Battle Cry - Leon Uris [238]
“I…I can’t…it makes me puke.”
“How is he?” I asked.
“The bastard is goldbricking,” Pedro said as he walked out.
I followed him. “What’s the scoop?” I asked.
“Damn if I know, Mac. The fever goes up and down, up and down. The damn kid won’t eat. He hasn’t taken solids in a week.”
“Isn’t there anything Doc Kyser can do?”
Pedro shook his head. “He’d be all right, like the rest of us, if we knew we would ever get home.” He smiled weakly and plodded off to another tent.
Seabags approached me with a messkit full of Christmas dinner: turkey, all white meat; sweet potatoes; cranberry sauce; stuffing; peas; ice cream and a cup of eggnog. “Hi, Mac, when you blow in?”
“I’m up for a couple of days,” I said. “Danny looks like hell.”
“Yeah. Maybe you can help me get him to down some of this chow. He’d be a lot better if he ate.”
“Why don’t you grab my mess gear and get into line? I’ll see if I can feed him.”
I went back into the tent. “Hey, Danny, get a load of this. Turkey and all white meat.”
He rolled away from me. “Look here, you sonofabitch,” I snapped. “You’re going to eat this or I’m going to jam it up your ass.”
He managed a feeble smile. I propped him up and for a tortured two hours prodded him to take nibble after nibble till the mess gear was half empty. Danny finally lay back and asked for a cigarette and patted his belly.
“That was good. I hope I don’t puke it up.”
“You better not or you’re going to have to start all over, I crap you not.”
“I’m sure glad you came up, Mac. Going to take off your pack and stand at ease a while?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll stick around a couple days.”
He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. “I don’t know Mac…I just don’t know no more.”
I ate the rest of the chow and lit up. Marion, Seabags, and Speedy came back and for a long time we were all pretty quiet. Last year it was in a warehouse on the Wellington docks. This year, in the middle of nowhere. Where would next Christmas bring us? How many of us would still be together? I gazed over the water past the lagoon. It was a big ocean. Every day made the States look farther and farther away. Speedy looked at his guitar but he didn’t feel much like singing.
Then we heard voices; softly at first, then louder and louder. I looked out of the tent up the road. It didn’t sound real. We saw a flicker of candlelight wending down the road and the harmony of the singers sounded like nothing a guy could expect to hear on earth, it was so beautiful: “Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright….”
The natives from the village appeared with candles in their brown hands, their arms filled with gifts of woven pandanus leaf.
“Sleep in heavenly peace….” The tired Marines of Fox Company went up the road to greet their friends and arm in arm they entered the camp.
Marion led a young native and an old native into our tent. I was introduced to MacArthur and his father, Alexander the old chief. We shook hands and went over to Danny’s cot. MacArthur put several woven pillows under Danny’s head and said, “Cros Alexander want know why friend Danny no come and see?”
“Sick, very sick,” Marion answered. As MacArthur relayed the message to the chief the old man nodded knowingly and bent down and felt Danny’s back and stomach, making him wince. He placed his wrist on the sick boy’s forehead and finally jabbered an order to MacArthur, who sped back to the village.
Several moments later MacArthur returned panting. He held a cup made from a hollowed coconut husk which contained some yellowish liquid.
“Drink,” MacArthur said.
Danny propped on his elbows and gazed at the stuff. Alexander nodded and with gestures assured him it was quite safe.
“Make feel better, yes no.”
Danny swallowed the stuff with face screwed at the nasty taste and fell back on his cot.