Camp Kenedy, Texas, 1943
After more than a year as a civilian guard at the Kenedey Detention Center, Tom Reardon was in a fidgety mood. Guarding a collection of interned Germans, Italians, and ethnic Japanese from Peru and Brazil had taken on a tiresome sameness. One day erased another and another and another. Overseas, U.S. Forces were on the move, and Tom worried it would all end before he had a chance to put on a Marine uniform.
Twenty years old, Tom was a sinewy tall-drink of water outfitted in jeans, a khaki shirt, and boots. Incongruously for a local Texas boy, he sported a New York Yankees ball cap. Blond hair made a partial escape from beneath the cap. Burned tan from the relentless Texas sun, his longish face featured brown eyes set above a high nose and high cheek bones. Tom’s ears protruded slightly; but, according to his mother, “Not so much as you’d really notice. When Tom smiled, he sometimes revealed missing teeth, one he’d broken off playing baseball and another he’d lost in a fracas with a local bully. Over phosphates at Barkley’s Drug Store, local girls agreed Tom’s eyes might seem innocent, but you knew there was plenty going on behind them.
Now, on an April morning, just off night duty, Tom lounged in a beat-up leather chair in the guard office. He usually stopped by at the end of his shift to see if he could pick up any gossip. Right now, he hoped to unconfirm the rumor Sally Wendell was pregnant. He hadn’t been with her for quite a while, but he still worried. He popped the cap off a Dr. Pepper and lolled back, waiting for a couple of the other guards to show up.
The static-ridden radio voice of Jimmie Davis wailing away on “You Are My Sunshine” wafted in from an adjacent room. Jack Cummings, the Guard Supervisor, sat with his feet propped on his desk, deep into a comic book.
“What y’all reading Jack?”
“Don Winslow of the Navy. The Navy boys are sure handing it to the Japs.”
“Well,” Tom said; “My brother’s in the Marines. He says the Navy has it soft. Real men are in the Marines. Soon as my little brother is old enough to look after Ma, I’m going in, too. Gonna be a Leatherneck. Yes, sir.”
Just then, they both jerked up their heads as Carl Peterson rushed into the room. “Hey, there, Carl. What’s the big hurry?” Cummings said.
Peterson stopped to catch his breath, then blurted out the news, “Two of ‘em are gone. Busted out.”
“Whoa, there,” Cummings said; “Who busted out?”
“Germans, that’s who. Looks like they hopped on the back of that old trash truck and rode right out the gate.”
Tom didn’t think much of Peterson, a gawky seventeen-year-old part-time hand on his uncle’s ranch; “Come on, Carl. You’re putting us on.”
“Ain’t no way;” Peterson’s animated eyes served as markers of authenticity; “I come to tell you all the guards not on duty are ordered to head over to Director Rutledge’s office pronto. Having a meeting about what to do.”
“No shit;” Tom jumped to his feet; “Come on. Let’s go.” By the time they piled into Rutledge’s office, four or five others had already shown up. Surges of excitement coursed through Tom’s body. He could tell the others felt the same way.
“First thing, I want you fellas to do is to calm down,” Rutledge said. A mustached former Texas Ranger, he was respected by staff and detainees alike; “Don’t go getting all riled up. I’m going to tell you what happened and then what we’re going to do.”
Tom waited, charged with anticipation. “Here’s what we know,” Rutledge said. And what he knew was this: Two German detainees had been missing for about two hours. They had apparently escaped by simply hopping on the back of a truck and riding undetected out the gate. Mueller and Schmidt, both from somewhere in New York and both members of the German-American Bund. Maybe the Nazi party, too; Rutledge wasn’t sure. The two spoke native English, and guards and fellow prisoners alike considered them a pair of tough guys. “It’s only been a couple of hours,” Rutledge said. “They can’t have gone far.”
“Where do you suppose they’re headed?” Tom asked.
“Hard to imagine. Unless they’ve got somebody helping them; or a place they can hide out, shouldn’t take long to find them.”
The sheriff and three deputies had launched a search for the escapees; but they were short-handed. They’d already requested assistance from nearby jurisdictions and from the Texas Rangers. But they needed help right now. Operating in pairs, Tom and seven other guards would provide that help. Tom and Charley Martin would travel on horseback, the rest of the searchers would utilize the camp’s recently acquired jeeps. Tom and Charley would ride south along the rail line. Maybe the Krauts would try for Mexico or somewhere along the coast. Nobody knew.
“You boys be careful,” Rutledge said; “We don’t figure those two to be armed. But they could have broken in somewhere. One more thing, you all use common sense with your own weapons. No need to start blazing away once you run them to ground.”
With a battered face like that of a boxer who’d gone too many rounds, Charley was an experienced ranch hand. Tom felt as if Rutledge decided he needed Charley to keep an eye on him. He barely knew Charley and wished he’d been assigned to search with somebody else. In any case, Tom’s stomach pirouetted with anticipation and apprehension. What if they turned out to be the ones to catch up with the escapees?
Tom and Charley hustled over to the camp’s makeshift stable, saddled their mounts, and headed out along the rail line. Spring had come to the land, and sparkling waves of blue bonnets welcomed it everywhere. You could smell their sweet perfume for miles. As they rode out, the beauty of the day and of the flowers struck Tom as incongruous with the serious business they were about.
At first, they tried riding between the tracks, but their mounts had difficulty; so, they got them down and rode alongside the right-of-way. “What do you think the chances are they come this way?” Charley said.
“Good as any, I reckon,” Tom said.
“Mighty warm out for this early in the year. You figure they have any water?”
They’d been at it for twenty minutes and stopped to give the horses a rest. His nerves tight as newly-strung barbed wire, Tom squinted out across the rolling expanse that stretched in all directions. Here and there small whirlwinds of dust rose from the land, like smoke from smoldering fires, “I don’t see a damn thing. What we need is somebody up there in a Piper Cub.”
Just then, they heard the powerful sound of a steam locomotive demanding its right of way, “We better get over some more. There’s a train coming up behind us,” Charley called out.
Those words barely spoken, Tom shouted, “I see ‘em. Up there about a quarter mile ahead. I see ‘em.” Excitement washed over him.
“Hot damn. You’re right. Fools right out on the track with a train a’coming.” They spurred their horses into a trot as the clattering freight pounded by. They waved frantically for the engineer to stop. He simply waved back. They urged their mounts forward, but the unwelcoming terrain slowed them.
“Damn!” Tom exclaimed. “They’re gonna try and get on that train.”
“They ain’t got a chance.”
Running beside the train, the first man grabbed on to a metal handle and tried to swing up onto a boxcar. But he failed to get a firm grip, fell, and crashed down onto the right-of-way. Tom said later they watched him bounce and flounder around like an old raggedy doll. The second man gave up without trying, and the train rolled on around a bend and disappeared.
When Tom and Charley rode up, Mueller, a smallish man, crew-cut, with a bird-like face postured on his knees, his hands placed on top of his head. He gasped for breath and sobbed without restraint. Schmidt lay sprawled face down in a small cluster of mesquites. A single trace of blood trickled from his open mouth. He was dead.
Tom wanted to hate those men, but, in this moment, he just felt sorry for them. He wouldn’t have admitted to it, but Tom Reardon had a humanitarian side. Tom unholstered his six-shooter and pointed it at Mueller.
“You watch this one, Tom. I’ll head back and find a phone,” Charley said; “Let the sheriff’s office know we got ‘em,” Charley said.
As Charley rode off back down the line, Tom realized his throat was parched. He took a gurgling swig from his canteen, hesitated, and then handed the canteen to Mueller. “Here, might as well have some. You ain’t going nowhere.” The man grabbed the canteen and took a long drink. Jesus, Tom thought, he looks just like one of us. How did we all end up like this, anyway?
Tom had a lot to consider while he waited for the sheriff and his men. What would folks in town think? How about the other guards? The other prisoners? Tom figured he ought to feel proud; sort of like a hero. Probably get his name in the paper, maybe even a picture. But, when he looked at Schmidt’s dead body lying there in the morning sun, he felt sick.
Lawrence F. Farrar is a former American Foreign Service officer. His 30-year diplomatic career involved multiple postings in Japan, as well as assignments in Germany, Norway, and Washington, DC. Short term assignments took him to places as diverse as Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and Muscat. Farrar’s is published in literary magazines more than 100 times https://www.northoakswriter.com.
