Battle Cry - Leon Uris [8]
“I don’t guess it could be much worse—anything at all. We sure have problems.”
Early morning found the contingent enlarged nearly six-fold. Throughout the night the train had halted restlessly as parting scenes were played out before its steel sides. Dawn in Buffalo. It was freezing as they stepped into the Harvey Restaurant in the monstrous station. A hot breakfast brought him slowly to his senses and for the first time he became eager and anxious to continue the trip. The full sun banished the initial shock and now he was excited about the coming adventure.
“My name is Ted Dwyer and this is Robin Long.”
“Forrester, Danny Forrester, and this guy is L.Q. Jones. Don’t let him scare you.”
“How about you guys pulling over here and let’s have a little card game.”
“Good idea. The trip along Lake Erie is a killer. We won’t hit Chicago till late.”
“Train sure is bulging.”
“Yeah.”
Mile upon mile of monotonous scenery on the never-ending lake shore finally caused the conversation to dwindle and restlessness to set in.
In the lavatory, a blustering character named Shannon O’Hearne had started a crap game. A large and unruly Irishman, he had gotten himself a band of awed followers and along with the crap game a drinking spree soon began. The group made passage to and from the toilet an obstacle course.
The monotony was broken by a further monotony of standing in line for lunch. There were nearly four hundred men aboard now, all wanting to eat simultaneously—except Shannon O’Hearne and his followers, who drank their meal.
At last the train got lost in the maze of rails that ushered it into Chicago. Numbed and weary they debarked, glad of the layover.
Henry Forrester sat in his overstuffed chair, his feet propped on an ottoman. Bud lay on the floor, the Sunday funnies sprawled out before him. The voice of a nervous football broadcaster broke the tranquillity of the room.
And now we take a thirty-second pause for station identification.
“Danny,” Sarah Forrester called from the kitchen. “You’d better drive over and pick up Kathy. Dinner will be ready in a half hour.”
“O.K., Mom, it will be half time in a couple minutes.”
“Bud!”
“What?”
“Start setting the table.”
“Aw, gee whizz, Mom.”
Hello again, football fans. This is Rush Holloway, the old Wheaties reporter here in the nation’s capital where thirty-five thousand pack Griffith Stadium on this beautiful December afternoon to witness the battle between Steven Owen’s New York Giants and the Washington Redskins.
The noise you hear in the background is the public address system paging Admiral Parks. They’ve been paging several top brass during this second period….
Mickey Parks has just replaced Ki Aldrich at center. Incidentally, Mickey is a distant cousin of Admiral Parks. Great favorite with the Redskin fans. Now in his fourth season with the Skins….
We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you a news bulletin. Airplanes, identified as Japanese, have attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Stay tuned to this station for…
First and ten on their own forty-yard line.
“Did you hear that, Dad?”
“Er…er, what? I must have been dozing.”
The phone rang. Bud raced to it and then turned the receiver over to Sarah Forrester. “Henry,” she called, “where is Pearl Harbor?”
Henry Forrester rapped softly on his son’s door, then entered. Danny lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. His father sat on the bed’s edge.
About the room hung pennants of Forest Park High and a half dozen college teams. The dresser bore a dozen team photographs and there was a larger one on the wall of the Baltimore Orioles. A baseball autographed by Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx and Lefty Grove adorned the center of a small desk.
“Son, won’t you come down to dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Your mother is awfully upset. Cigarette?”
“No thanks.”
“Don’t you suppose we should talk this over?”
“Every time I try to make sense Mom starts bawling.”
Henry Forrester walked slowly to the dresser and studied a trophy atop