Battle Cry - Leon Uris [52]
“Of course not, darling,” she answered stiffly.
“I don’t guess there’s much of anything to say?”
“You think I’m a tramp, don’t you, Danny?”
“No.”
“Don’t be nice.”
“Any guy in the world would be lucky to have you for a wife. I guess it’s just one of those things that happened that wouldn’t have happened if the world was in its right senses.”
“Do you know what I was going to do when you told me this? I was going to make a fight, Danny. I was going to make it rough for you. For a while nothing mattered, Vernon, Arlington Heights—nothing. I wanted to be the girl in the Andes cabin. I suppose all women want that type of thing….”
“Elaine, please don’t.”
“Could you see me in a snowbound shack in the mountains? No, I don’t suppose either of us can…I…want to go home now and wait. Get away from this rotten town.”
“Want another drink? The waiter is looking at us.”
“No.”
He drummed his fingers on the table restlessly.
“Danny, tonight—farewell?”
He shook his head. She turned away, reached into her purse for a handkerchief and hid her eyes. “Maybe I should go out and get drunk. Maybe some other Marine will take pity on me.”
She felt his strong young hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it, and in spite of herself it sent a thrill through her body. She dabbed her eyes and looked up. He was gone.
PART TWO
Prologue
MAJOR HUXLEY called us into his office after a few weeks—all the old-timers. It was none too soon.
Burnside, Keats and I had been a bit more hopeful about the communicators at first. We felt we would at least get the cream of the crop, if there was any cream. We stood by anxiously as the word passed down that Class 34 was graduating from Radio School at the base, and that part of it was being sent to us. The only other radioman we had on hand was Spanish Joe Gomez. We had him tabbed as a troublemaker.
Well, they turned out to be a bitter disappointment. The task that lay ahead of us old-timers seemed impossible. There they were, poor excuses for Marines, much less for radiomen. The whole gang couldn’t send or receive with my speed, and I’m not good any more.
What did we get? A drawling Texan, a big Swede, the Forrester kid, the Feathermerchant, L.Q. the Clown, Marion Hodgkiss with his fancy music, Seabags the farmer, and that Injun. What a bunch! Burnside stayed drunk for a week. Gunner Keats tried to get a transfer. Sam Huxley groaned openly when the first field problems turned out to be a mess.
“You fellows are probably thinking the same as I am,” he said. “How the hell are we going to win the war with these eightballs?”
We murmured in agreement. “They don’t look like Marines, they don’t act like Marines.” We again agreed.
“But remember this, men. They are here because they want to be here, the same as you and me. The Corps, as we once knew it, is gone forever. We might as well reconcile ourselves to that fact. It’s getting big, bigger every minute. I visualize three, maybe four divisions of Marines before this war is over.”
The estimate seemed impossible. Why, that would be over a hundred thousand men!
“I know what we are up against, we have a lot of work to do. You men know me well enough to understand that when I say work, I mean work. You old-timers have to help me. Curse at them, take them to a saloon, show them what the inside of a whorehouse looks like. Make Marines out of them!
“We all had buddies on Wake, the Philippines, in Shanghai. We don’t like what happened to the Corps. We don’t like losing. So remember, men, it is going to be a long road back and we can’t get back without these kids. Er…er, one more thing. You staff NCOs, Mac, Burnside, McQuade, Paris and the rest of you—What I want to say now isn’t for publication. We’re liable to be getting some officers, too, that, well, may be a little green. Help them along.”
CHAPTER 1
IT DIDN’T take me long to discover that Spanish Joe Gomez was the biggest thief, liar, and goldbricker in the Marine Corps. We had a hot potato on our hands. He had a mean streak in him, a mile wide. The first time we realized