Battle Cry - Leon Uris [119]
“They sent for the Army to come to Tulagi,” Seymour sang,
“But Douglas MacArthur said no!
He said, there’s a reason, it isn’t the season,
Besides, there is no U.S.O.”
The battle-happy Seymour turned and left.
CHAPTER 6
THE LOADED landing craft chugged slowly for shore. The Unholy Four lay at anchor. We craned our necks and pushed forward for a sight of the island which lay before us. It looked like a travel poster of the vaunted Pacific paradise. Clean golden beach, miles of neatly planted swaying palms, backdropped with hills and slopes. Further inland a range of ragged mountains.
“Sure looks right pretty, cousin.”
“Yeah. Wonder if they got a band to meet us?”
As we neared the beach we caught a glimpse of a red streak dotting through the air, many miles away.
“What was that, Mac?”
“Tracers from a machine gun.” The red flash repeated.
“Must be the lines up there.”
The boat bumped into shore, the coxswain gunned her hard to hold her fast and the ramp fell. We were bursting to breaking point with curiosity and took off straight for a lone Marine who was standing on shore. His face was yellow with atabrine and withered from malnutrition.
“Say, what town is this, cousin?”
“You’re on the Canal, buster,” he answered. “Pardon me, but I didn’t catch the name of the outfit?”
“The Sixth Marines.”
The Marine turned and yelled to a couple of buddies heading to the beach, “Hey, Pete, break out the band. The Pogey Bait Sixth finally got here.” He turned and left.
“Now that was mighty unneighborly of that fellow. I wonder where the nearest ginmill is?”
“O.K., fall in, on the double.”
We moved into a fringe of coconut trees near Kokum. The trees were everywhere. They stretched as far as the eye could see in neatly planted rows. This must have been the Lever Brothers’ plantation.
Naturally, I had a hell of a time getting the gear ashore and camp pitched. The squad dropped their packs and took off in search of scuttlebutt. It wasn’t long before the area was swarming with natives who were as curious as the Marines. They were long, thin, and extremely black. Their bodies were covered only with a middle loincloth, their arms and chests heavily tattooed with blue markings. Their hair was a black shock of Brillo standing straight up for several inches and dyed red about the roots. They wore earrings and their teeth were filed down to sharp points. They had a weird and shocking appearance.
With a few words of pidgin, bartering began. For a cigarette, a tall palm was scaled in quick monkey fashion and a dozen coconuts dropped. A few pennies, and a dirty wash was hustled to the river.
Speedy handed a set of dungarees to one particularly ugly specimen and indicated they needed washing. The native held out his palm and Speedy dropped a New Zealand sixpence in it. The native took a look at the coin, spat on the ground, and handed it back.
“They don’t go for that money.”
“Merican, Merican,” the native said, “no British.”
“It seems,” Marion said, “they have no use for their former exploiters.”
The bartering continued and we were all soon filled to the gunnels with coconut juice. We were soon tramping to sick bay with stomach aches.
Andy, eyeing a tall tree, broke out a pair of telephone climbing spikes and soon put the natives out of business. Whenever the word Jap came up in the course of the international trade session, the native would immediately hold up two, three, four, or more fingers, indicating his haul, and cap it with a slow motion over his neck, to indicate what he had done to the Jap, and then he’d spit on the deck. The two words they spoke most fluently were: “Can have?” with an extended palm.
As the day wore on, the gear was in and the camp set up, and wild rumors flew.
“They’re landing a hundred thousand Japs tonight from Rabaul.”
“I heard that Henry Ford is going to give a new car to every