Call to Arms

by W. E. B Griffin

  McCoy didn’t reply.

  “Were you listening in officer’s call, Killer? When I talked about getting the best man for the job?”

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said.

  “You’re it,” Carlson said. “You’re a clever young man, McCoy. Much more clever than people at first believe. You know what I want you to do, and I expect you to give it your best shot.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said, in English.

  “May I ask what that was all about?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Killer was telling me that he doesn’t have his knife today,” Carlson said, “but that he will carry it with him in the future, and the next time he sees you, he’d be happy to show it to you.”

  “Fine.” Roosevelt beamed.

  “Anything else on your mind, Killer?” Colonel Carlson asked.

  “No, sir,” McCoy said, and then blurted, “Sir, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t call me ‘Killer.’”

  Carlson smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid that falls under the category of public relations, McCoy. We could hardly call our world-class knife fighting expert anything else, could we? Not and get the same reaction from the Raiders.”

  McCoy didn’t reply.

  “If there’s nothing else, Killer,” Carlson said, “you may return to your duties.”

  McCoy saluted.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “I’d really like to see your knife, Killer,” Captain Roosevelt said.

  (Two)

  Camp Elliott, California

  7 March 1942

  Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, Gunnery Sergeant Ernst Zimmerman, and a detail of twelve Marines from Able Company had come to the range in two Chevrolet half-ton pickups and a GMC 6×61 at dawn.

  The 6×6 dragged a water trailer, and all the trucks were heavily laden and full. There were stacks of fifty-five-gallon garbage cans; stacks of buckets; bundles of rags; stacks of oblong wooden crates with rope handles; stacks of olive drab oblong ammunition cans; five-gallon water cans; five-gallon gasoline cans; and an assortment of other equipment, including eight gasoline-powered water heaters.

  The detail from Able Company had come under a sergeant and a corporal; and Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman—with a confidence that surprised McCoy, who remembered Zimmerman as a mild-mannered motor sergeant in the 4th Marines—quickly and efficiently put them to work.

  All but one of the garbage cans were filled with water from the trailer and then placed twenty yards apart in a line.

  Zimmerman watched as the sergeant set up one of the water heaters in one of the garbage cans and then fired it off. Satisfied that he could do the same thing with the other heaters (these were normally used to boil water in garbage cans set up at field kitchens to sterilize mess kits), he turned to what else had to be done.

  He ordered the cans of ammunition removed from the Chevrolet pickup that had brought McCoy to the range and stacked inside the range house. On each olive drab can was lettered, in yellow:

  CALIBER .30 US CARBINE

  110 GRAIN BALL AMMUNITION

  480 ROUNDS PACKED

  4 BANDOLIERS OF 12 10-ROUND STRIPPER CLIPS

  He next ordered that one of the garbage cans, four of the five-gallon cans of gasoline, and a bundle of rags be loaded in the back of the pickup.

  Then he went to one of the heavy oblong wooden crates with rope handles removed from the 6×6. These crates were also stenciled in yellow:

  10 US CARBINES CAL .30 M1

  PACKED FOR OVERSEAS SHIPMENT IN COSMOLINE

  DO NOT DESTROY CONTAINER INTEGRITY WITHOUT SPECIFIC

  AUTHORIZATION

  There was a good deal of container integrity. The cases were wrapped with stout wire. When Zimmerman had cut the wire loose, he saw the lid to the case was held down by eight thumbscrews. When these were off, he looked around and borrowed a ferocious-looking hunting knife from the nearest Raider, who looked about eighteen years old and as ferocious as a Boy Scout.

  When he pried the lid of the case loose, there was a piece of heavy, tarred paper over the contents. Zimmerman cut it free. Inside the case were ten heavy paper-and-metal envelopes. Zimmerman took two of them out and handed them to the Raider from whom he had borrowed the hunting knife.

  “Put these in the back of the lieutenant’s pickup,” he ordered.

  Zimmerman then sought out the detail sergeant.

  “Twenty-four cases,” he said. “Ten carbines per case. Two hundred forty carbines, less two the lieutenant has. I want to see two hundred and thirty-eight carbines out of their cases when I get back here. And I want to see twelve people busy boiling the Cosmoline off twelve carbines.”

  “Where you going, Gunny?” the buck sergeant asked.

  “To inspect the range with the lieutenant,” Zimmerman said, gesturing down range.

  He then walked to the pickup, got behind the wheel, and drove the truck past the one-hundred, two-hundred, and three-hundred-yard ranges to a dip in the ground fifty yards from the five-hundred-yard target line. When the pickup went into the dip, it was invisible to the people on the firing line.

  McCoy and Zimmerman got out of the cab of the truck.

  “How are we going to do this?” Zimmerman asked.

  “Carefully,” McCoy said.

  He climbed into the bed of the truck, picked up the garbage can, and lowered it to the ground. Zimmerman took one of the five-gallon cans of gasoline, opened it, and poured it into the garbage can. And then, as McCoy picked up one of the metal-foil envelopes from the bed of the truck and carefully tore the top off, Zimmerman poured the gas from the other three cans into the garbage can.

  Inside the envelope was a very small rifle, not more than three feet long, with its stock curved into a pistol grip behind the trigger. It was covered with a dark brown sticky substance. McCoy delicately lowered the small rifle into the gasoline in the garbage can, and then repeated the process with the second metal foil envelope.

  Then the two of them began, carefully, to slosh the weapons around in the gasoline.

  The removal of Cosmoline from weapons by the use of gasoline or other volatile substance was strictly forbidden by USMC regulations. It was also the most effective way to get the Cosmoline off—far more effective than boiling water.

  The sharp outlines of the small rifle began to appear as the Cosmoline began to dissolve.

  “Don’t breath the fumes,” McCoy cautioned.

  Zimmerman passed the barrel of the carbine he was holding to McCoy.

  “I got a can,” he said.

  He went to the truck and took from it an empty No. 10 can. He took a beer-can opener from his pocket and punched small drain holes around the bottom rim. Then he set the can down, unfolded a piece of scrap canvas on the bed of the truck, and then took one of the small rifles from McCoy.

  He disassembled the small rifle into the stock and action, handed the stock and the forestock (a smaller piece of wood, which sat atop the barrel) to McCoy, sloshed the now-exposed action in the gasoline again, and then took it to the piece of canvas, where he took it down into small pieces and put them into the No. 10 can.

  McCoy, meanwhile, using a rag and a toothbrush, stripped the stock and forestock of Cosmoline. When he was satisfied, he took the wooden pieces to the truck and laid them down. Zimmerman sloshed the parts in the No. 10 can around, then wiped them with a rag and scrubbed them with a toothbrush.

  They worked quickly, but without haste. Soon, both of the rifles were on the scrap of canvas, free of Cosmoline. Except for the trigger group, they were stripped down to their smallest part.

  “You think we have to take these down?” McCoy asked, looking doubtfully at the complex arrangement of small parts and springs.

  Zimmerman picked up the second trigger group assembly and studied it carefully. “No,” he said, issuing a professional judgment, “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a book?” McCoy asked. “So we can figure out how to put it back together?” />
  Zimmerman produced a small, paperbound manual, the U.S. Army Technical Manual for the U.S. Carbine, Caliber .30, M1, from the breast pocket of his dungarees, and displayed it triumphantly.

  “You may turn into a passable gunny yet,” McCoy said.

  “Fuck you, McCoy,” Zimmerman said, as he thumbed through the book looking for the disassembly instructions. When he found it, he opened the small book wide, breaking its spine so that it would lay flat.

  Then, after carefully oiling each part and consulting the drawings in the book, they put the small rifles back together.

  They worked the actions and dry-fired the weapons to make sure they were operable.

  “What do we do about the gas?” Zimmerman asked.

  “Dump it out, leave the can here until later,” McCoy ordered. He took Zimmerman’s carbine from him and climbed back into the pickup. Zimmerman tipped the garbage can on its side, watched for a moment as the sandy soil soaked up the gasoline, and then got behind the wheel.

  They were gone no more than fifteen minutes. Steam was now rising from the water-filled garbage cans, and the men they had left were sloshing carbines around in it. It would be a long and dirty job using boiling water, McCoy thought, but there was no other way for these guys to do it. Doing it with gasoline was something only old Marines could handle safely; these kids, and that included their sergeant, would just blow themselves up using gas.

  It did not occur to him that both the sergeant and the corporal, and at least two of the Raiders, were as old as, or older than, he was. He and Zimmerman had done a hitch with the 4th Marines. They were Marines, China Marines, and the others were kids.

  As McCoy walked down the line of steaming garbage cans, Zimmerman went to the 6×6, pulled out a large flat cardboard carton, and took from it two large two-hundred-yard bull’s-eye targets. Then he looked around and saw a tall, good-looking kid who didn’t seem to have much to do.

  He snapped his fingers, and when he had the kid’s attention, beckoned to him with his finger.

  “You might as well learn how to do this,” Zimmerman said, and demonstrated the technique of making glue from flour and water in a No. 10 can.

  When the glue had been mixed, Zimmerman led the kid to the one-hundred-yard line. There, target frames, constructed of two-by-fours with cotton “target cloth” stretched over them, were placed on the ground. He showed the kid how to brush the flour-and-water paste onto the target cloth, and then how to rub the targets smooth against it. Then they hoisted the target frames erect, put their legs into terra cotta pipes in the ground, and walked back to the firing line.

  Zimmerman saw that a red (firing in progress) pennant had been hoisted on the flagpole, and that McCoy, with the sergeant, the corporal, and several kids watching him, had found the carbine magazines and other missing parts, and was trying to finish the assembly process.

  “Gunny,” Lieutenant McCoy said sternly, “do you know how to put the sling on this piece?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said, confidently, even though he had absolutely no idea how to do it.

  The carbine sling was a piece of canvas. Unlike the Springfield and Garand rifles, which had sling swivels top and bottom, however, the carbine sling fitted into a sling swivel mounted on the front side of the weapon with a “lift-the-dot” fastener. McCoy had figured out that much for himself.

  He was having a problem fastening the rear end of the sling. Zimmerman took the carbine from McCoy. The right side of the stock of the carbine had, near the butt, a three-inch-long slot cut into it. In the center of the slot, there was a hole cut all the way through the stock. The left side of the stock had been inlet, the cut obviously designed to accommodate the sling.

  There was a metal tube intended to fit into the slot of the right side of the stock. And the sling was intended to go through the stock from the left side, loop around the metal tube, and then pass through the stock again, holding the sling in place.

  The problem Lieutenant McCoy was having, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman saw, was that when he looped the sling around the tube, it wouldn’t fit it in the hole. And it obviously had to, for otherwise the metal tube would fall off.

  Zimmerman took the metal tube in his hands.

  “This, sir,” he announced, “is the sling keeper.”

  At that moment, he noticed that one end of the tube was knurled. He unscrewed it. There was a piece of wire, flattened at one end, under the cap.

  “Which, as you can see,” Zimmerman said, “also contains the oiler.”

  He screwed the cap back in place, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now. And then inspiration struck. He knew how the goddamned thing worked.

  “To insert the sling, sir,” he pontificated, “first you insert the sling keeper/oiler—I’m not exactly sure of the nomenclature, sir—into the stock, and then you feed the sling around it.”

  It was only a theory, but it was all he had to go on; so he tried it, and it worked. The metal tube was securely inside the slot in the stock, and the sling was in place.

  “In that manner, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said.

  “Very good, Gunny,” Lieutenant McCoy said.

  “It’s really very simple, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said.

  “Sergeant,” McCoy said, “the gunny and I are going to test-fire these weapons. Pass the word to your men, and make sure they keep well back of the firing line.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the sergeant said. “Sir, are we going to get to fire them?”

  “You’ll be the first to fire when the company shows up,” McCoy said.

  Zimmerman opened an ammunition can and took from it an olive drab cotton bandolier. It had six pockets, each of which held two ten-round stripper clips separated by a strip of paperboard. He freed one of the small, shiny cartridges and looked at the base. It was stamped FC 42.

  He showed it to McCoy.

  “Brand-new, sir,” he said, obviously impressed.

  “That’s the first brand-new ammo I’ve ever seen,” McCoy said.

  Zimmerman examined a stripper clip and a carbine magazine carefully, and he saw where one end of the stripper clip was obviously designed to fit over the lips of the magazine. He put it in place and shoved down with his thumb. The cartridges slipped into the magazine.

  He looked at McCoy and saw that McCoy had been watching him. McCoy loaded a stripper clip into each of two magazines.

  Then they walked to the firing line. McCoy sat down, and Zimmerman followed his example. He made as much of a sling as he could from the canvas strap, then shifted himself around until he was in what he considered to be a satisfactory shooting position.

  Then he looked over his shoulder and around the range to make sure none of the kids had wandered into a dangerous position. Just to be sure, he counted heads. They were all in sight. He raised his voice.

  “Ready on the right, ready on the left. Ready on the firing line. The flag is up, the flag is waving, the flag is down, commence firing!”

  He lined up the sights on the bull’s-eye and let off a round as well as he could. The trigger was stiff, heavy as hell, he thought. Probably because it was brand new. There was very little recoil; and the muzzle blast, while sharp, was less than he expected.

  They fired slowly and carefully. Zimmerman was finished before McCoy took the carbine from his shoulder.

  “Both clips?” Zimmerman asked.

  “Might as well,” McCoy said, and exchanged clips and resumed firing.

  When they had finished, and McCoy had issued the formal commands to clear all weapons and leave the firing line, they handed the carbines to the sergeant and walked to the targets at the one-hundred-yard line.

  There were twenty holes in each target. Zimmerman’s were scattered around the bull’s-eye, and McCoy’s were at the lower left of the target. What counted, however, was not the location of the holes, but the size of the group. Sight adjustment would move the group.

  “Piece of shit,” Zi
mmerman said, disgustedly, reaching up and laying his extended hand with the thumb on one hole and the little finger on another. “That’s eight fucking inches, for Christ sake, at a hundred yards.”

  “Some of them were fliers,” McCoy said. “And some were from a fouled barrel, and the triggers are stiff because they’re new.”

  “Bullshit, McCoy,” Zimmerman said. “It’s a piece of shit, and you know it.”

  “Get some rounds through them,” McCoy insisted. “Let the sears wear in a little and you can cut those groups in half.”

  “Down to five inches?” Zimmerman said, sarcastically.

  “Ernie, this thing is not supposed to be a rifle. It’s to replace the pistol,” McCoy said. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t put ten rounds from a forty-five into five inches at a hundred yards rapid fire.”

  Zimmerman looked at him.

  “I’m not sure I could do it with a Thompson, either,” McCoy insisted. “This thing fires fifteen rounds, and with the recoil, you’re right back on the target as fast as you call pull the trigger. It’s not a piece of shit, Ernie.”

  “Well, maybe to replace the pistol,” Zimmerman grudgingly agreed.

  “That’s what it’s for,” McCoy said.

  “Here they come,” Zimmerman said, jerking his head toward the firing line.

  A column of men, four abreast and fifty deep, was double-timing up the range road. They were in dungarees and wearing field gear, except for rifles and helmets. It was Company B, 2nd Ranger Battalion, which McCoy expected. But he had not expected it to be led by the company commander, or to be accompanied by its officers. He thought the Baker Company gunny would probably bring them out.

  “Issue and familiarization firing of the US Carbine, Caliber .30, M1, 16 Hours,” as the training schedule called it, was really the gunny’s business; but the Old Man was at the head of the column, and all the other officers except the executive officer were in the column behind him.

  Zimmerman reached up, worked his fingers under the target, and jerked it free of the target cloth.