Chapter 1
Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light
the glimmering haze squatting on its moist gray haunches and
guarding the waters with a battleship resting across its knees,
searching in diminishing circles until it challenges its own eyes?
The transport heaves at anchor and you sit on deck
with your combat pack harnessed, your rifle cleaned and ready
and your steel helmet claiming identity with those surrounding you —
assigned to its proper cluster in a field of mushrooms.
The stars that had pinned up the curtain of darkness
are beginning to loosen and fall spinning into the sea,
and there are sucking waves and there are creaking hawsers
and the smell of sweat and gun oil and leather
and clothes in which men have tried to capture sleep.
You lounge with intense casualness, waiting for the company commander
to emerge from the wardroom where lights burned all night
and low voices had planned and exhorted and said Amen.
It's all finished now; the briefing, the study of maps,
the review of reconnaissance reports from the various landing beaches,
the forecasts as to the probable condition of the surf,
the distribution of air photos showing high and low tide views,
the marking of passages and points navigable by small craft,
the calculation of wind direction for laying down smoke screens,
the division into boat groups, the arrangement of assault schedules,
the elaborate checking and tabulation of supply and control facilities
and the selection of suitable assembly points in forward areas.
Unit meetings were held and innumerable small conferences took place.
Excitement transmitted itself from man to man in little shocks
and all during the early hours rumors were snatched at
and fierce arguments over nothing in particular rose and subsided.
Then came the last quiet waiting, and chill, fluttering wisps
of hushed tension smothered your gaping senses. This is it. . .
Now the door opens and Captain MacDonald spills the light
and dams it up quickly and steps to the deck.
He peers at his wrist and says, "All right, men,
twenty-five seconds to hell!" Then he gives a redheaded grin
and plucks the twin silver bars from his jungle-suited shoulders,
stuffing them in a pocket. "Listen, fellows — from now on
just call me Mac. And I'll court martial any guy
who throws me a salute when the Japs are looking."
His arm lifts. "Twenty!". . .Time was inducted into the Army,
relinquishing, as a matter of course, its nonessential civilian occupation.
It was processed at the reception center of duration plus,
examined as to elapsing periods or temporal defects of posteriority
and outfitted with G.I. clothing and equipment in chronological order.
"Fifteen!". . .Time was insured into perpetuity against its ultimate stoppage,
housed and cared for in continuity at per diem rates
and fed a scientifically balanced diet of years and months
with weeks, days, hours and minutes served as supplementary nutrients
on the understanding that seconds were readily obtainable on request.
"Ten!". . .Time trained in accordance with War Department circular 187
which states that after any similarity it may have had
to its past, present or future is rendered purely coincidental,
it shall be promoted in rank and authorized to wear
the uniform recognized as denoting 24 hours instead of 12.
"Five!". . .So Time now expresses itself from midnight to midnight
in groups of four digits ranging from 0001 to 2400,
and is to be so designated on all dispatches, orders,
reports, messages and bulletins pertaining to operations in the field.
"Get set, men." The captain's arm drops. "0600. Let's go!"
Would there be armies if clocks had never been invented?
