The survivor Page 4

  They began to interest him, and he sat on the bench and watched them, noticing first this thing

  and then that. For one thing, he noticed that every one of them held on to his rifle all the time, and held it not as you would a shovel but as something vital to you. The rifles were always moving as the men held them and worked the bolts or cleaned them or tinkered in one way or another with them.

  Another thing Adam noticed was that the men seemed divided into pairs. They were more or less spaced along the bench in pairs. They talked together in pairs, and if something two of them were talking about interested some others, they would talk about it all together, but briefly, and then go back to the pair thing.

  There was no loud talking; even the laughter was short and quiet. By focusing on one or two of them at a time Adam could pick out a single conversation from the low murmur of the total talk.

  "WiUie said to the mess cook, What you got in that pot?* and the mess cook said, 'Boiled bats,' and Wilhe said, *Oh, I thought it was something I couldn't eat.'"

  A man across the room asked, 'Where'd Willie get it?"

  "In the river. He managed to crawl up on a sand bar, but we couldn't get out there to him. They had it covered"

  The man across the room said, "Oh, was that Wilhe? I saw a guy out tliere, but I didn't know who it was."

  Adam focused on another pair. "What do you know!" one of them said, surprised. "This is my birthday."

  *Teah? How old are you?"

  "Twenty-five.**

  "You oldr

  "I don't feel so old."

  "You gonna feel old."

  Another was saying, "I didn't take off my shoes for eight days, and when I took 'em off, you know my socks had rotted clean away. Just rotted clean away."

  ''With these socks they give us it's a wonder your toes didn't rot off too. They're sure lousy socks."

  Another man could hardly tell the story for laughing. "These snipers were aU up in the pahn trees and we were banging away, everybody. The Garands and BARs and the light MGs. Man, it sounded Hke Gene Krupa on a wild rip, and we weren't hitting a thing. And then Sarge came along and said, 'Stop making so much fuss.' So we quit shooting and he slung that old oughtrthree around, fiddled v^th the windage a Httle, and then, right in the middle of this Httle path, he got down in the kneeling position Hke he was instructing raw recruits and started shooting that old iron . . . pow . . . pow . . . pow. And I teU you they were falling out of those trees like coconuts."

  "The o-three can shoot aU right. I don't say you can't hit with it But I want something that pours it out."

  "I don't know," the other one said, dubiously. "I Hke the Garand aU right. But look how many of the old-timers stiU tote that o-three."

  **They're the sharpshooters. The five-hundred-yard boys," the first one argued. "But when they come at you the way they did on the Ridge that morning I want Garands and BARs. Pouring it out!"

  Across the room a long, lean man with a nose like a beak had his back against the wall, his long legs stretched out into the room, his rifle lying across his lap. "That kid used to tickle me," he was saying. "Every time they sent him up to the line he'd steal a towel from somewhere and the lieutenant would say, *Hey, you don't need a towel where you're going.' And the kid would say (you remember how mild a guy he was, real mild-talking), Well, maybe I will. Lieutenant,' and he'd go on with the gun, and as soon as he was out of sight of the lieutenant he'd throw the tripod away and the three of 'em, without that tripod catching in everything, could really move. And they could start shooting faster than any MG team in the business."

  'Was he the one hand-held that gun?" the next man asked.

  "That's the one. I forget his name, he was a Pfc. But he'd wrap that towel around the barrel of the gim and ^fp-fire it. It'd ride up on him naturally, so he couldn't get off anything but short bursts, but what difference did that make? When he could drive nails with that gun."

  "Where'd he get it?"

  "I don't think he did. I heard he got in a tight with the gun up on some ridge where there was no water to wet that towel with and the canteens were dry and he'd tlirown away the tripod, so he

  just st(X)d there and hip-fired the gun until the barrel burned through the towel and like to burned his hand off. Maybe they sent him home."

  **You see those marks?" another one asked, holding out his rifle to the man next to him. The man looked and said, "The sergeant's going to get on you about that."

  "He already has," the first one said. "But those are teeth marks."

  The second man laughed and said, "Boy, bring me my sea boots. It's rising from the ground.**

  *Those are teeth marks," the other insisted. "We were crossing one of those Httle rivers, I forget the name, and the captain said to hold fire until we got all the way across, no matter what happened. So Tm halfway across and going real good when I look up—the water is right up to my chin —and there's this crocodile going to bite my head off. If the captain hadn't said, 'Hold your fire,* I could've put the gun down his mouth and blown all his brains out.

  "So there we were in the middle of the river, me and this crocodile. You know something fimny? The inside of a crocodile's mouth is white as a sheet. Real clean-looldng. And I was thinking, well anyway my head won't get some sort of infection when it gets in there. And something else fimny, there was a Httle bird sitting on that crocodile's head laughing up a storm at the whole situation. So when the crocodile chomped dowTi I put the rifle butt in his mouth. That's where his teeth went

  in the wood. Imagine what would have happened if he'd got hold of my head/'

  "He'd have broken his teeth," the other man said.

  Adam waited to find out what happened to the crocodile, but found instead that these marines and airplane pilots had one thing in conmion: they never finished the story. 'There I was at thirty thousand feet, over on my back, with no propeller and no parachute and both wings shot o£E. So what's new?"

  Adam asked the room at large, "When did they say they'd get that transportation around here?"

  *They didn't say," someone told him and another said, " They also serve who only stand and wait.'"

  Adam looked at the gear scattered around him on the bench and finally made up his mind. There'd been a mistake somewhere, but he'd been in the Navy long enough to know that the Navy takes care of the guy who takes care of himself. He got up, leaving all the gear on the bench and walked across the room toward the door. Some of the marines looked up at him and Adam said, "I think I'm in the wrong group."

  "Aren't we all?" one of the men said.

  Adam opened the door and had taken one step out into the haU when, from nowhere, another of these leaned-out marines vdth a rifle appeared, standing directly in front of him with the muzzle of the rifle one inch from Adam's naval.

  "Where do you think you're going?" the marine asked.

  "Look, friend," Adam said, "this is a foulup of

  some sort. I've got to get some transportation."

  "You got some transportation," the marine said.

  "That's what I mean," Adam told him. "I don't know where those guys are going, but I've got to see a man about a real big dog, and I got to do it nowF'

  "All I know is—you guys are all present and accounted for, and I'm going to keep it that way. Back in your hole!" He pushed Adam with the rifle back toward the room.

  '*Then let me make a phone call."

  "No phone calls."

  "Look, buddy," Adam said, getting irritated, "I'm the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've got to get word to my commanding officer where I am and what's going on or I'U be in big trouble."

  "You tell him—ox anybody else—where you are and you're going to be in huge trouble. Back in the holel"

  "I'm a lieutenant in the United States Navy," Adam said, at last angry, "and I want to make an oflBcial, government business, essential-to-the-war-effort telephone call to my commanding oflBcer. You got any objections to that?"

  "And I'm Gen
eral MacArthur. So don't give me any more trouble, buster. My orders are for you guys to stay in that room. So that's where you're going to stay." He patted the rifle menacingly.

  Adam, defeated again, went back into the bleak room, made a space in his junk and sat down. As

  far as he coiild tell, the other men didn't even know he was there.

  Adam tried now to put his problem into some sort of form so he could solve it That a mistake had been made somewhere was evident, and it was the sort of mistake that just kept getting worse and worse until, if you didn't straighten it out, you wound up in a naval prison, or the hospital, or even dead.

  To appeal for help to the lean men around him was, he decided, useless. They were some sort of club or secret society or something, and he wasn't a member and they weren't beginning to ask him to join up.

  To try to get past the marine with the rifle at the door would solve his problem in one of two ways: he'd wind up in the hospital with a bullet in him, or he would wind up lying on the floor of this place dead.

  He was still struggling with the thing when one of the marines got up off the bench and started walking across the room toward him. Adam had noticed this one before mainly because, unhke the others, he had been sitting by himself, apart from all the others, and hadn't said a word. Now he was walking toward Adam, carrying his rifle at the trail, his helmet on but the chin strap dangHng, all his gear hanging from the metal loops on the belt and the belt looking as though it were going to slide right down his almost hipless body. None of the stuff clinked or clanked and, on the man, it

  seemed weightless. It also looked as though it belonged there.

  The man was dangerous. Right here in some building in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a quiet, depressing room, the man was dangerous. Not, Adam decided, to you, personally. Not the way a bully is dangerous. Nor a mad dog. He was just a man who, when a situation called for violence, knew how to use violence with great and controlled efficiency. He was dangerous.

  He stopped in front of Adam, the helmet throwing a deep shadow on his face so Adam could hardly see it, and stood a moment looking down at Adam, his rifle at a sort of parade rest angle.

  Maybe, Adam suddenly hoped, this was the officer in charge, or something. The boss. Now he could explain the mistake and get out of here. That's all—get out of here. Then he could get this mess straightened out.

  "My name's Jason,** the man said.

  The voice startled Adam. From the menace of the tall man with his face in shadow Adam had expected a deep, rough voice, full of authority. This voice was timid and so young that it was not yet under full control.

  *Tm Adam Land," Adam said.

  The man shifted his rifle over to his left hand and held out his right hand. As they shook hands Adam noticed that the palm and fingers of Jason's hand felt like rough, dry wood. "You a marine?" Jason asked.

  *What's a marine? Listen, are you in charge of this bunch?"

  ''Me? In charge? I'm only a corporal."

  There went that hope, shot down. "Who is in charge?"

  "I don't know. Nobody yet, I guess." He moved toward the bench and then hesitated and asked, his voice breaking a httle, "Mind if I sit down?"

  "Help yourself," Adam said, surprised.

  Jason sat down, none of his gear banging against anything, and then started talking. It sounded to Adam as though he were talking mostly to himself. **My buddy got it," Jason said. "It surprised me."

  He turned to look at Adam, the helmet stiU shading his face so that Adam could see only the vague shape of it. "I mean, I'd seen a lot of guys get it. There was nothing new about that. But they were . . . weU, they were other guys. Brooks was my buddy. We went through boot camp together and tank school and everywhere. Me and Brooks, you see. We hit the beach in the same boat and everything. So I guess what surprised me was that it was closer than some other guy getting it." He turned to look at Adam again. "You know, I couldn't beheve it. For a long time I just sat there in the foxhole and didn't believe it. Brooks was always clowning around. Don't get me wrong—he was the best in a fire fight, but he would clown around. So I thought maybe he's got tomato catsup spread all over and is clowning around." Jason raised his head and looked up at the light bulb. "He wasn't," he said.

  Adam could now see his face clearly. Jason was only a Idd. A Idd right now on the verge of crying, with his hps tight together to keep from it and his eyes blinking it away.

  Then he lowered his head again and fiddled with the rifle. Suddenly he laughed. Not loud, just a low, short laugh. "They think Im a kook or something," Jason said, looking out from under the helmet at the other men in the room. "In boot camp I thought rd get a medal right away. IVe been shooting guns since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I thought, Tut me out on that range with a gun and I'll get a medal right now.* W^ell, I went out there and they gave me an M-1 and showed me all about it and I shot it.** He looked at Adam and said seriously, "You know, I couldn't hit the broad side of a bam with the doors shut with that gun. I just couldn't. I didn't even qualify. It was pretty bad," he said. ^'What made it worse was that I'd told all these guys. Brooks and all of them, what a hot-shot rifle shot I was and how I'd show 'em how it ought to be done. WeW ..."

  Adam wondered if this was going to be another no-end marine story, but then Jason went on. "So this old gunnery sergeant came up to me and said, 'Marine, you're going to learn how to handle that rifle if I have to weld it on to you.' You know how they go on, eating you out right up to the ears, but while he was eating me out I was looking at the rifle he had and I said 'Sergeant, what kind of gun is that?* and he blew his stack, naturally, because I opened my mouth when he

  was talking and said. That's a gun for men, not boys/ But it was a gun like I'd been shooting all my life, so I said, 'Let me fire a couple of rounds with your gun, Sarge.'"

  Jason laughed the short, low laugh again. "Maybe you've seen a mad sergeant, but this one was the maddest in the Marine Corps. He got about nine feet tall and red all over. Smoke shot out of his ears and flames out of his nose, and his voice sounded like it was coming through some gravel. Brooks, who was standing there beside me, said he thought I was going to be burned down to a Httle crisp. The sergeant went on Hke that for about ten minutes saying, mainly, that no wet-behind-the-ears useless raw punk recruit was going to lay so much as a finger on his rifle and for me to have a thought like that should get me ten days on bread and water. So when he got through and calmed down a little, I said, ']ust a couple rounds, Sarge.' Then he blew again and explaiaed that if I didn't shoot a toy gun like the Garand how did I expect to shoot a real gun like the 1903 Springfield rifla 7ust a couple rounds, Sarge,' I said"

  Jason held up his rifle. "I've been shooting that old ought-three ever since. The guys think I'm a kook. Brooks even thought I was a kook. But I can shoot this gun, and with the Garand I couldn't blow the bottom out of a beer can with the muzzle stuck in the top."

  **Any teeth marks on it?" Adam asked.

  Jason looked at him with startled surprise. "How'd you know that?" he asked.

  "Crocodiles," Adam said.

  "Oh no, that was Smitty with that crocodile. No, Brooks and I were in a hole one night and these crazy guys rushed us. You know the way they do, come jumping and yelHng. I guess they think all that noise is going to scare you. Anyway, I was changing clips and one of them came for Brooks, and all I could do was swing the o-three like a baseball bat. Those are his teeth marks.**

  Adam looked at him again. He had a clean, lean, innocent face with dark blue eyes which still had the surprised look of youth in them. Adam wondered about him.

  Jason laughed again. "They're nuts,** he declared. **One night on Bloody Ridge they started yelling 'We hate Babe Ruth.* In EngHsh, they were yelHng it. Like a chorus. We hate Babe Ruth.* I asked the sarge what that was all about and he said they were doing it to infuriate us. To make us so mad we'd start shooting or attacking them or something. So I asked the sarge. Who's this Babe Ruth?* and I really thought he wa
s going to break down and cry. He said, 'How can the Marines win a war with kids that don't even know who Babe Ruth is I There ought to be a lawF Sergeants!" Jason said. "I'm dying for a little sleep, me and Brooks (he didn*t know who Babe Ruth was either) but the sergeant wouldn't let us. He kept us awake all night telling us who Babe Ruth was—how many times he went to bat, how many home runs he hit, what his batting average was for every year he played ball. I tell you, before he got through I was

  ready to go over on their side and join in singing We hate Babe Ruth.' What outfit you in, Land?"

  **Bombing Six."

  "Bombing Six? What's that?"

  "Dive-bomber squadron."

  Jason looked at him a little skeptically. "You an airedale?"

  "I've been accused of it."

  "Is that a combat squadron?"

  "Not yet. But we have hopes."

  "Oh," Jason said. Adam could feel any respect Jason may have had for him falling away Hke autumn leaves. Although Jason didn't physically move, it was as though he had moved about ten feet down the bench and into another world.

  Now Jason slowly turned his head, the helmet shadowing his eyes, and looked for a long time at Adam before he asked, "Are you an oflBcer?"

  Adam nodded.

  "Oh," Jason said. Then he got up without looking at Adam again and walked across the room and sat down all by himself on the bench. He put the rifle across his lap, pushed his feet out along the floor, let his head, stiU in the heknet, drop.

  He looked so lonely.

  IT WAS ONE o'clock in the morning when another of the lean marines came into the room. He had on the same outfit as the rest of them, but Adam was sure that he was an oflBcer. "All right, gentlemen," the man said, "and away we go."