Battle Cry - Leon Uris [230]
Shapiro had a strange weakness for radio operators and welcomed part of the squad with open arms. He stole cots from the Seabees, a tent from the Army, and made them a splendid radio shack by the lagoon. A routine check call was made on the network each hour and there was little else to do. Once Shapiro learned that the radio was capable of receiving short wave programs from the States he sent out a squad of his best men to round up an amplifier system and attach it to the radio so that the programs could be enjoyed by all hands.
All supplies to all camps on the atoll came from a boat pool. Like Huxley’s Whores, the boat pool was made up of forgotten men. Each ship of the original task force transports had assigned a few landing craft which were to remain after the invasion and be used to run supplies from incoming freighters to the various installations. The coxswains of these boats were homeless men. Max Shapiro found it a good practice to welcome the boat pool to his camp with open arms.
He once more sent out a squad which rounded up several tents and cots and set up a permanent home for the sailors. His mess hall gave them the only hot meal they could find on the atoll and for his efforts the landing craft pilots always saw to it that Fox Company was well supplied from loads destined to Seabees and Army camps.
There were so many choice items destined for the other camps that transport and warehouse space soon became a problem for Fox Company. With each passing day the volume of missing goods from the boat pool’s haul became more alarming. The atoll command decided that armed guards would be necessary to see that the landing craft delivered their loads intact. Shapiro quickly volunteered his company to ride and protect the boat pools from these flagrant thefts. Somehow, even the presence of armed Marines riding the landing craft didn’t curb the losses—in fact, they increased. It was then that the Army commander discreetly removed the Marines from the guard detail.
This didn’t keep the boys in the boat pool from tipping off Max as to the variety and destination of their loads. When the nightly air raid came and all good soldiers and sailors were in their shelters, Fox Company brought forth their well-hidden stolen jeeps and raced to the stockpiles of the other camps.
The mystery of the disappearing goods didn’t much bother the other camps. It was when ten thousand cases of Stateside beer was brought to the airstrip on Lulu that the Army and Seabees put their foot down. Food and clothing was one thing, beer was another, and friendship ceased.
It was easy to detect when a load of beer came in, for the landing crafts of the boat pool in the lagoon buzzed around in crazy circles, sometimes ramming each other and running aground under the unsteady hands of their drunken coxswains.
They couldn’t hide ten thousand cases of beer, so the Seabees constructed a barbed wire stockade and placed a twenty-four-hour guard atop the mountain of three point two. Fox Company found themselves in the embarrassing situation of having to buy the beer or trade it for previously borrowed lots of foodstuffs. Only during their air raids were they able to negotiate the course.
At the first blast of the air raid siren, Fox Company sprang into action. Their alligator roared over the lagoon for Lulu while the four stolen jeeps came from camouflage and raced at breakneck speed through the blackness to the airstrip. The field was the prime target for enemy bombers and there was little chance of interference from holed-up Seabees and soldiers. As the raid progressed, Shapiro’s organizational genius came to the fore. The jeeps rushed from the beer dump to the alligator