"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

eyes like rubies.
Leonard stops screaming.
I hesitate. The eyes are on me. I step back.
Cowboy punches me in the chest with his towel and a bar of soap.
I sling the towel, drop in the soap, and then I beat Leonard, who has
stopped moving. He lies in silence, stunned, gagging for air. I beat him
harder and harder and when I feel tears being flung from my eyes, I beat him
harder for it.


The next day, on the parade deck, Leonard does not grin.
When Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim asks, "What do we do for a living,
ladies?" and we reply, "KILL! KILL! KILL!," Leonard remains silent. When our
junior drill instructor asks, "Do we love the Crotch, ladies? Do we love our
beloved Corps?" and the platoon responds with one voice, "GUNG HO! GUNG HO!
GUNG HO!." Leonard is silent.


On the third day of our seventh week we move to the rifle range and
shoot holes in paper targets. Sergeant Gerheim brags about the marksmanship
of ex-Marines Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald.


By the end of our seventh week Leonard has become a model recruit. We
decide that Leonard's silence is a result of his new intense concentration.
Day by day, Leonard is more motivated, more squared away. His manual of arms
is flawless now, but his eyes are milk glass. Leonard cleans his weapon more
than any recruit in the platoon. Every night after chow Leonard caresses the
scarred oak stock with linseed oil the way hundreds of earlier recruits have
caressed the same piece of wood. Leonard improves at everything, but remains
silent. He does what he is told, but he is no longer part of the platoon.
We can see that Sergeant Gerheim resents Leonard's attitude. He reminds
Leonard that the motto of the Marine Corps is Semper Fidelis-"Always
Faithful." Sergeant Gerheim reminds Leonard that "Gung ho" is Chinese for
"working together."
It is a Marine Corps tradition, Sergeant Gerheim says, that Marines
never abandon their dead or wounded. Sergeant Gerheim is careful not to come
down too hard on Leonard as long as Leonard remains squared away. We have
already lost seven recruits on Section Eight discharges. A Kentucky boy
named Perkins stepped to the center of the squad bay and slashed his wrists
with his bayonet. Sergeant Gerheim was not happy to see a recruit bleeding
upon his nice clean squad bay. The recruit was ordered to police the area,
mop up the blood, and replace the bayonet in its sheath. While Perkins
mopped up the blood, Sergeant Gerheim called a school circle and poo-pooed
the recruit's shallow slash across his wrists with a bayonet. The
U.S.M.C.-approved method of recruit suicide is to get alone and take a razor
blade and slash deep and vertical, from wrist to elbow, Sergeant Gerheim
said. Then he allowed Perkins to double-time to sick bay.
Sergeant Gerheim leaves Leonard alone and concentrates on the rest of
us.