Battle Cry - Leon Uris [247]
“Knock it off!”
“I’m sorry, Mac.”
“Now hear this, now hear this. Marines, man your debarkation stations on the double.”
“We been sitting here four hours and now they want us on the double.”
Up the ladder quick. The fresh air blasts you in the face, almost knocking you down. Now you see it. Saipan! Laying there smoking and bleeding in the smoky dawn like a wounded beast licking its paws and sulking and waiting to leap back at its tormentors.
I moved the command post men to the rail and made a roll-call. The destroyers streamed in front of the ship, moving close up to the beach. Their five-inchers peppered the flaming shore furiously.
Marion broke rank and came over to him. “See Rae for me, Mac,” he said.
I stared at him. I’ll never know why I answered what I did. Maybe it was because Marion had the same strange expression the Feathermerchant had when he jumped down that hill on Guadalcanal. “I’ll see her,” I said.
“Command post, over the side,” the Gunner ordered.
The Japs sat on top of Mount Topotchau and had Red Beach One zeroed in. The battalion was snowed under by an avalanche of flying shrapnel. The rest of the battalions were hung up on the reefs and were far off location as the hailstorm fell and kept them cut off. Huxley’s Whores were gaining quick admission to the glory club. The blood ran deep under a murderous staccato of careening bomb bursts and geysers of hot metal mixed with spurting sand and flesh. They dug in as the beach heaved and danced in a macabre rhythm.
Marion crouched in a shallow hole and labored over his radio. FOX FROM TULSA WHITE: HAVE YOU REACHED YOUR INITIAL OBJECTIVE? OVER.
A screaming shell swished its way down, twisting into the open beach.
The earphones of Marion’s set clattered.
TULSA WHITE FROM FOX: I ONLY RECEIVE YOU TWO AND ONE. REPEAT THAT LAST MESSAGE. OVER. TULSA WHITE FROM FOX. I DON’T READ YOU AT ALL…TULSA WHITE FROM FOX: CAN YOU READ ME…
“Hey, Marion, knock off the skylarking.”
Marion felt himself spinning like a man caught in a whirlpool, then was bashed to the sand, his left leg dangling, held only by a stubborn muscle.
Spanish Joe lay on the beach fifty yards away. He heard an agonized voice crying out between the shell bursts. He rose from his cover. An earsplitting scream, a burst. Joe fell flat.
“Joe, it’s me—Marion.”
FOX TO EASY: WE NEED CORPSMEN UP HERE…HAVE YOU ONE TO SPARE? OVER. The message came through Marion’s earphones.
The crescendo rose, jarring men loose from their holes. Spanish Joe crawled back to cover, sweat gushing from his every pore. He clutched the rocks about him so tightly his hands cracked and bled.
“God…help…help me, Joe.”
Spanish Joe pulled his body in closer to the rocks, he shook violently. His eyes were pasted to the spot where Marion lay. The violence of the bombardment grew.
EASY TO FOX: CAN’T GET GEORGE NOW, OVER.
“Oh God…I’m dying…Joe…Joe!” The voice was weaker. Gomez buried his face in his hands and lay cowering and frozen.
Divito gunned the radio jeep into a clump of bushes near the message center. “Mac,” he yelled, “I’m going to the beach to help with the wounded.”
“Shove off,” I said.
“Hey, Mac!”
“What?”
“This TBX is out,” Danny said. “Where is Spanish Joe with the spare parts?”
“Sonofabitch, I don’t know.”
“Mac!” message center called over.
“What!”
“We can’t contact any rifle companies.”
“Keep runners going to the rifle companies till them phones get in. Barry!” I shouted.
The telephone chief ran up. “Barry, the radio to regiment is out. You’re going to have to run a wire down the beach to them.”
“Jesus, Mac. They are a mile away and it’s exposed beach. The Japs are blasting the piss out of the area to prevent consolidation.”
“Hit the deck!”
SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH
“I haven’t enough men, Mac. They are all out with wires to the rifle companies,” Barry continued.
“Message center! Send a runner to How Company and tell them to send two telephone men here right away…Speedy!”
“Yo,” the Texan drawled.
“Have you seen Marion or Spanish Joe?”
“I ain’t seen Mary, and I heard that