Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

  The Life magazine on top was dated March 22, 1943, only four and a half months old, and its cover showed an officer with two stars on his epaulettes. The caption said: VICTOR OF BISMARCK SEA.

  What's this about? Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered. He turned to the table of contents, and the first thing he saw was an ad for Cannon towels. It showed a color photograph of a beautiful young redhead taking a bath, and Lieutenant Breckenridge stared at her, mesmerized. Her cheeks were rosy red, her hair was piled high on her head, and she had an Irish smile, absolutely captivating.

  He hadn't had a woman for nearly six months, and that had been a whore in Honolulu. The whore had been middle-aged and fat, but this girl was young and pure, just the sort of girl a man would like to be married to for his entire life.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge couldn't tear his eyes away from the girl. Her nose was turned up and she looked like a saucy little bitch, the kind who would screw her husband until he was weak in the knees and then go outside and behave like a lady all day long.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge wished he had a woman like that waiting for him someplace, but he had no one. He was twenty-five years old and had had many girlfriends in his life, but he had never thought he could go the distance with any of them. He didn't want to settle for just anything, but why was it that he could look at a picture of a model and decide he could spend the rest of his life with her?

  A stiff cock has no judgment, he thought, shifting uncomfortably in bis chair. He looked at the advertising copy next to the ad.

  “Now that all household articles are getting scarce, it's up to me to see how I can make my family comfortable on as little as possible. I'm not going to buy any new towels unless I really have to. Instead, I'm going to make the ones I have last ‘for the duration’ by following Cannon's suggestions for taking care of them.”

  Next came a list of suggestions for how to make towels last. Lieutenant Breckenridge felt weird to be sitting just behind the front lines of New Georgia, reading about the care of towels on the home front. How strange it must be back in the States, the people conserving their towels and buying food with ration stamps.

  He turned to the next page and found himself staring at a drawing of a woman's curvaceous legs. It was an ad for rayon stockings and it told women how important it was for them to make their stockings last. Lieutenant Breckenridge looked at the legs and felt himself getting warmer. He'd been so busy with the war that he'd forgotten how really alluring a pair of women's legs could be. He felt a deep longing in his stomach and quickly flipped the page.

  He saw an ad for the North American Aviation Company, showing B-25s bombing a German truck convoy in North Africa. The ad confused him: What was it doing in a magazine for ordinary people? Nobody could buy a B-25 bomber, but then Lieutenant Breckenridge realized that the aviation company was trying to make itself appear patriotic, as if it weren't just interested in making millions out of the war. The ad also made war look exciting and adventurous, which Lieutenant Breckenridge knew wasn't so, but maybe it would make the civilians work harder in the war plants, and maybe some dopey young kid would join the Air Cops because of it.

  On the facing page was a one-column ad for a Western movie starring Roy Rogers, Smiley Bumette, Bob Nolan, and the Sons of the Pioneers. At the bottom of the ad was a line that said: BUY WAR BONDS AND STAMPS.

  Why aren't Roy Rogers and Smiley Burnette in the Army? Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered. Could they be too old? Roy Rogers didn't look too old, but maybe he was a 4-F with bad eyes, a bum heart, or a trick knee.

  He spotted the table of contents and found the cover article about the victory in the Bismarck Sea. Turning to the page, he read that the Army Air Corps had sunk twelve Japanese transport ships and ten warships off the coast of New Guinea. The officer on the cover was Lieutenant General George C. Kenney, in charge of the operation, who had been called to Washington to describe his victory. Lieutenant Breckenridge was amazed that no one had ever told him about this great victory. Evidently the war was going better than he thought.

  He found in the same magazine an article about a Marine named Al Schmid, who had killed two hundred Japs on Guadalcanal and had been blinded in the process. He was shown on the porch of his home in Philadelphia with his girl friend, both smiling grimly at the photographer who took the picture. Schmid had been awarded the Navy Cross.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge closed the magazine, a frown on his face. He took out a cigarette and lit it up. He was disturbed but didn't know why. Was it the pictures of the girls he couldn't have, or the great victory he hadn't known about, or poor Al Schmid, who had killed two hundred Japs and lost his eyesight?

  Lieutenant Breckenridge scratched his head and thought about it. No, it wasn't any of those things. It was the magazine's attitude that was pissing him off. It made the war seem like something that was exciting and wonderful. It missed the point of all the suffering, of men lying in foxholes, afraid to sleep because Japs might creep up on them and slit their throats. It made the war seem like a great, noble adventure, and Lieutenant Breckenridge really didn't really think it was. He'd studied enough history at the University of Virginia to know that wars never settled anything. The First World War was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but only twenty years later the Second World War had broken out, and who knew how many more wars there'd be.

  The Bible said there'd always be wars, and maybe that was so, but Lieutenant Breckenridge just wanted to get through the one he was in. He was fighting for his side because he didn't want Hitler or Tojo strutting through the streets of Richmond. He didn't want his family and friends living under military occupation.

  He leafed through the magazine, looking for pictures of more girls. Sure enough, a few pages later he saw a big spread of chorus girls in a show called “Folies des Femmes,” which was playing at the Roxy Theatre in Atlanta. The girls all wore big smiles and brief costumes that showed just about everything they had.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge stared at the girls and puffed his cigarette. Now that's something worth fighting for, he thought.

  “I hear something,” said Sam Longtree, who was on guard duty ahead of the main American lines.

  “Huh?” asked Frankie La Barbara, who was asleep.

  “I said I heard something.”

  They were lying in a shallow foxhole. Frankie shook his head and tried to wake himself up. He wasn't supposed to sleep on guard duty, but he knew Longtree would stay awake for both of them.

  “Go back to Butsko and tell him somebody's out here,” Longtree said.

  Frankie looked at Longtree as if he were insane. “Fuck you—I ain't going back there alone!”

  “Then I'll go.”

  Longtree moved to climb out of the foxhole, but Frankie grabbed his legs and pulled him back in.

  “You ain't leaving me alone in here!”

  “Keep your voice down!” Longtree said.

  “My voice is down! You keep your voice down!”

  Longtree looked at Frankie and wanted to strangle him. Frankie was such a pain in the ass. Never did anything right. Never did what you told him to do. Always gave you an argument.

  A twig snapped in front of them, and both GIs turned toward the sound.

  “Uh-oh,” said Frankie. “Maybe we'd better both go back.”

  “We can't do that. It'll leave an opening out here.”

  “What'll we do?”

  “If you won't go back, and you won't let me go back, I guess we'll have to stay here and take what comes.”

  “We can fire a few shots in the air to alert the sergeant of the guard.”

  “If we do, those Japs will know where to lob their hand grenades.”

  Frankie chewed his lips. He didn't like the idea of fighting Japs hand-to-hand in the dark, and there might be a dozen Japs out there for all he knew. “I think we should get out of here.”

  “Nobody's stopping you.”

  “I'm not going alone.”

  “Then shut up.”


  “Who are you telling to shut up?”

  “Ssshhhhh!”

  Frankie heard more rustling in the jungle straight ahead. It was a cloudy night and the moon couldn't shine through. Frankie couldn't see more than a few yards in front of him.

  “They shoulda give us a walkie-talkie,” Frankie whispered.

  “Ssshhhh.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Longtree, leveling his rifle.

  “Whatsa matter?”

  Four Japanese soldiers exploded out of the jungle, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Longtree fired from the waist, and the flash of his shot lit up the jungle for a split second. A Jap fell to the ground on the rim of the foxhole and the other three jumped in, holding their trench knives in their hands.

  One landed in front of Frankie, who bashed him in the face with his rifle butt. The Jap fell down and Frankie turned to Longtree, when suddenly he felt something sharp and terrible enter his stomach. The pain was so severe that he screamed at the top of his lungs and then dropped onto the Jap he'd just bashed. Black curtains covered him.

  Longtree was alone, facing two Japs. He'd dropped his rifle and held his Ka-bar knife in his hands. The two Japs bumped into each other and stumbled over the bodies of their comrade and Frankie La Barbara. Longtree whipped around with his knife and slashed open the throat of the Jap on his right, then sprang backward in time to avoid a thrust to his belly from the other Jap.

  Longtree jumped out of the foxhole and stood on its edge, looking down at the Jap. “Sergeant of the Guard!” he yelled. “Jap infiltrators!”

  The Japanese soldier heard him call for help and looked around fearfully. He didn't know whether to run or fight it out with Longtree. Something told the Jap that if he ran Longtree would shoot him down, so he'd have to fight it out.

  The Jap leaped out of the foxhole and faced Longtree. Both men held their knives in their fists with the blades pointing up in the air. The Jap lunged at Longtree, and Longtree dodged to the side, slashing at the Jap's throat; but the Jap angled backward in time, and Longtree's knife whistled harmlessly through the air.

  The two soldiers circled each other in the dark jungle. In the distance they could hear American soldiers. The Japanese soldier realized he'd better make his move quickly if he wanted to get away. He became anxious, and that was the worst frame of mind he could be in. Feinting, trying to catch Longtree off-guard, he was dismayed to see that Longtree wasn't falling for any of his tricks. He shifted direction and feinted again, but Longtree never opened himself up for a stab.

  Longtree was as tense as a guitar string, and he stared at the Japanese soldier's eyes. He knew that the Japanese soldier wanted to get away, and he could see the panic in the Jap's eyes. The Japanese soldier shouted, feinted with the knife in his left hand, then tossed the knife to his right hand and pushed toward Longtree's stomach.

  Longtree tucked his stomach in and dodged to the side, as graceful as a matador, while slicing down with his knife. His razor-sharp blade caught the Jap on the neck and ripped through his throat, severing his jugular vein. Blood spurted out onto Longtree's uniform, and the Japanese soldier collapsed at Long-tree's feet.

  Longtree looked down at him, feeling no elation, only a sense of relief. Bending over, he wiped his knife on the Japanese soldier's pants, then tucked it into his scabbard and returned to the foxhole. He threw out the Jap he'd previously stabbed, picked up the Jap Frankie had bashed in the face, and heard him moan. Longtree realized the Jap was semiconscious, his face bloody and perhaps his skull fractured, but he didn't want to take any chances, so he took out his Ka-bar and slit the Jap's throat. Then he tossed him out of the foxhole.

  Frankie La Barbara lay at the bottom all crumpled up, his knees close to his chest. Longtree felt his pulse: There was a faint beat. He rolled Frankie onto his back and gazed down at Frankie's blood-soaked shirt.

  “This would not have happened if you had been quiet,” Longtree said to Frankie.

  Frankie's eyes were closed and his face was pale. Longtree unbuttoned Frankie's shirt but could not see the wound easily because there was so much blood. It was drying all over his chest, stomach, and pants, forming a muddy goo.

  The sound of footsteps came closer, and a bunch of GIs crashed through the jungle behind the foxhole.

  “What happened?” Butsko asked, holding his M 1 ready to fire, glancing around for trouble.

  “Japs,” Longtree said. “One of them got Frankie.”

  “All the Jap's gone?”

  “They're all dead.”

  Butsko jumped into the foxhole and looked at Frankie. He picked up Frankie's wrist and felt the pulse. “He's alive, but not by much. We'd better get him out of here. Shaw—Shilansky—take him back.”

  Shaw, the ex-prizefighter, and Shilansky, the former bank robber from Boston, lifted Frankie by his arms and legs and carried him back to the main lines. Butsko kicked the Japs onto their backs to see what they looked like.

  “I couldn't keep Frankie quiet, and the Japs just followed his voice,” Longtree said.

  Butsko scowled. “Frankie's been digging his grave with his mouth ever since he was born. All right: Groves, you man this post with Longtree, and keep your mouth shut, got it?”

  “Got it,” replied Groves, who had been a furniture salesman in New York City before the war.

  “Good. Everybody else follow me.”

  Butsko trudged back toward the American lines, followed by the men from the recon platoon.

  Ahead of the rest, Tommy Shaw and Morris Shilansky carried Frankie La Barbara to safety.

  “Jesus, he's heavy,” said Shilansky, holding Frankie by the armpits.

  “He's not that heavy,” replied Shaw, who prided himself on his physical strength. Each of his big hands held one of Frankie's legs, and Frankie's body swayed from side to side with every step they took.

  The jungle was dark and gloomy. Twigs crackled and leaves rustled underneath the GIs’ feet.

  “I hope he lives,” said Shilansky. “Frankie's been with us since basic training at Fort Ord.”

  “It'll take more than a stomach wound to kill this rotten son of a bitch.”

  “What's that?” asked Shilansky.

  “What's what?”

  Two Japanese soldiers burst out of the underbrush next to them, knives in their hands. Shilansky and Shaw dropped Frankie La Barbara on the ground and stepped back, but they didn't have time to draw their Kabars because the Japanese soldiers were right on top of them. The one on the left made a pass at Shaw's throat, and Shaw grabbed the Japanese soldier's wrist, pivoted, and threw the Jap over his shoulder. The Jap fell onto the ground, his knife still in his hand, and Shaw planted one foot on his wrist and the other with all his might in the middle of the Jap's face. The Jap groaned and let go of the knife. Shaw picked it up and stabbed it into the Jap's throat, then withdrew it and spun around to see Shilansky rolling over and over on the ground with the other Jap, both of Shilansky's hands holding the Jap's wrist.

  “Hold the bastard still!” Shaw said, dancing around, trying to stick the Jap.

  “I... can't!” replied Shilansky.

  “Kick him in the balls.”

  Shilansky tried to knee the Jap but hit the Jap's hip instead. However, the Jap got the idea, pushed Shilansky to the side, and kneed him in the balls. Shilansky went “Oof” and doubled up, and the Jap swung his knife down, but Shaw grabbed the Jap's wrist when the knife was only inches from Shilansky's throat and simultaneously jammed his own knife into the Jap's back.

  The Jap shrieked and arched backward, reaching around to the wound in his back, and Shaw yanked out the knife, took aim, and ripped the blade across the Jap's throat. The Jap gurgled and closed his eyes, sagging to the side.

  Shaw stepped back. The action had taken only a few seconds, but the adrenaline still pumped through his veins. Shilansky rolled over on the ground, cupping his groin in his hands.

  “That fucking Jap! He kicked me in the balls!”

>   Shaw didn't know what to do first. Two dead Japs were on the ground, Frankie was dying, and now Shilansky had two mashed balls.

  “Help!” Shaw shouted. “Jap infiltrators!”

  “Ow, my balls!” Shilansky moaned. “Oh, that fucking son of a bitch!”

  Shaw checked the two Japs to make sure they were dead. He stood and was walking toward Frankie to see how he was, when Butsko and the men with him came chugging through the jungle.

  “Now what?” Butsko asked.

  “More Japs!” Shaw replied.

  Shilansky cupped his balls and squinched his eyes shut. “The motherfucker kicked me in the balls!”

  Butsko ordered two men to carry Frankie and two to carry Shilansky, and they set out again for their lines.

  “Watch out for more Japs,” Butsko cautioned them. “They seem to be out in full force tonight.

  At regimental headquarters Lieutenant Breckenridge was receiving reports about Japanese infiltrators from the listening posts. He wrote down the location of each incident to see if there was a pattern, but there wasn't; the Japs were just up to their usual harassing tactics.

  The front door of the orderly room opened and Colonel Stockton walked in, followed by Lieutenant Harper and Major Cobb. All of them carried briefcases and canvas tubes containing maps.

  “Oh, hello there, Breckenridge,” Colonel Stockton said. “How's it going?”

  “Lots of Jap infiltrators, sir.”

  “I heard the shots... figured that must be what it was. Where are they?”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge showed him the marks he'd made on his map overlay.

  “Ah,” said Colonel Stockton. “Looks like you've had some action in your recon platoon area.”

  “Two of my men were wounded.”

  “It could have been worse.” Colonel Stockton straightened up and walked toward the door of his office. “Carry on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Harper rushed ahead to open the door of the office, and Colonel Stockton marched inside. Major Cobb followed, and finally Lieutenant Harper walked in, closing the door behind him. Lieutenant Breckenridge opened up the other Life magazine, this one dated February 22, 1943. The cover showed a flyboy looking through a bombsight, and the first page showed a jeep in a jungle, next to crates of ammunition. It was an ad for B. F. Goodrich tires, and the headline said: HOW THEY PASS THE AMMUNITION IN NEW GUINEA.