But he wasn’t challenged. He hid the Garand in a ditch, and then went into the provost marshal’s office. Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker’s order was on file, and an MP corporal went and unlocked the compound for him.
McCoy drove to where he had hidden the Garand and reclaimed it. Then he opened the trunk, took out a dungaree shirt with corporal’s stripes painted on the sleeves, put it on, and then took his campaign hat from the hat press and set it on his head at the approved jaunty angle.
The MP at the gate, spotting the enlisted man’s sticker on the windshield and the stiff-brimmed campaign hat on the driver, waved the LaSalle convertible through, but McCoy slowed and stopped anyway.
The MP walked up to the car.
“Where’s the nearest gas station, garage, whatever, with a steam cleaner?” McCoy asked.
The MP thought it over.
“There’s a Sunoco station’s got one,” he said. “Turn left when you hit U.S. 1.”
“Much obliged,” McCoy said, and let the clutch out as he rolled up the window.
The Sunoco station’s steam cleaner wasn’t working, but they had something even better, a machine McCoy had never seen before. It was designed to clean dirt-and grease-encrusted parts. A nonexplosive solvent poured out of a flexible spout, like water from a faucet, over a sort of sink. Thirty minutes’ work with a bristle brush and there was no Cosmoline left on either the action or the stock of the Garand, period.
An hour after he had gone out of the Main Gate, McCoy drove the LaSalle back through it and stopped.
“Found it,” he called to the MP. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” the MP said.
There was time before Corporal Pleasant reappeared in the barracks to take a shower. The water was cold. The college boys, McCoy decided, had tried hot water. All it had done was leave a layer of Cosmoline on the shower floor. Everyone was still furiously rubbing rifle parts with rags.
McCoy tied rags around his feet, showered, removed the rags, threw them in the pile, and put on clean dungarees.
Then he disassembled the Garand, laid the parts on his bunk, then crawled under the bunk and lay down to await Corporal Pleasant.
Five minutes later, someone called “attention,” and McCoy started to roll out from under the bunk. He was halfway to his feet when Pleasant, storming purposefully down the aisle, spotted him getting up.
As he came to attention, Pleasant leaned the brim of his campaign hat into his face.
“Anyone tell you to get in the sack, asshole?” Corporal Pleasant inquired.
“No, sir!” McCoy said.
“Then what were you doing in the sack, asshole!”
“Sir, I wasn’t in the sack, sir!”
Corporal Pleasant, seeing the disassembled Garand on the bunk, was forced to face the fact that there was not room for the asshole to have been in the bunk, too.
He leaned over the bunk and picked up the first part he touched, which happened to be the magazine follower.
“You call this clean, asshole?” he demanded, before he had chance to examine it at all.
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said. “I believe that’s clean, sir!”
Corporal Pleasant shoved the magazine follower under McCoy’s nose, and in the very moment he demanded. “You call that clean, asshole?” he thought: I’ll be a sonofabitch, it’s clean!
“Yes, sir!” McCoy shouted.
“What’s the serial number of your piece, asshole?”
“Sir, 156331, sir!”
Corporal Pleasant stood eyeball to eyeball with Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy for a moment.
“Assemble your piece, and then get your ass outside, asshole!” he ordered. “There is a light on a pole outside the orderly room. Guard it until I relieve you!”
“Yes, sir!” McCoy said.
Ten minutes later, Corporal Pleasant marched up to the light pole outside the orderly room.
McCoy came to port arms.
“Halt! Who goes there?” he demanded.
“Who the fuck do you think?” Corporal Pleasant replied, and then ordered: “Follow me.”
He walked to the rear of the building, and opened the door of a 1939 Ford coupe.
“Get in,” he said.
McCoy got in the seat beside him. Pleasant reached over the back of the seat and came up with two beer cans.
“Church key’s in the ashtray,” he said.
“Thank you,” McCoy said, and opened his beer.
“You’re McCoy, right? ‘Killer’ McCoy?”
“I’m McCoy.”
“There’s three Marines in there with the assholes,” Pleasant said. “I wasn’t sure which was who.”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“You going to give me trouble, McCoy?” Pleasant asked.
Strange question. Why should he think I might give him trouble? And why the beer? This sonofabitch doesn’t have the balls to be a universal prick. He’s only going to be a prick to those he’s sure won’t fight back. And for some reason, he’s a little bit afraid of me. He called me “Killer.” Does this dumb sonofabitch think I’m going to stick a knife in him?
“No,” McCoy said. “Why should I?”
“How did you get that rifle clean?” Pleasant asked.
There was a time for truth, McCoy decided, but this wasn’t it.
“Lighter fluid,” he said.
“You must have used a quart of it,” Pleasant said. “What you really need is gasoline.”
“Lighter fluid works better than a rag,” McCoy said.
“It also made you stand out from the others,” Pleasant said. “That’s not smart.”
“I wasn’t trying to be smart,” McCoy said.
Corporal Pleasant looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded his head, accepting that.
“That wasn’t the first Cosmolined rifle you ever cleaned, was it?” he asked rhetorically. “I guess I would have done the same thing.”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“There’s two stories going around about you, McCoy,” Pleasant said. “The first is that you killed a bunch of Chinamen in China. The second is that you have friends in high places who got you into this course. Anything to them?”
“There was some shooting in China,” McCoy said. “It was in the line of duty.”
“And have you got a rabbi?”
“Have I got a what?”
“Somebody important, taking care of you?”
“Not that I know about,” McCoy said. “I applied for this, and I got accepted.”
Pleasant snorted, as if he didn’t believe him.
“Let me spell things out for you, McCoy,” he said. “You stay out of my hair, and I’ll stay out of yours. But there’s two things you better understand: I don’t give a shit about any rabbi. And there’s people who think you belong in Portsmouth, not here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Pleasant,” McCoy said.
“The hell you don’t,” Pleasant said.
He put his beer to his mouth, draining the can, and then squeezed it.
“Finish your beer, McCoy,” he said. “And go back to the barracks.” He got out of the Ford coupe and walked away.
McCoy finished his beer slowly. He was sorry, but not surprised, that what had happened in China was apparently common knowledge. The Corps was small, and Marines gossiped as bad as women, especially when it was interesting, like a Marine shooting a bunch of Chinese. He figured that some other China Marines had come home and gone to see Gunny Stecker, another old China Marine, and told him what had happened at the ferry. And Gunny Stecker had connected it with him, and that was how Pleasant had heard about it.
But he couldn’t figure out who his “rabbi” was supposed to be, or who the people were who thought he belonged in Portsmouth, instead of in the Platoon Leader’s Program.
Ten minutes after Corporal Pleasant left him, McCoy got out of the Ford, put the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 in the position of right shoulder arms, and in a military fa
shion marched back to the barrack, took off his utilities and climbed in the sack.
(Three)
Marine Corps Schools
Quantico, Virginia
12 October 1941
The six weeks passed quickly. As McCoy suspected, the training was a repeat of Parris Island boot camp. It was necessary to turn the college boys into Marines, before they could be turned into Marine officers. That meant they had to be taught immediate, unquestioning obedience in such a way that it would become a conditioned reflex.
Thus: If a Platoon Leader Candidate did not immediately and unquestioningly respond to whatever order Corporal Pleasant or another of the Drill Instructors issued, there was immediate punishment.
If, for example, the young gentlemen did not respond to an order to fall out on the company street with the proper speed and enthusiasm, they were required to fall out again and again and again until Corporal Pleasant was satisfied.
And Pleasant was a man of some imagination: He might suggest that the young gentlemen were slow to fall out because they were unduly burdened by their accoutrements. Instead of falling out in helmets, full marching pack and rifles, they could try it again wearing only undershorts, skivvy shirts, leggings, and steel helmets. Plus of course, their rifles.
This required that they remove their leggings and their utilities. The utilities were then folded in the proper manner and placed in the proper place in their footlockers, and the leggings laced back on over bare calves.
If this increased their speed, Corporal Pleasant then experimented. They would next fall out in only raincoats, utility trousers, skivvy shirts, and cartridge belts. This required unlacing the leggings, storing them as prescribed, then detaching the canteen, first aid packet, and web harness from the web cartridge belt, and storing these items in their appointed places.
Next, perhaps, Corporal Pleasant would order that they again try falling out with the proper speed and enthusiasm in full marching gear. This meant of course reattaching the canteen, the first aid packet, and the harness to the cartridge belt; folding the raincoat and placing it in its prescribed location in the footlocker; and then relacing the leggings.
The possible variations were almost limitless, and Corporal Pleasant experimented with as many as he could think of.
Then there was punishment for sin:
The greatest sin of all was dropping the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1. Anyone who did this could expect to double-time around the parade ground with the rifle held at arm’s length above his head, while shouting in a loud voice, “My rifle is my best friend, and I am a miserable sonofabitch because I abused it. God have mercy on my miserable soul.”
Another sin was laughter, or giggling, or even a detected snicker. These sinners would double-time around the parade ground with their rifles at arm’s length above their heads, while shouting at the top of their lungs, “I am a hyena. A hyena is an animal who laughs when there is nothing funny to laugh at. This is the sound a hyena makes. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
Another means of instilling discipline was calisthenics and close-order drill. This also served to cause the young gentlemen to shed civilian fat and tone their musculature. There were thirty minutes of calisthenics (later forty-five minutes and then an hour) before breakfast. And there was at least an hour of close-order drill every day.
Individual young gentlemen who came to Corporal Pleasant’s attention during the duty day (which ran from 0345 until whenever Pleasant decided the day was over) were often required to perform additional calisthenics. Normally, this was in the form of pushups, but sometimes, when one of the young gentlemen displayed what Pleasant thought was ungainly, awkward movement (such as being out of step) it took the form of the “duck walk.”
When one did the duck walk, one first squatted, then one placed the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 in a horizontal position against the small of the neck, and then one waddled, while shouting, “This is the way a duck walks. Quack! Quack! Quack! I will try very hard to try to walk like a Marine in the future!”
McCoy had been through all this before in boot camp at Parris Island, but that didn’t make things any easier. He had been genuinely surprised to learn (his feet became raw and blistered and his muscles ached) how badly out of shape he had become. In fact, the only real advantages he (and the other two Marine noncoms) had over the college boys was that responding to commands had already been drilled into them and was a reflex action. Similarly, they had experience in giving close-order drill, had already learned how to bark out commands from the pits of their stomachs, and, more importantly, had learned the cadence so that it too was automatic.
All three of the Marines in the platoon learned something else: Taking close-order drill from someone who doesn’t know what he is doing, someone who doesn’t understand the cadence and the timing, could turn the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps at the Marine Barracks in Washington into a mob of blind men stumbling over their own feet.
In addition to the inspections Pleasant called whenever the whim struck him (and sometimes, if he woke early, the whim struck before the official rising hour of 0345), there was a regularly scheduled inspection each Saturday morning. The official inspection was conducted by the gunnery sergeant of the company and the company commander.
In order that he not be embarrassed by slovenly young gentlemen or equipment, Corporal Pleasant conducted both a preinspection and a pre-preinspection of the platoon. The latter was held on Friday evening after the barracks had been scrubbed and polished. It was necessary that the platoon pass the pre-preinspection before they were permitted to retire for the evening. Sometimes the pre-preinspection did not meet Corporal Pleasant’s high standards until very late at night.
The preinspection was conducted the next morning, half an hour before first call. It was to determine if the assholes had fucked anything up in the three or four hours while they’d been in the sack after the pre-preinspection. If they had, it could be corrected in the time officially set aside for breakfast.
Scuttlebutt had it that today’s inspection was going to be a real bitch. The company commander, who was rough enough, was not on the base. Thus the inspection would be conducted for him by another officer, the battalion mess officer; and the scuttlebutt on him was that he had a corn cob up his ass and was a really a chickenshit sonofabitch.
McCoy was not particularly concerned. He knew that once you had prepared your gear and arranged it, the situation was out of your hands. If an inspecting officer decided to jump your ass, he would. He would find something wrong, even if he had to step on the toes of the boots under your bunk so that he could get you for unshined shoes. If you couldn’t control the situation, there was no point in worrying about it.
When Pleasant barked, “Ten-hut on the deck!” McCoy came to attention, his toes at a forty-five-degree angle, the fingers of his left hand against the seam of his trousers, his right hand holding the Garand just below the bayonet lug.
He stared straight ahead and heard the clatter of the rifles as one by one the young gentlemen came from attention to inspection arms. While this was going on, he had speculated—a little unkindly—that with just a little bit of luck, one of the young gentlemen would catch his thumb in the M1 action during the inspection. That produced a condition known as M1 thumb. If he howled in pain, that just might bring the inspection to a quick end.
But there was no such fortuitous happenstance. The sound of clattering rifles moved closer to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the inspection party approaching.
He shifted the Garand to a diagonal position in front of him, slammed the action open, bobbed his head over the action to insure that it was unloaded, and then looked ahead, waiting for it to be snatched from his hand.
He found himself looking into the face of First Lieutenant John R. Macklin, USMC.
There was no smile on Macklin’s face, not even a flicker of recognition.
“This man is unshaven,” Lieutenant Macklin said.
The gunny trailin
g him dutifully wrote this down on his clipboard.
Macklin snatched the Garand from McCoy’s hand, looked into the open action, and then raised the butt high in the air, so that he could look into the barrel.
“And this weapon is filthy,” Lieutenant Macklin said, before he threw the Garand back at McCoy so hard that it stung his hands and he almost dropped it.
The gunny dutifully wrote “filthy weapon” on his clipboard.
Lieutenant Macklin moved down the aisle to the next man. McCoy closed the action of the Garand and returned it to his side.
The Garand had been clean before McCoy had disassembled it and cleaned it, and he had shaved no more than two hours before.
There didn’t seem to be much question any longer who believed that Killer McCoy belonged in the U.S. Naval Prison, Portsmouth, rather than in the Platoon Leader’s Course at U.S. Marine Corps Schools, Quantico.
Captain Banning, McCoy concluded, had probably eaten Macklin’s ass out for letting the Japs catch him at Yenchi’eng.
McCoy was summoned to the orderly room half an hour later.
The gunny was there, and Pleasant.
“Mr. McCoy,” the gunny said, “there is no excuse in the Marine Corps for a filthy weapon.”
McCoy brought the Garand from the position of attention—that is to say, with its butt resting on the deck beside his right boot—to the position of port arms. And then he threw it, like a basketball, to the gunny.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the gunny said, furiously. He had been so surprised he had almost failed to catch it.
“Look at it, Gunny,” McCoy said.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what to do?” the gunny snapped, but he slammed the action open and looked into it, and then raised the butt so that he could look down the barrel.
“You want to feel my chin, Gunny?” McCoy asked.
“This weapon is filthy, Mr. McCoy,” the gunny said, throwing the Garand back to him, “and you need a shave. Because Lieutenant Macklin says so. You get the picture?”
Semper Fi Page 26
