by James Jones
“The CQ will unlock the rifle racks and every man get his rifle and hang onto it. But stay inside at your bunks. This aint no maneuvers. You go runnin around outside you’ll get your ass shot off. And you cant do no good anyway. You want to be heroes, you’ll get plenty chances later; from now on. You’ll probly have Japs right in your laps, by time we get down to beach positions.
“Stay off the porches. Stay inside. I’m making each squad leader responsible to keep his men inside. If you have to use a rifle butt to do it, thats okay too.”
There was a mutter of indignant protest.
“You heard me!” Warden hollered. “You men want souvenirs, buy them off the widows of the men who went out after them. If I catch anybody running around outside, I’ll personally beat his head in, and then see he gets a goddam general court martial.”
There was another indignant mutter of protest.
“What if the cocksuckers bomb us?” somebody hollered.
“If you hear a bomb coming, you’re free to take off for the brush,” Warden said. “But not unless you do. I dont think they will. If they was going to bomb us, they would of started with it already. They probly concentratin all their bombs on the Air Corps and Pearl Harbor.”
There was another indignant chorus.
“Yeah,” somebody hollered, “but what if they aint?”
“Then you’re shit out of luck,” Warden said. “If they do start to bomb, get everybody outside—on the side away from the quad—not into the quad—and disperse; away from the big buildings.”
“That wont do us no good if they’ve already laid one on the roof,” somebody yelled.
“All right,” Warden hollered, “can the chatter. Lets move. We’re wasting time. Squad leaders get these men upstairs. BAR men, platoon leaders and first-three-graders report to me here.”
With the corporals and buck sergeants haranguing them, the troops gradually began to sift out through the corridor to the porch stairs. Outside another plane went over. Then another, and another. Then what sounded like three planes together. The platoon leaders and guides and BAR men pushed their way down to the pingpong table that Warden jumped down off of.
“What you want me to do, First?” Stark said; his face still had the same expression of blank, flat refusal—like a stomach flatly refusing food—that he had had in the messhall; “what about the kitchen force? I’m pretty drunk, but I can still shoot a BAR.”
“I want you to get your ass in the kitchen with every man you got and start packing up,” Warden said, looking at him. He rubbed his hand hard over his own face. “We’ll be movin out for the beach as soon as this tapers off a little, and I want that kitchen all packed and ready to roll. Full field. Stoves and all. While you’re doin that, make a big pot of coffee on the big stove. Use the biggest #18 pot you got.”
“Right,” Stark said, and took off for the door into the messhall.
“Wait!” Warden hollered. “On second thought, make two pots. The two biggest you got. We’re going to need it.”
“Right,” Stark said, and went on. His voice was not blank, his voice was crisp. It was just his face, that was blank.
“The rest of you guys,” Warden said.
Seeing their faces, he broke off and rubbed his own face again. It didnt do any good. As soon as he stopped rubbing it settled right back into it, like a campaign hat that had been blocked a certain way.
“I want the BAR men to report to the supplyroom right now and get their weapons and all the loaded clips they can find and go up on the roof. When you see a Jap plane, shoot at it. Dont worry about wasting ammo. Remember to take a big lead. Thats all. Get moving.
“The rest of you guys,” Warden said, as the BAR men moved away at a run. “The rest of you guys. The first thing. The main thing. Every platoon leader is responsible to me personally to see that all of his men stay inside, except the BAR men up on the roof. A rifleman’s about as much good against a low flying pursuit ship as a boy scout with a slingshot. And we’re going to need every man we can muster when we get down to beach positions. I dont want none of them wasted here, by runnin outside to shoot rifles at airplanes. Or by goin souvenir huntin. The men stay inside. Got it?”
There was a chorus of hurried vacant nods. Most of the heads were on one side, listening to the planes going over in ones and twos and three. It looked peculiar to see them all nodding on one side like that. Warden found himself wanting to laugh excitedly.
“The BARs will be up on the roof,” he said. “They can do all the shooting that we can supply ammo for. Anybody else will just be getting in the way.”
“What about my MGs, Milt?” Peter Karelsen asked him.
The easy coolness in old Pete’s voice shocked Warden to a full stop. Drunk or not, Pete seemed to be the only one who sounded relaxed, and Warden remembered his two years in France.
“Whatever you think, Pete,” he said.
“I’ll take one. They couldnt load belts fast enough to handle more than one. I’ll take Mikeovitch and Grenelli up with me to handle it.”
“Can you get the muzzle up high enough on those ground tripods?”
“We’ll put the tripod over a chimney,” Pete said. “And then hold her down by the legs.”
“Whatever you think, Pete,” Warden said, thinking momentarily how wonderful it was to be able to say that.
“Come on, you two,” Pete said, almost boredly, to his two section leaders. “We’ll take Grenelli’s because we worked on it last.”
“Remember,” Warden said to the rest of them as Pete left with his two machinegunners. “The men stay inside. I dont care how you handle it. Thats up to you. I’m going to be up on the roof with a BAR. If you want to get in on the fun, go yourself. Thats where I’m going to be. But make damn sure your men are going to stay inside, off the porches, before you go up.”
“Like hell!” Liddell Henderson said. “You aint goin to catch this Texan up on no roof. Ah’ll stay down with ma men.”
“Okay,” Warden said, jabbing a finger at him. “Then you are hereby placed in charge of the loading detail. Get ten or twelve men, as many as you can get in the supplyroom, and put them to loading BAR clips and MG belts. We’re going to need all the ammo we can get. Anybody else dont want to go up?”
“I’ll stay down with Liddell,” Champ Wilson said.
“Then you’re second-in-command of the loading detail,” Warden said. “All right, lets go. If anybody’s got a bottle laying around, bring it up with you. I’m bringing mine.”
When they got out to the porch, they found a knot of men arguing violently with S/Sgt Malleaux in front of the supply-room.
“I dont give a damn,” Malleaux said. “Thats my orders. I cant issue any live ammo without a signed order from an officer.”
“But there aint no goddamned officers, you jerk!” somebody protested angrily.
“Then there aint no live ammo,” Malleaux said.
“The officers may not get here till noon!”
“I’m sorry, fellows,” Malleaux said. “Thats my orders. Lt Ross give them to me himself. No signed order, no ammo.”
“What the fuckin hell is all this?” Warden said.
“He wont let us have any ammo, Top,” a man said.
“He’s got it locked up and the keys in his pocket,” another one said.
“Gimme them keys,” Warden said.
“Thats my orders, Sergeant,” Malleaux said, shaking his head. “I got to have a signed order from an officer before I can issue any live ammo to an enlisted man.”
Pete Karelsen came out of the kitchen and across the porch wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. From the screendoor Stark disappeared inside putting a pint bottle back into his hip pocket under his apron.
“What the hells the matter?” Pete asked his two machine-gunners happily.
“He wont give us no ammo, Pete,” Grenelli said indignantly.
“Well for—Jesus Christ!” Pete said disgustedly.
“Thats m
y orders, Sergeant,” Malleaux said irrefragably.
From the southeast corner of the quad a plane came over firing, the tracers leading irrevocably in under the porch and up the wall as he flashed over, and the knot of men dived for the stairway.
“Fuck your orders!” Warden bawled. “Gimme them goddam keys!”
Malleaux put his hand in his pocket protectively. “I cant do that Sergeant. I got my orders, from Lt Ross himself.”
“Okay,” Warden said happily. “Chief, bust the door down.” To Malleaux he said, “Get the hell out of the way.”
Choate, and Mikeovitch and Grenelli the two machine-gunners, got back for a run at the door, the Chief’s big bulk towering over the two lightly built machinegunners.
Malleaux stepped in front of the door. “You cant get by with this, Sergeant,” he told Warden.
“Go ahead,” Warden grinned happily at the Chief. “Bust it down. He’ll get out of the way.” Across the quad, there were already two men up on top of the Headquarters Building.
Chief Choate and the two machinegunners launched themselves at the supply room door like three blocking backs bearing down on an end. Malleaux stepped out of the way. The door rattled ponderously.
“This is your responsibility, Sergeant,” Malleaux said to Warden. “I did my best.”
“Okay,” Warden said. “I’ll see you get a medal.”
“Remember I warned you, Sergeant,” Malleaux said.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Warden said.
It took three tries to break the wood screws loose enough to let the Yale night lock come open. Warden was the first one in. The two machinegunners were right behind him, Mikeovitch burrowing into a stack of empty belt boxes looking for full ones while Grenelli got his gun lovingly out of the MG rack. There were men up on both the 3rd and 1st Battalion roofs by now, to meet the planes as they came winging back, on first one then the other of the cross legs of their long figure 8.
Warden grabbed a BAR from the rack and passed it out with a full bag of clips. Somebody grabbed it and took off for the roof, and somebody else stepped up to receive one. Warden passed out three of them from the rack, each with a full bag of clips, before he realized what he was doing.
“To hell with this noise,” he said to Grenelli who was unstrapping his tripod on his way out the door. “I could stand here and hand these out all day and never get up on the roof.”
He grabbed a BAR and clip bag for himself and pushed out the door, making a mental note to eat Malleaux’s ass out. There were a dozen bags of full clips in there, left over from the BAR practice firing in August. They should have been unloaded and greased months ago.
Outside, he stopped beside Henderson. Pete, Grenelli and Mikeovitch were already rounding the stair landing out of sight with the MG and eight belt boxes.
“Get your ass in there and start passing them out,” Warden told Henderson, “and start loading clips. And belts. Have Wilson go up and get a detail of men. Soons you get a batch loaded send a couple men up with them. Put three men on belts, the rest on BAR clips.”
“Yes, Sir,” Henderson said nervously.
Warden took off for the stairs. On the way up he stopped off at his room to get the full bottle that he kept in his foot-locker for emergencies.
In the squadroom men were sitting on their bunks with their helmets on holding empty rifles in black despair. They looked up hopefully and called to him as he passed.
“What gives, Sarge?” “Whats the deal, First?” “Are we going up on the roofs now?” “Where the hells the ammunition, Top?” “These guns aint worth nothing without no ammunition.” “Hell of a note to sit on your bunk with an empty rifle and no ammunition while they blow your guts out.” “Are we sojers? or boy-scouts?”
Other men, the ones who had slept through breakfast and were now getting up tousle-headed and wide-eyed, stopped dressing and looked hopefully to see what he’d say.
“Get into field uniforms,” Warden said, realizing he had to say something. “Start rolling full field packs,” he told them ruthlessly in an iron voice. “We’re moving out in fifteen minutes. Full field equipment.”
Several men threw their rifles on their beds disgustedly.
“Then what the hell’re you doin with a BAR?” somebody hollered.
“Field uniforms,” Warden said pitilessly, and went on across the squadroom. “Full field equipment. Squad leaders, get them moving.”
Disgustedly, the squad leaders began to harangue them to work.
In the far doorway onto the outside porch Warden stopped. In the corner under an empty bunk that had three extra mattresses piled on it, S/Sgt Turp Thornhill from Mississippi lay on the cement floor in his underwear with his helmet on hugging his empty rifle.
“You’ll catch a cold Turp,” Warden said.
“Dont go out there, First Sergeant!” Turp pleaded. “You’ll be killed! They shootin it up! You’ll be dead! You’ll not be alive any more! Dont go out there!”
“You better put your pants on,” Warden said.
In his room on the porch splinters of broken glass lay all over Warden’s floor, and a line of bullet holes was stitched across the top of his foot-locker and up the side of Pete’s locker and across its top. Under Pete’s locker was a puddle and the smell of whiskey fumes was strong in the air. Cursing savagely, Warden unlocked his footlocker and flung back the lid. A book in the tray had a slanting hole drilled right through its center. His plastic razor box was smashed and the steel safety razor bent almost double. Savagely he jerked the tray out and threw it on the floor. In the bottom of the locker two .30 caliber bullets were nestled in the padding of rolled socks and stacked underwear, one on either side of the brown quart bottle.
The bottle was safe.
Warden dropped the two bullets into his pocket and got the unbroken bottle out tenderly and looked in his wall locker to make sure his recordplayer and records were safe. Then he hit the floor in the broken glass, holding the bottle carefully and under him, as another plane went over going east over the quad.
As he beat it back out through the squadroom the men were beginning bitterly to roll full field packs. All except Turp Thornhill, who was still under the bunk and four mattresses in his helmet and underwear; and Private Ike Galovitch, who was lying on top his bunk with his rifle along his side and his head under his pillow.
On the empty second floor, from which men were hurriedly carrying their full field equipment downstairs to roll into packs, at the south end of the porch by the latrine Readall Treadwell was going up the ladder in the latrine-supplies closet to the roof hatch carrying a BAR and grinning from ear to ear.
“First time in my goddam life,” he yelled down; “I’m really goin to git to shoot a BAR, by god. I wount never of believe it.”
He disappeared through the hatch and Warden followed him on up, and out into the open. Across G Company’s section of roof most of G Company’s first-three-graders were waiting to meet the enemy from behind one of the four chimneys, or else down on their knees in one of the corners, the BAR forearms propped on the crotch-high wall, or a chimney top, their muzzles looking eagerly into the sky, and their bottles of whiskey sitting beside them close up against the wall. Reedy Treadwell, who did not have a bottle, was just dropping down happily beside Chief Choate, who did. Two of the first-three-graders had hopped across the wall onto F Company’s roof and were standing behind two of their chimneys. A knot of first-three-graders from F Co were just coming up through their own hatch. They crossed the roof and began to argue violently with the two first-three-graders from G Co, demanding their chimneys. All down the 2nd Battalion roof, and on the 1st and 3rd Battalion roofs, first-three-graders were coming up through the hatches eagerly with BARs, rifles, pistols, and here and there a single MG. There were a few buck sergeants visible among them, but the only privates visible anywhere were Readall Treadwell and the two other BAR men from GCo.
“Throw your empty clips down into the Compny Yard,” Warden holler
ed as he moved down the roof. “Pass it along. Throw your empty clips down in the Compny Yard. The loading detail will pick em up. Throw your empty—”
A V of three planes came winging over from the southeast firing full blast, and the waiting shooters cheered happily like a mob of hobos about to sit down to their first big meal in years. All the artillery on all the roofs cut loose in a deafening roar and the earth stopped. The argument on F Co’s roof also stopped, while both sides all dived behind the same chimney. Warden turned without thinking, standing in his tracks, and fired from the shoulder without a rest, the bottle clutched tightly between his knees.
The big BAR punched his shoulder in a series of lightning left jabs.
On his right Pete Karelsen was happily firing the little air-cooled .30 caliber from behind the chimney while Mikeovitch and Grenelli hung grimly onto the bucking legs of the tripod laid over the chimney, bouncing like two balls on two strings.
The planes sliced on over, unscathed, winging on down to come back up the other leg of the big figure 8. Everybody cheered again anyway, as the firing stopped.
“Holymarymotherofgod,” Chief Choate boomed in his star basso that always took the break-line of the Regimental song uncontested. “I aint had so much fun since granmaw got her tit caught in the wringer.”
“Shit!” old Pete said disgustedly in a low voice behind Warden. “He was on too much of an angle. Led him too far.”
Warden lowered his BAR, his belly and throat tightening with a desire to let loose a high hoarse senseless yell of pure glee. This is my outfit. These are my boys. He got his bottle from between his knees and took a drink that was not a drink but an expression of feeling. The whiskey burned his throat savagely joyously.
“Hey, Milt!” Pete called him. “You can come over here with us if you want. We got enough room for you and the bottle.”
“Be right with you!” Warden roared. Gradually his ears had become aware of a bugle blowing somewhere insistently, the same call over and over. He stepped to the inside edge of the roof and looked down over the wall.
