Battle Cry - Leon Uris [62]
“Marion, don’t…”
“Please let me say it, Rae. I don’t get this brave very often. All the things that were tied up seemed to come out. I began writing. I realized that it was being able to just talk to you, like I never have to anyone before…someone who listened and was interested in the way I feel.” He slapped his cap against his knee. “Well, you know what I mean.” He brought his eyes up to meet hers.
“I almost wish you hadn’t of come back,” she whispered. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
“You aren’t happy about it? What is it, Rae, tell me…please.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Yes, I’m happy, really happy. Read it to me, Marion.”
He loosened his field scarf, took off his belt and ran it through a shoulder strap. “Mister Branshly’s Retreat, a short story by Corporal Marion Hodgkiss, USMCR.”
CHAPTER 3
I RETURNED to the barrack after morning chow. Feverish preparations were on, preceding the first overnight hike. Danny Forrester approached me.
“The comm cart’s all loaded and ready to go, Mac,” he said.
“Did you tell the telephone squad to load their crap in the number two cart? That damned switchboard and wires unbalance our load.”
“All taken care of. They tried to slip a spool of heavy wire in on us, but I dumped it.”
I walked over to my squad and inspected their packs. I opened up Spanish Joe’s. “Just like I thought, Gomez. You got it filled with cardboard. Let me see your ammunition clips.”
“Aw Jesus, Mac,” he whined. I snapped open one of the pockets on his ammo belt. It was empty.
“This stuff too heavy for you, Gomez?”
“I must have forgot to load them up when I cleaned the clips for inspection, Mac.”
“You didn’t do a very good job of cleaning them. Load them up on the double. What the hell you think this is, a church outing?” I ripped open the top of his seabag, grabbed the forty-five slugs hidden there and threw them on his sack. “And load up that pack.”
As I walked away, another item occurred to me. “Let me see your canteen.”
“My what?”
“Stand up.” He did. I unsnapped the clip, withdrew one, and unscrewed the top. “Dago red!”
“Pardon?”
“Dago red,” I repeated, pouring the wine down the front of his shirt. “In five miles you’ll be begging water off the squad.”
“It must be a trick, Mac, I just filled them with water.”
“Gomez, you march directly in front of me. You’re going to pull the communications cart from here to Rose Canyon and back and you’d better not ask for a relief, because you aren’t getting one. And every time the TBX goes into operation you crank the generator, and furthermore, don’t forget you’re going to have a four-hour watch on the regimental net. Got it?”
“You’re picking on me!” he cried. “Wait till I get my hands on the craphead that filled my canteens with Dago red.”
I passed on down the squad. Seabags Brown was struggling with his ass pack. The ass pack is a weird innovation for the radiomen. They have to carry the large and cumbersome TBY, the walkie-talkie, plus their normal field gear. In order to handle both, the combat pack is rigged so it hangs from suspenders on a level with a man’s backside, thus leaving room on his back for the radio. As he walks, the pack slaps against his rear end. On a march with TBY communications, a two-man team was necessary. One to carry the set, the other to walk behind and operate it.
Andy Hookans was dumping a can of footpowder into his boondockers. “You better get over to How Company on the double.” I sent the other walkie-talkie men to their infantry companies and went outside to check the cart again.
Marion Hodgkiss and the Feathermerchant, working the command post TBY, waddled out to the company street. Ski was all but lost under the quantity of gear: steel helmet, Reising gun, radio, two canteens of water, machete knife, first-aid pack, two hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition. His ass pack sagged nearly to the ground and was topped by a trenching tool, poncho, and shelter half. He looked sad.
I checked the time. “O.K., Marion, check in with the line outfits, channel fifty-four.” He turned the Feathermerchant around, unsnapped