what he wanted. He said that was what he wanted. To one of his lieutenants.” Strange’s voice was getting higher, and threatening to crack.
“Yeah, you told me,” Prell said. “I thought it was all fixed up.”
“Well, how would you feel? If you suddenly walked out of the hospital, with a discharge out of the Army?”
“I’d feel terrible,” Prell said. “But I wasn’t him. He wasn’t a Regular Army type”—then he changed that word—“Regular Army guy. I am. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s true,” Strange said, sounding unconvinced. “He was no RA soldier.”
“Listen, Johnny. I’ll be back at Kilrainey in a couple weeks. You just hang on to it. Go talk to Winch about it.”
“Winch won’t talk about it.”
Of course he wouldn’t. That fucker, Prell thought, furiously. “We’ll go over it when I get back. We’ll talk it all out.”
“Sure,” Strange said. “Sure. I’m not flipping out, over it. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Of course I’d want to know. I’m glad you called me,” Prell lied. “Call me here tomorrow, if you want. The day after tomorrow we’ll be in Lincoln, Nebraska.”
“Sure,” Strange said. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry about me, I mean. I’m fine. I’ll see you as soon as you get back.”
“How’s the new outfit doing?” Prell asked.
“Fine. It’s no great outfit. Signal Corps, I’m in. But at least I’m seeing they get some decent hot meals, for a change.”
“I bet they love it,” Prell said, and found he was grinning frantically, at the phone. Idiotically. As if Strange could see him.
“They do. They do. Okay, so long.” The question that followed was a polite afterthought. “How are you doing, out there?”
“Fine,” Prell said. “I guess I’m a natural-born speechmaker.”
“Good.”
The phone clicked off, dead. Prell realized he had been standing up on his feet all this time, and that his legs had begun to hurt him seriously again. He went back to the bed. Then, after he had sprawled back down, the guilts began to attack him.
Guilt because he had not helped Strange as much as he might have on the phone. Guilt because he had not cared more about Landers. Then, guilt because he had not been a better friend to Landers. Why hadn’t he been?
Then finally, the biggest guilt of them all. What was a man like him doing here? Making speeches for a living. He had become an entertainer. Him, and his Medal of Honor. They were a vaudeville team. It was something he had to wrassle with and defeat every day. And every new day it was back again, stronger and more powerful, to be wrassled with and defeated again.
Usually it hit him at this same time of every afternoon. After a day of loose pussyfooting around. He would come back to some hotel, with something great to look forward to, like an evening speech. Or another night of revels with the jolly funsters of Hollywood. All now in US Army uniform. He would lie on his bed, trying to give his legs a couple of hours of rest, and try to battle it
An entertainer. Get people to pay out their money to buy war bonds. Playing on their emotions. A “performer.” With “lighting experts” and “sound experts” and “script writers,” and a “director” and a “producer.” All telling him what to say and how to say it, and how to “act” it. What on earth was he doing here?
Prell had no new answers to the question. The old, simple answer to it was he was here because he wanted to stay in the Army. If he wasn’t here he would be a civilian out on the streets somewhere.
Prell had been over it all before. Long before. He had been over it back when the final decision was made, back in early December. General Stevens, then still only a colonel, had called him in and presented him with the alternatives. There were only the two. Discharge; or sell war bonds. Stevens had kindly been willing to discuss it with him. The two of them had decided it then.
“I know how much you dislike the idea of it,” Stevens said. “But if you want to stay in the Army, I don’t see any other way. There’s just no other way to keep you in. In the shape you’re in.”
The slim, white-haired old West Pointer smiled, and behind his desk pushed back his own chair, looking at Prell in his wheelchair.
“I have to admit I feel a certain personal involvement in this, Bobby.