by Len Levinson
Butsko frowned. “They'll rebound real fast. Those last few yards are gonna be awful hard. We'll be at point-blank range.”
“That's why you'll have to run like hell. Tell the men that they've got to really move it out when the order comes down.”
“Nobody can move faster than a bullet,” Butsko said.
“There'll always be casualties,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied, looking at his watch. “Okay, go talk to the men. We should be moving out in about an hour.”
The meeting broke up. Butsko turned and headed back to the First Squad. Lydia's tent passed into his line of vision. She was lying inside the tent with the flap open, pointing her camera at him. He felt like throwing her a French salute, because he enjoyed needling her, but decided against it. Colonel Stockton might see the picture and really get mad at him. Instead he held up his two fingers in the V for Victory sign and grinned at her long enough for a picture to be taken, then turned toward the First Squad and resumed his walk.
Lydia lowered her camera and retreated back into her tent, closing the flap behind her. The meeting was over and she had no more good picture possibilities, but Butsko's gesture disturbed her. Was his V for Victory an expression of his confidence about the outcome of the attack that morning, or was it a signal to her that he was going to do what he said: fuck her.
The mere thought of him doing that made her shiver. She couldn't let a man like that conquer her, but yet she knew she craved him. The collision of opposing thoughts in her mind made her feel a little light-headed, and she reached for her first cigarette of the day.
As long as Leo stays with me, I'll be all right, she thought.
Drugged and in pain, Frankie La Barbara opened his eyes and looked at the morning light glowing through the OD of the hospital tent. He could hear the bombardment in the distance and couldn't tell who was on the receiving end, the Japs or the GIs.
He thought of Butsko and Bannon and all the others out there in foxholes, probably having breakfast now—or trying to have breakfast. Frankie had been with them for over a year, and now he was with other men crowded into a hospital tent, far from the action. He felt a little homesick for the good old recon platoon.
Nurse Falvo entered the tent, followed by an orderly carrying a tray with pills, thermometers, hypodermic needles, and other medical paraphernalia.
“Hey, what's going on out there?” Frankie asked.
“There's a big attack this morning,” Mary Falvo said. “Open your mouth.”
Frankie opened his mouth and Nurse Falvo dropped in a thermometer, looking at her watch and holding his wrist.
The thermometer felt uncomfortable underneath his tongue, so he moved it to a better spot, but Mary Falvo noticed and pushed it back where it was.
“Leave it alone,” she said. “And keep your mouth shut.”
Frankie looked up at her long eyelashes and big brown eyes. She had a faint mustache and the suggestion of sideburns, and her features weren't particularly delicate, but she wasn't bad-looking otherwise. She had large, upstanding breasts, just the kind he'd like to rest his head upon.
Explosions rumbled in the distance, and Nurse Falvo pulled the thermometer out of his mouth, reading it.
“How am I?” he asked.
“You don't have a temperature,” she said, moving on to the next man, whose legs had been blown off the day before and who hadn't come to consciousness yet. He'd also been wounded in his chest and stomach and didn't have long to live.
Frankie La Barbara listened to the peals of thunder in the distance. Boy, I'm glad I don't have to go on this one, he thought.
Colonel Stockton stood beside his desk and strapped on his Colt .45 service pistol. He pulled it out of its holster, checked the clip, and worked the bolt. The Colt .45 was accurate only at short range, but if you hit somebody with one of its fat bullets, you'd blow him apart.
He put on his helmet and positioned it low over his eyes. Grim-faced, intending to lead his regiment's attack personally, he walked to the tent flap and whacked it aside.
In the next tent section Lieutenant Harper, Major Cobb, Sergeant Major Ramsay, and Private Levinson were waiting for him.
“Let's go,” he said.
They followed him outside. Private Nick Bombasino was standing beside the jeep and snapped to attention. Colonel Stockton marched resolutely toward the jeep and Private Bombasino snapped to and saluted. Colonel Stockton returned the salute and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“To the front,” Colonel Stockton said.
The Japanese soldier known as the Mosquito sat in a tunnel near the top of the fortress, his back pressed against a dirt wall, trying not to shiver or show fear as American bombs and artillery shells slammed into the ground and building just above him. The shelling had been going on for over an hour, and the Mosquito was apprehensive about the attack that he knew would come soon.
On both his sides and on the other side of the tunnel, other Japanese soldiers sat like he did, knees in the air and rifles pointed upward. Sergeant Suzuki had his eyes closed and was probably asleep. How could anyone sleep at a time like this? Yet, Sergeant Suzuki's rifle was straight up in the air. Even in sleep he was a soldier.
Footsteps could be heard approaching in the tunnel. Sergeant Suzuki leaped to his feet and shouted, “Attention!”
Captain Hisahiro came into view, followed by staff officers. He stopped in the midst of the men and posed, fingers resting on the handle of his samurai sword.
“Stand easy,” he said.
The soldiers went slack. The Mosquito gazed with hatred at the face of Captain Hisahiro. Officers like that get men like me killed, he thought. Officers like that have started this damned war. He wanted to raise his rifle and shoot Captain Hisahiro but was too much of a trained infantry soldier to do that.
“The American attack will come soon,” Captain Hisahiro said. “Be ready to fight. Your orders are to kill ten American soldiers each, and I expect you to do it. Aim straight and be thoughtful. Obey your officers and remember your training. Think of your ancestors in heaven who are watching you. Carry on.”
Captain Hisahiro thrust out his left foot and continued his march throughout the labyrinth, issuing brief pep talks to his men. He'd positioned them all near the top of the fortress so that they could rush to the parapets as soon as the shelling stopped. He knew there would be several minutes during which he could inflict heavy casualties on the Americans attacking over open ground, and he intended to make the best use of them.
The Mosquito turned toward the wall and bit his lower lip in an effort to hold back the tears. He wasn't a sentimental man, and he'd seldom cried in his adult life, but he knew that he probably wouldn't live to see another dawn.
The Twenty-third Regiment was lined up in foxholes at the edge of the jungle, ready to advance across the airstrip toward the mission fortress on Kokengolo Hill. In the distance planes dropped bombs on the fortress, and artillery shells hammered it constantly. All they could see was a huge cloud of smoke flashing yellow and orange as the bombs and shells detonated.
Longtree watched the cloud, trying to see what effect the bombardment was having, and Bannon sat in the foxhole, smoking a cigarette and staring into space. He felt certain that he'd be killed in the attack.
He knew that he and the others would soon be charging across open ground and that there would be a few minutes when the Japanese could rip them apart. Usually he was philosphical during times like this, but Frankie La Barbara wouldn't be with him today, and so he didn't feel very philosophical.
He'd seen many men die during the year he'd been in combat, and some of them had shrieked with pain for a long time before the medics reached them. The pain must have been excruciating for them to shriek so loudly, and some had been brave men—not crybabies. If such men could be reduced to tears and babbling, how would he hold up?
He'd seen other wounded men just go slack, their eyes glazing over, but still they were alive, with faint pulses. It must be terr
ible to feel your life dripping away through a stomach wound or a hole in your chest. How awful to lose control that way as Death dragged you off. The pain and horror must be almost beyond human endurance, and yet men went through it every day. Bannon wished he could be Frankie La Barbara, safe in a hospital far behind the lines. Oh, God, I never should have joined the Army, he thought. I should've got on my horse and rode to Mexico and hid for the duration, maybe shacked up with one of those almond-eyed Mexican honeys. He lit a fresh cigarette with the butt of his old one.
“You okay?” asked Longtree.
Bannon looked to the side and saw Longtree's concerned face. “I'm gonna die today,” he replied in a disembodied voice that sounded strange to both of them.
“You really think that?” Longtree asked.
“I really think that.”
Longtree was as superstitious as a human being could get, and he believed in premonitions, omens and portents. “Well,” he said, “then all you can do is die like a warrior, fighting hard. I will fight beside you. It is a good day to die.”
“What's so good about it?” Bannon snapped back.
Longtree looked up at the red ball rising in the cloudless sky. “At least it isn't raining.”
“If you're dead, what does it matter whether or not it's raining? Who gives a fuck?”
“I suppose any day is a good day to die,” Longtree admitted. “There is nothing we can do except die with honor, like true warriors.”
“I shoulda never enlisted in this motherfucker,” Bannon said weakly.
“It's a little too late for that,” Longtree told him.
The jeep stopped among tall thick-trunked trees bedecked with huge leaves shaped like elephants’ ears. Colonel Stockton swung his feet around and climbed out, glanced at the soldiers in foxholes nearby, then trudged through the jungle, heading for the open ground.
Private Bombasino stayed with the jeep, while Major Cobb, Lieutenant Harper, and Private Levinson, carrying the backpack radio, followed him. Men in the foxholes nearby looked at Colonel Stockton as he passed. They weren't surprised to see him, because often he chose to lead major attacks personally to show them all that he wouldn't ask them to do anything he wouldn't do himself.
Colonel Stockton passed through the jungle and walked into the open area. Ahead of him were the outer runways of the airstrip and in the distance the throbbing cloud that enveloped Kokengolo Hill. Enough wind was blowing to provide an occasional glimpse of the mission station, but then it would disappear in explosions again. Standing with one leg ramrod stiff and the other bent in front of him, Colonel Stockton raised his binoculars to his eyes and studied the mission fortress.
He couldn't see much of strategic significance, but that wasn't why he was there. The main thing was to show himself to his men and give them confidence. It was possible that a stray chunk of shrapnel would tear a hole in him, but that was unlikely, and besides, the colonel had overcome most of the fear inside him long ago when he'd been a young lieutenant in the Second Division, under Major General Lejeune. Colonel Stockton was a professional soldier, and he'd realized then that a professional soldier had to overcome fear, and he'd done it through the exertion of his will. His father had been a general, and so had his grandfather. They had molded him to be the kind of man he was.
Major Cobb, Lieutenant Harper, and Private Levinson lagged behind him in the woods, because they didn't want to expose themselves. Colonel Stockton calmly swung his binoculars from side to side, then raised them and looked at planes streaking across the blue sky, shooting at each other, dropping bombs. It was hard to see which were friendly and which weren't. Lowering the binoculars, he studied the mission fortress again, and all the soldiers nearby gazed at him in awe, because none of them would stand out there if they didn't have to.
In the sky above Kokengolo Hill a Japanese fighter pilot in a Mitsubishi A6M Zero-sen happened to spot the lone figure down there at the edge of the jungle. Bullets whizzed all around the pilot and his Zero was full of holes. His engine sputtered and his communications system was knocked out.
It looked as if the Americans were about to attack from out of those woods down there, and he leaned his wheel to the side, banking in that direction. He couldn't notify his squadron leader of what he'd seen, and indeed doubted whether his squadron leader was still alive, because so many Zeros had been shot down already, but he would fly down himself and indicate what he saw.
His engines screamed as he rolled to the side, and then he dived down toward the figure standing in the open, positioning his thumb over the button that would fire his machine guns.
“Look out!” shouted Major Cobb.
“Get down!” yelled Lieutenant Harper.
Colonel Stockton looked up and saw the Zero swooping toward him. Lightning spurted from its wings and he realized it was firing at him. He could turn and run away, but he couldn't let his men see him to that. Besides, it would be awfully difficult for a single plane to shoot a solitary man at the speed the plane was traveling.
He stood solidly where he was and aimed his binoculars at Kokengolo Hill, as the Zero dived toward him. At the edge of the jungle, antiaircraft batteries shot at the plane, but it was coming too fast to be a good, reliable target.
Colonel Stockton heard the plane's engines become louder, but he didn't react. His men stared at him in disbelief.
“Watch out!” screamed Major Cobb.
Antiaircraft shells burst all around the Zero, making it rock and roll as it continued its dive. The Japanese pilot hung on to his stick and pressed the button, bullets firing out of the machine guns in the wings. An American machine-gun bullet zipped through his cockpit, leaving holes on either side, but the Japanese pilot accelerated and kept his aim on the American soldier in front of him. Why didn't the fool run for cover?
Colonel Stockton heard the plane approaching and its machine guns rattling, but he was confident that the bullets would miss him. They stitched two lines toward him, and still he studied Kokengolo Hill through his binoculars, cool as a cucumber. The twin paths of bullets kicked up dirt toward him and shot past him on both sides, so close that some of the dirt spattered his leg. He flinched slightly when he felt it, and thought for a split second that he'd been hit, but he didn't look down; he just stood his ground as if nothing were happening. The Zero passed overhead and started to climb, but an antiaircraft gunner on the ground got lucky and blew off the Zero's left wing. The Zero bellied over and wobbled in the air. It skimmed the tops of the trees, lost altitude, and crashed into the jungle, sending a blossom of orange flame rising into the sky.
Lydia Kent-Taylor had captured Colonel Stockton's performance with her camera, and she was glad she hadn't run out of film in the middle of the action. She'd seen Colonel Stockton appear on the battlefield, moved closer to take a picture, and had been in a good position behind him and to the left when the Zero opened fire.
She'd held him in her sights as the Zero fired at him and the bullets kicked up dirt. It had been a beautiful shot in the viewing lens, as good as anything Robert Capa or Edward Steichen ever did, and she hoped the picture would come out all right after it was developed.
She walked toward Colonel Stockton after the Zero had been shot down. Leo Stern was behind her, his notebook ready. She angled to the side and took a profile shot of Colonel Stockton as he peered ahead through his binoculars. Colonel Stockton studies the field of battle before the attack. He lowered his binoculars as she moved into his line of vision and took a frontal shot.
“I think you'd better take cover, Miss Kent-Taylor,” he said.
Bombs were bursting on Kokengolo Hill in the distance, but she felt safe where she was, and besides, this was a fabulous sequence of pictures. I’ m going to make you famous, she thought. I'll bet we can sell these pictures to Life.
Leo Stern approached Colonel Stockton, his notebook and pen ready. “That was some feat, Colonel.”
Colonel Stockton scowled as he looked at Kokengolo Hill through his bino
culars again. “I think you're too far forward. You'd better go back where it's safe.”
“Why didn't you take cover when that Zero strafed you.”
“I knew he couldn't hit me. I was a small target and he was coming too quickly to aim straight.”
“But he came awfully close.” Leo Stern looked at the marks the Japanese machine-gun bullets had made in the ground.
“Close doesn't mean anything. You've got to land on target if you want to shoot a man. Otherwise you've just wasted ammunition.” He watched Leo Stern writing. “Is this on the record?”
“Everything you say to me is on the record, sir. How do you think the attack’ll go this morning.”
“We'll take Kokengolo Hill before sundown or my name isn't Bill Stockton.”
“Why are you so far up front, sir? Isn't it an unnecessary risk?”
Colonel Stockton looked at him sternly, and Lydia snapped the picture. “I'm up front here because I'm leading the attack.”
“You mean in person?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“It's my job.”
“Other regimental commanders don't lead attacks in person.”
“I guess some of them see their jobs a little differently from the way I see mine.” Colonel Stockton glanced at his watch. “The barrage will be ending soon and I have things to do. I hope you'll excuse me.”
“Of course,” said Leo Stern.
His hands clasped behind him and his Colt .45 slapping his side, Colonel Stockton walked back to the jungle, where Major Cobb and the others were. “Direct all commanders to move their men up on the line!”
Lydia Kent-Taylor snapped the picture. The colonel issues his final orders.
American soldiers would attack Kokengolo Hill from three sides, and they all came out of their foxholes, moving into position at the edge of the woods. First they would be ordered to move out, to advance across the airstrip under the cover of the bombardment, drawing their noose around Kokengolo Hill. Then the bombardment would end and the attack would begin.
