When Harry Blake first came home on
leave, we Model Garage regulars didn't know just how to treat him.
Back before the war he'd taken a job as Gus Wilson's grease monkey a
couple of weeks after graduating from high school, and naturally we older
men had fallen into the habit of kidding him a good deal.
As the years had drifted by and he had developed into a first-class
mechanic, we hadn't changed our half friendly, half patronizing attitude
toward him. Even when his
National Guard regiment had been called into Federal service, we hadn't
taken it very seriously.
But the afternoon not long ago that a few
of us drifted into Gus's shop and found Harry Blake there, we realized that
he wasn't the same old Harry. He
had the kiddish grin we all remembered, but he also had the yellow, blue,
and red triangular insignia of an armored division on his shoulder, the
silver bar of a first lieutenant on his overseas cap, a couple of ribbons on
his chest, and lines around the corners of his mouth that hadn't been there
before.
Gus made a sort of introductory motion,
and said without any kidding in his voice, "Lieutenant Blake - home on a
month's leave after getting himself shot up in
Africa."
But when we asked about his adventures in
Africa and how he got wounded, Harry just shut up
like a scared clam.
A few afternoons after that we dropped
into the Model Garage again and once more found Harry there.
This time he looked more natural.
His uniform coat was draped over the back of a chair.
He had pulled an old pair of overalls over his pants.
There was something wrong with Ez Zacharias's car, and he'd been
helping Gus check it. Having
just located the trouble, they were feeling pretty triumphant.
"That was a tough one," Harry said.
"It was the toughest trouble-shooting,
job I've tackled since - since - "
"Since when?"
Gus demanded.
"Well, since I was over there in
North Africa," Harry said unwillingly.
"I had a trouble-shooting job over there that had me on a spot, and
Gus Wilson got me off it. I mean
his vision got me off it."
"Huh?" Gus said.
"What the dickens do you mean - my vision?"
"Well, that's what it was," Harry
insisted. "It's sort of a long
story."
Gus gave him a push toward a chair.
"You're going to tell it, even if it is,"
he said. "I've been called lot
of things in my time, but this is the first time I've ever been called a
vision, and I want to know how come."
Harry sat down and lit a cigarette.
"Well," he said.
"It was this way. My
armored division was attached to the British First Army when it went into
Tunisia to try to capture
Bizerte.
This night I'm telling you about my tank company was in an assembly
area a few miles from the burg they call Medjez-el-Bab.
"I was maintenance officer, and I had my
section quartered on an abandoned Arab farm about a mile back from the rest
of our outfit. The Luftwaffe
was doing a lot of bombing, so everything had to be blacked out at night,
but we had fixed up a barn with lights and blankets so we would be able to
handle an emergency repair job if we had to.
We were billeted in the farmhouse, which was close to the road.
"Well, about
twelve o'clock that night I was
sitting on my bedroll with my back against the wall, watching my sergeant
and one of the men playing two-handed pinochle.
I'd a lot rather have been in my bag asleep, but I had to guide a
couple of trucks loaded with gasoline up to where our tanks were and the
trucks hadn't showed up yet.
Pretty soon I heard the guard outside shout and a lot of loud talking in the
road. Thinking that the gasoline
trucks had showed up at last, I put on my slicker and started for the door.
But before I got to it someone jerked it open and three men came in.
"They were the three muddiest fellows
I've ever seen. The first man in
was the muddiest of them all. He
was a big, beefy guy, and I could see that he was boiling mad.
When he pulled off his trench coat, I saw that he had two stars on
his shoulders. So I gave him a
snappy salute. He returned it as
though he hated to do it. "You
in command here?" he sort of snarled at me.
"Yes, sir,' I said, and told him my name
and outfit.
"What are you doing back here?" he
snapped. "Why aren't you with
your company?"
"I explained to him that I was
maintenance officer, and that my section was at the farm because it was a
better place for us to do our work than any we could find up with the tanks.
"'Maintenance officer, hey?" he said.
'Know your job?'
"'Yes, sir,' I told him.
"'Know how to fix a Dodge pickup so it'll
run?"
"'Yes, sir,' I said.
"He sat down on a box and began to
pick clods of mud off his pants.
'All right, lieutenant,' he said.
'Fix my pickup. And fix
it fast.
I'm in a hurry.'
"'Yes, sir,' I said.
'What's the matter with your car, sir?'
"The general glared over at one of the
men with him. 'Ask the sergeant
there,' he said. 'He knows all
about cars. He told me so
himself, right after we broke down - the first time.'
"The sergeant's face reddened.
'Some trouble with the fuel line, sir - I guess,' he told me.
"'You guess!' the general roared at him.
'You guess wrong just once more tonight
and I'll take those stripes off your arm!
Go with the lieutenant and tell him what you can about this
dang-blasted crate of yours!'
"Well," Harry continued, "the sergeant
and I went outside. It was
raining cats and dogs. A battery
of guns was firing not far away.
The sergeant sort of groaned.
"My God, sir, what a night", he said.
"'This isn't bad,' I told him.
"'The weather's too thick for bombing, and those guns aren't shooting
our way.'
"'Oh, it ain't the war I mean,' he
said. 'It's the general...Say,
lieutenant, we had to push that jalopy a mile to get here, and the
general fell flat on his face twice.
And I got to go on living with him!'
"My sergeant had routed out some of our
fellows, and I told them to get my pickup and tow the general's, which was
standing in the road, into the barn.
I asked the staff sergeant what had happened the first time his car
had quit on him.
"'I dunno, sir,' he told me.
'We started out early this morning on one of the general's inspection
trips. I told him the mud was so
bad we'd better take a half-track, but he's a pigheaded old - excuse me, sir
- I mean the general said to take the pickup.
We didn't have any trouble all day.
Along about sundown we were on a hill close to the front line, and
some Fritz machine gunner spotted us and sent a burst so close that it
spattered us with stones and mud.
We went off that hill like a bat outta - well, fast.
About half an hour after that the engine began to sputter.
Then it quit dead.'
"'Well, I figured first off that a bullet
had punctured the fuel line and let water get in the gas somehow, but there
wasn't any bullet hole. We had a
five-gallon can of gas with us, so I drained the tank and the fuel-pump
filter and put a couple gallons of fresh gas in the tank.
When I stepped on the starter, she took off fine.
After we'd gone for maybe five miles the engine stopped again.
I drained the fuel line and the tank again, and put the rest of the
gas in. She ran fine for a
couple of miles. Then she
sputtered and quit on me again.
We didn't have any more gas, so there wasn't anything else I could do.
Then the other officer - he's the general's aide - remembered that
your outfit was up this way. So
we pushed the old jalopy here.'"
Harry lighted another cigarette and
looked around at us. "Wait a
minute," Gus told him, and went into the office.
He came back with a bottle of coke and handed it to Harry.
"Fill up your fuel tank before you go on," he said.
Harry grinned and took a long pull.
"We got the general's car into the barn,"
Harry went on. "and went to
work. We checked the ignition,
the spark plugs, and the wiring.
They all were O.K. We drained
the fuel-pump filter and tried the engine, but she wouldn't start.
Then we cleaned out the carburetor and drained the gas tank.
There wasn't any sign of water in the gasoline.
There wasn't any hole in the tank or filter cup through which water
could have been getting into the tank.
The fuel line seemed perfectly tight.
So we filled up the tank and stepped on the starter - and the engine
took off and ran smoothly.
"'That's got her, sir,' my sergeant said.
'I don't know what was the matter with her, but she's all right now.'
"So I said O.K. and started for the house
to tell the general that his car was fixed.
But I'd no sooner got out of the barn than I saw Gus Wilson's vision!
We were working in the shop here, and I'd just finished a job, and he
was telling me, 'Kid, getting a bus to run don't mean a thing if you don't
know why you've got it to run.
Don't ever let a job go out of this shop without knowing what
caused the trouble in the first place.
If you do, it's ten to one it will be back again, and the customer
who brings it in won't be happy.'
"Gus's vision faded out then, and I
realized that I was remembering something he'd told me when I first came to
work for him. I went back into
the barn. 'We're going to do
some double checking on this job before it goes out,' I told the boys.
'Let's get at it.'
"We went over that fuel line inch by inch
without finding anything wrong with it.
The gasoline tank checked O.K.
There is a kick-up in the frame over the rear axle.
I felt along that fuel line one last time for luck.
At the top of the kick-up, at the highest point of the fuel line, I
found something. It was a hole -
a little hole, but water from the wheel splashed up on the line at this
point, and the hole let enough of it leak into the fuel to stop the engine!
"I thought of what the general would have
done if I'd let that heap go out and it had stalled with him again, and
believe me, I thanked Gus Wilson's vision!
We replaced that tube with a new one, and I went in and told the
general that his car was O.K
"'Sure of that?' he growled.
"'Yes, sir," I said.
"'You'd better be!' he snapped.
'Tell that fool sergeant of mine to get going!'"
For a moment after Harry finished nobody
spoke.
"What I don't get," Ez Zacharias said at
last, "is what made the hole in the fuel line."
"Well," Harry told him, "the staff
sergeant and I figured that that machine-gun burst knocked up a stone that
hit the fuel line over the rear axle and punched that hole in it.
What do you think, Gus?"
"That probably was it," Gus said, "Harry,
how about having dinner with me?
I want to celebrate. After all,
it isn't every night I get a general out of a jam in
Africa by remote control!"
END
