Right? All night I’ve been getting appeals from Jeffrey Allison—he’s their chief. I can’t decide alone. You’ll have to help me. We never figured we’d have to salvage Rivet City. It was their job, that they didn’t prepare for. If you sector heads could spare even one person in ten, of every classification, beginning at dawn—?”
A man whom Henry did not know stood up. “I can’t spare a man. I can’t spare myself here. I can use ten more for every man and woman I’ve got!”
There was a sound of agreement.
McVeigh studied the faces for a moment. “About fifty thousand people,” he said slowly, “crowded into the ball park. God knows why. Somebody started it—the rest followed. Maybe a third were kids. They filled the field solid; then the bleachers caught fire and the whole mob stampeded. They’re up there, what remains of ’em. Not one doctor. Nothing. That’s how things are all over River City.”
Henry stood up. “How can you get people around?”
McVeigh’s face cracked with a momentary look of relief. “I’ve got trucks. The roads in close are almost deserted now. The main swarm’s gone far beyond. You tell”—he jerked his head toward the women with arm bands—“these ladies how many men you can spare and at what point they can be picked up—and I’ll deliver them across the river. God knows they’re needed!”
“We’ll tithe,” Henry said.
Lieutenant Lacey grabbed his arm: “You can’t do it, I lank! That doctor just told you-we’re short on the medical end—”
“No medical end at all at the ball park.”
“You’ll be letting Green Prairie people die!”