To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [242]
When Roscoe was eight, his grandfather had taken him hunting, a reward for growing up in a land where turkeys swarmed every open field. His grandfather seemed as old as the trees, a quiet soft-spoken man who taught him to shoot, taught him patience, the pure skill of silence and stillness, the only way to outduel the instinctive genius of the game they pursued. It was not easy for an eight-year-old, and success did not come, not for several years. The old man did not scold him, was always the teacher, and if Temple was not a good hunter, he had soon become skilled with the long guns. The shotgun had come first, the old man tossing flat rocks high over the muddy pond, the boy peppering them with a spray of pellets, delighting the old man. The rifle had come next, an old Winchester, hard brass the boy would polish with his fingers. There were more targets, old cans on fence posts, close up at first, then farther back, and farther still, until the boy could outshoot even the old man. His grandfather began to talk of the army, that the boy had a talent for shooting that the old man had seen in only a few, and not for a long time now. The boy began to ask questions, and the old man obliged him with the stories, what it was like to be a soldier, a glorious surprise to the boy. The old man did not brag, had never been one to captivate an audience around the dinner table, gather a crowd at a picnic. He told the stories only when they were alone, stories of adventure that ignited the boy’s imagination, the camps, the guns, great glorious battles. Then, when the old man thought Roscoe was old enough, the stories began to change. His grandfather began to dig deep into well-hidden memories, and the adventures became honest and sad. The boy learned of misery and death, of places called Spotsylvania and Petersburg, stories that would shock him, not just for the horror, but because the old man could not tell them without crying.
His grandfather had never pushed him to join the army, and his mother would howl in furious protest at the very suggestion that her only boy should be a soldier. But Temple had seen the look in the old man’s eye, and the advice had come in quiet moments. The words had found a home deep inside the boy, his grandfather’s gravelly voice with him still, that every man had one purpose, should serve God or his country or his neighbors in one way or another, but at the end of a man’s life, the only judge would be the man himself. Temple had been shocked by the old man’s lack of respect for the preacher, all the Sunday school lessons, but the old man had insisted that if a man could look into a mirror and respect what he saw, then he would never fear to stand tall in front of God, and God would feel just fine about that. But there was one more lesson the old man would teach him. It came on a fall day, when the leaves drifted away from the trees, and the family spoke of harvest and Thanksgiving. They would go hunting again, deer this time, the pursuit of one old buck that had made a home in the swamp beyond the old man’s cornfield. Temple had risen early, had made his way in familiar darkness, but for the first time, the old man was not waiting for him, no soft voice greeting him at their private meeting place. When the sun pushed away the darkness, the boy made the long walk to the old man’s cabin near the muddy pond, and learned his first lesson about death.
Temple finished high school, something of an accomplishment in the small towns of north Florida, but the young man would not listen to all the advice about work and career. He already knew the career he would pursue. Instead of the army, he would do the old man one better. He would become a Marine.
“Let’s go! Fall in outside!”
The men were dressed now, and the platoon filed out into