by Len Levinson
Lieutenant Karuma held his hands behind his back and paced back and forth like a tiger in a cage, feeling angry and frustrated, almost wishing that something would happen so that he could take action.
“I know there are Americans around here,” he muttered. “I can smell them.”
Shortly before midnight Butsko and his men came within attack range of the ammo dump. They knelt in the bushes and Butsko studied it through his binoculars. The light was poor, but he could see the mouth of the cave piled high with sandbags except for an opening the size of a door, where soldiers could pass in and out easily. Evidently the Japs wanted to protect the ammo dump from bombs, but they never dreamed a squad of American soldiers would try to assault it.
Butsko lowered his binoculars. “Okay,” he said, “this is the way it's going to be. Stevenson will stay here, and the rest of us will get as close to the cave as we can. Then Bannon will go forward and lob a hand grenade over the sandbags. The explosion will be the signal to attack. Stevenson will shoot out the lights down there, and the rest of us will charge the cave with grenades. We'll throw them all inside, and after they go off we storm the cave. We'll go in there with all guns firing, and for Chrissakes make sure you don't shoot me or any of our own people. I don't know how many Japs are up there, but I don't think there's many. After we wipe them out we set the charges and get the fuck out of there. Any questions?”
Nobody said anything.
“Let's go,” Butsko said.
Hotshot Stevenson crawled through the brush, looking for a good spot for sharpshooting, while the others headed toward the mouth of the cave. He found a place that had a clear view of the camp below and was shielded by the wide trunk of a tree. Kneeling behind the tree, he took off his pack and removed his special Gl-issue sunglasses. Then he lay on his belly, wrapped the rifle strap around his arm for steadiness, put on the sunglasses, and took aim at the nearest light bulb.
The light seared his eyeballs even with the sunglasses, but he was able to draw a clear bead on it. Lowering the rifle, he adjusted the sights for three hundred yards and zero windage, because not even the faintest breeze was blowing. He raised the M 1 to his shoulder again and took aim. His arm and hands were steady and he saw no problems. He lowered the rifle again, made sure the clip of ammo was in tight, and waited for the signal to start firing.
Meanwhile Butsko and the others were crawling toward the mouth of the cave. -As they drew closer they could see four guards sitting on the ground in front of the sandbags, talking with each other, not being very vigilant. Butsko motioned for his men to gather around.
“Change of plans,” Butsko said. “I didn't see those Japs up there before. We'll crawl as close as we can, and when I give the signal we'll grenade them. Then we'll charge up there, finish them off, and throw our grenades inside the cave. Everybody understand that?”
The men nodded.
“Let's go.”
They crept forward slowly, gritting their teeth and making every effort to be silent. Gradually they closed the distance between them and the cave. They could hear the voices of the soldiers outside who were smoking cigarettes and joking around.
Bannon picked twigs out of his path and threw them to the side, so they wouldn't crackle as he passed over them. Carefully he pushed branches away and then let them return easily to their original position. He raised most of his weight off the ground and traveled on his hands, knees, and toes. A huge insect buzzed round his head, and he tried to pay no attention to it.
Then an insect landed on his neck. It was a big nasty wasp. Bannon moved his hand to brush it away, and the wasp became frightened. The wasp did the only thing it knew how to do: it sank its long stinger into Bannon's soft flesh.
Bannon's eyes rolled into his head and he bit his lower lip so he wouldn't scream. The pain was so intense he thought he'd faint. He smashed the wasp with the palm of his hand, and it became gunky and crinkly, but the sting stayed inside his flesh and hurt like hell. There was nothing he could do about it. He had to go on.
He continued crawling along the ground and felt as if someone had rammed a bayonet into the back of his head. Butsko held up his hand and everybody stopped. Butsko yanked a hand grenade from his lapel and pulled the pin. Bannon and the others did the same thing. They looked ahead at the Japanese guards, who now were no more than twenty yards away across an open stretch of ground. The GIs were at the edge of the jungle, hiding behind leaves and branches. Bannon's head throbbed painfully. Of all the fucking times to get stung by a wasp!
Butsko drew back his arm and glanced to his left and right. Bannon and the others also prepared to throw their grenades. When Butsko saw all of them were ready, he turned and looked again at the Japanese guards at the mouth of the cave, took a deep breath, and heaved his hand grenade.
The others let their hand grenades fly a split second later, and the little black pineapples sailed through the air. The Japanese soldiers continued talking and messing around and then suddenly snapped to when they heard the grenades drop onto the ground all around them. One of the grenades landed on a Jap's shoulder and bounced off.
The Japs were taken completely by surprise. At first they didn't know what was happening, and then, when they realized live grenades were lying on the ground all around them, they became horrified. It took a few seconds for full awareness of the situation to sink in, and then the grenades exploded with a concatenation of mighty roars.
The side of the mountain became alit with a reddish-orange flash, and the Japanese guards were blown to bloody bits. The explosion echoed across the valley and Butsko jumped to his feet, holding his submachine gun in both hands, charging toward the mouth of the cave.
“Hit it!”
The others followed him, some on his left and some on his right. Bannon was so excited he couldn't even feel the stinger in his neck. He held the butt of his submachine gun tightly to his hip and pulled the trigger, spraying bullets around the mangled torsos of the dead Japs, while bullets from the other machine guns flew through the air also, making a deadly hail in front of the bunker.
A Jap raised his head behind the sandbags, and Butsko hit him in the face with a burst of .45-caliber bullets. Another Jap looked up to see what was going on and Frankie La Barbara splattered his skull like a rotten watermelon. The GIs charged the mouth of the cave, firing every step of the way.
“Get down!” Butsko screamed.
The soldiers dived to the ground and tore hand grenades from their lapels. They pulled the pins, hurled the grenades into the cave, and then got low to the ground, their hearts beating wildly.
Barrrrooooommmmm!
The grenades detonated and smoke poured out of the mouth of the cave. The force of the explosion knocked over sandbags and nearly obliterated the Japanese guards who were inside the cave.
“Over the top!” Butsko yelled.
The men jumped to their feet and rushed toward the mouth of the cave. They could hear Japanese soldiers shouting hysterically deep inside it. Bannon and Frankie La Barbara charged the doorlike opening, and the others leaped over the mangled sandbags.
Meanwhile, fifty yards away, Hotshot Stevenson lay with his M 1 braced against his shoulder. He'd just heard the first grenade blast and was aiming at one of the big electric lights on the top of a pole. He took a deep breath, held the rifle steady, and squeezed the trigger.
Blam!
The light went out and that part of the camp was plunged into darkness. Hotshot moved his rifle a few inches to the left, lined up the sights on another light bulb, and squeezed the trigger.
Blam!
The light bulb shattered and darkness descended on that part of the camp. Hotshot swung the rifle to the left and noticed a figure run out of the main building in the camp, the building Butsko thought was the camp headquarters. Hotshot was under orders only to shoot out the lights, but that Jap down there might be an officer, and Hotshot didn't like officers. He steadied the sights on the officer and saw that he was a stout man, puzzleme
nt on his face, looking to his left, where more explosions were taking place in the cave. Hotshot lined his sights up on him.
Blam!
The officer clutched his chest, faltered, and fell to the ground. Hotshot smiled as he moved his rifle to the right and aimed at the third light.
Lieutenant Karuma was pacing back and forth in his hut, worrying and gnashing his teeth, when the first explosions went off. He jumped two feet in the air. In an instant he realized that all his worst paranoid fantasies were coming true.
“What's going on?” he screamed. “Who's there?”
He grabbed his helmet, slammed it on his head, pulled his samurai sword out of his scabbard, and ran out the front door. He jumped down the stoop and landed on the ground just as another light was shot out over the camp.
“Take cover!” Lieutenant Karuma yelled. “We're under attack!”
Lieutenant Karuma crouched low, narrowed his eyes, and tried to see where the main American effort was coming from. His eyes fell on a crumpled body in front of Major Uchida's hut. No, thought Lieutenant Karuma. It can't be. Waving his sword in the air, he ran toward the body, and when he was halfway there he heard a rifle shot far in the distance, and simultaneously the last floodlight went out, making the encampment dark except for lights in the windows of the barracks.
“All lights out! Form skirmish lines! Prepare for attack!”
Lieutenant Karuma reached the body of Major Uchida and bent over him. Major Uchida lay still on his stomach in a widening pool of blood. Lieutenant Karuma turned him over onto his back and saw Major Uchida's shirt soaked with blood. Major Uchida's eyes were wide open and staring, and blood trickled out the corner of his mouth. Lieutenant Karuma felt his pulse; there wasn't even a little quiver.
Lieutenant Karuma's head was spinning. Everything was happening too fast and he had no one to tell him what to do. Then it dawned on him that with Major Uchida dead he had become commanding officer of the outpost. Lieutenant Karuma tried to focus his thoughts and take appropriate action. He looked around and saw his men pouring out of their barracks, forming skirmish lines, as he'd ordered. But where were the Americans? He heard automatic weapons fire and explosions echoing across the valley, but didn't know where the trouble was coming from.
It was too dark for him to see the smoke billowing out of the ammunition dump, but as his eyes scanned the night, he perceived red flashes coming from that direction. The red flashes were obviously muzzle blasts, and Lieutenant Karuma was stunned by the realization that someone, probably Americans, was attacking the ammunition dump.
Lieutenant Karuma jumped to his feet and pointed his sword to the cave. “That way!” he yelled. “To the ammunition dump!”
Lieutenant Karuma swung his sword over his head and ran toward the mountain. The men in his new command got to their feet and followed him.
Butsko and his men charged past the sandbags and entered the cave with guns blazing. Here and there were small pools of burning kerosene from oil lamps that had been knocked over by the explosions. The fires cast eerie oscillating shadows on the walls of the cave, and mutilated Japanese soldiers lay everywhere, their blood splattered on the dark craggy walls.
The recon platoon charged over the flaming pools, firing their submachine guns deep into the cave, trying to see what was going on in its recesses. A Jap poked his head around a corner and the Reverend Billie Jones pulled the trigger of his submachine gun, blowing the Jap's head off his shoulders.
“Hold your fire!” Butsko said, because he didn't want a stray bullet to set off the explosives in the cave.
They let go of their triggers and the cave suddenly became silent. They were all tense, poised on the balls of their feet, ready to shoot anything that moved.
“Bannon,” said Butsko, “take the flashlight out of my pack and point it up there.”
Bannon moved behind Butsko and loosened the straps on his pack. Just then a white piece of cloth and a hand appeared from behind a bend deeper in the cave.
“Come on out of there!” Butsko shouted.
The hand became elongated into an arm, and then a Japanese soldier appeared, a terrified expression on his face and blood oozing from a cut on his cheek, where he'd evidently been grazed by shrapnel. Behind him limped another soldier whose arm was dangling by a few tendons.
“Frankie, take care of ‘em!”
Frankie smiled at the Japanese soldiers and motioned with his hand for them to step forward. They smiled and bowed, happy to be receiving polite treatment, and made their way toward the center of the cave.
“A little more,” Frankie said.
The Japanese soldiers couldn't understand English, but they could figure out what he meant. They advanced, and Frankie suddenly raised his submachine gun, pulling the trigger. The cave filled with the sound of thunder and the big .45-caliber bullets tore the two Japanese soldiers apart. They sprawled backward and fell down. Bannon pulled the flashlight out of Butsko's pack, turned it on, and shone it deep into the cave.
“You go first,” Butsko told him. “We'll cover you.”
Bannon didn't like walking into the unknown with a flashlight to make him a big, bright target, but somebady had to do it. He walked forward cautiously, waving the flashlight from side to side, trying to illuminate every nook and cranny.
Something twitched in the darkness, and Bannon turned the flashlight on it, while in unison the other men fired their submachine guns wildly at the movement. Bannon held the flash-light steady and saw a Japanese soldier peppered with holes drop to his knees, blood burbling out of his mouth. Homer Gladley gave him a final burst for good measure, and another Japanese soldier went to meet his ancestors.
The GIs continued to advance into the cave and around the next bend found what they were looking for: stacked crates filled with ammunition, guns, grenades, artillery shells, and all the other explosive materials needed to wage war.
Butsko didn't have to give the order; they all knew what they had to do. Homer Gladley had been carrying TNT and percussion caps in his pack, and the Reverend Billie Jones took them out. He handed one bundle of TNT and a cap to Frankie La Barbara and carried the other bundle toward the crates of ammunition.
Butsko attacked the crates with his jungle knife, prying open the covers, looking for something with a lot of gunpowder, while Bannon held the flashlight steady. This section of the cave was gigantic, with crates lined up as far as Bannon could see. Evidently it was the main cache of arms for Japanese soldiers on that side of New Georgia, and it would be awfully hard for them to stop the American invasion without it.
“Here's something good,” Butsko said, looking down into a crate of artillery shells. “Bring one of those charges over here.”
Frankie clambered up and proceeded to arm his TNT, while Butsko made his way to the other side of the cavern and opened a box containing hand grenades.
“Bring the other one over here.”
Billie Jones jumped onto a crate of machine gun bullets and crawled toward the crate Butsko indicated, while Butsko jumped down.
“Set the fuses for five minutes!” Butsko said.
Frankie La Barbara and Billie Jones trimmed the fuses and set the blasting caps. They heard running footsteps behind them and everybody reached for his gun, but it was only Hotshot Stevenson.
“Japs are headed this way!” he said. “You'd better hurry up!”
“You heard him!” Butsko shouted. “Let's go!”
Frankie and Billie worked feverishly. They'd practiced their demolition techniques on Guadalcanal under the watchful eye of an instructor from the Combat Engineers, and it didn't take them long. Frankie finished first and looked at Butsko.
“I'm ready,” he said.
Butsko turned to Billie, who was putting the finishing touches on his work.
“Me too,” said Billie.
“Light ‘em up,” Butsko told them.
The men took out their cigarette lighters and ignited the fuses, then jumped down from the crates of am
munition.
“Let's get out of here!” Butsko said.
They ran toward the entrance of the cave as the fuses sizzled and threw red sparks into the air. Bannon jumped over the bodies of the Japanese soldiers who'd tried to surrender to Frankie La Barbara. He tripped over a Japanese helmet but didn't fall, and a few steps after that he came to the mouth of the cave.
He was the first one there and ran outside through an opening in the sandbags. He smelled the pungent air of the jungle and saw the half-moon in the sky and the darkened encampment below. Butsko joined him, along with Frankie La Barbara and Homer Gladley.
“That way!” said Butsko, pointing toward the left.
Bannon's eyes were adjusting to the outside, and he thought he saw movement in the trees farther down the hill. “Somebody's coming!” he said.
“Where?” asked Butsko.
Bannon pointed. “Down there.”
Beaaannngggggg—a bullet ricocheted off a rock beside Hotshot Stevenson, and he jumped into the air.
“Let's go!” Butsko said.
A fusillade erupted down the hill, and bullets flew all around the men of the recon platoon as they ran toward the trees, which only were a short distance away. In seconds they were safe where the Japanese soldiers couldn't see them, protected by the thick trunks of trees. Butsko stopped and turned around.
“I hope those fuses blow before the Japs get to them,” he said.
“Any minute now,” Frankie La Barbara replied.
