Leon Uris (44 page)

The unfinished “Random Sixteen” became the great whisper into their ears. Zach fired a hundred questions and Ben went over it all again.

“I’ve finished ‘Random.’”

“How about that! What day is this, anyhow?”

“Not sure. It’s after Christmas and before New Year’s.”

“So, happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, Major Ben.”

They banged on each other a few more times and drank the sweet wine of victory.

“Ben, when the Corps selects a commander, you’re going to have to let me brief him, page by page and conclusion by conclusion.”

“That won’t be necessary, Zach. You’re taking them down there.”

“Yeah, sure I am and U. S. Grant is a Mexican admiral.”

“It’s your command. First Rovers—Fleet Marine Force.”

“Okay, funny, funny, funny. Knock it off.”

“Zachary O’Hara was the only name seriously proposed or considered.”

Zach blinked. The snow lifted and the sun gave off enough warmth to sparkle up the ground. He slid down the trunk of the eucalyptus tree with his back holding it up. He became light-headed.

“My command! I’ve dreamed of this since I was six years old.”

“You’ve written the text, and now you’re going to prove some things in the field. We’ve obtained undivided attention. You’re going to show them how it works.”

“Jesus Christ,” Zach said.

“I can’t get you Jesus, but the Gunny wants to go down to the Amnesties as your top kick.”

“And to think, this morning I didn’t even want to wake up.”

“Getting you to Newport has been like hitting the inside of a straight flush—it’s totally natural for you to follow through commanding the First Rovers.”

“First Rovers, Fleet Marine Force. It’s my command. I was born to take this command. Born to it.”

“Won’t be all that easy, Junior, so don’t fuck it up.”

“I was put on the doorstep of a Marine barrack the day after I was born. I’ll know how to take care of my men.”

“So you will, Skipper.”

They clinked imaginary glasses and drank an imaginary drink.

Zach became quiet, then said, “Did you ever have to give or take orders that were dead set against your principles?”

“I know what you’re getting at. I’ve been on the guard detail when there was a strike at a factory, and one in the coal mines. Being a strikebreaker, escorting scabs through the picket line, was terrible. Fortunately, we never had to open fire on anyone.”

“Da didn’t like strikebreaking duty, either.”

Ben was quiet for a time. “I was a horse Marine,” he said.

“I didn’t know that.”

“At the end of the Second Seminole Rising, we ran them down in the Everglades. Caribs . . . Seminoles . . . they weren’t savages.”

The sun cruised so nicely they wished they had brought a picnic, or at least a bottle. Ben seemed distressed about the Seminoles. Whatever happened in the Everglades, he wanted left there.

“We all have a dirty secret,” Ben said. “You got one?”

That startled Zach. “Don’t think so,” he muttered.

“We’ve all got a dirty secret. I was liaison to the army before the Civil War. At the time there wasn’t much of a military presence in Washington, couple companies of Marines at the barracks were about it. I got a whiff of some secret orders. The Marines were to be dispatched to Harpers Ferry, where John Brown was holed up, and bring him in, dead or alive. Some of my family had been lynched for moving runaway slaves on the underground railroad. John Brown was our high lord of abolitionists. There was a good chance I’d be ordered to take a company to Harpers Ferry. I got myself a forty-eight-hour pass and blew town before orders came down.”

“That was over thirty years ago,” Zach said. “How does it play out with you now?”

“I’d have the same problem today. As long as you are in the Corps, that number is going to come up and tear your guts out. It’s a hard moment.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“We know you will,” Ben said, fishing around in his pocket. He came up with a pair of captain’s bars and put them in Zach’s hand.

“You’ll have to have some rank in the Amnesties.”

When Zach took the silver bars, he realized how much heavier they were than the rank he was wearing now. The step beyond. Zach sequestered his joy and the unreality of it.

“I’m glad we’ve been able to come to this moment, Zach. I had some twinges of doubt when you got that letter from Amanda.”

“And you were worried that I wouldn’t come back from my leave?”

“I was. Not now.”

“Maybe I do have a dirty secret,” Zach said suddenly.

“You’ll come back. You’re a war lover, like your old man.”

“I’m not a war lover.”

“In order to defend what we’ve got, every generation has to ante up war lovers.”

“Ben, was there really a Yolanda?”

“Sort of. There’s always a Yolanda but the memory gets mistier with age. And if it wasn’t Yolanda, it was Cassandra or Miranda and Sally Anndra—”

“Or Amanda.”

“Or whoever is standing on the dock waving farewell to her Marine.”

“I hear you, clearly.”

“You’re going to be in the Caribbean for several months before there is a public announcement. No wives, no camp followers. We hope we don’t have to keep you there that long, but you have to make a two-year commitment.”

“I figured. Anything else?”

“You’ve got the gist.”

Ben patted himself down, hunting for tobacco. “Shit! I was in such a hurry to get out here to see you with everything, I forgot my friggin’ pipe and tobacco.”

“Stand at ease, the day may be saved,” Zach said, digging into his jacket. Two apples for two great horses. A pack of cigarettes down at the bottom.

“You smoking now?”

“I used to carry them for, you know, Lilly, when we strolled on the beach after the weather changed, and a good Marine always has . . .
matches!
”

They surrounded the cigarette to cut off the breeze. Ben lit up, drew, and gave a nice long “ahhh.”

“Damned, it’s nice out here,” he said, puffing contentedly, then sizing up the brand. “Real elegant smoke. Probably some crap for the French aristocracy put out by Barjac.”

“No, she told me her brother got the tobacco in Morocco. It was too expensive to put out on the market, so he makes some up for the family and a few friends.”

“Now, that is high living,” Ben said.

Zachary sniffed in an aroma he’d known before. Not that he wanted Lilly, but it was Lilly’s sweet scent. She would like to smoke on the way back up to her villa right before the lovemaking. She’d get heady and giggly and every so often she’d kiss him openmouthed and exhale the smoke into him.

“Sure nice out here,” Ben repeated.

“Ah, let me have a puff. Stirs up a naughty memory.”

Ben passed the smoke.

“I can see how you can get hooked on this,” Zach said. “I’ll have to make a New Year’s resolution not to take it up.”

Major Boone began to ascend. Zach, being the good sport, took it down to the butt. They lit another.

“Sure is nice out here.” Sure was.

“Every time I stopped by this goddamn tree, I worked out a landing or a defense.”

“You know, so did I.”

“Okay, let’s have an invasion, right now.”

“Sounds great.”

“Do you want offense or defense?”

“Both.”

“How many troops gonna make your assault?”

“How many you want?”

“One entire battalion.”

“That’s more than enough. Who’s the enemy?”

“Anyone who doesn’t agree with us.”

“The landing was sloppy. I wanna inspect them before we move inland.”

“Fall in, you creatures, on the double, goddammit! Battalion formed. All present or accounted for, SIR!”

“Jesus H. Christ. Can’t you people form a straight line! What the hell is this war dance they’re doing?”

“They have to piss, SIR!”

“They shoulda pissed when they were wading ashore.”

“In my command, SIR, no Marine pisses his pants, even when submerged.”

“Order them to piss and take three steps forward.”

“Cocks out, right face, PISS!”

“Downwind, goddammit! You, big jock, you’re pissing on my boots!”

“Battalion re-formed and eager for combat, SIR!”

“Before we go into battle, I wish to inspect them. Have your first company take off their knapsacks and open them for inspection. What the fuck is this, pictures of naked women! And you, son, when did you last brush your teeth . . . button your fly, there, Corporal . . . your fingernails are dirty. Put him on report . . . and you, what the hell you shaking for!”

“He always does that before combat, SIR!”

“I’ve come a long way in my time and seen sorry-assed Marines. You sure they’re not sailors?”

“They’re ugly, but they’re mean, SIR!”

Ben stubbed out the second cigarette butt and took a step toward Zach and pitched into his arms.

“Oh, oh,” Ben said, speaking quietly into Zach’s ear. “We have been penetrated by an enemy spy. Her cigarettes were loaded.”

“What would that be?”

“Opium, you asshole. Anyhow, brave Marines do not buckle at the first sign of distress. Gimme a boost and I’ll inspect them on horseback.”

Zach threw Ben onto the saddle.

Ben started down the line, muttering and cursing, with Zach running after him.

“You are on your horse backward, SIR!”

“Like hell I am. He’s just pointed in the wrong direction.”

•
41
•

Sister Sugar:
When the sun come up on Nebo . . .
Chorus:
Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar:
Over Jordan stood the promise . . .
Chorus:
Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar:
Oh my childs, I go no further . . .
Chorus:
Weary Moses looked him down . . .
Sister Sugar:
Josh, we take them ‘cross the river . . .
Chorus:
Weary Moses lay him down . . .
Sister Sugar, Chorus, and Congregation:

In the cold, cold ground,
We done set old Moses down.
‘Cross the river we did go,
For the battle of Jericho.
Lay him down! Lay him down! Hallelujah! Lay him down!

Extemporaneous lyrics and glory-bound voices shouted out sightings of Jesus and Mary and loved ones gone. No matter how frenzied the singing and shouting and stomping and clapping became, the voices continued to blend heavenly.

On a cold, clear day like this and with an eastern wind, their singing would leap clear over to Wyman’s Creek Landing, where the Quakers contemplated in the utter silence of their simple meetinghouse.

The sea grass and swamp grass and cattails and bittersweet and bayberry were spiked up stiff from last night’s ice storm and began to bend, crack, and drip, lighting billions of diamonds. The branches of the trees hung wearily under their burden.

A staccato of breaking ice popped from every direction. This was a land alone, part Maryland, part Virginia, and all of Delaware, a state of little consequence, named for Indians who were too trusting of the white man.

It was as though a pagan giant had turned over a humongous pot of mud, and wherever it splattered down it formed a convulsive coastline with uncountable numbers of islands, estuaries, rivers, creeks, sounds, straits, and baylets.

This entire glob of land existed as a 150-mile barrier against the Atlantic Ocean on its east. A passage in and out of the Chesapeake Bay around Norfolk’s tidewater allowed ocean and bay to merge and mingle. With the James and Potomac Rivers feeding the bay and the Atlantic finding its way into the bay, one of the world’s most abundant waters of marine life evolved.

The land behind the bay contained the magic nutrients to yield that imperial Maryland tobacco. With many of the plantations gone, the shore’s soil was sufficient for general farming.

The black village of Nebo was pleasantly self-exiled from the mainstream and mostly concerned with getting their field crops and seafood to market and otherwise keeping clear of the white people.

The village was built on marshland, barely gripping bedrock,
so its cottages were on somewhat of a tilt. In the Nebo Abyssinian Baptist Church, the steeple would virtually sway like a metronome when the congregation was in full song.