Bloody Ridge and Beyond by Marlin Groft

Author:Marlin Groft
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

REST AND REFIT

NEW CALEDONIA AND NEW ZEALAND

OCTOBER 1942–JUNE 1943

Setting foot on shore at Nouméa was the best medicine we weary Raiders could have asked for, injecting sparks of life into our near-dead eyes and our dulled spirits. I’m sure as we filed ashore, we made one helluva sight with our emaciated bodies, our gaunt faces, and our skin turned pumpkin-like in color from the Atabrine tablets we gobbled down to fight off the symptoms of malaria.

Approaching the line of waiting trucks, I noted wryly that they were far fewer in number than those required to carry us to the transports back in July. Reaching the trucks, we struggled aboard, some men, weakened by illness, having to be helped. The Detroit engines turned over and roared as the trucks jolted and rumbled the twenty-five miles to Camp St. Louis. Arriving, we hopped down from the truck beds and were shown to our assigned billets, pyramidal sixteen-by-sixteen-by-twelve olive drab canvas squad tents. It felt wonderful to be back in something resembling civilization and off the firing line, but the number of empty cots told more than words of our sacrifices during ten weeks in the lion’s den that was Guadalcanal.

Initially, Major Irwin, who commanded the Raiders in Griffith’s absence, demanded little of us. Our main job was to rebuild our strength, physically, psychologically, and emotionally, so that we would be ready for whatever the Corps had in store for us next time. And every one of us knew there would be a next time.

Liberty was granted, and men flocked into Nouméa, where many of us busted loose, moving from bar to bar, and, inevitably, to places like the pink house on the hill, all designed to separate us from our pay. I plead guilty to some of this as well, for during the thirty weeks we were there on New Cal, as we called it, I got into more than a few brawls and did plenty of three-day stints in the brig, subsisting on “piss and punk,” meaning bread and water.

Shortly after we arrived on New Cal, we were recruited for a work detail at the harbor. Civilian dockworkers had launched a strike against a British merchant ship lying at the quay and refused to unload her holds, which bulged with flour and cans of meat and fruit. The dockworkers’ problem was that the British vessel consisted of all white officers who oversaw a crew of Indian laborers, whom they habitually mistreated, lording their superiority over the workers as only the Brits can. The Navy command decided this interruption in the flow of supplies was intolerable, and we were put to work replacing the striking stevedores. Still, we felt sorry for these poor Indian bastards and slipped them cans of food. This was more than a little ironic considering how blacks were routinely mistreated back in the States. It was the least we could do, and the Indian laborers were grateful, actually bowing to us and trying to kiss our hands. Since we Raiders were not into hand-kissing, we drew the line at bowing.

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