Battle Cry - Leon Uris [208]
“The old Corps is going first cabin.”
“Say, you know what day this is?”
“Sure, Thursday.”
“No, I mean what day?”
“So, what day already?”
“It’s Thanksgiving.”
“I’ll be go to hell. It’s Thanksgiving…Mary, lead us in prayer.”
“Go to the devil.”
We became quiet as we tore the wax tops from the boxes and pulled out our Thanksgiving meal. The revelation had plunged us all into our own particular memory of what the day meant.
Danny thought of the big football game back in Baltimore. Brisk and cold out and Kathy there on the fifty-yard line wrapped in a blanket, with Sally Davis….
A farmer’s table in Iowa is something to behold on Thanksgiving. Seabags’ folks didn’t just put up a pumpkin pie, they put up a dozen of them.
“Sure is a pretty island.”
“Yeah, it sure is.”
“Levin, do Jewish people celebrate Thanksgiving?” the Injun asked.
“What you think, we’re savages?” Levin answered indignantly. “You should see all the relatives I got. I wanna tell you guys something. You ain’t lived till you get a heat on with Manischewitz Wine.”
“We always got a good feed in the Corps,” Burnside said.
“Hey, you radiomen. Put out that fire and turn the smoking lamp off,” a security guard called.
“I wonder how many Japs they got left?”
“I don’t give a big rat’s ass how many.”
A mantle of darkness enveloped the little atoll. We downed cold coffee, lit up a king-sized cigarette from the K-ration and hid the tip of it. We looked toward the horizon. Far-off streams of smoke penciled into the orange sky from the ships taking the Second and Eighth Marines away. The Sixth was gone too. Only Huxley’s Whores and an unknown destiny remained. The warships and the planes had left for another target. We were alone. An uneasy chill passed through me. On the edge of the world with our battalion…what would tomorrow bring?
L.Q. broke into the spell of nostalgia that was enshrouding us…“Hey, Speedy, how about a song or two before taps?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He went to his foxhole and got his guitar. We were traveling light but not light enough to leave his guitar behind. We sat in a circle about him as the first stars of night appeared in the still sky. From about the bivouac men gathered to listen.
“I was a-hiking today,” Speedy said strumming the guitar, “and I got to thinking about Betio and as we was walking the words just started coming to me…you all know ‘Old Smokey’…well, these here words kind of fit that tune.
“From out of New Zealand, the Gyrenes set sail,
To grab them an atoll where Japs got their mail.
On an island called Helen, they staked out their claim,
And the Second Division, won e’er lasting fame.
Dug deep in the coral, way under the sand,
Five thousand Japs waited for them to land.
The Second hit Blue Beach, and hit with a thud,
The Second hit Blue Beach, all covered with blood.
The Second hung on to the ground they had made,
All night they hid down neath the seawall and prayed.
The Eighth came ashore, boys, and landed by noon,
They waded past buddies, killed in the lagoon.
The Sixth came through Green Beach, o’er buddies who paid,
And killed all the Japs for the mis’ry they’d made.
Oh one thousand white crosses, to tell of their laurel,
There’s a thousand Gyrenes lay, asleep in the coral.
Now listen you mothers, you sweethearts and wives,
Shed no tear for the Gyrenes who laid down their dear lives.
On an island named Helen, they staked out their claim,
And the Second Division won e’er lasting fame.”
As the freckled-faced boy lay down his guitar, all that could be heard was the pounding of the surf on the other side of the island. I dropped exhausted into my foxhole and drew my poncho over me. A bed in the Waldorf couldn’t have felt better. It had been many days since I had slept…many days.
“Psssst, Mac.”
I sprang up, whipping my carbine out.
“Easy—it’s me—Marion.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m in contact with the Jasco squad. They’ve spotted Japs up ahead.”
I crawled from my hole. It was pitch black. I couldn’t find my shoes. I hadn’t anticipated