Battle Cry (18 page)

“The books?”

“Yeah, the books.”

I could hear the cold wind whistle, flapping our tent. He unbuckled his duty NCO belt, undipped the pistol and laid it on an empty cot.

“Mac, someday I’m going to be a writer. I guess you think it’s kind of silly.”

“Hell no. No ambition is silly. Have you got talent?”

“I don’t know, Mac.”

“You’ve got something scrambled up in your head. Something that’s nixing you all the time. I spotted it right away. I guess when you’ve been around men as long as I have, you can almost read their minds.” Marion looked at me hard, then seemed to loosen up. I lay back watching the weird shadows being tossed by the bare lightbulb gently swinging from the tent top.

“I came from a small town,” Marion went on. “My dad is a retired railroad man. You might say nothing has ever really happened to me,” he fumbled.

“And you’ve wanted to write ever since you were a kid?”

“Yes. But…but when I try to, or even talk sometimes, I get tied up into knots. I’m living wonderful things to write about now. But I just can’t seem to find the right key. Like Andy says when they have a log jam. There is one key log that will turn the whole thing loose and float them down the river. You’ve got to take your peavey pole and loosen the key log…. I don’t suppose you understand.”

“I think maybe I do.”

“You see what kind of a guy I am. I can’t even talk to people without stuttering.” He sat down and blushed at his outburst.

“You have a girl, Marion?”

“No.”

“Ever been in bed with a woman?”

“No.”

“Look here, kid. I don’t read Plato, that stuff is a little over me. But there’s nothing the matter with you that…hell, it’s late. Let’s get some sack drill.”

Major Malcowitz, the huge ex-wrestler in charge of Judo training at Eliot, called us in close about the mats. He spoke through beaten lips.

“All right, youse guys has already loined in past lessons the fine arts of disarming, surprising, breaking ju-jitsu holds, and applying your own tactics. I want one sizable volunteer for the last lesson.” We all shied back. He smiled. “You,” he said, pointing to the gangly Shining Lighttower, whom Seabags Brown shoved on the mat before he could turn tail.

“Lay down,” the major requested, tripping the Indian to the deck with a thud. “Thank you.” Lighttower lay prone, looking rather dubiously at the wrestler, who had now propped a foot on his chest. “The last lesson is the most important, so you birds pay attention. Once you got your enemy off his feet, you gotta finish him off quick and quiet.”

“I want to go back to the reservation,” Private Lighttower moaned.

“The foist step is falling, knees first, onto the Jap’s chest, thereby crushing in his ribs.” He demonstrated gently on the shaking redskin. “You next bring the heels of both hands over his ears, thereby cracking the base of his skull.” A dull murmur sounded throughout the platoon. “Youse guys then take two quick swipes with the flat of your hand, first over the bridge of his nose, busting in his face and blinding him. Second, at the base of his neck, thusly cracking the bastard’s spinal column.”

The major glanced about at the awed faces. “For neatness, use both thumbs, jamming down into his Adam’s apple, thereby choking him. To polish the job you may kick him between the legs, square in the balls, a couple or three times.” Malcowitz stood up. “You may then admire your masterpiece—but if that son of a bitch gets up you’d better take off like a stripe-assed ape.”

CHAPTER 2

SPANISH JOE
had a heavy load on. Sister Mary dragged him from the College Inn down back streets to the YMCA at the foot of Broadway. The Camp Eliot bus pulled in and Marion poured Gomez across the back seat and left him.

He crossed the main drag and walked along the docks until he came to the Coronado ferry slip. He purchased a ticket and boarded the boat. Quickly climbing the ladder from the auto deck, he found a seat by the rail. The whistle screamed as the ferry slid from her moorings. Marion Hodgkiss propped his feet on the rail, loosened his field scarf, unhooked his fair leather belt and ran it through a shoulder epaulet. He gazed down into the gently lapping water as the ferry chugged for Coronado Island.

Out there, in the quiet and dark, a guy could organize his thoughts better. Away from the sweating, swearing, griping, groaning, back-breaking chores of soldiering. Away from the city gone mad. The tin-plated main street where the sharpies and the filchers passed out watered-up liquor and sticky songs to deaden the loneliness of the hordes of men in khaki, blue, and forest green. Away from the dumps where an ugly wench was the sought-after prize for men who closed their eyes and pretended she was someone else. Away from the lights of the aircraft factories burning twenty-four hours a day at a crazed pace—and from the out of bounds hotels where only the plentiful dollars of the officers were solicited. Away too from the blistering hot feet from a hike in Rose Canyon, from the hum of the generator and the eternal whine of dots and dashes beating through your earphones.

Out here, he thought, just a gentle old boat, a kind moon and the water…. A guy can organize his thoughts.

“Do you have a match, Marine?”

Corporal Hodgkiss looked up. A girl leaned against the rail, a redhead. Long flaming locks and very pale blue lifeless eyes with dark, but soft, lines under them. She had that milky white, redhead skin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He fumbled for the matches he carried for Spanish Joe. The girl sat down next to him and dragged on her cigarette, making her face glow in the darkness.

“Thanks, Marine.” The engine of the ferry seemed to chug louder. “I’ve seen you here before, lots of times,” she said. The corporal’s heart beat very fast. He tried to say something but held up for fear the words would twist up coming out.

“Don’t think I’m being forward but I was curious. I travel to Coronado almost every night. You’ve gotten to be a fixture.”

“It’s quiet out here, I can think,” he said.

“Lonesome?”

“No, not really.”

“Thinking of your girl, I’ll bet.”

“I haven’t got a girl.”

She smiled. “No one has a girl back home when he’s talking to a woman in San Diego.”

“I’m not one of those hungry guys who’d make a damned fool of himself to buy a few minutes’ conversation, if that’s what the insinuation is. I like it out here. I can get a rest from…that rat race.”

“Say—I’ll bet you really don’t have a girl.”

“I said I didn’t.”

“Please, mister, don’t bite my head off. All I wanted was a match.”

Marion blushed. “I’m sorry, miss, I’m sorry if I raised my voice. I guess I’m a dull character, but there isn’t much that excites me in town. I like it better here.”

The redhead snuffed her cigarette out on the rail and flipped it overboard and watched it swirl crazily to the water.

“What do you think about, Marine?”

“I’m thinking about how I’d like to write about all the things happening around me. The war, this city, my outfit…I guess you think I’m off my trolley.” He didn’t know why he’d said that, but it just seemed to come out natural like.

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“A completely honest gyrene. You are one for the books. You should have said twenty-five to impress me.”

“Is it a crime to be nineteen?”

The boat creaked against the dock. She arose. Marion stumbled from his seat as she turned to leave. “My…my name’s Marion, Marion Hodgkiss…you…you said you took the boat often…so do I…maybe I’ll see you again?”

“Could be.” She turned and walked away. His eyes followed her until she disappeared into the darkness of Coronado.

Corporal Hodgkiss took a time check for the fifth time as the ferry pulled into San Diego. It was twelve-thirty. An ear-to-ear grin lit his face as he spotted the slim redhead coming up the gangplank.

“Hello, Rae,” he beamed.

“Hello, Marion,” she answered.

“You look tired. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“Thanks. I am beat.”

“I’ve got two seats by the rail.” She flipped her fiery locks over her shoulder and took a cigarette from her purse. Marion quickly reached over and lit it for her.

“Rae.”

“Yes.”

“I…uh, brought something. I…thought you might like it.”

“What?”

“A book. Would you like me to read you something?”

“What is it?”

Marion fidgeted. “Sonnets of Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Yes, Shakespeare.”

“But I don’t understand that stuff very well.”

“Maybe, if you’d like, I could sort of explain it as we went along.”

Rae stretched out, easy like, her face towards the sky. She closed her eyes and drew from her cigarette. Marion opened the book.

The next weeks they worked hard and grueling hours learning their new trade. Learning that every man is a rifleman and must know every job in the battalion. They crawled through and under double-strand barbed wire, drilled for speed in breaking and setting their field radios, learned to cut blisters, and the arts of camouflage, map reading, and pole skinning, as well as telephone operation, message center work, codes, the use of all weapons and grenade throwing, crawling under live ammunition cover, battle tactics, judo and hand to hand, and knife throwing.

They were thrown from ten-foot platforms into the swimming pool with full packs on and they were sent into tents full of live tear gas and made to sing the Marine Hymn before being let out. When they weren’t learning they were marching.

And the eternal ring in their ears: “On the double! We ain’t got no place for stragglers in the Marine Corps! Hi di hi for Semper Fi!”

They’d answer, “Semper Fi! Hooray for me and screw you!”

Seabags Brown slammed his Reising gun down on his bunk angrily. “Dirty no good armpit-smelling son of a bitch. These goddam pieces are worthless as tits on a boar hog,” the farmer ranted.

“Yeah,” Ski agreed.

“Yeah,” Andy added.

“I shot ‘expert’ at the range,” Danny said, “and look at this goddam thing. I never hit a bull’s-eye all day, even inside fifty yards.”

“The bastard that sold them to the Marines ought to have his balls cut off.”

“Semi-automatic machine gun,” Danny continued. “Christ, my kid brother’s Daisy air rifle is deadlier than this thing.”

“Lookit, cousin,” Seabags said, showing his clips, “rusted. I just cleaned them yesterday and oiled them down, and lookit, rusted.”

“How about that, Mary?”

“They aren’t what you might call the finest weapons in the world,” Marion sighed.

“Look at that blueing job on the barrel,” Speedy Gray said. “I can damn near rub it off with my fingernail—and them sights, jumping Jesus. How they expect us to protect ourselves with this goddam thing?”

“How about that wire stock? Mother, I’ve come home to die.”

“Maybe,” Marion mused, “that’s why they teach us so much knife and Ju-do.”

“I’d like to see the guy that can hold one of these down firing automatic. Bursts of three, Mac says. Step on the sling so the gun won’t jump. The first shot and the goddam gun is pointing up in the sky and I’m sitting on my ass.”

“Maybe they were designed for antiaircraft.”

“Mine clogged four times today.”

I moved over to the bitching session. “Gunner Keats says you guys better learn to shoot these pieces,” I said.

“They ain’t no fugging good, Mac!”

“I don’t give a big rat’s ass what you guys think! Maybe if we hike to Rose Canyon for target practice, your aim might get sharper.”

“Mac,” Danny said, “how did
you
shoot today?” I turned and walked away.

“I guess I need a little practice too,” I said as I picked up my gun and shook my head sadly.

Saturday inspection! We stood restlessly by our bunks and looked them over for a fiftieth time, flicking away a stray speck of dust or smoothing out a minute wrinkle.

“Tenshun,” First Sergeant Pucchi barked and there was a popping of leather heels as Major Huxley and his staff marched into the room. Pucchi followed with a pad and pencil to take the Major’s notations on any fault his X-ray eyes found.

He passed them slowly, looking us over from head to toe—then our bunks. He wore white gloves and ran them over the windowsills seeking dust.

“Open your seabag, corporal.” Marion obeyed. “Very good, corporal.”

“Thank you, sir.”

There is a way to do everything and it is written in the book and Huxley inspected by the book.

“Lift your trousers,” he ordered of Zvonski. “Your socks are not rolled in a regulation manner, Marine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Receive instructions from your sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

A hush as he moved slowly down the aisle. Huxley’s gimlet eyes scanned every nook and corner. The few minutes seemed hours and he walked to the door. “Generally, very good, Sergeant Pucchi. Take care of the notations I ordered.” He turned and left and a big sigh went up and the tenseness relaxed into a mass of lit cigarettes.

The whistle blew. “Fall in for rifle inspection.” We donned our blouses, strapped on our fair leather belts and put on our overseas caps. Each man looked over another man, straightening a field scarf, adjusting the angle of the cap, or brushing a spot of lint from the blouse.

We checked our weapons again and moved out to the company street and stepped softly over the dirt lest we ruin the mirror shine on our shoes.

“Fall in and dress down the ranks!” Right arms shot out sidewards and heads left to straighten the line. Mac walked through his platoon and then to the front. He was satisfied.

“Ready…front!” They came to attention. “At Ease.”

Exchanges of salutes, roll call, more salutes and a rigid man-by-man inspection.

“Little too much oil on the barrel, Marine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stock looks fine. Keep it up.”

Each officer had a trick method of tossing the weapon about as he inspected it. The classier ones handled the pieces as though they were batons. The Marine accepted his weapon in the prescribed military manner, snapping the chamber shut, squeezing the trigger, and returning to the order.