On Sunday, September 13, after returning from Tasimboko, Reuben and Bobby’s platoon had gone to bed. Shortly after that they were awakened and told to move out and up to the top of the ridge that formed the main line of defense for Henderson Field. During the day there had been many skirmishes with Japanese patrols, and a major attack was expected that night. The ridge was fifteen hundred yards from the airfield and was defended by Marines from the engineer battalion and the First Marine Division.
Gunnery Sergeant Thompkins got his men into the trenches along the top of the ridge, where they waited for the enemy. They didn’t wait long. Several flares lit up the night sky. By the flickering light Reuben could see a wave of Japanese soldiers running up the hill toward the American positions. They began screaming, “Banzai!” and firing their weapons.
The main force began to converge on the knoll where Reuben and Bobby’s platoon was positioned alongside Red Mike Edson’s men. They were obviously trying to push the Marines off the ridge and open the way to recapture the airfield. Reuben sighted down the hill at the oncoming horde and as he did, a strange and new feeling began to rise up from deep within him. It wasn’t fear; it was more than that. It was primitive and raw, a consuming rage and terror that overwhelmed him. Suddenly Reuben was firing his rifle into the massed men below. One, two, three Japanese went down under the chilling accuracy of his shooting.
To the left and right of him Bobby and Sergeant Thompkins were firing into the mass of charging men with terrifying effect. Twenty or more Japanese were dead or dying on the hill in front of them. The line coming at them wavered and broke, and they turned and ran back down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, Reuben could see officers with swords screaming at their men and pointing back up the hill.
A large detachment of Japanese soldiers appeared out of the jungle and joined the group that had retreated. They all turned and once more began advancing up the hill. Red flares lit the night sky again, and the scene reminded Reuben of what he had always thought hell might look like. The Japanese began firing their submachine guns with great effect. Up and down the line Marines were going down.
The sniper patrol responded with withering fire, making every shot count. Once again they turned and ran down the hill, leaving more than a hundred of their dead behind.
During the lull, Reuben felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to look into the eyes of his friend.
“I knew you’d come through, Reuben, I just knew it,” Bobby said. He had a bloody furrow along the side of his head where a submachine gun bullet had barely missed him, and his eyes looked the way Reuben felt inside.
Sergeant Thompkins moved quietly along the line, checking his men.
“Check your ammo, keep down, and keep concentrating your fire on the main group as they come along the ridge. If they can push us off this knoll, there’s nothing between them and the airfield. We have to hold.”
Just then Colonel Edson came along the lines. He was dirty and sweating, and his uniform shirt looked as if it had been cut with a knife, but he was unharmed.
“We got into a little hand-to-hand down the line there,” he said, “but we ran them off. You boys are doing an incredible job. Keep up the great shooting. They’ll be coming back. You have to hold here, boys.” The colonel moved down the line to rally his men.
Suddenly the red flares lit the sky again. “Here they come,” someone shouted, and another wave of Japanese began moving up the hill.
“Marine, you die!” someone screamed from the Japanese ranks.
“Come and get it, Tojo, we’re up here waiting for you,” someone yelled back, and once again the roar of gunfire rose to a horrible pitch. Shells from American artillery flew over the top of the ridge with a horrible humanlike scream and landed among the Japanese. Grenades flew up the hill, some to explode harmlessly outside the trenches, some landing among the Marines with deadly effect. Throughout the night, wave after wave of Japanese climbed the hill and broke like the rising tide, higher and higher on the ridge. Slowly the Marines farther down the hill were pushed back until most of the men were gathered in the trenches and foxholes around the last knoll on the hill.
At around four in the morning, red flares lit the sky again, and the Japanese came on once more. The men around Reuben were running out of ammunition. Some had pulled out their pistols or grabbed ammunition off the body of a fallen comrade. Reuben fired until the barrel of his rifle was too hot to touch. All around him was the screaming and moaning of wounded and dying men and the battle cries of men fighting to the death. Suddenly a live grenade bounced into the trench where Bobby and Reuben were fighting.
“Grenade!” yelled a voice behind them, and then the hulking body of Gunnery Sergeant Edgar Thompkins flew through the air and landed on the grenade. There was an explosion, and the sergeant was blown into the air. When he landed, he was writhing in agony, half of his arm blown away. Bobby also went down in a heap, and from the way he fell, Reuben figured he must be dead.
The Japanese soldiers advanced again with more screams. “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”
Suddenly Reuben was looking at the battle as though from above, detached and analytical. He heard himself begin to scream like an animal, a horrible, growling, gurgling sound torn from the very center of his being. He grabbed his bayonet and leaped on the first soldier, pulled it out and whirled away from a thrusting bayonet. He snatched up a rifle and clubbed the next soldier trying to come into the trench. He sensed another soldier behind him and then felt a sharp pain shoot through his upper arm. He had been stabbed, but he didn’t stop. He grabbed his K-Bar knife out of his belt as he pulled himself off the bayonet stuck in his arm. He leaped forward and struck the man in front of him with it.
Then Reuben began striking out at anything that moved. One of the men was able to raise his rifle part way and get off a round. Reuben felt a blow to his side but it didn’t stop him. He leaped forward and jumped on the man. Frenzied Japanese tried to pull him off their comrade. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion as an artillery round went off close by. The concussion blew the enraged group of men into the air. They landed in a jumbled mass in the trench. Reuben was at the bottom underneath four Japanese soldiers. He tried to push them off but they were all dead. He could feel blood seeping out of his wounds.
So this is how it ends. Goodbye, Jerusha...
And then he slipped into darkness.
Jerusha crawled up next to the little girl, who instinctively held out her arms.
“Where’s your mama, honey?” Jerusha asked as she pulled the little body close to her.
“My mama’s asleep. The bad man gave her something and she went to sleep.”
“The bad man?” asked Jerusha. “Where is the bad man now?”
The little girl snuggled closer to Jerusha. “He fell in the water and then he was gone...out there,” she said as she pointed to the pond. “I thought you were an angel.”
Jerusha pushed her way under the seat cushion and clothing and tried to get warm. Suddenly the struggles of the last few days overwhelmed her. She felt a great weakness come over her, and she knew she was passing out. She pulled the little girl close to her.
Is this how it ends, Lord?
And then the darkness closed in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Journey Home
REUBEN AWAKENED TO THE STEADY ROLL of waves under a ship. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around. Sun was shining through a round window in the wall. It was cracked open, and outside he could hear the cries of gulls. Everything in the small room was white, the bed he was lying in was soft and warm, and the sheets smelled fresh and clean.
I’m in heaven...
A picture came to Reuben’s mind of a man in a berserk rage, killing and killing again, a man screaming and laughing at the same time. The man’s face was covered in blood, his teeth bared and his mouth slavering. He was the man. He threw his arm over his face and groaned aloud. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder and his back. Then a han
d touched him, and a familiar voice spoke to him.
“Easy, buddy, easy.” It was Bobby.
“Bobby,” said Reuben faintly as he looked around. “Are we in heaven? I saw you die.”
Bobby was sitting on a chair next to Reuben’s bed. He was in a robe and pajamas, and a crutch was leaning against the wall next to him.
“No, we’re not dead, though you were closer than I was,” Bobby said. “You took a real beating up there. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. You were shot, stabbed, beaten, and shot again. I just got a big hunk of shrapnel in my leg.”
“But when the grenade exploded, I saw you go down. I was sure you were dead.”
“You know, I thought I was dead too. Most of the blast came right at me. Sergeant Thompkins stopped most of the pieces, but a big one hit me right in the hip. I guess the concussion knocked me out for a minute. When I came to you were faced off with about ten guys. It was a good thing we were in the trench because there were even more of them coming down the trench toward you but they got backed up. They couldn’t all get at you at once, and I think that saved you. And Sarge and I were blocking the way.
“What about the Sarge?”
Bobby hesitated for a moment. “He didn’t make it.”
“He didn’t make it? You mean he’s...he’s gone?”
“Yeah...he is,” said Bobby. “A doctor made a mistake in the operating tent and Ed died because of it.”
Reuben lay back on his pillow. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Bobby was surprised to see a few tears course down Reuben’s cheek. The tears made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t say anything. Finally Reuben spoke. “Where are we?”
“We are on a hospital ship headed for Pearl,” Bobby said. “We both got million-dollar wounds, and we’re going home. The brass has awarded us Purple Hearts, although scuttlebutt has it that you’re in line for something more. Colonel Edson has recommended you for at least a Silver Star. When they found you up on the knoll, there were forty dead Japanese soldiers in the trench with you and on the slope in front of us. I watched you kill most of them by yourself. You kept the platoon from being overrun.”
“What about you?” asked Reuben. “You and Sarge were right there with me. We did it together.”
“I think he put me in for something too,” Bobby said. “And I think Sarge will be awarded something posthumously. I guess if we didn’t make that stand on the top of the ridge, they would have swept right over our lines and recaptured the airfield.”
“Red Mike put us in for medals?”
“Yeah, and I hear he’s up for one himself. He held the whole show together up there, running up and down the line, getting in to some nasty hand-to-hand himself, and keeping the guys facing forward and on the line. It was quite a battle. The corpsman at the hospital tent told me that the last charge took place at dawn, and when we beat them back again, the Japanese called it quits. One of the guys in the hospital with me said that at the end of the battle, the ridge was littered with bodies.”
Reuben looked away, back to the porthole.
Sensing his friend’s uneasiness, Bobby said, “We’re going home. That’s the good news. We’ll be in rehab for a while, but we’ll be stationed in Hawaii, so it won’t be such a hard life while we recover. The doctor said I would limp a little the rest of my life. The shrapnel is in there too deep to dig out, so they’re leaving it. Now you—you got shot twice, stabbed in the arm and the leg, pounded with fists and guns and generally whupped on good. When they dug you out from under that pile of dead bodies, I could have sworn you were dead. I thought—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Reuben said, turning back to his friend.
“Okay, we’ll leave it alone for now, but at some point you’re going to have to talk it through,” said Bobby softly. “That was pretty horrible for all of us, and I don’t think bottling it all up inside will help you to get through it.”
“I don’t want to bottle it up, I just want to forget it,” Reuben said.
“Whatever you say. Now why don’t you get some more sleep. I could use some shut-eye myself.” Bobby grabbed his crutch and used it to leverage himself up out of the chair. He gave a deep groan and Reuben saw a row of sweat beads pop out on his forehead.
“Pretty bad?” he asked.
“Only when I move it,” Bobby said through the pain. “When it happened, it was like getting hit on the hip bone with a baseball bat with knives strapped on it. It was agonizing. That’s why I passed out. I didn’t think anything could hurt that bad. But it’s improving a little every day. I finally got up on it yesterday, but it still feels like I’ve got an ice pick jammed in my thigh. I’m just next door, so that was the only reason I made it over here. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for the last hour so I could tell the nurse to give you a sleeping pill.” He smiled and took Reuben’s hand. “It’ll be okay. Thank you for saving my life up there.”
“How did I save your life?” Reuben asked.
“The Japanese soldiers don’t leave any wounded when they can’t take prisoners. They figure we’ll get well and come back to fight them again. If you hadn’t kept them busy until the cavalry arrived, they would have bayoneted us all. That’s how you saved my life.”
Bobby started a slow shuffle across the stateroom floor as he headed for the door. He stopped before he walked out and turned slowly on his crutch.
“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll pop in soon.”
The next few days were quiet. Reuben was heavily medicated for his pain, and he slipped in and out of drug-induced sleep. Whether it was the drugs, the pain, or the memories that brought the dreams, Reuben couldn’t tell. He only knew he dreaded sleep.
In one dream, he was in a forest. A low-lying mist clung to the ground. The leafless oaks were hung with moss, and the branches twisted like gnarled arms in the half-light. Ahead of him a slight figure slipped through the scrub growth under the trees. It was a girl, and he could just catch a glimpse of her as she darted ahead of him. Blonde wisps of hair showed from under a prayer kappe, and once when the girl stopped beside a tree and looked back, he recognized her. Jerusha.
He ran after her, the thorn-covered branches scratching his face and arms. One of the thorns jammed into his back, and he nearly fainted from the pain. The girl stayed just ahead of him as they ran over rough, rocky ground, always up toward the top of a hill. He was wearing a black, broad-brimmed hat and a black coat. He looked down at his arm, where blood was running out of the sleeve. He ran into a low-hanging branch that knocked his hat off, but his hat was now a helmet and his coat was battle fatigues. He broke out into the open at the top of the hill and saw the figure turned away from him. He ran up behind her and took her in his arms.
“Jerusha, why did you run?” he asked.
He turned the figure toward him, but the face wasn’t Jerusha’s. It was the hideous face of the Japanese soldier he had killed with his knife. The man stared at Reuben through eyes of icy death. He whispered, “Marine, you die!”
Reuben tried to lift his arms to defend himself, but he couldn’t move. The man’s hands tightened on his throat. He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t move a muscle. Finally, with a tremendous act of his will he forced a deep groan out of his gut. It broke the spell, and Reuben jerked awake dripping with sweat. He cried out in agony and remorse, screaming Jerusha’s name over and over. The nurse stationed down the hall heard his cries and ran in to help him. He was lying on his side and he felt something warm seeping down his back.
“PFC Springer, you’ve torn your bandage loose. My goodness, you’re bleeding. Hold still while I get some help.”
The nurse left as Reuben lay weeping on his bed.
“Jerusha, Jerusha, I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” he sobbed.
As he lay there, the days and months he had endured since he left Jerusha came flooding back. He remembered taking her in his arms the night he asked her to go away with him. He felt again the passion that swept over him as h
e looked down into her lovely face. He felt her surrender to him as he kissed her, and for just that moment she belonged to him completely and without reservation. He remembered her breaking away from him and running away, weeping. He remembered enlisting and wondering whether he could ever be a good Marine. He remembered the picture of the young sniper he had shot, and he saw the face of the man standing with his wife and child, looking so happy before he ended his life on a moldy jungle floor thousands of miles from home.
I’m coming home to Apple Creek, my love. I’ll come back to you and to the church. I’ll be everything you want me to be. I’ll never go out into the world again. It’s too evil, too horrible.
In that moment, Reuben closed a door in his mind and shut out the war, the battles, the men who had been his comrades, and the horrible memories of the men who had died by his hand.
The elders were right; it’s wrong to kill. Jesus was right. God, You were right. If You let me live, I’ll go home and do everything You ask me to do. I’ll take back the old ways, and I’ll make You pleased with me. I’ll never leave Apple Creek again. I’ll turn my back on the world and all its ways.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Decision
THE WIND HOWLED AROUND the upside-down car as Jerusha lay under a seat cushion and a pile of clothes with the little girl next to her. The cold metal of the roof of the car felt as if it were gradually sucking the life out of her. She had to do something. But what?
Suddenly she heard her grandmother’s voice. “Jerusha, kumme! Get up! You must help this little girl or she will die here. You must get her out of the storm.”
A Quilt for Jenna Page 13
