Battle Cry - Leon Uris [115]
Marion glanced fitfully at his timepiece, only two minutes to go and Joe was not there. He paced the deck, trying hard to decide whether or not to have the Gunner send out an alert. Suddenly a shadow from the dock area caught his eye. It was flitting in and out of an open warehouse. Marion dropped back into the darkness to observe. The shadow made a quick sprint from the warehouse to the side of the ship and fell flat. It was Spanish Joe! He stood and looked about and then, with the deftness of a black panther, leaped to one of the huge ropes that docked the ship. With a slow, steady, noiseless motion Joe inched up the rope. First one hand reached up and gripped the rail, then the other. Ever so slowly, the top of his head came into view. He hooked his nose on the rail and cast his eyes about. Just about this time Sister Mary made a quick lunge across the deck, whipped out his pistol, and stuck it right between Joe’s eyes. And, as the legend goes in the Corps, Spanish Joe Gomez threw up both hands and hung from the rail by his nose.
After the miserable shakedown cruise on the Bobo, the Jackson was wonderful. Quarters were good and there were three square chows a day. Solid, well-cooked Navy chow down to the last bean. There were fresh water showers, a rare luxury, and everything aboard was run clean and shipshape, as if they took pride in the ship, like a best girl.
There was a warm bond between the sailors of the Jackson and the Marines. Their task was unglamorous—transporting men to the enemy. Perhaps they felt like partners in the venture and realized they had lives to protect. The record of the Unholy Four was great. They were the pioneer U. S. transports of World War II and had stopped attack after attack from the sky. They had taken the war to the enemy for the first tottering time on August 7, 1942. And they had a special affection for the Marines. We too felt safe in their hands and no Marine ever mentioned the Unholy Four without a feeling of warmth in his heart.
We assigned working parties, chipping paint in the heads, swabbing decks, doing mess duty and standing guard watches. The radio squad got the detail of lugging chow up from the cold storage lockers to the galleys, from two decks down. They grumbled something or other about being communicators, but Burnside and I took personal charge and there was no skylarking. For three hours a day we went down the steep ladders and shouldered hundred-pound sacks of spuds and then worked them slowly upward.
I for one always liked life aboard a good ship. In the old days, a good deal of a Marine’s cruise was sea duty. There was something nice and peaceful about standing by the rail after late chow with a coffin nail. Lots of times I kind of forgot for a minute who I was and where I was going. But soon the squad would edge in by me and I’d look about and see the gun nests and the swabbies standing by the 37-mm’s and I’d get back to earth.
When they locked us in at night, we’d start the poker game, the poker game that never really started and never really ended. The deck, the players and the locale might change, but the poker game went on forever. We’d clean gear and write letters; then, before taps, we’d gather on the boarded-up hold and Speedy would start singing and the squad would join in. The bunch sure liked to sing and they made damned good harmony, except for L.Q., who couldn’t carry a tune. When it got real soft and quiet-like, Speedy plucked the guitar he had borrowed from a swabby and gave us a ballad or two in that sweet clear voice of his. Kind of made a guy tingle right to his toes when Speedy sang:
“From this valley they say you are going,
And I’ll miss your bright voice and sweet smile,
But remember the Red River Valley…”
“Land!” I jumped from my sack and clambered topside. The morning was steamy hot. The transports cut their speed to almost a drift and edged their way to the baked-out, brown-hilled island dead ahead.