Corby just smiled and said, “Glad I could help, boys.” He looked at Em and said, “I really am glad you did it, Em. We needed to show Cannon, at least once, that we’re not the stupid hillbillies he thinks we are.”
“I don’t think you’re a hillbilly, son! I know you are!” Jack said in his most impressive imitation of Cannon. The laughter flowed easily again. They talked for over five minutes, which felt like a very long time, before they were ordered outside once more.
The afternoons were starting to heat up in Texas, and several airmen that had eaten too much had to fall out of ranks to throw up. Cannon only halted the flight and waited on them to return. He even let the rest of them stand at ease while they waited. Cannon led them through the residential part of the base. Em saw lots of women but very few men.
After a long hour of marching, Cannon halted them in front of the base theater. When they were told to form a single-file line, it was done quietly. They watched newsreel from the war, and lots of it was shocking to Em. The war was raging all over the world. The fun that he had been having was quickly replaced by images of war.
Cannon marched them in the opposite direction of the barracks when they left the theater. He let Em and his laundry crew head back to shower and prepare for the double laundry day. Em had to dress in a clean uniform. He was not happy about pulling it from his inspection-ready locker. He stuffed his dirty fatigues into his laundry bag. He put his writing pad in with them. One hundred sets of fatigues would keep them in the laundry room for at least an additional hour and a half. He should have plenty of time to write to Irene. Bam! He remembered it was day 14. Mail! He quickly went to the dayroom to see if there was a small bag. He looked through the glass in the door and saw an empty room. He thought about checking Cannon’s office, but the noise erupting from the stairwell halted him. The rest of the flight had arrived.
Cannon followed them in and went straight to his quarters. He immediately came out with a large duffel bag. Stenciled on the side was US mail. He called for the laundry crew and sent them into the dayroom to sort it. They dumped the contents of the bag onto the floor. Several small packages fell out, along with at least two hundred letters. All Em wanted to do was find the ones with his own name on them and tear them open and read them that second. They began to make piles in an alphabetical order. It did not take long before each of them found an envelope with their own name on it. Em and Jack held their envelopes and looked at each other. Their silence did not hide what they were thinking. They wanted so badly to open them. Logic overruled their haste, and they continued their sorting. Soon, they were down to sorting each pile by name. The S pile was by far the largest. Em had counted at least a dozen addressed to him, most from Irene. He began to smile and soon realized he could not stop. Cannon came in and told them to each get their own mail, gather the laundry, and get it done. They wasted no time. They gathered every set of clothes, all one hundred of them, and double-timed it to the laundry room. Before they filled the washers, each of them read one letter. Em had received the most by far. He counted twenty-two letters. Sixteen were from Irene. Three were from his mom, one from his dad, and one each from his two sisters. He opened one of Irene’s letters first. He had no way of knowing which one came first because the dates were not on the postmark. His small-town post office was behind the times. He opened the envelope carefully and was instantly overcome with emotion. He read:
My dearest Emory,
Six days and it feels as if you have been gone a lifetime. I know this is only the beginning and you are going to be gone for a long time. Never doubt that I will wait for you to come home to me. I don’t think I could live if I believed otherwise.
He read as fast as he could. He began to tear open another before he remembered about the one hundred sets of dirty fatigues. They were not as dirty as he had anticipated. Em realized that the obstacle course day had definitely been choreographed. They were last in line at chow hall, so they got to spend more time there. Also, the rest of the flight would undoubtedly clean the muddy mess they had left behind at the theater and the chow hall while Em and his crew finished the laundry.
Em spent the following three hours just as he wanted. He read some of Irene’s letters multiple times. He tried to answer every question she asked. The only one he could not answer was the one about what his job was going to be. He was going to have to wait a couple more weeks to find that out. He wrote he loved her for at least the tenth time and then counted the pages he needed to mail home. Irene would receive an entire notebook by the time Em was permitted to post his letters.
They finished the laundry. Jack and Em had perfected the routine, and now Summerkamp and McAtee were efficient at putting the laundry in delivery order. When they began to distribute it onto the bunks, they heard noise coming from the latrine. Em knew that was probably only the crew cleaning up after the shower bombardment that had just taken place. He guessed that the rest of the flight was cleaning the base theater. He looked up from the laundry and saw Corby coming his way.
“Hey, Storybook, did you hear from your sweetie? I did.” He held up a letter and grinned that stupid grin of his.
Em looked at the letter in Corby’s hands. He had to admit that the writing looked like Irene’s. He had just spent three hours reading and rereading her letters. He knew her handwriting. What was she doing writing to Corby? Em reached for the letter. Corby jumped back and began to dance around. He held the letter over his head and did what looked to be an Indian tribal dance. He chanted in what Em assumed to be his Indian voice. He was still just a skinny kid from Kentucky even though Em thought he could definitely see some definition in his arms.
Em thought, What the heck? I bet I can still take him. With that thought, he lunged forward and reached out to grab the letter. Corby stepped sideways, but Em was ready for that move. They had been wrestling each other since they were boys. Em knew all of Corby’s moves. They crashed to the floor, rolling over and over until they collided with the legs of one of the bunks. Em grabbed Corby’s arm that held the letter and twisted it behind his back. They were both laughing like idiots. Corby would not let go of the letter.
Their ruckus had attracted attention. A few of the guys had gathered around and were cheering them on. As Em was trying the get the letter, Corby was trying to hand it off to Larry. Once the letter had traded hands, it took Jack one leap. He pinned Larry to the wall. He retrieved the letter and let loose of Larry. As he turned toward Em and Corby, he noticed that no one was smiling anymore.
Em looked at Jack as if he were on fire or something. “What the heck was that about?” Em took the letter out of Jack’s hand and just held it. He kept looking at Jack as though he had never seen him before. Just as he was about to say something, Larry charged at Jack’s back and shoved him into Em. Em instinctively shoved back, and then it really got ugly. Larry was blindly swinging his fists and kicking at Jack. Jack dodged the wild swings easily. He maneuvered himself behind Larry. In one blindingly fast move, he had Larry on his knees and in a headlock. Once again, Em stared at Jack incredulously. Before it could go any further, the familiar sounds of Cannon’s boots came from around the corner.
“Turner, release him at once! You, Daniels, Cook, and Story, in my office!”
Em had never seen him this upset. Why he wanted him and Corby in the office along with Larry and Jack, Em could not quite figure out. He didn’t think Cannon had seen the earlier skirmish, but he supposed they both probably looked flushed and guilty. His fatigues were in complete disarray also. His shirt was only tucked on one side, and he still felt his ears. They were hot from the wrestling. Cannon was no rocket scientist, but in this case, he didn’t have to be.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just paced back and forth in front of the four of them. They stood in a row, all perfectly still, staring straight ahead. The longer he paced, the more his face grew red. Just when Em thought that he must either scream or explode, he calmly
