Authors: Leon Uris
Burny and I were glad to hear that Captain Huxley had made Major and was to command our battalion. Huxley was a hell of a good man. An Annapolis graduate and former All-American end at Ohio State, he was tougher than a cob. He hung a lean raw-boned hundred and ninety-five pounds on a towering six-foot-three frame. He sort of kept an arrogant distance from the enlisted men; nevertheless we couldn’t help but respect him. No matter how he drove his men, you would always find old Highpockets at the head of the column.
Burnside and I ran anxiously to meet the truck as it pulled up in front of our barrack. At last we were to get a look at our squad. There was only one other radio man, aside from us; a waylaid character by the name of Joe Gomez who had drifted in a week before.
The driver handed me a list. They unloaded their seabags. I scanned them with interest. My face must have dropped ten inches, Burnside’s was down eleven.
“Fall in and sound off when I call your name.” It was the most ill-aligned, saddest-looking excuse for a Marine squad it had ever been my displeasure to see assembled in so small an area at one time. “I said fall in and sound off, goddammit!”
“Brown, Cyril!”
“Here.” Christ on a crutch! Right off the farm, a barefoot boy.
“Forrester, Daniel!”
“Here.” Not bad looking, but awfully young. A cherry, no doubt.
“Gray, Mortimer!”
“Yo.” Another damned Texan. Gawd almight damned.
“Hodgkiss, Marion!”
“Here.” The name fits, Buster. Wait till Gunner Keats takes a gander at this motheaten crew.
“Hookans, Andrew!”
“Here.” A big dumb musclebound Swede with two left feet. What the hell had they sent me!
I had to look at the next name on the roster twice. Burnside was staring, dazed-like.
“Lighttower, Shining?” I finally tried it.
“Ugh, I’m an Injun.” The squeak came from behind the big Swede. He stepped out. There, before my eyes was the picture
End of the Trail
. A skinny, hunched over, deflated piece of redskin with a nose off a buffalo nickel. He grinned at me.
“Zvonski?”
“Zvonski, Constantine. My friends call me—”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” I sneered. This customer couldn’t weigh over a hundred and twenty-five pounds with a mortar on his back. A real feathermerchant. How do they expect
him
to pack a TBY?
My legs nearly buckled at the sight of them. Burnside was pale. Huxley would have a hemorrhage when they tried to operate. Gunner Keats would puke.
The one called Hodgkiss fell out of ranks and picked up two suitcases laying beside his seabag. “What do you have there?”
“A phonograph and some records.” I walked over to him and opened an album. A little swing music always livens up the barracks. But it was horrible. I flipped the pages: Chopin, Tschaikovsky, Brahms—a whole lot of those guys….
“Show them to quarters, Mac. I’m going to the slop chute and get pissed up,” Burnside moaned.
“What you want, chief, eggs in your beer?” The Injun laughed.
To say that the kids coming into Eliot were a change from the beer-drinking, hell-raising professionals of peacetime was the understatement of the year. They were babies, beardless babies of eighteen and twenty. The Corps sure was shot to hell! Radio men—I’m laughing. An anemic Indian, a music lover, a lumberjack with ten thumbs, a Texan who couldn’t move out of his own way, a farmer, a feathermerchant, and the All-American boy. All this and Joe Gomez, a renegade troublemaker.
After our first field problem, Gunner Keats thought seriously of resigning or begging to be shipped out. Huxley, who rarely showed emotion, gagged.
I found them the dirtiest, filthiest work details possible. I went out of my way to be nasty. Shovel garbage at the dump, clean out the crap bowls, dig ditches, swab the decks of officers’ quarters, police the entire camp.
Christ! In the old Corps radio operators were something. They stood watches on the battlewagons…they were respected. These…these
things
that Major Bolger sent us had trouble with the slowest speed field sets. I wanted to go back to Iceland.
It would be hard to say exactly where a Marine story like this should start and where it should end. The kids were there and we weren’t happy about it. Where they came from, how they got there, I didn’t know….
THE ROOF
of the cold, gray, barnlike Pennsylvania Terminal in Baltimore hovered high over the scurrying travelers and the small whispering groups about Gate Three. In clusters of two, three, four and more they stood around stern-faced youths as the moments ticked away. Here a wife and child, there a half dozen pals shouted encouragement. In a corner an aged mother and father and a group of relatives whispered to a sullen lad.
There were many young girls, some weeping, all fighting back tears as they stood by their husbands, their lovers, their boy friends. The almost buzzing sound of their farewell bounced and echoed off the walls of the ancient terminal.
Danny Forrester zipped up his green and silver jacket with the block letter F and shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. Grouped about him were his father; his young brother, Bud; and his best friend, Virgil; and Virgil’s girl, Sally.
“Hey, lady, my brother is a Marine,” little Bud Forrester shouted to a passer-by.
“Be quiet, Bud,” Mr. Forrester demanded.
Kathleen Walker stood at Danny’s side. Their hands were clasped tightly. He felt the cold sweat of her palms as a sergeant in dress blues made his way through the throngs, walked to the gate, and began to check a roster sheet.
“I’m sorry about Mother. I’m sorry she didn’t want to come.”
“She’ll be all right, son.”
“Gee, Danny,” Virgil said. “I wish I was going with you.”
“No, you don’t,” Sally answered.
“I called up Coach Grimes. He was sort of angry you didn’t say good-by.”
“Heck, Virg, he’d probably’ve brought the whole team and student body down. I…I didn’t want that. I’ll write and explain to him.”
“Sure.”
“You’ve got the sandwiches and cake I packed?’’ Sally asked.
“Right on top. Thanks, Sally.”
Henry Forrester reached in his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill. “Here, son.”
“I’ve got twenty already, Dad. That’s more than enough.”
“Well, you’d better take it anyhow. Never can tell, little emergency might come up.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Any idea about what’s cooking?” Virgil asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve heard a million stories today. They say the Base is nice. We’ll be in isolation for a couple weeks at San Diego. Boot camp, they call it.”
“Sure sounds like fun.”
“You’ll write us, when you can?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Hey, Danny, I want a Jap sword. Get a Jap for me, Danny, huh?”
“I don’t suppose I’ll see any Japs for a while, Bud. I want you to be a good guy and do what Dad tells you—and write to me.”
A loud cry cut through the station. A soothing arm went around a mother’s shoulder. A long awkward period of silence followed. Danny and Kathy looked at each other sheepishly from the corners of their eyes.
“Maybe you’d like to talk to Kathy alone for a minute,” Mr. Forrester said.
Danny led her to a deserted bench, but neither sat down. She lowered her head as he spoke softly.
“You don’t want to change your mind, do you, kitten? I would understand if you did.”
“No…no.”
“Scared, kitten?”
“A little.”
“Me too.”
“Kiss me, Danny.”
They held each other until the public address system rudely shocked them back to earth.
“Attention all Marine enlistees. Report to platform Gate Three at once.”
A mutter of relief was heard and one by one the fifty boys and their parties wended their way through the gate and down the long stairs to the snorting, hissing string of cars below. Virgil picked up Danny’s overnight bag and Danny, with one arm about Kathy and the other about Bud, shuffled slowly along amid the crowd.
“All right,” the sergeant barked. “Fall in.”
For the tenth time he droned through the list: “Tatum…Soffolus…O’Neill…Greenberg…Weber…Forrester…Burke…Burke, Thomas K…answer up.”
“Here.”
“All right, pay attention. Soffolus will take the roster and be in charge of this detail. You people board the first car and stay together. There will be no defacing or drinking or boisterousness, or Military Police will be put aboard. Fall out—you have three minutes left.”
They broke the shoddy formation and rushed to the crowd arched about them.
“You’ll be sorrreee!” a sailor yelled from the fringe of the group.
“You’ll be sorreee!” his mate echoed.
“I wish I was old enough to be a Marine. I wish I was old enough.” Bud raced back, hiding behind his father. Danny knelt by the weeping boy and hugged him.
“Good luck, Danny,” Virg said, grasping his hand.
“Take care of yourself, son, take care of yourself.”
“Good-by, Dad…and don’t worry.”
Sally kissed his cheek and stepped back. He embraced Kathy and turned. “I love you, Danny.” Her voice trailed after him. He boarded the train and ran for a window seat and tugged the glass up. Virg held Bud up for a hug and then Danny reached his arms down and they were grasped by his father and his friend.
The train lurched suddenly. Its powerful electric engine eased it slowly along at first. Then it picked up speed until the platform was filled with trotting and waving and shouting people. The boys in the car pressed faces against the windows. Faster and faster the train went until the ones outside could no longer keep pace and stopped breathlessly and waved. They grew smaller and smaller. And then the train plunged into a long black tunnel and they were gone.
Danny slumped down in his seat and a weird sensation passed through him. Alone now…I’m sorry to God I did it. His heart pounded. He felt unable to control a cold clammy sweat. Alone…why did I join?…why?
The boy next to him held out a pack of cigarettes. Danny declined, then introduced himself.
“Forrester, Danny Forrester.”
“Jones, L. Q. You don’t want to hear my first name. It drives people mad. I’m from L.A., but I was visiting my uncle here when the war broke out….” His words fell upon deaf ears as the train broke from the tunnel.
Danny looked out of the window. Block after block of attached brick houses with white marble steps flitted by. A wide lawned street and the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Then, tired from the long day of waiting and falling into lines and waiting, he rested back and closed his eyes.
“I’m a Marine…I am a Marine,” he repeated to himself to the clickety-clack of the wheels. Everything seems so unreal. A thrill passed through him…Kathy loves me.
Forest Park High—it seemed so far away already. Forest Park High….
The game was over. The frenzied alma-mater-singing, cheer-calling, goalpost-pulling students had departed from Baltimore Municipal Stadium.
After a slap on the back by Coach Wilbur Grimes, the weary and dejected players of Forest Park left the gear-cluttered dressing room and went into the frosty November air to receive tribute from the remaining loyal fans.
A half hour later Danny Forrester emerged from the shower. The room was empty save for the little equipment manager scurrying about, on a final check. The place had a mixed odor of sweat and steam and the floor was cluttered with misplaced benches and towels. He dressed, slipped into his moccasins and stepped to the mirror and wiped away a circle of mist. He combed his hair and then placed his finger on his right eye which was bruised and quickly swelling.
“Nice game, Danny,” the equipment manager said, slapping him on the back and leaving.
He walked to his locker and took out his green and silver jacket. The door opened, sending a gust of cold air in, and Wilbur Grimes entered, turned down the collar of his coat and pulled up a bench. He took out his pipe and loaded up.
“In a hurry?”
“No, sir.”
“Good news, Danny. I’ve got a letter from the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. The scholarship is all set up.”
“Oh.”
“Come on now, lad—forget the game, it’s all over. The kids were disappointed when you didn’t come out with Virg and the team.”
“I just didn’t see anything to cheer about, Coach. We lost. We wanted to put City’s head on a platter and give it to you. This is our last game, we wanted to win bad.”
The coach smiled. “I’d say we showed pretty good. Losing by one point to a team that hasn’t been defeated for five years is certainly no disgrace. At any rate we would have run them off the field if I had ten more boys like you out there.”
Danny did not look up from his bowed position at Grimes’ compliment, though it was the first he had ever gotten as an individual from the coach, who always praised or berated only the group.
Coach Grimes puffed his pipe. “At least you might be a little happier over the scholarship.”
“I don’t know, sir. Georgia is a little far from home. I was sort of thinking about going to Maryland instead.”
“Oh come now, Danny. You had your heart set on that Civil Engineering course. Why the sudden change?”
Danny just nodded his head.
“Virg didn’t get an offer…that’s it, isn’t it?”
“Well, sir.”
“So that’s it. I smelled it.”
“We sort of made a pact, Coach, that we’d go through college together.”
The coach arose and stood over the boy. “Look, lad, you’ve played your last game for me, so I can speak freely to you. I’ve been coaching at this school fifteen years. I suppose I’ve had a thousand boys under me at one time or another. And in that time I can honestly say that I’ve never had more than a half dozen that were as surefire as you.”
“But I don’t understand it. Virg has scored twice as many points. Why, he’s been the star of the team for three years.”
“Danny, I like Virg and I certainly don’t want to belittle any friendships or pacts or what have you. But I’d rather have a boy that can make two yards when we need it than one who makes fifty when we don’t. And I’d rather have a boy who improves with every game and never makes the same mistake twice.”