Battle Cry - Leon Uris [35]
“Christ, wonder where I’m going from here?”
“You’ll find out soon.”
“Come on, fellows, no pooping on the poop deck. We got to fall out in a couple of minutes.”
“Just think, tomorrow I wake up, the sun is shining. I look at myself and say…hey Jones, what are you? And I answer, why pardner, I’m a yonited states gyrene. This ole fat boy ain’t no craphead.”
“Sure will be sorry to leave all this.”
“You can say that again.”
“Danny,” Norton asked quietly, “will you square away my field scarf? Never could get these knots right.”
“Sure, professor.” Danny worked with the earnestness of a French hairdresser, until he was satisfied the knot was perfect. They sat on the edge of his bunk and lit up, nervously. “Sure feel shaky, professor. Gosh, I never thought this day was coming. Suppose we’ve changed any?”
“An understatement, Danny.” He smiled.
“Wonder where we’re going?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. I think you passed your radio test.”
“Not so much me. I’d like to see Ski and L.Q. make it. At least I hope we all flunk out together.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know really. Just that you make a buddy—and, well, I think it’s more important we stick together than we make it alone.”
Norton thought carefully. “Funny, Danny, how people from different worlds, different lives, people who wouldn’t much bother to talk to each other before the war, are drawn together in such fine friendships in such a short time.”
“Yeah. I think that myself sometimes, how you get attached to a guy.”
“I suppose the word ‘buddy’ is something far removed from anything we ever knew before. Say, I’m off on a tangent.”
“I wish you were going with us, professor.”
“I sort of hate leaving the gang, myself.”
“Why did you volunteer into the Pioneers? It’s a rough outfit.”
“I want to go home, Danny. I want to be where I can do the most to get me home the quickest.”
“I understand, professor.”
Whitlock’s whistle blew them to assembly for the last unlamented time. As they had done a thousand times before, they poured through the door, almost taking the sash with them. They fell in. The D.I.s looked sharp as tin soldiers. From Beller’s glistening fair leather belt hung a silver saber. He and Whitlock paced the ranks nervously, adjusting a field scarf here, a shoelace there, a cap at the correct angle, an ornament that had slipped. They scanned their charges from stem to stern and back to stem again.
“At ease. You goddamyankees have been chosen as the honor platoon. Gawd alone knows why. After the colonel’s inspection, we fall in behind the color guard and band to pass in review. For Chrisake don’t march like a bunch of dogfaces. O’Hearne, Chernik, you know how to bear your standards and salute?”
“Yes sir.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now don’t forget, when I give Eyes Right I want to hear them eyeballs click.”
Down the huge parade ground they marched, erect as one man. For the first time, they felt the full thrill of the title they would carry for the rest of their lives. Past the reviewing stand Beller barked “Eyes Right!” and he flashed his silver saber to a salute. The band struck up the Marine’s Hymn. The standards of the battalion and platoon dipped and the colonel returned the salute. To a man their hearts thumped, bursting with pride beneath the neat green uniforms. They had paid with sweat, with humiliation, and a few tears for the name they had. They were Marines now…and would be to the day they died.
CHAPTER 6
BACK AT the barracks the pent-up joy broke loose after the final piece of gear was stowed and they were ready to leave the cursed grounds of the Recruit Depot. Happy hugs and back slaps—then terrible anxiety as Beller and Whitlock entered with disposition lists.
“Tenshun!”
“At ease, fellows. All right, gather around,” the squat sergeant said. “I know you boys want to get the hell out of here just as fast as you can. But I want to say just a couple of words, and goddammit, I mean it from the heart. You guys are the best bunch of boots I’ve ever had. It was all in a day’s work for me…maybe sometimes not