The week’s laundry took me a good hour, and occasionally, looking through the window above the sink, I glimpsed the two men walking from one building to another, briefly stepping inside each. It made me wonder if the visiting officer might be an inspector that the army had sent to check the construction.

I ran my rinsed clothes through the wringer and hung them to dry, and then I headed back to B Barracks, getting there just after they did. They’d paused in the doorway, looking around. Waiting for them to move, I saw it the way they did: crowded and busy and a mite messy.

Several guys had pulled out personal stuff to work on or were playing cards. Someone had strung a line between bunks near the stove and hung up several pairs of socks. Records lay scattered across the cot nearest Cal’s phonograph.

At first no one noticed the officers. Then someone called out, “Good afternoon, sirs,” and everyone looked up.

“Good afternoon,” Major Garrett replied. “Please carry on with what you’re doing.”

Then the major saw me and said, “Moss! Just the person I was looking for! Please stop by my office after supper.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Sure.”

I glanced at the captain, wondering if he’d found a problem somewhere that the major wanted me to have the guys fix.

Then Major Garrett introduced me, saying, “This is Moss Trawnley, one of the camp’s junior leaders. Moss, this is Captain Hakes.”

The captain nodded. “Junior Leader,” he said, which I guessed was his idea of a greeting.

When I went over to headquarters that evening, I was surprised to find Sergeant Ruffino and one of his corporals there working. “Go on in,” the sergeant told me, waving toward the inner office.

Major Garrett was putting books into a cardboard box. “Close the door and sit down,” he said, motioning me to a chair that held another half-filled carton. “You can move that.”

Sitting down himself, he studied me a moment. “Moss,” he began, “I asked you in so I can give you a heads-up on some changes that are coming. As you know, I’ve been on temporary assignment here, detailed to get the camp built and running on an expedited schedule.”

No, I thought, I hadn’t known that.

“I’d hoped to stay on for another couple of months to complete arrangements for the camp’s conservation projects and get them under way, but I’m needed at district headquarters. Captain Hakes will be taking over as commanding officer here.”

Jolted—I didn’t want things to change—I said, “But . . .” Then I stopped. I had too many protests racing through me to know which one to start with, and it wasn’t my place to make them anyway. “How soon, sir?”