid, and when it came to reprovin’ me for not keepin’ the pace he expressed himself fluent.

In the course of a couple of hours, though, I got the hang of how to work them rivet tongs without droppin’ ’em more ’n once every five minutes. But I think it was the grin I slipped Mike now and then that got him to overlookin’ my awkward motions. Believe me, too, by six o’clock I felt less like grinnin’ than any time I could remember. I never knew you could ache in so many places at once. From the ankles down I felt fine. And yet, before the week was out I was helpin’ Mike speed up.

It didn’t look promisin’ for sleuth work at first. Half a dozen times I was on the point of chuckin’ the job. But the thoughts of havin’ to face Old Hickory with a blank report kept me pluggin’ away. I begun to get my bearin’s a bit to see things, to put this and that together.

We was workin’ on shaped steel plates, armor for the tanks. Now and then one would come through with some of the holes only quarter or half punched. Course, you couldn’t put rivets in them places.

“How about these?” I asks.

“Aw, wottell!” says Mike. “Forget it.”

“But what if the inspector sees?” I insists.

Mike gurgles in his throat, indicatin’ mirth.

“Th’ inspec’!” he chuckles. “Him wink by his eye, him. Ya! You see! Him coom Sat’day.”

And I swaps chuckles with Mike. Also, by settin’ up the schooners at Carlouva’s that evenin’, I got Mike to let out more professional secrets along the same line. There was others who joined in. They bragged of chipped gears that was shipped through with the bad cogs covered with grease, of flawy drivin’ shafts, of cheesy armor-plate that you could puncture with a tack-hammer.

While it was all fresh that night I jotted down pages of such gossip in a little red note-book. I had names and dates. That bunch of piece-workers must have thought I was a bear for details, or else nutty in the head; but they was too polite to mention it so long as I insisted each time that it was my buy.

Anyway, I got quite a lot of first-hand evidence as to the kind of inspectin’ done by the army officer assigned to this particular plant. I had to smile, too, when I saw Mr. Marvin towin’ him through our shop Saturday forenoon. Maybe they was three minutes breezin’ through. And I didn’t need the extra smear of smut on my face. Marvin never glanced my way. This was the same officer who’d been in on our dinner party, too.

Yes, I found chattin’ with Mike and his friends a lot more illuminatin’ than listenin’ to Mr. Marvin. So, when I drew down my second pay envelop, I told the clerk I was quittin’. I don’t mind sayin’, either, that it seemed good to splash around in a reg’lar bath-tub once more and to look a sirloin steak in the face again. A stiff collar did seem odd, though.

Me and Mr. Ellins had some session. We went through that red note-book thorough. He was breathin’ a bit heavy at times, and he chewed hard on his cigar all the way; but he never blew a fuse until forty-eight hours later. The General Manager of Wonder Motors, four department heads, and the army officer detailed as inspector was part of the audience. They’d been called on the carpet by wire, and was grouped around one end of our directors’ table. At the other end was Old Hickory, Mr. Robert, Piddie, and me.

Item by item, Mr. Ellins had sketched out to the Wonder crowd the bunk stuff they’d been slippin’ over. First they tried protestin’ indignant; then they made a stab at actin’ hurt; but in the end they just looked plain foolish.

“My dear Mr. Ellins,” put in the General Manager, “one cannot watch every workman in a plant of that magnitude. Besides,” here he hunches his shoulders, “if the government is satisfied ”

“Hah!” snorts Old Hickory. “But it isn’t. For I’m the government in this instance. I’m standing for Uncle Sam. That’s what I meant when I took those ten per cent. contracts. I’m too old to go out and fight his enemies abroad, but I can stay behind and watch for yellow-livered buzzards such as you. Call that business, do you? Fattening your dividends by sending our boys up against the Prussian guns in junky motor-tanks covered with tin armor! Bah! Your ethics need chloride of lime on them. And you come here whining that you can’t watch your men! By the great sizzling sisters, we’ll see if you can’t! You will put in every missing rivet, replace every flawy plate, and make every machine perfect, or I’ll smash your little two-by-four concern so flat the bankruptcy courts won’t find enough to tack a libel notice on. Now go back and get busy.”

They seemed in a hurry to start, too.

An hour or so later, when Old Hickory had stopped steaming, he passes out a different set of remarks to me. Oh, the usual grateful boss stuff. Even says he’s going to make the War Department give me a commission, with a special detail.

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful!” says Vee, clappin’ her hands. “Do you really think he will? A lieutenant, perhaps?”

“That’s what he mentioned,” says I.

“Really!” says Vee, makin’ a rush at me.

“Wait up!” says I. “Halt, I mean. Now, as you were! Sal-ute!”

“Pooh!” says Vee, continuin’ her rush.

But say, she knows how to salute, all right. Her way would break up an army, though. All the same, I guess I’ve earned it, for by Monday night I’ll be up in a Syracuse shovel works, wearin’ a one-piece business suit of the Never-rip brand, and I’ll likely have enough grease on me to lubricate a switch-engine.

“It’s lucky you don’t see me, Vee,” says I, “when I’m out savin’ the country. You’d wonder how you ever come to do it.”