O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [129]
The unfinished “Random Sixteen” became the great whisper into their ears. Zach fired a hundred questions and Ben went over it all again.
“I’ve finished ‘Random.’”
“How about that! What day is this, anyhow?”
“Not sure. It’s after Christmas and before New Year’s.”
“So, happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year, Major Ben.”
They banged on each other a few more times and drank the sweet wine of victory.
“Ben, when the Corps selects a commander, you’re going to have to let me brief him, page by page and conclusion by conclusion.”
“That won’t be necessary, Zach. You’re taking them down there.”
“Yeah, sure I am and U. S. Grant is a Mexican admiral.”
“It’s your command. First Rovers—Fleet Marine Force.”
“Okay, funny, funny, funny. Knock it off.”
“Zachary O’Hara was the only name seriously proposed or considered.”
Zach blinked. The snow lifted and the sun gave off enough warmth to sparkle up the ground. He slid down the trunk of the eucalyptus tree with his back holding it up. He became light-headed.
“My command! I’ve dreamed of this since I was six years old.”
“You’ve written the text, and now you’re going to prove some things in the field. We’ve obtained undivided attention. You’re going to show them how it works.”
“Jesus Christ,” Zach said.
“I can’t get you Jesus, but the Gunny wants to go down to the Amnesties as your top kick.”
“And to think, this morning I didn’t even want to wake up.”
“Getting you to Newport has been like hitting the inside of a straight flush—it’s totally natural for you to follow through commanding the First Rovers.”
“First Rovers, Fleet Marine Force. It’s my command. I was born to take this command. Born to it.”
“Won’t be all that easy, Junior, so don’t fuck it up.”
“I was put on the doorstep of a Marine barrack the day after I was born. I’ll know how to take care of my men.”
“So you will, Skipper.”
They clinked imaginary glasses and drank an imaginary drink.
Zach became quiet, then said, “Did you ever have to give or take orders that were dead set against your principles?”
“I know what you’re getting at. I’ve been on the guard detail when there was a strike at a factory, and one in the coal mines. Being a strikebreaker, escorting scabs through the picket line, was terrible. Fortunately, we never had to open fire on anyone.”
“Da didn’t like strikebreaking duty, either.”
Ben was quiet for a time. “I was a horse Marine,” he said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“At the end of the Second Seminole Rising, we ran them down in the Everglades. Caribs . . . Seminoles . . . they weren’t savages.”
The sun cruised so nicely they wished they had brought a picnic, or at least a bottle. Ben seemed distressed about the Seminoles. Whatever happened in the Everglades, he wanted left there.
“We all have a dirty secret,” Ben said. “You got one?”
That startled Zach. “Don’t think so,” he muttered.
“We’ve all got a dirty secret. I was liaison to the army before the Civil War. At the time there wasn’t much of a military presence in Washington, couple companies of Marines at the barracks were about it. I got a whiff of some secret orders. The Marines were to be dispatched to Harpers Ferry, where John Brown was holed up, and bring him in, dead or alive. Some of my family had been lynched for moving runaway slaves on the underground railroad. John Brown was our high lord of abolitionists. There was a good chance I’d be ordered to take a company to Harpers Ferry. I got myself a forty-eight-hour pass and blew town before orders came down.”
“That was over thirty years ago,” Zach said. “How does it play out with you now?”
“I’d have the same problem today. As long as you are in the Corps, that number is going to come up and tear your guts out. It’s a hard moment.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“We know you will,” Ben said, fishing around in his pocket. He came up with a pair of captain’s bars and put them in Zach’s hand.
“You’ll have to have some rank in the Amnesties.”
When Zach took the silver bars, he realized how much heavier they were than the rank he was wearing now. The step beyond. Zach