Battle Cry (7 page)

“All right, you goddamyankees. We got a date with the barber.”

“Barbershop,” whispered Chernik, the farmer from Pennsylvania. “They should call it a wool-shearing station.”

“And we got to pay two bits for it yet.”

There was only one instrument used, an electric clipper. In groups of five they ran from formation to the waiting chairs within.

“Shampoo, shave and light neck trim,” sighed L.Q. as he flopped into the chair.

“Prevents lice, makes every man in boot camp the same. Makes no difference what you once was. You’re a craphead when you come out of the barbershop.”

For the first time the D.I. laughed as the men without names came from the shack. And they laughed at their own misery. Everyone looked ridiculous. Feeling naked and branded they once more trotted to their area and lined up in formation.

Beller took over. He marched the line of hairless men. It was hard to tell the banker from the baker now.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Private Forrester, sir.”

“Did you shave this morning?”

“No sir.”

“Why?”

“The head was crowded, sir. Besides, sir, I only shaved twice a week in civilian life.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes sir.”

Beller hunted out another non-shaver. O’Hearne was his man. He called the pair in front of the formation. “You people were told to shave. The Marine Corps says you need a shave every day! Private Jones!”

“I shaved sir, twice.”

“Private Jones, go to the head and get two razor blades. I want old rusty ones. Then go get two razors.”

“Two old rusty blades coming up, sir.”

Danny and Shannon stood before the platoon, which was rigid and warned not to laugh. Without soap or lather the two offenders shaved each other simultaneously. The worn blades pulled and tore skin from each other’s face until Beller was satisfied they were smooth.

“You people shave every morning!” he yelled again.

The neat, squat, starched man in front of the platoon contrasted strangely with the raggedy-ann men before him.

“You people have a lot to learn. From the looks of you, you’ll be a long time learning. The first thing is how to fall into a formation and stand at attention. I want the lard asses to my left and the feathermerchants to my right. Line up by height.”

Danny, O’Hearne, and Chernik headed the three columns while Ski, Dwyer, and a lad named Ziltch brought up the rear. After shuffling the platoon around Beller said, “Remember who is on your right and always fall in at the same place.”

The lessons began. Hard-learned. Drilled-in a thousand times. A Marine at attention: hour after hour they stood at attention. Heels together, feet at a forty-five degree angle, knees straight but not rigid, hips equally balanced and drawn back slightly, stomach in, chest out but not exaggerated, neck straight, head parallel, eyes forward, arms at sides, thumbs along seams of trousers, palms in, fingers fall away naturally.

“Zounds, I curled a toe when he wasn’t looking.”

“Goddam, I didn’t think there was so much to learn when we was standing still. What about when we start walking!”

“Jones!”

“Yes sir.”

“What the hell you think you are? A Prussian general? Relax.”

“Relax sir, yes sir.”

“Forrester!”

“Yes sir.”

“Front and center. Here is one craphead that seems to get the idea. Look at him. You can drop a plumb line from his chin down…. Return to ranks…all right, you people, let’s try it again.”

“I’ll be a sad bastard,” the D.I.s mumbled over again and again during the day as they caught errors. “Jones, where the hell is your chest? Palms in, dammit—stop curling your fingers.”

“Now we’ll try at ease and parade rest.”

For three days they fell in, stood at attention, at ease, back to attention, to parade rest, to attention, fell out (one step backwards say “Aye aye sir”…about face) fell in and stood at attention for a change.

“Make your bunk by the book!” Morning inspection found fifty-seven beds torn up and thrown from the tent to be remade. A wrinkle, an improperly laid corner, a seabag that wasn’t square at the corner, was enough to outlaw a bunk. Seabags were overturned and the contents strewn and then repacked. Several recruits made their cots nine times until the instructors were satisfied.

Each day found a lesser number of overturned cots, but one morning a cigarette butt was discovered on the catwalk. The platoon double timed through the ankle deep sand of the boondocks until after an hour four men had dropped from exhaustion.

Dear Kitten,

This is the first time I’ve had to write since we’ve arrived. You’ll find my address on the back of the envelope. They sure keep us busy here and the instructors are a couple rough characters. It would be useless to try to go into a lot of detail….

A couple of swell fellows, Ski and a jokester named L.Q. Jones. Honey, as each day passes I seem to wonder a little more about why I’m here. I don’t know how long it will take or where I’m going. If you’ve changed your mind, let’s have it now before it becomes too involved.

I’m thankful that they keep us busy…I’m afraid if I thought about you too much I’d go crazy….

“Lep face…right face, lep face…right face. Ten shun! At ease. Ten shun! About face…about face…”

“I can’t get this shirt on.”

“Why not, L.Q.?”

“Nobody done tole me you ain’t supposed to use a box of starch with a bucket of water. Whitlock is gonna hang me.”

“Fall in and dress that goddam line down. Come on, Chernik, get with the living. Goddammit, ain’t you people ever going to learn? As I pass down the line, hold up your washing for inspection.” The corporal’s gimlet eyes scanned the newly scrubbed clothes. “Belt duty, do it over. Sox dirty—shirt dirty, do it over.”

“Jones!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You call this a wash?”

“Oh…oh, sir.”

“Lookit them goddam nicotine stains on your skivvy drawers.” The bucket of clean clothes was turned over and dumped into the dirt and ground in under Whitlock’s heel. “Whole thing over…you people gonna ever learn?”

“Pay attention, you stupid bastards. I don’t know why I’m rushing you so, but I’m going to try to teach you crapheads to march. You always start off on your left foot. O’Hearne, point to your left foot…if you can. Remember it. You hold your normal interval. Steps are thirty inches—not twenty-nine, not thirty-one.” He paused a moment.

“For’d harch! Your other left, goddammit…lep…lep…lep two three po…lep right lep. Halt by the numbers…one…two.

“Don’t anticipate the command of execution. Forward….” Several men lurched up on their toes in readiness to step off. “Fall on your faces, you stupid bastards. Don’t anticipate the command of execution.”

Hour after hour the platoon stepped along to the broken-record droning of the D.I.’s “Left flank po…straighten up that goddam line…column right po…reah harch…reah harch…fall on your faces…” Another helmet smashed down. The stick jabs a rib….

“In cadence, count.”

“One, two, three, four,” the platoon shouted back.

“Louder, dammit, louder…in cadence, count.”

“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!”

“That’s the way I want to hear it…in cadence, count.”

“ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!” (The goddam Marine Corps.)

“Lep…to your lep.” (You left a girl behind you when you left, you left.)

“Chernik, stop thinking about that broad. Some dogface is probably in her britches…lep, two, three, four…lep, two, three, po.”

CHAPTER 4

THE BALDHEADED
recruits of One Forty Three could move together reasonably well at the end of a week. A few always decided to take off in another direction at a flank command but the majority of the main body hung on.

The end of the week also found a scratch on every boot’s forehead from the ornament screw where his pith helmet had been smashed over his face. Whacked fannies, poked ribs, and fingers cracked by the stick the sergeant carried were other helpful reminders of lessons forgotten. The stick, originally designed for measuring, had found other uses in the Corps. When it wasn’t heavy enough, the instructor’s boot was.

The days were broken by lectures. Field sanitation, personal hygiene, sex in San Diego and a hundred other subjects on which the Marine must be fully informed. The Manual was studied till taps in “spare time” and recited word perfect. But mainly it was drill, drill, drill!

An hour before taps found Danny’s tent jammed with visitors. Chernik, Dwyer, and another fellow called Milton Norton. Norton was unusually quiet, studious, and quite a bit older than the rest. He was very likable, though, and popular throughout the platoon.

Danny returned from Whitlock’s quarters.

“Did you pass?” Ski asked as he entered.

“Yes.”

“How do you like that for learning—Christ, he recites the Eleven General Orders and Rank and Insignia all in one day.”

“Quiet,” L.Q. snorted. “I’m trying to figure out who I hate the most, Beller or Whitlock.” He thumbed through the Manual. “To walk my post from flank to flank and salute all bastards above my rank…I know them…I know them.”

“You better learn them, L.Q., by tomorrow.”

Jones pulled a long comb from his pocket and ran it through the tenth of an inch fuzz on his head. “I washed it today and I simply can’t do a thing with it.”

“I hear tell,” Dwyer said, “that Whitlock is one of the easiest D.I.s in boot camp. I was talking to a guy from One Fifty today and he really got a tough one.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a crock—what’s his name, Hitler?”

“How about it, farmer?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chernik answered. “I sort of like the extra hour sleep I get here.”

There was a loud noise from the other tent.

“O’Hearne,” Dwyer spat. “Of all the crapheads in the Marine Corps, I got to draw a tent with him. Our D.I. away from the field.”

“Yeah, he sure gripes me.”

“Say, Norton, I heard they been feeding us saltpeter. Is it a fact?”

“What makes you think so?”

“I ain’t had a hard on since I been here.”

“Just overworked,” Norton explained.

“Ha-ha, duty Ted Dwyer. You were the guy who was going to San Diego the night we got here.”

“Yeah, Ted, how do you like your dress blues?”

“Hey, Norton, what did you used to do in civilian life?”

“Teacher.”

“I thought it was something special.”

“There isn’t a thing in the world special about teachers,” the quiet fellow retorted.

“I mean, you’re not like most of the yardbirds here, fresh out of high school. Where did you used to teach?”

“University of Pennsylvania.”

“Penn! We got a celebrity in the tent, men.”

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?”

“Taking boot camp like the rest of the crapheads.”

“But—a teacher at Penn….”

“I don’t see any sign barring us.” Norton smiled.

“I’ll be go to hell, how about that?”

L.Q. picked up his skin-tight green trousers. “In another goddam week I’ll fit them if that Texas keeps drilling us like he has.”

“I had a dream last night. I dreamed I was in San Diego with a beautiful broad. I was making time with her and I woke up laughing and laughing.”

“Why?”

“She was Whitlock’s wife.”

“I won’t have you speaking of my old friend that way.”

“All I dream is lep two, lep two—fall in, fall out.”

Jones sprang to his feet. “All right you goddamyankees…” he aped Whitlock’s shrill voice, “ain’t you goddam crapheads ever gonna learn…Gawd…Jones, your other left…saddest bunch of boots I’ve ever seen…eh, Mister Christian…Mister Christian…what is the matter with Jones…where the deuce is his chest…hup two…I’ll be a sad bastard…goddamyankees…can’t you people understand American when it’s spoke…on your feet, feathermerchant…stand on your head…run to the bay…lick the floor clean.” The men doubled in laughter did not see the tent flap swing open. “Mister Christian, ten lashes for the goddamyankees.” L.Q. spun around and his eyes met Corporal Whitlock’s. “Oh…oh…
Tenshun!
”

They continued laughing, not seeing the D.I.

“TENSHUN!” Jones shrieked.

Cots and seabags overturned in a race to get to their feet.

“Outside, all of you,” the Texan hissed. “And bring your buckets.”

They stood in front of the D.I.’s tent, stiff as ramrods. The other men of the platoon peeked adventurously from their tents. The corporal paraded in front of them. “What are you people?”

“Crapheads,” they answered in unison.

“Goddamyankees too,” L.Q. added.

“Keep repeating what you are.”

“I’m a craphead…I’m a craphead…I’m a craphead.”

“Now put the buckets on your heads and keep talking.”

“I’m a craphead,” came the muffled sound beneath the scrub buckets.

“Left face…for’d harch.”

For an hour he paraded the seven offenders throughout the entire boot camp area. The platoons of boots gawked in amusement. With a pair of D.I. sticks he beat a drum roll on the buckets to their chant “I’m a craphead.”

In the darkness, he ordered them into buildings, ditches, clotheslines, heads, and light poles until they reeled like punch-drunk fighters. Then the chant was changed to “I love my Drill Instructor.”

During the hours of drill the voices of Beller and Whitlock alternately droned cadence and shouted corrections. It was as though the two men had eyes on their feet, in back of their heads, and on both hands. The smallest flaw was always discovered.

“Straighten up that goddam line. You ain’t a bunch of soldiers.”

“Get your mind off that broad.”

“When you do ‘eyes right’ I want to hear the eyeballs click.”

“Stop swinging those arms. You ain’t gonna fly outa here.”

“When you come to ‘attention’ I want to hear leather pop.”

“Your other left, dammit.”

“Fall on your faces, you sad bastards.”

“Don’t you know the difference between a column and a flank? Gawd!”

“There’s nicotine stains, wash them over.”

“You got three specks of dust under your cot.”