Battle Cry - Leon Uris [184]
“Don’t worry, Doc,” Huxley said. “I promised them three-day leaves if we can beat our own time back to camp.”
“This is it. I’m going to the top. This is the last torture session I sit by and watch. I’ll get you court-martialed if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Sit down, dammit!” Huxley barked.
Kyser sat.
“If you can’t take it, get the hell out of my battalion, Doc. We’re in a war. These boys have to be tough. Yes, I’ll drive them and I’ll drive myself but I’ll see to it we are the best outfit in the Marine Corps. Not a man in the Second Battalion is going to be a straggler, not a man is going to die because he is weak. Get the hell out of my outfit if you don’t like it!”
The mild little doctor sagged. “God,” he whispered, “what’s the matter with you, man? What’s burning the insides out of you? You knew all along that we were going to hike both ways, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Kyser arose. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He turned for the tent flap.
“Doc,” Huxley said softly. The medic turned and lowered his eyes. “Sometimes I don’t like myself very much…this is one of them. I have to do it for these boys, Doc…you understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Kyser said. “Thank God the Marines are filled with crazy officers like you. Maybe we would never make it otherwise. I’d better go.”
We were thunderstruck! The word passed like wildfire. Surely it was someone’s idea of a bum joke. We had hiked in the rain for him; we had given him his record—it just didn’t seem believable.
Then it dawned on us that it was no joke. Huxley was walking us back and striking for faster time. In the confused shock of the announcement a vicious anger such as I had never seen mounted. Till the last minute I prayed for a reprieve. The men snarled into their gear.
There was only one small compensation: Huxley would walk too. The point vowed to set a pace that would make even the iron man fall to his knees.
This crazy desire to bring Huxley down was just the thing he wanted. He knew that he’d have to throw us into a passionate rage to bring us up to the task.
The first day going back we were so goddam angry that we half ran, throwing all pain and caution to the winds. The pace was brutal and each step was matched with a foul curse along the column. Epitaphs flew, with our feet, southward. I had never seen men drive themselves so hard. Each break stimulated the insane desire to walk…walk…walk…I didn’t know if the squad could stay that way. The beat, beat, beat of leather on the paving might well beat our mood to jelly.
The end of the first day found us ahead of our former time. We cursed right through Levin and tramped to a spot between Ohau and Manakau. A brisk evening breeze came up and men began dropping with chills and fever, puking their guts out. Malaria was swooping in wholesale. We walked till dark and finally set up in a meadow outside Ohau.
Our nerve was quelled. A sudden shock of complete exhaustion hit the battalion. The men flopped and floundered and passed out in the shelters like invalids near death. Only a maniac would try to out-hike the miles covered that day—unless they had Huxley’s brother for a skipper.
The second day was different. A nightmare. The emotional burst was spent and now there was the reality of water and pack and road and pain and feet—what was left of them. Physical torture such as I had never felt before. Limping and groaning, we hit the bastard road after a breakfast of a chocolate bar. Every man in the Second Battalion called for the last ounce of strength that God gave him. The column began to fall apart. By noon we were moving at a snail’s pace.
Several more went down with malaria. Spanish Joe collapsed, done. During the break there was a ghostly stillness as we sat in the shelter of trees eating our ration. Huxley’s plan was going to backfire.
Huxley needed a miracle. There was a day and a half to go. At this