Battle Cry (11 page)

“Lay those ankles flat, spread your legs, assume a forty-five degree angle to the target, spine straight, move that elbow in closer, thumb down, cheek against the stock.”

Hours of instruction and muscles stretched into the contortionist’s nightmare of positions. It ain’t human.

Sitting position, worst of all.

“I can’t move forward,” L.Q. cried, “my stomach is in the way.”

The instructor sat on L.Q.’s neck and jammed his body down. “Like that—I’ll sit here and you snap in.”

“I’m dying—I’m dying.”

Live ammunition! Twenty-two caliber, forty-five automatics, BARs, machine guns. Not long now till you get to the big range with your rifle, Marine.

“Next relay to the firing line.” Danny Forrester buttoned his shooting jacket and placed the cotton plugs in his ears. He walked to the smudgepot, blackened the sights of his piece and lay down beside the sergeant on the firing line.

He tipped his campaign hat back, “My name is Sergeant Piper, son. Adjust your sights for three hundred yards. Put two points left windage and we’ll get your rifle zeroed in.”

The fire master at a midway point along the alley of a hundred shooters held the field phone to his ear. He picked up a huge megaphone. “All ready on the right! All ready on the left! All ready on the firing line! Load and lock! Shoot at will, ten rounds slow fire, prone position!”

“Go on, son, let’s see if you remember your snapping in lessons.” Danny gritted his teeth. “Relax, boy—calm down,” the mentor soothed.

He forgot everything.

Rigid, he jerked the trigger with his right thumb up. The rifle recoiled meanly and smashed into his stiffened shoulder, his thumb jammed his eye. He was shaken. The target setters in the pits looked for a puff of dust from the hill behind them to indicate a round had been fired; instead they were greeted with a shower of dirt from the pilings up front. They happily waved a Maggie’s Drawers in retaliation for the bath. Target missed.

Danny lay there crimson faced and trembling.

“Ever fire a rifle before, son?”

“No sir, just the stuff out here.”

“Forget everything?”

“Kind of looks like it, sir.”

“Let’s try another round. Real easy…that’s right…got it lined up at six o’clock…get that thumb down…take a breath and hold it…squeeze her off easy like.”

BLAM! “A four at nine o’clock, that’s better, take another shot, lad. Another four at nine…now you’re shooting…take two more.” The target was lowered and raised after each round, the last two shots going into the same group.

Piper took the rifle from his student and Danny studied, in awe, the flawless position of the master. The sergeant laid five shots in quick succession. All fell into a neat little group…four at nine o’clock. “Nine shots laying in the same place, know what that means, lad?”

“I think we need just a shade of right windage for zero, sir.”

“That’s right, half a point, maybe lower your elevation ten yards and I think we have it.”

He adjusted his sights and fired more rounds. The initial fear gone…and he saw the thrill of a cartwheel, a bull’s-eye, flash over his target. He looked at his rifle, patted it and grinned from ear to ear.

“Feels good, doesn’t it, lad?”

“It sure does.”

“About a week and you’ll be doing it in your sleep. All right, pick your brass up and stand by. Next relay to the firing line.”

They pumped lead from dawn to dusk. Under Piper and a hundred others like him, the recruits soon turned the firing line into a dead-eye duck shoot. More cartwheels, more happy grins. The last phase. Clean it, march with it, kiss it, sleep with it, exercise with it, bayonet with—and now, shoot it.

Each day they ran the course:

Possible score of five points on each round. Two hundred and fifty points for the “perfect possible.” It had never been done.

To qualify for the Marksman’s Badge: a hundred and ninety points. Sharpshooter’s Cross: two hundred and fifteen points. Expert: two hundred and twenty-five points.

The rivalry was on as thousands of rounds poured down the gulley. Evenings they practiced positions until darkness fell, in the tents.

The cleaning chore after firing. Hot soapy water…steel brush…dry…lighter bore brush…oil…linseed the stock…Lay her under the bunk with loving hands.

A rain halted firing one day. By evening, after late chow, it had gone. L.Q. Jones approached Corporal Whitlock’s tent, stepped in, and snapped to attention.

“Sir, Private Jones requests permission to speak with the drill instructor.”

“At ease, what is it?”

“Sir, it is too late for firing and still light. We’ve all cleaned our rifles…er…er…several fellows suggested I speak to you because they feel I’m the only one crazy enough to bring you such a strange request.”

“For Chrisake, Jones, get off the pot. What is it?”

“We’d like some close order drill, sir.”

“You’d WHAT!”

“Well sir. We’ve been here over two weeks and we haven’t drilled. With graduation coming up we feel as though we have a good chance of being the honor platoon and we’d like to brush up. Maybe some fancy stuff…we aren’t too good on rear marches from left and right obliques.”

“I’ll be a sad bastard—all right. Tell them to fall out.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The tent area was pitched in darkness. Danny, Ski, and L.Q. lay under the deluge of cover, enjoying a late cigarette.

“It won’t be long now. One more week of boot camp.”

“Yeah, one happy Polack is going to kiss this goddam place good-by.”

“How did the practice round go?”

“I shot one ninety. Jesus, I got to qualify, Danny. Three extra bucks a month is going to help a lot.”

“How did you go, L.Q.?”

“My stomach still gets in the way on sitting position.”

“I got to make at least Sharpshooter,” Ski repeated.

“Try and relax more,” Danny said. “You can’t shoot when all you’re thinking about is getting her out here. It makes you too nervous.”

“I got to get her out here, Danny. It’s going rough back there. She ain’t saying much, but I can tell.”

“You can’t help her much by shooting Maggie’s Drawers.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I got to relax. Trouble is, Danny, every damned thing I do is hard for me. I just can’t pick up stuff like some guys. When I was playing football it was the same. The same in everything I do. I got to practice like hell.”

“Anyway,” Danny said, “we were sure lucky to get Piper for an instructor. He’s one of the best in the Corps. Even got his picture in the blue book.” He reached to the deck and snuffed out his cigarette and pulled his arm back under cover quickly. “Colder than a well digger’s butt out here.”

“Yeah,” L.Q. moaned. “I’ve had to take a piss for an hour, but I’ll be damned if I can get up enough guts to get out of the sack.”

“Will you shut your mouth? You’ll have me thinking about it now.”

“How do you like that Whitlock? He gave me the detail again; emptying piss buckets. Third time.” Jones scratched. “I think they got all the crabs, but one. The bastard is driving me crazy.”

Silence.

“Danny,” Ski said.

“Yeah.”

“Know something?”

“What?”

“I’m sure lucky I got lashed up with you and L.Q.”

“Go to sleep.”

“No, I mean it. If you hadn’t been helping me out I’d be a screwed goose. They’d probably made me start all over. I just don’t catch on fast.”

L.Q. threw off his blankets and dashed for the tent flap. “I can’t hold it, my back teeth are floating!” He returned and flung himself into his sack and buried himself, shivering.

Several moments passed.

“Danny,” Ski said.

“Aren’t you asleep yet?”

“What do you figure after boot camp?”

“I don’t know. Scuttlebutt has us going from Truk to Tokyo.”

“Yeah, got to take scuttlebutt lightly. But I did hear on good authority it might be Wake Island.”

“Could be.”

“What are you going out for when we get back to Dago?”

“Not much choice in the Corps. We’ll all wind up packing a rifle in the FMF sooner or later.”

“Yeah, ain’t a hell of a lot to choose from.”

“Maybe I’ll take a crack at the test for radio school.”

“Radio, why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just something a little different. Not that I mind packing a rifle. Just something a little special.”

“I’d like to get into aviation. Fifty per cent more pay. I could get her out here faster.”

“Sure rough to try saving on twenty-one dollars a month, Ski.”

“Yeah, but it will be twenty-eight soon. Jesus, I’d never make aviation.”

“Why don’t you quit pushing so hard, Ski?”

“Can’t help it, Danny. I just can’t rest with her in that lousy town. It eats me all the time. Her there with that bastard old man of hers.”

“I know.”

“Danny.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I can get into radio? I’d sure like to stick with you.”

“Why not take a crack at it?”

“Radio guys wear them lightning flashes on their sleeves, huh?”

“They call them ‘sparks.’”

“Yeah, I’d like that. But Christ, I’d never pass the test.”

“Rub your nuts for luck.”

A voice boomed from the next tent.

“Hey, you guys, knock off the crap! Let’s get some fart sack drill.”

“Yeah,” another added. “Ain’t you crapheads heard we’re shooting for record tomorrow?”

“I guess they mean us,” Danny said.

“Blow it,” Ski called back as he crawled deeper into his sack and drew the blankets over his ears.

Then there was quiet.

“Jesus H. Christ,” L.Q. cried.

“What’s the matter now?”

“I got to piss again.”

It came to pass that the platoon belied Beller’s prediction that none of them would ever learn to shoot straight. On record day, the goddamyankees qualified with an astounding total of eighty-six per cent. Of these, six entered the golden circle of Experts; O’Hearne and Forrester were among them. Even L.Q. managed to get his stomach low enough to fire a Marksman and receive a badge on his basic medal.

The basic medal worn by Marines told the deadly qualifications of each man: BAR, pistol, bayonet, chemical warfare, and the almighty rifle.

Firing on the last relay, the whole platoon gathered around to support the professor. Ideals and all, Norton saw not much more than Maggie’s Drawers. Several of his shots went into the target next to his.

Happy and reeking with the cockiness of a platoon in its last week, they left Matthews for the Marine Corps Base sporting an inch or more of hair.

Exams filled the final week. Openings for the few specialists schools. Some ventured to take the tests; others merely waited for the axe of fate to fall. Yet others, like Milton Norton, volunteered into the newly forming Pioneer Battalion.

Nervous, bursting with excitement, the sharply pressed and shined men scampered about putting on the final touches for the graduation.

“Christ, wonder where I’m going from here?”

“You’ll find out soon.”

“Come on, fellows, no pooping on the poop deck. We got to fall out in a couple of minutes.”

“Just think, tomorrow I wake up, the sun is shining. I look at myself and say…hey Jones, what are you? And I answer, why pardner, I’m a yonited states gyrene. This ole fat boy ain’t no craphead.”

“Sure will be sorry to leave all this.”

“You can say that again.”

“Danny,” Norton asked quietly, “will you square away my field scarf? Never could get these knots right.”

“Sure, professor.” Danny worked with the earnestness of a French hairdresser, until he was satisfied the knot was perfect. They sat on the edge of his bunk and lit up, nervously. “Sure feel shaky, professor. Gosh, I never thought this day was coming. Suppose we’ve changed any?”

“An understatement, Danny.” He smiled.

“Wonder where we’re going?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. I think you passed your radio test.”

“Not so much me. I’d like to see Ski and L.Q. make it. At least I hope we all flunk out together.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know really. Just that you make a buddy—and, well, I think it’s more important we stick together than we make it alone.”

Norton thought carefully. “Funny, Danny, how people from different worlds, different lives, people who wouldn’t much bother to talk to each other before the war, are drawn together in such fine friendships in such a short time.”

“Yeah. I think that myself sometimes, how you get attached to a guy.”

“I suppose the word ‘buddy’ is something far removed from anything we ever knew before. Say, I’m off on a tangent.”

“I wish you were going with us, professor.”

“I sort of hate leaving the gang, myself.”

“Why did you volunteer into the Pioneers? It’s a rough outfit.”

“I want to go home, Danny. I want to be where I can do the most to get me home the quickest.”

“I understand, professor.”

Whitlock’s whistle blew them to assembly for the last unlamented time. As they had done a thousand times before, they poured through the door, almost taking the sash with them. They fell in. The D.I.s looked sharp as tin soldiers. From Beller’s glistening fair leather belt hung a silver saber. He and Whitlock paced the ranks nervously, adjusting a field scarf here, a shoelace there, a cap at the correct angle, an ornament that had slipped. They scanned their charges from stem to stern and back to stem again.

“At ease. You goddamyankees have been chosen as the honor platoon. Gawd alone knows why. After the colonel’s inspection, we fall in behind the color guard and band to pass in review. For Chrisake don’t march like a bunch of dogfaces. O’Hearne, Chernik, you know how to bear your standards and salute?”