“I’d let it alone!” A younger, stronger voice declared, fervently. “Multiple perforations, infection, extravasation, oedema – uh-uh! I am watching, Doctor, and learning!”
Another interlude, and another. Another. And others. Until finally, orders were given which Kinnison did not hear at all.
“Adrenalin! Massage! Massage hell out of him!”
Kinnison again came to – partially to, rather – anguished in every fiber, of his being. Somebody was sticking barbed arrows into every square inch of his skin; somebody else was pounding and mauling him all over, taking particular pains to pummel and to wrench at all the places where he hurt the worst. He yelled at the top of his voice; yelled and swore bitterly: “QUIT IT!” being the expurgated gist of his luridly profane protests. He did not make nearly as much noise as he supposed, but he made enough.
“Thank God!” Kinnison heard a lighter, softer voice. Surprised, he stopped swearing and tried to stare. He couldn’t see very well, either, but he was pretty sure that there was a middle-aged woman there. There was, and her eyes were not dry. “He is going to live, after all!”
As the days passed, he began really to sleep, naturally and deeply.
He grew hungrier and hungrier, and they would not give him enough to eat. He was by turns sullen, angry, and morose.’ In short, he was convalescent.
For Captain Ralph K. Kinnison, THE WAR was over.
CHAPTER 5 – 1941
Chubby, brownette Eunice Kinnison sat in a rocker, reading the Sunday papers and listening to her radio. Her husband Ralph lay sprawled upon the davenport, smoking a cigarette and reading the current issue of EXTRAORDINARY STORIES against an unheard background of music. Mentally, he was far from Tellus, flitting in his super-dreadnaught through parsec after parsec of vacuous space.
The music broke off without warning and there blared out an announcement which yanked Ralph Kinnison back to Earth with a violence almost physical. He jumped up, jammed his hands into his pockets.
“Pearl Harbor!” he blurted. “How in . . . How could they have let them get that far?”
“But Frank!” the woman gasped. She had not worried much about her husband; but Frank, her son . . . “He’ll have to go . . .” Her voice died away.
“Not a chance in the world.” Kinnison did not speak to soothe, but as though from sure knowledge. “Designing Engineer for Lockwood? He’ll want to, all right, but anyone who was ever even exposed to a course in aeronautical engineering will sit this war out.”
“But they say it can’t last very long. It can’t, can it?”
“I’ll say it can. Loose talk. Five years minimum is my guess – not that my guess is any better than anybody else’s.”
He prowled around the room. His somber expression did not lighten.
“I knew it,” the woman said at length. “You to – even after the last one . . . You haven’t said anything, so I thought, perhaps . . . “
I know I didn’t. There was always the chance that we wouldn’t get drawn into it. If you say so, though, I’ll stay home.”
“Am I apt to? I let you go when you were really in danger. . .”
“What do you mean by that crack?” he interrupted.
“Regulations. One year too old – Thank Heaven!”
‘So what? Theyll need technical experts, bad. They’ll make exceptions.”
“Possibly. Desk jobs. Desk officers don’t get killed in action – or even wounded.
Why, perhaps, with the children all grown up and married, we won’t even have to be separated.”
“Another angle – financial.”
“Pooh! Who cares about that? Besides, for a man out of a job . . .”
“From you, I’ll let that one pass. Thanks, Eunie – you’re an ace. I’ll shoot ‘em a wire.”
The telegram was seat. The Kinnisons waited. And waited. Until, about the middle of January, beautifully-phrased and beautifully-mimeographed letters began to arrive.
“The War Department recognizes the value of your previous military experience and appreciates your willingness once again to take up arms in defense of the country .
. . Veteran Officer’s Questionnaire . . . please fill out completely . . . Form 191A . . .
Form 170 in duplicate . . . Form 315 . . . Impossible to forecast the extent to which the War Department may ultimately utilize the services which you and thousands of others have so generously offered . . . Form . . . Form . . . Not to be construed as meaning that you have been permanently rejected . . . Form . . . Advise you that while at the present time the War Department is unable to use you . . .”
“Wouldn’t that fry you to a crisp?” Kinnison demanded. – What in hell have they got in their heads – sawdust? They think that because I’m fifty one years old I’ve got one foot in the grave – I’ll bet four dollars that I’m in better shape than that cursed Major General and his whole damned staff!”
“I don’t doubt it, dear.” Eunice’s smile was, however, mostly of relief. “But here’s an ad -it’s been running for a week.”
“CHEMICAL ENGINEERS . . . shell loading plant . . . within seventy-five miles of Townville . . . over five years experience . . . Organic chemistry . . . technology . . . explosives . . .”
“They want you,” Eunice declared, soberly.
“Well, I’m a Ph.D. in Organic. I’ve had more than five years experience in both organic chemistry and technology. If I don’t know something about explosives I did a smart job of fooling Dean Montrose, back at Gosh Whatta University. I’ll write ‘em a letter.”
He wrote. He filled out a form. The telephone rang. “Kinnison speaking . . . yes . .
. Dr. Sumner? Oh, yes, Chief Chemist . . . That’s it – one year over age, so I thought . . .
Oh, that’s a minor matter. We won’t starve. If you cant pay a hundred and fifty I’ll come for a hundred, or seventy five, or fifty . . . That’s all right, too. I’m well enough known in my own field so that a title of Junior Chemical Engineer wouldn’t hurt me a bit . . . O.K., I’ll see you about one o’clock . . . Stoner and Black, Inc., Operators, Entwhistle Ordnance Plant, Entwhistle, Missikota . . . What! Well, maybe I could, at that . . .
Goodbye.”
He turned to his wife. “You know what? They want me to come down right away and go to work. Hot Dog! Am I glad that I told that louse Hendricks exactly where he could stick that job of mine!”
“He must have known that you wouldn’t sign a straight salary contract after getting a share of the profits so long. Maybe he believed what you always say just before or just after kicking somebody’s teeth down their throats; that you’re so meek and mild – a regular Milquetoast. Do you really think that they’ll’ want you back, after the war?” It was clear that Eunice was somewhat concerned concerning Kinnison’s joblessness but Kinnison was not.
“Probably. That’s the gossip. And I’ll come back – when hell freezes over.” His square jaw tightened. “I’ve heard of outfits stupid enough to let their technical brains go because they could sell – for a while – anything they produced, but I didn’t know that I was working for one. Maybe I’m not exactly a Timid Soul, but you’ll have to admit that I never kicked anybody’s teeth out unless they tried to kick mine out first.”
* * *
Entwhistle Ordnance Plant covered twenty-odd square miles of more or less level Iand.
Ninety-nine percent of its area was “Inside the fence.” Most of the buildings within that restricted area, while in reality enormous, were dwarfed by the vast spaces separating them; for safety-distances are not small when TNT and tetryl by the ton are involved.
Those structures were built of concrete, steel, glass, transite, and tile.
“Outside the Fence” was different. This was the Administration Area. Its buildings were tremendous wooden barracks, relatively close together, packed with the executive, clerical, and professional personnel appropriate to an organization employing over twenty thousand men and women.
Well inside the fence but a safety-distance short of the One Line – Loading Line Number One – was a long, low building, quite inadequately named the Chemical Laboratory. “Inadequately” in that the Chief Chemist, a highly capable if more than a little cantankerous – Explosives Engineer, had already gathered into his Chemical Section most of Development, most of Engineering, and all of Physics, Weights and Measures, and Weather.
One room of the Chemical Laboratory – in the comer most distant from Administration – was separated from the rest of the building by a sixteen-inch wall of concrete and steel extending from foundation to roof without a door, window, or other opening. This was the laboratory of the Chemical Engineers, the boys who played with explosives high and low; any explosion occurring herein could not affect the Chemical Laboratory proper or its personnel.