Battle Cry - Leon Uris [178]
Pat and Andy were due at the depot to catch a bus north for a two-day honeymoon. A car pulled up. From it debarked four large Rogers kinsmen hauling the stiff, unconscious body of Andy Hookans. Pat comforted her mother as she also directed the “pallbearers” to the proper bus with her luggage and her husband. They spilled the Swede into the long seat in the rear. Pat kissed me and thanked me for my efforts.
“Are you angry, Pat?”
“Angry?”
“I mean about the way the boys behaved and for getting Andy drunk?”
She smiled. “Goodness, no. I’ve been going to weddings of the clan for twenty-six years. I haven’t seen a bridegroom leave sober yet.” Enoch cleared his throat as Mrs. Rogers looked knowingly in his direction. “I’m too happy to be angry at anyone, Mac.”
“Good luck,” I said as she waved good-by to the gathering.
“Fine boy, that Andy, fine boy,” Enoch said.
But as Pat boarded the bus, a jeep with three M.P.s pulled up. Sister Mary was between two of them. I rushed up as they dragged Marion out.
“This belong to you?” one of the men asked me. “He was trying to take on everybody at the Red Cross club. Said he wasn’t a candy-assed Marine.”
“It’s mine,” I said.
“We should have brigged him, but since he’s a Guadalcanal boy…”
“Thanks, fellows, thanks a lot. I’ll take care of this.”
Marion wavered, brushed off his blouse, straightened his field scarf and turned to Enoch and Mrs. Rogers, “I fear, really,” he spouted unevenly, “my conduct has been obnoxious. I shall write you a letter of apology in the morning. I am quite ashamed of my behavior.” He pitched into my arms, out cold. I bid a hasty farewell and dragged Marion aboard as the bus gunned its motor, then leaned out of an open window and waved.
“Fine lads, all of them are fine lads,” Enoch said as they pulled out of the depot.
CHAPTER 8
HUXLEY propped his feet up on his desk and his long legs pumped the tilted chair back and forth. He studied the bulletin before him intently. Major Wellman tamped the freshly laid tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and lit up. He glanced over Huxley’s shoulder. Huxley looked up. “See this, Wellman?”
“I was afraid you’d get around to looking at it sooner or later,” Wellman answered.
“Very interesting report, very interesting. How many days did it take that battalion to reach Foxton?”
“Four.”
“Hmmm.”
“I know what you are thinking, Sam,” the exec said.
Huxley ruffled through the bulletin again. A battalion of the Eighth Marines had taken a grueling forced march from camp to Foxton, some sixty odd miles north.
“Let’s see,” Huxley said. “Concrete highway…mild hills…two meals a day…one ration and one with field kitchen. Bedrolls brought up by motor transport.” He rubbed his chin as he opened his map of North Island and ran his finger from McKay’s Crossing northward. “Should be an interesting hike.”
“It’s a rough one, Sam. Cherokee White lost a lot of men.”
“Let’s see here. Trucks met them at a meadow outside Foxton and drove them back in. Better than sixty miles…heavy combat packs.” He thumbed through the report. He reached for the field phone, tossed the butterfly switch and cranked the handle.
“Pawnee White,” the switchboard answered.
“Get me Colonel Malcolm, Windsor Hotel.”
“Yes sir. Shall I ring you back?” the operator said.
“Right. I’ll get Malcolm’s O.K. Better get Marlin in here to arrange an advance scout unit for bivouacs along the route. Any other battalions giving it a try?”
“Both Pawnee Red and Blue are moving on it.”
“You knew about this all the time, Wellman.”
“You’d get around to it,” the exec smiled. “Incidentally, you won’t need an advance unit. We can use the same bivouacs the Eighth used.”
Huxley dropped his feet to the floor with a thud. “I don’t think so. We are going to beat them up there by a day.”
“I had a hunch you