Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Allied HQ, North Africa – (by wireless)
Another friend, whom I’ve mentioned before in these columns, is among the missing. He, we know almost definitely, is a prisoner.
He is Capt. Tony Lumpkin, of Mexico, Missouri. Tony was headquarters commandant of a certain outfit – a headquarters commandant being a sort of militarized hotel manager.
Just before he disappeared, Tony got to going by the nickname of “Noah” Lumpkin, because he always seemed to pick out such a miserably wet place for a command post. On their last move before he was captured, the commanding general – a swell guy with a sense of humor – called Capt. Lumpkin over, stood with him outside a tent looking out over the watery landscape, and congratulated him on locating them in the center of such a beautiful lake.
Tony wanted to do some shooting
Tony Lumpkin needn’t have been captured at all if he had been content to stick to his comparatively safe “hotel managing.” But he wanted to get a crack at the Jerries himself. He is an expert gunner, and he finally talked the commander into letting him take five men and a small gun on wheels and go out to see what he could pick off.
The first day they got one German truck plus something that turned out later to be a camel, although it looked like a truck at the distance they were firing from. The second day they moved farther into the mountains to get into a better shooting position, but bagged nothing. On the third day they went even farther into the hills, hunting a perfect spot for firing.
Capt. Lumpkin used to share a tent with Maj. Chuck Miller of Detroit, and with their assistant, Cpl. William Nikolin of Indianapolis, both of whom I’ve written about before. They formed an intimate little family.
That third night Maj. Miller came in late. He was astonished, and a little bit concerned, to see Tony’s cot empty. When he woke up next morning there was still no Tony.
He knew something had happened. He went to the general and got permission to start out with a squad of his own military police and hunt for his lost companion.
Tony really gets lost
They covered all the ground Tony had covered, and finally, by studying the terrain and talking with others who had been nearby, and interviewing German prisoners, they pieced together what had happened. The hill that Capt. Lumpkin had been trying to get to had been simply lousy with German machine-gunners. The Germans saw him all the time. They sent out a party that worked behind and surrounded him. A German who was captured later said that a captain with a Tommy gun killed one German and wounded another before being taken. That is all we will know until Tony comes back to us.
There isn’t grief in the little Lumpkin-Miller-Nikolin family, but there is a terrible vacancy.
Maj. Miller says:
We were a perfect team. Tony was slow and easygoing, and I’m big and lose my temper too quickly. We balanced each other. I’d keep him pepped up and he’d calm me down. We sure miss him, don’t we, Nicky?
The two who remain, the officer and the corporal, seem drawn even close together than before. When there are guests, Nicky is called in to be part of the company. Nicky waits on the 6’4” major as though he were a baby, and the major treats Nicky with an endearing roughness.
They’d give a lot to have him back
Maj. Miller went on:
Nicky always woke us up every morning by bringing in hot tea. Then the damn intellectual would ruin the day for me by sitting down while we drank the tea and starting an argument along the line of who was the greater writer, Tolstoy or Anatole France. That kind of stuff throws me.
Tony would argue with him, and relieve me of the horror of such a subject at such an hour. But now that Tony’s gone, I have to bear the load all by myself. It’s awful.
And Nicky stands and grins while the major talks.
Our conversation drifted off onto other things, and a long time afterwards, out of a clear sky, Maj. Miller said:
Damn it, I’d give a month’s pay – no, I’d give six months’ pay – no, I’d give a year’s pay if only old Tony were back.
And Nicky would gladly do the same.
