Lefty moved about on the narrow box impatiently as he reached for a match and lighted his cigarette.
“What’s been on your mind besides your helmet?”
Williams completely ignored the question and walked to the front of the tent, closing the flaps and tying them together as a means of insuring privacy.
“You’ve got to help me, kid!” he began again, turning and sitting down on the edge of the cot opposite Lefty. “Take off that jumper!”
“What for?”
“Oh, boy, why didn’t I think of this back in Pensacola,” he mused aloud, still ignoring Phelps’ questions. “Everything would have been hunky dory now, all right!”
“What would have been?” Lefty asked as he began to show signs of annoyance over the other man’s continued secrecy.
The sergeant smiled sheepishly, kicking the toe of his hobnailed boot into the ground. “Aw, go on, you know what I mean!”
Lefty rose to his feet and threw the half-smoked cigarette to the floor of the tent, crunching its remains beneath the heel of his shoe. “No, I don’t know what you mean, and if you don’t hurry up and tell me, I going to walk out on you!”
“Why, you’re goin’ to ask her for me! I’ve been thinkin’ about it all night. Don’t you see the idea?”