@@@@@They were 37s, small guns about six feet 498
@@@@@They were 37s, small guns about six feet long with very slender barrelsOne man could pull one gun without too much difficulty over level hard ground
"We're going along with antitank up to First Battalion," Croft said"We got to pull two of them guns
Croft told them to gather around him"I don't know how muddy the damn trail is going to be," he began, "but it ain't too hard to guessWe're going to be in the middle of the column, so I'm going to cut us into three groups of three men each, and they'll be one group restin' all the timeI'll take Wilson and Gallagher, and Martinez can take Valsen and Ridges, and Toglio, you got what's left -- Goldstein and WymanWe're scrapin' the barrel," he added dryly
He went up to talk to an officer for a few secondsWhen he came back, he said, "We'll let Toglio's group have the first rest He got behind one of the guns and gave it a tug"The sonofabitch is going to be heavy Wilson and Gallagher started pulling it with him, and the other platoon, which had already divided into a few men on each gun, began to move outThey tugged the guns across the bivouac area, and passed through a gap in the barbed wire where there was a machine gun emplacement"Have a good time, men," the man at the machine gun said
"Blow it out," Gallagher answeredThe gun was beginning to drag on his arms already
There were about fifty men in the column, and they moved very slowly down a narrow trail through the jungleAfter they had moved a hundred feet, they were no longer able to see the men in front of themThe branches of the trees on either side of the trail joined overhead, and they felt as though they were groping through an endless tunnelTheir feet sank into the deep mud and, after a few yards, their boots were covered with great slabs of muckThe men on the guns would lunge forward for a few feet and then halt, lunge forward and haltEvery ten yards a gun would bog down and the three men assigned to it would have to tug until their strength seeped from their fingersThey would wrestle the gun out of its rut and plunge it forward for fifteen feet before their momentum was los
