Battle Cry - Leon Uris [31]
“That’s right, sir, football. I guess we got too enthusiastic, sir.”
A sigh of relief went up. The corporal snarled and dismissed them. Sergeant Beller turned to Whitlock after they left.
“You ain’t buying that story, Tex, are you?”
Whitlock smiled. “Looks like they worked him over. He had it coming.”
“Should we haul them all in?”
“What for, acting like Marines? Maybe we made us another good gyrene today. We could use us some good fighting Irishmen like O’Hearne. You know something, that’s one hell of a platoon, best we’ve ever trained. I bet they can outdrill any bunch of crapheads in the Depot.”
“Dammit, Whitlock, better survey you to the FMF, you’re getting plumb sentimental.”
“I’ll drill their goddamyankee asses off, soon as this rain stops,” Whitlock answered.
They walked to Shannon O’Hearne’s bunk. He had been sitting silently for an hour.
“O’Hearne.”
“That was a noble gesture,” Norton said.
Danny extended his hand. Shannon looked up slowly, then arose. He lowered his head and thrust his hand forward into Danny’s. Then they all began laughing.
“Say, did I ever tell you about the time I was walking down Market Street and this here broad comes up to me…”
At Camp Matthews, the rifle range, like the Depot, was overcrowded by the sudden shift from peace to war. Barracks were being constructed at breakneck speed and new platoons were placed wherever space could be found. Right off the highway were the main buildings. Their aging paint seemed to blend with the rustic setting of tall pines and hills and gulleys of the camp.
The five main ranges worked away from the highway. The ranges were cut into the ravines to give the minimum of wind disturbance. Firing lines were placed two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, and six hundred yards from the targets. Targets were run up on pulleys from pits made of concrete. Behind the targets was a hill to stop the slugs.
Targets were manned by recruits, with more permanent personnel to oversee and co-ordinate the firing. At either end of the targets small flags were flown to indicate wind strength and direction.
The firing lines had numbered posts corresponding with each target. Behind the firing line were smudgepots to blacken gun-sights and cut the sun glare, and large buckets to hold expended shells.
Megaphone-bearing NCOs ran up and down the line relaying messages telephoned from the pits. In the pits the target workers worked in two-man teams, using paste buckets and patches to cover target holes. Long poles with signal markers were raised over the pits to give the scoring to the men firing from the lines. In the pits there was also a red flag, the nemesis of a rifleman. “Maggie’s Drawers,” it was called—the signal for a complete miss.
Every target on every range was tutored by a Marine who had shot expert. They wore shooting jackets and old Marine campaign hats. Although these hats were long out of issue they were badges of honor, and the expert marksmen of the range were permitted to wear them at cocksure and jaunty angles.
The various ranges held targets in numbers varying from twenty to E Range’s enormous breadth of a hundred.
There were other ranges at Matthews, twenty-two caliber, forty-five pistol, BAR, and machine gun ranges. Every man who entered the Corps went to boot camp and every boot went to the rifle range. Every man had to have intimate knowledge of how to fire and strip each basic infantry weapon.
Before a recruit was allowed to fire a shot, he lay at a dummy range for over a week, snapping in. Here was the monotony of learning to drill, all over. The lessons pounded in, till you knew them in your sleep. By the time the boot fired a round, he knew what he was doing. His position was as perfect as the haranguing instructors could make it.
“The Corps pays extra for its marksmen. Qualify as a Sharpshooter, three bucks a month; qualify as