All of us lined both sides of the track and got ready to cheer the engineer and passengers. The
coach windows were open and the passengers surprisingly were hanging out; they were all men,
I could discern, all young, all alike. It was a troop train.
Over the clatter and banging of the wheels and couplings we cheered and they yelled back, both
sides taken by surprise. They were not much older than we were and although probably just
recruits, they gave the impression of being an elite as they were carried past our drab ranks. They
seemed to be having a wonderful time, their uniforms looked new and good; they were clean and
energetic; they were going places.
After they had gone we laborers looked rather emptily across the newly cleared rails at each
other, at ourselves, and not even Brinker thought of the timely remark. We turned away. The old
man told us to go back to other parts of the yard, but there was no more real work done that
afternoon. Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging
elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men.
The day ended at last. Gray from the beginning, its end was announced by a deepening gray, of
sky, snow, faces, spirits. We piled back into the old, dispiritedly lit coaches waiting for us,
slumped into the uncomfortable green seats, and no one said much until we were miles away.
When we did speak it was about aviation training programs and brothers in the service and
requirements for enlistment and the futility of Devon and how we would never have war stories
to tell our grandchildren and how long the war might last and who ever heard of studying dead
languages at a time like this.
Quackenbush took advantage of a break in this line of conversation to announce that he would
certainly stay at Devon through the year, however half-cocked others might rush off. He
elaborated without encouragement, citing the advantages of Devon’s physical hardening program
and of a high school diploma when he did in good time reach basic training. He for one would
advance into the army step by step.
“You for one,” echoed someone contemptuously.
“You are one,” someone else said.
“Which army, Quackenbush? Mussolini’s?”
“Naw, he’s a Kraut.”
“He’s a Kraut spy.”
“How many rails did you sabotage today, Quackenbush?”
“I thought they interned all Quackenbushes the day after Pearl Harbor.”
To which Brinker added: “They didn’t find him. He hid his light under a Quackenbush.”