The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps Read Free Page B

already knew. He hadn’t answered, but had just galloped to the dock and commandeered one of the patrol boats he had ordered warmed up five minutes before, despairing even then—asthe light came up dimly and revealed a Sound motionless and bare of all except a flock of swooping gulls—of finding anything, but touched still, almost to his soul, with this strange combination of fury and joy.
    The colonel turned. “Gunner, just how did you know they had built this goddam boat, or skiff? Macklin told me you were out there on the water snooping around for a boat less than ten minutes after the alarm went off. If the guard had found that sprung window an hour before you’d prob ably have gotten those birds.”
    “Well, one, sir, I figured they knew they’d freeze to death if they hit the water in this kind of weather. Two, the ferry stops at midnight. If they were going to try and smuggle themselves out in a truck or something on the ferry, they certainly wouldn’t make a breakout at night but just hide themselves sometime during the day and then try to get aboard. Three, the foggy night. Perfect to get lost in …” Blankenship halted. “I don’t know, sir. I guess I just felt this thing.”
    “Remarkable, remarkable,” Wilhoite muttered and fell silent. He returned to his desk and sat down. Then he smiled, his words broadly explanatory, apologetic, and rather relieved, as if he had abruptly shifted from his shoulders a pack full of sand: “Well look, Gunner, it’s nobody’s fault, as I said. We’ve had a good record. I don’t think the Bureau will be down our necks for this. I’ll just put those recommendations of yours in effect and—” He raised his eyebrows and paused, and there was the same puzzling smile on his harried, honest face; but if his expression was meant to indicate some unspoken, possibly mysterious understanding between them, Blankenship had no idea what it was. For a momentthe look seemed to transmit a sort of shy, quiet admiration, but whatever it might be Blankenship felt embarrassed and looked away.
    “Yes sir?”
    The smile faded. “Nothing, Gunner,” he said briskly. “I think that’ll be all.” When he arose, Blankenship got up, too. But then the voice became soft again, even wistful. “God, how I hate this job. I envy you First Division boys. Why the hell I couldn’t have gotten one of those Saipan regiments, instead of this … hooligans and eight-balls and jerks. I’ve put in sixteen letters in the past year but every goddam time I hear BuMed has turned me down on account of my lousy wheezing chest …” As he spoke Blankenship wished to shut his ears against this labored, querulous confession, but even so felt a mild tug of sympathy for such a man, past hope of glory and with time running out, who could still entertain some lustrous vision of fulfillment. Separated by a star and a pay grade and slight asthma from the goal of his life, he had already begun to wither. Old soldiers never died, it was true, especially if they were generals, but old colonels did; for among such reasons as that, Blankenship was content with his own world, where a man out of the pure comprehension of his duty might sometimes feel the keen, rapturous excitement he had felt that morning, and need not finally end up with skull battered to a pulp against a wall of politics and chance and ambition, like Wilhoite, in whose eyes already were specters of battles unseen and medals unwon and the slow final ooze of unlaureled retirement—of lawn chairs and rose gardens and horseshoes pitched in slumberous, dying arcs against the palms of St. Petersburg. The thought depressed Blankenship; he wished the colonel would stop talking andlet him go. But when he finally did cease, with the words “That’s how it is, Gunner, those bastards at headquarters have you over a barrel every time,” Blankenship forced himself to smile—out of some momentary, curious sympathy.
    “I know what you mean, Colonel,” he