by Linda Ellen
“Twelve hundred!” Vivian exclaimed, surprised at the scope of the organization. For some reason, in spite of details Mary June had shared over the months, she had been picturing a room in a basement somewhere with a few dozen people dancing.
“That may seem like a lot, but it really isn’t, as the need just keeps growing. Our doors are open seven days a week, 365 days a year, and we welcome all servicemen. And they come – from Bowman Field, the Charlestown Powder Plant, the Louisville Army Medical Depot and the Naval Ordnance Plant, as well as, of course, Fort Knox. More are added out at Knox every week.”
“My goodness…I feel as if I’ve been hiding under a rock or something…I didn’t realize,” Vivian murmured.
The director nodded as she sat back to continue, warming to the subject so close to her heart. “Many are away from home for the first time, and are nervous about an unknown future, which is totally understandable. The boys were coming to Louisville and prowling the streets, looking for something to do – and at times getting themselves in some kind of trouble. Many would get drunk and miss the bus back to their base, and some would wind up sleeping in the park!” She shook her head, her concern for her “boys” evident in her expression.
“Well, now they have a safe place to come. The club is here to make sure that soldiers are surrounded by good, moral influences, so alcohol is not served, but we provide plenty of hot coffee, doughnuts, sandwiches and soft drinks at all times. We have a good group of matrons and grandmothers who volunteer – our senior hostesses. They provide a shoulder to lean on, a reminder of their mothers. They sew and bake for the soldiers and sailors. Then, our junior hostesses remind the boys of girls back home. They chat with the fellows, play cards, ping pong, board games, and other wholesome fun that keeps our service men out of trouble and away from the bars and…” she cleared her throat and added, “houses of ill repute.” Vivian felt her face redden a bit at the director’s forthrightness.
“All right, then,” Miss Warren handed a piece of paper to Vivian and then folded her hands in front of her on the desk. “That is a sheet stating our rules, Miss Powell. You will need to learn and follow them at all times. Please sign there at the bottom that you have read it and agree. As you can see, we require that our girls never wear sweaters or evening dresses, just pretty afternoon frocks. You must wear stockings, and keep them on, and you must not allow soldiers to escort you home.”
Vivian’s eyes widened for a moment as she wondered about the rule to keep her stockings on…what could have prompted that? Had some of the girls at first actually stripped that part of their clothing off during a dance? Good heavens!
Miss Warren seemed not to notice Vivian startle, but glanced down at the new volunteer’s paperwork as she continued, “Since you work a full-time job, you probably won’t be available during the week, is that correct?”
“Yes. Mr. Gates,” she motioned between her and Mary June, “our manager at the bank, is…very strict about employees not missing work.” That’s putting it mildly; he throws a fit if we’re five minutes late from lunch.
Miss Warren inclined her head, “That’s fine. We need the most help in the evenings and for dances anyway. The dances last from 8:00 to 11:30 pm and we ask that you stay the entire time and try to dance with any serviceman who asks. Our boys are looking for home-away-from-camp fun, to have a good time while they’re here, so I’m afraid we frown on girls who sit around and act choosey, and pass up poor dancers for good ones. We want our hostesses to be friendly to all. Is that agreeable to you?”
Vivian moistened her lips as she signed the paper, and murmured with a nod, “Yes, Ma’am.” She wondered about some of the rules – especially the one about stockings – worrying that she only had one wearable pair and they were quite worn. She had stopped wearing them to work months ago, resulting in going barelegged in the cold winter. Oh, how she hated the rationings and shortages of this war!
As she sat trying to figure out where she could scrounge up a decent pair to wear to the dances, Miss Warren finished, “Our Saturday-night dances feature a regular orchestra and the soldiers must pay a 25-cent admission on those nights. So, shall we see you, then, this Saturday night?”
Vivian once again met her friend’s eyes as Mary June nodded enthusiastically. She looked back at the director and answered, “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll be here.”
The woman smiled happily and stood up, indicating the interview was over. Surprising Vivian, Miss Warren moved around the desk and leaned forward to give both girls a quick hug before intoning, “Welcome to the club!”
Somehow, Vivian felt she had just made a decision that would impact the rest of her life, not just the immediate future.
Oh my…should I be scared? Or excited…
CHAPTER 2
Fort Knox Army Base, NCO Quarters
Fort Knox, Kentucky
The following Saturday night…
Staff Sergeant Eugene Banks glanced over at the door to his quarters and then back to the mirror over his dresser as he tied his uniform’s necktie, giving a grunt of greeting to his roommate, fellow Staff Sergeant Blake Hendricks.
Hendricks, a stocky-built man a few inches shorter than Gene, with dishwater blond hair and green eyes, returned the grunt as he sauntered in, stopping to raise a foot onto the end of his cot as he began to unlace his service shoes. With a scowl, he gave Gene a disdainful glare.
“Don’t tell me Buzzkill Banks is going prowling tonight.”
In the small mirror, Gene’s gaze flickered to the other man’s for a moment, and then he immediately averted his eyes as he completed adjustments to the collar of his khaki poplin shirt and then tucked the necktie securely between the middle buttons, as dictated by regulations. “I don’t know if I’d classify it as prowling, but I’m going out with a few of the fellas in my unit, yes. Something wrong with that?” he raised an eyebrow at the inherently inhospitable man.
The ongoing current of controlled animosity between the two men hummed for a moment, and then Hendricks shrugged and continued removing his shoes. “Nope. It’s just not something you usually do, that’s all. You’re not the…socializing type,” he added, sneering out the statement with the force of a smack-down insult. “You’re more the type to sneak around in the shadows and stick your nose where it don’t belong.”
The two men had been over this ground before, and Gene knew if he asked what the oafish sergeant meant by such a statement, he’d get no answer. This time, he didn’t rise to the bait, but tamped his aggravation down and merely placed his dress visor cap on his head at just the precise angle. Always meticulous in his attire, he had spent time earlier cleaning the dark green woolen body and leather brim of the hat, as well as shining the American eagle badge on the front. He leaned over to grasp his jacket off the back of the chair where he kept it, as the other man murmured sarcastically, “Oh be careful, can’t leave a speck of dust on that wool.”
Banks slipped into the olive green wool jacket and began fastening the brass buttons as he glanced over at the man who shared his quarters. Not for the first time, he wondered why they seemed to always rub one another the wrong way, as if they were adversaries, instead of on the same side in this man’s war. Well, for him, Gene knew why he wasn’t his fellow sergeant’s biggest fan – the man was a slob, rude to everyone except superior officers, and in general a swine and a brute. He was exactly the kind of sergeant that the lower ranks hated. In general, he gave sergeants a bad name. But Gene hadn’t yet figured out why Hendricks seemed to have formed such an instant aversion to him from the moment the man had dropped his duffle in the room, which was a month before, when Hendricks had first arrived at Knox. The arrangement was supposed to have been temporary while more living quarters were built to house the ever-expanding population at the base.
Banks stared down at the shoes that had been dropped haphazardly on the floor. They didn’t appear to have had a shine in some time.
“I’d say your uniform could benefit from some du
st removal of its own, but hey, it’s no skin off my nose,” he remarked with a nonchalant shrug before making his way to the door. “And if you’re planning on catching the bus into town, you haven’t got much time.”
“Don’t need the bus tonight. Got use of a jeep for the weekend,” Hendricks bragged as he stripped off the uniform shirt he had worn all day before gathering items in preparation of taking a shower.
Gene didn’t answer, but he wondered how the man had managed that feat. Jeeps were in short supply around the base – despite the fact that there was a Ford plant in Louisville that turned them out by the hundreds, most of those were shipped overseas – and high-ranking officers were always the first to snap up the ones that managed to end up at Knox. Oh well, I don’t care what he’s got up his sleeve. Makes no diff to me. If he’s planning something against protocol, it’ll be his butt in a sling, not mine.
Without a backward glance, Gene continued on down the hall and out of the non-com’s quarters to join the guys in his unit for a night at one of their favorite places for entertainment and good clean fun – Louisville’s USO Service Club.
Gene climbed into the bus for the 30-mile trip from the post to downtown Louisville, grinning as the privates and corporals under his command called out teasing comments and slapped him on the back as he found a seat. He knew it was unusual for them to feel friendly toward a superior, and he was proud of the fact that he had the knack for commanding his men with respect and not intimidation. The thought crossed his mind that he probably should call them down for not showing the proper respect for his higher rank, but he shook his head and decided to let it ride. They were all off duty, and they were all enlisted men. It wasn’t like he was a stuffed-shirt lieutenant.
Although not much older than the majority of his men, he nevertheless felt he had to maintain an air of maturity, especially since he was the only sergeant on the bus. However, after a difficult and stressful week, he decided that unless something was to take place that necessitated him taking charge or pulling rank, he would just relax and forget responsibilities for a while. Greeting a few of the guys, he settled into a seat near the back.
Grudgingly, he acknowledged that his foul-tempered roommate was right about one thing – he wasn’t, for the most part, a “socializing” type of guy – and he pondered for a minute how he had been talked into tonight’s festivities. He had only visited the USO club in Louisville a handful of times, and he’d not had a particularly good time, usually preferring to stay in the background and watch the others have fun, or he’d head upstairs and play a few games of pool.
The bus got underway and once the driver made the turn onto US 31W, Gene soon tuned out his bus mates’ conversations, choosing to turn his attention to the passing scenery outside the grimy window.
For some reason, maybe it was the setting sun; this ride reminded him of another bus ride he’d taken years before. One conversation, just one tiny piece of information, had rocked his very foundations and shaken his world…
The passing landscape faded and images began to swim by like a newsreel in his head. He had struck out blindly and just ran, hopped a bus, and headed into Louisville to the home of a beloved aunt and uncle. Days later, he was stranded in the city when the rains wouldn’t let up and the river began to rise – resulting in the flood of ’37. He was days from turning twenty years old. Matter of fact, while working to rescue stranded victims with a jovial group of guys whom he would thereafter call friends, he had, indeed, turned twenty. The guys on the boat affectionately named the “Mary Lou” had sung Happy Birthday to him…albeit, a bit off key.
Gene shifted on the hard seat, trying to get comfortable and ignore the banter of his men as he thought back on those days and the other guys. A soft snort escaped his lips as he pictured a crazy goon named Gerald Gutterman. Always cracking jokes, Gerald was nonetheless a hard worker and a good guy to have along when the going got tough. Then there had been Phil Drexler, just eighteen, and scared of his own shadow. But the one who stood out the most, and who had forever impacted Gene’s life, had been their rescue boat captain, Vic Matthews.
The quiet, responsible sergeant’s lips now turned up in a slight smile as he pictured Captain Vic – or “Chief” as they had called him. All through those cold, wet hours and days as they transported people to safety, like when they saved the lives of a doctor and his family, and later when they worked day in and day out bringing supplies to those who had remained in their second-story abodes, Gene’s respect for Matthews had grown rock solid. Vic had dreams of making something of himself – what did he used to call it? His Big…no, his Bold Venture. Gene had known even then that if anyone in this crazy world could beat the odds and succeed, it would be Vic.
Eugene Banks had decided then and there that he would emulate his one time boss, and that’s exactly what he had done. Some months later, Vic had unexpectedly left town and joined the CCC – the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within a matter of days, Gene had given up looking for that ever-elusive job and had sought out Doc Latham, their larger-than-life B-13 Flood Rescue Station director, to see if he would help Gene the way he had given a leg up to Vic.
Doc hadn’t let him down. He had contacted a friend at a camp in Illinois and pulled some strings to get him a spot there. Then, determined to prove he was worth something, Gene had never looked back. He had knuckled down, worked hard, made the grade – and then some. Rising to the highest point an enrollee could – Camp Leader – he had earned a whopping fifteen dollars a month in addition to the thirty he had signed up for. He’d been proud of his accomplishments then…although relations with his family back home had been strained. Eventually, he had become a foreman of the machine shop at a forest service camp in the Shawnee, Illinois area. Later, he had transferred to Camp Glenn, to oversee their machine shop.
Those were happy, settled, satisfying days, he mused thoughtfully as he felt the bus pick up a bit of speed going down Muldraugh Hill. He had been good at his job and had enjoyed the work and the challenge. Then, once the draft had begun in 1940, his number had come up and he transitioned straight into the army – but as a CCC alumni, he entered as a technical sergeant, pay grade Four. He chuckled softly as he remembered his swearing in ceremony – he sure was walking in high cotton. Then, after the required number of months, he was promoted again…
“Hey Sarge, don’t you want in on this?” a voice interrupted his reminiscing.
Gene shook off his memories and turned to one of the men in his unit, Corporal James Evans.
“In on what, Evans?”
“We’re takin’ bets on who’ll snag the most dances, Mack or Rooster,” the soldier explained as the others nearby continued to joke and laugh with one another.
A soldier called from four seats up, “I say if it’s as packed out as it was last week, we’ll be lucky if any of us get more than one.” The corporal next to him gave him a friendly backhand as his comment caused a chorus of moans and groans.
Gene set eyes on the objects of the bet, and his gaze settled on Private First Class Archie Makowski, a.k.a Mack, whom they all acknowledged resembled a young Tyrone Power and was usually in the sites of every female within aiming distance. The other guy, Private Conrad Deal, a.k.a. Rooster, was a tall drink of water with a stubborn cowlick in his red hair – hence the nickname. He could really cut a rug and thought he was cock of the walk when it came to the ladies. In Gene’s opinion, however, if either of them could rack up multiple dances tonight with young, pretty junior hostesses, it would be Mack.
“I’d say my money’d have to be on Makowski.” Gene chuckled and shook his head with a half grin as the men hooted and hollered, and reached to slap the young private on the back. Pfc. Makowski just grinned and stood up to take a quick bow, laughing and bending over to retrieve his cap after someone teasingly cuffed it off his head.
“What’s the ante?” Gene asked, reaching for his wallet and pulling out the required dollar bill to chip in with the others. “Who’s holding th
e pot?”
That job had immediately gone to the group’s usual instigator of shenanigans, Private Red Ackerman, a tall, lanky, sandy-haired recruit from Tennessee who always seemed to be starting up a wager of some kind or another.
“Here you go, Ackerman,” Gene murmured as he stretched to hand his money to the private. Then focusing again on Pfc. Makowski, he pointed a finger at him and affected his sternest staff sergeant scowl as he growled, “Don’t let me down, Private, or you’ll be on KP for a week.”
Everyone on the bus roared with laughter, even the bus driver up front. Gene joined in as the wheels kept rolling, taking them on to their destination – and their “dates” with Louisville’s best and prettiest young women.
For the first time in a long time, Eugene Banks felt something he couldn’t define…something deep down in his gut told him that this night would change the rest of his life.
But, in a good way…or a bad?
It was just after 8:00 p.m. when the bus pulled to a stop in front of the large three-story stone and brick building already teaming with servicemen of every branch – but mostly army. From the open windows of the bus, the men could hear music playing inside – a rousing rendition of Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Gene rose from his seat and shuffled along in line with the others as they disembarked. Standing for a moment on the sidewalk, he gazed up at the large blue-lettered sign above the marble-columned entryway at the front, and a curious shiver of anticipation rippled from the nape of his neck all the way down his back. Vaguely, he wondered at the sensation, knowing that had not happened the other times he had visited the club.
Pvt. Ackerman nudged him with an elbow. “C’mon Sarge, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we’ll be Cookin’ with Helium.” Gene shook his head and chuckled at the silly term for dancing the young “hepcats” used, as he and the others made their way up the steps of the building and inside.