To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [241]
THEY WERE WATCHING FROM THE GROUND, DEATHLY SILENCE, SAW the small figure fall from the burning plane, dropping away, the only escape a man had from the horror of the fire. Rickenbacker held the binoculars, watched as the figure trailed a faint stream of black smoke, continuing to fall, disappearing to the ground, and he heard the soft words, prayers, a faint whisper coming from the men around him.
“No. Oh God. No.”
He had fallen near a stream, coming to earth in a garden, close beside a small house owned by an old woman. The people of her village had seen it as well, the fight in the air above them, the horror of the fire, the last desperate seconds of a man’s life. In a few long minutes, the men of the Ninety-fourth Aero Squadron would reach the place, only to find that the villagers had taken up the body, had carried him to the small square in their village, had already covered him with flowers.
Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?
—SERGEANT DANIEL DALY, USMC
Belleau Wood—June 6, 1918
NORTHEAST OF PARIS—MAY 30, 1918
THEIR BOOTS HAD BEEN LINED UP AGAINST ONE WALL, AND NOW the uniforms were coming off, the large room humming with the soft growls of mostly naked men. They followed the instructions of the lieutenant, tossed their clothes into designated bins, which filled slowly with heaps of dull green shirts and pants. With their uniforms now gone, the men gathered toward the tables at the far end of the room, began to form a line. Temple stood beside Parker, the big man from Virginia.
Parker said, “This had better be for a good reason.”
Across the table, the lieutenant stood behind three seated orderlies, the men presiding over neat stacks of khaki, pants and shirts.
“You have a problem, Marine?”
“No problem, sir.”
Temple moved into line behind Parker, watched as each man before them received a new pair of pants, a new shirt, each piece of clothing selected from a different stack according to the orderly’s quick appraisal of the man’s size. The men moved away from the table, began to pull on the new uniforms, and Temple saw one of the orderlies eyeing Parker, then reaching into one of the piles, repeating the process.
“Above average. These’ll fit you.”
Parker moved away, and the orderly gave Temple a quick glance.
“Average. Here you go.”
Temple took the new uniform, walked over to where Parker was fastening his shirt.
“Not bad. Sleeves too short.”
Temple pulled his own pants on, pulled the trousers up, the waist too small. He inhaled, pulled his stomach in, hooked the button.
Parker said, “Too small, huh? Don’t worry about it. A few weeks in this place, and we’ll all be shrinkin’. Don’t expect any biscuits and gravy.”
Temple smiled, always enjoyed Parker’s soft drawl, the big man from the mountains whose voice reminded Temple of Sunday afternoon.
Roscoe Temple was barely twenty, had come to the Marine Corps from the picture-book town of Monticello, Florida. It was lush green farm country, spread out over the hills east of Tallahassee, where cotton fields and cornfields rolled and dipped above the muddy lowlands of cypress swamps. He spoke with a southern accent as well, simple words that hid nothing, a soft lilt that he inherited from his mother, a woman whose hands carried the stains of farmland, who knew of birthing calves and birthing her own children.
To the others, the two young men sounded alike, and both were teased for their slow drawls the same way the others were teased for whatever peculiar accent they had brought from places so foreign to a boy from north Florida, places like Jersey City and Missoula and Pittsburgh. But throughout their training, the teasing of nervous young men had been replaced by something few of them had expected, a bond that began to draw them together in a way no civilian could understand. It was taught to them by the instructors, a lesson as