From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [431]
“Whats that?” Warden yelled. “I cant hear you.”
“I said, we’re moving out within the hour.”
“What?” Warden yelled. “What? Look out,” he yelled; “here they come again!”
Lt Ross dove for the supplyroom and the two ammo carriers ducked their heads back down through the hatch.
Warden ran crouching back to Pete’s chimney and rested his BAR on the corner and fired a burst at the V of three that flashed past.
“Get that goddam ammo up here!” he roared at them in the hatchway.
“Milt!” Chief Choate yelled. “Milt Warden! They want you downstairs.”
“You cant find me,” Warden yelled. “I’ve gone someplace else.”
Chief nodded and relayed it down over the edge. “I cant find him, Lootenant. He’s gone off someplace else.” He listened dutifully down over the edge and then turned back to Warden. “Lt Ross says tell you we’re moving out within the hour,” he yelled.
“You cant find me,” Warden yelled.
“Here they come!” Grenelli yelled from the tripod.
They did not move out within the hour. It was almost another hour before the attack was all over. And they did not move out until early afternoon three and a half hours after the attack was over. G Company was ready, but it was the only company in the Regiment that was.
Warden stayed up on the roof, by one subterfuge or another, until the attack was over. Lt Ross, it turned out, stayed down in the supplyroom and helped load ammunition. The Regimental fire umbrella claimed one more positive, and two possibles that might have been hit by the 27th and already going down when they passed over the quad. Stark himself, personally, with two of the KPs, brought them up coffee once, and then still later brought up coffee and sandwiches. In gratitude for which, Pete Karelsen let him take over the MG for a while.
After it was all over, and the dead silence which no sound seemed able to penetrate reigned, they all smoked a last cigaret up on the roof and then, dirty-faced, red-eyed, tired happy and let-down, they trooped down reluctantly into the new pandemonium that was just beginning below and went to roll their full field packs. Nobody had even been scratched. But they could not seem to get outside of the ear-ringing dead silence. Even the pandemonium of moving out could not penetrate it.
Warden, instead of rolling his pack, went straight to the orderly room. In the three and a half hours before they finally left he was in the orderly room all the time, getting it packed up. Lt Ross, whose Company was the only one that was ready ahead of time, had already forgotten to be angry and came in and helped him. So did Rosenberry. Warden had plenty of time and to spare, to pack the orderly room. But he did not have any time left to roll his full field pack or change into a field uniform. Or, if he did, he forgot it.
The result of this was that he had to sleep in the popcorn vender’s wagon at Hanauma Bay without blankets for five days before he could get back up to Schofield to get his stuff, and he would have welcomed even a woolen OD field-uniform shirt. He did not see how the hell he could have possibly have forgotten that.
One by one, each company’s consignment of trucks lined up before its barracks in a double file and settled down to wait. One by one, the platoons of troops filed out into their company yards and sat down on their packs holding their rifles and looked at the waiting trucks. The Regiment moved as a unit.
No two companies were going to the same place. And when they got there each company would be a separate unit on its own. But one company, that was ready, did not leave out by itself for its beach positions ahead of the other companies, that were not ready. The Regiment moved as a unit.
Everywhere trucks. Everywhere troops sitting on their packs. The quad filled up with trucks until even the Colonel’s jeep could not worm through between them. The yards filled up with troops u