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.''Did you eat much coconut?''''Hardly any.''''Why not?''''Too much trouble, and the milk gives you the runs.We hung mosquito netting over our bunks and took Atabrine tablets every day.It could turn your skin yellow.''''So you didn't take any.''''Once in a while I did.''''How was the chow?'' The marine soundin interested.''Poor to not too bad, but I ate it.Most of the time, we wore greens, the shirts and pants,'' Carl said, stepping into the bathroom to hold his razor under the faucet and drink some of his highball, ''and green baseball caps, or you could wear your white cover.You could wear dungarees or just about anything you wanted, Seabees weren't that military.We'd cut the pants down to shorts and the sleeves off the shirts, cut our combat boots into sandals.''''It must've been hot,'' Louly said, making a face, her brush caught in a snag.Carl took the brush, worked it free and put i back in her hand saying: ''Two degrees from the Equator, that's hot.Nobody cared -- we always had a breeze off the Bismarck Sea.I can't tell you where the sea ends and it becomes the Pacific Ocean again.I asked Jurgen -- he's the one told me why it's the Bismarck Sea, Germany taking over the Admiralties in 1884 and owned them up to the end of World War I.I said to Jurgen I was surprised you didn't put up any statues, Bismarck or any of your Kraut heroes like the Kaiser.I think Australia owns the islands now.Manus,the big one, has a huge harbor, so they made it Seventh Fleet headquarters.Los Negros is only 10 miles long, but curves around close to Manus and forms one side of the harbor.We were issued a carbine and three magazines of ammo, 45 rounds.And I had my.38 along.""You brought it with you?" Louly surprised."I wore it every day for 15 years.It felt good thetime I packed it." Louly paused, holding the hairbrush in the air."You never told me what your job was." "The lieutenant would tell me to get in the jeepand go check on something.We had a lot of heavyequipment working, bulldozers and graders." Carlsmiled at himself in the vanity mirror, half-turned andmade a muscle for Louly."You like my tattoo?" "I love it." She said, "It's Palmer Method, huh?" looking at "Carlos" on his shoulder in perfect penmanship."Only cost me a buck." He reached around Louly to get a towel off the vanity.He wiped his face and said, "Look up here." Louly looked straight up at him bending her head backand he kissed her till she reached up and took his face in her hands.After that tender moment he said: "They gave us the carbine and a steel helmet.Once in a while they'd announce general quarters over the P.A.and we'd go down to the beach and wait for something to happen.The thing the helmet was good for, it held two cans of beer in chipped ice we'd each take to the show at night.We're Seabees, so we made seats with arms and a back that would hook on to the plank nailed to a log -- rows of hard boards going back from the screen.It rained it didn't matter, we'd go to the show.One nightI was with this young Seabee, George Klein from Chicago, in the rain watching Lauren Bacall in her first movie, 'To Have and Have Not,' where she tells Humphrey Bogart if he wants anything just whistle? Lauren Bacall says to him: 'You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You put your lips together and blow.' And George Klein went crazy.At that moment he fell in love with Lauren Bacall and kept saying: 'We're the same age.You know it? Look at her.Lauren Bacall and I are the exact same age.'''''How'd he know that?''''I don't know, but you could see she was a kid.Listen, the guy working the projector -- I made him put the same reel back on as he was changing reels so we could watch her say it again.Sitting in the rain.''Louly said: ''Are you coming to where you got shot? I think you said in the letter you were in a boat?''''A duck,'' Carl said, ''it was green and looks like a 30-foot open boat but has wheels.You drive out of the water and keep going.We'd take it across a stream separating us from Manus, Los Negros was that close, and go to the supply depot for stores and 60 cases of beer.All the cans olive drab, it didn't matter what kind.On our base we kept them in a walk-in cooler and handed out two or three cans per man every other day.Naval Air Transport pilots always had whiskey and they'd sell it for 35 to 50 bucks a fifth if they needed money.Or sometimes they'd trade a bottle for a case of beer.''''You were in the duck,'' Louly said, ''when you got shot.''Carl was in the bathroom rinsing, now drying his face.He said: ''We were coming back from Manus with our stores.Crossed the stream to Los Negros, up the bank and into some growth, and the Nip hit me witha rifle shot." Carl stepped into the bedroom pinching the love handle above his left hip."George Klein was with me and a big boy from Arkansas named Elmer Whaley.I remember he and I sucking on Beech-Nut scrap that trip.There were more shots as I dove for cover in the stern and saw George and Elmer Whaley go down.Not shot, taking cover.I listened to that rifle fire again in my head and held up two fingers to my mates.I said: 'We don't know where they are.We have to wait till they come to us.' I said, 'You're dead, so don't move.' George said they didn't have theircarbines.I didn't have mine either." Louly said, "You go armed, 'cause something like this could happen?" "No," Carl said, "the island was secured.TheFirst Cavalry swore, no live Japs left.Over 3,000 killed.The First Cavalry lost something like 300 killed and 1,100 wounded.The war on Los Negros was over.No, we brought the carbines for fun, fire off a fewrounds." "Where were they, the guns?" "Up front, at the bow.George was crawlingtoward them." "By then you must've had your.38 in youhand," Louly said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]