Battle Cry - Leon Uris [186]
“We took a hike to Foxton,
Just the other day,
And just for the hell of it,
We walked the other way….”
Huxley sat with his bare feet on his desk near an open window. His field phone rang.
“Huxley.”
“Hello, Sam, this is Colonel Malcolm. Everyone at the Windsor is talking about it. Your outfit was remarkable. General Bryant is going to congratulate you personally. Remarkable, Sam, remarkable.”
“Thanks, Colonel Malcolm. Incidentally I have authorized three-day leaves for my boys.”
“Fine, Sam, when?”
“Today.”
“But, Sam, that’s impossible. You’re scheduled to take over the camp guard.”
“That’s your problem, Colonel.”
“What?”
“They’ve already left camp.”
“Dammit. You knew this. Norman will have a fit if I order guard again for his men.”
“Forgive me, Colonel, it completely slipped my mind…isn’t that too bad?”
The beer and ale poured and they verbally walked the miles to Foxton over and over. Some of the squad got so drunk they felt no pain and went dancing the first night of leave. The second and third nights, however, were spent in bed with their women or perched on bar stools high over the deck.
CHAPTER 9
SEPTEMBER and spring. The winter slush and wet gave way. The hikes and field problems increased. Anything that came after the Foxton trek seemed trifling to the Second Battalion. The cycles of malaria lessened in both quantity and quality and new weapons and tactics were being introduced and experimented with.
A restless urge to move out came over the division. Each day brought new ships to Wellington Bay. Then the pot began to boil. The Third Marine Division in Auckland and the First Marine Division in Australia were putting on the final polish for a three-pronged assault into the sprawling dots on the South Sea maps.
Interdivision rivalry was put aside. When the chips were down it wasn’t going to make a hell of a lot of difference what outfit you were from as long as you were a Marine.
In the waning days of the stay, more and more Anzac troops began drifting home to New Zealand from the Middle East. The loss of their women, long won over by the Marines during their three-year absence, and the irritation of constant contact with the cocky, smartly dressed, and well-paid Americans who had taken over their country, created an immediate tension. The Kiwis did not get a triumphant welcome; only a shabby deflation as sad as their khakis. Often they were bitter and you couldn’t blame them. Of course, the New Zealanders had had little consideration for the men of Greece when they hit Athens, but that was water under the bridge. The Marines were in the saddle and trouble was brewing.
After a few scattered fistfights the situation produced a full-scale brawl one night at the Allied Service Club. The Marines were badly outmanned but still administered a beating to the Anzacs via the buckle to the head route. This only intensified the friction. Word got around that the Maori Battalion of desert legend was going to run the Marines out of Wellington the next weekend.
Major General Bryant, the Marine commander and a man of moderate temper, did not like the threat of the New Zealanders. An immediate order was posted that the entire Second Division was to have liberty to attend the opening day of the races. This was odd because Bryant hated horses. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines—every Marine capable of walking or crawling was to get into Wellington with his belt buckle ready.
They prepared for the event. I was content to rely on my belt buckle. Others reinforced themselves with a bar of soap in a sock, buckshot wrapped in cloth, brass knuckles, knives, strangling wires and other civilized incidentals, to cope with the expected situation.
As the Marines hit the city every intersection was guarded by a four-man team of military police, two Marines and two Kiwis. Twenty thousand of us slowly and calmly dispersed into groups of not less than four and awaited the visit of the Maori Battalion, and