Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 14, Number 47, DeMotte, Jasper County, 6 October 1944 — Page 2

THE STORY THUS FAR: Forty-four-year-old Wilbert Winkle, who operate! a general repair shop back of his home, is notified by his draft board that he is in 1-A. He breaks the bad news to his domineering wife, Amiy, and tramps off to work without even kissing her goodby. Neighbors call the next night and shake their heads solemnly, and the local paper publishes his picture on the front page. Winkle tacks a CLOSED sign over his shop. Mrs. Winkle confides her worries. She fears he might get interested in other women, but Wilbert says she has nothing to worry about. Winkle leads the draft parade and they march off behind the band. The martial music sends a chill up his spine.

CHAPTER V Mr. Winkle wasn’t sure if this was said in the right spirit. He was glad Amy didn’t appear in time to hear it He had been watching for her, and during the last of the six blocks, he saw her, hurrying along to keep up. Her face was flushed. She waved to him, and Mr. Winkle, wondering if it was the correct thing to do, waved back. After they arrived at the open-air bus station, there was a quarter of an hour of confusion whose details Mr. Winkle never remembered very well. The selectees left their formation and searched out their respective families. Mr. Winkle found his wife and dog. Penelope was enlivened by the excitement to yap several times. Mrs. Winkle said, “You looked very military.” “I’m the leader,” he told her. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Mrs. Winkle said, “if you didn’t come back a Colonel, or a Major, or anyway, a Captain. There’s no reason you can’t.” “Well.’’ said Mr. Winkle, “I don’t know about that.” The horn of the bus honked. Tears welled in Mrs. Winkle’s eyes. “I’m not going to cry,” she announced. And the tears didn’t spill over but remained in her eyes when she blinked them back, fast. Mr. Winkle had an empty feeling. He stood looking helplessly at his family. He stared about wildly for the Pettigrews, but couldn’t see them in the milling crowd. He reached down and patted Penelope’s head and came up with a choked feeling in his throat. He and Amy looked at each other solemnly. They embraced. They held each other very close. They kissed, and kissed again, while the band played, w'omen wept, and handkerchiefs and flags waved. The next thing Mr. Winkle knew was that he found himself seated in the bus and the vehicle was getting under way. Looking back, he saw Mrs. Winkle holding up Penelope so that she could see him go to war. Penelope wasn’t interested, but looked the other way. Not all of the bus was occupied by the draft contingent. There hadn’t been enough of them to charter a vehicle for their sole use. There were a dozen people Mr. Winkle thought of as civilians and perhaps another empty seats. He sat alone, not because he thought himself, as the leader, any better than tbe others. Nor did he care to be aloof? he w ould have welcomed somebody to talk with, but none of his charges joined him. Jack Pettigrew- sat up beside the driver. The boy was silent, staring at the road ahead. The rest of the men didn’t say much at first: they sat quietly, too. They were thinking of what they had left behind and where they were going. These things seemed to sober Freddie Tindall for the moment. After a little while, as the bus roiled along, the men began opening tbeir kita to see what was in them. t L* - „

ENTER TAINMENT for everyone in the family

Opening his own, Mr. Winkle found a package of cigarettes, a package of gum, and a small housewife containing heedles, thread, buttons, and a thimble. Mr. Winkle didn’t smoke and he disliked gum, but he reflected it was nice of the Women Volunteers anyway. He stared at the housewife. The thought of the new Amy engulfed him. Now he had these sewing materials instead of her. They would have been hardly a substitute for the old Amy. The bus stopped and several more people got on. One of them was a young, blowzy blonde. Mr. Winkle watched, fascinated, as Freddie maneuvered the selectee beside him out of his seat and grinned winningly at the blonde. She sat beside Freddie at once, and they began an animated conversation. This broke the tension the draftees brought with them from their sendoff. They laughed, and began to talk and joke, and discuss their voyage in voices just a little too loud to be natural. Only Jack Pettigrew sat without comment.

Things were fast getting out of hand.

At noon the bus stopped at a scheduled station for lunch. Mr. Winkle herded his charges to the counter inside the glass-front roadside restaurant, where he produced the proper paper to obtain meals for them as guests of the Government. Freddie Tindall remained outside, talking to the blonde. She was catching another bus here. He let Freddie alone until he had ordered his own meal. Then he went out and told Freddie, “If you want to get something to eat, you’d better come in.” “Be right with you, Pop.” Mr. Winkle went back to the counter. Freddie took his time. He waited until the blonde’s new bus pulled in. He put her on it and then joined the others. Some of the men looked at him in admiration and envy. “What would you have done,” Freddie inquired of Mr. Winkle, “if I’d gotten on the bus with her and gone a way 7 ” Mr. Winkle regarded him severely. “I wouldn’t have done a thing. That would be for others. You wouldn’t get very far.” “You mean with the blonde?” Freddie inquired, and received his laugh. He kept up a horseplay of saying that this was as far as he wanted to go, that he’d had a nice ride, but would now go back home. When

THE KANKAKEE VALLEY POST. DE MOTTE. INDIANA

MR. WINKLE GOES TO WAR

By THEODORE PRÁTT

this wore thin, he introduced a new subject. “Still proud to fight, Pop?” he inquired. Mr. Winkle kept his temper. “We all ought to be.” “Well, I’m not,” Freddie declared. “I’m not going because I want to, and I don’t care who knows it. I don’t want to be any darned soldier. Lugs, that’s all they are. They’re going to make me into a lug.” Mr, Winkle looked around. No one except the contingent from Springville seemed to have heard these remarks. The men listened with interest. Some of them looked startled. “I don’t think you ought to say such things,” Mr. Winkle advised. “Who says that, Pop? Who says I can’t say what I want?” “Well . . .” began Mr. Winkle. “Isn’t this a free country, Pop? Can’t a man say what he wants? Tell me that, Pop.” When Mr. Winkle didn’t reply, Freddie was infuriated, taking out his resentment on him as if holding Mr. Winkle personally responsible for his being drafted. “Tell me that, you old coot, and don’t act like we’re in the Army already.” Before Mr. Winkle could gather his outraged senses, Jack Pettigrew pushed through the group of men and came up to Freddie. His thin face was white with anger. “Don’t talk like that to Mr. Winkle,” he ordered. Freddie turned on the revolving stool to Mr. Winkle, ignoring Jackj. “How about that, Pop? Should 1 talK like that to you?” Jack made a lunge at Freddie, who whirled, placed his hand on the boy’s chest, and shoved him back. Jack, crying imprecations, returned to the fray with clenched fists. , • Freddie jumped up to meet him. Mr. Winkle was gripped with dismay. Things were fast getting out of hand. In fact, they were already well out of hand. The proprietor of the place was yelling, a waitress shrieked, and customers called out. Mr. Winkle heard his own voice crying, “Now look here! Look here! Save that for the Germans! Or the Japs!” The men laughed. Jack subsided, glaring. Freddie made ironic grimaces. An armistice had been declared in the premature war. Mr. Winkle breathed with relief. He wasn’t certain that he liked the responsibilities of leadership. He counted the men carefully as they got back on the bus, making sure Freddie was among them. His glance caught- y that of Jack, whose eyes were hot and who said, “I’m going to get him! I’m going to get him plenty.” “That’s all right,” Mr. Winkle calmed him. “I appreciate your ’Standing up for me, but you’ve done enough.” Another hour's ride got them to their destination, and they descended at a busy station where they were transferred to another bus. This was already half filled wjLth soldiers-elect like themselves. “Hello, fresh meat,” one of these greeted them. From the highway, three miles out of town, the entrance to the camp was no more than a dirt side road where two armed guards stood and a sign declared this to be a military reservation and that no admittance was allowed. Having been invited, they were admitted. After passing through a quarter of a mile of thick woods, they came to a great cleared space in which stood a hidden city. There were many

W.N.U. RELEASE

wooden buildings, some of them of one story, others of two stories. Dust rose from the passing of their own and other vehicles, and from marching feet. The bus stopped before a building 0 which had a sign on it saying, “Induction Checking Station.” Standing up or sitting on the ground before this were perhaps fifty more selectees. They stared at the newcomers who descended from the bus. No one spoke in the atmosphere of patient waiting and weary anxiety. Mr. Winkle looked about, somewhat at a loss. He didn’t know what to do next. A tall, thickset Sergeant, holding a sheaf of papers in his hand, came out of the building. He looked at

Mr. Winkle went forward; the sergeant gazed down at him.

the new arrivals and asked huskily, “Who’s the leader?” Mr. Winkle went forward. The Sergeant gazed down at him. Mr. Winkle saw the mouse-recognition-look come into the man’s face, the same way it showed in Amy’s. Then the Sergeant took on an expression as if to say ha didn’t mean to be surprised at anything sent to him. He inquired, “Got ’em all, John?” Mr. Winkle said he had and turned over the group papers. This relieved him of his command. He was a leader no longer, but just a selectee like any other. Because of this, and because of the mouse-look he had been given, he felt deflated and not in the .’east like a lion. The Sergeant went inside. Mr. Winkle waited with the others. Their eyes went frequently to the door. What smiles there were on any faces were nervous ones. The Sergeant came out again. In a foghorn voice he began calling names. It was nearly an hour, during which other busses arrived, before the Springville men were reached. Mr. Winkle found himself in a small room passing down a line of soldier clerks sitting at desks. In place of his own papers, arr information card was given to him, which he was instructed to hang around his neck by the cord attached. Thus

ticketed, he took his place in Une down the hall, and finally into an enormous room where many men were in the process of being examined. Here, Mr. Winkle saw, was where his fate would be decided. He was told to drop his bag by the wall under a clothing hook, and strip. Shivering, he stood in line clad only in his socks and shoes and information card. It was humiliating when he compared his skinny physique with the more robust bodies about him. Several men glanced at him as if to say he didn’t amount to much. He began to run a gantlet of doc* tors and medical assistants. Each doctor had one part of the body to examine. Mr. Winkle was accustomed to having his family physician make something of a fuss over him, cajoling him, and treating him like a living, breathing, human being instead of a skeleton within and around which was gathered a certain amount of flesh and certain organs. Now he felt like an automobile being put together on an assembly line in a factory. His card was taken away from him and in its place there was daubed in iodine a number on his chest. That, he was sure, was the final ignominy. He was questioned, weighed, measured, poked, tapped, and the inner workings of his structure listened to. He was asked to read a chart without his glasses and with them. He regretted each letter he made out, but he couldn’t, as he had half planned, bring himself to cheat. His eyes were good enough to fight..a war. Even his pulse was found sufficiently calm after he had been set running in one place for a minute without going anywhere. Well, he reflected, he hadn’t really counted on any of these things to save him. It was his dyspepsia he was banking on. He was laid on a paper-covered table. His stomach was kneaded and he was asked, “What’s this on your record about dyspepsia?” Mr. Winkle detailed and even boasted about his acute intestinal difficulties and the need he had for his pills. He was kneaded some more, as if he were an automobile no longer, but a piece of dough. The doctor gave a skeptical grunt, a deprecating snort, and wrote something on Mr. Winkle’s record sheet. Mr, Winkle, to his horror, gathered that his dyspepsia had made little impression, that it had let him down completely. At this, as he was passed on to the next doctor, his heart beat so fast that the doctor, who applied a stethoscope to it, took it away and actually looked at him, saying patiently, “I expect it from the kids, but not from you.” Mr. Winkle was abashed. He accused himself of behaving like a child, like Jack Pettigrew whom he saw standing tensely., on guard, with a strained, taut expression on his boy’s face. And then Mr. Winkle went through an experience he never expected to have. All during the days leading up to this, and during the first of the examining process, he hoped fervently that he would be rejected. He had even prayed for it. But now he found himself hoping he would be accepted. (TO BE CONTINUED)