Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific (25 page)

“Uh-uh. Nope.”

We breathed more easily, and I, who had inched toward him during the conversation, suddenly broke for the dark hulk of the ship. I counted upon the sentry either not firing or else swinging to cover me, and thus giving Chuckler and Chicken the chance to bowl him over, knock him off the wharf into the water, or to scatter themselves in such a way as to make it difficult for him to aim.

But the sentry was both quicker and smarter than the three of us.

He sprang back to forestall Chuckler and Chicken and brought his rifle to his shoulder to cover me. He slammed the bolt home. When I heard that deadly snick of cartridge into breech, I froze. We all froze. We contemplated the sentry in incredulity and consternation.

“You stupid, chicken boot!” Chuckler hissed. “What the hell do you think we are—Japs? Put that damned rifle down!”

The sentry surveyed us open-mouthed, as though Chuckler’s angry words had fallen upon some heretofore unsuspected ground of loyalty. His eyes seemed to see us again as different persons, not the abstract transgressors of a moment ago, whom his general orders commanded him to detain—but now flesh-and-blood marines from his own battalion, and he seemed to realize that he was menacing us with a loaded rifle that could kill. He began to lower it.

But it was too late.

Across the wharf and out of the great shadow cast by the ship came loping the officer of the day.

Involuntarily, I hardened the muscles of my stomach, as though bracing them for a bullet, when I saw it was Lieutenant Racehorse. For Racehorse was the most feared, the most capable, the most respected and the most bloodthirsty leader in the battalion. As I stood there with my hands raised, watching his approach, seeing him draw his pistol as he ran, bawling for the corporal of the guard, I saw him dimly in the past—walking along the Guadalcanal hills and practicing drawing his pistol from behind his back, practicing quick drawing and shooting, practicing, perhaps, with that very pistol he now drew and pressed into my belly as he came up.

He looked out at me from beneath his helmet, but I could read no emotion in that lean confident face with the flaring nostrils and the small wide-set eyes.

“Search them,” he said, pressing the pistol deeper into my belly.

“What do you want to search me for?” I asked him. “You know me, Lieutenant. I’m no fifth columnist.”

“Search them,” Lieutenant Racehorse repeated, and the sentry obliged. He was blushing now.

“Give us a break,” Chuckler said, and I was surprised to hear it. But then I remembered that Racehorse had come up through the ranks, and presumed that perhaps Chuckler was appealing to this.

“No breaks tonight,” said Racehorse. His voice was high. “You should have thought of that before you jumped ship and went ashore without leave. And out of uniform, too.” He looked us over coolly. “Sentry, get behind those men and cover them.”

“C’mon, Lieutenant,” Chuckler pleaded. “Give us a break. We didn’t do any worse than any of the other fellows. Hell! The whole Second Battalion was ashore tonight. We’re just the unlucky ones who got caught.”

“No, you’re not. I caught dozens of them coming through the gate. And I let them all off. But not you. I watched that whole business from across the wharf. You guys are too smart—and if I had been that sentry you’d all be dead.”

He marched us to the
Manoora
and up the gangplank and up to the forward part of the ship and down a ladder and into a whitewashed hole lighted by a single glaring electric bulb. This was the
Manoora’s
brig. It was not a room at all, rather a seagoing Little-Ease, a vacancy occurring as port and starboard of the
Manoora
joined to point the prow. The ribs of the ship’s sides were visible. One man could barely turn around, three not at all. We had been stuffed into the place, literally—and when the hatch clanged shut, we discovered a plate fastened to the bulkhead which bore this inscription: “This brig certified fit to contain one able-bodied seaman.” We looked at each other, counted each other—and guffawed.

Then we fell asleep—Chuckler, being the heaviest, lying on the deck, I on top of him, and Chicken on top of me.

We awoke to the realization that we had put to sea. The prow rose and fell steadily, and we, stuck away in our hole up high, rose and fell in the exaggeration of our height. Our brig, like a rabbit hutch quivering beneath the hunter’s footfall, shuddered and shivered with the
Manoora
‘s motions and the throbbing of her motors. We rose and fell, sometimes dizzily, sometimes rushingly, sometimes with that long gliding rise, that fateful pause and dead bottomless drop that is the worst of all. But we were not sick, or even unhappy. The motion of the ship meant that the maneuver had begun, and this, we concluded, would mean that our commanders would be too busy to try us for our misdeeds.

But they weren’t.

The bread-and-water cell blazed with good cheer. I entered with Chicken. There had been a deck court-martial before the Battalion Executive Officer. He had removed the Pfc. stripe I had only recently regained, fined me, and withal sentenced me to ten days’ bread-and-water. Chicken fared as badly, though Chuckler had escaped the brig by forfeiting his second pair of corporal’s chevrons.

When we entered, there were delighted cries of welcome—“Look who’s back!” and “Welcome aboard, mate!” It was like a class reunion. Almost everyone had been in before, and everyone knew everyone else. Even the guards were alumni.

Our appearance interrupted an election. This was a regular occurrence, the election of a mayor of the brig—and it was the most fairly conducted contest in my memory. Only two things qualified a candidate: frequent incarceration and length of service. Elections had to be held as often as the present mayor’s time expired and he happily vacated his office.

One of the candidates was concluding a windy oration, dark with dire promises of vengeance upon the officers, bright with pledges of innumerable blossoms for the incarcerated lotus-eaters. Our own Oakstump was his rival. His speech was solid.

“He’s a bloody short-termer,” Oakstump said of his opponent. “It’s only his second time in.” He thumped his massive chest. “I’ve got another fifteen days to do—and it’s my fourth visit.”

Oakstump was elected by acclamation.

“Congratulations, Mr. Mayor,” I said to him, but his beaming reply was cut short by the arrival of the bread box. Everybody leapt—I lunging with them—so easily did men accustom themselves to privation.

Oakstump drew a canteen of water from the faucet. He tore a huge length of bread in two, surveying the halves thoroughly. “Guess I’ll make a sandwich,” he said.

I snorted, “What the hell with—air?”

“Salt,” he said. “I always make a salt sandwich.”

He stooped, grabbed a handful of salt from the box, and deposited it on one half of bread, smoothing it carefully. He patted it and placed the second half upon it.

“Just right,” he said dreamily. “Just enough salt for this sandwich.”

He began to munch, pausing to slip the water, so satisfied it seemed sinful. Had I not recalled Oakstump on Guadalcanal, mixing his wormy rice with the contents of a stray can of peanut butter and smacking his lips over the mess, I might have pronounced him mad. But this was Oakstump of the oxen back and matching brain and unconquerable palate—and I ask you, how can such men be defeated?

That night, our own H Company took over the guard. Runner was the bread-and-water sentry. Though he had been caught by the MP’s during the
Manoora
episode, his luck had held—they had let him go.

When darkness fell and we had thrown ourselves down on our blankets, Runner slung his rifle, dug out a cigarette and lighted it for me. Soon, other cigarettes glowed in the dark.

“How about some food?” I whispered.

“Where? The galley’s closed.”

“Out at the kiosk by the main gate. You can get hot dogs.”

“Okay—as soon as I get off guard. Keep it to yourselves, though, or the whole damn brig’ll want hot dogs.”

I fell asleep, happily anticipating a reawakening by Runner.

It was close to midnight when Runner awoke me. He had a brown bag filled with kiosk food. I awoke Chicken. Runner slipped out of the cell.

We devoured the food. What a banquet! Here was the lowly hot dog, but it was spiced with risk, flavored with prohibition and washed down with the nectar of a watering mouth.

He feasted us again the following night, and would have done it the next night, too, had H Company not relinquished the guard.

But the fourth night there came a stranger awakening.

A flashlight played impudently on my face.

“That’s him,” a voice said, and I was commanded to arise. So was Chicken.

We were taken outside, fearing, of course, the worst. But we were being freed. We were placed in the custody of a tall, gaunt newcomer to the battalion known as Eloquent, both for his passion for the polysyllable and for his expressive hands.

He marched us down the corridor toward the battalion sergeant major’s, and we were startled to see men still going out on liberty. It was only nine o’clock, but we had been asleep two hours already.

“What’s the catch?” I asked Eloquent.

“You were improperly confined,” he replied.

“How come?”

“The Exec was a bit too enthusiastic. He wanted to throw the book at you, but he threw too big a book. On a deck court-martial you may reduce a man in rank or fine him or confine him. But you can’t do all three, as he did to you.”

“You mean I get my rank and money back?”

Eloquent gave me a pitying look.

“Don’t be a dreamer. The sergeant major has a nice new court-martial all written up for you two.”

“What’s the punishment?”

“Loss of rank and fifty-dollar fine, same as before.”

“But what about the four days of bread-and-water we just did?”

“You never did them.”

Chicken and I stopped dead, rooted by impotent anger.

“The new court-martial merely says that you have been punished by loss of rank and the fine, and when it’s entered in your record book that’s how it will be. There won’t be any mention of the brig.”

“Yes, there will,” I said, fighting a losing battle against my temper. “Because I’m not signing. Take me back to the brig and I’ll finish the ten days.” I turned to Chicken. “What about it—are you going back with me?” Chicken looked at me sheepishly. “I dunno, Lucky. I dunno as we can git back. Whut’re we gonna do if the sergeant major says we got to sign? Yuh cain’t fight City Hall, Lucky.”

“There speaks a sensible man,” Eloquent said grandly.

“You call that sensible?” I blazed at him. “That rotten major makes a mistake and we’re supposed to pay for it! We serve four days we weren’t supposed to serve, and we’re supposed to forget it. Forget it in writing—make the lie official! That’s sensible! Well, I say the hell with you and the sergeant major. You can tell the sergeant major to take his court-martial and your sensibility between thumb and forefinger and at the count of three he can stuff it smartly up his official—”

“Whoa, now, take it easy,” Eloquent interrupted. “You can’t take on the whole United States Marines. You’re absolutely right, the major’s absolutely wrong. But unfortunately you’re a right private and he’s a wrong major.”

There was nothing to do but glower at him. He had put it well: a right private has no chance against a wrong major.

“Don’t think I don’t admire your spirit,” Eloquent was saying. “It probably would have been appreciated more in the Middle Ages. But I would advise you to conform and sign the court-martial.”

“C’mon, Lucky,” said Chicken, “sign the silly thing, so’s we can go out and get somethin’ to eat. Yuh cain’t fight City Hall.”

I signed the court-martial, while the sergeant major sat wordlessly behind his desk. I signed it stiffly, detesting the very letters that formed my name.

I was relieved to get out of the office and to find that Eloquent could spare a pound until payday. We took it and slipped off to Richmond to devour steak and eggs, to drink beer and curse the major.

As far as the U. S. Marines are concerned, Chicken and I never served those four days. Nor were we ever reimbursed for the four days’ pay we were docked while imprisoned.

“Let’s face it, Lucky,” said Chicken, chewing his steak with audible relish. “They got us on a one-way street.”

Our days in Melbourne were drawing to a close. “When are you leaving?” the girls asked. “They say you lads will be leaving soon,” said the people who invited us into their homes. They knew. They always seemed to know before we did.

Now we could not get enough pleasure; there were not enough girls; we could not drink enough. It was going to end soon. Drought would soon dessicate this torrent of delights, and we would be back on a desert. It was as though we were trying to store it up.

Then, one day in late September 1943, they marched us from the Cricket Grounds to the docks and onto the ships and back to the war.

Crowds of women had gathered dockside. There may have been men among all that vast and waving throng, but our eyes could see only the girls, squealing their good-bys as they had squealed and hugged themselves in greeting nine months before.