“Once they hit — straighten out those lines! — equalize those intervals! Drop what you’re doing and do it! Twelve seconds. Then advance by leapfrog, odd and even, assistant section leaders minding the count and guiding the envelopment.” He looked at me. “If you’ve done this properly — which I doubt — the flanks will make contact as recall sounds… at which time, home you go. Any questions?”
There weren’t any; there never were. He went on, “One more word — This is just a raid, not a battle. It’s a demonstration of firepower and frightfulness. Our mission is to let the enemy know that we could have destroyed their city — but didn’t — but that they aren’t safe even though we refrain from total bombing. You’ll take no prisoners. You’ll kill only when you can’t help it. But the entire area we hit is to be smashed. I don’t want to see any of you loafers back aboard here with unexpended bombs. Get me?” He glanced at the time. “Rasczak’s Roughnecks have got a reputation to uphold. The Lieutenant told me before he bought it to tell you that he will always have his eye on you every minute… and that he expects your names to shine!”
Jelly glanced over at Sergeant Migliaccio, first section leader. “Five minutes for the Padre,” he stated. Some of the boys dropped out of ranks, went over and knelt in front of Migliaccio, and not necessarily those of his creed, either — Moslems, Christians, Gnostics, Jews, whoever wanted a word with him before a drop, he was there. I’ve heard tell that there used to be military outfits whose chaplains did not fight alongside the others, but I’ve never been able to see how that could work. I mean, how can a chaplain bless anything he’s not willing to do himself? In any case, in the Mobile Infantry, everybody drops and everybody fights chaplain and cook and the Old Man’s writer. Once we went down the tube there wouldn’t be a Roughneck left aboard — except Jenkins, of course, and that not his fault.
I didn’t go over. I was always afraid somebody would see me shake if I did, and, anyhow, the Padre could bless me just as handily from where he was. But he came over to me as the last stragglers stood up and pressed his helmet against mine to speak privately. “Johnnie,” he said quietly, “this is your first drop as a non-com.”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t really a non-com, any more than Jelly was really an officer.
“Just this, Johnnie. Don’t buy a farm. You know your job; do it. Just do it. Don’t try to win a medal.”
“Uh, thanks, Padre. I shan’t.”
He added something gently in a language I don’t know, patted me on the shoulder, and hurried back to his section. Jelly called out, “Tennshut!” and we all snapped to.
“Platoon!”
“Section!” Migliaccio and Johnson echoed.
“By sections-port and starboard-prepare for drop!”
“Section! Man your capsules! Move!”
“Squad!” — I had to wait while squads four and five manned their capsules and moved on down the firing tube before my capsule showed up on the port track and I could climb into it. I wondered if those old-timers got the shakes as they climbed into the Trojan Horse? Or was it just me? Jelly checked each man as he was sealed in and he sealed me in himself. As he did so, he leaned toward me and said, “Don’t goof off, Johnnie. This is just like a drill.”
The top closed on me and I was alone. “Just like a drill,” he says! I began to shake uncontrollably.
Then, in my earphones, I heard Jelly from the center-line tube: “Bridge! Rasczak’s Roughnecksready for drop!”
“Seventeen seconds, Lieutenant!” I heard the ship captain’s cheerful contralto replying — and resented her calling Jelly “Lieutenant.” To be sure, our lieutenant was dead and maybe Jelly would get his commissionbut we were still “Rasczak’s Roughnecks.”
She added, “Good luck, boys!”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“Brace yourselves! Five seconds.”
I was strapped all over-belly, forehead, shins. But I shook worse than ever.
It’s better after you unload. Until you do, you sit there in total darkness, wrapped like a mummy against the accelerations, barely able to breathe — and knowing that there is just nitrogen around you in the capsule even if you could get your helmet open, which you can’t — and knowing that the capsule is surrounded by the firing tube anyhow and if the ship gets hit before they fire you, you haven’t got a prayer, you’ll just die there, unable to move, helpless. It’s that endless wait in the dark that causes the shakes — thinking that they’ve forgotten youthe ship has been hulled and stayed in orbit, dead, and soon you’ll buy it, too, unable to move, choking. Or it’s a crash orbit and you’ll buy it that way, if you don’t roast on the way down.