They were going to nitrate toluene. And when toluene has been so treated, they call it trinitrotoluene when they have the time. When they haven’t time for a mouthful of syllables like that, TNT describes it just as well.
“Now, Darveth?”
“Now!”
By noon that day, Wally Smith didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he knew he didn’t feel so well, mentally. Something was wrong with him, and getting wronger.
He went out onto the loading platform against the railroad spur to eat his lunch. There were a dozen cars on the spur, and ten men were working through the lunch hour at unloading one of them. Stuff in sacks that looked heavy.
“What is it?” Wally called over to one of the men.
“Just cement. For the fireproofing.”
“Oh,” said Wally. “When do they start on that?”
The man put down his sack and ran the back of a dirty hand across his forehead. “Tomorrow. Know how they’re handling this job?” He grinned. “Tear down one wall at a time and pour a cement one. Right while they keep on running full blast.”
“Um-m-m,” said Wally. “All those cars full of cement?”
“Naw, just this one. Those others are chemicals and stuff. Gosh, I’ll feel a lot easier when they get this place fixed up. Right now— You know this’d be worse than Black Tom in the last war if anything went wrong this week. That stuff in the cars alone would blow the fire clear over to the oil-cracking plants across the tracks. And you know what’s on the other side of them?”
“Yes,” said Wally. “Course they got lots of guards and everything, but—”
“But is right,” said the man. “We need munitions in a hurry all right, but they got stuff too concentrated around here. This isn’t any place to monkey with trinitro anyway. It’s too near other stuff. If this plant did go up, even with all the precautions they’re taking, it’d set off a chain of—” He looked narrowly at Wally Smith. “Say, we’re talking too damn much. Don’t say anything like what we been saying outside the plant.”
Wally nodded, very soberly.
The workman started to heft the sack, and then didn’t. He said, “Yeah, they’re taking precautions. But one damn spy in here could practically lose the war for us. If he had luck. I mean, if it spread; there’s enough stuff right near here to…well, damn near to swing the balance in the Pacific, kid.”
“And,” said Wally, “there’d be a lot of people killed, I guess.”
“Nuts to people. Maybe a thousand people get killed, what does that matter? That many get killed on the Russian front every day. More. But, Wally— Hell, I talk too much.”
He swung the sack of cement back onto his shoulder and went on into the building.
Wally finished his lunch, thoughtfully, and wadded up the paper it had been wrapped in and put it into the fireproof metal trash can. He glanced at his wrist watch and saw there was ten minutes left. He sat down again on the edge of the platform.
He knew what he ought to do. Quit. Even if there was one chance in a million that— But there wasn’t a chance, even in a million. Damn it, he told himself, he’d been cured. He was O. K. And they needed him here; his job was important, in a small way.
But listen—just in case-—how’s about going back to that psychiatrist he’d used to go to? The guy was still in town. Tell him the whole story and take his advice; if he said to quit, then-—
And he could call him up now, from the office phone, and make an appointment for this evening. No, not the office phone, but there was a nickel phone in the hall. Did he have a loose nickel? Yes, he remembered now; he did.
He stood up and reached into his change pocket, pulled out the change there. Four pennies, and he looked at them curiously. How the deuce had he got those pennies? There’d been a nickel—
He reached into his other pocket, and his hand froze-there.
His fingers had touched cardboard, cardboard shaped like a folder of paper matches. Scarcely daring to breathe, he let his fingers explore the foreign object in his pocket. Unmistakably it was a folder of safety matches, a full one, and there was another one below it. And didn’t those matches sell two folders for a penny—the missing penny from his nickel that had turned into four cents in change?
But he hadn’t put them there. He never bought or carried matches. He hadn’t—
Or had he?
Because he remembered now, the queer thing that had happened this morning on his way to work. That funny feeling when, with mild surprise, he’d found himself on the corner of Grant and Wheeler streets, a block off his regular route to work. A block out of his way, and he didn’t remember walking that block.
Getting absent-minded, he’d told himself. Daydreaming. But there were stores along that block, stores that sold matches.
A man can daydream himself into walking a block out of his way. But can he make a purchase—one with fearful connotation like that— without knowing it?
And if he could buy matches without conscious volition, couldn’t he also use—
Maybe even before he could get out of here! Quick, Wally, while you know what you’re doing, while you can —
He took the two folders of matches from his pocket and pushed them through the slide of the fireproof trash can.
And then, walking rapidly and with his face white and set, he went back into the building, down the long corridor to the shipping office, and went in.
He said, “Mr. Davis, I quit.”
The bald-headed man at the desk looked up, mild surprise on his mild face. “Wally, what’s wrong? Has something happened or…are you well?”
Wally tried to straighten out his face and make it feel as though it looked natural. He said, “I…I just quit, Mr. Davis. I can’t explain.” He turned to walk on out.
“But, Wally, you can’t. Lord, we’re shorthanded as it is. And you know your department, Wally. It’ll take weeks to get a man broken in to take your place. You’ve got to give us notice to pull something like this. A week, at the very least, so we can break in a—” ‘
“No. I quit right now. I got to—”
“But— Hell, Wally, that’s deserting. Man, you’re needed here. This is just as important as… as the Bataan front. This factory is as important as a whole damn fleet in the Pacific. It’s…you know what we’re doing here. And— What are you quitting for?”
“I…I’m just quitting, that’s all.”
The bald-headed man at the desk stood up and his face wasn’t mild any more. He was a little over five feet tall, to Wally’s six, but for the moment he seemed to tower over the younger man. He said, “You’re going to tell me what’s back of this, or I’m going to—” He was coming around the desk while he talked, and his fists were doubled at his sides.
Wally took a step backward. He said, “Listen, Mr. Davis, you don’t understand. I don’t want to quit. I got—”
“Hey, where’s Darveth? Get Darveth right away!”
“He’s over chewing the fat with Apollo. The Greek’s trying to talk him out of this because Greece is on America’s side and wants them to win, but Apollo—and all the rest of ’em—aren’t strong enough any more to buck—”
“Shut up. Hey, Darveth!”
“Yes?”