Battle Cry (9 page)

“Fall out!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Gather around on the deck. The smoking lamp is lit.” The squat sergeant stood in the semicircle of sweating recruits. “Today is the most important day in your lives. You people are going to draw rifles. You’ve got yourselves a new girl now. Forget that broad back home! This girl is the most faithful, truest woman in the world if you give her a fair shake. She won’t sleep with no swab jockies the minute your back is turned. Keep her clean and she’ll save your life.”

They laughed politely at Beller’s recitation. Smiling content, he continued. “You can take tanks, artillery, planes and any other goof ball invention and jam it. The rifle is going to win this war like it’s been winning them ever since we whipped you goddamyankees at Antietam. The Marines are the best goddam riflemen in the world.” Beller took off his pith helmet and wiped his forehead. “Learn to shoot straight and the Corps will pay you extra for it. But before you ever squeeze off a shot, you’re going to know every part and every part of a part of the rifle. Get your buckets, change to dungarees and fall in, in three minutes.”

“Sergeant Beller, sir.”

“What is it, Dwyer?”

“What kind of guns are we going to get? Springfields or Garands?”

Beller’s leathery face became a mass of wrinkled snarls. “Dwyer, God help you or any other craphead that calls his rifle a ‘gun’!”

Danny felt a tinge of excitement as his hands reached for the weapon. He felt powerful. The guns came from cases which had held them silent between two wars. Awaiting a warrior’s hand to grasp them again, as they knew it must.

He took the grease-packed weapon and bayonet and marched to an open-air cleaning stall. Instructors raced up and down issuing screwdrivers, brushes, and cans of gasoline as they barked instructions on how to dismantle the piece. The entire day was spent elbow deep in gasoline, brushing cosmoline from the parts. Twenty years to get it in and one day to clean it out. So they scrubbed and scrubbed under dire threats from Beller.

“Private Forrester.”

“Yes sir.”

“What is the name of your piece?”

“United States Rifle, Caliber .30, model 1903.”

“Jones.”

“Yes sir.”

“What is the serial number of your rifle?”

“1748834632…sir.”

“Private Chernik.”

“Yes sir.”

“Describe your rifle.”

“It is a breech-loaded, magazine-fed, bolt-operated shoulder weapon, sir. It holds five rounds in a clip and the weight is 8.69 pounds without bayonet.”

“Private Zvonski.”

“Yes sir.”

“What is the effective range?”

“Six hundred yards, sir.”

“Private Dwyer.”

“Yes sir.”

“What is the muzzle velocity…”

Danny put down his manual, sighed and crossed his fingers.

“Going to take the test, Danny?”

“Yes.”

“Man, I ain’t got past the butt plate yet.”

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

“At ease. What is it?”

“Sir, I’d like to take the test for nomenclature of the rifle.”

“Go ahead.”

He held up his rifle, drew a breath and began pointing out the parts. “Butt plate, butt plate screw, stock, oil and thong well…” Methodically he worked up to the barrel, calling out a hundred parts, then came to attention.

“Is that all?”

“Yes sir.”

“You forgot the lower band spring, Forrester.”

Danny’s face reddened. “Get some canvas, tie the rifle to your leg and sleep with it tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

The platoon started from scratch once more to learn the manual of arms. The positions were pounded in with the same mercilessness of the other lessons.

Every day after morning chow now, there was exercise with the rifle, by the numbers. From extended order they lunged in unison to Whitlock’s count.

“Side lunge…left side first…one two, three four…up and out by the numbers…up and on shoulders by the numbers…”

They exercised till they felt their arms would fall off, till numbness set in. A minute’s rest and through the exercises once again, until they staggered from formation. Then once more.

One day Dwyer dropped his rifle. In the middle of the parade ground he knelt, bowed and kissed the weapon for three hours, declaring, “I love my rifle…I love my rifle.”

“Up and on shoulders” from the exercises was a standard punishment. When one roamed the Recruit Depot, he was sure to see at least a dozen boots standing before their D.I.s shoving the rifle up in the air and to the back of their necks. Until they swooned from exhaustion, but fought to keep from dropping it—the cardinal sin.

Platoon punishment. Standing at attention, arms extended forward. Palms down and rifles on fingertips. They stood till every muscle danced and trembled, red-faced and sweating, praying some other man might drop his rifle first.

Mr. Dickey, the principal of Forest Park High, walked to the rostrum of the flower-decked stage. Behind him were the black capped and gowned boys and the white capped and gowned girls of the graduation class. Before him sat the sniffling mothers and the straight-necked fathers of the seniors. He took the pince-nez from his nose and held them dramatically as he spoke slowly into the microphone beside the long table filled with rolled diplomas.

He babbled seriously of the task that lay before them, then turned to the empty chair on the stage. “He could not wait. We all knew him, we all loved him. Student, athlete, credit to his school. Would Mr. Henry Forrester please step forward and receive the diploma for his son Danny?”

Henry took a deep breath. Kathy squeezed his hand for courage and as he stepped into the aisle the orchestra struck up the Marine’s Hymn to the rising applause of the audience and students. Martha dabbed her eyes.

Mr. Dickey grasped Henry Forrester’s hand. “We are proud sir, proud. Our hearts…our deepest thoughts of Godspeed go out to him tonight, wherever he may be.”

“Your eyes are nice…hey, professor. How do you spell
limpid
?”

“l-i-m-p-i-d.”

“Limpid pools, whatever that means. She’ll like it, anyhow.”

“Not very original.”

“That’s all right, she isn’t very bright.”

Danny eased the bolt back into his rifle and muttered, “I’ll never get all the cosmoline out of this piece.”

“Christ, I thought I’d go in my skivvies during inspection. Old Sellers steps up to me and I see the stuff oozing through the butt plate swivel. I think it’s the first time he ever missed.”

“Say, did you hear about the kid in One Sixty One, slugged the D.I.”

“Bull crap.”

“Honest.”

“For why?”

“He didn’t take a shower—so they gave him one. Used a bucket of sand and a scrub brush. He was a bloody mess when they got through with him. Anyhow, he took a punch at the D.I.”

“Yeah, where is he now?”

“In the brig.”

“Hey, professor, what did you think of them reading off that prisoner on the parade ground?”

“Kind of gives you the creeps, the way they do it. March ten thousand guys out and walk him up to a platform with his head shaved. Thirty days bread and water for stealing a couple skivvy shirts.”

“Almost like a lynching.”

“Tradition,” Norton mused, thinking of the gruesome ceremony.

“Just don’t get caught, Dwyer.”

A booming voice sounded from O’Hearne’s tent.

“Put on your old red bustle,

Get your tail out and hustle,

For tomorrow the room rent is due,

Lay it down in the clover,

Let the boys look it over,

If you can’t get five, take two.”

“Nice kid, that O’Hearne.”

“I want to be around the day we quit here. He swears he’s going to kick the hell out of Beller and Whitlock.”

“Say, where is L.Q.?”

“With Ski, doing their wash over.”

“Zounds,” popped Dwyer, “I think I can do a Queen Anne salute.”

“For Christ sake, don’t we get enough drill without you practicing with that goddam rifle in here.”

“We looked pretty sharp today on the monkey march and wind marches. One Forty Four hasn’t even learned the marching manual yet.”

“Lend me some linseed oil for my stock.”

“I wonder if there’s a lineup for the iron?”

“Yeah, three deep.”

“How about that even old L.Q. got the monkey march.”

“We’re sure getting fancy—fo’ goddamyankees, that is.”

Danny worked the bolt several times and looked his rifle over from butt to muzzle and placed it on the canvas straps under his cot. Dwyer went “Bang, bang, you’re dead,” and slipped the bolt on his.

“Christ, clothing inspection again tomorrow.” L.Q. and Ski entered with their buckets. “Hey, fat boy. You’re going to ruin them clothes, scrubbing them so much.”

“Jones put a whole bottle of bleach in them today to make sure he got them white.”

“Oh no.” L.Q. shoved his way to his cot, edged Chernik and flopped down. He was pale.

“Hey lard, you sick?”

“I got woes, I got woes,” the stout one lamented.

“What’s the matter, blubber butt?”

“I’m a craphead from One Forty Three. Woe is me, Woe is me.”

“I saw Beller talking to you after drill. What happened?”

“I…I…called my rifle a gun today.”

The tent became deathly silent. Murder or rape, yes. But your rifle a gun—good Lord have mercy. Sympathetic eyes focused on him. He was on the brink of tears.

“I gotta report to Beller after the wash.”

“Don’t worry, L.Q. He’ll probably just march you with a bucket on your head.”

“Or a hundred ‘up and on shoulders.’”

“Or send you to the bay.”

“Or make you sleep with it.”

“Or make you scrub the catwalk with a toothbrush.”

“Or make you stand at attention in front of the water fountain for a couple hours in midday sun.”

“Or make you balance it on your fingertips.”

The consoling of his friends had little effect. He trudged out. They slapped his back and sighed as he headed for Beller’s quarters.

“Sir, Private Jones reporting.”

The barrel-chested sergeant looked up from a letter he was reading. “Just stand there.” He finished it with a fiendish slowness and replaced it in its envelope. “I believe you called your rifle a gun today, at inspection.”

“Yes sir.”

“But it isn’t a gun, is it, Jones?”

“No sir, it’s a United States Rifle, M-1903, thirty caliber, breach-loading, bolt-operated shoulder weapon, sir.”

“Then why did you call it a gun?”

“I forgot, sir.”

“Do you think you can remember?”

“Oh yes sir, infinitely and eternally.”

“I believe we can help you remember it.”

“I’m sure you can, sir.”

Beller arose and put on his duty NCO belt and led Jones from the tent. Heads peered out down the row.

“Private Jones, unbutton your fly.”

“Yes sir.”

“That’s your gun.”

“Yes sir.”

He led Jones through the entire tent area. At each street he blew his whistle and a platoon of boots came flying from their tents. Jones then stood there, holding his “gun” in his right hand and his rifle in his left and recited:

“This is my rifle,

This is my gun,

This is for fighting,

This is for fun.”

Days slugged by. One Forty Three moved to a prefabricated barrack in a new area to make way for the increasing flow of recruits. With each day Whitlock and Beller were able to discover less dirt and fewer errors. They marched smartly and did their other work well. With the lessening of errors, the slack in wrath was taken up by pouring on more and more drill.

“Hit those pieces when you change shoulders. If you break them we’ll buy you new ones.” And hands, at first tender, grew leathery and calloused.

The punishments of the early days decreased. Only O’Hearne, who was late for roll call one day, received an especially stiff one. He was discovered in the head, shaving in leisurely fashion and singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” For this crime, O’Hearne stood at attention one entire night in front of the D.I.s’ barracks serenading them with Irish ballads. Each time he weakened, a bucket of water and the one-word command “Sing!” greeted him. The loss of his voice was generally welcomed by the rest of the outfit.

There were many aggravating, to say the least, tricks that Whitlock constantly pulled from his grab-bag. A favorite was to march the platoon back and forth before a water fountain at Port Arms. As the sun blistered down, he would take a sip of the cool stuff and march them in rear marches until they were dizzy, their tongues hanging out, and their arms falling off from the weight of their rifles.

When they were at the point of collapse he would give them three minutes rest, then double time them through the ankle deep sand of the boondocks. Then, carrying their pieces at an arm-breaking Trail Arms he would run them clear back to the barracks.

It was about this time that they began to get a little proud of themselves. They firmly believed they could outdrill any other outfit in the Depot. Whitlock arranged to have their ego deflated.

It came the day they went to the edge of the Depot to receive booster shots. They “stacked arms,” received the shots and fell in for the exercise they knew was coming, to work out the stiffness. As they prepared to depart, a platoon of Sea School Marines doing close order drill on the Base grounds marched by.