Battle Cry (10 page)

“At ease, I want you guys to watch this.”

The Sea School Marines were a sight to make any boot cringe. Six feet tall, husky and tanned, they were the men who manned the guard of battleships and cruisers of the fleet. The air was alive with the color of their dress blues. Their sergeant rippled cadence from his tongue and in his hand he swung a beautiful golden saber. The polish of their golden buttons and buckles, the mirror of their shoes and cap brims, the white of their belts and gloves and the magnificent unison of movement was a sight to behold.

“Tenshun,” Whitlock barked. “Right shoulder arms! For’d harch! Lep…two three po…pick up the step Forrester, straighten out that piece Norton…you ain’t carrying a broom. Ain’t you people
ever
gonna learn?”

“When you run the bayonet course, I want to hear some rebel yells. Scream! If you can’t whip them, scare them to death. Use that rifle butt…knock his goddam head off…twist when you lunge. If it sticks in his guts, blow off a shot and knock it loose.”

Danny didn’t like the looks of a bayonet. He let out a bloodcurdling yell as he raced into the straw dummies…. “Crouch, Forrester, get him in the neck, rip his jugular vein out….” His stomach turned over. He thought he would vomit. “Get mad at him…yell, Forrester, yell!”

Then there was the obstacle course. It was a quagmire of pitfalls. Underground tunnels with dead ends, barbed wire, scaling walls, ditches, hurdles, rope ladders, tires to dive through, and a huge well. The latter was twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep. Over dead center hung a slippery rope which led to the slimy well bottom.

To get over this obstacle the boot had to be running full force and leap ten feet with rifle and pack and hit the rope perfectly to swing over to the opposite side. The ones who had successfully completed the last obstacle gathered around the well for a little sport.

They laughed uproariously as some missed the rope and tumbled into the quagmire or grabbed the rope and slid down. The funniest ones were the danglers. Barely missing the safe side, then swinging back to the middle, they squirmed, wiggled, and struggled. Then inched into the miserable muck and succumbed to the mud bath. Their reward was to keep attempting it till they made it.

It was not the damage to themselves they minded—it was hell on rifles.

One day, five weeks after boot camp started, Danny Forrester had a strange sensation. He looked at L.Q., and Jones resembled someone he had met on a train. He took his mirror from his seabag and studied himself. There was a quarter of an inch of hair on his head. He rubbed it over and over again. And the feathermerchant, Ski, was looking filled out and hard. Not half so puny. “By God,” he whispered, “we’re becoming Marines.”

That afternoon at drill he had the same sensation. As Beller chanted cadence, the rifle felt like a toothpick in his hands. In the quiet of the remote corner of the grounds he could hear the unison of hands smacking their rifles as they changed shoulder positions. Then Beller’s monotone cadence began to resemble music. There was melody here…. “Lep two three po…to your reah po…reah po.”

During a break he stared at his hands. They were like leather. The cramps and blisters that harassed him a month ago were gone.
Funny, I ironed my shirt perfect last night and made up for inspection in ten minutes today—and Whitlock hasn’t said “I’ll be a sad bastard” for almost a week.

CHAPTER 5

SIX WEEKS
were gone and the recruit battalion prepared for the final step in basic training. They moved to the rifle range at Camp Matthews, several hours from San Diego, for a three-week small arms course under great and near great marksmen.

Friction within the platoon, centered around Danny and O’Hearne, increased. Shannon’s heft and bluster gave him forceful leadership of most of the men. In the closeness of the barracks he kept up a constant harping on his lurid sex and fighting and drinking feats. Most everyone smiled respectfully—except Danny and his group of friends. This made O’Hearne boil. He could not bear being ignored.

O’Hearne plotted his course carefully. To fight Norton or Ski would add little luster to his reputation. Chernik he didn’t care to tangle with. L.Q. would not fight, would merely say something funny; and Dwyer had been transferred to the Base Hospital with an extreme case of cat fever. This left Danny to hold the fort. Danny, long resigned to the fact that he would get slugged eventually by O’Hearne, merely shrugged and decided to do the best he could.

It finally blew up on a rainy afternoon. Although Beller and Whitlock would have taken pleasure in marching them in mud, there were powers even more almighty than the almighty D.I.s who banned drilling in the rain. Instead, they ran the platoon through six harrowing hours of inspections and recitations from the blue book. Finding nothing left to inspect, they let the men alone after noon chow.

Everyone was nervous from the rain, the closeness and the morning workout. O’Hearne’s boisterousness lent no comfort. He slipped into the sack next to Danny, who was writing a letter.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was in bed with three broads?”

“The last time I heard it, it was six.”

The big Irishman smiled and slapped Danny across the back, overly hard. “Hear you used to play football.”

“Some.”

“Me too. Bartram High and semi-pro. Played tackle and fullback, just like Nagurski. Let me tell you about the game I played against…what the hell was the name of that team…doesn’t matter. Anyhow, I remember the score.” He then launched into a modest volume on how he crossed up the opponent’s offense and smashed its defense. Ski, in the upper bunk, was content reading over several old letters until O’Hearne’s booming voice overrode his train of thought.

“Hey,” he yelled down, “seems to me they had a dumb quarterback on the other team. I would have run a tackle trap right over you, the way you said you was rushing that passer.”

Shannon winked and nudged Danny in the ribs, then held his nose.

“I played ball,” Ski said swinging to a sitting position.

“Get this, men—he played ball. What grammar school?”

Ski bounced down. Everyone edged in, sensing a fight.

“I played for Central.”

“What, in your dreams, feathermerchant?”

“Guard.”

“Oh, spare me.”

“Bet?”

“You say you played guard?”

“You can hear.”

“O.K., sonny. Just for kicks, I want you to block me out of a play.” Ski looked to Danny, and Danny nodded and smiled. O’Hearne assumed the position of a charging lineman. The feathermerchant immediately saw the product of poor coaching—if O’Hearne ever did play. His angle was too high and he was off balance. The little lad crouched. “Hike,” sneered O’Hearne as he raised his arm to slap the feathermerchant down. Shannon didn’t have a chance. Ski’s uncoiled body drove upwards, his shoulder sinking into the big man’s stomach a full six inches. O’Hearne thudded against the bulkhead and sank to his backside. He heard a roar of laughter.

His face turned crimson. He sprang to his feet and hit Ski in the mouth. Danny was up and dived and both went careening into a doubledeck bunk which toppled under the impact. He wrestled Danny’s grip free, just in time to catch a punch on the jaw from Chernik, then something dropped on him. It was L.Q. Jones. Ski bounced back into the melee and the four of them pinned down O’Hearne quickly. It was gentle Milton Norton who spoke.

“Shannon O’Hearne, you’ve been asking for this. Let this be a lesson to you. Any more hooliganism on your part and we won’t let you off this easily—is that clear?”

“Clear?” Chernik repeated, grabbing O’Hearne by the short hair and batting his head on the deck.

“Clear,” he croaked. He wobbled to his feet, red and shaking. For an instant he tensed for a second try, then sagged and shoved his way toward his bunk.

“Tenshun!”

“Well, well,” Whitlock hissed, “what have we here, a little grab ass?” He spotted the offenders. “O’Hearne, Feather-merchant, Chernik, Forrester, Norton, Jones…come to my quarters.”

They went.

“All right, stand at ease. You first, Ski.”

“We was practicing some football plays, sir.”

“Forrester?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Norton?”

“Yes sir?”

“Don’t tell me you played football, Norton?”

“No sir, but at Penn, sir, University of Pennsylvania, I used to watch practice all the time. Er, Coach Munger is a personal friend, sir—I was naturally interested.”

“I think you’re all lying, Jones! I know—I know, you were practicing football.” The freckled corporal turned to O’Hearne. Shannon had them cold turkey…brig for the whole bunch. Now was his chance. Six to one.

“That’s right, sir, football. I guess we got too enthusiastic, sir.”

A sigh of relief went up. The corporal snarled and dismissed them. Sergeant Beller turned to Whitlock after they left.

“You ain’t buying that story, Tex, are you?”

Whitlock smiled. “Looks like they worked him over. He had it coming.”

“Should we haul them all in?”

“What for, acting like Marines? Maybe we made us another good gyrene today. We could use us some good fighting Irishmen like O’Hearne. You know something, that’s one hell of a platoon, best we’ve ever trained. I bet they can outdrill any bunch of crapheads in the Depot.”

“Dammit, Whitlock, better survey you to the FMF, you’re getting plumb sentimental.”

“I’ll drill their goddamyankee asses off, soon as this rain stops,” Whitlock answered.

They walked to Shannon O’Hearne’s bunk. He had been sitting silently for an hour.

“O’Hearne.”

“That was a noble gesture,” Norton said.

Danny extended his hand. Shannon looked up slowly, then arose. He lowered his head and thrust his hand forward into Danny’s. Then they all began laughing.

“Say, did I ever tell you about the time I was walking down Market Street and this here broad comes up to me…”

At Camp Matthews, the rifle range, like the Depot, was overcrowded by the sudden shift from peace to war. Barracks were being constructed at breakneck speed and new platoons were placed wherever space could be found. Right off the highway were the main buildings. Their aging paint seemed to blend with the rustic setting of tall pines and hills and gulleys of the camp.

The five main ranges worked away from the highway. The ranges were cut into the ravines to give the minimum of wind disturbance. Firing lines were placed two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, and six hundred yards from the targets. Targets were run up on pulleys from pits made of concrete. Behind the targets was a hill to stop the slugs.

Targets were manned by recruits, with more permanent personnel to oversee and co-ordinate the firing. At either end of the targets small flags were flown to indicate wind strength and direction.

The firing lines had numbered posts corresponding with each target. Behind the firing line were smudgepots to blacken gun-sights and cut the sun glare, and large buckets to hold expended shells.

Megaphone-bearing NCOs ran up and down the line relaying messages telephoned from the pits. In the pits the target workers worked in two-man teams, using paste buckets and patches to cover target holes. Long poles with signal markers were raised over the pits to give the scoring to the men firing from the lines. In the pits there was also a red flag, the nemesis of a rifleman. “Maggie’s Drawers,” it was called—the signal for a complete miss.

Every target on every range was tutored by a Marine who had shot
expert.
They wore shooting jackets and old Marine campaign hats. Although these hats were long out of issue they were badges of honor, and the expert marksmen of the range were permitted to wear them at cocksure and jaunty angles.

The various ranges held targets in numbers varying from twenty to E Range’s enormous breadth of a hundred.

There were other ranges at Matthews, twenty-two caliber, forty-five pistol, BAR, and machine gun ranges. Every man who entered the Corps went to boot camp and every boot went to the rifle range. Every man had to have intimate knowledge of how to fire and strip each basic infantry weapon.

Before a recruit was allowed to fire a shot, he lay at a dummy range for over a week, snapping in. Here was the monotony of learning to drill, all over. The lessons pounded in, till you knew them in your sleep. By the time the boot fired a round, he knew what he was doing. His position was as perfect as the haranguing instructors could make it.

“The Corps pays extra for its marksmen. Qualify as a Sharpshooter, three bucks a month; qualify as Expert, five bucks.” In the days of twenty-one dollars a month, this was a small fortune.

Platoon One Forty Three drew quarters past E Range, the furthermost point of Camp Matthews—a knoll overlooking the firing range, some two miles from the main buildings. No electricity, running water, head, or toilets. Taps was automatic at darkness on the cold, windswept hill.

Working conditions were far better than at the Base. In sharp contrast to the cursing, the punishments, the drill, and the misery of boot camp. Although the rifle instructors were no less exacting, their tactics were different. The lessons were personalized and given with firm but kindly words. They were the most important weeks in the life of a Marine, his rifle training.

“Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it,” a thousand times over.

“All right you people, gather around. All right, you are out of boot camp. You go to Dago on liberty and this here luscious blonde picks you up. You go to her apartment and she fills you with liquor. Next thing you know, you are in bed with her. You get ahold of her tit. Would you jerk it or would you squeeze it?”

“Squeeze it!”

“Remember that. Equal pressure throughout the right hand, squeeze like a lemon.”

From sunup to sundown they lay on the dummy range, snapping in.

“Line up your sights at six o’clock. Your sling is wrong…don’t hold your thumb up…it will push right back in your eye.”

Prone, kneeling, sitting and offhand. Who concocted the positions? They must be crazy. No one can shoot with their body twisted up like a pretzel.
The Marine Corps says you can, son.