Battle Cry (70 page)

All supplies to all camps on the atoll came from a boat pool. Like Huxley’s Whores, the boat pool was made up of forgotten men. Each ship of the original task force transports had assigned a few landing craft which were to remain after the invasion and be used to run supplies from incoming freighters to the various installations. The coxswains of these boats were homeless men. Max Shapiro found it a good practice to welcome the boat pool to his camp with open arms.

He once more sent out a squad which rounded up several tents and cots and set up a permanent home for the sailors. His mess hall gave them the only hot meal they could find on the atoll and for his efforts the landing craft pilots always saw to it that Fox Company was well supplied from loads destined to Seabees and Army camps.

There were so many choice items destined for the other camps that transport and warehouse space soon became a problem for Fox Company. With each passing day the volume of missing goods from the boat pool’s haul became more alarming. The atoll command decided that armed guards would be necessary to see that the landing craft delivered their loads intact. Shapiro quickly volunteered his company to ride and protect the boat pools from these flagrant thefts. Somehow, even the presence of armed Marines riding the landing craft didn’t curb the losses—in fact, they increased. It was then that the Army commander discreetly removed the Marines from the guard detail.

This didn’t keep the boys in the boat pool from tipping off Max as to the variety and destination of their loads. When the nightly air raid came and all good soldiers and sailors were in their shelters, Fox Company brought forth their well-hidden stolen jeeps and raced to the stockpiles of the other camps.

The mystery of the disappearing goods didn’t much bother the other camps. It was when ten thousand cases of Stateside beer was brought to the airstrip on Lulu that the Army and Seabees put their foot down. Food and clothing was one thing, beer was another, and friendship ceased.

It was easy to detect when a load of beer came in, for the landing crafts of the boat pool in the lagoon buzzed around in crazy circles, sometimes ramming each other and running aground under the unsteady hands of their drunken coxswains.

They couldn’t hide ten thousand cases of beer, so the Seabees constructed a barbed wire stockade and placed a twenty-four-hour guard atop the mountain of three point two. Fox Company found themselves in the embarrassing situation of having to buy the beer or trade it for previously borrowed lots of foodstuffs. Only during their air raids were they able to negotiate the course.

At the first blast of the air raid siren, Fox Company sprang into action. Their alligator roared over the lagoon for Lulu while the four stolen jeeps came from camouflage and raced at breakneck speed through the blackness to the airstrip. The field was the prime target for enemy bombers and there was little chance of interference from holed-up Seabees and soldiers. As the raid progressed, Shapiro’s organizational genius came to the fore. The jeeps rushed from the beer dump to the alligator with precision that no Marine working party in a hundred and fifty years had accomplished. When the all clear sounded, the alligator spun about quickly for Buota and the four jeeps made a last load and raced southeast back to camp. Then, the jeeps and the beer seemed to disappear into thin air.

All this was very perplexing to the Seabees. Informal calls were made by various camp commanders to Two Gun to report the theft of so many hundred cases of beer. With each visit Shapiro became duly alarmed and agreed that something should be done about it. Max would sigh deeply, shake his head and say an oath against the culprits. He suggested that a shakedown raid be pulled on the natives—who after all were the only logical suspects. Many times the other commanders would cast a wistful eye at the Fox Company air raid shelters at which a round-the-clock guard stood behind machine guns. To make a sly implication that the Marines were guilty was one thing. To dare attempt to send a patrol to inspect the shelters could well mean open warfare. So Fox’s bombproofs were never investigated.

Baffled and desperate, the Seabee chaplain was sent to Fox Company to have a long heart to heart chat with its curly-haired skipper and to appeal to his finer instincts. Unfortunately the chaplain parked his jeep by the lagoon and left the ignition keys in it. He had to walk back to Lulu praying for the souls of the Marines.

Night often found the Marines indulging in prankish games with their confiscated vehicles. The tide usually washed out a major part of the lagoon and left it a glistening sand bed. It was common for ten to fifteen men to pile aboard a jeep, loaded to the gullets with brew. They’d rip out over the misty sand and reach top speed, slam on the brakes and spin round and round sending men and bottles flying to the sand of the lagoon floor. They played other games, too, buzzing down the road and weaving in and out of palm trees. A couple of broken legs ended that. Two jeeps became stuck in the sand of the lagoon during a spinning session and had to be abandoned after they were stripped for spare parts.

Alarmed at the thefts, Shapiro called his crew together in formation and warned them it must stop. However, anything found lying around loose and unclaimed might be taken to prevent it from rotting in the tropical sun. Anything so discovered must be split up and the skipper, naturally, was to get five per cent off the top.

A dozen poker games went on all the time. When Dick Hart, the battalion gambler, snuck into camp, Shapiro promptly ran him out. It was all right for the Foxes to take one another’s money but he’d be damned if George Company was going to get it.

It was Shapiro’s greed that almost upset the apple cart. He had a tremendous yen to obtain a “duck,” a vehicle that ran on both land and water and was very popular transportation over the inlets that blocked island from island. He told McQuade and some of his lads of his yearning, one evening during a poker game. Nothing was too good for the skipper, his lads reckoned, so they set out to get him a duck. If Max wanted a duck, the least they could do was to get him one. They found him the very finest. In fact it belonged to Commodore Perkins, second in command of the atoll. With tears in his eyes, Two Gun received the offering and drove it proudly into its camouflaged garage.

So enraged was Commodore Perkins at the loss of his private vehicle that he cut off Fox Company’s movies. It made little difference, for the boys were too busy drinking beer, listening to armed forces radio, playing poker, and chasing native girls to bother with movies. The nightly shows were run almost exclusively with native attendance. It was then that Perkins decided he had had enough and ordered a patrol, to be led by himself personally, to encircle and shake down the Fox Company area, including the vaunted air raid shelters.

Shapiro, however, was not without a spy system. Being extremely liberal in sharing supplies with the nearby village he had hired a half dozen native lads as an intelligence service. His English-speaking spies loitered the days away in a half dozen strategic positions gathering information. Whenever one of them was approached by a soldier or sailor he would pipe conveniently, “No speakee English.” Fox’s favorite intelligence agent was a young lad of sixteen nick-named MacArthur and it was he who got the tip on the impending raid. With the aid of the natives of the nearby village, Fox Company removed their entire haul to the village. While they did this, Sergeant McQuade feverishly typed out orders and posted them all about camp. One said:

WARNING: A
NYONE CAUGHT STEALING GEAR OR SUPPLIES OF ANY TYPE WILL BE SUBJECTED TO GENERAL COURT-MARTIAL.
M
AX
S
HAPIRO,
C
APTAIN,
USMC.

Another:

I
T HAS BEEN CALLED TO MY ATTENTION THAT NUMEROUS SUPPLIES FROM NEIGHBORING CAMPS HAVE BEEN MISSING. ANY INFORMATION LEADING TO THE APPREHENSION OF THE THIEVES WILL BE APPRECIATED BY THIS COMMAND.

Commodore Perkins’ patrol swooped in at daybreak. Jittery over the possibility of having to face armed Marines, they were surprised to find a peaceful little camp of the finest military nature. As the patrol rushed in on three sides, the men of Fox were going through a rigid routine of close order drill and rifle inspection. Perkins left the place, muttering to himself. MacArthur was promoted to corporal and presented with a brand-new machete, something he had always wanted for cutting coconuts down from the palms.

Each day the alligator arrived at the main camp on Bairiki from Buota with new tales of the daring banditry of Shapiro’s Foxes. It made good kindling for bull sessions in the monotonous routine.

The first mailcall from the States, bringing in loads of back letters, was a Godsend but at the same time it only made the men realize how lost and alone they were and how long the war was going to last. The G.I. blues set in in a bad way. And there were the neatly wrapped stacks of letters stamped K.I.A. to remind us that so many of our buddies were gone. There was no talk of Levin or Burnside aside from casual mention once that they were up for medals. The rotten diet, alleviated only by Fox Company’s packages, did little to build the worn bodies. The searing heat and dryrot monotony was bad for an outfit like Huxley’s Whores. We were used to action and life and this sitting on a two-by-four island sucked our vigor. We were listless and soon illness came in the form of dengue fever.

Sam Huxley realized the predicament. He fought hard to prevent demoralization even though morale never seemed to be a Marine problem. Highpockets decided to enlarge the Fox outpost by sending fifty men at a time to Buota for four-day periods. A fill of beer, a look at the women and a chance for atoll liberty did wonders. The four days on Buota rejuvenated them.

Each group returned to Bairiki loaded with beer and Fox Company hospitality, dressed in Navy fatigues and full of tales as tall as the palms. One unfortunate event occurred. The Sisters of the Mission passed the word throughout the villages that all women were to wear halters. They explained discreetly that their exposure caused desires in peoples of Western civilization. A dirty trick! However, a few brave native girls held out for their time-honored bare freedom and it made friendships between them and the Marines much easier, as the unhaltered directly invited establishment of better relations.

As anywhere, the American troops spoiled the natives rotten till the price of services for menial tasks performed soared tenfold.

The jeep stuck in the mud of a rut on the road that ran through the middle of an Army camp on Karen Island. At the sight of a jeep full of Marines the soldiers ducked from sight to protect their belongings. McQuade had made the cardinal mistake of taking a jeep out in the daylight. As its wheels spun about sinking it deeper in the mire, an Army major rushed from his tent.

“Goddammit!” the major screamed. “My jeep!”

McQuade cut off the motor and leaned back. “You say this is your jeep, Major?”

“You’re damned right it is. I caught you red-handed.”

“Well, what do you know about that,” the sergeant sighed. “Found the damned thing abandoned outside our camp. Why, would you believe it, Major, I’ve been from one end of this atoll to the other trying to find the owner—haven’t I, boys?”

They nodded.

“Like hell you have!”

“Gee, I’m sure glad we found it, sir. Here is your jeep.”

“Wait a minute…come back here, you people.”

“Sorry, Major, we got to go gizmo hunting.”

“Gizmo hunting?”

“Yep, well, good-by.”

The enraged officer looked under the hood and tears streamed down his cheeks. His brand-new car had been battered beyond recognition. He rushed to his superior officer to arrange charges against the Marines. They must have been from the Fox camp and the driver, the fat sergeant, would be unable to hide that stomach anywhere. For several hours the Army staff argued the feasibility of bringing charges. Some feared it would only step up the raids by the Marines. Stouter hearts prevailed and it was decided an example must be made of them once and for all. The Army had the fullhearted backing of Commodore Perkins and again Shapiro’s camp underwent a raid. But again the raiders were several hours later than the reliable spy, MacArthur, who had been recently promoted to sergeant.

“Fat boy…fat boy?” Shapiro scratched his head…. “I haven’t got any fat boys in this camp, they’re all skinny. If you people gave us a square shake on rations I might have some fat boys.”

A mile away in a hut by the ocean, Gunny McQuade lay on the lap of a young native girl who stroked his balding head softly. Another girl brought him a bottle of beer, cooled at the bottom of an artesian well. He uncapped it, passed it about to his friends, guzzled the remains, and gave a long, loud, contented burp.

CHAPTER 9

ON AN
exceptionally peaceful evening the men sat about on the beach listening to
Command Performance,
enjoying the two favorites, Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore. Some lay in the lagoon, floating and cooling from the extreme heat of the day, and others just lazed about with their hands around a beer bottle. During a rendition of the latest song hit, “Pistol-Packing Momma,” the air raid siren went off. They doused their cigarettes and settled back to hear the rest of the program. The spotlights and ack-ack made a wonderful show but the bombs falling in the lagoon interrupted the program with their loud bursts.

A Seabee puffed up the road in the darkness from a nearby construction detail. He stumbled into the gathering on the beach as the fire grew intense from the battery of 90s behind the camp.

“Sorry to bother you fellows,” the Seabee squealed. “We haven’t had time to dig a shelter. Could I use yours?”

“Sure,” Shapiro said.

“But skipper,” whispered McQuade.

“Aw, it’s pitch black and the guy is scared to death. Right over to your left, son.”

“Here?” the Seabee called out in the darkness.

“A few yards back.”

“But, Max, there ain’t no shelter there….”

“Here? By this oilcan?”