5
Civil Defense headquarters for Green Prairie had been originally located in the midtown area, near City Hall. Its transference to an old high school building, on the east side of town, had followed the gradual realization that, if Civil Defense were taken earnestly, it followed that the midtown area was no place for headquarters: it would constitute the target area of any enemy attack. The present headquarters, unused by pupils after the construction of East High School, was a yellow brick structure set back from the intersection of Willowgrove and Adams.
Henry drove around the corner and into the parking yard on chattering tires. Other cars were ahead, others behind, and cars were waiting in line for space.
“Why don’t I drive on home and get my set going?” Ted asked.
“You’re too young to…” Henry grunted and turned from the line. “Take it home, son,” he said gently. “And go easy, because if the cops pick you up, we won’t have any communications at all. I’ll hitch a ride from here to the South School to assemble my section. If you can, lemme know when the folks get home.”
Henry said that over his shoulder. Men were running, like himself, into the school building. A few spoke his name. One or two called, “Know anything?”
Then they were in the lobby, at the place where they’d learned in the many drills that sector wardens were to report, if possible in person, otherwise by proxy, in emergency.
Douglas McVeigh was standing at the top of the steps on something—a table, maybe. Men and women ran in, saw him and either ran on to their posts because they belonged in H.Q., or stopped for orders.
That plan was working, Henry observed. Thirty or forty volunteers had gathered where McVeigh stood above them in as many, or as few, seconds.
“All personnel to their posts,” McVeigh was saying as Henry rushed in and was recognized. “Hi, there, Hank.”