Battle Cry - Leon Uris [37]
The five entered a tent midway along the row. There were just three men there, all lying prone on their cots. One arose.
“Ah,” he said, “enter our humble domicile. Up, you crumbs, we got visitors.”
“Hi,” Danny retorted, “got room for five small ones?”
“Why sure. My name is Brown, they call me Seabags. You’ll love it here, love it. Just wait till you hear the sound of fifty bugles blowing reveille outside the tent from that field music school. Do nothing but crap out all day.”
“My name’s Forrester. This here is Ski, L.Q. Jones, Marion Hodgkiss and Andy Hookans. Just left that wonderful place at the other end of the grounds.”
“Charmed. That thing there trying to crawl to his feet is Speedy Gray. You’ll have to forgive him, he’s a Texan. That…is Shining Lighttower, pride of the all-Navajo platoon. He’s an Injun.”
“How, white man.”
“He’s a card,” Brown explained.
“Ugh.”
As promised, the wait till the new class was one of easy duty. For a few hours in the morning they performed menial tasks in the nearby barracks, mainly consisting of the eternal search for cigarette butts. For the most part they caught up on rest and found it hard to become accustomed to the new mantle of freedom and respectability they wore. The scars of boot camp were slow in healing. They walked and acted as though they were treading on hot coals, expecting to have their heads torn off at any moment. They ventured out and walked about the base with the timidity of curious puppies.
Each morning the student buglers and drummers fell out opposite their tents to blow reveille. The fifty field musics blasting at one time nearly blew the tents down. The din was awful. Then they’d parade the length of the base and return to the tents to blow for another ten minutes as the recipients lay shaken.
“More, more!” L.Q. would scream each morning in anguish. And the buglers generally obliged as the tents nearly buckled. They soon stopped calling for more.
Danny was content to remain on the base, take in a movie, write letters, or bat the breeze. He did look up Beller at the beer hall for the promised brew, but returned to his tent early. The beer had the same sour taste it had had the last time he tried it a year before. Many evenings after chow he donned his greens, as prescribed at this military showplace, and visited Norton, who lived in a tent area not too far away.
One night, a week after boot camp, he felt a siege of loneliness falling over him. This feeling had become more and more severe with each passing day. He showered after late chow, dressed, and picked up a liberty card at the First Sergeant’s office.
“Where you going, Danny?” Ski asked.
“Into Dago, how about coming?”
“Naw,” the feathermerchant lamented, “got to save my dough. Besides, there’s nothing there. The guys all say it’s lousy.”
“I just feel jumpy. I’ve got to see somebody but a gyrene. We been locked in for three months. Besides, I want to get my blouse cut down, buy a barracks cap and get some pictures taken. My folks are riding me for a picture.”
“You know something, Danny?”
“What?”
“I’d be a little scared of going into town.”
“Scared?”
“Kinda. We been away from people so long, I mean other people…and women. You know, strange town, strange uniform.”
“Yeah, it does feel funny at that. Want anything in Dago?”
“You could get my basic medal and pistol, bayonet, and BAR bars. Also a sharpshooter’s medal.”
“O.K.”
“Take it easy.”
“How do I look?”
“Like a dream. I’ll wait up for you so you can tell me what it’s like.”
Danny crossed the parade grounds, past the long line of yellow buildings, and down the road of palmed and lawned streets to the main gate. He rubbed the sleeve of his blouse over the buckle on his fair leather belt and squared away his cap a dozen times. He approached a guard and handed him the liberty card.
“Where is your battle pin, Marine?”
Danny jumped like a startled fawn, flushed, and dug it from his pocket. He put the tie pin on and passed through the gate. His heart thumped as he made it to a bus stop and inquired the way into San Diego. As the bus