*
The sun was nearly set, and it was already past seven thirty. The man and the woman walked in ragged step toward the two-story wooden building. There were three white columns on the top with the letters A, M, and C on them, all topped by American flags, whipping in the wind. There was a patio up front, and they could smell food inside. The man was nervously eyeing the front door.
The bell on the door jingled as the couple walked in the door of Acker, Merrall, and Condit’s, the combination diner, hotel, and department store that served the whole of Camp Upton. To their right, they could see a lunch counter, just like the ones in the city. Ahead of them was a more sophisticated, sit-down restaurant. They saw a waiter in dress clothes serve a few men in uniform. To the left was what looked like a department store, full of everything from cigars to cans of tomato soup. It felt as if they were smack-dab in the middle of Thirty-fourth Street, not out here in the middle of Long Island.
The man saw a small desk located by a stairwell, signifying the part of the building that was the hotel.
“Can we get a room here?” the man asked the clerk.
“Yes, for man and wife,” the clerk replied.
The girl had curls and looked down shyly. She was young. The man with her was considerably older, around forty. He took the book from the clerk and wrote down a name. The clerk said that their stay could not exceed forty-eight hours. The couple had no luggage. They started up the stairs to the room that had been assigned to them on the second floor. A few moments later, the man called down to the clerk and asked him to send a bellboy, to which the clerk replied that the place was a camp, not a hotel.
On the second floor, the man looked up and down the hallway, nervously, before finally shutting the door. The man stepped into the room and looked out the window to see Camp Upton, buzzing with activity in the Long Island twilight. Men ran, flag squads curled, and birds could be heard in the underbrush of the dusk. As the light outside finally gave out, he turned back to the room. The girl was sitting on the bed.
*
The longer Grace was missing, the more the newspapers demanded to see the evidence behind her claim. Officials in the War Department said that her charges were absurd. They asked the Committee of Morals, headed by Raymond B. Fosdick, to begin a formal investigation.
“There are a few unfortunate girls near every camp, and we can’t help that under the circumstances,” Fosdick said. “Mrs. Humiston’s story is damnable because it gives the impression that our boys in uniforms are wild animals, when, in fact, they are behaving themselves in splendid fashion.”
There were rumors buzzing across Long Island that Grace was seen at Patchogue, sixteen miles away from Upton, and that her detective, Kron, was at Center Moriches, eight miles away. But neither called on General Bell. If they did go to the camp, they did not make known their true identities.
After a long week of taking hits in the papers, Grace’s voice finally surfaced in a surprise, defiant response in the New York Times.
“I have been informed of the death of two girls down there,” Grace said, in no uncertain terms. “By people who saw them assaulted. One of these little girls was found in the bushes near the camp, the other some distance away. Do you think that I would be foolish enough to say what I did if I didn’t have the facts to back it up with?” It was hard not to trust the woman in black. But she refused to present her evidence or eyewitnesses.
“I am going down to Camp Upton shortly,” Grace said. “To get facts about the other five deaths. I don’t intend to advertise the day on which I shall visit the camp. I don’t investigate that way. When I am ready to do so, I’ll bring the proofs forward to the proper authorities.”
Fosdick responded again, short and direct, in the very next edition of the paper.
“The American armies are clean,” he said.
“Let Secretary of War Baker ask me to investigate the conditions about our camps,” Grace responded. “Let him guarantee me a free hand in the investigation, giving me time, money, and a pass to all the camps and I will show him that what I said was true. But there must be no attempt at whitewashing the matter if I prove my statements.” Grace was still adamant about her evidence. “I will not divulge a fact until I am ready,” she said.
A day later, Grace planned a trip to Washington, D.C. “I will take enough facts and proofs with me,” she said, “to convince Secretary Baker that I ought to conduct an investigation for the Government. If my offers to investigate are declined, I’ll bring prosecutions upon my own authority. If I am not backed up, I’ll give the facts I have to the public, and let them judge what conditions are.
“I have the facts in black and white,” said Grace. “I have the names of the girls who are dying at Camp Upton. I have witnesses to verify what I say. But I shall disclose nothing to any one, save, the secretary of war, if he will listen sympathetically. The information which I have received has been given to me in confidence. As a lawyer I cannot violate that confidence unless it is for some good purpose. I shall not try to refute what my critics say. I think the facts which I can produce will be sufficient to refute them.”
A few days later, an aide walked into Bell’s office and informed him that their internal investigation had uncovered something he needed to see. About ten weeks ago, there had indeed been a rumor that the dead bodies of two girls had been found near the edge of the camp. Bell listened quietly. The aide reported that the story was investigated at the time and a number of correspondents for New York papers—who also heard it—endeavored to run it down to a fine point of certainty. But so far, no one had been able to find any foundation for the rumor or to ascertain how it originated. The only fact the army could determine was that the rumor had its birth before any of the drafted men had even arrived at camp.
There was always gossip. On any given weekend, New Yorkers read stories of Upton soldiers taking Long Island brides in nearby Patchogue. And though enlisted men were not allowed to have wives or girlfriends stay at camp, the officers had more leeway. Major O. K. Meyers’s wife was pregnant when she came to camp and gave birth to the first official child born there. News reporters used a little poetic license and named the baby “Uptonia.”