Now great military training camps had to be built, and the demand for lumber really boomed. Within weeks, the first drafts of young men were loaded onto trains and hauled away. But at age 36, and as Nehtaka County’s undersheriff (Earl had left to be police chief in Manders, California), Macurdy was marginal as far as the draft was concerned.
Meanwhile times got better as the defense industries grew. In Nehtaka, the Saari Brothers greatly expanded their machine shop, retooling it to build bomber parts for the Army Air Corps. There were so many jobs, they had to hire women!
And in the summer of 1941, Mary, now 25 years old, was visited again by morning sickness.
By then the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union, and advanced so rapidly, it seemed they’d defeat the Russians before winter. Meanwhile there were major diplomatic differences with the Japanese, but most Americans paid much less attention to those. Asia was farther off than Europe, geographically and culturally, and anyway, diplomatic problems seemed a long way from warfare.
Of more immediate importance was the basketball game between Nehtaka and Saint Helens high schools, on Friday evening, December 5. Nehtaka won in overtime, 36 to 34.
Two days later, at about 10:30 AM, Curtis was in the kitchen drinking coffee, reading the funnies, and listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the radio. The music was interrupted by an announcement: Japanese bombers had just attacked Pearl Harbor.
The war was no longer someone else’s.
A lot of Nehtaka County’s young men enlisted. The Severtson Brothers lost quite a few of their loggers, and advertised for men. On the Monday after New Year’s Day, 1942, two of Fritzi’s deputies enlisted, one in the Marines, one in the Maritime Service. That evening after supper, Fritzi commented (in German, of course) that he was glad Curtis was 37 years old. “Otherwise the draft would be after you for sure.”
Curtis looked thoughtfully at him. “I’ve been talking with Mary about whether I should enlist.”
Fritzi, alarmed, looked at Mary. “What did you tell him?” She met her father’s gaze. “That it’s up to him.”
“What about the little one?”
“It will be all right. And so will Curtis.”
Her father grunted. “Bullets and shells do not select their victims. If someone is in their way, the person is dead.” He turned to Klara. “Talk sense to them, Mama!”
The old woman’s jaw clenched. She too met her son’s gaze. “If Curtis wants to go, he should. If Hitler and those Japaner win the war, we will learn how bad things can be, even here.”
Snorting, Fritzi put down his knife and fork. “They can never win. We are too much for them here.”
Klara sat taller, straighter, more stem. “They will win if we do not do what we can. And if Mary wants to go to work at Saari’s, making-whatever it is they make there, I can cook. I can even keep house; a little dust never hurt anything.” Curtis grinned in spite of himself. For years Klara had made war on dust, even when she had to wage it by proxy. So much for the unchangeable.”
Fritzi subsided. It hadn’t occurred to him that his mother would side against him. Now it seemed to him that if Curtis hadn’t already made up his mind, Klara’s declaration might well make the difference.
That night Curtis and Mary lay in bed listening to a cold winter rain beat on the porch roof beneath their window They’d just agreed-Curtis would go. Not in the Maritime Service or Navy-he’d said that in battle he’d feel trapped on a ship at sea-but in the Army. Now she reached, took his hand in her’s.
“But you’ll wait till the baby’s born? It will only be a couple of months.”
He raised himself on an elbow and kissed her. “Of course I will. Unless the draft takes me.”
“And long enough afterward that you can make love to me again. I know it’s selfish of me, but I’m going to miss you terribly, especially lying here alone when you’re far away.”
He kissed her again, then they both lay staring at the ceiling, each with their own thoughts. The last time he’d seen Axel Severtson, the logger had reminisced on their first meeting, then added, “You know, you ain’t changed any at all. Vhen you first come here, you looked like a big kid, a big strong kid vhat had got his nose broke somevhere, and vhen I stop to really look, you look yust as young now.” He’d laughed. “Maybe you been drinking from that fountain of youth. Vhat vill you charge to get me a bottle?”