From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [426]
“What the hells the matter?” Pete asked his two machine-gunners happily.
“He wont give us no ammo, Pete,” Grenelli said indignantly.
“Well for—Jesus Christ!” Pete said disgustedly.
“Thats my orders, Sergeant,” Malleaux said irrefragably.
From the southeast corner of the quad a plane came over firing, the tracers leading irrevocably in under the porch and up the wall as he flashed over, and the knot of men dived for the stairway.
“Fuck your orders!” Warden bawled. “Gimme them goddam keys!”
Malleaux put his hand in his pocket protectively. “I cant do that Sergeant. I got my orders, from Lt Ross himself.”
“Okay,” Warden said happily. “Chief, bust the door down.” To Malleaux he said, “Get the hell out of the way.”
Choate, and Mikeovitch and Grenelli the two machine-gunners, got back for a run at the door, the Chief’s big bulk towering over the two lightly built machinegunners.
Malleaux stepped in front of the door. “You cant get by with this, Sergeant,” he told Warden.
“Go ahead,” Warden grinned happily at the Chief. “Bust it down. He’ll get out of the way.” Across the quad, there were already two men up on top of the Headquarters Building.
Chief Choate and the two machinegunners launched themselves at the supply room door like three blocking backs bearing down on an end. Malleaux stepped out of the way. The door rattled ponderously.
“This is your responsibility, Sergeant,” Malleaux said to Warden. “I did my best.”
“Okay,” Warden said. “I’ll see you get a medal.”
“Remember I warned you, Sergeant,” Malleaux said.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Warden said.
It took three tries to break the wood screws loose enough to let the Yale night lock come open. Warden was the first one in. The two machinegunners were right behind him, Mikeovitch burrowing into a stack of empty belt boxes looking for full ones while Grenelli got his gun lovingly out of the MG rack. There were men up on both the 3rd and 1st Battalion roofs by now, to meet the planes as they came winging back, on first one then the other of the cross legs of their long figure 8.
Warden grabbed a BAR from the rack and passed it out with a full bag of clips. Somebody grabbed it and took off for the roof, and somebody else stepped up to receive one. Warden passed out three of them from the rack, each with a full bag of clips, before he realized what he was doing.
“To hell with this noise,” he said to Grenelli who was unstrapping his tripod on his way out the door. “I could stand here and hand these out all day and never get up on the roof.”
He grabbed a BAR and clip bag for himself and pushed out the door, making a mental note to eat Malleaux’s ass out. There were a dozen bags of full clips in there, left over from the BAR practice firing in August. They should have been unloaded and greased months ago.
Outside, he stopped beside Henderson. Pete, Grenelli and Mikeovitch were already rounding the stair landing out of sight with the MG and eight belt boxes.
“Get your ass in there and start passing them out,” Warden told Henderson, “and start loading clips. And belts. Have Wilson go up and get a detail of men. Soons you get a batch loaded send a couple men up with them. Put three men on belts, the rest on BAR clips.”
“Yes, Sir,” Henderson said nervously.
Warden took off for the stairs. On the way up he stopped off at his room to get the full bottle that he kept in his foot-locker for emergencies.
In the squadroom men were sitting on their bunks with their helmets on holding empty rifles in black despair. They looked up hopefully and called to him as he passed.
“What gives, Sarge?” “Whats the deal, First?” “Are we going up on the roofs now?” “Where the hells the ammunition, Top?” “These guns aint worth nothing without no ammunition.” “Hell of a note to sit on your bunk with an empty rifle and no ammunition while they blow your guts out.” “Are we sojers? o