The House of Torchy Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  WHEN TORCHY GOT THE CALL

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

  You see, it was along back when we were gettin' our first close-ups ofthe 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 younghicks from the bond room who'd volunteered. We'd had postals from 'em atthe 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' onsprinklin' the lawn after your chimney was bein' struck by lightnin'. Ifelt like I ought to be gettin' in the game somehow. Anyway, it seemedas if it was my ante.

  Not that I'd been rushed off my feet by all this buntin'-wavin' orkhaki-wearin'. I'm no panicky Old Glory trail-hitter. Nor I didn't lugaround the idea I was the missin' hero who was to romp through thebarbed wire, stamp Hindenburg's whiskers in the mud, and lead the Alliesacross the Rhine. I didn't even kid myself I could swim out and kick ahole in a submarine, or do the darin' aviator act after a half-hourlesson at Mineola.

  In fact, I suspected that sheddin' the enemy's gore wasn't much in myline. I knew I should dislike quittin' the hay at dawn to sneak out andget mixed up with half a bushel of impetuous scrap-iron. Still, if ithad 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 tofind just the right openin' until, there one night after dinner, as shefinishes a new piece she's tryin' over on the piano, I wanders upbeside her and starts absent-minded tearin' little bits off a corner ofthe 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 onwarmin' 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 shereaches out for one of my hands. That's all. No jumpy emotions--not evena lip quiver.

  "Must you?" says she, quiet.

  "I can't take it out in wearin' a button or hirin' someone to hoepotatoes 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 helpfill in one of the back rows. I don't know much about it. I'll look itup to-morrow."

  "To-morrow? Oh!" says Vee, with just the suspicion of a break in hervoice.

  And that's all we had to say about it. Every word. You'd thought we'dexhausted the subject, or got the tongue cramp. But I expect we each hada lot of thoughts that didn't get registered. I know I did. And nextmornin' 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 aquick glance at me from under them shaggy eyebrows, bites into his cigarsavage, and grunts discontented.

  "You are exempt, you know," says he.

  "I know," says I. "If tags came with marriage licenses I might wear oneon my watch-fob to show, I expect."

  "Huh!" says he. "It seems to me that rapid-fire brain of yours might bebetter 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 sayjust what. But campin' behind a roll-top here on the nineteenth floorain'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 Ithought I was about to push back the invader, or turn the tide forcivilization. Neither was I lookin' on this as a sportin' flier or alarky excursion that I was goin' to indulge in at public expense. Myidea was that there'd been a general call for such as me, and that I wascomin' across. I was more or less sober about it.

  They didn't seem much impressed at the recruitin' station. Course, youcouldn't expect the sergeant to get thrilled over every party thatdrifted in. He'd been there for weeks, I suppose, answerin' the samefool questions over and over, knowin' all the time that half of themthat came in was bluffin' and that a big per cent. of the otherswouldn't do.

  But this other party with the zippy waistline, the swellin' chest, andthe nifty shoulder-straps--why should he glare at me in that cold,suspicious way? I wasn't tryin' to break into the army with feloniousintent. How could he be sure, just from a casual glance, that I was suchvicious 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 WestPoint, or thought he had to. But that's what I get handed to me whenI've dropped all the little things that seemed important to me and walksin 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' therounds to see that the sergeants didn't loaf on the job. And, just toshow that no young patriot in a last year's Panama and a sport-cut suitcould slip anything over on him, he shoots in a few crisp questions onhis 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 itcomes 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 gotthe usual number of toes and teeth, my wind is fairly good, and I don'texpect my arteries have begun to harden yet. He listens to my heartaction and measures my chest expansion. Then I had to name the differentcolors 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 headat 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 aminute or so before I had sense enough to drift out on the sidewalk. AndI might as well admit I was feelin' mighty low. I didn't know whether tohunt up the nearest hospital, or sit down on the curb and wait untilthey came after me with the stretcher-cart. Anyway, I knew I must be aphysical wreck. And to think I hadn't suspected it before!

  Somehow I dragged back to the office, and a while later Mr. Ellinsdiscovers 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, aftersketchin' out how my entry had been scratched by the chesty one. "Iwonder where I could get a pair of crutches and a light-runnin' wheelchair?"

  "Bah!" says he. "Some of those army officers have red-tap
e brains and nomore common sense than he guinea-pigs. What in the name of the SevenShahs did he think was the matter with you?"

  "My eyes don't track and I weigh under the scale," says I. "I expectthere's other things, too. Maybe my floatin' ribs are water-logged andmy 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 lifeinsurance expert, who said I hadn't a soft spot on me, and an eyespecialist had reported that my sight was up to the average. Oh, theright lamp did range a little further, but he claims that's often thecase.

  "Maybe my hair was too vivid for trench work," says I, "or else thatcaptain was luggin' a grouch. Makes me feel like a wooden nickel at thebottom of the till, just the same; for I did hope I might be usefulsomehow. I'll look swell joinin' the home guards, won't I?"

  "Don't overlook the fact, young man," puts in Old Hickory, "that theCorrugated Trust is not altogether out of this affair, and that we arerunning 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 closetackle when she hears the news.

  "I don't care!" says she. "It was splendid of you to want to go. And Ishall be just as proud of you as though you had been accepted."

  "Oh, sure!" says I. "Likely I'll be mentioned in despatches for thenoble 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 orfour weeks, there, I was about the meekest commuter carried on theeight-three. I didn't do any gloatin' over the war news. I didn't joinany of the volunteer boards of strategy that met every mornin' to telleach other how the subs ought to be suppressed, or what Haig should bedoin' on the West front. I even stopped wearin' an enameled flag in mybuttonhole. If that was all I could do, I wouldn't fourflush.

  The Corrugated was handlin' a lot of war contracts, too. Course, we wasonly gettin' our ten per cent., and from some we'd subbed out not eventhat. It didn't strike me there was any openin' for me until I'd heardMr. Ellins, for about the fourth time that week, start beefin' about thekind 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. turnedback! And on rush work that's too good to be true. Looks to me likecareless inspecting--or worse. Yet every man I've sent out has broughtin a clean bill; even for the Wonder Motors people, who have thatsub-contract for five hundred tanks. And I wouldn't trust that crowd topass the hat for an orphans' home. I wish I knew of a man whocould--could---- By the Great Isosceles! Torchy!"

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

  "A hot lot I know about buildin' armored motor-trucks, Mr. Ellins," saysI. "They could feed me anything."

  "You let 'em," says he; "and meanwhile you unlimber that high-tensionintellect of yours and see what you can pick up. Remember, I shallexpect results from you, young man. When can you start for Cleveland?To-night, eh? Good! And just note this: It isn't merely the CorrugatedTrust you are representing: it's Uncle Sam and the Allies generally. Andif 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 feltlike a Boy Scout being sent to round up a gang of gunfighters. I skipshome, though, packs my bag, and climbs aboard the night express.

  When I'd finally located the Wonder works, and had my credentials readby everyone, from the rookie sentry at the gate to the Assistant GeneralManager, and they was convinced I'd come direct from Old Hickory Ellins,they starts passin' out the smooth stuff. Oh, yes! Certainly! Anythingspecial 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 theseround-faced, pink-cheeked, chunky built young gents, who was as chummyand as entertainin' from the first handshake as if we'd been room-matesat college. I can't say how well posted he was on what was goin' on inthe different departments he hustled me through, but he knew enough tosmother me with machinery details.

  "Now, here we have a battery of six hogging machines," he'd say. "Theycut 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 sweatymen in smeared overalls and sleeveless undershirts putterin' aroundlathes and things that whittled shavings off shiny steel bars, orhammered red-hot chunks of it into different shapes, or bit holes ingreat sheets of steel. I watched electric cranes the size of trolleycars juggle chunks of metal that weighed tons. I listened to the roarand rattle and crash and bang, and at the end of two hours my head waswhirlin' as fast as some of them big belt wheels; and I knew almost asmuch about what I'd seen as a two-year-old does about the tick-tockdaddy holds up to her ear.

  Young Mr. Marvin don't seem discouraged, though. He suggests that wedrive into town for lunch. We did, in a canary-colored roadster thatpurred 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'tseem 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 thegeneral talk, and the casual way they ordered pink cocktails andexpensive cigars, I judged it wasn't exactly a losin' game.

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

  I tried another day of it before givin' up. It was no use. They had mebuffaloed. So I thanked all hands and hinted that maybe I'd better begoin' back. I hope I didn't deceive anyone, for I did go back--to thehotel. But by night I'd invested $11.45 in a second-handoutfit--warranted steam-cleaned--and I had put up $6. more for a week'sboard with a Swede lady whose front porch faced the ten-foot fenceguardin' the Wondor Motors' main plant. Also, Mrs. Petersen had said itwas a cinch I could get a job. Her old man would show me where in themornin'.

  And say, mornin' happens early out in places like that. By 5:30 A.M. Icould smell bacon grease, and by six-fifteen breakfast was all over andPetersen 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 theprivate office. I was lined up with a couple of dozen others against afence 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 wildbluffs. 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 thepayroll, and the foreman of shop No. 19 was introducin' me to my newboss.

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

  His name wasn't Mike. It was something like Sneezowski. He was a Polewho'd come over three years ago to work for John D. at Bayonne, NewJersey, but had got into some kind of trouble there. I didn't wonder. Hehad wicked little eyes, one lopped ear, and a ragged mustache that stoodout like tushes. But he sure could handle a pneumatic riveter rapid, andwhen it came to reprovin'
me for not keepin' the pace he expressedhimself fluent.

  In the course of a couple of hours, though, I got the hang of how towork them rivet tongs without droppin' 'em more 'n once every fiveminutes. But I think it was the grin I slipped Mike now and then thatgot him to overlookin' my awkward motions. Believe me, too, by sixo'clock I felt less like grinnin' than any time I could remember. Inever knew you could ache in so many places at once. From the anklesdown I felt fine. And yet, before the week was out I was helpin' Mikespeed up.

  It didn't look promisin' for sleuth work at first. Half a dozen times Iwas on the point of chuckin' the job. But the thoughts of havin' to faceOld Hickory with a blank report kept me pluggin' away. I begun to get mybearin'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 thenone would come through with some of the holes only quarter or halfpunched. 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! Himcoom Sat'day."

  And I swaps chuckles with Mike. Also, by settin' up the schooners atCarlouva's that evenin', I got Mike to let out more professionalsecrets along the same line. There was others who joined in. Theybragged of chipped gears that was shipped through with the bad cogscovered with grease, of flawy drivin' shafts, of cheesy armor-plate thatyou could puncture with a tack-hammer.

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

  Anyway, I got quite a lot of first-hand evidence as to the kind ofinspectin' done by the army officer assigned to this particular plant. Ihad to smile, too, when I saw Mr. Marvin towin' him through our shopSaturday forenoon. Maybe they was three minutes breezin' through. And Ididn't need the extra smear of smut on my face. Marvin never glanced myway. 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 payenvelop, 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 andto 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-bookthorough. He was breathin' a bit heavy at times, and he chewed hard onhis cigar all the way; but he never blew a fuse until forty-eight hourslater. The General Manager of Wonder Motors, four department heads, andthe army officer detailed as inspector was part of the audience. They'dbeen called on the carpet by wire, and was grouped around one end of ourdirectors' 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 bunkstuff they'd been slippin' over. First they tried protestin' indignant;then they made a stab at actin' hurt; but in the end they just lookedplain foolish.

  "My dear Mr. Ellins," put in the General Manager, "one cannot watchevery workman in a plant of that magnitude. Besides," here he huncheshis shoulders, "if the government is satisfied----"

  "Hah!" snorts Old Hickory. "But it isn't. For I'm the government in thisinstance. I'm standing for Uncle Sam. That's what I meant when I tookthose ten per cent. contracts. I'm too old to go out and fight hisenemies abroad, but I can stay behind and watch for yellow-liveredbuzzards such as you. Call that business, do you? Fattening yourdividends by sending our boys up against the Prussian guns in junkymotor-tanks covered with tin armor! Bah! Your ethics need chloride oflime 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 inevery missing rivet, replace every flawy plate, and make every machineperfect, or I'll smash your little two-by-four concern so flat thebankruptcy courts won't find enough to tack a libel notice on. Now goback and get busy."

  They seemed in a hurry to start, too.

  An hour or so later, when Old Hickory had stopped steaming, he passesout 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 youreally 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 anarmy, though. All the same, I guess I've earned it, for by Monday nightI'll be up in a Syracuse shovel works, wearin' a one-piece business suitof the Never-rip brand, and I'll likely have enough grease on me tolubricate a switch-engine.

  "It's lucky you don't see me, Vee," says I, "when I'm out savin' thecountry. You'd wonder how you ever come to do it."