Battle Cry - Leon Uris [219]
“Yes, it looks like the rain is letting up a little.”
CHAPTER 7
NEXT MORNING Captain Shapiro and Gunnery Sergeant McQuade swung down the road with Fox Company behind them.
“Hey, candy-ass,” McQuade yelled to Burnside. “I’ll call you when we’ve cleared all the Japs out.”
“Blow it out,” Burnside called back.
In a few minutes the point had stepped into the channel toward the next island. I limped to my gear, glad that the march would soon be over.
The natives, who had had the good sense to get in out of the rain and had disappeared into thin air the night before, reappeared in greater numbers as the column rolled on. It was good to have them aboard. This last day was going to be rough. The strain of listless life aboard ship, our skipping from island to island during the strike on Betio, and now this hike from Huxley’s pace—it was all catching up with the men. A solemn tenseness came over us as we moved northward along the path that ran by the lagoon.
More villages were passed but the novelty of the bare breasts had worn down to passive admiration. The business at hand was the main concern.
By late afternoon we reached the middle of Molly Island—Taratai. We ran into the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Society. Huxley halted us long enough to receive their blessings and to point out to them the place where we had buried the Jasco squad.
As we crossed over Molly, we caught sight of our objective: the end of Tarawa atoll—Cora, Muariki Island loomed closer, two islands up. Shapiro’s company was already working close to the last island. Grim silence set in as Huxley’s Whores bent forward to stiffen the pace. The sweat, the weight, were as before. Palm trees floated past rapidly, each step bringing us closer to the fleeing foe. We now had an army half Marine and half Gilbertese. The tingling anticipation of pending action dampened my palms as I plodded on toward the channel which would bring our journey to a close.
A runner from Fox Company puffed down the column to Huxley. “Sir, Cora dead ahead!” The word shot through us like contact with a live wire.
Huxley held up his hand for the battalion to halt. “Have Captain Shapiro report to me at once.”
“He’s already taken Fox Company over, sir. They’re spread out and waiting for you.” Highpockets’ face reddened.
“I told him not to cross over!”
Wellman smiled. “You knew damned well he would.”
“All right. On your feet, men. This is it.”
We waded to Cora as though we were walking on hot coals. At last we set foot on her with mixed uneasiness—an island shared by a leprosy colony and the Japs. No fighting had started. Maybe they had decided to swim for it or maybe a submarine had evacuated them. We stood by nervously as Fox Company sent a patrol halfway up the island.
There was no enemy to be found. I didn’t like it. Cora was creepy. We moved quickly and quietly up to the narrow waist of the island. At this point it was not more than a hundred yards from lagoon to ocean. The brush was very thick. It showed signs of having been uninhabited for many years. The few huts were filled with holes and smelled moldy and rotten. Past this narrow middle the island suddenly spread to a width of a mile, as the spokes of a fan handle spread to form the fan. The wide part in front of us looked like the Guadalcanal jungle. The hour was late. We halted and set up camp.
A few hundred yards up the narrow waist, before the fan end, Fox Company spread from ocean to lagoon and dug in.
We put all three radios into operation, to Sarah and the alligator, to the destroyer, and to air cover. We set up close to the water of the lagoon. Sarah lay almost due south, twenty-five miles away on a beeline. The battalion had covered better than forty-five miles and crossed twenty-five islands. Still no Japs.
We nervously ate a can of pork and beans, hard crackers, hard candy and cold coffee. Shapiro, McQuade, and Paris ambled into the CP right by us.
“What does it look like, Max?” Huxley asked.
“Beats