Polly Chesbro went through the ranks of litters to the one on which
the burgess lay. A nurse in the pinstriped cotton fatigue uniform had
shoved a thermometer under his tongue and was looking at her watch.
"How is he, Lieutenant?" Polly asked.
The nurse whipped out the thermometer, read it, jotted down a figure on
her clipboard and said, "Holding his own. Excuse me." She shook down
the thermometer, popped it into a glass that held many thermometers,
picked out another one and slipped it under the tongue of the person
in the next litter, a girl of ten with a dry, burning face and dry,
burning eyes.
In the marble lobby of the schoolhouse Mickey Groff was studying an
extraordinary organization that had sprung up within a very few hours.
Card tables had been set up and conference tables dragged from offices
and classrooms. For an ad-hoc government with the wires out you wanted
everything under one roof, in one room, instead of scattered through a
town hall. When a man came to you with trouble you could fix, this way
there was no phone to pick up; this way you called across the room and
things happened fast.
There were two main centers around the fire chief and the police chief.
They retained roughly their old jurisdictions, respectively over the
destructiveness of nature and the cussedness of man. While Groff
watched, a woman came coolly to the fire chief in her turn to say that
her undermined house was beginning to sag and she had twenty refugees.
They had gone out into the street, could he find places for them? And,
as an afterthought, could they do anything about the house? The fire
chief called to three boy scouts, part of his combined field force and
housing records. One knew a big thirteen-room place on the outskirts
which, when he last checked, had only twelve people in it. Thirteen
rooms. Space for twenty more. And the house?
"George," the fire chief called to a brassarded man, "get some people,
a dozen if you can, and see if you can do anything about Mrs. Comden's
place. She says it's beginning to lean badly. Be a pity to see it go
now."
George, an electric-company rigger, said, "What kind of a house, Mrs.
Comden? How big? Which way's it going?"
"Frame. Two-story, eight rooms. It's going into the street, maybe gone
by now, I don't know."
"What's in the back yard? Do you have a back yard?"
She passed her hand vaguely across her forehead, brushing back her
hair. "Back yard? Just a back yard. A vegetable garden..."
"Good," said George with satisfaction. "I know where there's some wire
rope and oil drums. We'll dig in the drums for deadmen and anchor the
house to them with the rope. I'll need a truck, Chief."
"You get a car," the chief said. "Sorry." He scribbled a note which
would go to the guardian of the improvised motor pool outside. George
walked off with it slowly, collecting waiting men. He picked them
big and burly. The woman trailed apathetically after. The chief was
already engaged with a man who wanted a gang to clear away snapped
and fallen electrical cables which would set his house afire--and, as
an afterthought, the neighborhood it was in--the instant current came
through again. He got two men with axes and a felling saw to cut away
the fallen tree that had brought down the cables.
It was getting dim in the marble lobby, in spite of the tall windows.
On a couple of the card tables candles stuck in their own wax were
being lit; across the room somebody was pumping up a Coleman lamp. It
lit, in a dazzling green-white flare, and the gloom was gone for a
while.
On the police chief's side the reports were more bitter. "Goons from
across the river, Red. So far they're just hanging around and talking
it up, but they've got bottles. It's just a matter of time before they
get brave enough to smash my window and grab the furs. There's a dozen
of them and I've got to have at least six men. So help me, if I don't
get six men I'm going to kill the first drunken s.o.b. that makes a
move at our place. I've got my brother there with the shotgun now--"
"Skip the rest, Pete. You and your brother are two able-bodied men and
you've got a shotgun. You don't need any help."
"I don't _want_ to blast 'em!" the furrier wailed. "Why do we hire you
guys, anyway?"
"We're spread too thin, Pete. We'll send the patrol car past and put
a scare into your friends, but don't expect us to tie up six men for
every shop on Broad Street. We're spread too thin and we have to keep
moving. Matter of fact, I ought to let your brother handle the store
himself and deputize you right here and now."
"No you don't, Red!" The man backed away and was gone.
A wide-eyed scout darted up and gave old Red the three-fingered salute.
"Big fight, Chief, down on the river, foot of Sullivan. I don't know
what it's about, maybe one of the boats--"
The chief yelled at two waiting men in Legion caps: "Take a car.
They're trying to take over one of the ferries at Sullivan Street.
Break it up and keep patrolling the river. We've got to keep the boats
in our hands." The men stolidly moved off to the car pool.
Mickey Groff knew by then where he'd be useful. He went up to the
chief's table and said, "I'd like to be deputized."
The old man stared at him. "And go looting with a badge? Who're you,
mister? I haven't seen you in town before."
"Mickey Groff. From New York. I came in to see your burgess about
taking over the old Swanscomb Mill for a factory of mine."
"Groff. Henry talked about your offer. All right--Groff." The old man
suddenly grinned. "Think I'll even trust you with a gun. Know how to
use one?"
"Yes. The army."
The chief snorted. "Army! I hoped you might be a hunter. Well, maybe
you'll do. Put up your hand."
Groff did.
In a rapid mumble the old man asked him whether he swore to uphold and
defend the laws and constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, so help
him God. Groff said he would, and the old man said he hereby appointed
him a special deputy policeman of the Borough of Hebertown. "And," he
added, "I sure hope this is legal because I've been doing it all day.
Sign your name on this list. Clarence, give this man a thirty-eight.
Have you got a handkerchief, mister? No? Clarence, give the man a clean
handkerchief to tie around his arm."
He clanked down an enormous revolver and five cartridges on the table.
"Five?" Groff asked.
"Army!" the chief snorted. "The chamber under the hammer is kept empty
in civilian life, Groff. Let me see you load it."
Fishing in his memory, Groff broke the revolver, set the safety, loaded
it and closed it, being very careful where he pointed the thing.
The chief said, "I guess I won't have to take it back after all. Now
you stick around and wait. Talk to Murphy over there. He's been a
deputy before this."
Murphy was small and quiet. He volunteered that he was a plumber and
that there'd be a lot of work for him after all this was over. He
showed Groff how to carry his pistol in the waistband of his pants
and said cautioningly, "Of course we ain't going to use them, you
understand."
Groff, who had his doubts about it, said he understood and watched
while a battery-operated receiver-transmitter on another of the card
tables came to life under the ministrations of a sixteen-year-old boy.
The fire chief and the police chief both charged over; so after a while
did a doctor from the outside when the word reached him. The three
tried simultaneously to dictate messages to the bulldozed teen-ager.
The fire chief wanted chemical trucks sent in, as many as could be
rounded up. The police chief wanted National Guardsmen, at least a
battalion. The doctor wanted to know where the hell the goddam army
field hospital was. It was an interesting fight and Mickey Groff was
sorry when a trouble call came in and he and Murphy missed the end of
it.
* * * * *
The man in the Legion cap said, "You best give me that gun, fella. I
can handle it."
"So can I," said Mickey Groff. He wasn't nasty about it; but the man in
the Legion cap shrugged and let it go. "This the place?" Groff asked as
the car stopped.
"This is the place." The Legionnaire scowled worriedly. "They took all
the boats across the river. You see anything over there?"
Groff got out of the car and looked. It was full dark now, and the
river was wide. There were lights of some kind on the opposite bank,
but he couldn't have told you what they were. Flashlights and electric
lanterns, most likely.
But they looked a little bit close.
Groff ordered, "Turn the car to the right. Put the brights on." The
Legionnaire cramped the wheels around and inched forward. He kicked the
button of the highway-beam headlights.
"They're coming, all right," said Groff. Shapes were lying on the
water, punctuated with hand lights.
"Sons of bitches," said the Legionnaire bitterly. "Now there'll be hell
to pay. Four of us against every goddam goon on the river--and Harry
and me ain't even got guns."
"Take it easy, Walt," Murphy said. But in the reflection from the
headlights Groff could see his face was worried.
Murphy, who had appointed himself in charge of the detail, sent the
Legionnaire named Walt after the Legionnaire named Harry; and he
disposed them as best he could. Groff got the place of honor--he had
a gun. He was put on the end of a little loading jetty; Murphy took a
position on a floating landing platform; Walt and Harry were left to
stand by the car, to keep the lights on the boats.
And the boats came on, four of them, put-putting through the water in
convoy formation. Funny, thought Groff abstractedly; if I were them
I'd come ashore upstream a little way. This is the natural place for
deputies to be waiting for them. If they used their heads they'd know
that, and they'd come ashore somewhere else--
He thanked his lucky stars that the goons evidently were not using
their heads.
Harry, behind the wheel of the car, was making a fantastic amount
of racket grinding gears, racing the motor, shifting back and forth
to pick out one boat after another with the headlights. Damn fool,
thought Groff aggrievedly. He could hardly hear the deputy named Murphy
shouting at the approaching boats. There was some kind of answer from
them, but he couldn't make that out at all.
But they were getting close.
Groff carefully dropped to one knee, rested his hand with the revolver
in it on the railing of the jetty, and took aim at the lead boat. How
long had it been since he'd fired the pistol-dismounted qualifying
range? Nearly fifteen years, he guessed; it was in the first few
months of basic training, and always after that it had been a carbine
or an M-1.
Somebody was coming up behind him.
Good God, he thought, they've made another landing! He started to turn.
It was the man Walt, grabbing for the gun. "Leggo, you!" he panted,
clutching at the revolver. "If you're too yellow to shoot let me have
it!"
Walt was no kid; he was in his late fifties at the least. But he was
big and solid, and Groff was off balance. For a moment he staggered at
the end of the jetty, Walt leaning on him....
They both went in.
The water was cold and the current was fast. What became of the
revolver Groff didn't know. He broke surface, spluttering and choking.
Walt was splashing right beside him. "Help me!" he bawled. "For God's
sake, help me! I can't swim!"
Groff had one bitter moment of temptation--let him drown! cried his
subconscious. But then the decision was out of his hands. Walt flailed
toward him and caught him. Groff went under, choking; he struggled
upward, carrying the panicky man with him, got a breath, went under
again--
The next time he came to the surface someone was there to grab him.
The goons! Instinctively he tried to fight free, but somebody in the
boat had a good grip on his arm. They hauled him in, and another boat
had Walt.
"You all right?" one of the men in the boat demanded anxiously. Groff
said dizzily, "Sure. But--"
"Take it easy," said the man in the boat. "We'll take you up to the
emergency center. We figured you people'd need some help, so after we
got things under control on our side we came on over." He said proudly,
"They thought I was nuts, keeping after everybody to join the Civil
Defense squads. I guess they'll change their minds now!"
Chief Brayer was looking a little ashamed of himself, but he recovered
quickly. All the men from the other side of the river had guns; all of
them were personally vouched for by the Civil Defense man; they made
valuable reinforcements for the exhausted deputies Brayer had been
swearing in.
They found dry clothes for Groff, and Brayer put him in charge of the
dispatcher's desk to give him a chance to warm up. It had turned windy
with nightfall.
There was a commotion outside, and a couple of state troopers came in.
Groff looked past them; there was a dignified-looking old man, somebody
of importance, by the way the troopers stood by him.
And with him were Artie Chesbro and Sharon Froman.
Groff stood up to get a better look. Chesbro glanced around the room,
caught Groff's eye, looked away, gave him a fishy smile, spoke to the
dignified-looking old man, and shepherded him out of the room, along
with Chief Brayer and a couple of other top men.
Something didn't smell good. Groff called another deputy over and asked
him to take care of the desk. He walked over to one of the troopers and
said: "Who's that you came in with?"
The trooper said, "Congressman Akslund, that's the old guy. The other
fellow's some kind of local big shot, I guess. You ought to know him
better than me."
Local big shot.
Mickey Groff looked thoughtfully at the door Chesbro and the
congressman and the village elders had gone out through.
Back at the filling station. The night Zehedi had died. What was Sharon
Froman selling Chesbro? "A big regional organization to fight back
against the inroads of the South. You and me, Mr. Chesbro."
You and me--and Congressman Akslund, it looked like.
Mickey Groff shook his head, half-enraged, half-admiring. You had to
hand it to Chesbro; he always kept his eye on the ball.