Read Battle Cry for Free Online Page B

Baltimore contingent, start loading in truck sixty-eight. Answer up when your name is called.”
    The convoy moved towards the Marine Corps Base and was greeted by shouts of “You’ll be sorreee!” from the streets.
    The lazy hot day was a wonderment for the people who had left the midwinter of the East. Past the huge camouflaged aircraft plant they rolled and then into the spotless military base, over the enormous parade ground and toward a sandy area of tents at a far isolated end.
    They debarked and answered roll again by an arched sign which read; R ECRUIT T RAINING D EPOT , M ARINE C ORPS B ASE , S AN D IEGO , C ALIF .
    And the gates of mercy closed behind them.

CHAPTER 3
    “ALL RIGHT, you people. We have a long row to hoe tonight so I don’t want to see anybody goofing off. Drop your gear and follow me.” They tagged after him to the mess hall.
    Danny was amazed. From earliest recollections he had understood that soldiers ate nothing but hardtack and beans and the like. It was a surprise to find a tray filling with roast beef, potatoes, slaw, jello, ice cream, and the tables lined with pitchers of coffee and milk. Somewhere along the serving line, however, the ice cream got lost under the potatoes and gravy.
    After the meal they were split into groups of sixty men and led to the large reception barracks. L.Q., Danny and Ski bemoaned the fact that O’Hearne had fallen into their group. A sharp blast of a whistle brought them scurrying to the center of the room around a starched corporal.
    “All right, you people. Nobody leaves the barracks. I’ll be back for you when they’re ready to take you. When I reenter, the first person that spots me yells ‘Attention.’”
    “Are you going to be our instructor?”
    “You’ll meet your instructor in the morning.”
    Before they could turn a barrage of questions loose, the corporal spun about and left, with a curt, “You people will find out all the answers soon enough.”
    Danny and Ski strolled over to several charts hanging from the wall. One read: Rocks and Shoals: Regulations and Customs Governing the United States Navy. It was in small print and too long and double-worded to keep their attention. Another chart contained rank and insignia of the Navy and comparable Marine Corps rating. A third chart proved more interesting: Common Naval and Marine Corps Expressions.
     
B LOUSE
— coat
B OOT
— recruit
B ULKHEAD
— wall
C HOW
— food
D ECK
— floor
D.I.
— drill instructor
G ALLEY
— kitchen
H EAD
— toilet
H ATCHWAY
— doorway
L ADDER
— stairway (and so on down the list.)
     
    Catching on quickly, Ski announced proudly, “I got to go to the head.” In a moment he ran back and grabbed Danny and towed him into the lavatory. He raced past a long row of toilets to the final one and pointed to a sign. It read Venereal Disease Only.
    They gaped, then retreated from the place. Danny checked his watch. It was a quarter to ten. He slipped out of the door to a small porch and zipped his jacket. It was chilly, but the sky was clear and filled with stars. A far cry from the icy January of Baltimore. Then he saw a strange sight. He counted sixty baldheaded boys running through the night in underwear with a corporal behind them shouting out curses.
    It slowly sunk in that he was going to lose his too. With a tinge of panic he pushed his fingers through his hair. Something phoney about this place. He spotted the form of the reception corporal cutting up the tarred walk and raced inside ahead of him screaming “Attention!”
    “Fall in and follow me. Leave your handbags here. You won’t need anything in them any more.”
    Danny’s group fell in line somewhere about the middle of the other seven hundred and forty men who made up the new battalion. They ran a half mile to the dispensary and then stood for over an hour.
    “Peel down to the waist,” a sailor corpsman ordered as he walked the line with a bucket of mercurochrome in one hand and a paint brush in