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Across the aisle, Sergeant Owen Justin of Amesbury, Mass., 28, began to reminisce. "It was at San Diego they gave us our beer patches. You know what beer patches are? They're the Guadalcanal insignia that go on our sleeves. They're always good for a free beer."
The train stopped at small stations:
Wawasee and Garrett, Ind.
None in the train were heroes to themselves, or to each other. But all knew what everyone had done. The marines pointed out Sergeant Al Goguen, onetime cab driver, holder of the Silver Star, unofficially credited with killing 700 Japs on two successive nights. But Al said: "Everybody tries to snow the folks. I had two machine guns, and I grabbed the guns a couple of times when my gunner got shot, until the assistant gunner came up. But that was my job. . . . Those figures? God, I don't know how many Japs we got. Everybody tries to snow the folks, give them a line. . . ."
The train pounded into Ohio, and the rolling country with the sun glinting on the stacked bales of hay reminded the marines of Australia. They had loved Australia, even though most of the time they were recuperating from malaria. "I'll never forget the head night nurse in the Adelaide Hospital. . . ."
The silence came back. Suddenly two marines began to wrestle, to break the monotony, to relieve the strange embarrassment of coming home. The car jeered:
"Na-a-h, Commandos!" From the rear, snatches of song floated forward: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Someone's in the kitchen I know—oh-oh, Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Strummin' on the old banjo. . . .*
The Girls. When the train stopped at Deshler, Private Beaulieu jumped outside to snatch some ice off a wagon near the train. "Boy, what we would have given for a piece of ice on Guadalcanal!" Down the platform strutted a good-looking blonde. The marines watched, listening to the tapping of her high heels.
It began to rain. The train was hot and sticky. The blue-eyed private said: "One of the fellow's girl got married and she wrote to him asking for her picture. He got all the boys to give him pictures of their girls, and he collected some others.
Altogether, he had a stack a foot high—pictures of Australian girls, native women with nothing above the waist, movie actresses, pin-up girls. He sent this whole stack to his girl with a note: 'I don't remember exactly who you are, but if your picture is among these, please pick it out and send the rest back to me.' '' The men moved to the diner.
"Hey Joe, you going to get married?"
"Hell no, I'm going to play the field."
Again, the Silent. Two hours before Pittsburgh, a Sun-Telegraph reporter boarded the train, begging the heroes for heroic tales. Two hours later he left, mumbling: "I didn't get a thing."
At Pittsburgh the American Legionnaires and the members of the Mayor's committee, with little COMMITTEE ribbons stuck in their lapels, stood about uneasily as marines from Pennsylvania spilled off the train. Also at the station, in snappy summer khaki, was Lieut. Mitchell Paige, the 1st Division's famed Congressional Medal winner, who had come home three weeks earlier. The marines spied Paige and formed a circle around him.