In Every Clime and Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

raving terror, I didn’t freeze up. I kept my head, remembered my combat drills and survived. Now, whenever I feel doubt, I look at the machete and tell myself nothing can be worse than that.
    In everyone’s life, there is a moment of truth. Once you get past that, everything is easy. Mine came in a vicious close-quarters brawl in central Africa. I wondered about my Marines. What was the hump O’Rourke had to get over? What about Sabatini? Had Johnson even been there yet?
    I knew my two veterans pretty well, but this wasn’t the kind of thing we talked about. We swapped more stories of adventures we had on leave than on duty. If we told war stories at all, they were abbreviated. Like the sentence I handed Johnson about my machete. You never want to mention your fears and doubts to your buddies. I didn’t want my team to know how much killing that bastard in Africa bothered me. They might wonder if I would hesitate if it came down to steel again. I knew I wouldn’t. I got cold sweats when I thought of the awful strangled noise he made, and the pleading and despair in his eyes as he realized he was going to die, but if I had to cut a man’s throat to save a brother Marine, I would do it in a heartbeat and worry about the nightmares later.
    I trusted my life to my teammates. I didn’t want to know if they had doubts.
    If they did, they handled them well enough. They were as calm and professional as could be expected on the ride to the asteroid. I knew the signs of nervousness. O’Rourke stopped grumbling and followed orders instantly. Sabatini was smiling, but was too distracted for flirting or double entendres. Johnson kept his face blank, but his eyes kept flicking between us, looking for reassurance. If we didn’t look nervous, he probably thought he didn’t need to be, either.
    That was another reason we played the fearless leatherneck. New Marines like Johnson felt brave by association.
    Cpl Chan led the other fire team in our squad. At one time, each squad had three teams, but three-team squads were too big for the new armored personnel carriers we used Earthside. Rather than redesign the damn vehicle, the Pentagon, in its wisdom, changed the size of the squad, giving tactical concerns a backseat to logistics. Or maybe the plant that built them was in a district of some Congressman whose vote the President needed.
    In addition to the three squads, the platoon was accompanied by a Navy hospital corpsman. To remain inconspicuous, they dressed exactly like we did and carried ACRs along with their big med kits. They might be Navy, but they ate the same dirt and dodged the same bullets we did; they were accepted into the band of brothers. Ours was a curvy little blonde called Doc Roy. Being of French Canadian ancestry, she pronounced it “Roo-Ah.” Very cute, but also very attached. Oh well.
    She caught my eye.
    “Hey Mick?”
    “Yo!”
    “You think this is gonna be a rough one?” Not being a Marine, she could openly fish for reassurance.
    “Hell, the frigging quartermaster’s lugging his ass along. How dangerous could it be?”
    Chief Petty Officer Kelly smiled at my comment. He oversaw the ship’s supplies, and had decided to tag along. He’d probably figured there would be terrific opportunities for larceny on this mission. He was the perfect supply NCO: a born thief. If we were short of anything and couldn’t get it through regular channels, we talked to Kelly, and it would appear by some kind of black magic. Sometimes he charged a bit steep, but he was a good guy for a squid. We figured that he and Staff Sergeant DeMers, our company supply sergeant back on the Halsey— the HQ for Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines—probably cleared more in a year than the Secretary of the Navy.
    I looked at the watch on the inside of my left wrist. “Any minute now.”
    Lt Mitchell gave Gunny Taylor a curt nod. The tall, lean gunnery sergeant stepped into the middle of the craft, effortlessly maintaining his