Pages of Promise (9 page)

Richard had grown accustomed to Smith’s habit of talking to the picture and kissing it. They all had developed little behaviors that kept their minds from the misery of the life they led.

When they finished their meal, Richard said, “We better get back and let the other guys come and get some of these crocodile eggs.”

They traipsed back, relieved two men, and replaced them in the trenches. From time to time, Richard glanced over to see Smith, about fifty yards away, but mostly he scanned the horizon. No one knew when the next attack was coming, but, wearily, they knew it
would
come. The marines had taken Siberia and Bunker Hills in mid-August, and the fighting had hardly let up since then.

Hearing a noise behind him, Richard turned quickly, not really expecting trouble but ready for it. He smiled when he saw the chaplain, Captain Prejean, strolling along through the mud as if he were back on his farm in Louisiana. Prejean was an educated man, like all the chaplains, but he had a Cajun accent thick enough to cut with a knife. He was a slight man with a dark-complected face enlivened by gray-black eyes. “How you are today, marine?”

“Fine, padre. Get down before you get shot.”

“I’m not gonna get shot, me,” the chaplain said. He stood bolt upright and stared placidly across the open plain broken by hummocks and gullies. “I think we’re gonna have a good sun in two or three hours,” he observed. “You want a candy bar? I got a Snickers.”

“A Snickers bar? Give it to me, padre. That’s a gift from heaven.”

“No, that’s a gift from me. Heaven gives different kind of gifts.” The chaplain smiled, squatted down, and fished the candy bar out of an inside pocket. It was crushed and pushed out of shape, but Richard didn’t care. He tore the wrapper off, took a bite, and chewed it, closing his eyes in ecstasy. “That’s as close to heaven as I’ve been lately.”

“You ain’t been very close, have you? Not you.” The chaplain smiled, and his white teeth gleamed against his dark skin. “You a good Christian boy?”

“I don’t reckon I am. I oughta be. My folks taught me the Bible.”

“You better listen to your folks.”

“They’re a long way away.”

“But the Lord God, he’s not far. Not him. He’s right here in the mud.”

“God in the mud. Doesn’t sound right somehow.” Richard ate the candy bar in small bites, crunching the nuts between his teeth and enjoying it as he had not enjoyed anything in weeks. “I oughta take part of this to my buddy,” he said.

“Where is he? I got another one just like.”

“Over there. See?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, I’ll go in a minute. Anything I can do for you?”

Richard grunted. He looked up at the chaplain and said, “What’s the use of it all, padre?” He swallowed the last morsel of candy bar, licked his finger, and shook his head with disgust. “We chase these birds up north, and they get reinforcements and chase us back south. Every time we play that little game and dance that little waltz, we lose good men. They lose more than we do, but that doesn’t help me any. I don’t see any sense in it.”

“It doesn’t look so good, does it? But I tell you, we’re only seeing what happens in this one little place. I mean, when they came at us yesterday that was all any of us could think about, especially you men up on the frontline. That line coming across there, and the tanks that would be right behind ’em, and the planes coming down to strike us. That’s the whole world, isn’t that right?”

“You got that right, padre.”

“Well, no way to get out of that. When we got a toothache, all we can think about is that toothache. A hundred thousand people might die of starvation in India, but our toothache is what we think about, not those people dying.” He settled down on his heels and spoke quietly. He had a classroom air about him, and Richard suspected he had been a teacher, a professor, at some time. “What’s happening in the big picture?” Prejean asked rhetorically. “Simple. You know what the sign of the Communist party is?”

“A red star.”

“That’s right, you. It’s red because of blood, which means they’ll shed all the blood they have to, and that star’s got five points. That stands for the five continents of the world. The Communists have vowed to take the world.”

“My dad says something like that. And he says you have to whip the Communists where they are or you’ll have to whip ’em in your own backyard.”

“Your dad’s a smart man, him. That’s why we’re fighting here, and if we can’t see nothin’ but this square acre of ground, you and me we got to believe that we’re really fighting for the good ol’ U. S. of A.”

Richard liked the chaplain, always had, but Richard’s faith was small, and he thought of the boy soldier that he had killed. “What about the killing?” he said harshly. “That village we came to three days ago, some women and children got killed there, and maybe some of them not by accident.”

Chaplain Prejean shook his head sadly. “No answer for that, marine. In a war men are away from home. None of their people are watching ’em. They been taught to kill the enemy, and there’s no little switch on a man that he throws to make a difference. Men do things in a war that they’d be put in jail for back home.” He fixed his eyes on Richard’s face, and he spoke quietly. “You noticed that, I think. Men do crazy things here that they’d never do back in Ohio or Virginia.”

Richard had a quick memory of Smith talking to a photograph and smiled faintly. “I guess you’re right there, padre.”

From far off came the rumble of artillery, and the two men turned in that direction. But both of them had learned to judge the sound of cannon fire, the distance, and this was too far away to hurt them. “They’re hurtin’ somebody,” Prejean said, “but not us. There, you see? As long as it’s not me, I don’t worry—not me.”

“Padre, would Jesus have been a marine if he lived in our time?”

The question caught the chaplain off guard. “You ask funny questions, you,” he said.

“Well, would he?”

Prejean thought about it. “When Jesus Christ came to this world, he didn’t come to be a marine. He came for something worse than that. He came to die on a cross.” He continued to speak of Jesus and his death, and the chaplain’s voice became earnest and his eyes half-slitted. “Don’t make any mistake. We’re fighting against flesh and blood, but Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ and he fought against principalities and powers, and he won his war.” An exultant smile came, and the chaplain’s eyes lit up. “That’s why we can face the worst thing the world has, ’cause Jesus won.”

“I’m all mixed up, chaplain.”

Prejean leaned over and tapped Richard’s shoulder. “We’re not at the end yet. That’s why there’s still war and killing. But I’d like to think that you’re holding back the powers of darkness a little bit. The Communists are godless people, the leaders anyway. They’re determined to stamp out Jesus Christ and the cross. What town you come from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Imagine that the Communists were in Los Angeles. First thing they’d do is kill all the Christians. That’d probably be your folks—your family and you.” He stood up then and said, “I wish I had a sack full of Snickers bars.”

“Thanks for stopping by, chaplain. It was a help.”

“You keep looking to the Lord Jesus. Put your faith in him.”

The chaplain turned and strolled away. Richard watched as he went over and stooped down to give Smith the candy bar, and he thought,
That’s some fella, that chaplain. I wish they
were all like him.

For two days after Chaplain Prejean’s visit Richard thought about what he’d said. He even dug the New Testament out of his pocket, but his mind was too fuzzy to make much sense out of it. He spoke with Smith about the chaplain, and they agreed that he was a real man. Smith said, “You know, when Molly and me get married, I’d like to have that chaplain come and do the marrying.” He grinned, saying, “But if he ain’t around, I’ll grab anybody that’s legal.” He pulled the picture out of his pocket, delivered his usual flowery speech, kissed it, then put it back. “You don’t have a girl back home?”

“Nope. Not like you do.”

“Too bad. You go back and find one. A man’s only half a man without a woman.”

The attack came at almost high noon, which caught the company off guard. Usually the Communist troops launched their attacks at night or in the early dawn. This time the sun had come out, the men were sitting around, some of them playing cards, others napping. When the alarm came, Sergeant Johnston came scrambling back. “Here they come! They got us surrounded on three sides! We got to hold ’em off, marines!”

It was as bitter and vicious a fight as any of them remembered. The enemy kept coming in fresh waves, but Richard fought coolly. He held his fire until he saw a good target. Jack turned and punched his shoulder. “You’re earning that sharpshooter’s money today, boy.” Jack fought calmly, and the two men held the position until the attack was driven back.

Lieutenant Porterfield came along the line, crouched low. “We’re pulling out,” he said. “Fall back, but keep your heads. Go back fifty yards, stop, and cover the men you pass. Keep your heads now, marines.”

They began their slow retreat, and Richard and Jack got separated. By 2 o’clock the marines had covered almost a mile.

Richard heard a tremendous rattle of fire over to his right and turned quickly. “What’s that?”

“Some of our fellas got pinned down over there under that hill. Look! There’s the enemy along that line.” Richard looked where the lieutenant pointed.

“We got to get ’em out!” Richard whispered tersely.

“How? We don’t have support to march up those hills.”

Richard was searching the terrain. “There’s a little gully over there that runs near the base of that hill,” he said. “Maybe we can take a squad and get behind them.”

The lieutenant was a large man with fair hair and light blue eyes. “You willin’ to try, Stuart?”

“Let’s go!”

Porterfield quickly gathered six others, and they faded along a ridge that concealed them from the enemy. The rapid fire continued and Porterfield cursed. “They’ve got automatic weapons! All we have is rifles!”

“They’ll kill a man as quick as a machine gun, Lieutenant,” Richard said. They advanced almost a quarter of a mile, and then suddenly the lieutenant’s face turned purple. He grasped his chest and fell to his knees, saying, “Can’t–make it. Something’s wrong in my chest.”

Richard glanced at the others and said quickly, “You two, Evans and Barker, get the lieutenant back.”

“We can’t carry him.”

Stuart said, “Gimme your rifles.” He grabbed the two M-1s and said, “Now you can carry him. Get going.” Evans and Barker each took one of the lieutenant’s arms and hoisted the man between them and started back.

Richard said to the others, “Look, we’re almost there. If we get up that ridge, I think we’ll be able to spot ’em.”

“We got to cross that open ground,” one of the marines protested. He shook his head. “That’s suicide, Streak!”

“Well, we’ll just have to outrun those bullets, won’t we?” Richard said. He started, and the four marines followed him. They crossed the open space without drawing fire and all piled into a heap in the shallow gully at the base of the ridge, gasping for breath. Only then did automatic weapons begin to kick up dust around them.

“They got us spotted!” one of the marines said, as he flattened out.

“I’m going up and across to that rock over there. If I can get there, they can’t get much of a shot uphill at me.”

“You’ll never make it, Streak!”

“You watch me, Keller!”

Richard left the cover of the gully, with the two extra rifles still slung at his back, and ran a zigzag pattern. Keller and the others did their best to lay down covering fire. Richard thought to himself,
You’re the hundred-yard-dash man. Come on
now. They don’t call you Streak for nothin’, do they?
Bullets chewed up the ground around him, and he felt one of them touch the small of his back, leaving a burning sensation. He zigzagged, stopping and falling and rolling, and heard the screams of the enemy.

The last ten yards, he simply made a running dive. He felt something strike his boot, and when he rolled over he saw that the heel had been shot away.

He sprawled behind the small rock—which seemed even smaller now that he was using it for cover—and threw a shell into the chamber of his rifle. He already knew what he wanted to do. Just pop up, take a shot, and pull back down.

He crouched, then with one motion rose up and flung his rifle steady. The scene below came clearly in view, and he saw a number of enemy soldiers, some of them looking up at him. One of them started to raise his machine gun. In one motion, Richard pulled his rifle down into position and fired. He saw the man knocked backwards, and he ducked down. Bullets dug in around him, splintering rocks, but he slithered left and about ten feet down the hill to another rock, popped up, and fired again. This was the game he played. Moving up and down, left and right along the ridge, taking whatever cover he could, he outguessed them. And meanwhile Keller’s group took every opportunity to add their fire from the flank, plus the enemy was still taking fire from the marines they’d pinned down. Soon Richard heard cries of anger and despair, and without wasting time reloading his rifle, he grabbed one of the spares. This time he popped up and took four shots, each one knocking down an enemy soldier. There was return fire, but it was spasmodic.

Richard never knew how long this went on, but finally he heard commands, the firing from below subsided, and the enemy pulled back along the base of the ridge on the side away from where Keller’s men were still firing. Richard, too, fired until they were all gone, then seeing that the way was clear, scrambled back to the others. After grins and slaps on the back all around, they regrouped and found Lieutenant Porterfield with a medic. His color had grown better. “I think you just won yourself a medal, son,” Porterfield said after the others told him what had happened.

“I just need to get this boot heel fixed. Come on, Keller, let’s let the lieutenant get rested up. We’ll go see about the rest of the boys,” said Richard.

The marines who had been pinned down were moving to rejoin the company. One of the first men Richard saw was Smith. “Think they’re gone?”