“Yes, sir!” (Christ, no!)

  “Just last Sunday, in K.C., my father-in-law told me that would be your answer. But you may not know, Sergeant, that the billet you are in will be just as frustrating…without the compensation of bars on your shoulders. Here in ‘Plans & Training’ we keep track of every enlisted instructor—and the ones who don’t work out we ship out…but the ones who do work out we hang onto like grim death.

  “Except for one thing—” His father smiled again. “We have been asked—the polite word for ‘ordered’—to supply some of our best instructors for that behind-the-lines training in France you mentioned. I know you qualify; I’ve made it a point to note the weekly reports on you ever since my father-in-law told me about you. Surprising proficiency for a man with no combat time…plus a slight tendency to be nonregulation about minor points, which—privately—I do not find a draw­back; the utterly regulation soldier is a barracks soldier. Est-ce que vous parlez Ia langue française?”

  “Oui, mon capitaine.”

  “Eh, bien! Peut-être vous avez enrôlé autrefois en la Legion Etrangère, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Pardon mon capitaine? Je ne comprends pas.”

  “Nor will I understand you if we talk three more words of it. But I’m studying hard, as I expect French to be my own ticket out of this dusty place. Bronson, forget that I asked that question. But I must ask one more and I want an ab­solutely straight answer. Is there any possibility whatever that any French authority might be looking for you? I don’t give a tinker’s dam what you may have done in the past, and neither does the War Department. But we must protect our own.”

  Lazarus barely hesitated. (Pop is telling me plain as print that if I am a deserter from the Foreign Legion—or have escaped from Devil’s Island or any such—he’s going to keep me out of French jurisdiction.) “Absolutely none, sir!”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. There have been latrine rumors that Pop Johnson could neither confirm nor deny. Speaking of him—Stand up a moment. Now left face, please. And about face. Bronson, I’m convinced. I don’t remember my wife’s Uncle Ned, but I would give long odds that you are related to my father-in-law, and his theory certainly fits. Which makes us ‘kinfolk’ of some sort. After the war is over, perhaps we can dig into it. But I understand that my children call you ‘Uncle Ted’, which seems close enough and suits me if it suits you.”

  “Sir, it does indeed! It’s good to have a family, under any assumption.”

  “I think so. Just one more thing…and this you must for­get once you go out that door. I think that a rocker for those chevrons will show up one of these days…and not long after you’ll be given a short leave that you haven’t requested. When that happens, don’t start any continued stories. Comprenez-­vous?”

  “Mais oui, mon capitaine, certainement.”

  “I wish I could tell you that we will be in the same outfit; Pop Johnson would like that. But I can’t. In the meantime please remember that I haven’t told you anything.”

  “Captain, I’ve already forgotten it.” (Pop thinks he’s doing me a favor!) “Thank you, sir!”

  “Not at all. Dismissed.”

  DA CAPO

  VII

  Staff Sergeant Theodore Bronson found Kansas City changed—uniforms everywhere, posters everywhere. Uncle Sam stared out at him: “I want you for the United States Army.” A Red Cross nurse was shown holding a wounded man in a stretcher as if he were a baby, with the one word:

  “GIVE.” A sign on a restaurant said: “We Observe All Meat­less, Wheatless, and Sweetless Days.” Service flags were in many windows—he counted five stars on one, saw several with gold stars.

  More traffic than he recalled and streetcars were crowded, many passengers in uniform—it seemed as if all of Camp Funston and every camp or fort within reaching distance had all been dumped into the city at once. Untrue, he knew, but the train he had dozed in most of last night had been so jammed that it seemed true.

  That “Khaki Special” had been almost as dirty as a cattle train and even slower; it had sidetracked again and again in favor of freights, and once for a troop train. Lazarus arrived in Kansas City late in the morning, tired and filthy—having left camp clean and rested. But he had his battered old grip with him and planned to correct both conditions before seeing his “adopted” family.

  Waving a five-dollar bill in front of the railroad station got him a taxi, but the hackie insisted on picking up three more passengers going south after asking what direction Lazarus was going. The taxicab was a Ford landaulet like his own, but in much worse condition. The glass partition between front and back seats (the feature that made it a “limousine”) had been removed, and the collapsible half-top of the rear com­partment appeared to have collapsed for the last time. But with five in it, plus baggage on knees, ventilation was welcome. The driver said, “Sergeant, you were first. Where to?”

  Lazarus said that he wanted to find a hotel room out south, near Thirty-first.

  “You’re an optimist—hard enough to find one downtown. But we’ll try. Drop these other gentlemen first, maybe?”

  Eventually he wound up near Thirty-first and Main—”Per­manent and Transient—all rooms & apts. with bath.” The driver said, “This joint costs too much—but it’s this or go back downtown. No, keep your money till we see if they can take you. You about to go overseas?”

  “So I hear.”

  “So your fare is a dollar; I don’t take no tips from a man about to go over—I got a boy ‘Over There.’ Le’me talk to that clerk.”

  Ten minutes later Lazarus was luxuriating in the first tub bath he had had since April 6, 1917. Then he slept three hours. When his inner alarm woke him, he dressed in clean clothes from skin out, his best uniform—the breeches he had retailored for a smarter peg at the knee. He went down to the lobby and telephoned his family’s home.

  Carol answered and squealed. “Oh! Mama, it’s Uncle Ted!”

  Maureen Smith’s voice was serenely warm. “Where are you, Sergeant Theodore? Brian Junior wants to go fetch you home.”

  “Please tell him thanks, Mrs. Smith, but I’m in a hotel at the Thirty-first Street car line; I’ll be there before he could get here—if I’m welcome.”

  “‘Welcome’? What a way for our adopted soldier to talk. You don’t belong in a hotel; you must stay here. Brian—my husband, I mean, the Captain—told us to expect you and that you were to stay with us. Did he not tell you so?”

  “Ma’am, I’ve seen the Captain just once, three weeks ago. So far as I know, he doesn’t know I’m on leave.” Lazarus added, “I don’t want to put you out.”

  “Pish and tush, Sergeant Theodore, let’s have no more of that. At the beginning of the war we changed the maid’s room downstairs—my sewing room, where you played chess with Woodrow—into a guest room, so that the Captain could bring a brother officer home on a weekend. Must I tell my husband that you refused to sleep there?”

  (Maureen my love, that’s putting the cat too close to the canary! I won’t sleep; I’ll lie awake thinking about you up­stairs—surrounded by kids and Gramp.) “Mrs. Captain gen­erous hostess ma’am, I’ll be utterly delighted to sleep in your sewing room.”

  “That’s better, Sergeant. For a moment I thought Mama was going to have to spank.”

  Brian Junior was waiting at, the Benton car stop, with George as footman, and with Carol and Marie in the back seat. George grabbed the grip and took charge of it; Marie shrilled, “My, doesn’t Uncle Ted look pretty!” and Carol corrected her:

  “Handsome, Marie. Soldiers look handsome and smart, not ‘pretty.’ Isn’t that right, Uncle Ted?”

  Lazarus picked the smaller girl up by her elbows and kissed her cheek, set her down. “Technically correct, Carol—but ‘pretty’ suits me just fine if Marie thinks I am. Quite a wel­coming committee—do I run along behind?”

  “You sit in the tonneau with the girls,” Brian Junior ruled. “But look at this first!” He pointed. “A foot throttle! Isn’t that bully?”

  Lazarus agreed, then took a few moments to inspect the car—in better shape than he had left it, shining and clean from spokes to top and with several new items besides the foot accelerator: a dressy radiator cap, rubber nonskids for the pedals, a tire holder on the rear with a patent-leather cover for a spare tire, a robe rail in the rear compartment with a lap robe folded neatly, and—finishing touch—a cut-glass bud vase with a single rose. “Is the engine kept as beautifully as the rest?”

  George opened the hood. Lazarus looked and nodded ap­provingly. “It could take a white-glove inspection.”

  “That’s exactly what Grandpa gives it,” Brian declared. “He says if we don’t take care of it, we can’t use it.”

  “You do take care of it.”

  Lazarus arrived in royal splendor, one arm around a big little girl, the other around a small little girl. Gramp was waiting on the front porch, came down the walk to meet him, and Lazarus suddenly revised his mental image: The old soldier was in uniform and seemed a foot taller and ramrod straight—ribbons on his chest, chevrons on his sleeves, put­tees most carefully rolled, campaign hat perched high and turned up slightly behind.

  As Lazarus turned from handing Carol out, Marie having danced ahead, Gramp paused and threw Lazarus a sweeping Throckmartin salute. “Welcome home, Sergeant!”

  Lazarus returned it as flamboyantly. “Thank you, Sergeant; I’m glad to be here.” He added, “Mr. Johnson, you didn’t tell me you were a supply sergeant.”

  “Somebody has to count the socks. I agreed to take—”

  The rest was lost to Woodie’s explosive arrival. “Hey, Uncle Sergeant! You’re going to play chess with me!”

  “Sure, Sport,” Lazarus agreed, his attention distracted by two other things: Mrs. Smith at the open door, and a service flag in the parlor window. Three stars— Three?

  Then Gramp was urging him in with something about this being a drill night so supper would be early. Nancy kissed him, openly and without glancing first for her mother’s ap­proval—then Dickie had to be picked up and kissed, and Baby Ethel (walking!), and at last Maureen gave him her slender hand, drew him to her, and brushed his cheek with her lips. “Sergeant Theodore…it is so good to have you home.”

  Supper was a noisy, well-run circus, with Gramp presiding in lieu of his son-in-law, while his daughter ran things with serene dignity from the other end and did not get up once Lazarus placed her chair under her and took his seat of honor on her right. Her three oldest daughters did all that was nec­essary. Ethel sat in a highchair on her mother’s left with George helping her—Lazarus learned that this duty rotated among the five eldest.

  It was a lavish meal for wartime, with hot, golden cornbread replacing white bread, this being a wheatless day—and firmest discipline (administered by Nancy and Brian Junior) requircd that every morsel accepted must be eaten, with admonitions about hungry Belgians. Lazarus did not care what he ate but remembered to compliment the cooks (three), and tried to answer all that was said to him—nearly impossible as Brian and George wanted to tell about their troop’s drive to collect walnut shells and peach pits and how many it took for each gas mask, and Marie had to be allowed to boast that she could knit just as well as George could and she did not either drop stitches!—and how many squares it took to make a blanket, while Gramp wanted to talk shop with Lazarus and had to be stern to get a word in edgewise.

  Maureen Smith seemed to find it unnecessary to talk. She smiled and looked happy, but it seemed to Lazarus that there was tension under her self-control—the ages-old strain of Penelope. (For me, darling? No, of course not. I wish I could tell you that Pop will come back, unharmed. But how could I make you believe that I know? You’re going to ,have to sweat it out the way Penelope did. I’m sorry, my love.) “Excuse me, Carol— I missed that.”

  “I said it’s perfectly horrid that you have to go back so soon! When you’re just about to go ‘Over There.’”

  “But it’s quite a lot, Carol, in wartime. It’s just that getting here and getting back eats up so much time. I’m not entitled to special privileges; I don’t know that I am about to ship out.”

  There was silence around the table, and the older boys ex­changed glances.

  Ira Johnson broke it by saying gently, “Sergeant, the children know what a pass in the middle of the week means. But they don’t talk; they are disciplined. My son-in-law de­cided—wisely, I think—not to keep things from them un­necessarily.”

  “But, Grandpa, when Papa has leave, he doesn’t go back next day. It’s not fair.”

  “That’s because,” Brian Junior said wisely, “Papa usually rides with Captain Bozell in that big ol’ Marmon Six and they burn up the road. Staff Sergeant Uncle Ted, I could drive’ you back to camp. Then you wouldn’t have to leave till later to­morrow night.”

  “Thank you, Brian—but I don’t think we’d better. If I catch the train we call the ‘Reveille Special’ tomorrow evening, I’m safe even-if the train is a bit late, and this is one time I’m not going to risk being over leave.”

  “I agree with Sergeant Bronson,” Gramp added, “and that settles it, Brian. Ted can’t risk being late. I see that I had better move along, too. Daughter, if I may be excused?”

  “Certainly, Father.”

  “Sergeant Johnson, may I drive you to your parade ground? Or wherever it is?”

  “To the Armory. No, no, Ted, my captain picks me up and brings me home; he and I go early and stay late. Mrrph. Why don’t you take Maureen for a spin? She hasn’t been out of the house for a week; she’s getting pale.”

  “Mrs. Smith? I’d be honored.”

  “We’ll all go!”

  “George,” his grandfather said firmly, “the idea is to give your mother an hour free of the pressure and noise of chil­dren.”

  “Sergeant Ted promised to play chess with me!”

  “Woodie, I heard what he said. He did not set a time…and he’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “And he promised to take me to Electric Park a long, long, long time ago, and he never did!”

  “Woodie, I’m sorry about that,” Lazarus answered, “but the war came along before the park opened. We may have to wait until the war is over.”

  “But you said—”

  “Woodrow,” his mother said firmly, “stop that. This is Sergeant Theodore’s leave, not yours.”

  “And get that sulky look off your face,” added his grand­father, “before we form a regimental square and have you flogged around the flagpole. Nancy? Charge-of-quarters, dear.”

  “But—” The oldest girl shut up.

  “Father, Nancy’s young man is about to reach his birthday and is not going to wait to be drafted, I think I told you. So some of the young people are giving him a surprise party to­night.”

  “Oh, yes—slipped my mind.’ Fine young man, Ted; you would approve of him. Correction, Nancy; you’re off duty. Carol?”

  “Carol and I can take care of anything,” Brian answered. “Can’t we, Carol? My night to wash, Marie wipes, George’s turn to put away. Bedtimes by the schedules, emergency tele­phone numbers on the blackboard—we know the standing orders.”

  “May I be excused, too, then?” said Nancy. “Staff Sergeant Ted—you will be here tomorrow. Won’t you?”

  Lazarus went out to the curb to meet Gramp’s militia cap­tain. When he came in, Maureen had gone upstairs. He grabbed the chance to freshen up in the bath off the quondam sewing room. Fifteen minutes later he was handing Mrs. Smith into the front seat of the landaulet, himself dizzied by her wonderful fragrance. Had she managed to bathe again in twenty minutes or so? It seemed like it; she had certainly changed clothes. These wartime styles were startling; as he handed her in Lazarus caught a glimpse not only of trim ankle but quite a lot of shapely calf. He was shaken by the thrill it gave him.

  How long would this dress cycle last? While he cranked the car, he tried to quiet himself by thinking about it. Corsets dis­appeared right after this war, and skirts went up and up all during the Torrid Twenties, the “Jazz Age.” Then women’s styles varied all through this century but with a steady trend toward letting men see more and more of “what they were fighting for.” But social nudity, even in swimming, did not be­come really common until the end of the century, so he seemed to recall. Then a puritan reaction the following century—a horrid time he had fled from.

  What would Maureen think if he tried to tell her any of it?

  The engine caught; he got in beside her. “Where would you like to go, Mrs. Smith?”

  “Oh, out south. Somewhere quiet.”

  “South it is.” Lazarus glanced at the setting sun, turned on his headlights. He made a U-turn and headed south.

  “But my name is not ‘Mrs. Smith’, Theodore…when we are alone.”

  “Thank you…Maureen.” Straight out to Thirty-ninth— then over to the Paseo? Or Prospect and out as far as Swope Park? Would she let him take her that far? Oh, for a thousand miles of open road and Maureen beside me!

  “I like the way you say my name, Theodore. Do you re­member where you took the children for a picnic not long be­fore the war started?”

  “Near the Blue River. You want to go there, Maureen?”

  “Yes. If you don’t remember the way, I can guide you; I suggested it for that picnic.”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “It need not be that spot…but somewhere quiet—and private. Where you need not give your attention to driving.”

  (Hey! Maureen, my darling, you don’t want us to be too private—I might shock you dreadfully. Private enough for a good-bye kiss—fine! Then let’s deliver you home safe and sound. You are this century, my sweet! rd rather have one kiss—and your love and respect—than entice you into more aid have you think of me with regret. I decided that many months ago. You darling.)

  “I should turn here?”

  “Yes. Theodore, Brian Junior said that the new throttle he installed made it possible to drive with one hand.”

 

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