“Years and years,” Sam answered. “I’d be doing it yet if the Lizards hadn’t come. I’ve got full dentures, top and bottom, so the Army wouldn’t touch me till everything went to hell in a handbasket”
“Yeah, I’ve heard other guys say the same kind of thing,” Grabowski answered, nodding. “But you’re used to playing in a fancy park like this, is what I was getting at.”
Yeager hadn’t thought of Ban Johnson Field as a fancy park. It was just a ballyard, like hundreds of other minor-league parks he’d been through: covered grandstand, bleachers out in back of left and right, advertisements pasted on the boards of the outfield fences-faded, peeling, tattered advertisements now, because nobody in Hot Springs was advertising much of anything these days.
Grabowski went on, “Hell, for me this is like what the Polo Grounds must feel like. City parks’re as hot a ball as I ever played.”
“All depends on how you look at things,” Sam said.
Ristin, who was playing second base, brushed the bag with one foot, then got it between him and the oncoming Yeager. The Lizard dropped down sidearm for the throw to first, giving Sam the choice between sliding and taking the ball right between the eyes. Sam hit the dirt. The ball thumped into Grabowski’s mitt when the GI who’d hit the grounder was still a stride from the bag. “Yer out!” yelled the dogface making like an ump.
Yeager got up and brushed off his chinos. “Pretty double play,” he told Ristin before he trotted off the field. “Can’t turn ’em any better than that.”
“I thank you, superior sir,” Ristin answered in his own language. “This is a good game you Tosevites play.”
When Sam got back to the bench, he grabbed for a towel and wiped his sweaty face. You played ball in Hot Springs in summertime, you might as well have played
“Yeager! Sergeant Sam Yeager!” somebody called from the stands. It didn’t sound like somebody from the crowd-if you called three, four dozen people a crowd. It sounded like somebody looking for him.
He stuck his head out of the dugout. “Yeah? What is it?”
A fellow with a first lieutenant’s silver bar on each shoulder said, “Sergeant, I have orders to fetch you back to the hospital right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said, glad the lieutenant wasn’t getting shirty about the casual way he’d answered. “Let me get out of my spikes and into street shoes.” He did that in a hurry, telling his teammates, “You’ll have to find somebody else for left now.” He took off his baseball cap and stuck his service cap on his head. He wished his pants weren’t dirty, but he couldn’t do anything about that now.
“Shall I come, too?” Barbara asked as he climbed up into the stands and headed toward the lieutenant. She shifted Jonathan from her lap to her shoulder and started to get up.
But Yeager shook his head. “You may as well stay, hon,” he answered. “They wouldn’t be looking for me like this if they didn’t have some kind of duty in mind.” He saw the officer had his hands on his hips, a bad sign. “I better get moving,” he said, and did just that.
They went back to the Army and Navy General Hospital at a fast walk that was close to a trot. Ban Johnson Field was in Whittington Park, out at the west end of Whittington Avenue. They went past the old Catholic school on Whittington, down past Bathhouse Row on Central, and over Reserve to the hospital.
“What’s gone wrong, anyhow?” Yeager asked as they went inside.
The lieutenant didn’t answer, but hustled him along to the offices reserved for top brass. Sam didn’t like that. He wondered if he was in trouble and, if he was, how much trouble he was in. The farther down the row of fancy offices they got, the bigger he figured the trouble might be.
A door with a frosted glass windowpane had a cardboard sign taped to it: BASE COMMANDANT’S OFFICE. Yeager gulped. He couldn’t help it. “Hawkins, sir,” the lieutenant said, saluting a captain sitting at a desk full of papers. “Reporting with Sergeant Yeager as ordered.”
“Thank you, Hawkins.” The captain got up from his desk. “I’ll tell Major General Donovan he’s here.” He ducked into the office behind the antechamber. When he emerged a moment later, he held the door open. “Go on in, Sergeant”
“Yes, sir.” Yeager wished to high heaven the lieutenant had given him a chance to clean up a little before he presented himself to a two-star general. Even if they did call Donovan “Wild Bill,” he wasn’t likely to appreciate sweat and grime and an aroma that clearly announced Yeager had been running around in hot, muggy weather.
No help for that now, though. Sam walked through the door, which the adjutant closed behind him. Saluting, he said, “Sergeant Samuel Yeager, sir, reporting as ordered.”
