Toby started to speak, then stopped. It was hopeless. The captain would only be impressed by places like New York and Hollywood. “No place you would have heard of,” Toby replied. He knew now that he was wasting his time.
Captain Winters said, “It’s not up to me, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Sure,” Toby said. “Thanks a lot, Captain.” He gave a salute and exited.
Captain Sam Winters sat at his desk, thinking about Toby long after the boy had gone. Sam Winters had enlisted because he felt that this was a war that had to be fought and had to be won. At the same time he hated it for what it was doing to young kids like Toby Temple. But if Temple really had talent, it would come through sooner or later, for talent was like a frail flower growing under solid rock. In the end, nothing could stop it from bursting through and blooming. Sam Winters had given up a good job as a motion-picture producer in Hollywood to go into the army. He had produced several successful pictures for Pan-Pacific Studios and had seen dozens of young hopefuls like Toby Temple come and go. The least they deserved was a chance. Later that afternoon he spoke to Colonel Beech about Toby. “I think we should let Special Services audition him,” Captain Winters said. “I have a feeling he might be good. God knows the boys are going to need all the entertainment they can get.”
Colonel Beech stared up at Captain Winters and said coolly, “Right, Captain. Send me a memo on it.” He watched as Captain Winters walked out the door. Colonel Beech was a professional soldier, a West Point man. The Colonel despised all civilians, and to him, Captain Winters was a civilian. Putting on a uniform and captain’s bars did not make a man a soldier. When Colonel Beech received Captain Winter’s memo on Toby Temple, he glanced at it, then savagely scribbled across it, “REQUEST DENIED,” and initialed it.
He felt better.
What Toby missed most was the lack of an audience. He needed to work on his sense of timing, his skills. He would tell jokes and do imitations and routines at every opportunity. It did not matter whether his audience was two GIs doing guard duty with him in a lonely field, a busload of soldiers on their way into town or a dishwasher on KP. Toby had to make them laugh, win their applause.
Captain Sam Winters watched one day as Toby went through one of his routines in the recreation hall. Afterward, he went up to Toby and said, “I’m sorry your transfer didn’t work out, Temple. I think you have talent. When the war’s over, if you get to Hollywood, look me up.” He grinned and added, “Assuming I still have a job out there.”
The following week Toby’s battalion was sent into combat.
In later years, when Toby recalled the war, what he remembered were not the battles. At Saint-Lô he had been a smash doing a mouth-sync act to a Bing Crosby record. At Aachen he had sneaked into the hospital and told jokes to the wounded for two hours before the nurses threw him out. He remembered with satisfaction that one GI had laughed so hard all his stitches had broken open. Metz was where he had bombed out, but Toby felt that that was only because the audience was jittery about the Nazi planes flying overhead.
The fighting that Toby did was incidental. He was cited for bravery in the capture of a German command post. Toby had really no idea what was going on. He had been playing John Wayne, and had gotten so carried away that it was all over before he had time to be frightened.
To Toby, it was the entertaining that was important. In Cherbourg he visited a whorehouse with a couple of friends, and while they were upstairs, Toby stayed in the parlor doing a routine for the madame and two of her girls. When he had finished, the madame sent him upstairs, on the house.
That was Toby’s war. All in all, it was not a bad war, and time went by very quickly. When the war ended, it was 1945 and Toby was almost twenty-five years old. In appearance he had not aged one day. He had the same sweet face and beguiling blue eyes, and that hapless air of innocence about him.