Battle Cry - Leon Uris [97]
Huxley made everyone in the battalion hike. From time to time cooks, field musics, corpsmen, and other dead weight were assigned to go along with us. For the most part they didn’t hold up too well. We left them littered about here and there along the route to limp back to camp on their own.
“Tenshun!”
“All present and accounted for, sir.”
“At ease.”
Lieutenant Bryce opened the document and read the usual birthday greetings of the Corps from the Commandant. His letter had the flavor of glory, duty, and honor and recalled great feats of the past and the task of the future. In accordance with tradition a day of rest was declared and two bottles of beer were issued to all enlisted men. After a rousing “Semper Fidelis” the formation broke and we entered into our hundred and sixty-seventh year.
“Dibs on your beer, Mary.”
“Two lousy bottles, can they spare it?”
“Aw shaddup, ain’t you got no sentiment, cousin?’
The garbage truck finished its pickup of large cans of slop from each company mess hall. Hanging on the back for dear life as it sped along the bumpy dirt road toward the dump were Shining Lighttower and L.Q. Jones. As the truck bounced, the contents of the cans splattered all over the two men. Soon they were standing ankle deep in garbage and then the cans began sliding about on the slick iron deck of the truck. It was difficult to hang on, much less try to be nimble as a ballet dancer to avoid the cans, to say nothing of the showers of slush being rained on them.
“Radiomen—haha, I’m laughing,” L.Q. groaned.
“I want to go back to the reservation.”
“Naaa…naaaa,” sneered Speedy Gray from the chow line.
“Naaaaaa,” repeated Seabags at Burnside, who was up ahead of him.
“Naaa,” said L.Q.
“Naaaa,” said Lighttower.
The inference in their calls to Sergeant Burnside was that he was more goat than human when he hiked them along the mountainside trails. Burnside spun around quickly as the last bleat came out and the four mutineers looked lazily at the sky. After chow, Burnside came into their tent as they moved into their gear for the usual hike.
“I feel I have been hiking you boys too hard,” he said.
Their eyes turned to him suspiciously.
“Yes sir,” he continued. “I feel kind of bad because you think old Sarge here is more mountain goat than gyrene.”
“Aw, Burnside, we was just kidding.”
“Shucks, cousin, we love hiking.”
“No, no,” Burnside said holding up his hands piously. “I want to give you four fellows a rest. You don’t have to hike any more.”
“Oh-oh…he’s got a gizmo up his sleeve.”
“Happens that the cook was talking to me this morning.”
“Looks like we got potwalloping, men.”
“Aw, fellows, you don’t think that Burnside would make his boys potwallop? Clean out them old greasy pots…now do you? You get enough of that dirty work when your turn for mess duty comes up.”
“Gee, Sarge, you really giving us the day off?”
“Now, ain’t that right nice of Burnside.”
“Seems as though the grease trap at the bottom of the cesspool is clogged,” Burnside continued, “so I says to myself, now I been hiking them boys too hard. Besides, a day in the cesspool might be refreshing. So I went and volunteered you to bucket the slop out and release the trap. Matter of fact, I’m even going to let you use the communications cart to run the stuff out to the boondocks. But please, fellows, please clean out the cart when you finish.”
He went to the tent flap, then turned. “As for the rest of us, I think we’ll take it slow and easy to the Little Burma and go out in the woods and just lay by a stream and