Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

  I turned to confront Father Straight. I knew before I turned that it was he, for his was the only gentle or cultivated voice I had encountered in the Marines. Father Straight was our chaplain—the first, in fact, that the Second Battalion ever had. He had joined us in Australia just as we shoved off. I saw him our second day out when I noticed a crowd of marines encircling an elderly-looking man. They had such a respectful air, such a hungrily respectful air, and the man was so obviously not one of us, that it was easy to conclude his calling.

  “It stings like hell, Father,” I said, unconscious of any profanity in the word. Only the unprintables were thought unspeakable in a chaplain’s presence, and then not always so. “But I was lucky it didn’t cut my … it didn’t cut me wide open.”

  “Yes, you can thank God for that.”

  Father Straight was a man in his forties, but he was still that radiant type that the Irish call a “black Celt.” Looking at him, I saw that the sea voyage had spread a coat of tan over his visage, once white with the flour of civilization, and that the sedentary flesh about hips and waist had begun to vanish.

  “How do you like the island, Father?” I asked.

  “It’s very exciting,” he said, brightening. “This is my first time in the jungle.” He eyed me like a stranger about to ask directions. I asked: “Anything I can do for you, Father?”

  “Perhaps there is. In the excitement, they seem to have forgotten me.”

  “Stick with us,” I said. “We’ll take care of you.”

  He hesitated. “Will it be all right?”

  “Sure. It’s always fouled-up when we move.”

  “Swell,” said Father Straight, and he accompanied us when we had loaded one of the trucks with the Intelligence Section’s gear and climbed aboard. The truck climbed a series of small hills and finally deposited us in the middle of a field of kunai grass—our new home.

  This is how the Marines train their men. Keep them mean and nasty, like starving beasts, says the Corps, and they will fight better. When men are being moved from one place to another, spare no effort to make it painful; and before they have arrived at their destination, dispatch a man ahead to survey the ground with an eye toward discomfort. For sustenance give them cold food, and for tools a machete, and if the Commander has any influence with the gods of the clouds, he must see to it that it rains.

  All of this had been accomplished. Rain fell, dusk fell, and word came that there would be no chow. I looked at Father Straight, forlorn beneath his helmet, wrapped in a poncho—regulation in every detail of clothing. He seemed naïve, like a child given a football uniform before he’s played the game.

  “Hey, Playboy,” I yelled to one of my new Intelligence Section buddies. “Help me fix a sack for Father Straight.”

  Playboy ambled over and lent his lunging machete strokes to mine. We cut a swath in the kunai and made a bed of the cuttings. We cut poles in the brush, stretching Father Straight’s poncho over them. He crawled under and lay down. Something rustled in his grass bed and he shot erect. He smiled sheepishly and sank back again. In a moment, it was dark.

  “Take it easy, Father,” I said. “We’re going to rustle up some chow.”

  “That’ll be swell,” he said, boyishly. “Where?”

  “Tell you in confession.”

  Father Straight laughed, “You can’t steal from yourself, you know.”

  “Right. We’re going to speed up the distribution process a little.”

  We made the road and swung aboard an empty truck returning to the beach. A mile down the road, we vaulted off and waited for a loaded inbound truck. One came, its hooded headlights glowing in the rain. We caught it as it slowed on a hill, riding it until we came abreast of our bivouac. There we threw off a case of tomato juice and one of baked beans, leaping clear after them.

  We portioned out the major share among our friends, then hurried to Father Straight’s lean-to. I shook him. “Here’s some food, Father—but maybe you’d better bless it first.”

  “What?” he snapped, coming awake.

  We laughed.

  “Oh,” he said, and even in the dark we could recognize it for an amused “Oh.”

  Playboy and I laughed again and crawled back into the rain. A pair of poor Catholics who had blithely spent the months in Melbourne jumping on the Ten Commandments, we went to sleep confident that we had found expiation in pilfered offerings of tomato juice and baked beans.

  Not till morning did I think to inquire where we were.

  “Goodenough Island,” someone explained.

  Playboy laughed wryly, “It’s Goodenough, all right—good enough for marines.”

  We set to work erecting our section tents, goaded rather than guided by Lieutenant Big-Picture’s disorganizing commands. We had three tents—two to live in, one to work in.

  In this third tent reposed our skimpy map-making gear: a table, made of a length of plywood resting on wooden horses, some compasses, pencils, tracing paper and a square or two. A Marine battalion intelligence section carries little cartographer’s gear. Actually, we were a section of scouts; the eyes and ears of the battalion commander; that is all, no matter how strenuously Big-Picture sought to magnify it.

  But much as I delighted in the prospect of becoming a scout, Lieutenant Big-Picture would not hear of it.

  “You’re here to get out my newspaper,” he said grandly.

  “But, Lieutenant, we’re going to be back in action soon. And I don’t even know how to shoot an azimuth. I’d get lost in a telephone booth. All I want to do is to find out how to handle a compass and how to read maps.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “But, Lieutenant—we won’t have time for a newspaper when we get into action again. What’ll I do then?”

  Lieutenant Big-Picture, at least two months my senior, waved a deprecating hand in the style he had cultivated since that magical day on Guadalcanal, when, alone of an entire intelligence section, Sergeant Big-Picture could tell the Battalion Commander what an aerial mosaic was, earning for this feat an on-the-spot commission as Lieutenant Big-Picture.

  He waved an airily patronizing hand, and said, “When we get in action, you’ll keep the battalion diary.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll find out when we go out in the field. Now, what about my newspaper? Let’s hear your thinking on it. First things first—what will we need to start with?”

  “A mimeograph machine.”

  “Check. Talk to the sergeant major about that. What next?”

  “Paper.”

  “Sergeant major. Come again.”

  “Stapling machine.”

  “Same. Come on, let’s have a real problem.”

  “Reporters.”

  “Well, yes, sure, reporters, of course—I mean, how many will we need?” He paused. “What the hell d’ya mean, reporters?”

  “If we’re going to have a battalion newspaper, sir, we’re going to have to have news. That means we’ve got to cover the companies. So we’ll need a man from each company designated as the company’s reporter.”

  “What’ll he report?”

  “Everything that goes on in the company. I’ll make a sort of newsletter from each, then we’ll have a section for Headquarters news, maybe a Poet’s Corner open to submissions, a message from the Commander and an editorial.”

  “Message from the Colonel! Editorial!”

  “Yes, sir. It’ll dress up the page a bit, maybe give the Commander a chance to boost morale.”

  “Now, wait a minute, my man. Wait a minute.” Lieutenant Big-Picture held up a restraining hand. He strode up and down gravely. He sat down, assuming an attitude like Rodin’s Thinker.

  “You’ve got to be careful about this sort of thing, Lucky. You can’t go blazing ahead. We’ve got to consider the company commanders. They might not like the idea of a man reporting news in their units. They might want to look his stuff over a little before he submitted it.”

  “Censor i
t, sir?”

  “Watch yourself there! It’s just that it’s a ticklish thing and the company commander might want to be sure the reporter had things straight, the way they really happened. We have to move carefully on a thing like this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So, I’ll tell you what we’d better do. You check with the sergeant major and see what he can do for you in the way of paper and things. In the meanwhile, I’ll have to talk this over with the company commanders. I’ve got a briefing scheduled for tomorrow. The significance of Stalingrad. And one more thing. That message from the Colonel idea, and the editorial. Forget it. D’ya hear? They’re out!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I obeyed orders and consulted the sergeant major, who told me to get the hell out of his tent.

  Lieutenant Big-Picture, having had a full night to reflect, stuck strictly to Stalingrad next day. The battalion newspaper had been scissored from the big picture as neatly as an inexplicable terrain feature from an aerial mosaic.

  The screws of discipline were firmly turning. One Sunday morning we played volleyball in the kunai grass, not far from the mess tent shared by the Commander and Major Major-Share, our new and unpopular Executive Officer. It was past mealtime, except, of course, for such worthies as Major Major-Share, who might dine whenever he pleased.

  As we played, the mess corporal on duty ran up to join us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Major walking with that sideways cant of his from his sleeping tent in the direction of the mess tent. Then the mess corporal noticed him, but pretended unconcern. Someone cautioned him against keeping the Major waiting. Major Major-Share’s temper was well known. But the mess corporal was of that peculiar breed of unhandsome men who, perhaps angered by the airs of their more favored fellows, suddenly startle them by the strength of some inexplicable and unshakable attitude. He kept on playing volleyball.

  We kept getting nervous.

  The Major kept waiting.

  Tension was snapped by the rising bellow of the Major’s voice. “Sergeant major!” he roared, whirling to point an imperious charge in the direction of the now transfixed mess corporal. “Sarr-jent! Maaa-jor!”

  Out of his tent burst the sergeant major, on the d-d-d-double came the sergeant major, while Major Major-Share, drawing himself up like a monster frog, finally exploded in a collapsing roar.

  “LOCK THAT MAN UP!”

  And they led the poor corporal away.

  We were going to leave the island. The scuttlebutt said it was because of the numerous cases of scrub typhus among us—but actually, as it turned out, it was to gather with the other regiments in a staging area, whence we would assault the Japanese once more. The war came closer. We were eager, now, for news of triumphs in the Pacific, even of Allied victories in North Africa, for these, too, would drive the now turning tide closer to the enemy shore, would reduce the ranks of a long-mobilized foe while the late-mobilizing Allied cause gained in size and skill.

  And a week before we left, our own small cause and numbers were augmented by a single ally, but one so singular as to be almost an army in himself.

  “There’s an Australian out on the road,” Lieutenant Big-Picture said. “Go out and give him a hand.”

  I walked through the grass to the road and met the Digger.

  I met him as he sat amid the grandeur and confusion of a jeep piled so high with men and material that one thought immediately of the dwelling place of an acquisitive recluse, or of the frantically loaded vehicles I have seen rushing away from floods or earthquakes.

  There were at least three billy-cans, those battered tins in which the tea-drinking Aussie boils his beverage; a flute; a corroded British helmet and a shiny new American mate; a kerosene lantern; a gasoline lantern; a case of Sterno; cans of tea and sugar; sacks of rice; three or four bulging haversacks crammed with a mixture of American and Australian uniform issue; a grass skirt; a trumpet, purchased, the Digger told me later, from “a Yank” for “fordeen bob;” a driver; the Digger and four bewildered Melanesian blacks from whose powerful shoulders hung packs, in themselves minor masterpieces.

  I gazed enraptured, and so did a lounging crowd of marines gathered in the hope of humor. But there was to be no poking fun.

  “‘Ere!” the Digger burst out irritably. “D’ya always sit round on yer bum when y’can see a bloke needs an ‘and?”

  I bent to help him unload, as did some of the others and when the contents of the jeep were deposited on the ground in a miniature mountain, the driver left with such speed that he raised a cloud of choking dust.

  Irritability was most plain on the Digger’s face, for he had pushed back his battered slouch hat with it; stained white puggree band—and one could take a good look at his small, leathery visage with its flippant line of black mustache. His natives were aware of his mood. They stood, hesitant and apprehensive, watching him. Perhaps he enjoyed their confusion, for he suddenly adopted a half-smiling, half-pensive pose, gazing over their heads at the thread of white against the distant mountain, the waterfall washing Mount Nitulolo’s face. Or perhaps the Digger was concealing his own confusion, hoping too, by his ruminative look to impress us with his presence. At last he turned to me and said:

  “Give us a go, Yank. ‘Ere’s yer Second bleddy Battalion, now, ain’t it?—so ‘ow about showing me to me billet?”

  I led him back to his tent, which had been hastily erected behind ours. While I helped him to tighten the ropes—for this tent sagged so limply it might have been put up by an officer—I was startled by a sort of gibberish in the brush beyond, accompanied by the sound of wood-cutting. It was the Digger’s natives. They had followed us through the grass, but so silently I had forgotten them. The gibberish was their Melanesian tribal dialect, for they all came from a section of New Guinea around Lae, where the Digger had been a coconut planter before the Japanese invasion. The wood-cutting was for the lean-tos they were constructing for themselves—they would most certainly not sleep in the Digger’s tent, any more than he would permit them to eat any of our food. The sacks of rice were for their own mess.

  I helped Digger draw a cot and other necessary gear from the quartermaster, and I promised to return after evening chow, when I would show him the river in which we washed.

  When I returned, I was brought to a halt ten yards from his tent by the sound of a trumpet blaring into the island quiet. So incongruously blatant was it—it might as well have been a train whistle. There was a melody: it sounded like “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”

  I poked my head inside Digger’s tent. In the light of a kerosene lamp set on the ground, I saw him sitting on his cot with his shoulders hunched down and his face screwed up as he blew with all his might into a trumpet. When he saw me, he put down the trumpet, wiped his mouth, and said: “‘Ello, there, Yank—’ave a seat.” He began to blow again, lifting his foot high and bringing it down slowly when he hit the difficult notes. It was “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”—recognizable, but not always faithful.

  “Where’d you learn that?” I asked when he had finished.

  “Yank sowljer I bought the horn from taught it to me,” he said, bending down to light a Sterno stove, on which he was boiling water for tea. It was now too dark to visit the river.

  “But that’s an American song, you know.”

  “Bleddy well right. There’s some things you Yanks can do. Now, there’s a tune I like. On my oath, I’d say it’s real American, too. That’s the kind of thing I like about America. You can have your New York, Yank. Say,” he paused hopefully, “you’re not from Texas, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “New Jersey.”

  “Oh,” he sighed, and busied himself fixing tea.

  “Are you going to be with us long?” I asked.

  Digger shrugged. “Indefinitely.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  He winked. “Secret, Yank—top secret.”

  “How d’ya mean?”


  “I mean secret, me lad. I can’t tell you, that’s all. Somebody back in Australia tells me to pop off and join up with the bleddy Marines and here I am. Tea, Yank?”

  I accepted and said, “But what about your native boys?”

  “They’re with me, that’s all. I’m just attached to you blokes from here on, for better or for worse—and I’m hoping it’s for better. I don’t mind telling you, Yank, I’d feel a lot easier if I was with me own. You can’t top the A.I.F.!”

  “Like hell you can’t! We’ll top the Aussies any day. Ask the Japs how they rate the enemy. They rate us the toughest in the world, and after us the American soldier—and then the Australians!”

  “Where’d you hear that?” he growled.

  “I didn’t hear it. I read it! I read it in one of your bloody own papers.”

  “Go on! You’re daft! You’re a bunch of schoolboys alongside the A.I.F.” He glared at me and prepared to refill the white mugs he used for teacups. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said, carefully sloshing the hot beverage from the billy-can. “I don’t say you can’t fight. I just say you’ve got a long way to go to come up with the A.I.F.” He returned to his cot and raised his cup. “Here’s to the American forces.” We sipped, and then he added, “And thank God for the A.I.F.”

  We shoved off a week later. The Digger’s “somebody back in Australia” had given him little time to join us. We were notified to stand by the day after the Digger’s arrival.

  We slung our weapons, slipped into our packs and strode down that dusty road to the harbor. It was choked with L.S.T.’s, and many of them were drawn up on the beach, their ramps down and their jaws yawning while troops, vehicles and guns walked, rode and bumped into their dark and spacious bellies.

  We entered our ship. The ramp came up behind us, the jaws creaked shut, and we sailed away.

  2

  Rain.

  The rain had come. Finschhafen on the southeast coast of northeast New Guinea received us in a wet and dripping embrace.

  Once again we unsheathed our machetes to hack out living space in the sodden jungle.