by Len Levinson
Captain Shimoyama looked more closely at the map. He knew that a military commander had to consider negative sides of operations as well as positive sides. If he positioned two companies between the retreating Americans and the main American lines, it could be assumed that the main body of Americans would hear the fighting when the two Japanese companies attacked the retreating Americans, and then the main body of Americans would strike. The two Japanese companies would be caught in a giant nutcracker. They would probably be wiped out, and Colonel Akai couldn't afford to lose any more men. He decided not to order the ambush operation!
If only I had more men. Colonel Akai thought, leaning back in his chair. If only so many mistakes hadn't been made. He looked up at Lieutenant Oyagi. “You may return to your quarters. Wake me up if anything important happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Oyagi saluted, did an about-face, and marched out of Colonel Akai's office. Colonel Akai stubbed out his cigarette butt in his ashtray and arose, moving toward his bed.
We may lose Bougainville, he thought, but there will be other battles. In the end, Japan will be victorious.
He tried to believe this as he undressed and went to bed.
THIRTEEN . . .
Colonel Hutchins drank his morning cup of coffee laced with white lightning as he sat behind his desk in his headquarters tent. He ate powdered eggs, which tasted more like cardboard than eggs, and read reports of events that had occurred during the night: Jap infiltrators trying to break through several points in the line, a fight in George Company, the appearance in Baker Company of reporters from the Associated Press; also, a young private, newly assigned to the regiment, had awakened screaming in the middle of the night and had to be taken away in a straitjacket.
Colonel Hutchins drank his coffee and ate his breakfast quickly, because there was a big meeting at General Hawkins's headquarters at 0800 hours and he had to get ready. Not only would it be necessary to shave and put on a fresh uniform, but he had to come up with ideas on how to continue the campaign into Jap territory, and Colonel Hutchins didn't have any ideas. He had never been a skilled strategist or tactician. He just believed in getting there first with the most and then fighting like hell.
He heard cheering and hollering in the distance. Now what? he asked himself. The sound became louder and he creased his brow. “Sergeant Koch!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir!” replied Master Sergeant Koch, the sergeant-major of the regiment, whose office was in the next section of the big walled tent.
“Get your ass in here!”
“Yes, sir!”
The tent flap was pushed to the side, and Sergeant Koch entered Colonel Hutchins's office. Koch was tall, stoop-shouldered, and had a big hooked nose. He resembled a buzzard and was new to his job, having replaced Sergeant Major Ramsay, who had been killed during the big Japanese offensive ten days earlier. Sergeant Koch saluted and stood at attention in front of Colonel Hutchins's desk, although Sergeant Koch never stood straight when he stood at attention because of his stooped shoulders.
“What the hell's all that ruckus out there!” Colonel Hutchins asked.
“Don't know, sir.”
“Find out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant Koch returned to his office, and Colonel Hutchins took another sip of coffee. The shouting and cheering became louder, and it bothered him. Front-line troops were supposed to be quiet. You didn't want to let the enemy know where you were, otherwise you'd attract artillery fire, although the Japs hadn't fired much artillery since their big offensive. Colonel Hutchins didn't think the Japs had much left on Bougainville. He thought that the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment, together with other front-line units, should just sweep across the island and mop up the slant-eyed cocksuckers.
Sergeant Koch returned several minutes later. “Sir,” he said, “Company J and the recon platoon are back. That's what all the racket is about.”
“They’ re back? What happened?”
“I don't know, sir.”
“Son of a bitch!” Colonel Hutchins said. “If I wanna find out anything around here, I gotta find it out myself!” He stood behind his desk and put on his steel pot, then strode toward the door. “Get outta my way!”
Colonel Hutchins walked outside and could see the first glimmer of dawn on the horizon. Visibility was still poor, but he could detect the general direction of the noise and headed in that direction, the holster containing his Colt .45 slapping up and down on his hip. He passed pup tents and men sitting around, eating powdered eggs out of their mess kits and drinking coffee out of their big tin cups. They looked up at Colonel Hutchins and knew they should jump to attention, but he shouted “As you were!” in his thunderous voice, and they stayed where they were, gazing at him in awe, because colonels are like gods to ordinary enlisted soldiers.
Colonel Hutchins saw a crowd of men in the distance, and that's where the noise was coming from. He tucked in his chin and headed in that direction, grimacing, because a grimace was his normal facial expression. He saw men jumping up and down, tossing their helmets into the air.
"What the fuck is this,” hehollered, "a goddamned circus?”
Everybody froze at the sound of his voice, and somebody shouted: "Ten-hut!”
The men shot to attention, facing different directions in the darkness, and the men carrying the wounded stopped in their tracks.
“What the hell's going on here?” Colonel Hutchins demanded. “Don't you men know this is a combat zone? Who's in charge of this goddamned mess?”
Lieutenant Thurmond stepped forward, saluted, and identified himself. “Company J is returning from patrol, sir.”
Colonel Hutchins looked around. “Where the hell's the patrol from the recon platoon?”
“Over there, sir.”
Colonel Hutchins noticed soldiers being carried in stretchers made from shirts tied together. He pushed his way toward them and looked down at Longtree, whose head was swathed in bandages.
“Who's the medic around here?”
Pfc. Osgood and Private Shapiro both shuffled toward Colonel Hutchins, saluting sloppily.
“What's the matter with this man?”
Osgood spoke first: “Skull fracture.”
“Where's Butsko?”
Osgood pointed. Colonel Hutchins walked toward Butsko and looked down. Butsko was unconscious, his veins and arteries full of morphine.
“What's wrong with him?”
“Multiple wounds all over his body, but the worst is his leg. I believe the bone is broken.”
Lieutenant Thurmond decided that the time had come for him to put in his two cents. “Of the men from the recon platoon who went out on patrol, two were killed and the rest've been wounded pretty badly. They were ambushed by one company of Japs at least. We showed up in the nick of time.”
“Which ones were killed?”
“Private Gafooley and Private Gladley.”
Colonel Hutchins knew who they were, because the recon platoon was the special unit he used for all his dirty work, just as Colonel Stockton had done before him.
“See that these men get the medical care they require,” he said to Lieutenant Thurmond. “Then report to me and give me a full rundown of what happened.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As you were.”
Captain Hutchins turned around and walked back to his tent, his forehead creased with worry. He took a cigarette out of his pack and lit it up while gazing at the ground ahead. He was an old war dog and he was accustomed to having casualties, but he'd been especially attached to his recon platoon, and Butsko was an old friend of his. It bothered him that Butsko had been wounded so badly and the others had been killed and wounded. One hundred percent casualties on the patrol, he said to himself. My God.
He made his way back to his headquarters tent, thinking that maybe he'd relied on the recon platoon too much, because they were such good fighters and always came through for him. Maybe I've pushed them past their l
imits, he thought. Maybe I'd better lay off them for a while.
Later in the morning the Reverend Billie Jones, formerly an itinerant preacher in Georgia, returned to the recon platoon, following completion of a shit detail down on the beach, unloading boats. All units had to supply men for shit details, and he'd been the man designated from the recon platoon.
He reported to Sergeant Cameron, who was supervising the construction of a machine-gun bunker.
“Hiya, Sarge,” Billie Jones said. “I'm back.”
“Pick up a shovel and start digging.”
“I finish one job and I get another. Don't I get a rest?”
“The only rest you get in this man's Army is when you're six feet under.”
Billie Jones looked around. “I guess the patrol ain't back yet, huh?”
Sergeant Cameron knew that Homer Gladley had been Billie Jones's best friend, and wondered how Billie Jones would take the bad news. He looked into Billie Jones's eyes.
“The patrol's back,” he said.
“I don't see none of the guys.”
“Butsko, Bannon, Longtree, and Shaw were wounded, and Frankie got sick with malaria again. The rest were killed in action.”
Billie Jones wore wire-rimmed spectacles that were crooked on his button nose. His head was round and he was nearly six feet tall, on the meaty side. He closed one eye as he figured out who the other two men were.
“Homer's dead?”
“Yup.”
Billie Jones took a step backward, because he couldn't believe it. “That a fact?”
“Yup.”
“Good God Almighty.” Billie Jones's face went pale and his knees wobbled. “Where's he now?”
“You mean his body?”
“Yuh.”
“I guess the Graves Registry people have got him.”
“They bury him yet?”
“I don't know.”
“Can I go to his funeral if they haven't?”
“You know they don't have funerals, Billie. They're just gonna bury him, that's all, with all the other casualties of the day.”
“Me and Homer were good pals. Can I go find out?”
Sergeant Cameron took out a bag of Bull Durham and a sheet of cigarette paper, thinking about Billie Jones's request as he rolled himself a cigarette, wetting the seam with his wrinkled pink tongue. He decided that Billie Jones would be grief stricken and probably not good for much else for the rest of the day anyway. Besides, somebody from the recon platoon ought to pay their last respects to Homer Gladley and Nutsy Gafooley.
“Okay,” he said, “you can do it, Billie. Don't forget to say a prayer for Nutsy too.”
Billie Jones smiled weakly. “Thanks, Sarge. Can I go now?”
“You mean you're still here?”
Billie Jones turned around and walked away swiftly, his M 1 rifle slung over his right shoulder. Sergeant Cameron watched him go, and counted up in his mind the number of casualties the recon platoon had sustained on Bougainville. The platoon was at less than half its full strength, and if he took into consideration what had happened to the platoon since it first landed on Guadalcanal, only thirteen men out of the original forty still were alive.
If this war keeps on much longer, he said to himself, there ain't gonna be none of us old-timers left.
Colonel Akai sat at his desk, sipping tea from a tiny cup and looking at his map of the area. Sometimes a night of sleep can change a person's perspective, and Colonel Akai saw his front from a different point of view now. He thought that maybe he ought to attack the Americans before the Americans came down from their hill and attacked him.
He still believed the attack he'd planned the night before hadn't been a good idea, and was glad he hadn't gone ahead with it. It would have been foolhardy to position two under-strength Japanese companies between two American units, one small but the other extremely large. However, the basic idea of offensive action had been sound. The Americans mustn't be permitted to think they'd won Bougainville already. Psychological factors were very important in war. If the Americans could be delivered a heavy blow and be forced to take heavy casualties, they might hesitate to foray into the valley for a while, and that might give the Japanese time to build up their strength. Moreover, if he won a small victory, it might encourage Imperial General Headquarters to resupply Bougainville. It could raise the morale of the entire Seventeenth Army. It might even win Colonel Akai a promotion.
He wondered how soon he could launch such an attack, and decided that tomorrow night would be a good time, because Japanese officers believed that Americans didn't like to fight at night. Colonel Akai totaled up the number of units that could be employed in the attack.
Sometimes a bold attack, in a remote corner of a war, can change the whole complexion of that war, he said to himself.
FOURTEEN . . .
Butsko opened his eyes, blinked, and wondered where he was. He was lying on a mattress with real white sheets, and everything smelled clean. The mattress was in a bed made of lengths of metal pipe, and chains ran diagonally from the outer corners of the bed to thicker vertical pipes.
Similar beds with wounded men in them were over him and beside him. He eased onto the side and saw that the ceiling was composed of metal beams, air ducts, and pipes a foot thick. Next to him lay a man whose hands and head were swathed in bandages, and the gauze around the man's mouth was red with blood.
I'm on a hospital ship, Butsko thought, and he knew which one it was. He'd seen it from high up in the mountains, anchored in Empress Augusta Bay. On its side the ship had a big red cross painted against a white background. He'd never dreamed that someday he'd be on the ship, far from the fighting.
Butsko was full of drugs, dazed and numb. He was relieved to be away from the war at last, and hoped he was hurt badly enough to be shipped back to the States. Maybe I got my million-dollar wound, he thought. Maybe the war is over for me.
He looked down toward his feet and saw something that he thought might be a hallucination. It appeared to be a nurse, sitting at a desk, reading a sheet of paper. She was dressed in white, wore a white hat, had a pointy nose and thin lips, and wasn't too pretty. Her legs were crossed and Butsko could look up her dress a few inches.
“Are you for real?” he asked, surprised by the deep, gravelly sound of his voice.
She looked up at him and smiled faintly. “I hope so.”
“How long I been here?”
“A few hours.”
“What's wrong with me?”
“You've been wounded in action.”
“I know that part. I meant how bad is it?”
“I don't know. Your doctor'll tell you later on.”
Butsko patted his body to discover where the bandages were; they were everywhere. A big cast was on his leg, and he remembered getting shot there. A soldier groaned somewhere. The air was filled with the odor of antiseptic and oil. He wondered what had happened to the rest of his patrol.
He lay back and recalled the events of the previous night. Again he debated with himself the reasonableness of blowing up the Japanese ammunition dump. On one hand it had been a sensible military operation, but on the other hand the results hadn't been so wonderful. As far as he knew, every man on the patrol had become a casualty. He remembered being the last man on the patrol still on his feet, fighting Japs, and he hadn't stayed on his feet long.
Fuck the war, he thought. I done my part. Let somebody else do the fighting from now on.
A portion of the jungle had been cleared away by bulldozers, and the white crosses were lined up in neat little rows. The Reverend Billie Jones approached a detail of men digging several graves. They were all waist deep in their holes, throwing out shovels full of dirt, and near them was a row of canvas bags containing the remains of soldiers. Beside the bags was a stack of white crosses with names stenciled on them.
“Looking for something, soldier?”
A sergeant wearing fatigues and a yardbird hat approached Billie Jones, but Billie Jones
was never intimidated by sergeants or officers, because he considered himself a man of God and beholden to no one.
“Yes, Sergeant,” he replied, “I am looking for some friends of mine who were killed last night.”
“What were their names?”
“Private Homer Gladley and Private Nutsy—I mean, Marion Gafooley.”
The sergeant looked at the roster of names on his clipboard. “Here's Gafooley... and here's Gladley.” The sergeant pointed to the row of dead soldiers in bags. “They should be right over there.”
The sergeant made no effort to help Billie Jones, so Billie walked toward the bags and knelt down, reading the name tags tied at the bottoms where the men's feet were. He had no trouble finding Homer and Nutsy.
The Reverend Billie Jones stood and took off his fatigue cap. He was the oldest man in the recon platoon except for Butsko and Sergeant Cameron, and was prematurely bald, with large, irregularly shaped freckles on top of his head. His hair was light brown and his eyes filled with tears, because he was a sentimental man. Homer had been his best friend, and he'd always liked Nutsy, because Nutsy was like an orphan.
The Reverend Billie Jones gazed at the bag containing Homer Gladley and could easily perceive Homer's wide shoulders and bulky build. Nutsy occupied little space inside his bag. How the Army ever could draft such a puny individual was beyond the Reverend Billie Jones.
“Oh, Lord,” he whispered, “why have you let these poor sheep die?”
Billie Jones knew the answer to his question. The war killed his buddies, and the Bible said there'd always be war. At least his buddies didn't have to fight anymore. The Lord had given them peace.
The hot sun beat on Billie Jones's head, and he moved back into the shade, sat underneath a tree, and put his fatigue cap back on. He watched the soldiers digging graves and looked at the canvas bags. He thought that he, Homer, Nutsy, and all the rest of them should be back in America, doing whatever they were doing before the war. Homer had been a farmer, Nutsy had been a bum, and he had been a preacher, bringing the Word of God to those who needed it.
