Once an Eagle

  “This must be pretty damned dull for you, Sam,” Downing said all at once. “Having to sit and listen to all this.”

  “Not at all. It’s very interesting.”

  Nickerson snorted, and Edgar laughed and said, “Your father-in-law would say we haven’t gone to the heart of the problem. I can just hear him. Simply a matter of studying all the factors involved and taking the most effective course. Or—what’s that other phrase he likes?”

  “Bringing the proper point of leverage to bear,” Headley supplied with his thin smile. Forst laughed, and even Nickerson gave a sardonic grin. This made Damon angry. George Caldwell wouldn’t fumble around for half an hour talking about everything but the point at issue, he thought; where do you get off, making fun of him? But he held his temper.

  Downing must have seen something in his eyes, however, for he leaned forward over his elbows. “All kidding aside, Sam, how would you handle something like this in the Army?”

  Damon set down his glass. “Well, I’m probably talking out of turn—God knows I don’t know anything about business methods and problems. But we once had a situation pretty much like this in France in terms of priorities—which I gather are the main issue here. Why not treat it like a combat loading problem? work up a set of stencils with priority symbols—a yellow triangle for top priority, say; then a red diamond for second, and a blue shield for third. With line numbers above and number of parcels for that particular shipment below. And the railway people would treat them accordingly.”

  “You don’t know the lot crew, Sam,” Headley interposed. “You’d never get Karl Preis to adopt any newfangled scheme involving colored cartoon pictures, even if it would solve the problem. I can tell you that.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Downing said. “Why shouldn’t he go for it?” The others were silent but Damon could feel their disapproval. A peacetime soldier telling them what to do with their plant? Nerve of the guy. But there was also something else—that sense he’d had earlier that there was a missing piece to the puzzle.

  “Why couldn’t we do that?” Edgar demanded. “I like it. Sweet and simple. Just what we need—cut through some of the fuzz around the place.”

  “Karl won’t like it, Ed,” Nickerson said.

  “Maybe he won’t.” Downing puffed hard at his cigar. “Maybe it’s time everybody stopped worrying so everlastingly about Karl Preis.” He hitched himself around in his chair. “Say, how’d you like to come to work for us, Sam? Tomorrow morning. I mean it. Be a hell of a lot more fun than sitting on your fanny at the beach all day long.” He pulled at his cigar again, his eyes glinting. “I don’t image a young fellow like you would want to lie around like a drone for the better part of two months.”

  Damon finished lighting a cigarette. Edgar’s face was genial, ruddy from all the alcohol, but his eyes held that bright measured gleam he remembered from Mr. Thornton, from Congressman Bullen, Colonel Weyburn, Colonel Howden. It was the look that meant: All of life is a series of bargains; I am power—and my wishes, my suggestions and speculations are not without their own aura of authority. Oh yes; there was rank here, all right. It was the way the world was; he had learned that early and well. Watching Downing’s eyes, the impatient, restless hands, he understood. It was a deal; this was in return for the use of the caretaker’s cottage.

  And there was something else that pressed for recognition. He remembered the night of the fracas with Batchelder at Benning, and later in their bedroom Tommy’s question: Are you afraid, Sam? A born competitor, constitutionally unable to resist a direct challenge from any quarter, he wanted to do this—he wanted to show her he could make a go of it in a civilian job, no matter how difficult or thorny it might be. Then too, the extra money, whatever it came to, would be handy. It would give them a little leeway.

  “Why, I’d be glad to go to work for you,” he said. “If you feel I can be of any help.”

  “Good,” Downing said, and slapped the table. “That’s what I like—a man who can make up his mind fast. Who knows what he wants.” He glared at Nickerson. “There’s too damn many milksops and mollycoddles around these days.”

  They talked a while longer, and then Marilyn came in and broke it up. Back at the cottage Tommy threw herself on the wide double bed and flung both arms out. “Now this is more like it, Sam.” She crowed softly. “Now why can’t the blessed Army match this?”

  “It will—when I’m post commandant,” he said. “Uncle Edgar is post commandant here.”

  Looking up she made a face at him. “This is—not—a—post,” she declared. “It’s heaven on Lake Erie, and we’re here! No demands, no obligations. Sam, kiss me thunderously.” He complied. “Oh, this is going to be ambrosial!” She rolled over on top of him, her hands locked around his neck. “I feel as if school’s out. Reform school, that is … Sam, tomorrow let’s go down to the lake and picnic. Just lie around all day and swim and eat. Marilyn says there’s a lovely little point that’s all grassy and secluded.”

  Damon drew a breath. “Afraid I can’t do that, honey. You take the kids down and I’ll join you later on.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got to get up early. I’m going to work at the plant.”

  She let go his neck and bounced to a sitting position. “You’re kidding!”

  “Not at all. Starting tomorrow I’m employed as troubleshooter in the logistics section, which appears to be in a bit of a snarl.” Briefly he told her about it.

  “But Sam—that’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “We’re here on vacation … what’s he paying you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know—!” A curious look came into her eyes. “Why did you take it?”

  “A lot of reasons. We can use the money. And we’re their guests, you know. He suggested it.”

  She waved one hand in distress. “But this isn’t the Army—a suggestion doesn’t constitute a command …”

  He smiled at her. “Well. It does and it doesn’t. We do owe the Downings something for all this lakeside luxury. And he asked for my help. Besides,” he went on, “it won’t have to cramp our vacation much. You and the kids will have the lake and the tennis court. I’ll be home every evening; and we’ll have the weekends together.”

  She dropped her eyes, and he knew what she was thinking: If he did well, if the salary he got was a good one—and it probably would be—he might be tempted to resign from the service and stay on here, to move up in this heady world of business; the children could go to private school, and soon they’d have a house like this on the Lake, with gardens and smoothly cropped lawns and a new Packard standing on the drive. All the comforts. Hanging his trousers neatly on a hanger he bit his lips. Was he being fair to her? He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t. All he knew was that he had to do it.

  The men came out of the sheds casually, watching him—the quick, covert, faintly defiant glance men give when they’ve been corking off. Damon knew it well enough—he’d done it himself on occasion. There would be a coffeepot on a hot plate in a cleared space among the crates and cartons, and a few tins of doughnuts or pastry, and some battered magazines. But this was 8:30 in the morning.

  The last man out was big, and run to fat, with a round, chinless face and shrewd little brown eyes that crinkled jovially as he smiled. He called: “Hi there, Art. What’s on your mind this fine morning?”

  “Hello, Karl,” Headley said. “You’re looking very chipper.”

  “It’s my bouncing personality, Art—that’s what you’re seeing.” He laughed, eying Damon. “Who’s your friend here?”

  “Karl, I’d like you to meet Sam Damon. Sam, Karl Preis.” They shook hands. “Karl’s been running the lot here for more years than most of us care to remember.”

  “More years than most of you can remember,” Preis answered, and some of the lot crew laughed softly.

  “That’s right.” Headley paused. He was hoping to get over the next hurdle with one of his witticisms, and it wouldn??
?t come. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “Boys, this is Sam Damon—he’s an officer in the Army, and he’s an expert on shipping. Mr. Downing has sent him down to see if there’s anything he can do to help us straighten things out a little bit here, during his leave. Now, he’s outlined a couple of schemes concerning priority shipments that sound pretty good to us. Mr. Downing wants you to give him a hand in any way you can, while he takes a look at things.”

  There was no response to this, and Headley went on rapidly, to cover the silence. Preis was staring at Damon with his bemused, crinkly smile. A show-off, Sam thought quickly. A blusterer, a bully; and Headley is afraid of him. He had been mildly surprised when Downing had sent Headley down to the lot with him instead of coming down here with him himself. The best way to delegate authority—assuming that was what you wanted to do—was to delegate it directly.

  “Well, I guess that’s about all,” Headley concluded. “I know you’ll all of you do a great job.” He turned to Sam. “I’ll see you in the office at four thirty.” He walked away quickly.

  There was a short silence and then Karl Preis strolled up to him. “Well, Mr. Damon. What’s on your mind?”

  “First, I’d like to check against these.” He held out the sheaf of manifests in his right hand.

  Preis laughed genially. “That’s a tall order. Those sheds are crammed to bursting. Besides, we got a loading detail around eleven.”

  “Well, let’s work on it till then.”

  They went into the first shed and Damon started checking against the office manifests. There was a solid wall of cartons reaching all the way to the roof. St. Dizier, he thought: the same thing. Everything dumped in helter-skelter, no order or plan. They don’t know what they’ve got, or where it is.

  “How is it you didn’t leave more alleys?” he asked.

  Preis gave his indulgent laugh. “Space, Mr. Damon. The way things have been going, space is at a premium.”

  “Then couldn’t some of it be stacked on skids outside, under tarps?”

  “There’s no need for that. I’ve got it all in my head.”

  Damon nodded; he would have to make his first move right now. He said, “Well. Let’s take a look, anyway.”

  The fat man was incredulous. “You mean move all that stuff?”

  Damon smiled at him and took off his jacket. “Looks like the only way, doesn’t it?”

  “Aw, now look—”

  But Sam cut him off flatly. “Mr. Downing told me expressly he wanted a complete and accurate inventory of the lot. And that’s what we’re going to do. Now let’s get on it, all right?”

  Preis’s shrewd little eyes narrowed. “Where you going to put it all?”

  “Right outside there. It’s a nice day.”

  “Okay. It’s your funeral.” He turned to the lot crew and called off several names. “Mr. Damon’s planning to empty out the sheds this morning.” There was some laughter and a wiry man in a pale blue shirt called, “What in hell for?”

  “He’s going to check against the office lists,” Preis went on with his jovial smile, and there was more laughter. “All right. Some of you give him a hand.”

  They began moving cartons outside and stacking them on pallets. The summer heat had gathered high up under the tin roofs, and before long Damon’s shirt was soaked through. Preis watched them from the doorway, his hands in his over-all pockets. It wasn’t long before Sam found what he imagined he would—a number of containers with markings different from those listed on the sheets.

  “These are three-ninety-threes,” he said to Preis. “What? Yeah, that’s right.”

  “But according to the manifest they ought to be in Number Seven. What are they doing in here?”

  “Oh, that.” Preis shrugged. “It was nearer the siding. I’ve got it all in my head.”

  That told him all he needed to know. If this was how it was in the first shed he’d tackled, this was how it would probably be in all the others. He thought of Tommy taunting him once when he’d drawn duty as mess officer down at Dormer. “You want everything all to be so organized—what binkle-bankle difference does it make?”

  “We’ll have to move them,” he said aloud. “To Number Seven.”

  “What?” Preis cried. “What’s the sense in that? Number Seven’s full up, anyway.”

  “Then we’ll have to make room there, too.”

  The lot superintendent muttered under his breath. “Damon, I’m telling you, you’re just making work for yourself.” As though explaining something to a child, he said: “Number Seven was full, so I had these run in here.”

  “Is that why they didn’t go out on the twenty-third?”

  Preis blinked, and then his face began to turn red. “Look, the office—some dame types up a list and they think they’ve solved it all. There’s no need for it, I can tell you…”

  Damon smiled to himself. It was marvelous: it was fantastic. All those fancy cocktails and liqueurs, and Radio stock soaring to 400, and flying trips to New York and Chicago—and they couldn’t cope with one barrel-bellied bully who was blocking all the traffic.

  “Preis,” he said quietly, “these three-ninety-threes are going to be moved over to Number Seven.”

  The big man swore. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Damon.”

  “No? I’ll make a little bet with you. Just a friendly little bet of twenty dollars. I’ll bet there are some more three-ninety-threes back in here. And part of at least three other lines. All tangled up.”

  Preis opened his mouth to shout, then stopped. The sweat lay in the folds of his neck. Very slowly, he grinned. “Damon,” he said, “suppose you and I have a little talk about how things are around this lot.”

  The lot gang had stopped and were listening avidly now. Sam set down the sheaf of manifests on a carton. “All right, you tell me. How are they?”

  “This lot is running fine just the way it is.”

  “Is it?”

  “And that’s the way it’s going to remain. Just like it is.”

  “Preis,” Damon said, “you’ll do as I say, and you’ll do it at once.”

  The lot foreman swore violently, and then laughed. “Is that right? On whose authority, Damon?”

  “Mr. Downing’s.”

  “You want to go running to Ed Downing, is that it? get me fired?”

  “No, I’m not going to go running to Mr. Downing.”

  Preis gave the quick, ugly laugh again. “You bet you aren’t! My old man owned half this factory—”

  “I’m not impressed by your old man.”

  “—and I got a hefty interest in it right now … Go ahead,” he shouted, “you go ahead and run up to Ed Downing and see what he tells you …”

  Several of the work gang laughed, and the wiry man in the blue shirt said, “That’s telling him, Karl!”

  This had happened before, then. Periodically some sacrificial lamb had been sent down here to “straighten things out”; and each time the magnitude of the chaos and Preis’s bullying had sent him back with his tail between his legs, and the lot had gone from bad to worse.

  But this time it wasn’t going to turn out that way.

  “Preis,” he said softly, setting himself, “I’m not going to go running to anybody at all. I’m going to tell you one more time to empty this shed. And if you give me any more talk—any more at all!—we’re going to step outside this shed and I’m going to beat some sense into your stupid head.”

  The fat man’s jaw dropped, his eyes bugged out. “—I got a bad back,” he said loudly.

  “Is that right.”

  “Yes, that’s right—you don’t believe me? Look here, then …” and he slipped the straps of his over-alls and wrenched up his shirt, revealing a broad white girdle bristling with bone and straps and buckles. “Everybody knows that …”

  Damon grinned at him. “Well you see, I didn’t. I thought it was all beer.”

  Someone in the lot crew snorted, and Preis, his face purple, began to shout.
“You lay a hand on me and my boys’ll take care of you fast enough, you’ll see!”

  Sam smiled at the gang, watching them; they were still enjoying the fun, though in a slightly different way: he could sense the change now. “Well, I certainly don’t want to take on the whole crowd,” he said easily. “I thought this was just between you and me, Preis.”

  “This isn’t the Army, you know, Damon—you’re not ordering buck privates around here—”

  “Right as rain, chief.”

  “Why don’t you get the hell on back to your polo ponies and riding britches and officers’ clubs and let us run this lot our way, okay?” Preis waved one arm toward the factory. “What do you know about any of this? Hell’s bells, you couldn’t even make it on the outside—or why else did you stay in? Tell me that, ah?”

  “…The food,” Damon said in an easy, drawling voice. “I stayed in for the food, Preis.”

  The man in the blue shirt laughed wildly at this, and several of the others were grinning. It was going to be all right from here on. The foreman must have sensed it, too—he was waving his arms again and shouting: “All right, we’re going up to Ed Downing right now, Damon, we’re going to settle this right away—”

  Now was the moment. Right now. He walked up to Preis until his face was only inches from the super’s. “Preis, you’ve been goldbricking on this lot for years and you know it. And everybody else knows it, too. Now you’re going to stay right here and help straighten out this mess because the whole business depends on it.” He could see the uncertainty in the other man’s eyes. Preis wanted to run away, but his pride wouldn’t let him. He looked baffled and angry and frightened: he didn’t know what was going to happen next—and he, Damon, did know. And that made the difference. “This firm is losing customers because the shipments are fouled up, and only because of that. If it loses too many the firm will go under and there will be no jobs in the plant or out here in the lot, either. Have you ever thought of that? Because that’s what will happen.”