Battle Cry (5 page)

“Marvin.”

“Hmph…this administration is nothing but a bunch of Commies…”

“Marvin!”

“Getting so a working man—”

“Marvin, put that magazine down.”

“Oh yes, dear, what is it?”

“I want to talk to you.” He came to a sitting position, stretched his pudgy little body, and took off his reading glasses. “What’s on your mind, Sybil?”

“Marvin, don’t you think it’s time we sat Kathleen down and had a good heart to heart talk with her?”

“That’s your job.”

“I don’t mean that.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“I mean about her and Danny.”

“Oh, that again.”

“You don’t have to take his side all the time.”

“I like Danny.”

“So do I. He’s a fine boy. But…well, don’t you feel that Kathleen is just a little too young to be going steady?”

“Pissh, woman. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Just a phase. If we make an issue out of it you’d really make trouble. You seem to forget past experience.”

“Nevertheless, she could be seeing other boys. You can never tell just how serious they are.”

“Oh come now. The boy is going off to college in another month.”

“Just what I mean. I don’t want to see her tied down.”

“I think they’re sensible enough to reach an understanding between themselves on that score.”

“I still feel, Marvin…”

“See here, Sybil. If the specimens of drips she used to drag home are an example of your so called ‘field,’ I think she’s done right well by herself. My God, I nearly lost my mind with some of those morons she went out with before she met Danny. He’s a damned good lad. Clean cut, came up the hard way, and knows his values. I just hope that some other girl doesn’t snatch him off before he gets his degree. Furthermore, they’ll both be dating when he’s gone and I think it would be very unwise to meddle.”

“It’s just—with a war on—if he goes away.”

“He’s only seventeen years old. They aren’t taking babies.”

Sybil Walker sighed and returned to her mending. The doorbell rang, Marvin buttoned the top of his trousers, looped the suspenders over his shoulders and advanced to the door.

“Hello, Danny.”

“Good evening, Mr. Walker, hello, Mrs. Walker.” Kathy had already come to the living room with the sound of the bell. “I know it’s a school night, sir, but something rather important came up and I wondered if I could talk to Kathy for a few minutes.”

“Don’t stand there, come on in.”

“Hello, Danny.”

“Hello, Kathy. Come on out on the porch…I want to tell you something.”

“Rambling wreck from Georgia Tech, eh Danny?”

“Now don’t keep her too long,” Mrs. Walker ordered.

“No, ma’am,” he answered, closing the door.

“Fine boy,” Marvin said. “Fine boy.”

Kathy buttoned her coat and followed him across the porch to the glider. For a time he sat studying the perfect cubes made by the long row of porches down the block. Each in the same design and as they grew farther away they looked like one box inside another. Each with the porch light in the same place. All void of life. He shoved his feet and set the glider into motion. It creaked as it swayed. Kathy tucked her legs beneath her to keep them warm.

“What is it, Danny?” Her breath caused a little cloud of steam.

“I—don’t know where to start.”

He turned and looked into her face. She was beautiful. Her brow over her blue eyes was furrowed in a frown. “You’re going away, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“You’ve enlisted in the Marine Corps.” Her voice trailed off to inaudibility.

“How did you know?”

She turned from him. “I suppose I’ve known ever since Pearl Harbor. I knew it would be the Marines…I remember how you looked at them at the Fireman-Marine Game…. I suppose I knew when the news about Wake Island came over…I suppose I knew for sure on New Year’s Eve. You kissed me…like…like you were going away for a long, long time. I knew it would only be a matter of days until you told me.”

The swing stopped.

“When are you leaving?”

“In a few days.”

“What about college and…everyone.”

“Everyone and everything is just going to have to wait.”

“What about us?”

He did not answer.

“Danny, do you have to go?”

“Yes, I have to.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask me why. I’ve asked myself why, a hundred times. Just that something inside me is eating. Can’t you understand?”

“You’re going because you’re Danny. I guess you’d be someone else if you didn’t.”

“Kitten.”

“Yes?”

“I…I want you to give me back my class ring.”

Her face turned ashen. She pulled her coat about her.

“I’m not trying to make a grandstand play. College is one thing…this is different. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Maybe two or three years. There’s a rumor that I’ll be sent to the West Coast.”

“But…but…I thought we were going steady?”

“I don’t want to drag you into this mess, Kathy. Maybe it was just kid stuff. I just can’t go with us making any plans or promises. Something might happen and we might change our minds and we’d be awfully hurt then.”

“I won’t change my mind,” she whispered.

“After all, kitten, we’re just a couple of kids—and there really isn’t anything set between us.”

He took up the gentle rock of the glider and blew into his cold hands. There was silence for several moments, broken only by a neighbor tramping wearily up the stone steps to his door.

“Well, say something, Kathy.”

Her lips trembled. “I knew this was going to happen, I knew it.” She arose and walked to the rail and bit her lip to hold off the tears. But they came, nevertheless.

“Aw, for Christ sake, don’t cry. Please, you know I can’t stand it.” His hands took her shoulders tightly. “We’re worked up…let’s don’t do anything we’ll be sorry for later. You’ll see, I’ll be gone and it will wear off—you’ll date some other fellows and….”

“I don’t want any other fellows—I just want you,” she sobbed, turning into his arms.

“Holy smoke, you’re going to mess up everything.” He stroked her soft golden hair. “Holy smoke…what are we going to do now?”

“Don’t be angry, Danny.”

“For what?”

“Crying.”

“No, I’m not angry.”

“Maybe we’re too young…I just want to go on being your girl.”

“Don’t start crying again.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I guess you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”

“I don’t care.”

“What will your parents say?”

“I don’t care what they say.”

“Gosh…I feel kind of shaky all over.”

“Me too.”

“You’ll write all the time?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll let you know my address as soon as I can.”

“I’ll wait for you, Danny. No matter how long it takes.”

“If you want to change your mind…I mean it, honest.”

“You really don’t want me to.”

“No.”

He wiped her tears away as she managed a weak little smile. “I guess…this sort of makes us engaged.”

She nodded.

“A lot of nights I used to think how wonderful you are, Kathy. I used to dream about the time I’d be able to say what I’ve wanted to.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot too, Danny.”

“Do girls think about that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honest, I mean do they think about it the way fellows do?”

“Yes.”

“I…I guess it’s all right to say it now.”

“Yes.”

“I love you, Kathy.”

“Me too. I love you very much, Danny.”

Morning in Kansas City and another contingent of recruits. A diagonal trek through an elongated wheat field filled the day’s monotony. Rumors, dirty jokes, conversation, and mounting tension. The long line to the dining car. The train bulged with over eight hundred boys and men.

O’Hearne, down to his last bottle, made a personal call on each one in the car for refinancing. He was only moderately successful. He filled the afternoon with a personal history of himself as boxer, football player, drinker and lurid-lurid lover. He provoked two fights with lesser competition and as night fell the crap game was on again.

Day again and a crazy course still southward from Texas to New Mexico and back into Texas for a stop at El Paso. A mad rush for the postcard counter. Several bedsheets hung from the windows now, announcing that this was a trainload of Marines heading for San Diego.

O’Hearne attempted to lure a young awed girl flushed with patriotism aboard. For several hours past El Paso he reckoned that he could have sold her services at least two hundred times at five dollars apiece and set her up in business in San Diego.

Hot and sticky Arizona. O’Hearne’s mob took to defacing the train until M.P.s boarded at Douglas. And so, into the last night.

Bursting tension and sheer spectacle as two steam engines lugged the train up the steep embankments of the Sierras. Wild anticipation. Handbags packed and ready. A collection for the overworked porter. Wilder rumors as the train dipped below the Mexican border and stopped for inspection at Tijuana.

Small boys ran alongside peddling cigarettes and bilking the novelty seekers. The tin soldiers from the Romberg operetta depart.

“I wonder if they got a band to meet us.”

“Yeah, after all, we’re the first battalion from the East to ever train here.”

“I hope they got my dress blues ready. I want to look over the town.”

“I hear we’ll be in isolation for a couple weeks.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get into San Diego tonight.”

Outside, a few palm trees came excitingly into view. Also, a long line of trucks and a host of green-uniformed sergeants and corporals milling about with roster sheets. The green uniforms struck the first sour note in the new recruits.

“Philadelphia and Baltimore contingent, start loading in truck sixty-eight. Answer up when your name is called.”

The convoy moved towards the Marine Corps Base and was greeted by shouts of “You’ll be sorreee!” from the streets.

The lazy hot day was a wonderment for the people who had left the midwinter of the East. Past the huge camouflaged aircraft plant they rolled and then into the spotless military base, over the enormous parade ground and toward a sandy area of tents at a far isolated end.

They debarked and answered roll again by an arched sign which read; R
ECRUIT
T
RAINING
D
EPOT
, M
ARINE
C
ORPS
B
ASE
, S
AN
D
IEGO
, C
ALIF
.

And the gates of mercy closed behind them.

CHAPTER 3

“ALL RIGHT,
you people. We have a long row to hoe tonight so I don’t want to see anybody goofing off. Drop your gear and follow me.” They tagged after him to the mess hall.

Danny was amazed. From earliest recollections he had understood that soldiers ate nothing but hardtack and beans and the like. It was a surprise to find a tray filling with roast beef, potatoes, slaw, jello, ice cream, and the tables lined with pitchers of coffee and milk. Somewhere along the serving line, however, the ice cream got lost under the potatoes and gravy.

After the meal they were split into groups of sixty men and led to the large reception barracks. L.Q., Danny and Ski bemoaned the fact that O’Hearne had fallen into their group. A sharp blast of a whistle brought them scurrying to the center of the room around a starched corporal.

“All right, you people. Nobody leaves the barracks. I’ll be back for you when they’re ready to take you. When I reenter, the first person that spots me yells ‘Attention.’”

“Are you going to be our instructor?”

“You’ll meet your instructor in the morning.”

Before they could turn a barrage of questions loose, the corporal spun about and left, with a curt, “You people will find out all the answers soon enough.”

Danny and Ski strolled over to several charts hanging from the wall. One read:
Rocks and Shoals: Regulations and Customs Governing the United States Navy.
It was in small print and too long and double-worded to keep their attention. Another chart contained rank and insignia of the Navy and comparable Marine Corps rating. A third chart proved more interesting:
Common Naval and Marine Corps Expressions.

Catching on quickly, Ski announced proudly, “I got to go to the head.” In a moment he ran back and grabbed Danny and towed him into the lavatory. He raced past a long row of toilets to the final one and pointed to a sign. It read
Venereal Disease Only.

They gaped, then retreated from the place. Danny checked his watch. It was a quarter to ten. He slipped out of the door to a small porch and zipped his jacket. It was chilly, but the sky was clear and filled with stars. A far cry from the icy January of Baltimore. Then he saw a strange sight. He counted sixty baldheaded boys running through the night in underwear with a corporal behind them shouting out curses.

It slowly sunk in that he was going to lose his too. With a tinge of panic he pushed his fingers through his hair. Something phoney about this place. He spotted the form of the reception corporal cutting up the tarred walk and raced inside ahead of him screaming “Attention!”