| 2:54a |
@@@@@"What do you think happens over at
@@@@@"What do you think happens over at Operations? Colonel Newton walks in, and by God there's a piece of work ain't done, and he sorta sighs, and says, 'Things are going too slow here,' and damn if I don't hear about itCroft, wake up, you ain't important, the only thing that counts is to have enough clerks to keep a headquarters going He rolled his cigar tentatively in his mouth"Now that we got the General and all his staff right in our bivouac, so you can't spit without hitting a court-martial, they need even more men out of your platoonIf you don't shut up I'll put you to cleaning typewriter ribbons
"Cap'n, I don't careI'm gettin' that other man if I gotta go see Major Pfeiffer, Colonel Newton, General Cummings, I don't give a damnThe platoon ain't gonna be hanging around the beach forever, and I want all the men I can get"Croft, if you had your way, you'd be picking through the replacements as if you were buying horses
"You're damn right I would, Cap'n
"Oh, Jesus, you guys never give me a minute's rest Mantelli leaned back and kicked the desk once or twice with his footOut through the tent flaps he could see the beach framed through a clump of coconut treesFar in the distance an artillery piece fired once
"You gonna give me that extra man?"
"YeahOn the sand, not a hundred yards away, the replacements were erecting their pup tentsFar off in the harbor a few Liberty ships at anchor were disappearing in the evening haze"Yeah, I'll give him to you, the poor sonofabitch Mantelli flipped through a few sheets of paper, ran his finger down a column of names, and underlined one of them with his nail"His name's Roth, and his MOS is clerkYou'll probably make a hell of a rifleman out of him
The replacements remained on the beach for another day or twoThe evening after Croft had talked to Captain Mantelli, Roth walked forlornly through the replacement bivouacThe man with whom he was bunking, a big good-natured farm boy, was still over at another tent with his friends, and Roth didn't want to join themHe had gone along the previous night and, as it usually happened, he had felt left out of th |