Battle Cry - Leon Uris [55]
“Now what the hell did you do that for?” he cried.
Marion bent over and assisted him to his wobbly feet. “I’m sorry, Gomez, but I don’t go around shaking hands with rattlesnakes until I’m sure all the poison has been removed.”
Gomez scratched his head in an attempt to digest the remark. Mary went back to his book as Joe slipped onto the edge of the sack.
“What you reading?”
“Plato.”
“You mean they wrote a whole book like that about Mickey Mouse’s dog, huh?” The white teeth of Gomez showed themselves in a smile. “Hey kid, I like you. What you think of Spanish Joe?”
“I think you are the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.”
“What’s this ‘obnoxious’?”
“You stink.”
Spanish Joe Gomez threw his arms about Marion. “Hey kid, you sure got guts to talk to ole Joe that way. Me and you is going to be buddy-buddies.”
Sister Mary turned the page.
Politics and war make strange bedfellows. That’s how it began. The buddy-buddy relationship of the most one-way bastard in creation and the guy who was most likely to win sainthood. We all liked this friendship because Marion kept Joe in line and out of our seabags. Hodgkiss took over Gomez’s money at pay call and squared away his accumulated debts. The two went on liberty call together, Joe tanking up, Mary usually in an empty booth pouring down the classics of literature. When Joe got boisterous, Marion stepped in, averted the clash and moved him on. More than once we saw Joe trudge home dejected, head bowed and hands in pockets.
“What’s the scoop, Joe?”
“I got my ass in a sling,” he’d answer sheepishly.
“Why?”
“I borrowed an overseas cap from the Indian and forgot to return it, and Marion caught me.” It was hard to keep from laughing. “Mary read the Rocks and Shoals to me, he really give me the word. No liberty for a week and I got to go to church Sunday.”
“Maybe I’d better tell him about the way you doped off on that ditch digging detail yesterday.”
“You wouldn’t rat on me, Mac, would you, buddy? I can’t stand another lecture today.”
“We’ll see.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch. I’m a bad hombre, I’m just a bad hombre.”
I had finished guard rounds with Gunner Keats and returned to the S.G. tent. Sister Mary, on Corporal of the Guard, was on the edge of his sack, crouched close to the dim light in the center of the tent, reading the Saturday Review of Literature.
“All the planes tucked in safe?” he greeted me.
“Where the hell did they dig up this crap detail, guarding them goddam egg crates. Haven’t they ever heard of communicators in this goddam outfit? Why, in the old Corps, Marion…”
“Only four more days.” He laughed at my anger.
“Gets colder than a well digger’s ass out on this prairie,” I said, blowing into my hands, kneeling and turning up the kerosene stove.
“There’s some hot coffee there, Mac.”
I tilted my canteen cup, took a long swig, and smacked my lips. “Say, Mary, it’s three o’clock. You’d better get some sack drill.”
He flipped the magazine to the deck, yawned, and took the cup from me. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“Marion.”
“Yes, Mac.”
“It isn’t any of my business, but could you tell me something?”
“If I can.”
“Well, er, what about all those books?”
“The books?”
“Yeah, the books.”
I could hear the cold wind whistle, flapping our tent. He unbuckled his duty NCO belt, undipped the pistol and laid it on an empty cot.
“Mac, someday I’m going to be a writer. I guess you think it’s kind of silly.”
“Hell no. No ambition is silly. Have you got talent?”
“I don’t know, Mac.”
“You’ve got something scrambled up in your head. Something that’s nixing you all the time. I spotted it right away. I guess when you’ve been around men as long as I have, you can almost read their minds.” Marion looked at me hard, then seemed to loosen up. I lay back watching the weird shadows being tossed by the bare lightbulb gently swinging from the tent top.
“I came from a small town,” Marion went on. “My dad is a retired railroad man. You might say nothing has ever really happened to me,” he fumbled.
“And you’ve wanted to write ever