Battleground

by W. E. B Griffin

  Moore took it, glanced through it, and quickly decided it was more of the same sort of thing he’d been looking at for hours.

  Feincamp produced a map. The lieutenant looked at it for a moment, and then pointed.

  “Right about here on the beach, Captain,” he said. “Captain Brush called a lunch break. I told him that I’d been there before, and twenty, thirty minutes inland was an orange farm ...”

  “A what?”

  “Orange trees.”

  “Orange grove, ” Feincamp provided.

  “Yes, Sir. Well, the captain said we could walk another half hour if it meant fresh fruit, so we started inland. Ten, fifteen minutes later, right about here ...” he pointed, “all hell broke loose. We lost Corporal DeLayne right away. He took a round in the head.”

  “The big blond kid?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Damn.”

  “So Captain Brush told me to take a squad around here, on the right flank, and the rest started for where the fire was coming from. Straight ahead. When we started that, they started withdrawing, and we started after them.”

  Moore saw that the technical sergeant was admiring a Japanese helmet he had taken as a souvenir.

  “So then it was sort of like the wild west for maybe twenty minutes. But we whipped their ass!”

  “Casualties?”

  “A pisspot full of them. We counted thirty-one Japs, and I’m sure we missed some.”

  “I was speaking of Marines,” Feincamp said coldly.

  “Three KIA, Sir. Three wounded.”

  “Sergeant,” Moore suddenly interrupted, “let me see that helmet, please?”

  The technical sergeant looked at him doubtfully.

  “Huh?”

  “May I please see the helmet?” Moore asked.

  “You want a helmet, Sergeant, you just take a walk up the beach.”

  “Give him the helmet, Sergeant,” Captain Feincamp ordered softly.

  The technical sergeant reluctantly handed it over.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” Feincamp asked, after a moment.

  “This isn’t a Rikusentai helmet, Captain,” Moore said.

  “It isn’t a what?” the lieutenant asked.

  Moore ignored the question.

  “Were the Japanese all wearing helmets like this?” he asked.

  “They was—the ones that was wearing helmets—were wearing helmets like that,” the technical sergeant said.

  “With this insignia?” Moore pursued, pointing to a small, red enamel star on the front of the helmet.

  “I don’t know,” the lieutenant said. “What was that you said before?”

  “The Rikusentai, the construction troops who were building the airfield, are in the Japanese Navy. The Navy insignia is an anchor and a chrysanthemum. This is an Army helmet.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, possibly,” Moore thought aloud and immediately regretted it, “that the Ichiki Butai is already ashore.”

  “What the fuck is whatever you said?” the technical sergeant asked.

  “The Ichiki Butai is an infantry regiment—the 28th—of the 7th Division. First class troops under Colonel Kiyano Ichiki. The Japanese are going to send them here from Truk. If I’m right, and they’re already here, that would be important.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Captain Feincamp asked. “What units the Japs intend to send?”

  “I know, Sir. I can’t tell you how I know.”

  “The captain,” the technical sergeant said furiously, “asked you a question. You answer it!”

  Captain Feincamp raised his hand to shut off the technical sergeant.

  “How do we know the Japs didn’t issue Army helmets to—what was it you called them?” Captain Feincamp asked.

  “The Rikusentai, Sir,” Moore furnished. “It’s possible, of course. But that Major in G-2 ...”

  “Major Stecker?”

  “Yes, Sir, I think so. He told me to look for anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Captain,” the lieutenant said thoughtfully. “I have something ... I mean, out of the ordinary. The Japs we killed seemed to be heavy on officers. Maybe half of them were.”

  “You just forgot to mention that, right?” Feincamp said, sarcastically.

  “Sorry, Sir. I didn’t think it was important.”

  “What I think you had better do, Lieutenant,” Feincamp said, “is get down to Division G-2, and tell Major Stecker what happened ... No, tell the new G-2; I forgot about him. I’m going to send your sergeant and Sergeant Moore back down the beach to see what else Moore can come up with.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “I don’t think I have to tell you, Moore, do I, what to look for?”

  “No, Sir.”

  (Six)

  Aside from perhaps four hours familiarization at Parris Island, the only experience Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, had with the U.S. Submachine Gun, Caliber .45 (Thompson) was vicarious. He had watched half a dozen movie heroes—most notably Alan Ladd—and as many movie gangsters—most notably Edward G. Robinson—use the weapon against their enemies with great skill, elan, and ease.

  They were now forty minutes down the beach toward the site of the encounter between Able Company, First Marines, and the Japanese; and he really had had no idea until that moment how heavy the sonofabitch was.

  He had opted to leave his utility jacket in the S-2 Section of the First Marines, which he now recognized to be an error of the first magnitude. The canvas strap of the Thompson had worn one shoulder and then the other raw. And as they made their way down the sandy beach, the two spare 20-round Thompson magazines he carried, plus the .45 pistol and its two spare magazines, had both banged against him, in the process wearing raw and badly bruising the skin and muscles of his legs and buttocks.

  He had also quickly learned that the good life he had been living in Melbourne and Brisbane had not only softened the calluses he had won at Parris Island—the balls of his feet and the backs of his ankles had quickly blistered, and the blisters had broken—but it had softened him generally.

  To the technical sergeant’s great and wholly unconcealed annoyance and contempt, he had absolutely had to stop every five minutes or so to regain his breath. His heart pounded so heavily he wondered if it would burst through his rib cage.

  Twenty minutes down the beach, they began to encounter other members of Captain Brush’s patrol. Five minutes after that, they encountered Captain Brush himself, bringing up the rear.

  When the technical sergeant responded to, “Sergeant Ropke, where the hell do you think you’re going?” by informing him of their mission, Captain Brush assigned a Corporal and a PFC to go with them.

  Fifteen minutes after that, they reached the site of the action. It was marked by Japanese bodies scattered over the beach in various obscene postures of death. Even more obscene, in Moore’s judgment, were the three-quarters-buried bodies of the three Marines who had been killed.

  They had been buried with one boondocker shod foot sticking out of the ground so that their bodies could be more easily found later.

  In the clothing of the third body Moore examined, that of a Japanese Army Captain, he found positive proof that the Ichiki Butai had indeed been landed on Guadalcanal. He also found in the calf of the Captain’s boot a map which looked to him like a Japanese assessment of the Marine defense positions on the beachhead.

  He gave this to the technical sergeant, and oriented the map for him.

  “Jesus Christ!” the technical sergeant said, after carefully examining the map. “They did a good fucking job with this!”

  Moore spent another twenty minutes searching for the bodies of Japanese officers, and then searching the bodies for materials he thought would be important. Finally he had a Japanese knapsack full of documents, maps, and wallets.

  They started back. Five minutes down the beach, after the first time he stopped to catch his breath, the technical sergeant relieved him of the Thom
pson.

  “Let me carry the Thompson,” he said, not unkindly. “That shit you picked up is slowing us all down.”

  I should be embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated. I am not. I am simply grateful that I don’t have to carry that sonofabitch anymore!

  Ninety seconds after that, there was a faint suggestion of something—some things—flying through the air in high arcs. And a moment after that, there were two almost simultaneous flashes of light, and then a moment later, a third.

  And then something like a swung baseball bat hit Sergeant John Marston Moore twice, once in the calf of his left leg and once high, almost at the hip joint of his right leg.

  This was followed immediately by a loud roar, and the sensation of flying through the air. He landed on his back, and the wind was knocked out of him.

  After a moment, while he was still trying to figure out what was happening, he became aware of people running out from the woods onto the beach. Two of them had rifles, and the third a pistol.

  He rose on his elbow for a closer look.

  He saw that the Corporal and the PFC who had been sent with them were down on the beach, crumpled up, and that the technical sergeant was trying, without much success, to get to his feet.

  Moore rolled over onto his stomach and took the .45 Colt automatic from where it had been bruising his buttocks raw and sore and worked the action and held it in two hands and shot at the three men running onto the beach. He shot until two of them fell, and until the slide locked in the rear position indicating that the last of the seven rounds in the magazine had been expended.

  He searched desperately for a spare magazine.

  There was a short, staccato burst of .45 fire, accompanied by orange flashes of light, and then another. The technical sergeant had gotten the Thompson into action.

  By the time Moore found a fresh magazine, ejected the empty magazine, inserted the fresh magazine, let the slide slam forward, and then looked for a target, there was none.

  What he saw was the technical sergeant, bleeding profusely from cuts or wounds on the neck and face, crawling over to him.

  “You all right?” the technical sergeant said.

  “I think I broke both legs.”

  “It’ll be all right. They probably heard the fire, they’ll send somebody back for us.”

  “Bullshit,” Sergeant John Marston Moore said.

  “Yeah, probably,” the technical sergeant said. “But maybe when it gets light in the morning, they will.”

  One of the two Marines who had been sent with them—Moore couldn’t tell which—moaned and then began to whimper.

  They will find my body on this fucking beach in the morning, Sergeant John Marston Moore thought, unless the tide comes in and washes it out to sea for the sharks to eat.

  Two minutes after that, there was the unmistakable sound of a Jeep in four-wheel drive making its way through soft sand.

  When the Corpsmen loaded Sergeant John Marston Moore onto the litter, he screamed with pain.

  They loaded the technical sergeant in the other litter. And then, because they didn’t know what else to do with them, they laid the bodies of the PFC and the Corporal on the Jeep hood. The PFC’s body started whimpering again.

  “Jesus,” Moore heard one of the Corpsmen say, “I thought he was dead.”

  (Seven)

  “The Doc tells me you took grenade fragments in your legs,” Major Jack NMI Stecker said to Sergeant John Marston Moore. “That’s better than getting shot.”

  “What?” Moore asked incredulously. His legs were now one great sea of dull aching pain, with crashing wavelets of intense, flashing, toothache-like agony.

  “There’s often less tissue damage; and they can repair a jagged wound easier than a smooth one. The worst is a slice.”

  “I hurt,” Moore said. “Why won’t they give me something for the pain?”

  “I told them not to, until I could get here and talk to you,” Stecker confessed. “I want to hear more about Ichiki Butai.”

  “You sonofabitch!” Moore flared. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized with horror what he had said. Marine Sergeants do not call Marine Second Lieutenants, much less Marine Majors, sonsofbitches. Moore realized that he was horror stricken, but not repentant. Under the circumstances, if Jesus Christ himself was responsible for the withholding of pain killers, he would have questioned the parentage of the Son of God.

  Major Jack NMI Stecker did not seem to take offense.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Are they or aren’t they?”

  “They were all Ichiki Butai,” Moore said. “I think it was a headquarters team or something. I saw two lieutenant colonels, three majors, five or six captains. A bunch of senior NCOs.”

  “OK, Sergeant. I’ve got what linguists I could scrounge up working on those documents.”

  “How did you know about Ichiki Butai?” Moore asked.

  “I’ve seen the Order of Battle,” Stecker said. “What interests me is how you knew what you told Captain Feincamp.”

  “I want something for this fucking pain!”

  “Son,” a vaguely familiar voice asked. “Does the word MAGIC mean anything to you?”

  “I hurt! Goddamn it, doesn’t anybody care?”

  “I’m General Vandergrift, Son. You can tell me. Do you know what MAGIC means?”

  “Yes, Sir, General, I know what MAGIC is.”

  “All right, Doctor. Do what you can for this boy,” General Vandergrift said.

  Moore felt a surprisingly cool rubber mask being clamped over his mouth. Then there was a rush of cool air. It felt good. He took a deep breath.

  “Well done, Lad,” he heard General Vandergrift say. “Well do ...”

  XIX

  (One)

  HENDERSON FIELD

  GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS

  1715 HOURS 20 AUGUST 1942

  Captain Charles M. Galloway slid open the canopy of his Wildcat, then lowered the left wing just a little, just enough to give him a good look at Henderson Field.

  A Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless was just about to touch down. Another Dauntless—the last of a dozen—was just turning on final.

  Galloway turned to his right, saw Jim Ward looking at him, and gestured to him to go on down. Ward nodded and peeled off. The other three Wildcats in the first five-plane V followed Ward.

  As the first planes of VMF-229 landed, Galloway flew two wide three-sixties, mostly over the water (there was no reported anti-aircraft fire, but why take a chance?). And then Bill Dunn, leading the second five-plane V, pulled up alongside him. Galloway signaled for him to land. Dunn nodded, and gave the signal to his wing man. He peeled off and made his approach, followed by the others. Dunn remained on Galloway’s wing tip.

  Soon it was the two of them alone above the field.

  Two mother hens, Galloway thought, making sure the little chickies get home safe.

  Except this isn’t home and it isn’t safe.

  Charley reached his left hand down beside his seat, found the charging handle for the outboard .50 Caliber Browning in the left wing, and turned it ninety degrees, putting the weapon on SAFE. Then he found the inboard handle, and rotated that. He put his left hand on the stick, put his right hand down beside his seat, and repeated the action, putting the guns in the right wing on SAFE.

  Then he looked over at Dunn, held up his index finger, and then pointed it at himself.

  Me First.

  He could see Dunn smiling.

  Charley peeled off and put the Wildcat into a dive.

  There are two ways to lower the landing gear of a Grumman F4F. The means specified in AN 01-190FB-1 Pilot’s Handbook of Flight Operating Instructions for Navy Model FM-2 Airplanes (As Amended) specifies that the pilot will turn the landing gear handcrank located on the right side of the cockpit approximately twenty-eight times until the crank handle hits a stop indicating the landing gear has been fully extended.

  The second way was not listed in any pilot’s manual. The t
echnique was not only not recommended, it was forbidden. It was the technique Charley Galloway used—and, he was sure, most of the pilots of VMF-229. Charley had explained it to them back at Ewa, so they would know what they were forbidden to do ...

  He released the landing gear handcrank brake just before he came out of the dive. Following Newton’s Law that a body in motion tends to remain in motion, when he pulled out of the dive to make his final approach, the forces of gravity pulled the landing gear out of the retracted position.

  You had to be very careful that the rapidly spinning handle didn’t get your arm, which would probably break it, but on the other hand, you didn’t have to turn the damned crank twenty-eight times with your right hand while flying the airplane with your left.

  Charley touched down; and twenty seconds later, Bill Dunn touched down behind him. Before he finished the landing roll, the humid heat began to get to him. He felt his back break out in sweat.

  He was not very impressed with the airfield. It looked to him like a half inch of rain would turn it into a sea of mud. And he understood that a half inch of rain a day was not at all uncommon on Guadalcanal.

  The entire runway was lined with spectators. Not solidly, but every couple of yards there seemed to be a Marine. They were smiling, and a few of them even waved.

  Charley waved back, and even forced a smile.

  The Marines looked like hell. They looked exhausted and underfed and filthy. And they regarded the arrival of the first combat aircraft as something more important than it really was.

  It was actually a desperate attempt to stop a major Japanese effort to throw the Marines off Guadalcanal and reclaim the airbase.

  That effort was about to get underway. Charley Galloway had private personal doubts that nineteen F4Fs and a dozen SBD-3s were going to be able to do much to stop it. Not to mention anything else they scraped off the bottom of the barrel.

  Just before they’d left the Long Island, he heard that the Army Air Corps was sending a squadron of Bell P-400s to Guadalcanal. The reaction of the group was that the goddamned Army Air Corps was butting in on the Marine Corps’ business.