Free Kid Comes Back by John R. Tunis

window to receive cash. What followed was the most aggravating hour of his life. Everything was ready. They were all but separated from the Army. Almost civilians. A big sign on the door ahead told them to “Move to Next Building for Farewell Speech and Discharge.” But the man first in line at the pay window was short seven dollars and sixty cents. Moreover, he was determined to get it.
    He was a thin, bespectacled boy with the infantry combat badge on his chest and plenty of service ribbons also. He leaned against the window, talking interminably with the harassed clerk inside, while the line lengthened and men started cracking jokes. After twenty minutes the jokes became sour. Someone back of Roy suggested they take up a collection for the bird. But he remained, leaning against the window, shaking his head.
    Time passed. Men behind Roy rolled up their sleeves and cursed the chap at the window in loud tones. He paid no attention. Officers appeared behind the counter, checking the man’s service record, referring to long lists of figures. Endlessly it went on, as the remarks from the long line to the rear grew hotter and hotter. Then there were sudden cheers.
    A finance colonel came round outside and took the recalcitrant soldier into his private office to straighten things out. Roy stepped up. He was handed a check for $89.60 and fifty dollars in cash. The rest of his mustering-out pay was to be sent home. It amounted to almost a thousand dollars.
    Now it was nearly five. Group eighteen dash thirty assembled outside the Finance Building in the rain, and were marched to a church several blocks away. An organ was playing as they came in. When the church was full, and everyone was seated on the wooden benches, a chaplain rose and said a short prayer. Then a lieutenant-colonel gave them their last army talk. He was there to say good-by as a representative of the Armed Services, to ask them to be good citizens as they had been good soldiers, and to thank them on behalf of their commander-in-chief. Next came those wonderful, those blessed words: “You will now step forward when your name is called to receive your honorable discharges.”
    For the last time he heard his name called. “Sergeant Roy Tucker, six four one eight five three four.”
    Roy stood, stepped forward, and saluted. He grasped the hand of the chaplain, who handed him his discharge in a large manila envelope. Then they filed out, moved despite themselves by the ceremony. The rain had stopped. The sun was shining in the west. He stood in the muddy street, unable to believe that he was really out of the Army at last.

CHAPTER 12
    R OY SPENT TWO MONTHS with his grandmother on the farm at home. The Dodgers were hopelessly in the ruck of the pennant race, with no chance whatever of being a contender. Roy had written Jack MacManus, owner of the club, that he would report in Brooklyn later in the summer. So for some weeks he merely lay around, content to be out of the Army and doing nothing, far from orders and commands and reveille at 5:45 A.M. every morning. He slept, he rested and lay in the sunshine. Occasionally he tested his leg. The stiffness in his hip seemed to be lessening, and only when he made quick starts and stops did the pain return. Finally he felt like visiting Ebbets Field.
    It didn’t take long to discover that whereas he was only a sergeant with a number in the Army, he was something special in Brooklyn. A bright-eyed kid, one of a gang lined up at the bleacher windows, spotted him, and immediately he was surrounded by half a hundred autograph seekers asking half a hundred questions simultaneously. Old Jake, the attendant at the player’s gate, saw him coming and greeted him with an enormous grin, and his journey to the dugout was a triumphal procession. Every ten feet someone stopped him to shake hands; everywhere were smiling faces. Now he was back with his gang again.
    It was good to see these old friends, to realize by their expression how