Battle Cry - Leon Uris [57]
Out here, he thought, just a gentle old boat, a kind moon and the water…. A guy can organize his thoughts.
“Do you have a match, Marine?”
Corporal Hodgkiss looked up. A girl leaned against the rail, a redhead. Long flaming locks and very pale blue lifeless eyes with dark, but soft, lines under them. She had that milky white, redhead skin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He fumbled for the matches he carried for Spanish Joe. The girl sat down next to him and dragged on her cigarette, making her face glow in the darkness.
“Thanks, Marine.” The engine of the ferry seemed to chug louder. “I’ve seen you here before, lots of times,” she said. The corporal’s heart beat very fast. He tried to say something but held up for fear the words would twist up coming out.
“Don’t think I’m being forward but I was curious. I travel to Coronado almost every night. You’ve gotten to be a fixture.”
“It’s quiet out here, I can think,” he said.
“Lonesome?”
“No, not really.”
“Thinking of your girl, I’ll bet.”
“I haven’t got a girl.”
She smiled. “No one has a girl back home when he’s talking to a woman in San Diego.”
“I’m not one of those hungry guys who’d make a damned fool of himself to buy a few minutes’ conversation, if that’s what the insinuation is. I like it out here. I can get a rest from…that rat race.”
“Say—I’ll bet you really don’t have a girl.”
“I said I didn’t.”
“Please, mister, don’t bite my head off. All I wanted was a match.”
Marion blushed. “I’m sorry, miss, I’m sorry if I raised my voice. I guess I’m a dull character, but there isn’t much that excites me in town. I like it better here.”
The redhead snuffed her cigarette out on the rail and flipped it overboard and watched it swirl crazily to the water.
“What do you think about, Marine?”
“I’m thinking about how I’d like to write about all the things happening around me. The war, this city, my outfit…I guess you think I’m off my trolley.” He didn’t know why he’d said that, but it just seemed to come out natural like.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“A completely honest gyrene. You are one for the books. You should have said twenty-five to impress me.”
“Is it a crime to be nineteen?”
The boat creaked against the dock. She arose. Marion stumbled from his seat as she turned to leave. “My…my name’s Marion, Marion Hodgkiss…you…you said you took the boat often…so do I…maybe I’ll see you again?”
“Could be.” She turned and walked away. His eyes followed her until she disappeared into the darkness of Coronado.
Corporal Hodgkiss took a time check for the fifth time as the ferry pulled into San Diego. It was twelve-thirty. An ear-to-ear grin lit his face as he spotted the slim redhead coming up the gangplank.
“Hello, Rae,” he beamed.
“Hello, Marion,” she answered.
“You look tired. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks. I am beat.”
“I’ve got two seats by the rail.” She flipped her fiery locks over her shoulder and took a cigarette from her purse. Marion quickly reached over and lit it for her.
“Rae.”
“Yes.”
“I…uh, brought something. I…thought you might like it.”
“What?”
“A book. Would you like me to read you something?”
“What is it?”
Marion fidgeted. “Sonnets of Shakespeare.”
“Shakespeare?”
“Yes, Shakespeare.”
“But I don’t understand that stuff very well.”
“Maybe, if you’d like, I could sort of explain it as we went along.”
Rae stretched out, easy like, her face towards the sky. She closed her eyes and drew from her cigarette. Marion opened the book.
The next weeks they worked hard and grueling hours learning their new trade. Learning that every man is a rifleman and must know every job in the battalion. They crawled through and under double-strand barbed wire, drilled for speed in breaking and setting their field radios, learned to cut blisters, and the arts of camouflage, map reading, and pole skinning, as well as telephone operation, message center work, codes, the use of all weapons and grenade throwing,