Hot Spring by Stephen Hunter

Author:Stephen Hunter [Hunter, Stephen]
Language: fra
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9782913636361
Google: FzJDPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 2913636365
Publisher: Murder Inc
Published: 2002-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Manila

Guadalcanal

Betio

Saipan

Gilberts

Marianas-Tarawalwo

Okinawa

It all came to this, the lighting of cigarettes, the rumpling of paper, the tapping of the typewriters, the scratching, so dry, of pen on paper. There should be a Marine in dress blues, playing taps endlessly to salute the boys of the broken palms and blazing sunsets and long gray ships and jungles and coral reefs and volcanic ash. This room housed it all, and somehow there should be more, but this is all there was. It was another reliquary of the bones of martyrs, some of them so young they didn't know what the word martyr meant.

"Henderson? You okay?"

He looked up to see Captain Stanton, holding a thick volume under his one good hand.

"Yeah, sorry."

"You were sort of talking to yourself."

"I'm sorry. They deserve so much more than this room."

"Yes, they do. That's why we have to get it all written down, so that it'll be recorded forever. Anyhow, here's the logbook of the Second Marines, January through April, 1942."

Together, they paged through it, finding old orders, directives from command and staff meetings, training schedules, disciplinary records, and a narrative of day-by-day operations. It was the collective diary of thousands of men preparing for a desperate, endless war at the end of the world.

"15 Jan 41: 2nd Marines receives deployment orders from HQ-USMC for Camp Pendleton, California, prior to shipment overseas in Pacific Battle Zone. Operations ordered to commence planning of the redeployment."

Then, for the week of January 17 through January 24, "Elements of 2nd Marines in transit to West Coast"; it continued until early February.

"They were on the move for three weeks?" asked Carlo.

"Son, a Marine regiment is part of a division, which is a formidable amount of men. We're talking about a headquarters element, three infantry regiments of about 3,100 men each, an artillery regiment, an engineer regiment, a tank battalion, a special weapons battalion, a service battalion, a medical battalion and an amphibious tractor battalion. They were understrength, of course, but a division carried a paper strength of 19,514 men. So we're calking about a unit that's folded into a larger unit of at least twelve to thirteen thousand men. Plus all the vehicles and equipment, including the guns. It all has to work together. It's no small thing."

Carlo sat there. A worm began to gnaw at his brain. He rubbed his hand against his eye but it would not go away.

"I'm trying to envision this."

"Envision chaos. Barely organized, confusing, messed up, full of mistakes. You're moving a large body of men and equipment. It's 1942, the war has just begun. Everybody's in a panic, nobody knows what's going to happen next. You're working on a railroad system that's just been converted to troop-carrying duties. It demands coordinating with the railways, assembling trains, picking routes, routing the trains in and around other military traffic and civilian traffic, the coming of blackouts, the beginning of wartime regulation and austerity. The logistics are a nightmare. It's a mess, and none of the officers or NCOs have any real experience in it.

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