Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

  “What if this tunnel is a dead end?” asked Pfc. Temple.

  “Then the Corps of Engineers'll have to dig us out. Stop worrying so much. You're like a bunch of whores in night court.”

  That shut them up, and they felt embarrassed for showing their fear. Hunching over behind their rifles, ready for anything, they advanced deeper into Kokengolo Hill. The torches sputtered and Craig Delane wondered if he was marching into his grave.

  Butsko glimpsed a door up ahead. “Over here,” he said, darting to the wall on the same side of the tunnel as the door.

  The men huddled against the wall. Delane wished he wasn't carrying the torch, because if Japs were ahead, he'd be the first one they'd shoot at.

  “There's another room up there,” Butsko said.

  “Shit,” said Private Witherspoon.

  “What was that?” Butsko asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “If you don't have nothing to say, keep your mouth shut.” Butsko peered down the tunnel, wondering if Japs were behind that door. There was only one way to find out. “Sergeant Cameron!”

  “Yo.”

  “Follow me. The rest of you, trail behind Sergeant Cameron.”

  His back to the wall, Butsko tiptoed toward the door. Sergeant Cameron crept behind him, holding the nozzle of the flamethrower, and then came the rest of the recon platoon, their eyes darting around nervously, trying to be quiet. The flames from the torches made their eyes sparkle and cast sinister shadows on their faces, which were knotted with tension. They looked like a band of ghouls instead of a platoon of American GIs.

  Butsko came to within ten yards of the door, then reached back and touched Sergeant Cameron. “Stay here,” he whispered.

  Sergeant Cameron nodded, and Butsko moved forward, pulling a grenade from his lapel. He yanked the pin, took a few more steps, then let the lever go and tossed the grenade in front of the door, where it plopped onto the dirt.

  Butsko turned and ran back, and after a short distance he dived toward the floor. He held his helmet on his head and squinched his eyes, waiting for the grenade to detonate. He counted to three and then it blew, thundering through the tunnel, and Butsko felt the shock wave pass over him.

  Sergeant Cameron charged the splintered door, his finger on the nozzle control. He rammed the nozzle into an opening and turned it on. Flames swooshed out and filled the room with a mighty roar. Butsko leaped to his feet and held his M 1 high.

  “Follow me!” he yelled.

  He galloped past Sergeant Cameron and busted through the shattered door, landing in a small room. It had a desk and chair against the far wall, and both were ablaze, filling the room with smoke. He could see no Japanese soldiers anywhere, but a closed door was in the middle of the wall on his right.

  The rest of the recon platoon piled into the room behind him, tense and nervous, anxious to kill a Jap before he killed one of them. They bounced around on their toes and held their fingers against their triggers, their eyes sweeping the room frantically.

  Butsko looked at the door and headed toward the wall beside it. “I'll blow down the door; the rest of you, follow me, Cameron in the lead. Got it?”

  “Yo.”

  Butsko held his hand grenade and pulled the pin. He waited until the others were out of the way, then tossed the grenade in front of the door and turned quickly, dashing out the door, joining the others in the hall. They waited a few seconds and then the grenade exploded, making the walls tremble. A few chunks of earth dropped down from the ceiling.

  Sergeant Cameron turned the corner and ran into the room, turning the flamethrower on as he aimed it through a wide crack in the door to the next room. Fire spat out the nozzle, and Sergeant Cameron saw it catch on to whatever was in the room.

  He heard Butsko galloping like a stallion behind him and got out of the way. Butsko jumped into the air, crashed through the splintered door, and landed in the room, pulling the trigger of his M 1 rifle and putting a hole through the Jap sitting behind the desk, his body and head covered with a sheet of flame.

  Butsko glanced around and saw that the burning figure behind the desk was the only Jap in the room, which evidently was an office, like the previous one. On the desk in front of the burning Jap was a picture in a frame, which was also on fire. The soldiers from the recon platoon crowded into the office behind Butsko, who spotted something long sticking out of the Jap's stomach.

  “Jesus,” said Butsko, “he must've just committed hara-kiri.”

  The figure behind the desk was Captain Hisahiro, and he hadn't just committed hara-kiri: He'd done it an hour before, when the American stormed the deeper recesses of the tunnel system. His troops had failed to hold the fortress, and there was nothing more for him to do except give his life for his Emperor.

  Private Ubaldo pinched his nose with his fingers. “He stinks!”

  Sergeant Cameron pointed the nozzle of his flamethrower toward a corner. “Isn't that chow over there?”

  Butsko looked. The crates had the same markings as crates of food they'd captured in the past. “Have a look, Delane. Watch out for booby traps.”

  Delane approached the crates and felt around for wires but couldn't find any. He took out his bayonet and sliced into the crate. The round tops of tin cans stared back at him.

  “It's chow!” he said.

  “Haul that stuff out of here,” Butsko said.

  Soldiers heaved the crates onto their shoulders and carried them out of the room. Butsko kicked the smoldering Captain Hisahiro out of his way and pulled out a drawer of the desk. In it was a bottle of sake. “Bull's-eye!” he said. He pulled open another drawer and found a sheaf of papers, which he removed and handed to Private Ubaldo. In the bottom drawer he found two more bottles of sake lying on their sides. “Well, whataya know,” Butsko said, taking them out.

  He searched through the rest of the desk as its front burned and crackled. The room was filling with smoke, and Butsko's eyes smarted. He took more papers from the other drawers, stepped over the charred body of Captain Hisahiro, and headed for the door.

  “Let's get out of here,” he said.

  His men filed out of the room. Butsko was the last to leave. Behind, lying on the floor, Captain Hisahiro continued to smolder, his ritual hara-kiri knife sticking out of his stomach.

  A tarpaulin had been set up on top of the ruined mission station to protect Colonel Stockton from the sun. He sat at his desk underneath it, enjoying a late lunch of hot C rations and hot coffee, which perked him up and made him feel even better than he already felt, because all resistance on Kokengolo Hill had ended, as far as he knew.

  Elements of his regiment were sweeping through the jungle to the southwest of the hill, searching for Japanese stragglers. It was believed that a sizable contingent of Japs were on then-way to Bairoko Harbor, where they expected to be evacuated; but if those Japs existed, they'd run into the Thirty-eighth Regiment's roadblock and be caught between it and Colonel Stockton's units moving up from the south. That should make short work of the final remnants of the Japanese army on New Georgia.

  It had been a fine campaign, Colonel Stockton thought in retrospect. He'd lost a lot of men, but the Japanese had lost four to five times more, and the US Army had taken the island, a key to General MacArthur's Operation CARTWHEEL strategy. The next major objective would probably be Bougainville, the northernmost island in the Solomon chain, the stepping-stone to the principal Japanese stronghold in the southwest Pacific, Rabaul, on New Britain Island. According to intelligence reports, the Japanese had fortified Bougainville much more strongly than any other island in the Solomons, and the fight to capture it would be costly.

  Lieutenant Harper approached Colonel Stockton and saluted. “As far as I can determine,” Lieutenant Harper said, “the recon platoon was evidently trapped by that explosion we had awhile ago. I've been able to account for all our other units. Sergeant Clancy, here, from George Company saw the recon platoon before the explosion.”

  Colonel Stockto
n looked at Sergeant Clancy, who was lantern-jawed, redheaded, and as lean as a rail. “Where'd you see the recon platoon last?”

  Sergeant Clancy shifted his feet nervously, because he was scared to death of high-ranking officers. “I seen Butsko and his men down in the tunnels. We came to a fork in the road; Butsko told me to go left, and he took his men right. About a half hour after that we heard the explosion, and part of our tunnel caved in, but we were able to make it back to the fork. We could see that the tunnel going to the right was completely caved in, and that was the direction where the big explosion came from.”

  Colonel Stockton thought for a few moments. “The recon platoon must have blown up a Jap ammo dump down there by mistake.”

  Sergeant Clancy nodded. “They had enough hand grenades to do it. They stole them from me and my men.”

  “What do you mean?” Colonel Stockton asked sharply.

  Sergeant Clancy couldn't look Colonel Stockton in the eye. “Butsko pulled a gun on me and made us hand over our grenades.”

  “All your grenades?”

  “One from every other man in my platoon.”

  “Did Sergeant Butsko ask first?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Clancy replied with a stutter.

  “Why didn't you give them to him?”

  “Because we needed them for ourselves.”

  “Was the recon platoon low on hand grenades.”

  Sergeant Clancy took a few moments to answer. “Yes, sir, I believe they were.”

  Colonel Stockton groaned with exasperation. “If he was low on hand grenades, you should have shared what you had with him.”

  “But we needed them grenades, sir.”

  “So did Sergeant Butsko. You should have given him some of your grenades. It's share and share alike in this man's Army, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If anything like this every happens again, you'd better share what you have. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You're dismissed.”

  Sergeant Clancy saluted, did an about-face, and walked away. Lieutenant Harper lay a sheet of paper in front of Colonel Stockton.

  “I've drawn a rough map of the tunnel system,” Lieutenant Harper said, “based on what Sergeant Clancy told me. It appears that Butsko and the recon platoon are somewhere over here.”

  Colonel Stockton looked at where Lieutenant Harper was pointing. “Have Colonel McCawley report to me right away.”

  “You think the recon platoon might still be alive?” Lieutenant Harper asked.

  “I have to assume that until I know otherwise. Get going.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Harper walked away. Colonel Stockton stared at the map of the tunnel system, adjusting the reading glasses on his nose so that he could see better.

  Click!

  Colonel Stockton looked up and saw Lydia Kent-Taylor aiming her Leica at him. She lowered the camera, and he was surprised by how bedraggled she appeared. She'd lost her helmet somewhere and her hair was mussed up. Her face was dirty and her uniform torn. She sagged from fatigue.

  “I think you'd better have a seat,” he said. “Care for some coffee?”

  “Coffee?” she asked dreamily. “I'd love some coffee.”

  “Private Bombasino!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Get some coffee for Miss Kent-Taylor!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lydia sat down next to Colonel Stockton and placed her Leica on the table, then took her haversack from her shoulder and laid it on the ground. This was the first time she sat down since Leo talked with her nearly two hours earlier.

  “Get any good pictures?” Colonel Stockton asked disinterestedly, for he still was perusing the map.

  “I think so.”

  “I imagine you'll be leaving us soon?”

  “I don't know. Maybe.”

  “You look like you've had a hard day.”

  “Not as hard as the men who had to fight here.”

  He glanced up at her; her face was pale, her eyes half-closed. “Maybe you'd better lie down.”

  “I'm all right.”

  “You don't look well.”

  “As you said, it's been a hard day.”

  They heard the approach of footsteps and turned around. It was Lieutenant Colonel McCawley, a short, stout man with a round face and a mustache with the ends teased upward. He was commanding officer of the 271st Engineers, and he came to attention, saluting.

  “At ease,” said Colonel Stockton.

  Lydia thought she should take a photograph of Colonel McCawley, but she didn't feel like lifting her camera again. She was tired of taking pictures. She just wanted to find some-place to relax.

  “Have a seat,” Colonel Stockton said. “Smoke if you like.

  Have you met Lydia Kent-Taylor yet?”

  “I don't believe I've had the pleasure,” Colonel McCawley said.

  “Here she is.”

  “How do you do,” Colonel McCawley said gallantly, because he considered himself a ladies’ man.

  Lydia could discern that from the prissy way he trimmed his mustache. “Hello.”

  Colonel Stockton cleared his throat. “Let's get down to business. Do you recall that explosion that took place a little while ago? Well, evidently it was set off by the recon platoon, and now they're trapped in a tunnel.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “I want you to send some of your big boys down there with shovels to dig them out.”

  “May I have that map, sir?”

  “Sure. If you have any other questions, refer them to my aide, Lieutenant Harper. He knows more about the situation than I do, and he has a sergeant who can lead you to the place where the cave-in is. Everything clear?”

  Colonel McCawley picked up the map. “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel McCawley walked away, and Lydia stared at Colonel Stockton. “The recon platoon is trapped in this hill?”

  Colonel Stockton nodded. “Evidently they blew up a Japanese ammo dump, and that made the tunnel system collapse.”

  “My goodness, are they all right?”

  “I don't know, but it's a good thing you didn't stay with them.”

  Lydia looked away, astounded. The recon platoon was trapped underground. They might be dead. Perhaps Butsko had been killed. It was hard to imagine that such a man, full of vitality and malevolence, could be killed. She'd seen many dead men that day, but Butsko seemed deathless to her. You couldn't kill a man like that.

  Colonel Stockton was surprised by the expression of concern on her face. He hadn't thought that she'd been that involved with the men from the recon platoon. “They're a very resourceful bunch, my recon platoon,” he said. “If there's a way to get away, you can be sure they'll find it.”

  “But what if there isn't?”

  “My military experience has taught me that there's always a way out of difficult situations, and often more than one way.”

  Major Cobb approached with a rolled-up map under his arm. “May I speak with you, sir?”

  “Have a seat, Major.”

  Major Cobb sat on the other side of Colonel Stockton and rolled out his map, explaining that Japanese stragglers had been observed in the jungle to the southwest of Kokengolo Hill and that units of the Twenty-third Regiment were pursuing them. Private Bombasino placed a pot of coffee and three mugs on the table, and Lydia reached for hers, sipping it hot and black.

  She was thinking about the recon platoon trapped underground and about stories she'd read in newspapers from time to time about coal miners being trapped by mine explosions in America. Sometimes they'd been found dead, but other times they'd walked out of the tunnels, and photographers had been there to catch the expressions of fatigue and relief on their blackened faces. Such photographs were sensational and appeared in newspapers all over the country. Sometimes the pictures even won awards.

  She realized that if the recon platoon could be saved, she might be able to take such a picture, and it would have tremendous h
uman interest because the men involved weren't mere coal miners but American GIs fighting the great Second World War. The right picture capturing the right mood could give her career a tremendous boost.

  The coffee enlivened her mind, and her visualization of the picture inspired her. She could almost see Butsko leading the recon platoon out of a hole in the ground, and they'd all have their rifles slung over their shoulders and their faces covered with dirt, hollowed-eyed and relieved to be saved. What a picture!

  She gulped down the coffee and stood, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said, “but I've got to be going.”

  Colonel Stockton nodded and grunted, still conferring with Major Cobb, and Lydia ran off to find Leo Stern. He probably didn't know about the recon platoon's predicament; it'd be a hell of a story for him too. She looked around for him, and her eyes fell on a team of GIs loading dead Japanese soldiers into a truck. The light was behind them and in silhouette the scene was gruesome and macabre. She lifted her camera and focused in.

  Click!

  The Mosquito heard American soldiers moving toward him, and he opened his left eye to a slit. He saw American soldiers tossing dead Japanese soldiers onto a truck, and they were headed his way. His heart beat wildly, because he was afraid he'd be discovered. They might shoot him on the spot!

  He became terrified. After lying in the hot sun for so many hours, with flies buzzing all over him, he might get shot anyway. He believed propaganda about American soldiers killing and torturing their prisoners. He still wanted to escape somehow and hide in the jungle until it was safe to surrender, maybe when the war was over. The jungle was full of coconuts and the streams loaded with fish. A man could survive if he was resourceful.

  He decided to be calm and let the Americans load him onto the truck. Hopefully he'd land in a spot where he could get some air. He'd escape later. It'd be a good idea to get away from Kokengolo Hill anyway, because it was crawling with American soldiers and officers. If he were a fanatical Japanese soldier, he'd be able to kill an American officer without much trouble. Some high-ranking officers were seated at a table not too far away from the Mosquito, and it'd be easy for him to jump up and throw a grenade over there or fire a few shots.