Basic Training Read Online Free PDF Page A

supervision. It was much cooler, and, with him gone, an element of playfulness came into the business of lugging bales. Haley found his burdens miraculously lightened. Mr. Banghart sang a medley of rhythmic spirituals, setting a tempo by which they tugged and lifted. The work was done.
     
    They sat down in the corridor between bales to get their breaths, and to shake the dust and straw-bits from their hair. Bad as his first taste of rural life had been, Haley found himself looking with pride at the results of their labor, stacked bales rising like skyscrapers on either side of them. Mr. Banghart sat still for only a minute, arising again to feel along the upper surface of a rafter until he found what he wanted, a flashlight. “We can show Haley our secret, can’t we, Hope?” he asked.
     
    “I suppose so. It’s really kind of silly, though.”
     
    “I’d like very much to see it. I wouldn’t tell anybody,” Haley promised.
     
    They led him down the corridor to within a few feet of the window at its end. The bales had been stacked here before Haley’s arrival at Ardennes Farm. Mr. Banghart pointed his flashlight at a bale in the bottom row. “Notice anything different about that one?” he asked.
     
    “Well, there’s a piece of cloth tied around the baling wire,” said Haley.
     
    “That’s a marker,” said Mr. Banghart. “Try and move that one.”
     
    Haley tugged at the bale dutifully. He was surprised to find that it slid from its place easily, that the bales above did not rest upon it.
     
    “It’s a tunnel!” Mr. Banghart announced happily. He dropped onto all fours, and crawled into the opening and out of sight.
     
    “Go on in, Haley,” said Hope. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
     
    Haley followed Mr. Banghart into the dark passage, finding that there was barely room in which to squirm. After snaking his way through nine feet of the snug, airless tunnel, with claustrophobia beginning to give him twinges of panic, he found himself in a chamber in which he could stand, lighted by Mr. Banghart’s flashlight. It was a room hollowed in the stacked bales, as long and wide as the sunroom couch, with a ceiling, resting on planks, that barely brushed the top of his head.
     
    Hope emerged from the passage as he stood blinking in disbelief. “This is one place the General and Annie can never find you,” she said. “And there’ll be times when you’ll be glad there is such a place.” She sat down in a corner. “It was just a crazy thing to do to break the monotony, but it’s a good job, if I do say so myself. I’m the architect; Mr. Banghart’s the builder. Like it?”
     
    “It’s a fine job,” said Haley, impressed.
     
    “A fellow likes to get away from it all now and then,” Mr. Banghart observed thoughtfully. They sat in silence for a few minutes, digesting this wisdom. Mr. Banghart spoke up again. “Want to know another secret?” he whispered. There was no need for whispering, Haley thought, with the walls three yards thick.
     
    “Certainly we want to know another secret,” said Hope. “Let’s have it.”
     
    Mr. Banghart reached inside his faded shirt, bringing forth a long leather sheath. He drew from the sheath a double-edged hunting knife, with a blade the length of his hand. He twisted it before his eyes slowly, affectionately, Haley thought, and its bright surfaces sent flecks of light racing along the walls. “It’s so sharp I can shave with it,” he said, running a moistened finger over the edge. “Honed it for two hours last night.” He smiled proudly. “Now I’m ready for anything.”
     
    “You wouldn’t really use it on somebody,” said Haley, making an effort to appear as undisturbed by the knife as Hope seemed to be. Though he managed to keep his voice casual, he was wishing that he had not settled in the corner farthest from the tunnel, with Mr. Banghart between him and the outside world.
     
    “Oh, wouldn’t I use it, though?” said Mr.