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Show Flying - 121 Right here in the tall grass where the tarantulas hide and the sea-winds blow. "Just over those mountains," says Wilberforce pointing west, "is the Pacific Ocean." During the third week of its stay at Camp Roberts the battalion scatters its equipment all about the surrounding hills and lays down a communications net for infantry units of its own invention. It is a good time for John Henry, or would be if Tovar wasn't such a bastard. The Systems Control Van is kept jumping. Teletype messages come in constantly and have to be acknowledged and filed. Officers, even the battalion commander, come into the van every few minutes to glance at the charts and see how things stand with the Fifty-third. Tovar is kept in a worshipful fever. Fingers light and sure on the keyboard, John Henry taps out acknowledgements and queries, lays a loving hand on the machine to feel it quiver and jump when it types out the answers, deftly tears off the messages and hands them to Specialist Tovar who translates the words into symbols for his big charts. Between messages John Henry answers the field telephone beside him. When all is quiet he dreams. Like a dance, like a prayer, like a vast minuet or the chanting of thousands of monks. I sit at the center in my canvas and plywood cell and do my part, step off my steps |
