Battle Cry - Leon Uris [126]
“Hit the deck, Sam!” WHOM!
“Hello, this is Huxley, Topeka White…about two thousand yards to your left. Hello, this is Topeka…”
It was dark before we crawled out. Two hours of it. We dug in and fell off to sleep not even bothering to stab land crabs.
L.Q. Jones crouched down in the middle of a bush and took a time check. One hour to go. His head nodded; he snapped his eyes open. Stay with it…only an hour and you can go to sleep…only an hour. Jesus, my side aches…can’t get my eyes open…don’t sleep…dammit! Snap out of it.
Wish I’d stop sweating and shaking. Must be cold from the wet. Fifty-eight minutes more. Don’t sit…stay on your knees, that’s right. You can’t sleep on your knees…if you doze, you’ll fall over and wake up. Wish my gut would stop jumping. Crapped nine times tonight. Musta got the crud.
His rifle dropped to the ground, his eyes popped open again. Can’t sleep, dammit, can’t…Japs all over…can’t let these guys get jumped…got to guard…got to guard. His breath became heavy and jerky and his eyes swollen from mosquito bites. He shook his head hard to clear it. His clothing was a mass of soggy sweat.
Dragging ammo up the hill all day…never been so tired…if it wasn’t mud wouldn’t be so bad. Slopes too slippery…how much longer…fifty-two minutes. Hope Danny’s watch is right…Oh God….
Forty minutes…soon it will be thirty and I can sleep….
Mary had a little lamb…its fleece was white as snow…no its fleece was black as mud…and Mary didn’t even know, the lamb had galloping crud. Got to remember that and tell the fellows. I got to…What was that?
“Halt,” L.Q. said. “Who goes there?”
“Marine.”
“Password?”
“Lola.”
“Who is it?”
“Forrester.”
“What you doing? I got thirty minutes more.”
“You looked kind of beat out when you fell down the hill with the ammo box today.”
“I’m O.K., come back in a half hour, Danny.”
“Go on, get some sleep. I can’t sleep anyhow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Think I’ll check into sick bay, I got the craps bad.”
“Twenty-one times today for me,” Danny said. L.Q. somehow managed to reach the battalion aid station two miles in the rear and staggered through the tent flap. Pedro Rojas turned up the dim lantern.
“Christ, L.Q., sit down.”
“I…I…got the shits.”
“That hain’t all you got, my good friend.” He popped a thermometer into L.Q.’s mouth, mopped his forehead with a cool, biting rag of alcohol, and put a blanket over his shoulders. He read the thermometer and wrote out a tag.
“What the hell you doing, Pedro?”
“You got the bug.”
“Malaria?”
“Yes.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Hokay, I’m nuts…you’re going back to the rear echelon.”
L.Q. staggered to his feet. “You want the guys to think I’m chicken?”
“I don’t care what they think, you are one sick Marine.”
“Pedro,” L.Q. pleaded, “don’t turn me in. Give me some quinine pills, I’ll shake it off.”
“Nope.”
He grabbed the corpsman, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t leave my outfit,” he cried. “You can’t send me back…I don’t care if I die but you aren’t turning me in. We’re working our asses off up there. If I go it means more load for them to carry….”
Pedro released L.Q.’s grip and walked him to a cot. “Take three of these now and three every four hours….”
“You won’t send me back, will you, Pedro?”
“Hokay, stay here tonight. You can return to the front in the morning.”
“Telephone Mac, Pedro. Tell him I’m here…and I’ll be back up tomorrow.” He downed the pills and flopped to the cot and fell into a sweaty, restless sleep.
Pedro covered him and lowered the lantern. What was the matter with these Marines, he thought. What kind of people were they? Did they not know when they were very sick? To hell with it. If he could sneak quinine pills to Huxley he could give them to L.Q. But why they all pick on poor Pedro? This was the fifth man today.
Divito, the little jeep driver, gunned his vehicle to a spot six hundred yards from the CP. Where there were no paths, he made them. We marveled at Divito and the other drivers who seemed to accomplish miracles with the little four-cylinder