Tom: Well, I got transferred to Atlanta. And then I went in with Asa Candler and he put me doing undercover work right off.
If something was suspicious in one of the camps or somewhere, I’d go there, and just go to work whatever was necessary and just find out what was going on. One division in Fort Mac, or Columbus, Fort Benning — they had one division that was being transferred to Germany. And they had one German that was in there. So they wanted him out, or find out what he was up to. To send a German over to Germany, to fight the Germans, is not a good idea.
So my job was — this was a sorry soldier, I mean he just wouldn’t do anything right. And my boss, he said “Tom, I want you to go down there, and get with this fellow and make friends with him, but he’s the sorriest soldier down there, so you go down there and you be the sorriest soldier down there too, so you two will be friends. In other words, go down there and act natural.” [laughter]
So I went down, and sure enough he was just real anxious to be friends with somebody, and he said “what I’m going to do, I’m going to leave here, I’m going to just leave the Army.” So I said “well, where you going?” And he said “well, in the first place we have to get over to Alabama and figure out where we’ll go.” So I said “well, I’ll go with you.” So we both left the Army.
My job was to keep up with him. Wherever he went. And so we got over there, and he said “Let’s go to Atlanta.”
Oh, I’m deserted.
So we went to Atlanta, checked into a hotel, and I had prearranged the hotel we would be in, so it was wired, and then he said “Well, I’m going to go to New York.” And I said “well, let’s go.” He said “well, I think we ought to change our names.” Well, I had already changed my name for him. So we changed our name again, so we got to New York, and I’m right in the middle of a whole bunch of stuff up there. There was a book written, House on 92nd Street. Well, during the making of that movie, I was undercover on 93rd.
So we stayed up there for three or four weeks, but now I got to remember all the time who I am, who he thinks I am, who we said we’d be. And one mistake and I’m in trouble.
But anyway, I find out all he wanted to do was get out of the service. He wasn’t up to anything, he didn’t have any connections, except with his brother. Now, we met his brother when we got to New York in the lobby of the YWCA. Now anybody male in there, you got to know it, so if anybody’s tailing you, you just don’t find them.
So we got to be big buddies, and went through a whole lot of stuff, and I told him what my opinion was. They picked him up, gave him ten years, and interrogated him and went through a mess, asked about me. He said “the only thing I can tell you about him is we left Fort Benning together, we went over to Alabama, he went one way and I went the other. I haven’t seen him since.” But he never ever knew that someone was with him the whole time. And they gave him ten years, and he got out before I did. When the war ended, they turned all of them loose. [laughter]
I did that for about two years, one place or another.
Sometimes I would get, you know those series of shots you take when you go into the service? I did that three times. [laughter]
Martha: I did a few of them myself.
Tom: I always used Tom first. And then I’d use Fuller, or some similar name. But someone would always walk up to me and say “Hey Tom,” so I used that.
One time, I was out west, and I don’t remember what the case was but I was out there for some reason, and I had this date, and I said “I have to make a phone call.” And my signal was I would say “Is Forkner there?” and that meant everything was all right, and of course he never was there and I’d hang up. [laughter] My date, she said “who’d you ask for?” I said “Forkner, a friend of mine.” She said “that’s a hell of a name, isn’t it?” [laughter]