W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

"Might as well," McCoy said, and exchanged clips and resumed firing.

When they had finished, and McCoy had issued the formal commands to clear all weapons and leave the firing line, they handed the carbines to the sergeant and walked to the targets at the one-hundred-yard line.

There were twenty holes in each target. Zimmerman's were scattered around the bull's-eye, and McCoy's were at the lower left of the target. What counted, however, was not the location of the holes, but the size of the group. Sight adjustment would move the group.

"Piece of shit," Zimmerman said, disgustedly, reaching up and laying his extended hand with the thumb on one hole and the little finger on another. "That's eight fucking inches, for Christ sake, at a hundred yards."

"Some of them were fliers," McCoy said. "And some were from a fouled barrel, and the triggers are stiff because they're new."

"Bullshit, McCoy," Zimmerman said. "It's a piece of shit, and you know it."

"Get some rounds through them," McCoy insisted. "Let the sears wear in a little and you can cut those groups in half."

"Down to five inches?" Zimmerman said, sarcastically.

"Ernie, this thing is not supposed to be a rifle. It's to replace the pistol," McCoy said. "I don't know about you, but I can't put ten rounds from a forty-five into five inches at a hundred yards rapid fire."

Zimmerman looked at him.

"I'm not sure I could do it with a Thompson, either," McCoy insisted. "This thing fires fifteen rounds, and with the recoil, you're right back on the target as fast as you call pull the trigger. It's not a piece of shit, Ernie."

"Well, maybe to replace the pistol," Zimmerman grudgingly agreed.

"That's what it's for," McCoy said.

"Here they come," Zimmerman said, jerking his head toward the firing line.

A column of men, four abreast and fifty deep, was double-timing up the range road. They were in dungarees and wearing field gear, except for rifles and helmets. It was Company B, 2nd Ranger Battalion, which McCoy expected. But he had not expected it to be led by the company commander, or to be accompanied by its officers. He thought the Baker Company gunny would probably bring them out.

"Issue and familiarization firing of the US Carbine, Caliber.30, Ml, 16 Hours," as the training schedule called it, was really the gunny's business; but the Old Man was at the head of the column, and all the other officers except the executive officer were in the column behind him.

Zimmerman reached up, worked his fingers under the target, and jerked it free of the target cloth.

"What did you do that for?"

"I don't want anybody to see me all over a hundred-yard target that way," Zimmerman said, as he balled the target up in his hands.

McCoy laughed, and then started trotting to the firing line so he would be there when the column double-timed up.

Captain Coyte turned the company over to the gunny, and walked toward McCoy.

McCoy saluted.

"Good morning, sir," he said. "I didn't expect to see the captain out here."

"I've never seen a carbine," Captain Coyte said. "Just include me in, Killer. It's your show."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

"I thought I heard firing," Captain Coyte said.

"Yes, sir, Gunny Zimmerman and I test-fired two of them."

"Is that a couple of them on the table?" Coyte asked, nodding toward one of the four rough wooden tables behind the firing line. Without waiting for an answer, he walked toward the table, gesturing to the other officers to join him.

When he got to the table, he picked up one of the carbines, looked into the open action to confirm that it was not loaded, and then released the operating rod, threw it to his shoulder, drew a bead on the one target remaining, and dry snapped it. He tried, and failed, to get the bolt to remain open, and then looked at McCoy for help.

"There's a little pin on the rear operating-rod lever, Captain," McCoy explained. "Hold it back, push the pin in."

Captain Coyte succeeded in keeping the action open.

"I suppose this is the wrong word to use on a weapon," he said. "But it's kind of cute, isn't it?"

"If you think of it as a replacement for the pistol, sir," McCoy said, "it's not bad."

"Accuracy?"

"We managed to get ten shots into about eight inches at one hundred yards," McCoy said.

Captain Coyte's eyebrows went up. "There are a couple of reasons that might have happened," he said.

"I think, from a clear bore, with maybe a hundred or two hundred rounds to smooth it up, we can tighten those groups, sir."

"If you could cut them in half, that would still give you four inches," Captain Coyte said thoughtfully. "I now understand, I think, your reference to thinking of it as a replacement for the pistol."

"Captain, why don't you let me put up some targets and let you and the other officers fire?" McCoy asked. "The way I had planned to run this was to have the then clean their pieces-"

Coyte looked around. "McCoy, it's your range, and your class," he said. "If that could be done without fouling up your schedule…"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then," Captain Coyte said, "in the interest of efficiency, not because I dare think that rank has its privileges, let's do it, Killer."

There was a smile in his eyes, and McCoy knew that he was mocking Colonel Carlson's "no special privileges" philosophy. He was surprised that a captain would mock the battalion

commander, but especially that he would do so for the amusement of the junior second lieutenant in his company.

It took no more than fifteen minutes for McCoy to paste the holes in his target and then to give Captain Coyte enough quick instruction to understand what he was doing, and for Coyte to fire twenty rounds at the target.

By the time they were finished, Baker Company's gunny had broken the company down into four groups, and one group was gathered around each of the tables. At the first table, Zimmerman was demonstrating to a group of NCOs the disassembly technique on one of the two carbines they had cleaned with gasoline. The idea was that the NCOs would then go to the other tables and try disassembling the partially cleaned weapons themselves.

The system McCoy had dreamed up out of his head, and then modified after suggestions from Zimmerman, seemed to be working. The bottleneck was going to be getting the carbines free of Cosmoline, but nothing could be done about that. The safety precautions were in place. There would be inspections by platoon sergeants of weapons before they were shown to the gunnys, and finally Zimmerman would inspect them himself.

He saw that Zimmerman had also just about selected the armorer for the carbines. One of the kids. He had seen him mixing paste and pasting targets.

McCoy glanced at the tables and the faces. They were mostly kids, he thought, some of them as young as seventeen. And some he suspected were seventeen using somebody else's birth certificate.

And then he did a quick double take. There was a familiar face at the next-to-the-last table. At first it seemed incredible, but then there was no question about it at all. One of the Raiders struggling to get a good look at a sergeant taking a carbine to pieces was Tommy. Thomas Michael McCoy. PFC Thomas Michael McCoy, USMC, was Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy's little brother.

Younger brother, McCoy thought. The sonofabitch is even bigger than I remembered. And meaner looking.

"You look stunned, McCoy," Captain Coyte said. "Was my marksmanship that bad?" McCoy was startled, and it showed on his face when he looked up at Coyte.

"McCoy?"

"Sir, I just spotted my kid brother. The PFC with the broken nose, by Table Three?"

"I saw the similarity in name when he reported in," he said. "He reported in from Pearl. They must have lost his records, for he has a brand-new service record."