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Book: Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie
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Authors: Robert Leckie
Tags: United States, General, History, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, World War II, Military, World War, 1939-1945, American, Biography, Autobiography, Campaigns, Personal Narratives, Military - World War II, Veterans, Military - United States, Pacific Area, Robert, 1920-, Leckie
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us. There were seals playing in the bay.
I was only twenty-one. I could see the Golden Gate, and out beyond lay the Thing that I would see.
Not yet, though. Not for ten days would we go out the Golden Gate. They marched us aboard the George F. Elliott . She became our ship. She was an African slaver. We hated her.
They let us go ashore every day.
These days were the final and the frantic hours of our flight. Except for Chinatown, I saw nothing but bars and cafés in San Francisco. My father had sent me a hundred dollars in response to my last plea for money. Because of this, I could see the best cafés as well as the lowest bars. They are all one.
I can remember nothing of them, save for a juke box playing “One Dozen Roses” over and over again, and once, in a Chinatown walk-up being thrown out bodily because I had leapt in among the wearily gesturing chorus girls and shouted “Boo!”
The same night I chased two Chinamen away from a marine. I never saw the knives, but they must have had them, for the marine’s tan shirt was bright with blood. He lay slumped in a doorway—a lunch counter, I think. I shouted in fury at the proprietor. He had watched the assault stonily, but now, as I shouted, he moved to his telephone and called the police. I left, fearing the M.P.’s.
There were many episodes in those ten days. But they were all the same—smeared with lust or bleared by appetite.
Finally I was sated. I was jaded. San Francisco ended for me one night as I rode in a taxicab with Jawgia, the freckled, sharp-featured cracker from the Okefenokee Swamp of Georgia, whose name suggested both his home state and his habit of jawing about the Civil War. Jawgia clambered out and the guard swung the gate open. I peered into the driver’s face, dropped three pennies—the only money we had left—into his outstretched hand, and said, “Buy yourself the best damn newspaper in town!” I slipped through the gate, and with a wild yell ran for my ship. One of the coins the driver threw hit me as I ran.
Our ship left in the morning, in a drizzle, on June the twenty-second, 1942. It moved, unlovely gray hulk, under the Golden Gate Bridge. I sat on the stern and looked back, searching. In the manner of the immigrant who takes a clod of his country’s soil on his voyage with him, I sought a memory to take with me.
High above, in the middle of the wetly gleaming bridge, stood a sentry in poncho and kelly helmet, his rifle a hump on his back. He waved. He waved steadily, for minutes, while all around me the snickers and the catcalls mounted. I loved him for it. He waved to me.
1
Fires flickered on the shores of Guadalcanal Island when we came on deck.
They were not great flaming, leaping fires, and we were disappointed. We had expected to see the world alight when we emerged from the hatches. The bombardment had seemed fierce. Our armada, for such we judged it to be, seemed capable of blasting Guadalcanal into perdition.
But in the dirty dawn of August 7, 1942, there were only a few fires flickering, like the city dumps, to light our path to history.
We were apprehensive, not frightened. I was still angry from my encounter with the sailor messman. I had been overlong eating my breakfast of beans, and when I had finished I had perceived the sailors frantically cleaning up the galley. Perhaps this would become the ship’s surgery for the shore wounded. The chief messman behind the counter was just closing a crate of oranges, distributed as a sort of eve-of-battle gift to the troops, when I had rushed up to claim mine. He refused to reopen the crate. We shouted furiously at each other. I wanted that orange more than General Vandergrift wanted Guadalcanal. The sailor would not surrender it to me and threatened—oh, inanity of inanity!—threatened to report me for insolence. Report me! Report me who am about to spill my blood among the coconuts! I wanted to skewer him on my bayonet, but I thrust him aside, tore off the lid,
I was only twenty-one. I could see the Golden Gate, and out beyond lay the Thing that I would see.
Not yet, though. Not for ten days would we go out the Golden Gate. They marched us aboard the George F. Elliott . She became our ship. She was an African slaver. We hated her.
They let us go ashore every day.
These days were the final and the frantic hours of our flight. Except for Chinatown, I saw nothing but bars and cafés in San Francisco. My father had sent me a hundred dollars in response to my last plea for money. Because of this, I could see the best cafés as well as the lowest bars. They are all one.
I can remember nothing of them, save for a juke box playing “One Dozen Roses” over and over again, and once, in a Chinatown walk-up being thrown out bodily because I had leapt in among the wearily gesturing chorus girls and shouted “Boo!”
The same night I chased two Chinamen away from a marine. I never saw the knives, but they must have had them, for the marine’s tan shirt was bright with blood. He lay slumped in a doorway—a lunch counter, I think. I shouted in fury at the proprietor. He had watched the assault stonily, but now, as I shouted, he moved to his telephone and called the police. I left, fearing the M.P.’s.
There were many episodes in those ten days. But they were all the same—smeared with lust or bleared by appetite.
Finally I was sated. I was jaded. San Francisco ended for me one night as I rode in a taxicab with Jawgia, the freckled, sharp-featured cracker from the Okefenokee Swamp of Georgia, whose name suggested both his home state and his habit of jawing about the Civil War. Jawgia clambered out and the guard swung the gate open. I peered into the driver’s face, dropped three pennies—the only money we had left—into his outstretched hand, and said, “Buy yourself the best damn newspaper in town!” I slipped through the gate, and with a wild yell ran for my ship. One of the coins the driver threw hit me as I ran.
Our ship left in the morning, in a drizzle, on June the twenty-second, 1942. It moved, unlovely gray hulk, under the Golden Gate Bridge. I sat on the stern and looked back, searching. In the manner of the immigrant who takes a clod of his country’s soil on his voyage with him, I sought a memory to take with me.
High above, in the middle of the wetly gleaming bridge, stood a sentry in poncho and kelly helmet, his rifle a hump on his back. He waved. He waved steadily, for minutes, while all around me the snickers and the catcalls mounted. I loved him for it. He waved to me.
1
Fires flickered on the shores of Guadalcanal Island when we came on deck.
They were not great flaming, leaping fires, and we were disappointed. We had expected to see the world alight when we emerged from the hatches. The bombardment had seemed fierce. Our armada, for such we judged it to be, seemed capable of blasting Guadalcanal into perdition.
But in the dirty dawn of August 7, 1942, there were only a few fires flickering, like the city dumps, to light our path to history.
We were apprehensive, not frightened. I was still angry from my encounter with the sailor messman. I had been overlong eating my breakfast of beans, and when I had finished I had perceived the sailors frantically cleaning up the galley. Perhaps this would become the ship’s surgery for the shore wounded. The chief messman behind the counter was just closing a crate of oranges, distributed as a sort of eve-of-battle gift to the troops, when I had rushed up to claim mine. He refused to reopen the crate. We shouted furiously at each other. I wanted that orange more than General Vandergrift wanted Guadalcanal. The sailor would not surrender it to me and threatened—oh, inanity of inanity!—threatened to report me for insolence. Report me! Report me who am about to spill my blood among the coconuts! I wanted to skewer him on my bayonet, but I thrust him aside, tore off the lid,
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