The blazing, tropical sun beat down unmercifully upon the heads of a
squad of Marines, under the command of a top sergeant, as they made
their way slowly and with uncertainty over an impassable mountain path
to the flat, barren valley below.
Dusty, dog-tired and filthy with grime, the worn-out soldiers of the sea
struggled along over roughshod ground, dragging two stubborn pack mules
behind them. The men were unhappy victims of a powerful sun, casting its
dangerous heat waves over their unprotected persons, and a miserable,
dirty, unfamiliar country of treacherous, dark-skinned men and cruel
mountain passages.
As the squad and their silent, stout and puffing sergeant reached the
base of the mountain, one of the men let himself fall against the trunk
of a huge palm tree with large, welcome leaves that completely shaded
the ground beneath. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small
package of tobacco and some cigarette papers, proceeding to roll himself
a smoke as the other men sat down beneath the tree, following suit.
“What d’ya guys wanna bet there ain’t no such guy as Sandino?” the
Marine leaning against the tree announced. “We’ve been walkin’ all over
this gosh-forsaken country for the past three weeks and we ain’t seen
nothin’ but bugs, filthy natives and fat, ugly, barefooted women
carrying squalling brownskin brats!”
A mean scowl overshadowed the face of the short-winded and wide-of-girth
sergeant. “Listen here, shackle-brain, do you think them guys up in
Washington would send us all the way down here if there was no lunk like
Sandino goin’ around and shootin’ up things?”
“Yeah! Ain’t you read about the leathernecks what was shot by this here
greaser?” a little, sandy-haired, freckled-faced Marine, sprawled out on
the ground, added: “An’ how all them Americans what is in business down
here had their dumps blown up?”
“Aw—that a lot of boloney!” insisted the skeptic against the tree.
“What’s a lot of boloney?” another Marine asked.
“A string of sausages,” replied the sergeant, and the entire squad
roared with laughter.
“You guys kin think what youse please but for me, I still say there
ain’t no Sandino!” the first Marine reiterated, “an’ there ain’t no
other bloke around this country what wants to fight us!”
A tall, lanky leatherneck, who had been watering the pack mules,
shuffled over to the others. “Say, what do you think the Secretary of
the Navy sent you down here for if there ain’t no Sandino?”
“Sure, what are we here for?” another interrupted, “to escape the snow
up north this winter?”
“I don’t know!” the first Marine admitted as he allowed himself to slide
to the ground, gazing longingly at his large, hobnailed shoes, “but, oh,
boy, how my dogs are barkin’!”
“Mine too,” the sergeant announced with a look of pain upon his face,
“they keep talkin’ to me all the time!”
Just then, a large, ugly, tropical ant crawled from the bark of the
shady tree to the shoulder of the first Marine. One of the men sitting
near by saw the man-sized insect and leaned over, slapping it off his
buddy’s neck before any damage could be done.
“I’d rather have a million mosquitoes eat off of me than be bitten by
one of them there man-eating ants!”
The others, now grouped about in a circle, nodded their heads in accord
as their eyes wandered over the tree trunk in search of more pests.
“Oh, gee, I wish I wuz in Coney Island,” the sandy-haired Marine
announced with a sigh, suddenly becoming the target for a lot of small
stones aimed at him by his buddies.
“One more crack like that,” warned the sergeant, “and I’ll punch you in
the nose!”
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the little band as each man gazed at
the other with a bored look of disgust. Three weeks in a broiling desert
sun, three weeks together, searching for a promise of activity that
didn’t materialize; three weeks of walking, scratching, eating canned
food and drinking bad-tasting water; sleeping in the open, preys to
hordes of insects of all descriptions had made these men literally hate
each other. At the slightest provocation, they would fly into a rage,
calling every vile and profane name in the vocabulary of a trooper,
sometimes actually mixing in nasty brawls that would leave marks upon
their faces and bodies; added hurts to their already over-abused
persons.
Being men of small vision and slight education, their most difficult
tasks were to find interesting things to talk about. In the beginning,
it had been yarns of past deeds and great battles in which they had
played parts. This soon became monotonous, also creating much envy and
ill feeling.
After the first week had passed, one of the leathernecks produced a
picture of his girl back in Brooklyn. This inaugurated a series of tales
concerning various love conquests in every part of the globe, but alas,
every man finally told and retold his personal escapades as Don Juan so
there was nothing left to talk about except their present, trying
conditions and the individual complaints of all.
Misery may love company but not for any great length of time. Soon, each
man was hating the other because he was certain that his hurts were the
worst and the other fellow’s complaint, only the whining of a “yellow
egg.”
At the time these nine, weary soldiers arrived at the base of Los Agualo
Mountain, matters were in a pretty dangerous state of affairs. It was
another two days’ walk back to Managua, and if something didn’t arise to
relieve the present state of monotony, it was not unlikely that they
would end up by slaughtering one another.
A familiar noise was heard coming from the sky as each man sat up
instantly with ears trained, looking to each other to see if the purr
from above was real or just the machinations of a mind going loco from
exposure to the sun.
They shaded their eyes from the blinding glare of the sun with their
hands and gazed heavenward, searching the clear blue sky for huge, dark
objects flying toward the south and Managua.
At that moment, two thousand feet above, the planes of the Tenth Marine
Aero Squadron appeared over the ridge of Los Agualo, flying in the
direction of the capital in battle formation.
“It’s the Marines—our planes!” shouted the sergeant, jumping to his feet
and waving his hands frantically above his head as the others rose and
followed suit.
“Them’s the planes what dey told us wuz coming,” the tall, lanky
leatherneck yelled enthusiastically.
“Do you think they see us down here?” the little, sandy-haired Marine
asked the big fellow who was standing alongside of him.
“Sure they do! Don’t we see them?”
“Well,” the undersized leatherneck answered doubtfully, “why don’t they
do something?”
“Whatinell do you want ’em to do—step out on the wings and throw kisses
at you?”
Two thousand feet above ground, in the plane piloted by Panama, the
sergeant and his mechanic, with faces grimed from oil and smoke, peered
over the side of the ship, resting their eyes for the first time upon
the hilly country below.
Panama held the joy stick between his knees as he took out a small white
pad from the pocket of his windjammer and scribbling a note upon it,
passed the message back to Lefty.
“So this is Nicaragua?” Lefty read. “Don’t look so tough to me.”
Panama looked back for a reply as Lefty wrote below the sergeant’s
message, “I’m afraid this war is a joke!”
The two men exchanged knowing smiles as Panama bit off a large chew of
tobacco and Lefty continued to observe the ground far below. As they
passed over the mountains, he spied the figures of the tired Marine
squad and their two pack mules. Unable to distinguish who they were, he
reached for the pad and wrote, “Who do you think those men are below?”
Panama turned his head, read the message and gazed down from over the
side of the ship, straining his eyes in an attempt to distinguish the
men. He lifted his head in a moment, glanced back at Lefty and
pantomimed to the boy to loan him the pad and pencil, upon which he
scribbled, “Looks like a squad of loafing Marines. I’d like to fly low
and give their lazy brains something to think about.”
Lefty nodded his head in approval, laughing at the same time as he
lounged down in the cockpit, closing his eyes in an attempt to grab a
half hour’s sleep before they landed at the Managua airport.
Below, the Marines turned to each other, rubbing their necks to relieve
the strain of gazing so long with their heads upward bent.
“Mamma!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Wait till them flyin’ devils open high
and wide upon this guy Sandino!”
“You said it!” agreed another. “There ain’t goin’ to be much of a war
left for us when those guys get started!”
The skeptic gazed at the two prophesiers with a lingering look of
disdain. “There ain’t no war and there ain’t goin’ to be no war!”
“You’re crazy!” someone shouted. “What are them there planes doin’ here
if there ain’t no war?”
The doubting Thomas scratched his head and looked off in the direction
of the disappearing ships absently.
“I’ll bet any mother’s son here and now that there ain’t no war and
there ain’t goin’ to be no war and furthermore, there ain’t no Sandino!”
“How much’ll you bet there ain’t?” the tall, lanky fellow responded.
“Six bits!”
“Have you got six bits?” one of the other men asked, a trifle eagerly.
“I’ll have it pay day!”
Someone made a peculiar sound with his mouth that in no way added to the
prestige of the Marine who wanted to wager three-quarters of a dollar
out of a pay envelope that, considering the circumstances, might not be
due for the next six months or a year.
“I’d like to take a good poke at you!” the corporal of the squad
ventured to say, eyeing the stubborn Marine from head to foot.
“You and how many others?”
“Me alone, buddy. When it comes to fightin’ a guy like you, well—it’s in
the bag, brother, right in the bag!”
“Oh, yeah?” questioned the unpopular leatherneck. “So sez you!”
“Yeah, so sez me!”
“Then you think yer big enough, huh?”
“Listen, soldier,” the noncom added as a final gesture, “there ain’t
nothin’ in no drug store what will kill you any quicker than me!”
“I suppose you think yer poison, huh?”
“Naw—T.N.T., that’s all!”
The devil dogs gathered their belongings and started south, toward
Managua and the Marine operating base, arguing and threatening as they
went on their way, though secretly each man was thrilled beyond words
over something new to discuss that had so many different angles, certain
to last the two days until they reached the capital without becoming
stale or rehashed.