Battle Cry - Leon Uris [20]
“Forrester!”
“Yes sir.”
“Front and center. Here is one craphead that seems to get the idea. Look at him. You can drop a plumb line from his chin down…. Return to ranks…all right, you people, let’s try it again.”
“I’ll be a sad bastard,” the D.I.s mumbled over again and again during the day as they caught errors. “Jones, where the hell is your chest? Palms in, dammit—stop curling your fingers.”
“Now we’ll try at ease and parade rest.”
For three days they fell in, stood at attention, at ease, back to attention, to parade rest, to attention, fell out (one step backwards say “Aye aye sir”…about face) fell in and stood at attention for a change.
“Make your bunk by the book!” Morning inspection found fifty-seven beds torn up and thrown from the tent to be remade. A wrinkle, an improperly laid corner, a seabag that wasn’t square at the corner, was enough to outlaw a bunk. Seabags were overturned and the contents strewn and then repacked. Several recruits made their cots nine times until the instructors were satisfied.
Each day found a lesser number of overturned cots, but one morning a cigarette butt was discovered on the catwalk. The platoon double timed through the ankle deep sand of the boondocks until after an hour four men had dropped from exhaustion.
Dear Kitten,
This is the first time I’ve had to write since we’ve arrived. You’ll find my address on the back of the envelope. They sure keep us busy here and the instructors are a couple rough characters. It would be useless to try to go into a lot of detail….
A couple of swell fellows, Ski and a jokester named L.Q. Jones. Honey, as each day passes I seem to wonder a little more about why I’m here. I don’t know how long it will take or where I’m going. If you’ve changed your mind, let’s have it now before it becomes too involved.
I’m thankful that they keep us busy…I’m afraid if I thought about you too much I’d go crazy….
“Lep face…right face, lep face…right face. Ten shun! At ease. Ten shun! About face…about face…”
“I can’t get this shirt on.”
“Why not, L.Q.?”
“Nobody done tole me you ain’t supposed to use a box of starch with a bucket of water. Whitlock is gonna hang me.”
“Fall in and dress that goddam line down. Come on, Chernik, get with the living. Goddammit, ain’t you people ever going to learn? As I pass down the line, hold up your washing for inspection.” The corporal’s gimlet eyes scanned the newly scrubbed clothes. “Belt duty, do it over. Sox dirty—shirt dirty, do it over.”
“Jones!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You call this a wash?”
“Oh…oh, sir.”
“Lookit them goddam nicotine stains on your skivvy drawers.” The bucket of clean clothes was turned over and dumped into the dirt and ground in under Whitlock’s heel. “Whole thing over…you people gonna ever learn?”
“Pay attention, you stupid bastards. I don’t know why I’m rushing you so, but I’m going to try to teach you crapheads to march. You always start off on your left foot. O’Hearne, point to your left foot…if you can. Remember it. You hold your normal interval. Steps are thirty inches—not twenty-nine, not thirty-one.” He paused a moment.
“For’d harch! Your other left, goddammit…lep…lep…lep two three po…lep right lep. Halt by the numbers…one…two.
“Don’t anticipate the command of execution. Forward….” Several men lurched up on their toes in readiness to step off. “Fall on your faces, you stupid bastards. Don’t anticipate the command of execution.”
Hour after hour the platoon stepped along to the broken-record droning of the D.I.’s “Left flank po…straighten up that goddam line…column right po…reah harch…reah harch…fall on your faces…” Another helmet smashed down. The stick jabs a rib….
“In cadence, count.”
“One, two, three, four,” the platoon shouted back.
“Louder, dammit, louder…in cadence, count.”
“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!”
“That’s the way I want to hear it…in cadence, count.”
“ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!” (The goddam Marine Corps.)
“Lep…to your lep.” (You left a girl behind you when you left, you left.)
“Chernik, stop thinking about that broad. Some dogface is probably in her britches