Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

  Gundy looked him in the eye. “Would Christ have killed in self-defense?”

  Father Sheehy thought for a few moments. “I suppose not. But you're not Christ.”

  “Christianity tells me to be like Christ, and I failed. I shot that Japanese soldier in cold blood.”

  “Not really,” said Father Sheehy. “He tried to shoot you first.”

  Gundy shook his head. “I still don't think I should have killed him.”

  Father Sheehy tried to figure out what to say. The hardest part of being an Army chaplain was justifying the war to soldiers like Gundy. “He's dead now,” Father Sheehy said, trying to evade the issue. “We can't bring him back, so there's no use worrying about it.”

  “I'm not worrying. I just think I've committed an extremely serious act. The Ten Commandments ordered us not to kill, but I did.”

  You're in the middle of a war,” Father Sheehy said. “Killing happens. We Catholics believe this is a just war, so you did what you had to do.”

  “I don't know,” Gundy replied. “I believe it's a just war, but I don't think I personally should kill anybody. I violated my principles. I'm a hypocrite.” Gundy's voice broke and stuttered. “I think I'm going crazy.”

  “Have you prayed?”

  “I haven't had time.”

  “Well, I think that's what you'd better do. I know how I feel about the war, but I'm not you. The Ten Commandments may say ’Thou Shall not kill’ but, as you know, there are many exceptions. We kill mosquitos all the time, for instance. We kill the plants we step on. We kill the plants we eat. We kill the chickens and pigs that we eat. And we kill the people who are trying to destroy us and civilization as well.”

  “Christ said to turn the other cheek,” Gundy said.

  Father Sheehy shrugged. “I'm not going to argue theology with you. I believe what I believe and you believe what you believe. Your training in theology is as good as mine and you're an intelligent young man. I don't believe I could convince you of anything that you didn't want to be convinced of. I suggest you pray for guidance. I think only God can clarify the confusion in your mind.”

  “Your're right. I'll try to pray.”

  “Maybe you ought to get a sedative from someone in your medical unit, to calm you down.”

  “I don't want any sedatives. I want to think clearly.”

  Father Sheehy wanted to remark that he didn't think Gundy was thinking so clearly without sedatives, but decided to keep his mouth shut. The young man was obviously distraught, and he didn't want to say anything that might send him over the edge.

  “You can come back here and talk with me anytime you like,” Father Sheehy said.

  “Thank you, Father. I appreciate that.”

  Father Sheehy bent forward and touched Private Gundy on the shoulder. ‘Try to relax, all right?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I'm going back to my tent. You can stay here as long as you like.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Father Sheehy stood and walked into the jungle, disappearing in seconds. Private Gundy got onto his knees and clasped his hands together. He tried to pray, but all he could see before him was the bleeding body of the Japanese soldier he'd shot. He heard Father Sheehy moving away from him through the jungle. Then Father Sheehy's sounds stopped suddenly. There was silence for a few moments, then it sounded as if Father Sheehy was walking back toward him. Private Gundy moved to a sitting position and crossed his legs underneath him. Father Sheehy crashed through the jungle and poked his body through the leaves.

  “I just thought of something,” he said with a faint smile. “Mind if I tell you what I thought of?”

  “Go ahead?”

  “Well, I was thinking that if you let the Japanese soldier shoot you, you wouldn't be able to save the lives of wounded American soldiers anymore. When you shot the Japanese soldier, you only took one life, but if the Japanese soldier shot you, he might have killed ten or twenty, maybe even fifty, people indirectly.”

  Gundy sighed. “I don't want to be rude, Father, but I think that's just sophistry. The plain fact is that Christ wouldn't have shot anybody.”

  “Christ was never a combat medic, so we don't know what he'd have done in those circumstances.”

  “I know what he'd have done,” Gundy said.

  “I guess you're smarter than I am. Sorry to bother you. I won't bother you again.”

  Father Sheehy walked into the jungle again, and Private Gundy lowered his head, trying to pray.

  FIFTEEN . . .

  Deep in the tunnel system, Butsko carried the unconscious Craig Delane over his shoulders, while Sergeant Cameron pointed the flashlight straight ahead. The tunnel floor slanted upward and the air was fetid and damp. Butsko felt his morale slipping as the possibility of dying in the tunnel became more plausible.

  The explosion of the Japanese ammunition dump had been a huge one, and it must have caved in much of the tunnel system. He'd never be able to dig out of there, but he'd have to try. Butsko wasn't the kind of man who would lie down and die.

  “Shouldn't be much farther,” Sergeant Cameron muttered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Think we'll get out of here, Butsko?”

  “We've got a chance.”

  “We'll never get out of here,” Sergeant Cameron said with resignation.

  “We can try.”

  The tunnel twisted like an intestine through the bowels of the earth, and they trudged over the dirt floor, Butsko's shoulders drooping under the weight of Craig Delane. Butsko stopped for a moment, lit up a cigarette, and puffed it as he resumed walking. He felt frustrated and angry at the wall of dirt separating him from safety.

  They turned a corner and Sergeant Cameron's flashlight shone on the part of the tunnel that had caved in. Dirt was halfway to the ceiling in spots, and then came the solid wall.

  “Here we are,” said Butsko. “You go first with the light.”

  Sergeant Cameron mumbled something unintelligible as he crawled forward over the piles of dirt. Butsko laid Craig Delane on his back and dragged him by the collar of his shirt. They came to the wall and Butsko pulled Craig Delane to the side, where he'd be out of the way.

  “I'll take the first shift,” Butsko said, pulling his entrenching tool from its sheath. “You can rest for a while.”

  Butsko adjusted the blade of the entrenching tool and hacked at the dirt, while Sergeant Cameron sat next to Craig Delane. Sergeant Cameron bent to the side, opened Craig Delane's eyelid with his thumb, and saw the white. Looks like he ain't gonna make it, Sergeant Cameron thought, taking out his package of cigarettes.

  He lit one up and took a drag, watching Butsko leaning back and swinging his entrenching tool at the dirt wall. Butsko had broad shoulders and thick legs. The sinews of his arms were like ropes in the light of the flashlight Sergeant Cameron held. Sergeant Cameron felt weak and demoralized. He didn't see the point of digging, because he didn't think they could ever get through the tunnel. He was the kind of man who'd lie down and die.

  Butsko slammed his entrenching tool into the wall, pulling away dirt, then hit it again. Perspiration trickled down his cheeks and he gritted his teeth as he worked in a frenzy. He wanted to believe that he could dig himself out of the tunnel. The harder he worked, the more he could convince himself that he was making progress. Straining, putting all of his considerable strength behind every blow, he gradually dug a tunnel into the wall. The tunnel was five feet high and a few feet across. If he had a pickax and shovel he could go a lot faster, but he had to be satisfied with his entrenching tool, whose small blade only removed a few handfuls at a time.

  Butsko glanced at his watch. He wanted to work for an hour and then be replaced by Sergeant Cameron for an hour. Bending and shoveling, he gradually moved inside the narrow tunnel he was digging. The earth smelled fresh and moist—a farmer probably would love it—but to Butsko it was just the stuff that might make up his grave.

  He thought of his wife Dolly, back in Honolulu
. He'd had a reconciliation with her when he was on furlough two months earlier, after he'd beaten the shit out of her current boyfriend, a sergeant in the Marines. He'd been hoping they'd get together again when the war was over, but now it looked like he wasn't going to survive, and that thought made him shovel harder. She'd get a telegram that said he'd been killed in action. He wondered how she'd take it. She'd cry for a while, he imagined, but then she might feel relieved. She'd get his GI insurance, but she probably wouldn't hang on to it long. Dolly loved to spend money on clothes and booze and good times. Butsko wished he could have left a son behind, but he and Dolly hadn't been able to have children. He didn't know whether he or Dolly was the problem, but he suspected it was Dolly, since he was such a strong virile man.

  His shirt plastered with sweat.to his body, he whacked the blade of the entrenching tool into the dirt in front of him. Leaning back, whipping forward, he grunted as he struggled against the dirt, moving deeper into the hole he was digging. Sergeant Cameron couldn't see him anymore and decided to take a nap. He closed his eyes and drifted off into semicon-sciousness, hearing the clang of Butsko's entrenching tool striking earth.

  Butsko thought of his recon platoon and realized the battle for New Georgia hadn't been as big as the the battle for Guadalcanal, but it had wiped out most of the recon platoon and would probably finish the job in the next two or three days. He figured that was how long he and Sergeant Cameron would last without food or water, and the air was getting bad already. He and Sergeant Cameron ought to stop smoking, but he'd rather not spend the last hours of his life on nicotine withdrawal.

  He looked at his watch; his hour was just about up. He'd only dug into the wall about four feet, which wasn't very much. His chest heaving, he returned to the area where Sergeant Cameron was sleeping.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Sergeant Cameron opened his eyes. “I ain't digging.”

  “What do you mean, you ain't digging.”

  “What's the point?”

  Butsko's shoulders sagged, because he was discouraged himself. “We ought to at least try.”

  “We'll never get through that wall.”

  “We ought to try,” Butsko repeated, dropping down beside Craig Delane, feeling his pulse.

  “Listen, Butsko,” Sergeant Cameron said, his voice quavering, “we're going to die down here.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Bullshit. You just don't wanna face the truth. This whole damned tunnel is caved in, and we're not gonna dig through it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  Craig Delane's pulse was weak. Butsko removed his hand and took out a cigarette, lighting it with the Zippo he'd taken from Delane.

  “Suit yourself,” Butsko said. “I'm gonna keep digging.”

  “Do what you gotta do,” Sergeant Cameron replied, “and I'll do what I gotta do. All I know is that we're not gonna get out of here, and I don't feel like digging anymore.”

  “You just wanna sit here and die?”

  “That's right. What's wrong with that?”

  “A man ought to try, at least.”

  Sergeant Cameron spat into the dirt. ‘Try what? I've worked hard enough in my life, and I don't feel like working anymore. Fuck it. I'm ready to die.”

  Butsko leaned his back against the cool dirt wall of the tunnel, smoking his cigarette. He had only three more. It looked like he was coming to the end of his road. Staring into the darkness, he thought of his childhood in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, where he'd quit school at the age of sixteen to work in the steel mill. Then the Depression came and he joined the Army, because the steel mill shut down. He met Dolly, got married, and then the war broke out. Jesus, is this all my life has been? I was here for a while, I fucked around a little, and now I'm gonna die. What's it all for?

  He looked down at Craig Delane, who was breathing shallowly, lying on his back with his eyes closed. Delane had been rich before the war and could have bought anything he wanted, but he went crazy and enlisted after Pearl Harbor, and look what happened to him. If only we all could have it to do over again. But what would I have done differently? He thought about it and realized his life had been logical from start to finish and that he couldn't have done anything any differently.

  The thoughts troubled him, and he decided to go back to work. Better to die trying to do something than sitting around feeling sorry for himself. He rose, stepped on his cigarette butt, and picked up his entrenching tool.

  Sergeant Cameron glanced up at him. “What're you gonna do?”

  “Dig some more.”

  “You're nuts, you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  Butsko carried the entrenching tool in his right hand and the flashlight in his left, and entered the tunnel he'd dug. He stepped inside it, repositioned the flashlight on the floor, and gripped the entrenching tool tightly, raising it. He tensed his muscles and was about to drive the entrenching tool forward into the dirt, when he heard something and stopped in mid-swing.

  He wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. What the hell was that? Maybe only some water dripping someplace. Pulling back the entrenching tool, he heard the sound again and stopped himself, frozen like a statue. The sound was extremely faint, but there it was again, and again. It was coming from the other side of the dirt. Butsko's face creased into a grim smile. Somebody was digging on the other end of the cave-in!

  Butsko wanted to throw down his entrenching tool and jump for joy, but then he thought of something: The little tunnel he was in was acting like an echo chamber, amplifying the sound, but Sergeant Cameron probably couldn't hear it at all out there. Why not teach Sergeant Cameron a lesson about giving up too soon?

  Butsko walked out of the little tunnel and saw Sergeant Cameron dozing against the wall. “Hey, wake up!” Butsko said, kicking Sergeant Cameron's boot.

  “Huh—what happened?”

  “I understand you're a betting man,” Butsko said, kneeling beside Sergeant Cameron.

  “I was, but now I just wanna die in peace.”

  “I wanna make a bet with you.”

  Sergeant Cameron opened his eyes wider. “Now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Leave me alone. I never mentioned it to you before, but everybody thinks you're crazy and so do I, now more than ever. Let me die in peace, will you?”

  “I'll bet you a hundred dollars that we get out of here,” Butsko said.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” Sergeant Cameron replied with a wave of his hand.

  “If you don't think we're gonna get out of here, put your money where your mouth is.”

  “What money, you crazy bastard!”

  “I'll write you an IOU if I lose.”

  “What the fuck good is that gonna do me? Get away from me!”

  “Make the bet and I'll leave you alone,” Butsko said, anxious to seal the deal before Sergeant Cameron heard anything.

  Sergeant Cameron held out his filthy hand. “Okay—it's a bet.”

  Butsko shook his hand and laughed. “You just lost a hundred bananas, you stupid son of a bitch!”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  Butsko pointed to the tunnel he was digging. “In there.”

  “What's in there?”

  “You'll be able to hear somebody digging us out.”

  Sergeant Cameron's jaw dropped open. “Digging us out?”

  “That's right, shithead. They're digging us out right now.”

  “I don't believe it!”

  “Come on and hear for yourself.”

  Butsko rose and walked hunched over toward the tunnel he'd been digging. Sergeant Cameron followed with an incredulous expression on his face. They entered the tunnel and Butsko looked at Sergeant Cameron. The sound of the digging on the other side was more distinct. Sergeant Cameron scowled.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said.

  Butsko laughed and gave him the finger. “Up y
our ass!”

  “You cheated me!”

  “Fuck you.”

  Butsko walked out of the tunnel and picked up his M 1 rifle, opening the bolt to make sure bullets were inside.

  “C'mon, let's let ‘em know we're alive,” he said.

  He aimed backward into the depths of the main tunnel system and pulled the trigger of his M 1. It fired, echoing back and forth through the passageways, and he pulled the trigger two more times in rapid succession, the beginning of an SOS signal.

  Sergeant Cameron watched, a disgusted expression on his face. Although he was going to be saved, he had something new to worry about: the hundred dollars he owed Butsko.

  “You cheated me, you son of a bitch!” he said. “You took advantage of me!”

  Butsko chortled, feeding a fresh clip into his M 1. “That'll teach you to pay attention to your old sarge. C'mon, fire your rifle. Let's tell ‘em they're not digging for nothing.”

  Colonel Stockton was having lunch under his tarpaulin on Kokengolo Hill. More tables had been set up so that his staff officers could dine with him, and Lydia Kent-Taylor was there with Leo Stern, enjoying the Spam and dehydrated potatoes as if it were a steak with all the trimmings at a fancy restaurant in New York City.

  Lieutenant Harper came running toward the table, stopping next to Colonel Stockton and saluting. “Sir, Colonel McCawley reports that somebody's firing rifles in the tunnel on the other side of the wall where his men are digging!”

  Colonel Stockton looked up, a smile spreading over his face. “It must be the recon platoon!” Then he realized that Japs might be firing down there, and his smile vanished. “You'd better have some armed men down there, just in case.”

  “Colonel McCawley's got his combat engineers ready.”

  Lydia Kent-Taylor stood and picked up her camera bag.

  “Where are you going?” Colonel Stockton asked.

  “Into the tunnel to take some pictures.”

  “You'd better stay up here. There might be Japs down there.”

  He looked at Lieutenant Harper again. “Did Colonel McCawley say how long he thought it'd be before he gets through the dirt?”