Turtledove, Harry - The War That Came Early 05 - Two Fronts by Turtledove Harry

Author:Turtledove, Harry [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345524706
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-07-22T14:00:00+00:00

Pete McGill was always happy when the Ranger steamed out of Pearl and headed west. They were going out to give the Japs hell. Giving the Japs hell was what he wanted more than anything else on earth.

Some of the other Marines who served with him were less enthusiastic. “Man, those assholes, they can sink us, too,” a corporal named Barney Klinsmann said at breakfast the morning after they headed out on patrol. He shoveled corned-beef hash into his face as if he thought they’d outlaw the stuff tomorrow. Some guys needed to get their sea legs under them before they started stuffing themselves like that. Not him.

“Fuck ’em,” Pete said flatly. “You don’t think we’ll lick ’em, fuck you, too. In the heart.”

Klinsmann surged to his feet. Pete was big and as solid as he could be after his injuries—he’d worked hard putting muscle back on. The other guy had a couple of inches and twenty pounds on him even so. He didn’t care. He stood, too. “Nobody talks to me that way, you bastard,” Klinsmann growled.

Other leathernecks grabbed them and kept them from going at each other. “Take an even strain, the both of youse,” Sergeant Cullum said. “We’re supposed to be fighting the slanties, remember?”

“I remember,” Pete said. “This bum, he wants to hide under his bunk instead.” He tried to point at Klinsmann, but the Marines holding his arms wouldn’t let go.

“Bullshit,” the bigger man said. “I just said we gotta watch ourselves. And we do, on account of this here is the only carrier in the Pacific what still floats. The only American carrier, I mean. The Japs, they got a shit-pot full.”

“Enough, dammit.” Cullum let his impatience show. “Am I gonna hafta talk to an officer or somethin’?”

That subdued both Pete and Barney Klinsmann, as he must have known it would. Squabbles between noncoms weren’t worth getting excited about—till an officer noticed them or had them brought to his attention. Officers could throw the book at you. Pete often thought the book was the only reason officers existed.

He quit struggling against the men who held him. So did Klinsmann. Cautiously, their fellow Marines turned them loose. They both settled down to their interrupted breakfasts. Sergeant Cullum beamed beatifically at one and all.

As they walked out of the galley, Pete spoke in a low voice: “You know that little compartment aft of the portside heads, the one where they stow the mops and brushes and shit like that?”

“Oh, fuck, yes,” Klinsmann answered, also quietly. “What time you wanna be there?”

“How about 0200 tomorrow?” Pete said. “Not like we need a bunch of busybodies around.”

“You got that right,” the other man said. “See you then.”

When Pete officially slid out of his bunk at 0530, one eye was almost swollen shut. He had a cut lip and a broken bottom eyetooth. His ribs felt as if someone had been kicking them. Well, someone had. They didn’t seem broken, though, so that was okay. He dry-swallowed a couple of Bayer’s finest, not that they’d help one hell of a lot.

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