Battle Cry - Leon Uris [29]
“Tenshun,” Whitlock barked. “Right shoulder arms! For’d harch! Lep…two three po…pick up the step Forrester, straighten out that piece Norton…you ain’t carrying a broom. Ain’t you people ever gonna learn?”
“When you run the bayonet course, I want to hear some rebel yells. Scream! If you can’t whip them, scare them to death. Use that rifle butt…knock his goddam head off…twist when you lunge. If it sticks in his guts, blow off a shot and knock it loose.”
Danny didn’t like the looks of a bayonet. He let out a bloodcurdling yell as he raced into the straw dummies…. “Crouch, Forrester, get him in the neck, rip his jugular vein out….” His stomach turned over. He thought he would vomit. “Get mad at him…yell, Forrester, yell!”
Then there was the obstacle course. It was a quagmire of pitfalls. Underground tunnels with dead ends, barbed wire, scaling walls, ditches, hurdles, rope ladders, tires to dive through, and a huge well. The latter was twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep. Over dead center hung a slippery rope which led to the slimy well bottom.
To get over this obstacle the boot had to be running full force and leap ten feet with rifle and pack and hit the rope perfectly to swing over to the opposite side. The ones who had successfully completed the last obstacle gathered around the well for a little sport.
They laughed uproariously as some missed the rope and tumbled into the quagmire or grabbed the rope and slid down. The funniest ones were the danglers. Barely missing the safe side, then swinging back to the middle, they squirmed, wiggled, and struggled. Then inched into the miserable muck and succumbed to the mud bath. Their reward was to keep attempting it till they made it.
It was not the damage to themselves they minded—it was hell on rifles.
One day, five weeks after boot camp started, Danny Forrester had a strange sensation. He looked at L.Q., and Jones resembled someone he had met on a train. He took his mirror from his seabag and studied himself. There was a quarter of an inch of hair on his head. He rubbed it over and over again. And the feathermerchant, Ski, was looking filled out and hard. Not half so puny. “By God,” he whispered, “we’re becoming Marines.”
That afternoon at drill he had the same sensation. As Beller chanted cadence, the rifle felt like a toothpick in his hands. In the quiet of the remote corner of the grounds he could hear the unison of hands smacking their rifles as they changed shoulder positions. Then Beller’s monotone cadence began to resemble music. There was melody here…. “Lep two three po…to your reah po…reah po.”
During a break he stared at his hands. They were like leather. The cramps and blisters that harassed him a month ago were gone. Funny, I ironed my shirt perfect last night and made up for inspection in ten minutes today—and Whitlock hasn’t said “I’ll be a sad bastard” for almost a week.
CHAPTER 5
SIX WEEKS were gone and the recruit battalion prepared for the final step in basic training. They moved to the rifle range at Camp Matthews, several hours from San Diego, for a three-week small arms course under great and near great marksmen.
Friction within the platoon, centered around Danny and O’Hearne, increased. Shannon’s heft and bluster gave him forceful leadership of most of the men. In the closeness of the barracks he kept up a constant harping on his lurid sex and fighting and drinking feats. Most everyone smiled respectfully—except Danny and his group of friends. This made O’Hearne boil. He could not bear being ignored.
O’Hearne plotted his course carefully. To fight Norton or Ski would add little luster to his reputation. Chernik he didn’t care to tangle with. L.Q. would not fight, would merely say something funny; and Dwyer had been transferred to the Base Hospital with