W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

"It's pitted," he announced.

"We've been a little short on bore cleaner around here, Mr. McCoy," Ev-erly said.

McCoy examined the bolt.

"What have you been oiling these with, coconut oil?"

"Motor oil," Everly said.

"They're all like this?"

Everly nodded.

"That's it, unless you want to try doing this with a carbine."

"No. We've got to try for headshots, and I don't want to try headshots with a carbine," McCoy said. "I can't believe we didn't think to bring bore cleaner and oil with us."

Everly shrugged, and then McCoy had a second thought.

"But there's something," he said. "You see that thing that holds the sling in the carbine stock? It's an oiler."

"No shit?" Everly asked, impressed.

"Give me that," McCoy said, pointing to a carbine. Gunny Zimmerman handed it to him. McCoy loosened the web sling where it passed through a slot in the stock and took out a two-inch-round metal tube. He unscrewed the top and pulled it off. A metal rod, flattened at the end, was attached to the top. A drop of light-brown oil dropped off.

"Lube oil," he announced.

"I'll be damned," Everly said, impressed.

"Let's get the motor oil, or whatever the hell this gunk is, off the bolts," McCoy said. "And at least lube them right."

With a practiced skill, he began to disassemble the bolt. He looked up and saw the others watching him-Lieutenant Chambers Lewis, USN; Captain Robert B. Macklin, USMC; Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, USMC; two for-mer 4th Marines PFCs (now 2nd Lieutenants, USFIP), Oscar Wendlington and Charles O. Pierce; First Lieutenant Claudio Alvarez, late of the Philippine Scouts; and Master Sergeant Fernando Lamar, late of the 26th Cavalry.

"This isn't a goddamn demonstration," he said. "You know how to take a bolt apart. Or should."

The others turned to the other Springfields and began to remove their bolts. They had three battered, intended-for-weapons-cleaning toothbrushes between them-McCoy's, Zimmerman's, and Everly's-and in a few minutes the bolts had been cleaned of the thickened motor oil and lubricated with a thin coat of the finer gun oil from the carbine oiler.

Zimmerman was finished first. He replaced the bolt in his Springfield and worked the action a half-dozen times, finally nodding with satisfaction.

"Ernie, pace off a hundred yards," McCoy ordered. "We'll zero for two hundred yards. We should be shooting at anywhere from fifty to a hundred fifty yards. Trajectory will be pretty flat with two-hundred-yard Zero."

Zimmerman marched off toward the end of the clearing, found a suitable tree, and then marched back toward them, one hundred measured three-foot paces.

McCoy drew a one-inch circle in the center of a piece of typewriter paper with a grease pencil, and then filled in the center.

"Now let's see if these things will shoot into eight inches at a hundred yards," he said.

"We have sixty-eight rounds, period," Everly said, then took from a mu-sette bag four gray cheap cardboard boxes labeled ORDNANCE CORPS U.S. ARMY. TWENTY CARTRIDGES CALIBER.30-06 ARMOR PIERCING and laid them carefully on the ground. They showed signs they'd been wet; the cardboard had shrunk when it dried, and the outline of the cartridges they contained was clearly visible. McCoy picked up one of the boxes, the one that was not full.

He took a black-tipped cartridge from the box and examined it. On the base it was stamped fa 1918.

"Frankford Arsenal, 1918," he announced. "Jesus Christ! They're as old as I am! What makes you think these will fire? They've been water-soaked, God knows how many times."

"There's shellac over the primers," Everly said. "Most of them work fine."

" 'Most of them,' " McCoy said, and then turned to Captain Macklin. "Make some more targets," he said, handing him the grease pencil.

Then he took the target, walked to the tree Zimmerman had selected, and stood for a moment frustrated. Then he took the knife strapped to his left wrist from its sheath and used it to pin the target to the tree.

Then he walked back to the line in the dirt Zimmerman had drawn with the toe of his boondockers and sat down. He unfastened the frogs of the leather sling on his rifle and converted it to a rifleman's sling. He adjusted the sling, twice, until he was satisfied, and then rolled onto his stomach.

By this time, the others had walked up to him. He took three cartridges, loaded them into the magazine, and rammed one into the chamber with the bolt.

He took a long time finding the proper sight picture before touching off the first round. Then he chambered another round, fired, and repeated the process a third time.

"Well, at least they all went off," he said as he rose to his feet and went to the target-removing the sling as he walked. A half-inch above the black circle and two inches to the right of it were three holes in the target. He was able to conceal them with his thumbs held together.

"Not bad," he said.

"You going to fuck with the sights?" Zimmerman asked. "Or do it Ken-tucky?"

"I don't have two inches to play with, Ernie," McCoy said, and sat down and adjusted the rear sight so that it would move bullet impact two inches to the left.

Then he went back to the firing line, dropped back in the prone position, replaced the sling, and loaded three more cartridges into the magazine. It took him as long as the first time to find what he thought was a satisfactory sight picture, and then he squeezed one off.

This time, the result was only a dull click as the firing pin moved forward against the cartridges' primer.

"Shit," McCoy said bitterly. "And I fired the worst-looking ones first."

He angrily worked the action, ejecting the malfunctioning cartridge. He looked at it in disgust. There was a clear mark where the firing pin had struck the primer. He started to throw it away in anger.

"Don't," Everly said. "We can use the bullet!"

McCoy looked up at him and tossed him the malfunctioning cartridge. Then he rolled back into the prone position, found a satisfactory sight picture, and squeezed the trigger. The cartridge fired, and so a moment later did the third.

He stood up and walked back to the target. Now there were two holes, which he could cover with one thumb, in the grease pencil bull's-eye.

"OK," he said. "Now you, Ernie."

McCoy jerked his knife from the tree.

"How am I supposed to put my target up?" Zimmerman protested.

"You'll think of something," McCoy said. "You're a gunny, right?"

"I'm not going to shoot your fucking knife," Zimmerman said.

"You'll think of something," McCoy repeated.

Zimmerman affixed his target to the tree with a chrome-plated toenail clip-per, then walked back to the firing line.

By the time the four marksmen-McCoy, Zimmerman, Wendlington, and Alvarez-had zeroed their rifles, the total stock of cartridges caliber.30-06 armor piercing available to USFIP was down to thirty-six. Eight cartridges had misfired.

McCoy did the mental arithmetic-eight failures in thirty-two shots was one in four, twenty-five percent-but said nothing. He was sure the others could count too.

[SEVEN]

Headquarters, U.S. Forces in the Philippines

Davao Oriental Province

Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines

0815 Hours 27 January 1943

"We won't have time to talk this all through again when we get down to the highway," Captain McCoy said, "so this will be the last time. If there's any question, if anybody doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do, now is the time to ask, not later. So listen up."

McCoy was sitting on-or more accurately, leaning against-the ladder-like stairs to the bachelor officers' thatched hut on stilts. The others, again wearing their dyed-black utilities, were sitting on the ground in a half-circle facing him. Wendlington, Pierce, and the two Filipinos were wearing the spare sets of utilities the landing team had carried with them.