The story had been haunting me. It concerned a black soldier whom I named Jeb, who returned from the Pacific war with an aluminum leg. The loss of the leg disturbed him not at all, for to his pride he had acquired a skill in the army: he could run an adding machine. And the story takes place when he returns to his family, to his girl, and to the small Southern town where an adding machine is a white man's job. He pursues his passionate ambition against relentless opposition, and in the end we find him in northern Harlem, physically beaten yet undefeated, prepared to return to the South in a larger cause. It was the story of the making of a militant.〔Ardrey, Robert; Ardrey, Daniel (ed.). "The Education of Robert Ardrey: An Autobiography" (unpublished manuscript ca. 1980, available through Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center)〕