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“I do have one question, Philip, about your orders.”
“Sir?”
“That three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar clothing allowance. What’s that all about?”
Phil told him.
“And how long are you going to be in Berlin?”
“I enlisted for two years. I’ve got about seventeen months left to go.”
“That’s outrageous!” the elder Williams said indignantly. “How the hell does the Army expect you to spend seventeen months in Berlin with only a sports jacket and a pair of slacks—well, maybe two pair, one wool, one khaki—to wear?”
“I thought I would go to Brooks Brothers in the morning, Pop, to see what they might have on sale.”
“Tomorrow, my boy, we will go to J. Press—I thought you understood, God knows I’ve told you this often enough, that J. Press serves gentlemen and Brooks Brothers the less fortunate others—we will go to J. Press and get you enough clothing to spend seventeen months in Berlin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On my nickel, of course, in the hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me for what I thought—My God, what’s it going to cost me to keep him out of Leavenworth?—when you came home just now.”
On the tenth day of his son’s delay-en-route-leave, P. Wallingford Williams, Jr., loaded CPL Williams Philip W III—and the three leather suitcases containing the corporal’s new wardrobe—into a taxicab on Park Avenue and waved goodbye as Phil headed for JFK and the Pan American Flight to Frankfurt.
