Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

  Butsko swung the samurai sword, and its razor edge caught the Jap on the throat. The blade passed through the Jap's neck with an ugly thunk sound, and the Jap's head went flying into the air like a grapefruit hit by a baseball bat. It didn't travel far, and Butsko saw approximately where it landed. He looked down at the decapitated Jap lying at his feet, arms and legs splayed out.

  “Gotcha,” Butsko said with a grin.

  Everyone in the recon platoon heard the jeep coming through the jungle, but they gave it no special attention because military vehicles were always traveling around behind the lines. They heard the jeep engine grow louder, and after a while they realized it was coming their way.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge was in his foxhole, sleeping soundly, when the jeep's rumble woke him up. It was close, and he figured it probably carried an officer, because the troops usually traveled around on foot. “Uh-oh,” he muttered. “I hope it's not coming here.”

  “I think it is,” replied Craig Delane.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge listened with sinking heart as the jeep was driven unmistakably toward the recon platoon. Its driver shifted gears, gunned the engine, let up on the gas.

  “I bet it's the colonel,” Craig Delane said.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge took a swig of water from his canteen, then rubbed some over his face, hoping it would wake him up. He felt the stubble on his chin; he hadn't shaved for three days. Taking off his helmet, he ran his fingers through his hair, being careful not to touch the cut on his scalp. He lit a cigarette as the jeep stopped close by.

  “Look sharp,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said to Craig Delane, “just in case.”

  “Yo.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge heard voices and thought one of them belonged to a woman. No, it couldn't be. There weren't any women out there. Footsteps headed toward him, and Lieutenant Harper, Colonel Stockton's aide, emerged from the jungle, accompanied by two figures, one of medium height and one short. The short one looked awfully frail. No, it's impossible, Lieutenant Breckenridge thought.

  Lieutenant Harper approached, looking neat and clean as always. Lieutenant Breckenridge believed Harper had never fired a shot in anger in his life; Harper was a decent guy, a graduate of the University of Michigan, and he'd wanted to become a lawyer before the draft got him. The two others were a few paces behind him, and Lieutenant Breckenridge examined the frail one. It can't be.

  But as they drew closer, Lieutenant Breckenridge realized with mounting anxiety that it was indeed a woman, not bad-looking but no spring chicken, either.

  “Hello, Dale,” Lieutenant Harper said.

  “'Lo, Bob.”

  “I'd like to introduce Lydia Kent-Taylor and Leo Stern of the Universal News Syndicate.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge shook hands with both of them; he'd heard of Lydia before. “A pleasure to meet you, ma'am,” he said in his southern accent.

  “Nice meeting you, Lieutenant,” she replied.

  “They're going to be spending some time with you,” Lieutenant Harper said.

  “They are?”

  “Yes. Colonel Stockton's orders.”

  “Here?”

  Lydia took the letter from General Griswold out of her haversack. “I have full authorization.” She handed over the letter.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge held the letter up but couldn't read it clearly in the darkness.

  “It's authentic,” Lieutenant Harper said. “Colonel Stockton wants you to cooperate to the extent that you can.”

  “Gee, I don't know,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “I'm not set up for this kind of thing.”

  “Don't worry about it, Lieutenant,” she replied. “We have our own transportation, tents, and supplies.”

  “But, ma'am,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said, “there are Japs around here. Anything can happen in a place like this.”

  “That's why I'm here,” she replied. She turned to Lieutenant Harper. “Thank you very much for bringing us here. We'll be all right now.”

  Lieutenant Harper walked off, leaving Lieutenant Breckenridge with Lydia and Leo Stern. Craig Delane crawled out-of the foxhole and stared at Lydia as if she were a geek.

  “I suppose,” Lieutenant Harper said unhappily, “that you should pitch your tent somewhere near my hole here.”

  “Don't you have a tent, Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “We don't have time for tents. We've got to be ready to move out at a moment's notice.”

  Leo Stern wrote that down. Lydia turned and saw a lone soldier approaching.

  “Hey, Lieutenant!” shouted Butsko. “Catch!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge turned around and raised his hands, catching the head of the Japanese soldier Butsko had ambushed in the jungle.

  “Good grief!” said Lieutenant Breckenridge, gazing down at the closed eyes and open mouth of the Jap.

  “I caught the cocksucker back there,” Butsko said, pointing behind him with his thumb.

  Lydia Kent-Taylor stared at the object in Lieutenant Breck-enridge's hands. “I do believe that's a human head!”

  “It is,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied, tossing it back to Butsko.

  Butsko realized he'd just heard a woman's voice. Squinting his eyes, he approached her, carrying the head under his arm like a basketball.

  “Miss Kent-Taylor, may I present my platoon sergeant, Master Sergeant John Butsko.”

  “Is that a woman?” Butsko asked incredulously.

  “Yes, she's a photographer. And that's Leo Stern, a war correspondent.”

  Butsko stared at Lydia Kent-Taylor. “Well, I'll be a son of a bitch.”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she looked at the head under his arm. “Where did you get that?”

  Butsko held it in the air. “This? I got it off the Jap who owned it.” Snorting viciously, he lobbed it toward Lydia Kent-Taylor.

  She screamed and hopped out of the way. The head landed in the muck, and she stared at it.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge was getting angry at Butsko, but he didn't want the two civilians to see him chew Butsko out. “Sergeant, Miss Kent-Taylor and Mr. Stern will be in our area for a few days.”

  Butsko blinked. “What for?”

  ‘To take pictures and write stuff.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes, and Colonel Stockton wants us to be as helpful as we can.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge tried to grin, as if it all were a big joke, but it wasn't.

  “Why here?” Butsko asked. “What did we do to deserve this?”

  Lydia Kent-Taylor cleared her throat. “You have an objection to us being here, Sergeant Butsko?”

  He looked her in the eye. “Yeah.”

  “What's the nature of your objection?”

  “You'll probably get somebody around here killed.”

  “And how will I do that?”

  “By getting in the fucking way.”

  “I won't get in anybody's way.”

  “You already are.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge looked sternly at Butsko. “Don't you have something to do, Sergeant?”

  “I always got something to do.” He took one step backward, saluted, and walked away.

  “He forgot his head,” Lydia Kent-Taylor said dryly.

  “Delane!” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “Bury that head right now.”

  “Maybe Butsko wants it for something.”

  “I said bury that head!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Delane scooped up the head and carried it off into the night. Lieutenant Breckenridge smiled.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess the front isn't a tea party, and some of the men get a little rough. I apologize for the behavior of Sergeant Butsko, but he's been in the war since the very beginning. He was on the Bataan Death March, you see. Escaped from a Jap POW camp on Luzon. He's not exactly what you would call a boy scout.”

  “Neither am I,” Lydia Kent-Taylor said. “We'll pitch our tents right here, and if we need
you for anything, we'll ask. By the way, there's only one item I'll require: I'd like to have one of your men dig me my own latrine.”

  “I'll have Private Delane take care of it as soon as he comes back.”

  “Very good, Lieutenant. I look forward to seeing you in the morning.”

  “We get up pretty early around here.”

  “So do I.”

  “Do you have a weapon?” Lieutenant Breckenridge asked.

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “A knife or a gun.”

  “What would I need that for?”

  “Jap infiltrators.”

  “Here?”

  “Sometimes in the morning we find men whose throats have been slit by the Japs during the night.”

  “My goodness!”

  “I take it you don't have a gun.”

  “Well, no.”

  “I'll post a guard at your tent, ma'am.”

  She remembered what Butsko had said about her being in the way. “That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. I'm sure we'll be all right.”

  “I'm not so sure, and I'm the one in command here. I'll post a guard.” He raised his rigid right hand to his temple and saluted her. “Good night, ma'am.”

  Butsko dropped into the foxhole with Longtree and Bannon. “You'll never believe what just happened.”

  “What was it?” Bannon asked.

  “There's a cunt in the platoon area.”

  Longtree's ears perked up. “A cunt?”

  “Yeah, a lady photographer, a real la-di-da bitch.”

  “What's she doing here?” Bannon asked.

  “I guess she's gonna take pictures of us.”

  “She pretty?”

  “She's not bad for an old broad.”

  “Nice ass?” asked Longtree, who was an ass-and-legs man.

  “I couldn't see.”

  “Any tits?” asked Bannon, who was a tit man.

  “I just told you I couldn't see.”

  “Where's the head?” asked Longtree.

  “Oh, fuck, I got so pissed off at that broad, I forgot it.”

  “Somebody's coming,” Bannon said.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge emerged from the jungle and knelt at the edge of the foxhole, looking directly into Butsko's eyes.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “What I do?” Butsko asked.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge pointed at Butsko's nose. “From now on you're going to be nice to that lady.”

  “She ain't no lady—she's a war correspondent.”

  “I don't care what she is—you're going to be nice to her!”

  “Aw, come on, Lieutenant.”

  “If she complains about us to General Griswold, all our asses will be in a sling.”

  Butsko snorted. “What's he gonna do to us, put us all before a firing squad? Fuck him too.”

  “There are a lot of things he can do to us, and you know it. So be nice to her. Maybe she'll take a few pictures tomorrow and leave.”

  “Let's hope so. We don't need any broads wandering around here. We're having enough problems as it is. Hey, by the way, where's my fucking head?”

  “It's still on your shoulders, from what I can see.”

  “I mean the Jap head.”

  “I told Delane to bury it.”

  “What you tell him that for?”

  “What did you expect me to do with it?”

  “I wanted to put it on a pole out there in the jungle to scare the fucking Japs.”

  “See Delane about it.” He pointed at Butsko again. “You're going to be nice to Miss Kent-Taylor, aren't you?”

  Bannon widened his eyes. “Lydia Kent-Taylor, the famous photographer?”

  “That's her.”

  Butsko frowned. “I'll be nice to her, sir. If I get close to her, I'll stick my finger up her ass. If she behaves herself, maybe I'll let her take a picture of my cock.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge looked at his watch. “I think it's time I hit the hay. You-all might as well turn in too. I don't know what we're gonna do tomorrow, but I think we'll start shelling the Japs pretty early. Just remember Butsko, if you mess with that woman, she'll make you regret it. She's got friends in high places. She even knows General Mac Arthur, according to something I read a few months back.”

  “Fuck him too,” Butsko snarled.

  “Jesus Christ,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said, standing. Shaking his head in despair, he walked away.

  EIGHT . . .

  The artillery bombardment began at the first glimmer of dawn, around four-thirty in the morning. The loud rumbling didn't wake up Lydia Kent-Taylor, because she hadn't slept much all night. She'd lain with a bayonet at her side, and every time she heard a sound, she thought it was a Japanese soldier creeping up on her to slit her throat. She cursed Lieutenant Breck-enridge for planting the fear in her mind. She had an artist's personality and tended to get obsessed by things.

  She'd slept with her clothes on, and now all she had to do was lace up her boots, put on her hat, and get her ass in gear, but first she had to go to the toilet. She crawled out of her tent, saw that Leo wasn't up yet, and looked around at the recon platoon area in the first light of dawn. Nearby, Lieutenant Breckenridge sat in his foxhole, eating something out of a can.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” she said cheerfully, although she didn't feel so hot.

  He looked up from his map. “Morning. Sleep okay?”

  “Yes, thank you. Yourself?”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you have my latrine dug?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Over there.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  She walked in the direction he'd indicated and found a fresh path leading to the latrine, which surrounded by an OD tarpaulin to ensure her privacy. Smiling, she went inside and saw the hole with the pole suspended over it so that she could sit and hang out her bottom.

  She unbuttoned her fatigue pants, pulled them and her underwear down, and moved toward the hole. Something was inside it, and she squinted her eyes to make it out. Her jaw fell open when she saw what it was: the head of the Japanese soldier, face up.

  She wanted to scream, but managed to suppress the sound coming up from her throat. Then she became angry. Somebody had done this deliberately to upset her, and she had a good idea of who it was.

  Pulling up her pants and buckling her belt, she stormed out of the latrine and marched toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, who was still looking at his map.

  “Lieutenant Breckenridge!” she said.

  “Ma'am?” he replied, glancing up.

  She placed her hands on her hips. “Somebody is trying to make a fool of me! The head of the Japanese soldier is in my latrine!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge closed his eyes and groaned. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I'm sure!”

  “It's probably a little dark in there. You might have been seeing things.”

  “I wasn't seeing things!” She realized she was screaming and brought her voice under control. “Would you care to see for yourself?”

  “Okay.” Lieutenant Breckenridge folded his map and put it in his map case. He left the case in the hole with his other belongings, slung his carbine, and walked with her into the woods.

  “I think it's a disgusting, vindictive thing to do!” she said. “And I bet I know who did it!”

  “Who?”

  “That sergeant you introduced me to last night.”

  “Butsko?”

  “That one.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge moved into the jungle with long strides. He knew that if anybody had placed the head in her latrine, it probably was Butsko. That maniac is driving me nuts, Lieutenant Breckenridge thought.

  They came to the latrine, and Lieutenant Breckenridge let Lydia go in first. She looked down into the hole. “It's gone!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge stood beside her. “You sure you saw it in the first place?”

  “Yes!”r />
  Lieutenant Breckenridge shrugged. “Well, I don't know. It sure as hell isn't here now.”

  She turned to him angrily. “Do you think I'm lying to you?”

  “No, ma'am, but maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you before. You do look a little peaked.”

  “Peaked!”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “I am not peaked!”

  A faint smile broke out on her face, and she knew she'd lost. One woman all alone among an army of men had to take a lot of shit, and that's all there was to it. If a man had been alone among an army of woman, it would have been the same thing.

  “Well,” she said, calming down, speaking coldly and with a faint tinge of derision, “I know what I saw, but it's not here now and I can't prove anything. Hereafter I'll handle these matters myself. Would you kindly advise me as to where I can find Master Sergeant John Butsko?

  “I imagine he's with the First Squad over there.” Breckenridge pointed.

  “Are you very busy right now, or do you think you could take me to him?”

  “I'm busy, ma'am, but I'll have Private Delane take you.”

  “That would be most kind of you.”

  “I want to be as helpful as I can, ma'am.”

  They walked away from the latrine and passed through the jungle, returning to the foxhole, where Craig Delane lay, listening to the walkie-talkie.

  “Delane, take Miss Kent-Taylor to Sergeant Butsko.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Delane jumped up and approached Lydia. “This way, please.”

  She walked beside him toward the jungle. A big bug landed on her forehead and she slapped it, splattering all over her forehead. “Damn,” she said, reaching into her pocket, taking out her handkerchief, and wiping it off. “Is Sergeant Butsko far from here?”

  “No.”

  “By the way, what was your name again?”

  “Craig Delane, and I believe we've met before.”

  Lydia stared at the filthy, unshaven soldier next to her; he smelled to high heaven. “We have?”

  “Yes, in New York City. A charity ball at Delmonico's, given by Henry Rutherford, I believe. We were introduced by my uncle, Lemuel Decatur.”