Battle Cry (77 page)

“If you come to preach, pray with somebody that needs it.”

“I came to say good-by, Andy. Speedy and me are going home.”

“All right, good-by.”

“Chrisake, they’ll have that ugly kisser squared away in a year so there won’t even be a scar. I talked to the Doc and…”

“Sure, I’ll get a pretty new face…a nice leg too. You can do anything with it. Chop trees, plow a row. Maybe even get a job in a sideshow.”

“Hold on, you’re way off base. You’ve got a home and a wife and son.”

“Leave her out of it! I ain’t got nothin’! I never had nothin’!”

“She’d want you back if they sent you home in a basket.”

“Sure…sure, after they fit me with a leg, they rehabilitate me. You should listen to them crackpots around here. Look, Mac, want to see me wiggle my stump and show you how funny it is?”

“Cut it out! You’re not the only guy in the world that lost a leg. You worked in the woods, you’ve seen it before.”

“I’m glad to give it, Mac. Just ask anybody, we’re all real happy to do it. They going to fix up the Injun with a new pair of ears? Maybe they gonna dig up Seabags and the skipper.”

“Andy, you’re all scarred up inside you. Christ, we can’t all just lay down and die. They didn’t ask to live when they joined the Corps.”

“Get out of here.”

“Not before I tell you I think you’re a yellow rat. You haven’t got the guts to deserve to live. Don’t speak about the skipper and the squad. You aren’t in the same league with them.”

I wanted to take Andy in my arms and tell him I didn’t mean it. His hand groped for the air, reaching for mine.

“Mac, I ain’t sore at you…you know that…I ain’t sore at you.”

“I shouldn’t of said that. It wasn’t true.” I took his hand.

“Forget it. Look, lots of luck. Tell Speedy I’m sorry. Tell him ole Andy said not to get too much mud for his duck when he gets back to the States.”

“So long, Andy.”

“So long, Mac, and…and if you happen to be passing Peterson’s tent, maybe you can tell him I’d like him to read them letters to me…and maybe he could write one for me…if it ain’t too much trouble.”

I met Speedy and noticed that he was carrying his guitar. We trudged toward the camp. “Reckon we could stop at the cemetery and say good-by?”

We walked through the white wooden archway where the sign read: SECOND MARINE DIVISION CEMETERY. I supposed it wasn’t much different from any other cemetery in the world—except for Speedy and me. We found the Sixth Marine’s section and slowly wandered between the mounds and crosses. We stopped for a moment at each grave and for that moment remembered something, the kind of thing a guy remembers about another guy. Some crazy little thing that just stuck in the mind. J
ONES
, L.Q.,
PFC
…R
OJAS
, P
EDRO, PHM
1/
C
…H
ODGKISS
, M
ARION, CPL
…G
OMEZ
, J
OSEPH, PVT
…H
UXLEY
, S
AMUEL
, L
T
. C
OL
—M
C
Q
UADE
, K
EVIN
, M
GY
S
GT
…S
HAPIRO
, M
AX
, C
APTAIN
…K
EATS
, J
ACK
, M
ARINE
G
UNNER
…B
ROWN
, C
YRIL, PFC
…

Speedy stopped over Seabags’ grave and parted his lips. “I sort of made a promise, Mac.” His fingers strummed a chord but he could not sing.

Beneath us the ground rumbled and the air was filled with a deafening roar of motors. We turned our eyes to the sky. B-29s, flight after flight of the graceful silver birds, winged over us on the way to Tokyo.

“Let’s get out of here, Mac…why should I be crying over a bunch of goddamyankees.”

CHAPTER 5

THEY
stood at the rail of the
Bloomfontein.
They were all quiet. Silent stares, mouths open as we glided through the fogbank. And then the two towers of the bridge poked their heads above the haze.

“The Golden Gate in forty-eight, the breadline in forty-nine.”

The pilot schooner signaled for the submarine nets to be opened to let us enter. It was chilly.

It wasn’t much the way we had thought it was going to be. Just a bunch of tired heartsick guys at the end of a long, long voyage. And the Marines were out there yet. The First Division had landed in the Palau Islands. They were still dying. I remembered how I’d pictured this moment, with my boys alongside me…wars just didn’t turn out that way. Broken and weary in body and mind…and the Marines were still landing out there.

I could still hear my boys singing. They sure sang pretty. I could hear them plain as day, standing outside the Skipper’s tent on Guadalcanal.

“Oh Sixth Marines, Oh Sixth Marines,

Those hardy sons of bitches…”

“Hi, Mac.”

“Oh…hi Speedy.”

“Thinking?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Ain’t much like coming home, is it?”

“No.”

The big bridge loomed closer and closer and then the fog seemed to drift aside and they could see her. Frisco…the States.

“Funny,” Speedy said. “That bridge ain’t gold at all. It’s orange.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking. You got a lot of stops to make on your furlough. Maybe you could give me Pedro’s stuff and I could see his family. I don’t live very far away.”

“But he was a Mexican and you’re back home now, Speedy.”

“He was my buddy,” Speedy whispered.

He took out his wallet and a piece of paper brown with age.

December 22, 1942. This here is a holy agreement. We are the Dit Happy Armpit Smelling bastards of Huxley’s Whores…. We hereby agree that one year after the end of the war we will meet in the City of Los Angeles….

Speedy tore it up and we watched as the pieces floated slowly down to the water.

Sam Huxley’s lady was wonderful. I spent two days at the Base in Dago with her. Afterwards I felt my heart so heavy that it seemed there wasn’t any more room for sadness in it. I went to the homes of my boys; it was awkward at first but the folks went out of their way to make me feel at home. They wanted so badly to know so many things.

I wanted to get it over with. I wanted to badly. When I got to Marion’s home in Kansas, Rae had left but I felt that one day I’d keep my promise to Marion and run across her someplace again. She had taken the money they’d saved together and bought him a beautiful window in his church.

I caught a train in Chicago with a feeling of relief, knowing I had but one more stop to make. As I neared Baltimore I looked through the window and as the scenes passed before me it somehow felt familiar, the way Danny had told me it was time and again.

It was raining outside. I closed my eyes and rested back. The clickety-clack of the wheels nearly lulled me to sleep and I thought about my boys and about Huxley’s Whores. The fresh-faced kids and the misfits that had made the old-timers wince at first sight of them. And I remembered Huxley’s words: “Make Marines out of them….”

Yes, they took us back and the roadsigns were white—white crosses. And they were still taking them back, to a place called Iwo Jima. Three divisions of Marines were there, within fighter-plane range of Japan. At this moment they were on the hottest rock of them all.

Like any gyrene I thought there had never been an outfit like mine. But in my heart I knew that we were but one of fifty assault battalions in a Corps that had grown beyond comprehension. There were other outfits that had seen much rougher fighting and shed more blood. Five Marine Divisions, with a Sixth being formed. The Corps had sure grown.

I looked through the rainstreaked window and caught a fleeting glimpse of a wide-lawned street with a set of huge buildings. It must have been Johns Hopkins Hospital. Then the train plunged into a long tunnel.

“Baltimore! There will be a ten-minute stopover.”

I nudged the sleeping boy sitting beside me. “Wake up, Danny, you’re home.”

He opened his eyes and stood. I helped him square away his field scarf and button his blouse.

“How do I look?”

“Like a doll.” The train lurched as it braked to a stop. I caught him to prevent his falling. Danny winced. “Hurt?” I asked.

“No.”

“How’s the old flipper feel?”

He grinned. “It won’t be much good for tossing fifty-yard passes. They told me they’ll be pulling shrapnel out of my back for ten years.”

The train halted. I pulled Danny’s gear from the luggage rack and edged to the door. We stepped from the train. I gave the bags to a porter and handed him a bill.

For many moments Danny and I looked at each other. Both of us wanted to say something but neither of us knew what to say. Something had passed from our lives that would never return. For me, just a cruise was over. For me there would be another station, another batch of kids to train, another campaign. Our two lives, which had once been so important to each other, were now a long way apart.

“Sure you won’t stay a couple of days, Mac?”

“Naw, you don’t want me around. I got to get to New York and see Levin’s dad and get on back to the coast. Not much time left.”

A crowd surged past us to fight onto the already crowded train. Behind us a gang of kids stood with their handbags. A Marine recruiting sergeant in dress blues paced up and down. “You have five minutes,” he barked. Voices rose behind Danny and me.

“Take care of yourself, son.”

“Get a Jap for me, will you?”

“Write.”

“Now don’t worry, Mom, everything is going to be all right.”

“They’re putting us in a place called boot camp for a few weeks.”

“You’ll be sorreee,” a uniformed Marine sang out as he passed them.

Danny and I embraced clumsily. “So long, you salty old sonofabitch.”

“So long, gyrene.”

Danny turned and pushed his way down the platform to the foot of the stairs. I followed, several paces behind him.

A news vendor shouted his headline. “Marines take Surabatchi on Iwo Jima! Get your latest
News-Post
and
Sun.
Marines on Iwo Jima!” I caught a glimpse of the front page he waved. They were raising the flag on the mountain top in the picture.

Danny fought step by step up the long stairs. Then, he stopped and looked up. She was there. Surely she’s the angel I pictured for him.

“Danny!” she shouted over the din.

“Kathy…Kathy!” And they fought through the mass of hurrying people into each other’s arms.

I saw them move to the top of the steps. An older man was there and a boy. Danny took off his cap and reached for the man’s hand. I could see his lips move. “Hello, Dad…I’m home.”

I saw the four of them fade into the shadows of the barnlike station. Danny turned and raised his hand at the door for a moment. “So long, Mac.”

And they stepped into the twilight. The rain had stopped.

“Train for Wilmington, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York…Gate twenty-two.”

I walked down the steps.

“Read all about it! Marines on Iwo Jima!”

“All right, you people! Get aboard!”

And I remembered the words in the book I had taken from Marion’s body.

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter, home from the hill….

IN WRITING
a book such as
Battle Cry
it was necessary to decide early in the work whether or not to fictionalize the names of units, ships, battles and places. Because the book covers such a vast territory and so many units are involved I would have had to fictionalize the entire history of the Pacific War to avoid any such identifications. To do justice to a story of the Marine Corps I felt that a sound historic basis would be the only fair avenue of approach. The Second Marine Division, its battles and movements are a matter of public record. There are many instances where events have been fictionalized for the sake of story continuity and dramatic effect.

After deciding it would be folly to attempt to veil the fact that this was the Second Marine Division, and more specifically the Sixth Regiment, there arose a problem that could possibly cause future misunderstandings. There may or may not be alive today men who held various ranks and commands in the Corps, duplicating ranks and commands held by fictitious characters in this book. For example: we know there was but one commander of the Marines in the Pacific, there could be but one Division commander at Tarawa, and the same goes for the Sixth Regiment, the Second Battalion, and Fox Company. The men who held these commands in no way resemble the imaginary characters in the book who held the same commands and can in no way be identified as the same people. They are the creatures of my imagination and I alone am responsible for them and their actions.

My pride in serving with the Marines is obvious to anyone reading
Battle Cry.
I admired and respected the officers of my battalion. But, as a Pfc I had little knowledge of their personal lives or motives.

Huxley, Shapiro, Philips, Bryant, Bryce and the rest were necessarily drawn solely from my imagination, and any similarity to real persons holding their commands is truly a case of mistaken identity.

I hope this explanation of the circumstances clarifies any questions and I sincerely trust no one will suffer embarrassment.

—LEON M. URIS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I do not see how anyone trying a first novel
can do it without sympathy, help and faith of friends.
No one who ever tried has had better friends than I have.

About the Author

LEON URIS
ran away from home at age seventeen, a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to join the Marine Corps, and he served at Guadalcanal and Tarawa. His first novel,
Battle Cry
, was based on his own experiences in the Marines, which he revisited in his final novel,
O’Hara’s Choice
. His other novels include the bestsellers
Redemption, Trinity, Exodus, QB VII
, and
Topaz
, among others. Leon Uris passed away in June 2003.