#tannoy

I was taking a shower in my quarters. It was about seven o'clock, 1900 hours, too early for the field order.

The Bennett voice. "Captain Crosby will report to Group Ops."

What's going on? I had a phone in my room. Why didn't the son-of-a-bitch use it? Why the hell blast my name all over the base? He was calling to me on the Tannoy, the public address system with the British name, which had a huge loudspeaker in every section on the base.

Quickly, because I tried to be a good officer, I turned off the water, toweled myself, and started dressing.

The damned Tannoy again. The voice. Texas and Princeton. "I repeat. Captain Crosby is wanted immediately at Group Ops." Hair still wet, no tie, jacket in hand, I tore out to my jeep and fired it up. Just as I screeched my wheels at the end of the WAAF site, I heard it again.

"Captain Crosby will run, not walk, to Group Ops."

I was furious. I covered the distance to Ops in nothing flat. I jumped over the sideboard of the jeep and into Ops. Two squadron commanders, Group Ops, some other officers, and Bennett were huddled in some kind of talk

"Colonel Bennett," I said, boiling, "I got here as soon as any man could."

I had more to say and I wanted to say it, but he held up his hand, like a traffic cop, stopping me.

"Captain, come into my office."

Into his office we went, he all prim and straight, me steaming, the other officers and the enlisted men white and silent, hurting for me.

They watched us go into the office and they watched through the huge front glass, Lieutenant Colonel John Bennett, sitting at his desk, talking, stern. Captain Harry Crosby, angry, standing at attention, braced, before the desk.

"Captain," he said, his face fixed, firm. "How's your wife?"

Surprise on my face. "What?"

"Your wife, Captain, your wife? I hear you have a nice wife back in the States who gets letters through to you every day." What in the devil was this guy up to?

"I wonder if the good work you do here on the base and in the air is helped by the support you get from home?"

I started to relax a little. I looked around for a chair.

The ice and the steel came back. "Captain," he grated, "you will remain at a-ten-HUT!" Snap. Back in the brace.

And so, for the next ten minutes, the onlookers sweated for me. Old Croz was really getting it.

I finally did get it. This SOB was making an example out of me.

And who better? If he demanded this much of Straight Arrow Crosby, the rest had better shape up. That guy Bennett even chewed out one of the originals. We better pop to.

His expression never changed. What I suspect was on my face was pure wonderment and awe. We talked about Jean, the University of lowa, and, finally, just a little, about his dreams for the 100th. He told me what I had been feeling.

"The leaders of the 100th think they are making a movie, not fighting a war. We have to get serious." He finished the conversation. We went back to the other men.

"Captain Crosby," Bennett said, "has been ordered not to divulge the contents of our conversation.”

The other officers looked at each other and shivered in their seats.