The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [154]
"As you see, Ben, the ticker room is quite the odd collection, your lot and ours squidged together rather like strangers on a trolley." In the bunkerful of teletypes and other message apparatus where Maurice was showing him around, the British uniforms of blue hue offsetting the khaki drab of American clerks did resemble a rush-hour swatch of contrasts. "I suppose the miracle is that it works at all," he gestured broadly, "separated as we are by a common language."
Ordinarily Ben's smile nerves would have twitched at that, but not today. "So how do I send smoke signals to Tepee Weepy, with everyone in here busy running the war?"
"Right. I've secured you a ticker, where you have utmost priority—that set of orders that follows you around, Ben, is quite magical—"
Sure, except when Tepee Weepy uses it as black magic and extends Moxie and leaves the pair of us dangling in the buzz-bomb capital of the world.
"—and I have authority to snaffle a clerk for you as wanted." Maurice meditatively tweaked his ball-shaped nose as if turning the knob for the next idea. "I thought perhaps a glamour-pants WREN, to add scenery to duty? The Women's Royal Naval Service has some lovelies bored with typing weather reports."
Ben could readily imagine that seersucker was not the only shapely uniform that sopped up carbon paper, and that an eye-batting invitation to join a scrub in the tub was not unheard of here, either. If Moxie and Inez were any indication, life under buzz-bomb siege tended to concentrate minds, downward. But the object of desire he needed to concentrate on was the earliest possible plane out of here. "No go, Maurice, thanks anyway," he committed to. "No WRENs or sparrows or cuckoos or anything else except a wire clerk in an American uniform that I outrank all to hell."
Maurice felt at his nose again, pondering. "It shall be done. Have yourself a cup of mystery beverage"—the lore was that when the Antwerp commanding officer tasted what was in the hot-pot urn over in the corner, he sputtered, "If this is coffee, bring me tea. If this is tea, bring me coffee."—"while I sort out a clerk of that mode."
Claiming a spot at a momentarily vacant desk, Ben took gulps of the stuff, figuring it went with Antwerp hardship duty, while he labored over a message pad. He crumpled several versions before the penciled words had the right nudge to them. When Maurice turned up with a bewildered U.S. Army private first class in tow, Ben barely caught his name before handing him the message to be sent.
READY AT THIS END. STAMPER WAITING ROYAL TREATMENT. SOONER BETTER, SOONEST BEST—THIS IS HOME FIELD OF BUZZ BOMBS.
The wire clerk, with prodigious eyeglasses and eyes almost as large behind them, scrutinized the lines. "Sir, I'm supposed to put it into code. Did you want to do this in plain English first, so the other end won't misunderstand what—"
Ben hung a look on him that answered that. "Right away, sir," said the clerk, his rear end practically scorching the seat as he sat to the wire machine. "The two of you seem as happy together as a box of birds," Maurice said blandly, "so I shall leave you to this."
TPWP's reply clattered out in a surprisingly short time.
TIME-OUT NOT OVER YET IN HOMECOMING GAME. WORTH THE WAIT.
Two quick darts of Ben's pencil and he held the message pad over the keyboard. The clerk started to ask where the rest of it was, encountered the just-send-it look again, and fired off:
Y?
This time the response from across the ocean came in a long salvo of clacking keys.
YOU SOUND ITCHY TO BREAK HUDDLE, SO HERE IS GAME PLAN. STAMPER BLAZE OF GLORY SCHEDULED FOR USO HOLIDAY SHOW DURING TEN DAYS OF CHRISTMAS TOUR, LONDON, PARIS, ETC. ANTWERP SHOW FIRST IN LINE. FULL CHEERING SECTION FOR END OF SUPREME TEAM SAGA—NATIONWIDE BROADCAST STATESIDE, "YOUR USO ON THE GO" NEWSREEL, TED LOUDON IN PERSON