Read Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific for Free Online Page B

somewhere at center or center rear. Clouds of red dust settled upon us. My helmet banged irritably against the machine gun that was boring into my shoulder, or else it was bumped forward maddeningly over my eyes by the movement of my pack. A mile or so out, I dared not drink any more from my canteen. I had no idea how far we had to go. My dungarees were saturated with sweat, their light green darkened by perspiration. There had been joking and even some singing the first mile out. Now, only the birds sang; but from us there was just the thud of feet, the clank of canteens, the creak of leather rifle slings, the occasional hoarse cracking of a voice raised and breath wasted in a curse.
    Every hour we got a ten-minute break. We lay propped against the road bank, resting against our packs. Each time, I reached under my pack straps to massage the soreness of my shoulders where the straps had cut. We would smoke. My mouth was dusty dry, my tongue swollen. I would moisten them with a swig of precious water, and then, stupidly, dry the whole thing out again, instantly, with a mouthful of smoke. But it was blissful lying there against the road bank, with all the pain and strain and soreness gone—or at least suspended—and our nostrils filled with the mistaken pleasures of tobacco.
    Then came the command: “Off and on!”
    It means off your behind and on your feet. Cursing, hating both command and commandant, straining, we rose to our feet and began again the dull plodding rhythm of the march.
    This was how we came to where the Higgins Boats were waiting for us. It was where the road arrived at one of those canals which interlace this part of North Carolina and are part of the Inland Waterway System. It was like a live thing, this watery labyrinth, curving and darting through the pine wood, seeming to cavort on its way to the sea.
    We climbed stiffly into the boats, sitting with our heads just above the gunwales, our helmets between our knees.
    Hardly had our boat begun to move than the man on my left threw up. He was Junior, a slender, timid kid, much too shy for the Marines. Junior was from Upstate New York and was no sailor: leeward or windward were all one to him. He vomited to windward. It came back upon us in a stringy spray, unclean, stinking. Curses beat upon Junior’s head unmatched in volume even by the thin cry of the gulls wheeling overhead.
    “Cain’t you use your helmet,” Hoosier growled. “Cripes, Junior. What do you think it’s fer?”
    By this time others were sick and were making full use of their helmets. Poor Junior smiled his timid smile of appeal, obviously glad that he was not the only culprit. By the time we had reached the sea and were wallowing offshore in the deep troughs of the surf, half of the boat had become sick, to the immense glee of the boatswain.
    Endlessly, with the finality of judgment, the boat lifted and dropped; the desolate ocean swelled and subsided; and above it all stood the boatswain behind his wheel, compassionate as a snake, obviously rehearsing the gleeful tale with which he would regale his swab-jockey buddies—of how the stuck-up marines survived their first ordeal with the great salt sea.
    We were circling, I know now, while awaiting word to head shoreward in what was to be our first amphibious maneuver. When it came, our boat’s motor roared into full voice. The prow seemed to dig into the water and the boat to flatten out. Mercifully, the rocking motion was abated.
    “Down!”
    The boats fanned out into assault line. We roared shoreward. The spray settled coolly on my face. There was nothing but the sound of the motors. There came a rough jolt, followed by the crunching sound of the keel beneath us plowing into the sand. We had landed.
    “Up and over!”
    I held my rifle high, grasped the gunwale with the other hand, and vaulted into the surf. I landed in cold water just above my calves. But the weight of my pack and weapons brought me almost to my knees. I was