DC By the Book

Excerpt: Union Station was so crowded with servicemen and families the week before Christmas that it was hard to see the departures board through the crowd clustered at the entrance to Track 8…. "Oh, dear," Joey’s mother said to Becky, whose bulging stomach was obvious under her dark blue coat. "It could be a while. Maybe we’d better go back into the main hall. We’ll find you a seat somewhere..." Two sailors were sitting on their sea bags, slumped back against the gate; a third lay stretched out straight, his head on his bag, his eyes closed. How could he sleep there, Joey wondered. A loudspeaker voice was announcing something, but she could not make out the words. A colored soldier pushed through the crowd, his duffel bag bouncing on his shoulder, and stepped over the sleeping sailor. The sailor woke. "Watch where ya going, ya goddamn spade," he yelled, but he did not get to his feet…. The main hall was almost as crowded as the train corridor. Every bench was filled…The huge room seemed dim, lit only by the lights in the tall brass sconces. Joey looked up at the ceiling. "Why is the roof all dark, Mum?" she asked. "Blackout, dearie. They had to paint all the panes black." -- "Oh." Joey stared up at the huge arch. The station would have made a central glow in the night city, but who had gotten way up there with a bucket of black paint to cover all those panes? She gazed at the lonely-looking statues high above, then back at the canteen again. The baby had stopped crying, but the loudspeaker voice continued and the air in the hall was smoky and thick with the smells of bodies.