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Show page 200 Mac?" McFall looked around, trying to see his questioner. His mouth hung open. He looked a l i t t l e stupid. Thompson felt sorry for him. "I just messed up," McFall said, one large hand rubbing his thigh. This stopped the questioning. Kessler and his cronies took charge of McFall. They took him to the laundry where those who stayed in the stockade all day listened to the radio, played cards, or s l e p t . Kessler asked the commandant, Captain Black, to put McFall to work tending the boiler. Black agreed, but balked at putting McFall in Kessler's barracks. Instead he assigned McFall a bunk next to Thompson's in Thompson's barracks. McFall d i d n ' t t e l l his story to Thompson a l l at once, only by degrees. He would look at Thompson suspiciously while talking, as though he had seen him somewhere before. McFall seemed not to trust anyone too much; i t had not been a part of his l i f e . His father was a foundry worker. His mother had had seven years of school, then worked in a laundry folding shirts u n t i l she married and began the production of ten children, Lovett the f i f t h . Overseas McFall had been a good soldier u n t i l he went absent without leave. "The f i r s t sergeant promised me leave after we captured an enemy squad, but he wanted us to go out again," McFall said to Thompson. "I hitched a r i d e into town with some joe with cans of gasoline. The place was a sight to me, wide open. Boy, I sure f e l t good, free as a bird. The sun was shining on my face through the windshield, people were everywhere, a l l out in the s t r e e t s. We iust crawled along , looking and waving." |